Tag: Life as I know it

Life as I know it…

Posted on

One of those days

You know, the days where you feel like you just can’t win. Like whatever you do, it’s not good enough, or you can’t get it done fast enough, or it’s just not right. Yesterday turned into one of those days when I got home from work.

All I wanted to do was sit and relax in the sun for half an hour when I got home, while it was still shining on the back part of our driveway. I’m feeling seriously vitamin D deficient after this miserable “Spring”, and I was exhausted. Well I had to take D out there with me because R was working on something, so I grabbed one of her books, her water cup, and a little container full of Cheerios, and I strapped her into her stroller so she couldn’t boogie away from me. This worked well on Monday – she played in there for quite a while as we grilled and ate dinner outside – so I figured it’d be a fine alternative to hauling her playpen outside again, especially since I was only going to be out there for 30 minutes. Of course not. She played with her stuff for a minute or two, then got totally fidgety and everything started being thrown overboard. After about the fourth time of retrieving and replacing her Cheerio tub I just left it. Whatever got thrown out and onto the driveway stayed there, while she contorted her body into every angle possible trying to launch out of the straps. R came out to take out some garbage and I think could sense my growing frustration, so he took D with him when he went inside. Thank you! Too bad my quiet sun-filled glory that I so desired was short-lived, because after no more than 2 minutes I heard D start screaming. Good lord, now what? She’d apparently fallen into the side of her playpen holding her water bottle and I think scared herself more than anything, but either way my chance to relax outside was now thoroughly shot to hell. And only 20 minutes later, a good portion of which was spent picking up baby paraphernalia. Hmpf.

Last night I also wanted to get a load of laundry done and D’s and my clothes packed for a mini-vacation we’re taking this weekend. After the playpen crying, though, she was all upset and cranky, so I decided it was time for some supper for her. And then, oddly enough, she was covered in food and sticky whatever leftover in her hair from daycare, so she needed a bath (no, i don’t bathe her every day. babies aren’t that dirty, but this child was pretty filthy last night). I finally got a chance to get the first load of laundry in the washer after her bath, and I could tell she was getting sleepy and ready for her bedtime bottle at that point – it was 6:45. So I heated up her milk, got situated with her in my arms on the couch, and almost instantly her eyelids became heavy as she drank down the moo juice. Just as she was about to konk out completely, R shouted out from the bathroom to get him a towel since I’d thrown the ones that were in there in the laundry. What?? You’re joking, right? Just step on the mat to dry your feet and walk out to the hall closet to get one yourself (our hall closet is approximately 4 steps from the bathroom door). And of course I didn’t want to shout that I couldn’t come running at that exact second because I didn’t want to disturb D as she was falling into slumberland. So after the third bellow from the bathroom, I tried as hard as I could not to jostle her and carried her into the hallway with her bottle to get a towel to throw into the bathroom. Failure. She was totally awake and then ready to play once she saw Daddy. Back into the living room we went.

It took 3 tries to get her to bed last night, for each time she’d doze by the end of her bottle something would grab her attention and it was playtime once more. Boo. Then when I finally did put her in her crib, she began another screaming session, which he haven’t had for months now. Why can I not please this child?? Ear infection back? Sickness of some sort (she was kind of pukey last night)? Just mad at the world (hey, i know the feeling kid)? Whatever it was it was not helping the mood of my day. Thankfully R put her to sleep that time with a little rocking, so I could switch the loads of laundry (when i was only expecting to do one in the first place) and get something to eat for myself. Just as I was finishing my sandwich and getting ready to simply sit for a few minutes, which was all I’d wanted to do since I’d gotten home, D started crying again in her crib. Silly Mommy, you don’t get any down time. So I went in there after a few minutes when it was obvious she was really awake and not just doing her little sleep cries where she puts herself back to sleep, and picked her up to rock her. Then she barfed on herself. Then she barfed on me. And it’s no longer just the little spit up of sweet-smelling breast milk, oh no. It is now curds of foul-smelling sour whole milk and whatever else she’s eaten that day. Lovely. So I had to change her onesie, and fortunately through all the screaming and crying I could tell she was still wiped out tired, so it only took a minute of rocking after that and she was zonked out for the night.

Okkkkk, now where was I with the rest of the shit I wanted to get done? Oh that’s right – NOWHERE. By then it was 9:30 and I had to start the dishwasher, get the second load of laundry out of the drier and fold everything, then go to bed. My exhaustion from earlier in the day certainly hadn’t magically worn off, and I wanted to get to bed early. Failure again. And the packing I wanted to at least start? Didn’t even get the duffel bag out of the attic. Mm-kay, fun. So my lack of progress there, coupled with the unexpected trials and tribulations of D at bedtime, more laundry than I felt like doing, and late bedtime once again made for one crabby SM.

But things always seem better in the morning, right? Wrong. D woke up crying 15 minutes before my alarm went off, and of course I was the one who got up with her. Of course. Sorry, R, that’s why I slammed the door this morning. I just wanted those 10 extra minutes of sleep by the time I actually got out of bed to go into her room. So the mood to begin today picked up right where it left off last night – shitty.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the best part. For the first time in 19 months my body is doing that thing. That thing that women’s bodies do monthly-ish? Yeah, that thing. Oh sweet, let’s have a parade. On one hand I’m actually glad to see it again, since it means my body is getting back to normal after the whole experience of pregnancy, child birth, and breastfeeding. On the other hand it could be contributing to this funk. I’ve never been a “PMS-er”, thank god, but man if I’m not in a mood right now. And I just feel bleh – my body looks gross to me, the milk machines are done and now back to their original non-existent state, I need to do more exercise, my skin has decided to give me the gift of breakouts, and I’m still tired (crazy, i know!).

And now I get to add packing to my to-do list for tonight. Joy.

 

Posted on

It was a family affair

Did everyone have a nice long weekend? I certainly did. I LOVE 3-dayers! We usually have an annual Memorial Day party to kick off Summer, but this year we changed things up a bit and decided to push it back to later in the season. So this year we had the whole weekend free, and it was blissful.

Friday night my mom came up to spend the night and get her requisite monthly Grandma time with D. Saturday afternoon R’s mom came down to babysit D while we went up to Kohler for one of their Festival of Beer weekend events, Cheers to Beers. One of our good friends planned a surprise get together for his wife’s upcoming 30th birthday, so we headed up to be a part of it. It was a blast! Cheers to Beers was a 3 hour beer tasting held in the Kohler Design Center, and it was a lot of fun. What’s better than sampling some of the best beers from around the country while moseying through some of the finest toilets in the country?

Sunday my dad came to town for the afternoon, and despite the cold, rainy day, we had a really nice visit. Plus he brought some of my favorite sandwiches up from Peoria, always a bonus. 😉 Yesterday was fantastic. We woke up to blue skies and what turned out to be some blazing sun, so we took advantage. We walked over to a park a few blocks from our house for a round of frisbee golf, which D enjoyed immensely by taking a nap. It’s quite obvious I haven’t played in a couple years, judging by the number of discs for which I had to go foraging in the woods surrounding the course. R trounced me, as usual, but that’s ok – it was fun to be out on a course again and enjoying some finally nice weather. (i usually don’t even keep score during frisbee golf. my lack of aim and arm strength make for a discouraging combo when i do) Afterwards D and I headed out to some friends’ house to see their 2 week old baby boy, K, and he is just about the cutest, tiniest peanut ever. He snoozed the whole time we were there, and he looked so little and scrumptious in his swing. Congrats again, Ds! When we got home R fired up the grill for some outstanding brats, we sat in the driveway and listened to the Brewers on the radio, then enjoyed a fire in the fire pit until it was time to call it a night.

It was the perfect way to ring in the summer. Family, friends, warm weather, ahh… Thank you to all of our servicemen and servicewomen who have allowed us to enjoy these times.

 

I love frisbee golf

 

 

Posted on

Leave it to people to ruin it

The Brewers have been running a promotion called “Where’s Bernie?”, Bernie being the team’s mascot. Over the past week or so they’ve been hiding mini-Bernie lawn statues in county parks around the state, and today was the day the hunt for them began. Starting at 5:00 this morning you could go out in the parks and look for the “stach”-ues (Bernie’s got a big handlebar mustache), taking one if you found them. They were placing 1,400 total – 400 of them were spread out across all the parks they chose and had prizes attached (game tickets, game-used merch, zoo passes, etc.), and the remaining 1,000 were all in one location which was not announced until this morning. Bernie had been leaving clues on Twitter as to what parks were going to contain the “stach”-ues, but the location with the big 1,000 lot wasn’t revealed until 5:00 am today.

Now here’s the kicker. The 1,000 Bernies weren’t supposed to be available to get until 7:00 am today. They announced the location at 5:00 when the rest of the scavenger hunt began, but you couldn’t grab these Bernies until 7:00 (the 1,000 Bernies did not have any prizes attached, they were just plain). As I was getting ready for work I checked out the Brewers site to see where the secret location was, and I was excited to see that the 1,000 Bernies were going to be placed in the lakefront parks downtown, really easy to get to from our house. Sweet! No way were we getting up at 4:30 to try to find a park to start looking for lawn ornaments at 5:00, but we’d said last night that if the big stash happened to be near us and we could stop on the way to work we’d give it a shot. So we hurried to get ready, dropped D off at daycare about half an hour early, and headed down to the lakefront to nab a Bernie. We got there around 6:50, plenty of time to spare, and we even saw a Brewers van with a guy in it. Awesome! We’ll get a Bernie for sure.

Um, not so much. We stopped by the Brewers van as another man and his young son were talking to the guy in it, and R hopped out to see how this was going to work. Well, turns out they’d already given away all the Bernies. And it wasn’t even 7:00 yet! What?? That’s not fair – all the press on this explicitly stated in bold and underlined that the 1,000 Bernies were not available to grab until 7:00 am (bold and underlined?! that means it must be so!). That totally sucks! So we drove down the lakefront a little further to where a big Brewers truck and Bernie himself were stationed. A big truck – they must have more Bernies there! Nope, they were gone too. WTF??

We were so annoyed. I mean, I know it’s not a huge deal; they are just plastic lawn ornaments after all. But it would’ve been a fun Brewers souvenir to have (not in the yard, mind you!), and we followed the rules like they’d asked! If I read it once I read it a million times throughout all the tweets and clues leading up to this – you won’t be able to pick up Bernies from the secret location until 7:00 am, and if you find more than one please be nice to other Brewers fans and only take that one. So who played nice? Apparently no one, not even the Brewers people themselves! If you’re going to hype this all up, make these rules, and then emphasize them so much, at least follow them yourselves so the rest of us who are trying to play your game have a shot at success. Don’t say ah well, people are already here early and trying to cheat so we may as well just let them win. That’s not how it goes. I don’t care if there was a camp of 8,000 people overnight hoping they were in the right spot for the secret 1,000 Bernies. We followed instructions, we looked up the location, we were there before 7:00, and yet you catered to everyone else. Way to instill trust in your fans, shitheads.

And the worst part? People already have these up on eBay. I just saw one for sale for $500! What?! These things were free you greedy bastards!

So the Brewers get a big thumbs down for their “Where’s Bernie?” game. What could have been a really fun community event was turned into a big fat failure by all the cheaters and those who allowed them to cheat. If you were one of the lucky ones who actually followed the clues to a park to find a Bernie with loot attached, or got down to the lakefront half an hour early to grab a plain Bernie when the jerks gave them out before they were supposed to, then bully for you. But leave it to people to ruin it for the rest of us. *sigh*

The elusive Bernie "stach"-ue

 

 

Posted on

Back to the roots

R and I watched an awesome documentary tonight, “The Real Dirt on Farmer John”. It was about a guy who grew up on a farm in northern Illinois, took over said farm when his father passed, turned the farm into kind of a hippie commune as he actively farmed it in his 20s, went broke and had to sell almost everything at age 30, and his subsequent return to the farm and eventual transformation of it into a CSA. (side note – we joined a CSA last summer. wonderful premise, but unfortunately we were disappointed with ours. so this summer we’re just going to try to get more veggies going in our own gardens and frequent the local farmer’s market)

The movie also showed the sad demise of so many surrounding family farms in the 1980s. Seeing a farmer actually start crying as he spoke of watching the concrete being poured for all the neighborhoods that sprung up on the beautiful farmland brought tears to my eyes. And it got me thinking, as I have so many times before – what’s going to happen to R’s family’s farm when his dad dies?

R grew up on a 400 acre farm about an hour north of Milwaukee. His dad’s parents started it, his dad and aunts grew up on it, and his dad has been farming it ever since he came back from California in his 20s to take over. It used to be an active dairy farm, but now it’s mainly crops. They have a few cows left, but not nearly as many as they did in the milk-producing hey day. There are also some pigs and lambs, but it’s definitely not a meat producer. We occasionally reap the benefits if his dad slaughters a hog, but it’s not like we get all our beef and pork from there. They used to raise chickens, but those are gone as well. His mom still tends a magnificent garden each year, though. And when you’re on a farm, your garden isn’t your little run-of-the-mill thing like we have in the backyard. It’s a garden. I can’t even list how much stuff she grows in there, but the first time I saw it I was like this isn’t a garden, it’s a field!

R’s brothers both still live in the area of the farm and have helped their dad with the farming and chores their whole lives. R was much more sports-oriented in high school and then went away to college, so his days as a farm hand ended years ago. We have talked seriously, though, about maybe someday moving back to the farm and starting a rural life for our little family. He has a plot of land on the farm that consists of roughly 40 acres, and it’s beautifully situated on the river that runs through their land. He has said how he’d love to build a little cabin up there for a weekend house or something like that, but we’ve also discussed relocating up there to start a hops farm. These are all just pipe dreams right now, but it’s something that I know would free his spirit and take him back to his roots.

Every time we start talking about this I can’t help but ask myself, would I really be good on a farm? To tell you the truth, I actually think I would. I obviously have never done farm chores (save the one time i helped pick stones in a field, but that doesn’t really count since i got to drive the tractor the whole time), but I absolutely love being able to spend days outside and see and enjoy the fruits of my labor. I think that’s one reason I’ve taken so well to gardening. Yes, I know gardening and full-on farming can hardly be compared, but I’m just saying I think I can picture myself in that setting.

And if we were to someday move to the farm, like I said, we think it would be to do hops farming. There is currently a rental house on the farm land that we could remodel and fix up to live in, then we could dedicate just a little plot to the hops. This is an enormous undertaking, and one that would take years to bring to fruition, but the more we talk about it, and especially when I see documentaries like the one we watched tonight, the more I can see it happening someday.

I’ve always said I never want to live up there, and I still have a hard time picturing myself living in Sheboygan Falls, but a rural life would be pretty great. It takes less than an hour to get there from Milwaukee, so we could still come down here whenever we needed pretty easily. And if I’m perfectly honest with myself, what’s the big thing we do around here now? It’s not like we’re going to the museums or theaters every night, or even out to eat. I would miss our friends most of all, but then I’d just have to come down for girls’ nights that much more often. Plus with all that land, we could have everyone up for cook-outs and camping and visits whenever they could come.

Having seemingly endless property like that to roam and explore would be wonderful for the kids too. Assuming D has a brother and/or sister someday, but even if it ends up just being her, having acres and acres of nature as your backyard is something amazing that there’s just no way she’ll get here. And instilling in her the importance of respecting and nurturing the Earth by experiencing that daily would be pretty cool. Obviously we could teach her that from the city (i grew up in the city and learned that lesson at a very young age), but being able to play in the wild blue yonder every day I think would help her appreciate that firsthand.

(another side note – we’ve also contemplated moving to a more rural area just north of where we live now, not going all the way up to the farm. that one is much easier for me to accept. i already love it there, and if we really wanted to get hops farming started, R could get up to the farm as often as he needed more easily than from where we live right now. and as long as need be, i could keep my current job because that move wouldn’t make my commute impossible, whereas moving to the farm would)

R thinks his oldest brother will probably take over the farm after his dad. I know his family has expressed interest in actually living there in the farm house after R’s parents, which would be fantastic. While watching the documentary tonight I just started worrying that no one would want to take on the full responsibility of the farm after their dad and all that spectacular land would end up being sold like so many of Farmer John’s neighbors’ farms. That’s what always spurs me to ask myself, “Could we do it?” “Would I be willing to sacrifice our city life to save the farm if we had to?” And I think that answer is yes. Because if I saw concrete being poured over all that precious black soil, I would cry too.

Posted on

A closer walk

This weekend we took R’s parents to The Fireside, a dinner theater about an hour from our house, to see “A Closer Walk With Patsy Cline”. I’d never been to nor really heard about this place, so I didn’t quite know what to expect, but it was outstanding. Your show ticket includes a meal beforehand, and ours consisted of cream of watercress soup and their homemade bread to start; a breaded chicken breast, 3-4 ribs, a steamed veggie medley, and scalloped potatoes for the entree; and panna cotta with berries and a little pecan pie bite for dessert. It had a very supper club-type feel, but the food was delicious.

And the show? Phenomenal. The theater has a very unique floor plan – think of something similar to how a boxing ring is situated, but on a much smaller scale. It’s designed so the stage is in the middle at basically floor-level, with seating on all four sides plus 2 rows of balcony seats. The rows have plenty of leg room, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find a bad seat in the house. It was a layout like I’d never seen, but it worked perfectly. The actors ran to/from the stage from the aisles within the seating area, as well as rising up through the movable floor in the stage itself.

The storyline of the show revolved around an old-time radio dj playing through Patsy Cline’s records, detailing her life as he went. Throughout each segment the actors sang her songs, and the woman who played Patsy herself was amazing. Her voice gave you chills she was that good and that spot-on to Patsy Cline’s voice. I never knew she had such a tragic life, dying at age 30 in a plane crash, just as her career was finally taking off.

If you’ve never been to The Fireside, I highly recommend it. We were definitely some of the youngest there – a number of 40+ year anniversaries and 90+ birthdays were being celebrated – and the whole place has kind of a Branson, MO, vibe (i’ve actually never been there either, but this is kind of how i’d picture it), but the talent they attract is unbelievable and well worth navigating through the sea of bus tours that visit daily. They have a Scrooge Christmas show playing next year that R and I both thought looked really good.

Plus their gift shops aren’t half-bad. I’m definitely not big on gift shop trinkets and junk, but I actually got a beautiful new hummingbird feeder (totally random, yes) and a little something for D. I mean seriously, how could I pass these up??

Go Badgers!

 

 

Posted on

Take me out to the ball game

Last night was D’s first Brewers game, and she had a ball! We seriously could not have ordered a more well-behaved baby for the evening. I picked her up early from daycare so I could get home, bathe her, and get a quick jog** in before we went, and thankfully she cooperated and napped for an hour right before we left. We got to the stadium at 5:30 and didn’t leave until just before 10:30, which is a good 2-3 hours past her bedtime, but she was awake and happy the entire time. I figured her 6 teeth weren’t quite sufficient to handle a brat, so I fed her some delicious jars of turkey and mixed veggie dinner and peas and rice (both organic, kudos to Roundy’s) while R fired up the grill. She was all done and ready to soak in all the tailgating action by the time the adult food was ready, so that worked out perfectly.

We had ridiculous seats – 4th row, directly behind the Brewers on-deck circle, which made for some great viewing pleasure. R snagged a Fielder-foul-tipped ball that was tossed into our section by one of the bat boys, so he graciously gave that to D as a souvenir of her first game. And then I prevented her from putting it immediately into her mouth to try and lick off all that good diamond dirt. 🙂 Shockingly enough, I caught another one later in the game, which I gave to our friend S. No need to be greedy. It was cute, too – R took D over to the guest relations booth shortly after we got there, and they printed up a little “My First Brewers Game” certificate for her. It wasn’t anything fancy, we just fill in her name and date and stuff, but still a nice gesture for the littlest Brewers fans on their first appearances.

It was an awesome night all around. Good weather, the roof was open (which made for some chilly wind by the end of the night, but better than rain), great friends were able to join us, the Brewers won, and little D once more made us so proud with her smiley, happy, easy-going spirit. She had made friends with everyone in the seats around us by the time we left. R joked on the way home that maybe we should just stop at one – D is so good we have to have used up all our good fortune in this kid. Will all of the bad stuff we’ve so far avoided with her be channeled into the next one if we give her a sibling? Or is she just saving it all up for the teenage years? Oh please god, not option #2!

The only lowlight of the night came at the end of the game – we were hoping to get a picture of D with R’s cousin who plays for the Brewers on the field, but he didn’t come over our way after the team victory handshake. R was pretty bummed, because he thought his cuz for sure saw us a couple times during the game, so I felt bad for him – I knew how much he wanted that picture of little D on the field with a Brewer to cap off her first game. Hopefully sometime this season we’ll be able to get one to make up for it.

I had to snap a picture to document D’s first baseball game, but it was on my phone so it’s not the highest quality. R took many, many more on his good camera, so I’ll have to get some of those up here once they’re uploaded.

I love the Brewers!

 

Go Brew Crew!

**run stats – 1.44 miles, 11:23, 7:55 pace. holy smokin’ fast! i’m not going to count that as my normal pace because it’s a really short route and i was in a hurry last night, knowing we had to leave shortly after i got done. i am encouraged, though. i’m going to try a 5k route later this week, so i’m sure that will be more along the lines of my 9:00+ pace.

 

Posted on

I guess honesty really is the best policy

Last week I took a couple rings into a local jeweler to have them rhodium plated again, as the white gold was fading to yellow. Then I got an amazing ring for a combo anniversary/birthday present from R, so we took that in to the same jeweler to have appraised. He bought it online, so we just wanted to make sure it was genuine and he wasn’t getting ripped off with a piece of glass costume jewelry. I decided to have them appraise my wedding band while they were at it, since it was one of the rings I’d dropped off to have plated and we never did receive an appraisal from the store at which we originally bought it. So in all they had a nice little chunk of business from me – 3 rhodium platings and 2 appraisals.

When I picked them up at the end of last week they just gave me one lump sum total, which I assumed covered everything. I didn’t pay much attention in the store, because I was just more anxious to get the rings back and see if my new one was real or not. When I left, however, I started thinking that the amount they charged me was much lower than I was expecting. Like $225 lower. Hmm, did they forget something? I checked my receipt when I got home, and sure enough, it only had the 2 appraisals on it.

Now I’ll admit, usually when I get a bank error in my favor I run with it – how often do you get stuff for free? Um, never. But this one nagged at me. That was a lot of money for them to just not charge. R said maybe they threw in the platings since we were having the appraisals done too, but I said no way, that’s too much to just be gratis. By this time the jeweler was closed, so I would have to go back the next day if I was going to say something. What to do, what to do?

The following morning I almost forgot all about it. Funny how sleeping on something can really diminish the “severity”, if you will. But I still felt really guilty not fessing up about such a large error. So I went back to the jeweler that afternoon on my way to my pedicure (which was awesome, btw! complimentary mimosa and second glass of champagne has that effect on me) and told them that I didn’t think they had charged me for any of the rhodium plating for the rings I had in with them earlier in the week. The saleswoman actually remembered me and thanked me very much for my honesty. She then went into the back to discuss with her coworkers while I browsed through the cases and made a mental wish list. 🙂

When she came back out she had a new receipt with her, and my charge was another $100 (the first charge was only $100 – $50 for each of the 2 appraisals). Ok, still less than I was expecting originally, but I’ll take it this time. They knew I had 3 rings in to be plated, but this new receipt only showed a charge for one, so I chalked it up to them appreciating my honesty and giving me a break on the total amount this time around.

It’s funny, because the whole time I was debating what to do on this one in my head, I kept returning to the thought that if D were in this same scenario, what would I want her to do? Tell the truth. Then how could I possibly do anything but that? So you see my friends, the moral of the story is true – honesty is the best policy. And who knows, it may just get you out of $125 in jewelry charges. 😉

Oh, and that amazing ring mentioned above? It was real all right. Yahoo!! Here it is, and R ended up getting it for an absolute steal based on the appraised value. Please excuse my gross-looking hand. For some reason it appears to have missed the memo that I only turned 32 this week and decided to age to about 80 years old instead.

I can be like Princess Di too 🙂