The girls playing at the park

I'm playing around with Be Funky again.

If you know me in Facebook, you've seen some of the pictures I've made there. You may also have noticed that I really like purple ... All my photos that have color in them from Be Funky have a shade of purple. (I guess the banner on my blog does too. Our kitchen is purple too. Next up, maybe some burgundy. That's the color in our dining room. And on our front door.)

I'm tired. I hope to feel caught up a little bit on life in the next couple of days. I hope I can actually write a semi-interesting / meaningful post soon. I feel like I've been so scattered as of late.... Sorry, what was I saying?

Okay... zzzzzzz.

My mind...

twoK has a mind. She keeps talking about how she is doing things "in her mind." It's really cute.

Yes, it's normal, and not that exciting developmentally, but she's really cute. She has been working on "lying" for about a year... I started a post about that... This is a place holder for a post about Theory of Mind when I have time to write about it. It's been about a year since I did the "appearance reality tasks" with the girls. twoK sometimes got it and sometimes didn't last year. This year, she'll totally pass the task.

As I drive, Three-a keeps telling me, "If you turn around, that road will take us home." She points at the other lane in the road.

oNe has another loose tooth.

Oh, I forgot to write about Three-a and twoK's teacher conferences at preschool.... Another note to myself to do it soon!

Dew-y

The dew and the web. oNe and I saw it one morning as we parked and walked into school.

Spring

It's been a beautiful weekend. Despite how much I've worked this weekend, we've gone to 3 parks. Woo. The photo is from one yesterday. Even though it's just the iPhone camera, I kind of thought it was fun with the tree shadows and the flowers.

What else... I got up very early this morning to do some work. It was so early it was still dark, but I got a lot done. It was so quiet. It was almost worth it getting up that early to have a little quiet, but not quite. By 1:30 pm I was ready for a nap. I didn't get one. Instead, the girls and I went wading in a creek. We live near a fabulous park that has a little creek in it. This is the first year we've gone in it. I must say that little girls are lots of fun. Babies are sweet, but little girls are super fun!

Parties...

A colleague/friend had a party and I didn't go. I wanted to go, but it started late-ish, we had no babysitter, my Mom is visiting, I'm writing a paper, I'm tired...I think I have been fighting off a cold this week.... (I think Zicam is winning. I'll have to write about Zicam and how much I <3 it soon.)

It's a bummer to miss events. I really would have loved to hang with the folks there.

spelling fun

http://www.future-perfect.co.uk/grammartips/grammar-tip-focussed-focused.asp

I spelled focused with two s letters last entry. It turns out, one is preferred. I thought it looked funny, but the spell checker didn't object so I left it. Now I know. I think M$ word spell checker turns it into one s all the time for me.

I'm still working... It's getting better... It always takes so much time to write a paper. I estimate I'll get to spend another crazy week or so with this paper when I get with an advisor, and that will be mostly on my time, but hopefully, I'll be able to plan the timing of the craziness a little better so I don't end up with any birthdays or visitors next time.

More Coffee?

I am so tired. Granted, I have a lot going on... 1) all of regular life 2) Mom visiting 3) paper... 4) MWH's birthday this week.

I'm not sure what order I should have put things....

I had coffee at 5:30, but I'm falling asleep.

The good news today is that the paper seems to be getting a bit more focussed. The bad news is I'm not done yet.

Okay... Maybe I can do a leeeeeetle more before I sleep. Or not. We'll see.

By mid next week I should be back to more normal.


Oh... remind me to tell you about my pulse rate. It's interesting. Or, well, it is to me. I <3 Zumba.

wowza

Many years ago, Former Supervisor (FS) and I wrote a paper. I should say HE wrote it and was nice enough to let me be a co-author on it. Every time I go back and read it, I am absolutely amazed at what a good paper it is. I am still not able to write like he wrote when he wrote it. I'm not able to make the connections he makes. I made a couple of good contributions to it, but the genius was his.

I just did math and calculated he was about 6-8 years older than I currently am when he wrote it, so maybe in 6-8 years I'll be able to write with as much insight and aplomb as he......but probably not.

File under: Feeling inadequate and wishing he were still my supervisor.

Still

Still very busy. My paper, the one for work, continues to drive me crazy. I think I have the direction all figured out and then it seems to not work any more. I think that it really is two papers that I'm trying to cram into one and it works for a while, but then reaches a breaking point and doesn't allow me to justice to either one. I hope to talk to two colleagues about it today/tomorrow.


What else... My Mom is visiting. It's a good visit. She just does this one thing that MIGHT drive me crazy. I'm trying not to let it and today I explained to her why she needed to stop doing it... What "it" is.... She'll ask for something.... I'll go start getting whatever it was she wanted and when I'm 7/8ths done with whatever she wanted she'll say, "Oh, if it's too much trouble, don't bother." ARGH. Say that BEFORE I start, but don't make a feeble attempt to not look like you are making me do extra work when I am ALMOST done.

Okay. I feel better now.

Oh, except for another issue, but this one is with the nanny.

I don't think I'm very much fun to be around right now. I am a little stressed.

I wanna nap

I feel blah.

I have a lot of work to do.

My Mom is visiting and I want to enjoy her visit, but as usual, I feel like I have too much work to do to enjoy it. It's weird too to not have my Dad here.

I know that part of my blah-ness right now is exhaustion and throw in a little emotional stuff.... I just want to take a nap, but the little girls are home from school and they need me. I'll hopefully go to bed EARLY tonight and get up REALLY early and have time to work tomorrow.

Hrm... Maybe I can sneak a nap in if I put in a video.... Use TV for good, not evil. I think this counts.

MWH said...

"I can tell you're busy with work... You haven't blogged much this week."

Heh.


And yes, he gets bonus points for reading the blog!

Strawberry and broccoli

That's the kind of pretend cake Three-a made me. (You know the game where they hand you an empty plastic plate and plastic fork and tell you, "It's ______! Eat it Mommy! You'll like it!") My 3.5 year old has noticed I prefer healthy foods.




Sent from my iPhone

To which I say, GOOD GRIEF!

and oh my!* and ARRRGH! and YIKES!

Not good.

What do you think?

I'm writing my paper.

Hope to be back and do a real post later.

xoxo.





*Link found here

I'll just get up REALLY EARLY...

That's what I used to say when I was teaching. I'm saying it again now so I can get more writing done. Today, I've gotten in 2.5 good hours of writing.

Before I reached my 2.5 hours of good writing, I spent an hour this morning going back through and determining where I was, and where I was heading with the paper before the conference. (Context switching is SO hard!) I was starting to get on a role writing before the conference. I thought I'd be able to keep writing and make progress on the paper at the conference....

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... The conference was pretty intense. Okay, really intense. Good. Learned tons. I am sure my head is actually a leeeeeetle bigger because of all the new synapses created during the conference. Darn, I wish I had measured it before I went.

Anyway, now, I'm back writing my paper and I am going to stay up late or get up REALLLLLLLLLY EARLY tomorrow because I want a complete draft. I would like it by tomorrow night. It's probably do-able.

---

On another note, today, oNe had the day off from school. I took her and her sisters to an indoor playground (it rained for a while). We met up with some of the other kids in her class. It was great.

I loved getting a chance to talk with three of the other Moms. One of the Moms is in my Zumba class, and I really like the other two. One of the other Moms has a really difficult daughter. She's fully aware of how difficult her daughter is, and she doesn't particularly like it, but she loves her daughter, and she's totally down-to-earth, so I find talking to her, and her perspective on the situation, really interesting.

Okay, remind me to tell you about arms, and kids/parents community stuff.

Off I go to write a little more and then work out.

lots

1. My Mom comes to visit this week. I haven't cleaned. I waffle between doing very minimal cleaning and hiring a cleaning service to scrub my house. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

2. I survived the conference. I learned tons. I think it was good. We have a lot to do in the next 2 weeks and 2 days. Yikes.

3. I spent yesterday sitting very still for a while. Apparently, I ate something that disagreed with me, and it was best to NOT move. After a few hours, I was mostly recovered. Totally weird.

4. While I sat (very) still I got some work done.

5. Today, oNe and I went to a birthday party. She played air hockey for the first time and cried when she made a point (on herself) for the other girl. Other than that, it was fun, but not as much fun as parties at that place usually are. I think it's because usually we are going to parties where we know more people.

6. Tomorrow she has the day off of school.

7. oNe's cat just leaped in my lap and ran across the computer. Spaz! Now he's sitting in the chair NEXT to me.

8. I got a craving to watch Men in Black last night. Actually, I realized it won't be too much longer (in the grand scheme of things) that oNe, twoK and Three-a can watch it with us. After I realized this, I wanted to watch it. Fortunately, Netflix had it available online so MWH and I watched about 1/2 of it last night.

9. I'm tired.

10. I am so glad to be home! Yesterday, after having missed the girls for 3 days, I was so patient with them. It was amazing. Today, I was still patient, but not quite as patient. Tomorrow, I'm sure I'll be back to normal.

11. Okay, most go read/try to write. I'll probably have more luck with the former than the latter tonight.

Preliminary data

According to Three-a, here's the rank order of items on the silliness factor. More data will need to be collected.

1. Bottom
2. Polka-dot underwear
3. underwear in general
4. banana peels

We will re-administer the interview tomorrow to test for reliability and validity. In addition, we will increase the N in the sample from one to three. The data collection (interview administration) will be done by one researcher to control for differences in administration. The participants will be interviewed separately so that the answers of one participant to not influence the answers of the other participants.

Yea, the work this week was all research, all the time.

I left the building.

For lunch. And then we walked to the beach. Then we turned right around, literally, and went back to work.

I took this out the window.

A favorite number

Work trip

That's the view outside my room at the hotel*. I won't actually be partaking in the lounging because it's a leeeeetle chilly for that (in my opinion). Also, I will be WORKING. Today was 4 hours in a room with lots of coffee and lots of new info. It was good! And! my friend PS is here. Woo! And! I got to see one of my students from last fall tonight. I just miss my girls and MWH. A lot! More than a lot.





*Well, technically, it's not the view outside my room any more... I switched rooms, but the view from the new room looks pretty much like that one.

one teeny tiny thing I don't have to stress about!

I take a dance class. I've taken it on and off for 10 years. Before then, I danced (mostly on) for 15 years. I should be better than I am, but alas, I blame the time I took off for not being very good. And the fact that I'm naturally klutzy. I am thankful for all the years of dance I've had because I don't trip over my own two feet (very often).

Anyway, sorry for the diversion, but the point of this post was to tell you I'm NOT in the dance show! Woo! My dance teacher used to try to get everyone in the whole class doing the show. It takes a lot of commitment to do the show. I don't have it this year. Plus, I didn't take in the fall, nor the whole year before that so I am RUSTY. I'm slowly catching up, but still rusty. I am very glad I don't have to work to learn the dance and be in the show. Assuming I can take dance the whole year next year, maybe I'll want to be in the show.

I was very relieved that I didn't have to say I didn't want to be in the show.

Right now, I just feel overwhelmed by life. I realize I have a lot going on with the girls, and my work. Sometimes it feels like way too much, but I don't think I'd be happy if I gave up working. I like what I do. I have to go on a work trip tomorrow, and I don't want to go.... I mean I wanna go to learn the stuff, but I don't want to leave the girls and MWH. Okay... Must sleep now.

It is good for you!

Exercise can roll back the clock!

Change

I dislike this time change! I like nights that stay light later, but the day of the change (even the week of the change) is JUST PAINFUL.

Hey, did I mention that oNe's kitty is a germ-y cat? You wouldn't know to look at him. He's got soft shiny fur. He's very energetic. He has a great appetite. We're still working on getting him as healthy as we can. I was really stressed about it last week, but now I realize I can't stress so much. I'll do what I can to help him and his slightly compromised immune system. I'm very good at giving kitties meds. I'm also a big believer in prevention rather than treatment.

You'll hear more specifics about oNe's kitty later. One thing we get to do is brush his teeth. Of all the cats in the world, he's probably one of the easier going ones, so he's not fighting too much on this--that's good! We're in the "let's see how much better we can get him" phase. It's a slow phase and one has to be patient and know that good diet, supplements when they can help, and medicines when something is acute can do a lot.

MWH's kitty went and got a blood draw yesterday. MWH's kitty has Chronic Renal Failure. We're hoping his numbers show that the disease isn't getting worse. I was delighted to learn that he hasn't lost any weight! This is a good thing with a sick kitty.

As long as I'm doing kitty updates...I miss Beloved Kitty... He's been gone for 4 years now. I can't believe it. I didn't mark the date on here this year, but I still miss him everyday. It's a little less painful, but I truly believe there will never be a kitty that I love as much as him.

Right now, oNe and twoK are making "cat food." It's pretend, but they have quite the production going in my kitchen. They made bags of it. It's pretty funny and cute. They are cooking for their kitties. (Yes, I do this. I don't package it up in catfood bags, but, they are improving on my methods.)

---

I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about work stuff this weekend. I accomplished a little writing. I got a consultant back involved in the project (on Friday I spoke with SH and now we'll use that money PS!) and we'll get a paper out of it. I'm going to be doing a work trip this week. It should be a good learning experience. Woo!

What else? Oh, the backyard saga continues. I'm hoping we can get 1/4 of it done this year. It's COMPLICATED. It seems that whatever we do construction-wise ends up being complicated. I guess we like challenges. Or something like that.

On our last trip to the library

We found this book for my friend PS.


And this book for me...

positive, really

Focus on the positive!

It's been a good day.

Don't think about the stuff you don't know. Don't stress. You are only human. It's OKAY.

Earlier today, I was positively giddy, then I was happy, now I'm overwhelmed.

Remind me to tell you about my interaction with twoK's preschool teacher... Or maybe not. Let's just leave it at, I don't think she and I connected very well. I don't think it was either of our faults (exactly). I think it will be hard for me to convince her that I am not a loser Mom. I am not. I am kind of annoyed with her, but I'm willing to move past it. I am not going to hold her view of the world against her. The interaction with her took me down from "giddy" to just happy. Ugh.

Okay, this is something I'm proud I've accomplished today....I bought some reusable sandwich bags!

Woo!

My friend told me about them. I was talking with her and saying how I wanted something like a reusable bag for oNe's sandwiches because her lunch box was too small for a container for her sandwich. It never had occurred to me to google to see if reusable sandwich bags existed, but my friend knew they existed. Once she told me of their existence, it was easy to find them. Woo! I can feel a bit more green now! Yippeeeeeeeee! I'll report back on them when I get them. Let me know if you have used them.

Oh... My favorite moment today was when the girls were singing for me and I had to dance to their singing. They are so cute! Then, they'd stop singing and I had to stop dancing.

One thing I've learned...

Today, I got an email notification that Day out with Thomas is coming soon....er, well, in 4 months.

We went once... almost 4 years ago. I remember because I was pregnant with Three-a. It was fun, but I remember planning the day and being so excited because oNe loved Thomas. You know what, it was fun, but it wasn't life-changing. So often, parents, myself included, get all excited because they think their kid(s) need to experience a certain thing.

I'm learning that, most likely, there will be other opportunities to do X, Y, or Z and if it doesn't work out to do it this time there will probably be a next time. I'm all about new experiences and learning, but I kind of feel we do too much and make life too crazy. I want the whole world to slow down just a little.

Will we go see Thomas this year? Maybe. I didn't rush to buy my tickets yet. I'll see what happens as summer gets closer. Who knows what we'll be doing in July on the dates of Thomas. I think Three-a (and twoK and oNe) will enjoy Thomas, but not so much that we need to stress about it. What do you think?

PAI-Scale

I need to create the Perceived Aura Intensity Scale. Yup, that's right, I had one this morning. We were just talking about them yesterday at work. This one was not very intense. I'd give it a 2 out of 7. The one I had a month or so ago, I'd give it a 5 out of 7. My head is a little swimmy now, but not too bad. Within about 30 seconds of realizing I was having an aura, I grabbed the Migraine medicine. Maybe it helped?

The other thing, I've started taking CoQ10 to see if it might help. I am not taking very much (60 mg once a day), so perhaps I should increase how many my dosage. Perhaps, the little bit I'm taking just helped take the "edge" off of the aura. The recommended dose seems to be about 150 mg.

The potential trigger.... I have two from yesterday. 1) Emotional stress. I went to [BIG private] University yesterday and went to the place I used to go with my friend who died. I spent time thinking about her and being sad. 2) I didn't drink very much water yesterday (I forgot my water bottle) so I was slightly dehydrated.

I wish the auras would stop so I didn't have to try to determine the trigger. Go CoQ10!

---

Things I want to blog about:

1. an odd woman
2. my vitamins
3. more on the "mad at dad" theme
4. more about exercise and weight and instant gratification!

where my weight and technology meet.

If you're not me, this post might be a bit of a snoozer.


I got an app for my iPhone that a friend recommended to a friend. I got it to kind of track my carbs. I read so much about nutrition and diet last weekend, it was a little ridiculous. After reading last weekend, I kind of came to this conclusion before this study was published.

However, I think I would add to the conclusion and say that it's important to eat low processed foods. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grain, and the like are examples of low processed food. My rule is to not eat things with ingredients I can't pronounce. Here's an example. There are AT LEAST six words I can't pronounce. Ugh! We eat bread that has ingredients like these: Organic white flour, organic whole wheat flour, salt and water. I can pronounce all of those!

The other thing I think that is important for a healthy diet is fiber. Here's my new favorite cereal. Believe it or not, despite it's VERY HEALTHY nutritional values, it doesn't taste that healthy. It's not sweet, but I really like it.

Okay I'm side-tracked. I wanted to discuss what I've learned about my weight and HOW I'm losing it so slowly. I've finally started to understand this since using the iPhone app. For the past two years, I've lost about 8 pounds a year. I don't believe in diets. I don't believe they work. I've just been making slow changes to the way I eat and increasing the amount of exercise I get. I don't feel like I've ever eaten less food than I've wanted to eat. I've been eating more fruits and vegetables, I've stopped eating most candy and sweet things. I never thought it would be possible for ME to give up ice cream. I pretty much have. I am shocked as I type this, but I don't miss it. We still go out for ice cream, maybe once a month, and I eat it then, but I don't eat it other times. I guess I did once, one night a month or so ago... I had a "hankering" and I went with it.

Okay, again side-tracked.... Anyway, the iPhone app has allowed me to understand a bit more about my caloric requirements and how I eat. The app tells me to maintain my weight, I can eat ~1800 calories a day. If I exercise, I can eat more calories and lose weight still. I find that on days I don't exercise, I want to eat my full allotment of calories. On days I exercise, I find that I don't tend to want to eat all of the calories that I exercise off, so I don't quite eat enough to maintain my weight. It's not a significant amount of calories a week, last week, it was ~600 calories less than I was supposed to eat with the amount of exercise I do. At that rate, it would take about 6 weeks for me to lose a pound.

If you do the math, if I lose a pound every six weeks, that is about 8.66 pounds a year. That's pretty much what I have been losing. If I didn't exercise, I imagine I'd end up slightly overeating each week. I'd probably end up gaining ~4 pounds a year. Yikes! According to this, I won't ever be able to stop exercising, but that's okay! I like to exercise.

Hey, did I tell you?

I don't think I did... a family member is getting married soon. We're probably not going to the wedding because it's in Mexico and it's about $3500 PLUS airfare for the 5 of us to go for 3 days... MWH and I could have tried to go alone, but we aren't ready to leave the girls behind.

Okay, so the good news is he's getting married. I wouldn't have picked this girl for him, but who knows. They've been together FOREVAH, and they've had their ups and downs... Mostly about whether to get married or not. They are, just now, IMO, at the "old enough" age to get married. (He's 32 and she's 30.) They've been dating for about 7 or so years. Anyway, I'm guessing that there will be a baby out of their marriage union shortly.

Here I am TOTALLY gossiping about my family. No one in my family reads this blog, and let's keep it that way so I can keep you updated on if I'm right about bambina/o bump soon, m-kay? Thanks!

When I get a moment...

Remind me to come back and blog about this piece.

Just for the record, I am NOT mad at Dad. MWH is wonderful.

I like being a Mom. I like being with the girls. I like keeping track of the minutiae of their lives. MWH would be very bad at that and if I expected him to do it, then, yea, I might be annoyed at him, but I don't expect that of him. We're a team. I do some things and he does other things. We benefit from having different strengths. I don't want him to do the same things I do.

Yea, I'm pretty sure that my life changed more than my husband's life after the girls came along, but why did I have kids if it wasn't to enjoy them and spend time with them?

I know I'm very lucky because MWH does so much around the house. He is much neater than me. He does dishes. I cook, and I do a lot of research about many health related topics.... I keep track of the girls' needs regarding clothes and school activities...

Anyway, I'd write more, but I am VERY sleepy. I do plan to come back to this....

In the meantime, I'd love to hear from you all on what you think of the piece.

Something dangerous

I learned that my kitchen floor does not seem much dirtier after a month than it seems after a week. I think it was better when I didn't know this.

Just saying.

Sent from my iPhone

Tired with a capital T.

Why am I so tired? I've been getting a lot of sleep. I've been eating well. At night, around 9 pm, I just want to go to bed. Maybe, I'm getting too much sleep? I'll try lots (8-9 hours) of sleep for a few more days and then I'll go back to 7-ish hours.

woo

http://www.efitnessnow.com/news/2009/02/27/drink-coffee-prevent-cancer/

Things you don't want to hear the vet say....

"Huh. You usually don't see crooked teeth in a cat."

oNe's cat has a tendency toward upper respiratory infections. He also snorts. I am not surprised by the crooked teeth because I think he has a small-ish face. I think the snorting is because he has smallish sinuses. We're starting to figure out what's wrong with him with a feline upper respiratory disease test.

I had hoped for a young, healthy cat. Note to self, next time a cat snorts when he breathes, it's not cute... It may be a sign of something expensive.