sueeeus

I keep seeing these ‘100 things’ lists, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. Here goes… …in no particular order…

1. I am a half breed.
2. I have six brothers.
3. I have two sisters.
4. I am the oldest girl.
5. I am second of nine.
6. Just before I started Jr. High, I moved to a rural town and our well ran dry. The only water we had was dark dark dark silty putrid orange. Our pipes froze every winter, too, so we didn’t even have access to the orange water for months. We hauled drinking water from town in 5 gallon jugs and sometimes melted snow to wash dishes and take sponge baths. It was so embarrassing for a teenage girl. After I left home and went to college, my parents were able to afford to have a new well drilled. Crystal clear delicious water.
7. I have a degree in Electrical Engineering.
8. I graduated ‘Cum Laude’.
9. I’m quite certain I would have done much much better had I not convinced myself that it was much harder than it was.
10. I only chose engineering because that major had the best hiring stats at the time.
11. I minored in Computer Science because I liked computers/computing/programming.
12. I used to think that CS was for people who weren’t smart enough for engineering. You know… idiots. So I didn’t take it very seriously, and I didn’t go work for Microsoft in the 80s because it was beneath me. See who’s the idiot (me) and see who’s basking in their cashed in stock options (not me).
13. I am sometimes a snob (see 12).
14. I love broccoli.
15. I can’t stand the taste, texture, or smell of most squash.
16. I’m deathly afraid of and disgusted by stink bugs.
17. I love gadgets. Especially kitchen gadgets.
18. I love tools, so I don’t give my husband too much trouble when he buys tools, because secretly I plan to take advantage of his stash some day.
19. I met my husband on the internet (match.com) in December of 2001.
20. I’m embarrassed to tell people how we met.
21. We’ve lived together since the day we met in person, three days later.
22. I’m embarrassed to tell people we’ve lived together since the day we met in person.
23. We got engaged ten days later.
24. He proposed via email.
25. I’m embarrassed to tell people how he proposed.
26. We got married 01 April 2003. I chose April Fool’s day so I’d always remember our anniversary.
27. I love my husband.
28. I love him even more, now that we have a baby.
29. I take most things way too seriously.
30. When I was in second grade, some of the boys called me fat.
31. I wasn’t very fat at all. I had a little bit of a blubber belly, is all.
32. More than 30 years later, one of those boys works down the hall from me, in a giant company that is located over 350 miles from where we went to grade school. I don’t consider him my arch-enemy any more.
33. I am ‘morbidly obese’ by the text book standards.
34. I don’t think I am morbidly obese.
35. I used to be ‘drop dead gorgeous’ (according to a few people, myself not included).
36. When I was a teenager and obsessed with the size of my waist, I told my sister that her waist would never be smaller than mine. (Teenagers can be so cruel.)
37. I now weigh twice as much as my sister.
38. I didn’t get a car until after I graduated from college.
39. I’ve always wanted to have children. Two boys and a girl.
40. I’m 40.
41. I don’t ovulate (much).
42. I got pregnant the first month that I started fertility treatment.
43. I miscarried my twins on my 38th birthday.
44. I took a break from fertility treatments (gave up) and started taking classes for foster parenting certification with the option for adoption.
45. I had to plow through alot of HMO bureaucracy before I started fertility treatments again. When I finally got the authorization to proceed, I took a precautionary pregnancy test. It was positive.
46. I believe in miracles.
47. I’ve had a life prayer that I’ve prayed for most of my life, to become a mother before I’m 40. (I know not to bargain with God, and impose time limits, but I did it just the same.)
48. I gave birth to a beautiful healthy boy 2 months and 2 weeks before I turned 40.
49. I believe what the bible says about the holy spirit.
50. I believe the bible is God’s word.
51. I don’t go to church.
52. I love to sing.
53. I don’t sing very well, but sometimes it seems like I do.
54. I think Bono is my soul-brother.
55. I love alot of music by the Who, the Moody Blues, and Pink Floyd.
56. I loathe the marijuana culture.
57. I was involved in long-term (non-consecutive) relationships with not one, but two, marijuana addicts.
58. Almost every boyfriend I’ve ever had was a drummer.
59. I freaked out when my husband expressed interest in playing the drums.
60. I used to be in love with Barry Manilow.
61. And Johnny from Emergency 1.
62. And Luke Skywalker. In fact, I used to daydream that I had a horrible life threatening disease like leukemia, and he (Mark Hamill) would be moved by that, come to my bedside, and fall deeply in love with me. Such drama. Acccckkkk, how embarrassing to admit that, and even to have ever thought such a thing! AAcccccckkkkk!!!!
63. Shortly thereafter, I switched my infatuation to Harrison Ford, who remained hot until the Calista Flockhart mid-life crisis incident.
64. I think Ed Harris is hot. My husband never lets that one rest; he is very amused by it.
65. I don’t like blondes. (Not that I don’t like them, but given the preference, and if I were that superficial, I’d choose a dark-haired man over a blonde.)
66. I married a blonde man.
67. I have a blonde baby. So I LOVE blondes!! He is so beautiful.
68. I like to design and make things. All kinds of things. Like fountains, furniture, toys, costumes, gadgets, gizmos, web sites.
69. I don’t actually complete many of said designs/projects.
70. I like to paint.
71. I like to write.
72. I like to go outside in a torrential downpour and turn my face toward the sky.
73. I’m a leather snob. It doesn’t have to be name brand, but it has to have just the right weight, texture, sheen, etc. for its given application.
74. I love hot hot hot spicy food.
75. I want to write a book some day. And have it be a bestseller.
76. I’m designing my next home, which I plan to participate heavily in the construction thereof.
77. I want to start my own business and have it be wildly successful.
78. I love TV shows and films. They calm me down because I get too stressed out over too many things.
79. I get too stressed out over too many things.
80. I cry during tv shows and movies when sad things happen.
81. Especially the news. I don’t like to watch the news. I don’t like to see people’s babies washed away by tsunamis and hurricanes and such.
82. I intentionally ate half a piece of spice cake laced with hashish in Amsterdam, for the ‘full Amsterdam experience’ and also in retaliation to my then-boyfriend’s accusations of my hypocrisy for passing judgement against the recreational use of mind altering substances when I’d never walked a mile in those shoes, so to speak.
83. I’ll never do that again, and my opinion about mind-altering substance use remains intact. But the blue spaghetti that I had for supper that evening was the best ever. I don’t remember what turned it blue, but it had nothing to do with the hash. Honestly.
84. On a camping trip once, in a beautiful forest by a crystal clear stream, I danced naked in the pouring rain by a blazing bonfire in the middle of the night with my face lifted up to heaven. It was bliss. Later the rain stopped and the stars came out. It was magical.
85. I climbed a mountain (a small one) once.
86. I’ve seen signs and wonders when I was paying attention.
87. I sang an Ode to Joy in the tongue of angels, standing alone under a marbled dome in the cemetary where Beethoven is buried (Vienna). It was ethereal.
88. I don’t know anything about wine, but I love cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, and merlot.
89. I’m a coffee and tea snob. Not by name brand, but the flavor, smoothness, color, etc. are of utmost importance to me. Rich and smooth, not bitter. I’m very particular that way.
90. With regard to cars and things mechanical. I used to change my own oil. I even changed out a starter. Twice.
91. My name is on a patent as a co-inventor. (Not because of my own initiative, but my lead began the submission process on a project which he, I, and one other person worked together on.)
92. It made the top ten inventions list that year. At the award ceremony, the vice-president, not knowing me from Jack, introduced me as Mister Squished Piggy. I was the only woman honored at that event.
93. I secretly enjoyed the smug feeling I experienced when his face turned beet red as he realized his faux pas.
94. I don’t like wastefulness.
95. I am very frugal. Most of the time. Except when I buy my husband things like a hot tub, a new truck, and an obscene big screen tv*. Call me sugar mama. Why is it that I can put out thousands of ‘crazy dollahs’ for something he wants with barely a blink of the eye, but I’ll interrogate him if he wants to order something that’s not on the dollar menu if we go through the McDonald’s drive thru And I’ll hmm and haw about buying myself anything, and research it to death, then feel guilty if I buy it, especially if it costs more than twenty bucks. What is wrong with me Puh-leeeeeeeze. *Okay. Those are all one time deals. Hot tub in lieu of honeymoon, which I regret getting, as I realize that I don’t like hottubs… Why Standing water, stagnating, all manner of who knows what lurking, growing in it. Sure, there are chemicals and treatments, but it’s still the same water. Ewwwwww. Not to mention the whole getting wet thing. Sometimes I don’t feel like getting wet. Hard to explain. The rest All part of my master plan to build the dream home in the state of my youth. He gets his wish list. I get mine. It’s all fair.
96. I recycle.
97. I compost.
98. I love books. The look, the smell, the feel. Hardbound is best. Leather hardbound is bestest.
99. I have the complete Oxford English Dictionary, 12 volumes plus supplement, first edition, second printing.
100. I like disco. (Who ever admits to that one !) It’s fun!!

sodrooleybeautiful
Originally uploaded by Squished Piggy.

He is so beautiful. He takes my breath away.

I caught my reflection in the mirror last night as I carried my sleeping babe to bed. A peaceful sleeping child in my arms. My arms. I saw that familiar reflection that I’ve not paid much heed to over the years, other than a simple acknowledgement – oh, that’s ‘me’. That person that is familiar, yet a stranger. And now, a child in her arms. How foreign that reflection looked. I looked upon it with thoughts and feelings of awe and wonder and gratitude. How could I, this ‘me’ that I am, be worthy of such an honor and a blessing How could I be entrusted with such a responsibility Another human life. I can hardly comprehend the largeness of it. I’ve ‘mothered’ most of my life, but I’ve not been a mother until now. It seems so foreign now, where I can still recall how natural it was in my youth. I expected it, then, and took it for granted. It was my path, my destiny. I knew it with all that I was. That was then. But it didn’t happen. Time passed. More time passed. I ached and yearned and somewhere along the line I became a foreigner. I lost that part of me. I cried so many tears. I grieved. But perhaps I have really gained, rather than lost. Perhaps I wouldn’t have had as much respect for the importance of the job, had I taken the opportunity in my youth. Perhaps I would have been more selfish in my immaturity and unwittingly and unpreparedly transferred my emotional downfalls to my own chidren as my mother so adeptly transferred hers to me, and as I see my siblings have transferred to their children, and as I see some of their children transferring to their own children. It’s tragic, to pass on the worst of ourselves, and be blind to it in the process. I pray, I pray that I don’t pass my issues on. How I want to be wide eyed and aware of all that I’m teaching my child, in my words, in my actions, in my attitudes, in my expressions. He deserves a clean slate. He came into this world in perfection. It’s my responsibility to protect him from me, the part of me that hasn’t found herself, the part of me who hasn’t arrived, who hasn’t come to terms with herself, who hasn’t embraced herself for all that she is, who hasn’t learned to honor herself as a worthy human being, as an equal in this world. I’ve heard it said that with wisdom comes sorrow. If you climb a mountain to gain wisdom, to see all that you can see, suddenly you are aware of how much more you do not know, and you find that you are less satisfied now than you were before, in your ignorance. Hence the phrase, ignorance is bliss. I saw myself last night, a mother, with a babe in her arms. I’m humbled by the responsibility of the task before me, and terrified. I don’t want to screw him up.

It’s 4 a.m. and I’ve been blogsurfing. Normally I’d be sleeping. I was falling over with exhaustion and the cool cat said, go to bed, I’ll wash up your bottles and put the leftovers away (and wake you up at midnight when it’s time to pump). 3 a.m., I see the clock, oh s#!t my boobs hurt, scowl at the cool cat sleeping peacefully and stumble downstairs. Into the kitchen to put together the bottle apparatus. But where are my bottles Soaking in the sink where I left them. Scowl in the direction of the bedroom. Notice the leftovers still on the counter. Roll eyes and scowl again, shaking head. Wash up the bottles, gather the gear, dripping milk all over my t-shirt, make my way to the pumping station, get locked and loaded, and commence blogsurfing. Normally I’m not so crabby, but I get so irritated when someone makes empty claims. If I quizz him on it in the morning he’ll just say he forgot. Being the stubborn @$$ that I am, I’ll not let it go, and still harp on why would he go to all the trouble of telling me he’d do this, that, and the other thing, and then not do any of them It would be better not to make a claim at all, rather than make one and not follow through. Arggggghhhhh!

I stumbled upon The Classic Dames Test. Don’t feel a bit classy. Only crabby. And now my schedule is all hosed up. So I’m like Myrna Loy. I agree that I don’t have much wit, per se, but I thought I had a bit more than that!

Myrna Loy You scored 26% grit, 4% wit, 33% flair, and 47% class!

You are class itself, the calm, confident “perfect woman.” Men turn and look at you admiringly as you walk down the street, and even your rivals have a grudging respect for you. You always know the right thing to say, do and, of course, wear. You can take charge of a situation when things get out of hand, and you’re a great help to your partner even if they don’t immediately see or know it. You are one classy dame. Your screen partners include William Powell and Cary Grant, you little simmerpot, you. Find out what kind of classic leading man you’d make by taking the Classic Leading Man Test.

The new fabric has become a modified Mei Tai and a ginormous tote. The Mei Tai incorporates a back support belt which makes it oh, so comfy. The pics of me are taken by the cool cat, so they are not a bit flattering, but much more realistic than the self portraits that I like to post.
I put Boo in the bag to play, okay, to take more silly pictures…
…and he put up with it for a while. The bag has eight outer pockets and is also lined with the happy green batik.

I put a velcro closure at the top and made super long straps so that I can carry it as a shoulder tote. It fits everything including the kitchen sink.

I have a cold. My head is stuffed and it’s hard to breathe. So I am a bit out of sorts, thus complaints and whines bubble to the surface. For instance. I treated myself to some expensive (for me) software recently – home design stuff – and allowed myself the indulgence partially because of the $30 rebate. I dutifully registered the product, clipped the upc, identified the serial number and on and on. All the hoops one must jump through in order to be eligible for a rebate. This week I received a postcard saying that they couldn’t process my rebate because I hadn’t sent the serial number for – get this – the landscape design software product. Hello. I didn’t buy any landscape design software. Which is why I don’t have a stinkin’ serial number for it. So I called the customer service number printed on the card. Ma’am, you need to supply the serial number (for the landscape software). Our records show that there is no serial number provided. Kindly resubmit your rebate, and include the serial number. We’ll be happy to process your rebate request. But I did that already. Ma’am, you need to supply the serial number. Our records show that there is no serial number provided. Kindly resubmit your rebate, and include the serial number. We’ll be happy to process your rebate request. I’ve already submitted everything you need, and the serial number is printed on the rebate form. I don’t understand why you need me to resend that number, when I’ve already sent it Ma’am, you need to supply the serial number. Our records show that there is no serial number provided. Kindly resubmit your rebate, and include the serial number. We’ll be happy to process your rebate request. I hung up on her. (How rude! I never hang up on people!) She was obviously reading a teleprompt and not actually trying to listen or help. (But I did copy my copy of the first submission and resend it. Thirty dollars is thirty dollars, even if one has to deal with morons.)

And another thing. I joined a yahoo group of baby wearers in my area. It seems that most of these women are SAHMs, my dream job that I can’t have because it doesn’t pay the kind of greenbacks needed to satisfy the bill collectors. They get together to try different baby wearing techniques, and meet on weekdays. I’ve piped in that it would be nice to meet on a weekend some time, perhaps. Later, in an email thread, one of the members noted that weekdays seem to work best for most people. Most people chimed their agreement. Reading that snippet really irritated me. I’m not one of the Most People. I must have issues. I’m only a part-time baby-wearing mom, since my baby is shipped off to a childcare provider all day, and I like for him to get plenty of playtime on the floor when he’s home. I don’t end up wearing him very much. But when I do, I’d like to know the best, safest, and most comfortable way to do it, hence the appeal of the idea of networking with other baby-wearing moms. My rant is running out of steam. I don’t even know where I’m going with this. Oh. I was feeling guilty and overindulgent in my obsession to find the best, safest, and most comfortable way to tote my baby, then discovered that my home made handful of contraptions and marvels pale in comparison with the stashes that some mothers out there have. And they have the commercial name-brand spendy items, in the $60-$90 range per piece. Per piece! And they have many! I think I’m just insanely jealous. They get to stay home with their wonderful bundles of joy, and they get to spend all kinds of crazy dollars on gizmos and gadgets. Are they married to surgeons or lawyers or what I just don’t get it. I have a great job, really, in comparison to many people out there, but I can’t justify a wardrobe of baby carriers. Maybe it’s just part of my own issue that I harbor from growing up ‘poor’. Or maybe the offset is the baby wearing demographic. What kind of people are into attachment parenting and baby wearing Hip young mothers married to corporate executives, I guess. In all fairness, there are people in the group who exhibit some thrift and modesty in their stashes. I must just be jealous. Or, I could look at it another way. Take the $10 or $15 I spend on materials for each contraption I come up with, add in the time it takes me to design and construct them, and the unit cost comes out to be, OMG, $298-$303. Either my day job pays a lot per hour, or else it takes me a heckuva long time to design and construct a piece, considering what an able seamstress I am (not). Okay, but who can say their non-working time is dollarwise equivalent to their paid working time We’re talking apples and oranges, folks. So my contraptions end up costing the real world dollar amount of $10 to 15 each. Which isn’t to say that my non-day-job time isn’t valuable. It IS, it IS. Priceless. Look at it another way. What is the cost of entertainment, if one has an entertainment budget (which I do not). I wanted to see U2 in concert when they were here. Tickets sold out in three minutes, so I couldn’t even consider it, but if they hadn’t, I’d be faced with paying over $95 for a ticket in the nosebleed section behind the stage, with no view whatsoever. So I wouldn’t have bothered anyway. $160 for a decent seat. Times two. Who goes alone Cool Cat would want to go too. So that’s $320 for what, 2 hours Let’s say it averages out to about $127.50/hour for entertainment. See The entertainment value of designing my contraptions Totally worth it. The construction part is another matter. Sewing gets to be a bit tedious for me. I’m so anxious for the finished product that I fail to enjoy the journey. Sort of like how I view my life. Now there’s an epiphany. Dang, I need to figure out how to enjoy the journey. Yikes. That one stopped me cold. I must go contemplate.

My beautiful young man has a new expression, and I’m not quite sure what it means. We had our first camping trip this weekend and he was a bit under the weather. Possibly due to teething –there are five teeth protruding now! Or possibly due to the new children at his daycare. I noticed two new boys are there part time, before and after school. They are probably germ carriers from the schoolyard fray. I suspect the latter, as now both the cool cat and I have stuffy noses and cold symptoms.

Poor little Boo wouldn’t eat and fought sleep with all his might. He has learned to purse his lips and refuse to take the bottle or the spoon. He wasn’t all smiles the day of this picture, which was very sad for me. It’s heart wrenching to have a little one who doesn’t feel well. I tried to give him Tylenol and I ended up making him gag from the dropper and he threw up what seemed like gallons. Freaked me out. So I tried to lace his cereal with it, but he was on to that in no time, and would have nothing to do with it. I tried to lace his milk with it also, and he figured that out too. Thankfully, my little boy is all smiles again and feeling much better.

September’s feature: body parts. People who know me sometimes say they like my smile. I smile alot when I’m around people. This one is, of course, contrived, as I took it myself and how can one smile a genuine spontaneous smile while taking one’s own picture It’s also blurry, but I haven’t had much time to devote to self-portraiture of late.

Check out the Self Portrait Tuesday blog: http://selfportraittuesday.blogspot.com/