Just Another Day

So this was shamelessly and greedily stolen from Suzanne at Mimilou . I am keeping her great number 8 addition. I am adding my own number 9. 1. What three albums (okay, CDs) would you take on a road trip, if the music was the only companionship you had? The Joshua Tree U2 Towards the Within Dead Can Dance Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd 2. You are in the worst. mood. ever. Name three songs that would cheer you up. Do Ya ELO What is My Life (Without Your Love) George Harrison Uptight Stevie Wonder 3. Your in-laws just called. They are in town unexpectedly and want to drop by for coffee in an hour. The house looks like the preschool maurading hoards have been through on a crusade. Which three albums have enough energy to pump you up for the task? Boingo Oingo Boingo Gold Abba Greatest Hits Expose Yeah, yeah, I cheated with the greatest hits ones. 4. Name three songs you loved from high school. AEIOU, Sometimes Y Ebn Ozn Please Please Tell Me Now Duran Duran Girlfriend in a Coma The Sm

   

So not too long ago, I was looking at some comments on another blog. The main post had mentioned that the blogger had gotten her hair cut shorter than she normally does. One commenter mentioned that she thought that long hair does not look good on a woman generally past the age of 28. I have long hair. I'm 34. Am I committing a horrible fashion faux pas with my long hair? I have had what I consider to be a fairly good relationship with my hair over the years. It mostly does what I want, but it does have the tendency to look better on "normal" days than for special occasions. While my sister was able to revel in her girlhood with long hair since toddlerhood, for some reason my parents chose a different route with me. For a long while, I had the classic bowl cut. Oh, was that only supposed to be for boys? Well, I bucked tradition because there are more than a few pictures of me with my (then) very blonde hair in the obvious shape of Tupperware. And then for a very shor

So I believe that there should be no secrets between a married couple and all that. But I do happen to think that there are some things that one should not have to see the other spouse doing. I am not saying that the marriage will fall apart if they do, or that you should try to shield your partner from the things that make us all fallible and human. But... Does your spouse really need to see you on the toilet? I say no. If it can't be helped then it can't be helped, but I personally am of the opinion that things relating to the toilet should be mostly contained to the person that is carrying them out. That is an image that my husband just does not need to have stored in his brain. Another image that springs to mind is one of me trying to take a shower not too long ago when I hurt my back very badly. I was dying for a shower, it had been a couple days, and let me tell you that baby wipes just do not cut it for the long haul. So I was desperate to at least rinse off and

So, Thanksgiving is almost here. I'm sorry, but Thanksgiving has somehow become the poor stepchild holiday. Halloween seems to be huge, everyone does something cool on Halloween. I have read quite the few articles on how spending on this holiday and related items has skyrocketed in the past few years. Who doesn't love pretending to be something they're not? Who doesn't love getting scared, other than very young children? Why would anyone want to pass up the chance of getting as much free candy as your parents are willing to haul you around trick or treating for? And Christmas is Christmas, the numero uno, no holiday can possibly usurp that position due to the fact that large amounts of presents are involved, which doesn't really happen on any other national holiday. But, every year it seems that Thanksgiving gets more and more overlooked. Shoved off to the side, just a rather annoyingly large dinner to make on the way to "the Big One." Oh sure, they

So really, the weather we have been having here is just ridiculous. For those of you unfamiliar with SoCal weather, which would be most of you, I will give you a quick primer. When we have an "onshore" flow, life is grand. It is nice and the breezes being generated by the ocean are cool and refreshing. Usually this means normal or cooler than normal temperatures. There is moisture in the air, and the variance from day to night temperatures is not that big. But when we have an "offshore" flow, watch out. It gets hot. The moisture is sucked out of the air, leaving everyone with dry eyes and chapped hands. The wind is fierce and warm, often being strong enough to knock things over and the like. The difference between night and day temperatures can be over 30 degrees. Yeah, so guess which one we are experiencing? We simply cannot remember a November this hot. For this long. We were thinking of an excursion today and we thought, why not go to the beach? For a

So I am usually off for the next couple of days, but if you would like to see pics of Mr. Personality, go ahead and pop by the amazing POW , she's got some up as well as her take on our day of fun. See, more people should meet me because apparently awesome things like having your hubby put you up for a weekend at the Ojai Valley Inn (can you say posh, posh, posh!) happen immediately after!

So this has been the fourth night in a row that I have fallen asleep with Mr. Personality when putting him to bed. His bed is just so comfy and it is so dark so early now that it is just the easiest thing in the world to close my eyes. Add to that the white noise machine and you have a recipe for slumber for someone whose hormone treatments are apparently not working yet. The next thing I know, it is half an hour later and my inner clock has been totally messed up. Putting him to bed is my last "issue" other than toilet training. He just does not like falling asleep alone. When he does fall asleep, you are able to leave. So it isn't like I am sitting there all night with him, or else I would never have time to write this blog. He doesn't have to be held or massaged, he just likes knowing that someone is there. He digs his little feet into you or spoons up against you, I have to say it is rather heavenly. Lately he has been very afraid of the dark, so now is p

So lately we have been giving Mr. Personality little bitty marshmallows (I don't want to hear it) when he goes pee in the potty. He thinks he is so crafty, and he tries to negotiate how many he will get. "How about four? Or ten?" "Hmmmm, ok, I guess I can give you four." "Oh goody!" It is hilarious because he always seems to think he has outmanueverd me in some way. I think I have a completely platonic crush on The Wiggles. Don't look at me like that. Anthony is actually quite good looking, and the rest of them are just so, I don't know, cute! I am also embarassed to say that I cannot stop singing "Where's Jeff?" Hey, it's a catchy little number, ok? I have finally learned to ignore the constant "no's" that permeate my world. I used to take them a bit personally, each one an affront to my parental authority. Now I just steamroll, steamroll. Life is much easier... Ok, a question for all of my friends out

So twice in the past three days, Mr. Personality made a rash and impetuous decision, and wound up ruining two things which he really liked. When he threw one of his bath fish up in the air and its tail broke off after hitting the edge of the tub, you would have thought his life as he knew it was over. "I'm sooooo saaaaaaaad," he wailed. "Fisheeeeee is brooooken!" Hubba-hubba tried to impersonate the fish and tell him that it was ok, and that he could probably swim without a tail, but Mr. Personality was having none of it. "Nooooooo, you can't swim right without a taaaaaaail, fisheeeee. You are broooooken!" Hubba-hubba had to literally lift him out of the bathtub, so great was his grief. He then collapsed against me, tears streaming down his face. "Waaaaaaaa!" I wish I could say I was exaggerating, but that is the only way to accurately describe the sound that came out of his mouth. I couldn't believe it was coming out of my chil

So thus it is proven that great minds think alike. I am happy to report that I am no longer a virgin. I would like to thank Amy for being so considerate of my feelings and making me feel special. Oh, I mean a Blogger Meet-Up virgin, of course! Mr. Personality and I were fortunate enough to be able to meet up with Amy of POW (soon to be crowned Queen of the Blogger Meet-Up) and her two gorgeous kids, Vivian and Isaac. Just think of a family that is blonde, blue eyed and cute as all get out, and you've pretty much got hers down. Amy is exactly what I pictured she would be, funny, a great mom, and totally down-to-earth. Just as she is on her blog. We had a nice lunch, even with the bee that just would not leave us alone even though there were plenty of other people to bother, of which it seemed no one ate much. Perhaps it was just too hot, and I felt bad for Amy because hardly anyone, not even me, was a taker for her healthy and generous offer of veggies to snack on. Sorry Amy,

So for at least the past year or so, I looked at my ballooning self in the mirror, perplexed. It's hard to say exactly when I started feeling not really like myself in many, many ways. I wondered at my inability to motivate myself to move more. I pondered as to why my head was likely to explode in frustration at small things. I felt like something was not quite right, but there was nothing specific to point to. I just called myself a big fat ass and despaired. During the summer, I told myself that I was going to eat pretty much exactly what Mr. Personality eats, which is healthy healthy healthy, for the most part. A little experiment on my part, just to see what would happen. Of course, I was not perfect, but a concerted effort was made to put good things in, hoping for an outcome that would slim me down. My activity level stayed the same. I actually gained weight. I watched my clothes become tighter and tighter, and I said to myself, this is just not right. I told Hubba-hub

So today I stumbled upon this article . Can I just say that it is my humble opinion that as a society, we are indeed very child-centered? And that I don't necessarily think it is a good thing? Let me clarify that. Of course if you are a parent then your child should be one of your your main priorities. You should do things with your child, they should not be stuck in the house all day. It is good for them to interact with other people and be exposed to lots of different things. I don't think that "children should be seen and not heard" is realistic at all. That being said, there are way too many parents that are afraid to discipline their children when on an outing. Who knows, they might very well be the same way at home. Oh the poor dears will not like me if I tell them they cannot dump all the sugar out of the packages and onto the table. News flash- we as parents are not here to be liked . We are here to guide and protect. Goodness knows, I try not to jud

So I love me my purses. I don't know what it is about a purse that makes me happy. I have never been one to spend serious money on purses, because goodness knows you can drop a grand on a purse without blinking these days. But, I like to change my purse "look" with the seasons and such. I like to think that a nice looking purse makes me a bit more put together. I used to have these dainty, small clutch-type purses in the old days, and by that I mean grade school. I don't know if that was normal or not. It was a real purse, not a "toy" one, that was brown leather and looked like a tiny baguette. It could fit perhaps some lip gloss, my house key, and some money. I took it anywhere and everywhere, thinking it made me look older and more sophisticated. Not that a seventh grader can do much to look sophisticated, but I tried anyway. Then I moved on to colorful, bright purses. Fun purses that shouted, "I have nothing that important in here, but at l

So my mother was way ahead of her time. If there had been Whole Foods stores around when I was growing up, she would so have been there. If soy milk had been widely available anywhere other than communes in the 70's, that's all I would have been drinking. Instead of chips, I would have had to pop edamame. She even did stir fry, but had to forgo the tofu. Lucky me. Being a nurse, she was all about eating healthy. My sister and I certainly didn't mind the fruit, and some of the vegetables she tried on us were ok. But, she wouldn't stop at the vegetables we liked oh, no. They weren't the best vegetables, like spinach and brussels sprouts. God love her, that woman tried fifty different ways to prepare cauliflower so that we wouldn't make a face when we ate it. We had to eat all of our vegetables, that was the rule. Normally, my sister and I would choke whatever it was down, protesting loudly and making gagging noises. But, we did eat it. One day, howeve

So even though my head seems to contain some sort of hard, painful balloon that never stops inflating, I am still going to write a post because I am pissed off. Oh, well Gina, we have never really seen you pissed off before, what could possibly be wrong? (har har) Well I'll tell you. People that don't bother to listen to what you actually said, and then jump to conclusions based on what they wanted to hear. Without going into too much detail, I belong to a Club, which is a group of SAHM's that gets together for various activities, playgroups, and the like. This year I was pressured into becoming the Playgroup Coordinator. I say pressured because they were whining that no one was volunteering and they had originally wanted me to be Treasurer, which I declined. I was assured that Playgroup Coordinator was a piece of cake. All I had to do was simply add or remove people as they joined or left playgroups. Admittedly, I was looking for a lower end of the spectrum respon

So here I am, missing my year blogiversary by two days! What kind of self absorbed twit am I that cannot even keep track of the day I began this little exercise? I remember installing my stat counter very late in the game, perhaps three or four months after I started. But, as Mel and Hubba-hubba were pretty much the only two visitors, the counter is probably off by about 60. Ok, maybe 40. Make it 50 and we'll call it even. At one point, it began to be an obsession with me. I would check my stat counter before I even checked my email. "Ooooh look!" I would exclaim to Hubba-hubba. "I got 5 hits today!" Those were some big numbers to me, and I thought I was the next dooce for sure. (I would link to her, but she needs my link like I need more of Mr. Personality's Halloween candy) I felt pressure, pressure to please my audience of perhaps 3, with the occasional poor Googler looking for Kiddie Kandids who was unfortunate enough to click on my link. At more

If you are a Democrat, or even if you just dislike the Bush Administration, you might want to read this . Sad but true.

Should I be grateful that Hubba-hubba did the laundry? Or should I be a little pissed off because he managed to ruin both of our large, expensive towels that we received as a wedding gift and that we cannot possibly afford to replace? Should I be amused that Mr. Personality was laughing so hard that he actually fell down on his bed? Or should I be annoyed that it was becuase he full-on sneezed right in my face? Should I commiserate with my sister's bemoaning of her lack of wardrobe and her need to go out and buy all new clothes? Or should I tell her to stuff her sorry's in a sack since she makes a lot of money and I don't and I don't want to hear about her so called "problem?" Should I breathe a sigh of relief that Hubba-hubba took over the other night and gave Mr. Personality a bath? Or should I point out to him the next morning that he allowed Mr. Personality to utterly decimate a bath crayon in there, thus completely erasing my efforts of that morning to cl

So today marks four years that I have been married to the wonderful man known to you as Hubba-hubba. I always talk about myself because hey, this is my blog after all, but he is my true partner in life, and he is one of the main reasons that I manage to make it through the day. To quote my father from his toast at our wedding, "They compliment each other, and they bring out the best in each other." So true. We both love autumn, which in SoCal is a refreshing time when you have been beaten down by the heat of the summer. That is why we chose our wedding to take place at this time of year. When we became engaged, I had insisted we have an indoor wedding. My "vision" as it were, of my wedding never included the outdoors. I remained steadfast for months, even though Hubba-hubba casually mentioned this place he knew of that I might like to check out. I resisted but he eventually wore me down. It was a historical landmark, a former estate from an early California

So I wanted to talk about this film that I subjected myself to the other night. I say subjected because it was very difficult for me to watch, and at one point I thought myself a masochist for not clicking off of it. It was a bit like watching footage of 9/11. You are absolutely horrified at what you are seeing, but yet you feel a strange compulsion not to turn away. A need to bear witness, almost. I remember reading and hearing about the horrible events that took place at that school. I remember feeling awful that it ended so badly for so many people, most of them children. I also remember feeling physically ill at the thought that adults could knowingly commit acts like that upon innocent children. This brings to mind the divide between myself and Hubba-hubba on the war in Iraq, and its broader implications. In my mind, an administration that perjures itself to its own people for seemingly murky motives is the beginning of the end. Hubba-hubba reminds me that the government lie

So now that I am on a big sugar high from a stolen bag of Sugar Babies, I wanted to do something "on paper" if you will, about what my sister says are the similarities between her cat, Meeko, and Mr. Personality. Ways Mr. Personality is indeed like a cat: Finicky eater Gets up on things he shouldn't (like counters and such) Doesn't listen particularly well Gets crabby and loud when he gets hungry Is scared of loud noises At times, runs frenetically around the house for no apparent reason Plays with bugs I still have to clean up his, ahem, personal waste (the pee ones, anyway) Gets insulted when you are away for too long (purely subjective) Enjoys jumping Likes bouncing balls Needs his food prepared for him Ways Mr. Personality is not like a cat: Knows all the alphabet letters and their phonetic sounds Recognizes words from his favorite books (I think more memorization than anything) Can do simple addition and subraction Does not wash himself (very well, at least) Can