Blown Fuse

On a lighter note...

Rosco has been worn the same pair of pants for three days, and he doesn't give a damn. That's what I love about babies - they have no concept of social niceties and rules of wardrobe. He would still be wearing those pants if he didn't spit up on the shoulder of his last clean long-sleeved bodysuit requiring a change into pajamas.

I, on the other hand, would love to wear the same pair of pajama pants three days in a row. If it weren't for Rosco soiling them with upchuck and requiring me to change them twice/day, I'd be more than happy to stink. Who's going to see me, after all? Am I supposed to be showering on the off chance that someone sees me creeping out to the mailbox? Pshaw.

Just to make myself sound a bit motivated, I did a mileage check between here and the post office. I always wondered how far it was and whether I could walk it with a baby strapped to my front. I always have stuff I want to mail and don't usually want to wait until Scott gets home (like Netflix movies I want to get back so that I get something new by the weekend.) It's half a mile. Now, all I need is for someone to tell me that 40 degrees is NOT too cold to take a 10-week-old excursioning in.

Half-hearted little protest.

I won't talk about that AmeriCorps fiasco anymore...well, not as much, anyway, but I'll say this: I fianlly got some sort of financial document from them yesterday: a W-2.

Let's analyze this situation. Over the couse of a month and a half when I had the misfortune of being associated with them, I never recieved a single pay stub. I didn't even know what my pay rate was until two weeks into my stint of torture. I never recieved my health plan card (policy was supposed to be in effect on day one). However, they were on the ball enough to quickly yank me from payroll the instant I gave the virtual flip-off to the organization I was placed with. (Would have been nice to have gotten a phone call from someone at the state level apologizing for the frustration and the lack of professionalism in the agency I was placed with, but that's water under the bridge, right?)

Guess whose information is incorrect on her W-2?

Yup. My name is spelled correctly, which is somewhat miraculous, but my house number and street name are both wrong.

Doesn't the federal government have oversight on this kind of thing? Don't they check and double-check those fifty ka-trillion fucking forms I filled out and signed to verify data gets put in correctly? The address they printed doesn't even exist.

I had no idea the idiocy in the program was so widescale. I assume someone at the state level input the information, but there's really no excuse. I know it's just a W-2, but really it's the final insult I've recieved from that program.

I'll never get back the money that came out of my pocket to support that program, and I can't even claim a tax deduction because I don't have documentation of all that gas and milage that went in my car, the fact that I used my personal home to store their property for almost a month, and so on. Guess who didn't have the forms she needed to record that information and get it approved because my supervisor was a moving target? Yeah, me.

I'm tempted to set a match to this insulting little W-2 and not file it with my taxes as a show of protest, however something tells me that Uncle Sam has an eye on me and will flag me if that employer identification number doesn't pop up in my documents.

So there, government, take your frickin' taxes from my $1000 living allowance. I hope that money serves you well and that you'll use it to fix the AmeriCorps tangles that seem to be so prevalent.

Maybe I should start downloading books to my iPod.

I love to read. One really can't call herself a "writer" if she doesn't spend a good amount of time with her nose in a real, hold-it-in-your-hands book. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to read much fiction over the past year, and I'm extremely aggrieved by that.

I got pregnant February of last year, and if you recall I spent my first trimester with my head in a toilet. The only reading I got done was pregnancy magazines and books that reassured me that it was normal to have the dry heaves all day. Second trimester I caught up on some knitting projects. Third trimester I couldn't find a comfortable position to sit in to read because I was a behemoth. Fourth trimester Now I have an almost-three month old kid who keeps me up most nights.

I feel a tremendous amount of guilt when I try to read during the day because I know that there's vegetable oil splatter on the kitchen walls that need wiping and that the baby has run out of clean pajamas because they need washing.

To put this in some context, I've been reading the same issue of Martha Stewart Living since last Thursday and I'm only halfway through it. Yes, I could be reading now instead of writing this blog post, but what you don't know is that I'm also starting dinner and drying Rosco's clothes (because he succeeded at pooping on two changing pad covers in the past week). I'm also watching for the mailman who has a tendency to sneak up to the door to deposit packages ONLY on the days I have the blinds open. I don't like being stared at by people outside my house, so I have to skiddaddle into another room when the truck lumbers up to the box. You can't concentrate on reading when you're doing all that.

Hobby whore that I am, I'm also sorely behind on several knitting projects and scrapbook pages. I started a sweater for Rosco a couple of weeks ago that i'm making for whenever we get around to having that first family portrait done, but since his hair is currently falling out I don't know when that'll be. Chances are that when his "real" hair grows in, the sweater will be too damn small and it'll be another sweltering North Carolina summer.

Oh, and taxes. I've started working on the taxes, so whenever I have the courage to start up the program I'm using and to type in those deductions to make sure we get a few cents of refund back, that takes time from other things. I'm still waiting on a couple of tax documents (come on you slow fuckers!), otherwise we would have filed already.

What was I getting at? Oh yes - books. Look, I could spend hours in a Barnes and Noble store, and if told that I could only take one book home I'd break out into a cold sweat. Yet here I have a stack of novels whose spines haven't been cracked because all of a sudden my plate has become full.

When my house finally becomes clean after a year of neglect and Rosco is old enough to amuse himself, I'll still be making some excuse for not getting my reading done. Feh.

sniff. sniff.

Something in this house smells like cat piss, and Scott thinks I'm losing my mind. If I were losing my mind, wouldn't I be smelling it all over the house? I'm only sensing it in the hallway right beneath the attic hatch and in the front room where my damn desk is.

I swear, if one of these cats (PUFFY, I'M LOOKING AT YOU!) has crawled behind a bookcase or on top of an air vent to do her business I'm going to flip a lid.

I have no problem with cleaning up cat accidents within reason, but when I can't find them, I can't even do anything to cover the odor up.

I'm going to go sniff some things and see where this stink is marinating. Wish me luck.

Oh my dear God.

I am so, so tempted to order these for Rosco just so that I can sit here and have a giggle on demand.

Superhero boots - too damn cute!

Tsk tsk tsk.

Here's Scott and Roland "watching" George Bush giving the State of the Union address about five minutes ago.

After getting approximately two hours of sleep last night/this morning due to a uncooperative baby, you'd think he'd select more stimulating programming. Even I know that if you're trying to stay awake until at least 11, you keep moving or else you'll stick like velcro to whatever chair you're nearest.

See, I'm trying to keep my eyes open just a little while longer. A very uncomfortable pregnancy trained me to survive on minimal sleep. I'm doing a load of laundry (yes, at 10 pm) and writing a blog post. Next I'll glue together a scrapbook page. Then I'll wake the baby to top off his tank, and put him back to sleep. Perhaps tonight he'll behave and not wake up in a shrieking panic every thirty minutes.

Do what now?

I love it when "people" comment on old-ass entries:

man well you are the stupidest person who has ever lived crazy enough to do something like that but i dont know you and you dont know me all i CAN tell you is that if you were me i would be careful and take care of my body.AND BY THE WAY THERE IS ANOTHER EASIER MORE UNPAINFUL WAY OF MAKING MONEY ITS CALLED A JOB YOU SHOULD GET ONE FOR YOUR SOUL AND YOUR FUTURE but i dont know do what ever you want with your life im not you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I like how it was almost relevant to the entry, but not enough for me to blacklist his/her/its 166.127.1.200 "Linda Zambrano" ass.

Don't bother searching for it - I deleted it. And also the next one from the same IP's "Ivette Linda":

well i just read the 1st part and u r a crazy ass girl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Indeed.

!!!

Just found out today that my estranged father is still making babies. Still. My son has an aunt 3 months older than him.

*head spins, feels nauseous*

Who does he think he is, Trump?

I'll go out of my way to not go that way.

I hate going to Old Navy. I'm specifically referring to the brick and mortar store closest to our house. I worked at the store when I was in college and some of the same jokers still work there. It can be particuarly awkward to go there and shop when you have to interact with people who knew you during your bad hair college days.

Anyway, I need to return my low-waisted pants and this wrong-color shirt that I bought online, but don't want to have do deal with the hassle of re-shipping and picking out other things online which will probably NOT be in stock by the time the new order gets to the distribution center. So, I'm just going to go to the store.

I'm a'feared. If that one manager is there today...*sigh*.

Not on THIS waist.

I ordered some Old Navy clearance stuff on Monday that arrived today. If you've ever shopped Old Navy clearance online, you may have experienced items being removed from your cart because you're not fast enough and some other person has checked out before you. That happened to me, and I'm quite pissed about that.

I decided to go ahead check out with the four items I did have in my cart for risk of losing them as well. You know what happens when you hurry? You don't read the details.

I am now the proud owner of a pair of ultra low waist pants. Five years ago that would have been okily dokily, but in my old age I can't stand the feeling of a draft on my butt crack. They're going back...as is this t-shirt they shipped in the WRONG SIZE.

Wankers.

Fa-la-la-la-la-fel

On Monday night, Scott and I had falafel in pitas for dinner. I had never had falafel before and had certainly never cooked them, but they just sounded tasty. I tend to have palate a little more willing to experiment than Scott, however he seemed to enjoy them as well.

I was doing some meal planning on Saturday before heading out to the grocery store. This usually involves me sitting in front of a stack of cookbooks looking through for things we haven't tried. There are only so many ways one can cook a chicken before the meat gets banished from the freezer for a few months, so I try to keep things new. When I saw the falafel recipe, I thought back to the tasty bean cake sandwich I made a few weeks ago and figured that it couldn't be all that exotic as the principle is the same.

A falafel is basically ground chickpeas seasoned with some garlic, onion, cumin, and etcetera, formed into a patty, and fried in oil. I was surprised at how tasty they were. We smeared some Target-brand hummus on pita, popped the falafel in, and ate them while they were hot. Yum! All the texture of meatballs without the fat...and meat...

While my local Target does carry a very nice deli selection and offers tasty hummus through their Archer Farms brand, they didn't carry the stinkin' $0.79 bag of dried chickpeas. I had to go to a "real" supermarket for those, but at least I have some left for next time.

Definately try them if you haven't before, but one tip: when a recipe tells you to soak the peas for 12 hours, it means it.

I be intelligent.

Via Irk.

Solid as a marshmallow.

Okay, I've got about ten pounds to go before I'm back to my pre-pregnancy/pre-Lupron Depot weight. I can't lie and say that my weight loss is as a result of smart dieting and exercise, because it's not. It's due to a faster-than average metabolism and having little time to eat because of having a new baby.

I realize that losing this final ten pounds is going to be tough because I'm breastfeeding and the body tends to want to hold on to some fat in case of emergency (drought, famine, being stranded in snow, etc.). Additionally, from the bottom of my knees up I have absolutely no muscle tone. My huge, bulging guns have disappeared, and my abs are still weak and separated. I know fat is lighter than muscle, so if I begin exercising at this point I have to be prepared to gain some weight before I can lose any.

I have to decide whether I'm content with being doughy.

Watching the Mail Box

My dubya-2 came today. That would normally make me all giddy and excited for thoughts of the huge refund that Uncle Sam owes us, but as always, I have to wait on Scott. Almost every other tax document we'd need has arrived with the exception of his W-2 and maybe some bank information. I guess the benefit of having worked for a small business is that the payroll department (aka administrative assistant) shoots those documents out IMMEDIATELY after they get delivered at the office. Because Scott's company is owned by an even bigger out-of-state company, I have to sit and nag him every day until the document gets here (knowing full well that I'M the one who checks the mail every day).

We file as early as possible using TaxAct every year - the sooner you transmit the info, the shorter the wait to get your money back.

Actually, I really don't know what I'm excited about. Every year since we got married the state has walloped us with a huge tax bill because we were DINKy. While I did some creative number-crunching at the beginning of 2006 to adjust our withholdings, I'm still afraid we'll owe those idjuts money. The best-case screnario would be that we don't get a refund from them, but don't owe anything either. We also had a kid for six weeks last year that wasn't reflected on our w4 allowances, so maybe that'll help out, too.

Oh well. I'm going to think positively. It'd be nice to pay off some bills and to buy a couple of articles of clothes that fit (since I'm no longer shaped the same as I was before birthin' a baby).

Let's lowball me, okay?

So, today I finally got a call from one of the staffing agencies I registered with seven weeks ago. Neither was particuarly close to my house, so I'm pissed about having to go there to take assessment tests and to answer questions that could have been answered over the phone.

Anyway, the offer was for a three-week full-time position doing data entry at $10/hour.

Let's do the math. Daycare (at any center I'd consider adequate for my discriminating tastes) would cost at least $775 for three weeks plus a deposit and application fee (add $500). So we'd have to pay upwards of $1275 in order for me to earn $1200.

She must be on crack.

Double Agent

I have a confession to make. I have a second blog. It's my "mommy blog." You may wonder why I would feel the need to have a seperate blog to discuss The Kid, but that's a fairly simple answer: I felt dirty.

Seriously. I went from being this high-tempered, foul-mouthed beer lush to someone genuinely afraid that she's going to fuck her kid up during the past year. While I'm still a high-tempered, foul-mouthed beer lush and just as snarky as ever, I've had to learn to exhibit two very different personalities at home. I'm not going to change who I am, no sir, but I don't want my kid to be as sarcastic as I was when I was an ankle-biter (but my mom TOTALLY deserved that). When I cross the threshold into whatever room he's in, I plaster on my "happy mommy" face so that he'll feel secure and loved, even if in my head I'm thinking "GRRRRRRRRR! Scott pretends he can't hear you cry, but I know the truth! I want a nap, damnit!"

I'm not one of those moms who feels like her life is over because she has a kid. I had plenty of time to go out to bars and come home late. Most of the time I spent my weekends watching HGTV and surfing the internet. I got all that partying out of my system my first two years in college, thanks. It's a miracle I never got alcohol poisoning...or maybe I did? *reminisces*

My eyes haven't become vacant and empty because I've wandered onto the path of parenthood. I haven't turned into a Stepford Wife robot. The only things that have changed are my aggressive driving habits and my relationship with my mother (aka "the woman who has yet to come visit her new grandson even though she's only three hours away and owns a vehicle.").

I just need to keep all the overflowing gushy baby love-babble and my anger/aggression/"I'm a woman first, mommy second" diatribes in seperate places, ya dig? It's cathartic.

Got pod?

If you have an iPod or other device capable of storing and playing podcasts, which ones do you subscribe to? I have a quite a few on my list that I play when I need to concentrate or when I just want to hear other people talking besides myself. They are:

It's good exercise.

The cats have been beating the shit out of each other for the past fifteen minutes or so. There's so much fur flying in the air that I'm almost tempted to grab a trash bag and go on hair reconnaissance...almost. No joke - there's so much cat fur about that when the heat comes on, the air vents push it around the room. It sticks together like tumbleweeds, but floats like bubbles.

It's a good thing they don't fight at like that at night because the sound of 35+ pounds of cat banging against the floors or walls would be enough to make me wet the bed at 2 in the morning.

I just realized that through all the cat fighting, I didn't move a single millimeter to break it up. Hmm. I suppose that makes me a bad cat-momma. T'oh well. *whistles nonchalantly*

I'm not bored, that's for sure.

Those of you lacking kids probably wonder how a person can occupy themselves being at home all day. Certainly, there isn't that much to do, right?

On some level that's true...or would be if I didn't have some superficial requirement that my house not turn into a sty.

Rosco isn't a particuarly needy baby. He doesn't scream his head off all day begging to be held. He'll actually sleep so that I can get stuff done, even if it's in little chunks. I do, however, spend a good deal of time nursing and putting him back to sleep. He's not really old enough to stay up and "play" yet.

I'll admit, though, that during the day once he's gotten really excited from staring at some blemish on the wall, it's next to impossible to calm his chattering down (yes, he's practicing real, human-like words such as "ah-goo!"). I'll sit holding him, watching Star Trek until he dozes off. That may take as little as fifteen minutes or as long as an hour and a half. Sometimes I'll fall asleep before HE does and will wake up with my neck pressed against the sofa in some weird contortion. Multiply that by the five non-bedtime feedings he gets during the day and math tells you that on a bad day I can spend up to 7 1/2 hours with a kid dangling off my fleshy bits.

I spend the rest of my time trying to adhere to a writing schedule, finding a few minutes to unload the dishwasher each day, and taking the occasional pee. I may shower if Rosco is in a really, really deep sleep. [I smell purty!]

As it pains me to hand Rosco off to Scott the moment he walks through the door each evening, I don't do it unless I really need to get stuff done. Primal momma instincts say that there's no way some dude can be as good as a parent to my child as me, even if he is my husband. Sorry, hon - it's not personal; it's biological. Even when the kid has annoyed the crap out of me (he has a superb knack of looking at me and making a "YOU'RE A BAD MOMMY!" face), it pains me to hear him whimpering, so of course I have to entertain him and tell him he's a "good baby."

I realize I'm setting myself up for a disaster if I ever have to take my kid to daycare. I'll probably melt into a puddle in the doorway bawling my eyes out. I guess my armor has some holes in it, huh?

Anyway, days for me really aren't that long. If I had a couple of additional hours of sleeping baby time I'd do better meal planning or getting my writing hustle on, but I'm not really missing out on anything huge.

So, that's what I do all day.

blech!

Last night I had the unfortunate experience of tasting my first beer after almost of year of teetotaling. I don't know what to say other than to state the fact that I feel like yuck right now. I've apparently become a "cheap date." After about half a beer I could feel the alcohol dancing about my body, avoiding my liver at all costs. After finishing the entire bottle I reckoned that half a bottle more and I would have been sitting with my heads between my knees. Back in college I could consume something like four beers/hour and still be able to fend off would-be date solicitors. I guess in my old age I won't be doing that anymore.

So, more about the beer. Horniblow's Tavern is a offering of Big Boss (the former Edenton Brewing Company). I don't know what availability will be like for people who live out-of-state. As I'm actually from Edenton (and the place ain't that big), I figured I'd taste it just in case I ever needed to speak intelligently on it.

Horniblow's tavern is a pale English-style beer (amber-colored and bitter). It had been so long since I had a beer that I couldn't figure out if I'd lost my taste for the stuff or if it simply really was that bitter. The more I think about it, I'm sure it was the beer. Horniblow's tavern certainly isn't a beer for dilettantes - it wasn't smooth going down like my old Shiner standby. I started out sipping it like a potent red wine and eventually was able to take swigs.

It was, however, pretty tasty when accompanied with a DiGiorno's garlic bread pizza. I think the tomato sauce cut the bitterness a bit.

I'll give it a week and try it again. There are an additional three varieties of Big Boss beer in the fridge I haven't tasted yet. I hope that at least one of them will be good as a dinner beer.

WAHM.

While I'm at home waiting around for someone to hand me a fantastic job with free daycare, I've been doing some research on whether doing some freelance writing would be a viable income source.

The reality is that I don't really need to make that much money to make it profitable. I have some consumer debts to pay off, and of course there are the utility bills I'd like to contribute to, but those don't total an excessive amount of money. I could probably make do on half of what my last full-time job's salary was, although my aim is to earn more than that.

If you recall, one of my New Year's resolutions was to write out a business plan, but I haven't done anything as formal as that yet. It would be extremely helpful for me to put in writing what I need my bill rate to be, what niches I can market to, and so on, but frankly I'm just not informed enough about the profession yet to write intelligibly on that.

I'm taking baby steps. Every morning I sync my PDA with writing-related tasks that I need to accomplish every day. It may not amount to eight hours of work, but I believe that over time I'll be doing less planning and administrative work and more assignments. I just need to get into the mindset that this is "work" and that there need to be routines established, and that in the meantime I should develop a portfolio.

To be honest with you, one of my biggest weaknesses is advocating for myself. I know I can do this and be successful at it, but don't know if I have the courage to market myself to the extent I need to. Hell, I don't even know who to market to.

I'll keep you updated.

Funky Fridge

(Do you ever sit with headphones on listening to silence because you forgot to turn the music on?)

One of the first concessions people with children have to make is letting things go around the house. This usually begins to occur right around the time that the gravid female loses sight of her toes. Once the child is born, however, momma's nesting instinct may kick into overdrive and she becomes increasingly paranoid that her baby will pick up germs from surfaces and appliances that he isn't even old enough to use (like the floor), and desires to clean everything in sight. As there is rarely enough time available for sufficient disinfection, we do our cleaning in short, unplanned bursts.

Our diet reflects the mess that is our refrigerator. (The nutritional value of our meals has taken a steady downhill turn since our total income increased. Interesting correlation, that.)

While Rosco was taking a 15 minute nap earlier today I did a brief evaluation of the contents of our fridge. It contained dinner leftovers (gorditas, Paula Deen's "farmer's pork chops," a chicken crockpot thingie), drinks (including baby ones), condiments, 1 zucchini, some pathetic looking green onions and the usual refrigerator bric-a-brac (baking soda, etc.). I won't discuss with you the contents of our frezer, however if you're a fan of sodium you'd feel right at home standing in front of it.

Where are the vegetables? Where's all the lean protein ready to be cooked? At the store, probably. I don't have time to cook the meals I want to. Scratch that - I have the time, however that time happens to be in seven-minute increments when Rosco isn't screaming bloody murder from being ignored. That's not really long enough to be all gourmet frou-frou, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, I threw out the rest of the leftovers since they'd been hanging out for more than 48 hours. Tomorrow I'll poke around the jars of unidentified jams and jellies and purge those, too. I think our biggest problem is that we've allowed our refrigerator to become a trash repository instead of a temporary storage device. I mean, after all, a refrigerator should be treated like a cooler with a plug. Once ingredients are taken out and cooked, they shouldn't be put back in leftover form. (Stop being a cheap-ass and just throw it out, Tiffany, you're not going to eat it.)

I don't exactly know what I'm making more room for, but once I finish my sort and purge tomorrow and bleach-clean all the shelves you'd better believe that non-essential items aren't going back in there. I want to lose this last twenty pounds soon, and changes need to be made. Goodbye half can of vanilla frosting. I'll miss ye.

What's your 2007 calendar?

We didn't really put up a calendar last year in the house until the end of the year when I started counting down the remaining days of my pregnancy. Additionally, by that time my hormones were all out of whack so I was having difficulty remembering not only appointments I had scheduled but also, most basically, what day of the week it was (my t.v. viewing habits would normally act as some kind of reminder, but during rerun season you can't rely on that).

I needed a visual cue to remind me a couple of days ahead of time that I had some obligation to fulfill, so I took one of those cheap tiny freebie calendars that come in solicitations from insurance companies/realtors/etc., took off the decorative magnet, and taped it to the white board in the kitchen. That way I could scribble a note such as "Prenatal appointment: 11/15, noon" on the board and then look at the calendar to see if I was supposed to be doing something else at about that time. You would think that there wouldn't be much to keep track of when you're at home all day, but trust me - you need the calendar even more. Often I would note, "Ah, that's a Wednesday. Harris Teeter is doing buy 1/get 1 chicken breasts on that day. I'll pick some up since I'll be out."

My alma mater sends me a calendar every year. Last year's went into the recycling bin, as I had a perfectly functional jumbo desk calendar at work and a PDA I used frequently. Now I need a little extra help. My short-term memory is shot, so up the calendar goes.

What's your calendar this year? No worries - I'll forgive you if it's "The Best of Barbie."