Nights of the Living Dead

Since Christmas we've been fighting off the plague. It's some sort of vile (non-flu) respiratory virus. It hit me first. On Christmas afternoon, to be exact.

The rest of my family fell like dominos. Baby that night, Hubby the following evening. I was even generous enough to share a touch of it with my sister and her hubby.

This plague, in addition to causing difficulty breathing, has the bonus of life-force sucking fevers that have left me & the hubby shuffling around the house like the un-dead.

We're pale, pasty, wheezing and shuffling. Somebody cast us in a zombie flick, STAT!

Merry Christmas!

Crafty Christmas

I recently received a decent sized stack of fabric from a friend's mother. There was some cute corduroy and knit fabrics. So I searched around the internet and found some cute, free patterns for kids clothes.

Over the course of the the last 2 weeks I've made things for my daughter for Christmas. I also made a cute little dress for my friend's 2 year old's birthday.

Since my daughter is too young this Christmas to know or care what she's getting, I can post a picture or 2 of my handiwork. :D

Little Dress

Top and pants

This set is my favorite. :)

Thankful

The last almost 2 years have been...interesting. In February of 2012 I lost the job I had for nearly 5 years, and was unemployed for 8 months. The same week I found out that my first round of unemployment benefits had run out I found out I was pregnant. Since having my daughter we've basically lived paycheck-to-paycheck. There was even a month where we had to rely on the charity of family in order to keep food on the table.

In spite of the roller coaster ride life has taken us on lately, I'm very thankful for so many things. I am thankful that we have a roof over our heads still. I am thankful that we have paid off, reliable transportation. I am thankful that we've never had to go hungry, or be too cold in the winter or too hot in the summer. I am thankful for having a healthy, uncomplicated pregnancy, a healthy, uncomplicated labor & delivery and a happy, healthy baby girl. I am thankful that even though things have been tight, and we don't have money for the things we want, we have always had the things we NEED. I am thankful for having the best, most wonderful bunch of family and friends a person could wish for.

50 Years

This Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of one of my favorite bits of Sci-Fi. For those not as geeky as I, it's the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. And because of Comcast taking away my BBC America On Demand and booking a photo shoot on Monday, I can't watch the 50th Anniversary special. :(

A few weeks ago I saw a post on Google+ that had a Doctor Who alphabet. I liked the idea, but the presentation left something to be desired. All the letters were associated with words that came from the newer series, and it was just words. So, after spending probably WAY too much time on it, I made my own and made a PDF booklet of it. :D

So for those who are interested, here it is! Google Drive does mad posterization to the images, unfortunately, but you can get the idea of what I was going for, without having to download the nearly 1 GB file that I originally created.

"Those People"

I haven't posted in a while. For a couple reasons.

1) Life happened. I got busy doing other things, and neglected to write posts or ideas for posts down.

2) I had this post typed up, but since I know it's got stuff in here that will make some people I know mad, I let it sit, so I could look back over it and make sure that what I typed 2 months ago is really, truly what (and how) I wanted to say. I'm pretty sure it is, soooo....here goes.




There is something that drives me crazy. Every group of people, no matter the ideology, always seem to have another group that they love to hate. “Those people” who follow the wrong religion, believe in creation, believe in evolution, listen to the wrong music, drive the wrong brand of car, love the wrong type of person.

People having an opinion on a subject is not what bothers me. It is the human tendency to reduce groups with different ideologies into an amorphous blob of “those people.” Turning other living, breathing, hoping, dreaming, struggling human beings into a faceless entity that hate can be lobbed at. It is this tendency of the human race to de-humanize others that has helped lead to so many conflicts and so much bloodshed in the world. (the other tendency, of course, being greed)

I come from a conservative, Protestant Christian background. A group that has very vocal members saying that the “liberal media” is trying to demonize us. Meanwhile, those very vocal members turn around and demonize (roughly in this order) 1) Gays 2) Muslims 3) Liberals and Liberal media 4) Other Christian denominations 5) Other religions e.g. Sikhs, Buddhists, Spiritualists.

The first group, gays, are demonized because they are “sinners and destroying the sanctity of marriage.” First off, if you believe your Bible enough to believe that a homosexual lifestyle is not God's ideal, then you should realize that you, yourself are also most likely not living up to God's ideal and that it's not your job to point fingers and condemn. In God's eyes, all sin is sin. Gossiping and slander is as big a sin in God's eyes as gunning someone down for the thrill of it. Leave the judging to God and follow the example of Jesus. Love. Without prejudice, without ulterior motive. You'd be surprised at the change it makes in your life and the lives around you.

Second, the “sanctity” of marriage was pretty much destroyed well before there was a movement to allow men to marry men and women to marry women. Even in “Christian” circles, the divorce rate in industrialized countries hovers around 50%. According to a recent study by the Barna Group, 29% of Baptist marriages end in divorce. That is the highest rate among all religious groups. The biggest irony of the “sanctity of Marriage” debate is that the loudest, most powerful voices bemoaning the the destruction of the sanctity of marriage are politicians who have married, cheated, divorced, re-married, cheated, divorced ad nauseum.

The second group that evangelicals love to hate are Muslims. Based on fear-mongering news sources and unsubstantiated Facebook and e-mail forwards, too many people believe that all Muslims want to kill all non-Muslims and basically watch the world burn. An equivalent example for Protestant Christians would be to have all the rest of the world believe that we all believe like the Westboro Baptist Church hate mongers. It's a ridiculous over-generalization! Every group has a loud-mouthed nut-job minority that makes normal majority in the group look bad. It is absolutely no different for Muslims.

The third group, Liberals and the media, only talks bad about so-called Christians because we have a tendency to make ourselves easy targets through being thoughtless, hypocritical and overall poor examples of the Man who's name we use to describe ourselves. If we all lived an above-board life, modeled after the life of Christ, the media wouldn't have gripes about us. Some Liberal causes would be completely unnecessary if God's people had, through the ages, done exactly as He instructed. If we had been good stewards of this planet, there wouldn't be a need for a Green initiative, nor fear of global warming. If we had been good citizens and neighbors, there would be no need for welfare or health care reform.

The fourth group, other Christian denominations, is counterintuitive to what Christianity should be. Instead of actually following Jesus, we like to sit back and say “They're doing it wrong. They're believing wrong. We've got it right, but we'll just sit here and point fingers instead of doing the work Jesus tasked us with.” It's lazy, petty, and turns people away from Christianity. How can we expect non-Christians to accord us any respect, if we can't even respect our brothers and sisters in Christ?

The last group, other religious groups, is the saddest. Christians are commanded to tell the world what we believe and why. But we tend to be so wrapped up in having it “right” that we look down on other religious groups for having it “wrong”, neglecting the things we have in common, the things that they're getting right, and the things we're getting wrong.

I read another blog post recently that boiled all of what I said down to this. Too many Christians are “unless” Christians. The type of Christian who, through either words or actions, says to the rest of the world; “I'm a Christian, unless you dress in a way I deem wrong, believe in a way I deem wrong, live or love in a way I deem wrong.” As Christians, the way we live our lives shouldn't come with the clause of “unless.” Like Jesus, we should love the saints AND the sinners. The house-wives AND the prostitutes. The preachers AND the convicts. The gays, the Muslims, the Liberals, the hippies, the addicts, the tree-huggers, the victims, the winners, the losers, the happy, the sad, the apathetic, and the just pathetic. Every. Single. Person. on this planet is LOVED, beyond comprehension, by God. So maybe we should try a little harder to love everyone, not just the people who are like us.

Immune

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a rather weak stomach. It's the reason I ultimately decided not to go into nursing. And it was definitely a factor in never wanting kids. An old pastor joked that I was not a fan of the “5 P's”; poop, pee, puke, puss and phlegm. And that is so very true, with one exception.

My daughter. I have had diapers explode in my lap, have been peed on, lost count of the times I've been spit up on, and just last week, was, once again, a human Kleenex. Not a gag, not a wretch. I am, thus far, immune to the bodily functions of my baby.

I always thought people who told me that when I had my own kid I'd be just fine with all this stuff were liars. I thought there was no way that I would be able to handle the messes associated with a baby. I'm not sure how it works, but it's true. The smells, messes etc. just don't faze me. Everything else that makes me nauseous still does though. Go figure.

Adventures in DIY

In my post-baby quest to live a more frugal, healthful life, I have become a bit of a Pinterest junky. I have pinned & tried several different DIY cleaning and household products. Some have been great successes (laundry detergent), others, miserable failures (dish soap).

I've made 2 different batches of laundry detergent, but the one I prefer is the one I made out of a bar of Ivory soap, 1 cup borax, 1 cup washing soda, 1 cup of OxiClean and a few drops of lavender essential oil. It gets clothes nice and clean with just a tablespoon of detergent per load, and I don't have to worry about using it on the baby's clothes. I put some vinegar in my Downy ball to clear any remaining soap residue off the clothes before I dry them, and they consistently end up nice, clean and soft.

The dish soap was a complete and utter disaster. The washing soda spilled out of the box and overflowed the measuring cup into the pan I was dissolving the bar soap in. The final product was a congealed, lumpy white mess that didn't foam at all, and left a weird white film on the dishes. We quickly returned to using Dawn!

I made a batch of homemade hair spray. It was SUPER simple to make, and incredibly cheap. All it took was 1 cup of hot water, 1.5 tablespoons of sugar and a few drops of essential oil for a pleasant scent. It completely filled my recently emptied hair spray bottle and only took about 5 minutes to make.

And it works AWESOME! The hold is just as good, if not a little better, than the store bought stuff I just finished using.

Other DIY projects I've tried are bug spray and homemade shampoo/conditioner. The DIY bug spray also seems to work well. The only problem I have is remembering to apply it! I don't know yet how the shampoo/conditioner work yet. I'm still finishing up the last little bit of old product. I am still debating on whether to make DIY deodorant and shaving cream...

Word of the Day - Part 4

Absquatulate - To leave hurriedly, suddenly, or secretly.

Why Art is Important

In case there was any confusion in my last post about what the subject was, it was NOT about trying to make nudity socially acceptable. It was about art, and that art, even art depicting nudity, is important to society and shouldn't be censored just because some people are too cowardly to explain things to their kids.

Art is important, in all it's forms. Whether it is painting, sculpture, photography, quilting, music or any other type of art, it is important. Art, in it's various forms, can teach, can inspire, can cause controversy, lead to discussion, depict reality, offer escapism, invigorate, relax.

Art, in all the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, speaks to us in ways that words often can't.

Of Course You Realize, This Means WAR! (slightly NSFW)

There's a war a-brewin' in suburban Kansas City. Depending on who you ask, determines what the war is about. According to the American Family Association of Kansas and Missouri it is a war on family values and decency. According to a contributor to the Kansas City Star it's a war on artistic expression and free speech.

The cause for this brouhaha? A statue in a botanical garden. This statue, to be precise. 

There are signs warning parents of statues “depicting the human form” in the garden, but that's apparently not good enough for the AFA.

According to the artist, Yu Chang, the statue “symbolizes our loss of identity when we only take pictures of bits and pieces for people to see.” Basically, a symbol of the human tendency to dehumanize others and make judgements based on incomplete information. All this fuss seems to prove the point the artist was trying to make!

The AFA is trying to claim that the statue is in violation of Kansas anti-obscenity laws and are trying to get signatures on a petition to take to court to get the statue removed. The same thing happened a while back, and failed, so I'm not sure what they are trying to accomplish by doing the exact thing again, considering the court threw the suit out. I made a cursory review of Kansas' anti-obscenity law, and as far as I can see, there is no violation.

All of this makes me wonder, what makes this statue so much more obscene than, say, that super famous statue of David? You know, the one with his teeny little manhood hanging out. Is it because there is *gasp* a nipple? Or is it because it's “modern” art instead of “classical” or “Renaissance” art?

I have to conclude that the AFA group has not spent very much time outside of whatever little sheltered circle they call home. The Kansas City metro area has many statues and fountains that are just as, if not more so, “risque” than the one in the botanical garden. On the Plaza alone, in plain view of the public, with no signs warning parents, there are multiple fountains and statues depicting various states of nudity. 

There is the Pomona fountain, which happens to be on a corner at an intersection, with her boobs & butt hanging out. There's the fountain by Starbucks with a frog spitting water on to a little naked boy's crotch. And those are just two of the fountains on the Plaza with nudity. Is that some how less offensive to the AFA, or do they not care because it's in Missouri?

And then, of course, there's the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, a place where children go on field trips, that is packed to the gills with nudity! 

There is this

on the outside of the building.

This statue

is on prominent display in middle of the museum. 

An entire exhibit is dedicated to sketches of nude figures with no parental guidance suggested. 

And, let us not forget, the tribal fertility statues or the Roman and the Renaissance nudes.

Pretty much since the beginning of art, the human form, in all it's glory and imperfection, has been depicted in various mediums. I find it depressing that so many people in the Midwest, instead of appreciating art, and the beauty and variety of humanity that it can depict, automatically jump to the “Sex, porn, indecent and obscene” mindset when they see a sculpted boob.

Weirdness

Anybody who knows me well can corroborate this. I am weird. Fortunately for my own sanity, I have embraced my weirdness.

Here are a few of the weirder aspects of me...

• I am slightly OCD. I get twitchy when pictures hang crooked, or papers are not squared up before they are stapled. However, I am kind of a slob when it comes to house keeping. And have been since WAY before baby. So all the pictures in my house are perfectly straight, but there are dirty dishes in need of washing and more than a little cat hair rolling around like errant tumbleweeds. 

• I think snakes are cool and spiders (excluding Brown Recluse and Black Widow) are cute. However, a june bug crawling or landing on me will send me into hysterics. I'm not a whole lot better about grasshoppers... 

• I love hummus, but despise chick peas....

• I can quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail and The Princess Bride all day long, but have to stop and think before I can give my birth date or phone number 

• I love shopping at thrift stores and flea markets, but absolutely despise shopping at the mall. Seriously hate it. I had a panic attack the last time I tried to shop at a mall. 

• I adore the smell of coffee but dislike the taste. Nothing disappoints me more than thinking I'm going to eat something chocolate flavored and then bite into it and find out it's mocha flavored. 

Bird is the Word

The other day I got crapped on by a bird. It was weird and bright green and I had drive with it on my arm a ways before I could wash it off because there were no napkins in the car. The end.

P.S. In atonement for this short, disgusting post, here's a YouTube video.

Word of the Day - Part 3

Interrobang - a nonstandard punctuation mark used in various written languages that combines the functions of the question mark and the exclamation mark. A sentence ending with an interrobang asks a question in an excited manner, expresses excitement or disbelief in the form of a question, or asks a rhetorical question.

The interrobang can be represented by putting in these 3 separate ways. 

1) ?!

2) !?

3) ‽ (this is my favorite!)

A popular use of the interrobang is as a stand-alone symbol in cartoons used to portray surprise. 

I am Pro Choice

I am a new mother. This fact has made me see so many things in the world in a new way. My own experiences with pregnancy and childbirth, coupled with the pregnancy and childbirth experiences that friends had during that time have made me realize something that never really crossed my mind before.

I am pro-choice. Now, this has absolutely nothing to do with the whole can-o-worms abortion debate. When I say I am pro-choice, I mean that I am 100% for letting women choose the type of prenatal and labor/delivery care that they want/need.

If you want to deliver your baby in the water with dolphins, I support that choice. If you want to deliver your baby in a hospital under the watchful eye of a medical team, I support that choice. If you want a happy medium between the crunchy-granola all-natural birth scenario and the more clinical hospital birth scenario and choose to give birth in a birthing center staffed by a nurse midwife with a backup doctor on call, I support that choice.

I believe that a pregnant woman has the right to choose a medical practitioner that is receptive to what the woman wants out of her pregnancy and childbirth. I believe that if a laboring mother wants no medication, some medication, or the whole shebang, it's her right to choose, without feeling pressured by ANYONE to go one way or another. I believe that should complicated circumstances arise that lead to less a less than ideal labor/delivery, that the only appropriate responses are joy for a successful delivery and grief for an unsuccessful one. I believe that no matter how a mother chooses to deliver her child, she shouldn't feel judged for the way she chose to do it.

One woman's choice in care may not work for her friend. There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to having a baby. Every birth and birth story is different. But my sincere wish is that, no matter the scenario, when all is said and done, every mother could say that overall they are satisfied with their experiences in prenatal and labor/delivery care and that their wishes were met to the best of their caregiver's ability.

Photographic Proof of my Mini-Me

I finally got a pic of my daughter chewing on her lip. So without further ado, photographic evidence that I have my very own Mini-Me.

(L) my daugher (R) Me

Hi. I'm Bailey, and I am a geeky parent.

A few months ago, before my daughter was born, the hubby and I were having a conversation in the car about baby's first words. And both of us, completely without any suggestion from the other, had thought of the exact same word to be the first word to teach our unborn child after he or she learned to say “mama” and “dada.” What was that word? “Shiny.”

As a geek it just reinforces the knowledge you've found the perfect geek to be married to when you and your spouse agree that the first word your first child should be taught, after "mama" & "dada", is "shiny".

Why “shiny”? Well, “shiny”, in the way we will teach our daughter to use it, comes from the show 'Firefly' and is used to mean something is going great, or something is nifty. Kind of the future, space-cowboy equivalent of calling something or someone “cool.” For example: “How are things going today?” “Everything's shiny!”

Why will we do this? Because we want our child, from the very beginning, to learn that it is OK to be unique. OK to be an individual who likes, says and does things that popular culture may or may not understand. Let her know that whatever she wants to be as she grows up, whether it be a geek, a nerd, a princess, a rock star, a hockey player, etc., that it is OK to chase dreams, whether or not they end up coming true.

And someday, when she is old enough to understand, I will show her this video where Wil Wheaton explains why it is so fun, liberating, exhilarating to be a nerd, and to passionately pursue the things that you love. And maybe, just maybe, through my example to my daughter, she, and other children will see that it is OK to be you and not what advertisements say you should be.

Books are Better

I love books. I love to read them, smell them, collect them. Books are the closest thing that I've found in this world to a magic portal or time machine. A well written book can take you to distant lands, long past times, and fantastical realms.

Call me old fashioned, but I love real, physical books. E-books are ok. They have their place. But for me, they will never replace an actual, real book.

Real books have real pages to turn. Real books have wonderful smells; new ink, fresh paper and anticipation in new books & age, history and wonder in old books. Real books don't have screen glare. And if you drop one, you don't have to worry about a broken screen. 

After seeing a quote from King of the Nerds, Nathan Fillion, I feel that I am in pretty good company when I say that hands down, books are better.

How I Met Your Father (or When Geeks Fall In Love)

My baby brother recently started a blog called “How I Met Your Ex-Girlfriend” in which he's decided to chronicle his search for his future wife. It's not at all inspired by How I Met Your Mother title got me thinking about how I met the hubby.

Since the two of us are geeks, our “how we met” story falls a bit out of the norm. Instead of writing a gushy, tedious story of how I met my husband, I thought I'd break the story down into easier to digest, sometimes amusing, bullet points. So here goes, step by step, what I went through to meet my husband and the father of my child.

• Go to college
• Get bored and surf stupid sites on the internet and find a site where people rate photos based on “hotness” and post a pic just for grins.
• Get a personal message from a hot, though kind of hippy looking, guy that appears to have excellent taste in music. 

• IM with the hot guy regularly, discussing music and geeky things we like 

• Become good internet friends with hot guy, but never consider dating because hot guy has a girlfriend 

• Date a few guys but break up with them or get broken up with because they aren't “the one” 

• After a couple years of being internet friends, decide to meet hot guy in person. Make him drive an hour to meet me in a Taco Bell parking lot (because I worked there and I figured if something was hinky and I needed help my male co-workers would come out and give a beatdown) and then drove another half hour to meet up with some of my friends to watch Hidalgo. 

• Find out on the car ride to the movie that he's currently single and inwardly rejoice. 

• Have such a good time that I let him come and visit me some more at my parents house, where he's subjected to the parental 20 questions. The next morning I'm treated to the “what if he were an ax murderer” lecture. 

• A couple months later, invite him to come down and see the super awesome fireworks show that my parents' neighbor puts on every year the weekend before the 4th of July. 

• On the 5th of July go to out to eat at a Mexican restaurant and see the Garfield movie with hot guy. Decide after the fact this is our first date, since that's when we held hands the 1st time. 

• Get completely freaked out because I knew down in my gut that if I continued to date this guy, he'd be the last guy I'd ever date, and I wasn't sure if I was ready for the whole getting married thing. Also, I was afraid that dating would ruin our wonderful friendship, since over the last two years he became that best friend I could tell anything to. 

• After a couple days get over the freakout because I realize that I can't picture the rest of my life without him in it. 

• Get engaged the following October. 

• Get married a year to the day after the first fireworks show I invited him to. 

• Just over seven years later get knocked up and have an adorable baby girl 2 days before the hubby's 33rd birthday. 

And that's the short, hopefully slightly amusing, story of How I Met Your Father.

Lasso of DOOM

I am possibly one of the laziest graphic designers/photo editors ever.

I was in the middle of doing some work to some photos for a client when my lasso tool in Photoshop wigged out. The lasso appeared roughly 8-10 pixels below the cursor. So what did I do?

I just compensated for the wigged out tool and finished editing the batch of images I had open so I don't have to go back through and re-open the un-edited files.

THEN, and only then, did I decide to restart Photoshop. :P

Parental Vocabulary Changes

I have noticed some new words creeping into my vocabulary since having a baby. I'm pretty sure some of them aren't in any dictionary. So I'm starting my very own “new parent vocabulary dictionary”.

Noms – Adopted from the world of Cheezburger.com, it is used to refer to baby's food

Urp – A shortened form of the word burp, it is an onomatopoeic word for a baby spitting up.

Hiccurp – A hiccup that ends in an urp.

Poot – Another onomatopoeic word, this one refers to when a fart in a diaper comes with a bonus.


Please tell me that me & the hubby aren't the only parents that have done this. ;)

My Mini-Me

There are days where I feel like Dr. Evil due to the simple fact that I have my very own Mini-Me. My daughter, though her features are a good mixture of mine & the hubby's, has inherited many of my mannerisms, in a short 4 months.

She sleeps in the same positions that I do. It amuses the hubby to peek into the bedroom when baby & I are sleeping in and see that we are in the EXACT same position. I've lost count of the number of times this has happened.

The most recent thing that I noticed is that she's picked up the habit of chewing on her lower lip. Until she started doing that, I didn't realize how often I do the exact same thing without even thinking. When I concentrate or am lost in thought, inevitably I end up unconsciously chewing on my lower lip. And Apparently I've been doing it most of my life, because I opened up one of my photo albums the other day and saw a picture of me as a baby, close to the same age as my daughter is now, with my lower lip in my mouth...

Cooking without GPS

The other night, as I splashed balsamic vinegar into a bowl for caprese salad, I realized, I can't share this recipe with anyone, because I'm not following a recipe. As a matter of fact, even when I do use a recipe, odds are, I don't follow it strictly, unless it's a baked item where very specific measurements can make or break the finished product. So I have decided to call my method of cooking “cooking without GPS.”

For example, a pot of pasta sounds straight forward, right? Wrong. If I use canned sauce instead of make it from scratch, I'll add a dash of this and a pinch of that to make it taste better. Often, when I'm cooking, I'll add stuff that may not necessarily be in whatever recipe I'm loosely following just because it smells good.

Last winter I made chili from scratch to take for the fellowship meal at church. After lunch someone asked me what my recipe was. It's not very helpful to tell someone, “Well, there's not exactly a recipe. I just threw stuff into the pot until it smelled & tasted good.” 

Just tonight, while eating supper, I had an idea. We had huevos rancheros, and I thought, "Hey, I bet putting chicken breast in the same sauce I used for huevos rancheros would be REALLY tasty!" So sometime soon I'm going to have to try that idea, maybe with a little sour cream.... And now I'm going to go to bed hungry after typing this out!

Still Not a Ginger!

Recently it was announced that Peter Capaldi would be taking the reigns as the 12th incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who. This announcement, of course, caused quite the brouhaha.

There were the “Oh, that's awesome, he's a talented actor, he'll do a great job” camp, the uber-annoying “OMG HE'S OLD AND UGLY, I WANT DAVID TENNANT BACK” camp, the “But he's been in Who before. Why could't they pick a new face?” camp & the “We wanted a woman Doctor” camp. Each camp, since this is the internet after all, trying to prove their point was the most valid and that the other camps were dead wrong.

I, for one, am disappointed by only one thing. One great, glaring thing. Peter Capaldi, though he is a talented actor who will undoubtedly put a wonderful spin on the iconic Doctor, is NOT a ginger. At the rate it's going, the poor Doctor will never get to be a ginger. And that's my only problem with the casting of the 12th Doctor.

My Longstanding Feud

I have a nemesis. An unrelenting foe that dogs my steps and makes my life miserable.

I have a longstanding feud...with gravity. Unfortunately, I am almost always on the losing end. I even have the scars to prove it.

There's the scar on my nose & hairline from losing a battle when I was around 6 or so. Numerous ones on my knees. A particularly spectacular one on my right forearm when I was in my early teens.

Gravity has a nasty habit of sneaking up on me when I least expect it. I can be walking along a nice, perfectly flat surface, and BOOM, trip. So either gravity is jumping up and tripping me, or I'm stumbling over the Silence.

Somehow, I doubt I'm going to get any points on the scoreboard in the battle against gravity anytime soon.

Word of the Day - Part 2

Onomatopoeia

on·o·mato·poe·ia  [noun]

The naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (e.g. buzz, hiss, meow)

The Great American Double Standard

Today is a bit of a ranting-post type of day. 

Today is my daughter's 4 month birthday. It is also, apparently the 2^nd annual Public Display of Breastfeeding (PDB) Day! According to The Bump the goal is “To empower moms and show the world that if a mom chooses to breastfeed, it’s her right to feed her baby whenever and wherever she needs to. The more people who see moms nursing in public, the less of a big deal it’ll be.”


The fact that there is a need for such an event drives home to me the great double standard in America. People don't single out and berate women in clothing that their boobs practically pop out of, but heaven forbid if a woman sits discreetly in a corner of a department store to feed her hungry, cranky infant.

It's a double standard that in public places things like this don't raise an eyebrow. 

But this creates a firestorm of outrage from supporters & detractors of breastfeeding. 

Even supporters of breastfeeding are divided into the “cover” and “not to cover” camps on what is “appropriate” when breastfeeding in public. It's all ridiculous. There should be absolutely no controversy at all about a woman choosing to feed her child the way nature intended in whatever fashion works best for her and her child.






I choose to cover in public because A) my daughter is like me, and is easily distracted by new & shiny things and the cover minimizes distractions & B) I'm not personally comfortable with whipping out the girls in front of everyone and their brother every time my baby is hungry so the cover helps me maintain a personal sense of modesty. Other mothers choose not to cover because their babies will not tolerate a cover.

I think the world would be a much better place if overly photoshopped & enhanced advertising like this caused outrage.

It would be a much better world if nobody batted an eyelash and continued on their day if they happened to see this.

If a mother is being a good mother, no matter how she chooses to feed her child, the public should butt out and leave her to be a good mother!

Why I Love Being a Geek/Nerd

I am a geek. And a nerd. If you go a Google search for information on what makes a person a geek, or a nerd, undoubtedly you will come across posts, articles, infographics, & funny pictures detailing the differences between geeks and nerds and the different types of geeks and nerds that there are out there. And, of course, the differences between geeks and nerds. Here are some examples.



It takes a bit more digging to uncover that it's not that cut & dried. Just as there are different types of geek/nerd, there can be different combinations of different types. Because life would be boring if you could only be a computer geek, or a sci-fi geek!

I am a mixture design geek, sci-fi geek, book geek, etc. I love to read. Real, physical books. I love watching sci-fi & fantasy TV shows & movies. I love certain, select anime. I love graphic design & photography, and can make a bit of a game of identifying fonts in advertising. And I'm full of useless tidbits of information. (e.g. Dr. Seuss invented the word nerd.)

Before I embraced my geekiness/nerdiness, I spent far too much time worrying about what other people thought of me. But doing some growing up made me realize, who cares what other people think? I am probably a little fatter, weirder, and obsessive than what society considers normal & attractive, and I DON'T CARE! I am happy in my little world surrounded by friends & family that love me, quirks and all.

Simon Pegg puts into words perfectly why it's great to be a geek.

Geeky Baby Names

My daughter has the kind of name that geeks & non-geeks can embrace. Geeks love the connection to the sadly short lived brainchild of Joss Whedon. Non-geeks see it as a pretty, if slightly unusual name. I love it for both reasons.

When we first found out that I was pregnant, picking a girl's first name was a no-brainer. The hubby & I both loved the name Serenity. We didn't completely settle on a middle name until after she was born, though. We went with a family name for her middle name. It didn't cross my mind for a while that her middle name is also a bit geeky due to a character in an anime having the same name.

Because I'm a geek and a mom, I like looking at lists of geeky baby names. I've compiled a list of my own personal favorites (and of course mention where they come from.)

Boys Names
Rory (Dr. Who) - Rory Williams, the unexpected BAMF from the Who-verse who just couldn't stop dying.

Logan (X-Men) - The Wolverine. 'Nuff said.

Malcom (Firefly) - Captain Tightpants, FTW!

Thorin (the Hobbit) - Not the nicest dwarf, but he has the most usable name in the real world.

Ian - Naming your kid after Sir Ian McKellen comes with double geek cred, since he's Gandalf & Magneto.

Girls Names
Amelia (Dr. Who) - Spunky, fiery, red-headed companion to the 11th doctor. Comes with the bonus of not being overtly geeky.

River (Dr. Who & Firefly) - River is the double geek cred name I like for girls. River Song in Dr. Who and River Tam in Firefly are both strong, if slightly mental, women.

Éowyn (LOTR) - She killed the Witch King of Angmar. If that isn't a strong female namesake, I don't know what is.

Linnea (After botanist Carl Linnaeus) - This is one of the geekiest, without sounding geeky, names that I like. It doesn't get much geekier than naming your daughter after a flower that's named after a botanist.

Word of the Day - Part 1

I am a little bit of a word nerd. I like finding unusual words for commonplace things and trying to incorporate them into my everyday speech.

So, without further ado, here's the word of the day!

Mellifluous

mel·lif·lu·ous 

 

Adjective (of a voice or words) Sweet or musical; pleasant to hear.

Synonyms mellifluent - melodious - honeyed - sweet - dulcet

An example of how to use this word. "He had a mellifluous voice."

Good Morning

This face is the reason I get up in the morning. And I don't mean the gushy, feel-good, existential reason. The literal, proper use of the word literal, reason I get up in the morning.  Who needs an alarm clock when you have an adorable, but hungry baby. ;-)

Lucky for me, it's usually about the time I need to get up anyway.  Unluckily for me, last night I stayed up a bit too late, so 6:30 am came WAY to early.

This is my theme song this morning. :-) Because even though I woke too early after a late night, I woke up to a happy, smiling baby.

I thought I'd be a terrible mother

I never planned to be a mom. (Never, ever make plans like that. The universe laughs at you & proceeds to thwart your plans, usually in spectacular fashion.) I think I didn't plan on it because deep down, I was afraid that I would be a terrible mother.

I had a small laundry list of reasons why I thought I would be a terrible parent. I'm deeply flawed & selfish. Patience is NOT my strong suit. I'm a control freak. I have low pain tolerance, so there's no way I could make it through labor without mentally breaking. I have a weak stomach, so I'd puke all over the baby when changing a poopy diaper. I'm clumsy, I might drop & hurt the baby. Etcetera and so forth.

I'm still deeply flawed, but much less selfish now that I have a life depending on me. Nothing builds patience like a child! (You know the old joke about praying for patience.) I'm still a control freak, but I am getting better about choosing my battles now.

I made it through labor with out a drop of pain medication (though lack of Tylenol was due to it slipping my mind that I could take it, not a conscious choice.) And I've never felt more like a strong, powerful woman than I did after having Serenity. (I am mother, hear me ROAR!)

And for other weak-stomached mothers-to-be, something incredible happens when you have a baby of your own. All those things that your friends' children do that make you gag and wretch? When your baby does them, you won't bat an eyelash. The only reason I went running for the bathroom after the first diaper explosion was because nothing short of a bath was going to clean that mess up! I still have a weak stomach, it just seems to be immune to the bodily functions of my child. (whew!)

I'm still clumsy and accident prone. But then again, so was my dad, and I've survived to adulthood, so there's hope for Serenity. I just have to remember to keep her away from the power tools for a good long time, just in case she inherits my, and her PopPop's, “grace”.

One Thing a Brand New Mom Shouldn't Do

There are lots of things that brand new moms should & shouldn't do, and there are countless websites, blogs & articles addressing those things. And if any of them reference what I'm about to tell you here, I apologize for the redundancy. And in all fairness, this is highly personal and may or may not apply to any brand new mothers.

Never, ever, while still under the influence of the postpartum hormonal flood, read this book.

Don't get me wrong.  It is a beautiful book, a wonderful book, a book that I had to make sure I got so I could read it to my daughter.

It's because it's a wonderful, beautiful book that you shouldn't read it until after your hormones level out. Because once you get to the point the book where you see this picture 

you'll be bawling louder than your baby when she's hungry & in need of a diaper change.

The first time I tried to read it to Serenity, she was a week or two old. The first page made me tear up, and the further I got the harder it got to read. I was sniffling, tears running down my cheeks, choking down sobs to finish the book.

But she will grow up, and spend her whole life knowing that the words in the little song are true. 

Confessions of a Font Snob

I am, as my husband likes to remind me from time to time, a font snob.  Such is the peril of a graphic design background, I suppose.

I can name my favorite fonts to use from each font family. (serif, sans serif, etc.) Then there are the fonts that I love to hate. My friend & fellow font snob, Yllek, and I regularly text or Facebook each other messages that essentially boil down to "I can't believe they used that font!"

Now while I realize that being a font snob is kind of the graphic design equivalent of being a middle school "mean girl", I really do wish that people would learn the proper use of Comic Sans & Papyrus...

Shhhhh! I have a secret. *I want to be a Stay-At-Home Mom*

I went to college, got a degree, started working on a career, and never had any concrete plans of having a kid.  Then, life happened.  I got laid off from the job I'd had for nearly 5 years. I couldn't find a job in my chosen career field. It was one of the hottest, driest, most miserable summers I can remember. And I got pregnant...

At the end of my first trimester/beginning of the second I got a job. At Taco Bell. Getting paid more than $5 an hour LESS than what I was making before I got laid off. My mother-in-law was planning on semi-retiring while I would be on maternity leave and offered to babysit anytime I needed. "Hooray!" I thought. I can get back to work as soon as I'm able.

Then I had Serenity. My entire outlook on life changed. Everything I wanted out of life, changed. The second I held the tiny form that was my daughter. Everything. Changed. 

I don't care about degrees, or careers, or all of those things that are supposed to bring happiness and fulfillment to the to the enlightened, modern woman. I want to spend every minute of the rest of my life molding, shaping and cherishing this life that's been put into my care. 

I want to be a stay-at-home mom.

Cinnamon Chips, Oh My!

Hershey's makes a wonderful thing.  They're cinnamon chips.  Think chocolate chips, only cinnamon flavored.  I first found out about them courtesy of The Pioneer Woman and her excellent cinnamon scone recipe.

Last week I had an absolutely brilliant idea.  Snickerdoodle cookies, with CINNAMON CHIPS!!! However, it took me a while to get around to making them.

I swiped the snickerdoodle recipe from food.com with adding a half bag of cinnamon chips the only deviation from the directions.

Here's how they turned out!  Delicious!

Obligatory, new mommy birth story stuff.

My husband and I are probably the most annoying 1^st time parents our friends have. We didn't do any of the “expected” things soon-to-be parents do. We chose a midwife, instead of an OB. We planned on, if the pregnancy and labor went by without complications, to have a water birth with no pain meds in a free-standing birth center. We decided that we wouldn't find out the gender of our baby. We didn't tell our friends the real names we picked for baby, and if pressed about names, gave fake one. (Fergus Bartleby for a boy, and Hephziba Beryl for a girl, if you're curious) And we're not crunchy, granola, hippy types. We just knew what we wanted out of our birth experience, and we kind of liked making our friends go crazy with the not knowing. (Does that make us bad friends?)

I was 10 days past my estimated due date and hugely, uncomfortably pregnant. Around 2 am on April 15, 2013 I woke up, thinking I was having more Braxton Hicks. Sore and unable to get comfortable I decided to take a warm bath. Sitting in the tub I started thinking that maybe it was real contractions afterall, so I started timing them. Around 10 minutes apart, for close to an hour.

The hubby had been working massive amounts of mandatory overtime at work for months and was sleeping like the dead. When I went back to bed at around 3:30 am it took a bit for me to get him conscious enough understand me when I told him that he wasn't going to have to go to work later that morning.

I was actually able to sleep a little bit more, despite the contractions. But by around 6 am, I was awake and the contractions were close enough that I told the hubby to call the midwife and let her know what was up. She told us to come to the birth center around 9 so she could check out my progress. We also called my parents, who live an hour away, and the doula. At 9 am the midwife concluded I was dilated to 4 cm, and so I went home to labor some more.

My parents and the doula helped coach me through the contractions that never seemed to let up. I would periodically take warm showers or baths to help with the pain. Around 1 pm while in a warm bath I suddenly had an incredible urge to push. Once I got out I told the doula about it and she said it would be a good time to go to the birth center. We got to the birth center around 1:30 pm.

Since I was a 1^st time mom, and I wasn't having the typical long contractions, the midwife didn't think that I would be much more than 6 cm dilated, but I was 8! I labored in the birthing tub for a while until the midwife decided I needed to switch positions for more effective pushing. Moved to the toilet and stayed there until my legs got tired and I moved back to the birthing tub.

After about half an hour in the tub, I could feel & the midwife could see the baby's head coming down the birth canal. After one good, hard push, the baby's head was out. By that point I was so in the zone, so to speak, that I didn't even hear the midwife say, “Wait a little,” before the last push. I somehow just KNEW that one more good push and I'd have my baby!

After that last push things were kind of a blur for me. All I cared about was the beautiful, tiny baby in my arms. All the fears I had about whether I'd be a good mom or not vanished. The hubby described it as me going “from 0-mom in less than 60 seconds.” :)

Serenity Faye was born at 3:20 pm, weighed a healthy 6 lb 12.5 oz. Apparently she swam out wide eyed & waving (since she came out with one hand by her head.) I feel very lucky that as a first time mom, my birth went exactly as planned and that I have such a wonderful, beautiful, sweet baby girl.

The lingering fear of "What if"

Most of the time shared photo memes on Facebook fall into one of 4 categories for me.  1) Annoying political stuff. 2) Annoying gushy, feel-good stuff.  3) Annoying stupid, juvenile stuff.  4) Stuff that is actually pretty funny that I may or may not share.

But every once in a while someone posts something that, while it may not apply directly to me, breaks my heart a little.  This morning was one of those times.

When I checked Facebook for the first time this morning two of my best friends in the world shared stuff that simultaneously made me heartbroken for them and grateful that my circumstances were not the same.

Their posts about heartbreak that made me tear up at 7AM are related to this image...

So many people in my life have unfortunately gone through the tragedy of the loss of a child before they had a chance to hold their baby and tell him or her that they were loved more than anything else in the world.  And I can't relate. I can't begin to understand what it must be like to lose a baby. I hope that I haven't done or said anything thoughtless because of that.

I get to hold my beautiful baby girl and tell her she's the greatest thing that's ever happened in my life.  I just have the lingering fear of the "what if's" that plagued me during my pregnancy that all can be summed up in one phrase.  "What if something goes wrong?"  I have a feeling that while the particulars of those fears will change over her lifetime, the question of "what if something goes wrong" will haunt me as long as I'm alive.

My “List of things that may happen to you when you're pregnant that nobody tells you about BEFORE you get pregnant.”

I'm now 3 months into being a first time mom. Over the months of pregnancy I ran across a few pregnancy related issues that NOBODY seems to talk about to non-pregnant women. All the pregnant women I've come across in my life talk about the morning sickness, the baby using your bladder as a trampoline, labor pains, post-baby lack of sleep, etc. Then, there are those women that gush “Being pregnant was the best thing in my life. I felt wonderful!” (And any woman who has ever had even the slightest bit of morning sickness, or other pregnancy related issues that left them feeling less than wonderful want to smash in the faces of those gushy, feel-good women!)

But then there are the aspects of pregnancy that you don't hear about until after you get pregnant, start experiencing them, and start asking “Is this normal?!?!?” And of course, your wiser, more experienced friends will assure you, yes it's normal. And you begin to think that all women who have been pregnant and have kept this information to themselves must be closet sadists, because surely nobody who has experienced this would willing to want to do it again, nor wish it on a friend, right?

So, starting chronologically with symptoms I experienced, here goes my “List of things that may happen to you when you're pregnant that nobody tells you about BEFORE you get pregnant.”

#1 – Changes in your boobs

This is one of the first things that I noticed that made me think “Hmm...I wonder if I'm pregnant.” All those hormones flowing through your body will typically do a couple noticeable things to your boobs in pretty short order after you get pregnant.

First, my boobs HURT! If you've ever experienced hormonal boob ache right before you get your period, you have a tiny idea what I'm talking about. My whole boob ached, was tender & sore, but the most sensitive area, nipples, caused pain beyond imagination if I wasn’t careful putting my bra on in the morning. And accidentally rolling over onto my stomach while trying to get comfortable enough to go to sleep made me want to curl up into a fetal position and cry. Fortunately, as my body got acclimated to the flood of hormones, the pain eventually subsided and I didn't have to act like my boobs were made out of eggshells every time I put on my bra!

Second, my boobs grew. A lot. This is, of course, the body preparing to produce sustenance for your unborn child. That's no surprise. The surprise is how FAST it happens. I think gained an entire cup size seemingly overnight. And with that size gain, my boobs also felt like they weighed a TON.

Third, my boobs began to look different. Not just size wise. As a woman's body makes more blood for baby, she gets veiny, and it shows best, you guessed it, on the boobs. Also, all those fun little hormones also bring changes to the nipples & areola, making them darker and larger.

#2 – Morning Sickness.

What, you may be asking? People talk about morning sickness all the time! Of course they do. What they don't do is explain the difference between morning sickness and, say, the stomach flu, which up to this point is the closest experience I had to morning sickness.

My morning sickness resembled the stomach flu in 1 way. I felt nauseous & threw up. If it's the stomach flu, at best you'll feel better in a couple hours, at worst you'll feel better in a few days. With morning sickness (the name itself is misleading) if you're lucky will pass in a couple MONTHS, if you're unlucky will last through the majority of your pregnancy (like one unfortunate lady I know). Don't be fooled. Morning sickness doesn't just strike in the morning. For me, like many women, a more apt description was “All-day-OMG-I'm-Going-to-Die-from-vomiting sickness”. Everything & nothing at all can trigger nausea. Certain smells, or foods, or, if you're really “lucky” just slight movement of your body can trigger the complete emptying of your stomach. For a short period during my bout with morning sickness, I could not drink plain water without immediately getting sick and for the entire 1^st trimester, eggs were no bueno. I had to steer a wide berth around the meat department at my local grocery store because the smell of fish made me sooooo sick.

#3 – The “Super Sniffer”

There's a scientific explanation, but I won't bore you with it. Simply put, when you're pregnant, everything, and I mean EVERTYTHING, smells more. You will think you've obtained the world's most useless superpower; super smell. And usually you will start gaining this “superpower” during the time you are battling with morning sickness. 

So that dude that bathes in cologne will make you wretch, your favorite foods will smell so strongly you may not be able to stand to eat them for a while, and you'll want to murder your significant other every time they fart. Best of all*, you'll start to smell...yourself. “Since when have my armpits smelled this bad, AFTER deodorant?” Or, even better, as you go to the bathroom “Ugh, my hoohah STINKS! Have it always smelled this bad? How can nobody else smell this? Ick!!”

*this is complete sarcasm, FYI

#4 – Stretching Ligaments

I first noticed ligament stretches in the form of pain in my abdomen. The first time it happened was frightening! It typically happens when you move, and the ligament stretches to make room for baby. Usually the pain doesn't last for long, and you do get used to it, but it can be scary the first time it happens if you don't know to expect it.

The other way you may notice stretching ligaments is in your feet. Ligament stretching is caused by those pesky little hormones, again. The hormones make your ligaments a little softer, so they stretch better to make room for baby. This is all well and good in your abdomen, where baby is. Unfortunately, hormones don't just target those ligaments. They affect ALL your ligaments. This is why a pregnant woman should not lift too much weight. Softened ligaments mean you are much more likely to injure your back than you would normally. Also, soft ligaments + weight on feet = growing feet, and the possibility of fallen arches. So more than likely you can kiss all your cute shoes good bye, because they'll never fit again...

#5 – Hair, Hair EVERYWHERE

You may have heard that prenatal vitamins are GREAT for your hair and nails. It's true, they are. But between the hormones raging through your body and the prenatal vitamins you will notice that it's not just your nails and the hair on your head that grows great. Leg hair and armpit hair grows at an astounding rate, and you will end up with thick, lush hair in places you NEVER wanted it on your body. If you're lucky, you'll just end up with a hairy butt. That's easy to hide. If you're unlucky, you'll end up with a hairy face. Much harder to deal with!

#6 – Random Disgusting bodily functions

Pregnancy is amazing. A completely new human life is growing inside of you. Pregnancy is also gross. Your body will involuntarily do things that are disgusting and/or embarrassing.

You will be gassy. The bigger the baby grows, the less room there is, and you'll find yourself releasing gas in the usual ways, only more frequently. And probably louder. You won't just burp. You'll belch. And if you have those certain special kind of friends (like I do), you'll garner applause. Your flatulence will be more frequent and inopportune. Move a certain way, or cough, or sneeze, and you may feel like you're trying to blow a hole in your pants.

Which brings another potentially embarrassing bodily function to mind. The more pregnant you get, the more coughs & sneezes frighten you. Because gas may not be the only thing to come out. There is a distinct possibility that you may pee your pants! Especially if your baby is going through a phase where they decide that right on top your bladder makes a FANTASTIC place to sleep.

If that isn't bad enough, at some point during your pregnancy you will battle with constipation. All the hormonal changes in your body affect the intestinal tract, making it easier to get backed up. That, plus room in your abdomen shrinking, can equal a very difficult time in the bathroom if you don't make fiber your friend!

#7 – Bloody noses

This is another fun thing caused by the extra blood & veins the body makes during pregnancy. Extra blood vessels grow in the nose, some of them too close to the nasal membrane, and next thing you know, bloody nose.

I'm one of those unlucky people who gets nosebleeds when my nose gets too dry. Usually it just makes me feel like I have a stuffy nose, instead of being like the stereotypical nosebleed where blood runs out your nose and down your face. However, being pregnant during the time I typically get my nosebleeds (winter) meant that I actually did have to deal with the stereotypical nosebleed. There were mornings where I woke up tasting blood because it ran down the back of my nose & down my throat. Which I suppose was better than waking up with blood all over my pillow & face. I just had to take the “wins” where they came, no matter how small.

#8 – Crazy, vivid dreams

Hormones, again, mess with the pregnant. Not only do hormones affect you physically, they affect you mentally. I never dreamed that I gave birth to a litter of kittens, like my mom did during one of her pregnancies, but I did dream I gave birth in an 1950's style hospital and that all the well-wishers from church who were visiting were annoying me to the point that I swore at them to get them to leave. And that's the most normal of the dreams I had. And each & every one felt entirely real while I was having them.

#9 – Itchy Belly & Boobs

I'm one of those unlucky people who has dry itchy winter skin, and that, combined with being pregnant meant the areas of my body that were growing exponentially, namely my belly & boobs, itched like CRAZY! And it typically got bad in situations where scratching would be socially unacceptable. Like at work. Doesn't matter that you're pregnant; you scratch your belly or boobs in public, you will generate stares!

#10 – Memory Loss & General “Dumbness”

While I've never had a fantastic memory, being pregnant wiped any semblance remembrance out of my life. If it weren't for my husband and writing notes & lists, I would have never got anything done, ever.

It was seriously so bad that if my head weren't attached to my body, I would've forgotten it. I was constantly losing or misplacing keys, cell phone, shoes. Fortunately, it got better after my baby was born!

#11 – Pelvic & Hip pain

As my pregnancy neared an end and my baby moved into the proper position for coming into the world things got very uncomfortable for me. My pelvis began to ache pretty much constantly, along with the occasional shooting pain as her head pressed into my bones. Soft ligaments, added weight and baby in my pelvis made my hips hurt. There were times where it felt like my legs would pop off at the hips like a broken Barbie doll, especially in the last couple weeks before I went into labor.

There you go!  A small, kind of personalized to me (sorry!) list of the things you never hear about pregnancy BEFORE you get pregnant.