judiism

are you done?

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:21:37 -0400

i get asked the question a lot.

it honestly doesn’t bother me (this isn’t a ‘mind your business’ rant), it just …troubles me, a little.

because really? i have no idea. and i guess i feel like i should.

i took a photo the other night of greg and the girls and the frame just looks so complete. which feels so strange for me to say, because while wanting more than one child was never in question for me, there was a time that wanting more than two children wasn’t much of a question, either.

lately i look at our family of four and i get knocked over with a feeling of simple joy - happiness, wholeness, a sense that things are good and steady; a complete sentence. and all that in equal measure with all the expected feelings of anxiety about rocking this boat.

and that makes me think i have my answer.

but then i remember my gut feelings, a picture of a giant family that once occupied a huge space in my mind, and i feel like i’ve betrayed myself in some strange way.

not knowing is almost entirely ok with me. there’s a peace that comes with not making a decision like this - a ‘decision’ which isn’t entirely mine to make anyway (yes obviously there’s greg’s feelings to consider, but i’m referring to forces beyond either of our control).

it’s strange to me, i guess, that i never wondered about this ‘last time.’ but i guess that’st just called growing up - feeling comfortable and present and with a sense that, yes, this is enough.

and yet, i know there will always be plenty more love to give, just in case.

in the meantime… are we done? i have no idea.

mother’s day 2013. breakfast with the in-law family, playing in...

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:19:00 -0400

mother’s day 2013.

breakfast with the in-law family, playing in the park in couldn’t-have-asked-for-any-better weather, watching the kids ride bikes on our quiet little street while i sipped an iced coffee and lounged in the grass, a hilarious and heartwarming and even a little bit sad (we did a little memorial to my beautiful late grandmother, led by my beautiful mother) dinner together with my family.

it was a really, really, really good day. these smiling faces pretty much told you all that, though.

ignoring, for the moment, what i said yesterday regarding...

Fri, 03 May 2013 16:22:00 -0400

ignoring, for the moment, what i said yesterday regarding feeling suspicious of things that cost too much…

holy moly i want this in my closet.

[h/t to julie for introducing me to this brand.]

nosmokewithoutpryor answered: something you and the girls could personalize? maybe a jewelry box...

Fri, 03 May 2013 10:28:18 -0400

nosmokewithoutpryor answered: something you and the girls could personalize? maybe a jewelry box that the girls help decorate, and you can fill w/ cheap toy jewelry?

ooh i really like that idea a lot! i’ll keep you posted if that’s what we end up going with… thank you!

on anxiety ...over every little thing.

Thu, 02 May 2013 17:31:00 -0400

i posted a link to a blog yesterday that expressed with such remarkable acuity the agony i feel myself when making food choices for my family.

but a similar anxiety spreads to my decisions about, well, nearly everything else.

i’m suspicious of things that cost too little - child labor in stifling third world factories! illegal immigrants working on massive farms! government subsidies for corn production! favorable tax shelters for certain kinds of business and other things that i’ve only sorta heard of and know too little about but that sounds scary and bad! gahhh

but i’m about as equally suspicious of things that cost too much - why on EARTH should a blouse at j.crew cost three times a blouse at old navy? it can’t POSSIBLY IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM be three times as well-made don’t even try that on me.

i have no answer. that’s not [at all] the point of this. this is simply a glimpse into my anxiety-addled mind lately. every single choice feels monumental. every dollar is a vote and every vote says something about who i am and who i want to be and whether or not i’m making the world my children will inherit a better or worse place to be.

it’s exhausting.

keeping up with the joneses

Thu, 02 May 2013 15:01:23 -0400

or in this case the aunts-and-uncles-es.

i know this kind of question can be annoying questions to answer but i’m really stuck, so i’m asking anyway.

my brother- and sister-in-law are very generous gift-givers, especially with their nieces (i.e., my kids). their daughter is turning one in 2 weeks, so now we have to come up with a gift for her…

but we’ve been trying really hard to save / not spend frivolously lately, so while she’s my darling niece and i of course want to do something lovely for her, i’m not looking to buy her a pony or anything.

any ideas for something really special that won’t be TOO terribly spendy?

The Terrible Tragedy of the Healthy Eater

Wed, 01 May 2013 15:55:57 -0400

The Terrible Tragedy of the Healthy Eater:

grilledcheese:

This article sums up my feelings about healthy eating so perfectly.

nailed it.

or maybe i'm missing the point entirely

Wed, 01 May 2013 12:19:00 -0400

i think i would pay cash money for a therapist who would ‘see’ me via email.

i mean, for one thing, i get shy and nervous in person (proooobably the exact reason i should be doing it in person but whatevs) so i think i’d be more open via email.

but also? i have no time!! i LOVE therapy. therapy is GREAT. it just doesn’t fit into my LIFE. but i’m sitting at a computer all freakin’ day. (and i type really really fast.) i could shoot off a missive about the argument i had w/ my husband this morning and then take some time later to read what someone said i/he/we did wrong and help me figure things out. wouldn’t that be amazing and efficient?!

surisburnbook: So the Queen of the Netherlands officially...

Wed, 01 May 2013 08:39:30 -0400

surisburnbook:

So the Queen of the Netherlands officially abdicated her position today, and her son, the now-King Willem-Alexander, took her place. That means that these three little girls, literally sitting here in thrones with their grandmother the has-been Queen, are the first, second, and third in line for the Dutch throne. (Whatever the Dutch Queen job entails, it can’t be much more than cracking champagne bottles on cruise ships, which is pretty much my dream job.) The biggest one, Princess Catharina-Amalia, is now the Princess of Orange, and is the first woman in history to hold that title in her own right.

Crap, I don’t know what any of this means, only that there are three little girls who I hadn’t heard of last night but am now extremely jealous of.

you’d think someone would have taught that middle girl to sit w/ her legs closed by now. i mean, for goodness sake, she’s literally a PRINCESS.

that said, i kind of love her ‘come at me bro’ look she’s got going on there.

cause and effect

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:08:15 -0400

for a thirty-one-and-a-half-year-old woman, i have an astoundingly limited capability for internalizing the ramifications of some of the choices i make.

it’s kind of a remarkable skill, actually, the degree to which i can seemingly willfully ignore what i should very obviously understand to be the results of a series of quite ordinary actions.

and so it was with some actual shock, and not a small bit of delight, that i thought to myself this afternoon, “self. you’re really tired. i think it is perhaps because you went to bed LATE last night.”

fingers crossed this train of rational thought carries me all the way through to making a better decision at bedtime this evening.

Click a few dots, and this program will try to guess your age.

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:10:53 -0400

Click a few dots, and this program will try to guess your age.:

thekimenator:

It’s part of an experiment to analyze how motor control changes with age. It nearly guessed my age [ 29- my birthday is next month].

What about you? via jtotheizzoe:

i’m 31. it predicted me as 29. too bad nobody ever says, “your motor control looks good for your age.”

none of the parents of these children are blondes and yet...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:01:20 -0400

none of the parents of these children are blondes and yet somehow three brunettes and a ginger created these blonde beauties (jury is actually still out on my little one - maybe i get a redhead after all?).

we got together with some of our favorite people this weekend to meet the (not pictured) third child of our dear friends nick & kathren. the (older) children had a blast and made beautiful music together. the kids are perfectly spaced - caraline, almost 4; harley, almost 3.5; will, 2.5; delilah, 15 months - and played SO nicely together. and when it was time to go, that handsome little gentleman in the front told me he didn’t want me to go and he loved me.

winning weekend.

important. via scenes-from-my-hood

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:30:07 -0400

important.

via scenes-from-my-hood

i'm still in the office

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 19:27:38 -0400

banging my head against a wall trying to get a report out with missing information and OF COURSE the only person who can answer my question is on the other side of the world.

cheap thrills

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 14:46:18 -0400

i get a little (too) excited when the 2 soups being served in the work cafeteria both sound good to me, and seem like flavors that would work together, and then i combine them in one cup* and it’s DELICIOUS and i declare myself a goddamn culinary genius.

i know no one cares what you had for lunch, but i really felt you needed to know this about me.

*today it was potato leek and french moroccan lentil. BAM. [sorry emeril.]

**i probably need to get a life.

you can go ahead and scoff (and really, you probably should,...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 13:56:00 -0400

you can go ahead and scoff (and really, you probably should, this is no high brow music selection here) (though you should also know that i sincerely and so unapologetically love ~~cheesy~~ country music) but hearing this song last night… well, i can’t say if it was anything about the song, or just natural timing, but i finally felt myself

exhale.

i’ve been feeling like my life lately is being pulled so taut, and i’m just going to snap. i can’t fit one more thought into my head, one more plan into my routine, i’m barely doing anything at 100% anymore…

i’ve been beating myself up a LOT.

and what suddenly hit me last night is i’m feeling way too sorry for myself.

so i had a good cry. and a DEEP BREATH. and i’m starting fresh.

i got home last night at 7.

most days i’d look at the clock and already feel despondent. it’s too late to really start a healthy dinner with nothing much planned/prepped, guess it’ll be mac&cheese again. the girls are going to be up late, our night is going to be a disaster, everything is terrible, look how messy the kitchen is, harley doesn’t even have a single* clean sock in her drawer.

instead, while greg spent some time winding down with the kids and getting them ready for bed, i cut up chicken in small, will-cook-quickly pieces, then opened the freezer and spotted TJ’s 3-minute brown rice and some half-empty bags of frozen corn & peas.

a stir fry. that came together quickly and easily and most important mindlessly while i watched the children play in the next room.

they were not in bed early. but they were fed a healthy, home-cooked meal, made entirely by me, we ate dinner together (a novelty) and they went too bed…

and since i was done feeling sorry for myself, i didn’t sink into the couch…

i cleaned up the kitchen, put on a load of laundry, and went through the mail.

this is not groundbreaking stuff. this is what needs to happen on a normal night to make a household run. but i’ve been so fogged in with my frustrations that i let that be the reason i was feeling so behind.

i can do this, it won’t all be perfect but it WILL most definitely be fine.

*i’m not even joking with you when i tell you she wore mismatched orphan socks to school on wednesday.**

**this was entirely her doing. there was clean laundry, i just hadn’t put it away in her room yet. i offered to get her an actual pair of socks from the laundry room but she was rather amused with her selection.

[eta: wow jodee messina kind of has a scary face and that is a bizarrely large photo. sorry everyone.]

scene in the board room when this product was...

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:46:05 -0400

scene in the board room when this product was suggested:

“balancing on a balance ball is too hard. let’s add some legs and a back so that it’s easier.”

“isn’t that just …a chair?”

“you’re fired.”

headset!! making conference calls easier and 100% dorkier since...

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 11:34:00 -0400

headset!!

making conference calls easier and 100% dorkier since two minutes ago.

how's that resolution going?

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 10:39:01 -0400

(asked nobody at all. but whatever.)

month 1, as reported, was a legitimate success.

month 2, broke down already and bought a few items for the girls but only in larger/future sizes after finding myself in a carter’s store w/ a store credit from some returns, and an absurd sale going on (everything BO-GO-50%-off).

month 3, caved again as far as shopping-for-the-kids was concerned, when i mistakenly logged into zulily after a (very wise) months-long hiatus. oops. stocked up on some summer dresses that H will wear this year and D will wear 2 yrs later, and i swear i’m done shopping for them for a WHILE now. i also bought myself a new pair of pumps for that job interview (damn).

month 4, get back on track, hopefully!! should help that the change of season naturally refreshes my wardrobe options b/c i currently am sick of everything.

got the news

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:21:00 -0400

apparently i made it to the final round…

but they went with the other candidate.

it’s a complex cocktail of emotions because i had anxiety about each and every possibility of how this could have gone, and so while i’m extremely disappointed it’s over, i’m also pretty significantly relieved

that it’s over.

separately, i feel like i’m getting played here. i was excited about some of the changing that seemed to be going on, but it was a lot of talk. no - scratch that - there are changes, it’s just that none of them are particularly great for me.

i’m really frustrated. and sad. and worried about so many things.

but at least i’m no longer waiting and wondering.