Hey there.

I promise I still exist.

What's more, I even still have random thoughts that I'd like to continue sharing with y'all. (Assuming anyone still checks this blog. Because six months is a long time with no posts.)

(Actually, six months is just a long time in general and boy howdy, have the past six been a doozy for me and Shallow Man and the Little Guy.)

(And I'd love to start telling y'all about them instead of continuing on in parentheticals, and I fully intended to do so but the Little Guy has pulled out one of his truly amazing apocalyptic colds, to which the Cold of the Century seems a mere trifle, which in practical terms means a whole lotta facial tissue—some name-brand, some not—and something like ten total hours of sleep for me in the past two days, no more than two and a half of which were consecutive.)

Wahoo!

So I'm going to skip on the real stories for now and satisfy myself with reassuring you all, once again, that yes, I still exist.



Tune in later for exciting stories! Or, you know, random nonsense. 

Pop quiz; or, why I haven't posted for a while.

Time for a pop quiz!


Which of these situations contains actual irony?

1. Rain on your wedding day.

2. A traffic jam when you're already late.

3. You grow up in Utah and love it there. Love the dryness, love the seasons, even love the snow as long as you don't have to shovel it or drive in it too much. You marry a guy who grew up in Florida. He complains about the lack of humidity in Utah and any hint of a snowflake (what he terms "the enemy from above") causes him to frantically scour the Internet for job openings in Florida. This goes on for seven consecutive winters, you watching him search for jobs that are in close proximity to palm trees while you're curled up on the couch with a blanket, a good book and some hot chocolate as the snow falls gently outside. Every winter, you worry a little bit about what would happen if he actually found a good job in Florida, because, as previously stated, you love it in Utah. And then the eighth winter comes along and . . . it's like winter forgot to arrive. Christmas is brown and green and dry. You get a little bit of slushy flakes in January but no real snow until late February/early March. For the first time, your husband isn't constantly searching for jobs in Florida, because the snow isn't driving him to extremes. And then, out of the blue, a sister company for the company he works for says, "Hey, we have an opening for a job in Tampa. Do you want it?"

4. You live in Utah where it usually snows all the time. You have a toddler who likes to play outside. You'd rather keep the toddler and the snow from having too much direct contact so you start shopping for snowpants (he's already got a coat and mittens and a hat in the shape of a penguin). You find the exact kind you want—cheap, durable, not pink or purple—and the store is ALWAYS out of his size. You wait and keep checking because it hasn't snowed much yet this winter so it's not urgent that you have these snowpants right now and by waiting you can avoid having to pay shipping by ordering through the store's website because paying for shipping just kind of seems immoral to you now that you've got Amazon prime (and why doesn't Amazon make it easier to find size 18m snowpants in non-girly styles, anyway?) but finally there's a forecast for a big storm and you really want your little guy to be able to build a snowman so you just bite the bullet and order the boots and the snowpants and pay the shipping and then they arrive and the snow sort of comes and you build a snowman with your waterproof toddler once. The snow all melts the next day and within a week and a half your husband calls you and says that a sister company for the company he works for has just told him out of the blue, "Hey, we have an opening for a job in Tampa. Do you want it?" It snows a couple more times in the next few weeks but the snowpants don't see any more use either because you're frantically packing for a cross-country move or your toddler is sick or both.

5. A sister company for the company your husband works for tells him out of the blue that they have an opening in Tampa and asks if he'd like the job. You say yes and start planning for a quick but organized cross-country move. Then your toddler gets a major ear infection, contracts the stomach flu, and gives that flu to you and your husband. Your family spends the better part of a week and a half recovering. Then your husband is flown out to work in Tampa early, leaving you alone with a toddler and a house to pack. Your babysitters get a nasty bout of illness. Your son gets RSV and ends up in the hospital overnight so they can observe his difficulty breathing. Husband comes home the night after toddler is discharged from hospital. All semblance of organization in packing and moving goes irrevocably down the drain; the only overarching theme of this cross-country move is "If it can go wrong, it will." We should just call it Murphy's Move to save time. The day you start packing the moving van, you get the worst cold of your life (because, let's face it, it's probably actually your son's RSV) complete with nasty cough (like unto one which hacks up a lung) which hangs on and hangs on and hasn't left yet.

6. You somehow manage to get to Tampa with your husband, your toddler, two cats, and the bare essentials which you took on the plane with you to tide you over until your furniture and other stuff arrives hopefully on Tuesday. Immediately your air mattress springs a leak.

7. You have a palm tree growing outside your bedroom window and a tiny lizard lives on your deck. Your toddler loves the new apartment and even though you have uprooted your entire life, have no idea where anything is in this town, have to learn an entirely new city, have no friends and are miles away from your family, your home and everything you've grown up with, you start thinking, hey, maybe living in Tampa is going to be fun after all.

8. Ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife. (Note: you are not in any kind of silverware factory.)





Hint: By my count, only one of these is actually ironic. The others involve bad timing, bad luck, Murphy's law, odd coincidences, frustration, facepalms, and, thankfully, a bit of fortuitousness.

A few items of note.

In no particular order:

The Little Guy has his first ever real cold. I blame Shallow Man's freaky immune system. Usually the way sickness works in this house is that instead of everyone catching a bug in turn, I catch it twice and Shallow Man maybe coughs a couple times and is over it. However, this last week Shallow Man actually had to take two—count 'em, TWO—sick days. This same bug is the first thing that's actually gotten to the Little Guy. I haven't been sick at all. (Being hungover from lack of sleep after taking care of the Little Guy most of the night doesn't count.) It's not fun for LG or for me, but it is comforting to know that I won't necessarily have to catch everything three times going forward. (Have my menfolk met their own personal Cold of the Century? Only time will tell.)

The only thing LG hates more than vaccinations is having his nose wiped. Kleenexes are bad enough but heaven help you if you bring a nasal aspirator within twenty feet of him. At times like these, I think of the medical staff who debated so long whether he and his lungs needed to go to the NICU or not, and imagine how proud they'd be if they could see him now. Actually, scratch that. I'm pretty sure they could hear him from where they were. I'm pretty sure FRANCE could hear him.

When he's not about to collapse under the weight of just how mean Mommy and her evil Kleenex-weilding ways are, LG's new favorite thing is to bury his face in my neck and blow raspberries. Each time he does this, he then leans back to see if I noticed JUST HOW AWESOME HE IS, and gets the cutest smug little smirk on his face. Like, "Yeah, I just did that." (LOVE THAT LITTLE GUY.)

He's also tried to raspberry my chin, with less than satisfactory (to his way of thinking) results.

He's not quite crawling yet, although he's definitely thinking about it. With the way the cats keep taunting him by waving their tails tantalizingly close to his grasp, I give it another couple weeks at most. Heaven help us all once he's mobile.

I had another surreal I-swear-I'm-not-old-enough-for-that moment today when the pediatrician's office called today to do a survey on customer satisfaction and they asked for "the parent or guardian of Little Guy" and I answered "Yes, that's me."



Well folks, the sad little snoring and whimpering from the nursery are telling me that it's probably going to be another long night, so I'll sign off now. I've got a sad little boy to snuggle.

Poor Little Bunny

Thanks to all who have De-Lurked so far. I've enjoyed seeing your comments.

So the Little Guy has had a tummy ache since yesterday as he tries to come to terms with his digestive system. It's nothing serious, but it does mean he needs even more love and attention (poor little guy can't even cry real tears yet), which means less time for blogging.

Which means it's time to shamelessly lift hilarious videos from other blogs!

I laughed at this. Very hard. Because it is TRUE.



As Bridget kindly explained:

(PS - the one line in the clip that's difficult to catch is "you've not heard of LemSip?" which is like TheraFlu. And at the end he asks to watch cbeebies, which is like British Sesame Street.)

(Thanks, Bridget, and I hope your family feels better soon!)

Here's hoping that the Little Guy's tummy ache doesn't turn into a Man Cold. (Do you think it's related to the Cold of the Century?)

Till tomorrow, then!



A 10-day streak! Admit it, you didn't think I'd make it this far. (I know I sure didn't!)

Remember, remember; or, Not.

Well, Guy Fawkes, I have failed you.

My memory + Guy Fawkes = EPIC FAIL.

What with Stump the Professor and two funerals and the midterm for my class and studying for the MPRE, and let's not under any circumstances forget Ratchet and Clank or SYTYCD and OH my old nemesis is back, I forgot Guy Fawkes Day.

So yeah, that whole

Remember, remember the fifth of November

thing? Totally not what I did.

See?

Epic. Fail.

Well, I guess there's always next year. . . .


At least my forgetfulness was not the result of getting a manicure. (Name that reference for 27 points!)

If you wish to show your sympathy and solidarity, feel free to leave a belated penny for the Guy.

Nice.

So I figure it's about time for a new post, but as I am once again doing epic battle against my old nemesis, the cold of the century, I'm going to pull the old if-I-post-a-randomly-cool-picture-they-might-not-realize-I-didn't-actually-write-a-post trick. Enjoy, and I'll try to get a real post out soon.

Weird.

Well, the Cold of the Century is returning. (My old nemesis, we meet again...) If it hasn't quite arrived in full force yet, it's at least sending out numerous scouts to check out the lay of the land. What this means is that I'm still able to (sort of) move around and I haven't had to miss class or work (yet), but I'm still feeling pretty darn crappy and am using up enough kleenex that in the last hour alone I have probably been responsible for an entire tree or so. They do make Kleenex out of trees, right? I forget. Anyway, you get the idea.

The weird thing is that these happen to be the nicer kind of facial tissue and are chock-full of lotion and mosturizers and stuff. And by chock-full I mean that my hands are markedly softer after the half-box I've gone through. I can actually feel the lotion residue on my hands just from handling the Kleenex. I don't want to complain too hard - after all, my nose is benefitting from this and is not red and scaly and falling off my face after all the blowing. But it's kind of weird still. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer to get my hand lotion from a bottle.

And now I need to take my stuffed-up nose and soft, silky hands to bed. At this rate I'm pretty sure they won't make it to class tomorrow. Urgh.

Appomattox and Shoes

Side note before beginning the real story here: I asked my husband how to spell "Appomattox" to make sure I had gotten it right and his response was "I have no idea." This wouldn't be a big deal except for the fact that he is from the South and makes a big point of being a "suth'n boy." He dreams about fried okra, has nightmares about chitlins, and gets passionate and excited and all patriotic-like when the subject of Robert E. Lee comes up. He doesn't get teary-eyed over old Bobby, although I think this is due more to the fact that I have only known him to cry a total of three or four times since I've known him than to any lack of respect. The movie line he laughs hardest at is from "One, Two, Three" (taking place in divided Berlin; great comic movie with James Cagney) when Mac gets mad at Scarlett (a suth'n girl) for blowing up balloons that say "Yankee Go Home":

Mac: You were making anti-American propaganda?!
Scarlett: It's not anti-American, it's anti-Yankee. And where I come from, everybody's against the Yankees.

So with all that Southernness going on, you'd think he'd know Appomattox. Was he faking his suth'n-ness all along? Or is this one of those "The South Will Rise Again" denial-type issues? I'll have to look into it. In the meantime, on with the show.


Today, in a dramatic ceremony (at which no photographers were present, thank goodness), The Cold surrendered its family heirloom sword to me. Actually, it had been hiding behind some rocks, trying to evade the deluge of orange juice, and came out waving a white tissue on its swordpoint. I have won! Of course there are a few straggling regiments that I have to go take care of who haven't realized that they've lost yet, but my trusty Kleenex box can more than handle them. It'll all be over in a day or so.

I was so excited about this that I went out and bought some new shoes. Actually, I'd been needing to buy shoes for a while but hadn't been able to because of said cold, but still. I love shoes. Especially black shoes. A girl cannot have too many pairs of black shoes. My college roommate Margo (one of the world's most amazing people ever) can attest to this. She was always impressed at my collection of black shoes and my ability to walk into a shoe store at random, usually on a trip to help her find shoes, and come out with something adorable for myself, while she had been unable to find anything she liked. I think at the high-water mark I had nineteen pairs of black shoes, not counting a few other pairs of non-blacks. Since I've been married, though, my shoe collection has dwindled severely and I generally only get new shoes when there is a special occassion or when old ones wear out.

Today was triple-point shoe day. Two of my favorite pairs (one of them being my tri-continent shoes) had worn out and there is also a special occassion coming up, as my brother is getting married on Thursday. So I got a nice pair of black work shoes, some cute flats and some uber-fun, very high-heeled Mary Jane types. Life is good.

Resolutions

So I was going to resolve to be a bit more consistent about posting on my blog, once all the crazy Christmas rush was done. (Christmas in retail, oh joy!) And I really was going to do it.

Only once all the crazy Christmas rush was done, it started catching up to me.

By the time Resolutions Day rolled around I was battling the cold of the century (my immune system apparently having made its own resolution to cut back on the hard work and spend more time with the fam'), and it's still anybody's guess as to who's going to win this one. The Cold is gaining ground as I am rapidly running out of tissues. But I am valiantly beating it back by drowning it in orange juice, so it may all turn out okay in the end. Until I run out of oj, that is...

At any rate, since I missed the holiday season, I'd just like to wish you all a belated happy Christmahannakwanzaadanstice, as my sisters would say. (We really overlook the Druids this time of year. I'm sure they wouldn't mind it if we wished them a Happy Winter Solstice now and again.)

Freaking Druids. They're everywhere...