3856 miles southeast of Dutch Harbor So I'm still alive. Seriously. And I have this awesome post that I've been trying to write for like, almost three months now, about how Brianna came to be - or came to be born, I suppose. But yeah. Life with a newborn and all that. It hasn't happened. So here's a short take on everything lately:
Brianna Katelyn was born 2/1/09. She is awesome, cute and smart and funny and all the things babies should be. She looks like her daddy, and has a lot of his temperament, which is very amusing at least at the moment (I see trouble on the distant horizon, but for now it's very cute).
I'm working, from home until May, then back in the office. Working at home is really hard, Brianna demands (no, seriously, demands - like with shrieks and everything) my attention most of the time she's awake, which makes working difficult. And working in the office will be hard, because I can't take her with me. So it's just difficult all around.
I'm still not quite settled in to life, I guess. I keep reminding myself that normal is just a setting on the washing machine, and that maybe this is my new normal, but I still feel like I'm on tilt or something. Maybe it'll all even out when Brianna starts sleeping through the night? Or maybe having spit-up in my hair, no sleep, and no clothes that fit is actually the new normal, and I should get over it, lol.
Being home, I've gotten addicted to a lot more TV. Which is sad, really. Because I'll have to give it up when I go back to work. Mostly shows on TLC and Style, which is probably also sad.
Being a mom has eaten my brain. Yeah. My vocabulary has been reduced to like, nothing, and I'm starting to laugh at really dumb stuff. And enjoy stupid comedies way more than I should.
We're going home next month for a graduation, and to show off Brianna to all the friends/family that we haven't met yet. Crazy stuff. And it looks like we'll be driving. Across two states. With an infant. Ha! I'm expecting our nice 12 hour drive to be something closer to 18 hours. I'm just sayin'. But - it'll be an adventure. And we have to get her used to it somehow, because flying + renting a car every time we go home is kind of silly.
That is all for now. Eventually, I'll finish the other post. Maybe.
I can't find the words to pray / I'm a little down today So I've been really quiet, which is typical - and yet not typical. There has been a lot going on, but long story short, I haven't had to words to explain anything, or the emotional capacity to think through everything enough to find the words. But I'm working on it now, so this will probably be a long long post... it's been a long time coming.
So. Being pregnant. It hasn't been that bad, although I've whined a lot about it to anyone who's gotten too close to me (mostly Chad, though, as I've kind of withdrawn a bit from the rest of the world). Everything is progressing well, the baby is growing great, and the doctor seems happy with all my tests for now. The two biggest problems have been my tiredness... I'm super tired all the time, and can't seem to get enough sleep no matter what. And my emotions. Which is part of why I've withdrawn a bit... when spilling french fries or breaking a nail makes me cry, I have little reserves left to deal with people. And their problems. Or even my own problems.
My dad had a stroke about a month ago. It took the doctors like, three days to figure it out, so by the time they got around to "fixing" it, it was pretty bad. He was in the hospital for more than a week, then went home with no feeling in his right hand, trouble walking, an inability to read at all, some mild confusion, and vision loss on his right side. And a pretty serious case of depression. After a couple of weeks at home, and starting physical therapy, and improving a little... he had another stroke. This one has left him much more confused... I've talked to him a half dozen times in the last week, and every time he asks me at least twice when the baby is due. He's not always sure why he's in the hospital, or even where he is. They moved him from the regular hospital (where he's been for a week) to the rehab hospital late last week, and they're working him pretty hard there. It doesn't look like he'll be going back to work. Mom's holding up pretty well, but she's really starting to wear thin. She's trying to decide whether to switch jobs to make a little more money and keep better insurance, or to keep her current job (which she's only marginally happy with). Since she's the sole breadwinner for the time being, at least, she feels like she's under a lot of pressure.
This has caused me a great amount of stress aver the last month, as I'm not exactly in a position to drop everything and run to Huntsville to help out, and not in an emotional state to really be much help even if I went. Practically speaking, I have 6 days of vacation left for the year. To match Chad's time off at Christmas, even though we aren't traveling, I'll need five of those. That leaves one lonely vacation day. Chad and I have talked about going home over a weekend... driving in to Huntsville on Friday, picking up a U-Haul trailer to hold stuff we need to bring back, and coming back through Memphis - arriving home Monday, having spent about 24 hours with each set of parents, and about 30 hours on the road. This, you might have noticed, takes two vacation days, which puts me short at Christmas, which I think at this point is inevitable. Add to this the complication that there's a wedding in Huntsville in early November that I'm kind of expected to attend (except it's not really a wedding, I suppose, but that's another story). Plus, the longer we wait, the more uncomfortable I'll be traveling. And thus the more whining Chad will have to endure on the drive.
So the long and short of this becomes... when do I go home? Later, to meet family obligations to attend a wedding, and when my dad might be a little better (if he doesn't get worse)? Or earlier, when I can (possibly) be more help, and will be more comfortable, but will miss the other family events?
Blah. To complicate this even more, I'm not sure my folks will be here for Thanksgiving, as I'm not sure they'll have the money to travel, or that Dad will be well enough to travel. And since I can't go home at all in December or January, that was supposed to be Christmas for us. And I don't know if my mom will be able to come out for as long as she was planning to in February to help with/see the baby. And Chad's parents haven't made any plans to come visit us before the end of the year, or after the baby comes (they will, I'm sure, but no plans yet). So me going home is my big chance to visit, until I'm able to travel with the baby, which will be like, the middle or end of March, at best.
So yeah, words have failed me lately. Life, it seems, goes on day by day, regardless of everything else. And day to day, life isn't all that bad. It when you lump all the days together that it starts to get overwhelming, I guess.
No one to tell us no / or where to go Back from vacation. And it was awesome.
The cruise was the best part. We went Jet-skiing, hung out on Disney's private island, and saw a little of Nassau. We ate great food, saw great shows, and generally enjoyed that whole thing.
We also enjoyed that land part of the vacation, although it was much more tiring (all four parks! Yikes!). The Disney resort was pretty cool... we stayed in Port Orleans - French Quarter.
Now I'm back and work, and super tired. But. This week is a short week (yay!) and even shorter for me, since I'm taking Friday off to go to a wedding (double yay!).
Take some time, mellow out / Party up, but don't fall down Yay! Fun stuff is happening! and more is about to happen!
Went to a graduation party this weekend for Dr. Sarah Nagel. Who's dad is now the Faculty Senate President at State. So we spent a lot of time catching up on the real story of what's going on at State (not the nice, clean, daffodil-drama-free story that I get in the alumni newsletters). Fun times! And best of all, Sarah might not be moving far away from us (yet, at least)! While we were there, my mom called to tell me that...
My sister is coming to visit me this week! She's flying in Wednesday, and flying out on Sunday, which is the same day we leave for our...
Disney Vacation! Cruise and theme parks! As grown-ups! Yay! and a couple of days after we get back, we get to leave again because...
William is getting married! So we get to travel to The Coast and see old friends and stuff. I love visiting old friends, so we're doing it again in late June or early July when...
We meet Richie and Angela in Orlando to go to Universal for a couple of days. But, it gets better than that. They just got engaged, so...
We'll be traveling to Seattle for their Wedding in November!
So much travel! It's crazy! But yeah, it should be fun. Sometime in all of this, we might have to think about going home to visit our parents...
You were handsome / You were pretty / Queen of New York City So Chad and I spent Thursday through Sunday in New York City. I had a class to take for Work (Friday and Saturday), so Chad decided to come with me and see the city. We had a great time! And did a great deal of the touristy stuff available in Manhattan. Our hotel was at Lexington and 48th, which made everything really convenient (We were about five blocks form Grand Central Station).
We saw a play on Broadway - Macbeth, starring Patrick Stewart. Fan. Freaking. Tastic. Seriously. (Chad also saw Phantom of the Opera, while I was in class).
We saw Rockefeller Center, Times Square, Radio City Music Hall, 5th Ave, and Central Park.
While on 5th Ave, we went to FAO Schwartz, which is only the most awesomest toy store eVar. Toys-R-Us at Times square is a close second.
We ate New York style pizza, deli sammiches, and food form a pub, but skipped the hot dogs from the hot dog vendors (when we were ready to eat, we almost always wanted to sit down).
We road the subway from grand central station to the downtown area, saw the Statue of liberty (this took two tries, as it was foggy the first time), the World Trade Center (it's a big hole in the city, you can't miss it), and the American Stock Exchange.
We took the subway uptown a bit, and went to the Met. We only spent two hours or so there, but it was awesome. I could have easily spent weeks there. Easily.
All in all, the trip was a success. And we arrived home safely. Yay!
In other news, Music Choice on demand has a special this month: Snoop Dogg: Does Starkville. Seriously. I had to watch it, just because Starkville is NEVER the subject of this kind of thing. It's only six minutes long, an it manages to make Starkville look like a hell hole, full of poor people and run down houses, and two drunk frat boys. *sigh* I'm not sure what I was expecting. But that wasn't it.
For what it's worth / It was worth all the while So we drove to Denver this past weekend, which was awesome (which is to say, being in Denver and visiting people was awesome, having a captive audience in the car for 36+ hours was awesome, the driving itself was not so awesome). I got to see all kinds of interesting things for the first time on the trip though:
Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado. Ha!
Giant windmill things (in Kansas)
Tumbleweed
Prairie dogs
Oil wells (the kind that look like those bird-looking perpetual motion things... not sure how to describe it)
The Rockies
I also learned some things on the trip:
Kansas is the birthplace of Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill, and William Chrysler.
The first patented helicopter was in Kansas.
In spite of all this, Kansas is lame.
Apparently, real trees don't really grow where there's no water, so you get stuck with these little weedy trees... which are funny. But not really trees.
Those windmill things are bigger than I could have imagined.
Traveling to Denver while trying to get over a sinus infection will make your ears hurt. But they won't actually explode. Which is good.
We got to visit Krys, Manda, and their boys, play Shanghai (though not the last couple of rounds), eat pancakes and sushi (not at the same time), tour Boulder, appreciate the awesomeness of friends who have known you forever and don't manufacture their own drama, run around Pearl St. mall, and Manda introduced me to a store that sells happy-hippie eco-friendly natural soaps and shampoos and stuff. And they are opening one in Houston. Yay! I might have to buy stock in them or something, seriously.
All in all, the trip was a success. I would definitely do it again, with less car this time, and more airplane.
Right and left it's all the same conspiracy / just cause you ask, doesn't make a difference to me Did my civic duty and voted yesterday. Not that it really mattered much... I always was one to go for the under dog :-) I had an unrelated excuse to work from home, so I was able to go to the polls at an off-peak time, and mostly avoid the lines. This also meant that I was the only person in my party at the polls who was under, like, 100 years old. (This probably holds true for the other party, as well, but I didn't sneak over to their side of the building to look)
I went to the first meeting of that Tuesday night women's bible study last night... it looks like it's going to be a good group, but (as of last night) there isn't really anyone my age. And I'm the only one without kids. But everyone seemed happy to have me there anyway. Interestingly enough, there was a woman there who had recently moved from Starkville. So we sat and talked about places we ate and shopped in Starkville, and where exactly we lived.
Somehow, the year has gotten away from me. I was pretty sure it was still the middle of January, and then people started asking me what I want for my birthday, and reminding us to nail down our summer travel plans (since we're looking at traveling in May)... How did it get to be March already?
Vegas and back again... This week is Spring break for me... yay! So we took a couple of days and flew out to Las Vegas. Which was awesome. We got a cheap airfare and hotel deal (staying at the Hilton!), which made it even better.
Day 1: The trip out there Brian, Chad and I flew from Houston to Vegas, with a layover at DFW... was suposed to be like, 2.5 hours, ended up being closer to 4. Luckily, DFW is huge and has lots of places to eat and sit and play cards. Ate Bennigan's, played Chrononauts. With the time difference, it was close to 2am when we got to Vegas, and closer to 3am by the time we got checked into our rooms. High point of the day: The hilton magically upgraded us from one room to two rooms, no extra charge.
Day 2: The Strip We ate the most expensive breakfast buffet eVar, and headed out to try and see some of the sights. We bought these Power Pass things that got us into most of the attractions, which I would highly recommend. After spending like, 30 minutes at the fashion show mall to pick up our passes, we went to Circus Circus to visit the indoor theme park (which was ok, but not all that great). 1st high point of the day: saw the girl who plays Claire in Heroes, doing the tourist thing and riding the coaster at Circus Circus. After that, we stopped at New York New York, which was probably the most well themed casino I've ever seen. The guys rode the coaster, but I can't ride coasters anymore... Then we went to Excalibur, and bought tickets for the Tournament of Kings dinner show (which was really cool). Before dinner, we managed to take the train to the Luxor... my new favorite hotel. @nd high point of the day: seeing hte Luxor. It's awesome. We did the museum thing there, and I took about a million pictures. Then back to the Excalibur for dinner. After dinner, I dragged the guys back to the Luxor, where I proceeded to spend most (all, really) of my vacation money on Eqypt stuff (three statues: Thoth, Osirus, and Isis with her wings spread). We got done there, and started walking back down the strip, stopping at the M&M store, and at the Bellagio to see the fountains. I discovered that hookers can be bought for $50, or two for $99 (no, I didn't ask, they were advertising). We finally gave up waiting for the trolley, and took a taxi back to the hotel.
Day 3: The dam Woke up, ate a slightly less expensive breakfast buffet, and got on a bus to go to the Hoover Dam. What was suppoed to be a 4 hour tour took more like 7, but we had a good time, anyway. We didn't eat lunch, and thus were starving when we got back to the Hilton. So we stopped at Quark's, in the Star Trek Experience. Ate Hamborgers while being insulted by both Ferengi and Klingons. Then we did the rest of the experience... the star trek museum and the two rides. Hihg pont of the day: Star Trek. In general. Also, the three of us got our picture on the bridge of the Enterprise. Very cool. Chad and I stayed up for a bit, so I could play slots... I left almost $25 up.
Day 4: The trip home Had to be at the airport at like, 4am to come home. ate breakfast at the airport, and had naother 2 hour layover at DFW. Played more Chrononauts. Got home at like, 3:30pm, picked up the dog from the kennel, cooked dinner, and played video games until 11 or 11:30.
All in all, it was a great trip. There's a few things I'd like to go back and see/do, but overall I think we got our money's worth. I'm staying in the Luxor next time, I think :)
Today we woke up, and Chad's sick... he's going to the doctor this afternoon, so we'll see what the deal is then. Hopefully I'll either avoid getting sick somehow, or get it over with before the break ends.
This is my brain..... in part, at least.
