The official seal

Brand names and stereotypes

I really don’t have an issue with Disney, I love Disney movies and characters and such. But I don’t want to plaster my child with their characters and give them advertising that I have paid for. I broke down 1 time and bought my little girl a pair of black elmo shoes, they were the perfect color for several of her outfits and the elmo/zoe on the tops of the shoes is pretty discreet so it’s tolerable.

I know some parents buy the stuff b/c their kids want it and it makes the little tikes happy… I have no issue with that. Right now there is a grown women sitting in my office with a Disney blanket (it’s cold in here) wrapped around her shoulders and there is a Disney notepad sitting on her desk. I have witnessed other Disney characters in her possession so today is not unusual. There is just something about a grown women flaunting her Disney gang on her body and desk that just makes my stomache turn.

And you know it’s really not that it’s a grown women with a cartoon fetish, it’s just in my little bubble it’s so not cool to have Minnie sitting right next to you all day. Obscure Disney characters that don’t get much play maybe. I have in my possession a purse with the Cheshire Cat on it. It’s not my current handbag, I have passed it on to my little one for her to play with, but in my realm the Cheshire cat is obscure enough to be more acceptable than Minnie. Maybe it’s because I was not a cheerleader, or a preppy little blond in high school. I hung out with the stoners and alternative type kids… maybe my choice of friends 10 years ago is still influencing my current taste.

The Disney Princess crowd is a whole other story. I do have a beef with them. What are we teaching our little girls when we show them movies where the lead female’s entire dream/goal is to land herself a nice prince and live happily ever after. We are setting them up for heartache and disappointment, low self esteem and body image…all before they are even out of diapers! Where is the princess who rebels, decides to put herself through college and have a career? Where is the princess who doesn’t really like kids and certainly doesn’t want to have any of her own? Where is the princess who eats too many doughnuts and can’t fit into that size 0 dress? What about the princess who doesn’t want a nice prince and starts looking for a princess instead? There are so many options in our society, why does Disney want all the little girls to stay at home and be good little housewives?
It’s not just Disney. Walk into Pottery Barn for kids, on your right you have the boys side, there is a solar system model hanging from the ceiling, dinosaurs, trains, and a blue kitchen where his woman can leave him some beer to guzzle while he watches the game. On the left side of the store is the girls side; complete with a pink house, pink fridge, washer and dryer, ironing board with an iron, and fake soap to use in the washing machine. A little kitchen with a stove for all her cooking and a grocery cart so she can go get her man some food. I know that given a choice that both sexes would play with all this stuff but it’s all PINK so you know who is really going to be buying this shit. All those little “princesses” learning how much fun it is to iron a shirt.

I feel like going out and buying my little one a calculator and teaching her how to do my taxes now.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

The days just go and go. They all seem to be the same sometimes. Work is work, not much to say there. Home is home, not much to say there either. I am looking forward to my Galveston trip, and I am looking forward to a change in my work schedule, but other than that there is just not much going on.
Maybe it’s the lack of meds, sleep, or the impending cold that I am barely keeping at bay but I just feel BLEHHHHH.
I should call and get my hormones refilled and see if they will mail them to me so I don’t have to drive across Houston, but I am so bleh that I don’t have the mental energy that it would take to dig through my purse and find the numbers.
This really does not make for an interesting read… so sorry.. although there is really no one to apologize to, it’s an apology to my future self who is going to read this and go Good Lord Girl get off your ass!
The office nazi just walked by and glared at me…I dared bother him today to change my shitty phone. I know, the gaul, disturbing someone who is so busy!
Future me I sincerely apologize for this dull post, but at least it is something.

Holly Hobbie

I spent the evening chasing my little girl around the house trying to convince her that she wanted to wear her new Holly Hobby Halloween outfit.

She ran like I was a crazy women... of course I was calling her Holly and telling her that I wanted to play with her forever and ever.

She is going to have Holly Hobby nightmares tonight!

From my Daughter's Blog

Going into my hiding place.

I like to gather stuff around the house and put it in the closet.

MOM!!! Your not supposed to be here!

*sheepish grin* You caught me.

Seriously Mom you can't tell ANYONE!

Memorializing old Journals

I have a half dozen old journals piling up in my room. The first one was started around 1st grade, its great trying to interpret the spelling and bad handwriting. The most recent one is from around the time we found out about our daughter. The problem with all of these is that I have a problem with consistency. I started the journals and wrote 5-10 entries and that is it, for EACH one. Oh and in each of them I vow to write every day, of course the entry after the vow takes place 1-5 years later. Good Job!

I love buying them though; there is just something so irresistible about a blank book that has the potential to hold all of your thoughts, hopes, and dreams. A month or so ago I saw a clip on the news about a bar in NY(?) that has journal slams. People gather and read aloud what their adolescent self wrote. Personally I think it’s brilliant, I am sure we could all save thousands in therapy reading our private thoughts and laughing with a room full of people.

Anyway, I was thinking about typing up all of these half-assed journals, adding a cute cover and printing them all into 1 book. Of course I would keep the originals.

I am just adding to the list of projects that I never seem to have time or energy for.
1.) Making a book out of the emails between us and our daughter’s birth mom from the 1st year.
2.) Getting pictures sized and printed for a little mini-calendar
3.) Turn old journals into book
4.) Get all of our daughters pictures printed and put into photo albums

Somewhere between working, eating, sleeping, raising my daughter, my marriage, relaxing, and family I need to win the lottery and hire someone to work for me.

New office

Agoraphobia

Our new office is wide open, tall ceilings, large windows, lots of space between desks. I am used to working in the “cave” and the new place is taking a bit to get adjusted to. I am loving the new fast computers and awesome keyboards. Oh and the ice cream machine! (A co-worker just mentioned that we are all going to be big fat cows)

My little girl was sick with a fever on Saturday and Sunday. Took her to the Dr. on Monday and she was fine. Always happens like that. She had a 104 temperature Saturday night so we did the cool bathwater thing, didn’t work just made her shiver a lot. She spent the entire weekend attached at my hip, she absolutely did not want to let go this morning… broke my heart but Momma’s got to work.

Roomie is coming to terms with the ghost in his bathroom, I think he still has the night light that he snagged from the living room. Hubby is chomping at the bit to put up the Halloween decorations; the baby is already expressing her dislike to some of our decorations. She doesn’t like bugs either, when she finds one in the house she stands over it and yells bug until someone disposes of it for her. There is a piece of confetti in the shape of a spider that she found, she calls it “pider” and gets upset until it disappears.

I am dying to have a girls night out. A hotel room in Galveston with no hubbies or babies in sight sounds divine. I love my husband and my daughter but Momma needs a break, a break to not be a Momma or Wife for the night. Maybe then Momma can stop referring to herself in the third person.

Overdose

After updating the two other blogs I am blogged out.

The wee little one was ill this morning. She woke me up way early with her head heating up my arm. No other signs of illness besides the fever so our best guess is she is getting new teeth.

Hope she doesn't start biting!

Poor Philly learned about the little old lady that lived in his bathroom today. She is not there much anymore and now that he knows I will get around to elaborating on that ghost story.

Good times

I am off to enjoy my weekend.

Germany Inverted

Ghosts

Hubby and I lived with his parents for 4 years after we got married. They were easy to get along with, which is why we stayed for so long. I had lived in a few other places where I would get the creepy crawlies, but as far as haunting my in-laws house takes the cake.

First a bit of personal experience/history. The home of part of my youth I personally never saw a ghost but I would get the creeps at night. My little brother later told me that there was a little boy who would walk up and down the hall and torment him. My first apartment I had a roommate who had a history of a ghost following her around. The water faucet in the kitchen would turn itself on, and there was an unexplainable banging noise in the bathrooms at odd hours. Hubby would sometimes stay over and wake up in the middle of the night because someone was staring at him. We eventually had my roommate’s priest come over and bless the apartment, give it a good dousing of holy water, and exorcise the creepies out of it. We left the holy water in the banging bathroom and had no other issues after that.

As for my in-laws, I think it would take a flood of holy water to wash it out. My hubby’s grandmother is one of the sensitive sort, she sees dead people. When they first bought the house they had her come over and check it out. She told them there were no “bad” spirits there. I was not around during this time, they had lived in that house a good 10 years before I even met hubby so in my minds eye I picture the little old lady on Poltergeist walking in and saying “This house is clean.” Just last week (mind you this is 20 years later) Grandma admitted that she was lying. She felt bad b/c she knew they had spent a lot of money and she didn’t want to mess it up for them. She went on to talk about the red haired man that inhabited it along with some other ghoulies. My sister-in-law who is also of the sensitive sort felt validated as she too has seen/experienced the red haired man. This is all second hand info; we opted not to go to Grandma’s last week so we heard about the conversation after the fact.

A little history of the house, again this is 2nd hand information, it is one of two that was built by two brothers. Both of whom were 7th day Adventist. (The church is down the street) When my hubby and his family moved in they found an empty, walled off room, which they tore down the walls and turned into my hubby’s bedroom. (Explains so much!) The house next door is said to have passageways under the house and through the house. I know very little about 7th day Adventist, guess I should do some research.

Now my personal experiences in that house were enough to last me a lifetime. I was always interested in ghosts and such but after living with them; I honestly could really live without them and not miss ‘em! There were times I would be on the computer, far away from any open doors, windows, or air conditioning vents and a cold breeze that smelled like outside would blow through the tiny cubicle where the computer was located. One night after a marathon chat with hubby and my MIL I went to the bathroom, as I came out I saw a male with shorts and a red shirt sitting on the kitchen island; thinking it was my husband I walked back to our bedroom and was shocked to find him there. I walked back to the kitchen to find out who was sitting on the island, there was no one and the island was covered with a ton of stuff, candles, papers, bowls, etc.

My brother-in-law was reportedly disturbed a LOT in his bedroom but he was not open to talking about it. I didn’t tell a friend of mine that it was haunted and she spent the night in his room, the next day she told me that the room was creepy and there was a dark figure standing over her while she slept. After my BIL moved out we took his room (it was twice as big as ours) while I was painting it I got blasted with cold air, I told the ghost where to shove it and it never bothered me in there again. Baskets in the kitchen would fall off the walls; towels hanging on the racks in the bathroom would fly off while you were in there having private time. Right before we moved out Hubby was lying in bed and something right above his head started making a loud growling breathing sound. He was freaked out to say the least. My Sister-In-Law complained of waking up b/c someone was staring at her and being able to see his face for a split second. It would walk up and down the hallway at night, you could hear it’s footsteps on the carpet and thumping up and down the hallway stairs- no live person was in the hallway at the time, it pretty much terrorizes everyone pretty equally.

After we moved out we really have not had any ghostly issues or problems until we moved to our latest house. My little brother took care of that problem so outside of a residual creepy every now and then our current house is nice and clean. My in-laws still live in the creepy house; we have yet to spend the night there since we moved out 5 years ago.

9/11

Where were you on 09/11/01?

A question that I hear more and more as the anniversary draws near.

I was at home sleeping; I worked the night shift so it was unheard of for me to get up before 11:30. We lived with hubby’s parents at the time and they were both at work. Around 9:30 the house phone rang and rang and rang until I finally got up and answered it. It was my father babbling about planes being hijacked and the world trade centers being on fire. I was confused, I went back and lay in bed and turned on the TV. and watched the horror unfold. It was shortly after the 2nd plane hit that we started watching. Then they started scrolling across the screens buildings downtown that had been evacuated. I was surprised and elated to see my buildings address scroll by, kind of like a snow day for school. About 5 minutes later the secretary called to advise me that I did have to come to work as scheduled. I watched the towers fall, the Pentagon get hit and Flt 93 hit the ground before I got dressed and drove to work. All radio stations were playing was commentary about the events. As I drove to work family members were calling and talking to Jay, crying and upset about the fact that I had to go to work. Nonessential personnel were sent home, I don’t fall into that category.

At work I found an empty building but our floor was buzzing with activity. It was a long day figuring out where crews were and getting them all hotel rooms, and trying to figure out how long it was going to be until they flew again. At one point during the night the floor was very quiet, dispatch had gone home b/c they had nothing to do, and we all had our radios on our desks so we could listen to the news. We knew that nothing was supposed to be in the air, working in a skyscraper you are still a bit weary, around 10pm a military jet buzzed by our building—everyone working hit the floor. Somewhere deep in our psyche it was imbedded that stop, drop and roll would save your life so instinctively that is what we did. We worked till our normal time and then left… no point in killing ourselves with overtime when nothing was flying anyway. As the days progressed I heard more and more stories from our pilots and flight attendants about what they saw, where they were, and how hard some of them worked at ground zero.

I worked on 9-11, 12, 14, 16, 17, and 18 then I went on vacation to Hawaii. Hawaii was surreal, the security measures at the airport were still very new, and the mood was somber to say the least. When we got to Oahu we found that a lot of hotels had closed down, flags were still at half mast. The Pearl Harbor memorial had just opened the day before we went due to the fear that terrorists were going to attack again. When we left Hawaii we were greeted at the security gates by armed guards and my sister-in-law found out that she no longer had a job.

Before 9-11-01
I was 24 years old.
I had been married for 4 almost years.
Children were on the horizon, but still far enough away that we weren’t worried about it.
I had worked for the airline for less than a year.
After 9-11-01
Traveling standby was easier since everyone was afraid to fly.
A ton of people at my company, including the majority of the people in my department and my sister-in-law lost their jobs.
I received a promotion and a raise.
We were able to afford to move out of hubby’s parent’s house.

It’s not heroic, to anyone outside my family it’s probably not even that interesting… but there it is for the record.

Out of practice,birthparents, menopause, and such

It's been a long time since I have consistently written anything; I need to get back in practice.

I had a lovely evening, hubby and baby went off to the football game and I got to come home and go straight to bed. I woke up a few hours later in my work clothes with the realization that I forgot to eat dinner. I grabbed a yogurt, a book, my jammies, and lay down for about 30 seconds before I went out again. Yesterday was rough I tell ya!

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The birthfather emailed me today; he usually just sends a form letter that I think his computer is set to send once a month. Hi, how are you, is she driving you crazy yet, everyone is good, talk to you soon form letter. The driving you crazy thing always puzzles me, why on earth would we adopt a child just to be driven crazy? Maybe he assumes that since Andrea Yates is from TX we must all be whacky down here. Dun no. Anyway today's letter veered away from the form letter a bit so I think he actually sat down and wrote it. Shocking, I know. I feel a bit like a stalker but I scan the newspaper from his small town all the time to see if he has committed any crimes lately.... or even gone to trial or anything for what he was arrested for. So far nothing, but I did find a court transcript from someone he busted back when he was a cop. Even in the "just the facts ma'am" format of court documents his personality shines through. No comment on which area it's shining from.

The birth mom is a doll as always, how those two hooked up is beyond me. She is great and so so so sweet, hopefully we will get to see her this month.

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Hormones are fabulous, keeps the hot flashes at bay and make me feel a bit more normal... less like an old lady who switched bodies with a yung'n. I have noticed that my bond with older women has been solidified, they start moaning about fatigue, flashes, and the entire lovely array of complaints that accompany menopause and I am right there with them. I have lost touch with my counterparts though. When the moans about periods and pms start I just can't relate anymore... it really is a distant memory that is fading every day—a great side effect of menopause, can't remember a damn thing!

Oh, another great thing about menopause this young, the shock factor. Many a nurse has given me the crazy look when they ask when my last period was ... the answer is July 2004... you can see them doing the math in there head, their eyes go wide, eyebrows go up, and then they ask about the hysterectomy. Nothing makes you feel like a good old circus freak than making a nurse have the "shocked" look. Makes we wonder what they do if you go in with something really nasty.
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Last book read
Kiss Me, Kill Me by Ann Rule
It was great, if you are in to True Crime, but I don’t recommend reading it before bed, especially when you have to walk out to your car by yourself really early in the morning. All of a sudden there is a serial killer, a mass murder, and a stalker sitting in your backyard waiting for you to be alone so they can hack you to death. As you make purchases at the convenience store you realize that if you are abducted they will be tracing you back to the Mountain Dew you just purchased. People will be watching you on the video surveillance cameras tracking everything that you have done over the past few days. Hope you haven’t picked any wedgies!

I think I need to take a break from the True Crime and macabre and focus on something happy and flowery. I need sunshine, butterflies and rainbows. Little bunnies hopping around with daisy chains around their necks. I think that this break would last all of 10 minutes; who really wants to read about butterflies and bunnies, I get plenty of that from reading my daughter her books.

Speaking of her books I think that Dr. Seuss was a sadist. Have you ever tried reading his books out loud, your tongue gets tied into knots that are so tight you could scream from the pain. You can almost hear him cackle in his grave every time you slip up and say a “naughty” word while you are trying to muddle through “one fish, two fish”.

Mother’s out there are gasping, how could ANYONE say ANYTHING bad about Dr. Seuss???!!! Mother Goose is worse, there are nursery rhymes in there that are so sick I just can’t read them to my baby, and Winnie the Pooh is just as bad. Have you ever read Curious George out loud? Try doing it with the voice of a pedophile; yup those books are f-d up too! Some may say it’s just my twisted mind perverting those books, if the books weren’t perverted they couldn’t be twisted!

Ok, enough for today one shouldn’t use up all their writing at once, it’s going to look like I had a premature ejaculation in my blog if I don’t write again for a week.