recycling was only the gateway drug

Global warming sucks. It's the middle of May in the San Francisco bay area, which normally means that we have another month or two of decent weather, followed by a week of insanely hot weather, and then back to decent. I've always loved the climate here in California. It's not too hot, not too cold. It's just right. My family in the mid west and south would call and let me know their temps were over a 100 and I would say, "man, sucks for you... yeah, it's about 80 here..." Well, guess what? Now it sucks for us, too.

I never used to be much for "go green" types of mentality. I would recycle if there was a recycle bin handy, but I didn't really go out of my way. I'm still not as great as I should be, but I'm making the effort to make changes here and there. I'm running my washer and dryer after the sun goes down. I'm relying more on air circulation and only using AC if I really need to. I drive my smaller car if I can. I walk when I can. And I definitely save the recycle stuff for a recycle bin, even if there isn't one handy. And I'm really, really working on turning off the water while we brush our teeth. I know this isn't enough. I know there is so much more I can do, but it's a start.

Oh I almost forgot! I also just dropped $1700 on a new energy efficient washer and dryer! They are a little more high maintenance as far as, well, maintenance. But the few extra seconds it takes me to clean it after every load will go a long way. I got a $200 rebate from PG&E just for buying the darn things.

It's so cliche but what changed me was having children. I see the world completely differently now that I have them to take care of. I don't want to leave them a yucky smelly world with no ozone layer. My kids and their kids deserve so much better than that. And so do everyone else's kids.

So I thought I was doing OK with all the greener thinking and such and then my friend went to church and came back telling me all about how we do have it hard here in California. We are overwhelmed with gas prices and money troubles, work, kids, jobs, the next event. Yeah, granted, there are people in other countries and even in our country watching their kids starve to death... but man our gas prices are high. OK, ok... there are people who can't afford to wear shoes or clothes and have no shelter to keep their babies warm... but I'm having less and less play money after paying the bills lately. There are families living with war and poverty and so much worse, but I was bummed out because my kids had to wait a few paychecks to get that wagon I had been wanting for them.

I guess my point is... we have it good. Even when we have it bad, our bad is so much better than most peoples great. I wish it wasn't that way. And I want to try to do more for the world. I don't know exactly what yet but I need to do something. I think I'll definitely start local. Maybe try to work some free clinics or something? Give immunizations to underprivileged children? I don't know yet.

And the biggest thing I want to focus on is being grateful for what I have. My children are awesome and aside from some snotty noses they are very healthy and able bodied! I'm really going to try to focus on the positive in every situation. My kids are coughing and have runny noses right now, but they live with me and they are well taken care of. And my husband is an active dad. Dinner will be on the table tonight and they both have warm beds to sleep in. They (at least the oldest) is polite and cares about people. I have an awesome family and wonderful friends. I even have a job I don't mind going to. I'm OK.

It's so hot I'm sweating just writing this blog. But you know what? Life is GOOD :-)

I'm reincarnating as a lesbian, it's decided!

My son is 7 1/2 month sold and starting to climb up stairs, walk along furniture, etc. We are in the middle of a move so all we have right now for him to climb is boxes and crap. Not ideal, right? So I was thinking of going to toys r us and getting him one of those activity tables that sings the ABC's and such, so he doesn't have to climb dingy and potentially dangerous boxes. That's it. That's the story. It was just a thought that passed through my head in the middle of a hundred other thoughts while I was getting stuff done.

I made the mistake of saying out loud, "I was almost thinking.... well, never mind" And I truly meant never mind. I wasn't hinting, or hoping he would ask, or trying to play mind games. I realized that it was completely impractical with our money situation, and it would just be one more thing to move. Bear could climb boxes for now. So I moved on, kept packing, ran a few errands... and hours later this conversation happened:

Hub: Hey, what was it you started to say earlier and wouldn't finish?
Me: huh?
Hub: you started to say, "I was thinking..." and then said never mind. What was that about?
Me: (completely shocked that he heard me or even cared that much) OH, I was thinking of something we could buy but it wouldn't really make sense right now. (I'm not trying to be elusive, I'm in and out of the room packing boxes)

~several minutes later when I enter the room again~

Hub: Babe! What was it? What is it you want to buy that isn't practical?
Me: Geez babe, it's just a toy for bear. I wanted to get him one of those tables he can stand up at and play at instead of those boxes. But we don't have the money and it would just be more stuff to move, so I figured we'd look into that later once we get done with all this move stuff.
Hub: Yeah, that's not really priority for today...
Me: Yeah I know...
Hub: we don't really have the money for that...
Me: uh huh (still packing, growing a little annoyed)
Hub: plus we'd just have to move that along with everything else
Me: mmm hmmm (increasingly annoyed)
Hub: I'm sorry babe, I feel like I'm the bad guy here... I'm just saying maybe when we get some money and after the move is done we can get one of those for him...
Me: OK! (gee, why the f* didn't I think of that???)
Hub: I just don't know why you have to cut me off. I'm just trying to get out one sentence telling you why I don't think it's a good idea
Me: Well, it was a long run on sentence with way too many commas and no end in sight. (I know, I'm a total bitch. But sometimes I can't help it)

Oh for the love of God! I didn't even finish the original sentence that caused this whole useless conversation! I already knew all of the arguments that he would give, and agreed with them, but I had to hear about it anyhow. If you knew my husband you would know, this is SO him. He analyzes a topic until it's dead and decayed.

I told him one day that his comic book name would be, "Analyze Boy!" Can you picture it? A 6'4'' broad shouldered guy with muscles and all kinds of dork equipment in his pockets analyzing the world in order to save it? (Cause he would be a good guy even if a little annoying) I love him, I wouldn't trade him and I'd fight any broad who tried to take him, but seriously I want to deck him sometimes.

Has Anyone Seen Themselves On This Site?

Has anyone else seen themselves on this site?

It's google maps. They have crazy satellite pictures of most addresses in the US. If I happen to type in my address, I can actually see myself in front of my apartment. Pretty nuts! You have to click "street view" once you get to that area on the map. Not every region has street view yet, but you can still see amazing satellite photography.

More About My Zoo

Just felt like writing a little more about my family. My family is my reason for pretty much everything I do, so it seems worth writing about right now.

I'll start with me. It's hard for me to write about me because I am at a loss for descriptives. I'm me, doesn't that say enough? Well, only if you know me I guess. I was one of those dorks back in the day that was pissed if I got a B+ in advanced chemistry and who took pre calculus even though I had finished my math requirement for high school before junior year. I was sure that I wouldn't be one of those statistics who dropped out of college, that I would be an RN by the time I was 22. I even assured all of my friends that I wasn't even going to bother dating when I moved back to California. (I lived in Texas for 4 years) I studied hard for the SAT's, had all my scholarship and admission stuff in order. I was set.

So the first thing I did when I moved to Cali was get a job at Costco. It was a crappy job indeed. I was a cashier and I moonlighted in the pharmacy and one hour photo departments. The job sucked and it was my first realization that people really do suck. Like really, people can be alarmingly stupid. So I lasted there a year and a half and then temped for a while. I turned down a decent paying job with stock options and all to work as a freakin clerk again at Kaiser. I knew that I wanted to be a nurse, and figured it would be nice to have my foot in the door at Kaiser when that degree fell into my lap. Yeah well I've been working there for 8 years now, since I was 20. I went to school at night for a while and managed to become a medical assistant. Better than nothing I suppose but I still have my eye on the RN dollars.

Then there is my husband. We met when we were 12 years old. He was my cousin's best friend so it was sort of convenient that we hang out. I would visit Cali every summer because my parents shared custody and that's when I got to know CR. Funny enough, we really disliked each other at first. Not like flirty 'I hate you' bullshit. Like really, strong dislike. Since MC was his best friend and my cousin and friend though we tolerated each other. One summer my cousin decided she wanted to date this boy. She was younger than me, only 15. Her mom told her that if she wanted to make it a double date, and if I went, she would allow it. So I told her if she found me someone to hang out with, I would go as her chaperon. Well guess who the lazy bitch finds? None other than her brother's best friend. I was pissed! But for the sake of adventure, I went. Well that night CR and I hit it off and my cuz was totally disgusted by her date. And so it began. We hung out the rest of that summer and then again the next summer, and the summer after that I moved here. We were going to be casual so I could focus on school, but it ended up being the other way around.

So we got married in 2004, 6 years after I moved to Cali. We went on a 2 week honeymoon and the day we came back I decided to take a bath at 4:00AM. I was still on Hawaii time and we still had another couple of weeks off work, so what the hell. On a total whim, I decided to pee on a pregnancy test that happened to be under the sink. I didn't really think anything of it, I was bored and they had been under there for a couple of years. What the hell? So I peed on the stick and set it on the side of the bath tub. Several minutes later I glanced over at the damn thing... and what do you know? It had 2 lines! I had stopped taking birth control figuring I would flush it out of my system for a year and then we'd work on having a baby. Oh well. Honeymoon baby it was! So it was a surprise but a happy one.

After the pregnancy from hell, in Dec '04 enter Kat. Oh she quickly became the complete center of my universe. She has since nudged over a tiny bit for her brother, but she's still pretty much there. She was a dream baby. She hardly ever cried or fussed. She was happy and people would stop me to tell me how beautiful she was. I tried putting her in day care but ended up calling in sick all the time. She wouldn't take a bottle so I was convinced that she would starve if I didn't nurse her all day. I ended up taking a part time position so that I could be home with her during the days. I work evenings and weekends and hubby works days. There is a very small over lap of time 3 days a week that a good friend takes care of my babies but otherwise they are with one of us all the time. We are so lucky. Anyhow, I'm going to have to write a whole other blog about Kat because that girl is something else! She was very smart from the get go and I have many a story about that little one.

Around Christmas time of '06 I noticed that some of the procedures at work were making me want to barf. I was in the 'urine room' testing someone's urine and noticed that it smelled SO strong. I gagged a little and figured that person must just have a really horrible infection. Then the next one made me gag, then the next. So I said to myself, "why is my sense of smell so strong? And why the f do my boobs hurt?" Anyhow I got busy and forgot about it for a couple of days. Then the day after Christmas I went to take a bath and grabbed that other pregnancy test from the 2 pack I bought to confirm Kat. Sure enough, 2 lines. Here we go again. In August of '07 we welcomed our Bear. Though I love him dearly, he's definitely not the little angel the first one was. To be fair though, the first time around I had time to hold Kat all the time, nurse her to sleep, etc. Bear had digestive issues at first and would fuss a lot, but after a couple of months he started to smile and reassure us that he was glad we brought him into this world.

Lucky for us, Kat looked forward to Bear's arrival and welcomed him with open arms. She held him for the first time and said, "Hi! I'm your big sister!" She would hold him and hold his little fingers. She would sing songs to him even when he was in my tummy. She is happy to
share her things with him and eager to read books, tell stories, etc. She always wants me to put him in her bed so she can snuggle him. She tells me that she is his little mommy and I can be his big mommy. She is even the one who nick named him "Teddy Bear". When he wakes from a nap she gets to be the one to go into his room and greet him. And it's not one sided either. Bear loves his big sister. He sees her coming and puts his arms out for her. She was the first person to make him laugh out loud. They love each other so much and it makes me so happy. I kind of feel bad for not really liking my brother that much. I don't dislike him I just don't really know him. I know it hurts my mom but that's just how it turned out.

Poor Bear though. I hardly ever left Kat with a sitter. This time around, I'm not so convinced that my babies can't live without me. I still don't go out often, but hubby and I have decided that we need to remember how to be a couple. For so long now we've been someone's parents. We get along well and share a bed, but we forgot that it all started with me and him. So we're working on that. I am so lucky to have the family that I do. I am proud of my kids and I love my husband. I have lots of friends and family around. I'm a lucky girl!