Amazing Spider

This morning I saw the most amazing spider web in our backyard I thought it warranted a photo ... probably have to click to enlarge to really see it ... it just looked like it was suspended in mid air ...

Friday Traffic

 Are you able to see the ridiculous traffic? ... it is hard to take a photo while driving and not being up too high ... I've tried several times ... I just don't get it ... always on Friday ... no matter what time I leave work ... there is always a ton a traffic ... I can leave 2 hours early or 2 hours late and there is still a ton ... ya know I can deal with traffic any other day but really ... on Friday ... I just want to get home and get home as fast as possible ...

Watching the Olympics vs. Sleep

I keep telling myself it is only on for 17 days ... you can stay up for 17 days to watch al this excitment ... but at the same time I can feel my head bob ... but all of it is just so exciting ...

I of course want to see Michael Phelps swim ... but I am also curious about men's gymnastics ... I was happy to see women's beach vollyball ...

But right now as I am watching Phelps swim my head is bobbing and my eyes keep closing ... so it is off to bed for me ... wooohooooo

Hard Disk Full

In working on the previous post I couldn't upload the photos to the server ... I got a message that said the disk was full ... 80 GB full ... now this isn't a new problem ... for the last couple of months it has been telling me it was dangerously close to being full ...

Now D and I do 99.9% of the tech support for our server ... really the only time we let the tech support do anything on our server is when they actually screw something up and we let them move files on to restore the server ...

But in the past someone has hacked into our server and was uploading movies to it ... D and I did lots of stuff to rectify that problem ... but this time we just couldn't find anything and the logs didn't show anyone else on the server ... I've asked D several times to take a look because I have spent hours and hours trying to figure out what was going on ... when I added it up we were only using about 30 GB ...

So needless to say when it said disk full tonight I was steamed ... and he was sitting right here so there was no escaping my wrath ... he relented and signed on to check it out ...

Hours went by and still nothing ... then suddenly a smirk spread across his face ... I got so excited ... I could tell he figured it out ... he stopped me as I started to tell him how awesome he was ...

It turns out ages ago he was working on a script ... apparently it ran producing folder and folder until it took up 51 GB ... and he had no idea ...

Now I am so happy he found it ... removed it ... and freed up our server space ... but it only proves why I hate our tech support ... 4 people that I know of have looked at the server and couldn't figure out what was wrong ... pretty sure no one did anything besides look at it ... no checking anything ...

At least I didn't go off on them ... which was my next step cause the last email said, "hummm we don't know what is going on but something doesn't look right" ... yea good answer tech support ... if I had given that answer to a customer when I worked tech support there would have been problems ...

91 Packages

Well I pretty much spent the day getting together stuff to UPS ... 91 packages in total ... I told our guy yesterday that there would be a lot ... he isn't like Newman our mailman who seriously gets upset when we have outgoing mail ... today I had 7 boxes for him and he asked if I just wanted to drop them off on my way home ... I told him "no thanks but I don't mind if you drop them off on your way home" ...

So now I am just hanging out waiting for Mr. UPS to sweep all this away and make my office look a bit nicer again ... and I am looking forward to taking a shower once I get home ... it was dumb to wear a white shirt when I knew this is what I would be doing ... so I just feel grimy ...

I want to start my weekend off on a good note ... even though I will most likely spend the whole weekend trying to motivate myself to get stuff together for the garage sale ...

Cat or not to Cat

So the mouse thing has me a bit upset ... I saw one in the backyard last night ... very tiny ... little field one ... then this morning D saw a county pest control in our neighborhood ... there is a huge field at the end of our street ... so we are thinking there is a problem and we aren't the only ones having it ...

So I suggested a cat ... it is like the natural hunter ... D had to be prodded a bit but relented ... as long as we got a kitten and could train it to be an indoor/outdoor kitten ... so no declawing this cat ... on this I had to be prodded ... cause I really only want indoor cats ... but we both have to give a bit ...

So I was looking at the PetSmart adoption site ... they have a whole contract you have to sign and it is $95 to get a cat ... or do we go the Craigslist route and take a free kitten that we don't know if they have had shots or what ... cause there is an all black one listed that has to be picked up today ... but it was a stray and they don't know what it has had ...

I just don't know ... and money is so beyond tight right now that I freak a bit about the cost of a cat ... it has been nice not buying litter and food and vet bills and shots and all that stuff ...

And I called pest control ... it was going to be like $395 to have them come out to do all needed to do to take care of rodents ...

ick ... ick ... ick ...

So Maybe Not

Well the idea to post a whole bunch of the old funny pictures I had found was a good idea ... but it didn't happen ... at least not last night ... I wound up spending the evening emailing with an old friend and reading blogs ... it was very nice ...

But now it is time for work ... again ... :)

I'm always up in plenty of time to be on time ... but lately I leave late every day ... I need to work on that ...

Bugaboo - seriously?

Can someone please explain to me why people purchase a bugaboo stroller??? I mean 800+ dollars on a stroller that doesn't even have a basket at the bottom ... I mean isn't half the benefit of a stroller to have the basket on the bottom to put all your stuff ... I mean there are times now I wish she would still ride in her stroller so I had a place to put everything ... even more so in the winter when I hate having to wear a coat inside ...

but really ... is there something I am missing that makes this stroller worth 800 or more dollars??? Cause I spent 59 bucks on our second stroller (smaller and easier to use) and it is the bomb ... it even has a built in speaker so Curly Top can listen to my MP3 player while riding around ... it is bright red and works wonderfully ... so for the price of a bugaboo (the low end one) I could get 13.5 of my awesome stroller ... doesn't make much sense to me ...

Celebrity Babies

So since I was in the hospital my mom got me a whole bunch of trashy magazines ... which are easy reading when you don't feel well ... but one thing I am finding so hard to believe (truthfully there are lots of things in the mags I am finding hard to believe) is that every celebrity baby is just perfect ... beyond perfect ...

They sleep through the night ... feed well ... never fuss ... always happy ... the mom has no baby weight like 20 minutes after giving birth ...

Isn't there one celebrity out there who will say, "I haven't gotten more than 20 minutes sleep in 3 weeks ... my baby screams all the time from gas ... my baby's daddy seems to sleep through the night and not notice a thing and damn this pregnancy weight I am still wearing my maternity clothes a month later" ...

I mean isn't it a disservice that they aren't honest ... I am sure there are plenty of uninformed people out there that think they aren't cut out for motherhood or that they have a terrible kid or there is something wrong with their child ... or their own body cause an hour after giving birth they still have baby fat ...

Isn't there already enough pressure to be a good parent to your children without having to reach for unattainable goals ... part of the joy of kids is staying up all night with them and comforting them and making them feel happy and safe ... besides once they do start sleeping through the night it feel like such a luxury ... I wouldn't want to miss those experiences at all ...

A bunch of new posts

So you can see several new posts went up last night ... I wrote them but was in such pain or drug induced relaxation I didn't want to post any of them until they were reread ... so that is what I did on my first night back home ... made sure my ramblings made sense ...

Today is my first full day back home ... and Curly Top and I are having a great time at home but I can guarantee you I am already doing more than I am supposed to ... although we did set up a stepstool to her changing table so I don't have to pick her up as much ... but I did sweep up the dining area and it hurt like hell ...

My mom is coming over for lunch today ... D is working and it is my mom's birthday so Curly Top and I invited her over for lunch ... we should have said we would go to her house ... then I wouldn't have the sick compulsion to clean ...

I do need to tidy up the family room a bit for my own sake ...

You know I don't think I know how to relax ... cause I have been doing stuff for work for the last 2.5 hours ... and before that it was stuff for D's work ... geezzzzzz ...

It is that SYTYCD time

Finally on So You Think You Can Dance we are at the point where they are doing dances in couples ... Curly Top loves the show at this point ... and I love fast forwarding through everything then next day so we can watch the dancing ...

Tonight before bed we watched last nights show ... just the dances ... and she was in heaven ... twirling around ... clapping at the end of each one ... shouting "yea!! yea!!" ...

When Mia Michaels modern dance routine came on she was in awe ... now I know I am her mom but I was impressed ... she tried to mimic their moves ... she sat on the floor and kicked her leg out ... spun around ... put her hand to her chest and brought it out to the side ... and held my hand and lifted her leg up and to the side ... and when it was over she said ... again ... again ...

I'm so happy she loves to dance ... to move to music ... to try new things ...

now we just gotta get her to use the potty so she can take dance class ... because I know she will love it with all her heart ...

Soon no more straddling the toilet

So the bathroom upstairs is so small it hardly even looks like an after thought ... you literally have to straddle the toilet to close the door ... so for the first time we are hiring someone to do work on our house ...

Everything up to this point has been done by D or myself ... mostly D but even if he can't remember I did help paint all but two rooms in the house while I was pregnant ... he seems to forget that info when he talks about how he painted the house and will rolls his eyes when I say "we painted the house" ...

So we have had one contractor come by already and another one is coming by tomorrow morning at 8 AM ... and I am really starting to wish we could do the work ourselves ... there are pros and cons with that idea ... but it should would be easier ...

Pros - less expensive ... could do more because we would be saving money ... wouldn't have to relate my ideas to anyone other than D ...

Cons - it would take us FOREVER ... we have no idea how to move the pipe for a toilet and it isn't something you want to mess around with ... it would take us Forever ... i mention that one twice cause that is a big deal ...

along with making the bathroom bigger we are moving the laundry room up to the top floor ... where all the clothes reside ... right now I go down 4 flights of stairs to get to the basement to do laundry ...

Hate is not a strong enough word for how I feel about laundry ... every aspect of it except having clean clothes I loathe ... just typing about it I feel like I might break into hives ... so having it on the top floor should make it a bit better ... no more lugging baskets to the basement ... easier to do a load here and there rather than spend 8 hours doing laundry on Sunday ... so the fact that I am actually a bit excited about anything laundry related is a huge deal ...

It all just comes down to how we are going to lay everything out ... the more I think about it the bigger the project seems to get ...

there are 3 bedrooms and a bathroom ... the bigger bedroom is our home office ... the medium bedroom is Curly Top's room ... the room that is too small to hold a bed is the spare room ... the plan was to turn the too small room into the bathroom ... and the toilet straddling bathroom into the laundry area ... when the next kiddo comes along they get Curly Top's room and she moves into what is now our office ...

But now I just want to make her room and the too small room bigger by moving the walls into the office ... and just make a bathroom out of what is left of the office ... so each room is attached to it ... and Curly Top doesn't have to move rooms ...

And I am guessing by later this afternoon I will have come up with yet another plan to use the space ... I just know we aren't going to be doing this again ... I want to make it count!!!!

She may have been so tired ...

But it only lasted until D and I were headed to bed ... of course ... she is a napper ... like she is trying to maximize her time on earth ... she slept 4 hours and was wide awake and ready to go and all D and I wanted to do was get in bed ...

So I brought Curly Top to our room ... got her a snack and plopped her between us ... she was mellow ... chomping on some Cheerios and watching an interesting show on Discovery about these nuts that think the landing on the moon was all staged ...

The moment I felt myself drift to sleep she was up ... and playing ... and we just let her ... till I realized stuff was piling up on top of me ... as a sat up there was a cascade of hangers and belts falling to the floor ... I realized our room looked like an obstacle course and I was sorry I hadn't set up a camera to capture her shenanigans ...

Laundry baskets were set up all around the room ... more hangers than I realized we had were scattered about ... weird metal polls that I believe came from her Pack-n-Play from back in the day (where she found these I do not know)  were leaning here and there ... I believe in one area she attempted to make a fort because her "melmo" blanket was across 2 laundry baskets ...

When she saw me sit up she squeeled with delight and started running in circles through the course she set up ... and kept coming over and grabbing my hand and pulling me ... this innoscent little child actually thought Mommy was going to jump up and start my own midnight olympics with her ...

I tried to get her to go to her room ... NOT happening ...
I tried to get her to lay down with me ... again ... no go ...

So I now hold the Silver Medal in hanger jump and the Bronze in laundry basket dodge (damn stuffed animal beat me)

She was then ready to lay down ... but only with the TV on and her feet jammed in my belly ...

It was then a series of twists and turns for the next 4 hours of kicking me in the face ... putting her head on my feet ... head on my tummy ... touching noses and saying "mommy ... mommy ... mommy" ... kicking the sheets off ... pulling them back up ... playing with my hair ...

At 5:30 when my alarm went off and I got up to shower ... she snuggled into my pillow and fell asleep ...

of course ...

I'm so tired ...

Somewhere or sometime this may be considered cruel ... but I just couldn't pass it up ...

Curly Top is not a sleeper ... not at all ... the only thing she wants to do less than sleep is take a bath ...

Last night she "napped" ... she slept for a few hours ... up for a few hours ... it is a regular occurrence lately ... so today D wore her out ... they went to the park and he said he ran her ragged ... they had a blast and she was all over the place ... they came home and played and he said she started acting weird ... and he kept asking her if she was ok ...

when she said no he asked what was wrong and she turned around ... well bless both their hearts ... as he describes it ... it was beyond an explosive diaper ... it was an explosive outfit ... more than I am sure either of them wanted to deal with ...

D said it was straight up to change ... and bathe ... of which the latter she had no interest ... he said she stood there and screamed the entire time ... so he did his best hose-down Silkwood shower and got her out of there ...

After cleaning up the mess everywhere ... family room ... bed room ... bathroom ... and getting her into her jammies ... is where I came in and grabbed my camera ...

and the result is what will at some point be considered cruel ... but I am alright with that assessment ...

 

I'm so tired ...

The Lost World

Why wasn't I thinking when I purchased our furniture ... we should have gotten something that sat flat on the ground ... then there wouldn't be a gazillion toys that make their way under the sofas and chair into what is now called The Lost World ...

I've spent the day purging toys ... packing them up to give away ... put away for another time ... and make them more accessible for Curly Top ... it has been an all day project and we still aren't finished ... but right now I wish I could just get a coffee and have a movie to watch ...

better yet I wish I were heading out to go see the Sex and the City movie ...

The Gratitude Campaign

My friend send me this the other day and I just got the chance to look at it and I LOVE IT!!!! I think it is fantastic and want to share ...

http://www.gratitudecampaign.org/shortmovie.php

It doesn't help ...

to just think about writing ... i need to make it more constant and regular ... a true view of my life ... that of my family ... and what is going on day to day ...

so yet once again ... I am going to work on doing this ...

Choo Choo

After a rediculous visit to the emergency room for me first thing in the morning we headed up to the park with the train ... since it was Memorial Day weekend the train was now running and we had been wanting to take Curly Top on it for a while ...

Little did we know she would have a complete breakdown waiting for it to start ... but after the whistle blew and we started moving she wiped off the tears and enjoyed the wind through her hair ...

The video says it all ...

Cabin John Park

 

Happy Birthday D!!

Today was my husband's birthday ... Curly Top and I were up early to take The Littles to the airport and let D sleep in late ... which made him quite happy ... we arrived home bearing Starbucks and musical birthday cards (Curly Top can't get enough of the cards with music ... she is amassing quite a collection)

We spent the afternoon at 2 different toy stores ... we had some things to exchange and I think D and I were more into looking at the toys than Curly Top ... all she wanted was a train ... so at our last stop we found one for her ... no Thomas (she doesn't know the difference but our bank account does) but a cute little set that has everything she could need right now ...

After shopping had a lazy day playing in the backyard and hanging out together ... then we went out for dinner at Friday's ... all in all it was a good day but I had really wanted it to be special for D ... just didn't come up with anything to make that happen ...

Once home D and I put together the train set on a table that was a bit too small for the set ... we looked like monkeys trying to do it and all Curly Top wanted to do was chooo chooo ... I seriously think it should become a challenge on The Amazing Race ... to put a train set together just by looking at a photo that isn't quite large enough to see the different pieces ... everyone would think it is a lot easier than it really is ...

but once it was together it was fantastic and so much fun ...

I need to start planning now so that his big FOUR-FIVE is a special day ...

Happy Birthday Party Curly Top

I think much fun was had by all ... I know I had a good time and judging from the photos so did Curly Top ... anything would have been better than her first birthday ... even if she can't remember it I always will ... poor thing was so sick ... so here are a few snapshots of the day ...

 

 

There were a gazillion bubbles and a bounce house to jump and laugh in ... cooking out and cake galore ... and all her friends were there to share the day with her ... the perfect weather topped off a grand day!!!