Arm's Length

So, hubby just got done with yet another medical appointment (he should host Mystery Diagnosis with all the stuff he's got going on with his bod). When I picked him up from the appointment, there were several ominous signs that something was desperately wrong:

1. Instead of getting in the front passenger seat, where I had a pretzel and an Orange Julius waiting for him, he climbed all the way back to the third row. Please note: Hubby doesn't climb. Ever. Although once when he mixed two un-mixable medications he did hurdle the couch. And I have it on video.

2. He told me one of us would have to sleep on the couch tonight. Hmmm, guy with bad back or girl who's 6 months prego. You be the judge.

3. I winked at him in the mirror and he told me not to get fresh, that I wouldn't be seeing even so much as a hug from him anytime soon.

Impending divorce? Nope, radioactive husband. It's true. The doc told him that he was radioactive from the test he just had and that, since I'm pregnant, he has to stay at least an arm's length away from me for at least 24 hours. How big of a dose did they give him, geez!

Shameless Plug

Next time you are driving by your local Deseret Book, check out the July/August issue of LDS Living magazine. Page 36, "Fostering Love" by Lecia Crider, better be the first thing you read!

Changing

It feels good to be able to honestly say,


"I feel like I've really grown a lot this past month."


And it's true.


I have.


Sorry, no photos though.

Say Something!

I searched for blog postings with the title "Nothing to Say", and then waited patiently for my slow computer to pull up several hundred results. After sampling a small handful of them, I would say their titles were completely accurate.

Can you say, "Nothing to do"?

Waiting

I hate delays. Particularly when I am sitting in front of the computer. If a screen doesn't pop up in the time it takes me to breathe twice, I am eye-poppingly frustrated.

That can sometimes make working remotely a little tricky. None of my software responds as quickly remotely as it does when we are face-to-icon, so to speak. One program (stop) in particular is painfully slow. I am doing nothing more complicated than garden variety data entry when I am in this program, but each time I save an entry and try to move on to the next one, the program spends a great deal of time thinking about whether it should let me move on or not. Right now it's driving me so insane that I decided to write this blog in between entries. This will give you an idea of either A) how brilliantly fast I think and type, or B) how stupendously slow the program is. (stop)

Other things I hate waiting for:
A commercial break so I can get hubby's attention. This can be a long wait if you're married to a channel-surfer!

Dinner to be done when I waited to start it until I was already starving.

Test results from (stop) a doctor.

Pimples to fade.

Of course, when the delay is my choice, the waiting is a little less difficult. For example, my cluttered closet has needed my attention for lo these many years, but I'm content to wait a little longer to tackle it, on account of not knowing what to do with all hubby's stuff that's in there too. That seems reas (stop) onable to me.

And, due to the piles of bad karma I've stored up over the years, I have a high school reunion scheduled for a day when I will be approximately 38 weeks pregnant. I think I might hold off on that, too! Nonstop "so, what have you been up to?" conversations can definitely wait.

Thanks for making my data entry go by a little (stop) faster for me. Now that I'm done posting I plan to fill the gaps between entries by eating gummy bears.

Oh, Man, It's Over

It's over! I'm 18 weeks and FINALLY feeling better. I still have a little nausea, but just like a little car sickness, nothing like what I've been dealing with.

The kids just got out of school for the summer, so my return to health came just in time. I love having my kiddies around during the summer, and it always goes by too fast. This summer we are playing it cheap and easy. Here's how the summer works at Casa Currant Pie:

Gotta have a chore chart of course! It's a self-directed reward system, so I don't have to spend all summer nagging. If your chores are done by noon you get 3 points. If they are done correctly you get 2 more points. Add 2 extra points if your room is clean and your bed is made. They are working together to reach 900 points (which should happen towards the end of July) and then we all get to go to Big Surf water park for the day! This worked like a charm for us last year, and the payoff was loads of fun.

Every week there is a designated Laundry Captain, Chef, and Pool Boy/Girl. The kids learn how to cook and do laundry, etc., which is good for them, although the results are sometimes a little iffy!

Monday is library day, with a stop off a Sonic for half price slushies on the way home.

Tuesday is Peter Piper Pizza day. Dad works at the corporate office and we get comps, so hooray for free pizza and video games.

Wednesday is $1 movie day at Cinemark.

The rest of the week is for chillin' and swimmin' at home, assuming we can keep our pool blue and a good supply of popsicles on hand. 

In between I visit the office a couple times a week and do the rest of my work from home. Have I ever mentioned how grateful I am for my job? I worked outside the home for about 15 years, and I feel so blessed now that my current company allows me to work most of my hours at home. It has truly changed my life and brought me so much joy.

Have a happy summer!

Finally...Someone Noticed!

During the past few weeks while I've been sick, my family has been trying to pick up the slack for me. Emphasis on trying ;), but their efforts have been sincere and appreciated.

For Mother's Day, Hubby lined the kids up and had them say nice things about me and what I do for them. My oldest made my day when he said, "Well, she must do a lot, because there are 5 of us, and we haven't been able to keep up with what she used to do by herself before she got sick!"

Easier Than I Thought

It turns out losing weight is easy if you stick to only about 500 calories a day, like me. Here is the daily menu for this particular program:

Breakfast: 5 small slices of apple with 1/2 cup apple juice

Lunch: 1 cup chicken boullion with 3 Saltine crackers

Dinner: 1 oz frozen blueberries sprinkled with a little granola, if feeling adventurous

Snacks: popsicles and ice chips

For exercise, about 3-4 times a day you should jump up from the couch and run at a high rate of speed to the bathroom, where you will commence knee bends and abdominal contractions. Sometimes, on your run, it may be necessary to jump over toys or small children, but don't worry, this will only increase your stamina over time.

Of course, I can't really say I recommend this program, as I've heard that over time you actually ending up gaining much more than you lose. Time will tell.

Yeah, Right

Well, that handy little "schedule" that I keep to that I wrote about in my previous post has gone out the window. Now I spend every day bowing down to the porcelain god, and have little motivation to do anything else.

Morning sickness, schmorning sickness.

Feeling Better or Worse?

I have a very simple schedule that I keep. On Monday I do laundry, set my topsy-turvy "weekend" house back in order, and work from home. On Tuesday and Thursday I work at the office. Wednesday is grocery day, plus more working from home, and on Friday I catch up on anything that I let slide during the previous days, plus try to fit in some writing. Don't forget to include daily time to exercise, pray, eat, give my kids lots of attention, and make dinner.

It all seems busy enough to me, but a chance comment made me wonder...I heard or read somewhere this statement, "Oh, life was simpler then. When mother finished the breakfast dishes, it was time to start making lunch." Ouch! That sounds like pure misery to me, but I guess that's just the way it was. Interested to find out more about the way it was, I looked a few things up. Here are some comparisons that will either make you feel better (at least we don't have to scrub clothes by hand), or worse (how come, if I'm not scrubbing clothes by hand, I'm not getting more done with my time?).

COOKING THEN: "Prior to the second quarter of the nineteenth
century when mass-produced cast iron and steel stoves were more available
nationwide, cooking was a labor-intensive chore done on an open fire in a
fireplace. Wood or coal had to be hauled into the house, and ashes removed
daily. Worse was the limited variety of food that could be cooked by this
method. Kettles of stews or soups were easy enough, but the art of banking
fires over Dutch ovens or piles of bricks or stones for baking took considerable experience. Likewise, choosing the types of wood that burned hotter or longer and then arranging the fuels for consistent fires required great skill."

COOKING NOW: If it has more than 5 ingredients or takes longer than 20 minutes, I don't do it.

LAUNDRY THEN: "The most arduous household chore for women was laundry. For many, this was a two-day project every week, usually commencing with the washing on Monday, followed by ironing, folding, and mending on Tuesday. The housewife of the nineteenth century had to haul gallons of water from wells or pumps and maintain kettles of boiling water for the wash. Scrubbing, wringing, and carrying heavy, wet garments and linens to the clotheslines—and then retrieving the dried laundry—wearied and abused almost every muscle in her body. Her hands and arms were exposed to caustic lye-based detergents and scalding water for hours at a time."

LAUNDRY NOW: I happen to be in the middle of laundry right this very minute. While my clothes wash and dry themselves, I am up to my elbows in writing a new blog post.

HOUSECLEANING THEN: "Cleaning floors, and especially rugs, also was backbreaking work for the Victorian housewife. Between the endless clouds of dust entering the house from unpaved streets and the residues of soot and ash deposited daily from fire grates and oil or gas lamps, staying ahead of dirt was a constant challenge."

HOUSECLEANING NOW: I don't vacuum. That is what I have children for.

LINENS THEN: "For most women of the nineteenth century sewing was necessary to produce clothing, bedding, table linens, curtains, and most anything else made of textiles."

LINENS NOW: Hellooo, Target.

A NOT-SO-DISTANT THEN: "Studies from the 1950s showed that “women actually spent more time on household chores than had their mothers . . . logging a 99.6-hour workweek."

NOW: I prefer to have my husband think that home maintenance is still a full-time job. Thus, I should be pampered and adored for keeping it going along with my "other" job (the one that pays actual money). So, I will keep the number of hours I spend on it private, for now.

All the quotes in this post came from a chapter from a textbook called Advertising To The Amercian Woman 1 9 0 0 – 1 9 9 9. Find it online here.