Gas Conservation “Low Class”

Wow, possibly the silliest thing I’ve ever read. In certain places across this lovely United States, there are laws against having clotheslines in your yard. Considering them “ugly, low-class and unsuitable for display”, they are either relegated to the backyard or banned altogether because, apparently, the idea of their city using up natural resources as quickly as it can is a good thing. I had no idea.

Now, I’m the first to proclaim how freaking annoying having to hang your clothes on a line is. Especially when you’re dealing with 500 freaking cloth diapers. Still, if there are people who are willing to put up with that pain in the ass everytime they do the laundry (coughERICcough), then they should be allowed. They’re making a little bit of a difference for the rest of us who would rather not bother.

Stewie Kicks the Boob

Busy Bee

It’s been a busy week thus far. I have loads to say but it’s time for Ben and I to head to bed. I had to post thism though. So cute.

It’s All About Support

For a few weeks, I’ve been looking into what it would take to become a lactation consultant. After all the challenges Ben and I encountered during breastfeeding and the help we received from the amazing LCs we came in contact with in the process, I really couldn’t think of anything I’d want to do more than to help people with one of the hardest things I had come across in becoming a first time mom.

Unfortunately, after researching the number of classes you have to take and the cost, I realized we just aren’t in a place right now for me to follow that path. I have neither the time nor willingness to be away from Ben that long and God knows we don’t have the money. So I began searching other options.

I came across the info for WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor almost by mistake. It’s a relatively new program and it just had it’s funding cut. After searching out as much info on it as I could, I squeeled at Eric about what a perfect job it would be for me.

After some digging, I found the number for the woman who runs the breastfeeding PC program in Colorado, who then lead me to the two counties that they have the counseling programs in, both counties were definitely NOT the counties I am in. As it turned out, both the women who ran their county programs were on vacation. I left messages and emailed.

(Wow, I’m really long winded. I apologize…but won’t be stopping anytime soon. I like detailed records, people. DETAILED!)

One called me back in about a week’s time to tell me she wasn’t hiring and didn’t think the other woman was either. She’d send me out an app and keep it on hand. I was bummed, but, heck, keeping an application on file is always a good start!

The woman from the other county turned out to not be the woman who ran the program. She forwarded my email onto the woman who did run the program…who was on vacation. How unlucky can I be?

A week or so later, I heard back from her. They were hiring. I nearly wet my pants. I also filled out my application and called the next morning for my interview, which went amazingly well. They said they’d get back to me by the following week (this week). I realized after leaving that I never asked the pay because honestly? I don’t care. This is a dream job for me. Pay me in kisses, I don’t care.

So this entire week I’ve been telling Eric, “I’m so bummed I didn’t get the job” because I am a pessimist. I don’t like getting my hopes up for something I’m not sure of. Which is the exact reason I haven’t posted a thing about it here. He kept saying, “There’s no way you didn’t get that job unless there was some sort of nepotism involved. And you don’t want to work for nepotists, do you?” He’s lovely. It hasn’t helped that I’ve had a bit of strep and no voice for the past few days so I’ve felt sorry for myself on top of it all.

About 3 hours ago, I got a call. I got the job.

I GOT THE JOB!

The moment I got off the phone, I screeched, “YAY!” at the top of my sick lungs and my once recovering voice disappeared once again. But who cares? I GOT THE JOB!!

Pay It Forward Craft Exchange

It started sometime last year, I believe, and God knows if it’s still going but I’m going to hop right in on it anyway. This paragraph sums it up nicely:

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 random people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week… LOL… but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

I’m going with 3 random instead of the 3 first because I’m really hoping to draw folks out to comment on this one. I’ll close comments on Friday.

Go Jenny!

Toothless

My worst fears come to light. Tuesday I went to the dentist after 2 weeks of pain that just would not disappear on it’s own, as it should have. It turns out, after three years of having 1/3 of a tooth missing, the nerve was finally dying and really, really unhappy about it. Apparently, I also had an infection running throughout. Joy!

After spending over 4 hours there, being told my impacted wisdom tooth was causing major decay - and therefore major pain - to the tooth in front of it (but they could only deal with the tooth with the hole in it, not the other two, because they only deal with one tooth at a time for insurance reasons), it took the dentist nearly 30 minutes to get the sucker out. A sore arm and quite a few extra shots of Novicaine later, I was missing a tooth with roots that apparently went down to my arm pit. I was also not at all proven incorrect about my “irrational” fear of dentists. They really are evil.

My favorite conversation of the day was as follows:
Dentist-like Creature (henceforth known as DLC): We’ll deal with the one with the hole. Your other one will require a lot of pulling to get around the tooth growing around it. It might crack the bone.
Me: Why’d you have to tell me that?
DLC: As opposed to what?
Me: I don’t know. As opposed to fairies are going to come down and magically remove my tooth and pain.
DLC:…Well, it’d require a lot of work with the other one. But the one with the hole? Fairies are going to drop fairy dust on it and it’ll come out.
Me: Thanks.

While I consider myself a sarcasm connoisseur, it’s lost on me when coming from someone who is about to shove a needle in my mouth and forcibly rip something out of bone. Call me crazy.

Why The Flickr Isn’t Working

Just an FYI, a lot of pictures on my page and the Flickr widget at right haven’t been working on my page for a couple of months. I marked everything private after some random person asked if he could add Ben’s pictures to his “cute baby group”. This question came from a man with a bunch of pictures of nude/mostly nude women on his Flickr. While I’m willing to admit that be overreacting a tiny bit, it made me very, very nervous. In fact, I’m still very, very nervous about allowing even a few of the pictures to be publicly visible.

It makes me terribly sad that I can’t just post pictures to share with you all of my lovely boy, but I just don’t feel comfortable with the situation. Sucks.

To Break Up a Little Baby Business

All I can say is, “Oh my God.” And, to think, Obama is more conservative than Hillary. Has anyone ever seen “The Neutral Planet” episode of Futurama*? We’re very quickly heading down that path.

*In case you are not as big of a dork as I am, the debate was between two clones, Jack Johnson and John Jackson.

I’m with you, Fry. Oh, how I am with you.

Why I’m Not Working Right Now

Because I’d rather post a blog about how I hate working right now.

While it’s wonderful that I’m bringing in the extra money we need as a family, it sucks.
While I think it’s great that I get to dust off my old coding skills and whip out my own content management system (woohoo!), it sucks.
While I do actually throroughly enjoy actually having something to do when sitting in front of my computer, it sucks.

I understand that I’m incredibly lucky, I get to work from home doing something I’m good at and that I somewhat enjoy. Something that, at one point, would suck up my entire universe and would make me terribly giddy. Now? Well, now it just seems like “more shit to do that keeps me away from my little boy”. I’m much better at being a mom than being a coder and I enjoy it a lot more.

Eric’s been wonderful. When I’m about ready to rip my hair out because my (handcoded..ahem ahem) event calendar isn’t working for God knows what reason, he debugs my code for me even though he’s never worked on PHP before. He holds onto the child as I work. I get him for naps and feeding, the rest of the time Eric keeps him entertained. Am I selfish because I’d rather he be with me?

“Why can’t he be?” you ask. “You’re just typing. Can’t he sit in your lap?”

Well, nosey, he could, except that I spend 4x the amount of time fixing his random typing in my code than I do actually coding. I’ve thought of it, I’ve tried it, it didn’t work out. If we didn’t need the money, I probably wouldn’t be doing it.

So, I’m avoiding work right now and spending a little time with my little boy, fixing his jabberings and letting him rip all the arrows off of my keyboard. He’s going to be ten key typing by 1 year. I’ll bet you.