Borderline Retarded

1st Day of Kindergarten

2008-08-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

It's Jake's first day of kindergarten today. I just can't believe he's in school! He is so excited, and his younger brother is so excited. I hope everyone's day goes well today, but I expect we're going to need some serious cuddle time today when I get home from work.

I took half of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off last week so Jake could have a nice transition from Kinder Care to school. We had a going away party for him on Wednesday afternoon, and I planned a few day trips. We took the Amtrak to Sacramento to the Railroad museum on Thursday, he had an open house at his new class and I took him to see "The Clone Wars" at the theater on Friday, we went to Lake Berryessa on Saturday and to an air show on Sunday.

I took Jake to Target to pick out a lunchbox for school. His choice? Dora the Explorer. It's only got a little tiny bit of sparkles on it and is a lovely shade of purple! I figure he's trying to show the ladies his sensitive side.

I'm going to try and not hyperventilate or run back to the school and peek through the windows of Jake's class like some Peeping Tom!

I know this is strange, but I'm worried about the weirdest stuff, like will he be able to open his sandwich and put the straw in his juice box? Like he will starve to death before the lunchroom supervisor would be able to help him! I think there is a good enough mix of kids ages from 4 to 6 that the older ones will be able to help the younger ones out.

I'm taking this morning off to try and get some stuff done around the house, then I'm meeting Michelle at Jake's class after lunch. Jake is going to spend the afternoons with his brother at Michelle's house. She said that Jake's teacher is her favorite of the three - that was very nice to hear!

Happy Mother's Day!!

2008-05-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

2008-03-08T15:26:00.001-08:00

My kids are spending the night with the grandparents tonight. My husband has actually agreed to see a movie. At the actual movie theater. I'm just so excited!! Hubby has been feeling under the weather all week, so it will be especially nice to have some alone time. We'll see if either of us is able to sleep in tomorrow morning!

My Preshus Babes

2008-03-05T09:57:00.001-08:00

Auntie Heather took these pictures a few weeks ago with her new camera. They take my breath away!

R U MY BF?

2008-02-20T17:49:00.000-08:00

OMG. I sent a text message for the first time today. Am I lame, or what?

2008-01-04T08:15:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday My Love!!

32 years this world has been graced with your presence.

I think that deserves a little celebrating!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

2007-12-28T22:57:00.000-08:00

All is quiet.......well, as quiet as children can be.....

The yells of "Santa, YAY, SANTA!!!" were deafening and lasted nigh on five whole minutes.

All our rugrats coming down from the unwrapping /Santa Claus rock star fever.

That's our oldest on the far left, and our youngest sitting on Santa's lap.
Cute, huh?

2007-12-15T21:29:00.000-08:00

Check out my Dark Ages profile!

Check out my Dark Ages profile!

Check out my Dark Ages profile!

Check out my Dark Ages profile!

This was totally fun. I, apparently, am easily entertained.

Bye Bye Baby

2007-11-27T18:45:00.000-08:00

We took down new baby's crib this past weekend. He's sleeping on the bottom of the bunk bed now.

Sigh.

He'll be two years old on December 10th.

Not a baby any more!!

U.F.O.

2007-11-18T08:47:00.000-08:00

Last night, November 16, 2007, I saw an Unidentified Flying Object.
No, seriously.

I was walking up to Scott and Wren's condo, parallel to the building, when I saw something floating in the sky just at the tree line. We have an airport in Napa, so I don't always give these types of lights a second glance. But, as I watched, this object looked so strange, that I stopped walking and just stared at it. My first thought was that it might be a comet, but there was no tail to it. And it didn't seem to have a specific course.

My second thought was that someone had let go a homemade lantern or something, and it was light enough to be floating on the air current.

My third thought was that it was a helicopter, but the searchlight seemed to be pointing up towards the sky instead of towards the ground.

The light was bright orange, and flickered slightly like it was a flame, rather than a bulb. It was extremely bright and steady. This light seemed to be at the very bottom, and just above seemed to be some kind of material, like a parachute. It undulated slightly, and was very pale and seemed transparent. It looked for all the world like a plastic grocery bag with a lantern like flame glowing in it.

I stopped watching and knocked on the door. When Wren answered, I dragged her outside to look at it. At this point, it had moved further away, and all that was visible was the actual light. When I told Wren to come and look at something, the first thing she said on her way out the door was that there was a meteor shower tonight. But, as soon as she saw it we both agreed it wasn't a meteor. As we watched, the light stopped moving across the sky, and just seemed to grow smaller. Scott joined us, and a minute or so later, so did George. Even in that span of one minute, the light had grown even fainter, and we all agreed it seemed to be moving directly away from us, straight up. Our friend Mike arrived at this point, and we all five of us stood transfixed. George was capturing it all on his cell phone, but when we re-played it, the screen was completely black and all he could pick up were Mike making smart-ass comments and me giggling like an idiot.

It was all very surreal, but I have to believe there is some very logical explanation. The only strange thing was that it started off kind of lolling about lazily, then shooting straight up until it left the atmosphere and the light winked out. It was very cool, but I never once got a "creepy" sensation, or felt frightened. I guess I've grown up around airplanes too much to ever really believe anyone sees UFO's.

I just wish someone else had seen it at the very beginning, when the rest of it was more visible.

After we were sure it was gone, we started into the house. I did see a shooting star right then, and someone joked it was a man falling to earth. After this, the requisite "black helicopter" stories started. I should pick up a copy of The Napa Sentinel today to see if Harry Martin reports any other UFO sightings from last night.

He must have buzzed the tower one too many times

2007-11-04T21:57:00.000-08:00

I have been one busy little bee.

Normally, I spend time writing on my blog during down time at work. I never usually use the computer at home. Since taking on the new tax responsibilities, I now work a 40 + workweek, and have had roughly ZERO downtime since June!

Three TTB auditors arrived last Monday. Luckily, Maria is still the head honcho as far as compliance goes, so my involvement has been minuscule. Luckily especially because I have been feeling under the weather the past two weeks. I had a touch of the flu, then a terrible hacking cough. I think I could really use a vacation!

Halloween was fun this year. The kids both dressed up and went "Trick or Treating". This was old baby's first time going door to door, and he did really well. They were both cracking me up. New baby had no idea what the heck was going on, but he will follow his big brother anywhere! They forgot to say "Trick or Treat", and just walked right into people's houses. At one house new baby took candy out of his bucket and gave it to the nice people at the door! They had fun handing out candy after we got home too. I was even able to take a couple of pictures before they tore their costumes off! They were ghosts. I bought old baby a costume, and made one for new baby out of a men's long sleeved T-shirt.

We had a potluck at work and a costume contest. I love Halloween; it's hands down my favorite holiday of the year. However, they last several years have found me completely unimaginative and unable to think of a costume for myself. Usually by the time I think to go to a costume shop, it's the night before and all they have left are costumes from the "Playboy" collection. My friend Maria won "most creative" with her Magic 8 Ball costume. She had a spare wig, so I put that on and we decided I was Britney Spears! My friend Keri was dressed as Sally from "The Nightmare Before Christmas." Let's see if I can manage to post a couple of photos:

This last picture is our "Way Bitchin' 80's" IT Department.

Haiku

2007-10-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

Pouring down the rain
The car windows they are down
My ass, she is wet

2007-10-04T10:52:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I celebrated 5 years of wedded bliss last week. We had a wonderful evening together. I had taken the kids to my parents house in the morning before work, so I wouldn't have to fight traffic. My friend Maria picked me up at home, so my husband could just drive to my office after work and pick me up.

We went to Sushi Mambo for dinner in downtown Napa. It was so very yummy! His sister and her husband showed up to eat dinner as well. I thought it was sweet that my husband didn't want to share the table with them because he wanted me all to himself! They did join us after dinner, and we walked to Henry's bar on Main Street.

Several other friends were able to join us as well, and I had a great time! We don't get out too often anymore.

It was nice to sleep in a bit on Saturday morning. I can't remember the last time we both got to sleep past 7:30 in the morning! My parents dropped the kids back off with us at lunchtime, and we met up with them again for dinner with my in-laws.

All around a very nice weekend!

2007-09-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a dream about crawfish. I was with a chick who kept calling them "lobsters". That bothered me a lot for some reason. We were picking them up off the ground and chucking them over a chain link fence into a creek. Weird.

2007-09-03T18:17:00.000-07:00

This has been a fun weekend. Except for taking old baby to the doctor today because his tonsils are swollen, and my husband coming down with possible strep and mono. Since those two things happened today, which is Monday and technically usually a work day, I just won't include them as part of the weekend!

Saturday, we took the kids to the Nut Tree in Vacaville, and spent 2 wiltingly hot hours running around. new baby could barely walk out to the car at the end of it! This was the best trip we've made yet, because new baby is getting old enough to go on the rides. He started to get dizzy while on the hot air balloon ride, which is like airborne teacups. Well, we all started to get a little dizzy by the end on that one!

We drove straight to the Red Robin at the Solano Mall to meet up with some friends for dinner, then I stayed behind and went to a movie with them while hubby took the boys home. Our friend Seth has been very excited to see the new "Halloween" movie directed by Rob Zombie. It was awesome! I haven't been to a horror flick in years. Actually, I'm not too sure I've ever seen an actual honest to goodness horror movie in the theater. I jumped so many times I lost count, and I'm sure I accidentally punched Mike in the chest at least twice. We had great seats too; we weren't bothered much by the other moviegoers who keep checking their cell phones for messages or whatever the heck it is they do every 30 seconds! The only nuisance was this woman who kept walking up the ramp and unsuccessfully "stage whispering" her every move to someone sitting in the theater. She was going to the bathroom. She was going outside to smoke. She was going to the Nike store to look at shoes. The movie was very well done and I am going to watch a couple of other Rob Zombie movies that our friend Scott recommended. Of course, I can't remember what they are called, so I'll have to ask him. He probably owns them on DVD anyway.

Naturally, I didn't sleep well Saturday night.

Sunday we pretty much hung out around the house, and I took old baby with me to the grocery store. He does such a good job and is such a good helper. We bought a chinese algae eater to put in with his goldfish, Big Daddy. This is actually his third goldfish; his first two, named "Nemo" and "Daddy" didn't last the first week. Big Daddy however is doing very well. And now, we can see him a little bit better!

Today, I took the boys to my parent's house to visit with some family. My cousin Kristin drove all the way from Oregon, about 500 miles, with her 7 month old baby. He is the second redhead amongst the grandkids, with my oldest being the first. It was so good to see her! Luckily, Kristin is much better than I am about e-mailing pictures and movies. We probably won't see her again until Christmas. My two boys were just smitten with the baby. My mom was too, and let me know she was ready for another one! I told I was all for it, it was the old man who needs convincing! I said "We have two - may as well have three!!" and she told me that was the wrong attitude to have. Of course. Heaven forbid she can just let me make a comment to get a chuckle out of people. According to her, having a third is like having twice as many kids. I told her I would pretend they were pounds instead of dollars. She flipped me off. (It's funny because she and my dad just returned from a month long adventure to Great Britain, and she had some issues with the conversion rates.)

Now, I am writing in my blog instead of doing laundry and cleaning the mysterious sticky spot on the kitchen floor. Oh, and I joined Weight Watchers online. Wish me luck!

Birthday Gifts....

2007-08-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

This is Spencer, the newest addition to our Duplex Lego "Thomas the Tank Engine " train set.

Here is Cranky the Crane.

Sir Toppam Hatt came with the Spencer set.

And here is the track in all its glory - about as good as Mommy can do anyway!

Our boy has spent endless hours playing very intently with this set. It's been fun watching as his imagination has grown over the past 2 years. He even uses different voices for the different trains. I hope that we can collect all the separate sets before he outgrows them! Of course, his younger brother shows some interest, but he doesn't have nearly the same focus or attention span that old baby did at that age. Especially now that new baby is learning to talk and wants to know the word for everything he sees! It makes reading a book or doing any task for that matter take 5 times longer than normal! He mostly just wants to crash all the trains, and this upsets his older brother no end.

2007-08-27T16:26:00.001-07:00

My little boy is 4 years old. I think I'm in a little bit of shock! I can't quite believe it yet. But, like he keeps telling me, he's not a baby any more, he's a big boy now. One day, it will sink in. I'm guessing sometime around his 30th birthday.

2007-08-15T07:54:00.000-07:00

Just to show you how deep and profound I am, last night, I had dreams about my hair.
There's some deeper philosophical meaning to this, right?
Please?

2007-08-08T21:38:00.001-07:00

I got my eyebrows waxed again.

I think I look like a drag queen.

2007-08-03T15:51:00.000-07:00

Best 10 minutes I've spent over the past 2 months:
Watching New Baby as he discovered the intake vent for the air condiitoner and leaned back so it could suck his hair through the grate. He would pull back and pat his head, then stick his head back up there again and again. It was too cute!

Funniest thing I've heard this week (made me do a spit-take):
"I put my fist in your mermaid!"

We were at a sushi place, and one of the rolls was called a "mermaid roll". Maria did, in fact, stick her fist in Keri's mermaid.

It's been a very good week at work. For the first time in almost three months, I am caught up. Plus, I got a nice raise yesterday of $100 per week. Yay me! I celebrated by buying a new purse at Target for $20.00. It's the little things.

I am looking forward to tomorrow. My friend Wren and I are going to see the new "Harry Potter" movie. I frickin LOVE going to the movies. I was able to finish the final book in the Harry Potter series on Wednesday. I was very satisfied - I thought it was extremely well done. I would have finished it sooner, but it's hard to concentrate on reading when you have 79 pounds of children and cat climbing into your lap non-stop.

Next on the list will be Old Baby's 4th birthday. 4th, ALREADY!! I can barely believe it!

2007-07-24T09:28:00.000-07:00

Ohmigod I have been so busy this last month!! I am working my tail off training with Maria and I am behind in everything! I normally blog at work, but apparently I don't have the leisure time anymore.

Things at home are going OK. The house is not quite the disaster area it has been - I at least cleaned the kitchen this weekend. The floors are so clean you could eat of them! The rest of the house, not so much. I was actually home sick yesterday. I tossed my cookies all morning, and had a horrible back ache. I'm feeling much better today, but I am worried that the nausea I'm experiencing a lot lately means my blood sugar is out of wack. That has me very worried, and I am going to make the best effort I know how to start eating better.

I actually started an excersise regimen last week. Don't laugh, but I ordered "Hip Hop Abs". So far, I love it. I am having trouble getting up at 5 am every morning to work out though, and I'm embarrased to ask my husband if I can use the living room in the evenings. I don't know why, I just am. The workout has been a lot of fun, which is weird. I have actually tightened up my belt another notch.

Old baby has been a little bit cranky lately. He is getting so good though at listening to us and understanding consequences to his actions. He had a terrible ulcer on his tongue all last week, and stayed home from day care one day, then new baby had what we thought was chicken pox for a few days. It turned out to be hives, and not chicken pox, but I was a little bit stressed out! Old baby turns 4 in one month, and I just can't believe 4 years has gone by already. He is just such an amazing little person.

Well, I better high tail it back to work.

2007-07-05T12:59:00.000-07:00

Holy smokes I haven't posted in a while!

The last month has been so busy. June usually is, the weekends always seem to be booked. We had a wonderful time at our family reunion. The family is just as crazy and lovable as ever! We spent the night, and new baby did not handle hotel sleeping very well at all. He was so very tired, but refused to fall asleep. He cried and cried before finally passing out. He woke up crying several times. Old baby only woke up once, and he was very happy to have a whole queen sized bed all to himself.

We were back home from our trip maybe two hours when my husband received a phone call from someone affiliated with his office, and told him he was being let go. No reason given other than they are an "at will" employer. I say the person who called was "affiliated", because my husband didn't even know who the guy was. It was all very surreal. Luckily, my husband had two or three interviews within just a few weeks, which was very heartening. In the past, it has taken months before he could even get an interview. I think the industry standard right now is three months between jobs. He is working for a new corporation since June 25th, but he's not too sure yet if it's "the one". He got the job through the temp agency, and luckily it is just a short drive across the highway from our home. I'm certainly enjoying sharing the dropping the kids off at day care duties. Hubby drives old baby to his day care which is about 10 minutes from the house, and I drop new baby off at his place which is about 3 blocks away. This has saved me an hour and a half off my commute every day. Yes, I 'm definitely liking it!

We had a 4th of July BBQ at my sister in law's house, with a wonderful fireworks show just a few blocks away. Old baby did great with the fireworks. He said he didn't like them, but he watched the whole thing. He was griping about not being able to sit in my husband's chair ("I don't WANT to sit in your lap!!") to hopping right into my lap as the first firework went off. New baby was sitting with my dad until about the 5th explosion, then he came running too! He fell asleep about 5 minutes into the show, and didn't wake up again until I was settling him into his car seat. Lugging 30 pounds of sleeping 18 month old has left me a bit sore in the arms today!

We are driving to Aptos on Saturday, which is right between Santa Cruz and Monterey, for our friend Seth's wedding. I am so looking forward to it, and trying not to think too much about the 2 1/2 hour drive there and back. I wish we could stay the night, but the hotel they are getting married at is a 2 night minimum at $350 per night. Yeouch! Wren and Scott are in the wedding, so they have a room, and George is officiating, so he and Jen have a room too. They said we can use their space to get dressed. It will be nice not to drive 180 miles in panty hose! Jen might drive over with us, because she can't go until Saturday, and George is driving up Friday afternoon. It would be nice to get all caught up with her! I still haven't heard all the juicy details from her and George's wedding in April. They were married in Hawaii, so we couldn't make it.

My sisters, dad and I are planning a big 60th birthday bash for my mom. It has a Hawaiian Luau theme, which she knows about but what she doesn't know is that we hired hula dancers! It is going to be so much fun! I am in charge of making all the desserts. I am actually really going to enjoy that part. Desserts are really my thing. Except pies, can't make those to save my life!

Well, this post is way too long so I think I'll pack it in. Hopefully, I'll be able to write more often.

Month 18....Seperation Anxiety

2007-06-15T15:56:00.000-07:00

This has been a strange week for us. My husband did not work, so we have not been car-pooling like usual. Then, the van decided it wanted to have a week off, so it called in with a leaky tire and the boys and I are cruising around in our 2-door Honda Civic to get to and from day care.

New baby has always been the more mellow, easy going one (at least compared with old baby at the same age) and has always been just wonderful being dropped off at day care. Honestly, it wasn't until close to his 1st birthday that I think he really noticed me much at all! But this week, he has not wanted me to let him off at day care, and actually starts throwing a fit before we even round the corner to her place. This morning, he actually tried to physically push me back towards our car. He was screaming bloody murder, and it was all very unsettling. I have been through this before with our older son, so I knew the best thing was to re-assure him I would be back, and that I loved him. The day care lady has been beside herself that he has been acting this way, and she wants to cry when I leave him off! She did call me this morning though about 20 minutes after I left to let me know that as soon as she shut the door, he immediately stopped crying and went about his usual business. She has never had to leave her children at day care, and she said she didn't know how I could deal with it. I told her it's because I know he's going to stop crying as soon as I leave, and that if he were actually sick or something, she would let me know right away. It's the only way I can leave my kids at all. I have to be able to trust her completely with my child, like I would a close family member. I think she was touched by that, but seriously. I would never leave my kid with someone I didn't know for a fact loved him to pieces!

My husband recommended that I try to have a mommy/new baby night tonight, so he is going to try and keep old baby occupied. I think it's a lovely idea. There's nothing more wonderful than having a date with an 18 month old hunk of burning love!

2007-06-08T08:24:00.000-07:00

Well, hubby is still feeling under the weather. He has been home sick for three days now. I just wish he were better already! I am suffering major withdrawals over here! I feel like we haven't spoken more than a few sentences together since Saturday. This flu bug is a weird one.

I'm going to try and take off work a little bit early today. I'm not looking forward to the traffic situation on the way home today. We are leaving for Fresno early tomorrow for my annual family reunion at Roeding Park, and I have a lot of grocery shopping and packing to do. The park is great; there is a slightly dilapidated zoo, a carnival, a storybook land and a pond with boats you can rent and ducks you can feed. Plus, lots of great relatives to visit with. My Great Uncle Bill is the last surviving member of his generation. He is celebrating his 80th birthday this year. After my Gran passed away last year, it was just Uncle Bill and Aunt Vivian left. Aunt Viv passed away about 3 months ago. Uncle Bill is the youngest of 13 brothers and sisters. Some of his nieces and nephews were born before he was! It will be so good to see him again. It will probably be 100 degrees outside, but it will be a blast.

2007-06-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

Wooo! It's been a long couple of weeks.

First, I want to congratulate our friends Carter and Jene' on the birth if their first child, a daughter, named Lilly Grace. Isn't that a beautiful name? I am waiting anxiously to hear all about the birth (we women are so weird that way!).

Old baby was sick Thursday night with a flu bug, which hopped to new baby on Saturday, and to mommy on Sunday. It involved a lot of puking (on the kids' part) and severe cramping and body aches (on mommy's part). The carpet has some new interesting stains to try and clean out! Luckily, my cousin Pete has a carpet cleaning business. I think I could keep him in golden hubcaps for his van!

Old baby and I felt OK on Saturday though, and I took him to the movie theater to see "Shrek the Third". I was only a tiny bit apprehensive after our first outing 2 years ago to see "March of the Penguins". Did not go well. Even though I swore I wouldn't take him until he was 4, and then not on my own, he enjoyed the first two Shrek movies so much I thought it would be fun to give it another try. He did fantastic. I talked it up to him for a couple of days, then made sure we arrived a couple of minutes early so he could check everything out. We even had time for him to name all of the animals in the "Evan All Mighty" cardboard cutout! He sat right down in the seat, plopped that bag of popcorn on his lap and happily munched away for 2 hours. It was great. We had a small nuclear meltdown as we left and I tossed the trash into the bin. He thought I tossed out his drink, which he had asked me to hold, and was completely inconsolable. Even though I showed him his drink was still right in my hand. It was a bit unnerving. I tried my best to remain calm, and was totally embarrassed. In those situations, you can't win. Passersby will either think you are being too soft if you don't swat them, or too harsh if you don't try and analyze their emotions on the spot. I was trying to keep him from crawling inside the garbage can to retrieve my empty cup, and I actually said "stop acting like a child". Oh my God! I sincerely hope nobody heard me utter that totally absurd sentence!

And people wonder why I have grey hairs.

2007-05-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

This week is going so slow. I thought yesterday was Wednesday almost all day. I am anxious for a few reasons. Firstly, my younger son took a terrible fall of the play structure at the park on Sunday night. It was like a nightmare unfolding before me in slow motion. He cried and cried and I cried and cried. He stood up before I could even get to him, which was a comfort of sorts. The ground at the park is squishy and covered with finely shredded bark. He didn't even have a scratch on him. It was so close to bedtime though, that I had trouble sleeping and kept getting up to check on him. It wasn't until I had thoroughly scoured the Kaiser handbook and the Internet for "head injury" that I finally relaxed enough to sleep. I was going to stay at home with him on Monday, but he seemed fine when he woke up. He was walking a bit gingerly, but I didn't see anything wrong with him. I only decided to take him to day care because I trust his caregiver so much. I knew she would never ignore any symptoms and would call me for anything. He fell almost 6 feet, but bounced back like it was nothing. I cannot believe how absolutely lucky we are this time. My whole body aches today; I have been so tense since it happened that as I am finally loosening up my muscles are aching.

I am also very anxious because friends of ours are expecting a baby any minute. She is going to be induced tonight if her labor hasn't started on her own. This is their first child, and I remember vividly how frightening the whole process is the first time around. She and her husband are so prepared though, I have faith that this experience is going to be a lovely one for them both. I'm just having some trouble focusing on anything else today! They live in Kentucky, so we will have to be satisfied with pictures of their bundle of joy until we see them again. Good luck guys!

My cousin Dawn is also expecting any time. Her due date is May 30, but her babies are notoriously early. She is 9 months younger than me, and is giving birth to her 7th child. She has 3 boys and 3 girls, and this newest one is also a girl. She started young, barely 15 when she gave birth to her first. I have stopped being shocked when she tells me she is pregnant. I don't think she will ever stop having children. She's not a religious person at all, except when it comes to pregnancy. "I'll just have as many children as God gives me, I can't stop" she tells me. I've given up seeing any reason to it, and truth be told, all of her children are healthy, wonderful little people. My biggest fear is that they won't make the most of their lives, but fall into the same routine of teenage pregnancy, welfare abuse and this strange sense of entitlement their mother has. She has always been an enigma to me. As young children, she always made me feel immature and unworldly. I don't recall, however, feeling any sense of jealousy when she started having sex, ran away from home and quickly became pregnant. I knew on a very base level that those things were not correct of girls our age. The hardest realization I came to was that she is a habitual liar. I didn't believe for years that she was lying to me and stood up for her left and right. It was my inexperience that couldn't let me believe someone who loved me could lie to my face on such a regular basis, and with such ease. It chilled me to my bones when I finally saw her as she was. She even lied to our grandmother after the birth of her previous child in 2003. She told Gran that she had her tubes tied. I started to become suspicious at our Gran's funeral. New baby was barely 8 weeks old, and as she held him she joked about how we'd better look out, all it takes is holding a baby to make her pregnant. She made several comments like that throughout the day and I'll be damned is she wasn't pregnant months later. I knew she was pregnant before everyone else did, but I didn't say anything to anyone until Dawn told me herself. The only reason to talk about that sort of thing is to gossip and tsk tsk, and I just didn't have it in me. My thoughts as always, go out to her children and I pray that they are happy.

2007-05-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

Oh my God. The music in the warehouse is so frickin loud! How can they possibly think with it blaring like that? Let alone hear each other talk. I feel like I'm in a movie theater with surround sound. Gah! At least the music is a bit updated from the "polka" style music or the spanish talk shows that are the norm. It normally doesn't bother me, but it's been ultra loud the last three days. I must be wearing a bit thin. I can't quite bring myself to go down and ask them to turn it down though. I just can't do it. My office mate Maria has on more than one occasion, but that was back when she was in the office I have now. The windows looks right out onto the line. I must be getting old and cranky.

No no no no no no no no no no!!!

2007-05-15T11:53:00.000-07:00

This is not happening, this is NOT happening. Find a happy place, find a happy place!!

Post #300. Woo hoo!!

2007-05-07T10:42:00.000-07:00

I am not pregnant. I just felt a little crappy for a couple of days. Everyone who heard that I was feeling sick last week asked me if I was preggers. I though it was kind of funny. Totally coincidentally old baby and I had a conversation about babies on the way home from school. I reminded him about it so he could tell daddy, because I thought it was cute. Unfortunately, my husband mistook it at first for me finding a cutesy way of telling him I was pregnant. I chuckled, but tried not to be coy about it because there was a certain indescribable look on my husband's face. Not anger, not happiness, just anticipatory. I am glad though that the look was not what I would categorize as "bad". I've always felt it was unfair that the woman is the only one who knows when she is pregnant and has to be the one to tell the news. It would be much simpler if our hair turned purple or we grew spots. That would definitely take a load off.

2007-05-04T08:38:00.000-07:00

Maria and I were walking back from the corporate office to our office yesterday afternoon and just gabbing as usual. I was telling her how I hadn't quite kept up with my housework this past weekend.......

R: I was able to get the bathroom cleaned, but that was about it. I guess I would have gotten more done but my husband kept heaving bouts of nec....

M: What?

R: Necrophilia? That's not right.

At this point, Maria and I started laughing so hard we stopped walking and were doubled over with our hands on our knees.

M: I didn't think necrophilia was something you could have "bouts" of.

R: Well, he likes to surprise me.

M: How do you guys have sex? "Lay still. Lay more still. You, get into that tub of ice."

R: I can't believe I confused the words "narcolepsy" with "necrophilia"!

M: Well, they are kind of similar.

R: Ok, the only thig similar about those two words is that they both start with "n".

M: Well, yep. I guess you're right!!

I'm kind of stoked that I have a work buddy who I can joke around with like this. She really gets me! Me and my sick mind.

2007-05-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

I have been feeling not so good the last two days. I have been on the verge of puking for so long now I'm almost used to it. Something is up with my sense of smell going into overdrive, and my poor weak stomach can not deal. I threw up on the garage floor filling the cat's food dishes and I have not yet cleaned it up. Because that will cause a new torrent of puking that I just don't have the energy for. I hope I am better before this weekend, because I already have issues with the strap on my bike helmet choking me and making me gag. Pluh. Yucky.

Do I have to shave my legs?

2007-04-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

I am riding in the Tour de Cure on Sunday. It's a 10 mile bike ride in Yountville and helps raise money for diabetes research. This will be my 4th year riding in the Tour, and once again, I have neglected to even look at my bicycle since last year's ride! My butt is going to be so mad at me!! I am riding with my sister in law and her team "The Coffee Clutchers". Here's a picture of me from 2 years ago:

I was early on in my pregnancy with new baby. I always think of that whenever I want to wuss out.

Ding Dong, PMS Calling!

2007-04-24T12:10:00.000-07:00

As I was busy munching on my 5th chocolate chip cookie last night, it dawned on me that I might be feeling a bit cranky because of PMS. I have gone my entire life without any real troubles in that area. Then, I turned 30 and my body just went to hell. I get bloated, crampy and very snippy. Of course, snippy on me is barely discernible from my normal jolly self, so nobody ever notices. Except for my poor dear old husband. That poor man has to put up with so much!

I'm still in my new role as housekeeper. I have really enjoyed having a clean house and 6 days is truly a record for me. I did not sit down at all last night however, until it was time to eat dinner. I figure that's just the way it goes. It's good for me to be up and running anyway, it's healthy. I hadn't noticed, but I have been grunting a lot lately getting up from the couch. The last time I did that was when I was pregnant, and had every right in the world to make as many grunty noises as necessary. My husband looked at me and said "are you all right?" You've been making those noises for almost a week now." I stopped for a second, and said "Well, actually, my back hurts, my feet hurt and I am completely exhausted". I bit my tongue though from saying "I am so sorry my fatigue and pain are so annoying to you!!" I was absolutely shocked at myself for even thinking that thought. I am kind of known for being a sarcastic ass, but that came dangerously close to being bitchy. I guess it's a finer line than I ever realized.

I don't think anyone, least of all my husband, would ever accuse me of being like my mother. She is a very bitter negative sort of person, and I never have understood her. Until I got married and had a child. I started to see some reasons why she might be that way, and it truly sucked to realize that I actually played a huge part in her being the way she was. I always wanted to chalk it up to her personality, but truth be told, my sisters, dad and I broke her. I saw some little parts of me headed that direction after old baby was about 10 months old. I would do things like lose my mind when I saw an empty toilet paper roll. I would sit there and just seethe in anger at the thoughtlessness of it all. That's when I looked in the mirror and saw my mother looking back at me. I think she mouthed the words "I told you so", but I'm not too sure. I took some major introspective time to analyze these alien feelings I was having. I started to have conversations with my husband in my head before actually having them out loud, and I was able to resolve a lot. One of the things I learned was to say "how do I know I wasn't the one who did that". That would usually stop me dead and then the sun would come out from behind the clouds. I realized that I needed to focus on what was truly important to us as a family, and not confuse the issues.

Here's to working on being Sarcastra, not Bitch Goddess!!

2007-04-23T14:25:00.000-07:00

We had an appraiser out on Thursday to check out the house. I was up until 1:30 Wednesday night cleaning. I was very happy with the results. I know the house doesn't have to be sparkling for an appraisal, but I decided the time had come for spring cleaning.

When I worked part time, before new baby was born, I was able to clean the house on Wednesday mornings, and again on the weekend. Well, somewhere after going back to work full time and having a second kid, I lost some housecleaning time. I have never been the most organized or tidy person and it takes a lot of work for me to stay on top of things. I have resolved to make sure the house is orderly every day, and make sure to clean it thoroughly twice a week. I kind of liked having shiny counter tops and floors!

We'll see how long I can keep it going. I am going to try very hard, but I always seem to fall back into my old habits. It's pretty sad when a 3 year old notices the difference after you clean. The truth is, I have so many projects to complete this summer both indoors and out that I have to keep the house clean on a daily basis, otherwise I will always be behind. My Grandma Littman (God bless her) endorsed the idea of hiring Merry Maids to help out around the house. This is from a woman who took care of a house full of six kids while her husband was away 6 months out of the year in the military. Somehow, my life doesn't seem so bad compared to that! Besides, who needs to hire help when I have my own built in "Merry Maids" at home? Old baby is wicked good at wielding a mop and my poor sweet husband is kind enough to just do what I tell him to. I think if I attach mop heads to new baby's knees, he can start pulling his weight around the house too.

This is actually a week old already!!!

2007-04-16T16:23:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was just not long enough! I had such a hard time getting out of bed this morning, and I have been tired all day. I think I'm hitting my second wind though.

Saturday, my parents watched the boys so I could try and clean out my garage. The poor garage has basically been my place to dump anything I didn't have time to deal with, starting with day one of moving into this house three years ago!

My plan was to go "Clean Sweep" style, and remove everything out to the driveway, clean the garage, then go through and organize stuff as I put it back into the garage. Of course, Mother Nature had other plans and it rained all day. I must have stood in the garage staring at it for a good half hour trying to decide where to start. I didn't have much room to manouver, so I started with grabbing the things I knew needed to be thrown away. My husband helped me take the seats out of the van so I could fill it up with trash for the dump.

Our clothes dryer has also decided it doesn't want to work anymore, so I had to clear that space out first in case we could get a repairman out. Hahahahaha!! Same day service, good one Robyn!! The earliest anyone can come out is next Saturday. Lucky for us, we still have the old stacking washer and dryer from our last apartment. We don't have a coin-op nearby and going a full week without being able to wash and dry the kids clothes is not a good thing. Old baby is still potty training, and has quite a few accidents. The shower rod in the bathroom is full enough as it is drying my shirts that can't go in the dryer.

I was able to fill the van up with a good load, and I headed out to the dump. Ahhhh, the smell of wet rotting garbage really is something nobody should miss!

2007-04-10T23:08:00.001-07:00

We met with a mortgage broker today to refinance our home loan. Eeek! When did we get to be so grown up?

2007-04-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

The bachelorette party was fabulous! I had the best time. I even wore heels! We were all wearing heels though, so I wasn't the only one teeter-tottering around.

The first dish was goat cheese balls, breaded and fried and served on salad greens. They were so rich, and tasted much like pumpkin pie, and was served in a dog food bowl.

The second dish was cream of asparagus soup. It was served in a highball glass. We took pictures and people are bound to wonder what the heck kind of cocktail we ordered that you would need a spoon for!

The third dish was salmon served on Okinawan potatoes (purple!) with carrots. I have only had fish twice in my life, and it's not my favorite. But I ate most of it and it was very good.

The fourth dish was lamb chop served on spanish rice and tomatoes. It was very spicy, and very delicious.

The fifth dish was a strawberry rhubarb tart with a dollop of ice cream melting in the middle. Drool.

We all had cocktails as soon as we got inside, me with my old favorite Captain Morgan and Coke. After that, the champagne was flowing. Champagne really is one of my favorite beverages!

The beds that we were on for dinner were so comfortable. It was so decadent, everyone should eat this way! I kind of felt like Emperor Ceaser "wash this!", but I didn't worry about my fat ass as long as I didnt' knock anything over. I very nearly bumped into the DJ's table as we were leaving. God - how embarrasing would that have been!

I got to share a room with my good friend Wren - is was so good to cathc up with her! I really had a wonderful tiem and I can't wait to take my sisters and a few other friends to check this place out.

2007-04-07T15:08:00.000-07:00

I am headed out to a bachelorette party in San Francisco. This is where we are headed for dinner: supper club

The buzz words for the evening are "classy" and "dress to impress". I will strive to do both those things, and not my usual sarcastic jackass stand-up comic routine that I normally do whenever I am a little bit outside my comfort zone.

After a 5 course meal and some sure to be awesome music, we are going to stay the night at the Argent Hotel. Our bachelorette says it has 5 stars. Swanky! We are going to treat ourselves tonight! I feel like I already have, with a manicure, pedicure and a new blouse and shoes, makeup and even wearing jewelry!

I hope someone takes a picture, because it's bound to be a long time until I'm this dressed up again!

They're back

2007-04-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

stupid raccoons!

You say tomato, I say shitty

2007-04-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

I was loading the two kids into the car yesterday when old baby piped up.
"It's shitty outside".
I popped my head up from new baby and his car seat buckles to say "what was that"?
"It's shitty outside mommy".
I looked at him closely and asked him to repeat himself one more time to make sure I'd heard what I thought I heard.
He repeated "It's shitty outside" with this strange little grimace he gets when he's pretty sure he is in trouble for something.
"Honey, who taught you that word"? No answer.
"Honey, who taught you that word?" Nothing.
"Who taught you that word 'shitty'"?
Finally, I realized he was saying "chilly". "Mommy, it's chilly outside".
Of course, now mommy is the one who taught him the word "shitty".
Great, Can't wait for Easter Sunday with the family!

2007-04-05T11:14:00.000-07:00

As it turns out, Betty either misunderstood completely what Maria's new job description and title are, or our boss decided to purposefully mislead her with false information. It might not be as black and white as that, but that is how I've decided to describe the situation. Nobody else was included in their metting, so we'll never know for sure, but my money is on the fact that Betty misunderstood and then blew everything out of proportion and turned into a right cheeky asshole.

She did come in a few hours after the first incident to apologize, but when I asked her what was going on, she snapped at me again! "You know, Robyn. You already know what's going on!" and stalked out of the room again. Some apology.

I had already called Maria to let her know something was afoot, and she told me she had finally been given the go-ahead to let everyone know her new position. Over the phone, she told me "I am the new Employee Relations Manager." Good for her! We've been needing one of those for years. Now, someone please tell me why that gives Betty the right to run around here on her broomstick wishing a pox on us all? I think when she glared at my sister when she said "good morning" to her, that really blew my gaskets. Nobody messes with my kid sister!! There is nothing in Maria's job that even deals with what Betty is doing. Basically, she was "HR Manager", and by her own testament she doesn't do any HR, just benefits. Her new title is Benefits Administrator. It is a title for what she actually does! There was nothing about this situation that made sense to me.

Maria made it into the office, and talked to me for a couple of minutes, then marched into Betty's office to find out what the deal was. Maria was in there for more than an hour, and they had a good talk. Luckily, our second in command for the company sent out an e-mail with the changes, as well as Maria's job description. Betty said "I feel better now that I've read that". Well good for friggin you. Maybe this will teach you to not treat your co-workers so poorly next time.

She has been sweet as pie the last three days. Maria commented on it, and all I had to say was "She damn well better be!" I am slow to anger, and apparently just as slow to come back down. It would have helped if her second apology after her meeting with Maria had been the least bit believable. I'm telling you, I am having a really hard time making eye contact with her or even giving a rat's patootie about her. I have had to force a smile onto my face this whole time.

Just ridiculous!

2007-04-02T08:22:00.000-07:00

It's going to be a long friggin day.

Our boss wanted to meet with Betty on Friday afternoon at 2:00. I had to take old baby to the dentist, so I wasn't here.

First thing this morning, Betty comes in to say good morning. I ask her how it's going, and she snaps "what do you think" and walks out.

I'm guessing the meeting on Friday didn't go too well, but I have no idea what's going on. As usual! This company is really bad about keeping people informed.

Poop.

2007-03-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

Our oldest son is 3 1/2 years old, and isn't potty trained yet. We haven't been too worried about it, all the experts say that it is normal to not be fully potty trained until age 4. Old baby's day care offers training in that area as well. He has been going potty at school really well, but he had never used the potty at home. The day care manager recommended getting him some underwear, and he could wear it over his pull ups or try wearing them all alone during the day. I of course meant to buy him some, but it was a full 2 weeks later before I did. I bought him some Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine underwear at Target and gave them to him on Thursday night.

He was so excited! We waited till after dinner, then after his bath he got to try on his new underwear. He ran out to his daddy to show him. "Look daddy!!" he yelled while sticking out his backside. It was too funny! We had a little talk about how he knew he wasn't supposed to go tinkle on the carpet, well, he's not supposed to go tinkle in his underpants either. He got the message, because less then 5 minutes later, he had to go potty. He ran into the bathroom, onto his little potty and tinkled! I think I was about to cry I was so happy! Who knew such a little thing could motivate him that quickly to use the potty? I am still amazed at the transformation.

We made sure to bring extra underwear and pants to school on Friday, so he could wear his underwear. On the ride to day care, he tells me from the back seat "Mommy, you'd better hurry. I have to trinkle!" Since it is a 5 minute car ride, I can see that total potty trained perfection is still a ways off. He did have an accident that day, but only because his teacher decided not to put him in a pull up for his nap like I'd asked. It was probably a little bit too early to take his word on it that he could wear his underwear during his nap!

This all helped counter-act the bad mood I was in because our "check engine" idiot light came on while we were on the way home from work Thursday night. We've been tooling around in the two-door Honda Civic all weekend. I'm glad at least that I can still fit back there to buckle the kids in. The van has a faulty canister purge control cellenoid. As my husband says, they're just making stuff up now! Luckily for us, we got back just enough from CA State taxes to pay for it. Easy come, easy go.

2007-03-20T21:18:00.000-07:00

Oddly enough, I wasn't able to find a single picture of myself from the past several years in our photo albums. I ended up taking a picture of our Christmas portrait to show you the "old" me and took a picture of myself to show you the "new" me. The end product is a bit laughable, but it gets the point across:

Smile Dammit!!

Hello eyeballs, nice to see you

I would pay real money to have the hairdresser come to my house every morning and do my hair. This picture was taken at 8:oo pm - so the hair has suffered a bit from a hard day at the office.

Please to note the perfect eyebrows and the (gasp!) green eyeshadow. Huh, huh?

2007-03-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

I don't know what has been going on with me the past couple of weeks, but I have had an attack of the "girlies". It started out innocently enough with the purchase of some mascara. My eyelashes were not curling upwards on their own as they usually do and were bugging me. While buying mascara, I also bought some eyeshadow. It's one of those sets that has three colors and is supposed to bring out your natural eye color. Of course, going from wearing no eyeshadow to wearing burgundy and two separate shades of green turned out to be a step I wasn't quite ready for!

I also bought some nail polish, and on Friday evening I painted my toenails. Old baby was so sweet. He was so excited that I painted my toes. He said "Ooooh mommy your toes are pink and shiny! They are pink and beautiful!" That night, I tried on the eye shadow and very nervously asked my husband's opinion. I sat on the couch and said "what do you think?" He looked at me for a while, and couldn't really tell that I'd done anything. That was actually a good response, because I was worried the color was too garish.

On Saturday, I headed out to Fantastic Sam's for a haircut. I was just going to get a trim, but then I decided that my hair was too long and didn't look very good, and I was going to be miserable with the heat and wind this summer. So, I pulled out the book of Fantastic Hair Do's and picked a really cute short style. She did an excellent job, and styled it really nice. That's the last time it will look that good! It's more high maintenance; I usually have a wash and go style. I even got my eyebrows waxed. That was a first, and I am very happy with the results. My husband noticed, but not for a few hours afterwards. We were at a St. Patrick's Day party at my parent's house. I got lots of compliments. It was like, suddenly I have green eyes whereas before nobody really noticed. My brother in law told me that whatever I had done looked very nice, and everyone was outside talking about me. I just laughed because - My God! It's just a haircut and some mascara people!

It feels good to make a change every now and again. Maybe everything going on at work has got me a little bit antsy. I am going to take my gift certificates and go shopping for some new clothes too. I get to dress a little more casually now that I'm not in the corporate office any more.

Who knows, maybe I'll start exercising and eating right next!!

2007-03-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

Today is going to be a long day.

In typical phone company fashion, my fax line was disconnected in my office yesterday morning, but the phone guy failed to appear to set up the line in the new office. My IT guy received an e-mail from our phone company rep saying the technician was called to an "emergency" in Santa Rosa, and would be at our warehouse in the afternoon. Of course, he wasn't to blame because he "just found out" himself. Lovely.

To add to the frustration is the fact that 99.9% of people apparently don't read the e-mails I send them. I let all the supervisors know twice last week that my fax line would be down on Monday, and I would notify them when it was up and running. 10 phone calls and 3 e-mail inquiries later, I re-sent the e-mail that the fax line was down and I would let them know when it was up and running. I received three responses to that e-mail asking if I could please let them know when the fax would be up and running. Oi.

Right now, my poor IT guy is over at the other office trying to hook up the line himself, and I just know he's going to take a crowbar to the box outside and electrocute himself and his wife is going to be pissed! I called over to Maria, and she said the furniture is being set up as we speak. Hopefully that will go off without a hitch.

I am taking this much needed break right now and trying to eat something that is not a Girl Scout cookie. At least I will be getting my exercise running back and forth from my office to the main office fax machine making sure no one sees any "confidential" information. I will try not to think about tomorrow and the horror that is packing up my whole office to move down the street.

2007-03-07T13:29:00.000-08:00

So, before I even left the house this morning I splattered my blouse with chili, and spilled Children's Benedryl on my slacks. At lunch this afternoon, I splattered tomato sauce right across my boobs.

I look like I murdered someone with a teeny tiny instrument of death. Like a paperclip or something. Of course my shirt is white. Why else would this happen?

2007-03-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

We have finally managed to nail down a move-in date for my new office. I will be moving next Wednesday. I cannot believe how much wrangling has gone into this move. There are so many variables, we almost didn't know where to start!

The walls have all been repaired and painted, and the new furniture will be delivered and installed next Tuesday. Our new phone system is supposed to be in this Thursday. The only bug is that my fax line will be moved on Monday, and I won't be in the office for 2 days after that! C'est la vie.

I just sent a mass e-mail to all the supervisors and anyone who needs to get a hold of me by phone. It will be interesting to see who actually pays attention to it!

2007-03-01T13:52:00.000-08:00

My son has succumbed to ads on the television. Last night after we arrived home for the day he sat next to me on the couch and stared wide eyed at all the Jack in the Box, McDonald's and Quiznos commercials. He went one after the other "I want a hamburger". "I want french fries". "I want a turkey cheese sandwich". Now, it's possible that he was just very hungry and the sight of all that yummy food so close was just too much to bear. I am not used to him actually being hungry; up until very recently he would eat every meal sparingly and he never told us he was hungry. He has become so much more interested in his food, but still has a hard time trying new things and will take half an hour to chew one bite of chicken if you let him.

Seeing my children eat has given me the motivation to try and eat better myself. I'm getting there slowly but surely! Luckily for all of us we can't afford fast food!

There's SNOW on them thar hills!

2007-02-27T07:30:00.000-08:00

I wish I'd brought my camera this morning. There is snow capping the Sonoma mountains. I have never in my 31 years of life seen snow on the Sonoma mountains. It is too cool! I was shocked this morning when my car was covered in frozen water. It looked like it was just wet, but the drops were frozen solid. Brrrrrr! I'm wondering if it snowed in St. Helena and Calistoga too.

2007-02-26T16:11:00.000-08:00

New baby finally seems to be on the mend. He's had a cold that has just dragged on and on, as well as an ear infection, fever and a wheezy cough. It's so hard to see them suffer like that.

Old baby did not seem to catch it, thank goodness. The biggest trouble he gave me was during dinner the other night. He was eating a chicken quesadilla, took too big of a bite, and ended up choking when he tried to swallow and threw up. Luckily for me, he was able to toss his cookies right onto his plate, and nowhere else. I did make him finish eating the bit of quesadilla he was holding in his hand, but the rest of it was done for. Yuck.

I took the babies to my parent's house on Sunday morning so hubby could catch a few z's. We went out to this great restaurant in Vacaville called The Creekside Cafe. As we were waiting for our food, I gave new baby a creamer container to play with. We were all surprised when he bit down onto it and it exploded, showering my mother with creamer from across the table. I guess if I've ever wondered what my mom would look like during a "money shot", I needn't think on it further. Enjoy your coffee!

At work this week I am trying to figure out the logistics of moving to a new office building a few blocks over. Myself and Betty from HR are going to be moving to accommodate a regional manager who needs to be a little bit closer to all the action. I am finally starting to be excited about it. I am slow to warm up to new things, but I'm getting used to the idea. We were asked to order all new office furniture, and were able to pick out our own paint colors. We actually decided on the paint color I chose, which has shocked me to my very core. I have never decided on any paint or colors for anything in my life. I can't decorate a room to save my soul. Betty's office was painted today and mine will be finished tomorrow. The new furniture will arrive next Tuesday, so I guess I'll be moving in any time after that. We will be sharing office space with my good friend Maria, so we should have a blast over there. They will be lucky if we get any work done at all!

I might have screwed up.

2007-02-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

I don't know yet, so I'm going to try not worrying about it till later.

That will work, right?

2007-02-16T10:45:00.000-08:00

Since I was FORCED to change to the brand spankin new version of blogger, I have had some issues. These issues revolve mostly around my inability to remember that my sign-on name has changed. This has also lead to some rather colorful metaphors as I have tried to leave comments on blogs as well. I just have not had the time since December to really focus on any of this stuff.

However, I do have some exciting news to share with the Internet. New baby is walking! He took his very first step at day care last Friday, and last night he almost walked half-way across the living room. He is so funny - he laughs hysterically whenever he stands himself up. He seems to become giddy at the prospect of almost falling down as he wobbles back and forth on his toes. The best is when he actually stands himself up from a sitting position as opposed to just letting go of a piece of furniture. He acts so proud of himself!

Unfortunately he is suffering from a terrible head cold this week. His temperature was 104 this morning. I went ahead in to work, and my Dad is calling every hour with an update. If his temp rises again I will take him to the doctor. Old baby kept declaring that he didn't feel well today, but it was just sympathy sickness for his younger brother's sake. He is such a sweetheart! He will no doubt have his younger brother's sickness all next week because I can't keep those two from hugging and kissing on each other all the time!

Old baby had fun with Valentine's Day this year. I found Thomas the Tank Engine Valentine's cards, and he very carefully picked out each card for each friend at school. He even drew a little squiggle at the bottom of each card, almost like a signature. When he picked a card for his daddy, he made sure to switch to a green crayon, because that is daddy's favorite color. I even received a card from my husband which has got to be a first! He's one of those people who believes that you shouldn't need a special day invented by Hallmark for your special someone - every day should be special. It took me very much by surprise and was very sweet. I made little heart shaped cakes for the boys. Old baby loved his, but new baby hasn't had his yet because he feels so crummy.

I am going to a "purse party" tomorrow. I'm torn because I want to invite a couple of friends to go with me, but they both worked for Coach. Would that seem rude to ask them to come look at knock-off versions of their beloved bags? Hmmm - I'll have to think about that one.

2007-02-08T13:07:00.000-08:00

I've just heard that Anna Nicole Smith has died. What a sad end to her story. I hope that her baby daughter will be raised by caring, loving people who will only speak kind words about her mother.

Anna Nicole has always been fascinating to me. I don't know why, exactly. Was she like a train wreck you just couldn't look away from? It seems to me, and of course I have no idea what I'm talking about, that if she had some actual, true friends in her life, the end to her story might have been different.

2007-02-07T19:11:00.000-08:00

He looks just like his mommy. I'm not too sure when I will have a chance to meet him in person. He lives in Oregon and it's a 9 hour drive from here. Maybe my younger sister and I will make a road trip in a couple of months.

I'd almost forgotten what a newborn looks like.

2007-02-07T14:03:00.000-08:00

I hurt my butt and I hurt my knee. I have 2 owies!

I totally biffed it in a parking lot this morning. There was a jacknifed big-rig that dumped a load of hay all over the highway, so it was backed up for 15 miles. My husband and I decided to pull off, have some breakfast and wait it out. As we were leaving, my right foot slipped right out from under me and I fell hard. Somehow, I hurt my right buttock and my left knee simultaneously. I don't even want to know how I did that. My right wrist was also jarred as well as the top of my left foot. I pretty much jacked myself right up.

My left knee was a little bit scraped, but nothing bloody, and amazingly, no torn clothes. I had to get up a little bit faster than I wanted to, because it rained last night and the ground was very wet. I am so glad my husband was there to pull me upright.

It all happened so fast - there wasn't even any wobbly time to try and right myself. I guess the parking lot had a little bit if oil that came up with the rain.
I tried hard not to start crying on the way to the car - the pain was not bad, and I think I just embarrased myself more than anything. I hope I don't do that again anytime soon!

2007-02-07T09:43:00.000-08:00

I think I am going to call in sick the rest of the week and stay home and watch Food Network.

Chocolate.

Yum.

I saw someone last night who had a "chocolate" spa experience in Hershey, PA. It looked so decadent!

2007-02-06T15:41:00.000-08:00

My aunt Julia has taught old baby this old rhyme: "See you later alligator", "After a while Crocodile".

Of course, if you tell old baby "See you later alligator" he'll answer "See you this afternoon Crocodile" every time!

2007-02-02T09:23:00.000-08:00

The new baby is a redhead!!

It's A Boy!!

2007-02-01T14:11:00.000-08:00

I just got the word that my cousin Kristin had a boy - 6 lbs, 6 oz. born at 1:30. She was induced last night, they broke her water this morning at 8:00 and there were no complications. Mommy and baby are doing fine.

She is living in Oregon now, and I so wished that I could be there. We have been e-mailing each other almost every day for the last two months.

I am so amazed that her baby was born today on the one year anniversary of our Grandmother's passing. This means so much to all of us. We are all gathering at my parent's house tonight to celebrate her life, and rejoice in the addition of our newest little family member.

2007-01-31T10:35:00.000-08:00

I am feeling a ridiculous amount of stress right now. I have been trying to get a project completed with a tech support person at our payroll service for the last two weeks. I made a mistake when first sending the info over in not saying "I need it done yesterday". I guess I was working under the assumption that this guy would work the same as other people at his company have for me in the past. I've never even needed to tell them a "timeframe". I send the information, they work on it and it is back to me in a couple of days. No problems.

I sent the whole package over to my normal contact person, and she forwarded the project on to one of the people working under her. The first thing he did was call me and ask when I needed this by. That's where I feel that I dropped the ball completely. I am not used to those type of questions, and silly me, I hate to be an authority figure of any type. My boss was gone that entire week, and he hadn't told me a timeframe either. I remember telling the guy that I wanted it in 2 weeks. Technically, I should have been able to expect this done by this Friday.

My boss came back on Monday, and asked for the status. I talked to me pal at the payroll service, and he told me he hadn't looked at it yet. Not too surprising to me - I can't imagine that it is very difficult to make the changes we need and he thought he had until Friday to complete it. My boss told me this morning to call and find out if we could have it done today. The Tech says to me "From our conversation, I thought I had months and months to work on it." I didn't even know what to say. On Tuesday, he said he would have it done in 2 days. I can't squeeze blood out of a stone; if he can't do it today, he can't do it.

I sit here now almost quaking in fear that my boss is going to call the payroll service and rip this guy a new one. I told my boss that it was my fault for not being more clear with the guy - but this is also not the level of customer service I am used to . I'm all for accepting people just as they are - but this guy is too "tech". He's not enough "people". In the conversation I just has with him, he asked me the "drop dead date" three times. Each time I told him "TODAY!!". Three times he asked me! I'm not sure he's even listening!

This is how our conversation ended:

Tech: "Why don't you take a look at it, see if there are any changes that need to be made, and call me back later".

Um, Isn't that exactly what I asked him to do a week and a half ago?

I talked to our "tech" guy here in the office. I told him what was going on and he had zero sympathy for the payroll service guy. I figured he would at least play devil's advocate for one of his brethren, but I must have caught him on a bad day.

Eegads. I am mortified by this situation - there is obviously something wrong with me if I am this upset about whether a complete stranger likes me or not because of how this situation turns out.

Pardon Our Dust........

2007-01-25T08:44:00.000-08:00

Some of you may have noticed that my husband over at l'il ol LP seems to be off-line. He is experiencing technical difficulties, or as I like to think of it rebelling against the mainstram and creating an aura of peace and love. The white screen is tranquil, no?

"Have you tried turning it on and off again?"

I'll be damned.........

2007-01-22T09:27:00.000-08:00

Your Rising Sign is Capricorn

Old fashioned and conservative, you carry yourself with dignity.
You have a tough exterior, and you can be intimidating when you want to be.

Hard working and ambitious, you can survive in the most cut throat work enviroments.
Outside of work, you are a true friend to everyone in your small inner circle.

You may have had a difficult time earlier in life.
Capricorns are late bloomers and you may be coming into your own right now.

What's Your Rising Sign?

2007-01-22T08:39:00.000-08:00

"look Mommy - I'm shaking my bootie!!"

Mommy looks out from the kitchen and sure enough - that bootie is shaking!

Is "bottie-shaker" and appropriate nickname for a three year old?

I'm thinking no, but it was darn cute!

2007-01-22T08:38:00.000-08:00

I am a total clutz. I just spilled oatmeal and water down the front of my shirt while trying to open my office door.

Will I ever grow out of this?

2007-01-15T20:40:00.000-08:00

This week has started out as busy as last week. Hopefully, things will die down after tomorrow. My left eyelid is twitching like mad, and I'm about to pour myself a nice glass of red wine.

I hate numbers. They confuse me. How am I ever going to help my boys with their math homework? I'm going to have to study their books at night while they sleep. How I ever ended up anywhere remotely near an accounting department is beyond me. In high school, when teachers used to talk about how "You will use this knowledge in every day life" I used to just laugh it off because, well, I was going to be a famous actress and famous actresses don't need to know how tall a tree is by measuring its shadow.

I was almost in tears by 4:45 today as I tried for the millionth time to get my last account reconciled. I decided to let it be until tomorrow morning. I am sure that looking at it with a fresh pair of eyes will help me out. If my office mates would stop chit chatting with me and trying to ask me questions, that would help out a lot too. The nerve! I can put my phone on "do not disturb", but apparently it's against protocol to hire a midget with sharpened teeth and a wicked case of halitosis to guard your office door from trespassers. Whatever. I am sure I will make it through the week without throttling anybody.

I am especially trying to not think evil thoughts about our HR person. She's just pissy because she didn't get a pay raise on the 1st like everyone else did. I wish she had gotten one, and I think it was rotten she didn't, but please don't make me suffer for it. I have to believe that the person we are has as much to do with our success at work as our actual skills. I don't think it's a coincidence that I have a good working relationship with everyone in the office as well as our off-site managers. She has managers who refuse to even talk to her directly anymore. She and I get along very well for the most part, especially considering that I showed up to work one morning and they had moved me into her office, and her out to a cubicle behind the front desk. That was a touch uncomfortable. I'm wondering what they will do to her next. She says she doesn't care, but her eyes tell me differently. I will do my best to think of her kindly from now on.

Here's to tomorrow and reconciled accounts.

2007-01-09T12:38:00.000-08:00

Old baby and I were in the car on the way to day care this morning. Hubby was following me because we had to drop the van off at the mechanic to be worked on. I remembered the wiper blade for the rear window which I had left on the couch. I said "Darnit!" and stopped the car to get out and ask hubby if he brought it.

Old baby was rummaging around in his little backpack to play with his trains, and he says "Darnit!". I looked back at him and we shared a good laugh. He kept saying it though, over and over, so I finally asked him to please say "Awww Nuts!" instead of "Darnit!" He seemed OK with that plan, and we went along saying "Aww Nuts!" back and forth with each other.

Mommy: "Awww Nuts!"
Old Baby: "Awww Nuts!"
Mommy: "Awww Nuts!"

This is where it gets interesting:
Old Baby: "Awww Peach!"
Mommy: "Awww Lemon!"
Old Baby: "Awww French Toast"
Mommy: "Awww Cookies!"
Old Baby: "Awww Turkey Cheese Sandwich!"
Mommy: (laughs uncontrollably)
Old Baby: "Awww Teanuts!"
Mommy: (laughs so hard she cries and starts coughing because "Teanuts" is how he says "Penis")
Old Baby: (laughs uncontrollably)

What a silly boy!

2007-01-09T12:28:00.000-08:00

Holy cow, people. I have been busy!

The final payroll of the year and the first payroll of the year are always my busiest two weeks of the year. After I send payroll today, I will heave a sigh of relief!

We had 3 new divisions to add for CA, a new earnings code for VA, and pay raises to input for almost 600 employees as well make adjustments to the mileage rates. I am going to drink an entire bottle of red wine when I get home.

We are disbanding our race team, and I know my boss feels terrible about it. This has been his dream for so long, and he has to back out because of money flow problems. They had a backer signed on, but they decided at the last minute not to front any money until June. We just couldn't hold out any longer. I'm sure my boss will pick it up again somewhere in the future and be all the wiser for it.

I am excited because I received a nice raise, quite a bit more than I was expecting. Now, as long as hubby receives a raise, we might actually be able feel comfortable again.

I hope to be a more frequent visitor here at my own blog from now on, as well as everyone else's!

Happy Birthday Gran

2007-01-06T21:21:00.000-08:00

We miss you.

2007-01-04T09:55:00.000-08:00

Happy birthday my love!

I can't wait for you to open your presents. So excited! Your birthdays are so much fun!

2006-12-30T18:46:00.000-08:00

I am enjoying day 3 of my 5 day weekend. I had a hard time enjoying my first day off on Thursday; there was all sorts of bad things happening with our payroll account and I feel bad that I wasn't around to help out more. I don't really think there was much I could do, but still.

I took the kids over to my parent's house on Thursday, then went to the factory outlets to do a little bit of shopping. Those gift certificates are burning a hole in my wallet! I took myself out to see a movie, "A Night at the Museum" or whatever that dang thing is called. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had myself a Cherry Coke the size of my head, and some peanut butter cups. I saw a preview for a sequel to "Bruce Almighty" that looks like it is going to be hysterical. I might even get my husband out to see that one!

We enjoyed dinner out last night with some friends visiting from Kentucky. They are expecting their first baby in May, and I am so happy we can get a chance to catch up now. It might be a couple of years before we see each other again. I have also discovered that I love to talk about my kids, pregnancy and labor and dispense advice (or assvice, I never know). I keep telling our friends to tell me to shut up at any point. They seem happy for the advice. I think they are very analytical in nature, and are kind of playing the field of parenting advice, almost like conducting interviews and taking polls. I like that approach. My friend Jenn and I had our first babies 3 months apart, so we had to muddle through as best we could.

My cousin Kristin is expecting her first baby any time now. She moved with her husband to Oregon about a year ago, and the only family they have close by are his grandparents. Thanks to the miracle of e-mail, I can yack about breastfeeding to my heart's content! I have also tried very hard to remember all of the advice and stories I had from our Gran, who passed away in February. I know Kristin is missing her, especially now. When we were talking about cribs, I even remembered the style of crib that Gran had, and I think Kristin is going to get the same kind. It's the little things.

We have been invited to a New Year's party at my sister in law's house. If we could get a sitter, I wouldn't mind going. It seems that everyone is either busy or disinclined to watch the rugrats. I think I would much rather folks come to our house, but it is a long drive for everyone. My husband gave me a bottle of 2002 Mumm Brut for Christmas. I have it chilling as we speak! I will be perfectly content to ring in the new year with my hubby and some bubbly.

My husband's birthday is next week and I have the BEST present for him. I can't wait for him to open it! I hope he likes it. If not, I guess it will be a gift for me because I am NOT taking it back! I don't know yet what he would like to do for his birthday. The last few years we have stayed home. It must be hard for him to think about another party after having 4 different Christmas parties last weekend!

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas season.

Dear Santa,

2006-12-26T08:40:00.000-08:00

Thanks! You rock!

Love,
Robyn

2006-12-26T08:03:00.000-08:00

Merry Day After Christmas!

I am running on fumes right now, but we had a wonderful weekend. I am back to work today.

New baby's daycare is closed, and his Papa and Tutu are watching him for the next couple of days. They wanted to watch old baby too, so we are taking a vacation week for him. I have Thursday and Friday off. Woo hoo!

My parents are going to watch the kids on Thursday, and I am going to try and have a "me" day. We'll see how that goes. I am planning to go see the new Ben Stiller movie, what is it called? Museum somethin........ A Night at the Museum? You know the one I'm talking about. Friday I am bringing the kids around to hubby's office and mine. I guess I like showing them off! Hopefully, I will be able to spend some time with our friends who are visiting from out of state.

Our weekend was jam-packed with activities. Saturday was the BIG Christmas party with my mom's side of the family. She is the oldest of six, and I have a dozen cousins and they have just as many kids. This was our first Christmas without Gran. I had thought it was going to be difficult, but it seemed like we were able to cheer each other up. Whenever someone seemed to be teary-eyed, the children were the ones who brought them back up. Little angels!

Sunday morning saw us back at my parent's house for brunch and to open gifts with my two sisters and my brother in law. By that point, old baby was ready to go back home. We kept telling him we could open up and play with his new toys after we got home. So, as soon as he was finished opening presents, he would say "OK - time to go home!". We tried to explain the true meaning of Christmas, but, he is only 3. Considering, he did an excellent job keeping it together.

We got home around 12:30 on Sunday afternoon, and I started a marathon banana nut bread baking spree. I was able to make 6 loaves before we left to our friend's house in Napa for another party. My hands have been aching since yesterday morning! I must be getting old.

We were at our friend's house until 10:00 that night. Santa even made a visit for our three little ones in the group. It was awesome. He even knew the boys' names and gave them each two gifts. We were able to talk to our friend who lives in Boston. I haven't seen her since old baby was just a month or two old.

Monday was Christmas at my husband's sister's house. Trying to keep up with new baby really wore me out, but I did enjoy myself. My mother in law fell at a friend's house last week. Her ribs were hurting her, so she went to the hospital. A doctor called them the next day to ask if she had been prescribed any antibiotics. This was puzzling, until the doctor said she had been diagnosed with pneumonia. Christmas morning found her back at the hospital because her pain was excrutiating. It turns out she probably doesn't have pneumonia, just a couple of broken ribs. Two doctors looked at her X-ray and knew why she was in the hospital and said she didn't have pneumonia; one doctor who knew nothing about her history looked just at the X-ray and said she had pneumonia because of a dark spot. The other doctors said the dark spot was likely caused because she couldn't take a deep enough breath due to her broken ribs. She and my father in law did eventually make it to the party, and it seemed like they enjoyed themselves. She is quite a trooper!

I fell to the couch in an exhausted heap last night, and finally dragged me butt to bed at about 9:00. I had the most bizarre dreams last night, mostly that my older sister was driving Thomas the Tank Engine, and she kept jumping the tracks and crashing into fields and vineyards.

It will be difficult to focus today; maybe I need a little bit of egg nog to get me going!

2006-12-21T09:07:00.000-08:00

I kind of miss last Christmas. I had a 2 week old baby, so all I was expected to do was show up.

le sigh

I realized on Monday morning that my left eye was twitching. That usually means I'm stressed out, or I am tired. Or both. After this week's festivites at work, I am certainly less stressed out. Still tired though! Those kids need to stop waking me up at 3:00 in the morning. Today it was old baby crying because he was trying to grab his pillow and blanket and head out into the living room, but his blanket got stuck on the guard rail on his bed. I really need to teach him how to grab the blanket off without getting it stuck. Or, at least not to cry about it when it doesn't go his way. What a baby. (just kidding)

I probably could have gotten back to sleep if new baby didn't start whining about 1/2 hour later. I fell asleep about 10 seconds before my alarm went off at 5:30.

le sigh

Do you feel pity for me yet? Because I can sigh louder if I have to.

I kept hitting the snooze, then finally dragged myself out of bed at 6:00 and realized I'd forgotten to take the garbage out to the curb last night.

New baby finally woke up and started wailing, which only got worse when evil mommy showed up and sucked the snot out of his nose with a bulb syringe. He feels better now, but there is nothing worse than your tiny baby pushing you away with all his might and crying the great big crocodile tears of sadness and woe. He did let me cuddle him while he drank his bottle of milk which is a rare pleasure for me any more. Usually he wiggles away and finds his own little corner to have his bottle.

Everybody seemed in a much better mood after having a chance to wake up. My husband and I shared a kiss which brought the funniest look to old baby's face. I was pointing this out to said husband when he herded me back into the bedroom for a little snuggle. We both wondered if we could call in a sick day.

However, being the upright responsible citizens that we are, we herded the kids out into the cold and made our merry way. We stopped at the grocery store after dropping off the kids so I could grab some OJ and croissant for our breakfast potluck. Thinking of mimosas, I also brought a bottle of chilled Mumm from the fridge.

Somehow, after all that, we still made it to work on time.

2006-12-18T14:45:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Betty and Tally, we have a fun filled Christmas week ahead of us here at work. They really went all out organizing something fun for every day this week (except Friday, not enough people will be here!).

Today, we had a cookie exchange. 7 people signed up, and we each made 7 dozen cookies. One dozen goes to each person who signed up, and one dozen is for taste testing! It was so much fun! We bought a 5 foot deli sandwich to share, and sampled all the goodies. Maria's cookies really were the best with all sorts of shapes, hand made and hand colored frosting. She even made three special cookies for old baby that look like a train.

I made date filled bar cookies. We also had: frosted sugar cookies, rum balls, peanut butter cookies with a chocolate kiss on top, sugar cookies with Andes mints inside (yum!), "boiled" cookies (really just a mass of chocolate, peanut butter and oats - very tasty), and snickerdoodles. Not a bad haul, and now I have a large variety of cookies for all the holiday parties we will attend this weekend.

Tomorrow we have a "Secret Santa" gift exchange and poltuck. I am planning to make split pea soup for my contribution. I've only made it one time; unfortunately I had 5 teeth pulled (4 wisdom and one molar) the day before. I spent all day making that soup and got violently ill after having a bowl. I think it was a problem with the antibiotic being too hard on my stomach. That was about 10 years ago, and I am just now feeling like I can try pea soup again.

Wednesday we have an "ornament exchange". I think I will check out the Hallmark store at the mall to find something nice.

Thursday we have a breakfast potluck. I am trying to think of something I can bring that will still taste OK if it's not warm. We don't have an oven here at work, and most breakfast items are better warmed up.

We had such a good time today, and I am looking forward to the rest of the week.

2006-12-18T10:52:00.000-08:00

I have to laugh at people. Otherwise, I might cry.

I came in to work this morning with a message on my voicemail. Normally, I don't get too many messages. For that I am thankful. This message, however, strove to out do any message I have ever received.

This man called me in response to 2 voicemails I left him regarding a paycheck from September our bank shows has not been cashed. The messages I left for him were quick and to the point, just asking for him to get back to me whether he had the check or not. He only worked for us for about a month, otherwise his supervisor would be taking care of this situation for me.

The message he left for me on Friday night was 10 MINUTES LONG. 10. Whole minutes.

Apparently, this particular ex- employee is suing us for a variety of reasons, none of which I was fully able to understand even though he described each incident in great detail. From what I gathered, and I made Kelly listen to it too because it was her damn fault I had to contact this guy in the first place, he worked for us 2 weeks when he decided we didn't keep our equipment in the best repair. He had to work on Labor Day, and was told he would also receive holiday pay, but didn't. (Note - he hadn't been working for us a full 30 days yet, and so was not actually eligible for holiday pay). He refused to drive a truck that had expired safety tags (no idea what that means). He asked to be given a different truck with current tags, and apparently there weren't any. His supervisor told him if that was the case, he should go home. The employee asked if he would be called to come in the next day. Said supervisor told him that all the vehicles would be in the very same condition the next day as they were currently. So, the employee stayed home for a week. He is suing us for one week's wages he was "cheated" out of. He bemoans the fact that he gave us the benefit of the doubt and gave 2 weeks notice, and he was not given the benefit of the doubt. I'm no scholar, but if you give 2 weeks notice, what is there to doubt? What were we doubting that he would need the benefit of?

To make matters worse, after this guy droned on for about 5 minutes with no end in sight, I stopped the message so I could forward it to my boss. I'm sure he has the situation under control already, and I was actually thinking this message could be "exhibit 1" when we go to court in January. It turns out you can't just forward a message, you can only do it at it has run all the way through. So, I had to START OVER. No fast forward.

Here's the beauty of it. He finally comes around after 10 minutes to answering the question of the open payroll check. He says that he remembers something about a $10 bonus check, (which is, of course, the check I am referring to) but doesn't say squat about whether he cashed it or still has it. He says that can't possibly be the check I'm asking about. I can rest assured though, that every other paycheck has been cashed. I actually know that already. Otherwise I would have mentioned them the first time I called.

He works a later shift now, so if I want to get a hold of him, I should call between 9:30 pm and 5:00 am. Right.

I am sure there are those of you who will play devil's advocate and that's OK. We might be at fault in every sense in this case and that's OK too. If we are, we will be paying this man what the court decides is his due and you won't hear a complaint out of me. But for the love of Jeebus, what did any of that have to do with whether or not he has an old paycheck or not! What grinds me is the idea that I might have to call this jackass again to clarify does he have it or not. He said he had filed a lawsuit and it didn't make any sense to him that I was calling about an uncashed check. Does he think I'm trying to trick him? Does he think the entire planet gives a crap about his problems, and that every other function hinges around his lawsuit? Does he not pay his electric bill because of his lawsuit? I am going to guess that there are more than a few people out there who feel the same way about this fellow I do. The bank teller, the grocery check out person, the poor random soul at the Christmas party who says "how's it going?".

Please sir, do not mistake my poor attitude here for a lack of caring. I care. However, I'm just trying to do my job and you are making this simple process one hundred times harder than it needs to be.

2006-12-13T10:39:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa,

I want a neck massager for Christmas. Not one of those "personal massagers" aka "dildos" that are advertised on TV (do they really think they're fooling us?).

This would work:

The Cervical Massage System, CMS-300, is the culmination of years of research and development which has lead to this extraordinary system that emulates techniques used by massage and chiropractic professionals.Human Touch Technology® starts with a multi-patent mechanism that works like human hands. The flexible nodes move three-dimensionally to approximate the human touchCervical Massage System cms-300 Neck Massager Features and Benefits
Rest your neck in the soothing "hands" of Human Touch Technology (HTT). HTT emulates techniques used by chiropractors, massage therapists and physical therapists.
Massage your cervical region to reduce neck pain caused by stress and tension developed in the muscles that run from the back of the head across the back of the shoulder (trapezius muscle).
The "hands" consist of 2, three-dimensionally moving flexible nodes that approximate the feel of human hands.
A simple handheld controller allows you to lay on your back and control the massage functions. 3 Cycle Rates.
The foam pillow supports your head during your massage.
A removable outer cover allows you to clean the CMS-300 Neck Massager *
Manufacturer One Year Warranty

Yes........

No...........

Love,
Robyn

2006-12-08T14:51:00.000-08:00

Well, I turned 31 on Monday. I don't feel any older. My husband and the kids took me out to Chinese food after work and we had a lovely time. New baby managed to flirt with a table full of teenage boys. What a bunch of softies they were! It was cute. New baby ate a won ton and some of the baby's crackers. He tried some chicken and after chewing for about 30 minutes, he threw up into his tea cup. Yum. We had a wonderful dinner out at a steakhouse with my parents and our friends last Saturday night. It was so good to see everybody!

Tomorrow we are having new baby's 1st birthday party. I have no idea how many people are going to be there, and I have no idea what I'm going to feed them. Oh well! We'll have cake, and my older sister is bringing her fabulous broccoli salad. I should probably find something in between the two extremes.

I have been feeling rather poorly this week. I had a massive headache starting in the middle of the night Tuesday night. Wednesday I left early from work, and I ended up taking Thursday off too. I was hoping to get a little bit if housework done, but I have been experiencing some difficulty getting motivated. I cleaned the boy's room spic and span, and I couldn't even muster up any pride in a job well done. Normally once I get going I am unstoppable, but I really could have cared less. I have a lot of housework to miraculously accomplish between now and 3:00 tomorrow afternoon. Luckily, my husband makes a good cleaning partner. Hopefully I can get it all done tonight, and sleep in tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!

2006-12-01T16:05:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's Friday already!

I am looking forward to this weekend and going out for dinner to the Hungry Hunter tomorrow night. We are celebrating my birthday a couple of days early. Prime Rib, here I come! My parents are having dinner with us too - my dad's birthday was on Wednesday. It will be so great to see our friends - it seems I only see them on special occasions anymore. So Sad!

I hope we can pick up a Christmas tree this weekend too. It seems to be an annual tradition on my birthday. We might need to make it a tradition for new baby though, so he won't feel too left out having his birthday so close to Christmas. He has 4 teeth now, and is starting to crawl up off his tummy instead of the "army crawl". My guess is that the floor is starting to get too cold. He is almost busting out of his 18 month clothing. I hope that old baby's clothes that I boxed up are weather appropriate. Otherwise, he is going to be one cold little dude!

New baby has practically weaned himself off his bottle. He had 2 bowls full of stew last night. Granted, half of that ended up on the floor, walls and ceiling but still! He is an eating machine! He will eat anything you put in front of him. He was so cute at Thanksgiving - he must have had 4 helpings of turkey, potatoes, stuffing and cranberry sauce. I had to give him a bath after dinner and spray down the mat under his chair outside with the hose.

Our picture taking session at the Mall last Friday went very well. I was so glad that old baby behaved (for the most part) and we ended up with some lovely photos for Christmas. It's so nice to have all of our Christmas shopping done at one time, and for less than $100! Of course, I wish we could afford to buy gifts for everyone, but we can't do that without ringing up the credit card. We try and make sure our home-made gifts are from the heart and I think they are appreciated. My younger sister works at Michael's Crafts and has an endless supply of crafty ideas. I just have to make the time!

Have a good weekend all!

2006-11-22T14:45:00.000-08:00

It's the 3rd annual great November Hair Loss Festival '06!

For some reason, every November since my first son was born three years ago, my hair falls out like it's going out of style. Luckily it has always grown back!

The first year it happened, I attributed it to loss of hormones and the stress of having an 8 week old infant and a new job. I remember being in the bathroom at work, and standing in front of the mirror I could actually see light shining off my scalp through my hair. I lose the most hair right at my temples. It's hard not to obsess over it, but I am worried that one of these years it will fall out and that will be that! I'll have to start buying wigs.

I should probably get my hair cut short again, but it is longer than it has been in years, and I love having long hair. I will try to hold out for a couple of months until it starts filling back in.

2006-11-22T11:02:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving time is nearly here! I am so excited, more so than usual this year. We are going to spend the day with my older sister and her husband and my younger sister. We are buying a pre-made meal from Raley's and making side dishes and desserts. The desserts are my arena, and I plan to make a "mystery" pecan pie, a cranberry jello cool whip thing, and bread pudding. The meal comes with a pumpkin pie.

I went with old baby to have a Thanksgiving dinner at his daycare last night. It was fun, if you don't mind sitting on teeny, tiny little chairs and eating at teeny, tiny little tables. I made a crock pot full of au gratin potatoes. I have to admit, they were damn good eats! We have some left over for Thursday.

I am actually taking a five day weekend. My parents have been away on a cruise for a whole month, and are flying in to SFO on Monday. I am going to pick them up, and I decided to take the whole day off work and have a little "me" time. Of course, this will consist of me cleaning the bejeezus out of the house, but that's OK. It is always easier for me to clean when no one else is home. Must be why I never clean!

We are going to have our portraits taken at Sears on Friday as a Christmas gift for our parents. Of course, I wasn't thinking about what it would mean to get our pictures taken the day after Thanksgiving. At Sears. At THE MALL. I am sure I will remember quite quickly why it is that I never leave the house the day after Thanksgiving!

On another note, I am trying to think what to do for new baby's 1st birthday. Can you believe he is going to be one year old on December 10th? Where did the time go!! What a year it has been. I never really thought about the reality of having two kids. I guess it's not something you think about, it's just something you do. I have to say that although I could improve in my time management skills, I seem to have two very happy little boys. What more can a mother ask for? Maybe a happy little girl to go with those two boys?

2006-11-15T13:45:00.000-08:00

I am fighting a head cold. New baby is sick too. I was home with him this morning, and my husband came home from work and is with him right now. I hate having a head cold. I don't need any help being more dense than I already am. Case in point, I drove all the way to work with my right blinker on. I couldn't hear the ticking because my ears are plugged up. The only good I can possible see in this is being able to make it the car ride home from day care with old baby without losing my marbles as he repeats the same phrase over and over and over and over and over again. Blessed release!

I wouldn't have come in to work at all, except the person who could cover my payroll duties is up to her armpits in extra work already. I also need to at least attempt to finish the payroll reconciliation for October for CA. We'll see how many mistakes I make before I finally decide I'm better off for everyone's sake being at home!

2006-11-14T08:47:00.000-08:00

My good friend Keri is having her gastric bypass surgery this morning. Wish her luck!

2006-11-11T10:32:00.000-08:00

These are the brave few who dressed up for Halloween at work. I didn't win a prize, but I was really just jumping at any chance to wear jeans to work! I am the ravishing plaid-clad gardener on the end.

The Halloween Costume that Wasn't

2006-11-11T10:23:00.000-08:00

Then was again!

This is the costume I made for old baby for Halloween. Of course, after lovingly hand crafting it, he would have nothing to do with it whatsoever! I kind of expected that. He did run around with it eventually. It was fun to put together and I see a whole fleet of Thomas and friends in the future. Assuming I can find more boxes this size!

2006-11-09T08:41:00.000-08:00

New baby's day care lady is, how should I put this, INSANE. I believe she has adult attention deficit disorder. The woman is wonderful with the kids, and new baby loves her to pieces.

She gave us a calendar with her days off, one of them being this Friday for Veteran's Day. She tells me this morning as I'm dropping off the baby "You know I'm open tomorrow, right?" I answered that I did not know she was open, I have already requested the day off work, and I am keeping old baby home too. She explained that she was confused about Vet's day. It is Saturday, not Friday. My husband is going to shit a brick when he reads this. He already gets ticked off at her easily as it is. For one thing, she insists on being paid Friday morning. When we first started using her, we didn't realize the check had to be there in the morning, so she called me at work and asked if I could bring cash. While I tend to roll with these things, my husband is sometimes a crotchety 80 year old man in a 30 year old body. He also is peeved that we still have to pay her even though she is taking a day off for holidays, and 2 weeks paid vacation every year. I try and explain to him that this is hardly unusual, but as she is our only experience with a day care, she is going to bear the brunt of all of these lovely new discoveries.

She is always saying to me "your husband thinks I'm crazy!!" I just kind of laugh, but I don't correct her. He's not alone in that assumption! She is a nutbag. A lovable nutbag, but a nutbag nonetheless.

2006-11-07T15:32:00.000-08:00

I have totally negated the spinach salad I ate for lunch with the 18 pounds of miniature candy bars I have eaten today.

Did I at least break even?

2006-11-06T09:11:00.000-08:00

Old baby got his haircut on Sunday. For once, mommy didn't have a bleeding ulcer by the time he was done! He sat on my lap, refused the plastic poncho, but sat relatively quietly and still while she cut his hair. I almost cried at how smoothly it went! I don't know what the difference was; probably just old baby growing up. I figured it would take a few more visits before we had it down, and I am hoping that next time he will be able to sit in the chair by himself. He had a small meltdown when we left though - he wanted to take a choo choo train away with him from their toy bucket. You win some, you lose some!

After the hair cut, we took the kids to the Nut Tree. We didn't stay too long, it was getting to be lunchtime and naptime. We can tell when old baby has had enough - he will start to cry on every single ride. You should see the photo album, nothing but old baby with a red snotty face on all the rides, yelling at the operators when they try and unbuckle him, and holding onto the ticket with an iron fist. It will be a few years before we try to venture to Disneyland with this one. Do they make child strength Valium?

2006-11-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

I just finished up a meeting with my boss. I couldn't figure out why I inexplicably start to burp whenever I have a meeting with him. It is so embarrassing! I guess he just makes me nervous, and that makes my stomach act up. How funny! I hardly ever have meetings, so I am unused to the scrutiny, even if it is something benign. I have been working on account reconciliations and bottom line need the company to write off a huge amount of money. It is difficult for me to be handling something so very important. I am flattered that they trust me, and at the same time worried that my lack of experience is going to screw everything up big time. I feel like I started this whole reconciliation jive as a caveman, and I have slowly evolved to about the bronze age. Maybe one day I will spit this stuff out in one day and call myself modern man!

2006-10-25T08:40:00.000-07:00

Last night, for the first time, I had a dream that made me laugh so hard it woke me up. My husband thought there might be something wrong. "Are you all right?" he asked. I told him I was just laughing! My husband has always amazed me when he would laugh in his sleep. It always made me smile too, even though I didn't know what was so funny. I wasn't actually laughing out loud, but my whole body was racked with laughter.

I was dreaming about watching Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, and one of his guests was wearing a blue blazer that was covered in orange cat hair. He stood up from his chair, and it was all over the place. I think it was Jon's reaction to the cat hair that really set me laughing. How odd!!

2006-10-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

This was the actual caption beneath this photo:

Anna Nicole Smith (left)

2006-10-23T15:40:00.000-07:00

The Nut Tree has re-opened in Vacaville! I took my kids there this weekend and we had a great time. My dad bought us all season passes so we can go every weekend if we want to. Old baby is finally big enough to go on all the rides, and he enjoys most of them. He's still unsure of the roller coaster and the airplane ride. I did finally convince him to ride the merry go round. Of course, his other option was going home, so I suppose I stacked the odds in my favor!

The Nut Tree was a place I loved to go as a kid. It was nothing spectacular, but it had a small train that pulled you out to the airport where you could get off and play on a 1/2 size model of a real airplane. My Grandpa also owned a Cesna; the first time I ever flew was with my 2 grandads from the Nut Tree Airport to the Napa County airport when I was 9 years old. I don't think I will ever forget that day! They had an awesome pumpkin patch at Halloween time, complete with a scarecrow contest, pumpkin ice cream and tethered hot air balloon rides. I dreamed every year of creating a scarecrow for the contest, but I was never that creative!

They also had these giant wooden hobby horses, and a play wall that you could run behind and open and shut doors, and stick your head out to have your picture taken. They had the neatest toy store, with lots of timy wind up robots and stuff like that. I also remember popcorn balls and giagantic gingerbread cookies you could decorate.

It's not the same, but the new Nut Tree is good in it's own way. It will be a place that hopefully my kids will have fond memories of as well.

2006-10-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

I've just read an article that says 49% of Americans think they are worse of than their parents, even though yearly income (adjusted for inflation) is 42% higher than our counterparts in the 1960's.

I know for my part, I feel like my family and I are traveling very similar paths as did my grandparents and parents before us. I spent endless hours with my grandmother and she talked about buying their first home for $8,000.00, my grandfather losing his job just days before the birth of one of their children, penny pinching and buying Christmas presents for the children only every other year and even living with relatives when times were especially tough.

My parents were still in college when they got married and had their first child. My mom worked her way through college because her father was adamant that he wouldn't spend money on educating her because she was just going to get married and be a housewife anyway. My father bought his first house in Napa in 1974. He didn't buy the house next door on the corner lot that he really wanted because it cost $5,000.00 more. They never bought a new car until I was a teenager, and drove it until it finally fell apart. Other than coveting the "Guess" jeans all the other girls wore, we never wanted for anything. My mom taught us to be creative and we made our own birthday cards and gifts for family and friends.

Talking to my grandmother during especially difficult times in my life was always so helpful, and I sure miss her wisdom today. I could talk to her about anything, because the chances were good that she had been through the exact same circumstance in her life. Talking to my mother is not so helpful, because she turns into a self-help book and tries to get all psychological on me. That, and I firmly believe she has a mental disorder which prevents her from recalling any event in our family life accurately!

I would say that my family and I have a better life than my grandparents and parents, as far as the internet and cell phones and debit cards, what have you. As long as those things don't become a replacement for spending quality time together as a family. I am sure I will refuse to allow my children to have their own TV's, cell phones and computers. But, who's to say what our life will be like in 10 years. Maybe denying my kids these things will actually keep them behind. It will be an interesting balancing act.

I feel like I have everything I ever wanted.

Milestones

2006-10-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

New baby has surprised me twice.

This weekend, he started sitting up all on his own.

He also pulled himself from sitting on the floor, to standing.

Both of these things were so matter of fact to him but to his daddy and I, those moments were pure magic.

2006-10-11T17:03:00.000-07:00

We took the kids to Traintown in Sonoma last Sunday. What a strange little place that was. My husband mentioned while we were crammed onto the train "what a cool place this would have been to come and smoke pot. Just climb over the fence and hide out." Hm, the place did kind of smell of urine, so I wonder if there aren't some vagrants living in the little miniature mine shafts.

On Monday, old baby's day care was closed and his Papa and Tutu watched him all day. I picked him up at their place in Vacaville and we went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. A new development since Sunday is that my three year old now wants to cut his own food. With a KNIFE. I try and remain calm as he carefully slices towards his preshus little fingers. He was sawing through the little loaf of bread they serve when you sit down. It was totally worth it just to see the look of horror on my mom's face the whole time he was wielding that knife. It was great.

2006-10-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

It has been busy around here!! I just finished up with an audit yesterday. That will give you grey hairs, let me tell you! The auditor was very nice though. I have found all of the auditors I have worked with over the years to be nice people. My friend Maria did have one lousy auditor. He was from the TTB (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, used to be known as the ATF) and from all accounts was on a day pass from the state hospital. Maria said he kept pulling little scraps of paper out of his pockets, looking at them, and squirreling them away again while he talked. She can't even recount that day without a few martinis in her. She was so pissed off after this guy left, she slammed all the doors and left for the rest of the day. I guess the auditor forgot to tell her something and came back into the office, and the staff were actually scared there would be bloodshed. One of the owners called the TTB and the auditor never came back. He was replaced by someone much better suited to work with humans.

My husband and I went out for dinner last Friday night, just the two of us. It was very nice, and relaxing. It has been a rough couple of weeks. Old baby is having a difficult time getting the swing of our new routine. I think the biggest upset is that in between my husband starting a new job and new baby with a babysitter, he has graduated up to the next class at school. He is with all of the other three year olds now, and he is having some trouble warming up to everything.

I can't believe how much that kid tries to get away with! We have to be on alert constantly for his unsavory behavior. He talks back something fierce. Well, we are nipping that in the bud. He seems to be responding well, but he is also having trouble going to bed at night. He stays awake too late, and sometimes wakes his brother up in the process. No wonder he can be a monster some mornings. There is always the guilty stabs of pain too, knowing that everything would be so much more peaceful if I were staying home, and not having to wake up the kids so I can get to work. However, we would be living under a freeway overpass if I wasn't working, so I guess maybe "peaceful" is relative!

We were able to enjoy dinner out last night for a friend's birthday. That was great - they have a 3 year old as well and it so much fun to see them together! New baby got passed around the table from hand to hand, charming everyone with his smile, eating everyone's food. He is such a schmoozer! He lost both of his socks by the end of the night, and the cutest thing I have ever seen is my husband holding the baby, tickling his little feet with his beard. The baby laughed so hard, I thought his sides were going to split. I told my friend Wren that I think an egg popped out of my ovary when I saw that. I thoroughly grossed out half the table!

2006-09-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

Everything seems to be moving so quickly this week!

The kids are doing great, new baby has his 2 front teeth coming in. I'm going to miss that toothless grin! He eats everything we put in front of him. We don't even know if he likes it or not, he shows no preference for anything whatsoever. I am going to take full advantage of that while I can!

I am still trying to make sure we all sit down to a nice dinner every night. So far, so good. We didn't last night though; I wasn't feeling very good and wasn't hungry. My husband was hungry earlier than old baby, so we just kind of did our own thing. Old baby has been trying some new foods. It isn't exactly as difficult as it was when he was younger. He still gags on almost everything he tries. It makes me feel so rotten. I will be the happiest woman on the planet the day we all sit down to dinner and old baby eats everything on his plate, and asks for more vegetables!

On another note, our wedding anniversary is tomorrow. 4 years of wedded bliss! I did a little break-down of the last 4 years and I have been pregnant for 62% of our marriage. That is crazy! I'm sure my poor husband will also tell you I was more than my share of crazy hormonal byotch. What a good man, to put up with all my ravings, cravings and bad moods. What on earth could I possibly give back to this man, who has given me everything? Maybe a 2 year stretch without any more babies?

2006-09-21T09:35:00.000-07:00

This week has gone very well, considering all of the new things going on.

My husband has started a new job. His first day was Wednesday. It seems to have gone well, and he is working with one of his closest friends.

New baby started with day care on Tuesday. We interviewed her last Friday, and I actually liked her so much we decided to cancel our other interviews. My husband joked that I just didn't want to leave the house again. I thought that was funny. Then I smacked him. Just kidding.

Old baby was not happy with us Monday night. We made him eat vegetables. The poor abused boy! He wouldn't eat them, so it was straight to bed. What followed was not the quiet evening I had in mind in preparation to take new baby to day care the following morning. I had imagined well rested, happy children as we skipped happily into the sunrise, tra la la la la. That fantasy bubble was popped as a screaming three year old refused to go quietly to bed, and instead kept his baby brother up until almost 9:30. He refused to sleep in his bed, and wanted to sleep on the floor. That was fine with me, except he also wouldn't let us turn off the bedroom light or shut the door. So, we waited until they were finally asleep sometime around 10, and shut off the light and closed the door.

At around 5:00 the next morning, I hear a knocking sound. I got up, and it was old baby, knocking on his bedroom door to be let out, with the light on. And new baby was awake too. I couldn't get too upset, I was going to be getting up in 45 minutes anyway. And, everyone was up and dressed and out the door by 7:00 am.

Wednesday morning, old baby was awake at 4:00 am. I wasn't quite so thrilled this time around. He came to bed with us, which consisted mostly of him poking me in the eyeballs and using me as a platform for his toy train. I finally got out of bed, turned on the TV for him, and tried to go back to sleep. Apparently, TV watching is no good unless mommy is there too. Again, it wasn't the worst thing to happen, as we were able to get out the door on time.

This morning, old baby was a bit more kind to his dear sweet old mother. He didn't wake up the house until almost 5:30. I, however, am not quite as chipper and awake today. I definitely need to get to bed earlier tonight and try to catch a little bit more sleep.

Dinner has been good this week too. We had leftover chinese foood Monday night, my version of Oyaku Ju on Tuesday night (chicken and carmelized onions served over rice and topped with a sauce made from soy, rice wine and sugar, and cooked eggs), and NY steak marinated in red wine, soy sauce, garlic and ginger last night. Yum. Not too sure what's on the menu tonight - I might spend some time cruising the "Food TV" website.

I hope old baby starts sleeping to his normal time, as he is getting more and more grouchy. He has never been much of a morning person. We'll try not to torture him too badly at dinner tonight, and see how it goes!

meme time

2006-09-15T11:01:00.000-07:00

Things that scare me
Digital pregnancy tests
Cancer
The Hwy 12 exit off I-80 in the mornings

People who make me laugh
My Husband
Adam Carolla
Mike Nelson

Things I hate the most
Digital pregnancy tests
Unsafe drivers
That I am so forgetful

Things I don’t understand
Digital pregnancy tests
Computers
My ex-boyfriend

Things I’m doing right now
Payroll voluntary deduction reconciliation for August
Worrying about a payroll package that Fed Ex lost
Watching the clock till I can go home

Things I want to do before I die
Have another baby
Make a beautiful quilt
Study our ancient ancestors

Things I can do
Juggle work and family, and be happy doing it
Belly dance
Make people feel better

Ways to describe my personality
Friendly
Open minded
Goofy

Things I can’t do
Dance
Sing
Decorate

Things I think you should listen to
My husband (he is always right!)
Yourself
Your children

Things you should never listen to
Habitually negative people
Hypocrites
Movie reviews

Things I’d like to learn
Sewing
Throwing pottery on a wheel
Gardening

Favorite foods
Flan
Chili and rice
Waffles

Beverages I drink regularly
Milk
Pepsi
Water

Shows I watched as a kid
Three’s Company
Sesame Street
Donahue

2006-09-13T16:59:00.000-07:00

I had dinner with my friend Keri last night. We used to work together, but she moved on to another company about a year ago.

Keri and her husband have been fighting many battles.

First, the in-laws. His parents are two of the most hideous people I have ever heard of in my life. Too much booze, too many opinions.

Second, her husband has diabetes, and they both are severely overweight and struggle constantly to try and lose it.

Third, they have been trying for years to get pregnant. They went to one doctor who ordered all of these tests that all came back inconclusive. They went to another doctor who said those tests couldn't be inconclusive, and they needed to be done over again. Not being able to afford that, they've gone for more opinions and had another doctor tell them there is no reason why they can't get pregnant. As it stands today, their current doctor, who they like very much, has said that their options are invitro-fertilization, or a sperm donor. Invitro costs roughly $18,000.00, and her husband can't quite decide how he feels about using a sperm donor, which would cost roughly $600.00.

In the meantime, Keri has decided with her doctor to have gastric bypass surgery. I have mixed feelings about this surgery, because it so drastic. I think though that it is a smart move for Keri's situation. She needs to lose another 15 pounds before the surgery in October.

Before we had dinner together, I was almost thinking she was going to tell me she was pregnant. A couple of funnily-worded e-mails, and then an announcement during dinner that she had stopped drinking caffeine really got my hopes up. It has been such a roller coaster for her, and I can't even come close to relating.

So, I will think happy thoughts for her and hope that her surgery will be the doorway through which good things will come.