am going to the new star wars movie tonight at midnight with my hubby, the singing banker (www.thesingingbanker.blogspot.com), her hubby, and a teenager that my hubby mentors and his new girlfriend. the singing banker and i will be painting a red streak down our lips in honor of the soon-to-be dead senator padme. such is life. i'm trying to keep my hopes down. i was disappointed in episode 1, horrified by episode 2, and haunted by the wonderousness that can't be duplicated that is episodes 4, 5, and 6 (aka "the real star wars")

i have reached new levels of anxiety at work. it's gotten to the point where i've been having trouble sleeping at night because i can't get work-related junk off my mind. i work in a high-stress field, and i work in a lone-ranger (just me) office, a bad combination for an extrovert who gets stressed out when she can't decide what to make for dinner. and the thing is that i know that i'm not doing all the things that i should to de-stress: exercise, practice relaxation techniques, focus on hobbies that relax me. my thoughts: WHO has time for hobbies and fun? i'll do that later. and then later never happens. and i always have this imaginary timetable in my head of when things will improve: things will calm down after we get back from our honeymoon...after christmas...after my niece arrives...after we sell the house...after this next birth, home study, placement, stack of paperwork, fundraiser, phone call, bigger stack of paperwork. you get the picture.

and then some dang inspirational moment happens and it keeps me going for a few more hours/days/weeks (the last one was a 3 year old who walked into my office with pennies that he'd been saving for the babies we help find homes for--how sweet is that?)

ehh. i'll just enjoy the movie tonight with a wonderful husband and great friends and re-write that script that's floating around in my head where i tell my boss that i'm changing to part-time.

how fun is this? as i am sitting here typing this, husband is sitting behind me rubbing my back. he is nice. i like him.

here is a short list of things i am thankful for at this very moment:

-husband (see above)
-house
-strawberry shortcake pajama pants that are long enough for me
-my electric toothbrush
-my niece anna and nephew owen
-the color orange
-good friends who made husband an "emperor's cup" trophy after he didn't win the "governor's cup" competition
-fun lamps with beaded fringe (okay, now i'm just looking around the room)
-not having to take care of a pool
-potluck dinners
-really, anything with beaded fringe on it
-ice cold glasses of water
-long Sunday afternoon naps
-movies that don't end the way you think they will but end the way you know they should (a la "in good company")
-sex

This post is for a (rather bold) Miss Sarah who…insinuated that she would like more frequent updates. And now that I have a comment to motivate me, here goes (perhaps my sister will even add me back in as a link: www.sugarintheraw.blogspot.com ):

My dog is a persnickety pee-er. We finally broke him of urinating repeatedly on the same tree right next to the deck. A.) it was starting to smell bad and B.) the lower branches of the tree were starting to die. He’s going through a great deal of trauma right now because we are trying to sell our house (which is a whole other kettle of fish), and he’s not allowed up in “his” office anymore (Bill’s home office over the garage that’s recently been repainted and recarpeted where Sunny used to spend the majority of his time). We also took away his favorite dog bed in the living room, and to protest that, he went to the corner of the yard to roll around in his own poo. All this to explain why he’s not allowed out in the yard unsupervised anymore in the mornings.

So that is what led me to be standing out in the middle of the yard, holding my dog on a leash this morning, pleading with him to pee-pee as he stared at me defiantly. I know for a fact that he had to pee as he hadn’t been out for over 8 hours. But it’s like he has decided that that is the one area of his life that he can still control, when he chooses to relieve himself.

He has also taken to putting his paw up on the baseboard in the living room and licking the walls. I have NO idea what that’s about.

So that got me thinking about stupid things that I do out of defiance. When I was little, I would refuse to get out of the car when we got home, and I’d just sit in the stuffy car in the garage. Who was I punishing? Myself. As an adult, I curl up on a chair downstairs and half-fall asleep at night even though it’s not quality sleep, and I know that I should just go upstairs and get ready for bed. Who am I robbing of precious slumber? Only myself. And then there’s the really stupid stuff: refusing to watch the movie “Tommy Boy” because everyone in college used to quote it all the time and said that I “had to” see it; using Kleenex instead of toilet paper when it wasn’t my turn to buy t.p. with past roommates (I was especially stubborn on this one as I would always be the one to buy expensive Scott t.p. that lasts forever, and they would buy the cheapy stuff that lasts 2 weeks); and my personal favorite, as a child, refusing to take the training wheels off my bike even though I didn’t need them because I was lazy and didn’t want to have to bother balancing. And who got mocked? Me.

I miss Aruba. Bill and I went there for our honeymoon, and I miss it. I have a mouse pad with a picture of our hotel’s private beach island on it sitting next to my work computer because I thought that it would make me happy to look at it. But it doesn’t. It makes me sad that people are there right now, and I am not one of them.

We also went to Disneyworld on our honeymoon. I’m also sad to not be there, but I know that we’ll be going to Disneyworld at some point in the not-so-distant future. Either with his family to watch the wondrous look on our nephew’s face as he thrills at the Buzz Lightyear ride or with my family to watch the wondrous look on our soon-to-be-born niece’s face as she gazes at the newly refurbished Small World ride. Meanwhile, I will be over at MGM watching the look on my husband’s face as we ride Aerosmith’s Rockin’ Rollercoaster.

Sigh. In reality, I am watching the arrogant smirks on overpriced SUV owners' faces as they drive by through slushy snowflakes and sleet coming out of the sky.

well, my niece is due to pop out of my older sister any day now, and i can officially say that i am getting antsy. i can't imagine how ellen's feeling. it's not like your wedding day where everything goes higgledy-piggledy for 72 hours then returns back to normal (or at least your normal combined with another person's normal) when you get back from the honeymoon. no--childbirth has no honeymoon. it's higgledy-piggledy pain to get her out then no sleep and worry and responsibility for another little person. I should worry that ellen will read this and freak out, but (a) she's not really the freaking out kind and (b) i doubt she has the energy to turn on the computer.

my dog is very upset with me right now. he was chewing on his rawhide really hard and his gums started bleeding, so i took away the rawhide. now, he's giving me the evil eye....and now he's wandered off to get a drink of water. he has the attention span of a 2 year old.

on a completely separate note, it's doubtful if there are any raw foodists reading my blog, but if there happen to be: how the heck do you find time for a raw food lifestyle??? i've started juicing recently, and by the time i clean the fruit, set up the juicer, cut it into juiceable chunks, juice it, clean the juicer, and put it away, that's a good 2 hours. of course, i juice ahead, so i'm usually juicing 5-6 glasses of juice. but still! all the same, that fresh, real juice is so dang addictive.

well, it's official--the sinus problem is officially a great mystery. i went to have a ct scan this week of el sinuses, and here were the findings: perfectly normal. deviated septum and weird air pockets in my nose, but sinuses were clear. but is it normal to know before the local weatherman when a storm is coming because i'm in so much pain 2 days beforehand? no.

but apparently, surgery "may or may not help." the doctor would be willing to do it "if i asked" but would not make the statement that it would help my sinuses. my question: could it help? answer: "maybe. but i'm not making that statement."

stupid malpractice lawsuits.

My, my. So much in my life has changed. Am married. Wonderful man. Drives me crazy sometimes, but just the mere thought of “if something ever happened to him…” leads me to the emotional equivalent of chopping off my right arm with a blunt saw.

I’m so sick of the question, “how do you like married life?” I usually mumble something to the effect of, “very much, thank you.” But in my mind, I secretly wonder, “WHAT am I supposed to say?” I love being married to my husband, but after the person asks, they inevitably keep staring at me until I tell some cute marriage anecdote. And so I’ve stored up a few for staring emergencies:

I love it! The biggest adjustment was the laundry. I had an allergic reaction to his detergent and so we switched to mine.

I love it! Snuggling up at night is the best feeling in the world…then we go to our own bed corners to get some decent sleep.

I love it! I got this great Kitchen-Aid mixer that my sister talked me into registering for at the last minute, but I haven’t even turned it on yet. Don’t tell my cooking friends who would spit on me with jealousy.

The truth? I DO love it. All the above things are true (Bill tried to talk me into buying an Ice-cream maker attachment for said mixer even though it’s never been turned on, and I’ve never made ice cream). But it’s also true that I’m daily struck by how normal everything is. It was just such a natural move to marriage. And at the same time, everything’s just a little bit harder and a little bit easier. I never thought, dating, that Bill and I would stand out in the open garage yelling at each other about carpet. I also never thought, dating, that snuggling on a lazy Saturday morning would be so nice.

Husband-to-be is a bit of a conspiracy theorist. One of his big theories is that the trips to the moon were fake. Now, I’m as skeptical as the next gal, but I always scoffed at him on this one.

Until watching "The Right Stuff" last night. I guess that I just never realized how precarious the Mercury missions were before (single-manned capsules, practically non-steerable, things snapping off in space). The Russians beat us to EVERYTHING in our space program in the early 60's. First animal. That stupid dog of theirs. First manned flight. First to orbit the earth.

Then four years later, we're on the moon? And the Russians never got there?

I realize that they were falling apart politically and economically at that time, but come on!

But I still don't believe that Princess Diana is alive with Dodi on a tropical island somewhere.

Counting up the invitations last night, I realized that I am further along than I thought. I had 96 done (rather than the 75 I had guesstimated), and I finished another 40 last night (as opposed to the 25 in my mind) leaving me approximately 15 more to do (as opposed to 50). It was liking finding a $50 bill in my pocket.

And now the fun stuff is coming. People are asking me where we’re registered and are planning showers. I found a nice flower lady. People say, “Oh! That’s coming right up!” when I tell them the wedding date. My wacky wedding dreams have been getting silly as opposed to nerve-wracking. I’ve bought fun lingerie. I switched pills, and I’m no longer nauseated in the mornings.

So, of course, I’m sitting here thinking, “I wonder when it’s all going to crash down around my ears.” I so frequently do this—let my pessimistic side just take over. But I don’t want to live there, 2 steps ahead of myself on the worrisome scale. Is something going to go wrong on my wedding day? Surely. Will someone notice it and tell me at the least opportune moment? Probably. Can I do anything about it? Nope. So why should I spend precious time worrying about it?

Sigh. I will anyway.

I once flirted my way to a month and a half of free rentals at Blockbuster. A few years ago, they were having a promotional contest where, when you rented a movie, you got a scratch card where you could win free rentals. So I went in to rent something, got a scratch card, and I WON! Never won anything before in my life, so I jumped around all cute and squealed. And of course, the 17 year-old boys behind the counter got a kick out of that. So when I came to redeem my free movie, they gave me another scratch card. Shocking! Another winner! Came in to redeem, another card, another win. And so it went on for a month and a half. I finally asked after the third card what the deal was, and the guy admitted that every card was a winner. I didn’t point out the obvious that they shouldn’t be giving me a new scratch card after I redeemed the last one. I have a sneaking suspicion that they knew.

And then, all my free rental fun came to an end when the manager was working the counter when I checked out, and I asked, “Don’t I get another card?” And he replied, “Only if you pay to rent something,” then turned around and glared at the pack of 17 year-old boys. Poor boys.


And now, I think that the Blockbuster girl is starting to judge me. Since I began working on my wedding invitations, I’ve probably been in there 4 or 5 times to rent movies (I just pop in a video and get to cutting, gluing, and eyeletting—makes the time go by faster.)

Well, I went in last night, and the girl practically mouthed the words, “Nice social life.” It’s almost enough to make me want to join NetFlix just to avoid the shame.

bill and i had an all-out movie weekend and went and saw "the village" (excellent movie) saturday night and "the bourne supremacy" yesterday afternoon. "bourne" was also a very good movie, although i was a bit distracted by the baby sitting 3 rows back. we didn't get off to a good start with the baby family as i, not seeing the baby, sat down right in front of them, and bill said, "no, let's move. baby." he said it quietly but within earshot, and apparently, they were miffed at bill point out the obvious presence of their child. they really ticked both bill and me off. not just because they brought a baby in a movie theater...i realize that parents of young children need impromptu little afternoons out as much as the rest of us but that they would bring this baby in, sit in the very middle of the theater, go "hush, hush, shhh, shhh" rather than just take it out, and then flash bill and i dirty looks as they got into their lincoln navigator on the way out. i was seriously tempted to go up and say, "i realize that you need time out of the house with a small child, but you did it rudely, and judging by your car, you really could have sprung for a babysitter." bill was really mad because the baby was the loudest at the very end when there's the quiet scene with bourne talking emotionally with the young woman...coo coo coo. and it's too bad because it was a very pleasant, cute baby and her parents will probably raise her to be a navigator-driving she-shrew just like her mother.

It’s a rough start to the day when you realize at 9:45 in the morning that you’ve put your underwear on inside out. And don’t even bother to correct it.


Have finished 60 of my invitations. About half. In choosing to make my own invitations with skeletal leaves attached and corners hand-eyeletted, I had no idea how time-consuming it would be. I’ve been through a number of movies in the process:
Pride and Prejudice (the A&E version, all five hours)
Sense & Sensibility (I love the scene were Colonel Brandon says, “No, for I must away”—the man is so rich, he can give up verbs)
Mansfield Park (you notice a trend, I hope)
Get Over It (don’t knock it ‘til you’ve watched it)
half of Tom Jones (ehh)
and the Best of Will Ferrell (“I’ve got a fever…and the only prescription is more cowbell!”)

I actually got to the point last night where I said, "I am SO SICK of videos!" If you know me and my love for movies, this statement is shocking to you. Shocking.

I read a very disturbing article in Cosmo last night waiting to get my oil changed (for TWO HOURS) at Wal-mart. The two hours was probably God punishing me for reading Cosmo.

The article was a tell-all from a veteran flight attendant. Intrigues with the pilots and flight attendants. Horrible passengers. Motion sickness. And the sexual capers…oh, the sexual capers. She kept reiterating, “Do NOT use those complimentary blankets! Don’t even touch them!” And I won’t. It sickens me now to think how many of those blankets I’ve cuddled up in.


Driving to work this morning, I saw a woman screaming into her cell phone. She was visibly furious and had actually pulled the phone away from her head to yell louder. To me, there aren’t a lot of reasons to be screaming that early in the morning, but apparently, she’s discovered one of them.

That, or she’s just an angry person in general.


Random childhood memory: My dad was an eye doctor, and he used to save up the tops of medicine vials to give to my older sister and me to play tiddly-winks with.

Frustration, thy name is "making one's own wedding invitations".


oh, the horror. getting the margins right, finding the right paper, deciding on a design, making them look somewhat professional.

one of my previous roommate's once did this as a wedding gift for the bride. albeit, she is a graphic designer. and even she said that she wouldn't do it again.

what made me think i can do this?

Whatever gene it is that allows a person to envision, design, and create something in their mind and then execute it in the 3-dimensional world, I was not given. It hit my sister (www.sugarintheraw.blogspot.com). It even hit my mom, although she does not bother to utilize this skill very often.

I’ve written novels. I’ve designed fabulous scrapbook pages. I’ve made cutsey crafts for gifts that my friends “oooh” and “ahh” over as they sip the all-natural hand-juiced delicious smoothies that I’ve made for them. Again, all this in my head.

What do I have in real life? A shoebox full of scraps of napkins and index cards on which I’ve jotted ideas for my novel. A huge plastic tub of scrapbook supplies, pictures, idea magazines, and 2 mediocre scrapbooks. Disappointed looks from my friends as they open up their gifts: “Oh. You made it.” While drinking water (the only thing in my fridge besides some moldy cheese, grapefruit gone bad, and stale bagels).

I do not want to sound as though I’m complaining about the talents that I do have: I am a wonderful listener. I encourage others in their creative pursuits (for instance, Ellen was a mere scoffer of scrapbooks until I talked her into scrapbooking her wedding pics at which time she quickly and easily produced a lovely, simple, yet compliment-inducing book. While I watched.) I have the ability to make small children laugh. I can knit scarves and small baby blankets. I can diffuse tense situations. I can organize a charity tennis tournament (found this one out just this year). I rock at computer pinball games. I can fletch an arrow. I do not get grossed-out at the sight of blood. I can cram more dishes in a dishwasher than anyone else I know. I can tell you the plot line of any Star Trek: TNG episode within five minutes of the opening. I have the periodic table of the elements memorized to Argon.

So why do I focus on what is left undone?

Perhaps it’s because I truly do find joy in coming up with new ideas, sketching them out, planning in my mind how I will execute them. Unfortunately, following those ideas through to their quality conclusion is not my forte.


Little joy of the day: walking to the post office down the street and stopping in front of the drugstore that always pipes ‘80s New Wave rock through their outdoor speakers to sing along for a few minutes.

It’s so interesting how quickly the exciting, extraordinary, and amazing becomes the “usual”.

I say this looking down at my oh-so-dirty diamond ring. I love my ring. It is beautiful, sparkly (when clean), and more than I ever could have wanted. For the first 2 weeks of our engagement, I looked at it constantly, I cleaned it every 3 days. It felt like a lovely little alien had landed on my finger (I’ve never been a ring-wearer before). I used my left hand to do EVERYTHING. “Here! Let me get that for you! OH! You didn’t know I was engaged? Let me tell you about how he proposed…”

And now, it’s dirty. And that makes me sad.

I had a friend in grad school (I use the word “friend” loosely as she was emotionally abusive, needy, and completely self-absorbed) who had been married for over 4 years and was still engrossed in her ring. I had more conversations with her about that ring than I can count (which is especially unnerving as it was one of those gaudy, elaborately ornate rings like Galadriel’s, but was also always grimy for that very reason…one can only keep dirt out of so many crevices). I wish I could go back to the past and take back that time, put it to some constructive use…like cleaning my ring.

The nice thing about waiting so long in between ring-cleanings is that it’s like I get a whole new ring each time I clean it. I forget how sparkly it can be, and when it’s all pretty and shiny again, I get to say, “ooooooh,” like I’m seeing it for the first time.

i'm such a computer illiterate. i've been trying to add my post under the wrong tab, and when i finally gave up and just erased it, BAM, i figured it out.

this is a very confusing and frustrating time for me right now. i had a ct scan on monday of my sinuses to see if i'll be a good surgery candidate, and i'm not sure what to hope for. if "yes", then (a) i have to make the decision of whether or not to have surgery and (b) i have to decide when to do it. if "no", then i have to accept that i may just be a person with chronic pain. both are yucky options. plus, i had my allergy shot this morning that always puts me in a poopy mood because my arm is sore all day.

i work for a non-profit organization, and one of my duties is fundraising. in some ways, it's easy because i have a good board, and adoption pretty much sells itself. everybody loves babies. in other ways, it's so difficult to put myself out there again and again asking for money, for diapers, for office products, for gift baskets. i feel like oliver, "please, sir, may i have some more?"

the fact is that no one LIKES giving money away. people enjoy seeing the results of giving their money away, but the physical act of writing out the check is painful.

and then, i run into some random acts of generosity that blow me away. the director of another non-profit agency (not in competition with us, but they could certainly have used the funds for their own office) handed me a check for $500 a month ago for an event i was planning and said, "i want you to have this success. it'll help you meet your goal." and it did. and i started crying when she gave it to me because i realized how selfish i am feeling uncomfortable asking people for money when it's all for the babies.

i've changed the name of my blog back to "desperately seeking sudafed" from "the airing of the grievances". the reason for this is 2-fold:

1) fear of malicious seinfeld copyright infringement lawsuits
2) the fact that i was up last night until 5 a.m. with a splitting migraine-inducing sinus headache and truly do spend 90% of my life popping decongestants

it was a fun, fun weekend. i housesat for my fiance while he was in california for a friend's wedding, and my best friend came into town friday night. we watched orange county and pooty tang, ate egregious amounts of chocolate chip cookie dough and pizza and talked until 3 in the morning. then, on saturday, my sister came over and we also stayed up late talking (2 a.m.) this was all fine and lovely except that i am an adoption worker and on sunday morning, i got called out of town for a birth. so on top of being exhausted, anxious, and disappointed at having to miss my wedding dress fitting sunday afternoon, i also felt guilt for feeling tired and nauseous and whiny while a 16 year-old girl was facing the hardest thing she's ever had to (or probably will ever have to) do--saying goodbye to her beautiful child.

My office is situated in the downstairs portion of a 2-story office building. The upstairs portion is inhabited by personable legal types (see previous post). I like the quietness, but I have one small gripe--the bathroom situation.

I have a fabulous bathroom downstairs. It’s spacious, private, and has a loud fan. Everything I could want in an office bathroom. Now, upstairs is a different story. There are 2 tiny bathrooms with no privacy and dubious locks. The result: everyone comes downstairs to poop. It’s like a poopery. And the one bad thing about the bathroom is that the toilet has a finnicky flush. If you don’t give the handle a little extra push after you've washed your hands (DON'T get me started on that), it runs and runs and makes a horrible “whooshy whooshy” noise.

And I realize there are serious problems in the world…and this isn’t one of them.

I'm back! Probably not permanently as I rarely stick to anything permanently. Key exceptions: school (stuck with that thick and thin and am finally done) and soon-to-be husband (at whose computer I am typing and whose house I am preparing to vacuum in a few minutes).

Reading my sister's blog is one of the highlights of my day. Evil chihuahuas, insane coworkers, opinionated movie reviews...you can't make this stuff up. My life and workplace are not quite as exciting. I am the only person in the office, although I do share building space with a law office. I've never been around lawyers before this, but I don't think that these lawyers are very representative of the field. For starters, all the employees tend to bring their small children to work with them. It's great fun. It can be boring in the office by myself during the day, but sometimes, small children will wander downstairs into my office. I give them candy and they have short conversations with me. One little 3 year-old that I particularly like (Jake) wandered out of his mother's office to talk to me while she was breastfeeding her baby. He was wearing a little cowboy get-up, and we were having a lovely little conversation until I asked him if he had a horse, and he said, "No. My mommy says I can't get one" and sulkily wandered off. It's a sinking feeling bringing up painful topics with 3 year-olds.

I've started wearing a pedometer everyday. I've read numerous articles that say that the average human should walk 10,000 steps/day. It's 2:00 in the afternoon. I've walked 1,651. I was very proud of myself yesterday--I took 7,003 steps. And the little walking instructional book (boggles my mind. lift foot, place heel down, roll remainder of foot against ground, repeat with other foot?) said to have a weekly goal of 70,000 steps rather than looking at failures throughout the week. So I just need to take approximately 32,000 steps today.