Starting next year's To Do list

I guess because it's the end of the year, I started thinking about New Year resolutions. Since I don't have any vices (snicker), my resolutions are more of To Do lists. Exercise 3 times a week, identify 4 new birds a month, read a book a week. That sort of thing. And then I figured, why wait? I mean, if I want to improve myself, my life and my family, why wait until the beginning of the year to fail, I mean, to succeed. This week, work has been rather slow, so I've managed to accomplish quite a few things: I went to the dentist (for the appointment that was originally scheduled in May); I got my hair done; I cooked something new (one of those things on the list, because I have 5 boxes of cookbooks and I really need to start using them); I got Christmas shopping done; I found out my pap smear was really abnormal and my husband and I will not be starting a family next year.

This is what is called irony. See, I never wanted biological kids. I wanted to adopt. But my husband, for some odd reason, thinks I'm the best thing since vanilla ice-cream (for him, that's heaven), and he wanted to have babies with me. And because I love my husband (and he has green eyes), I agreed. It's also a lot cheaper to have biological babies than adopt, and I'm kind of cheap (we're also broke, thanks to his x). And I was getting excited about it. Thinking about having an alien growing in me. And alien I could talk to, read to, sing to (but only when no one else was around because my singing sucks). I was looking forward to rubbing my belly and feeling little kicks (but only little kicks). I was looking forward to seeing what part of me (hopefully the love of reading) and what part of him (hopefully his vast intelligence) the baby have. Would it have green eyes, like both of us? Would it have blond hair, like we both had as a child? Would it be smart? Would it be happy? Would it be worth it? And now, I may never know.

But I have discovered I have amazing friends and family. I've gotten e-mails and phone calls from all over. They've offered to pray, to listen to me bitch and cry, offered to come help, and one even offered to be a surrogate mother, which is really nice, but kind of creepy. And this comforts me, knowing that these people love me.

Since we wanted to start a family, one of the things I wanted to do was strengthen my faith. I want my children to know that my belief in God lives beyond weekly church services. I want my children to know that I believe in a living, loving, awesome God. I had really been thinking about my favorite Old Testament story. It's in Daniel, chapter 3. The Hebrews had been exiled to Babylon, but many of the young men served as advisers for King Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar had this brilliant idea to build a huge gold statue of himself and then, when it was uncovered, everyone would have to bow down and worship it. Because he was so great. These three Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused, because they worshipped God alone. Nebuchadnezzar was furious, and threatened to kill them, by burning them to death. Remember, these were men he knew personally. The men reply, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." (Daniel 3:16-18) But even if he does not. That is faith. Faith without glory, without praise, even, one might say, without purpose. That's the kind of faith I want. (If you want to know what happened to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, you'll have to go read the story. At this point, the ending is not important to me.)

Dinner conversation

Over dinner, my husband and I discussed the end of the world, in relation to the Book of Revelations. I tend to be more of a literalist than my husband. He believes in alien life-forms and that even if the earth is destroyed, we will have colonized space first. I said that space is probably already filled with other, more intelligent life-forms. He replied that they were probably having this exact conversation right now. I replied that no, that they were probably tela-pathetic. Then I fell off my chair laughing so hard that I cried while my husband mocked me. We have great dinner conversations.

The Best Day Ever

Christmas is my favorite holiday. Growing up, it was the time of year when far flung relatives visited, when everybody behaved well, and it just seemed magical. There was the tree, the lights, and most importantly, the music. Christmas music still makes me cry (it also makes my husband cry when I sing to the Christmas music). The joy of giving and receiving gifts and knowledge that we were celebrating the birth of Jesus, all this just added to my happiness at this time of year. One of the many things I looked forward to, with my own family, was continuing some family traditions, and creating many more of our own. Now, I know that thanksgiving isn't even here yet, but with the step kids living three hours away, we'll probably only get them two or three more times before Christmas. Therefore, this weekend we set up and decorated our tree. I always wanted a blue and silver themed tree, so that's what we did.
I finally got to set up my Christmas village. I get a piece of this every year, but since I've always spent Christmas at "home" I've never set mine up. Yes, they're different sizes: that's because they're from different sets of grandmas and from different village sets. They're getting old and can't always remember what they've already given. Hence, Santa lives in a tract housing area; I have two of the same houses. I cut the duplicate out of the picture.
We also decided it would be a good idea to get the kids to get us, and each other, gifts. You know, trying to get them to think about the giving part of Christmas and not just the getting. So we did a little shopping, made easier by the fact that we also asked what they wanted (they have a list if you want to get them anything).

To top off this wonderful day, the Norfolk Botanical Gardens had a special preview of their Christmas lights for their members. It was amazing and the kids loved it (they wanted to go through it again, not the next time they're here, but right then).



The pumpkin pie I made from scratch didn't turn out (it didn't set), but I had also made brownies, which we enjoyed before we went to bed. And then, Praise the Lord! I realized that I could breathe and had been breathing all day. I was/am still blowing my nose every 15 minutes, but that's a huge improvement. Overall, I think it was probably the best day ever.

Snotfest 2007

Since my body has decided it is its purpose to create snot, I thought I might try to make some money off of it. You know, sell tickets and stuff. People can listen to my nose sing, watch it make enough snot in an hour to fill an elementary school for a week, and watch the amazing feat of me eating without dying from lack of oxygen (although this last part might really gross some people out). Yes, I am on antibiotics. No, they are not working. Neither are the prescription decongestants. I finally convinced my brain that I would not die in my sleep, and at least now I can sleep. But at this point, I really don't know what else to do. I'm tired of being sick, my house is a wreck, I haven't worked in two weeks, but I have lost some weight, so I guess there is a bright side. And if you want tickets to snotfest, just let me know, I'll teach my nose some more tricks.

Guess who's on antibiotics?

I'm on antibiotics. I thought I could make it through. I knew I had a virus and I wasn't going to waste time in the doctor's office to find that out. Only, sinus infections run in the family (no, I don't know how that works, but we all get them and we get them bad). Last Thursday and Friday I was feeling much better. And I was optimistic that I was stay better. I even told Camille I was finally planning on busting out the sexy halloween costume out that I had bought (and still haven't worn). But Saturday, things went downhill quickly on Saturday. And Sunday, when I woke up, I felt like I had a semi-truck parked on my face. Always a sign of a sinus infection. My doctor is open 7 days a week, so while my husband drove the kids back home (Victor was sick too), I went to the doctor's. It was confirmed I had a sinus infection and I got my antibiotics. And this weird little warning I've never seen before. "Be aware that this is a potentially serious problem. An infection in this location could spread to the brain." Um, ok. I've never been warned that I could potentially get a brain fever from a sinus infection before, but I guess that's good to know. While I was at the doctors, I had them redo my pap smear too. Last time I had that done, the doctor didn't get enough tissue. How nice. Because I love getting pap smears. So now, I'm back to bed. I'm tired of being sick, but hopefully, with the help of science and medicine, this really will be the last week I'm sick.

Tonsilwhatis?

Backstory: Wes's parents had health insurance when he was growing up, so he had his tonsils removed. My parents didn't and were told that wrapping dental floss around my oft infected tonsils, in an attempt to remove them, would be considered child abuse. I still have tonsils.

Him: Have you figured out what you have?
Me: Well, I have giant white patches on my tonsils and throat, so I think it's probably tonsillitis.
Him: What is that? Are you going to go to the doctor?
Me: It's an infection of the tonsils. I'm not going to go to the doctor because it's a virus, so they can't do anything anyway.
Him: I don't have tonsils.
Me: I know.
Him: So I can't get it, right?
Me: Well, since it is a virus, you could probably still get it. It would just settle in a different part of your body.
Pause
Him: Like my testicles?
Me (in all my sarcastic glory): Yes, it could settle in your testicles and then they would have to cut them off.
Him: I think I'll just kiss you on the cheek until you feel better.

This is the falling part of fall

I love work. I hate work. I love making money and feeling that I am contributing more than just my brains and beauty to my marriage (although, that it a considerable contribution). I love the fact that my husband finds my puny paycheck to be gigantic (thank you x for never, ever working). I love getting out of the house. I love, love, love the kids. I hate getting up at 5:30 in the morning because high school starts at 7:30am. I hate getting home tired and cranky. I hate getting home tired and cranky to a messy house, with no clean clothes and having to prepare dinner. I hate not having a set schedule. But I love having a flexible schedule and the ability to decide when I want to work. I took yesterday off.

I needed the sleep (I slept 10 hours, a hard 10 hours). I realized that substituting is probably not the healthiest job choice out there. This epiphany occurred as I examining my left tonsil, which is currently twice as big as the right one. I need to get a flu shot. When I finally woke up yesterday, I did my pilates (to help me fit back into my pants), cleaned the kitchen and living room, did laundry. Then I went shopping for pants that don't cut off my circulation when I sit down. I found two pair and a skirt. Now my comfortable wardrobe consists of a black pair of pants, a black skirt, a khaki pair of pants, a khaki skirt. Thankfully, I rarely substitute at the same school more than twice a week. I also finished my latest afghan. It is pretty. You will just have to take my word for it because I feel too lazy to get up and take a picture of it right now. Overall, yesterday was a good day. We didn't have very many trick-or-treaters, which means there's a ton of candy downstairs (I guess I should be doing pilates twice a day, or I may not fit into my new pants very long).

My loose leaf tea just arrived!!! I love loose leaf tea. It tastes better, it is waaaaaay cheaper and it's better for the environment. If it's any good, I'll put up the web page.

I realized yesterday I hadn't blogged about the fact that I haven't been on anti-depressants for about three week now. I didn't mention it because I don't feel any different. At all. I can't tell even the slightest difference. And that makes me very, very happy.