Soft, yellow-feathered friends

I had a bad bad morning. To many annoyances and people not doing their job. HOWEVER, when I came back from lunch there were a mom and dad goose with 5 little chicks waddling past me. When I got up to the office I watched them from my boss’s window as they crossed the entire parking lot. This walk would be long for me, those poor chicks with just 2” legs!! When the mom and dad stepped up on the curb the little ones had to jump up. One by one they leapt into the grass except for the littlest one that fell and had to jump again.

That was my “stop and smell the roses” moment for the day. I feel reenergized about working again. :)

Weekend of 4/25/08

Friday: Jim and I dropped Nicole off at Lindsay/Mike/Ryann’s so that we could head north to celebrate Kendall’s 30th birthday. I was surprised about many things: 1) we didn’t know anybody there until Dathan and Natalie (Kendall’s brother and sister-in-law) came. We’d met Jessica once but I don’t count that as “knowing her”. It always makes me feel weird to realize that my friends have other friends (and so many!) besides me that I don’t know. 2) EVERYONE before us brought their kids and everyone after us left theirs with a babysitter. Explains why we were all late! 3) Lisa and Kendall are really great people in general. For many reasons, but my favorite of the night was the ENTIRE to-go box that Lisa was encouraged to take full of after dinner mints.

Saturday: long day of Jim cleaning and me taking care of Nicole. The Gardners came over for games and Sean made a really amazing pineapple/angel food cake dessert.

Sunday: we bought a Cub Cadet riding mower, grocery shopped, bought paint for the laundry room (will match the morning room: “Tranquil Aqua”), and watched Lost on ABC.com. The weather was so nice- sunny and 60’s. I’m beginning to like spring as much/more than autumn now. Such a relief after all this cold!!

Banish me no more!

Trey Johnson - let me onto your blog! I've been trying to get in for like 2 weeks now!!

Freaky Friday

There are a lot of things in life that I choose not to think about. Some because it upsets me (like how many children are abused around the world) and some just because I feel like my having an opinion isn’t relevant as there isn’t enough evidence to support it (an opinion) one way or another and I could easily argue either side.

One such topic is whether or not there are aliens. I'm sure the space exploration fanatics out there will argue with me, but I really could care less if there are or if there aren’t. I'm pretty happy with life as it is. If there are aliens out there they aren’t impacting me right now. If aliens happen to enter into my life (either my life specifically or just my planet in general) there’s
1) no way I could foresee this
2) I have no concept of how they’d impact me therefore I could not proactively prepare for it, and
3) when/if they impact me so many other things would change I’ll deal with it then.

All this being said, I have a suspicion that there are aliens. There’s a quote from the movie Contact (an A movie by the way) that sums up my opinion on the matter: “ The universe is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just us... seems like an awful waste of space. Right?”

And, as previously mentioned, since I don’t think about it very much, this is all I have to say on the matter. : )

More Cool Animal Things!

This came to me from Lindsay!

Cheese, Exploring, and Doug

Nicole loves string cheese. Why eat broccoli when there’s more cheese on the tray?

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I took Nicole for a walk after dinner up to the edge of the sidewalk (ala Shel Silverstein). Really we walked to the end of the current road and then beyond where they’re clearing for the second phase of our neighborhood. WOW. First, there is a lot more land than I thought there was in general. Second, there are some terrific lots coming up. They’re a good size, flat, and have an amazing view over the whole neighborhood. I wish I had my camera with me.

There are 9 houses in right now and by the end of the third phase there’ll be about 83. I see now where they’re going to put them- there’s tons of space!

It makes me almost wish we had waited until this summer to move to be up on the top of the hill.

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Jim’s stepfather is doing very poorly. He fell asleep at the wheel 3X in the mountains and if Vickie wasn’t there to grab the wheel they’d have driven off the road. Why is he sleeping at the wheel? Because the blood clots that have infected his foot have made his toes so painful he can’t sleep more than an hour. He has a multitude of other issues and as a result has given in that driving a multi-ton vehicle is no longer in his or the general public’s best interest.

As of this evening, he’s officially, forcibly retired.

They're moving back to Ohio, getting a new home, and taking up stationary life. He’s got a splattering of doctor’s appointments- for the blood clot, second hernia, to have at least one toe amputated, etc. After this is done, Vickie is off to look for a job for the first time in over six years. While I don’t think either is happy about the situation the bigger concern is his rapidly deteriorating health. Send good thoughts his way if you get a moment.

C & B + 3

On Saturday we attended a 30th birthday party (one of many this year!) for a friend of ours in Loveland. More exciting than celebrating Chris’s birthday was talking to his wife Brandy about the TRIPLETS they’re expecting. Yes, you read that right.

When I got pregnant Jim and I both thought twins would be pretty cool. One shot and done seemed like an efficient approach to having children. Now that we have one, the concept of two at one time seems overwhelming. Of course you’d make it work, what choice do you really have… Two opportunities to get up through the night. Two opportunities of crying uncontrollably for no apparent reason. Two opportunities of “s/he did it”.

To a degree I think we could handle it better now, after having practiced with one. All the multiples I know are last children in their families, not the oldest. I'm sure there’s a very good reason for this. ; )

3 on the other hand… and with no previous experience… WOW.

Interested in other multiples? I’ve only seen about an hour of the show and that was plenty to scare me- Jon & Kate Plus 8.

Creatures of the Deep!

I get REALLY into weird animals. Anytime Yahoo! has a story about some mysterious creature resurfacing after we thought it had long-ago gone extinct I'm clicking to see pictures. Megan used to find stories online about animals doing weird things and send them to me. Anyway, Mom sent me this link about sea creatures – too cool!

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/206

The Great Outdoors

Our grass is TALL but we don't own a lawn mower yet. Seizing the opportunity to catch Nicole's first experience sitting in the grass, I grabbed the camera and found myself morphing into The Meanest Mom on the Planet.

I'm sorry but she was being so sissy about touching the lawn that I had to laugh.


Here she is in the tallest part of the yard. She held her hands close to her body so she didn't have to get near the grass. You can tell who she wants to rescue her since her mother clearly wasn't willing to do anything for her.

Evening at the park

We have a really nice park just 3 minutes down the road from us and Lindsay organized a large group of us to head up for dinner and frolicking. :)

Uncle Mike = tons o' fun

Mother and daughter-in-law

Nicole's first ever trip on a swing!

Ryann's a swinging pro! Yes, that crazy person yelling in the background is my brother.

The John Deer Tractor on a spring didn't go over quite as well as the swing did...

Ryann and Corey on the tube slide

It's Baaaack...

Laryngitis. Just as bad and just as annoying as the first time around 4 months ago. *sigh*

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I thought there were some good comments left recently on the service industry post that I enjoyed reading.

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Jim’s boss is moving to Manhattan. Yet another friend leaving this fine city. I was thinking on the way in that we have a lot of friends in a lot of different cities/states: OR, AZ, KY, NC, IL… and now NY. If you weren’t all so dispersed I’d consider doing a big sweeping visit over the summer via Amtrak which I always thought would be a cool way to travel. As it stands we’ll be headed to the Caribbean for the cruise in July and Toronto in September.

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I got a funny card in the mail from Lisa (thanks!!) that made me wish we were still drinking Coronas in my Garden Apartment living room. Instead I'm here at work contributing to the GDP. *sigh* I do have some semi-interesting projects I'm working on though which helps the time go quickly. :)

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A student emailed me this morning and the salutation was "Dear Dr. E...". That made me smile. I didn't correct him, but I did just sign it "Karen".

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This is Jim's new title at work (he's changing jobs within the company in early May): Senior Analyst, Global Health & Well Being- Competitive Intelligence and Initiative Portfolio/Project Analysis.

Doesn't he sound important!?

Nicole is 9 months old!

Nicole had her 9 month appointment on Monday and here are the stats:

Height: 2 feet, 3.75 inches (55%)
Weight: 19.0 lbs (52%)
Head Circumference: 43.7 cm (45%)

She has another ear infection in her left ear (4th one) for which she got another prescription. The doctor said that nursing is the only real prevention mechanism and had I not been the situation would probably be worse (tubes by now). As it stands, if this continues after the winter season she will probably be getting tubes at least in her left ear. The doctor assured us that no permanent damage to her hearing is happening. Nicole, other than some periodic ear tugging, seems oblivious to the whole thing.

New foods in her diet- watered down grape juice, string cheese, kiwi, coconut pudding, organic yogurt, turkey, waffle pieces, asparagus, & broccoli.

She’s learned some more “parlor tricks” since the last update – she can wave, pull a blanket up to hide and then pull it down to play peek-a-boo, say “mama” and “dada”, and can “crawl”- her form of crawling is a mix between army-style, traditional, and on her hands and feet with a few face plants and stops to sit along the way. She much prefers holding your fingers and walking to get around. If we come at her with a “I'm gonna getcha” and approaching tickle-ready hands she squeezes her body and giggles in anticipation.


Here are some shots from her pictures on Saturday:

Weekend of 4/11/08

Nicole has had a lot of ear infections in her short life (3) so when my ear started feeling “not right” – pressure, heat, dull pain, etc.- I figured I was headed down the same road. I went to see the nurse practitioner and she diagnosed me with a dysfunctional Eustachian tube. I have some pills to take 2X/day to relieve the swelling and I'm supposed to be taking a nose spray too. I’d be doing better if I could figure out a time to take all these pills. This one can’t be taken in combo with my birth control (10pm) or my thyroid pill (6:30am) so the optimal time would be like 10am and 4pm which is about impossible to remember. Therefore, my ear still has pressure, heat and pain. UG.

We had 10, count ‘em, 1-0 people spend the night on Friday – Kevin, Tabitha, their 6 kids, and Luke and Liza. It wasn’t too bad though as we all spent the early evening separate. Saturday was an early morning – I got up at 6:30 and headed to Dayton to babysit Alex while Sarah had her glucose tested. He’s such a good boy and wanted me to hold him quite a bit which tickled me. We came home in time to dump Nic in the bath and swing her over to Portrait Innovations for her 9 month pictures. I should have gone to JC Penney where they are more cost reasonable. I have LOTS of cute pictures to distribute but should probably have saved it for the 1 year milestone instead….

Nicole was NOT in a good mood Saturday night. She cried off and on for 2 hours until she went to bed. I suspect another ear infection in her left ear is to blame. We head to the doctor for her 9mo check-up today so we’ll see. I'm used to a happy baby 95% of the time that to have 2 bad hours was really wacky and frustrating. I have no idea how parents with colic-y babies stay sane.

Once she hit the sack though Jim and I played our new Wii on our new Surround Sound! I made a Mii for Jim and I, scored a 165 in bowling, and embarrassed myself royally playing ping-pong. Now I want wireless internet so “Lisa” and “Kendall” (and “Jesus” and “Michael Jackson” and …) can visit our console!

Sunday = church, house cleaning (I cleaned my first bathroom in the new house! Jim normally does 100% of all the housework), grocery shopping (we saved $39 in coupons for a total weekly bill of $27), and sloppy joes. Cleaned the kid, fed the kid, and hit a high point in my book (they caught 2 of the bad guys).

I’ll post some of Nicole’s pictures from this weekend here when I download them from my overpriced CD.

Really Real 2

There are a few precious moments in my life that I feel like I'm really living and totally in the moment. There are a lot of other times, like standing in my bathroom looking down at a little stick with two lines instead of the one that I assumed there’d be, that I think I should be living fully but I'm working too hard to mentally catalog every little detail of what’s going that I miss out fully engrossing myself in the experience. Ironically when I do that, the mental cataloging for later reference, I don’t enjoy the memory as much as I do the ones below that I just let myself live. Here’s to not thinking as much.

Moments when I felt truly alive (watch out, my true dorkiness will come out in some of these)

1) Choreographing a dance to “My God” from Sister Act in Katie B.’s basement. We practiced half a dozen afternoons until it was perfect and ready for show to Sr. Elizabeth, our 8th grade teacher, over lunch break.

2) Sneaking out with Kim B. to the “salt mines” (the half football shaped building that holds the street salt). We knew we shouldn't be there which made climbing the three story high pile of salt even more fun. Sliding down and turning our socks blue was another added benefit of the adventure.

3) Watching my mom cry on Mother’s Day because she was disappointed that none of us made a big deal of the holiday

4) Exchanging dresses in the bathroom of Kolping during the dance

5) My first kiss, LaSalle Rock Jam 1995

6) Watching Niagara Falls fall- the sheer power of it was amazing

7) When Mike C. told me he loved me for the first time on my parent’s living room couch, January 11, 1997. That glow stayed with me the whole first year we dated

8) Sitting on Marycrest Hill with Lisa, sunning our legs, eating Rally’s fries

9) The awe in Kenny’s eyes when I almost got into a fist fight with another girl over him (this lead to another really real moment that I won’t go into on a public space!)

10) My Cleveland road trip with the girls (Skittle Bitches)

11) Watching Viki do a keg stand on her birthday, in a skirt. I stood in our kitchen and had the distinct thought “this is what college is all about”

12) UD Graduation weekend – starting with my parents coming up to go drinking with us, graduation ceremony, and the tent party afterwards

13) The entire night I met Jim. I remember seeing him play croquet on Geoff's lawn, flirting over euchre, leaning up against him watching pool, inviting him to dessert, calling my mom every other hour claiming I'd be home soon, his "getting hot" and "need" to take off his shirt during darts, and leaving at 10:00am never having gone to sleep

14) Eating hummus with Viki and Laura at some trendy Chicago joint for Viki’s bachelorette party. I loved that it was just the three of us and that good conversation flowed for hours

15) The doors opening up and seeing everyone watch me walk down the aisle at my wedding

16) The fear I felt when the doctor said they were going to induce me in 8 hours (Tuesday, July 10th). I cried for an hour- over the phone with my dad, at work, talking to Jim- because I was so scared of labor and of the reality of becoming a mom

17) Making Nicole laugh for the first time with Jim in our new kitchen

Service Industry

We got approached buy a guy last weekend who gave us a quote to mow our lawn: $35. Our lot is gently rolling with a hill, about ½ acre (with the house in the middle), and should grow beautifully thanks to the quarterly fertilizer/weed treatments it’s receiving in combo with the sprinkler system. As you can imagine, the first thing Jim did was run the numbers to see what ROI the zero-turn mower he wants would be at the $35/mow/week price. I believe the answer to that equation was 2.5 years.

We have a growing number of friends who have services done for them. Tom has his lawn manicured once a week. It’s beautiful, wooded, and hilly. There’s no way I’d want to mow it myself. Carole is having her backyard landscaped to help her maintain the health of her hands. John & Ruth have someone clean their house once a week – they have three kids and Ruth’s a stay-at-home mom who is exhausted by the end of the week. I get this.

On the other hand, John also has his lawn cut for him. He’s 35, in good health, and (I think) still owns his own lawn mower. In his opinion he’d rather have that hour and a half to play with his kids on the weekend and not worry about mowing.

I used to think that people who had maids were rich. As I age I realize that people who have maids are busy (or men).

I'm still too cheap to pay someone to do much of anything for me. I think I feel this way because when it comes to cleaning Jim does it all (I literally don’t have to lift a finger!), when it comes to mowing neither of us mind doing it, and when it comes to cleaning the car (thinking of Dave’s blog) it seems expensive for a job I can do myself (or have Jim do). The car thing does, however, sound like a fantastic gift to receive though.

Weekend of 4-4-08

Jim had some buddies and some of my family over on Friday night for a ping-pong tournament. Some participants took the competition very seriously and were approached by corporate sponsors!

Others, just made sure that everyone had a good time. Like my father, below, sharing his beer with Nicole. Mom and I said we hoped she drooled in it for him.


Nicole also, for the very first time, started waving. She waved bye-bye twice to my uncle and then sporadically to others through the whole weekend. No video of this yet, but it's cute that she does the Queen Elizabeth style - twists her wrist and keeps her fingers still. She pumps her whole arm up and down too, but it's hard to tell if that's waving or just sheer excitement.

Saturday morning, after an "educational" sales presentation by a water filtration guy ($4500 for a whole house unit didn't take much thinking about ... uh, no), I headed over to Sue's with the girls for a Mary Kay make-over afternoon. We all looked gorgeous. Immediately following Jim picked me up and we headed north to Spencerville for Jim's family Easter. Good times, good gossip.

On Sunday we discovered Nic's third tooth (top left) had broken the gumline. Here Uncle Greg is trying to catch a look at it:

I put Nicole down for a quick nap before Jim gets home (he's practicing for a 5K next month). We are going to bowling and Nicole is going to the park with her grandparents. I just went to check on her about a minute ago and found her sleeping like this:

She learned last Friday how to get to a sitting position starting from her stomach. I found her a few mornings sitting in her crib waiting for me to pick her up. This is the first time, however, I've seen her actually sit and sleep...

Really Real

Sometimes it’s strange for me to think that famous people are really just people too.

When I'm laying in bed at 11:00 talking about my day with Jim, Katie Holmes might be, at the exact same time, catching Tom up new script she read that afternoon. Or when I'm rolling meatballs for dinner, Nicole Kidman might be doing the same thing in front of her range. Or when the baby cries over the monitor at 3:00 in the morning and I'm praying that she just falls back asleep without me having to get up, “my friend” Nicole Ritchie might be simultaneously groaning the same thing to little Harlow’s monitor in California.

A lot of times it's almost like famous people are really just made-up characters like they play and that they don't do the exact same things I do every day. Some times I try to picture a celebrity standing in her closet and cocking her head over what to wear in the morning just like I'm doing. Of course her closet is the size of my bedroom....

Spending Wisely

Want to move to Cincinnati? Here's what your money will get you:

$100,000

$300,000

$500,000

$1,000,000

Neighbors!

Spring has clearly sprung. People are coming out of hibernation and yesterday was a day of neighbors.

We’re strongly considering putting an offer in to buy the lot behind us. Trying to find out the skinny on its status, I visited the model home yesterday and talked to the sales rep (not the same person who sold us our house). In the office were 2 neighbors (married) who just bought a house up on the hill and were planning things out. While I talked to Rosalind, another new neighbor, who will live right across the street from us on the corner, came in. She was wearing scrubs and was in a hurry- they apparently have children as she mentioned that “the boys” were waiting in the car.

Let me make a side note here that Jim and I are really happy with the diversity in our neighborhood. Both of the sets of neighbors I’ve mentioned so far are black and the people who are building next door are as well. The family who bought the model house are Chinese. Since both Jim and I grew up in all-white communities, we’re really happy that Nicole will get to be around a lot of different (yet still all upper-middle class, but it’s hard to diversify that in a neighborhood) people/backgrounds.

Mid-conversation with the sales rep, a woman walked in to turn in her paperwork to buy a house, leaving only 5 available lots in the neighborhood in Phase 1 (of 30 total)!! Of all things they’re building an Avalon (same model as ours) just down the road. When I introduced myself as the Avalon across the street she knew just who I was and admitted that her husband has read my blog! I invited them over to check out our (very) lived-in house and to give some suggestions regarding things we’d change with hindsight. They too have two boys – 9 and 13. They’ll like the neighborhood – there is a family with 4 kids, two of which are the same age, down the road in the opposite direction from us, and another 9 year old girl further on Red Hawk.

After we bid them farewell and had dinner, I went out to meet Jim and our favorite neighbors (that we haven’t seen all winter!), Rob and Shirley, on the corner. We caught up a bit with them before it got dark.

Jim also found out that there is a baby boy, 1 week older than Nic, who is moving in on Red Hawk by September. Hooray for potential new friends! Maybe she’ll marry him!

I feel like Lisa with my neighbors!!!

Now knowing that the entire length of Red Hawk (the street our house faces) is sold, I went out and took pictures of what is now a lonely road with just 2 houses dotting it. By September it’ll be full with 8 more on every lot available. WOW!