I was reading this article in Parents Magazine about controlling clutter with a toddler in the house. They suggested, "don't wait until your child is asleep to clean up. Enlist their help! Make it a fun game to have them help you. See who can put the toys away fastest." Yeah, right, I'm going to be able to communicate this to my one year old. I mean, maybe it was designed for an older toddler, but they kept making references to having a one year old in the house. Like, "making messes is important learning for toddlers. Don't try and keep your house neat all the time. Welcome to life with a one year old!" So we tried this before Stella's nap, and she honestly did help me put away her little links that pop together. But when I moved over to the bookcase, she was not interested in that at all. In fact, as I put away the books, she went back over to her toys to try and get some more mess going. I think I'll stick with our current system: Stella and I make the mess during the day, Tim cleans up the mess when he puts Stella to bed. It's almost like magic.
Speaking of magic, does anyone know of a magic sleep fairy? Stella has been totally screwing with her nap schedule. Yesterday she only took two 45 minute naps, and today she took an hour and 15 minute nap this morning and only a 45 minute nap this afternoon. As a result she is cranky and a real bitch to be around, pardon my French. I fear she is heading towards one nap a day and I'm in for some difficult days until she gets it all figured out. I really hope I'm wrong. How am I going to entertain her all day long? I'm not that talented! And sometimes she doesn't even appreciate my performances. I was trying to do a puppet lip sync to Spoon yesterday and she barely noticed. Although I really cracked myself up, so I suppose it's okay;)
Friday, March 30, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Funky Thursday
I hate it when I wake up in a funk. I'm sure everyone has those days, when for some reason you just wake up on the wrong side of the bed and you feel blue. I seem to have them on Thursdays, I think it's related to the stay at home mom thing and maybe subconciously feeling cooped up or isolated? Although that doesn't really make sense right now because I'm going to rehearsal at night, I went out for lunch with a friend yesterday and today Anna and I are going to corner Blake together. So I'm actually getting quite a bit of socialization right now. Perhaps it's a missing of fast food. I found myself CRAVING fast food yesterday! I think there are scary chemicals in that stuff that causes you to be addicted. We haven't eaten fast food in about two weeks because we're trying to eat all meals at home to save money for the house. I'm sure it's much healthier, but yesterday I really could have gone for, of all disgusting things, a McDonald's cheeseburger. Eww!
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Gilbert of Gilbert's Gazelles
He's a local celebrity of the running world in Austin and I just found out today he lives in our neighborhood. I'd long suspected he did, I would see him after races having parties and dressed in his running outfits. I see his wife walking around the neighborhood with their two adorable little girls, one who is around the same age as Stella, and she would be dressed in African clothes. Well today I saw her back out of their driveway in a car emblazoned with "Gilbert's Gazelles" all over it, so it is indeed him. I checked out his website at www.gilbertsgazelles.com and read the most horrifying story:
"On October 21, 1993, the centuries-old war between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes erupted in horrific reality one afternoon as Gilbert and his classmates were in school. The Hutu classmates at the Kibimba school, their parents, some teachers and other Hutu tribesmen, forced more than a hundred Tutsi children and teachers into a room where they beat and burned them to death. After nine hours of being buried by the corpses of his beloved friends, and himself on fire, Gilbert used the charred bone of one of his classmates to break through a window. He jumped free of the burning building and ran into the night, on charred feet, the sole survivor of one of the most horrible massacres in the long Tutsi-Hutu war. He ran from that horror into a new life."
I cannot even fathom, what a horrible story and what an inspiring man!
"On October 21, 1993, the centuries-old war between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes erupted in horrific reality one afternoon as Gilbert and his classmates were in school. The Hutu classmates at the Kibimba school, their parents, some teachers and other Hutu tribesmen, forced more than a hundred Tutsi children and teachers into a room where they beat and burned them to death. After nine hours of being buried by the corpses of his beloved friends, and himself on fire, Gilbert used the charred bone of one of his classmates to break through a window. He jumped free of the burning building and ran into the night, on charred feet, the sole survivor of one of the most horrible massacres in the long Tutsi-Hutu war. He ran from that horror into a new life."
I cannot even fathom, what a horrible story and what an inspiring man!
House Colors
So I took a picture of the colors our house will be Saturday, if not a house with the same floorplan. Tim's sister has a picture of that and I've asked her to email it to me. As soon as I get it, I'll post. But here's the colors:
A Brief Treatise on Weaning
So Julie asked me to post on how weaning was going and since I am procrastinating memorizing my lines or scoring my script for Anton in Showbusiness, I'm happy to oblige.
We started weaning two weeks ago. I stopped nursing her with her afternoon snack, which is at 4:30 and is yogurt. I also tried to give her cow's milk, but she wasn't too interested. The first day, she still seemed hungry, so I nursed her early for dinner. I felt kind of uncomfortably full and that good old ability to squirt milk across the room came back, but it felt doable. The next day I gave her more yogurt and that seemed to fill her up just fine. She still didn't show much interest in the cow's milk.
About a week later, I discovered I'd been giving her too many dairy products and so I cut out the cow's milk for the time being. My original plan was to cut out a feeding every week, but after that first week I felt so uncomfortably full much of the time, I wimped out and decided to wait too weeks. So this Monday, two days ago, we cut out nursing with breakfast. Stella didn't even notice and frankly, neither did I. I do notice cumulatively over the course of the day that I feel a little engorged, but nothing like the early days when your milk comes in.
I am getting a little emotional about what's ahead, though. The thought that if all goes according to plan, she'll be weaned in 4 weeks makes me a little sad. But babies grow up, and she's getting to be a toddler now, it's okay that she doesn't need that part of me anymore, she still needs me for a lot of other stuff. I'm also nervous about next week's meal dropping because I'm going to be going a LONG time between feedings no matter what feeding I choose. If I choose to cut out lunch, she'll be going about 13 hours, if I cut out dinner first, she'll be going about 10 or 11. I'll probably start with cutting out dinner. I have no clue how my body's going to do when I'm just feeding her at 11:00pm and 6:30am, the last feedings I'm going to cut out and the ones I'm most nervous about. I mean, that 11:00pm feeding is going to be really hard to get her to give up. It's the one that kept us from attending all of SXSW a couple of weeks ago. And those of you with babies know that you'll do anything to get your baby to sleep. I'm hoping perhaps some cuddling and a cup of milk will replace that feeding.
T. Barry Brazelton suggests waking your child up before you go to bed for some cuddling and perhaps a feeding to keep them from waking you up in the middle of the night, so we may be doing some variation on our current routine for a while. I'm NOT going back to middle of the night wake-ups!
We started weaning two weeks ago. I stopped nursing her with her afternoon snack, which is at 4:30 and is yogurt. I also tried to give her cow's milk, but she wasn't too interested. The first day, she still seemed hungry, so I nursed her early for dinner. I felt kind of uncomfortably full and that good old ability to squirt milk across the room came back, but it felt doable. The next day I gave her more yogurt and that seemed to fill her up just fine. She still didn't show much interest in the cow's milk.
About a week later, I discovered I'd been giving her too many dairy products and so I cut out the cow's milk for the time being. My original plan was to cut out a feeding every week, but after that first week I felt so uncomfortably full much of the time, I wimped out and decided to wait too weeks. So this Monday, two days ago, we cut out nursing with breakfast. Stella didn't even notice and frankly, neither did I. I do notice cumulatively over the course of the day that I feel a little engorged, but nothing like the early days when your milk comes in.
I am getting a little emotional about what's ahead, though. The thought that if all goes according to plan, she'll be weaned in 4 weeks makes me a little sad. But babies grow up, and she's getting to be a toddler now, it's okay that she doesn't need that part of me anymore, she still needs me for a lot of other stuff. I'm also nervous about next week's meal dropping because I'm going to be going a LONG time between feedings no matter what feeding I choose. If I choose to cut out lunch, she'll be going about 13 hours, if I cut out dinner first, she'll be going about 10 or 11. I'll probably start with cutting out dinner. I have no clue how my body's going to do when I'm just feeding her at 11:00pm and 6:30am, the last feedings I'm going to cut out and the ones I'm most nervous about. I mean, that 11:00pm feeding is going to be really hard to get her to give up. It's the one that kept us from attending all of SXSW a couple of weeks ago. And those of you with babies know that you'll do anything to get your baby to sleep. I'm hoping perhaps some cuddling and a cup of milk will replace that feeding.
T. Barry Brazelton suggests waking your child up before you go to bed for some cuddling and perhaps a feeding to keep them from waking you up in the middle of the night, so we may be doing some variation on our current routine for a while. I'm NOT going back to middle of the night wake-ups!
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Can't believe this!
I don't know much about American Girl dolls, other than the fact that the majority of American Girls could never afford one, but this story just takes the cake:
http://oneofthosehorriblemoms.blogspot.com/2007/03/fake-out.html
I post it in the hopes that word will get out never to buy a damn thing from them.
http://oneofthosehorriblemoms.blogspot.com/2007/03/fake-out.html
I post it in the hopes that word will get out never to buy a damn thing from them.
Monday, March 26, 2007
OMG, this is freakin' hilarious
Got this from Sweet Juniper. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~marekm/projects/beatbots/
Click on "keepon dancing to Spoon". You will not be disappointed. Stella kept trying to pick the little yellow robot off the screen, she loved it.
Click on "keepon dancing to Spoon". You will not be disappointed. Stella kept trying to pick the little yellow robot off the screen, she loved it.
Stella's One!
Stella turned one Saturday, and in honor of her first birthday, I thought I would share her birth story. I promise not to get too graphic;)
3/23/07 7pm: We eat pepperoni pizza at Reale's pizza in North Austin because of its rumored labor bringing on properties. It tastes good, but I am not too optimistic.
3/24/07: 1:15am: I wake up with a contraction. The contractions continue regularly about every 12 minutes and are getting increasingly painful, which is a good sign! Despite having read that I should "try to sleep", I'm in too much pain to do that.
3/23/07 7pm: We eat pepperoni pizza at Reale's pizza in North Austin because of its rumored labor bringing on properties. It tastes good, but I am not too optimistic.
3/24/07: 1:15am: I wake up with a contraction. The contractions continue regularly about every 12 minutes and are getting increasingly painful, which is a good sign! Despite having read that I should "try to sleep", I'm in too much pain to do that.
2am: Decide to take a warm bath to help with pain. It does, but I almost fall asleep in the bathtub. Decide this is not a good idea.
3am: Eat blueberry poptart and watch tv. So this is when they show videos!
5am: After heading back to bed, get a wallop of a contraction. Decide to wake Tim up so he can share in my misery. We both shower and get ready.
6am: Watch the sunrise and the last night's episode of the Office. Begin watching The Longest Episode of Antiques Roadshow ever. Because we keep pausing it when I have contractions. I think we start it at 6:30am and don't finish it before we leave at noon.
10:30am: Call Dr's office, expecting they'll tell me to come on in. They tell me to come in at 1:30! I bawl. All I can think of is that cozy hospital room and people monitoring me and an epidural! I think I'll give birth in the car.
Noon: We take a walk around the neighborhood. We quickly wind up carrying our heavy winter coats because it has warmed up from 30's that morning to the 60's. Tim thinks the contractions must be getting easier, but really I just hate to show pain in public.
1:30pm: We arrive at the doctor's office and see a nurse, after waiting for longer than I think a woman in labor should have to wait, who sends me to the hospital.
1:45pm: We arrive at the hospital and are told there are no rooms. I have to wait in the waiting room, with a hillbilly family who are all oohing and awwing over their spawn in the nursery. Thank God for Ipods, though. Tim goes to get me some water (I knew I couldn't have water once I was in the room and I was afraid I'd die of dehydration). While he's gone, the hillbilly matriarch says, "when are you due?" when I'm in the middle of a contraction! "Any minute now, you idiot!" Luckily because of my headphones I'm able to just ignore her. Because of my desire not to show that I'm in pain, labor in a room full of strangers is very difficult.
3:15pm: I get up to go to the bathroom and feel a gush. My water has broken! I don't know where to sit because I'm sopping wet. He suggests I sit on my pillows. Heck no! So I have to perch on the edge of the chair. I send Tim to the nurse's station to tell them my water has broken. Luckily at almost the exact same time, the nurse comes out to say they have a room ready for me. Thank God!
Once I get in the room I have to answer an ungodly number of questions for a woman in labor and they start a saline drip and want to start Pitocin (a drug that increases the frequence and severity of contractions and sometimes causes fetal distress, resulting in a C-section). I protest, so the nurse turns it on just the teeniest bit. The nurse also checks me and says I'm not as far along as they said at the doctor's office. I'm disappointed.
4:30ish: My mother arrives and we send her out to get Tim some food. While she's gone, my contractions start to get really, really hard to manage and both Tim and I are concentrating incredibly hard on making it through each one.
6:30: My savior, the anesthesiologist, shows up with my epidural. I have a little difficulty holding still while he puts it in, but it doesn't hurt a bit. After it's in, he says the sweetest words I have ever heard, "You're having a contraction right now, can you feel it?" No! I wanted to run naked through the forest with sheer joy, except that my legs were numb and I wouldn’t have made it past the corner of the bed. Then my eyeballs started to feel numb, indicating my blood pressure had dropped. That set off an alarm at the nurses station and about 5 nurses came running in. It was totally cool, I felt like I was on ER or something. They fixed it with oxygen and I think some medicine. It was a little scary because you could hear Stella's heartbeat slow down, but it was a side effect I'd read about. At this point I have been in labor for 17 hours.
7:00pm: The doctor checked on me and said I was 4 centimeters and would probably progress about a centimeter an hour. Great, I thought, a 24 hour labor! Around this time a new nurse also came on duty and told me the dr had said to up my pitocin. I told her that I was scared to death of pitocin and she said, "me too. I'll only up it the tiniest bit so I can technically tell the doc I increased it." She was awesome!
At some point around here Christine and Caroline arrived. I think they were amazed at how relaxed I was. Thank God for modern medicine!
7:30pm: The nurse checked on me again and I was already to 7 centimeters. So much for a cm an hour!
After this they forgot about me for a long time. Did I mention the labor ward was so full they were sending women to other hospitals? I was one of the last ones to be admitted.
8:45: I start having to up my epidural every fifteen minutes to get relief. Prior to that, I hadn't touched it. I felt so much pressure.
10pm: A different nurse finally shows up and I tell her about the pressure. She says, "would you like to me to check you?" Uh, yeah! "Oh, wow, you're ready to push, the baby's head is right there!" So she has to run off and find the doctor, we kick out the sisters who I think would rather not witness a birth anyway, and my mom and Tim start worrying they're going to have to deliver the baby it's taking so long. Seriously, I had to blow my nose and I was afraid to because it felt like I'd eject the baby!
10:30pm: Finally, the nurse and the set-up crew came in and it was time to push. I was able to feel her head with my hand and see the reflection in the tv. She had so much hair! They had to coach me through it because I'd upped my epidural to such incredible levels I couldn't feel the contractions. Oops, that had NOT been part of my plan! But they kept saying I was doing an incredible job of pushing, just fantastic, and after only about 5 or 6 contractions, she was out, officially born at 11:01pm! It was so amazing, I just couldn't stop crying as they laid this slimy creature on my chest. Afterwards the doctor said I needed to tell people what a a great quick labor I'd had. Uh, yeah, the end may have been quick, but let me tell you, 22 hours does not a quick labor make!
So that's Stella's birth story. I tried to keep it brief, although I realize it's still incredibly long. Hope you enjoyed it!
Friday, March 23, 2007
Why I deserve the Worst Mom Award
So I realized on the way home from the grocery store today that I haven't bought Stella a single birthday present. Not a thing. How horrible am I? I've been so busy getting the stuff for her party and cleaning that I totally forgot. Actually, I haven't even been doing the cleaning part so well, I have to do most of it this afternoon when she naps and tomorrow morning. The weather's also been crappy and we thought Stella might be sick, and I can come up with a thousand other excuses, but the jist is I have no presents for my firstborn's first birthday. I think we'll be taking a trip to Target later this afternoon, hopefully they will have the one thing I know I really want to get for her. But I've got beer, lots of it! I miscalculated a bit at the grocery store and I think I wound up with enough beer for every man, woman and baby to have at least two beers while at our only two hour long party. So I hope everyone who is coming is ready to get TRASHED, whoo!
Stella got two packages today. Perhaps I could just wrap up a couple of those presents and pass them off as from us..... Just kidding!
Stella got two packages today. Perhaps I could just wrap up a couple of those presents and pass them off as from us..... Just kidding!
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Temper Tantrums
So Stella has started throwing Temper Tantrums. She just starts crying and crying and fake coughing and throwing herself around all over the floor, rolling around, trying to hit her head on stuff for dramatic emphasis. I kept moving her little walking toy and she kept scooting to bang her head on it. I'm not ready to have a willful toddler quite yet. I haven't gotten long enough with the fun older baby yet. I haven't studied how to deal with them. The only bit of advice I read was you can ignore them or distract them during a tantrum. I've gone with the ignore method both Fits she's thrown today and the first time it took too long for me to take and I wound up hugging her. This time, just now, it eventually worked. I guess she finally realized I wasn't really paying attention to her and she just stood up and started playing with her walking toy. Now she's back to her normal self, crawling and standing up all over the place, pulling books off the shelf and chatting up a storm. I do have to cut her some slack since she's cutting a tooth (her right center top) and she's got some diaper issues that I won't go into because they're gross and that we're seeing the doctor for tomorrow. Hopefully it's not a milk allergy, because then I'll probably get berated for giving her milk before she was a year (I started giving it to her last week and she's a year old Saturday). I think it's a milk reaction though. Poor thing. On top of that, I think she could start walking at any moment and I think her brain is just a mess!
In other news, Roxie refuses to take the stairs onto the new deck. We have the old stairs propped up there and she will use them to get down, but she pretends like they aren't there when it's time to come back up. So eventually we have to go out in the yard and get her, although she runs away when we try to get her. It's lots of fun having a dog with dimentia, lemme tell you. At least, that's what we're pretty sure she has.
In other news, Roxie refuses to take the stairs onto the new deck. We have the old stairs propped up there and she will use them to get down, but she pretends like they aren't there when it's time to come back up. So eventually we have to go out in the yard and get her, although she runs away when we try to get her. It's lots of fun having a dog with dimentia, lemme tell you. At least, that's what we're pretty sure she has.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Our backyard and Stella kidnapped by Space Aliens
If you can see the stakes, those are where the corners of our house will be. The driveway is on the left, btw. 
And this is our future backyard. With TREES! Lots of 'em. Our lot does not back up to the farm, unfortunately, we were looking at the wrong lot, but instead it has lots of trees. Trees which are supposed to stay there. It is a heavily wooded lot. So lots of shade and will be really pretty, IMO. There are also a couple of trees in the front yard, which you can kind of see here:
Although it looks like it's out of fence danger, so maybe it's safe. Our neighbors can have it, just don't tear it down!
In other news, my sweet, fun, self-entertaining, easy to get to sleep, happy child has been kidnapped by space aliens and replaced with a whiny, clingy, won't sleep, temper-tantrum throwing hellion. I've read that babies around a year old start to exhibit above behaviors, but I'm holding out hope that if I offer the space aliens enough ransom, they'll return my little angel and take back this demon. I hear the demon awakening, in fact, guess I'd better go sacrifice a goat or something to appease it.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
SXSW 2007 Post Post
So SXSW is over. We didn't hit it as hard as we have in past years because we decided to also work on our deck during the day (very tiring!), and Stella decided she would not only give up the bottle, but refuse to take milk from a cup too. We came home Wednesday night after seeing an excellent show by the Unbearables to find that my mother had been rocking Stella for an hour and a half because she wouldn't take milk. She wailed until I finally nursed her. We've decided it must be a comfort thing, as I'd already pumped when I nursed her but she still seemed content afterwards. So we had to plan to be home about midnight the rest of the festival.
Despite the abbrieviated schedule, we saw some great bands. Wednesday, The Hourly Radio, out of Dallas, was a great Placebo-inspired band whose music I really dug, although I thought the lead singer's voice was a bit high. Thursday night we caught Say Hi to Your Mom, already one of my favorites since I caught them at SXSW 05, and The Foreign Islands. a new band I really dug. Kind of Interpol-y guitar work with a lead singer who looked like Elvis Costello and had a tendency to shout into a microphone that had a fuzzy effect on it. We also caught a group of Swedish boys called lo-fi-fnk who were doing some crazy cheesy dance music. The audience was lapping it up and cracking me up with their stereotypical rave-ish dancing. Then we headed over to Spiros and caught Buck 65, who turned out to be boring (except for an excellent DJ), so we left a few minutes into his set.
Friday night was an interesting one, to say the least. We got a late start because we'd had a busy day working on the deck and then going to pick out the materials for our new house. We went to eat at Waterloo, our first meal sans baby since probably about December. It was nice. Then we headed over to B.D. Riley's for the Eames Era, out of Baton Rouge, LA. They were pretty boring upbeat pop, but were distinguished by the fact that their lead singer was incredibly rude to the rest of the band. She kept making snide comments about the guitarist and berating him when his guitar strap broke. They also were rude to the audience. Did not care for them one bit. Then we saw one of our favorite finds of the festival, The Victorian English Gentlemen's Club from Cardiff, Wales. Two girls, one on drums and one on bass, and a guy on guitar. All three shared singing duties. They sounded like a darker B-52's. Really dug them, so much so that we bought their cd. I also got to tell the incredibly cool bassist what a great show they'd put on. We didn't remember who the next band was, and they were putting up a projector and a screen, so we figured we'd hate them, so we headed out to RedRum. Well, when we got to RedRum, there was a line of chatty teens apparently waiting to pay cover. We have decided that to work a door at a bar you have to be as inefficient as possible. No one went in for about 3 minutes. We put our ear plugs in because you could hear the band already paying inside. Eventually we were told that wristbands and badges could go to the front of the line. So we did so, and I showed my wristband to the girl at the door. She couldn't figure out how to get the scanner to work, even though it's really easy. I thought she'd said that I could go in, so I started to enter the bar. She yelled, "WAIT!", and hit her arm across my chest in a karate chop. It hurt. I was stunned and she took my ID. Tim said, "let's go." And so I grabbed for my ID and said, "give me my ID". She looked at me and said, in most evil growl I have ever heard from a human, "I'm not finished with it yet!" I said, "give it to me, we're not going in." She handed it back to me, and I left, still a little shaky. We were pissed we didn't get to see the band, but I was more mad that she had treated me that way. Tim joked that that all the good security people must have been hired as airport screeners. On the way back to the car, we were a little down, but then things looked up more than I could ever have imagined. First, we ran into Matt Howell, a friend from college and had a nice chat, then we got free ice cream from the Ice Cream Man, then we got to pet a chihuahua puppy a girl was holding when we walked back to the parking garage. More than made up for being assaulted by some dumb fat chick with a power complex.
Saturday night was the best night, an excellent finish to the festival. We were pretty worn out when we started because we'd worked almost the entire day on finishing the handrails for the deck. First we saw Brute Force and Daughter of Force, who we'd both separately gotten super-excited about after hearing on the Lounge Show. They did not disappoint. Brute Force was apparently a 60's loungey singer, and his daughter just livened up the kitschy appeal. Their father/daughter banter added an extra comedic element to the proceedings. We only had $7 on us, or we would have bought their album too. Then we saw Golem, a most excellent Gypsy band. They were just a blast, the entire audience was dancing their butts off. In fact, they taught us a dance which we all did, it was the coolest thing ever! The entire audience was forced to dance. Otherwise, you'd get stepped on. I even taught the dance to a latecomer next to me who we wound up chatting to after the show. We'll definitely have to get their album in the future. Tim's muscles were giving out on him, so we went home after that.
All in all an excellent Spring Break. My parents were wonderful and selfless and watched Stella for us not only while we went to SXSW, but also while we finished the deck. Plus, my dad went and picked up more supplies for us when we ran out. Twice! We had a great visit with them, it was a lot of fun and believe it or not, even after 4 days together, not a single political disagreement (or any other kind of disagreement)! We also got to see what it would feel like to have a nanny because we were so uninvolved in her care for the past few days. Stella is totally out of sorts now, of course, because her round-the-clock playmates are gone, but it was worth it. We also got to show my parents the models of our house (although I forgot to take pictures), which was fun. Back to the grind tomorrow, including getting ready for Stella's party next Saturday!
Despite the abbrieviated schedule, we saw some great bands. Wednesday, The Hourly Radio, out of Dallas, was a great Placebo-inspired band whose music I really dug, although I thought the lead singer's voice was a bit high. Thursday night we caught Say Hi to Your Mom, already one of my favorites since I caught them at SXSW 05, and The Foreign Islands. a new band I really dug. Kind of Interpol-y guitar work with a lead singer who looked like Elvis Costello and had a tendency to shout into a microphone that had a fuzzy effect on it. We also caught a group of Swedish boys called lo-fi-fnk who were doing some crazy cheesy dance music. The audience was lapping it up and cracking me up with their stereotypical rave-ish dancing. Then we headed over to Spiros and caught Buck 65, who turned out to be boring (except for an excellent DJ), so we left a few minutes into his set.
Friday night was an interesting one, to say the least. We got a late start because we'd had a busy day working on the deck and then going to pick out the materials for our new house. We went to eat at Waterloo, our first meal sans baby since probably about December. It was nice. Then we headed over to B.D. Riley's for the Eames Era, out of Baton Rouge, LA. They were pretty boring upbeat pop, but were distinguished by the fact that their lead singer was incredibly rude to the rest of the band. She kept making snide comments about the guitarist and berating him when his guitar strap broke. They also were rude to the audience. Did not care for them one bit. Then we saw one of our favorite finds of the festival, The Victorian English Gentlemen's Club from Cardiff, Wales. Two girls, one on drums and one on bass, and a guy on guitar. All three shared singing duties. They sounded like a darker B-52's. Really dug them, so much so that we bought their cd. I also got to tell the incredibly cool bassist what a great show they'd put on. We didn't remember who the next band was, and they were putting up a projector and a screen, so we figured we'd hate them, so we headed out to RedRum. Well, when we got to RedRum, there was a line of chatty teens apparently waiting to pay cover. We have decided that to work a door at a bar you have to be as inefficient as possible. No one went in for about 3 minutes. We put our ear plugs in because you could hear the band already paying inside. Eventually we were told that wristbands and badges could go to the front of the line. So we did so, and I showed my wristband to the girl at the door. She couldn't figure out how to get the scanner to work, even though it's really easy. I thought she'd said that I could go in, so I started to enter the bar. She yelled, "WAIT!", and hit her arm across my chest in a karate chop. It hurt. I was stunned and she took my ID. Tim said, "let's go." And so I grabbed for my ID and said, "give me my ID". She looked at me and said, in most evil growl I have ever heard from a human, "I'm not finished with it yet!" I said, "give it to me, we're not going in." She handed it back to me, and I left, still a little shaky. We were pissed we didn't get to see the band, but I was more mad that she had treated me that way. Tim joked that that all the good security people must have been hired as airport screeners. On the way back to the car, we were a little down, but then things looked up more than I could ever have imagined. First, we ran into Matt Howell, a friend from college and had a nice chat, then we got free ice cream from the Ice Cream Man, then we got to pet a chihuahua puppy a girl was holding when we walked back to the parking garage. More than made up for being assaulted by some dumb fat chick with a power complex.
Saturday night was the best night, an excellent finish to the festival. We were pretty worn out when we started because we'd worked almost the entire day on finishing the handrails for the deck. First we saw Brute Force and Daughter of Force, who we'd both separately gotten super-excited about after hearing on the Lounge Show. They did not disappoint. Brute Force was apparently a 60's loungey singer, and his daughter just livened up the kitschy appeal. Their father/daughter banter added an extra comedic element to the proceedings. We only had $7 on us, or we would have bought their album too. Then we saw Golem, a most excellent Gypsy band. They were just a blast, the entire audience was dancing their butts off. In fact, they taught us a dance which we all did, it was the coolest thing ever! The entire audience was forced to dance. Otherwise, you'd get stepped on. I even taught the dance to a latecomer next to me who we wound up chatting to after the show. We'll definitely have to get their album in the future. Tim's muscles were giving out on him, so we went home after that.
All in all an excellent Spring Break. My parents were wonderful and selfless and watched Stella for us not only while we went to SXSW, but also while we finished the deck. Plus, my dad went and picked up more supplies for us when we ran out. Twice! We had a great visit with them, it was a lot of fun and believe it or not, even after 4 days together, not a single political disagreement (or any other kind of disagreement)! We also got to see what it would feel like to have a nanny because we were so uninvolved in her care for the past few days. Stella is totally out of sorts now, of course, because her round-the-clock playmates are gone, but it was worth it. We also got to show my parents the models of our house (although I forgot to take pictures), which was fun. Back to the grind tomorrow, including getting ready for Stella's party next Saturday!
I got name-checked by the Austinist!
My post complaining about Mueller got linked to from the Austinist, check it out:
http://www.austinist.com/archives/2007/03/16/the_mueller_of_our_discontent.php
At first I worried that the whole world would be reading my ramblings and I'd have to step up the quality of my writing, but then I realized that they'd probably check it out once and discover it was just about my baby's sleeping habits and they would move on.
http://www.austinist.com/archives/2007/03/16/the_mueller_of_our_discontent.php
At first I worried that the whole world would be reading my ramblings and I'd have to step up the quality of my writing, but then I realized that they'd probably check it out once and discover it was just about my baby's sleeping habits and they would move on.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Further Adventures in Housing
So, first, on the Mueller thing, a lady from the mortgage company called yesterday and left a message (I was still sleeping and Tim was in Stella's room with the door closed and didn't hear the phone), and said that they'd already pulled a credit report and she'd "like to chat with him". She "didn't understand what he meant about the prices being raised." Right. Anyway, we decided life is too busy to call and try and harass them, since I'm sure they'll say they already spent the money on pulling a credit report. Bastards.
But we also don't really care as much because we found a house! Well, it's not a house right now, but we signed a contract to have a house built. Yes, we're crazy, we know. Especially since we swore we'd never go through the building a house thing again and because we kind of started this whole house-searching thing thinking we were doing it for fun with no intention of actually buying a house. But then we just kept looking. Every weekend we'd pull some houses off the MLS and go drive around. And not finding anything we liked in our price range. Admittedly, we increased our price range after we did some number crunching for Mueller, but still nothing. But anyway, our new house is adorable. It's built in a Craftsman Bungalow style, which we LOVE. Our second favorite after modern. Check it out here. It's the Danbury plan. We originally were interested in the Southampton, but they were sold out of those in the Phase 1 section, and somebody backed out of a Danbury, so it was cheaper to buy the Danbury (which is bigger). Not to mention we could get into it faster. But the drawings really don't do it justice. We drove out to Parmer and Dessau to see them (they haven't built models yet down here) and they are so cute in person and have so many adorable details. We get a front porch, and one of those beautiful Craftsman doors, which will be ORANGE! Along with ORANGE shutters and an ORANGE accent at the top of the house. How cool is that?! The neighborhood is less than 5 mins north of where we are now, but Stella will be able to walk to school (elementary, middle and High). We also will be much closer to Central Market and Amy's, and could actually conceivably take a long walk to eat ice cream. Work off the calories! We also can walk to get snow cones or to 7-11. And there's a United Methodist Church within walking distance. Not that we'd want to leave our church, but the thought of walking to church on Sunday vs. driving half an hour each way is awfully tempting. There is a pond and the neighborhood is directly across the street from Garrison park, so a free pool and playground. And our lot backs up to a farm, so no sitting in the backyard and staring at your neighbors' house, at least until the farmers get fed up and sell. The house also has lots of nice things already included, like ceramic tile in the entry, kitchen/breakfast, and bathrooms, and those nice panel doors, and rounded sheetrock corners. And the walls are beige rather than white, so if we can't paint right away we aren't stuck with stark white walls (which I cannot stand).
But we also don't really care as much because we found a house! Well, it's not a house right now, but we signed a contract to have a house built. Yes, we're crazy, we know. Especially since we swore we'd never go through the building a house thing again and because we kind of started this whole house-searching thing thinking we were doing it for fun with no intention of actually buying a house. But then we just kept looking. Every weekend we'd pull some houses off the MLS and go drive around. And not finding anything we liked in our price range. Admittedly, we increased our price range after we did some number crunching for Mueller, but still nothing. But anyway, our new house is adorable. It's built in a Craftsman Bungalow style, which we LOVE. Our second favorite after modern. Check it out here. It's the Danbury plan. We originally were interested in the Southampton, but they were sold out of those in the Phase 1 section, and somebody backed out of a Danbury, so it was cheaper to buy the Danbury (which is bigger). Not to mention we could get into it faster. But the drawings really don't do it justice. We drove out to Parmer and Dessau to see them (they haven't built models yet down here) and they are so cute in person and have so many adorable details. We get a front porch, and one of those beautiful Craftsman doors, which will be ORANGE! Along with ORANGE shutters and an ORANGE accent at the top of the house. How cool is that?! The neighborhood is less than 5 mins north of where we are now, but Stella will be able to walk to school (elementary, middle and High). We also will be much closer to Central Market and Amy's, and could actually conceivably take a long walk to eat ice cream. Work off the calories! We also can walk to get snow cones or to 7-11. And there's a United Methodist Church within walking distance. Not that we'd want to leave our church, but the thought of walking to church on Sunday vs. driving half an hour each way is awfully tempting. There is a pond and the neighborhood is directly across the street from Garrison park, so a free pool and playground. And our lot backs up to a farm, so no sitting in the backyard and staring at your neighbors' house, at least until the farmers get fed up and sell. The house also has lots of nice things already included, like ceramic tile in the entry, kitchen/breakfast, and bathrooms, and those nice panel doors, and rounded sheetrock corners. And the walls are beige rather than white, so if we can't paint right away we aren't stuck with stark white walls (which I cannot stand).
Of course, the flip side of all this is that we have to get our house ready to sell. Tim already put new decking on this weekend (well, I helped move stuff and put decking on for a while when Stella napped). Most of the work involves painting. Lots of painting. And cleaning. Should be an interesting challenge to keep the house spotless while corralling a toddler. Hopefully it will sell really fast like Ashley and Travis' house did and so I won't have to keep on an endless cleaning loop.
We're going to take my parents to see the models Thursday when they are in town, so hopefully I can get some good pictures of what they really look like and post them!
Saturday, March 10, 2007
No Mueller for me (or you or you or you!)
So the dream of Mueller is over. When the floorplans came out Monday, we found one we really liked, but there were no prices. Then we found the prices and thought we could afford it, even if they were a lot more than we were paying now. Then we went to the Mueller center yesterday and it was beautiful and we fell even more in love with the homes and they told us that the builder that was in our price range had increased his starting price by $60k because of demand. So no more yard home. Then this morning that same builder increased his starting price for his row houses by $40k. So we will not be living in Mueller. We unfortunately already sent our mortgage app and 50 bucks off, Tim called and asked if we could cancel it, which seems fair since there was some bait and switch going on. I doubt they will, but if they don't, I'm putting a stop payment on the check. Should be an interesting community. The builder was required by the city to put in affordable housing for those making less than 80% of the median income in Austin, and they can't raise the prices on those. Then the builders are allowed to raise the prices on the other homes to whatever they want based on demand. So you will have the poor and the rich living side-by-side. I'm sure the rich will be REAL happy with that situation.
It's also pretty funny that the yard houses for the poor START at MORE than what we paid for our current house 6 years ago! The row houses for the poor are in the range that most houses in our neighborhood cost then too. Ha!
It's also pretty funny that the yard houses for the poor START at MORE than what we paid for our current house 6 years ago! The row houses for the poor are in the range that most houses in our neighborhood cost then too. Ha!
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Marriage MeMe
got this one from new mama kelli
1. Where/How did you meet? UT. I auditioned for a play Tim had written and directed called Good Thoughts. I thought he was so cute and tried to flirt with him at auditions, but he was kind of a smart ass. Then he kept calling me back up to read for the lead, and I knew I had it. Sure enough, when the cast list went up a couple of days later, I was on it.
2. How long have you known each other?: 10 years and 5 months
3. How long after you met did you start dating?: About a week.
4. How long did you date before you were engaged?: 2 years. In fact, Tim was supposed to propose on our 2 year anniversary, but the ring didn’t come in on time, so he proposed a week later.
5. How long was your engagement?: 7 months
6. How long have you been married?: 7 years and 10 months
7. What is your anniversary?: May 15, 1999, the 90’s, woah!
8. How many people came to your wedding reception: no clue. Around 50? A lot less than we invited. A lot of my family just “couldn’t drive all the way from East Texas”, even though Tim had family fly in all the way from Michigan!
9. What kind of cake did you serve? White cake with raspberry frosting. It was 3 tiers of cake with strawberries on top, but the tiers weren’t stacked, they were stair-stepped on different stands, making kind of made a waterfall. Hard to explain. We were supposed to have a bride and groom Mulder and Scully, but Erin and I never got around to making it. Kind of glad in retrospect, how geeky! The groom’s cake was chocolate cake with Chocolate icing and had a chocolate covered strawberry groom and bride on it. We wanted to put comedy and tragedy masks on it, but couldn’t find the right graphic.
10. Where was your wedding?: University Christian Church just next to the UT Campus. The reception was at the Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs Mansion
11. What did you serve for your meal?: We had finger foods, little sandwiches, veggies, fruits, punch, etc.
12. How many people were in your bridal party?: 5 bridesmaids, 4 groomsmen. Our groomsmen kept dropping out or not returning our calls.
13. Are you still friends with them all?: Unfortunately, no. We haven’t talked to our best man, David, in years. Also, one of our groomsmen is no longer in the family because of a divorce.
14. Did your spouse cry during the ceremony?: I don’t think so.
15. Most special moment of your wedding day?: hard to say. One moment was that I was all teary, but then when we were exchanging rings, I noticed Tim was actually shaking and having trouble putting on my ring. I had to help him put on my ring and that made me forget my own emotinal-ness. I also liked that Tim and I drove around campus to get a cigarette in before the reception. We got some funny looks! Most fun moment was dancing with all our friends at the reception. Everyone boogied their butts off!
16. Any funny moments?: My cousin, Maddie, who was the flower girl, refused to drop the petals on the way down the aisle. She dropped them on the way out. Also, when my Mom was calling and bugging me and Erin, my roommate at the time, ran interference for me. That was awesome.
17. Any big disasters?: My Great-Aunt Ruby, who turned 90 yesterday, fell down the stairs on her way out and I didn’t realize what had happened and I was trying to get everyone back into the room for the toast and stuff. I felt so bad when my cousin said that Aunt Ruby had fallen down the stairs. She was okay, though.
18. Where did you go on your honeymoon?: San Francisco. Our flight was like at 7am, so we had to get up at 4:30am the day after our wedding. That was hard. But San Fran was beautiful and amazing. We stayed at the Hotel Boheme in North Beach, just down from the City Lights bookstore.
19. How long were you gone? 5 days.
20. If you were to do your wedding over, what would you change? I would have invited more people locally, who would have actually come. I would have spent less on the invitations so I could send more out. I would have made things a bit classier, and I would have had Erin and Anna as bridesmaids. I also would have made Sarah my maid of honor. It would have meant so much to her and I realize that it wasn’t a big deal to Diane (she totally considered it an honor, but she would not have been hurt if she hadn’t been.)
21. What side of the bed do you sleep on?: Left, but right after Stella was born until she was 6mos, I slept on the right because it was next to her bassinet.
22. What size is your bed?: King sleep number. I love it!
23. Greatest strength as a couple?: We understand each other because we’re both total weirdos:)
24. Greatest challenge as a couple?: hmm…. I would say video games, and I’m sure Tim has something I do that bugs him.
25. Who literally pays the bills?: Me. I handle all the finances.
26. What is your song? “You’re Too Good to Be True, Can’t Take My Eyes off of You” by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
27. What did you dance your first dance to?: same song.
28. Describe your wedding dress: Candlelight (white, essentially), empire-waisted A-line with beaded detail at the top of the bodice, at the empire waisting, and up the back.
29. What kind of flowers did you have at your wedding?: I carried a bouquet of white roses, my maid of honor carried a bouquet of some sort of purple flower, and my bridesmaids each carried a single purple flower that i think was a orchid. or a lily. I'm awful with flowers!
30. Are your wedding bands engraved? What do they say? No. We need to get Tim a new band as he can no longer get it off. I got a new engagement ring for Christmas and it is Gor-geous!
Extra bonus: For pictures of Tim and I from our engagement and wedding go to: http://www.tamaracampbell.com/main.htm
She still uses us as the buttons for the sections!
I tag all my married female friends with blogs for this one: Mindy, Kate, Ashley, Christine, Julie, Marsha.
1. Where/How did you meet? UT. I auditioned for a play Tim had written and directed called Good Thoughts. I thought he was so cute and tried to flirt with him at auditions, but he was kind of a smart ass. Then he kept calling me back up to read for the lead, and I knew I had it. Sure enough, when the cast list went up a couple of days later, I was on it.
2. How long have you known each other?: 10 years and 5 months
3. How long after you met did you start dating?: About a week.
4. How long did you date before you were engaged?: 2 years. In fact, Tim was supposed to propose on our 2 year anniversary, but the ring didn’t come in on time, so he proposed a week later.
5. How long was your engagement?: 7 months
6. How long have you been married?: 7 years and 10 months
7. What is your anniversary?: May 15, 1999, the 90’s, woah!
8. How many people came to your wedding reception: no clue. Around 50? A lot less than we invited. A lot of my family just “couldn’t drive all the way from East Texas”, even though Tim had family fly in all the way from Michigan!
9. What kind of cake did you serve? White cake with raspberry frosting. It was 3 tiers of cake with strawberries on top, but the tiers weren’t stacked, they were stair-stepped on different stands, making kind of made a waterfall. Hard to explain. We were supposed to have a bride and groom Mulder and Scully, but Erin and I never got around to making it. Kind of glad in retrospect, how geeky! The groom’s cake was chocolate cake with Chocolate icing and had a chocolate covered strawberry groom and bride on it. We wanted to put comedy and tragedy masks on it, but couldn’t find the right graphic.
10. Where was your wedding?: University Christian Church just next to the UT Campus. The reception was at the Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs Mansion
11. What did you serve for your meal?: We had finger foods, little sandwiches, veggies, fruits, punch, etc.
12. How many people were in your bridal party?: 5 bridesmaids, 4 groomsmen. Our groomsmen kept dropping out or not returning our calls.
13. Are you still friends with them all?: Unfortunately, no. We haven’t talked to our best man, David, in years. Also, one of our groomsmen is no longer in the family because of a divorce.
14. Did your spouse cry during the ceremony?: I don’t think so.
15. Most special moment of your wedding day?: hard to say. One moment was that I was all teary, but then when we were exchanging rings, I noticed Tim was actually shaking and having trouble putting on my ring. I had to help him put on my ring and that made me forget my own emotinal-ness. I also liked that Tim and I drove around campus to get a cigarette in before the reception. We got some funny looks! Most fun moment was dancing with all our friends at the reception. Everyone boogied their butts off!
16. Any funny moments?: My cousin, Maddie, who was the flower girl, refused to drop the petals on the way down the aisle. She dropped them on the way out. Also, when my Mom was calling and bugging me and Erin, my roommate at the time, ran interference for me. That was awesome.
17. Any big disasters?: My Great-Aunt Ruby, who turned 90 yesterday, fell down the stairs on her way out and I didn’t realize what had happened and I was trying to get everyone back into the room for the toast and stuff. I felt so bad when my cousin said that Aunt Ruby had fallen down the stairs. She was okay, though.
18. Where did you go on your honeymoon?: San Francisco. Our flight was like at 7am, so we had to get up at 4:30am the day after our wedding. That was hard. But San Fran was beautiful and amazing. We stayed at the Hotel Boheme in North Beach, just down from the City Lights bookstore.
19. How long were you gone? 5 days.
20. If you were to do your wedding over, what would you change? I would have invited more people locally, who would have actually come. I would have spent less on the invitations so I could send more out. I would have made things a bit classier, and I would have had Erin and Anna as bridesmaids. I also would have made Sarah my maid of honor. It would have meant so much to her and I realize that it wasn’t a big deal to Diane (she totally considered it an honor, but she would not have been hurt if she hadn’t been.)
21. What side of the bed do you sleep on?: Left, but right after Stella was born until she was 6mos, I slept on the right because it was next to her bassinet.
22. What size is your bed?: King sleep number. I love it!
23. Greatest strength as a couple?: We understand each other because we’re both total weirdos:)
24. Greatest challenge as a couple?: hmm…. I would say video games, and I’m sure Tim has something I do that bugs him.
25. Who literally pays the bills?: Me. I handle all the finances.
26. What is your song? “You’re Too Good to Be True, Can’t Take My Eyes off of You” by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
27. What did you dance your first dance to?: same song.
28. Describe your wedding dress: Candlelight (white, essentially), empire-waisted A-line with beaded detail at the top of the bodice, at the empire waisting, and up the back.
29. What kind of flowers did you have at your wedding?: I carried a bouquet of white roses, my maid of honor carried a bouquet of some sort of purple flower, and my bridesmaids each carried a single purple flower that i think was a orchid. or a lily. I'm awful with flowers!
30. Are your wedding bands engraved? What do they say? No. We need to get Tim a new band as he can no longer get it off. I got a new engagement ring for Christmas and it is Gor-geous!
Extra bonus: For pictures of Tim and I from our engagement and wedding go to: http://www.tamaracampbell.com/main.htm
She still uses us as the buttons for the sections!
I tag all my married female friends with blogs for this one: Mindy, Kate, Ashley, Christine, Julie, Marsha.
No More Snot!
I am so sick of snot. I feel like I am swimming in snot, like every surface is covered in the gooey slightly yellow stuff. I wipe stella's nose, and it comes back immediately. I wash her face and yet it is quickly a gooey crusty mess of wet boogers and dry ones. Dr. Patil says the antibiotics should clear up her symptoms by Friday, so hopefully the snot days will be behind us soon. I've moved on to the coughing phase of my cold, so I think I'm nearing the end.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
You Always Remember your First
Ear Infection, that is. We went to the doctor this morning and Dr. Patil diagnosed Stella with an ear infection. Luckily, it was in the really early stages, so Stella shouldn't have to go through too much pain. We've got our antibiotics prescription in at Walgreens and we'll go pick it up when Stella wakes up from her nap. Apparently the ear infection was caused by all the drainage from her cold. Luckily the medicine should kick in soon and she should be feeling better by Friday at the latest. Now if only someone would make ME feel better. Especially since Stella woke up a lot last night and I had trouble getting back to sleep because of my symptoms. I think I got about 3.5 hours of sleep last night. Whoo!
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
The House of Ill Repute
Either Mommy got her finger in the way of the lens or we're going to have to call Ghostbusters to get rid of the Shadow People.We are like the house that keeps on getting sick. I now have a pretty wicked cold, although my eye infection is down to just some redness, Stella's still going strong with her snotty self, and Tim seems to be now getting sick. Yay. I'm still perplexed as to where we caught all this. We haven't really been around anybody. The only possible culprits are the church nursery last Sunday or maybe one of our friends launched a sneak attack during the Oscars, although that would be a long incubation period as Stella didn't show symptoms until Thursday. The other long shot is one of the Anton chicks that I saw Wednesday night, but that's a rather short incubation period. I guess it's also possible that we just picked it up from the germs one randomly encounters in public. We did run lots of errands last week.
In other news, Stella is no longer taking the bottle. Tim tried to give her one last night while I was at rehearsal and she refused. We didn't realize how long it'd been since we'd given her one, New Year's Eve. She'd been taking the bottle so easily for so long that we'd just gotten lax. And now we're screwed because SXSW is next week. So we've got to get her to take milk from something other than the boob because my parents will be taking care of her and she'll need to get her late night feeding from her MeMe or her Pappy. It's funny because as soon as she gets well I was planning on starting the weaning process. Ha, I misspelled weaning weening at first. Yes, the Weening process, where one plays lots of Ween for their child in an effort to mess them up as thoroughly as possible. I think I'll choose, "Smile on Mighty Jesus, Spinal Meningitis Got Me Down" first, because that's always an upbeat one for youngsters!
In happier news, Stella gives the best hugs now. She'll just climb into your lap and hug you so tight. It's wonderful. I don't understand people who prefer newborns to this. I mean, the girl can cuddle, crawl, laugh, make jokes (simple jokes, but jokes nonetheless), and say Mama and Dada, which just melts your heart. How can that be any match for an eating, pooping, peeing, crying machine that just lies there helplessly and looks kind of odd because they don't really have eyebrows and their skin is translucent? I loved her to pieces then, don't get me wrong, but I didn't know how much I could really like hanging out with my child until she developed a personality.
But watching Lucy try to get away from Stella, I think Lucy preferred thew newborn stage...
Saturday, March 03, 2007
We should be out having fun right now...
Tonight is the babysitting co-op at church, and for the first time since January, we aren't working it! But we can't go because my left eye is nearly swollen shut with an eye infection. It's totally gross. The picture really doesn't do it justice. I look like Thom Yorke in real life. It came on all of a sudden, my eye started hurting yesterday afternoon about 5, and it swiftly got worse. I have no clue where I caught it, but I think Stella has it too, just nowhere near as bad. Her eyes have been watering and secreting yellow gunk since mid-day yesterday. That's on top of the runny nose she's had since Thursday. So we're just a house of germs. At night Stella's waking up a lot because of her sinuses and now her eyes, so then I wake up. Last night was the worst because she'd wake me up, I'd have to go pour water on my eye to get it unsealed, then I'd go get her back to sleep, then I'd need a cold compress to make my eye stop hurting enough for me to go back to sleep. But thankfully Tim got up with her at 7:15 and let me sleep until 9:30. I also took a nice long nap this afternoon while Stella and Tim went to the Natural Gardener and Home Depot. And I was able to see a doctor this morning. I figured there was no way one was open on Saturday, but Tim said he figured the guy he saw week before last was, and I called and sure enough they were! The doctor said it was probably caused by my contacts, but I doubt it. I've been wearing them for 18 years and I've never had anything like this happen! My theory is that I had the same thing as Stella, probably brought on by the weather change and allergies, and my contacts compounded the problem. He prescribed me some $52.99 antibiotic eyedrops (thanks, insurance, for saving me soooo much money!), and so hopefully I am on the road to recovery. Stella doesn't seem to be getting worse, and she's in a good mood (other than the fact that she hasn't slept much which is making her grumpy), so I'm going to wait until Monday to call the doctor. Hopefully we'll both be well by then. And hopefully Tim won't catch it either!
In other news, I'm waiting with baited breath to hear that Kelli's boy has been born and what is name is!
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Right then, Tallyho back into Acting!
So I got cast in Anton in Showbusiness, but only because my friend Nicole had to pass on the roles because of an illness. I'm okay with that, being someone's "2nd choice" doesn't really hurt my feelings. Some of my best roles have come from someone else dropping out. I am quite nervous though, because one of the roles I'm playing, Ben, a male country singer, has a kissing heading towards making out scene with a woman. So I'm nervous about that, as I didn't go through that phase in college and so have never mugged down with another woman. And it will be doubly weird because I will be playing a man mugging down with a woman. Really odd. But, quite frankly, I'm a bit surprised I've been in theatre this long without kissing a woman. There are a LOT of plays with girl on girl action for some reason. I mentioned this to Tim and his first response was the typical guy one, "Of course I wouldn't have a problem with that, that's hot." I'm pretty sure he was joking. His second response was, "I think it would be easier than kissing a guy, since you aren't attracted to women." He has a point there. I think I would have a hard time doing the scene with a man, too. But I do think it would be easier, as I have a frame of reference, and it would be at least slightly less awkward. Oh, well, it's only one scene. Surely I'll be able to do it with aplomb. Although, Tim was like, "I want to see how they make you look like a man since you aren't even remotely manly." Yeah, that should be interesting!
In other news, Stella has started throwing very dramatic temper tantrums. If I pick her up to feed her or move her when she does not want me to, she starts bucking her whole body back and forth and crying. It's just peachy. I guess this is what life with a toddler is like.
CLARIFICATION: Kelli brought up a good point, I didn't explain why I was playing a man. All the roles in the play are portrayed by women, it's written in the script that way. So in addition to the male country singer, I'm playing a gay male costume designer and one female role, a lesbian producer.
In other news, Stella has started throwing very dramatic temper tantrums. If I pick her up to feed her or move her when she does not want me to, she starts bucking her whole body back and forth and crying. It's just peachy. I guess this is what life with a toddler is like.
CLARIFICATION: Kelli brought up a good point, I didn't explain why I was playing a man. All the roles in the play are portrayed by women, it's written in the script that way. So in addition to the male country singer, I'm playing a gay male costume designer and one female role, a lesbian producer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
