sunrays

things that frusterate me currently:

-my OB’s office.  It is busy, runs behind, and is impossible to get a responsible appointment time.  I called a month in advance for an appt, and could not get one early in the morning.  With this one, i have to take in account someone staying with aiden/ben not being able to easily miss work like he could with aiden (different job).  I was on hold for 15 mins this morning waiting to make an appt. i am not happy with the time, but i’m going to call back later this afternoon and try another day.  sigh. I really lean toward going with a midwife, but I love my OB. It is a hard decision. I would definitely go with a midwife if I was some place new.  I went with an OB with the first as I thought i was going to be high risk, but turned out not to be. And now it is more inertia, except on days like today which i itch to make a change, though I have an appt on wednesday in which i am going to make a BUNCH of appts, i don’t care if it makes me look crazy. this is stupid.

-airline prices.  Ben and I decided to take a weekend trip out to arizona for a weekend of spring training games (a dream of bens).  It is VERY expensive to fly into Phenix, actually, just out on sunday. I found reasonable tickets last week, but we didn’t know if ben could take the friday off until today, which tickets have gone up $40 each!  ANNOYING.  I’m going to wait until the end of the week, everyday just putting the seats on hold.  We’ll see if they’ll drop again. stupid airline prices. (in the lane of things that don’t frustrate me: nice hotels with lazy rivers and that are cheap in feb)

-ticketmaster.  specifically the texas ranger’s lack of a boxoffice, and therefore forcing us to use ticketmaster for the “away” game in surprise, az on friday.  ben really wanted to pick the seats, but we were forced to use ticketmater’s version of “best available”.  The cubs game goes on sale tomorrow, which we’ll get to buy early b/c of ben’s dad’s season tickets, so hopefully that will be less annoying. i hate ticketmaster. the fees were 20% of the total!  highway robbery!

- the roofers next door. i’m tried of the banging, and i’m tired of the dog barking at them, as we can see them right outside our window.

Aiden and one of his christmas gifts. he loves this tractor.

• oh my god, there has been too much football on my tv this weekend, i deserve lots of foot rubs.
• i got david sardis’s new book for christmas.  I started reading it, and i recognized the first story. and then the second. i checked the copyright to make sure it was 2008. and then i saw the note that many of the stories had appeared in the new yorker, which i read somewhat regularly.  annoying. it is like we paid twice for those stories!
• i’m doing an honors paper for school, have a mentioned that?  i’m not really doing it for the honors designation, but more to (1) work with a professor and (2) craft a paper on a subject i am really interested.  I plan on publishing it in the student review journal. I would like to publish it in a real journal, but policy doesn’t work like science, and so student review for me. I still think it will be good for my CV.  Anyways, i keep trying to work on it; i have a plan, but i am still at that point in the beginning where there is not a clear cut path.  i am collecting background.  I am waiting for my book to teach me all about the regression software. My plan is to really plow through the background and figure out what out data sets I want (besides the one i’ve already constructed), and then do that.  I’m much more into the data set construction, so I know that will go fast once I figure out what I need. and I need to figure out what people normally put in regressions on these topics. and that means background research plus really learning the software instead of just my very basic knowledge.  I know once i have a path, i’ll be very productive.  So, in avoiding that, I’ve been doing reading for classes I have not attended yet.  oh, avoidance makes one v. productive.
• oh, i hope that this new theme is working for everyone. i love wordpress. i finally upgraded to 2.7 and am enjoying the new appearance.  the one good thing about the demise of my other blog is getting on a regular wordpress installation. It makes life easier.

Aiden & my mom. Aiden has become fascinated by putting on people’s shoes.

- i ran 1368 miles last year!  Is that not insane?  It is almost like I ran to hot springs and back.

- last year I also lost all my baby weight, to immediately get pregnant again. As of yesterday morning, I’ve gained 1 lb with the pregnancy.  

- knowing that i will gain weight, and i will freak out about it, I wore a lot of heavy clothes plus had a full bladder when I was weighed at my first prenatal appoint.  This resulted in an addition to of 8 lbs on their scale over my scale naked in the mornings.  This is so when I do gain weight, I won’t feel like they are going to say something. Not that they EVER said anything, in fact, the only comment I got on my weight with aiden was ~13 weeks when I was sick sick sick, and lost all the weight I had gained.  The nurse was all worried. my dr was not. of course, i made that all up post 20 week.  

- i know some people with 1 baby, and some of them had the 1 baby before me.  I am the ONLY person i know with a second on the way. sometimes i’m like, i really should make more friends, but then I think about the effort to establish a friendship, and i’m like, I’m good!

- my tires took forever yesterday, but I am sooooo glad to have new tires.  I love new tires.

-weird that classes start this week. I am certainly not ready for ben to go back, it is awesome having him around to also deal with the child.

aiden on my parents deck enjoying running around outside in the arkansas warmth.

Happy New Year!  

On the 31st, we went to bed at 10 pm. I hate new years eve and so was very glad to have an excuse to ignore it. it was perfect. i have been extremely tired lately. like sleep 9 hours at night and then 2 hours in the afternoon.  I think part of it is the just laying around, b/c if i am out and about, i’m fine-ish.  i feel for those with chronic fatigue, it would be awful.  At least I know it will go away, hopefully very very soon as today marks 12 weeks.  

i’m currently sitting at the car dealer. I was working on my honor paper (thankfully, motivation has started to trickle back), but now it is about the time they told me my car should be ready, so I am getting antsy.  I got new tires, so I am very excited about that.  I needed new tires, but also this week my right front tire started being low. and a working air machine, turns out, is not easy to find.  Liz and I had to look at two on Tuesday when I was out visiting her, and this morning I had to go to THREE!  i like filling up my tire, though, i make me feel competent, mainly b/c i am so afaird of the tire exploding on me, though I am pretty sure I heard on car talk that it is very hard to explode a tire.

20 more minutes!  i am starving!  but at least they have internet here.  very faint internet that i am sure i am stealing from somewhere not that close.

Turns out, with papers that i want to use in a paper, I really need to print them out.  I don’t print them out if i am just taking notes for a class, but for this paper i really need to be able to look at them, and make notes on them.

Aiden is quite the little trooper.  He was sooo good on both the 12 hours drive down to arkansas last weekend, and the 12 hour drive back yesterday.  And he did not sleep that much, despite getting up at 5 am each day.  Thank goodness he is in the phase where I can just feed him snacks and he is happy.  Plus he got somewhat into watching the dvd player.  It was an easy drive.

christmas was great. The week in arkansas was relaxing and warm (after the first two days of icey roads).    I spent a good chunk making my sister jenny a t-shirt quilt for her christmas gift. I got it finished just before we left.  the prep stage went quick, partly b/c my sister rachel did a bunch of the boring ironing.  the tying took forever, but i was quite pleased with how it turned out, and i learned how i would do it a little differently in the future.

if you haven’t heard or figured out from my twitters, i am pregnant.  We’ve now seen/heard the heartbeat twice, so I am not so apprehensive about telling the internets.  I am 11 weeks.  We went for a genetic test today that we didn’t do with aiden.  It is an ultrasound and a blood test.  I decided that (1) i would like information and (2) i’ll take another ultrasound, especially so early thankyouverymuch!  Mostly I did it for the ultrasound at 11.5 weeks.  We get information from the ultrasound and blood test about risk factors.  The nice thing is that we are perfectly willing to raise a child with special needs, so it is just info.  

Anyways, yes, the is a baby in my tummy. we are very lucky to be able to get pregnant easily.  We are due July 17th.  I’ve been quite nauseous, more with this pregnancy b/c (truthfully) i frequently forget i’m pregnant, and therefore am not very good about my eating every three hours.  Now that i’ve seen the baby MOVE in my tummy, I think it will be a little more real then it has been.  I’m excited. The timing is just want i wanted. I’m sure most people aren’t surprised as a lot of people do this spacing.

I’ve written one “secret” baby post right after I found out, so I’ll post that at some point.

• the 12-16 month age is the best so far. aiden is amusing and entertaining, and entertains himself. 
• in the past 26 hours, we’ve accomplished a lot of a t-shirt quilt for my sister jenny, my christmas present to here.
• a backyard is awesome.  pepper had finally learned to go out there and do her business without supervision.
• we got out of chicago on saturday, between the major amount of snow that has blanketed the area. the drive went way better than expected, even though aiden did not sleep much, and only had a small interest in the portable dvd player.
• small stomach syndrome is back, earlier then I remember, but that is probably due to the early moving out of my pelvis (good for my bladder), which is good in a way to limit my cookie intake, but due to yummy food = any food in my stomach=discomfort. lovely. annoying mainly b/c it prevents more cookie eating.

aiden loves the vacuum.

loves it.

i’m having an issue with motivation. i really should spend nap time working on my honors paper a bit, but, despite being mind numbingly bored by the tv/internet, i cannot motivate myself. The afternoon are a lost cause because i nap.  someday i won’t be so crazy tired and i can work. or i’ll finally get bored enough and work.

my child, who should be napping, is currently doing dogward dog in his crib. i do the yoga pose during my strength workout dvd, and now he was been doing it. quite amusing, but GO TO SLEEP. this is what happens with the is 4+ hours between his morning and afternoon nap. not that i really care, he is quiet in his crib, will be until he falls asleep. so awesome.

sleeping in the sun.

so I’ve returned from atlanta, just in time for 3 inches so far of snow. maybe 3 more by morning. Joy. At least it waited so I could get it will only a small unexplained delay yesterday. It was 7F when I got in. Joy. Not that it was warm in atlanta, but at least it was above freezing.  

Atlanta was fun.  Several times people expressed surprise that Ben was taking care of Aiden all alone this weekend.  Of course, i doubt the same sentiment would have been expressed if I was home all weekend alone with the child. Oh south and your gender roles.  They would have been surprised to know that not only did everyone survive and had a good time, I came home to a clean apartment, all the wash done, and homemade chocolate chip cookies.

It was nice to hang out with the usual suspects in Atlanta. I got to eat all my favorite atlanta food - doc chey’s, waffle house, chick-fila.  Yum.  I stayed up later then I have in forever and gave more people hard times then I have in forever.  Kent and I went to the High and saw The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army.  It was awesome, and I highly recommend it if you ever have the chance to see it.  All in all it was fun, but it is nice to be home to my very cute child, dog, and husband.

the problem with the cookies is that ben likes them soft and chewy. I like them crispy.  in theory we can do one pan as one and one pan as the other, which i do, but other people do not. so, though it is nice to have someone make you cookies, i would like them crispy.

going out to a long dinner with the child always requires a lot of entertaining from me.

i don’t understand why people who seem to have no public service qualifications seems to think they deserve senate seats just because they are famous/related to people in public service.

i’m done with the quarter. it was an easy one. very nice for my first one. even my feared group project went well. here’s a funny story from it: 

one member has me call her to chat about the project. In the course of the conversation, she says to me: “so i calculated what each battery cost and it would be like 8 cents”.
I’m thinking in my head. that doesn’t sound right, but i haven’t calculated it
so i continue talking to her about how cost isn’t that big of a deal, and i am trying to square 16 in my head (as the formula is 0.02*r^2.2 where r=16), and lose the ability to talk coherently and said sorry, i was just trying to square 16 in my head.

she says, why are you squaring 16?
and i say well the equation is 0.02*r^2.2 were r=16, and she’s like yeah…
and i find my calculator and punch it in.  it equals $8.90. and she’s like, OH! i was multiplying 16 by 0.02 and then raising it to the 2.2!

oh the maths, they are hard!

school ends at a good time as the cold and snow has come and all i want to do is sleep.  thankfully, aiden is on broad and we’ve both been taking excellent afternoon naps. (in addition to his awesome morning one)

i’m off to the big atl tomorrow evening. i’m hoping to get in on time despite the forecast for HEAVY RAIN in atl tomorrow. we’ll see. i’m excited to go someone where the street is not a sheet of ice!

also: isn’t il politics awesome?  how stupid is the governor!  jebus. he knew he was being taped!

why has my feed stopped working?

stupid feed.

alright…i guess it just makes the most sense to say change your feed to: feed://andsafetybelts.net/cblog/sunrays/?feed=rss2

annoying redirect stopping.

also: my one final got cancelled today. awesome, though my climate group members probably wouldn’t agree as it has given me lots of kid free time today to really edit out project….lots of red in track changes in word….what can I say? i hate editing, but really, we need to met the minimal requirements of the project!