Judecorp.

Not much to say. No time. Way behind.

Still haven't:
-sent thank you cards for birthday gifts nearly 2 weeks ago
-carved pumpkins
-put up fall decorations
-gotten a decent night's sleep.

Yawn. Time to switch out laundry.

Things are just crazy around here and I keep waiting for some down time. I think I'll be waiting for something like 18 years or whatever. ;) Here is a vague update:

• My job is still doing funky things with respect to my salary. I'm not sure if I'm getting paid what I'm supposed to be getting paid. I'm too tired to do the math.


• Things are unsettled at home and I'm not really sure what to do to be able to stay afloat better. I am most definitely sinking.


• I found a dead mouse in a snap trap in my basement tonight. This is the third dead mouse in a snap trap in the last six months. That means there are still mice in the house even though we've had pest control here twice.


• I am going to start doing all of our bills/finances. You know, in all of my free time. I am tired just thinking about it.


• Punk woke up at 5:40 this morning. That is just cruel. She has been a crappy sleeper for about two or three weeks now. Effing teeth.


• I have so much to do just with the day to day and I can't get to it all and I have no energy to punch through it because I don't get any sleep. My house is a disaster and has been a disaster for so long, it makes me kind of ill. Every time I clean something, something else gets neglected and I am tired of living in a pit. I wish I could afford cleaning help.


• I had a 3.5 lb bag of swedish fish for the last couple of weeks (maybe since the end of June?) and tonight I finished it. Burp.

Welcome to the first (of likely many) installments of Things I Would Blog About If I Had More Time!

1. I never did write about our trip to Florida, did I? Well, the weather was gorgeous and I managed to only piss off my MIL a couple of times, so I guess that's a win? I wish my in-laws liked me. Bleh. But they like Punk and that is going to have to be good enough for me.

2. While we were in Florida, spring came to the Happy Valley. There are now leaf buds and flowers on the trees, early flowers are up, and second flowers are on their way. We have SO MUCH yard work to do, especially because we never got around to picking up the sticks, acorns, and leaves from the fall. We have three oak trees in the front (holy acorns!) and three maple trees in the back, not to mention an assortment of conifers. We have a LOT of leaves. Ugh. I think we need to call someone. Ch-ching!

3. We are going to redo some of our kitchen to hopefully make our house more sellable someday. We're biting the bullet and paying big bucks to have a dishwasher installed because I think we have the only house in the universe without a dishwasher. We need to get the electrical and plumbing work done. Ch-ching!

4. I would write about Punk's child care experience. I will just say that it is going as well as it could, the provider is very nice and I think we made a good choice. Punk refuses to let me out of her sight after I pick her up, though. Kind of like, "Oh, Mama, I am on to you and I am NOT letting you get away with dropping me off TWICE!"

5. The other day, JAMN 94.5 came through my radio when I was in Northampton and Hadley. It is a Boston station. So weird! I listened to it until it faded out and it has never been back.

6. Yard work projects to come: the aforementioned leaves and acorns, getting rid of all of the crap the previous owners left in corners of the yard, cleaning out a little flower garden area in the backyard, cleaning and sealing the deck and little patio set we have, hanging a little swing for Punk, cleaning up the "landscaping" in the front of the house. I'm tired already just thinking about it.

7. I hate applying for jobs. HATE. But I have applied for 10 jobs this week while Punk has been at child care. I think that's pretty productive. We'll see what happens. I am in denial of having to go to work, though. Bleh.

8. Cinnamon Crunch bagels from Panera are THE DEVIL and I would eat three a day if I could. YOM.

Okay, that's enough for now. xo!

I spend half of my day amusing a baby and the other half creeping stealthily around my house like some sort of psychostalker. It's quite odd.

Now that my kid can amuse herself on the floor for a little while at a time, I feel like a whole person and not just a set of arms. It's pretty cool, actually. She can grunt her fool head off on the floor and every so often look up at me and laugh. And then roll over for the 879234567923478th time.

This is how I spend my day:

1. Watch baby roll over.


2. Watch baby's arm get stuck under baby.


3. Watch baby get pissed off.


4. Go over and unstick baby's arm.


5. Watch baby do push-ups for a while.


6. Watch baby get tired of being on her belly.


7. Watch baby get pissed off.


8. Go over and flip baby.


9. Watch baby /immediately/ roll over.


10. Goto 1.

I really need to teach her how to roll back over.

I just had a shower, got the baby's bag all ready, had a bowl of cereal, and caught up on LJ - all thanks to the Neglectomatic^TM.

You know, the swing.

Quite nice.

(Of course, the baby decided to get up at 6am though. UGH!)

Things that are annoying:

1. I have somehow injured the ball of my foot. I have no idea how, but I woke up yesterday morning and it hurt to walk on. But, you know, I have to walk around sometimes. So now it hurts MORE and I am walking on the outer edge of my foot. Which is fine and all, except that I'm paranoid that I'm going to roll my ankle and stumble while I'm carrying the baby or something.

2. The Sears people are supposed to come today to fix our fridge. Our brand new fridge that we bought about 3 weeks ago. Which was broken when it was delivered - the gasket around the freezer is effed and it doesn't close properly. A BRAND NEW FRIDGE. Argh.

3. Oh, and the Sears people? They gave me a window of when they will arrive. Would you like to know when that window is? 8 to 5. 8am to 5pm. Are you effing kidding me? Can you be a little more vague? "We will come on a day that ends in Y."

Things that are not annoying:

1. My grandmother is 85 years old today! We had a little get-together at my aunt and uncle's place yesterday for her and gave her a picture of the punk. (She'll be getting flowers today.) We ate lobster and shrimp and birthday cake and it was quite delicious. Happy birthday. Grandma!

2. Leah and Colleen, and eeka and Molly, and the Morganator came over on Saturday for a little BBQ action, which was really nice. It was incredibly humid and we don't have A/C (sorry, guys) but it was nice to see them and chat a little bit.

3. The punk is a super cute baby.

4. Jen got up this morning and made a whole bunch of bottles so I didn't have to. Now I'm set for the day. That is awesome!

I really don't understand how mayna can manage to post and comment so much. Her baby is one week old! My kid will be four weeks old on Sunday and I don't feel like I have time to do anything other than clean bottles, do laundry, and try to stuff food in my face whenever I can. And if I ever have to leave the house to run an errand or something, forget it. All bets are off.

I had my postpartum checkup today and it was good to see The Midwife I Love, especially since she was so sweet and supportive about our nursing woes. She told me to "throw away all of the teas and tinctures" and stop beating myself up for low supply. I'm working on it, but it was nice to know that my hippie midwife was like, "It happens. Some people don't make much/any milk," and didn't give me any more pumping schedules or "helpful tips."

My mom and John (her husband) are in RI overnight visiting friends. It is so quiet here without people in the house, but I had to do my own dishes. Bummer. What am I going to do on Sunday when she leaves for real? I am comfortable with my mom doing chores around the house but I feel weird about the idea of Jen's parents cleaning my house. I guess it's because they're not my parents. *shrug* Hopefully I can get over it.

Jen put up some cute pictures on her Flickr account. Yay!

Man, I am Burned. Out. Whose bright idea was it to have a "long weekend of work?" Oh wait, that was me.

After finding unsatisfactory lawn mowers on Friday, we painted some stuff for the kid room and then I framed some more art that a nice friend of our friend Melissa sent us. And it was hot and sweaty and nasty and I was a cranky turd.

Yesterday we spent some time looking at lawn mowers online and trying to find local dealers (we were thinking refurbished) but instead said, "Eff it," and went to one of my least favorite places ever, Home Depot. (I find it thoroughly chaotic and overwhelming, not to mention C-R-A-Z-Y.) We checked out some lawn mowers and ended up getting an electric one. (Good call, lizardjee, though I didn't get your comment until today.) On the plus side, it is SO light and SO quiet and you don't need any gas or oil (so no smell). On the down side, you need a long cord to use it. We ended up getting a 50-foot cord and apparently 50 feet is not long enough to get to the far back of our back yard. Whoops. I think we're going to try to Freecycle a weed whacker.

I also attempted to plant some of the perennials we'd bought for the front of the house, and I am going to stop being smug about being all small and bendable or whatever because HOLY CARP, bending and crouching to weed the garden and dig holes KICKED. MY. ASS. I began to get all hot and cranky and out of breath and ended up on the couch like a wilted flower. Jen finished the plants and put the mulch down, thank goodness. Later that night we hung everything up in the kid's room: shelves, art, you name it. I have all the baby laundry ready to go, and we took the car seat out so we can install it in the car. I also went through the breast pump we bought from a friend and tossed all of the parts that I replaced with new ones. And then? Bed.

This morning Jen got us some Dunkin Donuts breakfast and we finished the back yard (well, as far as the cord would reach) and got 789798798432798 mosquito bites. We went to the mall to return some stuff, ate a quick mall lunch, and saw Pirates of the Carribbean: At World's End. It was entertaining, and it was nice to sit and not do yard work, but it was not my favorite of the series for sure. I felt like it was kind of jumbled and just tried to do too many storylines at once (same thing I thought about Spiderman 3, actually). And it was LONG. We got delicious DQ Blizzards after the movie and then went to Trader Joe for some groceries. And now? NOTHING.

Well, Jen is preheating the oven so we can cook some stuffed clams and I will microwave some vegetables, but other than that we have a big fat ZERO planned for the evening, which is just how I like it after all of the work this weekend.

Oh wait, I have to do all of that dang laundry. DRAT!

I was going to post a big rant about all of this Imus business, but then I saw that my lovely wife had already covered it. So I will use her comments page for my vitriol this time around, I suppose.

Instead, I will bore you all to tears with talk about how I cleaned up the house this morning. One would think that working part-time means that I spend all morning eating bon-bons on the bed with the cats, but one would be incorrect. Usually I'm running around like a loony trying to do enough things around the house to save my sanity and still get ready for work on time. Usually a lot of that entails moving around and sorting through the stuff that Jen likes to leave on any horizontal surface she can find. :)

So after clearing all of the clutter out of the living room and picking up the pile of crap on the floor that has been sitting there for so long I am embarrassed (and the doula comes on Wednesday night, she doesn't need to see that), I went through and made neater piles for Jen on the kitchen table: books, mail, bills, everything else. Then put the laundry away, did the dishes, folded Jen's clothes that were on her dresser, cleaned up a little bit of the bathroom, put out some Freecycle stuff, and had a nice sigh of relief. Everything just seems a little cheerier when the house is at least surface clean.

Isn't that much more exciting than hearing me go on and on and on about asshats who make racial and misogynistic slurs and yet can keep their stupid public jobs because they say, "I'm sorry," and, "Don't worry, I'm an equal-opportunity meanie."? Yeah, I thought so.

( House Stuff: )

( Fertility Stuff: )

( Lara and Wedding Stuff: )

( Cute Kitten Stuff: )

( New Car Stuff: )

I think that'll do me for now. Night!