More random bits

Thanks for all the comments on the Weight Watchers' post. Actually, Kelli and Mindy, you guys were the ones who inspired me to try it! I kept reading about your sucesses, then a neighbor said she'd used it to lose 30 lbs after her youngest was born and I was like, "all right, I'll give it a try!" So far, it is great. I haven't had a weigh-in yet, but my clothes already fit differently. And other than the first 3 days when, as my mother-in-law told me I would, I felt like I was starving to death, I feel satisfied. It's amazing that you can eat anything too, just keep track of the points and don't go over your total. The best part is the 35 points extra they give you a week. With those, there is no way I can feel deprived. In fact, I don't think I'm going to even use them all. My plan is to keep a few extra points on the table each week so that in case I misjudged some portions when I was eating out or something, I'll still be covered. I can't wait until Friday to see how much I've lost. My first goal is 17 lbs, but my overall goal is 35 pounds. Then I would be at the bottom of my healthy BMI range. I started this journey at the top of my healthy BMI range. I can't wait for all my old clothes to fit again, and if I reach my ultimate goal, I'll probably even be able to go a size lower! (I'd be 11 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight and back at the weight I was when I met Tim many moons ago). So exciting!

More exciting news; Karen is going to be able to direct Little Murders after all! LGT is doing it in the fall and I have wanted to produce this play since I first bought it from half price books in college and read it. Because I have my own theatre company, I get to play Patsy to boot! And in Karen's hands, this is going to be a fantastic production, especially since LGT is a little flush with cash from Bitten! (don't worry, as unofficial treasurer, I won't let anyone blow the surplus. "Lockbox" is the watchword). It's a challenging role, I'm a bit nervous, but I know Karen will ride my ass until I get it perfect. That's why I love her, she pushes me to be a better actress. And she's so positive while she does it! I do have a concern because Patsy smokes. I mean, she HAS to smoke, it's in the script and her mother is constantly berating her for it. But I think it's just a couple of times she picks up a cigarette and it's not like I have to really smoke the whole thing. And I won't start smoking as a habit again. No way. I have a very sweet little girl who is the biggest reason I will never be a smoker again.

Speaking of Stella, she is being SO sweet today! Super cute and cuddly and fun and giggly. I love days like this. I really needed to run errands, but between the heat and Stella's great mood, I decided to just stay here and roll around on the floor with her.

So our house didn't sell in 2 hours...

This is probably the first of several posts because I never get to post anymore these days. Depends on how long Stella sleeps.

First of all, I was feeling like a failure the last couple of days because our house didn't sell in a week like it seems everyone else in this town. I realize the rest of the country is in a housing slump, so I shouldn't complain, but when you're in a seller's market like we are and all you ever hear about is the realtor whose last two houses sold in a day, or the coworker who listed on Thursday and had a contract on Saturday at noon, or the Holmeses who sold their old pad in 7 days, you get discouraged when yours is on the market for longer than a week. A week and one day to be exact. And then, even though you try not to take it personally, you get insulted when your realtor tells you that a couple of people were more interested in the BIGGER houses for sale in your neighborhood instead of yours. Even though yours is definitely the prettiest on the outside and probably the prettiest on the inside, judging by the paltry horribly taken pictures THEIR realtors have put up on the internet. And you start to think, "well screw you! What's wrong with you that you don't see how fabulous my house is? If all you want is a gigantic ugly box, then go ahead, buy my neighbor's house." I have almost lost track of how many houses are for sale in our neighborhood. There were already three on the market when we listed last week, then another one went up for sale over the weekend and two more yesterday, one in our actual hood and the other in the north side of Overland Park. So I guess that's 7. Wow. Except for the newest one, which is a one story and isn't on the MLS yet so we don't know their stats, all the houses are bigger than ours. So if people think bigger is better, we're screwed. At least, so far, all of them have either ugly or non-existant landscaping. The one we're really worried about is the one that's 300 square feet bigger and only $2400 more than ours. Our agent toured it and said we're priced right in comparison, but it does make you nervous. Although it helps that it has no mature trees, the landscaping the builder put in 6 years ago, mold on the side of the house, is a hideous grey color, AND they have even STRONGER paint choices than us, like a room with cow spots painted all over it. So hopefully they won't be too bad competition for us.

Having people in and out of your house constantly is a tad stressful. Make that EXTREMELY stressful. They're supposed to give you half an hour notice before they come, but even when they do (which is most of the time, they are actually mostly very considerate), that's still not enough time to get all the blinds open, the lights on, the catbox and diaper pails in the garage, and throw the dogs and the baby in the car. Oh, and don't forget to turn down the a/c to poverty-inducing levels , light the candle, and take down the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs like I do quite often. I am usually dripping with sweat by the time we get in the car. We've had 12 showings, plus 15 people at the open house, and we had a realtor's tour today that brought in 7 realtors, so I think we're actually doing well. A few people have shown some serious interest, but they were at the beginning of their house search, so they wanted to look some more. At least, that's what they told our realtor.

It's funny, because we shouldn't be in any hurry whatsoever to get this house sold. They still haven't poured the foundation at our new house (they're supposedly going to do that Friday), and when Tim asked the sales agent for an estimate on completion, he said, "worst case, October." So I really should try to hold onto this house as long as possible, as nice as my in-laws are being, I think the less time that we're living with them the better. It's just hard to always have the house spotless, although it's also really nice to have your house immaculate all the time. I wonder if I can keep up with that when I don't have a reason. I mean, you use a glass, you clean it, you dirty a surface, you wipe it, you play with a toy, you put it up. It's like having a personal servant and being the personal servant all rolled into one! Other than a virtual tour photographer coming by yesterday and the realtor's tour today, we haven't had any showings since Sunday, and frankly I am happy about that. It's so nice to spend some time in our house!

our room:

office/guest room

deck I wish we could take with usObviously, the photos are from our listing. I think our real estate agent did a damn good job. I mean, I'd buy this house!

Weight Loss, here I come!

Hopefully, anyway. I went to my first Weight Watchers meeting today. I've never done weight watchers, which apparently is pretty rare because they were surprised when I said I'd never been to a meeting. Ever. But I need help getting rid of these last 20 or so pounds left over from Stella. It seems pretty easy, as long as you are diligent about keeping track of points. My first challenge will be tonight at book club. I'll have to resist all the heaps of food and be good. Although I will have a glass or two of wine. I'd give up dinner for that. I mean, you've got to have your priorities:) I REALLY wish I had a laptop again now. It would make keeping track of points so much easier if I could just type it into the online tracker and whammo have it calculate everything for me. As it is, I have to write it all in my horrible handwriting into the little paper tracker and look it up in the list or use my points tracker to calculate, then transfer it online when Stella sleeps. I think the biggest challenge is going to be calculating (and resisting too much of) Tim's delicious dinners. I already blew a large portion of my points on breakfast without realizing it. Perhaps I should have waited until today to go to the grocery store instead of yesterday?

I'm going to try the Friday morning meeting next week, though. Today all the women were at least 20 years older and were talking about their children going off to college and their grandchildren. Apparently Friday mornings are when the mommies go.

We've had two showings of our house. No feedback yet, but I bet their biggest complaint is probably "where's the hard tile in the bathrooms you promised in the listing?" I really wish our realtor had not put that in. Although we are doing it, we're just waiting for the tile people to call and schedule the install. Hopefully soon, it would rock to have the tile in for the open house Sunday!

Two-Way Communication is Weird

In the past, I've always asked Stella questions, but they were really sort of rhetorical. Like, I'd ask, "Do you want to go upstairs?" and then just take her upstairs because it's not like she would answer me. But yesterday, she started answering me! I wanted to give her cheese for her snack, but we only had cheddar and she'd never had yellow cheese before (other than on cheeseburgers when we're out). I asked her if she liked it and she took it, put it in her mouth, cocked her head to the side while she tasted it, then nodded! She ate the rest of the slice happily. Now I've become addicted to asking her questions. "Do you want your snack?" Nod. "Do you want to crawl up the stairs?" Nod. "Do you need a diaper change?" Nod. "Are you sleepy?" Nod. "Do you want to take a nap?" Vigorous head shaking. The cutest thing she's done so far with our new communication system is that we were reading Goodnight Gorilla and I asked her if the Gorilla was going to let out the Armadillo. She nodded yes and then turned the page where, indeed, the Armadillo was the last in line following the zookeeper to his house! I used the book to get her to take a nap like the Gorilla. Hopefully it will work, that would be so cool! This is like the most amazing and the weirdest thing ever. I have confirmed she actually understands me. The strange thing is that now that she actually understands me, I feel weird, like I can't just babble incessantly. I did ask her if she felt that the US should be dealing directly with Poland on the missile defense system and she didn't have a response and actually threw a fit. So I don't know if that's a yes, no or a "I don't understand you so I'm going to get really frustrated!"

Toddlers totally rock!

As promised

You might want to turn your sound down to block out my annoying excited screechings

Life is a Pigsty

So I REALLY miss my laptop. My laptop screen to be exact. I proposed to Tim that we use our birthday money to buy most of a laptop (well, we'd buy the whole thing, but the birthday money would only cover most of it), but he was not on board for that. We can't really spend money on a laptop until the house is bought. Perhaps I could charge Stella per diaper change? I bet I could get a lot of extra cash that way! I'm really sick of having to sneak into the office to check my email when Stella's distracted or sleeping. It's so much easier when I can just do whatever while she plays.

Sorry I haven't gotten the first steps video up yet. I couldn't get to the network for a few days and we were too busy doing house stuff to really get to the bottom of why. Now I'm just too damn busy. But I'm going to try and get it up today! We've finally got the house in shape. The first realtor comes tonight. It looks really dynamite, and I am starting to question why we're leaving at all. Of course, I'm sure that's everyone's reaction when their house looks this clutter-free and clean. Although my mother-in-law would probably not agree about the clean part. She has been great helping us out except for one thing: a lot of snide comments about the state of my house. Which I don't think was that bad, but I think I was allowed to let it slide while I did all the house fix-ups! Plus, we were digging into those places you never go, like under the couch and behind the washer and dryer, kicking up a lot of dust and ick. Oh, well, she's had cleaning ladies since I've known her. I could keep a spotless house too if I had a cleaning lady!

Whoo, I don't think I'm going to last much longer. Since Monday I have had spells of lightheadedness and vertigo. Monday it was really bad, I felt like I was walking at an angle like on those old V-8 commercials, my equilibrium was totally off. This was really bad timing, since we were doing the final push to get the house finished. Luckily, there were just a few things and Tim was able to get most of them done, with me helping out when I could stand upright. It's gotten slightly better, but it's still bad. I'd just read about a 27-year old who had a stroke, so at first I was convinced that was what it was, then Tim thought it could be a reaction to all the chemicals we had been using in the house in our cleaning. I now think (hope) it is a side effect to the new birth control pill I started Sunday or the antibiotic I started Friday. Or a combination of the two. I have a call into the nurse at my doctor's office about that. Anyway, I really don't have time to be sick, and I certainly don't have time for a stroke or an aneurysm!

I'm totally falling apart as I approach the big 3-0. My right foot is kind of swollen on top and on the side and is really hurting (I guess to compliment my left one), and my knee starting hurting yesterday. What the heck is wrong with me?!

I really shouldn't complain. I read an article about this in Oprah's magazine, which Tim's Mom left here (it's really a terrible magazine, even worse than her show, but hey, I don't have internet access while Stella plays). This woman was writing about how she has a tendency to blow minor things into major things and how at least her address isn't in Darfur or the New Orleans' Ninth Ward. Good point! I mean, look at that gorgeous, vibrant, hilarious daughter I've got up there. That shot is of her enjoying the pool at Daniel's birthday party weekend before last.

First Steps!

The most exciting development here at Thomas headquarters is that Stella took her first steps last night! I have tape of the exciting event, I promise to take time out of my closet cleaning and moving boxes out to the garage to get it on here. Tim and I were both there, it was awesome! First she took one step at a time twice without holding on to anything, then she took FOUR steps at once from me to Tim, completely freehanded! We are SO excited, I can't believe that my child walking could fill me with the same excitement as if I had won a big prize. Today Stella turns 14 months, so she walked one day shy of 14 months. It's funny because she started crawling a couple of days before she turned 10 months. I guess she likes to accomplish major milestones just before she has a "mini-birthday".

I think life is about to get a lot more interesting:)

I broke it

I probably will not be posting much because I broke the screen on my laptop. Actually, Tim and I have accepted joint blame for the accident. He left the laptop open on the edge of his desk. I did not realize it was perched so precariously and when I closed it, it took a back flip off the desk. Of course it was about two weeks out of warranty.

Stella has been doing so many cool things lately I keep forgetting to blog about. We told her to eat more food last week and she went, "no no no" while shaking her head. Then Saturday I told her she couldn't have any more of her Grandaddy's food (she'd already had a full lunch), and her face just fell. Like it was so dramatic, first she frowned a little, then a little more, then she added some puppy dog eyes, making sure everyone saw her, and then she started wailing. She didn't stop until I took her upstairs. Then, of course, without an audience she was fine. Although when her Grandaddy came up to put her down for a nap, she produced a few sniffles for him. She also stands on her own for brief periods, although when she realizes what she's doing, she usually stops.

She went swimming for the first time Sunday at little Daniel Quinn's birthday party. She LOVED it. She was tromping all over the place. She was the last baby in and we had to drag her out. I'd post pictures, but I'm on Tim's machine. Don't worry, I'll put some up soon!

Argh!

Apparently I am a lame pirate. I mean the description's great, but "Captain Jenny Bonney"?

My pirate name is:

Captain Jenny Bonney

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Stella the party girl

Stella and Daniel fight over the bottle of bubbles at the park today

Stella is currently calling to me over the monitor from her crib, where I have tried putting her down for her afternoon nap. I'm not real confident it's going to be successful. First, she was calling "Mama" over and over, which is actually a really good way to pull on my heartstrings. She's been able to say Mama for several months, but doesn't use it a lot around me. Today she has been saying it A LOT. So cute. Then she moved on to "Dada", I guess giving up on me, but he's not going to save her because he's at work. Then she went "Whoo-hoo!" like she was having a party up there and trying to lure me in. Now she's just babbling. I don't really think this nap is going to happen, which is why I am blogging instead of doing the 20,000 other things I should be doing. I have a hard time getting started knowing that I'll probably have to stop in like 5 minutes.

Tim said last night "it's so hard living in a construction zone." He is so right. The normal cleaning gets neglected in favor of doing fix-ups and it's easy to just let clutter accumulate because everything's a mess anyway. I get so overwhelmed thinking we'll never have it done. I painted trim and doors for 5 and a half hours yesterday while Tim's Mom watched Stella, and it looks great, but there's still so much more to do. We're going to have to commit to just doing stuff every night, all night and getting fast food so we can get it done. It's a bear, let me tell you. Luckily, Tim's parents have been helping, both by watching Stella and by actually doing work, it's been really nice of them. But my advice: don't move, just stay in your house forever.

Okay, now she's really wailing, guess I'd better go into "abort nap mode".

Okay, now I'm peeved

Why, in any article advocating "natural" childbirth or anything like it, do they have to attack giving birth in a hospital? And paint all births in hospitals as a nightmare of medical intervention where women feel like they were totally ignored and hate birth as a result afterwards? Also, notice how they only share the stories that end in c-sections? Ricki Lake has a new movie out where she talks about how wonderful homebirth is and how awful hospital births are, and I read an article about this movement called "Freebirth" where you hold your lighter up in the air and yell "Play some Skynard!" at the top of your lungs as your baby crowns. Not really. Although, maybe I'll try that next time. Actually, you deliver the baby yourself without any medical intervention. Or midwives, or doulas. Nobody except you and your partner, although your partner is more of an observer than a participant. And of course they describe all medical professionals as evil barbarians who just want to slice you open and yank out your baby, who they then steal away with to a nursery where they pump it full of formula, thereby denying you any hope of bonding with it or breastfeeding it. Yeah, because people get into medicine because they HATE HELPING PEOPLE!

Why does it have to be so either/or? Why can't an article say, "hey, hospitals are great for some people, but for some people they aren't. Why don't you check out my ideas on childbirth and see if they jive with what you're looking for?" I'll tell you why, because for some reason a lot of the people who get the most press are the ones who try to scare you into doing things their way. I'm sure there are midwives and natural birthing advocates, (hey, can I go on a side tangent here and point out that "natural" birth as a term doesn't make a whole lot of sense? Perhaps "non-medical" or "non-medicated" would make more sense. I mean, my baby came out of my lady pocket-more like lady "clutch" at that point-and even if she did it while I had an epidural coursing through my spine and an IV connected to my hand, I still think it was pretty damn natural. Plus natural implies an air of superiority. My friends who had c-sections don't love their babies a lick less than the ones who gave birth vaginally, either medicated or not medicated.), who see their way is just another option for pregnant women, but you never hear from them. I applaud women who go the non-medicated route, good for you, you go girl, but I am tired of people saying that everyone who goes to the hospital has a terrible experience. Other than the hospital being full when I got there, I had a great birth experience in a wonderful hospital. I like to share my experience with as many pregnant women as possible because they hear so many damn negative stories.

All I'm saying is, why do we have to be tearing each other down all the time? Can't we all just get along?

My friend Al is one of the funniest people in Austin!

We had a great night last night. We went out to celebrate our 8th Wedding Anniversary while Tim's parents stayed with Stella. First we went to Pappadeaux, (thanks to Christine, Brian, Caroline and Daniel for the gift certificate), for dinner, then we went to the Capital City Comedy Club to watch our friend Al Im compete in the semifinals for the Funniest Person in Austin contest. It was a blast, not only was Al HI-larious, there were a lot of other really funny people performing as well. AND we were so happy that Al was chosen to compete in the finals next week! He was the very last name called, so it was a bit tense there, I'm sure Al was about to crap his pants. I don't know if we'll make it or not next week, we have to see whether our on-call babysitters, aka grandparents, are up to it, and I think they sell out fast, but I'm so glad we got to see him this week. I know Al will kick some butt, go Al!

Wow, I was hot!

I was looking at old photos because my mother's school is putting together a scrapbook for her retirement and has like 3 photos of her teaching from the 21 years she's been there. I'm not surprised, my Mom's not really into that. In fact, I think she wishes they would just let her go quietly without hoopla, but this chick at her school is just not letting it go. First she called last Thursday, then she emailed me this morning to check in. Chill, woman, I've got a one-year-old and a house I'm trying to put on the market, plus yesterday was Mother's Day! But anyway, I found like no pictures, but I did find some pictures of me from high school, particularly my senior year. Dude, I was a stone cold fox! I mean, I realize this is incredibly conceited of me to say, but I was! I sure wish I could have realized and appreciated that fact at the time. I wish I could go back in time to my high school self and tell her, "you are quite the little hottie, even if no guys ask you out, enjoy it, because next year you're going to college and you'll gain the freshman fifteen and you will never, ever, look this good again. And in college, you will get some male attention, so don't fret so hard." Ah, youth.

These are days

when you really wish you could just send them back. When if someone told you they were considering children, you'd tell them to get a Sharpei instead. Stella woke up at 7:10am and since then she has been awake, except for a brief 20 minute nap in the car. She would not go down for her morning nap, which put Mama in a bad mood because Mama uses Stella's nap time to take a shower and clean the kitchen and sometimes, if she's lucky, have a cup of coffee. See, that's Mama time. And apparently, without Mama time, Mama goes a bit crazy and yells at the dogs for barking. Right around noon, Stella and the dogs were taking turns. Stella would cry, then I'd get her happy, but then Roxie would bark, and then she'd stop and then Lucy would pick it up. And then the cycle would start all over again. Actually, Stella's in a pretty good mood this afternoon, she's like the baby energizer bunny, but even as she rubs her eyes, and flops on the floor, she won't go to sleep. So my house is in a shambles and I've got a headache. Some of her no napness is probably my fault. Tim convinced me to go out to lunch with him, so she got the little sleep she's gotten in the car, rather than at home where she probably would have slept longer. But I really needed to get out of the house. Huh, I think she's trying to eat my thigh right now. Tasty!

Sorry to bitch, that was a really annoying post. Enjoy this cute picture of Stella trying to attack Daniel to take your mind off how annoying it was:

It wasn't all bad. This morning she was rocking Rupert, a little stuffed monkey of Tim's, back and forth in her arms like it was a baby. Of course, then she slammed Rupert into the ground repeatedly while holding onto his tail like he was bungee-jumping without a long enough rope. I think she's been watching Lucy with Bobo too much. She also was using her box of blocks to get leverage to climb onto her leap frog table. She actually suceeded in getting one leg up there.

Okay, I best go, happy baby juice has worn off and she's doing that cry/cough thing that will probably persist until her Daddy gets home in 1 hour and 50 minutes. But who's counting;)

Weird dream

I had a really weird dream last night that I was in the Army and I'd been sent to Iraq. My friend Jessica, of all people, who is even girlier than me, was also in the Army and had been there longer and thus became my mentor. We were loading up our trucks to move to another place and everyone in our unit was really nervous because, well, we were in Iraq. Although Iraq looked a lot like a high school hallway. We were looking around for anything suspicious when suddenly several men jumped out of lockers and we knew they were going to set off a bomb. Jessica and I, as well as anyone else around all ran back through these big heavy metal doors into the building and ran as far as we could away from the bomb. But of course my legs weren't working properly, and it was like I was running through Jello, like it always is in dreams, and as I was running I yelled out, "I never should have come here!" Well, duh. That was a bizaarre dream. I think it had to do with a bit I read last night in a Sam Bass program about how they were raising money to buy proper body armor for a kid who was going to Iraq with the Marines. He'd acted in their theatre since he was a wee lad and his mom is Renee Brown, a local actress who some of you may know. It was very sad. I hope they raise the money, but it's dispicable that the US Government doesn't give their soldiers the proper protection for battle.

Stella's eating phone book pages. I wonder if that's bad for her?

So, we're weaned. Tim and I went ahead and gave her a little pat when we went to bed because I hadn't seen her since I'd put her down for her nap at 4:30. Then she went back to sleep, but woke up twice, I think at about 5 and then again at 6. Tim dealt with her, so I don't know exactly what time it was. It's kind of crazy that she's pretty much sleeping from 8pm to 7am now. I must not have had any milk left because I don't feel even the slightest bit engorged. I did cry before we went to bed last night because it felt so final, and I tried to talk my way out of going through with it. But I was strong (Tim helped), and resisted. So I now have a fully weaned toddler. Who wants her to spend the night with them first? :)

My 24 Pounder and last? dispatch on weaning

So I weighed Stella this morning because she was feeling especially heavy and from our unscientific, "I get on the scale, then pick her up and we get on the scale together" method, she weighs 24 pounds! Wow, no wonder she's so heavy.

Also, we MAY be done with nursing. Last night Tim was like, "is this the last night we're doing this?" and I was like, "I think so." I kind of thought Saturday night was the last night and extra-special savored it, but we went ahead with last night too because she wasn't double-diapered. I think I'm okay with being done with breastfeeding, but I know that both Tim and I will miss the extra special cuddly time with Stella right before we go to bed, but it will also be nice to not worry when people are watching her if she'll wake up fussing before we get home. Also, I'm already really enjoying wearing regular bras. Goodbye dingy nursing bras! BUT, if we have too much trouble with her, I'm not ruling out doing a couple of more nights of nursing to make sure everyone involved gets some sleep. For the most part, though, I'm ready to say goodbye to this part of our relationship. It's been a wonderful, incredible thing and I have really enjoyed it especially once the marathon nursing sessions of the first couple of months were over. Being able to sustain your child with milk from your own body was even more amazing than I thought it would be. And weaning over a very gradual period of a couple of months has made it a much easier process.

I looked in Stella's mouth this morning and she is cutting FOUR teeth on top! She's been cutting one of them for weeks, then it was two, then 3, now four! I guess she's making up for lost time. Soon she'll have 6 teeth total.

Oh, that was gross and adorably cute. Stella just let some of the milk dribble back out of her mouth and down her chin. It was bubbly and looked like a white beard.

7 Random Facts about ME!

Kelli tagged me for this one, I feel really special:) And I mean that in a non-sarcastic, non-Eddie Haskell way! Warning, I have had one (1) Boddingtons, so my typing skills are not at their peek. Nor my mental skills.

Here are the rules: Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. You need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

1) I am double-jointed in my thumbs. I used to pop them all the time when I was a kid, but they started to ache, so now I almost never do it because the feeling makes my skin crawl.

2) My best friend in high school, Josh, told me when I was a sophomore that his other friends thought I was mean, so after that I always made (and I think still continue to make), an effort to be nice. Although it's not an effort anymore or anything I am conscious of.

These are really lame facts. Sorry guys, it's just stuff that's popping into my head that I have not shared before on this blog. My thumbs now hurt because I was trying to show Tim what I can do with them, but he wasn't looking anyway. Ow.

3) I cannot believe I am sharing this. In high school, my same friend Josh told me that if I hadn't lost my virginity by the time I was 16, he would do the honors. I had the date written on the calendar and everything. This is pretty sad, but in my defense, I was only 14. Luckily, he came out as gay so I did not have to take him up on his offer.

this is difficult

4) I hate the vast majority of rollercoasters. It all started when I was 9 and my father and I went on Space Mountain at Disney World as my first rollercoaster. I was so scared, I yelled things at my father that one should never yell at their parent. Lots of expletives, I'm afraid. Well, expletives a 9-year-old knows. Tim did not believe how scary I found them until we went on the Joker at Fiesta Texas and I screamed and cried and had my eyes shut the entire time. I simply do not like the sensation of falling and not knowing what's going to happen next. There are a few I enjoy. Excalibur at Astroworld (oh, no, Astroworld is gone, I'm suddenly very sad!), XLR-8, also at Astroworld (you were hanging from the track, so it felt more secure), and the runaway Mine train at both Disney World and 6 Flags Dallas. I've also ridden Greased Lightening at Astroworld a couple of times and found it scary, but yet exhilarating.

5) I played bassoon in 6th-8th grades.

6) I was on Pep Squad in 9th grade and tried out for the drill team, the Starlettes, at the end of the year. The audition song was "Move Any Mountain" by The Shamen. I so horribly botched my audition, I couldn't listen to that song for years without bursting into tears. The way you would find out whether you made it or not is that we all filed into the gym, and there was an envelope with our name on it. You'd open the envelope and if you got a little boot, you were a Starlette. If you got a horrible little prayer that basically said, "Right now you feel miserable and like your life is over, but tomorrow is another day and you will wake up and go on", you didn't make it. And you started bawling. Even if you had resolved to be stoic in the face of adversity. But my mother still gave me balloons and flowers and let me stay home from school the next day. Yep, my parents rock.
A similiar thing happened the next year when I auditioned for Winterguard and the audition song was "Under the Bridge" by The Red Hot Chili Peppers, but I was more sick of that song than anything else.

7) I have been known to talk in my sleep. I know that one's boring, but dinner is ready. I'll give you bonus fact to make up for it: my middle name is Denise.

So I tag: Travis, Ashley, Tim, Tara, Erin, Julie and Marsha

The worst nightmare ever

I had the worst nightmare I've ever had in my life early this morning. I've decided not to go into details because to put it into black and white would remind me of it more, but suffice to say, something very bad happened to Stella. It was such a horrible dream that when I woke up I couldn't even really cry, although I was relieved it was just a nightmare. Luckily Stella woke up about 2 minutes after I had it, so I was able to go get her and hold her and get some really good cuddle time which helped me forget about it. But it is so frightening what your subconscious can hold!

I'm sure this has something to do with the fantastic play I saw last night, Women of Lockerbie. It was brilliantly acted and a really moving and well-written play. But it was all about a mother who could not move past the grief of losing her son in the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. It was really about an entire city who couldn't shake the grief and it was drama done right, I tell you that.

And on a completely different topic, I forgot to blog about how much freakin' fun we had last weekend! My parents watched Stella while we went to Dog and Duck Friday night with Bill, Jessica and Sean and Anna, who'd all come to see Anton. (Anna's parents were in town.) The Flarsons and us could not believe that we were at a bar. Who even knew they still existed?! I for one had missed them, to be sure. I also ran into peeps from Blue Fish, it felt good to talk to them and I found out they are still having happy hours and I'm going to try and go to them again.

Then Saturday night was Tara's excellent birthday party. I was so tired I thought I'd barely make it to midnight. WRONG! We were there until after 2am. We've just got such great friends, it was hard to leave! We had the most fun winding yarn, playing wii, eating Jeff's fabulous food and having great conversation, including learning about bizaarro Ian's handcuff related injury. I really must dig up bizaaro Ian's email address and add him to the party invite list. He and his girlfriend Mary seem worth violating the "only one person for each name in a group" rule. (There really isn't such a rule, I just made it up.)

This is the band photo for Saturday night. Doesn't it look like Bizaaro Ian is shooting death rays at Susann and she is trying to fight him off with a smile?

Very empty

I made the mistake of removing all the stuff from the top of our cabinets yesterday afternoon. I thought, "well it had to be done sooner or later." I should have done it later. The vast emptiness depresses me. We removed all the photos from the stairs last week, and that was kind of a bummer, but the top of the kitchen cabinets really looks blank. And dusty. Wow, was that area dusty. And not just dusty, but dust glued on with kitchen grease. Yuck. In the new house I pledge to dust the tops of the cabinets at least once a year. I think last time I did it was over 5 years ago when I was unemployed and I cleaned a LOT of stuff I haven't cleaned since. I think I will be spending the rest of the week cleaning off the top of the cabinets. And trying to find new stuff to put up there that is more to a buyer's liking. Hell, I have no clue what a buyer will like. What if someone exactly like Tim and I comes in and would have loved the old way everything looked and is turned off by how boring it is now? Then won't we feel stupid.

So it's not odd that I'm depressed by the cabinets, I'm kind of feeling down about everything these days. I think it's related to weaning and all my hormones going haywire from that, as well as PMSing (sorry about the TMI). We cut out all the day feedings a few weeks ago, but I'd waited to tackle anything at night until after my show closed. We were going to cut the feeding out before we go to bed, but we forgot to double diaper her Monday night before she went to bed, so we had to wake her up to do that. Then she slept until 7:30am! So we decided to just cut out the early morning feeding instead, since I hated that one anyway. Tuesday night she woke up at 5:30 and I went in and tried to get her back to sleep, which didn't work, so I changed her and held her and rocked. She kept trying to cuddle into my chest. So I put her in her crib where she cried and went to fill up two sippys, one with water and one with milk. By the time I came back upstairs, Tim had waved his magic wand and she was back asleep. And stayed that way. Then she slept until 7:25 this morning. Yay! So next week it's that last feeding, the one at about 11pm, which both Tim and I love. Tim changes her and cuddles with her while I get ready for bed. Then I walk into her room and Stella and her Daddy are lying on a pillow in the floor, cuddling and sleeping. It's so adorable, I must get a picture before we stop doing it! Although my hormones are messed up, I'm actually fine with the weaning thing, I think I'm ready. I mean, she's so obviously a toddler, and I can separate breastfeeding as something we did when she was a baby. So I think I'll be okay. Although I saw a 10.5 week old last night and he was ADORABLE! I think I scared Tim when I came home raving about how cute he was. But don't worry, there's a few years before another little monkey is on the horizon.

Oh, and on the magazine meme, I forgot my subscription to Gourmet because Tim uses it, and Tim's to Smithsonian, both from Tim's grandmother, because no one reads it, except very occassionally when there is an interesting article. This morning Stella was enjoying ripping it apart, so at least someone gets some use out of it!

Magazine Meme

Travis tagged me for this one. I'm with him on MeMe's, I enjoy them. Even if I don't know how to pronounce meme. So basically this is what magazines you subscribe to. I have way cut back on my magazine consumption, but I still have a few.

Spin: I have subscribed to Spin since I was 13, pretty much the whole time, except for a couple of years in college when they didn't properly forward my subscription and so whoever was the inhabitant of Room 503 in Kinsolving got a free 18 issues or so. This magazine has turned me onto so many musicians. I bought Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville after Spin kept going on about how incredible it was. I had not heard a single song by Ms. Phair before buying the album. Same thing with PJ Harvey's To Bring You My Love. I hadn't heard a single song, but their glowing reviews and articles convinced me I needed it to be part of my cd collection. Now, thanks to the internet and The Next Big Thing, I usually don't buy albums without having heard a single song, but I still take their recommendations very seriously. I bought The Editors, having only heard one song, after they named it one of their top 40 albums for last year. I wasn't disappointed. They had a couple of issues several months ago where they put crap like Beyonce on the cover and I was afraid they were going "mainstream", but luckily that didn't last long. They still have shitty bands like Fall Out Boy on the cover, but I know that's just to lure in newsstand readers.

Rolling Stone: Rolling Stone pretty much sucks, but they gave me a free subscription through my Salon subscription. So we've got a music magazine for both the upstairs bathroom and the downstairs bathroom. And in an emergency, we could use Rolling Stone for toilet paper, I don't think we'd miss anything.

The Alcalde: I get this because I have a lifetime membership in the Texas Exes. I don't really know what "the alcalde" is or how to pronounce it, but I always look at the baby announcements in the back, mostly to make fun of the bizarre names people give their kids. Then I look at the wedding announcements. Then I skim through for interesting articles. There are usually at least one, but sometimes there are several. I also like to look at the tacky, I mean gorgeous, items you can purchase with the UT seal or a longhorn on them. One day I WILL have an entire set of burnt orange bone china.

Parents Magazine: I think I paid $11.99 for a 3 year subscription to this. I'm embarassed to say I actually really enjoy reading it. It has a lot of good suggestions, and when that fails, lots of opportunities for me to feel I'm not doing that bad as a parent, "We'd only been eating fish sticks and lard for dinner, but then I read your article on healthy eating, and now once a week we eat a vegetable. Thanks Parents!" Although it's totally sexist. It assumes that Dad is a lazy, sexist butthead who thinks parenting is "women's work" and has suggestions like: "Dad, to give your wife a break, why don't you change the baby's diaper and spend 10 minutes with it so mom can take a shower!" It also only addresses women. Like men would NEVER read the magazine. Although, maybe I am really that lucky and have the only involved Dad on earth as a husband, but somehow I don't think that is true or else I'd hear a lot more bitching from at least the moms I know.

Ah, behold the power of dinner

In an attempt to reach a world record for most posts in a day, I would like to report that Stella is doing much better after dinner and a Sam Adams. She had the dinner, I had the Sam Adams. The Sam Adams was left over from my Dad's SXSW visit (thanks Dad!) and was found hiding behind the crisper for just a day such as this. Stella also took a big crap that seemed to involve a lot of effort, so perhaps that was contributing to her discomfort. But in any case, she is back to her adorable, sweet self!

9ish? 9ish!

So I just picked up my computer for the first time in a while, since I've been trying to console Stella for almost the past hour. She has been throwing a huge hissy fit since she woke up from her nap and no matter what I do, or don't do, it seems to continue. If we were not under a flash flood and tornado watch, I would take her to the park, but unfortunately that's not an option. So I pick up my computer and there is an IM from Tim saying "see you 9ish!" 9ish! I will have gone insane by then! See, he has an HOA meeting tonight, which I knew, but I thought he'd stop by at 7 and pick up his car, so I could at least hand Stella off for two minutes and go scream before I had to take her back. But I guess he's doing the bus for the whole thing. Whee! Her dinner keeps getting pushed forward earlier and earlier because it keeps her occupied during what I used to call her "witching hour". Now I call it her "Devil's Baby" two hours. It all goes away as soon as her Daddy walks in the door at 7. But until then, whoo boy, it's almost constant screaming. She is now trying to close my laptop. But she's not happy whether I pay attention to her or not, so I might as well multi-task.

Stella climbs the stairs

Stella discovered out to climb the stairs Saturday when my parents were here. Now she wants to do it All. The. Time! Check it out:

More babbling about our new house

So we walked through the model home with our floorplan Sunday and took pictures. The model is now sheetrocked, so you can see how it actually resembles a home. Do keep in mind that our house is reversed, so when you actually see our home one day, it will be flipped from what is in these pictures. (What's on the left will be on the right and vice versa.)

The Great Room, which is actually pretty great:

The kitchen:

The Master Bedroom, which is actually pretty small and is going to take some getting used to after our palacial bedroom right now. All I care is that our king-sized bed better fit in there!

Cool Coffered (sp?) Ceiling in our bedroom:

Stella's Bedroom, which is bigger than ours:

It has two closets, one of which I'm sure will be used for LGT stuff -or Tim's stuff, since we have to share a closet in the master;)

There are more rooms, but I didn't take pictures or they weren't that exciting.

We're also continuing to work on getting this house ready to put on the market. Last night we primed the downstairs bathroom. So no more blue:( I forgot to take pictures, too, which makes me sad, so it will just have to live on in our memory.

One more bonus photo. This is looking up in the backyard from where Stella's eventual swingset will most likely be:

So as she swings, this will be her view!

I feel all warm and fuzzy...

...when someone reviews the play I'm in and singles me out as someone to say something bad about. That makes me feel great, let me tell you! The review is overall good, even if 2/3rds of it are basically just a rehash of the plot of the play and the reviewer relating herself to the play. The last paragraph she rushes to mention some of the actors and says this about me: "As the cowboy Ben, who leaves his wife, Julie Winston-Thomas is a little unbelievable and out of place in the production, but only because the script calls for it." Thanks! Especially since everyone who has seen the play has said that I was surprisingly believeable in the role, even though I'M NOT A MAN! In fact, my own husband said that was his favorite character I play, the most believeable. And he came the same night as Ms. Hadad! And trust me, he'd be honest. And what's up with insulting me and then saying "but only because the script calls for it"? Huh? Then why mention it at all!

I've actually never had this happen, exactly, although in high school I was in a UIL One-Act production of Dancing at Lughnasa where I was the only one of the sisters not to get an award. That kind of sucked. Although you don't remember Kate, she's the rock. No one remembers the rock. Sometimes I start to think I just can't act, but then I keep getting cast. So if I really sucked, no one would cast me, right? Especially those who had worked with me. Like if I just auditioned really well?

If you want to read the full review, it's here, but warning, it contains spoilers in the very first paragraph if you haven't seen the play. So you might want to wait. Or skip to the last paragraph when they talk about how much I suck. I'd like to point out that the director did not give me even one suggestion for my characterization of a man, beyond "watch how men swagger", I had to come up with it completely on my own. I never got feedback from her during the rehearsal process as to whether it was good or not. And as I am not able to view myself from outside myself, I wasn't able to change anything if it didn't work. So I maintain it's not really my fault that Ms. Hadad didn't like it. Oh well, I should at least consider myself lucky that the bitch who reviewed Bitten! didn't review this one, I'd probably be wanting to slit my wrists right now. Actually, she hasn't reviewed anything in a while, apparently they decided to take her off reviews. Hmm, I wonder why? Could it be her vitriol?

I'm having a hard time scaring up any excitement about doing the show tonight because of my bad review. Hopefully that will go away. And hopefully I'll remember my lines!

Why don't we just live here forever?

So we went and met with the builder yesterday and they are expecting our new house to be done end of August, at the latest. To me, that actually means, end of August at the soonest and that would be just fine with me. We got to walk through the model like ours and it's much smaller than I imagined. Tim says I'm just being Albert Brooks in "Lost in America", and he's probably right, but the rooms just looked so small. Funny since I complain about the rooms in this house being too big. Go figure. Anyway, the sales lady who showed us around was like, "is your house on the market?" "No." "Girl, you need to get that house on the market! This is the season when people buy houses because kids are out of school!" I gave some lame defenses, but she's 100% right. So we're madly trying to get everything done that needs to be done. It can seem so overwhelming. Tim pointed out we used to have endless energy for this sort of thing. Of course, that was until a certain little small two-legged creature came along and zapped that energy with her baby-ray. Also, dammit, I know you have to "spend money to make money" (I watch 'Buy Me'), but all this money we're spending for fix-ups (new doorknobs, paint, carpet cleaning), sucks. We've already decided instead of replacing the carpet we're going to offer a carpet allowance. So that's another 2 or 3k off our profit. And people keep putting their houses up for sale in our neighborhood and offering them for a bowl of cat food and a potted plant. I swear, STOP SELLING YOUR HOUSE FOR CHEAP! We don't need those cheap comparables bringing down our asking price. We like the comparable two houses over that sold for $198k and the one last year down the street that sold for $250k. Of course, both of those are substantially larger than our house, but I still like those apples better than the freakin' huge house in the north section of our neighborhood that just went on the market for $169,900. The listing does say 'SOLD AS IS, NO WARRANTY', so it's probably a crap bucket, but still, how bad could a six-year old house be? Also, both it and the house down the street that's up for $179,900 (again, much larger than ours), back up to the train. And they don't have nice landscaping. And they have brick, not stone. So hopefully all the extras about our house will work for it, even if it's smaller than these others. But we're going to try and work, work, work and hopefully start talking with realtors by mid-May. I realized that after you sell, you still have like 30 days before you close, so we need to sell this house!

"Mom, you just don't listen to me!"

So I think I'm a little dense. Stella was being fussy, and kept pointing at the fridge. I showed her the pictures on the fridge and then took her away from the fridge, at which point she threw a fit. Then I held her on my lap at the table and she pointed at her high chair. I put her in it and she was happy for thirty seconds, then fussy again. I decided to change her diaper and she cried and she started doing the sign for milk. "Oh, she must be hungry!" I thought there was no way she was ready for snack since her lunch was just 3 hours ago, but I guess she didn't feel like sticking to her 4 hours between lunch and snack schedule. So I fed her and she's happily and greedily drinking her milk right now. Hopefully she'll stay in a good mood now.

It's amazing how communicative she's getting now. I just have to decipher what she's doing!

Post-Opening and Foot Update

So opening went well last night. We actually had an audience, and a couple of them even laughed, including my friend Christina, who got all the in-theatre jokes because she's an actress. That was really nice. It wasn't my most brilliant performance ever, but definitely went pretty darn smoothly, especially considering that we had only run the whole thing twice! The chick who helps me get dressed did forget to zip my boot, so I did go out in my last scene with a boot kind of flapping out to the side, but that was minor.

I wound up getting in to see a different podiatrist today and he was really nice and thorough. He spent a lot of time with me seeing exactly what hurt. And he diagnosed me. Apparently I have really high arches and so the bone/ligament that connects to my big toe, which is supposed to be doing twice the work of the rest of my toes, is not pulling its weight because it's so much higher because of my high arches. So the ligament in the middle of my foot has finally had it and is screaming in pain. He put a wrap on my foot that is already helping immensely and I'm supposed to see him again in 3 weeks, at which time if the wrap helps, we'll talk about a permanent shoe insert. So the good news is that I know what's wrong finally, the bad news is that it sounds like it is probably a life-long problem:( He also tested my reflexes and apparently I have hyper-reflexes, which combined with my high arches, led him to refer me to a neurologist because that's often a marker for people with neurology problems or something. I think he's just young and going a little overboard. I would prefer not to bother with the neurologist at all, but I figure he'll ask me about it when I go back in 3 weeks, so I guess I'd better try and go. We have definitely been spending a LOT of time in doctor's offices this year!

My Life as a Cripple

I just called the podiatrist's office because even though it has not been the two weeks my G.P. told me to wait before calling the podiatrist's office, the pain in my foot keeps getting worse and in fact spread to my right foot yesterday. It's very difficult to limp with both feet. I couldn't get an appointment until May 8th. At this rate, I'll be in a wheelchair before then.

Opening Night tonight!

So Anton opens tonight. Hopefully all will go smoothly. I actually made all my costume changes last night in our final run, so that seems to be a good sign. Hope everyone can make it!

Picture of a house like ours!

We took Tim's parents to the models today and I finally remembered to snap a photo of a house like ours, with our elevation. Although it doesn't have the cute framing in the garage door. I sure hope we get that, I will be most upset if we don't, although Tim said he will get some balsa wood and do it for me if we don't. The colors are not right, but you've seen those already. Here's another one like ours, but without the shutters:

Plus you have to imagine a lot more trees. The north version of our neighborhood is almost tree-less.

We've got a start date!

First, to Kelli's comment on my last post, does this mean they'll move in with us next? Eek! ;) Although we may actually wind up living with them between when we sell this house and our new house is ready; they generously offered to let us stay there and store all our stuff. Which is really nice. Of course, they bought a 5 bedroom house, so unless they have boarders or something, they should have some extra room.

So Tim finally emailed the sales guy at our new neighborhood to see about when we'd have a start date. We were supposed to hear from them a week and a half ago, but nothing. We call the sales guy Andy, which is short for Andrew McCarthy, who he looks like exactly. He acts like him too, but he's kind of slimy like James Spader. Can you tell we watch a lot of 80's movies? Anyway, they ARE running behind (probably because we've had the wettest Spring ever), and our start date is April 26th. We'll probably meet with the builder Monday or Tuesday. So exciting! I can finally answer people when they ask when is your house going to be ready. Also, we need to get our butts in gear with improvements on this house, we haven't done crap!

Also, can I just say I love Fisher Price? Tim's Mom, Stella and I went to Toys R' Us yesterday and Stella's Baba got Stella her birthday and Christmas gifts, which are so cool! She got a Fisher Price Barn, Fisher Price School Bus, and a set of blocks. The Fisher Price School Bus has a hispanic bus driver named Carlos, an African American kid named Mike and a little white girl named Maggie. They all fit in the wheelchair that comes with the kit. FP is so multi-culti. But all the farmers are white. In fact, I think they're all blond. Weird. So I guess the lesson is that brown children can ride the bus and be differently-abled, but they can't raise cows.

Walking, Walking, Walking

On happier news, Stella is pushing her little push-toy all over the place. She just pushes it where she wants to go while she walks, doesn't matter if it's facing the right way or not, she just forces it. It's adorable. I think she's going to walk any day now, and then, watch out!

Also, she discovered how to pull the water filter out of the fridge. How, I have no clue, it just looks like part of the fridge, but apparently not to a baby.

Roxie has not learned to get out of the way when Stella comes at her with the push-toy. Poor old, senile, deaf Roxie.

Allrighty, then!

I'm sure that has been the subject of a previous post, but anyway, just to update, Tim's parents' put an offer on a house in the neighborhood across the street. So they most likely will be living there. On the other hand, Tim's mom is watching Stella tonight so I can go to rehearsal and Tim can go to a programming class our friend Matt Howell from college is teaching. And Stella was driving me crazy so she came over early (they're at a hotel right now) so I could run lines. So there are definitely some advantages...

And for those of you who they might want to surprise with their house news, you never saw this;)

What a Weekend!

I am tired, tired, tired! In addition to having 2.5 hours of rehearsal every night this weekend, my in-laws were in town and we went and looked at a buttload of houses with them. It's fun to look at houses, but it's also very tiring, especially with my bum foot. Yesterday we looked from 2:30 to 6:30. 4 Hours may not sound like much, but all the houses were in a 5 mile radius. There was very little time spent in the car. All this walking through houses and it looks like they still have their hearts set on the neighborhood across the street from us. It's just so close! But they want a new house that's close to downtown and is on a bus route. This is not easy to find. We went out to Belterra Saturday, which was beautiful, but Tim's Mom decided it was too far from town for Tim's Dad. Despite this fact she still had us look at like 3 houses there.

It's weird because they act like they're absolutely in love with any house they look at, like I think they're about to get out the checkbook and sign an offer, but then we leave and they're eventually like, no. Yesterday we looked at 3 houses in Grand Oaks, the neighborhood across the street, like 5 or 6 houses in Sweetwater Glen which is a newer and cheaper version of the neighborhood across the street, and The Oak at Twin Creeks, which is a gorgeous hill country-like high end neighborhood on South First off of Slaughter. Once again, Tim's mom acted like it was absolutely gorgeous, we went through 3 or 4 houses, and then it turns out nope, Grand Oaks is still the favorite. I suggested scores of neighborhoods for them, and especially since they kept saying they wanted a view, I thought The Oak would be perfect. It's the closest you can get to the hill country close in. But I think "a view" to them just means some trees because that's all Grand Oaks has to offer and that's their favorite. It's a lot to get used to, having your in-laws live in town with you, and having them right across the street is going to make it that much more difficult. But I don't feel like I can say no, since they just are so completely head over heels in love with it, so much so they won't even consider anywhere else. Sigh.

Ah, and it's Monday, God, I hate Monday, Stella is being just awful today!

Why, oh why do I post on that stupid list?

So I belong to a Yahoo! group that's for moms in Austin. I don't post frequently or with the fervor of a lot of the moms on the list. I don't go to the happy hours or the goddess gatherings or the playgroups (okay, I went to one, but most of them are during Stella's naptime and in strange parts of town). But I skim the digests, post questions when I have them, and answer people's questions when I feel I have some wisdom to impart. I need to stop doing this because apparently I have no wisdom.

First, a week ago, this chick who I knew from yoga, and who annoyed me endlessly in person, and then annoys me often on the list, said she was looking for a house down south but was worried it was "full of gun-toting Republicans" (south austin, not the house). I ignored this comment, and despite the fact that I know that me and this chick are like oil and water, I responded about our great neighborhood, saying "no gun-toting Republicans here. Just a nice, family-oriented neighborhood that is one giant cul-de-sac. We've got a couple of houses for sale." Period, that's it. Well she responds on list "That neighborhood has always weirded me out. I mean, who wants to pattern a neighborhood after Overland Park, Kansas. I mean, the street names are all places from that town which sucks and the main street is the site where settlers "converted" (slaughtered) the indians". I was livid! WTF, insulting someone's home? And what the hell, our neighborhood is not patterned on Overland Park, just the street names and the neighborhood name are. I wouldn't even have known that's where "Overland Park" came from, if my friend Josh, who is from Kansas, hadn't come over and remarked on it. Okay, biotch, whatever, it's on! But I contained my rage because I don't want to be flamed off the list and she's more popular than I am, but I couldn't resist saying, "If street names are more important to you than living in a nice neighborhood, then yes, you should look elsewhere." Or something like that. And then I didn't read the emails for a while because I was actually livid about the whole thing and it cost me some sleep. Ridiculous, huh?

So then today this girl posts about how she's moving from Las Vegas and what are good areas in Austin to live in? She says that her budget is the low $100's (dream on, sister!), and that she wants at least half an acre so they can build on the house. Also, at least 1200 sq. ft. Then she mentions that she's an actor and she would want to teach classes and direct. She said her real estate agent had found places in Leander and Round Rock that fit her budget. So I write a nice email that I thought extensively about, about how Austin keeps going up, up, up in price, which is the bad news, but the good news is that both Round Rock and Leander have active community theatres and that I had a theatre company and would be happy to help her/answer any questions she had about the tight knit theatre community we have here. Well Bitch responds with "I'm Equity, so I can only do professional theatres. I've submitted my resume for teaching at Zach Scott (and some other place I'd never heard of)" Well, okay, good for you, pat yourself on the back! And good luck breaking into the "world of nepotism" that exists at the "professional theatres" in town!

Okay, time for dinner, enough ranting. I am offering no more advice.

Stella vs. a Lime

Here it is, as promised. Stella "enjoying" her lime in Fredericksburg.

Fast Blog

So I won't be blogging as much and haven't been because I'm really concentrating on working on my script for Anton. We open next Thursday, a week and two days, eek! Also, Stella's being a bit clingy. But I missed forcing my random thoughts on others, so rather than working on my script, I'll blog quickly and in no particular order:

1) "Prayerfully Consider _______" This is our church's guilt card. They're always using it to try and guilt us into doing things, as in, "prayerfully consider donating more money to our church (so we don't go under)" or "prayerfully consider chairing one of our 2,000 committees that we have for a membership of 100", or the latest from my friend Todd who is moving to Mexico in May with his family, "prayerfully consider taking over my sunday school class after I move." I was all set just to respond with no, are you crazy?, I have tons going on and that is Stella's nap time, but then I got to that line in his email and so now I have to "prayerfully consider" it first. We're kind of annoyed at our church right now. Easter Sunday had lots of beautiful music, but prior to that they'd been putting aside the hymns for very simple "contemporary" songs. Blech. Also, we've been having to read the Lord's Prayer off the overhead because they've decided to do a more contemporary version. That actually may drive me to another church if they keep that up. I like the fact that no matter where you go, almost everyone can recite the Lord's Prayer from Memory. I think it's really beautiful.

2) Stella has a love/hate relationship with limes I'll have to get the video up eventually, but while we were in Fredericksburg, Tara gave her a lime. Stella kept licking it, and then like shivering because it was so tart, but then she'd lick it again. It was adorable.

She also had sausage and mashed potatoes, both for the first time, and she ate them up like they were crack. Tim couldn't cut up the sausage with the butter knife fast enough. AND she got to enjoy her first Oompa band. Here she is throwing back her water as Tara throws back her beer. Sausage makes you thirsty! Stella was incredibly well behaved and we had a really fun roadtrip. Yay for sausage and beer and good friends!

3) More mysterious ailments This time it's my foot. It has been hurting for about the past week. I don't remember injuring it in any way, and at first I thought it was just because I'd been wearing really cheap flat flip flops too much. But then yesterday it started to get really bad, like I couldn't put weight on it, so I made a doctor's appointment, and then today it was swollen a little bit on top. So they did xrays, but nothing's broken. Basically, something's probably irritated and the doctor gave me a prescription for prescription strength Aleve. If it's still hurting in two weeks, I have to go to a podiatrist. Great timing, I don't have enough going on right now. I'm hoping it gets better soon because it's really sucking. It's beautiful outside and Stella and I are going stir-crazy, but no walk or run for us:(

4) An amendment to my last post I said I'd never kissed a stranger. Actually, when I auditioned for Two Gentlemen of Verona a few years ago, Norman told me to run across the room and kiss the actor I was auditioning with. The poor kid looked terrified as I came at him, but I did kiss him. And he was definitely a stranger. And for all my trouble, I earned about 4 lines of dialogue. Go figure.

This Morning's Time Waster

From Kelli's blog, Favorites Meme:
10 FAVORITES

1)Color: Purple
2)Food: pizza
3)Musical Group: The Smiths
4)Song Right Now: Smile by Lily Allen. It gets stuck in your head like a fungus
5)Movie: Drugstore Cowboy, Singles, Reality Bites
6)Sport: The Olympics?
7)Season: Spring, which is like February in Texas
8)Day of the Week: Friday
9)Ice Cream Flavor: Amy’s Ice Cream dark chocolate with strawberries
10)Person: Tim

9 CURRENTS
1)Current Mood: Procrastination. I should go clean the kitchen, but Tim’s working at home today and I like to be in the same room with him. Also, at any moment Stella will wake up from her nap, so I don’t want to start something.
2)Current Scent: I’ve worn The Body Shop’s Vanilla oil. since I was in high school.
3)Current Clothes: old navy jeans with the hem ripping out and my very pilly old navy light blue shirt with the dark blue flower, ¾ sleeves.
4)Current Desktop: It’s supposed to be a cute picture of Stella, but I can never get it to work, I don’t know why. So it’s just a dark blue background.
5)Current Ringtone on Cell Phone: don’t have one.
6)Current Music: the sound of Tim playing some video game. He’s working hard:)
7)Current Time: 11:29am
8)Current Surrounding: I’m on the bed in the office and Lucy’s totally messed up the covers by burrowing into them.
9)Current Event Happening Today: I’m going to see “My Child, My Child, My Alien Child” at Hyde Park tonight with Anna. I’m debating over taking Stella to get some shoes, but that probably won’t happen.

8 FIRSTS
1)First Best Friend: Tara, we were friends from like 3-6 until I moved.
2)First Kiss: Josh, my best friend turned boyfriend turned best friend again when his boyfriend called to tell me Josh was gay. Homecoming my freshman year. A yearbook photographer forced us to kiss, and it was so fast, he actually caught us after the kiss and it looks like Josh’s tongue is hanging out. Yes folks, my first kiss is in the yearbook. People were always coming up to me and saying, “Are you the girl who…?” Yes, yes that was me. And I explained a thousand times what happened and why the tongue was hanging out but they didn’t believe me!3)First Screen Name: I don’t know what that means?
4)First Pet: We had goldfish, but the first I really remember was Beaker, a hamster I got when I was 6, I think.
5)First Piercing: My Ears, age 7. They hurt, so I let them close up and got them re-pierced later.
6)First Crush: Brad Goertz, 2nd grade.
7)First Music: Well, I loved Blondie’s Auto American, which my parents got when I was about 3.
8)First Car: A 1981 Ford Fairmont, magenta colored and named Magenta for the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

7 LASTS
1)Last Class: Hmm, does Sunday School Count? We went to the Perspectives class at our church until December when Stella switched her nap to coincide with Sunday school. Before that it was Baby Care Basics the month before Stella was born.
2)Last Drink: decaf coffee
3)Last Trip: Houston for Christmas. But we’re going to Fredericksburg tomorrow. Whoo-hoo!4)Last Kiss: Tim, last night before we went to sleep.
5)Last Movie Seen at the Theater: Children of Men.
6)Last Phone Call: Left a message for Anna to remind her of the play tonight.
7)Last CD Played: Full cd? Hmm, I think it was Franz Ferninand’s first album.

6 HAVE YOU EVERS
1)Have you ever dated one of your best guy friends? Yes, see Josh in kissing story above.
2)Have you ever broken the law? Yes
3)Have you ever been arrested? No
4)Have you ever skinny-dipped? Yes.
5)Have you ever been on TV? Yes, I was on the news for the breastfeeding rally at the Capitol a month or two ago, but I didn’t see it.
6)Have you ever kissed someone you didn’t know? No.

5 THINGS
1) 1 thing you?re wearing: blue beaded bracelet Anna gave me as a thank you for her baby shower.
2)1 thing you?ve done today: tickle Stella to make her giggle
3)1 thing you?re bothered by: George W. Bush’s arrogance
4)1 thing you can?t live without: music
5)1 thing you do when you?re bored: read gossip sites like Defamer and Superficial

4 PLACES YOU HOPE TO TRAVEL TO
1)Spain
2)France
3)The Carribbean
4)Hawaii

3 PEOPLE YOU CAN TELL ANYTHING TO
1) Tim
2) My Mom
3) Anna

2 CHOICES
1)Black or White? Black
2)Hot or Cold? cold.

1 THING YOU WANT TO DO?
Own a theatre so we can do plays whenever we want to, not whenever we can get a slot at someone else’s theatre.

Ah, yes the clip thing

hairclip functioning as photo aid

Julie has a sharp eye and noticed Stella has a clip in her hair in her "Almost Easter Bunny" photo. I did indeed purchase some clips that boldly said "NOT FOR CHILDREN UNDER 3, CHOKING HAZARD" almost as boldly as they said "BABY HAIRCLIPS". I use them in photos and only allow them to remain in her hair while I'm supervising her. They also made an appearance this morning to help keep banana and cereal out of her hair. I can't say whether that will be an ongoing thing or not, although they are very helpful for that purpose.

hairclip functioning as food-repellant aid

Oh, and they are SO FRIGGIN' CUTE, mostly because you can now see all of her adorable face!

Well, we TRIED to see the Easter Bunny

Stella and I met Anna and Daniel at the mall today, all dolled up and ready to see the Easter Bunny. We arrived and there wasn't a line and the Easter Bunny was standing cooling itself in front of a fan. It (we found out it was a she once It started talking), came over to us and said that there wasn't anyone to take our pictures, they were supposed to be there at 11:30, but here it was after noon and they weren't there. She said we could use our own camera to take a picture if we wanted. I thought I'd go ahead and do that, but then she made the mistake of coming and talking to Stella, who was still in her stroller. Stella eyed her warily, but then the bunny touched her and Stella started wailing a wail she only uses when she's gotten a shot or hit her head. It was quite something. The Bunny moved on to Daniel, who I was sure would have the same reaction. He did. So we apologized to the Bunny, who felt really bad, and went to sit in the food court, calm the kids down, and wait for the Bunny's assistant to show up. I nursed Stella because I'd run out of time to make her lunch before we left the house. She seemed happy and I checked back and it looked like the bunny was still alone. We decided to head back down and decided we'd try again to get the baby's pictures with the Easter Bunny with my camera. We came up with an elaborate system whereby I would place Stella on the Easter Bunny's lap as Anna distracted her from looking behind her and then take a picture and then we'd switch and I'd do the same for Daniel. But as we approached Bunny land on the elevator, we saw the Bunny walk off into the distance. I think she'd finally gotten fed up. We waited for a few minutes and up walked a woman and her three-year old little boy. She said she'd been there since 9:30! Apparently no one ever showed up that morning, and a manager had been calling to try and find someone to take pictures, and they were supposed to show up at 11:30, but obviously never did (it was 20 to one at this point). The lady said she lived in Kyle which was, "hardly Alaska" but far enough that she didn't want to give up. She'd been shopping and even gotten her son's haircut. She said the Bunny had been letting parents take pictures on his chair and on the set. So we took some pictures on the Bunny's throne. But no Bunny. That's okay, both Anna and I agreed that we knew there was a good chance the kids would freak and we wouldn't be able to get a picture of them on its lap. We still got some adorable shots, especially the ones of both of them on the chair together. And I saved some scratch:)

Speaking of scratch, Tara read my post about Fredericksburg and asked if we wanted to go there Friday since she also had Friday off. Tim and I weren't sure because we felt guilty spending dough, even though it sounded like fun. Then my parents sent us a little money in our Easter card to "go out to eat for Easter". Thanks Mom and Dad! So we're going, guilt-free. Good Friday indeed!

Thriftiness and Stella is Cool, man!

So Stella now gives us high fives. It is really cool. She thinks it's funny too. You'll hold up your hands and say, "High five!" and she slaps your hands. It's awesome! She also chooses what to wear each day, at least when I bother to give her a choice. She always points to it so passionately too, and her eyes totally light up, like, "oh, I love this outfit, I'm so glad I can wear it. That other thing is a rag." Even though you know she doesn't really care what she wears, as long as it's comfortable.

Speaking of Stella, she went in for her 12-month check-up yesterday and is 30" tall (75-90%), 22 lbs (50-75%) and I think her head is 45cm (50%), although I'm too lazy to go check the actual figure. She's been 22lbs for a while now (I think since she went in for her ear infection in February), but apparently that's not odd, since she'll only be gaining 5 lbs her entire second year!

Tim found out yesterday he has Friday, Good Friday off. So exciting, an extra surprise day off! It's especially exciting since we have to work the Co-op at our church Saturday night, so we won't be having too much fun that night. There was a proposal to do Easter crafts with the kids. I hope that fails. The only thing I'm more scared of than a room full of rambunctious children is a room full of rambunctious children with scissors. Seriously, though, there are a lot of fun kids and I actually do enjoy playing with them, even if it's exhausting. Two of the more energy-sapping sets of siblings (both boy/girl twins), won't be there, so it will be a bit easier. Although the know-it-all never shut-up, play with me now! 10 year-old will be there.

But, anyway, when I first found out Tim had Friday off, I started thinking of how we could spend the day, maybe drive to Fredericksburg and have some pints and some sausage, since I don't nurse Stella from 1-11pm, so I could get snockered:) It feels like forever since we got out of town (it has been). Then I realized that we were in saving, penny-pinching mode and that I had earlier in the day said that we were in super-frugal mode because we spent $200 over the weekend on stuff for this house (new doorknobs for the entire house, grass seed which we are actually watering on schedule so far), and $46 on Roxie's expensive dog food that keeps her from having bloody diarrhea all over the carpet that we need to keep clean (sorry to be so graphic). But we're doing really, really well so far and I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll be able to have a 20% down payment between savings and selling this house so we don't have to pay the dreaded mortgage insurance to the tune of $100/month. That's a ridiculous rip-off, let me tell you. Even though we've been paying our mortgage on time every month for the last 6 years, we have to pay $54 a month until the ratio of what we owe to the total cost of the house reaches a certain value. Even though our credit is, as the loan officer said yesterday, "fantastic" we still have to pay this bogus insurance. Speaking of the loan officer, hip-hip-hooray for good credit! I don't know why in our society your worth as a person is judged by your credit score, but apparently it is, so I'm a good person. Even if I raised pitbulls for dog fights, as long as I keep the correct number of accounts open with the correct amount of balances which are paid on time every month, I can qualify for just about anything I want. God Bless America!

Weaning, Week 4

So I really am kind of cheating by writing this post because I'm cutting out Stella's dinner feeding this week, but obviously that's not to happen for like 9 more hours. But I'm hoping by putting it in my blog, it will help my resolve to actually drop the feeding. See, I'm wavering. My hormones are going wacky as my milk supply drops, plus I've got that monthly "woman trouble thing" that makes my hormones go even more wacky. Like, last night on the way home from rehearsal, I started crying thinking about weaning Stella. See, it's not Stella that's emotionally attached to nursing (other than that 11pm feeding), but me. I think Stella could care less, but since it's there, she partakes. If I followed "self-directed" weaning with her in the lead, we'd be done. If it was mom-directed weaning, I'd probably be bitterly nursing her until she graduates college. I know many of you are saying, "well, then, why wean her now?" Because I want to be able to spend a night away from my child, alone with my husband. I want to travel again or just let Stella stay at Meme and Pappy's or Baba and Grandaddy's or her one of Aunt and Uncle's houses just because it will be fun for her and fun and healthy for us. I love my child, but I always want her to be fitting into my life, not me fitting into hers. I'm already acting again, which is fantastic for me, and I've been seeing theatre since she was a month old. I'm always a Mom first, but it's nice not to feel like a mom 24/7. The doc today said that those night feedings would be the hardest (duh!), so I might get rid of the day feedings and keep the night feedings going for a while. My grand goal is to have her weaned off the night feedings by June 2nd, my 30th birthday. I'd like to knock back a few drinks without watching the clock and, who knows, maybe even have someone else take care of her for the night. We'll just have to see. If you had told me a year ago I'd have trouble weaning Stella, I'd have thought you were out of your mind. Her first birthday couldn't get here fast enough as far as breastfeeding was concerned. But when you realize, as I did last night, that I've been connected physically and my body has been giving nutrients to this girl since July 2005 and breastfeeding is our last physical connection, you can understand why it would be hard to give up.