living with squirrels

Common Phrases Overheard on Our Vacation (so far)

nobody@vox.com(julieb) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:02:16 -0400

Here is a highlight of our vacation in Delaware so far- keep in mind that we're staying in a beach house about the size of our last apartment with our friends and their four kids...
"What time is it?" (because there are no clocks anywhere in not just our house, but anywhere in the town.
"Where did I put my (fill in the blank)?" (because it's inevitable that no matter where you put something originally, it's not there five minutes later)
"HOW many times have we told you to close the door when you're changing?!" (because there are members of my family who have no concept of what modesty is)
"HOW many times have we told you guys to spray after you go to the bathroom?!" (because there are many children who don't get that concept, either)
"What time is high tide?" (everyone seems to be fascinated by this "phenomenon"-- not sure why, but I think the kids think this means the water turns purple or something once high tide hits... Maybe I should tell them this and see how many buy it...
"What day is it?" (somehow I managed to skip over Tuesday without realizing it)
"My God, how much sand can you dump out of your swim suit onto the floor?!" (no need for explanation)
"Aidan! Personal space, Dude!" (once again, no explanation needed)

I will post at a later time more details (and pictures) from our vacation, as well as why I will never visit DC again (because every time I've gone there, something awful has happened). But now I'm off to the boardwalk or to walk the beach at night with my kids...

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Finally, I Can Catch My Breath

nobody@vox.com(julieb) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:05:12 -0400

Aw, I finally see the light at the end of a very long, very hectic trip that we've been on since... I don't remember how long it's been, but it feels like about 100 year now. The past year has overall been one big blur, filled with move after move (after move), mixed in with kids' sports season after season, and throw into it a touch of home decorating...

I feel that I have become a horrible friend to many of you; not intentionally, but because by the time I finally can catch my breath, it's usually around 11-11:30 and I don't think it very "friendlike" to call that late. BUT I think we're finally calming down (even if it may be short-lived).

Last night, my son's baseball team lost their tournament game, which brought on mixed feelings for my family. We were sad for them, since they lost it in the last 5 minutes of the game, but also relieved because it meant NO SPORTS for the next month or so. Whatever will we do with having every night back again??? (Maybe get to know each other again, after a long absence?)

This week is the last of the crazy after-work commitments (I'm being carefully optimistic, as I write that). The boys have a birthday party tonight and I have a hair appointment (where I'm sure I will get a "talkin' to" for waiting so long). Tomorrow we have to finish packing, then Friday we are leaving at 3:00am (UGH- NOT my idea) to drive out to Delaware and spend a very relaxing week away from everything that gives me grey hair here in good ole' Indiana (work, life, work...). I am DETERMINED come hell or high water (which, you never know, may happen, since we're staying right on the ocean) that I WILL relax, dammit!

Then, starting after we're back, I want to have get-togethers again. We have this nice, big house that is great for hosting stuff and we have yet to use it for that. I've missed having people over- we used to get together with everyone often in the old house. But, once we put it on the market, the get-togethers ended (in fear of getting a last-minute call for a showing)... And we haven't picked it back up again because of all the crazy, hectic schedules we've led.

I'll try to post while on vacation, but please understand if it doesn't happen... Relaxing also means NO ELECTRONICS for me; I feel I'm glued to the computer all day at work, so I'll see how it goes while at the beach (sand and computers don't mix)...

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Been a Very Busy Summer So Far

nobody@vox.com(julieb) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:00:40 -0400

So, what explains my very long absence from Blogworld? Did I fall off the Earth? No. Did I spend the last two-ish months trying to escape from aliens who abducted me? No, not really. Did my children lock me in my room, with no possible way of escaping? Ha, I WISH... No, the only way of explaining why I've been MIA for so long can be summed up quite well by three words: Little League Baseball. And I know that if there are any parents out there who have fallen prey to this hellish nightmare, they will immediately understand why I fell into a black hole for so long.

The boys begged and begged us incessantly to sign them up for this so-called "recreational league" and against my better intentions, I caved and let them play. I too played baseball (and mostly softball) for a few years while growing up. And even though I'm sure my schedule was not nearly as horrific as their's turned out to be, I still remember spending alot of time at the ball field.

Well, because this year the weather wasn't nice to us and many of the games were rained out, the powers that be within the Little League decided they should reschedule the rain games. BUT instead of say, extending the schedule a week or so, they came up with the ingenious idea of cramming several games into the same week, with double-headers galore... not to mention the 8-9:45pm games scheduled for the first graders (because that's when seven year-olds are really on their game, right?).

You can't tell I'm slightly bitter, can you? Yeah, I thought it was a bit obvious...

For the past two months now, baseball has consumed 97% of our waking lives (the other 3% going towards work). We've spent up to 5 days/ nights (any combo of the two) a week living at the ball fields. Most nights, I find myself rushing out of work, cussing my way through rush hour traffic, so I can meet up with the rest of the Fam at the fields, where we spend the next 2-4 hours.

Besides living my own personal hell (otherwise known as baseball), we have been up to a couple fun things, as well.

My nephew, Eric, was married over Memorial Day weekend. Aidan was ring bearer and looked oh-so dashing in his tux. He milked his GQ style for all it was worth, too. He had committed to the goal of dancing with each woman at the reception ONLY ONCE, and managed to work his way around to a good majority of the ladies there. I got my ONE dance with my little man, and that was it- cut off after that.

Aidan and Nicole

Aidan and Kyra

Aidan and Jenny

Aidan loved dressing up (this from the boy who went through a phase of wanting to wear a shirt and tie everywhere)-- he thought he looked like Indiana Jones in his tux and was terribly disappointed when he found out that no, the tux was not his to keep, and yes, it would be going back the next day.

Aidan looking very dapper

The other bright spot to the summer so far was Babypalooza 2009 in Chicago. My college roommate, Tammy, found me a while back (thanks to Crackbook, I mean Facebook) and we've been corresponding ever since. Soon after we reconnected I found out that she and her husband, Chad, were expecting TWINS (!!!) and Conni (my other college roommate and close friend) and I were invited to her shower.

Last Saturday, we drove up (and then back same-day) to her shower, which was held in this very quaint restaurant, La Crepery, where we then spent all afternoon stuffing ourselves full of some really great food (and I drank quite an impressive amount of mimosa). It was so great to see her again after 15 years, and to meet her hubby and friends. Made me want to move to Chicago, actually... until Conni and I hit the traffic from the Blues Fest.

College Roommates

So, please excuse me if there aren't very many postings until the dust clears (which Thank God it's starting to)-- I feel like for now I am just in survival mode until we get done with baseball and then off to our vacation... Hopefully I can post some great vacation pics once home again...

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Living Healthy Sucks!

nobody@vox.com(julieb) — Tue, 19 May 2009 11:36:21 -0400

This is the year that I vowed I would get my act together and start living healthier. I started off by FINALLY getting in to the dentist after many years of not going (and I chronicled how well that went in the entry before this one)... The second part of my "healthier living" is to eat better.

Anyone close to me knows my love affair with all-things-chocolate stems from childhood (hense why, in part at least, I have a mouthful of fillings). If there was a proposal for adding chocolate onto the food pyramid as it's own food group (and a very necessary one, at that), I'd so be all over it-- it'd probably be the ONLY food group requirement I'd make every day. You know you've got a bad addiction when the girls working in the pharmacy next door see you coming and just automatically know to ring up a Twix and a diet green tea before you're even up to the counter. Sad, sad, sad...

Every day I have AT LEAST two chocolate breaks. *Sigh* Well, time to change, friends, before it catches up with me, I guess...

Today I opted to pack my lunch. I don't usually pack on the days when I know I'm going to be at this particular site because the drug reps are always catering food for us here. But, because I'm TRYING to do better (and because we have a wedding to go to this weekend and I want to look smoking-hot (laughter from the audience)), I've decided to pass up the chicken wings and pasta catered from O'Charley's and instead eat my little sandwich with my cup of applesauce... and my small container of M&M's... and diet Dr. Pepper. Okay, so it's not the healthiest lunch I could've packed, but it's still better than the greasy-fat diet I usually consume here.

I'm also going to use my lunch hour to "exercise", by running to Kohl's and Walmart (because everyone knows how huge the Super-Walmart is. I mean, two laps around it and you've walked, like, five miles, right?).

I have done better today than usual, though. This morning around 8 I was sitting at my desk, jonesing for a Twix and instead of walking over to the pharmacy to buy one, I opted instead to eat my Yo-Plus yogurt with my Special K "grab 'n go" and surprisingly, the craving passed. Till 11:00, at least. Then I caved and ate my M&M's out of my lunch. Huh, guess the pharmacy will see me this afternoon for my Twix-run, afterall... Damn.

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If My Mother Read This Blog, I'm Sure She'd be Telling Me, "I told you so"

nobody@vox.com(julieb) — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:46:24 -0400

I haven't been to see a dentist in five years. Yes, I know that this is four and a half years more than you should wait, but for as long as I can remember back, I've always had this fear- and I'm talking about the kind that grips you and makes it almost as unbearable to think about going as the actual act of physically going. It stems back to childhood (doesn't everything???) when I had a VERY insensitive dentist- make that several- who I swear got off on pulling as many teeth as they could get away with. Or filling every square inch of tooth, JUST BECAUSE THEY COULD. I'll never forget one memoriable Easter when I had seven baby teeth pulled from my head just a couple days beforehand, which meant NO CHOCOLATE for me. That's just a plain cruel and insensitive act to do to a child. Almost ranking up there next to locking them in closets. Or telling them that Santa and the Easter Bunny don't exist.

Since I went back to work fulltime, I became elligible for dental insurance again. Up until that, we've always taken the boys every six months religiously, but not ourselves (because who wants to scrape together $200 for THAT when you can spend it in such more fulfilling ways like, say, a Wii). We've used the new insurance for the boys' appointments, but hadn't mustered the courage to go to the dentist ourselves yet... until now. This morning I had my first appointment in five years. An appointment that I tried VERY hard to not fixate on until the minute I was opening the door to the office and then the panic started setting in.

I managed to make it through the appointment relatively unscathed. Even when they got to the part when they told me that I was going to need a "deep cleaning", since I haven't been in for so long. I won't go into the gorey details of it all, but apparently my face must have told them enough, because when discussing the options, they mentioned that they were going to not just numb me, but would also have the lovely, lovely gas available to "help me relax" during the procedure. Yes, I am THAT big of a baby. And yes, I told them that sounded fabulous. And that I'd probably need the whole day off to recover afterwards.

Unfortunately, with all the time I took off while moving and then again will be taking off at the end of June for our vacation, I really don't know when/ how I'm going to muster up the time off for two appointments (because apparently they do each side in a separate appointment). I didn't let them know this, naturally, but it's probably going to be July or August before I can schedule my torture sessions. Hey, what's two or three more months when it's already been five years, right?

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Let the Planting Begin

nobody@vox.com(julieb) — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:57:21 -0400

One of the (many) things that Hubby and I were dreading (the list is very, very small actually) with building again was the lawn- well, actually the lack of one- and having to coddle and nurture the "baby lawn" the builders put in until finally 5 years later you have a semi-yard. Then the dandelions and miscellaneous weeds start setting in, you try to do the lawn care yourself, and finally end up saying, "Screw it, I'm calling in the professionals" and you hire a lawn care service.

Well, we've been in our lovely new home for a little over a month and I was starting to wonder if the "baby lawn" would ever be delivered. Thanks to the April and then May showers, the delivery and installing of the lawn kept being pushed back. Every storm that rolled through made me groan, knowing that all that great FREE lawn watering was going to waste on our mud heap. We watched and waited and every rain produced nice little streams of water trickling down our ungraded backyard. The "Barren Desert of Beazer" as Aidan called it was full of all sorts of wonderful rocks and junk left behind by the builders- things like broken glass, fast food wrappers, and pieces of 2x4's. Nice! Don't see those as landscaping ideas on HGTV, now do you???

Finally, I received a text yesterday by Laura, our building rep that I've become friends with through the process of building our home. She gave me play-by-play commentary on my lawn going in: "Now they're grading your yard", "Now they're putting in the shrubs", "Now they're planting your tree-- yippee!!". I was REALLY happy that we finally would have our yard, but also two lingering thoughts kept creeping back into my mind: Since we weren't there while they were doing this, did they actually pick up all the crap out of the yard, or did they merely lay sod on top of it (I'm pretty sure it was probably the latter)? and Now that we have this wonderful lawn, how much are the water bills going to be over the next few years, as we obsessively water, water, water it???

When I came home yesterday, I must say that it was a wonderful site, seeing all the green instead of the desert landscape that we'd become accustomed to seeing. Then, looking out over the backyard, waves of anxiety washed over me again as I realized, "Man, this is a big, freakin' yard! How the heck are we going to keep this bad boy up?"... Especially since we live next to people who are OBSESSED with their yard (mind you, they have no kids. Which means they have all the time in the world to water and love and talk sweet nothings to their lawn. Unlike us, who are gone pretty much every single night of the week and most of the weekend, providing taxi service to our darling children.

This weekend is Mother's Day and I figure I'd use that as my excuse to go play out in the yard. I'm going to start by pulling the sod away from the house where the flower beds are going to go (I learned that the hard way in the last house that it's much harder to dig a flower bed once the lawn's established than to just pull up the sod where you don't want it to begin with). I'm also going to let my younger son pick out a few things that he wants to grow-- he's expressed interest in having a garden, so I figured we'd go find him some things that we could place in pots up on the deck so the deer and rabbits and other "world's creatures" (as Aidan calls them) won't use them as a buffet.

I'm terrified that I won't dig out the beds correctly, and that the flowers I pick won't grow. But, I know the only way to figure out what I can and can't grow is through trial and error. Lots of hard work and sweat await us for the next 10 or so years, but I know that all our big plans and hard work will eventually pay off...

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Baseball Season is Here (meaning we won't be available until early next year)

nobody@vox.com(julieb) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:38:05 -0400

We've always given our kids the opportunity to try whatever sport/ club they wanted. Our only requirement was that they not be in more than one sport and one educational activity (piano/ club/ church-related thing) at a time. When we had just one kid to run around, it wasn't so bad. But you throw the other one into the mix, and you find yourself running every day practically.

I remember when the neighbors in our old neighborhood had all three of their boys in baseball and we never saw them. EVER. And I remember vowing that I was never going to be one of those parents. Yeah, you guessed it; I'm eating my words now.

My boys have played soccer every Spring and Fall for the past several years. I've always enjoyed it (though I couldn't tell you the rules of it) and especially when they played through the church league because it only involved one day/ week for practice and for the games. This Spring, they decided to try baseball. I secretly loved this idea because I played for many years on the school's softball team and if there's one sport that I feel 100% confident helping my kids with, this is the one.

Practices started last week, and because of the move, I'd managed to lose (throw away is probably more likely) their team schedules. So, after checking the website, I was surprised to find that we will be at the baseball field not 2 or 3 nights a week, but more like 5, sometimes 6. This bothers me because now I'm just like my neighbors; living every day and night as my kids taxi service to their games/ practices.

My older son commented that he didn't know that it was going to be this "involved". I told him I didn't think it'd be quite this bad, either, and that's what he got for wanting to play organized sports that weren't through the chruch league. The first games were this past Saturday; Aidan's from 12-1:45 and then Alex's from 4-5:45. Last week's weren't bad, but this week's aren't going to be so great. Friday and Saturday, Alex has one from 6-7:45, and Aidan has one on Saturday from 12-1:45. I know that I shouldn't complain really (we have friends who have to be there every Saturday at 8:00am), but really, who wants to spend all weekend at the field? The latest games for Alex are from 8-9:45pm on Fridays and Saturdays coming up. Those may be ones that Dad takes Alex to without Mom and Aidan.

I knew that my time was coming for this to happen, but I wasn't expecting it at 4th grade. And I know that we are certainly NOT the only families doing this. I just wish that I had had the sense to look into this before signing them up. So, if any of you need me in the next couple months, you'll knwo where to find me- at the baseball field.

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Gimmicks Good, Bland Bad

nobody@vox.com(julieb) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:27:21 -0400

Every time I go grocery shopping, there seems to be endless distractions that prevent me from sticking strictly to my shopping list: the candy aisle (because everyone knows that chocolate is a necessary part of life), the beer aisle (fits in the same category as chocolate), and the almighty important chip aisle.

For a while now, I have found the never-ending variety of new chip flavors too tempting for me to pass up. I proudly brag about how we've tried every flavor of Dorito to ever grace the shelves of our beloved Walmart. I also fall prey to the gimmick- packaging scam. When Dorito had the "name this chip" gimmick a couple summers ago, we just HAD to try them. They came in an all-black bag with white letters. There was a contest where if you guessed the chip flavor, you could win a lifetime's supply of Doritos (which boy, would they have been sorry if we'd won that!). We thought they were cheeseburger with pickle flavored, but I'm really not sure what flavor they ended up being.

Sadly, whenever we find a chip that's supposed to be "spicy", it always disappoints. Maybe because their idea of "spicy" is dumbed down for us lame-o Americans? Maybe because after years of subjecting our tastebuds to REALLY spicy things we no longer have tastebuds (because we've burned them all away)? I dunno-- but they never seem to do the trick of satisfying our needs for spicy hot.

Today while at the store, I found two chips of interest: Cheetos has a new "large"- sized cheeto puff out. That looked (and felt, as I squeezed the bag and found that the cheeto puffs did indeed seem large) intriguing. Also, I came across buffalo wing-flavored pretzle crisps, which were surprisingly very good.

This weekend, while celebrating an early Easter with the in-laws, one of the items that "the Easter Bunny" left in the baskets for the kids were Bean Boozled jellybeans. There are several colors, which is nothing new obviously. What is new is that there can be two separate flavors for each color. For the green ones, you can either get sour apple flavored or booger flavored. The peachish ones were either peach fizz flavored or pencil shaving flavored. From the looks on my kids' and their cousins' faces as they ate the "gross" flavored ones, I opted out of that flavor adventure. The thought of the gross flavors is enough alone to make my stomach a little queasy; I can only imagine what biting into an ear wax-flavored jelly bean would do to me...

If anyone has tried any interestingly flavored foods (especially chips), let me know; we're always up for the challenge (except for booger or pencil shaving- flavored things. I think I can pass on those).

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I Can Almost Breathe a Sigh of Relief

nobody@vox.com(julieb) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:30:53 -0400

So, our get-away last weekend was very nice, but definitely sent me into a state of panic once back home. The past week was a blur as we prepared for closing and now the "Big Move", which is tomorrow. Last week, we had the final loose ends that needed tired up: contacting the utility companies and letting them know when to transfer service (which Steve had to do the day of closing since his loser wife let it slip her mind all week), wiring the money to the mortgage company (another thing that poor Hubby had to deal with at the last minute, thanks to his wife's ineptitude), making sure all necessary T's were crossed and I's were dotted. Notice my omission of mentioning packing anywhere in there... Accidentally omission? No- as of today; there really has been no packing yet. And since both Hubby and I work today, I have a feeling that all remaining packing will have to take place tonight between the hours of 9pm and midnight. This is unfortunately a trend with us and moving- we usually don't realize till the last minute and then we go, "Shit! WHY didn't we start thinking about this a month ago?!" and then everything gets thrown haphazardly into trash bags (unlabeled, of course, because that adds an extra element of surprise to it when you open a trash bag and find either it's the trash you forgot to set out a week ago or breakable things that SHOULD have been wrapped up, instead of just pitched into a trash bag and now, since you didn't take the time to properly secure said items, are broken).

Over the weekend, we spent a good portion of the time at the new house, painting and starting to hang blinds in the bedrooms (so the neighbors don't get to know us THAT well). We found that one of our bedroom windows is just THAT much too small for the blind we'd ordered, so now we have to return it and special order the right-sized blind (Ouch; can you say twice as expensive?). Painting was a success, though. we managed to get both boys' rooms painted and they look GREAT. I've learned that you get what you pay for, as far as paint goes and I'm now sold on Lowe's Valspar brand of paint. We had several walls that we painted in dark colors and all of them were covered very well with just a coat of paint and some touching up; BIG improvement over the last time I painted (in the old house) when it took 4 or 5 coats of red paint to get the wall relatively covered...

Now, we're coming up on the final move tomorrow. The movers are coming at 8:45; right after we shoo the kids out the door for school. The kids are excited; we're excited; I'm sure everyone who knows us are excited (so we'll finally shut up about the stupid house). We have many, many other exciting projects left inside (hanging lights/ ceiling fans/ more blinds) before heading to the outside, where there's an endless list of projects awaiting us.

When I can catch my breath, I'll post some pics of our journey. It's been a long year for us and I'm very happy that it's almost complete.

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Just Call Us Insane

nobody@vox.com(julieb) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:13:30 -0400

In one week exactly, our new house will officially be ours. It's been a long year and we're more than ready to end this journey... So, what is the best way to spend your last weekend before moving? Packing? Surely you jest. That would make us too prepared, too organized.

No, instead we're going away to a cabin with friends. Last year we also did this, but it was under different circumstances. I'd just started my job and welcomed the chance to get away. This year, we had decided to opt out of the cabin so we could pack... except that we must have not conveyed that to our friends very well and when they reserved the cabin, counted us in. We were given the option of backing out after the reservations had been made, but why? It's not like we won't get stuff packed in time (though we may go crazy trying to do all of it at the last minute). Besides, two glorious mornings of being to sleep in (hopefully past 8) sounds pretty frickin' good right now.

I forgot to throw the camera in my bag before leaving for work (we're heading out right after I'm off), but hopefully I'll have pics from one of our friends. My biggest obstacle this weekend is going to be not fixating on the fact that instead of drinking and sitting in the hot tub, I should be home packing up the kitchen...

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