Why you should never rush decorating

So we were super-excited to get shades for our lamps and tables to put them on and get them out there for the world (or at least vistors to our house) to admire, right? So Sunday we marched on down to IKEA and got us some tables which we started to regret almost the moment they were assembled. I think they'll wind up being placeholders until we find something we like better.

We also got two different varieties of shades, neither of which work, unfortunately. BUT the more important thing we realized was that the places we had thought we'd put the lamps were sort of weird. They were on the edges of the room and we need light in the center of the room. But how do you get light into the center of the room without having cords for people to trip over? Tim looked at 60's interiors and saw that running the cords under rugs seemed to be the answer. But I don't really have the budget for rugs right now and I'm not really too eager to cover up my pretty Walnut floors with a bunch of rugs. Anybody have any suggestions? I may try those little sticky strips you can run cords through and attach to the floor, but I'm a bit afraid that they'll mess up the floor or cause people to eat it everytime they walk through our living room. I think in the short term we'll wind up just putting the lamps in their original positions on the edge of the room until we can buy rugs. Who knows.

I still love the lamps, though, and refuse to think of them as mistakes! I just know you can't rush decorating decisions, you have to live with things for a while before you decide how to use them.

Saturday Garage Sale Finds and Decorating

This morning we went to La Luz's garage sale at their current location on South First. They are merging with Prototype on South Congress and the new and improved version of both will re-open on August 7th for First Thursday. Man, were there deals to be had! There was a super-sweet long low credenza that was melamine and orange on the inside, white on the outside for only $60! I was in love, but I unfortunately had to concede that we had absolutely no where for it. There was lots of beautiful cheap furniture like that: an amazing desk with a very cool architectural front for only $50, an orange fake-leather sofa and chair on a metal frame for $500, dressers, tables, etc, but alas, we had no place for these things. However, I still scored!

The first time I ventured into La Luz was in December, when I spotted a pair of very cool vintage lamps. I seriously considered them at $70 for the pair (which is a steal for vintage lamps), but it was Christmas time and I couldn't buy stuff for myself. So I'd forgotten about them until I wander in today and, lo and behold, they were marked down to $10 each!

The shades (which I remember the salesperson remarking weren't original the first time I admired them), are hideous.

That's gold thread in the fringe. Shudder!

So of course we'll need new lampshades. Also, we have nothing to put them on, so we'll need new tables for that. So when all is said and done perhaps they won't be that great of a deal;)

I also got crafty this afternoon. Last week when I went to IKEA I purchased some wall decals for the drawers on our bookcase. The wide expanse of brown had been bugging me for quite some time. I was a bit intimidated when I opened the package and there were just four sheets of random branches, flowers, leaves and birds, with no grid or advice on how to place them, but I am quite happy with the result:

I asked Tim to come give his opinion when it was finished, fully expecting him to hate it, (I think he was a little skeptical about the whole idea), but to my surprise and pride, he loved it and suggested I put a little design on the other cabinet to tie them together:

Next up in the crafty department: We'd like to put wallpaper in those cabinets up there that currently have orange construction paper, and put the same wallpaper on the back wall of the bookshelves. Somebody had some very cool orange with white circles wallpaper recently, but it's not on Jen Ski and if it's on Apartment Therapy, I'll never find it again. I also want to paint the walls behind those cabinets on either side of the fireplace an olive green, but Tim's not sold and as we have a backlog of projects, that's not in the short term plan.

I Want To Believe it will be good

I believe the new X-Files movie comes out today. And even though the trailer makes it look pretty lame (although I LOVE Billy Connolly and Amanda Peet), I will probably go see it anyway. Because I have to. (But not tonight because I'm going to a fundraiser.) The years of 95-2002, Sunday night at 8 you would find me nowhere else (actually it was originally on Friday nights, which explains why I wasn't as loyal of a viewer at first), and my mother actually knew that to call me on Sundays at 8 was risking my wrath. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, somehow seemed to ONLY call between 8 and 9pm on Sunday nights... I'm proud to say I converted many others to fandom, and some of them even surpassed me in their love of all things X-Files. Anyway, you have to check out this fake exchange on Go Fug Yourself. It cracked me up.

Speaking of movies, we did go see Mamma Mia last Friday. It was a blast, even though Pierce Brosnan can't sing to save his life. But everyone seemed to be having a fantastic time making it and we had a great time watching it. It was pure summer fun, we would start giggling everytime we heard the familiar strings of an ABBA song and saw how they were going to use it. There were new songs in it that were god-awful, but you can look past them, trust me. If you're an ABBA fan, check it out!

Big Girl Bed!

Stella's been in her big girl bed since Tuesday night, but I'm just getting a few minutes to myself to blog about it: She LOVES it and has been sleeping better than she had in her crib for months. She can stretch out, and since it's so big, she rarely falls out of bed. Although she did last night and it was quite a shock to her, she started wailing immediately. She does come in and wake us up quite early in the morning, though, which we're not enjoying too much.

People keep asking me if I'm sad to see her crib go. I can honestly say, no, not a bit. I find each new milestone Stella leaps over to be exciting and I'm so in love with the little girl she's becoming with each passing day that I never long for her to be a baby again. I might feel differently if Stella was going to be our only kid, but we're planning on having more, so I just enjoy the ride!

Special thanks to Meme and Pappy for the generous gift of the bed, as you can see, it's made Stella extremely happy!

Delicious Theatre Rumours, (I mean Rumors)*

The Austinist says that someone wrote up snarky descriptions of all the press contacts in Austin, then accidentally emailed said snarky descriptions to all of said press contacts! Who is it? Well, they gave us the hint that it was someone on their Ist List and that it was female. So who is on their Ist list this week?

Crazy Like a Person by Austin New Music Workshop: This is my number one suspicion. They are run by a woman, the only other thing I've seen them do was the Pirate Musical at FronteraFest last year and I don't think they're really tied to the theatre scene. Only a rookie wouldn't realize how incestuous this town is and that you never know who you shouldn't be pissing off.

Kidnapped by Craig's List by Shrewd: Also run by women, but they've been at this rodeo long enough to know how to behave and I seriously doubt they would make a stupid mistake like this.

I Google Myself by Capital T: Not run by a woman, although at Hyde Park and Katherine there sends out the emails for Hyde Park. But she's been in this town even longer than Shrewd and I think would have the sense not to make that sort of mistake. The only reason I include her is that she does sometimes send out empty emails, so I've seen email mistakes before.

The rest of the shows are either huge like Zach Scott or Summer Musical or old stalwarts run by men like Different Stages. So they don't fall under suspicion.

Who do you suspect?

*Oh, God, I just noticed I spelled Rumours in the British way. How pretentious!

I won!

I never win anything, but I won two free tickets to an upcoming Austin City Limits taping because I filled out some survey on their website to be entered into a drawing. Sweet! I have no clue who I'll be seeing yet, but I sure hope it's someone cool and not someone totally lame-o. In any case, it should be super-fun! I've dreamed of getting in on the ACL action since I moved here nearly 13(!) years ago!

Show and Tell

Stella was just standing at the window showing Baby 2 the Blue Jays and saying, "Look baby girl, blue jay! Aww, blue jay!" She actually turned Baby 2's head so it faced out and Baby 2 could "see". Man, that's adorable!

I spoke too soon

About two minutes after I posted, I heard Stella crying over the monitor. Turns out she fell out of the bed. Poor monkey. I think she missed the body pillow and fell on the ground. I put more pillows down, hopefully if she falls again they'll catch her.

Here's to Safe Landings

Stella takes to the stage at Open Mike Night with her guitarist, Dexter, backing her

Stella is on her first night sans crib. We still haven't tracked down her big girl bed yet, we really want a pair of twin beds that are 50's blonde wood that are on Craig's List, but the lister hasn't been calling us back. We're really hoping that he's just out of town or something because we already got her this adorable bedding and we think it will go so perfectly with the furniture. You can't tell from the picture, but the bedding has little rhinestones on it! It's so retro and luxe and princessy without having Disney brand Princesses on it, which is what passes for girl's room decor these days. The sheets have little crowns and BALLET SHOES on them! OMG, what could be cuter? I think it'd be cute to somehow incorporate my old ballet and tap shoes from when I was a kid. We're trying to go for a sophisticated but sweet little girl's room with a retro vibe. Tim's inspiration is his mother's childhood bedroom which was all poodles and French and pink and was apparently still preserved when he was a kid. I love the French thing too! And furry pillows and poodles and kittens!

But for tonight, Stella's just in her old crib with one of the sides taken off to magically transform it into a toddler bed. I was really disappointed that there wasn't a side rail or anything, but we have a body pillow on the floor so hopefully if she falls out she won't hurt herself. We had no choice but to give in and convert it; this afternoon she would not stop trying to climb up into it, and when she was in it, she actually leaned over the rail with all her weight and brought her feet off the mattress. If she'd lost her grip on the rail, she would have landed feet first on our hardwoods! I was scared that she'd spend all night jumping in and out of the bed, but she stayed put, thank God! We told her that this was practice for her Big Girl Bed (she can't stop talking about it), and if she stayed in it all night, we'd get her a Big Girl Bed. Poor thing was so upset that we didn't get her Big Girl Bed this weekend. Trust me girl, we tried! We just want to give the Craig's List thing a little longer before we give in and do IKEA. I love IKEA, but the furniture's got no soul!

Vanity, pure and simple

So I went to my monthly Weight Watcher's Meeting yesterday morning (I have to go once a month to keep my Lifetime Membership active), and I'm back to only .2 pounds over my goal weight. Whoo-hoo! All the point recording and cutting back on alcohol has paid off. (Last meeting I was almost 2 pounds over my goal weight, which is the cut-off for Lifetime Membership.) The topic was motivation. Once again my leader used some weird metaphor that she took way too far, (in this case boiling water, I never quite understood how it was related to the topic), and eventually asked us what was our internal motivation that kept us going on Weight Watcher's. The first girl answered "Amy's Ice Cream", which was like, "huh?" so our leader asked her to elaborate and she said that she had promised herself not to have Amy's Ice Cream until she reached her goal. Well those of us who have been doing this a while were like, "hold up girl!" See, WW is not about deprivation and she was just setting herself up for failure by depriving herself of something she wanted. She needed to eat the Amy's and move on with her life. By setting it up as a "goal food" she had set herself up that if she "messed up" and ate Amy's before she reached goal, she would then feel like she failed and would probably completely give up on her weight loss. I think it's fine to have a celebration in mind when you reach goal, but it shouldn't be about food. (Although I went out and had chicken fried steak at Hill's when I reached goal. But it hadn't been my goal throughout the process or anything. I was just like, "dang it, I haven't had chicken fried steak in 6 months, I'm going to get me some!" But the truth is I could have had it all along, of course, I would have just needed to allot the points for it.)

Wow, that was sort of a tangent. But you guys know my belief in the church of Weight Watcher's! So other people said their motivation was being healthy or being in shape and I raised my hand and was like, "I'm vain. I like the way I look 30 pounds lighter!" Everyone laughed and my leader was like, "that's fine of course, but at least a little of it isn't for that little girl down there?" (Stella was playing at my feet.) And I said, yes I do want to model good eating habits for Stella. Honestly, though, when I was thirty pounds heavier I wasn't really in bad shape. I exercised more than I do now and I wasn't at risk of dropping dead from a heart attack or anything (at least due to my weight). I just didn't like the way I looked. I'm 5'10", 30 pounds is not sending me to the obesity column. In fact, it was at the top of my healthy BMI range. But I did not like the way I looked. I didn't realized how much I disliked the way I looked until now, when I look back at photos and I'm just like, "you know what, I don't want to look like that again!" So it's really vanity that keeps me "on program". And I see NOTHING wrong with that. The women who were sitting in front of me said that vanity is what motivated them too:)

Oh, I had a point in all this! If you would like to join Weight Watchers, we can both get a free cooler! Let me know, we don't even have to go to the same meetings or even location. I have a little card that I fill out with my info and I can send to you and then you take it in to your first meeting. You get a free meeting (try before you buy) and a cooler! So let me know if you want to take the plunge, I really can't recommend it enough.

Ubiquitous before and after shots, which I've actually never done before:

Before (size 16):

After (size 10, sometimes even 8!):

Oh, yeah, mushrooms

So Stella had mushrooms in that video from Wednesday because I was making our quesadillas for lunch and she always insists on having TWO mushrooms, one for each hand. She also insists on TWO red peppers or TWO of whatever else we're making!

I promised Tara I would blog this picture

So wrong on so many different levels. But that's how we do July 4th in these parts!

How did we get here?

\

So after you watch this video, you may ask yourself, "why is Stella wearing her bikini and dancing around in the kitchen with mushrooms?" Well...

First she mentioned swimming and putting on her "baby suit" while we were on our walk this morning. I told her we could go swimming in the backyard when we got home.

We got home and I took a shower.

Stella came into the bathroom and opened the shower curtain. At first I thought she was holding her stuffed bunny rabbit that wears a robe. Then I realized that she was carrying her towel and her bathing suit. And was buck naked. I have to say I was impressed that she got off her shorts, shirt and diaper. She asked me to put on her "baby suit" and I told her I'd put on her "swimsuit"* when I got out.

I got out of the shower and did not see Stella. I called out and she did not answer me. I put on my robe and went into the hallway where I could see through the window that she was outside with the bottom of her swimsuit only halfway covering her booty and was trying to put her top on. I made a mental note to childproof the doorknobs. I told Stella that after I finished getting ready we'd go outside and swim and that she could not go outside in the future without Tim or I and brought her back in.

I got ready and got Stella and I both all sunscreened up. We went outside and I got her swimming pool. But then I ran into obstacle number one: I could not get the hose unfastened so I could fill up the pool. Tim had put it on too tight. So I struggled with that for a while before deciding to use the front hose. Then I realized that was hooked into Tim's complex sprinkler system. I tried getting it to work but could not. So I went back into the yard and told Stella that unfortunately we couldn't swim today, I was sorry. As I was telling her this, Stella started screaming and crying, "ants, ants!" and I looked down to see a whole bunch all over her foot. I swatted them away while she screamed, "Mommy pick up me", then scooped her up and went inside.

She was crying quite a bit by now so I offered her anti-itch cream and a popsicle, plus the opportunity to stay in her swimsuit for a while longer. The combination of swimsuit, cream and cuddling with mom while eating popsicles got her back into better spirits, as evidenced by her dance.

Poor thing. I promised her I'd get her Daddy to show me how to operate the water tonight so this wouldn't happen again.

In the other cute things department, she said the word "plenty." We went to feed Punky and she saw Lucy's bowl and pointed and said, "Plenty. Lucy have plenty of food." Oh, and while we were at my parents' house, I walked out of the bathroom to hear my mother laughing so hard she could barely breathe. I asked her what was so funny and once she could finally speak again she said Stella had said, "Poop come out of my booty." Ha!

*Tim taught her to say bathing suit rather than swimsuit. I'm working on changing it because I think it's a ridiculous name for the item of clothing you wear while SWIMMING not BATHING, but Stella's really stuck on it. Except when she says it it sounds like "baby suit".

Preschool!

So we finally had a program email us back and say they had ONE opening for 2 year olds. So I ran over there this afternoon and dropped off her application and registration fee and Stella will be going to MDO two days a week starting September 2nd! Yay! I am a little nervous since it's run by a Baptist church and sounds heavy on the Jesus thing, but if she comes home telling Tim and I we're going to burn in hell, we'll just know it's time to find a new program;)

Tim's already sad and freaked out that she's starting school. So cute!

Killing Time Meme

Waiting for peeps to show up, decided to kill time with this silly Meme from Kate. If you are also bored, knock yourself out and follow my lead!

1.What is in the back of your car? empty JC Penney reusable bag and empty World Market reusable wine 4 pack bag

2.What color is your toothbrush? green

3.Name one person who made you smile today. Stella

4.What were you doing at 8:00 AM? trying to ignore Stella kicking me in the ribs and go back to sleep. Wishing Tim would take her out already so I could make up for the fact we got no sleep last night because people were doing fireworks until 5am

5. What were you doing 45 minutes ago? getting stella ready for bed

6. What is your favorite candy? Dark Chocolate Ghiradelli or Dove

7. What is the last thing you said aloud? "What did you have to do?" to tim after he came back from trying to get Stella to really go to sleep.

8. What is the best ice cream flavor? Amy's Dark chocolate with either strawberries or reese's peanut butter cups crushed in.

9. What is the last thing you had to drink? water

10 What are you wearing right now? jean capris and shiny long black top with fake crystals at the top and silver, pink and teal on it. It's more attractive than it sounds, I swear. Black ballet flats that make my feet sweat.

11. What is the last thing you ate? a Dove Dark Chocolate with almonds

12. Have you bought any new clothes this week? no.

13. When was the last time you ran? March 07 probably, before my feet started hurting like hell and I discovered I had high arches that made running really painful.

14. What was the last sporting event you watched? hmmm.... can't even think of what it would be it's been so long. Tim liked to watch football for a few minutes at a time when we first got our flat-screen HDTV because it "looked so awesome" so probably January?

15. Ever go camping? Yep, loved it when I was a kid. I've only gone once as an adult, but if my husband didn't hate it so much, I'd do it more often. I'm sure we'll go when Stella's older.

16. Do you have a tan? yes. tim says it makes me look "exotic". Ha!

17. Do you take vitamins daily? Yes.

18. Do you go to church? Not anymore!

19. Do you like Chinese food more than pizza? No. I LOVE pizza. I could eat it practically every day. I really LIKE Chinese food.

20. Do you drink your soda with a straw? no, that's really weird outside of a Diet Coke commercial.

21. Are you someone’s best friend? yes.

22. What are you doing tomorrow? Maybe going to go see Mr. Johnny at Ruta Maya with Stella and Tim in the morning. Having dinner and playing games with Tim's parents.

23. Where is your dad? In Hassi (sp?), Algeria

24. Can you say the alphabet backwards? Yeah, although I haven't attempted it in a while!

25. Do you have a maid service clean your home? are you kidding?! No.

26. Do you have a favorite pair of shoes you wear all the time? Not favorite, but just all I really have for summer and easy. my brown or black flip flops that I got for $4.88 from Walmart. I have been looking for cute shoes for months now.

27. What color is your car? purplish blue

28. How do you like your popcorn? I'm not a big fan of popcorn, but I do like parmesan cheese on it. I also LOVE the cheddar and caramel flavor you would get in those big tins the boy scouts sold when we were kids.

29. How did you get your worst scar? chicken pox in 4th grade. It's a "hole in my forehead." (in high school a preschooler i was caring for for my child ed class asked how i got a hole in my forehead.)

30. Look to your left. What do you see? the corner. and a big adorable picture of lucy that we need to get a frame for that my best friend Diane took and gave to us over 4 years ago.

31. What color is your watch? I don't wear one.

32. What do you think of when you think of Australia? Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Nicole Kidman (I was reading an article about her Thursday)

33. Do you use chap stick? yes. At bedtime and under my lipstick because my lips are really dry and otherwise lipstick will just cake up.

34. Do you have a dog? Yes. sweet sweet Lucy

35. Last person you talked to on the phone? Tim. On Thursday. I don't talk on the phone much!

36. Have you met anyone famous? yes. Douglas Coupland, Margaret Cho, Jack and Cary from Jackopierce, Bruce Campbell. the guitarist from the Happy Bullets (don't know if that counts!) Probably some more, just can't think of them right now.

37. Any plans today? we're waiting for folks to come over and play Rock Band with us.

38. How many states have you lived in? two. TX and OK

39. Do you dye your hair? yes. Some shade of red since I was 15, except for one disastrous try at black when I was 20.

40. Do you like cats? not particularly. I used to love them, but I have a rather nasty cat, Punky, that requires daily pills and scratches us and likes to try and sleep on my head. Oh, and sprays our entire bathroom with kitty litter. So i would say I only want dogs from now on.

Alternate Reality Meme

This is from Ashley:

Who are you in an alternate universe? Your answer is not a reflection of your current life. If you are married and a parent this does not mean you want to leave your current life and pursue your alternate life. So feel free to participate without judgment.

Mine's pretty obvious. I am an actress in New York City. I do well enough not to have a day job and am constantly in an edgy, critically acclaimed show. I have a great modern loft in a hip part of the city that is rent controlled so I can live there forever for cheap and spend all my money on travel. I have a kick ass super-hip wardrobe, too. I look like me, but I get my hair PROFESSIONALLY dyed red because I have that kind of money and time. And I get manicures and pedicures regularly and my body's in a bit better shape because I have time to work out. And I have thin upper arms.

So that's my quick fantasy. If you read this blog, please participate and let me know that you did it in the comments section!

Stella's TV Debut

So our TV debut is on the KEye website. And I am proud to say that thanks to the wonders of editing, I do not look like an idiot. And the camera did not appear to add ten pounds. Unfortunately, there's no way to directly link to it, but you can go here:
http://www.keyetv.com/mediacenter/local.aspx
And click on "Austin Dad Blogs About his Ideas for Fun" on the left of the page. If anyone figures out how to get a direct link, please let me know!

Spending Our Daughter's Inheritance

Not really. We just finally went to eat at Uchi last night. Oh. My. God. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It was soooo good! And we had forgotten this, but a good friend of Tim's from high school, Andy, is the "Boss Man" there, as he put it, (I think his official title is General Manager), so he totally gave us personal attention, gave us his own recommendations, and even threw in a dish he'd selected himself for free. We waited out on the patio I admire every time I pass by for about 45 minutes to an hour (really the time went by super-fast with a glass of wine, some edamame and great conversation) and then we were whisked inside. The decor was so inspiring, we immediately decided to steal the screen idea from the patio for outside our bedroom to block the large security light that shines in our window at night (it's the first shot on the website with the bamboo fencing).

Awesome fountain

The lighting on Tim was so beautiful, I had to snap a shot of his handsome mug. Also, I love the squares in the background on the wall.

The menu, as Andy had warned us, was overwhelming, but luckily he came around and gave us his recommendations which were, of course, better than the stuff we picked ourselves. I loved the flavors that they put with the sushi. Usually at sushi restaurants it's all about the cut and freshness of the fish, but at Uchi they aren't afraid to put some adventurous spices and flavors in there. Like goat cheese! Fan-tast-tic! Also, I fell in love with the saki. We got the cheapest one and it was so full of flavor, it made me wish I hadn't been missing out on saki all this time!

hot rock “sear it yourself” on a japanese river rock wagyu beef with ponzu sauce; tricky with chopsticks, but super-fun

Afterwards, we went down to Lambert's so I could have the Blackberry fried pie Tim had been raving about. I wasn't too impressed, but I really enjoyed wandering through the new condo developments down there and imagining us rich, childless and living in the thick of things. It was beyond a fantastic date night, I am so blessed to have a husband I consider my best friend and the resources to occasionally splurge and enjoy some of the finer things in life!

I promise eventually I will stop wearing this dress, necklace and earrings everywhere I go;)

Sweet!

On the way home from Houston Sunday, Tim decided to go 55 or 65 to see how it improved gas mileage. At the time I was a bit annoyed because I thought it was "adding time to our trip". I got gas today and I am pleased to say that we got 30.1 miles to the gallon on this last tank. Whoo-hoo for highway driving!

Oh and it's raining. I'm glad because we need it so badly, but not so happy because I'm about to have to go out in it to take Stella to her Baba's and pick Tim up from work. Across town.

World's Worst Mom Award

So I was trying to get to a preschool today to drop off Stella's application and money so she can get on the waiting list. I told her as much, but unfortunately the school has weird hours in the summer and was apparently closed early. So now she keeps saying "go to preschool, go to preschool" and making me feel truly terrible that I didn't jump on this school thing earlier. I have decided that I WILL get her in somewhere, even if I have to drive across town, dammit!

Mamma Mia!

So I just watched the trailer for Mamma Mia, and I know it's total trash, but it has Colin Firth (my crush since Bridget Jones' Diary) AND Pierce Brosnan (my crush from Remington Steele when I was like 7) and it looks AWESOME! I think this might get me out to the movie theater on July 18th to see it. I have Australian movies of the early 90's (Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Muriel's Wedding) to thank for my love of Abba. And a gay friend my freshman year of college who taped Abba Gold for me. Seriously, it is a crime I do not have that on CD. Oh, and I used to be able to perform the entire routine from Priscilla that they do, I believe, to Mamma Mia. I might still be able to do it, if I reach deep into my subconscious. Watch out, my friends, I may just bust that out at any moment!

Oh, S&*@

I just broke the urn containing Roxie's ashes. I am truly a dumbass. On the bright side, it helps narrow down what to do with them. I don't think we have any choice but to bury them now. I'd been thinking we might put them on the bookshelf with a picture of her since the urn was so pretty. But now the urn and the monogrammed velveteen bag that contains it will have to be buried wholesale. Perhaps in the hedges she so loved to get lost in.
Tim asked if I was traumatized. Actually, not as traumatized as I should be. I just knocked them off the cabinet that they were on in the garage because I was rummaging around in the garage in the dark. Sort of sad; they'd been on the cabinet for the month plus since we picked them up. Now they're on the floor in the garage, which is even sadder. Sorry Roxie.

Mother's Day Out Program Fatigue

I spent about an hour and a half last night and nearly two hours today finally researching MDO programs. I think I emailed everyone within a 20 minute radius that didn't charge so much that we could no longer send Stella to college. I'm sure the "no room at the inn" responses will start rolling in any minute. I do have two solid reason for my procrastination, though, I promise. First, I had a friend who was opening a preschool and I'd planned to use it, but when her rates came out they were too rich for my blood and the opening keeps getting pushed back because of all the red tape involved in opening a childcare center. Secondly, I was having a terrible time of trying to find out where the programs were and who had them. It was like a secret society or something. I finally found a fantastic list at Savvy Source last night (I was there because my friend Jonathon writes for them. He asked Stella and I to participate in a photo op for the local news today and I figured I'd better brush up so I could answer their questions! It's actually a very cool site and I plan to use it more now that I know about it and not just because I know the person who writes for them.) Anyway, I have been emailing programs (almost all religious) across our fine city to see if they have any openings. So far I've already got her on one waiting list that has 50 other kids also waiting, (although I figure surely some of them are no longer two anymore), and I'm going to try and get by today or in the morning to drop off the app and $10 fee for another that only has 5 children waiting (much better odds). The rest haven't responded yet and I figure they may not at all. I guess tomorrow's nap may be spent on the phone. Well, after I take Punky in for more blood work. Fun!
On the bright side, if we get Stella into one of the MDO's run by churches, she can get the religious education she was only marginally getting at church and is now not getting at all since we've stopped going. Ah, we may be heathens but at least there is hope for our progeny!