Bad Mommy Moments

Good Mommy Moment

2011-06-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

Today I feel like a rock star.

Several months ago, we bought some fluffy pink fabric with the intent of making a blankie for Gwen as a back-up to the fuzzy green one she got for her First Christmas from Nana. But since I couldn't unearth my sewing table for the longest time, it was only yesterday that I finally got to cutting up the satin border and sewing it onto the blanket material. I was 3/4 done by the end of nap time and completed it after Gwen went to bed. Then I folded it up and put it in the middle of the hallway between Gwen's room and the stairs.

This morning, I got a rather cheerful baby out of bed, who insisted on bringing her blankets out of the crib with her, but she left them in her room as she dashed towards the stairs at my suggestion to "go eat breakfast." She flew past the new blankie, but then paused, turned around, and stood over the mystery pile. I picked it up and wrapped it around her, much to her sudden delight. She laughed with joy and snuggled the soft new blankie as I carried her down the stairs.

It's not a perfect sewing job and I have enough material to make a better one, but I figure I'll just save that for a back-up in case this one ever gets lost. Kids don't require perfection, just love, and this blanket started with a mommy's love and now will collect lots of that of a little girl.

Bad mommy moment - the realization

2011-04-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

As I write this, my 16 month old daughter is crying because she bonked her head on the corner of the junk drawer, which she was raiding. I pick her up and she holds a batter charger up to my ear with a tear-filled smile, expecting and getting a playful "Hello?" from her predictable mother. Other interesting items in said drawer, now barely accessible to my amazonian toddler, are a hammer, two toothbrushes impregnated with copper polish, some needle nose pliers, glue, crayons, and a loose stack of index cards. She finds some quarter sized furniture pads leftover from when we installed hardwood floors in the front room and decides to chew on one. I'm honestly surprised that she doesn't cry as I take them away. She does cry when I take away the box of thumb tacks.

Maybe I should get a lock for that drawer.

I had the realization that I have frequent Bad Mommy Moments as I took a shower this morning. From somewhere, my daughter had obtained an opened box of 50 (probably about 44 at this point) latex gloves, which I shamelessly allowed her to play with as I took a shower. My shower has glass walls, so I usually let her roam free as I take my daily hydro therapy treatment. I realized halfway through shaving my legs that she had pulled every single glove out and they lay strewn around her like a small explosion. She wasn't chewing on them and I figured a latex allergy would have made itself know by this point, so I continued on to the other leg. By the end of my shower, she had stuffed every glove back into the box save two, little forgotten hand-shaped balloons. My theory? Better gloves than baby wipes, which are impossible to get back into their container.

Things I frequently remind myself:

-I know the baby heimlich

-My child is neither neutropenic nor thrombocytopenic

-Dirt builds antibodies

Thanks, Mom.

James turns twenty-something!

2010-07-12T23:08:00.001-07:00

So, today is James's birthday. Hooray for James! :) He took the day off and we had a wonderful day as a family.

Wait, back up a bit. I forgot to mention the part where we went to the Oregon Country Fair and Gwen got heatstroke and we had to cut our trip to the coast short because she was running a fever of 101.9 and su-u-u-u-u-per fussy and cranky all night and all the way home. I guess I'll just have to write another post about that.

This is a happy post about James's birthday.

So, we woke up to a happy little girl and decided to drive over to Bob's Red Mill for some breakfast. We'd never been, but Mom said it was a good spread (with lots of gluten-free options), so we figured we'd try it out. Well, we happened to leave the house at five minutes to 8 am, which only struck us as a bad idea when we hit the highway. We never deal with morning traffic on a regular basis, so it caught us off guard. In any case, we managed to get to the other side of town with minimal delay and minimal fussing on Gwen's part (it helped that I was sitting in the back - I think the previous day's marathon car ride gave her a little PTSD). As we approached the mill, we noticed a nearby office building expelling its contents of employees in a random fire drill.

Weird.

Anyway, we got to the restaurant before any of them decided to utilize this delay in productivity to grab a late breakfast as we were soon settled at a table on the balcony awaiting our stone-ground goodies (or so the kitchy propaganda on the walls informed us was the case). I got a belgian waffle, fruit cup, and garden sausage. James ordered french toast and turkey bacon. Gwen got mashed up bites of my fruit cup and Mommy Milk. Everyone left the table satisfied. Except Gwen, who wanted more fruit, but she soon got over it.

We went back home and everyone took a two hour nap.

Seriously, I'm not kidding. It was awesome.

Then we all woke up at noon and Gwen got a bath and James and I got showered, did some laundry, and just chilled. We folded laundry, watched some episodes of Breaking Bad that Netflix had delivered, Gwen took another two hour nap, we had a minor first-parent-freak-out when her fever came back up to 100.3 (it'll make more sense when I've written the other post about the heatstroke), but then she cooled back down and never did get fussy this time, so all in all, it was ok.

James asked me what I wanted to do for dinner and I said, "How about sushi?" and he replied, "I was just thinking sushi!"

Ah, great minds . . . and minds attached to bellies that had such a heavy breakfast that they had skipped lunch. Turkey bacon and garden sausage notwithstanding.

We thought it would be fun to try out James's new birthday present: a Burley d'Lite bike trailer. So James hooked it up and off we went. We figured we'd only go for a short ride because a) Gwen might freak out, b) Gwen didn't have a helmet (although not necessary in the cage of the trailer, and she's still a bit too small for one), and c) it was getting late. So we rode to the sushi place and Gwen was such a champ - she had a blast! That's my little adventure girl! We locked up our bikes and took her into the restaurant. As we didn't have the car seat this time, we put her in a little booster seat and asked them if they had a little rice she could snack on. They gave us two rice balls about the size for two nigirizushi minus the raw fish on top.

Sticky rice really lives up to it's name. She had a blast and by the end, even though she probably got 90% in her mouth, the 10% spread all over the table, bench, wall, booster seat, and baby was impressive.

Yes, we are now Those Parents. The ones who bring their 7-month-old baby to a sushi restaurant and let her shriek and smear rice all over the place. At least I tried to clean up the worst of it before we left. I hope James left a nice tip.

After a brief stop at Old Navy for new shorts for me (all last year's shorts are now too big - please don't hate me) and a ride home rounded out the day wonderfully. Gwen went to sleep and James and I folded more laundry. Then we assembled the Legos that Gwen got her Dada for his birthday.

Now, time for bed. Happy birthday, pooka-love.

Dirty Thirty

2010-05-21T12:06:00.000-07:00

I guess I should have written about this a week ago, but what can I say? Naptime is precious! I'd rather surf and mindlessly read other people's blogs than write one up myself. And when Gwen is awake, one-handed blogging is impossible.

But enough of that kind of talk.

I turned thirty last week. I thought maybe I'd have some kind of early mid-life crisis, but instead found myself in a very peaceful spot. My twenties were good years. I served a mission, earned my bachelor's degree, got married, bought a car, got a cat, earned my nursing license, bought another car, bought a house, and had a beautiful baby girl. There's really nothing about my life that I wish I'd done by this point that I haven't done. Except maybe live abroad, but now that we own the house, I'll have to wait a few years before realizing that one. I have been to Brazil twice, and made my second trip to England during my twenties.

My birthday party was a trip. We had a loose invite out for a potluck BBQ at the park down the street from our house. The day was sunny and warm, and I went to Albertsons and bought nine balloons to mark the picnic table, along with lots of fixings for the burgers and dogs. I've never bought myself balloons before. It was kindof therapeutic, like buying yourself flowers or getting a pedicure; I was happy because I treated myself to something fun and it only cost $9. Then we had to get the balloons home. I had Gwen with me, so there was a moment of hilarity where the bag boy and I were stuffing the balloons into the back of the car, trying not to smother my poor baby. I then got everything else in the trunk and got in the front seat. I don't know if it was the heat or if Gwen managed to clip the balloon with one of her little razor nails, but I heard a deafening POP! as one of the purple balloons vanished into a little sad piece of rubber. And Gwen didn't cry, which is amazing, and now I know she's not allergic to latex, which is a very good thing, but we were only half a dozen blocks from the hospital, just in case.

In any case, the baby, food, myself and eight balloons made it back home, where we got ready for whomever dropped by to party. There was a stressful search on my part, looking for the bocce ball set that I was determined to have at the party (even though we didn't actually get around to playing it), and finally, we were all there (even my Dad, who brought the grill, only slightly late, which stressed James out but there was enough potato and macaroni salad to bridge the gap between arrivals and meat consumption). The Olsens/Petersens came, as did the Gaertners, Heinrichs, Browns (Margaret and Meredith), Walens, Judkins, my in-laws and James's brother Mark, and my friend Sally from nursing school pre-reqs. Then, as the party was in full swing, I see a large fellow walking towards us, wearing a white cumberbund and bow tie, carrying a garbage bag with balloons peeking out the top, calling "Kristina, my darling!" towards us. Sally asked if I knew him. Um...I didn't. Who is this clown? James is grinning and holding the camera on "rec."

The fellow (never did catch his name) said he knew me from the first grade (unlikely) and had been searching for me for several years, only to find me on my thirtieth birthday and wanted to shower me with attention. Attention in the form of two ribbons on my shirt ("Happy Birthday" and "Very Important Person"), a balloon hat adorned with a balloon wiener dog, a purple lei, some heart bobble antennae, a party noise maker, and a giant balloon bouquet anchored by a stuffed animal dog and mug filled with a plush heart. Then he read me a poem about my wonderful birthday and had the rapt audience sing "Happy Birthday" like they were underwater (with their fingers dribbling their lips). So funny. My smile muscles were sore by the end. James later told me he was going to get a stripper (only to go down to boxers or swim shorts), but was vetoed by some conservative friends whose opinion he asked before booking the engagement. Considering all the kids there, it was probably a good thing. But for my 40th, all bets are off! :)

Me in my Birthday Garb

Gary and Gwen

We then had everyone grab something (or someone, in the case of Gary, who carried Gwen) and retreat to the house for the most fantastic red velvet birthday cake I've ever had. James ordered it from The Dessert Tray and had them cakewreck it up, much to my glee. Mom also brought a gluten-free carrot cake that was apparently very good, so everyone won on that front.

If you don't get it, go to cakewrecks.com and enjoy a good laugh

And even though I said to bring food instead of gifts, some people brought gifts anyway! So I got some lovely cookbooks from the Gaertners and Judkins, a pair of garden boots from my parents, a beautiful bouquet of flowers from Sally's garden, a lovely necklace/earring set from the Walens, a new pair of Danskos from James, as well as the I Love Macarons and Cookie Sutra books (the second of which made me blush furiously in front of the assembled friends and fam - not that I'm prudish, just sensitive to their sensibilities), and $50 from my in-laws, with instructions to "spend it on something you don't need." No problem! :) Everyone chatted for a while, then people had to start going home. I sent one bunch of balloons home with my sister Aubrey, and the other bunch with the Olsens. I figured, Gwen's too young to enjoy balloons and I'd rather have kids enjoy them than just watch them get sadder and sadder floating around our house over the next few days.

A beautiful necklace from Beth and Gary Walen

Beth, hoping her look of horrified piety covers her

mischevious grin while reading my Cookie Sutra book

After everyone left, my husband's family stuck around because they were staying the night, so we played Guillotine and The Great Dalmudi while James's and my dads chatted in the front room. Because it was my birthday, I was the Great Dalmudi, and therefore ended up winning both rounds before it got too late and everyone went to bed.

All in all, a wonderful birthday. But I think that after this, we're done entertaining for a while!

Gwen wanted to play frisbee at the park, but we didn't get around to it.

Next year, baby, ok?

Oh my...

2010-05-07T21:16:00.000-07:00

So, James's sister Emilyann sent us an email about a Big Shoe Event at the Nordstrom Rack, and since James is a size 13-14 shoe, we thought we'd take a little family trip on the MAX to the downtown location to see what they had. Well, the bad news is that they weren't actually having a Sale, just a larger selection of large size shoes, and James didn't really find anything that he liked anyway. The good news is that while he was thus being disappointed in the men's section, I discovered wedges.

I've seen wedges on ladies' feet for years now, but always thought that they didn't apply to me* because 1) they would be too heavy, 2) they would be super uncomfortable, and 3) I'd fall down a lot. Well, I tried on a pair just for kicks and found that 1) they're made of super-light material like cork, 2) some actually have arch support, 3) unlike heels, the wedge gives more stability with the height (although not as steady as flats), and 4) they're rockin' awesome.

Just for reference, this is the pair of shoes I've worn day in and day out for the last 2 1/2 years:

My cordovan Danskos: super comfortable, clunky, workhorse shoes

So, I've needed some brown dress shoes to go with my earth-toned Sunday dresses, so I found this sweet pair:

Brown strappy wedges: I'll have to keep up my pedicure habit with these

And then I saw these.

Whoa Nellie

At first, I thought, "Ha, I should show these to James. He'd get a kick out of 'em. Then I'll put them back because they're about 6" tall and I have nothing to wear with them." But then I tried them on, and thanks to the pedicure that I got three weeks ago and hadn't chipped yet, my feet looked awesome. And I felt fancy and sexy. And I bought 'em. 'Cause they were on sale. Actually, both pairs were on sale. Pretty sweet.

Total bill: about $41 bucks for two rockin' pairs of shoes that once totaled almost $200, make me tower over my hubby and will probably send me shopping for fancier clothes to go with them.

*Upon further reflection, I realized that I actually own a pair of black strappy wedges and have for years. Or rather, I now own a black strappy wedge. The other is a casualty of the move. But I had them, wore them, and never thought of myself as a wedge person. I guess I always filed them into "clunky, strappy, platforms at an angle" instead of "wedges."

Five Years

2010-04-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

Five years ago today, I married my best friend. It rained, I spilled punch on my dress, and there was w-a-y too much food at the reception. But none of that matters anymore. I've gotten accustomed to calling myself by my married name, putting the "Mrs." before it, getting the occasional "ma'am" from polite southern boys, and the look of my left hand with a ring around the fourth finger. I've gotten used to sharing a bed without hogging the lion's share of the sleeping real estate. I enjoy sharing housekeeping duties and the perks associated with someone else paying the phone bill (i.e. my phone hasn't been cut off because I forgot to pay the bill in at least five years). I have a Go-To person for advice and someone I can send funny emails to, knowing that they'll be appreciated (or at least tolerated). James is my best bud, my sounding board, my favorite person in the whole world, my sexy dance partner, co-chef, duet partner, cheerleader and shoulder to cry on.

I think we make a pretty good team. I often think I got the better end of the deal, but don't tell him that. Don't want him to get wise to this racket I've got going.

To celebrate our Big Five, I arranged for the Judkins (our fabulous daytime childcare friends) to watch Gwen for the day and set up a Date Day with my main squeeze. His assignment was to get off from work and make dinner plans (I figured he'd have a better idea on where to go, with his concierge training and aptitude for always knowing the best places to eat in P-town). I planned the rest of the day.

We had a nice, snuggly morning with the baby, who was cheerful in spite of a brooding cold that she caught from her mother. Then we got her bundled up and dropped her off at the Judkins's and made our way, bikes on the rack, to the trailhead of the Fanno Creek Trail. Neither of us had been on it before, and with the sun shining and a cool breeze blowing, it made for a fabulous ride. Nothing too strenuous, but lots of nature to enjoy, with the occasional playground or basketball court punctuating the scenery. We rode for a little over half an hour, making our way well into Tigard, before stopping briefly to swing on some swings and explore the potentials of one of the playgrounds, making plans for when Gwen is old enough to (1) ride in a bike trailer, and (2) play on a playground. Then we turned around and rode back, went home and took a shower.

Then we drove downtown to a little studio where I had arranged for a couples massage. Mmmm...massage.... James isn't too keen on strangers kneading his body, but for me, it's bliss. And he actually ended up enjoying the massage, especially since the therapist worked on a sore hamstring that had been bothering him recently. We got all relaxed and re-centered, and then hit up a sandwich joint around the corner that James had gone to before and really liked: Bunk. Darned good gourmet sandwiches, and since it was past 2pm and we hadn't eaten since breakfast, they were even tastier. The day was starting to cloud over, but it was still warm enough to enjoy our sandwiches on one of the patio tables out front (which was good, since the place was full). We cleared our places and then made our way down to the waterfront, where we found parking for ... the Cirque de Soliel!

I've wanted to go to the Cirque since I first saw that striped tent on the waterfront, years ago. They come to Portland quite frequently (it seems like every year or two), and always set up in the same spot, in spite of the growing development in that area. This year was the Kooza show. Our seats were near the center stage, a little more than halfway up the stadium, but as anyone who's been to the show will tell you, there isn't a bad seat in the place. The seating charts on the website look like you might miss some of the action being far back, but it's actually a quite intimate setting, and you feel like you're right in with the action (and you sometimes are - they go out and perform into the audience throughout the show). My favorite acts were the contortionist twins and what James dubbed the Wheel of Death. We also enjoyed the act with a man doing acrobatics on eight chairs stacked on top of each other (makes me worry about when Gwen starts climbing), a couple doing flips on a unicycle, a trapeze artist, a great performance from some tight-rope walkers (and bicycle riders), several hilarious (if slightly racy) comedy acts by a clown trio, some song and dance numbers, an impressive performance from a group of tumblers with the see-saw catapults, and probably a few more acts that escape me at this time (but were still amazing to watch). I'd love to take Gwen there when she's old enough to appreciate it (and hopefully not be freaked out by it - it was freaky at times). Oh, and the piece de resistance was the toilets! They had temporary bathrooms set up outside the Big Top, but instead of your classic stinky port-a-potty, they had flushing toilets! I know it sounds silly, but that really made the premium price for tickets worth it.

We left the circus and it was again up to James to lead us to food. He had printed off several addresses of places he's been wanting to try out, and we made our way to the first, Torro Bravo, a tapas place near Emanuel Hospital. James had heard rave reviews and our friends the Zollingers had raved about it personally, so we were eager to try it out. And our sandwiches were just about spent, so we were hungry! Our initial plan was that if the wait was 15 minutes, but if it was 30, we'd jet. The minute we stepped in, we knew we were boned. It was a 90 minute to 2 hour wait, and they were taking phone numbers of people who were still interested. Just at the thought, I started to feel weak, but then the hostess took pity on us and said if we wanted to wait, there were three tables that were on a first-come-first-serve basis because they were tucked in an undesirable corner of the restaurant, and one would be vacant in a few minutes. We nabbed it, and ordered a soda to tide us over until we could sit. It actually worked out for the best, since our little Candlelit Nook was sheltered from the hustle and bustle of the crowd, the drafts from the now-rainy evening, and we could smooch and giggle to our hearts' content.

We ordered the Tasting Menu, which consisted of two-person-sized portions of about eight tapas hand-picked by the chef/owner. We started off with a green salad with chopped egg and hazelnuts, then toast covered with a creamy white cheese and greens, bacon wrapped dates (I'm still dreaming of those dates!), chili-covered prawns, ox tail croquettes encrusted with a chocolate and cinnamon savory sauce, wilted spinach with pine nuts and a honey sauce, pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon and served over a avocado salad, with bread on the side and a parsley infused olive oil to dip it in or butter to spread on top. I'm sure I'm missing one or two items, but suffice to say we left full and content with our lot in life. But I wanted desert, so we made a drive by to Papa Haydns, where I got desert for James and myself, as well as Jac and Meagan for watching our baby so late. Jac had actually come over to our house with Gwen, so he could put her down at her bedtime and study, so we just came straight home to a sleeping baby and happy babysitter (they love Papa Haydns, too).

All in all, a great day. And to show how far we've come over the last five years, we didn't use a single coupon all day long, and that's ok. But it's really a once-in-five-years occasion. We're not made of money, after all. But it is comforting to know that we've come a long way since our wedding day, when we were scraping up the dough to buy our rather modest wedding rings, honeymooning at a family friend's cabin on Mt. Hood because we had one paycheck in our checking account and James had yet to find a job in Portland. We've finished school, changed jobs (only once each, though, after our respective graduations), bought two cars (one paid off!), bought a house and started the Parental Journey. We've fought, but not too often. We've grown so much mentally and emotionally, but also lost weight and gotten in better shape. I know James so much better now than I did five years ago, or even eleven years ago, when we first met, and looking back, I couldn't have made a better choice. He's not perfect, but he's perfect for me.

The long-overdue story

2010-03-07T09:04:00.000-08:00

So here's the story, long overdue.

On August 15th, we moved into our new home. We had friends from the old ward and the new as well as family helping us out. We hoped to unpack immediately and settle in, but the boxes stayed in stacks, as they often do, and we only really managed to get out a little more than the necessities for a while.

We'd been in the house 10 days. The day was August 24th. We'd noticed that our clothes weren't drying as well as we expected, so James had spent the afternoon after work trying to clear out the dryer vent. I was working, and as we hadn't figured out a good return trip for me, my thoughtful husband James offered to come pick me up after my shift.

He started a load of laundry before he left.

When we pulled back into the driveway, we were puzzled to see that the garage door was open. Surely James had closed it before leaving the house. And why was it raining in the garage? James let out an exclamation of dismay and dashed into the house. I followed in a daze of horror and dread. Ascending the stairs, it soon became evident what had happened, although the how is still a bit fuzzy.

From what we can figure, the drainage hose that connected to the washing machine was poorly secured at best. Perhaps due to the minimal jostling the machine suffered as its brother was having his vent hose cleared, the grip on the connection was compromised sufficiently to pop it loose when filled with pressurized water. The end result was the wash cycle water and the rinse cycle water was diverted, not to the sewer as is only natural, but our upstairs laundry room, hallway, and wherever capillary action and gravity led it.

We did the only thing two brand-new homeowners could do in such a situation. I called my parents. He called our real estate broker. We cried. My parents came over and spent several hours helping us vacuum up the water and mop up the mess. Our broker came over (he happened to be in the neighborhood) and gave sympathy and guidance on who to call (insurance company), as well as possible renovations to avoid similar catastrophes in the future.

James called the insurance company and they moved fast. They contacted a home renovations company, Hansen Construction (who would become a household name in our home over the next several months), who were in our home by 11 that night. By that time, my parents had gone home, our broker had left, and I had curled up in an exhausted heap on the couch of the front room. James spent the next several hours directing and observing the crew tear apart our new home.

They ripped up the linoleum in the laundry room, all the carpet in the hallway and at least a few feet of carpet into each of the four bedrooms, the linoleum in the guest bathroom, down the stairs and part of the kitchen. They cut out the bottom 12-18 inches of the walls of almost the entire upstairs and put giant fans and de-humidifiers throughout the house.

At some point, I crawled into bed and went to sleep, but not before calling in to work, saying I wouldn't be in at 7 the next morning.

I woke before James the next day (he'd been up later, working with the crew until they left around 2 AM) and wandered through the wreckage. I went into the nursery and looked in the closet, where I had hung two little outfits. Seeing those little clothes amidst the wreckage was too much for me. How could I raise a baby in this shell of a house? We'd totally blown this whole homeowners thing. We hadn't even been here a month and we'd destroyed our home in one dunder-headed move. I sat down on the portion of the floor still carpeted, leaned against the crib, and cried.

By the time James awoke, I'd regained some composure and we got ready for Stage Two of the demolition, though at the time we didn't know it. Hansen came over at 9 AM and I listened in horror to phrases like "So, we'll tear out half of the ceiling in this room" and "This carpet in the front room will have to go, too." Steve, the demolition foreman, was wonderful, though. His calm explanations and capable personality gave us an island of comfort in this, our sea of despair.

James had called in to work the night before as well, so he spent much of the morning trying to get stuff done from home and talking with the demolition crew. I called into my work in the morning and said I could come in at 11 if they needed me, since there really was little to do but watch my new home get torn apart. They said I could come in at 3 and leave at 11 that evening, so I'd only miss out on 4 hours of actual work time. So we watched as our home had ceilings, walls, and floors torn out and thrown in the huge dumpster they'd parked in front of our house.

To be continued...

2010-02-03T13:42:00.000-08:00

I've put up a few posts originally posted on my private family blog (the one where James and I are free to rant or gush about the baby without fear of judgement or "helpful advice" from friends and family) but that I thought loved ones might want to read. Look back to December 3rd and after and enjoy.

Sleep

2010-02-01T10:15:00.000-08:00

I've got a sweet child sleeping in my arms, necessitating one-handed typing, but it's worth it. I always loved holding sleeping babies and now find the joy of holding my own child as she sleeps to be all the more wonderful and fulfilling. She's wearing pink fleece footie pajamas and little mittens to keep he from a) scratching her face, and b) sucking her thumb. (B) turned out to be futile, as she managed to get the left mitten off twice over the night-time and thereby acquire the coveted left thumb. I did some research today and it basically said babies will suck their thumbs and the more you fight them, the longer they persist in the habit, so just roll with it and try to distract or comfort them in other ways once they're a little older and can be reasoned with. I sucked my thumb until age 7 and ended up with two bouts of orthodontia. I hope I don't end up eating my words when Gwen is older and needs braces. Of course, her Aunt Diana never sucked anything and she had to have pretty extensive ortho as a kid. Maybe it's just genetic and I should start saving now.

Gwen is two months old today. She smiles and laughs, says "goo" and "ga" and tries to mimic us when we say "I love you." She almost always smiles when we tell her we love her. She'll stick her tongue out at us - it's a little game we play. She's somewhat more tolerant of tummy-time and James saw her roll from front to back the other day, although she has yet to repeat the performance.

She's slept through the night the last two nights. We put her in her crib all night for the first time three nights ago. The first night, she woke up at 2:30, and again at 5:30. The second night, she slept through to 5:30 straight. Last night, she went down at 9 pm and finally started asking for breakfast at 7:30. And now she's taking a nap. This kid is definitely her mother's daughter!

She's still a really "good" baby - rarely cries, eats well from both breast and bottle (even cold milk!), laughs and gives other forms of reciprocal affection. She even tolerates baths and diaper changes with minimal fussing. And she's a good sleeper. Even James has stopped googling "vasectomy" since she started smiling.

I've been posting more about our little family on our private website, but I'll try and transfer some of the less sensitive articles here for my adoring fans (i.e. my family). Feel free to yell at me if I don't get around to it. I'm easily distracted these days.

Spa

2010-01-20T21:12:00.000-08:00

For my baby shower back in November, James gave me a gift certificate to a spa near his work. It was good for a massage, facial, and foot bath, redeemable anytime after he feels competent enough to watch the baby for a few hours.

I redeemed it today.

Ahhhhhh!

I met James at his workplace and we switched cars - him taking the one containing the baby and me taking the other to the spa a few blocks away. As I was running a few minutes early, I stopped at a cafe next door for a cup of hot chocolate and a cookie as well as to put myself in a calmer frame of mind. Then I went over to the spa and checked in. I changed into a bathrobe and waited in a quiet waiting area until my massage therapist led me to my 30 minute massage.

I love massages. I love the tactile stimulation and relaxation, the luxurious feeling of someone kneading out all the knots of tension in my back and shoulders, the soft lighting and relaxing music, even the face-hole in the massage bed that allows me to lie on my stomach without having to turn my head to breathe. I used to get massages every month back when I was single, but traded that luxury in for financial responsibility when I got married. But James knows it's a safe bet that if he gets me a massage for Christmas or my birthday, he can't go wrong.

I went back to the waiting area with a large glass of water until my aesthetician came to lead me to my facial. I've only had one other facial in my life, and it consisted of a girl who didn't speak English spending the hour picking at my pores until my face was red and inflamed for days afterward. I wasn't looking forward to the experience, but this lady changed my opinion of facials. She applied gentle exfoliating masks and nourishing serums, all the while talking to me about my skin care routine and how I can best take care of my skin. She ended by offering to leave me some samples and suggestions for a daily routine that would keep my skin in its best condition. And a nice head massage. Mmmm.

Back again to the waiting area briefly, and then I was escorted to a small area with couches on high platforms, almost like a cushy shoe-shine station. Two other ladies were already reposed on two of the four couches, their feet soaking in individual copper basins on small tables in front of them. I chose an empty couch and soon the attendant came in with my foot bath of milk and honey with two flowers floating in the pool and warm stones in the bottom of the basin. She put a warm neck roll around my shoulders and lowered my feet into the steaming water. I relaxed and soaked for a while, and she came back to add more hot water when the bath had begun to cool. After a good soak, she came in with a pot of cold water infused with peppermint oil and offered to open my circulation by pouring it over my feet. Although it doesn't sound pleasant, the icy water was stimulating and invigorating and made the return to the bath all the more wonderful. I finally understand why people like to soak in hot springs and then jump in the snow (although still I'm not sure if I'm up to that kind of systemic shock).

After drying my feet and returning to the locker room, I spent a few minutes working up a deep sweat in the sauna. I could feel (and smell) the toxins seeping out of my pores, and when I started to feel rather overheated, I stepped out and took a nice relaxing shower before dressing and making my way slowly to the front desk. I'd left James with the baby 3 1/2 hours ago and was beginning to think I may have to return to reality. I called him on the way home to reassure him that I hadn't decided to take up permanent residence at the spa.

But I sure would have liked to.

6 weeks

2010-01-06T13:30:00.000-08:00

Well, yesterday Gwen turned six weeks old. So we're done with the "postpartum period." Not quite sure how that changes anything, but milestones are points to reflect if nothing else. I've been blessed to spend the last six weeks getting to know this little one and figuring her out, as well as learning so much about myself and James in the process. We all three still have a lot of growing to do, but I wanted to talk about some of the things in which I've found the most these first six weeks . . .

I love the little blonde patch on the top of her head. We first noticed it a day or two after she was born - a little golden patch on her dark, downy head. I watch as her hair grows and regularly check to make sure I can still find that little sunshine lock. I hope I'll still be able to see it when her hair is down past her shoulders.

I love her beautiful eyes. They're a steel grey-blue, serious and always looking around, watching and learning from the hour she was born. I could spend hours staring into those little orbs, a pair of blue-tinged slices of black olives, with just a hint of downturn at the corners to form teardrops like her father's eyes.

I love the curve of her back when I drape her over my knees (especially when she's gassy) and how she resembles a little sack of flour with arms and legs. It's especially gratifying to rhythmically pat her bottom and back like a set of baby bongos, both for my comfort and for hers.

I love breastfeeding her. It was a struggle at first but has become a wonderful bonding time for us. She drinks and I hold her, then she gets all sleepy and I keep tickling her to wake her enough so she gets enough to drink. When she's so sleepy that even my tickling doesn't rouse her, often she'll slip off the nipple and just cradle her head on my breast, letting out a contented sigh as she slumbers on. I'm grateful for the pump and the freedom it offers, especially assuring that she gets enough to eat before bedtime and in the middle of the night (so she doesn't wake up hungry an hour later), and she'll need to take the bottle when I'm back to work, but I now understand why women say they just love breastfeeding. It offers reaffirmation that I am indeed her mother; anyone can plug the baby with a bottle, but only her mother can feed her directly from her body. (I also love how I'm able to eat whatever I want because she's sucking the fat right out of me, but that's the selfish side of it all.)

I love seeing her smile. She started smiling for real yesterday (at least that's what I'm telling myself - it seemed intentional) and it just lit up my day. I found myself cooing and talking to her just to try and cajole another smile out of her. This morning, she was sleeping after nursing and I could tell she was dreaming because she lit up in a big smile and then let out her first laugh. I wish I knew what it was in her dream that was so funny, because I'd move heaven and earth to replicate it and hear that laugh again with her face lit up in her sunny smile.

And what have I learned about myself over these last six weeks?

I've learned that I am capable of waking in the middle of the night, every night, sometimes multiple times, to care for my child. I've never been a person who was very responsive to the idea of the middle of the night - my sleep is sacred and I'm a bear when woken. But I suppose when it's mama bear, she doesn't mind being woken quite so much. Now, that's not to say that I can survive on less sleep for very long, and were James not there to offer to take the odd night-shift here and there I'd be in a world of hurt, but that being said, I've found that I'm more capable than I once thought. Of course, the fact that our daughter has apparently inherited my love of sleep and usually only wakes once or twice to fill her small stomach makes those few interruptions of my precious slumber all the more tolerable.

I've learned that I'm actually pretty good at this whole motherhood thing. Granted, I have yet to take on the greatest challenge of balancing work and home life, as well as the challenges of once she develops needs greater than food and diaper changes, but that's why they come out needing the simple things (albeit they need them all the time) and their needs grow as they do, expanding to discipline, language, social skills, and so on. I think I'm doing pretty well with the basics so far. And, as I predicted, I've found that I enjoy doing these things for her that she can't yet do for herself. My real dread is when she tries to learn about humor and conversational skills. Then I'll pass her over to Daddy.

I've learned to love Gwen more than I ever thought possible, and know that that love will only grow greater and greater over the coming months and years. When I first married James, I loved him, but looking back on the last five years with him, I realize that our love has grown and matured exponentially beyond what I ever thought possible, and that said love still has the potential to grow from here. When Gwen was first born, I adored her and felt a strong connection, but I was also exhausted and overwhelmed and honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into with this whole motherhood thing. I spent the first month feeling like a long-term babysitter, wondering when her real parents would come to pick her up. I'd wake in the middle of the night to this little squeaking creature and look over in mild surprise thinking, "What, you're still here?" This little girl has brought about a dramatic change in our lives and it took some getting used to. As things began to sink in that she's really ours and is here to stay (hopefully not until she's 35, though), I began to allow myself to fall more and more in love with her. I gave myself permission to be silly with her, and to talk to her even when she's asleep. As the walls came down, affection and admiration turned into love and adoration. I often remind myself that she's mine, and let myself love her a little more each time.

How could I not love that little pixie fairy?

The Event

2009-12-07T13:46:00.000-08:00

So, contractions were coming with moderate regularity. I wasn't keeping strict track of things, but I'd guestimate every 7-10 minutes for the first hour, and then they really started picking up, both in frequency and intensity. This was about 11:45, and I was getting pretty tired, so I tried to curl up in bed and hope I'd be able to get some sleep. I got about 6 minutes of sleep before another contraction woke me. Ugh. This wasn't going to work. Then I thought a nice, hot shower would help, and it did in spite of having at least three contractions during and two more drying off. Things were getting serious here.

Ok, I thought, I should probably wake James. I felt bad for waking him at what was then 12:45 in the morning, but I was pretty convinced that this wasn't "false labor" and even if it was, I needed some moral support, here.

I managed to gather our stuff between contractions while James took a quick shower, and then we were off to the hospital. I called on the way there to let them know we were coming, and had three more contractions between the house and the door to the ED. James dropped me off there and went to park the car, joining me right as the L&D nurse came to take me upstairs.

After a few questions about frequency and duration of contractions, they decided to admit me (thank you!) and we were soon settled in room 12C-26. They checked me out and determined I was now 4 cm dilated. I'll admit, after all those contractions, I was hoping for something more dramatic, but since they said they'd keep me, I wasn't about to complain.

At about 2:30, we called Mom. To her everlasting credit, she said she'd come right away. By the time she arrived, I was in a state. The contractions were frequent and severe. I hobbled to the bathroom two or three times, and remember trying to use the toilet when a contraction would hit, and all I could do was say "Owie, owie, owie!" while clinging to whatever loved one was closest at hand (James or Mom).

The night doctor told me that I needed to progress a bit more before I could get an epidural (try walking around, like across the VA skybridge - yeah right!), and the night nurse, Lisa, further informed me that I needed more hydration, so they'd start an IV after I'd had some time to walk around. Well, I just curled up into a fetal position and cried, so they started an IV and a liter of LR. Then they gave me 100 mcg of fentanyl and the world was a better place for about 45 minutes. I managed to get a nap in, and the fluids dripped into my underhydrated veins. I could only have the fentanyl every hour, so the last 15 minutes were rather uncomfortable, but I made it, and they gave me another dose, and started another liter of fluids. By the time I was ready for Round Three (about 4:30 am), the anesthesiologist resident was there and I got my epidural, which started to kick in a few minutes later.

Ahhhhhh!

I could still feel when I contracted, but they felt more like Braxton Hicks contractions, so I was able to get some sleep, James took a little nap, too, and Mom went down to the cafeteria for something to eat. After the epidural, time became rather relative. I no longer watched the clock (positioned inconveniently over my right shoulder) for my next dose of fentanyl or braced myself for the next contraction (everyone kept telling me to just relax and it wouldn't hurt as much - much easier said than done). The next thing I remember is my clear liquid breakfast (juice, chicken broth, and jello - yum!) while James feasted on Fruity Pebbles or some other sugar bomb cereal Mom got him from the cafeteria (at which point the lady at the cash register asked her if she qualified for a Senior Citizen discount - she didn't look THAT bad for having woken up at 2:30 in the morning!).

By mid-morning, the contractions were starting to get stronger again. Since my epidural was on a PCA button, I started pushing the button with each contraction. When I told the day nurse, Lorie, she called anesthesiology and they came to bump up my rate and give me a bolus of whatever wonder drug they were pumping into my epidural space. I had a "walking epidural," which was somewhat misleading because my one attempt to walk to the bathroom didn't even make it to the dangle position. So I had to get a foley catheter, which I couldn't feel, so it was ok.

Another good thing about the morning arriving was Dr. Sarah Present came! Accompanied by Dr. Lochner, the attending in the hospital for L&D that day in Family Practice, it was such a relief to have MY doctor on the floor, lookin' out for our interests. Since she'd been out of town all the week before, I must admit that I'm glad Gwen decided to wait until the next week to make her appearance.

So Sarah checked me and I was hovering around 9 cm, fully effaced, etc. There was some concern about the baby's heart rate dropping dramatically with each contraction, so they had me position myself such to keep the heart rate up - first on the left side, then on the right, then on one side with my legs and knees heldjust so so that the baby's heart rate stayed in the safe range during contractions. I started to feel like I was looking for cell phone coverage. They put an oxygen mask on me to provide more O2 for the baby.

My water had not yet broken at this point, and since I was almost fully dilated, we opted to have Sarah break my water to progress labor. She pulled out the crochet-hook-looking AROM device and next I knew, they were telling me that there was some meconium and they were going to call the pediatric team in case she came out with meconium inhalation problems. Then they told me to just let labor progress and to call when I started feeling the urge to push.

Some time before 11, I started feeling some pressure and let the docs know we were getting to that urge point, so everyone gowned up. Someone gave James a gown and instructed him on putting on sterile gloves. The sun was shining in the window, bathing the room in light and heat. I didn't notice the heat as much as the gowned members of the team, as I was wearing a light hospital gown and little else, but I was working the hardest! Every time I felt a contraction, I would push, push, push, encouraged by the team, James and my mom. I remember glancing at the clock at about 11:30 and wondering if this would be an am or a pm baby. I was getting pretty tired, especially my abdominal muscles. I remember feeling a contraction and just not having it in me to push, opting for a break, then Dr. Lochner suggested that they may have to use the vacuum extraction device if labor continued as it was going and her heart rate continued to drop. It didn't come to that, though. At 11:49 am, with a big push, there was a sudden shift and her head came out. Then came her shoulders and next thing I knew, I was holding a squirmy, wet little creature, her deafening wail broadcasting to the pediatric team that their services would not be needed - her lungs were just fine.

Then she pooped all over her mother, but I didn't mind.

The Build-Up

2009-12-03T13:36:00.000-08:00

So I'm sitting in the rocker in the nursery, rocking my 2-day-old baby girl while she sleeps, so let's see if I can get out the details of her Arrival before she wakes and distracts me again forever.

On Monday, November 30, 2009, went to see my doctor in the morning. I was 40 weeks and 2 days gestational age and frankly beginning to wonder if I'd just be pregnant forever. I'd gotten this silly notion somewhere in my second trimester that I'd deliver early, sometime between November 15th and the 25th. Ha. So much for a mother's intuition. So I'd been rather depressed for a while about my body's lack of cooperation with my plans, but by this visit, I'd decided I'd just enjoy what time I had left to myself and James and if the baby didn't make her appearance by Saturday the 5th, we'd induce. Sarah said that the more one plans for a post-term induction, the less likely the chances that one needs to get one, so we set the appointment for me to come in on Friday evening to get things started and I made an appointment for a fetal stress test on Wednesday, etc, etc.

I came home and decided a nice walk to Bed, Bath and Beyond would be nice. The air was crisp and clear, so I bundled up and walked over to buy some clips to hang our stockings from the fireplace and a shower head that James later said he wanted to return. I got a peppermint hot chocolate (that was really more warm than hot) from Starbucks on the way home and arrived home after James had already gotten home from work. We did our own thing for a bit, including James surfing reviews of shower heads and I did some quilting.

We were both on our way towards getting peckish, so we settled on Vietnamese sandwiches. We walked over to Best Baguette and had a nice meal before coming home and setting up our Christmas tree. Since our tree this year is significantly larger than trees of years past, we had to make a trip to Rite Aid for more ornaments and lights, but since the evening was wearing on and James had work the next day (not really, but he didn't know that at the time), we drove instead of a third walk that evening. We joked about running into the same cashier who sold us castor oil a week ago (which I never did work up the courage to take), but it was someone else at the check stand, so we didn't have to explain why I was still pregnant. We made our way home and decorated our tree, nostalgically putting up ornaments of Christmases past. We got two new ornaments for Christmas this year (first house and baby's first Christmas), but since we wanted to put her birthdate on her first ornament, they sat in the bag waiting to be brought back to the mall for personalization after the birth.

Like I said, James thought he was going in to work the next day, so he made his way up to bed shortly after 10, but I thought I'd stay up and read for a bit, so I settled myself on the couch and read until 11, when the contractions started coming.

To be continued...

Thankful

2009-11-27T07:35:00.000-08:00

I know, I was supposed to be thankful yesterday, but better late than never, eh?

Yesterday was quite the whirlwind of activity and then a nice afternoon of digesting. Due to a little hiccup in planning, James and I got a crash course in Thanksgiving Feast Preparation. The turkey was in the oven, and Mom and I went over to Winco for some last minute items (on Thanksgiving morning, with a 2 1/2 year-old . . . and we survived it!) while James started preparing what he already had on hand. We had a simple menu: turkey, mashed sweet potatoes, roasted root vegetables (but if you want parsnips, you gotta make it to the store before the morning of the event, *sigh*), caesar salad, cranberry sauce (canned - don't judge me), gluten-free stuffing, gluten-full rolls, apple juice, pumpkin pie and/or custard (depending on whether you want the gluten-y crust). I later picked Jared up, who surprised us with roasted, stuffed butternut squash, cranberry sauce from scratch, and some fabulous sauteed squash (he told me the name of the squash about 12 times, but it's not one I'm familiar with, so I forgot) in a citrous-butter sauce. Feasting was supposed to start at noon, but we felt rather proud of ourselves to have the whole spread ready by 1:15 or so. And it was good. And we have leftovers for when the baby comes and we really don't feel like cooking.

So, I'm thankful for my wonderful husband, who totally rose to the occasion and did about 85% of the feast all by himself, with mostly good graces (there was a period of panic at first), and even missed parts of the Greenbay-Detroit blowout playing in the next room.

I'm thankful for my mom, who will work herself into an early grave to maintain family harmony and deflect sibling rivalry. I hope she doesn't have to, though, because she's one of my best friends and I need her around. (I'm selfish like that.)

I'm thankful for my papa, even though he got to watch the game that James missed. :) I'm grateful that he watches out for my mom and tries to keep her from over-straining herself.

I'm thankful for my brother, Jared, who continually surprises me over how much he's grown as a person since we were younger. I keep having to mentally shift from the surly, punk teenager I once knew to the kind, thoughtful man I saw yesterday.

I'm thankful for my sister, Diana, who is weathering her own personal storms with a boot-straps resolve I never thought I'd see in the Little Girl who would streak through the house after her bath.

I'm thankful for my sister Aubrey, her husband Nic, and their two kiddos. As I'm fretting over whether I need a bottle warmer or a fancy tummy-time mat, they're teaching me that all these objects are merely props, and that the true nature of parenting is in the consistency and love you give your chill'uns.

I'm thankful for my house. In spite of all we've been through, I have yet to regret the decision we made to buy it and move here. I hope I never do regret it. I love the space in all the right places - big kitchen, spare bedroom, big master bathroom, garage. I'm thankful that we were able to have my family over for a day of gratitude and closeness, and I'm oh so especially grateful that they did the dishes afterwards!!

Waiting for Gwendolyn

2009-11-19T07:25:00.000-08:00

A thousand apologies to my loyal fans (Hello?...Hello?...*echo, echo*) for the extreme lapse in posting during what is quite possibly the most eventful year of my life to date. Since January, James and I have gotten pregnant (mainly me, but he helped), gone to Brazil (second time, but still eventful), bought a house, flooded it (mainly him, but that's all water under the bridge, or over the dam, or most accurately, all over our new house), survived the 2 1/2 month construction zone of the aftermath, packed up all of our belongings (at the apartment), unpacked (HA! about 1/3847th done there), had three baby showers, loved my job, hated my job (well, not the actual job part, just all the HR BS that comes with it), nested, mowed my own yard, raked my own yard, had Fun with Composting, been to a Blazers game and a Pearl Jam concert, been through the wringer with a chiropractor (both effective and less effective), fallen in love with our new ward, and had a baby.

Oh wait. No baby yet. She's "due" in 9 days. We're trying to convince her to make an early appearance. James tried luring her out with the promise of cake, but she's too smart. She knows that after she stops sharing my digestive nutrients, the next time she'll get refined sugar is probably at her first birthday. (Who am I kidding?? Nana's totally gonna spike her bottles with straight-up sugar the minute I'm not looking. Hear that, Gwen? Come out and Nana will give you sugar...)

At least now I have lots of free time to update my blog, right? Yeah, that's what I'll do.

No, seriously, I'm going to make a Concerted Effort to write at least a brief post on every topic listed above, and extensive posts on some topics. But not right now. I have to get ready to visit my orthodontist and hopefully get my braces taken off today.

I'll blog about it. I promise.

The thin blue line

2009-07-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm writing this post on March 19, 2009. I will date it and post it in probably 6-8 weeks, but wanted to put my initial thoughts down so I didn't forget them.

Yesterday, James and I found out I was pregnant (I do not say "we were pregnant" because honestly, who's going to be pushing this thing out?).

(If you can't see the thin blue vertical line in the left window, don't worry -

James had his doubts, too.)

(four months later)

Apparently, I got distracted and never did put down those initial thoughts, lost forever into the ether. But I'm going to try harder to blog for the next four months so you all can share my experiences and complaints.

Looking back over the last four months of gestation and preparation, I think J and I have both changed and grown a lot. Of course, this is nothing compared to the changes and growth that will happen AFTER the birth, but it's a good preparation and a comfort to know that we can allow our lives to expand and accommodate a little one, allowing love and joy to push out feelings of selfishness and resentment that are instinctual human emotions. I already love this little girl that nudges me day and night. And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get her some cereal...

My favorite souvenir

2009-05-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

So, since we stayed in Cabo Frio instead of Rio de Janiero proper, we had the hardest time finding good souvenirs for our trip (and I had the hardest time spelling "souvenir" just now - thanks, Spellcheck!). Cabo Frio is a fabulous vacation spot, but it's geared more towards native Brazilians and other South Americans. No one at our inn spoke English (including the owner) and we couldn't find any knick-knackery with a Brazilian flag on it to save our lives, but the beaches . . . oh, the beaches were wonderful! More on those later, but I wanted to share pics of my favorite souvenirs from the trip:

"I'm Daddy's"

Flamengo Baby - the most popular futbol (soccer) team in Brazil

"I'm Mommy's"

So, for any of you who isn't on Facebook, doesn't work with me, hasn't heard through the grapevine, or I haven't called or e-mailed: yes, there is a bun, and it's a-bakin'! These are the very first clothes we've gotten for the little one, and it was neat to see J get excited about the Flamengo stuff (of course, not as excited as I was about the green jumper!).

Anyway, we're due around Thanksgiving and I'll be keeping you all updated on my Crazy Pregnant Lady Adventures.

Oh, and I'll post more stuff about Brazil, too. 'Cause it was so darned awesome!

Why I Haven't Written in a While

2009-05-04T19:04:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all. I have to apologize for the extended delay in writing. You see, I had that baking frenzy about a month ago and then I was just plain worn out for several weeks. It seemed like I was working ALL the time, which of course isn't the case, but sometimes the shift schedule stacks up on you to seem that way. Of course, when you purposefully stack the schedule that way so you can get out of the country for eight days while only taking one day vacation, it can just plain be exhausting.

But that's what I did, and now I'm living it up in Cabo Frio, Rio de Janiero, relaxing on the beach and feasting on the fabulous food. And sleeping.

Last time we came to Rio, back in September, I gave a day-by-day account of our adventures, almost in real time, with pictures. This time, J erased the pictures off the camera after transferring them to his computer, so I'll have to post with pics after we get home. I'm sure you're all just dying to hear me rub in all the details about my week in paradise. But for now, I'm tired.

Until later, ciao, os meus amigos.

Too Darned Stinkin' Cute

2009-04-08T11:12:00.000-07:00

Help me. I've developed an addiction and I cannot stop. I've been baking almost every day off for the last two weeks. It all started with two new blogs I've fallen into following: PioneerWoman and Bakerella, who were so dastardly as to team up and teach me about fondant. Then Bakerella showed me these cute cake pops, and I cannot stop!

Anyway, here's what I've accomplished. Ok, it's not everything I accomplished. I had to give some away before I ate them and didn't take pictures, but trust me, they were cute. Of course, not a cute as the original artist can do, but hey, I'm a novice here...

Fondant-covered cupcakes. Too cute.

And the bow! Honestly, I don't know what got into me.

But I hope it doesn't go away soon, 'cause this is just too precious.

The whole gang. Yes, it took me all evening to make these eight.

J had to make dinner, I was so obsessed.

And the cake pops.

I'll admit, I felt a little odd putting the plastic bag over this cute guy's head, but he just kept smiling, so I guess it's ok.

So, now I'm faced with another dilemma: I have a house full of sweet, sugary goodness, but not only are they too cute to eat, my waistline can't afford the calories! If you can't help me with my addiction, please come by and help me reduce my surplus. Of course, you'll have to come here; I can't leave the kitchen. (At least I'm required to go to work tomorrow, so I should see the light of day soon.)

Score!

2009-03-31T15:00:00.000-07:00

One thing James has taught me is that joy comes from the little things, but you have to allow yourself to toss away your pride and just get giddy. (I live to hear his little "squee!" when I make Rice Krispies and if you've never heard it, you life is that much poorer.)

So I went out running errands today and as I was checking out at the Home Depot, I randomly decided to get cash back based on a conversation I had with the owner of the baking supply shop at my previous stop. We had been talking about how people use their debit cards for the most minute purchases and how it sometimes costs the store more to charge the purchase than to just give the merchandise away for free. In any case, I'd given him my last four dollar bills and decided to get some cash for future impulse purchases. As I was at a U-Check station, I scanned my purchase and agreed to the $10 cash back before looking down to the little slot where my cash should appear, only to find a one dollar bill where my ten should be. Well! I held the measly dollar up for the cashier, who was manning the four different stations, to see and said, "Um, this should be a ten" in what I hoped was not my biz-natch voice, but probably was (James always points it out when I get saucy with the cashiers, but he wasn't there). Then, the poor man came over and very nicely reached up further into the slot and produced my wayward ten dollar bill. "They sometimes don't come all the way down the slope," he explained very nicely, especially considering my tart little remark earlier. "So, this one dollar is a bonus?" I asked hopefully. "Sometimes people don't take all their cash," he agreed (or I'm assuming he was agreeing with me, as I didn't wait around for him to ask for it as re-payment for my little attitude hissy).

So, free dollar! Score! Here's a picture of my loot, taken along side the ten for perspective.

Motivated Mathematics

2009-03-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

I've always loved math. I was the Math Olympiad winner three years running in elementary school. I used to write myself long long-division problems during summer vacation just because I was bored. What's 36,183,756,383,729 divided by 26? Let's find out! (Not really - I've since discovered the joy of calculators.)

Anyway, when James and I decided to make Rice Krispy squares this evening, I thought I had enough ingredients, but when we got home, I found that one of the bags of marshmallows in the pantry was fruit flavored. No way. And I wasn't about to go back out and buy more marshmallows, so I took stock of what I did have.

Four cups of mini-mallows (mallow-flavored).

Now, my cardinal rule of Krispy squares is this:

5 Tbsp butter

6 cups mini mallows

9 cups Rice Krispies

So, with four cups of mallows and a major Krispy jonsin', what's a girl to do? Anwer: fractions!

First, since the mallows determine our lowest common denominator, I needed to find the conversion rate between what I usually use and what I have: 6 x ? = 4

Anybody? Anybody? Buhler? 2/3 is the conversion factor.

So, now to convert the Krispies and the butter by 2/3.

5 x 2/3 = 10/3 or 3 1/3 tbsp butter

9 x 2/3 = 6 cups Krispies

Then I was faced with another problem: I don't have a casserole dish 2/3 the size of my regular dish. But I did have one roughly half the size, and thanks to the laws of displacement...

Super tall Krispy squares!

So, did I get the magic formula right?

I only caught the first bite because it's hard to take pictures and eat a Krispy square at the same time. Gets the camera all sticky.

Mmm . . . oh yeah, I got it right . . .

In case I forget

2009-03-20T15:14:00.000-07:00

So, to remind myself of what my little apartment is supposed to look like, here are some pictures:

I especially like the scriptures lying expectantly on the table. Now, if I only sat here to eat more often...

They say you can tell a person's most treasured item because they place it in the corner furthest from the door. As of this morning, I moved the TV and put Stanley, my cello, in that corner. I tried putting The Boy there, but he won't stay put!

Proud artist - I made that trunk myself! Just moved it into the position of coffee table this afternoon.

And now, for my next project:

So many books...

I'm actually not allowed to organize this one, but in the interest of being thorough, I threw it in.

This one, on the other hand, is all my mess. I guess I'm not allowed to quilt until I clean it. Or stack it somewhere else... No! Must clean mess!

Just not today.

Mercury and Jupiter

2009-03-20T12:15:00.000-07:00

I had a professor once who said his life was controlled by Mercury and Jupiter: most of the time, he was in a slow, ponderous orbit, millions of miles from anything productive, but occasionally he would whip into a storm of energy and production. I've never had a professor with whom I identified so much (you see, he was an English professor, so I had to contort that sentence around so the preposition is floating somewhere in the middle instead of dangling precariously at the end - I hope I did it right).

I'm sure James often comes home from work and wonders how I manage to have so much time off and yet the house is the same slovenly hole it was when he left it before dawn that morning. Books piled haphazardly on the coffee table, being kept company by the only major change in the decor: dirty dishes from breakfast and lunch stacked next to the piles of DVDs pulled out and never returned to their place on the shelf. Sometimes I'm still in my pajamas, though I try to get to the bathroom to brush my teeth when I hear him coming up the stairs. I've had at least nine hours of free time since he last saw me; how could I have nothing productive to show for it?

Then there are those other rare days, when he gets home and I (as if to prove that those other days are simple a very common fluke) immediately launch into the laundry list of tasks I have managed to accomplish since he kissed me goodbye this morning (btw, I love it that he kisses me goodbye in the morning, even though I usually grumble at the time). I show all the organized shoes in the closet (he gets the lion's share of space both for the quantity and size of his size 13 collection of Doc Marten boots), the scrubbed kitchen floor and oven and range and hood, I nonchalantly mention the folded laundry in the drawers and the sparkling clean toilets and how Hamlet was terrorized by the vacuum - the vacuum! - and what could I make for dinner? This happens about once a month. Then Jupiter takes charge again and here I am, sitting in my pajamas at 12:35 pm and debating clearing off the coffee table before 3:45, when the boy gets home. If only I could tap into Mercury more often, or figure out how it works so I could harness it at will.

These things I know:

1. I work better in the morning, before breakfast and a shower. I have no idea why hunger motivates me, but I know that getting on my hands-and-knees to scrub bathroom floors after a shower just ain't gonna happen, so if I'm planning on cleaning (hah!), I delay the shower. Of course, that usually backfires if I don't clean, and am still stinky at a quarter-to-four, when J gets home...

2. Music helps. I got J a portable player for his iPod and just truck it around to whatever room I'm working on at the time. If the music goes away, I get distracted really easily. Putting books away, music fades into the distance, Hey, I haven't read this book in a long time...bye bye, clean house.

3. Speaking of getting distracted, if I get distracted cleaning a room and end up focusing on one particular corner, I just go with it. Otherwise, the hood over the range would never get clean. I spent an entire afternoon once cleaning out the oven and then behind the oven, and then the backside of the oven, when I was really just trying to tidy up the kitchen and do the dishes. Oh well. James can do the dishes. How often have either of us cleaned behind the oven in the 3.75 years we've lived here? (Answer: once)

4. After I get done with my frenzies, I wish I'd taken before-and-after pictures, because clean just looks so good! My biggest regret of this type is when I took Comet with bleach and steel wool to the nasty grimy shower floor. It took me three showers (ok, so I clean the shower when I'm in the shower, taking a shower. It just makes sense to me. Don't judge me.) to get the whole thing clean, and it's just a stand-up shower, not a bathtub. By then end, it was beautiful and white, but who would ever notice? It's not like it shouldn't be white. I almost wanted to leave a little grimy corner to remind me of my accomplishments. But I didn't.

5. I love new stuff because it looks better clean. Although it's just an apartment, it's a newer apartment, unlike the trendy, vintage look that catches such a high premium here in the NW. I love it, because when I clean the kitchen, the countertops are white, the floor is clean, and there aren't any corners of just-won't-ever-be-clean grime and mildew. There are stains, but they're few and easily hidden in the tan carpet. I hope to find the same qualities in a house some day (soon?).

6. I love to be appreciated. Although I realize that James does at least 60% of the housework, when I get into one of my frenzies, all I can think of is "He's going to love this so much!" and it makes me work harder. That's not to say that "He would love it if I cleaned the house" is a motivating force, but once I get going, it keeps the ball rolling. And he always delivers, that wonderful man of mine, in spite of the fact that he does at least 60% of the housework on a daily basis. (I'm probably underestimating him, but if I say 75%, I'll feel far too slovenly to continue quilting, writing, surfing, practicing my cello, reading...)

So, on that note, I'm going to finish clearing off the coffee table, vacuuming the main rooms, moving stuff down to the garage, re-arranging the furniture, emptying the dishwasher, brushing the cat (before vacuuming, I hope), showering and looking presentable for my boy in 2.75 hours!

What I really need

2009-03-04T00:03:00.001-08:00

I saw this on Lindy's blog and thought it was hilarious. You type in "[your first name] needs" into google.com and post the first ten things listed. Here goes:

1. Kristina needs a two parent adoptive family with one or two older children. (So THAT'S where I came from!)
2. Kristina needs to find something to do tonight to keep her mind occupied. (Hmmm, maybe some mindless blogging??)
3. Kristina needs your help. (This one's fairly straight forward, I suppose.)
4. Kristina needs a good kick in the ass! Oh yeah...and soy gelato. (Insightful, since I've recently discovered I'm lactose intolerant, but I really don't like soy much.)
5. Kristina needs lots of support for speech therapy and occupational therapy. Kristina needs your help. Kristina needs a bone marrow transplant. (As a BMT nurse, this one really caught my attention.)
6. Kristina needs some serious help. (Did you ever doubt it?)
7. Kristina needs a tech makeover. (I don't even know what this means.)
8. Kristina needs a tent revival. (Amen, sista!)
9. Kristina needs a JJJOOOBBB!!! (Thank heavens, I already have one, but I only have a job, not a JJJOOOBBB!!!, so maybe I'm missing something in my place of employment.)
10. Kristina needs encouragement. (Boy, don't I! Namely, at the aforementioned job, or maybe it IS a JJJOOOBBB!!!)

Now what Kristina REALLY needs: to stop blogging and _go_to_bed!

Sweet melodious tones of the...

2009-03-01T21:00:00.000-08:00

...cello. When we were first married, James bought me a CD titled "Romantic Cello," complete with embracing couple pictured on the front in a vaguely European setting. Anyway, it took about thirty seconds of listening to realize that there was some miscommunication between the cover art people and the playlist people. Sure, it was cello music and, strictly speaking, "romantic," but only in the classical sense, as in "from the Romance Era of classical music." Like, Tchaikovsky. Beautiful sweeping melodies, dripping with emotion, grand sforzandos and crashing cymbals, tied together with delicate pianissimo trills and descants. Beautiful stuff, but definitely not smoochy music; the suddenness of the fortissimo can be jarring when played by candle-light. So the CD sat on the shelf for many months, and then somehow made its way into my car, silent, un-played, and waiting.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. James and I are taking a short road trip to Astoria and in my haste, I fail to pack any good music for the road. We're on our way home and I come across this CD, "Romanic Cello," crammed into one of the door wells. Well, it's better than listening to one of the other three CDs we've already grown tired of on our trip, so I pop it in. As we're not smooching while driving, we're able to better appreciate the intent of the Romantic composers and the cellists who pay them homage.

Since that fateful voyage, the CD has not left my car CD player. Given the fact that I drive much less than I once did, one is less inclined to wonder that I don't grow tired of the same nine songs played over and over again. Rather the contrary - I came into a familiarity and fondness for many of the songs. One piece in particular moved me greatly, such that I went to the local music store and bought the sheet music. Thus has begun the renewal of my acquaintance with my dear old friend, Stanley.

I first met Stanley when he was rather new and I was fourteen. Through the previous three years of hard work and determination, I had earned the right to move up from my old cello, Chelsea, a top-of-the-line machine-made cello, to a hand crafted instrument of music. Chelsea is blonde and sturdy, but Stanley is a beautiful chestnut brown with a thin, delicate neck and graceful scroll. We bought him new from his crafter, Wayne Burak, a budding luthier and retired first chair cellist in the Ft. Worth Symphony Orchestra.

I'll admit, Stanley is no Stradivarius, but he's mine, he's beautiful, and I love him. Because we bought him new, Wayne placed an inscription on the inside that reads, "For Kristina Martinsen," whom I am no longer, but Stanley has stayed with me nevertheless, through the years of diligent practice and shameful neglect alike.

For over the last week, Stanley and I have become reacquainted. I've pulled out some of my old practice material as well as working through Kol Nidre, by Max Bruch, the genius that inspired my renaissance. This piece is about on par (or perhaps ever so slightly below) with where I left off oh so many years ago. Composed mostly in tenor clef with equal parts bass and treble thrown in for a good range of tone. I'm developing callouses in all the old places and some new ones (namely, along my left thumb as I develop my "thumb position" callouses). After a few days of sore bowing and weak fourth finger vibrato, my muscles have also begun to re-develop.

I find that the more I play, the more I can play, and therefore the more I want to play. My only regret is that unlike when I was in school and would prepare for a concert or competition, I now have no goal in mind when I practice beyond my own enjoyment. On second thought, perhaps that might not be considered a regret. Rather, my regret is that I have no venue to share the music I am creating. Don't get me wrong - I'm sure there are plenty of venues available for an amateur cellist yearning to share her half-baked gift with the world (the street corners of Portland come to mind), but I'll admit I'm just not that brave and/or confident. I have touched upon a fairly simple piece that I intend to share with my church congregation (assuming it sounds more complete with the piano accompaniment), so I suppose that's a start. I know of an adult amateur orchestra in the area; perhaps I'll seek it or something of the like out. Let's see how far this re-awakened hobby carries me.

(On a slightly related note, my sewing machine has been in the shop for a week and will be so for another . . . we'll see what happens when I get it back and have to divide my hobby time between the audio and the visual.)

p.s. I'll post pictures of my beautiful cello later. I'm learning thumb position and he's embarrassed to be seen with tape on his fingerboard.

Shiny Happy People

2009-02-28T20:29:00.001-08:00

I guess not every post can be all bubbles and sunshine. Warning: this is not a cheery "here's what I'm doing these days" post.

I got home this evening and had to finally admit to myself that today was pretty darned hard. Not busy-and-I-can't-catch-up hard. No, today was emotionally hard. Start off with a five hour headache brought on by shoulders that were tight when I woke up and add torturing an overwhelmingly painful patient while maintaining professionalism and a positive attitude of "we have to do this for your own good." I managed to fool myself into thinking today was a good day all the way home, listening to my classical cello music and thinking about other things. Then I get home an immediately alienate the one person I can turn to in times of stress, break down in tears (always a winner with the gents) and retreat to the bathroom. I thought I was crying because I picked a fight with the most important person in my life, but all I could see in the darkness of the bathroom (who wants to see themselves in the mirror during a crying fit?) was the pain-ridden expression on my patient's face, and as my sobs exponentially increased the throbbing of my head, I realized that I'd been deluding myself as I wore my "everything is fine" professional attitude all the way home and into my private life. I realized how important it is to turn the "fine fine" off when the day is done and sometimes just allow myself to mourn for the pain and loss of others.

Of course, it helps when you don't have to do it alone.

I'll write a more cheerful post soon, I promise.

Weekend of indulgence

2009-02-04T20:52:00.001-08:00

So on Saturday, James took me to:

Oh yeah! We went to a fabulous lecture by a rep from E. Guittard about single origin chocolate, and of course they had samples!! The rep talked about how the environment and growing conditions affected the end-taste of the chocolate. Since they mostly process chocolate for high-end pastry chefs and such, they don't add flavors like the types of chocolate bars you see in the grocery store. It was amazing to taste the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) differences in chocolate, simply from where it's grown. By the end of the day, James said he was sick of chocolate. I wouldn't say I was sick of it, but definitely satiated for a few days!

Then, on Sunday:
Superbowl XLIII! Steelers vs. Cardinals. I won't go into a play-by-play, but there were a few awesome plays that even got me into the game. Of course, having some friends over to share pulled pork sliders, mini-cupcakes, Cheetos, Doritos, and a football field of Rice Krispy square rounded out my weekend of indulgence quite nicely.

Drat that cat!

2009-02-04T20:23:00.001-08:00

I laid out the squares for a baby quilt for my cousin Andrea's baby (or rather, one of them, I already finished the other quilt for the other baby!)

A picture speaks a thousand words. Here are the before and after pictures of Hurricane Hamlet.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

2009-01-25T00:18:00.000-08:00

The Shadow knows.

So James had a hankerin' to watch the old 1994 version of The Shadow (not that there's a new version or anything). Anyway, while I was watching, I found myself oddly attracted to the Shadow. Not hot young Alec Baldwin, but his masked counterpart. Then the resemblance hit me...

It's the noses. :) Also, deep green eyes. I feel pretty lucky to still be smitten with my man after four years, and look forward to being smitten for years to come.

Anyway, it was a pretty good movie if you're not looking to take it too seriously.

2009-01-22T13:07:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday, James and I drove up to Seattle to visit our favorite Seattlites, Holly and Nathan. We woke up early-ish (hey, it's my day off, let's be realistic!) and got fancy pastries and hot chocolate from a posh little bakery in Hillsdale, and then drove up to our hotel in Bellinham, across the bridge from Seattle proper. After setting in, we met up with H&N at their apartment to carpool to the Seattle Art Museum, where there was an Edward Hopper exhibit that James was keen on seeing.

My only experience with Edward Hopper was the classic Nighthawks, which sadly wasn't in the exhibit, but I was touched by the melancholic works of the Norman Rockwell contemporary. My favorite was The Automat.

Nighthawks

The Automat

After seeing Hopper's work, we decided to get our admission money's worth and check our the rest of the museum. There were some fascinating Native American artifacts, notably Tlingit Indians, of which Holly is a quarter member. I didn't used to get drawn into Native American stuff, but after our trip to Alaska, I finally feel like I can see the intent of the totem art and appreciate its beauty and majesty. Also, we saw some masks made with human hair! Freaky. :)

I wish I'd thought to write down the names and artists of my favorite non-Hopper works of art, but I just allowed myself to get drawn into the experience without concern for the future impact. I'll admit, it made for a better experience, if not a better blog. Fortunately for me, google came to the rescue!

I loved this Lin Onus painting called Gathering Storm. You can't see the detail in this pic, but the detail of layering is beautiful and it boggles my mind.

Gathering Storm, by Lin Onus

This sculpture is called Mann und Maus, by a we-can-assume-German artist Katharina Fritsch. Not only did the stark black-vs-white imagery captivate me, but the thing is like 7 1/2 feet tall!

Mann und Maus, by Katharina Fritsch

So, after breakfast in a swanky bakery and all afternoon in a museum, we were all cultured up for the main event: Monster Truck Show!! This was the initial reason for visiting, as H&N were totally excited and we were willing to suspend our hoity-toity Portland standards for an evening. We started to Redneck-down by going to an awesome BBQ joint where they serve a ridiculous amount of meat and sides on an inverted garbage can lid, "family style" (don't ask who's family, for I surely don't know). There were at least half a dozen kinds of sauce to slather on the food, but I was content with those cooked on them, downing my share of brisket and ribs, steering clear of the corn-on-the-cob (braces) and chicken (this is BBQ - mammals only!). By this time, our party had doubled thanks to the company of Holly's two cousins, Nathan's co-worker and their long-time friend John, so it was a fun party. Since dinner took longer than expected (they mean slow roasted), the girls took off to leave the boys to handle the check so we could pick our tickets up from Will Call. Where does one go for a Monster Truc Show in Seattle? One doesn't - one goes to Tacoma! Of course, being a good friends, I won't even mention how Holly got the girl's car totally lost in Tacoma. At least we still got there before the boys.

In retrospect, it was a lot of fun. There were these buggy races, and of course the fabulous antics of Grave Digger and his cronies. There was a wonderfully helpful (if somewhat toothless - I am not exaggerating) fellow sitting in front of us who explained things like when the announcer yells "WHAT TIME IS IT??!" we're supposed to reply "FREESTYLE!!!" and not "Um...9:30?" as I was tempted to do. Three things that surprised me that I later realized shouldn't have: (1) it was cold, which was probably because they had to keep the heated-but-carbon-monoxide-heavy air circulating with the clean-but-cold January air from outside, (2) it was loud (which got me to thinking: why is it whenever we visit Seattle I lose a little bit of my hearing?), and (3) it was fun! Just let that mob-mentality seep into your subconscious and let the inner redneck out! What time is it? FREESTYLE!!!

After the show, I was tempted to find a late-night Winchell's or something, afraid to swing back into my normal lifestyle too quickly by finding an upscale establishment for dessert. We found a bar not too far from the Tacoma Dome that served dessert and let us sit in the closed restaurant area for the benefit of Holly's not-quite-21-year-old cousins. It was a good compromise, and we arrived back at our hotel in smooth transition. Ah, back to insular yuppie DINK lifestyle!

All in all, had a great time!

Housekeeping

2009-01-21T12:12:00.001-08:00

Cleaned the toilets today. Should it bother me that the sight of a white and shining toilet tugs at my brain in the same way as a blank canvas: the niggling feeling that it's missing something?

I suppose if nothing else, I guess this is a stark testament to my stellar housekeeping instincts.

Ennui

2009-01-12T15:26:00.000-08:00

Ugh, sometimes I really hate hormones. After over three years of regulated hormonal levels, I'd forgotten what a roller coaster "the cycle" could be. Let's face it: I'm not the most steady person with regulation, much less hormonally free-styling. So I've been up, down, hot, cold, and everything in between, for the last four weeks. And now it's officially PMS week, and I can feel it. I've picked a fight with James, nearly wrecked the car, and caught myself in self-destructive thinking more times than I can count in the last few days. The only consolation is that I'm a teensy bit more self-aware of the impact hormones play on my emotions than I was four years ago. Back then, if I was feeling moody, I would just lash out without thinking about whether the instigator was really worthy of my energy or if the hormones were making me blow an innocuous situation out of proportion. Drove James crazy. Over the last few days, I've felt crummy and have lashed out a few times, but was usually able to catch myself at least understanding the cause-and-effect nature of hormones vs. Kristina (vs. the world).

Perhaps "ennui" is the wrong term, but it sounds so fancy, as if using a French term makes it classier to be moody. Perhaps I should stick to good ol' American "despondence" or "melancholic."

Do you know why they call it PMS? Because "Mad Cow Disease" was already taken.

Oh, and in case you're putting 2 and 2 together (you clever mathematician!) we're not trying to get pregnant just yet, so put back that layette set, pack up the booties. All in good time, all in good time...

Winter Wonderland

2008-12-20T09:19:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted in a while. It isn't for lack of time or events to write about; I've just been lazy and neglectful. Guilty. In penance, I should most likely write a fabulous post, full of detailed stories and colorful pictures. We'll see what you get:

Snow. It started snowing last Sunday morning. I was almost to work at seven when I saw the first flakes drifting down to the earth. I parked in one of the covered lots and made my way to my assigned floor, throwing myself into the flurry of activity that is the first few hours of any day on a hospital floor. Get report, look up more information in the computer, prioritize patient care, touch base with the CNA, pick up my first patient's medications from the med room, see each patient (while trying not to be side tracked too much by each patient's needs before I can get in and see the other people, but still remember their needs for follow-up), give out medications, follow up on pain medications, re-medicating if necessary, paging the doctor for any concerns, coordinating with the various other disciplines and auxiliary services of the hospital for the day's care, so on and so forth. Hopefully, by ten, I can sit down and try to remember everything that happened so I can document it in the computer. In any case, at some point during this chaotic whirlwind of activity, I noticed that the whole campus had become blanketed in snow. James called to tell me that they'd cancelled church that morning, and every room I went in seemed to have the news playing, going into great detail about the weather conditions. Although getting home was a bit of a drama, I managed it. I then shrugged off this whole snow thing, chalking this up to Portland's annual winter scare - all bluff and bluster. I would bus into work tomorrow and then things would be back to wet as usual.

Perhaps I should explain my pre-conceived notions of snow. Growing up in Texas meant that it snowed once, maybe twice, each winter - usually in January or February. The whole metroplex would shut down for a few days while it thawed, turned to ice, and then melted away. Now, when I say it snowed once, I mean one snow fall, not one week or one period of snow fall. Once the snow ceased to fall from the sky, that was your quota for the year. What you saw was what you got, until it melted. Upon moving to Portland, with its wetter-but-otherwise-similarily-temperate-winters, I was never forced to change my opinions. Of course as children, we made the most of our snow days, being young, resilient, and liberated from school. It's very different when you work at a hospital and still have to go in to work on a snow day. At least the hospital was warm and I could stay indoors for twelve hours at a stretch. In any case, imagine my surprise when I awoke Wednesday morning to find, not wet streets and drizzling rain, but another white blanket of snow. Huh.

Since Wednesday, there has been at least a light snowfall each day. I thought things might be calming down as of yesterday, had James not told me of the weather report: lots of snow this weekend. Woke up to a fresh dusting this morning and thought about just staying in the house all day, but James wanted to adventure, so out we went. (Now, that's not to imply that James forced me out of the house . . . he bribed me with promises of Grand Central Bakery breakfast and hot chocolate.) So we bundled up and thought for a brief moment about walking the 1.6 miles to Multnomah Village, but somewhere between our door and the end of the parking lot, we decided to just try and drive the car. After several futile, and probably comical to any observers watching from a warm window, attempts to get our car up a slight hill and onto the main road, we opted instead to break out the snow chains rather than either walk or retreat back to our apartment. We got the chains on and that's all I'm going to say about that wonderful experience. We went to breakfast, then made several stops for some last minute Christmas shopping, got something for lunch, and made our way home. Throughout the day, a steady stream of dry, powdery snow drifted down into our eyes and onto our car. Every time we drove to another destination, we had to both brush the car off and scrape the windows (as heating up the interior melted the snow and re-froze before we got back to the car).

I don't intend for this to sound as if I've been complaining all week long. Several times while coming home, I've found myself giggling with glee at the opportunity to catch snowflakes on my tongue, or falling up to my knees in drifted snow. If it wasn't so cold and wet afterwards, snow would be really fun. As it is, my toes are thawing, the heater is on, and I'm happy for a warm cat in my lap as we watch the snow continuing to fall onto our long-dead herb garden on the back porch.

So, there you go. A lovely post about the snow. Oh, and you wanted pictures, too...

Winter Wonderland

One of our munchkin neighbors, bundled up for the snow.

Fluff post

2008-11-04T12:32:00.000-08:00

*Grab the nearest book.

*Open the book to page 56.

*Find the fifth sentence.

*Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

*Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

"So he sat down on the stone in the middle of the stream, and sang another verse of his song, while he wondered what to do."

Any guesses as to what the first book I grabbed was?

Hallowe'en Adventures

2008-10-31T10:11:00.002-07:00

Mom and I took Oscar to the Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie's Island yesterday. He had a lot of fun climbing the giant hay stack and looking at the animals in the barn. Then we got some local produce and had a bite to eat, by which point we were all tuckered out! What fun!

A couple of pumpkin-heads.

Oscar emerges victorious from the tunnels under the haystack.

Lots of fun with "up" and "down".

They look like Uncle Jared's chickens, but one goes "cock-a-doodle-doo!"

Playing sure makes a kid hungry.

When will Aunt Kristina get back with that food?!

Meanwhile, in the Work-a-day world...

James had a lot of fun with his co-workers today. I'll let the picture speak for itself. (And before you make any snotty "there's no green Wiggle!" comment, just remember that we don't have kids and assembled the costumes with very little research. Then we were too lazy to go out and buy a purple shirt.)

The Wiggles: Jeff, Greg, Murray, and Anthony

The Wiggles 2: James, Patrick, Juan Diego, and Jon

Their cheerful, harmonized singing is what gets them through the day with a smile.

Bargain Hunting

2008-10-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

Whoa.

We decided to go the the semi-monthly REI garage sale yesterday, an event at which they sell off all the stuff that's been returned in the last two months (or I suppose is still left over from the previous sale). Unlike The Basement at the HQ store in Seattle (we had a lot of fun Bargain Hunting with Holly and Nathan a few weeks ago during our trip to the Emerald City), here in P-town they just save it up and have one mad sale. Fortunately, we were warned about the hard core shoppers who camp out overnight for prime location in line. Unfortunately, we're not hard core and just showed up at 6:30 am Saturday morning, a mere hour and a half before doors open. The line had already rounded 3 1/2 sides of the city-block building. I made a scout trip to hunt and gather some hot beverages and pastries, and then we waited in the cold autumn morning for things to Happen. At 7:45, the line started to compress due to the hard-cores at the front stowing their tents and gear. Then the line began it's slow lock-step forward. Since it's a crowded place, they only let a certain number of people in at a time, so it was closer to 10 am before we actually got our mitts on the goods. Our goal: winter gear for commuter biking.

You might be surprised at the stuff REI shoppers will return. REI has a great return policy and will take practically anything back for practically any reason. I found a pair of toddler Crocs, obviously worn for several months, with the reason "too small" attached to the return tag. Well, what a surprise! Your kid wears a pair of shoes for a few months and the shoes suddenly shrink! Must've put them in the dryer. :)

Also, there were reasons like "small hole in pocket" (totally snagged that $100 water-proof jacket for $40), and "didn't like the fit" (several items). We got practically everything we need for warm, dry biking through the winter months, including a nice pair of clip-compatible biking shoes for me and a standing bike pump, at a quarter of what we would have paid for in the main store (even after you factor in the parking ticket on our windshield from getting so wrapped up in shopping that we forgot to plug the meter). And after watching an OPB special on Coronary Artery Disease, I'm more motivated than ever to get my bike-freak on. Also, it gives me street-cred with the other nurses.

So, famished and exhausted, we took our bulging bags of victory booty back to our car and went Thrift Shopping, because we just can't get enough! Actually, James wanted to get some supplies for Halloween costumes for himself and some co-workers (if he pulls it off, I'll totally post pictures, but until then, mum's the word). In the process, we found a gold-mine stash of Pub Med scrubs (local, high-end scrubs that retail for $30 an article), so I got four tops for a little over $10. Score!

So, after a long day of bargain hunting, we went home to glory in (and wash) all our fabulous finds. I just love a good bargain!

Kristina Ritzman, R.N.

2008-09-24T22:12:00.000-07:00

That's right, I'm a Real Nurse. I took the NCLEX licensing exam on Tuesday and, like every other graduate to take the test before me, was sure I'd failed.

Without divulging any information about what was on the test (for they will hunt me down and strip me of my license if I even drop a hint), I should explain the nature of the test. The test is anywhere between 75 and 265 questions. Once you reach the "magical score" that determines that you are a safe nurse, the test shuts off. Also, if you answer enough questions incorrectly to determine that your are dangerously unsafe, the test shuts off. So you don't really know which unless you were totally ace-ing the test.

My test shut off after question 75. Up to that point, I encountered many questions to which I hadn't a clue as to the correct answer. Thus, I doubted my performance.

I drove home in a daze and curled up on the couch for a few hours until my visiting teacher Wendy came to take me out to lunch, as we had arranged the week before when she learned I would be taking the test of my life on Tuesday. We went out to a nice restaurant, Seasons & Regions, and she contrived to distract me from useless worrying for an hour or so.

Then, back to fretting. I checked the OSBN website a couple dozen times during the day, knowing full well that my license wouldn't show up the same day, but unable to do ought else. It was during my haunting of the OSBN website that I came across the success of a classmate (you can look anybody up in the state of Oregon) who passed, one who was a total slacker throughout nursing school! So, I felt a bit more confident. If this clown could pass the NCLEX, so could I!

I woke up earlier than necessary the next morning and again checked the website. And Glory Be, there was both my CNA license listed and my RN license! Making me a bona fide Registered Nurse in the state of Oregon.

In retrospect, it's been a long four years (counting from when I decided to go to nursing school and got my CNA license), and I know I have much to learn in the upcoming months and year, but I'm glad to be over that particular hurdle, one that has been haunting me since I learned about it almost two years ago.

Up next: my ONC certification next year!

If you want to see my name in all it's registered glory, just type in "Ritzman" as the last name here.

Thank you everyone who has supported me or even just put up with me through this journey. I love you all!

Pop, pop

2008-09-19T17:26:00.000-07:00

Our freezer was full. Full of frozen chicken, steak, sorbet, and last year's berries. We didn't pick enough berries this year to replace them, and they weren't being accessed due to the brick-like form they had taken on over the last thirteen months. Throw them out? Never! I hand-picked many of those berries myself, lovingly plucking the sun-ripened jewels from the thorny vine. So, since I had no fresh berries with which to make my Second Annual Jam Batch, I thought I'd take a gamble on some forfeit and hopefully not frostbitten berries; creating some much needed room in our freezer at the same time.

So I thawed them. A bag of raspberries and a bag of marion berries (a unique variety to the Northwest) brought me five cups after draining the juice/water. Alas, the recipe called for six cups! What's a girl to do? I'm already pushing my luck with the soft thawed berries. I considered my options: (1) drive to the store and pick up a pint of something, (2) bike to the store and pick up a pint of something (I promised James I would bike at least three times this week), or (3) *hallelujah!* I could go outside and pick some blackberries! Blackberries are indigenous and ubiquitous here in the northwest, and there were at least a cup growing in my "front yard" (meaning, the parking lot of the apartment complex).

I totally washed them, don't worry.

Anyway, I made up the jam (have yet to clean the jam-splatters off the stovetop) and am now listening to the delightful *pop, pop* of the cooling jars as they seal, encasing the Various Berry '08 Jam (James suggested the name) for enjoyment throughout the year.

Brazil: heading home

2008-09-09T17:59:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the delay in posting this; studying for the NCLEX has consumed my time since returning. But that's another post...

James got up extra early (remember, we went to bed after midnight the night before, and out of principle I am not a morning person) and took a bus downtown to retrieve his old passport from the Consulate. An hour or two after he left, I woke up to the sound of rain. It had gotten cooler the previous evening, but we were secretly hoping that we would be able to visit the sun-drenched beach one last time before we flew back to the cool Northwest. Well, the beaches were drenched, just not in sunshine.

We made an early trip to the grocery store so James could stock up on his favorite foods from Brazil, such as Guarana and grape Fanta sodas (the cane-sugar grape Fanta in Brazil is infinitely superior to the HFCS grape Fanta in the U.S., in spite of what the Corn Growers Association of America says), sandwich cookies, and bonbons to share with friends and fam.

We got back to the apartment and packed our things and then left them with our landlord so he could get our room cleaned for his next tenants, and went to do some last-minute shopping and get a bite to eat. It being our last day (and our luggage already being stuffed) we refused to buy umbrellas, and instead just got a bit wet. No worse than Portland in the fall, except that we didn't even have long sleeved shirts. No worries, though. We went back to a used-book store down the street, where I got a few children's books to practice my Portuguese, and James got some more advanced reading. We also got some t-shirts and a good quality stitched Brazilian flag. All nice, flat things that our almost-bursting suitcase could accommodate.

Then we decided to splurge and go to Bob's Burgers, a Brazilian fast food chain reminiscent of its American cousins. I say "splurge" because one can get a fairly filling lunch for two at one of the luncheonettes for under R$10, but it cost us about R$25 for two burgers (my chicken burger was good, but all dark meat), one medium fries, and two shakes. Fast food is more of an American luxury there, and I think I'll stick to Brazilian luncheonettes on my next trip. On the other hand, the service was way better than you get at McDonald's.

Translation: "Bob's. Brazilians like you enjoy it."

James ordering a meal.

The selection. Expensive even after the currency exchange.

As we had no sun-drenched beach to relax upon, we decided to hop on a bus and get to the airport a bit early. We figured that we could at least hole up someplace dry and watch movies on my laptop. The airport is this big, concrete building that looks like it was built in a Communist nation during the Cold War Era. We got checked in (which only took a little extra time, considering James's multiple passport problem) and after finding our gate (insanely easy, as there were only about four), we went in search of an outlet. After much searching and a asking a nice security guard (who told us the Portuguese word for "electrical outlet"), we were directed to the ONLY public electrical outlet in the entire International Departures area of the airport. Again, I think this place was built in the '50s, when nobody had laptops or cell phone chargers. In any case, I went to plug in my laptop, and the outlet was so old and my surge-protector plug was so heavy that it just fell out the the socket. Drat. Fortunately, James was able to jury-rig a solution with some rubber bands, supplied by a friendly airline clerk. So we watched movies until it was time to board our flight.

Ahh, ingenuity!

The flight from Rio to São Paulo, and then from São Paulo to Houston, was as comfortable as a nearly-full, 16-hour flight can be. We made the best of it. On the other hand, the flight from Houston to Portland had one empty seat, and it was next to us! A guy stuck between two elderly people (okay, let me preface this with the fact that a senior citizen group had taken over at least a third of the plane to go to the casino near Lincoln City) wanted to move to it, but I pulled the whiny-witch-who's-been-traveling-for-18-hours-already card and he played the southern-Texan-gentleman card, stayed where he was and made polite conversation about his neighbor's grandkids while I stretched out and slept. Score! Also, this plane was equipped with electrical plugs at certain seats, and our semi-occupied row was the lucky winner. Double score!

We had to claim our luggage in Houston for Customs.

These are the ghosts of lost luggage past, forced to haunt the baggage claim forever.

So we arrived home to sunny skies (take that, Rio!) and a MAX waiting to shuttle us to our home-bound bus. We were welcomed home by a very stressed kitty (who got over it after a few days).

Take me with you, next time!

Summed up: Best Vacation Ever.

Brazil: a day of fellowship

2008-09-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

Today being Sunday, Felippe invited us to attend his ward, in the town of Itaboraí, about 50 km to the east of Rio. We were going to just take the bus, but he and his father, Wilson, insisted on meeting us downtown and driving us over, about a 45 minute drive. Today also being Brazil's Independence day, we saw many tanks and military police standing about, preparing for the Independence Day Demonstration (I didn't get to see it, so I don't know if it could qualify as a "parade").

Their ward had Relief Society/Priesthood first, so I went with Felippe's mother to RS. As she didn't speak English and I didn't understand her Portuguese, all I could do was shake my head in apology and say "Eu não entendo." After the lesson started, it was all moot. The lesson, via my keen understanding of RS visual aides, was about food storage. In Sunday School (in the "Escola por membros antigos" or "school for ancient members" - a.k.a. Gospel Doctrine) James translated much of what was being said. We discussed the Saints in the Americas circa the birth of Christ.

The third hour was, of course, Sacrament Meeting, which took place in the beautiful and air conditioned (!!) chapel. It being fast Sunday, James was kind and patient enough with me to give me the gist of most of the testimonies, with a line-by-line translation of Felippe's testimony.

We met many members, one of whom happened to be wearing one of James's old ties, handed from James to Felippe to Sérgio. Good ol' missionary ties! We also met the ward mission leader, Jorge, who was planning a baptism and asked us if we'd be willing to sing a hymn in English during the "waiting for the new member to get dried off" intermission. As we didn't have an English hymnal, I quickly jotted down the words to "Lead Kindly Light" and we made out pretty well. I only had to make up a couple of lines that I couldn't remember, and I don't think anyone noticed.

After the baptism, we piled into the back of Wilson's station wagon with Jorge and his wife, while Felippe rode shotgun to another member's house for a barbecue. Also joining the party (but not in the car - it was already stuffed beyond seatbelt capacity) were Russell, an American, his wife Gabriella, a Brazilian, and our host, Fernando, and his wife and little girl, Cíntia and Maria Fernanda, and later Cíntia's sister, Lauren. Quite a party for a little apartment!

Most of the party at Fernando's house

We sat around the table feasting on all sorts of barbecued meat (pork, beef, chicken, linguiça sausage, and chicken hearts), rice, Brazilian pico de gallo, soda, and a unique (but good!) potato salad consisting of potatoes, carrots, mayo, green olives, and raisins. I had more than two helpings (albeit small helpings).

Brazilian meat tastes so good!

The spread. The meat tricked in throughout the meal.

Silly boys.

But the coup de grace would have to be dessert. Fernando threw some bananas on the grill, still in their peels, and Lauren then extracted the cooked fruit and sprinkled it with cinnamon-sugar before adding a scoop of vanilla ice cream with chocolate flakes. Ambrosia! I took a risk on appearing rude and accepted seconds. Yum!

Sweet heaven.

We sat around Fernando and Cíntia's apartment, visiting and sharing stories from one until around 6:30 in the evening, when Jorge had to go to work, so Fernando took James, myself and Felippe to Felippe's house so that Wilson (who hadn't attended the barbecue) could drive us back into town.

We ended up not going immediately back into town, but were entertained by Felippe and his father for several hours. We were given a tour of their very nice house, including a great fruit orchard (and a sick guard dog) and a coconut tree, which Wilson instructed Felippe to pick some coconuts from so they could treat us to the tasty liquid inside. We visited (well, I mostly sat quietly and got the occasional interpretation, but that was fine) late into the night, until Felippe's mother Fatima came home with banana bread for all.

Felippe handing off a coconut for drinking.

Felippe, Wilson, Fatima, me, James

As it was after ten by this point, Wilson offered to let us stay over, but since we hadn't brought our toothbrushes (or more importantly, James's contact case), we politely declined and then felt guilty as they all piled into the car with us for the hour drive back to our apartment, but Wilson insisted on driving us. They dropped us off at around midnight, and then made their way back home, probably to wake up early the next day for work. I'm honestly amazed and awed by the generosity and hospitality of these people, both Felippe's family, as well as Fernando's. What a blessing to have met such good friends, even if we don't (as of yet) speak the same language!

A beautiful painting of the São Paulo temple hanging

in the dining room of the Forte residence.

The closest temple to them is a six hour drive, which makes

me feel guilty for not attending the Portland Temple as often.

Brazil: a day of crowds

2008-09-06T18:16:00.000-07:00

Today we took another stab at the feiras, this time going to an antique market downtown. This feira only happens once a month and bears a lot more semblance to the Pearl's First Thursday than the other tourist-trap kitch markets had been. Within minutes, we found many original treasures that we would love to bring home, including my "souvenir earrings" that has been a tradition for me in my travels for many years.

Unfortunately, due to our skepticism, we had not brought any money with us beyond bus fare. Thus began an hour long quest for an open ATM that would distribute international cash. James referred to it as the Death March, and I gamely trudged along because I wanted those earrings!

The quest began with several Brazilians pointing James in several different directions (once, we were surrounded by at least half a dozen people, all talking at once and each pointing in a different direction). In our journey, we passed by an open pub where a local patron, upon seeing James wearing the local Fútbol team jersey, the Flamengos, insisted on buying us beers. We said we were in a hurry, so he ordered them "to-go" in plastic cups, so we were able to dispose of them around the corner (he was very insistent!). After 45 minutes of walking in the Brazilian sun and about five ATMs, we got our cash and returned to the feira.

The Antiques Market

We saw the Lapa Arches on our Death March. They used to be an aqueduct,

now the trolley runs over them on its way to Santa Theresa

I not only got the earrings and matching necklace that I had originally spied, but also another pair of earrings carved from coconut, and James got an old wood carving of a village scene. We saw many beautiful paintings, jewelry, antiques and crafts. I'm sure Antiques Roadshow would have had a heyday here. There was lots of gorgeous old hardwood furniture and marble sculptures, china and silver probably imported from Europe decades ago, and newer (and older) paintings of the Brazil countryside. I began to regret that I'd brought such a small suitcase!

Beautiful sculpture

I liked this painting!

What does one wear when one is washing their clothes?

Me in front of one of the jewelry booths.

Some of the jewelry at the shop I got my necklace and earrings.

Some beautiful paintings.

We arrived back to our apartment mid-afternoon and hurried to catch the remaining sun on the beach. By this time, a strong wind had picked up on the coast, but that didn't deter us, or anyone else, it seems! It being Saturday, the beach was very crowded, but we managed to find a clear spot to enjoy the sun and the waves. There was a group of about five "gangster-type" fellows sitting near us, also enjoying the day at the beach. One of them spent some time posing for photos taken by his buddy, possibly to post on his website and show what a stud he was. We were highly amused, mostly because his "tough guy" ensemble composed of a bucket hat and a pair of sagging capri jeans. Appropriate maybe for Rio gangstas, but I don't think it would have quite the same effect in NoPo.

Too cool for long pants.

The waves were more wild and aggressive than I had seen in previous days, so we just stayed on the beach. At one point a large crowd gathered, looking out into the sea. A beach vendor explained that someone had gotten caught out in the ocean and a couple of young men were bringing him in. All the more reason to stay in our lawn chairs and enjoy the sun and breeze. We did watch to make sure the kid (he was probably 16) was okay when he arrived back on shore. Exhausted, and maybe a bit sheepish, but he was breathing just fine.

Some guys in black speedos watching the rescue effort.

You can see the rescuers in the water between the two kids on the left.

Fun at the beach! Those are my coconut souvenir earrings.

After things started to cool down sufficiently to warrant leaving the beautiful beach, we returned to the apartment to change before dinner. And there were bugs in our room! Now, don't get me wrong; I expected bugs when I came to Brazil. I brought a large bottle of bug repellant. But this was the first sign of domestic bugs that I had seen in almost a week. And they looked like termites. So we double checked the wood carving that James had bought (and then put it in the fridge to avoid contamination), and informed our landlord of the problem.

Then we went out for dinner (ham and cheese roll and açaí!) and dessert. We saw more of the bugs on the outside of the dessert counter of the cafe, so James asked about it, and the lady said that they come out in this kind of weather (cool and windy) and that they're really harmless; not the "devour your house" kind of termites. We were relieved (although, I think we forgot to reassure our landlord . . . oh well) and ordered a couple of sweets. Upon eating mine, I remembered James telling me how Brazilians like their desserts small and super sweet. Too sweet! I couldn't finish my jelly roll. I think in the future, I'll stick with cookies, which I know are good!

Ham + cheese + bread = Yum!

Think really good, handmade Hot Pocket.

Açaí!

Brazil: a day of markets

2008-09-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

Today we went to the local street markets, or feiras. The first market, the Centro Comercial, was surprisingly lame. A lot of black market electronics (I saw a "Sony PolyStation"), clothing and media. We did get one or two things, but it wasn't really the souvenir market we had anticipated. It was also super crowded and easy to get lost in. So we decided to go by another market, but first we wanted to see the Nossa Senhora da Candelária Catholic Church.

I gotta say - Brazilians know how to do Catholic right! Nothing against USA Catholics (of which I am related to not a few), but when you combine statues like the Christo Redentor statue we saw Monday, the conical church from Tuesday's adventure, and this, I'm thoroughly impressed:

The main dome.

I was entranced by this angel - what nobility.

Beautiful.

They literally had a roll of red carpet by the door,

to "roll out" when dignitaries visited, I suppose.

The view from the door.

The other feira, the Feira Nordestina, was little better but each shop seemed to sell the same stuff. We did manage to get stuff for our mamas. One thing that cracked me up was this statue outside the feira of a guy named Lampião playing the accordion. According to James, this guy was Brazil's version of Billy the Kid, or maybe Bonnie and Clyde, since he apparently roamed the countryside in a lawless manner with his wife, Maria Bonita. Also, the accordion is apparently a much more dignified instrument in Brazil - visualize a statue of Billy the Kid playing the guitar or harmonica, I suppose.

Me and Lampião

These were very nice painted dolls,

but there were at least a thousand of them at this market.

The jersey I wouldn't let James buy.

We got pretty hungry shopping, so we stopped and had some carne de sol (grilled, sun dried meat - moister than jerky) and aipim frita (fried cassava root). Pretty darned good! While we were eating, I was tempted to light up a cigarette, but then I saw this ad, which put me straight:

Check out the diseased gums.

Their Surgeon General is much more hard core than ours!

Yum!

We took a break from shopping to check out a nice park with some interesting flora and get a view of the Maracanã stadium, one of the largest stadiums in the world, seating over 200,000 people. I was tired, so we only saw it from afar, and then went home to rest and change.

This was a crazy tree with giant pods that apparently

would pop open and reveal beautiful flowers.

The aforementioned flowers.

They look like they have an under-bite.

This was as close to the Maracanã as we got (me sitting on the lawn).

Here's a better picture of the Maracanã,

taken from the hill Corcovado (on Monday)

That evening, we decided to take one last shot at shopping for the day, but by the time we arrived (around 7 pm), they were all closing shop. On the upside, we did catch the tail end of a big outdoor used book sale nearby. James got the book Olga, which was the base for the Brazilian movie of the same name, about a Jewish German during WWII who escaped to Brazil and became involved in the revolution there. Good movie; I hope he enjoys the book.

Our lunch reserves had run out, so we got dinner, whereat James introduced me to . . . açaí . . . mmmmm! Açaí is a fruit from Brazil that is just making it's debut here in the states, but the way they serve it is unique. Think smoothie meets sorbet. It's softer than sorbet, but they serve it in a big bowl, with granola on the side. We shared a big bowl of the heavenly nectar and a ham and cheese roll and called it good. (We didn't have our camera with us at this point, so I'll get pictures later in the week.)

We then decided we needed at least one taste of the Rio night life in the famous Lapa district. We had been warned to leave any valuables at home, so no pictures, sorry. We did get to hear some nice samba music, though. We wandered around the streets for a bit, and James heard some nice music coming from a crowded restaurant. As we were still full from the açaí, we sat down and just had two guaranas, much to the irritation of the server (he still opened and poured our sodas per Brazilian food service protocol, but he did so in a very terse manner). They charged us a cover charge to listen to the band, so I don't feel bad about not ordering food.

Oh, and good news!! When we got home, James had gotten an email from the US Consulate saying that his passport had been turned it! So we'll pick it up Monday morning before we fly out. It's not valid anymore, since he was issued a new temporary one on Tuesday, but he was really bummed about not having all the stamps from various trips, including his mission. Oh, and the visa!

Brazil: a day of perspective

2008-09-04T19:11:00.000-07:00

Today, we went on a tour of two of Rio's favelas, or shanty towns. It was through a reputable company called Favela Tour, which according to the brochure is "informative and surprising[ly] not voyeuristic." We were in ten-passenger van with our tour guide, Alfredo, the driver, Elvis, and six British people (two couples and a pair of young ladies). Other than the natives, James was the only one who spoke any Portuguese. At one point in the tour, we stopped by a local bar and (it being a very hot day), James ordered us two guarana sodas (so good, by the way! I didn't truly appreciate the allure until drinking one ice-cold on a swelteringly hot Brazil afternoon), and one of the couples asked us what it was we were drinking (they had gotten water, those poor saps), as they'd seen it in their mini-bar but were unsure as to what it was. I've never been so smugly satisfied that I came here with someone who knew the local language and culture!

Anyway, back to the favela tour. Alfredo related the various economic and other disparities between the classes in Brazil, much of which James had already related to me when referencing his mission or his classes in Latin American studies, but this time it was presented in a thick Brazilian accent over a PA system in a van full of semi-interested Britons. He addressed problems with public education, healthcare, sanitation, and employment, as well as touching on politics near the end of the tour. He took us on a tour of an after school program in one of the favelas, a sort of grass-roots project akin to Head Start to better prepare kids for the college entrance exam and other important life-altering hurtles for the under-privileged. The price of the tour was quite a bit higher than I expected for a van ride around the slums, but when we learned that 75% of the school's funding came from the tours, I decided not to grumble. The kids also make crafts which, when sold, earn 50% of the profit for the kid's family, and the other 50% goes back into supporting the school. In addition to the after-school program, we stopped by a place to buy souvenirs made in the favelas (though since we only stopped there for 10 minutes, we didn't buy anything), through several neighborhoods, and the aforementioned bar.

My thoughts on the favelas: (1) They were much more permanent structures than I had imagined based on what James had told me. There were solid buildings with tiles and separate rooms, radios playing, and cement stairs and sidewalks between buildings. (2) There was a more ethnically diverse population than I had anticipated. True, there were more people with African heritage there than elsewhere, but I also saw many people with more light-Mulatto appearance. Our tour guide was still the lightest person (excepting the eight extremely white tourist) in the favelas that I saw. (3) There was a lot more trash than I expected. When we rounded the corner from the American School (the most prestigious private school in Rio) to Rocinha (the largest favela in Rio) the mounds of trash were overwhelming. I don't know why I thought that 60,000 people would somehow produce tidy little cans of trash, placed on their non-existant street corners every Tuesday night. Perhaps I thought that, being poor, they would use things out more efficiently, like Native Americans using every part of the buffalo, and therefore produce very little trash. In any case, I was wrong. Alfredo related how sanitation was a major problem, in spite of the city paying some residents to manage the trash collection. We were even passed by some construction equipment (quite a feat on the narrow, winding roads there) carrying trash out of the favela, but nothing they do is enough. The trash just keeps piling up, sometimes in pre-determined trash-piling areas, sometimes not. (4) Not everyone on the favelas is poor. Alfredo related that many people living in the favelas were considered middle class by Brazilian standards, but continue to live in the favelas either because they're established and they have community there, or to perhaps raise others up by staying in the community. Or maybe because living in Rio is so expensive that even middle class would have a hard time making ends meet outside the favelas. Brazil has a squatters law that if you build a house and live there for five years, it's yours and no one can kick you out.

The view from the rooftop of one of the favela homes, illustrating the contrast between the favelas and the high-rise condominiums. The favelas are built on the hillsides (more at risk for mudslides) and therefore command some of the best views of the city.

Street in a favela. Note the pirated electricity from the power lines (on the right).

Typical Rio favela homes.

Walkway between favela homes - so much more common than actual streets.

Anyway, a thoroughly enlightening morning. So how did we employ our new-found perspective? James bought me a more Brazilian swimsuit (caution: photo below - it isn't quite as spectacular on my pale bod as it would be on a bronzed Brazilian), we bummed around the beach all afternoon, and then went out for Lebanese food that evening. I love Rio!

Two pale people

James on the the famous Copacabana walkway

Gorgeous view of the beach and ocean

Brazil: um dia sen compromiso

2008-09-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

Translation: "a day without obligations." We woke up late and just lazed about the apartment for a while, snacking on yogurt and crackers. Then off to the beach! We briefly visited the beach on our arrival day, but this was the first real visit, with swimsuits and sunscreen. I can't believe it took me this long into our trip to get out to the beach, a mere two blocks from our apartment! Of course, if I'd discovered the luxury of lying on a Brazilian beach any earlier, I probably never would have seen the sites of the last few days. (Heck, if I'd found out early enough, I may have never made it through nursing school!)

We got some towels from a local shop and made our way to the beach, where we rented two beach chairs and an umbrella for R$9 total (about $6 in today's exchange). We then just relaxed on the beach for the better part of the afternoon; from noon until the sun hid behind the hills and skyscrapers, between 4 and 5 pm. We each took a dip in the Atlantic, which was about swimming-pool temperature, but mostly we people watched. Because of our obvious American look (I don't know how they knew, since I've seen some very European-looking Cariocas, or residents of Rio, but Felippe says we stand out like sore thumbs) we were constantly being accosted by vendors of food, beverage, clothing, swimsuits (a strange place to sell them; if you didn't already have one, how would you try it on?), jewelry, henna tatoos, and paintings, to which we replied "Não, obrigada" (No, thanks) so often that I started feeling like I knew Portuguese after all. Anyway, words cannot describe what pictures can portray:

Ah, the beach!

Relaxing on the sand.

This kid was having so much fun!

"Matte de Leão!" (Iced tea)

Playing in the waves.

Since James didn't get after me for my Felippe-crush, I let him take some pictures to brag to his office-mates back home.

This kid ran his daddy ragged trying to get him in the water! What fun!

Speedo James! It's all the rage in Brazil!

We got home with only minor sunburns added to those from previous days (we each missed a few spots with the sunscreen) but a feeling of bliss that can only come from a day in the sun!

Brazil: a day of bureaucracy

2008-09-02T16:36:00.000-07:00

So last night, James realized that he was missing his passport. *sigh* Our best guess is that it must have fallen out of (or been actively removed from) his pocket between the airport and arriving at our apartment. So, after going through our luggage at least half a dozen times, we opted to go down to the USA Consulate this morning and get a replacement passport. I apologize to any of you interested in pictures of the USA consulate or tourist police office, but the former confiscated our camera and held it until we left, and the latter was so scary that I wasn't about to do anything stupid like start taking pictures (one man came in wearing street clothes, casually toting an M-16).

This also happened to be the day James was meeting up with his old mission buddy, Felippe Forte. James explained the situation to Felippe and he insisted that James get it resolved today and he would come with us. What a trooper!

So, while James negotiated with security guards, passport officials, the tourist police, Felippe and I had halting conversations of mostly broken English and a little of my (extremely) limited Portuguese. We spoke of our families, James's and Felippe's mission, our hopes for the future, and how (as Felippe puts it) "girls are complicated." Unfortunately, our trans-language communication wasn't good enough to smooth out the complications. Felippe is a smashingly handsome Brazilian boy with trendy glasses and a heart of gold. When we said farewell after a day of adventures, I gave him a big hug and he said to me, "You are my sister" in beautifully Latin-accented English, simultaneously winning my heart forever and squelching the huge girl-crush I'd been fostering all day.

In between visits to the consulate (we went around 11 am because there weren't any hours posted on the web or voice mail, but the American citizen office didn't open until 1 pm . . . actually, it wasn't open at all that day but they made an exception due to the urgent need, but only after 1 pm, when it would have been open if it was open that day), we three visited the Brazil Naval Museum, which chronicles the history of sea travel in South America from the Portuguese colonization to modern day. James took many pictures of ships, only one of which I will include in this blog:

We also rode a taxi (from the consulate to the tourist police station), which was fun (second taxi ride of my life). After James finished his sentence in the tourist police station (about two hours of explaining himself to a skeptical female clerk), we went to a mall in the fashionable Ipanema district (where the crowd leans more strongly to the white side of the ethnic spectrum) and didn't buy anything, then we took a bus back to good ol' Copacabana and took Felippe out to dinner (amidst many protestations, but we insisted - he'd been an oasis for me amidst the boredom of Brazilian bureaucracy). Here's a picture of my two handsome boys:

Brazil: a day of sightseeing

2008-09-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful time I'm having here!!

Ok, we had to go see the Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks the entire city. We can see it from our apartment, but there's nothing like seeing it up close. It's 120 ft tall and sits on the top of a 2,300 ft hill in the middle of Rio. The view is amazing. We were out there staring at the beautiful scenery for so long that I got sunburned. We took a train/tram up the hill and on the way back, there was this samba band playing and dancing (rather dangerous on the moving tram, as it ran a quite an angle!), and they let James play the tambourine. Oh the fun!

The view from our window, on a cloudy day.

James and me in front of the statue of Christ the Redeemer.

Awesome.

James jamming on the tambourine.

Then we made our way to an arts district (similar to Hawthorne, for those familiar with Portland) via another light-rail-type transport. Think light-rail meets roller-coaster. We were packed onto the antique trolley as it rattled and rolled across narrow bridges and up hills, with taxis and busses narrowly missing the passengers hanging off the sides (most of them daring kids who would hold on and run their feet along the ground). I apologize for the lack of photos, but I was too busy holding on for dear life! I did get a picture in which you can see the shadow of the trolley passing over the arches of the Lapa district, and another of the heads of our fellow passengers. We got off hoping to find someplace to eat and were beckoned over to the military police station by one of the officers. He saw that we were American and wanted to practice his English. He told us he had a sister who lived in Chicago, California, and spoke of his love for Christ in his heart. A sweet man (which is a good thing, because the military police seem so scary!) but not too strong on the English. I suppose that's why he keeps wanting to practice it. Most of the restaurants in the area had closed, as it was getting dark, so we perused a few shops and then caught a bus back to our neighborhood.

Shadow of the trolley running a break-neck speed over the Lapa Arches. I'll try to get a pic from the ground before we leave.

Trolley-load of thrill-seekers and commuters. What a ride!

We were both famished (we didn't really eat lunch), so we stopped by a restaurant and had a plate of grilled meat, rice and fries for two. They should have said for four! So much meat! Basically, two large links of dinner sausage, three medium steaks, two chicken breasts, and one or two pork chops, accompanied by a mound of fries and another mound of rice. Whoa! It's a good thing we didn't eat lunch! I ate a whole sausage and half of a steak, as well as an ample amount of fries and rice. James made much more of a dent in the mound of meat, but we ended up taking about a third of it home. I wish I could have eaten more. Steak in Brazil is amazing! I don't know exactly what makes them so juicy and flavorful; maybe it's the grass diet and lack of growth hormones. Whatever it is, it made me a happy tourist! And dulce de leche pudding (like non-eggy flan) for dessert. Yum! (We didn't bring our camera to dinner, but the food was a pretty as it was tasty!)

Things that I learned: don't judge things by their exterior appearance. Example one was the nice military policeman. After we chatted things up with him, we didn't feel so shy of asking other military policemen directions or advice. Another example is this building:

We saw it and thought, "What an ugly building!" James inquired and learned that it was a church, and that we could look inside if we wanted. We were eager to catch the crazy-trolley to the arts district, but I'm glad we took the time to look inside:

Breathtaking.

Brazil: initial thoughts

2008-08-31T19:15:00.000-07:00

Hey, thought I'd share my initial thoughts on Brazil since (thanks to jetlag) I can't sleep.

Brazil is very alien. This is my first trip to a non-English speaking country and boy, am I glad I took James! I wouldn't have made it out of the airport on my own (I'm beginning to think I couldn't make it out of a Brazilian paper bag without him). Rio is big (I'm such a country mouse from little Portland) and has an aura of aging dignity mixed with enduring vanity. We're right near the once-popular Copacabana beach (Impanema is now more in style). We saw so many levels of living conditions on the bus ride from the airport to our apartment that it made my head spin. Some of the buildings look like concrete shells ravaged by WWII air squads in Europe and later just inhabited without bothering to fix the lack of roof or walls. Just throw a tarp here and there and voila! Your new home. Others are more what I would expect for middle class workers, but probably cost a mint here in the heart of Rio de Janiero. We're in a modest studio, with such luxuries as AC, wireless, and a private deck and mini-pool shared only with the half-dozen other rooms on the top storey of the building. It sounds fancy but everything has movie-set stability. It kinda reminds me of my first apartment in downtown Portland, but smaller. I think if it was any fancier, I'd feel guilty since there is still so much blatant poverty all around me.

I love Brazilian food. We ate "street food" at one of the many luncheons along the streets (at least as common as coffee shops in Portland). We had a fabulous dinner: fried teardrop-shaped breaded dumplings as big as your fist with shredded chicken and cheese or taco-like meat inside, cheesey-bread, Guarana soda (about as ubiquitous in Brazil as Pepsi, but it tastes like sweet ginger ale) and chocolate sweets for dessert. Yum!

College Graduate(s)

2008-08-03T13:39:00.000-07:00

I guess I was so excited about the cruise that I neglected to share the best news of the year: my husband is a college graduate! James walked the very crowded stage at PSU's Spring Commencement on June 14, 2008, with his BA in International Studies, South American focus, and minors in Economics and Business. He is so intelligent and hard working; I am such a lucky wife.

Also, I walked the stage of MHCC's Spring Commencement because they won't have another at the end of the Summer, when I actually graduate, but that's really small potatoes compared to James. I'll toot my own horn after the pinning ceremony at the end of August. I just wanted to post pics of both of us in our varied graduation regalia.

Alaska

2008-06-23T12:31:00.000-07:00

So, I've been putting off posting about our great trip to Alaska simply because it's all so overwhelming, but here goes...

Day 1: Seattle

We drove up to Seattle with James's parents, brother Mark, and Grandma Patty. We dropped the fam off at the Heathman Kirkland (nice place!) and James and I met up with my old mission comp Holly and her hubby Nathan, who took us on a tour of their city. We saw the troll under the bridge, the city lights from some great viewpoints, ate dinner at a great Indian place, and had ice cream at a fun burger joint. We got back to the hotel pretty late, but hey, we're on vacation!

Day 2:

We got on the boat. There were some hiccups involved with getting our cards to read, but we figured it out.

Day 3:

At sea. We amused ourselves as best we could...

Day 4: Juneau

I'm always convinced I've spelt that name wrong. Anyway, we went to see the Mendenhall Glacier with James's brother and his family. Lots of ice. Also, there was a waterfall. Lots of water.

Day 5: Skagway

The main attraction of this frontier-themed town is railroads. We didn't shell out the blunt to actually ride a train, but we made our own way along the tracks (as you can see, the tracks didn't go very far). James wanted his picture taken alongside this big snow plow train, so I made him happy. Also, I bought my traditional souvenier earrings here, from a little boutique shop that reminded us of Multnomah Village, in spite of all the touristy jewelry shops.

Day 6: Glacier Bay

More ice. It was a nice day at sea and fun to just watch scenery instead of wandering around tourist towns. There were also many victories on the rock-climbing wall (this ship had everything!).

Day 7: Ketchikan

This town's main "thing" is totem poles. We saw many. Also, we went by the fish hatchery for some reason, again with D and family. Luckily, there was this darling little park next to the hatchery to make the walk all worth it. On the way, James took a walk along Married Man's Trail.

Day 8: Victoria

We docked for 6 hours in Victoria, BC, requiring everyone on the cruise to have a passport for the whole trip. James and I went to Victoria back when we were still dating and loved it, so we were looking forward to going again. Although not as magical the second time around, we did have fun posing with the street performers, as did my parents, who roved around the island with us.

Day 9: Seattle again

Landed in the morning and took a shuttle to the train station. James was in pain something terrible due to having slept in his contact lenses and then ripping them out of his dry morning eyes, so Mom was practicing her palliative arts on him, but I enjoyed the ride home. Then the number 64 Tri-met bus home. It was wonderful to spend time with family, really get to know some of James's SF family better, and just relax before the last term of school! A special thanks to James's parents for getting us all together on such a wonderful trip. Best Ritzman family reunion ever.

Baby Tiger!

2008-06-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I was early getting downtown to get my hair cut, so I grabbed a copy of the Willammette Week to read about the Rose Festival carnival going on by the waterfront. The article wasn't highly flattering about the attractions in general, but it did say that you could have your picture taken with a BABY TIGER!

Ok, by way of explanation, I've wanted a pet tiger since first reading The Blue Sword, by Robin McKinley, so there was no way I was going to pass this up. I called James (who happened to be at the PSU Library writing his final paper), and he and I went over to the Waterfront Village (I think that's the name). The tiger was feeling rather tiger-ish at the time, so we waited for him to calm down a bit before sitting on the tiger-holding-chair and we held the baby tiger while he chewed on his handler's arm and the assistant took our picture. Here are the results:

My Boy

2008-06-07T16:02:00.000-07:00

I saw this on my sister's mother-in-law's blog and thought it too cute not to pirate. Thanks, Debi. :)

Name: "The Boy," although for some reason, everyone else calls him "James"

How long have you been married? 3 years

How long did you date? 11 months to the day, including engagement.

How old? He's 2 1/6 years younger than me. He digs the "older woman" thing.

Who eats more sweets? I do, hands down.

Who said "I love you" first? He did. (Upon reading this, he replied, "I did?")

Who's taller? He is, unless I'm wearing heels, which he encourages, since he also digs the "taller woman" thing.

Who can sing better? Photo finish, but I'd have to say him. Sexiest bass voice you'll find in a white guy.

Who's smarter? Again, it's a toss-up. Let's just say that we're going to have darned smart kids.

Who does the laundry? He does, almost exclusively (he just started a load). Whenever I start a load, he has to wash it again a few days later because they never made it to the dryer and have soured. On the other hand, I'm pretty AR when it comes to folding, so I usually at least fold my own clothes.

Who mows the lawn? Our apartment manager (ha ha). I tend the small container garden on our back patio, but that was my idea in the first place.

Who cooks dinner? If it's one of us, usually him, but we love to cook together. Cooking is our second favorite thing to do together. ;)

Who drives? Usually him. After working as a home health aide for two years, I'm tired of driving. Also, my driving makes him nervous, so he volunteers to drive even in my "girly" car.

Who is more stubborn? He's too easy-going to be stubborn, and I'm too absent-minded. Ask again in twenty years.

Who kissed who first? He kissed me first. Of course, given that it was my first kiss in almost three years (mission plus a date-less post-mission year) and he'd just gotten off of his two year kissing-celibate mission, it was without a doubt the worst kiss in the history of our relationship. Of course, we've gotten a lot better with practice.

Who asked who our first? I'd have to say that I initiated that one with "Do you want to give me a reason not to move to England?" Straight out of a romantic comedy, if only we'd been at the airport with my flight being announced over the intercom. Needless to say, he did.

Who proposed? He did (of course, I told him to).

Who has more siblings? I do, but he has more nieces and nephews.

Who wears the pants? The Boy made me say this: we each wear one pant, becoming the greatest three-legged-race team of all time. (Of course, since he made me say that under threat of nipple abuse, I'm not sure I believe it. You'd think with this "older, taller woman" fetish, he'd be okay with a domineering woman.)

TRACU

2008-05-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), I have avoided blogging about my wonderful term of Legacy Emanuel's Trauma Acute Care and Recovery Unit (TRACU) these last few months. I think I would have been too tempted to tell about the amazing patients and families that I have had the honor with which to work in details that might have compromised their right to privacy, so I will abstain from discussing my patient, but instead talk about the nurses.

TRACU nurses rock. I worked with several nurses in the six weeks I was on the floor, and each one taught me something important. I even had nurses who I never specifically had as a nurse mentor pull me in to either help with patient care or observe a neat procedure. That's how I got to give my first intramuscular injection. Not only are the nurses great, but the other disciplines are wonderful, including speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, wound care, transport, and the residents and physicians. The way that the teams all came together to plan care for these patients reminded me of the real interdisciplinary teamwork I recall from hospice, instead of the loose collaboration of healthcare workers trying to just not get in each other's way that I have observed in other areas of healthcare. I would love to work here after I graduate.

Ok, just a little about the kind of people who end up on the TRACU without a job application (i.e. the patients). As far as I've observed, the majority of patients on this floor are one of two groups: elderly ground-level-falls and young men after motor-vehicle-accidents (often involving chemicals in the bloodstream, but sometimes that was the other driver). I enjoyed working with both groups, plus some other patients with unique disease processes and complex wound care.

Things I was able to overcome while on the TRACU:

Horrid, gaping wounds - it's been hard for me to see the really nasty wounds, but after assisting changing a few, especially when it wasn't painful for the patient, I came to appreciate the art.

Sputum - before this term, I'd've traded my trach patient for your colonostomy patient in a heartbeat. While I'm still readily available to help with colonostomy care, I came to appreciate sputum on the TRACU. Especially when I can suction it out and give the patient some relief.

"Difficult patients" - although I know I will get frustrated again and again over demands on my time and the patient who always seems to take more time than the others for no real reason, I learned about the service/charity relationship first-hand.

My own timid nature in choosing patients - since we have the opportunity to choose our patients (which we will mostly lose once we're getting paid), I had developed a habit of choosing "not too complex" patients in previous terms. This term, I specifically chose complex patients and learned so much more!

Oh, I can't summarize everything I learned, but I'm just so grateful that I was assigned to this floor instead of "post-op," like I had wanted!

Beetles and Fleas

2008-04-19T12:42:00.000-07:00

First for the good news: we now have two working cars. I stress the word "working" because we technically are in possession of three cars, one of which is simply keeping the stuff in our garage company.

Due to the increasing frequency of my nursing clinicals and my fast approaching graduation from nursing school, we decided to invest in another car. As it so happened, James's brother had a car that he no longer wanted, so we arranged an elaborate transportation chain involving various people returning from various vacations meeting up and trading off the 15-year-old piece of technological wonder. Surprisingly, it made it to Portland in one piece, and then proceeded to break down literally the next day. According to the mechanic, it would cost over three time what we were paying James's brother to get it back on it's struts, so we opted "no thanks." We're currently awaiting the title so we can milk the carcass for what it's worth and send the proceeds to my brother-in-law and his family.

This still left us with one working car, and we had convinced ourselves that we needed two. So we decided to go the other route, and buy something that didn't qualify as "beater." We reflected on gas prices, our continuing dependence on the petrochemical industry, and our previous positive experience with VW and opted to buy a Beetle TDI. (For those not aware of VW's diesel cars, they get 40-50 mpg, which more than off-sets the higher diesel prices.) So we began our search. After a solid week of pushy dealers, eco-snob private owners, and wonderful bankers (we love our credit union), we came upon the perfect car.

We had come home late-ish on Friday night after driving up to Vancouver to test drive a white TDI with emphysema (or at least, the previous owner probably does, if you know what I mean), when I made my becoming-a-religion check of craigslistings of "TDI beetle" (you know you're obsessive when you type in "T" and the computer fills the rest in for you), and up came MY CAR. It had everything I wanted: leather, seat warmers, CD player, and moon roof, as well as everything James wanted: low miles, manual transmission (automatic transmissions have a tendency to blow up around him), two years newer than anything else we've seen, and within our price range. Of course, by now it was eleven at night, and it's just not cool to call that late, so we went to bed hopeful.

The next morning, Saturday, we woke up and got ready while I deliberated as to how early is "too early" for a craigslist post. I know garage sale patrons will knock on your door at 6am, but I really didn't want to piss this seller off. I also didn't want to miss out on the perfect car out of respect for the seller's sleep. I called at 8:57 and we were at her house by 10am. I shan't drag on the mundane details, but by 2pm, we were the proud owners of a 2004 VW Beetle TDI. I like to name my cars, and still refer to our 99 Jetta affectionately as "Jack," so what did we name the Bug? Why, "Jill," of course.

And in other news . . .

So, our little Hamlet came down with fleas about six months ago, so like good cat-parents, I went to the pet store and bought the $50 three-months supply of flea medication, figuring that I would really only need one month's worth, because Hamlet is a strictly indoor cat and this current bout of fleas must have been a fluke. Well, the medication worked . . . for exactly a month, so we re-treated, and then again another month down the road. Then school got busy and I just grew apathetic and ignored the cat when he started scratching exactly 30 days after the last flea treatment. I was out of treatments and didn't feel like shelling out $50 every three months for an obvious scam in flea-treatment.

I suppose I must have been relating my plight to some acquaintance (I cannot recall who) because I learned somewhere in the last few weeks (did I mention that school had gotten busy again?) that fleas only stay on the animal for long enough to feed, and that they do the ever-important business of procreating elsewhere, like the carpet on our apartment floor or on the cat tree we made for Hamlet about six months ago (six months . . . that sounds familiar . . . note to self: never trust "free carpet" on craigslist).

Anyway, after deciding that the pet store hadn't sold me a scam, I went back to inquire after a systemic solution to our infestation. They directed me to an area completely dedicated to environmental flea-riddance. The helpful salesman recommended a certain brand that was safe for pets and children (I would hope that it would at least be safe for pets, being in a pet store to treat a pet malady), and I proceeded to peruse the list of ingredients. Ingredients: boric acid-98%, other chemicals-2%. Price: $30. Huh. I don't recall investigating further the critical importance of $26 worth of "other chemicals-2%" because I was thinking too hard on how I could buy a box of boric acid (20-Mule Team Borax) four times this product's size at Winco for about $4. Thanks, pet store, I'll be back if my 20 mules fail me.

Three Months

2008-04-13T22:27:00.000-07:00

So I've had these braces on for three months now; time to report. Things are looking really good. The gaps are closing, my front teeth are straighter, and my lower teeth are almost all straight. Hooray!

Camera Fun

2008-03-26T22:06:00.000-07:00

So while I was down in Texas, Ansley, Hailey and I had some fun with the Photo Booth on my computer. Here are some of my favorites...

Happy girls

Ghost people!!

Mind Meld

Ansley after her nose reduction

Three eyed Hailey

Hailey the goat-girl

Loud mouth

One foot...

...two foot

Spring Break

2008-03-26T21:27:00.000-07:00

After a long, gray winter here in Portland, I really needed some R&R in Sunny Texas, and the only time one can visit Sunny Texas without regretting it is in the Spring. I flew down to see Heather and her family on Wednesday and got to stay through Easter Sunday and fly back on Tuesday. The weather was perfect, save a bit of drizzle on Easter itself.

It was a lot of fun (exhausting fun) to play with Ansley, Hailey and Emberly. We had jump-rope contests, races, games at the playground, decorated Easter eggs and then had several Easter egg hunts (same eggs over and over), and a fun fondue party. I don't think I could have kept up the pace for much longer, but I'm at least good for a week-long romp every year or two. Next time I'll bring James to mitigate the energy-expenditure.

Heather and I got to have great conversations about anything and everything, especially after the girls went to bed and wonderful Michael held the fort down while we ladies went out for food and fun. We got to go see "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day," which I wanted to see but knew James would have none of it. Very chick-flick, so we enjoyed it. We also had a fun late-night ("Ladies and gentlemen, the store is closing in ten minutes...") ramble through Target my last night there to get James a present for allowing his wife to leave him for a week. He was thrilled with the Leggo bucket loader, even though I could have bought it down the street and saved myself the sales tax. He also liked the TEXAS magnet I got at the gift shop at the airport.

What a great week!

Bath time for Emberly!

The girls showed me their fancy bikes

Decorating Easter eggs

Vanna Ansley

Easter fashion a la Gymboree

And Emberly, too, who wouldn't sit still for a group shot

Hunting for eggs

Finding eggs

Not even looking for eggs :)

Quilt Top

2008-03-21T13:54:00.000-07:00

I've been less than diligent in blogging, so since I'm on vacation this week and next, I'll try and catch up with at least the interesting stuff, starting with my budding quilting skills.
I have completed the top of my first quilt! I saw this pattern on an OPB quilting show and Kathleen drew out the pattern I described, including altering it a bit for ease of quilting (if you look closely, the yellow segments are really three pieces, making it a much easier quilt with the same visual effect). I put the block wheels (I'm sure there's another name for that in "quilters-ese" but I don't know it yet) on the corners of the borders for fun. This was a really fun activity to familiarize myself with my new machine and enjoy the applied arts of geometry (I always liked geometry). Now for the daunting task of quilting it. We have all the materials and I've purchased a few books on the topic, so I'll let you all know how it goes...

The Quilt Top, measuring 73" X 73", Hamlet wanted to show some perspective

The Corner, a bit of whimsy on my part

Latter-Day Prophets

2008-01-30T19:35:00.000-08:00

So, Channing led the Primary in "Latter-Day Prophets" for the opening song last Sunday, ending with "Gordon B. Hinkley leads today, we hear and honor his word today" or something (I'm still tempted to end with Spencer W. Kimball). After the song, Channing asked, "And who is our prophet today?" and Ruby replied, "Gordon B. Hinkley." I didn't think anything of it at the time.

Then, Sunday night around 8:45, James logs onto the internet and says, "Oh, President Hinkley died," and I felt a big chunk of my adolescence break off and fall into the past. President Hinkley was called to be the prophet (of the LDS church) when I was almost 15, and I kinda feel like much of my testimony of "latter-day prophets" was based on seeing him and his strength as a prophet. I really have a testimony that he was called of God to lead us in these days. I remember seeing him at a Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert when James and I were living in Utah the year before we got married. We saw Sister Hinkley and some of their grandchildren sitting near the front, and the everyone started to stand as the Prophet of the Lord came in to sit with hi wife. We saw Sister Hinkley chiding her husband for "ruining their 'girls night out.'" What a cute couple. I'm glad that he's able to be with her again, but I shall miss him as our leader.

Although as a child I often looked forward to hearing President Monson's Conference talks, it was more because he told good stories than anything concerning his leadership abilities. Of course, now that I begin to reflect further back, I recall not feeling very confident in President Hinkley's leadership abilities back in the days of President Benson (President Hunter's time as prophet was too short for much reflection), but I soon learned to love and follow him. Perhaps the same shall be the case for President Monson. The Lord has invited us to ask for confirmation of things such as this, and I have plenty of time before he gets called in April to do just that.

Talk to me!

2008-01-09T18:55:00.001-08:00

Maybe I'm obsessing more about these braces than I should, but I swear they make me more approachable. It's like the little metal brackets are shouting "I'm friendly! Talk to me!" or something. Yesterday at clinicals, I got the "friendly elevator conversation" every time I got on, and this evening when James and I were waiting to pick up a pizza, this fellow started chatting it up with me about everything and nothing. Now, I know Oregonians are friendly folk, and it's not like this is the first time anyone has ever started up a friendly conversation, but the frequency of occurance has increased in the last week to the point that even James thought it was a bit uncanny.

Not that it's a bad thing. Just inexplicable. Perhaps I naturally have an aloof expression (a friend that I had in high school once told me that she thought I was such a snob in junior high when I was actually just mind-numbingly shy) and the braces tone it down to friendly face. In any case, I'll take it. At least I don't look like I'm 14, like one of the nurses on my clinical floor with braces does, and she's 29. Thus, I get approached, but I still get the respect I deserve, which, for a nursing student, isn't much, but again, I'll take what I can get.

Braces

2008-01-03T22:16:00.000-08:00

Today was the day.

James insists that I look cute with braces, but I know it will look even better when all the brackets are in a line. Now they are each centered on their individual teeth, but the teeth themselves are all over the place (thus, the "need" for braces). It took 2 1/2 hours to apply the brackets, place the top wire, have Bart (Dr. Carter to everyone else) change his mind and take off the top wire, apple two "buttons" (brackets on the inside of the teeth) and attach "chains" (chain-shaped rubber bands) inside and out on both sides of the top and outside on both sides of the bottom, remove one side on the bottom (to straighten my midline, or something), place a wire on the bottom, explain how to brush, floss, and manage mouth irritations, and send me on my way. Whew!

I got out of the ortho office and had to put on some make-up, I felt so "Ugly Betty" (the TV show, not my fabulous mommers). Then, I called Mark, my hair stylist, on the drive back to Portland (talking on my cell phone on the highway, but it was obviously an emergency!) for an afternoon appointment. The final result (taken on my webcam, so please forgive the poor resolution):

I'll admit, I'm getting used to the look. Maybe next time, I'll get royal blue bands to match my nursing school scrubs.

Little White Lie

2008-01-01T22:43:00.000-08:00

So our next-door neighbors and long-time friends have started this photography business. They took some family pics of James's family over Thanksgiving (and I have yet to post pics of that), and managed to make it look like almost everyone was having a good time. A few weeks ago, they asked James and myself if we would mind modeling some wedding shots to add to their portfolio before Wedding Season is upon us. Since I still fit into my dress, and James his suit, we were game.

It was bitter cold on New Year's Day, but clear, and our friends bought us hot drinks from Starbucks to sip between shots. They promised us copies of the shoot, so I'll finally get to have those pictures of James and me at the reflecting pool outside the Portland Temple, as it was raining on our wedding day and our photographer was an amateur friend-of-a-friend, working on a budget. True, my hair is shorter and styled differently, and James's hair is longer and he has a beard, but it will just serve to weird our kids out in the years to come. At least I got to wear my wedding dress more than once, even if I wasn't a "blushing bride" the second time around. I gotta admit, we're SUCH a cute couple!

Credit where credit is due: http://reversedlensphotography.com/

After the shoot, we got home to see that Little Boy New Year had come to our house. This is apparently a Ritzman tradition, in which Little Boy New Year comes in the night between the years and leaves small gifts for the family. His speciality is filling in the gaps that Santa apparently overlooked, but in the event that Santa was especially thoughtful in any given year, LBNY brings a "bonus" gift. This can either compliment Santa's gift or help you with any resolutions you've made for the coming year, like the calendar I got to track how often I go to the gym. My other resolution was to quit teasing James about having babies until I was serious about it and out of school, so Little Boy New Year must have had a mischevious moment to get me a Baby calendar. That little rascal...

White Christmas!!

2007-12-25T18:22:00.000-08:00

For years, I've lived in such a climate that the chances of seeing snow fall on Christmas Day are almost impossible. I recall one year that it snowed in Texas in mid December, but had all melted by the 25th. Last year it snowed right after the new year (on the second day of school, in fact, which considerably increased my new school anxiety), but in all my memory, I cannot ever recall seeing snow on the ground, much less fall from the sky, on Christmas.

It snowed today.

Squee! We woke up relatively later than usual to full stockings and gifts huddling happily around the base of our diminutive tree. James loves surprises and was happy with the things I got him. I, who dislike surprises and gave James a list weeks ago, was pleasantly surprised to be pleasantly surprised by a few gifts that he took a gamble in getting me without consulting me first. :) And Hamlet was ecstatic with his live catnip plant but has yet to figure out that the birdfeeder on the back porch was a gift to amuse him when the birds find it (he can't get out, so the birds are safe).

I had just finished hanging the birdfeeder and James was working on installing our new 42" plasma TV (a combination new job/Christmas gift to ourselves) when we looked out the window and saw big white snowflakes falling from the sky. It was a White Christmas! Not only did it snow, but it stuck to the ground on our back porch and covered our car! But the best miracle is that is stopped short of making the roads hazardous to drive, so we could go see a movie, which happened in the form of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Although not necessarily an uplifting Christmas movie by any stretch of the imagination, it was a fabulous specimen of the artistic cinema, and Johnny Depp is a fabulous as ever.

So we left the theater with our minds turned to food, but all of our tried-and-true restaurants between the theater and home were closed for the holiday (the nerve!). So we took a gamble and went to a Thai place that we had often passed on our way to another Thai place (that mailed out coupons on occasion, but was closed). Thai Rose turned out to be a wonderful place, with clean bathrooms and good, affordable food, a winning combination.

Now if only the Blazers win against Seattle, this Christmas will be perfect.
Well, perfect for James. It's already perfect for me.

Baking Madness

2007-12-24T22:00:00.000-08:00

So, each year since James and I have been together (except for the year we flew to Texas for Christmas) we've made something edible and yummy for Christmas presents. My theory is that if a gift is edible, it doesn't obligate the reciever to reciprocate, but is also adequate as a return gift in the event that the reciever does indeed present a gift. Safe. The year we were engaged, we made fudge. We had to stick to the marshmallow cream type, because the one attempt I made at the authentic version ended up more like thick frosting than anything solid. Last year it was truffles. Except for a minor meltdown when I spilled chocolate all over the kitchen rug, it was a success.

This year was bread. I waited until after our Class Cookie Party and made lemon-cranberry-walnut bread, pumpkin-gingerbread, eggnog bread, apple-cinnamon-oat bread, and lemon-poppyseed tea bread in mini loaves for gifts to family and friends, as well as two loaves of German stollen bread (like fruitcake) for Christmas Eve breakfast. We turned one of the loaves (the one I subsitituted the fruitcake mixture for raisins, cranberries and walnuts) into yummy bread pudding for Christmas morning breakfast.

But the piece de resistance was the Buche de Noel, a chocolate jellyroll frosted to resemble a Yule Log, complete with rosemary garnish and merengue mushrooms. I was so impressed with myself that I had James ask our photography-savvy neighbor Will over to take some "food porn" pictures of it, posted below. We took the cake to my parent's Christmas Eve gathering, and I felt appropriately lauded on my pastry chef aptitude. And it tasted good, too! A pound of butter in the frosting alone will do that, in my experience.

So I think I'm baked out for the year. No more pastry work until 2008.

Busy season!

2007-12-17T09:49:00.000-08:00

On spacers:

So I'm getting braces in the near future to complete the orthodontia my parents started when I was in gradeschool. Because of the almost-twenty-year hiatus, I get to have four teeth pulled before the application of the hardware, but more on that later. The event that has eclipsed my entire weekend has been the SPACERS that I was instructed to put between my teeth prior to getting other teeth pulled. For those of you fortunate enough to be happy with the teeth you grew naturally, I shall explain. Spacers (at least my generation of spacers, James had a different kind as a kid) are llittle plastic donuts that sit between your molars and your molar and pre-molar, to make room for the caps that will later serve as anchors for the braces. They seem so small, but have managed to become a source of almost-invisible torture for the last three days. It hurts to chew, it hurts to sit and hold my teeth slightly apart, it hurts to press my teeth together (although I think I'm clenching at night due to the new sensation), and I find myself relying on carefully doled out half tablets of Vicodin left over from a dimly remembered back spasm. I keep thinking to myself, "this, too, shall pass...probably about the time I get four teeth pulled out of my head and really have an excuse for Vicodin...and then I get braces put on and tightened every 4-6 weeks...well, at least I'll lose some weight since I can only eat applesauce painlessly, which is fat free..." And I exaggerate. I can also eat ice cream and pancakes painlessly, which are not fat free. And due to the super-busy social nature of this last weekend, I have suffered the pain of firmer foods for the gustatory pleasure they impart. Viva la Vicodin!

Speaking of the busy weekend...

This is the first December that James hasn't worked at the hotel, and therefore the first December that he has weekends off. So of course, we've managed to fill every second of every day that he has off this Christmas Season with stuff to do. This last weekend was the epitome of busy Christmas weekends:

Birthday Party #1:
We started by planning and coordinating a surprise 60th birthday party for Dad on Friday night. We all met at the Italian restaurant near their house, complete with balloons and a joint gift of a fancy saw/drill that Dustin claims is "the best" from all of the local kids (didn't have time or energy to pull the Texas kids in on the deal). Dad was delighted, especially when the roaming accordian player (oh yes, that kind of Italian restaurant!) played him Happy Birthday in English and Italian, as well as several other Italian songs and The Beatles "When I'm Sixty-Four." Mom fed Oscar a whole scoop of ice cream and he went ape-crazy with the sugar high.

Shopping, shopping, shopping:
Saturday morning, James cleaned the house while I did some errands, including getting the oil changed in the car and the final stuff for our Sunday School Christmas Cookie Party (more on that later). I had just enough time to run downtown to Powell's book store (Non-Portlanders: a must-see when you visit, wonderful place) to get an EKG textbook for next term and mom's Christmas present (tsk-tsk, no peeking!), but underestimated the meter time, so I had to run to get to my car before the approaching meter-man got there (I could see him coming!). And I tripped and did a face plant right there on the sidewalk. I also scraped the corners of my two books, which is sad because they don't heal as well as I do. But I didn't get a parking ticket!!

Christmas Party #1:
So we decided to throw an end-of-the-year Cookie Party for our 5-6 year-old Sunday School kids, since they'll be getting a new teacher next year, and we'll be getting new kids (they look so young!). All five showed up and good-natured chaos ensued. With myself at the rolling-pin-helm, we rolled out the sugar cookie dough, cut shapes, put slightly misshapen/finger-smudged cookies on trays and baked them. Then out came the frosting, in seven toothpaste-tube-like vessels, and the real fun began. I manned the kitchen at this point, keeping up the blank cookie demand, and James helped direct the artistic side at the table. Soon everyone had enough cookies to share with their family, after eating some on the way. Since we still had 45 minutes of our two hour window before parents came back, we pulled out the glitter and glue sticks and make Christmas Cards and a big glitter mess, but it was fun. We rounded off the party with more cookies for some and a game of Uno for others. They're great kids, and James and I will miss having them in our class.

Birthday Party #2:
We got the glitter and cookie crumbs vacuumed up. This was the last straw for poor Hamlet, who had already put up with a morning vacuuming pre-party and then five curious children, and we had to spend several minutes reassuring him that the house was once more safe for kitty-kind. After a short rest, we made our way over to Aubrey's house for Oscar's 1st birthday party. We came, we ate, we sang, and we left. It was a short jaunt to show familial support and love, but we reallllllly wanted to see the Christmas Revels, which James's friend Nathan was assistant director of this year.

Christmas Performance #2 (after last weekend's Coats concert)
So we dashed downtown and met Nathan outside the buiding. He directed us to the floor manager ("Attacus, in the banana-yellow jacket") who scored us primo seats on the aisle, row G. Apparently, the Christmas Revels is an organized production put on in several cities across the country, which revives the music and Christmas/Winter Solstice tratitions of the Middle Ages. Just like last year, when Nathan was in a starring role, the performance was wonderful. There was singing, audience participation and singing, beautiful dancing, and a plot, which is apparently unique to Portland's Christmas Revels. We got to sing along to a few songs, including one famililar song, the 12 Days of Christmas, in which James was invited to act out the role of "Seven Swans a Swimming." We went home exhausted, but filled with Christmas cheer.

Christmas Party #2:
Sunday morning dawned and we relaxed for the first half of the day, watching the Steelers lose to the Jacksonville Jaguars (much to James's dismay), and planning our lesson for Sunday School (The Golden Rule). Then we got dressed up and made an appearance at James's work Christmas Party. I got to meet his boss, his boss's boss, and their wives, as well as some of his coworkers and eat some scrumptious food (I even braved the crunchy chips because the dip was so tasty). We dashed out before people started getting drunk (now I'll never know) to make it to church on time. The lesson was a success, and we went home to change for...

Birthday Party #3:
yet another family gathering, this time the re-scheduled celebration of Jared's graduation/birthday (he had the flu for the original time slot). There was plenty of fruit and cheescake to satisfy my aching teeth (and aching belly), and lots of good conversation and socialization. Jared felt very celebrated. James and I got him a Bar Mitzvah card (when else will we ever be able to give one of those?) and mom's card sand "Kung Fu Fighting," much to Oscar's fascination.

After a weekend like that, I have to admit that I love Christmas time, but I can really only hadle it once a year!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

2007-12-12T10:10:00.000-08:00

So I've been a Grinch this year. Every commercial I saw, every window advertisement, and every radio blip about "get him/her the Perfect Gift this Holiday Season..." sent me off on a muttering tirade about greedy, over-commercialized, consumer whores, trade deficit, crap from China, etc, etc, etc.

I was getting cranky.

Then James took me Christmas tree shopping. We were planning on repeating our cone-shaped rosemary bush from last year (which sadly died before we got it out to the back porch, but we still left the withered corpse out there until late spring), but then we saw some 3-4' nobles that were oh so cute, cheaper, and smelled like Christmas! I got all Christmas-giddy, and now we have a little mini-tree in our front room. Like I told James after we decorated our diminuitive tree,

Now it feels like Christmas!

Then, last week, James treated me to one of my presents early, in the form of a Christmas Coats concert!!! The Coats are a local (Seattle) a cappela band, and I am oh so fond of them (www.thecoats.net), so I was practially gushing when James surprised me by kidnapping me (he had to warn me so I could study around the interruption) down to Salem for the concert. They always put on such a great show, and I got their latest Christmas album to remember it. As I sat gushing in my seat (row L), I told James

Now it feels like Christmas!

So after finals are done (this week!), we're hosting our Primary class in a cookie party to celebrate, since many of them will be moving on to the next age group. We'll decorate sugar cookies, play games, and listen to Christmas tunes. Ah what fun! More on that after the event, but

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

James's Post

2007-11-28T08:27:00.000-08:00

Apostrophes have often been a mystery to me. I've been married to James for two and a half years now, and I just learned where to put the apostrophe when something belongs to him, with a little help from Jack Lynch. He has a pretty helpful website at http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/a.html#apostrophe.

So here's what I learned about James and apostrophes:

...There's also the opposite case: when a singular noun ends in s. That's a little trickier. Most style guides prefer s's: James's house. Plain old s-apostrophe (as in James' house) is common in journalism, but most other publishers prefer James's. It's a matter of house style... [Entry revised 14 Sept. 2004, with a tiny correction on 21 Oct. 2004; revised again 12 Jan. 2005.]

And in the interest of the APA:
Lynch, J. (May 9, 2007). Apostrophe. In Guide to grammar and style. Retrieved November 28, 2007, from http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/a.html#apostrophe.

So, because James's mother is an English teacher, I shall change my wicked ways and give him the seemingly superfluous "s" when things are his. We both try very hard to please our mother-in-laws.

The rest of the trip

2007-11-25T09:38:00.000-08:00

So, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we hired some friends to shoot our family. Our long-time friends just started a photography business and my father-in-law paid them to take pictures of us all. In spite of some logistical and some motivational hiccups, we did manage to get all Lee Ritzman descendents in the same place at the same time, many of them actually smiling. I'll post some pictures when our photographer friends are done editing them.

Afterwards, anyone not completely sick of Family Time were treated to a fun mini-train ride and lunch at a local Mexican place by the family patriarch.

We decided to stay with Matt and Julie for our last night in the San Francisco area, so we could hang out with them and their two cool kids, Kallan and Josie. We played Settlers of Cattan, ate Thai food, and Kallan and I took pictures with the camera on my laptop, making full use of the Effects features.

Franksgiving

2007-11-23T21:00:00.000-08:00

So the Ritzman family has long since given up on laying claim to traditional holidays for family gatherings, capitulating to the more established and structured families of their children’s spouses. For the last two years, we have driven down to San Francisco to celebrate Thanksgiving on Friday, since everyone already had plans with their in-laws for The Day. After two years, we figure we can call it an official tradition, meriting a name and an assumption that it will happen next year. Thus was born Franksgiving.

We left Portland before the crack of dawn (which happens later and later these days, so it's not too surprising that we beat it) and met James' parents in Albany, where we piled into the back of their minivan with James' brother Mark and several large Christmas presents for the grandkids. The drive down was fairly uneventful except for a near death experience involving an SUV and a semi-truck, and we arrived in San Francisco before sunset.

A side note: I refer to all places around the San Francisco Bay Area as "San Francisco" because I honestly have no idea where I am most of the time I am down there.

Thanksgiving dinner consisted of a potato bar at James' sister Emilyann's house, after playing with her three highly energetic children, which made a wonderful dinner for us road-weary travelers.

We stayed at a hotel that night, which was n-i-c-e. Visiting family is all well and good, but sometimes you just need a place (possibly one with an in-room spa) that you can call your own space to feel like you've actually had "a vacation." We still felt this way when the fire alarm woke us all up at 8am and we had to evacuate the building. It's a good thing I wasn't wearing bright orange "doctor operation" pajamas, or the whole situation might have been embarrassing. Ok, maybe I was. At least it was warm enough for a November morning.

Since Franksgiving Feast wasn't to happen until 4pm, and some indiscreet smoker decided that we were waking up at 8am, we decided to go visit the Winchester Mystery House down the road a bit. It's a mansion built by Sara Winchester, the heir to the Winchester rifle fortune, who built this crazy house to appease the spirits of those killed by the rifle of her husband's family. Interesting house, but the most bizarre thing there must have been our tour guide. A rather flamboyant man in his fifties/sixties from Boston, he just thought he was hi-larious. We thought he was hilarious, too, but not because of his obscure jokes. James bought me two pairs of earrings as souvenirs, since I didn't have anything to that point to remind me of our many excursions to San Francisco.

We came by Emilyann's house early in the afternoon and set up the tables with festive paper plates and our fabulous centerpieces (James and I made them). Then we got to play with the kids and in-laws. James helped our nephew NayNay and niece Kallan make foam princess castles and gingerbread houses (*sigh* respectively) from kits that Emilyann got at Michaels. Julie, Mark and I played Settlers of Catan, with Tycho helping Julie roll the dice and acting as banker. We played again the next night with Matt, Julie, James and myself, and we think we like it enough to get it for our collection of rarely-used board games taking up space in our closet.

Then we feasted. All the traditional players were there, including the Ritzman traditional cranberry fluff and about six different kinds of rolls. Also, there was a fabulous dish of baked root vegetables, including BEETS and PARSNIPS! Fabulous. the kids sat at the long table with the adults and all had a good time. We finished our game of Settlers over pumpkin pie and ice cream, cleaned up, and went back to our hotel for another night of "our own space" luxury.

No-More-Guilt Quilt

2007-11-14T15:40:00.000-08:00

So my mother-in-law has been quilting since James can remember. She goes to conventions, teaches classes, and fills their house with quilts in various stages of completion. Some have themes, some have hidden pictures or puzzles, some are simple while others are busy and full of life. James has a quilt that his mother made him as a boy with applique trains, cars, planes and other boy-centric machines that now graces our front room for cold weather. It's a twin size, which is perfect for curling up in front of the TV. In fact, all of the quilts James' mother made for him up to his marriage to me were twin sized. She called them Guilt Quilts, meant to encourage single occupancy until she made the Wedding Quilt. With four children established in happy, functional marriages (and one to go) it must be working on some level.

New skills, new stuff

2007-11-12T18:02:00.000-08:00

Today was my third day of Med-Surg clinicals. Through a fluke of my planned patient going into the ICU last night, I was assigned the same patient that I had last week, meaning that I already knew a lot about her. My preceptor nurse was great, allowing me to hang IV meds and flush lines on some of her other patients. I also got to give my patient a Sub-Q (subcutaneous) injection and change her IV line to a saline lock. I also got to watch a COLONOSCOPY! So cool to watch, and the endoscopy nurse was great about explaining her job both before and during the procedure.

Nursing students get excited about the strangest things.

We went down to Newport last weekend to see James' parents and watch a play put on by the local theater group. James' father is pretty involved in the group and designed most of the set for this play, "Sweet Charity." It was enjoyable and they had a live orchestra, which put it head and shoulders above their rendition of "The Music Man." One of the co-directors is a professional dancer, so the dance scenes were fantastic.

Also on this trip, James and I were presented with our Wedding Quilt (2 1/2 years after the actual ceremony) by James' wizard seamstress of a mother. It's beautiful in blues and a swirl/leaf pattern, and it matches our bedside tables and dresser beautifully.

We also got two gifts from James' uncle, both souveniers from his (Uncle Vern's) mission in Brazil in the 1960s, delivered via James' parents. The first is a gorgeous painting of Brazil, and the second is a fancy nut bowl. Maybe we'll fill it with...Brazil nuts.

Or maybe not, as I'm not too fond of them. :)

Gainfully Employed

2007-11-06T10:43:00.000-08:00

The long version:
So James has been working at this posh hotel in downtown Portland since a few weeks after we got married (in Spring 2005). He quickly was promoted from Personal Concierge to Front Desk Supervisor and, although the tips and fringe benefits are great (we've eaten at some fancy restaurants that we never would have been able to afford without the complimentary gift certificates), he has pretty much hated his job for about two years now. He applied for some other job, mostly in professional office settings, but with most of his job history reading "hotel and mission to Brazil," he didn't get any nibbles. Great for the self esteem and continuing to work at the hotel just kept the punches coming.

Fast forward to Summer 2007. He read about a company that needed a Spanish or Portuguese speaker for an international manufacturing company. Since he's been studying International Studies, Business and Economics for the last three years, and would just pee his pants to have this job, he put in his application. They interviewed him, were impressed, made good noises, and never called back. He called them periodically throughout the next month, and they gave him something that to me looked a lot like The Run Around. In the end, they told him that the position had been eliminated, but "if we get anything else, we'll call you." Yeah, right.

At the same time as all this is going on, a Sales position opens up at the hotel. Thinking to at least advance in the industry where he has experience, James puts his name in for the job. They interview, seem impressed, sound promising, and hire externally. Their reasoning? "James, you have so much potential for great things that we know you'll probably leave us eventually for bigger and better things anyway. So we're hiring someone who will stick around." Sigh.

Ok, now fast forward to October, 2007. The hotel finally recognizes James's great work ethic and determination and offer him a promotion, titled "Facilities Coordinator." The pay isn't much greater, but the experience will open doors to greater things, so he starts to get excited about it. They want an answer by Monday.

Thursday evening, he gets an email from . . . guess who? The international company! They have an urgent to fill position, at almost twice his current salary, with an overwhelming benefit package, and they want HIM!

Hmm . . . tough decision. His boss at the hotel was disappointed, but says if the affordable health benefits, travel to Europe and South America, tuition reimbursement, and business casual atmosphere ever get stifling or blase, he always has a place at the hotel.

James and Hamlet

2007-11-02T19:47:00.000-07:00

James is sitting on the blue chair, trying to surf the internet. He checks his email, looks up recent sports scores, maybe a little Wikiwandering. Hamlet is stalking around the chair, looking for the moment to usurp the laptop and cuddle in James's lap. It's impossible to have a large Maine Coon in your lap at the same time as a laptop, especially one with a big, bushy tail that just wants to wave distractingly in front of your screen (perched precariously on your knees). And so, in a way that makes me think James will be a great dad one day, when Hamlet approaches him in the chair, he puts down the laptop and lets the cat blissfully knead his stomach. What a guy.

Hamlet is a kneader. If given the chance, he'll knead your stomach until it's numb, always with a slightly vacuous expression on his little face. He goes into his kneading trance and won't meet your eyes. He was de-clawed by his previous owners (we got him from a shelter), and we think this may have something to do with the kneading fetish.