I Heart Obama and Damn You McCain!

So Obama finally won me over last night with his speech at the Democratic National Convention. I'd planned to vote for him, of course, ever since he won the nomination over Hillary, but I'd never really liked him. I thought he was all flash and no substance without enough experience and his followers did nothing but piss me off. But I sort of made myself watch his speech last night (plus Tim REALLY likes him and wanted to watch it), hoping that he'd have something substantive to offer. It was a fantastic speech, one of the best I've seen in a long time, certainly up there behind another great Democratic speaker, King Bill (Clinton, of course). He touched on all the crap the administration had screwed up for the last 8 years, he enumerated why we as Democrats are different and what we stand for, a world where people look out for each other, and he related how he was going to fix things. I loved the fact he touched so heavily on education, that the US is a place where everyone deserves a good education. I loved the fact that he talked about women's rights and how we all have to work for the common good, and how we are failing our nation's soldiers and veterans. I also loved that he touched on what our differences are and how we can work to gain common ground (ex: EVERYONE can agree on reducing unwanted pregnancies whether we are pro-choice or don't support a woman's right to choose.) Damn, it was an awesome speech. I still have the same concerns about his experience and whether there are too many racists in this country for him to win, but I hope that I am wrong.
McCain, on the other hand, pissed me off yet again today. He nominated a woman as Veep! What a sly move, you ole' fox. My only hope is that people will see that she has even less experience than Obama (or most local city council members for that matter), and that even if she can shoot, hunt, and win beauty pageants she doesn't have the qualities needed for V.P. And if all that fails, I'm relying on the sexist shadows of the Republican party that believe a woman's place is in the kitchen and the nursery and not public office to keep Republicans away from the polls. I'll just keep my fingers crossed it all blows up in his face. Because, ladies, if you really think that McCain has your best interests in heart just because he nominated a woman as his running mate, dig a little deeper at the Republican platform. They need women on their side so badly, you can smell the desperation. If he really wanted a chance at success, he should have gotten Kay Bailey. Thank God he didn't, because with a female southerner, we might really be screwed as Dems. Nice to see though that he felt the need to play the minority card. Good luck pandering, boys.

Stella's Big Announcement

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So in case you are not well-versed in Stella speak and couldn't understand what she said, she indeed said, "I Be Big Sister!" Yes, that's right, Tim and I are expecting our second little bundle of joy, 5 days after Stella's 3rd birthday. March 29th is my due date. I'll be 10 weeks Sunday and we heard the heartbeat at our doctor's appointment this past Tuesday, so I've been trying to get around to actually posting this all week. We're very excited, can't wait to add to our family, although I have to admit this pregnancy has been much harder than Stella. With Stella I was never sick, but with BabyBean I've had morning, noon and night sickness since the day after the pregnancy test came back positive! Luckily just nausea though. Anyway, I don't know if that means it's a boy or just a diva, but we'll find out in November! We get an ultrasound in 3 weeks, but that'll just check everything out, I don't think you get to find out the gender until 20 weeks:( But maybe we've got a flasher. HA!

I bet I'll post more now that I can post about being pregnant and all that entails! Now I'm going to try and figure out how to get those LilyPie Ticker things up on my blog. If anyone has any advice, I'd appreciate it!

Preschool Open House

So we went to Stella's preschool open house tonight. I was actually NERVOUS as we walked up, which is of course absolutely ridiculous, but it turned out to be awesome. The classroom is really nice, the teachers are really nice and she was the best behaved of any of the kids. Really. Hopefully she won't get wailed on. She's also one of the youngest in the class, I think. She's in the 2 and a half year olds class, but won't be 2.5 until September 24th. I think most of the kids turn 3 this fall. Oh, well, she's one of the oldest in her playgroup, so I think it will be a nice change to be one of the youngest. Also, there are 8 girls and 4 boys, which will be another change from her usual life, which is overwhelmingly boys.

She refused to let me change her dress or fix her hair much, plus she has a scratch on her face from when Tim accidentally grazed her with a branch last night, so I was worried that would affect her being accepted into the group. Then I realized luckily I don't think that behavior turns up until mid-elementary school. Phew!

She loved it, of course, and we had to drag her out. Can't wait for Tuesday!

STOP BUZZING MY HOUSE!

You would not think that the sound of a helicopter would be that annoying, but when one has been continuously flying at very low levels over your house for the last twenty minutes, you start to go a little crazy! At this point, I don't even care if they are looking for a criminal, just let them go so I can have some peace!

I think "Sacrifice" is the wrong word

I dashed off that last post in a hurry. I think "sacrifice" for the greater good is the wrong word because I don't think sending your kid to a public school sacrifices anything. I think that work for the greater good is a better way to phrase it.

The Abandoning of Public Schools

Tim had a great blog post about this yesterday. Then today he sent me an awesome interview from Salon about a woman who has made this a crusade. Check it out.

I LOVE this quote of hers: "It's also a shift in terms of conversation. I think for good liberal Democrats of my ilk, for people to sit around and say, "Public education, no one can go there" -- I don't think that's a fight that should be allowed to be abandoned in conversation anymore. It's a bit like if you said, "Yeah, I toss my recycling right into the landfill. I don't even bother to separate my recyclables. What's the point? We're all going to hell, anyway." That wouldn't pass in nice company. I think we need to start changing the conversation so it's not just a given that we're going to send our kids to private school and that that's better. "

Amen sister! As Democrats part of our party platform is to make the world better for everyone, not just rich white people. But yet, most of the supposedly "liberal" people I know see absolutely nothing wrong with sending their child to private school. It's a disgrace. And yeah, I said it, I believe in sacrificing for the greater good, go ahead, call me a damn dirty hippie in this every man for himself world.

Um, before you do a play, there's this thing called "rehearsal"

So people keep asking me how Marisol is going and I have to answer, it's not, yet. Because we were supposed to start rehearsal last Monday, at least according to the google calendar. An email was never sent out to the group, I just obsessively checked the Google calendar they set up for us and saw that we had rehearsal on there. No mention of where, so I emailed last Sunday and then eventually we all got a response that we weren't starting rehearsal last week after all, along with a tentative list of rehearsals and a promise that we would get a final rehearsal schedule the next day in the morning. That was last WEDNESDAY and there still has been NOTHING! Another crazy thing: the tentative rehearsal schedule had us do a read-through tonight, a dramaturgy day tomorrow (whatever the heck that is) and then have the rest of the week off to memorize lines. WTF? We've had the last two months to memorize lines and were in fact told to have them memorized by the time rehearsal started, which I've pretty much done (I've got like one monologue to go and they aren't as solid as I'd like, but once I saw I didn't need them down until next week, I slacked off. I also have not scored my script. Bad, lazy Julie!)
Anyway, I checked the Google calendar this morning to see if it had helpful information like a time or location for rehearsal tonight and there is nothing listed. So I emailed again like, "um, are we rehearsing tonight? when and where?"
We open September 19th. That's one month and one day away. I am starting to worry this is going to be like those nightmares I occassionally have where I am about to be forced to go onstage and I've never had a rehearsal or memorized a line. On the bright side, at least in this case I can have the lines memorized!

Screw you, Inflation!

This picture has nothing to do with inflation. I just thought it was cute. Okay, maybe nose inflation.

Inflation sucks. I realized this as the amount of money going out each month seems to get bigger and the amount coming in stays the same. Tim makes good money. I'm able to stay home with Stella and we live a comfortable lifestyle. But things get tighter and tighter each month and I'm always going why? Yes we occasionally spend too much at IKEA, but other than that, none of us have bought clothes in months. And we're not a tchokes family. Really all our "frivolous" expenses are dining out. Really, we're weak. We like to eat out and we get busy and Tim has to work late so he can't cook, etc.

I am writing this post while procrastinating what I really need to be doing: re-examine our budget and re-adjust how much we give to 401k. Plus get a definitive number on how much dining out we can do. Things are just getting too expensive. And no one is making any more money. I remember when we could get a week's worth of groceries for $85. Our last grocery bill was like $100 more than that! I'm sure there were a couple of big ticket items, and that does include breakfast, lunch and 5 dinners for 3 people, but it's a lot more than what we were paying a year or so ago.

How do people who make less than us do it? Tim cooks pretty gourmet, so they may have lower costs, but he's not cooking with caviar or anything. Gas isn't killing us because my car averages 28 mpg, but what about people who drive 16 mpg SUV's and make $52,000 a year (the median family income as of 2006 for a family of three for Texas)? How do they make it?

Well, Stella's awake so this examination of the disappearance of the American lifestyle we'll have to wait for another day.

Why having a little girl ROCKS!

This evening, Stella and I painted our fingernails and our toenails together. Actually, I painted hers, of course. It was like the most freakin' great girl bonding EVER! And made up for yesterday when after no nap craziness and refusal to stay in time out for kicking Mommy I put MYSELF in time out by locking myself in the bathroom to get some peace (it happened 2 minutes before Tim came home, so don't go calling the authorities;).

I don't have a picture of our girl bonding because we were interrupted by a RACOON running across the back porch outside our bedroom window and then running and climbing as high as he possibly could into our oak tree. It freaked me out. Stella saw him first and just pointed and said, "ohhhhhh". It was awesome!

I apologize for the bluriness, he is waaaaaay up there, you can kind of see how high in this shot. If you look REAL hard you can kind of see his snout.

In sad news, this morning we said goodbye to a friend who graced our lives ever-so-briefly, so briefly I do not even have a picture, but left an indelible mark on Stella's little developing soul. Purple Plastic Flowered Flashy Flip-Flops from MeMe and Pappy, we hardly knew ye. You jumped ship off Stella's diminutive dirty dogs this morning on Tim's run. We went back to look for you, but alas, you didn't want to be found. Or you'd fallen off on the portion of the trail that we didn't make it to because, heck, Tim had to go to work and I was hungry. I'm sorry little flip flops. Stella forlornly kept going, "flop flops" today and looking for you and I had to remind her that her flop flops were lost to the Mabel Davis Park Loop. R.I.P. Our life will be a little darker without your flashing heels.

Purple Plastic Flowered Flashy Flip-Flops: August 2, 2008-August 13, 2008

Come Live with Us!

Another house has gone up for sale in our hood:

http://austinhomesearch.com/Search/Details.aspx?li=60406&or=1&cp=6#

It is HUGE! Not as cool as the mod house a couple down, but at least it's not as expensive either.

From the Mouth's of Babes: So Wrong Edition

Stella just burped and said, "Oh, I toot in my mouth!"

Ewww, but such an appropriate description, don't you think?

So Cute!

I finally got Stella's hair chopped off this morning. Saturday was the last straw. She wouldn't let me pull it back in a ponytail and was throwing a royal fit every time I came near her, squirming away and screaming when I touched her. It resulted in me doing a lot of yelling (I hate it when I yell at her), and being in an extremely foul mood. I told Tim, "That's it! She's getting a bob!" Tim has been wanting to keep her hair long, but he quickly agreed to the haircut when he saw how crazy his wife had become. As a compromise, I offered that we'd continue growing out her bangs (something he also wanted). I figured I can get one clip in her hair everyday, but the clips plus the ponytail plus the bow was aging me prematurely.

It looks even more adorable than I could have imagined. Her hair looks so much thicker because it's short and it frames her face really well. And, as the hairstylist pointed out, her bangs have less to grow to catch up with the rest of her hair. Unfortunately this is the best picture I can get right now, she's playing diva and doesn't want her picture taken. It does make her look older, though, as Tim pointed out. I guess I'll get even more of the "she's only 2?!!"

So disturbing

So my insurance agent's assistant just called to "check on the renewal of my personal articles policy" which I told her seemed fine and then she revealed the real reason she was calling, "I see you don't have life insurance for Stella. Would you like a life insurance quote for Stella?" I was horrified! I told her, "no, I do not need life insurance for my 2-year-old!" She was like, "are you sure, it's really simple and the rates are really reasonable." For my G-D TWO YEAR OLD! Why in the hell would I want life insurance for my two-year old? I was like, "no, I don't want it and I find it distasteful that you would even suggest it. No thank you." And she was like all cheerily like okay, bye. I am so upset now. It just made me cry for them to even suggest my two year old is f'ing mortal! And it's not like she brings in money, why would I take out an insurance policy on her? I thought Gerber was the only company that sunk low enough to offer life insurance policies for babies. I guess I was wrong. Thanks for ruining my afternoon, bitch!

I seriously have a mind to switch insurance companies after that. I know it's all about the all-mighty dollar, but how could you?

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!