No Giant Death Tumors! Yippee!

Actually, my prognosis is pretty boring: I have an abnormality of the disc between the L5 and S1 vertabraes. That would be "L" for Lumbar and "S" for Sacrum (Take that, Sue Grafton!). The disc is the spongy stuff between your vertabraes that keeps them from grinding together. I heard the analogy once that your vertabraes are like the cookies in the Oreo cookie, and the disc is the "stuff". This analogy just makes me hungry.

So what does all this mean? Good question! Unfortunately, it means alot of the same ole, same ole...

Here's how the doctor conversation went...

Anti-inflammatories:
Me: I already tried those. They didn't help. They actually made it worse.
Doc: Well, I find that hard to believe. I can see them not helping, but I doubt they made it worse.
Me: (did that bitch just call me a liar!?) Well, they didn't help.*
Doc: Which ones did you take?
Me: Er.....it started with "N". Naaaaaaaaa-something. (Duh)
Doc: Naproxen? NaproseelyMcweely?
Me: Um, yeah. That first one. (whatever, bitch. Gimme the good ones)
Doc: Hmmmm....Let's try Celebrex. That one has a really good track record with cases like this.
Me: (Dammit, now I've got that stupid Celebrex song in my head...Cel-e-brate...Cel-e-brate...ARG!) Okay, sure.
Doc: Now try these for fourteen days. You will know whether they work or not after that. It will be obvious.
Me: Okay.

Physical Therapy:
Doc: If those don't do the trick, we will do some physical therapy.
Me: I already did that.
Doc: Well. (kinda ignoring me) Let's try it again.
Me: (Hey, did that bitch just ignore me? Whatever. I guess he's the "expert" here. I'll just nod and act interested). Um, okay. (also thinking...my benefit limit for physical therapy bit the dust about two months ago...this could get expensive)
Doc: (babbles on about physical therapy)

Epidural Steroids:
Doc: If all that doesn't help, we can move on to epidural steroids.
Me: Are those like cortisone shots? (me showing my clever Google research skills. Ha!)
Doc: Sort of. Have you had kids?
Me: No. (I HAVE a kid, but I've never HAD a kid, but didn't feel compelled to elaborate on this)
Doc: Er, well, it's an epidural, like when you go into labor, but instead of painkillers, it's steroids, which can help the disc heal.
Me: (Hell-oooooo? Did you hear me? NO LABOR. Wouldn't know an epidural if it poked me in the ass. That is where they put it, right???) Er. Okay.

At this point, I'm thinking, "Just shoot me in the ass, back, neck, wherever you need to with the epidural goo, 'cause I've already tried the drugs, I've already tried the therapy, and it's not working. I don't see how trying this all again (with the associated expense) will help."

But, hey, I'm a trooper. I'll go along with the plan and see what happens. Meanwhile, know that I know in certain terms what is wrong, I'm off to Google to do some research. Much to Cagey's dismay, I fear. Whee!


*Mr. Goofy later reminded me about how the anti-inflammatories gave me anxiety attacks. I had forgotten that fun side effect!

D-Day

Well, tomorrow is D-day. Doctor Day. Otherwise known as The Day When I Find Out What is Wrong with My Back. Hopefully...

All the MRIs are taken. I had my last one Friday. As you might recall, I freaked out during the previous one (from claustrophobia) and had to reschedule at an "open" MRI. I put the open in quotes (big, giant quotes) because it was NOT open. Liars! It was just shorter.

But...the technician was nice. And cute (hey, cute goes a long way when you are freaking out). And (this is the biggie)...he gave me a button to hold that I could press if I just couldn't take it anymore and he would (supposedly) eject me immediately from the machine. Just this simple rubber ball with a cord coming out of it - this CONTROL - kept me sane. Silly me forgot to see if it was actually connected to anything or not. They probably call it the "Idiot Ball" and laugh as patients frantically press it and nothing happens. Ah, but as usual, I digress....

So, the tests are all taken, and I have my orthopedist's appointment tomorrow. What will it be? Herniated disc? Giant tumor on my spine? Osteo-necrosis*? Or....my worst nightmare....

Nothing. I am super-duper afraid that he will tell me my back is normal. Why? Because what the hell do I do then? I'm in pain. Pretty bad pain sometimes. I'm worried that it will either be nothing(mental? stress?), or un-fixable. Like I said...what the hell do I do then?

So there. I said, er, typed it. I'm trying not to worry about it, cause we all know how much that helps (NOT!). Try to think some good, back-healing thoughts for me around 4:00pm CST tomorrow.

Unless my giant back tumor bursts, I'll be writing in tomorrow to let you all know the verdict.

So stay tuned - same Goofy time...same Goofy channel.


*Bo Jackson's disease. Yes, I've done some research on all the things it could be, regardless of how remote the chances.

Rebels without a Card

Ever feel like you are the last person on the earth to try (or give up) something? Well, I'm here to tell you that, yours truly, Goofy Girl is the single last holdout.

Q: For what?
A: Membership to one of those super-duper wholesale club stores.

We do not belong to Costco. We are not welcome at Sam's Club. Price Club...no thanks. And we do not miss it.

Q: Who really needs a 5 pound bag of cheese curls? Who needs a 24-pack of sweatsocks?
A: Obviously, everyone else in America except for us.

You should see the faces when I tell people this. And (trust me) it comes up in casual conversation nowadays.

Co-worker: Oh I had the best cheese last night!
Me: Really? What kind was it?
Co-worker: Oh gouda or something....I got the 10 pound sampler from Costco. You should go pick it up!
Me: Er. I can't. I don't belong to Costco.
Co-worker: (shocked silence)

It's not like I'm bragging or anything. I just really don't feel like I would get a big value out of it.

I really don't buy books much at all anymore (library serves to whet my bookworm appetite). Music CDs have been replaced by iTunes downloads and movies come via Blockbuster Online.

And we buy groceries using the JIT (just-in-time) method. As in "Honey, what's for dinner tonight?" "I don't know, let's run up to Price Chopper and get something". There's no stocked-freezer in the Goofy house, that's for sure.

And we are surviving. Really!

So readers...tell me: Are we missing the boat? Should we rush over to Sam's and plunk down our 35 bucks a year? Or are we okay sticking with our "alternative" lifestyle?

Wyoming and Stuff

In the far and mighty West,
Where the crimson sun seeks rest,
There's a growing splendid State that lies above,
On the breast of this great land;
Where the massive Rockies stand,
There's Wyoming young and strong, the State I love!

Okay, okay...I'll spare you rest on the Wyoming State Song. Wyoming was, well, pretty darn splendid. Temps were highs in the 70s, lows in the 40s. Humidity around 20% (versus 90% here in good ole KC). In other words...perfect.

It was hard to come back. We were there a week. I didn’t think about work. I didn’t think about Goofy Junior (too much). My mind started centering. And (bonus!) I actually got to re-connect with my husband. Without the work, family, house, dogs, money, etc. issues swirling around, we actually enjoyed each other’s company and got to talk about some pretty important things. And we didn’t fight/bicker at all. Well, a few times regarding navigational issues, but that’s to be expected.

I also got an MRI on the Friday before we left. It’s a long, painful story, but I only got an MRI of my hip, not my back. I was supposed to get both, but I kinda freaked out when the gal rolled me all the way into the middle of the MRI machine (which is this gigantic, sterile white monolith, that makes loud banging noises and they roll you into the middle of it, head-first, which gives you a fun "coffin" feeling). Shudder. Then she mentioned that I would have to be in there for 40 minutes. Without moving. If I moved, we’d have to start over.

So basically I freaked ("Jane! Stop this crazy thing!") and could only do the hip MRI. Which they can put you feet-first in for…and I still freaked me out, but I was able to hold it together for the 40 minutes. I freaked out quietly. Then I couldn’t get out of the place fast enough. Hopefully that will be enough for the ortho doc to tell me something.

Back to Wyoming. Once again, I surprised myself at how much I can achieve, once I set my mind to it. Or maybe I’m just too stupid to know what is above my level. Who knows? Anyway…
I went up, up, and over a mountain divide that was 10,700 feet tall. On the way down, I started having some altitude sickness symptoms, the most annoying one being a pretty strong nauseous feeling. The headaches I’m used to, and can breath through, but the nausea made me nervous.

Also, by the time we got to camp, I had a whopping blister in the back of my left ankle. Like a quarter-sized gaping hole! This made the last day hiking out very, very painful and my progress very slow. But I finished. My energy held out very well and I recovered from the nausea fairly fast (well, after vomiting at our campsite – under a rock, so it wouldn’t attract Yogi Bear. I’ll never eat a beef stick again. Bleck.).

I took a nap in the tent for about 30 minutes (shivering the entire time), then was able to eat some dinner and felt a great deal better. Then the next morning I felt like a new woman. A new woman with a very sore, bloody ankle. Ew.

But…I did it! As Dora would say, "Lo hicimos!". I surprised myself at how well I did. The next day, Randy was just as sore as I was (although he didn’t get any blisters). Mainly our calves killed us, from the 5-hour downhill hike out. We looked like two senior citizens gimping around after we sat still for more than 10 minutes.

And that's the Goofy definition of Big Fun.

Ponderation about Motivation

On my drive to work, I started pondering motivation. What drives people? Since I was driving to work, I started thinking about all the other folks around me driving their cars to work. What motivated them to get up, primp, jump into their cars and get going? Never mind WHERE they were going…that's irrelevant. Assuming they are going somewhere that pays them to be there each day. Why do they do it?

That skinny guy eating a granola bar in the Grand Cherokee…what's his motivation? A family at home to support? Aging parents that might depend on him soon to pay their bills? Or maybe that trip to France that he's always dreamed about?

The chubby black lady driving the bright yellow (ouch, my eyes!) Mustang…what's her motivation? Paying for gas on her sporty car? Just getting the bills paid? Or is she working towards a greater purpose? Does she dream about changing the world someday?

What compels us to wrap our lives around a job? Money, of course, is key. But the money is simply the middleman. Money is simply a means to an end.

Money (and by "money" I mean the pieces of green paper that we exchange to buy goods and services) is worthless taken at face value. It's paper, people. Ah, but it's important paper. It REPRESENTS. It represents our end goals….food…clothes…iPods….pedicures.

If we gather enough of these green pieces of paper (either physically or virtually) then our dreams can get bigger. A new car. New house. New boobs. A new product or service that will change the way the world operates.

But do we all think about this during the average week? Do we stop and think about WHY we are going to work? Or do we just do it because everyone else is doing it? Because we have nothing else to do? Because we think it's "expected" of us? Because we are too lazy to come up with another method?

I don't have any answers to these questions. And just when I started really getting my thinking going…I arrived at work. And I had to go in because, hey, what else am I gonna do?

A Goofy Walk in the Woods

Only a Goofy Girl can take a nice, relaxing backpacking trip and find a way to apply an Excel spreadsheet and anal-retentiveness to it. Let me explain…

Mr. Goofy and I are going to Grand Teton National Park to do (among other things) a 3-day backpack. Backpacking is where you head into the woods with just the stuff you need on your back, and don't emerge for several days later, hopefully still civil with each other. (stay tuned)

I'm recently been reading about ultra-light and lightweight backpacking. Ultra-light backpacking is basically yourself, the clothes on your back, and a tarp. And I'm not really exaggerating much, folks.

On the other hand, lightweight backpacking is more about being aware of what you are carrying and what each item weighs. You examine (and weigh!) all the items you would normally take and make some tough decisions about what to leave at home. Also, it emphasizes taking items with dual purposes. For example, socks could also be used as "gloves" if it got unexpectedly cold. Hopefully CLEAN socks...

It also emphasizes taking only what you need. I would normally haul around a full bottle of sunscreen and a full spray bottle of bug spray for this 3-day backpack. Am I really going to use that much sunscreen? No way. So instead, you find a small container and put about 3 days' worth of sunscreen in it, and find a much smaller bug spray (or maybe go with towelettes - anyone ever use those?)

Some benefits of lightweight backpacking are:
(1) you can go farther, since you are not weighed down with all the pleasures of home like fluffy pillows, lanterns, 3-course meals, teddy bear; and
(2) as we get older (who me!?) it's much easier on your back and knees to carry less weight. I like both of these benefits. I also like a good challenge. Game on!

After buying a kitchen scale to weigh my gear, I created an Excel spreadsheet on which to track the items I intended to carry on my back across Wyoming. My goal was to carry 30 pounds or less.

I weighed socks. I weighed food. I cut tags off of clothing to eliminate weight (and weighed them...total saved = 1 ounce). I decided to recycle socks while on the trip (I know....EW!). I decided to forgo toothpaste for 3 days (double-EW). I bought a Titanium spork.

My total looked really good at first. Then I realized I had forgotten to account for water (8 pounds) and my backpack (5.3 pounds). Whoops.

I removed more clothes from my list. Our planned lunch menu got smaller. I decided I needed to bring a shorter paperback book than I had planned. Basically, it's gotten obsessive. Sigh.

As of yesterday, my estimated total weight was 31.04 pounds. 1.04 over! So close. But, I scored big this evening at Price Chopper - I found a 1-ounce bottle of bug spray. This replaces my current "heavyweight" 4 ounce one.

Yippee! Now I've got an extra almost-pound free. Looks like a chocolate bar (or two) may make the trip afterall.

Life is good.

UPDATE: I should know not to attempt math after 10:00pm. I am not UNDER by an almost-pound..I'm still OVER by an almost-pound. ARG!

Don't Hate Me Because I'm a Capitalist

It's that time of year again…school is starting and the fund raising order forms are appearing everywhere.

They hit you with the guilt trip. The band/football team/soccer team/choir/chess club doesn't have enough money for uniforms/goals/music stands/rooks so PLEASE can you dig deep and help them?

And in return, you get some crap: A 40-cent candy bar for $2.50; a popcorn tin with a half-life; an overpriced stinky candle, Xmas wrapping paper in August. Hell, you name it and they will mark it up 15% and sell it to you. In the interests of fund raising, of course.

And rest assured…the fund raising group that need the help will get a whopping 20 cents from each dollar you give. This is after the organization that provides the aforementioned candy/popcorn/candle/crap takes their share.

I blame the Girl Scouts. They started it all.

I saw one of these forms today (candles for a football team) and I had a thought….why not just ask people to help by donating MONEY? Yes, that green stuff that hardly any of us carry around anymore. Have we gotten so selfish nowadays that we need to GET something in order to GIVE something? If my friend's sister's son's football team needs money for tackling dummies, why not just tell me this and ask for $5? Don't bother with the crappy products. Don't bother with the management organization taking their unbelievable cut of the profits. Simplify, people. Simplify.

And another thought…why not do what "real" sports teams do? Get sponsors. Hit up the neighborhood McDonald's, the local Trophy Shop, the corner Blockbuster. Frame it as a Market Opportunity. Dozens of teenagers will see these shirts/tackling dummies/softball gloves. If that's the business' target audience, let them have the opportunity to reach that target audience. For a price, of course.* Long live capitalism!

Our daycare sent home a fund raising sheet last fall. Seems our weekly fees were not enough and they needed money for some new playground equipment. I can't remember what the product was that we were supposed to pimp, but I was having none of it. On the day that we were to turn in our "orders", I walked in and asked what the average sales was looking like, per kid. Then I wrote a check for that amount ($50) as a donation.

I saved time, I probably saved money, I saved embarrassing myself by hitting up friends and neighbors to buy crappy popcorn balls and I saved having to eat/smell/wrap the crap that my own "order" would have netting me in return, when my friends/neighbors didn't buy enough.

Why do we make this so hard?!

* Hopefully we wouldn't end up with too many teams renamed to "The Trojans". Snicker.

Sex, Drugs and Acupuncture

My continuing saga of back pain continues... (sung to the tune of "Twelve Days of Christmas"):

9 months of chiro,
8 weeks of physical therapy,
7 days a week of pain,
6 back-strengthening exercises daily,
5 days of anti-inflammatories,
4 doctor visits,
3 places that hurt,
2 orthopedic referrals,
and1 session of laser acupunture

So I went back to my MD after 8 weeks of physical therapy (after 9 months of chiropractic treatments). I am now super-strong, but still in pain. He asked if I was taking the anti-inflammatories. I murmured something about not wanting the mask the symptoms (how would I know if I was getting better?). I could see he was not approving of this, so I promised him I would take them. Who knows? I'd kick myself if they worked after all I've gone through.

He also basically scratched his head and said "I dunno". He has no idea why my back hurts. He referred me to an orthopedist.

I started taking the anti-inflammatories about one week ago. The label is daunting: drinking alcohol with these can make your liver bleed; sun exposure can result in sunburn and blisters; dizziness, nausea, headaches. Great. Let's trade the bad for the worst. But I wanted to give it a shot.

RESULT: Nothing. NOTHING. No difference in the pain at ALL. NONE. I feel dizzy all day long (big fun) and I've noticed that my moods are swinging up and down, left and right. It freaked me out so much today, that I just quit taking them. No results in one week = I've tried it.

My chiropractor called to check on me and I gave her the scoop. I'd cheated on her - been to the physical therapist, but to no avail. What she did didn't work, what the PT was doing didn't work. Woe is me. She said she had a laser acupuncture machine that she thought I should try. I told her I was out of insurance money to pay for anything like that (another fun side effect of all this crap). She said, "the first one's on me" and told me I would be able to tell whether it would work or not from that. Hmmm...a freebie. Sounds like a drug dealer, huh? But I'm willing to give anything a shot at this point. Voodoo dolls. Shark cartilage. Pacts with the devil. Whatever.

The laser acupuncture was easy. Unlike regular acupunture, there are no giant scary needles, so that was a big plus. I didn't feel anything right off the bat, but the next day (today) I can tell a teensy, tiny difference. I don't know if it's just wishful thinking, or something good. So...

I called the orthopedist referral today. The nasty phone answering lady heard the word "back" and said, "We don't treat backs. If your back is the problem, you'll have to go somewhere else." I think she could have been a bit nicer, but I was still dizzy from the anti-inflammatories, so I just hung up. I got another ortho referral that I haven't called yet.

What's next? I had a colleague mention something called IMT (Integrated Manual Therapy). Hell, why not try it? At a minimum, it's a new experience. Groan.

Black Monster

Goofy Junior & I went to the movie store to get a movie (for him, not me). After making a toddler-approved selection, we checked out and headed home. We were showing the new movie to Daddy Goofy, when the following exchange happened.

Me: GJ got a cool new movie!
GJ: Yeah, Daddy, I got a new movie at the movie store.
Daddy: Really?! (playing along with the faux excitment)
Me: Yep, we went to Blockbuster and GJ picked out the movie himself.
GJ: Nuh-uh!* We didn't go to Black Monster...we went to the movie store!

(cue the laugh track...)

* His favorite new term. ARG!

The Shoe is on the Other...Paw?

Recently, we've been gathering up the family and taking road trips. It gets us out of the house, Goofy Junior gets New Experiences*, and we all have a fun time. After some reflection, I've realized that the weekends we just hang around the house and do nothing are also the Weekends of No Naps, Weekends of Recurring Meltdowns and Not Relaxing Weekends At All. So...road trips!

Road trips are even more fun when we stay overnight. Our Omaha trip was so much fun, and we didn't have to rush home since we had a hotel room. Okay, actually we did have to rush home, but that's another story.

One snag in this plan...our two beloved Siberian Huskies. We can't leave them alone this long. Well, we could, except if we left them 2 days' worth of dog food, they would eat it within seconds of us leaving, vomit, then....well, I'll spare you the details about their digusting dog nature. And there's also the pooping aspect of the whole situation. Basically, they need to be fed twice a day and need to be let out a few times too. Or go to the kennel.

They love the kennel. We love the kennel. Many (many!) folks in our area love the kennel. Thus...the kennel is very often full. Especially for folks like The Goofys that plan Saturday trips on Wednesday night (we are a tad spur-of-the-moment sometimes).

I had trips planned for this coming weekend (Lindsborg, KS) and the following weekend (possibly Omaha again), but alas...no kennel.

Even for Omaha, we didn't have a kennel. We begged and pleaded asked our Dog-Loving Friend** if she could check on them a few times and feed them.

So, instead of being a family with a 3-year-old that makes it difficult to travel, we are a family with a 3-year-old that loves to travel, but our dogs are keeping us home.

Instead of having Mommy Guilt, I have Puppy Parent Guilt, when I think that Casey (who turns 14 this year, which is like being the Buck O'Neil of dogs) will not be with us much longer. We've had her since she was about 6 months old, so there will be a big hole in our family when she goes. Even GJ is very attached to Casey. She is his favorite. Shhhh, don't tell Murphy!

So for the moment, we are grounded. I should be planning our trip to Lindsborg for three weeks' out (kennel is available), but it's hard for me to plan that far ahead.***

We are making do. I think this weekend will involve a trip to Deanna Rose Farmstead (horses! goats! chickens! oh my!) and/or Powell Gardens.

...and a call to the kennel to make some reservations!

*One of my Mommy Goals is to give GJ lots of new experiences. That way, when he gets old enough, we can go exploring together, instead of sitting in front of the TV together (aka the way I grew up).

**Everyone should have a Dog-Loving Friend...they are such good people. And they never mind when you talk about poop.

***This is why I never get good rates on airplane travel...sigh.

You asked for it...

You got it! Pics of the GATOR POOL! Are you jealous, or what?

Goofy Junior's first look:






The Gator Pool, in all its glory:








I didn't get an action shot of the sprinkler going...I was too worried about ruining the camera. :-)

$14.99 Worth of Fun

Starting this past weekend, it's been blazing hot in good ole KC. Like 100 degrees, no wind and about 90% humidity. I really don't think I'm exaggerating either. So Friday night, Goofy Junior and I decided that we wanted a pool.

Not the in-ground, pain-in-the-neck-because-of-all-the-upkeep pools...just a simple, shallow pool that we could splash around in. And I do mean SPLASH. That's all toddlers seem to want to do in a pool.

Anyway, in my efforts to qwell* my inner Control Freak nature, I sent Mr. Goofy off in search of a pool. I believe my directive was, "just buy a pool". So proud of my delegation, I am. :-)

And he ROCKED THE HOUSE. GJ and I came home from grocery shopping (our task of the day) to find an ALLIGATOR POOL! With LEGS! And a TAIL! And (drumroll, please) A WATER SPRINKLER ON THE TOP OF THE GATOR'S HEAD!! Okay, so maybe not genetically correct for a gator to have a whale spout, but it's SO f-ing** cool.

NOTE: I SO wanted to post a picture of the Alligator Pool, but I can't seem to find one on the 'net. Maybe it's more fun to imagine, anyway...

We rushed around, getting swimsuits on, sunscreen, finding our shades, then went and jumped into the 4-inch deep pool. What fun! Then Mr. G turned the sprinkler on. Giggles ensued. Damn, the water was cold! We kept having to get out to warm up.

Mr. G went inside for a while and I decided to turn the sprinkler off. I accidentally turned the knob the wrong way and doused our entire deck. That gator spouts water like 50 feet in the air! I ain't kiddin', folks. Oh course, Junior demanded, "do it again, Mommy!". He likes big action.

I found out later that Mr. G had gotten been to TWO stores looking for a pool. He scored the Rockin' Gator Pool at Wal-mart. It was the last one they had. The last pool in the entire store. And it was only $14.99.

Who says you gotta spend big to have big fun?

Cagey - this note's for you!***

* I get 10 Scrabble points for using that word in a post. Ha!
** That one's for you, Michael.
***I'm posting this without proofreading at ALL. It's killing me! DAMN!

The Perfect Holiday Weekend

Ah! My perfect holiday weekend. I nearly killed Mr. Goofy from all the scheduled activities, but I had a blast.

Saturday
9:00am: Leave for Omaha.
12:00noon: Arrive at Omaha Zoo. Entire town of Omaha already there. Must park about 1 mile away. Have picnic lunch under a tree in the parking lot. Already 95 degrees in shade.
12:30pm: Go into Zoo. Goofy Junior (GJ) becomes obsessed with a freaking peacock, instead of the much cooler monkeys, lemurs and otters.
1:00pm: Stand in line for zoo train with 300 people. In the sun. After 5 minutes, decide walking is better. See bears. See cats. GJ wants to to "touch the tiger". Becomes very frustrated with the glass between him and the giant tiger with very large teeth.
2:45pm: Enter Kingdom of the Night exhibit. Ah....it's cool in here. But very dark. It's a 'things that live in caves' theme. GJ decides to meltdown in the Kindom of the Night. Mr. Goofy & I rush from room to room, in the dark, with crowds of people we can't really see, with a toddler screaming "I WANNA WALK!", looking for an exit. I think it was a cool exhibit, but I saw it at light speed.
3:00pm: Head off to hotel. Mr. Goofy pulls out sofabed for GJ, who decides that it makes an excellent trampoline. Mr. Goofy lays down for nap.
3:01pm: Mr. Goofy asleep. GJ playing jungle gym on the sofabed.
4:30pm: Mr. Goofy awakes. GJ and I are still entertaining ourselves. We take showers (GJ takes a bath) and we head out in search of dinner.
5:30pm: We find ourselves in the Old Market area of Omaha. Very cool. We quickly realize that we are much too casual for some of the places and with our toddler "accessory", probably not welcome in some. We end up an a nice microbrewery that appears kid-friendly.
7:30pm: Head back to hotel. Jammies for all, book for GJ, and everyone to bed. GJ will not sleep while he can see us (no separate rooms, dammit, just one large one..note to self to not do this again). I want to read, so I make a comforter "tent" so GJ cannot see me.
10:30pm: GJ finally falls asleep. We all do.

Sunday
7:00am: Wake up. Take shower. Not a peep from GJ, who is in the same position as when he fell asleep. Okay, so it takes a 3-hour drive and a zoo trip to wear him out. Good to know.
8:30am: Head over for hotel-provided breakfast. Not too shabby. GJ drops peach bit on floor, then steps on it, then complains that his Beloved Flip-Flops* are dirty. We ignore this.
10:00am: Packed. Back in the car. GJ doesn't want to leave the hotel. It seems he kinda liked it. Good to know!
11:00am: Decide to stop by Arbor Day Farms. It's an outdoor farm-exploratory-tour-celebration-o'-trees. Looks fun. Find out it's a two-hour walk. Too late to turn back now...
1:00pm: After much tree fun, we are starved. Stop at the overpriced and under-yummy cafe on premises. I buy a much-needed bird identification book (what! It was a trip highlight for me)
1:30pm: Back on the road... For about 20 minutes, GJ falls asleep. Then he's back up, entertaining us.
4:00pm: Back in KC, just in time to...prepare for a picnic! We unpack, I make some BBQ beans, we gather kid sports equipment, illegal wine for the park, etc. Change clothes and do cat baths so we don't smell like trees.
5:00pm: We need brots! Only ones available at the store are frozen solid. We figure we can leave in the freaking hot sun and they will thaw in time. We will see.
5:20pm: Arrive to picnic in park with friends. Much fun, food and frolicking done by all. With no park rangers in sight, we happily drink our illegal wine. Shhhhh...don't tell!
7:30pm: Picnic adjourns. Head home.
8:30pm: I went through the last month's worth of mail, sorting and shredding. Ugh.

Monday
8:30am: We are off work! Drop GJ off at daycare and head out for mountain bike ride. ** We decided to try a new trail. One closer to home.
9:30am: I am hating the new trail. It start out hard and gets harder. I always have this 'warm-up' period with single-track before I feel comfortable. Much complaining and huffing from me.
10:00am: It is hot. SO freaking hot. We are not in the sun, but in the woods, there is no breeze. It is like biking in a sauna. Gasp.
10:30am: Getting used to the trail finally. Kinda liking it.
11:00am: Done! We take the paved trail back to the car. Ah! The breeze is wonderful. We pack up bikes and head to Panera Bread for lunch.
12:00noon: Decide some errands are in order.
1:00pm: Back at home. We are tired, sweaty and have to pee. And...our maid is still there! We consider going away and coming back, but decide we are just too tired. We unpack the car while she is finishing up.
2:00pm: Cleanup and basically waste the rest of the day.
5:30pm: Pick up GJ from school and meet friends for a yummy Mexican dinner. Ole!
8:00pm: Watched "Chronicles of Narnia", while concurrently doing laundry. Very good (the movie, not the laundry). I remember reading "The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe" and loving it...although I had forgotten the plot.

Tuesday
8:00am: Took dogs for a walk. It's still sauna-city outside. Yuk.
8:30am: Watched GJ's newest arrival from Blockbuster.com, "Monsters, Inc." What a great movie.
10:00am: Made a gooey butter cake *** for the July 4th party tonight.
12:00noon: Leftover Mexican food for lunch. Yum.
1:30pm: GJ actually takes a real nap! Without bribery, screaming or mayhem! We don't know what to do with ourselves! I watch a bit of my real estate investing DVD, which promptly puts Mr. Goofy to sleep.
3:00pm: Shower, pack up and head to July 4th celebration at friends' house.
5:00pm: Party! Pizza, beer, fireworks, friends. What fun! One of GJ's little friends is at the party, so he has a grand ole time.
6:00pm: Mr. Goofy complains to all that will listen that I have been running him ragged all weekend. Everyone reacts with a "well, you married her" type of answer. Ha-ha.
9:00pm: With much crying and sadness (mainly from GJ), we depart. We see many fireworks displays on the way home, all of which GJ points out to us, with the same expression of wonderment and glee.
10:00pm: We all pass out. I recount the wonderfulness of a long weekend, jam-packed with fun and new experiences, along with some good old traditions too. Man, it was hard to go to work today!

* Is anyone else's toddler simply OBSESSED with flip-flops? GJ wears these things to bed! And the smallest size of boy's flip-flips (read as: no pink, no glitter, no Dora) is 3 sizes too big...so these things are like snowshoes on him. Flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop...at least we can hear him coming.
** We probably would have slept late this day, but our maid was coming at 9:00am and she hates it when we are still in bed when she shows up.
*** This link goes to the recipe I actually use. I get rave reviews everywhere I bring this cake. And it takes one bowl, no measurements. Easy, easy...

The Accidental Detox Weekend

As noted in my previous post, this past weekend was a vacation. We left Thursday night after work and traveled to St. Louis. We spent the night with Mr. Goofy's parents and they kept Goofy Junior for the weekend. We headed off Friday morning to Missouri Wine Country.

My intent was to relax, de-stress, enjoy the company of some friends, eat well, drink some wine. As usual in the Goofy world, my plans got derailed.

Oh it started out well. Mr. Goofy and I landed at the Augusta Brewing Company for a microbrew and lunch. Mmmmm....I had a German-style Maibock beer. It was delicious. The lunch was not so great, but it was Friday afternoon at a place that really doesn't get busy until the 'true' weekend - Friday night - Saturday night. Our friends met us there and we proceeded to our first winery of the day.

So we are standing there at the first winery, sipping away, and I start to get the cold sweats. My stomach does a great big double roll and I get the shakes. This was WAY too early in the wine tasting to be anywhere near drunk (especially since I was pacing myself), so I was confused. I excused myself and went outside to sit down. It helped enough to get me to the next winery.

The next winery was awesome! Very cold inside, great wine, great hosts. As we were standing there sipping some yummy wine, I looked over and saw a Coke machine. Gads! Could it be Diet Coke withdrawl that I was going through? Still!!?!? It had been almost two weeks since I quit. But I couldn't think of another reason. But I was feeling better, so I plodded on.

Our last winery of the day was a small, out of the way place. The owner was this 70-year-old character, that took us downstairs to his cellar to taste some wine not even out of the stainless steel barrel yet! He talked our ears off, but we loved every minute of it. This guy had first tried making wine many years ago, and said it was "horrible. You could have cut it with a knife." But instead of giving up, he enrolled in UC-Davis to learn how to make wine. Years later, he is pulling in medals left and right for his wines, and selling out each bottling.

I should have been loving this experience, but I had this nagging ache in between my eyeballs, that was becoming hard to ignore. Since it was around 6:00pm (closing time for the wineries), we headed off in search of our B&B. We took a few 'detours' (we got lost) and finally made it there around 7:00pm.

At this point, I felt on the verge of death. I had two searing hot knives stuck in the corners of each eyeball (at least it felt like it) and my stomach was doing the wave. I couldn't decide whether my head or my stomach was going to implode first. I barely made it upstairs before passing out on the bed. A very worried Mr. Goofy did what he could until Grouchy Me told him to "get out!", so he went to dinner with our friends.

I re-surfaced around 9:30pm, feeling like I had slept about 20 minutes (in actuality about 2 hours!) and the headache was gone. I still felt very shaky but managed to eat some dinner that Mr. Goofy (Oh-Boy-Do-I-Love-Him!) brought me back from the home-made fried chicken place.

After all that, the next day I bounced out of bed and rode my bike 23 miles on the KATY trail.

So, did I detox the Diet Coke? Did I get a bad sandwich at lunch? Did I get really, really carsick? Spectulation ensued, but I don't think I'll ever know. I'm just happy to be back in the land of the living. And still aspartame-free!

NOTE: While surfing around for a link for the word "aspartame" (and trying to figure out how to actually spell this word), I found a plethora of links to sites about "aspartame detoxification" and "aspartame kills". Damn! Who knew!?!?

Learn Something, Dammit

While I traipse off to Hermann, Missouri for the weekend - home of many fine wineries and....er, well, many fine wineries, here's my favorite Site du Jour:

The Word Detective

I found this site while trying to explain to someone the meaning of being a "pollyanna". We have a joint friend that's always getting herself into a pickle because she assumes that everyone, including strangers, are always looking after her best interest, instead of their own. I was beginning to think I had imagined this term, until I found it on this site.

It's good stuff for you if you're a logophile (lover of words) or a bibliophile (book lover) or glossophile (you really dig languages).

And if you love knowing the words for folks that love specific things, go here.

Feel smarter yet?

Brain Dead Goofy

I've lost half my brain! No, not my real brain...my electronic brain (aka my PDA). For about the last six years, I've used some sort of Personal Digital Assistant. I recently upgraded to the Treo 650.

My Treo 600 finally bit the digital bullet, so I got the 650. Upgrades on these things are always painful, so I was already gritting my teeth and crossing my fingers as I diligently uninstalled my old software, installed the new, and fired up the synch. Would my data come over to the new device? Would it stubbornly refuse to move? Would it vaporize into never-never land? Oh, the suspense...

As it turned out, everything synched perfectly... except for my calendar. One problem: the calendar is the main thing I use on my PDA. Anytime of the day or night, I can whip out my PDA and check my lunch plans, er, I mean my important business meetings.

So I called Sprint. They worked with me a while, then told me to call my company help desk. They worked with me a while, they decided a live person (let's call him Neo) actually needed to come take a look. Neo came and was very optimistic. "We'll get you going in no time!" he said. I had to love his attitude. I should have known better.

So after two days of Neo popping in and out of my life, disrupting my work flow, he finally discovered the problem. "Hey! You've got like six years of calendar on this thing!" (this said like I had been testing him this entire time or something). "You've blown up your account on the Outlook Exchange server. That's why things don't work."

"Er. I'm an information junkie," I admitted. "I need all that info. You never know when someone might ask me for the date of that Hatha Yoga class I took back in 2001. C'MON MAN...I GOTTA HAVE IT!" (this was followed up by much whining and groveling on my part to PLEASE NOT LOSE MY DATA). And so....

I lost my data.

Well, to be truthful, I only kinda lost my data. All six years of goodness are on my desktop computer, at work, not very portable at all. And I now have only a paltry three months of calendar on my PDA. I can almost remember that much stuff...what good is that?

The Sweet Life

I'm on my FOURTH DAY of no Diet Coke. I read a convincing article that talked about how the artificial sweetener in diet drinks (aspartame? saccharin? whatever it is nowadays) makes you used to the extra-sweet taste, so that you actually crave sweets more than normal. After reading this, and knowing how much I crave sweets on a daily (okay, okay...HOURLY) basis, I thought I'd try a week without Diet Coke.

This is no small endeavor. I drink DC all day long. I manage to not start until after lunch, but lunch is usually a QuickTrip 305-ouncer, which I suck down by 2:00pm and refill from the cans of DC I keep in the work fridge.

I started on Sunday. Even after much coffee, I quickly ran out of energy. Fortunately, Mr. Goofy needed a trip to the hardware store and took Junior with him, so a nap ensued. After that, I felt pretty good.

Monday was tricky. The bad news was: I keep a 12-pack of DC in the work fridge. The good new was: There was only one left! So even if I fell off the wagon, I would only fall 12 ounces. Monday was also very stressful, but I managed to persevere.

Tuesday morning a headache struck. Keep in mind...I'm still drinking just as much coffee, or more, so I doubt that this was a caffeine withdrawl headache. It was a Diet Coke withdrawl headache! How scary is that!? But I kept on keeping on...

Today went well. I realized today that I haven't had any cookies, cakes, donuts, pastries, cinnamon crunch bagels, or anything sweet other than fruit since I started my little "experiment". It just hasn't sounded good. I repeat: HOW SCARY IS THAT?!?!?

This realization is especially scary. I am the sweet tooth extraordinaire. My nickname after two months in my new department was "Donut Queen". Every roommate I've ever had has gained weight after living with me more than three months. It's something I've just grown used to.

I'm optimistic about the rest of the week. We have a picnic Thursday night, so I'll probably stick with water (or beer). Friday we are going to The Yard House with some friends, so it would be rude to not drink beer, right? Then Saturday we have our company picnic, so I'll try to stick with water, as much highly-competitive volleyball, badminton and horseshoes will certainly ensue. After that, we go to a three-year-old's birthday party, where there will hopefully be some adult bevs for the parent-types.

So, ding, dong...the Donut Queen is dead. Love live the Beer Queen. Oh wait...maybe this isn't such a clever idea...

Potty-Training Gods Be Damned!

Okay, the coast is clear. I think. I can blog freely about this without pissing off the Toddler Potty-Training Gods. Here goes...

It's been almost two months since Goofy Junior has been potty trained. Or rather, since he potty trained himself. Yes, you heard that right. Here's the scoop.

The day before his third birthday, we got a note on his Daily Activity Sheet. "Alex told me he didn't want to wear his diaper today. He had an accident at 11:30am. Bring extra underwear and we will try again."

Okay, lest you think my boy was running around daycare commando, let me clarify that since Grammie Goofy bought him several pairs of underwear (f'ing Bob the Builder, no less), he had requested to wear said underwear every day. So we put them over his diaper. We're no dummies.

We weren't ready for a potty-trained boy. I've seen potty-trained boys in Target grab their crotch while their moms are in the midst of power-shopping at the exact opposite end of the store as the bathrooms. Ugh.

I wanted the freedom of the diaper. The freedom to take a long car ride without stopping for Junior's bladder. The freedom of grocery store, library and restaurant outings without needing to accompany Junior to the restroom, help him "perch" on the giant toilet seat, before deciding, no, he doesn't really have to go. Then watching in horror as he hops down and opens the sanitary napkin disposal box. Eek! Where's that hand sanitizer!?!?!

Anyway, the following day, Wednesday (his birthday), he informed us that he was simply not doing the diaper thing anymore. After much whining (from Mr. Goofy & I), we caved. We sent extra pairs of underwear to school and expected the worst. We were so wrong....no accidents! Then Thursday - no diaper...no accidents. Then Friday - no diaper...no accidents. Then (uh-oh!) the weekend. Now we had to deal with this potty-training gig. But we passed with flying colors...no accidents. I think I asked him every fifteen minutes if he had to "go".

Thinking that we had somehow raised a genius (since he is adopted, we can't really take genetic credit for this), we mentioned it to our peditrician at his visit a few weeks later (and still no accidents). She said, "Yeah, that happens a lot". HUH!?!?!? WHY DID NO ONE TELL US THIS? She also said, "A lot of times, kids just know when they are ready." WTF?!?!

All those books with all those methods for "potty learning", "early potty training", "painless potty training". Stickers. Charts. CIA-like bribery methods. All that fucking pressure!!!!! On the kids AND the parents. WHY?!?!?

After discussing this with several other parents, it hit me. The "do nothing" method does not sell books! Stickers, charts and CIA bribery methods do. Parents want their kids to succeed. To excel. And hell, yes, we want to brag about them succeeding and excelling, too. I'll be the first to admit it.

I'm not really sure how to conclude this other than to just get the word out. If you darling-dear is not seeming to "get" the potty training thing, RELAX. WAIT. Give them the tools they need (underwear, little potty seat/chair, etc.) When they are ready, they will make their move.

And you'll save a lot of stickers.

Fuck up - Follow up

My horoscope said, "You should try working from home or off-site if possible." Did I listen? Noooooooooooo. Should I have? Yessssssssss.

My day started with a tech coming to look at my computer. I got a new Treo 650 last week and was able to synch everything with Outlook...except for my calendar. What do I use most on my Treo? Bingo! My calendar. It's like the other half of my brain. I never remember what appointments I have, day to day, because they are securely stored in my Treo, at arm's reach any time, day or night. But not anymore....

Anyway, the techie guy comes, confidently clicking away for the first while. Then he calls an co-techie to come and look. Co-techie helps, then leaves. Original technie needs help again.

Final result: I still cannot synch with my Treo AND I've lost all my personal folders in email. Only three years of work. !!!!! I'm not totally freaking out, because I think (hope!) they are on the email server somewhere. Crossing my fingers here, folks.... I also can't add or update anything on my calendar, unless I do an export of the entire thing afterwards. I could explain why, but it would put you all to sleep, so I won't.

I finally decided to follow-up on the Russia/China adoption mix-up saga. Read this first if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I called the local CIS office (aka the Immigration Office), earlier this week, and found out that, since I didn't have a "case number" I would have to call the National Customer Service line. I called the Customer Service line today, made many selections via the menus and was told to expect "a 10 to 15 minute wait". No problem, I wanted some answers. After 30 minutes, I was told to call back to the local office. Arg!

This time, somehow I got through to a Real Live Person at the local office. Score! Unfortunately, she couldn't give me any answers. I explained the situation, that we had paperwork in to adopt a boy from Russia and had gotten a confirmation letter from China, then gave her some key bits of info. She asked, "are you adopting 1 or 2 children?". Huh?! How is this pertinent? Yeah, lady... I'm adoption one from China and one from Russia, and I just forgot. Silly me! It's not like I'm Angelina Jolie or something! Actually, I don't think she knew what else to ask.

She put me on hold several times, then came back and said that they had somehow verified that they had cabled Russia with our paperwork, but would cable them again and make sure they knew it was Russia, not China. We would be notified with any details they got back.

Not sure if this puts me at ease or not. We will probably end up getting two kids. Both from China. And both girls. Gah!

Supersized Me

I realized this afternoon that so far today, I've eaten all my meals at McDonald's. I was in a rush this morning, so I did the Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuit drive-through for breakfast. Then I was running late over lunch, so I did the Double Cheeseburger (plain, please) and Supersize Diet Coke for lunch.

I realized my McMistake as I visited the bathroom yet again this afternoon. It seems that (how to put this nicely?) McDonald's puts a lot of "fillers" in their food. How's that for TMI* for ya?

I should have driven an extra block and gone to Whole Foods for a nice slice of Grilled Veggie Pizza. But by the time I would have driven there, parked the car, gone in, order said slice of pizza, waited for guy to heat it up in the brick oven, grabbed bottle of tea, paid, and gone back to car...I would have been late.

What a shame that decisions like these are based on time. What a shame that we pay the price with our health. Or our weight.

It's easy to make up for one day, but I know folks that do this a LOT. And pay the price.

Luckily, my schedule has eased up this evening, so I plan to pop over to Whole Foods and get a slice of the aforementioned pizza. Yum. Time to stop and smell the pizza!

*TMI = Too Much Information

What the @#$% is a Connitt?

For about a year now, Goofy Junior has been mentioning a creature called a "connitt" (my spelling). The mention of the connitt always follows mention of things like spiders, snakes, lions and tigers. So connitts seem to fall in the general realm of the icky/dangerous type of critter.

I've never heard of such a creature. I've even gone so far as to do Internet searches for the elusive connitt.

In the past, I've tried to determine if I was just hearing the word wrong.

Me: Cougar?
Junior: No. Connitt.

Me: Condor?
Junior: NO! Connitt.

Me: Comet.
Junior: NO, Mommy! CONNITT. (said very slowly, like I'm three years old instead of him)

So I'm pretty sure that it's "connitt", even though I still don't know what that is. It's actually very scary how consistent he is about describing them.

Tonight he mentioned them again. We were talking about how dark it was getting and that it might storm. He said something like, "we should go inside so the connitts won't get us". So, like an idiot, I pressed for more information.


What do they eat?
They eat trucks.

Are they bigger than a dog?
Yes.

Are they bigger than a cow?
No.

Do they growl?

No.

Do they talk?
No, they are quiet.

Where do they live?
I don't know.

Is it hot or cold where they live?
They live in the sky.

Do they fly?
No, they move.

I'm perplexed. Is this a made-up creature in some kid's book? Is it one of those obscure critters (like the wombat) that is mentioned only on Baby Einsten videos? Or is my son a Stephen King wannabe and is making up things that go bump in the night? That's my boy!

Fate or Fuck-up?

Loving Husband and I have recently put in the paperwork to adopt again. We adopted our first son from Russia. He is absolutely perfect, in every single way. Well, there's that annoying screaming and no nap thing, but I digress...

Yet again, we jumped through all the flaming rings of red tape that are the Russian Adoption Process. We wrote autobiographies, we did financial statements, we got criminal background checks, we got referral letters from friends and family. We got all this stuff notarized. Then we got all this stuff apostilled (a fancy term for "we don't believe your notary is a notary, so we make you get the Secretary of State to staple a piece of paper on top of the document and then we believe you"). BTW, apostilling costs $10 a document. Can I get an "ouch"?

Finally we had a critical mass of documentation. And I do mean "critical". Our dossier (a fancy term for "great gob o' paperwork") would break your foot if dropped upon it. We were issued a I-600 form to complete, then instructed to turn it in at CIS (previously known as INS) and get fingerprinted.

Our first appointment consisted of getting turned away at the door because we did not have a copy of our adoption agency's license. Huh? With our first adoption, we did not need that. Guess what? They changed the rules. Damn bureaucrats! Can you still call them that if they're Russian?

Could we call and have them fax a copy of the license in? NO. They did not have a fax machine for that purpose. HUH? Doesn't everyone with a pulse have a fax machine? I could probably send a fax on my phone nowadays...if the touch-screen would work. ...but there I go digressing again.

Anyway, we made another appointment, and with license in hand, we got in and got fingerprinted. It went so smoothly. We should have known something was up...

We recently got a nice, official-looking packet in the mail. It is from the American Consultate General. It contains a "welcome to the adoption process" letter, and application for visas for us to travel, and a nice map to the consultate office overseas.

One problem...it's from China.

Balance

Balance, balance, balance,
they say it's what to strive for.
But when I start to nix one thing,
up pop three or four more.
I killed a business late last spring,
it really was a helpful thing.
But then I picked up sports and wine
and started going out to dine.
My hubbie got a brand new job
with lots of new demands.
Since he is busy much more now,
I need three sets of hands.
I'm working hard and playing hard
and trying to stay sane.
But finding time to laugh and sing,
is really quite a pain.
Balance, balance, balance,
it sounds so easy, right?
When when I try to do it all,
I end up up all night.

Fun Stuff!

Not much time to post, but I'll share something that I just found. It's a site with super-cool, unique stuff for sale. Cool. Cheap! Even cooler.

Check it out: Plum Party Boutiques

My wish list is getting quite long from this site. I call dibs on the izzy stripe tote!

And the 'delight' party set too! Just because it reminds me of those coloring books that were popular when I was in about middle school. Anyone else remember those? The ones that had very intricate designs, and you bought special thin-tipped markers to color in. No? Okay, ya, well, I'm old. I'll look on the good ole 'Net and see if I can find a picture or something.

And while we're at it...the tinserella wine glass fringes. What fun!

Enjoy!

UPDATE: Well folks, I'm officially older than dirt (or at least the Internet). I cannot find hide nor hair of the magic marker books. They were mostly flower designs, if I'm remembering right. If anyone has a clue as to what I'm talking about, and can find a decent link, let me know. You'll get bonus Goofy points.

MORE UPDATE: Ah! My faith in the Internet is restored. I guess the books were called "Stained Glass Coloring Books". I couldn't find a flower example, but here's another good example. Whew. Mystery solved.

Why?!

Why is it...

That my mobile phone breaks (the touchscreen quits working, and I have to muddle through with the button navigation - ARG!), but when I finally (after a week!) make an appointment at the phone store, it magically starts working again? And this is the second time this schedule/magically-fixed sequence has happened!

That I finally get a free 20 minutes to pop by the drugstore for my high-dollar mascara (L'oreal Panoramic Curl, if you're curious), and the store is out. Out! They got the non-waterproof, which will be dribbling down my cheeks by noon, they got purple and grey colors, which don't help my translucent eyelashes a single bit. They got every color and style EXCEPT the one I need.

That on nights when I had tasks to do (work, bills, wine bottling, etc.), Goofy Junior decides to stage a strike on bedtime, but when I have nothing planned, he jumps into bed, grins and says, "night-night". And actually goes to sleep!

That my 3-year-old son is obsessed with flip-flops. He kept stealing mine, so I had to break down and buy him a pair. Try finding flip-flops in toddler sizes! I hit the mother lode at our grocery store - child's size small flip-flops for a buck. He loves them. I plan on buying a dozen.

That I bought Stephen King's "The Dark Tower VII" book (all 800+ pages of it) in hardback, when it first came out (a year ago maybe) for about $35, but the only way I have time to "read" it is to go to library and get the audio CDs. For free.
NOTE: For any King fans out there, it's excellent. I'm really dreading getting to the end of this seven book series.

That my husband and I's normally pretty standard 40-hours-per-week jobs have both gotten crazy, to the point of about 50-hours-per-week AT THE SAME TIME. And we lost our once-a-week babysitter AT THE SAME TIME. Let's just say I'm really looking forward to the weekend, even though on Sunday (yes Mother's Day), I'll probably be in the office for a few hours.

I feel like Seinfeld with this stuff, but it helps to vent about the strangeness and ironic timing of some of this stuff.

Or maybe it's just life.

Goofy Checks In

No great "deep thoughts" postings this week (not that there are many of those type anyway from me). Here's what I've been up to, in no particular order...

I bottled my wine! Yippee! I now have 30 bottles of Chateau de Goofy - House of Pain blend. Chateau de Goofy is pretty self-explanatory. The House of Pain blend is due to the pain during the wine making process: physical, mental, spiritual. These past few months have been hard, so I want to look back and remember this time. When I'm drinking heavily.

The hardest part of bottling was cleaning 30 fucking bottles! De-labeling, cleaning, sterilizing. Then pouring and corking. All the full, corked bottles are on the workbench downstairs, like an army of soldiers waiting for battle. The battle must wait though...the soldiers have six months of aging ahead of them before they can go anywhere. It's an exercise in patience. Something I don't have a lot of.

My breasts are fine and dandy. I'm sick of talking 'bout 'em!

My back, on the other hand, is not fine and dandy. I quit going to the chiropractor and guess what? My back still hurts. The key is...it doesn't hurt any MORE than when I was going. After much introspection and pressing for advice from friends, I decided to go the "traditional medicine" method, and talked to my general practitioner doc. He promptly prescribed anti-inflammatories and physical therapy. I haven't started the drugs - I have a problem with "masking" the symptoms before I go to the PT and the anti-inflammatories come with so many warning labels that I can hardly see inside the bottle (no drinking. no advil. no sun. may make you dizzy or tired.) I can't wait for the physical therapy. I've heard that they figure out which exercise makes you hurt, then promptly make you do three sets. Oh joy!

Work is Ca-razy (notice the capital "C"). My company is spinning off from its parent company in exactly ONE WEEK. We will lose most of our servers, databases, data...basically a lot of our infrastructure is going away. I fear that a lot of small details have been overlooked and we will all end up standing outside the building next Thursday morning, wondering why none of our access card work. ...you think I'm joking. Hmmm....

We are trying to figure out what to do with Memorial Day. There are several activities going on here in town, but we are getting itchy feet. We wanted to go camping in mid-April, but the rain (and cold!) wouldn't allow it. We are both taking Friday off before the holiday, and it's hard to pass up a FOUR-DAY weekend to travel somewhere. Where to go? Where to go? Stay tuned and you'll find out.

Speaking of travel, I started last year doing a trip on my own. No hubbie, no friends. Just me and 6-8 other strangers. I really like meeting other people, especially active people that enjoy the outdoors, so this is a good thing. But I can't figure out where to go. I have a whopping FOUR WEEKS of vacation this year, so I could take a week without blinking. But the little kid inside me says, "Hmmm...one trip for a week. Nah. Take two trips of 3 days each! See more stuff! Experience more things!" Sigh. The latest choices are kayaking in the San Juan Islands (by Washington State); kayaking in Kenai Fjords National Park (in Alaska); or hiking, rafting and canoeing in the Canadian Rockies. From these choices, you'd think I like to be cold and wet. Guess I'll find out, huh?

I also made a Gooey Butter Cake tonight. It turned out about eight times better than I could have imagined. Deliciouso! I planned on taking it into work, but Loving Husband is trying to talk me out of it. That's a compliment of the highest order. I'm headed downstairs now to get a Goofy-sized slice and a cuppa Joe. Cheers!

Goofy Glows in the Dark?

Soon, I will glow in the dark. I've been x-rayed so many, many times, and more to come. WTF you say? Let me explain....

First there was the back pain*. Complete with follow-up x-ray to determine progress (not much, if you're curious).

Then there was the Big 4-0 Celebratory Mammogram (but yet... no parade with streamers. sigh.) Squish and x-ray both boobs.

Then the scary "You Didn't Get Mail, You got the Scary Phone Call" Follow-up Mammogram. Squish and x-ray that suspicious-looking right boobie only.

Then the "We Still Don't Like What We See, So Let's Operate" needle biopsy (aka THE DRILL). Followed up with (you guessed it, folks), more squishing and x-raying of that pesky right bazoomba. **

Then attention turned upward (Thank the heavens!) to my teeth. Annual dental exam last week. Need to x-ray those teeth. This time I got a spooky full-frontal x-ray. My eyes were in it! Well, not the eyes, because they don't show up, but the sockets. Ew! Very spooky to look at. But no cavities, ma!

Today I went to the doctor for The Cold That Started in March. It's still here and I'm pissed. Doc refused to give me antibiotics back in April (what, is there a shortage of these, like the gas?), so I got some crazy bronchitis thing. It's okay during the day, but at night, the chest congestion rolls in like low tide into the ocean. He put me on an inhaler (new experiences..yeah!) and ordered me up a chest x-ray. At least there's no squishing involved.

And, because I'm a glutton for punishment, I mentioned my back (see first item above). He poked me in the back and decided to order me up a back x-ray.

So sometime this week I get to have my chest and back x-rayed. In all seriousness, I will ask the technician about all this x-raying and it's affect on my health. I can't imagine I'll be able to sleep well with all the glowing in the dark and all.


* This was actually one of my better posts. If you got some time to burn, check it out. The rest of the links are there for show.
** Everything turned out negative (as in GOOD) from all this. And now I have a cool scar that I can't show anyone.

Goofy Falls Off the Cool Wagon

I pride myself on being Fairly Cool Mom. I avoid-like-the-plague the 'traditional' kiddie institutions, like Chuck E. Cheese, McDonald's, etc. You know, those bastions of bad food, sugary drinks, too much stimulation and rape-and-pillage prices.

But I fell off the wagon tonight. Well, let's be honest here...my husband grabbed me by the shirt collar and PULLED me off the cool wagon. We went to the Rainforest Cafe tonight.

This place used to be cool. I remember going to the one at the Mall of America in Minneapolis about eight years ago. We had to wait about 30 minutes to get a table. The atmosphere was indeed rainforest-like...dark...fake thunder/lightning...rain...moving animotronic animals..lots of 'wild' sounds. It was kitzchy, and the food was bad, but overall it was different and fun.

So fast-forward to today. Goofy Junior (aka The Boy Who Is Potty Training Himself) decided that he didn't want to wear a diaper today and told his daycare teacher such. Since he already had underwear on over his diaper, she took off the diaper and he went 'commando' for the morning. He actually made it until 11:30am before an "oops". Anyway, we applauded his efforts and decided to take him someplace fun for dinner.

Here's how it happened...

Me: So what is "fun for dinner" for a toddler?
Loving Hubbie(aka Wagon Jacker): Anyplace with balloons and games.
Me: Like where? (getting worried now)
LH: CHUCK E. CHEESE
Me: NEVER. Try again.
LH: How about Rainforest Cafe?
Me: (comparing the two and deciding at least I can get an adult bev at RFC) Um....okay.

Did you hear the YANK? Yep. That's the precise moment I fell was pulled off the Cool Wagon.

When we got there, the place was empty. Granted it's a Monday, but it was pretty obviously not the coolest place to be. I decided against the adult bev, as it came in a lighted, blinking glass. We took turns touring Junior past the animatronic, twitching elephants ("They're BIG Mommy!"), the hooting and jerking-like-bad-break-dancer gorillas ("I don't like them...they're LOUD!") and the giant fish tank ("NEMO!!! NEMO AGAIN!! TWO NEMOS!!!").

At least he was digging it.

Our waitress came several times as we went over the menu, stunned by the high prices for over-rated bar food with "rainforesty" names (Volcanic Cobb Salad, Rumble in the Jungle Turkey Wrap). We settled on a mixed appetizer platter to split. Junior got popcorn shrimp. As I remembered, the food was mediocre at best...although the popcorn shrimp were mightly tasty.

As we ate, we noticed that approximately every 10 minutes, the gang of servers would come out with a ginormous cake/ice cream dessert in the shape of a volcano, and sing Happy Birthday to another table. Junior dug this, and clapped after each song. I started suspecting that this was the main reason that even the small amount of patrons had come here. Free dessert, folks. It's a great marketing tool!

But even though I'm off the wagon, and still dusting myself off, there was a Proud Momma moment. During dinner, we mentioned to the waitress that it was Junior's first time at RFC. She looked surprised and said, "Wow! I wouldn't have known. He's not crying. What a big boy!"

I don't know who beamed more...me or Junior. Maybe being a Fairly Cool Mom That Sometimes Falls Off the Wagon is not so bad, indeed.

Goofy Easter Egg Hunting

When Goofy Junior does an Easter Egg Hunt, it's a contact sport.

Check it out (it's worth the wait):

Click here to see the video

Meet the Goofy Dogs

While reading about Cagey's dilemna about whether or not to get a dog, I started thinking about my dogs. I have the bestest dogs ever! They don't require a lot of exercise, but they will never pass up the offer of a walk. They are, for the most part, fairly calm and quiet dogs. They are also loving dogs, but not "lap dogs". And they don't lick you incessantly, like some labs I know. Ew!

Meet Casey and Murphy, my Siberian Huskies:
(Murphy is the one with the cigar.)


Casey is 14 and Murphy is 9. We've had Casey since she was a pup (about 4 months old). We adopted Murphy, who is actually Casey's "niece", when she was 3.

Huskies are awesome dogs. They are extremely gentle with our 3-year-old son. He has pulled ears, stepped on paws and yanked tails, and they just move out of the way. Ocassionally they bonk him with a snout, but never a growl or baring of teeth. And he's deserved it a few times!

The one drawback of huskies is that twice a year (spring and fall), they shed their winter coat as the seasons change. This produces a little bit of fur:

(That's Casey in the back. The ball of fur we just brushed off is in the front.)


As personalities go, huskies are very much like cats. They really don't jump around and follow you, begging for attention. They are more subtle. You might even say "sneaky". If you are on the couch watching TV, they might come by and stand so that your hand is in close proximity to their chest...just in case you might want to pet them for a while. If you don't get the hint, they might give you a short bark and poke you with the snout. But after a few minutes of petting, they move on to other pursuits...usually sleeping.


As far as big dogs go, Casey is really pushing the limit on age. I've heard good life expectancy is around 15 years, so she's definitely in the senior citizen category. I can't imagine life without her, but our life has been so much better for having her in it. And hopefully vice versa for her.

Psyche!

Remember back in (God, I can't believe I'm dating myself like this) high school - call it the eighties. You'd tell someone something unbelievable, the say, "psyche!". As in "Just joshin' ya", "I'm totally messing with you", "Silly you for believing me."

Well, I got a bit "Psyche!" from my doctor.

Flashback to previous post about follow-up mammogram. The previous ending was "and she left the hospital, to live happily ever after." Well my doctor called me up the following week and basically did a "psyche!" on me.

She said, "well you left before the doctor could talk to you further." Hmmm... the sonogram gal said something like, "you are free to go." Guess I misinterpreted that somehow.

Then she follows it up with, "there's some calcification that's just asymetric and we want to do a biopsy."

What I heard was "blah, blah, blah, BIOPSY". As in "cut" as in "remove stuff" as in "get me on the next bus outta town RIGHT NOW".

She must have smelled the fear (horses and doctors, I suppose), and she quickly said, "a NEEDLE biopsy. A small needle, like a sewing needle. We just need a small sample of tissue to analyze."

I'm still not feeling the love. Now I hear, "blah, blah, blah, NEEDLE IN YOUR BREAST." Can it get any better?

So I agree to call a surgeon. As luck (?) would have it, my husband had his appendix burst several years ago and we happen to know a good surgeon. This was one of the surgeons that my doctor mentioned as a referral. Ah! A small bit of coincidental good luck. I'll take it!

I saw the surgeon yesterday for a consult. I didn't hear anything new. I heard "BIOPSY" and "NEEDLE" and "TISSUE" all together and scary-like.

I wasn't really sure what questions to ask. Anestetic? Yep. Recovery time? Short. Pain? Minor. Scarring? 1/4" scar, nothing big.

Then he gave me a card with a website link with more information. As a good patient would do, I followed the link to the site and looked up details on the procedure.

And I tripped across this lovely illustration of what they are going to do:


Does this look suspiciously like a DRILL to anyone but me?!

Okay, so let's summarize. BIOPSY. CUT. TISSUE. BREAST. DRILL!!!!

(faint)

Goofy Food Fetishes

I get a lot of harrassment for things I eat. Or don't eat. Taking a page from Scooter's book (wherein he details all his food preferences), here's my food likes and dislikes:

"Normal" food that I don't like:

Tuna.
NOTE: I can't even be in the same room with someone eating tuna. Bleck!

Peanut Butter.
I just don't like it. Not even with jelly. I do, however, like Butter & Jelly sandwiches. Or just Jelly sandwiches. I will eat peanut butter if it's combined with chocolate, like Reese's Peanut Butter cups.

Potato Chips.
Just quit liking them one day. I prefer pretzels. Not fat-free pretzels, though.

Candy Bars.
Believe it or not, these are too sweet for me. I can't eat them anymore. I can down gallons of ice cream, slabs of cake and entire pies, but keep the candy bars, please. Especially ones with nuts. I've never liked Snickers. Ever. You might be able to tempt me with a Dark Chocolate Milky Way...

Popcorn.
I cannot stand getting the kernels stuck in my teeth, so I don't eat popcorn anymore. If only they could make kernel-free popcorn, I would come back around.

Food that I like to eat, but often in weird ways:

Burger.
I only like ketchup, but not on my burger please. When I dare to eat a cheeseburger, it's PLAIN. No ketchup, no mustard (yuk), no lettuce, no tomato, no pickle (UGH!). Meat, cheese, bun. Boring I know, but that's my preference.

Sandwich.
This used to go the same way as the burger. Meat, cheese, bread....Done. In the past few years I've ventured forth and added mayo. But again, no lettuce, no tomato, no mustard, nothing else, please. Especially not a nasty pickle to color my bread green and get nasty pickle flavor on my sandwich. Bleck.

Donuts.
Donuts are my downfall. I've considered "overdosing" on donuts - buying a dozen raspberry-fille Krispy Kremes (my all-time favorite donut), eating them all in one sitting and making myself sick. I've done this quite accidentally with a few things, and never wanted them again. There's a chocolate shake/wisdom tooth story incident that comes to mind...

Diet Coke.
If I drank water instead of Diet Coke, I would be healthy on a Herculean scale. I realize how nutritional useless Diet Coke is, yet I can't help myself. Arg.

Chili & Mashed Potatoes.
You take a bowl. You put a mound of mashed potatoes (no instant potatoes, please!) in the center. Then you put the chili on top. And cheese if you're feeling frisky. Then eat bite consists of some chili and some potatoes. It sounds weird, but I've converted lots of friends.

Corn & Mashed Potatoes.
Detecting a trend with the mashed potatoes? Same as above. Lump of potatoes, corn on top. This one I used to mix up all together and have for dinner with nothing else. Starch overdose, anyone?

I'm sure there's other items that I'm missing, but frankly, I've been eating strange combinations for so long that it's not until someone says something that I realize the oddity.

So, dear readers...what strange food fetishes do you have?

A Goofy Scare

As faithful readers know, I had my first mammogram two weeks ago. It was really no big deal, and after I was sufficiently poked and prodded, the technician told me should couldn't tell me any results (she sounded like she gets asked this question 800 times per day), but I would get a letter if everything looked fine. If there was anything suspect, I would get a phone call. "I'm rooting for the letter," I joked.

Well guess what. I got a phone call. The Phone Call. The "your recent mammography shows a finding that needs further evaluation" Phone Call. The "we've detected an asymmetry in your right breast and want to do more poking and prodding" Phone Call. Basically the Oh Shit Phone Call.

I played it off well, I think. "Is this normal?" I asked. The nurse gave me a seemingly scripted answer. "Well, with first mammograms we don't have a baseline. Many times we have women come back in for an additional look. And we did see an asymmetry."

Asymmetry. As in "One of these things is not like the other".

I got this call on Monday. They could not get me in for an additional look until Thursday. Much worrying ensued. Of course the inevitable thoughts creeped in. "What if I have cancer? What if I lose one breast? How do you buy clothes with only one breast? What about chemo? Would that be an option? Would they catch it in time? Would I die?"

So yeah, I went overboard with the worry thing, then decided I couldn't do anything until Thursday. Poking my right breast did not unearth any offending lumps, so I waited. And waited. And waited.

And Thursday finally came. And I was ready to face the mammogram again. I felt brave. I shed my clothes and donned the tiny baby blue Batman cape that serves as your coverall during the ordeal. The same technician was there, and she met me with the same jovial demeanor as before. She took some views. Only the right breast this time, and quite a bit more smooshing (probably not the technical term) this time. Okay, folks, this kind of mammogram does hurt, although not as bad as getting a cavity filled or anything.

Then I waited. Then they wanted to do a sonogram. Had they not seen what they expected? Was this good or bad? I started getting nervous now. I hate hospitals, and even though this was the outpatient territory, deep down I knew it was still the hospital, and that didn't help my nerves.

The sonogram was easy. Lay down. Try to stop racing heart. Get squirted with gel (actually warm gel...they have a warmer for the stuff!) and wait as the friendly technician glided the sonogram paddle thing (there I go again with the technical terms) in eighteen directions over me.

"You've got cysts," she said. My heart stopped.

I must have looked shocked because she continued.

"They're benign and very normal. See?" She pointed out several dark shadows in the maze of wavy lines on the screen.

"What causes them?" I blurted out.*

"Well, I've had that question so many times, that I've researched it. It could be blocked glands, you know, like a clogged drain gets backed up and it causes a lump. It's also thought to be hereditary," she said, "They could go away or they could just stay there. Either way they are normal and always benign."

I really liked her use of "always" here!

I couldn't think of any other questions, so she left to let me dress and get the hell out of there. It was strange having been there so long and then after this quick n' painless procedure, they just let me loose. I wasn't going to let them have second thoughts.

But as I waited, I thought of one more answer I needed to know. I don't know why, I just needed to know.

"How many are there?" I asked, as she came back in to see me off.

"Four" was the answer.

Well, there you go. A nice, even, symmetrical number.

*In hindsight, this is weird. My first thought should have been thankfullness, instead of curiousity. But my brain works like that sometimes...

Is it Wine Yet? Is it Wine Yet? Huh? HUH?

Man, I told you all I was impatient. I haven't pried open the bucket's lid to check progress, but I did do a lot of listening and poking tonight. You'd think I had a lot of spare time on my hands, huh?

Speaking of spare time*, I've been doing some reading (and listening) lately. Here's the scoop:

"Little Earthquakes" by Jennifer Weiner
Please, don't read this book. For all that is sane and proper in the world, just don't. This book is just wrong. It's depressing. It contains entirely too many stereotypes about pregnant women, mothers and women in general. It's just plain annoying. I couldn't finish it. I got through 3 of 4 CDs and found that I just didn't care what happened to any of the characters. So I said out loud, "...and they lived happily ever after" and returned it to the library. Ugh. Jennifer, After "Good In Bed" I expect better out of you!

"Birth of Venus" by Sarah Dunant
This is a book club book. I never, ever would have picked up this book if it hadn't been assigned to me for book club. And it's wino book club, so like, I gotta go or I don't get to drink. So I was forced to read the book. And...surprise! It's not bad. It's set in pre-Renaissance Italy, so the language is bit, er, flowerly. And this author really likes to describe things like gardens and peacocks in excrutiating detail, but the story line is interesting. It's about a clever and curious young girl (an unusual thing for this period) and her movement into womanhood, marriage, etc. There are some unusual twists and turns along the way, but there's a decent love story plot line, plus a nice sprinkle of feminism too. I also feel like I learned something historical from reading this book. Bonus!
Book Club NOTE: It made for some interesting book club conversation, but not nearly as much as "Tortilla Curtain" or "Life of Pi".

"On Bullshit" by Harry G. Frankfurt
I swear that Cagey was eager to read this book. I swear that she told me she had heard good things about it. Alas, Cagey disavows all knowledge of this, and rightfully so. I didn't make it past Track 5 on CD #1 before realizing that this was a serious book about bullshit. WTF? On the dust jacket, it was noted as a "satire". Can satire be un-funny? Well, this one was. Bo-ring. Just say no.

"Saving Fish From Drowning" by Amy Tan
I have enjoyed all of Amy Tan's books that I have read. My favorite (and first one) was "Bonesetter's Daughter". It was great. This book was nothing like that. The prologue explains how Tan got the idea for this book. It was intriguing. However, two discs into the books, I was wondering if she was ever going to get around to a little thing called a plot. You know, that thing that keeps your reader interested in the book. She missed me on this one, and I had to stop. Maybe I'll pick it up in the future and try again, but I just didn't "get it" this go 'round.

"Company: a novel" by Max Barry
After zooming through "Jennifer Government" by Barry, I tried his newest, "Company". It did not disappoint. Without giving too much away, this book is a cross between "The Firm" and "Office Space" (the movie). It's funny, thought-provoking, and you just might see a little bit of yourself or your co-workers in it. I enjoyed it.

So there it is, the good, the bad and the un-readable. What have YOU been reading lately?

* Behold my elegant segway. Gack.

Wine Making with Goofy Girl

Wine making is extremely simple. I mean, think about it....way back when, it happened accidentally. Some monk-dudes gathered some grapes for munching, and set them aside, meaning to get back and eat them or make them into preserves. They got busy praying and such and forgot them. The grapes were discovered a week later, moving, shaking and bubbling as wild yeast ate up the nutrients of the grapes and expelled gas.

Was it an act of God, or that other guy? The jury is still on this one, folks.

So after the bubbling stopped, one of the braver monks tried a sip. "Yum," he must have thought, and the rest is history. *

So back to me. Ahem. I manage to make the simplest things hard. Thus was the case with the wine making. I bought a kit, for crying out loud. A kit. Like "Do step 1", "Then do step 2", then "Idiot, do step 3. Why are you even still reading the instructions?" Each package was labeled with (you guessed it) "step 1", "step 2", etc.

I did manage to follow all the steps, in order. However, there was a slight (okay, large) delay between step 4 and 5. Step 4 was basically "Dump the juice into the giant 6 gallon bucket and stir". Step 5 was "Add the yeast". Doh! The yeast. The yeast that was supposed to be out of the fridge, sitting in a nice warm-but-not-hot place, eating the nutrients provided in the package and making the package swell to a plump "ready-to-use" size. This step takes about a day. Double-doh! So, as I said, there was a slight delay between these steps.

This delay was made worse by the stupid directions (I always fuck up when I read these...why do I continue?) that said "package should swell in about three hours". After four hours...the package was flat as a pancake. So I poked and prodded; shaked and shimmied. After which I figured I had killed any yeast even thinking about getting busy. I threw the package in the microwave overnight (I didn't turn it on...it's just a nice warm, breeze-free place) and went to bed. Then, like a kid on Christmas morn, I ran down this morning to check on my yeast package (boy, I need a vacation if this is exciting stuff, huh?). Flat.As.A.Pancake. Dammit!

I threw the package in the pantry and left for work. My expectations were low when I got home from work. But when I checked the pantry, presto! A nice, puffy package of yeast! Yippee! I quickly fed Goofy Junior and we went down to add the yeast to my science fair project.

Right before you add the yeast, you add oak chips to the wine. Goofy Junior looked a little concerned when I added playground droppings to my wine, but he was supportive. This means he didn't dump the bucket or put any foreign bodies into it. Good boy! I put the lid on my concoction and left the yeast to feast.

So now, I wait for 5-7 days before taking a peek. I'm not a patient person, so I will be amazed if I don't peek before then.


* Okay, so I totally made up this historically-inaccurate story and wine was most probably discovered way before monks, but I always associate early wine-making with monks. So shoot me.

Goofy's Week of New Experiences

This has been a week of new experiences for me.

New Office:
My new department moved to new offices on Monday. There were a few glitches, like the restrooms on our floor are not done, so for the next two weeks, we have to travel either up or down a floor to pee. Bonus exercise though if you take the stairs! Also, the heat on our floor did not work until late today. But the good news is that our entire department is together. Together in a recycled, 70s-decorated, restroomless, freezing location...but together nonetheless.

Mammogram:
Monday I had my very first mammogram. Happy, happy, joy, joy. Actually, it was less painful than just plan weird. It's kind of like putting your breasts, one at a time, into a vice. Then you have to stop breathing for a few seconds as the "vice" takes an x-ray. It was really more pinching-painful than the "oh my God you are flattening my breast"-painful that I was expecting. Then I got to watch an embarrasing video of breast self-exam.

Wine Making:
I took a Wine Making class last Saturday. It sounds so totally easy that I'm going to try it. Go figure...another project for me. My local "home brewing" store just got in some Limited Edition Petite Syrah/Zinfandel juice. Yum. And since it's already juice, there's no annoying grape picking, de-stemming, crushing, etc. Just pour it into a bit bucket, add some yeast, add some oak chips, close it up and wait! If everything works out like planned, I might have some wine in the works by this weekend. Then, in about six months, I will have 26 bottles of wine to drink. Be nice to me and maybe you'll get a bottle!

Poker Tournament:
Tonight I played in my very first bar Texas Hold 'Em tournament. Mr. Goofy & I have had a home game for a while, but this was the first time that I ventured out to play with real live strangers (versus dead ones?). My goal was to not be the first one knocked out at my table. I surpassed that goal my miles! I had so much fun and actually did pretty well. Of 7 tables of 8 people, I was still around when it got down to 3 tables. I lasted almost 2 hours!

In case you are curious, the hand that did me in was A-K unsuited. A new guy to our table (they start consolidating tables as players go out) went "all-in" before the flop. If you are not familiar, this means that, based on only two cards, he was betting his entire bankroll. My A-K was a very good pre-flop hand, so I called him. Turns out he had 7-7...a pair of 7s. But the flop was still coming. The flop is 3 more common cards. One of these cards was an Ace. I had a pair of Aces! Which beats a pair of 7s. But alas, the final card turned up (there are 5 common cards total) was a 7. The bastard had a set of 7s (3 of them). Which, of course, beats even a pair of Aces. There was disbelief all around the table as this guy took a LOT of my chips. I never really recovered after that, and finally went all-in on a pair of 9's (not a horrible bet) and got knocked out by a higher pair. As you can tell by how much I'm writing about this, I had a blast! The only downside was that I had to come home and take a long shower to get the horrible cigarette smell off me. My frigging socks smelled of smoke!

Whew! After all this excitement, I'm ready for a quiet weekend.

Brrreeeport

I am hereby a Lemming.

Brrreeeport.

Google it.

The Cost of Motherhood

Lately, I've been pondering the costs of motherhood. No not the costs of diapers, formula and Baby Einstein DVDs, but rather, the opportunity costs. The time costs. As in "What Have I Given Up for This Motherhood Gig?" No, I'm not regretting motherhood, just thinking back to that time before Goofy Junior came along and comparing how my time was spent then versus now.

And I've come up with a few things. Things that I either knowingly or unknowingly gave up. These fall into two categories: Things I Don't Miss and Things I Miss

Here they are, in no particular order...

Things I Don't Miss:
1) Watching TV
This is the biggie. I remember nights when I would come home, park myself in front of the TV with dinner and hubbie and stay there until bedtime. Upon reflection on this...JEEZ, what a huge waste of time! If I put my Mommy Time Management Hat (MTMH) on, I think of all the things I could have done with that time...walk the dogs, pay bills, do a load of laundry, read a book, listen to an audiotape, go to the gym, shop for shoes, play a computer game, blog...

2) Staying at Work Late
I can remember looking at my watch and thinking, "Hmmm...it's 5:45pm. Guess I better think about heading home". Holy Moley! I currently have to leave my desk no later than 5:00pm if I am to get on the road, miss the majority of traffic and get to daycare for pickup by 5:45pm or so. I don't do this to miss the late penalty (which is not until 6:30pm anyway), but rather because I miss the little cur. I am rushing to pick him up because I want to see him, not because I'm afraid to incur some additional cost. It sure gets my butt going though...

3) Sweet Snacks
I have a large sweet tooth. Okay, it's gigantic. But now, I have to be a Good Role Model and not eat brownies before dinner. And not carry Twix bars in my car. Toddler Eagle Eyes see everything with a shiny wrapper. I do still eat sweets, but I have to pick my moments and I don't do as much as I used to. This is not a bad thing.


Things I Miss:
1) Walks with Mr. Goofy
This sounds mundane, but we used to have wonderful talks while we walked around our neighborhood block with two dogs in tow. We would talk about work, vacations, dreams, pet peeves, etc. Often we would argue, but in retrospect, we were communicating, and that's always good, even if tempers get heated.

Now we have to either take Goofy Junior with us, which slows the walk down to a toddle and prohibits any meaningful conversation; or one of us has to go alone. Definitely not the same.

2) Eating Later than 7:00PM
Pre-Goofy Junior, I used to roll home about 6:45PM, feed the dogs, remove my work costume and put on comfortable clothes, check the mail, then discuss with Mr. Goofy what we would make for dinner (or where we would run to for takeout).

Now we have to plan for dinner to be eaten no later than 7:30PM, or Goofy Junior's stomach causes him to become this mad lunatic. And bedtime is at 8:00pm, so we want to give him time to digest. As a compromise, we occasionally make Junior dinner at 6:30 or so, then wait until after he goes to bed to grill steaks, bust out a bottle of wine and have a normal adult dinner. The downside of this is you are literally in the kitchen all night. Sometimes it's worth it though...

3) Large Blocks of Time for Reading
I remember once sitting down on a Sunday after lunch and reading an entire Harry Potter book. In one sitting. Ah!

Now I have to find smaller blocks of time to read. A half-hour before bed. In the car while Mr. Goofy is driving. During dinner (yes, it's not the best role modeling. oh well). A big savior has been audiobooks. It's a wonderful multi-tasking situation listen to a book while driving. And I have about an hour each day to do it. I love it!

So there are costs, and there are rewards too. As with most large life changes...