Monthly Archives: September 2007

Just things

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A man from my hometown was killed in a car accident this week, and it’s been haunting me since I heard. It’s weird — I didn’t really know him, he’s a few years older than me, but he worked at the gas station and married a girl from my hometown, and that’s where they live. I haven’t seen either of them since high school, probably, but they have two kids, and just trying to imagine what it’s like to lose one’s husband, the father of your kids, that seems so totally horrible to me right now. Maybe adding to it is that it was on a road that I know well, and the accident was of the variety my mom was in a few years ago (and obviously, walked away from) or whatever, it’s just…. weird. I truly can’t imagine Dave going to work and not coming home.

Ingrid and I were home yesterday, as she had a fever of 104. What I’ve figured out, at molars 3&4, of course, is that teething for her sets her on fire, and she’s not actually SICK, she’s just wiped from the fever. She was extra cuddly, even took a little nap on me, like old times, and it made me miss nursing, again. Going to the Common Ground Fair this year was weird, because I remember last year being so certain I’d be one of those nursing my toddler, sitting on the grass, but Ing’s self weaning last month squelched that. It’s like when I quit smoking — both were such integral parts of who I was, you know? And I still dream about smoking, and now I’ve started dreaming about nursing. So odd.

The Y continues to go well — I added a second night of Group Power (aka “gay disco barbells”) to my schedule. Even though I’m on the waitlist, the instructor checked attendance records and saw that it hadn’t been at capacity yet, so encouraged me to just show up. Of course, then I worried that it WOULD fill up and they’d kick me out, but they didn’t. The instructor for Monday is the same instructor for my yoga/pilates class, and she started the class with “so, is anyone here new to group power?” and I swear, she looked at me, but I just looked around like “Nope, not me, I’m old hat with this, so BRING ME SOME SEXY BACK, okay?” The music changes in two weeks, and I’ll be interested to see what the new soundtrack is. I’m really totally blown away that I actually LIKE gay disco barbells, the moving in unison to Christina Aguilera remixes. It’s very alternate reality for me. I expected to suffer through it, and like yoga/pilates, but it’s just the opposite. I wish the yoga class were more meditative and less fitness-y, but oh well.

Work is great as well — I love my job, there are lots of cool things happening ’round here, and I really feel like I’ve landed in a good spot. I’m going to a conference next month, which is just a one day thing, just outside of Boston, but I’m looking forward to it. I’m also looking forward to having a full night’s sleep, the first in, oh, almost 2 years. Between pregnancy peeing, infancy, night-nursing, and partial co-sleeping (as in, when she wakes, she ends up in bed with us, and is now long and wiggly and prefers to sleep perpendicular to her parents with her feet touching one and her head and hands touching the other), I haven’t slept through in a looong time. Not to mention, alone. In a hotel bed, with lots of pillows and cable and no dishes in the sink or laundry on the guest bed. I’m even looking forward to the drive — it’s four hours each way, but I plan on stopping in Kittery, maybe, or Freeport (as I typically do) and going to IKEA, of course. Like a little tiny, one day vacation. So nice.

Detritus

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Detritus
Originally uploaded by gretchen04401

Here’s the thing. I see all these baby pics, and the rooms they are in are so beautifully maintained, and then I look at MY house and…. ugh. Tonight my neighbor dropped in for computer help, and I was just mortified since she walked in and it looked like this. (Not counting, the squash and syrup on the steps — for my mom! she’s coming tomorrow! she asked me to pick it up! — or my work bag just inside the door, or… everything else. But anyway.

On the plus side, really? when I look at it? Let’s see — blocks, books, and musical toys. No batteries anywhere. Not so bad. Yeah, the TV is on, and it often is, but no one ever watches it. It’s like visual radio in our house, I think. We watch the news and then drift away. Anyway. This is my hovel. My life is not picture perfect, but it is damn good.

IKEA

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Long time, no post, things are good — working, Y’ing, Ing-ing. But hey!

I’m going to be in Norwood, MA next month for a conference, which conveniently puts me next to the most Northeasterly IKEA. I’ve been to IKEA once before (hi, annemarie!) and loved it, but at that time I was restricted to what I could carry in one hand, as I was flying home. This time, I have a station wagon.

So, IKEA fans, I know that the website and catalog only show so much — the things I’ve already put in my mental shopping cart are one of those $10 green rocking toys, and probably a kids Poang (or table and chairs for Ing? Can’t decide on that one…) and some kitchen stuff – paring knives, and maybe some pillows or cushiony things. (I’m doing a ton of reading in bed lately, and my pillows are suffering.)

Ahhhh, consumerism.

Beer, Burgers, and Bowling!

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What a good day, yesterday. We got up and went to the Y for baby swim class, and we all got in the pool, and Ingrid LOOOOVED it. Dave was the sole dad, and the plan is for him to do swim class while I workout in the gym, but for the next few weeks, we’ll all go as a family, because he’s a little uncomfortable being the only guy. Which is fine, it was a good time, and good family time, so I’m cool with it. Ingrid LOVED it, only part she didn’t really dig was trying to float on her back, she got rigid and stuck her legs in the air, but even then, she sort of relaxed more by the end of the song. When the instructor set a ton of little plastic balls afloat, she got excited and started saying "Bubbles! Bubbles!" She loves her some bubbles.

Swim tapped her right out, and she took a nap while Dave went and shot with Tom, and then we got ready for the second part of our day — Ingrid visits Aunt Julie and Uncle Woody and Mama and Daddy LEAVE TOWN, OMG.

I mean, we didn’t go too far, but it was the first time we’ve left her in 6 months or so, at someone else’s house, and the first time we’ve left her with a pack n play and jammies, for someone else to put her to bed. We don’t have an elaborate bedtime routine, or blackout shades, or white noise requirements, and I think that that probably helps for sleeping flexibility, but still. First time. AND, we were going to be way out in the country, like an hour away, AND not with our own car — Matt and Sara were picking us up. And the last time she was there, she was a potted plant, and now she’s walking, they aren’t childproofed (and I wouldn’t expect them to be) so it was going to be different… Dave was especially nervous, even turned down the wrong street on the way to his sister’s house, but she was happy when we left, so we just assumed everything was fine, unless otherwise stated.

Matt and Sara picked us up, we drove out to their coworker/friend’s house for a barbecue and horseshoes, and when a sudden downpour chased us inside, we packed up and went bowling. Bowling! I was so excited. I haven’t bowled in YEARS, but it used to be part of our gym class in elementary school, we walked across the ballfield to the bottle club/bowling alley and bowled candlepin, and then when I was in junior high/high school, the reservation opened up a tenpin lane, and we’d go oh, maybe once or twice a month in winter, and my mom was even on a league there, but then they paved over the lanes and the pool to make more room for bingo, and that sucked. Other than, I think I might have gone bowling in Phoenix once, but that’s pretty much it. I’ve been telling Dave for all 7 years of our relationship "Let’s go booowwwwlling sometime!" and we never have (I think of it everytime I go to his workplace, as it’s literally right next door to an alley) because Dave’s never bowled before. So, I was REALLY STOKED to go bowling last night, and I think Dave even had a good time, too! I mean, I know he did, since he said he’d go again.  Even if his method is a little rough, ie: totally just side-chucking the ball down the lane. Anyway.

When we picked up Ingrid, she was sound asleep in the PnP, and all reports were that she was totally fine, totally charming, so "goood!" and that they played chase and blocks and read lots of stories and ate dinner and had a grand time. And, as compared to the other grandnephews and niece, she was TONS better, and my SIL was saying "maybe because she’s a girl, and they are boys? But then there’s E…" and really, I don’t know why my kid is so chill, but I really feel like that whole strong attachment fosters strong independence thing is part of it, and also that she comes from two very laid back parents, as well. Who knows. I’m just glad she had no problems with any of it.

The other thing that was nice about yesterday, was seeing again what a great husband I have. I mean, yeah, he might make questionable purchases from magazine salesmen, but he is such a great person. At swim class, he didn’t hold back, despite being a little uncomfortable at his only-dudedom, because, when it comes to Ingrid, he gives 100%, nerves be damned.  He’s such a quiet, reserved person* that it’s cool to see how Ingrid totally opens him up. When we went to his coworkers house, he walked right in and said hi to his friend and wife, and then got right down on the floor with the 6 month old and started playing peekaboo. Ingrid has made him really love babies, not just his own, but now he ‘gets’ what babies and children mean to everyone else.  For growing up without a dad, he really has found his own way, and it’s a great one.

*He’s reserved, but he’s also got a wicked funny, but dry and black, sense of humor. He was in a little town an hour north or so, for work, and driving the station van, and some local yokel stopped him and started going off about the "cute new weathergirl," which makes no sense, because there is no weathergirl at his station. So the guy, who was not the sharpest tool in the shed, asked if she was in the car, and Dave said "Yep, in several different trash bags in the trunk." The guy wasn’t bright enough to, you know, either get the joke or call the cops, but still. DAVE! You can’t say that shit to people on the street. Heh.

Why, oh Y.

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My Y classes started this week. Now, in the past, my two major anxieties about Organized Fitness have been a) being around the SuperFit and b) having to do some sort of routine set to music, everyone moves in unison thing. You know, aside from the general "I’m a much better reader than exerciser, omg, don’t look at my big fat reading ass!" crap. In the past, that’s been okay — the YW and the YM were separate entities, and I always did the YW (even when I was literally 2 houses away from the YM!) because I’d heard that it was a much more um, reader-friendly facility. (Allegedly, the YM had hot tubs in their locker rooms for the purpose of the SuperFit to hook up and make a date for the SuperBounty or something…) So, the YW classes I took — yoga and pilates, and the prenatal stuff — were generally some senior citizens, some Moms, a token divorcee working on re-hottifying herself, and me. Basically, pretty safe. Especially yoga, god, that was awesome, we basically did that in the DARK, no joke. Perfect for the body anxious participant.

My first class was yesterday, at the YM building (the YM and YW are now the same organization, just known as "The Y") and I walked in and was first struck by — OMG, DUDES. Now one was a retiree, but there were two others who were probably my age, or even younger, and that was just weird. Not because I’m trying to pick anyone up, but just because  . . . I don’t know. Maybe because mixed-sex fitness classes strike a little too close to every gym class I ever suffered through? That probably has something to do with it. On top of the DUDES! It was packed, and I felt all discombobulated because, first class, you know? ANd most people ahve been going for a while and I didn’t know I was supposed to bring my own mat, and it was the first time I’d really done any yoga or pilates in a really, really long time and there were frigging MIRRORS and shit. But? Amazingly? I survived. ANd wasn’t even that freaked out. Wild.

Tonight was the other class I was interested in, Group Power, a group weights class. I don’t know, I was expecting dumbbells and some slow, quiet, measured type of fitness. Oh no. This is barbell stuff set to music like, oh, "SEXY BACK!" And dancy! And Move In Unison-y! AND! ANNND! The instructor had me set up right in front of her, thus, right in fornt of the whole class, AND in front of the mirror. So I could totally see that about 80 percent of the time, I was one beat behind everyone else. (On the other hand, it was a much more YW demographic, no dudes, and lots of old people.) Again, I totally survived. INSANE. I felt like jelly legs, and well, jelly arms, when I left, and I was on the wimpy weights for arms (5kilos) and medium for legs (10kilos? I have no idea, actually) but I did it, and it was fine. In fact! I was facing this other chick who was in the yoga/pilates class the night before, and I think we’re probably in the same situation, unless childless divorcees dig on Pooh window screens, and since I was facing her, I totally recognized the deep concentration of trying to align with everyone around you, and that totally made me feel like a normal person.

Both classes, I didn’t do every single move, but I’d say I did about 80-85% of each class, and hey, that little educator in me likes a baseline that isn’t perfect, because when this session ends in December, hopefully, I’ll be doing more, better. Right? Either way, I’m feeling good about both, about how both of my biggest FItness Fears have been faced head-on, and it’s totally going to be okay, and even being away from Ingrid  has been okay, too.

And, I got a raise today! Just a COLA, but I went right into my ING autosavings, and tripled my deposit amount, because I’d rather save it than spend it, and if I haven’t needed it so far, then woot! More savings. Good day. Things moving in the right direction, for sure.

Windows

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I’ve asked this in all the usual places, and am going to ask here, too. Anyone have any experience to share about replacement windows?

Our windows are original, and suuuuccck. Dave seals us in in October, usually, and then I have to fight to remove the plastic in MAY, and even then he’ll hesitate, because "we might have another cold night…" We’ve suffered through REALLLLY warm spring nights in our hermetically sealed abode, and I hate it. Plus, we’d have to (literally, I’m not kidding) claw our way out in a fire, as he seals them with silicone caulk, rope caulk, AND plastic. It’s nuts.

Anyway, we want new windows, and we want fairly basic ones — vinyl, double hung, low-e, argon, inner grilles, nothing wicked architecturally interesting or needing to be preserved. We had two estimates from window companies, the lower quote was $350 a window, for Harvey Slimlines. But, the guy Dave freelances for with the home improvement show is all fired up to help us, and to use Home Depot windows (they are a sponsor) which are the American Craftsman/Silverline brand. When I research any of it, the HD windows get a lot of flack Out There, Harvey has less thana  dozen comments, mostly positive, and any other window we could get locally for DIY is just NOT mentioned. Most of those are Canadian made, which is probably why there’s no info out there.

Now, the least expensive option would be the HD window. We’d get the top model of their (admittedly budget) line, and replacing windows would probably become a show, and T would help us install them as barter for Dave’s work. (An arrangement they’ve done before.) We could do twice as much using HD than Harvey, which is good, of course, and since we’re going to do these on a cash basis, we could get more than one room done before winter.

My own justifications for the HD window, are that a) of course there’s a lot of negative chatter out there, they are probably the MOST available-to-everyone window there is. Most other windows are regional, so cater to a smaller market, etc. B)ANYTHING would be better than what we have, right? So how bad is bad? When there is a warranty, as well? C) when people are talking about hos much they suck, they aren’t really mentioning the model number, and there seems to be a wide range of features on the different models, so maybe that’s just a blanket statement, like "Ford Sucks" or something…D) Say we go HD, and in ten years, the windows have crapped out — will there be newer technology then, that combined with an increased income (one would hope) that would make replacing again feasible?  The cons are the DIY/relying on barter and favors to get it done, and the stuff I’ve read about them sucking in general.

The Harvey would be more expensive, but are apparently a better window. Having an outside party install would cost more — almost double what DIY using HD would be — but it would be done without having to work it around everything else. (Although, one of us would likely have to take a day off every time they came to do a room, and that adds to the cost as well.)

My current thought is to get a Home Depot window for the kitchen, as sort of a test drive. Unlike cars, of course, windows can’t be traded in or sold back, so I really don’t want to hose this decision. I figure since the kitchen window is the one odd sized window on our house (in that it’s smaller, not that it’s not a stock size) that if we hate it, and go with Harvey for everything else, it won’t stand out as Not Matching, since it’s different by default. (Also, it would be nice to have extra ventilation in there this winter, as opening the door usually means being greeted by snow. (Oh, sad, and we could never open the door because of Fat Kitty, now that I think about it. And that’s no longer a concern. 🙁 Dave and I both still talk about her, we are such saps, and really miss her…)

What would you do? Anyone out there have any experience with HD windows? Or Harvey, for that matter….