Lost in Place

I've been so mentally drained that I just cannot force myself to come up with anything to say here. Sure, there are a number of things I could post about. Like:

I'm gonna freaking flip my lid if this stinking house doesn't sell by the end of the summer.
If this child doesn't learn that bedtime is earlier than 11:30 PM, I'm gonna freaking flip my lid.
If I don't get some sleep and get back in the game mentally ... wait for it ... I'm gonna freaking flip my lid!

Or, I could post about the fact that oh yeah - she's totally walking now.

Yeah, I guess I could should post about that.

But no. What I really wanna do is just zone out and daydream all day. About how once my house sells, life will be so much better. About how once we get a routine down for us, once the house sells, life will be so much better. About how living in the city, once the house sells, will be so much better. About how everything in my world right now hinges on this one thing. This one lousy, annoying, I-have-absolutely-no-control-over-whatsoever thing. That, and it's just too much effort and energy to think about something worthwhile to share with the world. So instead, I'd rather tune out, stare at a blank screen and wish for a pillow and blanket and hours and hours and hours of quiet time all to myself. But, I know, even then I won't be back in the game. I need to use this head of mine before it atrophies to completely useless. Though I'm beginning to wonder if it's already too far gone to come back from?

Posted by Kim at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I spent a few days this week in some geeky-technical-computer-web-language training. I work for a computer/web company so big deal, right? Okay. I did it voluntarily. How about that? I searched it out, I asked for it, and then, the scariest part - it got here and I was excited. Like smile on my face, can't wait to get into it, holy crap I am really going to learn this stuff excited. Then I wanted to hit myself in the head with - I don't know, something very, very heavy and big. I'm not the geek of the family. I'm not a geek in the family. Or... I wasn't. I didn't start out that way. But now, instead of worrying about what I will wear tomorrow or which brand of makeup I like most this week, I obsess over what I can possibly do to my website next. What more I can possibly learn to tweak this or figure out that. Or (seriously, someone put me out of my misery) how I could possibly learn more to use it in my job to branch out and become even MORE of a geek. What have I become??? Someone who wears the same shoes more than two days in a row, owns makeup but can't really remember what it's for all the time, hasn't worn anything but jeans in oh someone stop me. I cannot bear any more of these realizations. Of course, I place all the blame on my husband. He did this. He rubbed off on me. (If he would just share some of his genius with me... geeze!) But I can assure you, 110THOUSAND percent, he will not get me playing the games. Ever. I stop here. Creating, fiddling, designing and playing around. Besides, it's fun. I guess I can look at that part as an extension of my crafty, creative side. It just includes a computer. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go buy a new lip gloss.

Posted by Kim at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I don't mind that Madeleine has to go to day care. It's a much more healthy, sane alternative than staying home all day, every day with her. However! Our day care has been a little light on the adults for a little while - for whatever reason, I don't know nor have I really cared yet. Every time we drop her off, one of the ladies takes her from us and she is 99% of the time, completely fine with that. Except that today when we dropped her off, there was one lady in the room with about 6+ kids and she had one screaming in her arms. Of course, it was the one lady who doesn't speak a word of English and my tenish words of Spanish could in no way put together "Are you taking her from me or am I putting her on the floor?" She kept motioning somehow and saying something, but like I said, I'm working on maybe ten whole words of Spanish - if that - and significantly less when I'm only half awake. So I had no idea if she was trying to take Madeleine or telling me to put her on the floor. Since the woman is TINY, I figured she probably wasn't going to want to take two upset 1-year olds. So I put Madeleine down on the floor. Let's just say I got out to the car and *I* cried because of how upset she was. I can deal with a few tears or some general grumpiness when I drop her off - but today? No. Today you could have sworn someone took her puppy away (oh. wait. we did that already). Seriously - she has never thrown a fit like that when dropping her off yet. It was heart-breaking. And of course I'm just emotional and venting and will be totally rational and fine once I calm down but it's just a little disconcerting when the one lady in the room is overrun by kids and I have to just drop my barely woken up doesn't like to be put down baby on the floor to start her day. Of course, just as soon as I was closing the door one of the other ladies walked in so I am sure she went straight to Madeleine to calm her down, but still. I'm just grumpy. And not exactly the way I wanted to start my day or my week.

Posted by Kim at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's a month late. I know. We had her one year pictures taken a little late since we were traveling over her birthday and then had to wait to get the digital images.

I took her in to JCPenney's Portrait Studio once a month to have her picture taken - to document her "growth" (and my bank account's demise). Would I do this again? Hell no. For a number of reasons -

First: I was not impressed with JCPenney. I knew that would be the case before I even started. (That is not to say the one girl who photographed M enough that she actually let her touch her and play with her and pay attention to her was not awesome - she was, she did really well. It's just the portrait studio itself, their props, their drops, their options, etc.) But, given that we do live in a relatively small town, there weren't a whole lot of options. Also, since we're not up there very often, we had to work around that schedule as well. So we were stuck using them. I'll continue to use them as long as we live in Winchester and since I bought a 2-year membership but I won't recommend them and I wouldn't use them again for any other children I may some day have in my little dreamworld.

Second: Seriously? Look at those pictures. Sure, you can see the difference between "two weeks" and "three months" but can you really see the difference between "eight months" and "eleven months?" Not really.

Third: My goodness it was expensive. Especially since I'm the moron who HAS to have too many pictures no matter what. I couldn't just settle on the pre-selected packages that were less than 10 bucks. No, I had to mix and match poses and whatever. Too much money. (Now, if you're my sister who happens to be married to someone who runs a photography business: I HATE YOU, then sure, cost would not be a factor and I'd be all over that. Otherwise, save your money and put food on the table! Sheesh!)

Fourth: I'm too lazy. Having to make sure we have an appointment on the right date at a time of day least likely for baby meltdown and then drive all the way over there. Bahhhh. Yuck. And having to decide what she'll wear?? That just takes WAY too much energy.

And, finally, fifth: I absolutely, positively, without a doubt KNEW I would be displaying the pictures as I got them. No question. Then we go and put our stupid house on the market and each picture stays in its envelope until it's completely outdated. Yeah. So that part totally and completely sucked. I am going to have to pretend, if we EVER move, that I'm just getting them all over again and we'll have to rotate her pictures out every month until I have actually used them - who cares if the kid is FIVE by then.

I say, no, I wouldn't do it again. Monthly is insane. Do the every three month like everyone suggests (and like I had originally planned. Really. I swear). And I would absolutely stand by telling anyone that (except my sister - man, if you aren't taking them WEEKLY, you're nuts!) - do it the easy way: shortly after they're born, three months, six months, nine months, one year - the way NORMAL people would do it. Duh. But give me another kid and I gaurantee you, I'll be in a portrait studio, somewhere, once a month every month until that poor child is one. Such a waste. I am such a freak. And, now that it's coming up on that 13th month, I'm feeling a little bit of a loss that I don't have to make an appointment, that I don't have to worry about what to put her in, that I don't have to drive all the way over to the mall and then wait two weeks to get the pictures back so I can drive back over to the mall to pick them up.

Wait. No I'm not.

Posted by Kim at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have been participating in a swap group for the past couple of months. Each month, they've picked two colors and we've sent out packages to each other based on those colors. This month's colors were orange and yellow.

This is the stuff I sent to my swap-buddy:

This is the stuff my swap-buddy sent to me:

It's been really fun seeing how other people interpret the color schemes and what they'll do with them. The best part is that everyone actually posts likes and dislikes so that you're not blindly sending things to people that they very well may hate. It's really fun finding things to put in the package. It would be even more fun if I liked to shop anymore but now I just try to decide what I want to do ahead of time so I'm on a mission when it comes down to it. Who has the time and energy to actually go browsing-shopping anymore? But this gives me a (very poor excuse for a) creative outlet in a world where I don't get time to actually do anything crafty/creative anymore, don't have space to do any since everything always has to be kept clean, and isn't something that is so intensive that it actually takes real planning and effort.

Posted by Kim at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Overheard in the movie theater from the aisle behind us - a dad and his 4 kids - just after the "silence your cell phone" message:

Daughter: Dad? Did you silence your cell phone?
Dad: I'm more worried about silencing my children right now.

Posted by Kim at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We took Madeleine to a couple of firework shows before the 4th of July. The first one was at the end of June and we were a couple miles away from the show so there was no sound. The second one, we were still quite a ways away and she could hardly see anything and there was only a little bit of sound. We knew we would be pretty close to the show on the 4th and I was pretty sure she would hate every second of it. Those things can get loud. We were a little worried she would be afraid of the noise.

Nope.

Not this kid. She LOVED it. She squealed and laughed and pointed and clapped and thought it was just great. Absolutely my kid. It made the fireworks all that more fun to see her enjoy them. It's funny how everything is new when viewing it with the eyes of a child. That was the most fun I'd had watching fireworks on the 4th of July in my adult life. Which isn't saying much since it was probably the first 4th of July fireworks show I'd been able to drag my husband to in probably a decade.

(So the picture thing is new. Dan installed this way awesome picture-thinger for the site that works a littler differently. He hates the animated pictures I've been using so insists I do it this way for multiple pictures. You can click on each of the little pictures to make it bigger - but that would be silly. Click on one and then just click on the enlarged picture and viola! It goes to the next picture for you. We'll be using this from now on as opposed to the animated gifs. Even though I really like those annoying little buggers.)

Posted by Kim at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)