Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in just1sillygirl's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, June 4th, 2009
7:48 pm	On Holiday Took some much needed time off. Technically I'm still on vacation, but trying desparately to check my email and FAILING. No shit, I just got a "catastrophic failure" notice from Outlook. I've seen 'fatal' but never Catastrophic. Rad So much happened in the last 5 days and so much in my head that I want to write about, but time is precious because I have so little to spare. I'll give highlights for each of the days, though. Saturday - No fishing for Mary. lost her privelages for not following directions. Sad. I don't even remember what we did do. Might've involved cleaning. Sunday - Nina's 4th birthday party. The highlight here was the broom game. My husband is awesome and brought with him the most torturous game for the big kids to play at the party. We all did it, but I was the only one who ended up crushing a 5 year old little boy. The game is that you hold a broom up vertically, with the bristle part up in the sky. Stare up at the end of the broom and spin yourself in a circle 30 (thirty) times. No less. If you stop or fall or anything, you get back into it until it's 30. Then you throw the broom down and try to jump over it. I made it over the broom and then was inextricably pulled sideways and right on top of my poor nephew - almost magnetically. He was fine for a minute, but traumatized for life I'm sure. Monday - got up, got packed, went to Disneyland California Adventure. It was our first time there and it was a lot of fun. Good size park, plenty of rides, really neat. Wouldn't have ever in my life paid full price for it, but we got the ticket for free as part of a two-fer deal and figured we'd go for it. Then we got in the car and headed to Vegas. Tuesday - got up just in time to pack up and check out. Ate at Green Valley Ranch (delicious) then went to the Hoover Dam. The littany of Dam jokes from Mary was never ending. She is still making them. The kids really enjoyed the dam and the power plant tour. I took a bunch of pictures of the insane bridge they are builing over the dam. Then we went to Laughlin. It's been about 4 months since I quit smoking, so I'm more sensitized to the smell. We drove up to the front of the casino (in the car, windows up, AC on, not even into the covered part of the driveway yet) and were hit with a BLAST of cigarette smell. Like we penetrated some nasty ashtray bubble. If you can't handle cigarette smoke, Laughlin is NOT the place for you. It's embedded into the dna of the wood of the buildings. It's mixed in with the cement. blech. We walked the riverwalk and went to a buffet. Then took the water taxi back to our hotel. Ted and the girls loved it. Wedensday - I woke up early and went for a walk. One non-highlight of the trip was that Teddy wouldn't sleep anywhere but with me and Brian. Which means I didn't get much sleep the whole time. However I woke up refreshed and went for a walk down the river, checking out the desert scenery. It was exactly as hot as I wanted it to be the entire time (or maybe just a little cooler than I wanted, but close). Later we all went to IHOP and then rented a wave runner and took turns jetting up and down the Colorado. It was awesome. Bekah went with Brian and then later Mary went with me. We had sooo much fun. Well worth it!! Then we went to the pool, which wasn't heated, but was refreshing nonetheless. Then we went to Chilli's. Then we went to see UP at the theater in the restaurant. I had to leave 'cause Ted was crying like a little baby (oh, wait). Ted and I watched "so you think you can dance" and made a mess of the hotel room. Thursday - Brian had gone down to the casino each night to play some craps, so I got to go down early and spend a couple hours at it. I played slots, 'cause they're fun, and lost like $80. I took my last $20 (not my LAST twenty, but the last of the money that i had reserved for gambling) to the blackjack table and brought it back up to $70. Net loss for me of only $30 (that time!). It was fun. Then we packed up and headed on home. Made a couple stops on the way for gas and food. Happy to be back in Oxnard. It's so freaking GREEN here. Special ups to Bekah for doing all of these fun things with a full on cast on her arm (she spent a lot of time with a target bag duct taped over her cast, hah!). Will post pictures when I can. Cheers! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 9th, 2009
2:40 pm	Guess its been a while since I blogged. I'm a little shaky and worn out right now, finding it hard to type. There's nothing wrong (don't get excited mom), I just got done attempting serious yard work for the first time evah. Some of our bushes in the front are overgrown and were starting to look shabby. I asked Brian to buy me some bush trimmers so I could minicure the plants. He asked if we could just hire a gardener instead. At the time, I thought that was a wasted expense. Now, however, I feel it's fully justified. First of all, I don't know what I'm doing. I didn't think you had to know what you were doing, but aparently you do or all that happens is your plants look like bare sticks coming out of the ground. Second, when you clip off one thing, it turns out to be connected to a whole different thing, and then becomes something else over there - this again leads to a row of bare sticks. Third, plants have sharp pointing things on them sometimes and I don't like it. Fourth, it's physically taxing. Fifth, cleaning up the mess you make cleaning up the yard is bullshit. I could go on, I have a six having to do with the discernment between intentional plans and weeds, but really.. now I'm just whining. We'll have a gardener come do this quarterly. My life has been consumed by work lately. And not just like 'it's been on my mind' or 'I'm busy' - no, seriously consumed. Like, where the hell did my day go oh look it's time to go back to work again. I'm going to buy a hammock for my cubicle. We in the home stretch of the project that I'm on and things aren't going according to plan. Do they ever? Not really, but not to this extent either - so on top of the helly push that there always is to get things done at the end of a project we now have the extra push to get everything actually working and launched on the date that it's supposed to. It's very stressful. Every time one of my projectmates doesn't pick up the phone I wonder if they're still around. xI'm no stranger to working 12 hour days normally, but the last few hours is usually done at home. I'm putting in twelvers at the office now which is sucky. I've attended two meeting so far today. I sat down just now to look at the internet (I rarely look at the internet just to surf lately) and after about two minutes of reading my daughter said, "What are you doing? Are you in some kind of meeting that doesn't involve talking?" I had to remind her that I like the internet, too. The kids are doing well. Bekah is getting big and has something of a 'too cool for everyone' attitude, but it's manageable at the moment. She's writing Twilight fan fiction and posting it on the internet. She's created her own website with a blog and everything. Just nutty. Mary is rad, but kind of a loner. She's been... HOLY SHIT! I just got FLOWERS!!! from my mommy and dad :) Yay! They're so pretty and they smell terrific. I didn't think I would ever want to see another flower so soon after being in the garden, but I love them. Thanks... upbeat though, so it's all good. Whenever we can, we all go walking together. I try to see them as much as possible. Tedzo is rad, too. He's so joyful and fun. He's so busy and walks around with such purpose all the time. Always something to explore or to show me. He loves being in the yard. I know I've said it before, but this time I mean it in a different context: Boys are dirty. As Brian said yesterday - you'd never know it, but he just had a bath. He talks constantly, but only knows a few words with meaning. He's learned a couple signs, he's doing a great job with "more" - it's supposed to look like you're using your hands to mimic two chickens kissing, but he only makes one chicken and makes it kiss the palm of his had and says in a strange low voice "moe?" like he heard a noice in the basement and is calling down the steps to see if his friend moe is the source. He has his own special sign for up. And another one for all done. He says "nana" when he's thirsty, but also says "wawa" sometimes. His sign for bottle is running up to you and grabbing you furiously, then running into the kitchen. My husband is awesome. He just is. All the time. You know how those people have those bumper stickers that say '0God is Always Good'? Well I think they got that idea from knowing Brian. And I realized why Dos Equis calls their mascot "The Most Interesting Man In the WOrld" - it's because the title The Most Coolest Man In The World was already taken by Brian and nobody would buy them trying to pass it on someone else. I love him intensely. We celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary this week. I got to spend the day remembering how fucking cool our wedding was. Then we went out for some kickass seafood at the harbor, and then decided to go see x-men. It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, but it wasn't good either. I'm not going to say that Liev Schriber carried the movie or even that his character was interesting, but he's hot and made it far more palatable. I thought the main chick in it was the girl from Napoleon Dynamite - she looks like her in repost sometimes - but it's not. We're gonna see Star Trek tonight I think :D Mostly I've just been working though. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 20th, 2009
9:57 pm	I used to check my socks for zombies and spiders But that's just silly. First off, who would need to check their socks for zombies - one would certainly see a zombie well before they found the socks they were in. Secondly, who needs to check for spiders when there are slugs about? Yep, I have a new beastie to obsess about. It happened the other night when I was outside studying for my macroeconomics final. I was sitting in my big green chair with a cup of diet coke on the log next to me (yes Natalie, the same chair you sat in at my housewarming party - better check your clothes). I came in to refill my glass only to find out my husband had finished off the two-liter. Bummer, so I flipped on the kitchen light to prepare for filling my cup with water ... when SUDDENLY! ... I noticed a big fat four inch slug on my cup. I gasped and shreiked. Not because I hate slugs, but I didn't expect to find a creature stretched out on the glass that I had been drinking from steadily for the last 20 minutes. After he quit laughing at me, my husband kindly threw the slug (and the glass) out onto the back lawn where it could squiggle off to find something more appropriate, like something I don't drink out of, to hang out on. I'm really not so paranoid, but you know when you get the creepy crawlies after you see ants or something? Well I had the squishies for a long time after that. I checked all the cracks and crevices of the lawn chair I was sitting on, visually inspected the log that I had set my drink upon, and felt the outside of my clothes to ensure nothing had crawled onto me unawares ... about 10 times throughout the rest of the night. Even after I came inside. I think this stems from an incident in Florida when I was a teenager where I had one of those impossibly gigantic floridian cockroaches running around in the shorts I had just put on. Total willies. I've been out there several times since. I still make sure there's nothing offensive on the chair before I sit on it, I still look at the cup that I'm drinking on before I pick it up, and I do a 'I'm not really checking my clothes for slugs because that would be retarded' clothes check when I'm done, too. blech, slugs. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, February 2nd, 2009
8:53 pm	In a Nutshell So, my life, in a nutshell, has been hella busy. I got into the car wreck and have been steadily medicated ever since. Good thing, too, 'cause work got so stressful that I couldn't have managed it without the pain meds!!! I got a new car - 2005 Dodge Magnum with a Hemi. Love it. I threw away the tickets my husband bought me for the show I've been wanting to see for a long time thinking they were the stubs to the concert I took my mom to in September. After crying for about an hour after I realized what I did, I went and bought some more. We went to dinner at Prime in Ventura on Saturday - pretty good stuff... then we went and saw Lucha VAVOOM! It was a super good time. Luchadore wrestling and burlesque. Words cannot describe.. or maybe they can, but I can't think of them right now. Work is finally coming to a simmer from a hard and massive boil for several days. I worked about 25 hours on top of my normal work focusing on some intensive data entry. Totally not cool. It's all over with, though, and I'm back to only mildly stressed. Home is ok, but we're all still recovering from my work schedule since the accident. Brian's been under a lot of pressure to take care of the kids while I focus on work and trying to recover from being hurt. Not severly hurt, but pretty damn hurt. 'sall for now. (Comment on this)
Friday, January 16th, 2009
3:51 pm	Next Time I'm Buying A Car That I Hate Twice now. It's happened twice. Matter of fact, I bit my tongue this time hoping not to invoke whatever malicious force tears me away from the cars that I love. But it must've still heard me, 'cause I think my car's toast. (see below) About 5 years ago I had a Toyota Corrolla and the very day that I professed my love to it "I love you car" - it got totalled. About 2 days ago I was getting into my car and I thought to myself "I love this car" and I almost said it aloud, but remembered what happened to the Corrolla and thought I'd better not take the chance. Maybe I slipped up and said it to someone else later? Who knows, whatever the reason me and my car were at the front of a 3 car pileup on the 101 Southbound in morning rush hour traffic. While all the other cars were coming to a stop (me included), the car two cars behind me decided that it wanted to be different, a rebel, a maverick even. Stopping was too good for them aparently, and so they slammed into the truck behind me who then slammed into me. Destroying the backend of my vehicle and making me very sore (and sad). The sandwich car (the truck between the maverick and me) had a chick in it who was being deployed that day and had to be in San Diego or face being considered AWOL. They were way more freaked out than me. The chick in the maverick car (which was actually some kind of Toyota sedan, not a true "Maverick") had that look of having fucked up royally on her face. A mixture of horror and embarassment. I didn't talk to her except to ask if she was going to call the police or should I? She deferred to me. So maybe you saw us. It happened right around 8am and probably backed traffic up pretty significantly as we were blocking the #1 lane (I say "we" but I really mean No Brakes McGee and The Sandwich). I went to the hospital 'cause my back really started to hurt like an hour later, but no real damage - just shitty muscle sprain. They loaded me up with scrips for motrin and vicodin and sent me on my way. I will blog more about how AWESOME my insurance company is until this is over and they have made good on their word. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
2:21 pm	Random Blogthings - Isn’t Ted cute! He’s getting so big. He’s learned about the thrill of the chase… when he’s crawling towards something he’s not supposed to and we say “Teddy, NO!” he SQUEEs and starts to crawl faster. He took his first step the other day (hasn’t done another since). He’s learned to wave and he says “Ayyyyy” (like the Fonz). - Mary loves House. I do too. She does impersonations of him with an improvised cane and will stage fake arguments with herself that end in “It’s not Lupus!” She’s learned that if there’s only 10 minutes left in the show, his latest diagnosis is the real one. - Bekah sucks at sledding. About 3 years ago we took her up to Mt. Pinos to sled and instead of stopping at the 5 ft high embankment meant to stop sledders, she launched off of it and fell several feet onto her back – in the parking lot. We finally got her to go up to the snow with us again and she decided she would try sledding again (away from the parking lot this time) … it took her forever to finally get up the courage to sit on the saucer, but she did it. And hit a tree. She’s ok, has some pretty big bruises on her back from it, but mostly hurt her pride. It’s funny if you think about it. - My house is coming along. We had two things left on our list of major things left to do – electricity and upstairs shower. Our electricity would suddenly not work in certain areas. We thought that if we said “123Jesus” really fast that we could control it, but not really. Now, suddenly, the electricity works fine every time we want it to (in most areas). Brian noted that it started when we threw out the not-less-than THREE crucifixes left by the previous occupants. But as I like to say, correlation is not causation. - Christmas was pretty cool. Got lots of Home Depot gift cards. Brian got me a vase and a hat. I really wanted this particular vase and particular hat, and had said so when we were all at the harbor with my parents a few months back. It wasn’t on my Christmas list or anything, Brian just remembered that I liked them and got them for me. I love unexpected presents like that. zomg - is anyone else watching rock of love bus? I saw the first episode last night. I really didn't want to, but I got totally sucked in. Some chicks are scary. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 29th, 2008
12:55 pm	House Update Unimaginably frusting string of events. We finally closed the Tuesday before Christmas. After being told that there was only a million to one chance that we wouldn't close on Monday. feh. I yelled at some lady on the phone at the gas co who told me that they couldn't turn my gas on until the 31st. I think she got the brunt of everything I was holding in for the last month and a half. Poor Mrs. Harris. She was being a dis-empowered pain in my ass, though, hiding behind policy and saying things like "If we made an exception for you, we'd have to make one for everyone" - which essentially translates to "we COULD help you, we just WON'T". F them, we turned the gas on ourselves because we're bad ass (read: Brian is awesome and well connected, yay boyscouts). Brian called them back to apologize on my behalf and say that the gas was already on and I just misunderstood that it also had to be turned on at the appliance level. A nice lie to cover our asses for doing something that is probably illegal. Their records showed our gas was never turned off in the first place, so it all worked out fine. Since then we've been living in the money pit. We've spent about $500 at Home Depot and $200 at Lowes (not a cent out of pocket - all christmas gift cards) and have been fixing and mending little things here and there. The first thing was the heater wouldn't come on, and it's been damn cold in California. After about an hour of staring at it and tweaking things, I slumped upstairs defeated - Brian banged on it a few times, and it's worked beautifully since then. Next it was Brian's turn to be defeated... by our downstairs toilet that needed to be reseated. After we got it unhooked we found all kinds of other things that needed to be done, and in the process the toilet fell and broke (we needed a new one anyway, that one didn't fit our cool toilet seat). To make matters worse ... :( ... to console himself Brian hooked up our 42" LCD TV that we got last May and the screen is busted. Must've broke during the move. It was certainly a blow to Parrakind. He went upstairs and went to bed. Since then we've fixed the toilet, put up a mirror, painted all the bedrooms (with the help of Dr. Girlfriend, Matt, and Stickky), had carpet laid, and we're (they're) in the process of installing our new refridgerator with water and ice in the door (woot!). The only things left are getting hot water to the laundry area, caulking the tub upstairs (so I can use the upstairs shower), painting 3 more walls, and then moving the rest of our shit in from the garage (about 80% of our stuff is still out there). I have very little time on the 'puter, so I may not be able to blog about all the cool stuff I got for Christmas (mostly Home Depot gift cards) and how great our holidays were despite retarded house crap (not retarded House crap, because the House marathons on USA have been pretty awesome). Just know that it was good :) Happy New Year!! (Comment on this)
Monday, December 15th, 2008
6:12 pm	Would You Like An Apple Pie With That Holy crap life has been stressful lately. Buying a house is bullshit. Fuck those guys. We finally signed our loan docs (two weeks late!) and are locked into a decent rate, but the closing costs were FOUR TIMES what was originally estimated TWO WEEKS ago. What happened in the mean time? Bullshit and lies. I held my ground and got it down to only twice what they said it would be, but that's still more than I wanted. The shit part of it is that I was so clear when I talked to him "Jeff, tell me what my closing costs will be realistically so that I can plan to have the money on hand when needed." Retards. This weekend was Brian's birthday (yay!). We got to spend some time alone together (Yay!). We have the best sexlife ... when we have a sexlife (YAY!). For his birthday we took the kids to Grandma's, checked in to the Bella Maggiore hotel in Ventura, and went out to get hammered. The Bella Maggiore is a beautiful old building and a pretty cool hotel. I get this old timey feeling from it. It's supposed to be haunted, to. We tried to get the haunted room, but it was taken. Instead we got a two room suite that overlooks California street. Soooo nice to be in the middle of downtown. We met our friends at the sewer - there must've been like 20 of us at one point. Then we paraded over to Nicholby's, went up, had a bunch of drinks, danced a lot, and then - at almost 1:15 everyone decided to go to Billy O's. I was opposed to the idea. The whole point of us having a room downtown was so that we didn't have to pay for a taxi or get a ride anywhere. Besides, when we got there it would only be a matter of minutes before we'd have to leave. Nevertheless, it was Brian's birthday, and I thought he should call the shots - so we went. Then... we couldn't get a cab back home. They must've called 4 times and no one showed up. It was cold and Brian was HAMMERED. He ended up puking so much, which, well, it isn't like him (lately). Tommy and I were the only two that remained upright so we took care of him and Tom called his little bro to come and pick us up. We got back to the hotel around 3am. Got some good sleep. No kids. No people walking within sight of our living space. No lights glaring in my face. No rolling onto a freezing cold part of the air mattress where the bottom sheet came undone. Just a nice sleep. For four hours. Then it was up and at'em. Brian was hurting in a bad way, but he got through it brilliantly. Then, around, 3pm, it was my turn. Oi I felt like sheety you know man. Stayed up to watch the Survivor Finale (WOO!) and then finally went to bed. It rained hard last night. The sound of the rain was beautiful. It'll be even more beautiful a week from now when I'm sleeping in my own bed... (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
4:38 pm	Stolen from #5 On the twelfth day of Christmas, just1sillygirl sent to me... Twelve somethings drumming Eleven somethings piping Ten star_lynns a-leaping Nine glassstarla33s dancing Eight chironsvictims a-milking Seven zapman2003s a-swimming Six girasaurus a-laying Five crzyde-e-e-emonas Four monicas_minds Three saturdaynight16s Two smokenmirrors ...and a LiveJournal meme in a pear tree. Get your own Twelve Days: Do you see how sad it is that I didn't even have 12 things for it to use :( (Comment on this)
Friday, November 14th, 2008
3:15 pm	Beautiful There are a lot of hotties in Hollywood. Some mainstream "everyone knows I'm hot" hotties - like Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, George Clooney. They're hot. Then there are the not so obviously hot hotties - like Javier Bardem (not Nicholas Cage's retarded older brother), Joaquin Phoenix, Alan Rickman... I'm even starting to think that Hugh Laurie is kind of hot - but I think that's a whole psychological thing that I've been pondering lately (women & assholes) But I'll tell you, Cillian Murphy is beautiful. EDIT: oh shit, how did I miss Christian Bale in that first list? Way hotter than Brad Pitt and George Clooney put together - Brorge Pittooney. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
3:14 pm	Bit of a Stream of Conscioussness Rant Teddy likes TV. He just does, always has. When he was real little I watched a lot of TV while I was nursing – not a whole hell of a lot more to do in that position. I always joked about how he was watching too, but after a while it dawned on me that he may actually be. Maybe not actively watching it and processing what he was seeing, but certainly he was taking some of it in. He would definitely turn his attention toward it frequently. After that, I cut down on the Law & Order. Yesterday I know Teddy was sitting with Bekah watching whatever she was – Hannah Montana or something. Today Brian sent me a picture message of Ted watching Elmo and jumping in his jumper. He apparently loves sesame street. I don’t remember the girls being into TV when they were this young. It didn’t capture their attention like this until they were much older – maybe a few minutes (less than 5) at a time, and then it was something else. But Teddy acts as if he’s really watching it. And I think he is. As I sit here, in front of the computer that I’m at 7+ hours a day, blogging to whoever finds this form of communication appetizing, referring to the digital message my husband sent me, with a flurry of other electronic and digital things happening around me (I can’t even get a phone call without my phone sending me an email about it), I start to really believe that we are adapting to a more digital, techno-centric way of living and Babies watching TV at a young age is the physical expression of how we are working this into our genes. There are plenty of people out there that tell you not to let your kids, especially babies, watch TV because it will effect the growth of their brains. But to me, that’s like saying ‘don’t let your kids, especially babies, ride in automobiles because it will effect the growth of their legs’. I’m exaggerating, of course, but I have a gripe with the kind of fear-mongering promoted by the American Pediatrics Association and other groups. A correlation has been found between babies who watch 2 or more hours of ‘entertainment based’ television a day unsupervised, and kids who have attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder & limited ability to learn new vocabulary words. That’s a lot of confounding factors – which part is bad? The TV? The “unsupervised”? The 2+ hours? The type of programming? Or is it a combination of all these factors specifically? … My favorite reminder is: Correlation is not Causation. I have to believe that the combination is relevant. Brian has a good explanation to the girls about why they shouldn’t just watch TV all the time – it’s that there’s no interaction and their brains don’t have to think as hard. It’s like why you should eat whole grains instead of processed enriched flour. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don’t – I mean, how many times this week have we been watching house actively trying to figure out what is wrong with the patient? But I do agree that the interaction is key. It’s also a part of the equation above. I know the APA didn’t do a clinical trial making kids watch TV to see if there are any adverse effects – that’s not legal. You can’t take someone with nothing wrong with them and do stuff to them to SEE if something WILL go wrong with them. Sooo against the rules of society and medicine! So this study that all these finding were based on must have been – what? - done on kids who’s parent voluntarily admitted that they got more than 2 hours of unsupervised exposure to entertainment based TV a day. Now, I’m not going to cast any aspersions on these parents, but the APA who can’t possibly be sure that this is the ONLY time these children’s parents don’t interact with them or that they are unsupervised. If they can’t know what else is going on in their lives, they can’t know what’s causing this connection between TV situation A and learning disabilities. There’s also a possibility that it’s the reverse. There’s a movement out there that says these kids with AD(H)D are the next evolution of the human race – that they’re operating at much faster pace designed to keep up with the world we’re building around us, processing so many things that to us slow pokes who have to focus on one thing at a time, they look like they’ve got a disability. Sure they do, in our society that is created to accommodate people like us, but the thinking in this group of people is that eventually these kids’ way of being will be the norm and we will become slow and obsolete. Some groups of thought about kids with ADD actually go into these weird ideas about the vibration of the Earth increasing and polar shifts and transcending and other kinds of weirdness – BUT my point is that maybe it’s not the TV that causes kids to be of a particular mindset, but those kids who are already chemically predisposed to what we think of as attention disabled and hyperactive are more attracted to television and it’s swiftly shifting images and can watch it for longer. Limited parental interaction may just be a matter of interest on the little one’s part. Any parent who stays home with their kid – even a baby – knows that kid doesn’t want to interact with them all the time. I mentioned before the ‘ruled by fear’ aspect of being a parent. There are so many groups that will tell you so many things are bad for your baby and kids. Don’t let them sleep on their tummy, don’t give them sugar or food dyes (which I agree with actually) or whatever other food, don’t let them suck their thumb, etc… Now there’s this whole other class of things that don’t cause an immediate health threat, but you should still be guilty if you’re not doing – like co-sleeping, using cloth diapers, eating organic foods, breastfeeding till they’re eight years old, etc… TV fits in there somewhere. This wasn’t necessarily meant to go anywhere, just a collection of jumbled thoughts and emotions. I’m thinking – how much TV is cool for him to watch? Do we spend enough time interacting with him? I’m feeling – Outrage at people who would try to tell you how to raise your kid. Anger at companies that will sell you a ridiculously expensive piece of equipment because it MIGHT save your baby from the SIDS (note that, by definition, they don’t know what SIDS is or what causes it). Curiosity at all these weird theories about kids, development, and ways of parenting and how the kids actually turn out afterward. Oh, and an update on Mary’s potential ADD. If she has it, it’s so minor that I don’t think I need to make a big deal out of it. Once we’re in the house we should all go in for family counseling anyway, for continuous improvement; but I don’t think Mary’s behavior needs to be called out as abnormal. Of all the research that I’ve done on the topic, nothing was more eye opening than to be around kids who’ve actually been diagnosed with the disorder. Definitely not Mary’s issue. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, November 3rd, 2008
10:48 am	Halloween Pics So we were afraid that Halloween was going to be a bust this year because of all the upheaval what with the escrow and the move and life on top of that, but we pulled it off pretty well. If I find a better picture of Ted in his full costume I'll post it.. Mary as a witch: Mary & Bekah (as a toilet): Teddy was Mr. Peanut (monacle and all): And last but not least, the Parra's costume endeavor: (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008
9:08 am	Father & Son go to Denny's (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 24th, 2008
2:43 pm	And you may ask yourself - where is that beautiful house? It's in OXNARD... Quick post to let everyone know that we got a house and are going into escrow. WOO! We should be in by Nov 21st :) The link to the listing is here: http://vcrdsmls.rapmls.com/scripts/mgrqispi.dll?APPNAME=vcrdsmls&PRGNAME=MLSPropertyDetail&ARGUMENTS=-N200146426,-N325598,-N,-A,-N12727959 We're moving in with my MIL today and tomorrow, so won't have internet access for a while. Wish us luck with moving (urgh!) Cheers! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 18th, 2008
10:30 pm	The Saga Continues House hunting. URGH!!! We went in Friday morning to talk about some paperwork that one of the houses we have a bid on wanted us to fill out. They sent it to us via email on Tuesday and asked us to sign it and send it back. It was totally blank, I was like "uh-uh" and politely told them there were too many fields that were blank that I couldn't fill in myself. We they had only taken a cursory glance at it when they sent it to us, and when we saw them on Friday they were like, "I totally wouldn't have signed it either" - long story short, they sent the paperwork back to the listing agent and told them to fill in the blanks before we even look at it. The listing agent also asked us to make sure our offer was our "best and highest" ... so we asked to look at the place again to be sure. After looking around at all the little tiny things we'd have to do, we said that there was no way we'd go up any higher, so that's that and we'll find out whether they like it or not. Meanwhile I had been continuing my obsessive search for houses on the MLS. To weed out the questionable neighborhoods and crazy add-on hell houses, I usually constrain my searches to 300-370K, but on a whim brought my starting price down to 200K just to see what was going on in the market. There's over 100 houses that fit our general criteria in the 200-300 alone, but they're mostly crap or in La Colonia (tha hood). Now we live on the Ave in Ventura, which has a really bad rep, and we love it, but Colonia is a step I'm not willing to take yet! However I did find a house that was right at 299, in a decent neighborhood on a street that we already new we liked. I wondered what was wrong with it. The size is the same as or bigger than some of the other houses we'd bid on. The yard looked nice... so what's the catch? Well, it's right by the rail road tracks, I figured that must have to be it. Our agent took us to see that one and we instantly fell in love. Except for some carpeting and painting, it's totally move in ready - it's got a great front, back, and side yard, and it's got room for expansion should we choose to go down that road. We went in REALLY high on that one, hoping it would be a slam dunk. I had to work Friday afternoon, but Brian decided to go back to the neighborhood and check it out some more. The street isn't a thoroughfare, so it's real quiet (I don't know how we'll adjust having gotten so used the unending noise of the main road we live on!) and the neighbors are all real nice. How do we know that? Well, my husband, being the friendly and outgoing person he is, talked to FIFTEEN different neighbors in the area and they all said the same thing - they love living there. The train, they all said, only comes through once in a while real slowly delivering trucks to the base (which is about 1/2 a mile away) and it only comes through in the middle of the day. As a side story, we saw some little cute adorable stray doggies (little ahsalopsoh [Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<sp?>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] House hunting. URGH!!! We went in Friday morning to talk about some paperwork that one of the houses we have a bid on wanted us to fill out. They sent it to us via email on Tuesday and asked us to sign it and send it back. It was totally blank, I was like "uh-uh" and politely told them there were too many fields that were blank that I couldn't fill in myself. We they had only taken a cursory glance at it when they sent it to us, and when we saw them on Friday they were like, "I totally wouldn't have signed it either" - long story short, they sent the paperwork back to the listing agent and told them to fill in the blanks before we even look at it. The listing agent also asked us to make sure our offer was our "best and highest" ... so we asked to look at the place again to be sure. After looking around at all the little tiny things we'd have to do, we said that there was no way we'd go up any higher, so that's that and we'll find out whether they like it or not. Meanwhile I had been continuing my obsessive search for houses on the MLS. To weed out the questionable neighborhoods and crazy add-on hell houses, I usually constrain my searches to 300-370K, but on a whim brought my starting price down to 200K just to see what was going on in the market. There's over 100 houses that fit our general criteria in the 200-300 alone, but they're mostly crap or in La Colonia (tha hood). Now we live on the Ave in Ventura, which has a really bad rep, and we love it, but Colonia is a step I'm not willing to take yet! However I did find a house that was right at 299, in a decent neighborhood on a street that we already new we liked. I wondered what was wrong with it. The size is the same as or bigger than some of the other houses we'd bid on. The yard looked nice... so what's the catch? Well, it's right by the rail road tracks, I figured that must have to be it. Our agent took us to see that one and we instantly fell in love. Except for some carpeting and painting, it's totally move in ready - it's got a great front, back, and side yard, and it's got room for expansion should we choose to go down that road. We went in REALLY high on that one, hoping it would be a slam dunk. I had to work Friday afternoon, but Brian decided to go back to the neighborhood and check it out some more. The street isn't a thoroughfare, so it's real quiet (I don't know how we'll adjust having gotten so used the unending noise of the main road we live on!) and the neighbors are all real nice. How do we know that? Well, my husband, being the friendly and outgoing person he is, talked to FIFTEEN different neighbors in the area and they all said the same thing - they love living there. The train, they all said, only comes through once in a while real slowly delivering trucks to the base (which is about 1/2 a mile away) and it only comes through in the middle of the day. As a side story, we saw some little cute adorable stray doggies (little ahsalopsoh <sp?> kind of dogs) when we looked at the house at 10am, and when he went back at 2pm, they were about a mile away running around in the main street so he picked them up and took them around on his journey to see if he could find the owners. He didn't. We put up "FOUND" signs all over and kept them at our house for the night hoping someone would call... but they didn't. They were very friendly, energetic dogs, but in our current situation we are in no position to take care of more pets, so we took them to the shelter in Camarillo. Sadly its not a no-kill shelter, but it is the one place someone who lost their beloved pets would go to find them. Chewy really like the dogs and was so happy to have them to play with, but they weren't so fond of him. I really hope the owners get back in touch with them ... and put COLLARS on them!!!! We went back today to sign the paperwork and look at the house one more time, it really is perfect, but I'm over getting all excited about places to live - we've been outbid too many times for me to get my hopes up too high. We did a little research and realized that the reason the house was priced so low was due to comparable houses in the area (a few of which we had already looked at - most of which were multiple-family residences and mazes of add-ons). Our fingers are crossed for this one (too). We still have a few bids out. One for a house in Ventura that I'm slowly becoming less keen on, one for a house that was already marked for someone else but may fall through for them, one for the crazy house with mirrors on the walls, ceilings, and goddam KITCHEN CABINETS!, and another that is really neat that we have the highest bid on - but they may want too high of a deposit. The right one will fall into our lap eventually, and as taxing as it is I'll tell you I really like to look at the homes. In other news, we took Teddy in for his 6 month check up. SIX MONTHS! already, jeez. He's developing great, he's 21 lbs and 28.5 inches long (in the 90 and 97th percentile for weight and height respectively). He got some shots, but managed it well. He has THREE teeth coming in on the top, so he's a little cranky, and is starting to get chaffed on his knees and forearms where he's been just crawling ALL OVER the place. One thing that we did tell the doctor about is that he has tremors. It only seems to happen when we are feeding him and he is falling asleep - those two in combination. It's not like shivers, its full on shaking. Just his head and arms, and seems to last for 10-20 seconds at a time. He doesn't seem to blank out while he does it (he continues sucking on his bottle), its only his head and arms that'll do it, but it doesn't stop when we try and hold him still. The doctor didn't seem overly alarmed, but he does want us to take him to a neurologist. It occurred to me that it may also happen in his sleep and we may never know, but so far it seems to be only when he's eating and sleeping at the same time. It started about a month or so ago, and is fairly regular (happens 3-4 times a week). We'll take him in to get him checked out, hopefully its something that he'll outgrow. We talked to Brian's mom to ask if she'd ever experienced that with him, and she said Brian used to shake in his sleep (same description) when he was little (under 5), but they never found a cause for it. I wouldn't be surprised if its the same thing, since he does take after his dad in his tendancy to babble in his sleep (makes it hard to know when we really need to get up and do the full care routine in the middle of the night). We've been packing the house steadily and surely, and its going really well this time. This next move is going to be so much better than the last one!! We'll be moving in with my MIL in a week or so. Hopefully only for a month - if we get the house we just bid on, we'll be in by Nov 21st. Our landlord showed the house last weekend to a prospective renter and told us not to worry about repainting the walls we painted, they liked the color, so that's a load off - lots of work that we DON'T have to do. Other than that, things have been busy with work and school and kid stuff. Last week was particularly taxing and I've been exhausted all weekend, but things are going well! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
8:22 pm	Am I really? Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz... You Are a Doris! You are a Doris -- "I must help others." Dorises are warm, concerned, nurturing, and sensitive to other people's needs. How to Get Along with Me * Tell me that you appreciate me. Be specific. * Share fun times with me. * Take an interest in my problems, though I will probably try to focus on yours. * Let me know that I am important and special to you. * Be gentle if you decide to criticize me. In Intimate Relationships * Reassure me that I am interesting to you. * Reassure me often that you love me. * Tell me I'm attractive and that you're glad to be seen with me. What I Like About Being a Doris * being able to relate easily to people and to make friends * knowing what people need and being able to make their lives better * being generous, caring, and warm * being sensitive to and perceptive about others' feelings * being enthusiastic and fun-loving, and having a good sense of humor What's Hard About Being a Doris * not being able to say no * having low self-esteem * feeling drained from overdoing for others * not doing things I really like to do for myself for fear of being selfish * criticizing myself for not feeling as loving as I think I should * being upset that others don't tune in to me as much as I tume in to them * working so hard to be tactful and considerate that I suppress my real feelings Dorises as Children Often * are very sensitive to disapproval and criticism * try hard to please their parents by being helpful and understanding * are outwardly compliant * are popular or try to be popular with other children * act coy, precocious, or dramatic in order to get attention * are clowns and jokers (the more extroverted Dorises), or quiet and shy (the more introverted Dorises) Dorises as Parents * are good listeners, love their children unconditionally, and are warm and encouraging (or suffer guilt if they aren't) * are often playful with their children * wonder: "Am I doing it right?" "Am I giving enough?" "Have I caused irreparable damage?" * can become fiercely protective Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
1:17 pm	Why I'm Not A Poet - A Question For My Husband Do you want to buy a house with me baby Somewhere we can grow a family And maybe some herbs for the kitchen We can get a buffalo head for over the fireplace Or an antler chandelier Maybe some pink flamingos for the lawn A curtain of beads with the mona lisa on it No landlord living all in our business No having to promise to repaint the walls back to a normal color Just our kids playing with our dog Just our laundry in the washer No one to take away our parking spot in the driveway No one to make us walk on egg shells at the thought of pissing them off and having no where to live Do you want to be a land owner baby They say there’s nothing better They say they’re not making any more So we just buy up all the same plots over and over and over again There’s a plot out there that we can have Being citizens who have verifiable income and credit scores over 580 It doesn’t matter which one it is, though ‘Cause I love you so much I would live anywhere with you We could raise up our family in a cracker jack box It would still be my favorite family ever They might not make cracker jacks anymore so we may have to settle for a milk carton It would be the best milk carton home because we’re awesome Life is good (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 9th, 2008
3:33 pm	buck up me hartys yo ho! (Comment on this)
Friday, October 3rd, 2008
9:14 pm	House Hunting and Neil Diamond Did some more house hunting today and some recovering from the Neil Diamond concert. As a birthday present for her 60th birthday I bought my mom tickets to see Neil Diamond at the Hollywood Bowl.  I'd never been to the Bowl before and it was beautiful.  I had been caught in traffic related to the Bowl before, so I decided to buy tickets for the shuttle from the LA Zoo to the Bowl so I didn't have to worry about the traffic nightmare I knew we'd encounter.  I drove out to Lancaster to pick up me mum, then we drove to the Zoo - got there at about 6:45pm and after all was said and done we got back to my car at midnight!!  The show was really fantastic, if a little bit corny, but in a good way. If y'all don't know my mom, she's a huge Neil Diamond fan.  His music was a big part of my life growing up.  She's also old for her age and can't get around real well, can't sit for long periods of time, and generally won't leave my dad for long periods of time - so the fact that she went at all was just awesome.  Even though there were a lot of steps (we were pretty high up), we sat forever, stood in line even longer than that (for the bus), and was away from my dad for a full 7 hours, she was a trooper and still really enjoyed the concert. I did too!  I knew a lot of the songs and "call and response" type of activities from karaoke and the rest from when I was little, so it was a big ball of nostalgia and recollection of karaoke-good-times.  I admit that I got a little teary when he sang I am I said and was practically bawling when he sang America (I had, for a long time, been dreaming of standing up fists in the air yelling "TODAY!"  good stuff. When we left the whole bus thing was pretty confusing and poorly managed, but whatever, that was fine.  There was this one douche bag jackass though who I, seriously, thought was one of the drunk patrons gone out of control.  He was screaming and rude and gesticulating violently.  Turns out he was one of the guys directing people onto the busses.  After a snafu involving a whole group of people at the front of the line who were denied access to a bus in their proper turn, the people at the very front complained (not rudely) and the guy just blew up and went off.  I was a little afraid of him and the mom in me wanted to pop him upside the head.  Even his co-workers were trying to calm him down, he was obviously not cut out for this type of work.  I quietly mentioned that I would be complaining and some girl working there told me, rather sarcastically, that it wouldn't do any good.  So I did, I emailed the Bowl this morning and told them that the event was great, but that the one guy was out of control.  I told them that I understood 'bad days' and was confident they could get it in check - but if I ever experienced it again I would take it up with the donors and the press.  They called me back and left me a message thanking me for my feedback, said they would discuss it with the superintendent, and gave me a direct line to call if I wanted to follow up.  I don't need to follow-up, I feel better just knowing that someone understood good customer service and will leave it at that. I got home today and got to see my son and my husband.  I hadn't held Teddy since he went to bed Tuesday night (and it is now Friday).  He slept in late Wednesday, then I had class until late, then he and Brian left eaaaarrrrrly Thursday morning, and I was gone Thursday night.  It was the longest I had been away from Ted and boy did it warm my heart to see him.  He gave me some BIG sloppy kisses and it was wonderful.  Then we went and did some more house hunting. Update - the house that was way underpriced that we put in a huge bid on was sold... for $500K!!!  It was listed for $300K... wtfever.  That's fine.  We saw a house earlier in the week that we already knew we wanted to bid on, but saw like 5 more places today.  The first one we saw was pretty run down (the neighbor across the street said there were 30 people living in it at one time... surely an exaggeration, but it was clear that there were multiple families.  It had a lot of potential, but I wasn't so struck by it that I wanted to fuck with fixing it up, so we passed on that one.  The next one we saw was more perfect than anything else we've seen so far.  Great neighborhood, right size, good layout, a lot of the things that we had planned to do (like wood flooring and particular cabinets) had already been done to it, and a really cute yard.  We bid on that.  The third one we looked at was in Ventura.  I was so excited to look at a house in Vta that was in our price range.  It had a lot of rooms and was kind of 'woodsy' but another one that the fix-up would be too much of a hassle.  Then we looked at a couple more in a gated community in the south 'nard.  They were cute on the inside (new) but sooo close to eachother and parking wasn't great, so we passed on bidding for those too.  We'll see how it goes. I've been all stressed about the house thing, but my mom reminded me on the drive to the Bowl that things have a way of working themselves out right and it made me remember that if I just stop second guessing myself and let the universe work, it'll turn out fine.  When she said it, it was one of those "oh yeah" moments.  Everything does work out for the best, so I'll just let it happen... and start packing!  We are moving in with my MIL for a little while until we close on a house and need to be out by the end of this month.  Busy busy busy! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
11:16 am	Scoops in a Swing Brian took this picture today on his cell phone and sent it to me.  He's at Marion Cannon park in Ventura at his Tuesday meeting with the parents group Brian belongs to.  He's getting so stinkin' big! (3 Comments |Comment on this)