playing and politics

Wow, only two posts in February, eh? I'm reaching new slacker lows here. Obviously I'm spending way too much time watching Fuller House doing really important stuff. 

Me too. I keep pretty busy, as you can see. This room isn't just gonna trash itself!

My job is completely insane right now and it leaves me too exhausted to come home and put words together in any sort of an intelligible fashion (for either talking or blogging, ha). Luckily, Millie doesn't mind if my conversational/writing skills aren't completely up to par. Homegirl is all about PLAYING these days. Just try and stop her.              

I mean, sometimes I stop to feed my babies.

It seems that four years of listening to NPR has finally paid off and I actually care about politics for once. Too bad that's a SUPER DEPRESSING SITUATION right now. I took Millie with me to vote today (side note: a hell of a lot of good that did us. WHY IS GEORGIA SO STUPID??? See also: Trump wins in Georgia by a landslide. All sane people planning their imminent moves to anywhere where logic and decency still prevails. Like possibly the moon.). I tried to tell her about how it's important that we vote because it's our chance to participate in democracy, blah blah blah. She could probably see right through me, though. She knows the only thing good about voting is the sticker. And getting to see a fire truck.

Only YOU can prevent psychos from becoming president!! Except, actually it takes a lot more than just you...so never mind, give me a sticker, I gotta go.

We try to get away from all the political drama once in awhile with a little front yard yoga. Millie definitely gets it.          

Downward facing Lola, you say? Got it, Mommy!

Speaking of Lola...she's getting a lot of kisses from her #1 fan these days. But Millie's kind of a fair-weather fan, really. She's either smothering Lola with kisses and pat-pats, or yelling "NO-NUH!!!" in the most accusatory voice you've ever heard, all away across the house, to blame Lola for something she obviously didn't do (pull all the books off the shelf, dump the puzzles out, pull a glass of water off the counter, etc.). It's pretty classic sibling behavior, I guess. Too bad Lola doesn't have a chance to dish it back!

I love you, No-nuh. Except for when I don't.

But for as stressful as work is and as depressing as freaking politics are...this little bit makes it all better. She is SO funny and precious and smart and cuddly and...I could go on with adjectives for days. Her language and ability to communicate improves every single day (probably every single hour) and I never know what she might say or do next. Like this video I took the other night- I definitely did not know she knew the word "bonk," as you can probably hear in my voice!!




She can also perform a variety of facial expressions/emotions on command. I know, I know...I should quit using her for party tricks. I can't help it, though! She's a riot! The world should know!! The world needs something happy right now!

So anyway. That's where we are. Millie is hilarious, the majority of voters in Georgia are insane, and...that's about it. Womp womp, goodnight.

freedom

I know I've said this about a million times before, but I just love watching Millie grow up and develop interests, and I never stop imagining what she might be like someday. What she'll be passionate about. What will fire her up. What she'll hate.

What a privilege it is to watch her grow. I'll never stop being thankful.

At any rate, over the weekend I caught a glimpse of some of her recent passions- the kind that translated easily (in my imagination) from baby passions to possible later grown-up interests. It was like a little glimpse into the future- and I must say, I liked what I saw.

Millie, it seems, is going to be a freedom fighter. (But hopefully not the kind that gets involved with scary paramilitary groups.) This girl does not stand for oppression. 

Set the captives free!!!!, she says. I'll help!

Of course, her world is a little bit limited right now. So oppression and captivity is all relative. Even still: she won't stand for it.

Especially not on her turf.

JAMMIES!!! Why are you guys all stuffed in a drawer?? JAMMIES ARE MEANT TO BE FREE!!

Jammies, I have rescued you from your turquoise prison. 

JAMMIES!!! I SAID YOU ARE FREE!! WHY DON'T YOU AT LEAST ACT GRATEFUL OR SOMETHING??!

 Shortly after Operation: Free the Jammies concluded, she was devastated to see them re-oppressed by the mean dictator (aka Mommy). But since her attention span is only about two seconds long, she didn't shed too many tears over it. She just moved on to her next cause.

Kleenexes!!!! Never again shall you all be smooshed into that tiny, oppressive package!!

I have freed you, and now I shall kiss each one of you. Then maybe you won't try to do something awful like wipe my boogies away later... 

I mean, on the one hand, it's silly to project intentions and causes onto a baby like this. But on the other hand, it's a lot more fun than just being irritated by a mess of pajamas and tissues...so, I choose projection. Besides, you never know. I would be proud for Millie to grow up into someone passionate about bringing freedom to captives. Someone who stands up for what is right. 

Did someone say 'stand up'??

I can't wait to see who she becomes...but also, no rush, Mills. This standing up nonsense can definitely wait a bit, if it's all the same to you. 

oh, to be ridiculously wealthy...

Since I'm currently in the midst of a very long (12 weeks!), very unpaid (womp womp) maternity leave, it makes sense that I fill many of my sitting-around-the-house hours browsing the internet and lusting after things I can't afford. Let's be honest, I couldn't (or wouldn't) afford most of this stuff even if I were working...but it's extra fun now that I really really can't. Or...shouldn't. Whichever the case may be.

But that doesn't mean I won't make a list of overpriced things I want anyway. You just never know when you might find a spare grand or two under the couch cushion, right? Better to be prepared.

(Oh!! And it's not exactly saving me a grand, but I would be remiss not to update you on my Broken Kindle Situation! Upon the urging of many of you, I finally and reluctantly contacted Amazon support. They walked me through a few troubleshooting things which all proved unsuccessful. The customer service agent concluded that it must be a physical issue with the screen and offered to replace it- FOR FREE- with a Kindle Paperwhite (since the model I had is no longer made)!! I quickly accepted their generous offer before they could change their minds. It should arrive on my doorstep tomorrow!! High five to Amazon! And so that saved me like $119, so...that's kind of like earning $119, right? Shouldn't I spend it somewhere else now?? Exactly.)

So. Just in case I come into some substantial spending money, here are a few things I have my eyes on.

1. The 'Elizabeth' (in camel) diaper bag from Lily Jade.

source

Be still my heart, I can't even tell you how badly I want this bag. It hurts. Go ahead, click on the link. Admire the inside. The billions of pockets. Read the testimonials of cloth diapering moms who sing the praises of how there is enough space for everything. Look at how you can wear it like a backpack, a messenger bag, or on the shoulder. Contemplate how I could use it for the rest of my life, even when I don't need a diaper bag anymore, because it doesn't look like a diaper bag.

I'd never even heard of Lily Jade until a few weeks ago. A friend alerted me to the fact that on the first day of each month they give away a bag (ANY bag- even this one!!) to an adoptive mom- all you have to do is send in your 'story' and a picture and they'll enter you into the drawing! So I entered for September and didn't win, but now it's almost October and I'm crossing all of my fingers that my name gets picked. But if it doesn't, then I guess I'll just have to leave it on my List of Things to Buy When I Get Rich.

2. Cute lounge wear.

I can't be bothered to hunt down any pictures, but you know what I mean. The genre of clothing that falls somewhere between pajamas, workout clothes, and casual 'regular' clothes. The kind of thing that is comfy enough to lay around the house snuggling with the baby all day, but decent enough to wear on the daily trip to Target and/or a walk around the neighborhood. I don't own much of anything that falls in this category. I know these things wouldn't necessarily be expensive, but they would only really be super useful for the next five weeks, so...kinda not what I really need to spend my cash on. But if I were rich, I would.

3. Fall candles.

source

I know, I know. Could I be any more stereotypical? Like every single other thirty-ish female on the internet, I am really excited about fall and wish to surround myself with fall reminders at all times. The Bath & Body Works fall candles are always spectacular, but all of mine are burned down to nothing. Sad. When I'm rich, I'm going to budget for seasonal candles.

4. All of the baby moccasins.

source

I mean...seriously. Millie currently has two pair (only one currently fits, though). She wears her moccs any time she needs shoes, since they're the only shoes she owns that fit right now. AND BECAUSE THEY ARE ADORABLE. I wish she had 20 more pairs in 20 more colors. I wish we had a whole room full of baby moccs. I wish there was a place that was like the library, only it was full of tiny baby moccasins in all colors and sizes and you could go and borrow whatever you wanted, any time, for free. And when I'm president, there will be. Baby Mocc Libraries. Count on it. Vote for me.

I've digressed. No need to get all political- I just need to get rich and then I can buy them the old fashioned way: with all of my Benjamins.

5. A maid service.

source

Oh please, happy women with plentiful energy and products, please come to my house next. I sit in it all day long and notice all the things that need to be cleaned, but lack the motivation to actually do it. I can keep up with the dishes and the bottles and the laundry and the general 'picking up,' but come with your vacuums, your brooms, your mops, your tub scrubbers...I need you. 

Eh, well, that should be enough luxury items to work towards dream about. Today's a big day (haha, not really): I decided to document everything for a 'day in the life' post next week! That means even MORE selfies than usual! Whew. I hope I'm up for it. More like- I hope Millie's up for it. Yesterday all she was up for was being held and never put down.

Like this.

I can't say I hated it, but it did make it hard to do anything else, so it would make for quite a boring Day in the Life post. But not actually a boring day for me, if you get what I'm saying.

7 a.m.-11 p.m.: Cuddled with my baby.

Actually, that sounds kind of perfect. But we'll hope for something slightly more eventful today. Anyway, have a fabulous weekend!

Christmas, surveys, and shoes

What is there to say about Christmas? We came, we saw, we conquered? Or something like that. And now it's back to work and regular life. Weird. It's weird to have Christmas be this like two-week-long event in your brain...when in actuality, now- as a grown, non-school-district-employee adult- it's two days off and done. Oh well. 

We started the day having a little Christmas in our own house with just the two of us and our girl. She enjoyed the new toy Santa brought her. Actually, she hasn't acted this happy in months...which means we should probably stop being jerks and get her new toys or something else brain-stimulating occasionally. 

Despite her best efforts yesterday, the pink piggy still has all four appendages, two ears, and a curly tail-- which means I must once again commend Kong for their awesome toys. This one is totally legit by our standards.

We opened our presents to one another-- as usual, Mattie did a great job. He went about even thirds on the makeup-jewelry&accessories-ridiculously soft PJs breakdown, which is just great in my book. Ulta and Target appreciate Matt in December-- as do I. You'll note my new mustard scarf in most of the rest of the pictures today...it is super soft and awesome.

Exhibit A: on the way to work this morning

We spent the rest of the day with Matt's family. There were presents, food, naps, and games. And games and games. And I may never need to ever play another game for the rest of my life. I've used up my lifetime allotment.

An old-fashioned game of highly competitive Monopoly was the first (and favorite) game of the day. And I tried my best to prove that socialism was a viable economic system that we could all operate under (and convinced 3/4 of my fellow competitors to join me in the system) and DAMMIT IF CAPITALISM DIDN'T WIN THAT GAME AGAIN. So sad. Next time I'll know better.

We're back to work today. I anticipate it being an extremely slow day, as most people will probably assume we're not even open today. Therefore I have a few things on my mental agenda to think about when I have downtime:

1. The survey results from Tuesday's poll. I had SO much fun watching the votes come in (this is politics I can get behind!) and trying to blow up your FB newsfeeds with the compelling trends and anecdotes. Now I need to organize and analyze the data-- and also consider my relationship with SurveyMonkey. That's who I've always used for these silly little blog surveys. But the problem is that since I only have a free account, they limit me to viewing the first 100 responses. I didn't used to care, since I'd only get maybe 50 people participating. But the last few surveys have had well over 100 respondents and I hate that numbers 101+ don't count, since they're hidden from the data I can access. But the cheapest plan for SurveyMonkey is $17 a MONTH!!! Umm...from free to THAT? I was thinking there was some $10/year or something thing I could scrounge up some change for. But $17/month?? Do they think I'm Bill Gates or something? Anyone know of any other similar survey companies that will let me view more than 100 responses for free and/or way cheap? 

2. Shoes. I'm contemplating getting some fun little wedge boots with my birthday/Christmas money. But I can't decide what kind. Or if I really want them, because maybe they won't ultimately pass the All Day Comfort test? These are the two kinds I like the best:

Minnetonka (source) | Toms (source)

Anyone have any personal experience with either of these shoes? My other top concern, besides the comfort, is whether or not these shoes get stinky quickly. I don't think I'd wear them barefoot, so that should probably help, but in my personal history, both Toms and moccasins are extremely likely to stink to high heaven long before I'm tired of wearing them...and I hate that. So I don't want to drop cash on shoes that are going to be a Stinky Situation before their novelty has even worn off. And if you weren't around when I shared the True Story of one of my most humiliating life experiences ever (and yes, this relates to stinky feet....), you should do yourself a favor and read it. Have a good laugh at my expense. I insist. 

That's actually all I can handle contemplating right now, so we'll leave it at that. Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

(P.S. You should know that of the 100 survey responses that I can see, exactly ZERO people indicated that they like blogs about politics. Obviously, that's why I'm including a 'politics' label on this post-- I included the words 'socialism' AND 'capitalism' in today's post, which means this is about as political as I get. Hope you don't hate me too much for it!!) 

explain THAT.

This'll have to be quick.

We've had about 12 hours with our first visitor, L. I must say-- things are off to a great start! He is very easy to talk to, curious, helpful, and kind. There's been nonstop discussion ever since we picked him up, and I suddenly feel like I'm uneducated (or at least, unable to formulate coherent thoughts and explanations) about basically everything in America! In case you were wondering if there were any social, cultural, or political differences between China and America...let me be the first to tell you: there are. And if you want someone to really explain those...I'm probably not your girl. But I'm trying anyway!

Topics we've hit on already:

(Oh, and please note-- none of these were remotely contentious or 'debate'-ish, just very civil discussion/question answering. Lots of laughing and smiling throughout!)

1. Differences in educational systems/philosophies of China vs. USA. (I did okay here, give myself a B)

2. The 'gun culture' of/in America, including questions about how hard it is to get guns, where you get guns, how much they cost, and what kind of guns people are allowed to have. Oh, and why it was so important to the country's founders that they put it in our Constitution. (I struggled here with trying to present a balanced perspective. D.)

3. Related to #2, but slightly different: Hunting. Primarily: how do hunters not all kill each other accidentally. Thankfully I have a lifetime of living in Georgia and a redneck brother, so I was a little better prepared for this topic. A-.

4. Slightly related to #3- wild animals, and are there any in the woods in our backyard? (A+. Nailed it.)

5. Homelessness in America- why are there people sleeping on the porches of buildings, can they get jobs, does the government help them, will the police make them leave? (C, but since I'm pretty sure my bleeding heart was visible through my shirt, I'll bump myself up to a B+)

6. What does it mean that UGA is a "party school", what are parties, how do we feel about that reputation? (B.)

7. Population density of various places- for example, L said that he comes from a 'small town' in his province in China. Wikipedia reveals that his 'small town' has over 1.5 million people. We explained that that is larger than most of the 'big cities' in America. Then he wondered how many people were in Athens: 119,000. For giggles, we looked up how many people live in the city WE live in: a few over 2,000. He was dying laughing. I helpfully added that there are also 2,000 cows, so let's not discount that. (A+, since most of this discussion was aided by Google and Wikipedia)

8. Beaches of the East Coast, Florida, Mexico, and the Gulf- how far away from Athens they are, how good the beaches are (A+ I WAS BORN FOR THIS CONVERSATION) (except for when he asked WHY the beaches of south Florida/Mexico have clear blue water and the north FL/GA/SC beaches tend to have murkier, non-blue water...totally failed there. Magic was the best I could come up with, which isn't really impressive to people getting their PhDs in physics. F.)

All in all, we're off to a great start. Obviously I need to do some more research about...you know, everything in America, but other than that we're good. On the plus side, he declared both Matt and I to be 'warm-hearted,' complimented my cooking many times (it is the best food he's had in America!....so basically, I just beat out airplane food in a competition. YES!), decided that Lola is very smart, and said that the bed was very soft. I can only hope that those things count for more than my explanations about gun control, homelessness, and the fact that his cell phone bill will be 8x more expensive than it was in China ($6/month!!!!). 

the people. they spoke.

Alright...guess it's 'bout time to wrap up my week-long 'comment-gate,' eh?

We discussed. I surveyed. You responded. I experimented and soul-searched. I lamented having to make a decision. But I tried to make one anyway.

First: the survey results!

As you can see (if your vision is awesome), 45 people filled out the survey. Or well...there were 45 responses. I suppose it could have been 20 really zealous people doing it multiple times. But since I said that was okay, I can't really judge you for doing that...and I'm too lazy to go examine all of the IP addresses (the only identifying information I can glean from the responses) to even see if that happened. SO! 45 people. And such a close race! Basically a 3-way tie between liking pop-up, liking threaded, and not caring at all. So thanks for nothing there! Ha. I was really hoping for a landslide one way or the other...but that's okay. Democracy is democracy.

Then there are 10 people who will be receiving checks for millions of dollars in the mail because they are so awesome they took the time to check the suck-up box ("I love commenting so much I'd do it via smoke signals and carrier pigeons if that were the only option!"). And there are 2 people that should be sleeping with one eye open because they took the time to check the hater box ("I would never, ever, under any circumstances leave a comment here, not even for a million dollars"). I mean, just kidding. I'm a pacifist. I think.

Four people took the time to leave additional commentary, which is always commendable:

The conclusions I drew from the survey are:
1) Making surveys is super fun and I'm going to start doing them a lot more often about things hopefully just as important and life-changing as comment systems.

2) Most people are amazed, and not necessarily in a good way, by how much time I've spent thinking about the whole thing. Which is understandable. I kind of amazed even myself. And not necessarily in a good way.

3) There is no clear-cut winner in the 'commenting system' debate.

In the two or so days that I fully embraced the 'threaded' thing, posting almost all of my comment responses back on the blog, threaded in the comment section, it was fun to see more reader interaction with each other. I liked the little sub-conversations that developed. BUT. It was extremely time-consuming for me. Because instead of simply replying to you via email, which I can do anywhere at any time from my phone, and takes probably 2-4 seconds depending on what I'm saying...I had to actually GO to the blog and write the comment there. Which sounds dumb, but I know I'm not the only one that hates commenting on blogs from my phone. So I had to be at a computer. And then there was this added pressure to respond to every single comment really quickly because like...everyone could see if I had or not? Does that make sense? If I'd responded to 5 comments and then left the room for an hour (or had to like, actually WORK) and came back to find 5 NEW comments that it looked like I was publicly ignoring...I felt really bad! Versus when I respond through email...I can do it when I have a chance and no one knows whether or not I've responded to all the other comments. I don't know. Maybe nobody cares about that except me, but it stressed me out. I also didn't like that you wouldn't get an email notification that I'd responded to you unless you 'subscribed,' but then you'd get notifications of EVERY SINGLE COMMENT...which...let's face it, one of those posts had like 51 comments (with half of them being from me). I cringe to think of how annoyed I would be if I got 51 email notifications about people commenting on someone else's blog. So then I would try responding via email AND on the blog, for the people that I know probably won't come back to see it later, and like...whoa. I work full-time. Don't nobody have time for dat.

So then for the last few days, I've left the comments open as 'threaded,' but gone back to my old way of only responding via email. So a few of you have still taken advantage of 'commenting on comments' or whatever and keeping conversations going there, but not a whole lot. So it seems like if I'm not going to be responding there, it doesn't really make much of a difference whether I leave it as threaded or go back to pop-up.

So I'm going to go back to pop-up commenting. I just like how it looks better, honestly (and how you don't have to lose your 'reading spot'). I'll continue responding to comments through email (and now that a lot of you have fixed your no-reply status, you won't be left out of THAT massive privilege...haha) because I just like that better. I feel like I've built so many good friendships through the conversations we get going through email, and due to the sometimes-sensitive nature of the topics here, a lot of those conversations would not happen out 'in public'...the privacy of email conversations is pretty useful sometimes.

HOWEVER! Since I have discovered that it's extremely easy to switch back and forth between the two systems, I'm not opposed to switching to threaded for an occasional post that is particularly conversation-worthy. As some folks pointed out, sometimes threaded commenting is extremely valuable for something like a food/recipe blog (not that I'm going in that direction), where people ask questions, offer tips on a recipe, etc. I also like it for when people are recommending products or something...so, it may happen that sometimes I'll switch it over for a particular topic or something. But for the most part, I'm going back to pop-up. And I can certainly still respond IN the pop-up commenting (if there's a question that needs clarifying, or if I really want to reply to someone with no-reply status whom I can't reach by email), it just doesn't LOOK like a nice little indented response...but that's okay. I guess if people ARE checking back later to see if I've responded, they'll see it whether or not it's 'threaded' or not.

And THAT is, I believe, all that I have to say on the topic. I know. You thought I'd never shut up. I promise to never overthink something this much again. Haha that's a lie. But hopefully it won't be something as trivial as blog commenting next time.

I can't have another entire post solely devoted to this nonsense, so I have a final thing to share before we leave.

If you were to stop by my office over the past few weeks, you would have found me slowly being driven insane by fruit flies. WHY? I don't know. It's an office. Not a commercial kitchen. Not a peach tree farm. A stinkin' office that I keep really clean. So why I've been suddenly inundated with fruit flies, flaunting their astonishing ability to rapidly procreate in my face, I don't know. But I've tried a few different methods of getting rid of them, and I wanted to share the winner (wait- can you believe I didn't create a survey about fruit-fly-killing-methods and bug (HAHA PUNNY) you for a week about what I should try? PROGRESS!!!).

This is the 'bait in a cup covered with plastic wrap with a tiny hole' method. As the name suggests, put your 'bait' (a tomato here...I've also used syrup and peaches) in a cup, cover the cup tightly with Saran wrap, poke a tiny hole in the Saran wrap, and wait. The flies will find their way in through the hole, as they smell that tasty (molding) tomato. Then once their in, they can't find their way out. Except for one of mine did, once. He was an industrious little fella. But for the most part, they can't. I pretty much wait til I have a few flies trapped and then tape over the little hole and throw the whole thing away. And set a new one. It's not the most beautiful decoration for my office, but it's a heck of a lot better than having swarms of flies in your face all day.

So there you have it. If you have any other fruit-fly tips, feel free to share. This method is working for now, but I fear that the next generation (in about fifteen minutes, I guess) may have evolved to be even stronger and smarter and maybe they won't fall for the ol' 'bait in a cup covered with plastic wrap with a tiny hole' method. I need a backup plan in my arsenal.

Happy Wednesday! Our first Chinese student arrives this afternoon...I'm nervous and excited!! 

let the people speak!

There's been a lot of good dialogue about commenting systems the past two days. I appreciate everyone's feedback and passion about the topic! Unfortunately, so far all of that dialogue has only served to muddy the waters for me as far as which system to stick with. Therefore I thought that the best thing to do would be to utilize that most democratic method of making decisions and put it to a vote.

We've had a few days to test it out. Hopefully you had a chance to respond in a thread and hit 'subscribe' and see what happened. Maybe you discovered that you were previously a 'no-reply' person and you've fixed that! Wherever you are in your personal blog commenting journey, I hope that you will take your experiences and beliefs and VOTE! Because we all know I can't just make a decision on my own. That would be insane.

So here's the one-question survey I created! Lucky for everyone, you can check as many boxes as you feel you need to. I know it can be really limiting to only be able to choose one thing, so I wouldn't put you through that. Also, I'm guessing you could vote as many times as you wanted (don't think there's any way to limit that?). I would ask that you keep your number of votes proportionate to your passion for that vote. If you really don't care, vote once. If you have a REALLY HUGE AMOUNT OF LOVE for one side, you probably should vote a couple extra times. Isn't this the fairest way? Per this system, I would have voted zero to one times in each of the last 10 elections about politicians and eleven times to legalize Sunday alcohol sales. Same thing. (Which even with me only voting once, Sunday sales passed, so BOOYAH. But I've digressed.)

Now, vote! Let your voice be heard!! Be the master of your own commenting destiny (here, anyway)!! And may the best commenting system win!

Also, as a reward for voting, I'm not going to give you something lame, like a sticker...come on, seriously? I feel really confident all of you are older than three and are basically not impressed by stickers. I think your prize will be some kind of awesome neon workout clothing. And some Mexican food. Basically two of the greatest loves of my life. Am I generous or what?

PS. I love surveys. I think I need more surveys on this blog. What do you want to be surveyed about next?

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

lazy day

It's a sunny, lazy, beautiful Saturday in Georgia. I feel semi-sorry for all of you buried under a zillion feet of snow up north...make that completely sorry if you've lost power or had any other sort of nasty drama piled on top of the snow. It's quite nice here, but Mattie's feeling a bit under the weather, so we're laying low today. We did, however, take a nice long walk around our neighborhood (during which Lola pooped THREE TIMES...I mean, where does she keep it all?? Sick) and stop by a yard sale. I was happy to score three books for a mere $1.50!

 I'm excited for some new reading material, although I'm slightly irritated it's not on my Kindle. Having to lug a book around? Ugh. First world problems, people. Also- I don't need anyone judging me for liking Jodi Picoult books. Ha. I realize it's not the epitome of literature. I'm okay with that. I can count on them to draw me in and make me cry, and sometimes that's just exactly what I need. So...there. Anyone read these other two? I feel like I've heard good things, although I can't say where I heard that.

Speaking of books I wish were on the Kindle...I've had this bad boy collecting dust on my nightstand for 3 weeks.

 Again: Heard great things, but HOLY CRAP it's heavy!! 850 pages and hardback?!? Majorly heavy and intimidating. If it were on Kindle, I wouldn't be so intimidated because I wouldn't know how long it was. And also it wouldn't break my arm to pick it up. I think this book sounds interesting, though, and I've really loved the Stephen King non-horror books I've read in the past, so I want to try it...just...haven't.

OK so remember last Saturday when I was all excited about filing our taxes and booking a vacation and I was like "hurry up Georgia and America and give me my dang refund so I can book a trip"?  Well apparently the government reads my blog and listens to me when I tell them to do stuff, cause our state refund was in my bank account on Thursday and the federal one today (although it's still 'pending'...it's as good as there). I mean-- HOLY COW! Taking into account that we filed late on a Saturday night and Sunday most likely all government places were closed...that's FAST, yo. So I would like to thank the United States and State of Georgia for doing something fast for once. I am most appreciative and very impressed. And also now I can BOOK MY VACATION!!!!

Well, since this is officially the Most Boring Blog Ever, I guess I'll sign off and get back to whatever HGTV or A&E (something about home flipping) marathon Matt has tuned into. Thrilling Saturday, people. Enjoy yours! 

accomplished

Things I Accomplished on MLK Day, 2013:

1. Slept in til 9:30.

2. Attended a yoga class with Mattie. It should be noted that I did not even ask him to go to this class-- upon hearing me declare "I think I'll try a yoga class today," he said "sounds cool, I'll try it too," and then he did. It was pretty fun!

3. Before beginning said yoga class, was approached by a woman who asked me if I was the yoga instructor. After I told her no, that actually this would be my first class ever, she said "oh! Well, you look like you could be a yoga instructor." At this point in time, my day was officially made. In case you were wondering what a yoga instructor apparently looks like, here's what I was wearing/looking like:

I'm sure you see it too, right? And yes, I am considering "getting mistaken for a yoga instructor" to be an accomplishment. Wouldn't you?

4. Grocery shopped at both Aldi and Publix.

5. Majorly reorganized all cabinets (we don't have a pantry) and the freezer. 

This included throwing out a crapload of expired (and mostly unopened...UGH) food and moving all of the "non-Bird Food Diet food" to a separate cabinet/part of the freezer. Which leads us to our current conundrum: what to do with all of that food? We have a whole bunch of frozen meat and dry goods (pastas, cream of ___ soups, snack food, brownie mixes) that we won't be eating in the foreseeable future. Should we a) hang on to them in case we give up the BFD soon and/or take a night/weekend off, b) give them away to friends/family who might have use for them, or c) donate to a food pantry. Of course, only the dry goods can be given to a food pantry...what about frozen meat? Need to figure this out. I will die if I look down there in 6 months and have 50 more pounds of now-expired unopened food to throw out.

6. Sliced up tons of fruit to dehydrate. We've been dehydrating fruit like crazy for the last week-- so fun and easy and makes for tasty snacks!

7. Chuckled at someone's FB comment that said something about how having inauguration events for a second term president is kind of like having a baby shower for a second baby. And then decided that I'm much more on board with repeat baby showers than repeat inaugural bashes because a) baby showers serve a purpose of giving a new baby things they actually need (diapers, monogrammed burpcloths, etc.), and b) baby showers are funded by people who WANT TO AND WILLINGLY CHOOSE TO FUND THEM and will also be attending/enjoying said party. And I can't say the same about inaugural events. So...ultimately I decided that second baby showers are way better and more necessary than second inaugural balls. 

8. Braved the 800 miles per hour winds and went on a long walk with Matt and Lola.

9. Knocked out a few chapters of test-reading for my friend Colleen's newest novel. Wondering what test-reading involves? Here's Colleen's vision for it. I'm really enjoying it!...both the story, and the part where I get to be really critical. Ha.

10. Silently (or out-loud to Matt, as the case may be) cursed the Postal Service/UPS for not running today. I'm expecting TWO packages from Amazon and ONE from Sephora-- how dare you take the day off?

11. Cooked a sweet potato and black bean chili and took this completely unappetizing photo right during the beginning of its "simmer for 30 minutes" phase.

Luckily, it tasted way better than it looks. And there are leftovers for tomorrow's lunch- woo!

12. Painted my nails.

13. Watched a few episodes of Duck Dynasty

and then The Bachelor.

Somehow I feel like these two shows cancel each other out and make me a well-rounded person.

And now that Bachelor is on, I feel confident that I will not accomplish anything else today. G'night!

blates, parties, and surgery.

Has this week felt weird and long to anyone but me? I think I will blame it on the election. I was so looking forward to it all being OVER...but then, as it turned out, the post-election social commentary was pretty much even worse than the pre-election drama...sheeeesh. That was just some unnecessary emotional trauma that the second half of my week didn't need. Luckily it looks like things are dying down now and we can get back to enjoying what is left of our short time on earth, since apparently the end is very near...or so say half the people in my Facebook newsfeed. 

Anyway. The very bright and silvery lining of my week was my "blate" (blogger date, obvs) with the fabulous Jennie. We met up Thursday evening at Clocked for a few hours of deliciously greasy food and great conversation. 

Although the media and your grandmother might have you believe that meeting people from the internet will inevitably result in becoming another notch on a serial killer's belt, I am proud to say that I have now survived (and even ENJOYED) TWO real-life meetings with blogger friends. And it's pretty fantastic. Matt wanted to know what we talked about. I was like "oh, you know, what people always talk about the first time they meet and hang out: ovulation, politics, medical ethics, sex, religion, Disney World, sperm, faith, dog breeds..." Pretty standard topics, right? Ha. I guess that being blog and novel-length-email friends first helps you skip past all the small talk! At any rate, I had a blast hanging out and am thankful that Jennie lives fairly close by (a mere 15 minutes from the RE practice that we both go to) so that we can be real life besties as well.

And lest you think my socializing is over for the week-- well, you would be wrong. Tomorrow I'm heading back to the ATL to attend the bachelorette festivities for my dear friend Elizabeth! I am super excited, as there is going to be present-opening, beverage-drinking, tapas-eating, comedy-club-attending, sky-high-red-heels-wearing, and slumber-partying involved. I am pretty excited, to say the least.

And finally, some good/bad news. Please picture those drama mask faces that have one happy mask and one sad mask, if you will. Do those things have a name? How would I even Google them to find a picture of them? But I bet you know what I'm referring to.

Anyway. Sidetracked. Ahem.

So we got Matt's surgery scheduled! Yay! (Happy mask) And it's in 2012! Yay! (Happy mask)

We don't yet have word whether insurance will cover it and/or it will cost us a million dollars. If we find out it'll be way too expensive, then I guess we'll just cancel it. But at least we got the spot reserved. (no masks. this is neutral information.)

The surgery is on Friday, December 14. Pre-op is December 12. Also known as 12/12/12. Also known as MY 30th BIRTHDAY. This means that I probably won't get to have my amazing Hunger Games birthday party I've been semi-planning for six months. Because I was either going to have it ON my birthday, or the Saturday following. Well...no can do, now. We'll be in Atlanta for pre-op late in the afternoon on the day of my birthday (and with traffic and such...too hard to try to plan something for that evening). And I can't very well schedule a party for the day after Matt's surgery because he'll be...broken. And needing his wifey to take care of him and fetch him things and not running off to throw javelins and shoot bows and arrows and eat 12 kinds of bread representing the 12 districts. :( (Sad mask)

I would try to think of another time to have it, but...have YOU ever tried to schedule a social event in December? It's all but impossible. Not to mention...parties cost money, and so do surgeries. And this'll be our second surgery in five months to fund. Yippppppeeeeee. Ugh. Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday to me. (Sad mask) (unless, of course, all of these surgeries actually result in a child. Then it will be HAPPY MASK all the way.)

So that's the news. Now I'm off to read and otherwise enjoy a low-key Friday night with Matt, who is currently reading a book entitled "Your Call is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit."  Silly boy. 

Happy weekend!

confessing. again.

It's a dark and chilly Wednesday night...what better way to spend it than with a little unburdening of the soul?

-I'm freezing cold right now (It's 45 degrees outside, which definitely qualifies as "freezing" in Georgia, and 65 in the house) but I am too cheap to turn the heat on yet. As much as I hate being cold...I love saving money and "toughing it out" more. For awhile, anyway. Then I'll give in. I do cheat with a space heater in my bathroom, though. I'm not insane.

-I skipped Zumba tonight. I tried convincing myself (and Matt) it was because my foot is hurting, which is true. But the real reason is that the cute workout outfit I wanted to wear is in the dirty clothes hamper. I gave longer and harder consideration to the idea of pulling it out and wearing it dirty (yeeech!!) than I did to picking something else (clean) to wear.

-I'm slightly overwhelmed, shocked, and 100% disgusted by the reactions of many of my Facebook "friends" to the election. I've never heard so many people pledging to "pray for our President and our country" with such thinly-veiled hate in their tone, implying that what they'd actually like to be doing is spitting in the faces of both the President and everyone who didn't vote exactly like them. It's pretty sickening.

-I'm going on a blog-date (blate?) tomorrow!!! My blog friend/soon-to-be-real-life-friend Jennie is coming to Athens and we're meeting for dinner and hanging out! I am both super excited and a teensy bit nervous that I will be a big huge disappointment in real life. Ha.

-I cried my eyes out during Walking Dead this week. I also concluded that no matter how Mother Earthy you are, an all-natural homebirth (prison-birth?) VBAC is just a terrible choice during a zombie apocalypse. Just FYI. And then I cried some more.

I think that's all, folks. As always...it feels good to get that off my chest. Feel free to jump on the confessional bandwagon!

extra extra, read all about it...

 Here I am to provide you with a much-needed break in Election 2012 coverage. Your relief is almost palpable, so I will say you're welcome in advance.

And for the record-- hopefully by the time you read this I will have voted. Go Erika, you amazing citizen, you! I'm heading over as soon as I get off work, so...who knew, right? Anyways. Moving on to things that actually matter.

Breaking News Story #1:

On Friday night, I bought lipstick.

...annnnnd for some reason this picture gets all pixelated when I make it bigger, so...sorry 'bout that. So this is possibly the first real lipstick I've ever purchased in my life (other than freebies in the Clinique Bonus packages, or stuff people handed down to me), and I went with bright red because I'm all go big or go home when it comes to these things. But I only spent 99cents (Wet & Wild, baby...haha) because I'm not go-big-or-go-home when it comes to my money. I figure if I actually like the whole idea of lipstick, maybe I'll invest in something a little pricier, but this works just fine for the experimentation phase.

Breaking News Story #2:

We had an appointment yesterday at the IF clinic to go over the results of all the tests/ultrasounds/etc Matt's been having for the last couple months. As you may recall, we've had a male-factor infertility diagnosis for about 3 years via my regular OB and a local urologist. Unfortunately, although he did have quite a few appointments with that urologist a few years ago, they couldn't figure out anything or provide any help other than referring us for IVF/specialty clinic. So anyways, now that we're neck-deep at the RE practice with MY janky insides, we figured we may as well start working on Matt's, too. We're equal opportunity and all that, right?

Luckily yesterday's appointment didn't involve any actual exams/poking and prodding/discomfort, just a review of the results of all that that he's already done. Even still, Matt was not terribly enthused about the whole situation, so I did what I could to cheer him up:

Matt had never heard of a mustache finger before, can you believe that??! He cracked up laughing every time I did this. It was precious. I am the best wife ever, right?

So. Not surprisingly if you've ever met me, I took notes during the appointment. And rather than waste my precious time (hahahahaha) re-typing them up (and since probably .0002% of you will actually care about the details here), I just snapped a picture and you can read my notes in their handwritten glory. Please know that the doctor was talking fast, so that's my excuse for poor handwriting and incomplete thoughts.

For clarification, the numbers in parenthesis after most of the parenthesis indicate what would be normal/what they'd like the percentages to be. So like for the first line: Matt's motility was 11-18% (based on different analyses of different samples). Ideally, motility would be at least 40%.

The part that I found most fascinating was that less than 10% of the sperm could survive uterine conditions (that number should be over 50%). Then, OF THOSE that COULD survive, only 47% were capable of penetrating the egg (should be over 80%). I was totally fascinated by what the doctor was describing he saw during these tests. And NO WONDER we can't friggin get pregnant!! The doctor said that the extremely high mortality rate of Matt's sperm explains why our post-wash counts during our IUI cycles were so bad. The 'violence' of the wash process totally wiped them out. Poor little guys. Anyway, I just thought all that was really interesting.

The bottom line, though, in case you can't decipher my notes, is that a few dilated veins are (through a long, complicated procedure he explained at length that I could definitely not re-explain to you) causing the abnormalities in the sperm. So our options are:

1) IVF. Surprise, surprise-- who saw that one coming??!?! He said our odds of achieving pregnancy via IVF (only taking into account Matt's sperm issues-- NOT INCLUDING my endometriosis/janky tube/etc) would be around 50% over a 6 month period-- because of the abnormalities INSIDE the sperm, however, even if they were able to successfully fertilize eggs/implant embryos, there would be an increased risk of miscarriage for me because the sperm really may not be very viable to do things right. (Sorry for all those technical terms. Ha.)

2) Correct those veins surgically, which would allow for the future production of normal sperm. Odds of achieving pregnancy after this surgery (again, not taking ME into account) would be about 60% over a 1 year period. 

Obviously, he recommended IVF if we were anxious to have children as soon as possible. However, he pointed out that without correcting the problem (and it's degenerative-- the sperm will continue to get worse and worse as a result of increased swelling and temperature in the sperm-making-factory), we will continue to have issues for any subsequent children, requiring future IVFs or whatever. He recommended surgery if we had time, and also because it'd be a one-and-done deal, meaning that the sperm issues should be fixed permanently in case we want more than one kid. Additionally, the surgery should be covered by insurance, whereas (duh) IVF is not.

SO. While we obviously are anxious to have children as soon as possible...clearly, since it's already been 4 years and we're not 30 (quite) yet, we have time, too. One more year (with much better odds) doesn't seem like that much. Of course the biggest element is MONEY, as in, we have little/none...SO a mostly-covered surgery that will give us long-term results is a LOT more attractive than an extremely pricey one-time-chance.

So looks like we're signing up for another surgery! Woohoo! We're trying to get it in before 2012 ends, since we've already paid Matt's deductible. 

Breaking News Story #3:

To celebrate our successful appointment yesterday, Matt suggested we stop by the Mall of Georgia on our way home and see if we could find anything at Forever 21 and H&M. This is him playing best husband to me playing best wife earlier (mustache finger, remember?). Not shockingly, I found a number of outfits and earrings that I absolutely needed. And Best Husband strongly suggested I purchase them. So I did.

In summary, I have red lipstick, a fantastic new sweater dress, and a hottie-and-generous husband who is happily and enthusiastically submitting to man surgery in our pursuit of kids. I win.