by Sarah | Jun 11, 2009 | All About Denver
Two weeks ago, school was over. The last day was a Thursday – and it was all over. Brandon finished fifth grade (next year he’ll be in middle school!).
The past few years I’ve dreaded the last day of school. For Brandon it was like a punishment to be told to play outside. He sat around the house and moped. He would go and spend days and weeks with the in-laws just to escape the boredom that was being home.
But in the past year the neighborhood that I’ve always loved has gotten even better. There’s been an influx of kids (and dogs – everyone got puppies this year) and I can’t get Brandon to come home to eat any of his meals!
There is nothing I like more than a neighborhood full of kids my son’s age on a street with no free traffic (very little traffic at all)!! It’s so wonderful that he has so many friends to play with!
by Sarah | Jun 9, 2009 | All About Kennedy, All About Molly
Nowhere.
Up until now bribery has had no effect in our massive attempst to potty train. They are not interested. Well, they ARE interested in the prize. Riley asks me at least once a week about the tinkerbell hats.
But they aren’t interested in what it takes to GET those hats.
Today I threw in the towel.
I know they’re old enough.
I know that THEY know EXACTLY what they’re doing – they are just being stubborn.
I refuse to put diapers on them. I’m done.
I’m going to be doing a LOT more laundry during this battle of wills.
I’m hoping that treating them like big girls will make them act as such.
Either that or I’ll end up in the funny farm.
Excuse me while I go have an aneurysm.
by Sarah | Jun 6, 2009 | All About Me, Crap
On and off like clockwork, every six months, I look for you. I google you, your old screen name, your real name, your maiden name. I wonder how you are. I wonder where your life is now.
For a long time I never found you. Old journal entries, old youtube videos, but never anything recent.
Today I found you. Now and here and present. You’re on facebook. I stare at the picture of you and your husband and my heart breaks.
There are days that I miss you so terribly I cry. There are days that I’m so angry at myself for letting things fall apart the way they did. There are days that I’m furious with you for pushing us away.
We still talk about you…at times melancholy, and at times angry.
My heart aches and my mouse hovers over the ‘send message’ button. Even if I could push past my own pride, what would I say? It has been two years this month since things came to an end between us. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t easy. I still have a hole in my heart where you used to reside. It’s still an open wound, jagged and raw.
Do you think of us? Do you search for us? Do you miss us? Or did you just stop caring all together? Are we just a distant memory that annoys you?
I still wonder what happened. How such a friendship could crumble. Why you feared that WE would be mad at the path your life took? Of all people. Why you felt that you couldn’t trust us with the truth. Why we didn’t search for it sooner. Could things have ended differently if we’d spoken up months before we did? Or if we’d just remained blindly ignorant and let things totally slide by.
I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with the roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Was our friendship real? If it was, how could it end like that?
by Sarah | May 27, 2009 | All About Family
With a bright load of bullets…bullet points, that is. It’s been so long since I’ve posted I can only go random with notes of where I’ve been.
* I have been working behind the scene, doing coding and graphics in preparation for the big launch! My BFF and I have launched a new webmag The Modern Pagan!! We have some great writers with MrsB, Angela, and RetroKali. We are currently looking for more writer’s and article submissions so spread the word! Here’s a bit more from our ‘about’ page:
The Modern Pagan is an online magazine set up to help inform, teach and grow with the pagan and non-pagan communities. We will be posting articles on Wednesdays to begin with in the hopes that we can grow and move to a few more days during the week and finally daily. Please come and check out Weekly Tarot Card to see what’s been pulled from our deck. We will be posting stories, recipes, rituals, crafts and much more.
* I’ve been recovering from surgery. After 3 weeks I’m feeling human again. I still get an occasional twinge from the bruising under the surface and the incision sites still have not fully healed – but I feel ‘normal’. I’ve discovered what I can and can’t eat and what I must eat in moderation. It’s been real fun figuring that out.
* Archie and I had a date. A REAL date. We didn’t go to the movies, we didn’t stay local like we always do (for the past 5 years we haven’t left this side of town). We went to the south side to the Cheesecake Factory. We walked around the mall and then grabbed some more cheesecake and drove home!
* One week before school let out Brandon brought home a big fat F. It was a project that not only wasn’t finished, but not turned in on time. And so, the boy begins summer break on lockdown (major grounding).
* I’ve set into (lime)stone my trip to NY this year. I hadn’t planned on going, but a fellow blogger is also from there and recently took a spontaneous trip which made me very homesick. Since Archie does horribly in the car I’ve asked my mom to go. Because of the timing I get to finally meet the incredibly talented and beautiful Mishelle!! We’re going to the original Duff’s to eat wings and drink Labbatt’s beer! You bet we’ll both have our cameras so expect pictures!
* I actualy managed to get through ALL of our laundry yesterday. This is a rarity in our house so much that Archie thanked me for it and said that it wasn’t so easy (he knows after caring for the house for a week 😀 ). I didn’t just WASH the laundry – I got 95% of it away, the last 5% I plan on putting away today. In a household of 5 this is HUGE.
* We’ve shared dinner with our neighbor Moe a couple of times in the past couple of weeks. He’s a great friend and a big help to Archie when it comes to his girlfriend. I love being that close to our neighbors.
* Speaking of neighbors, now that the weather is nice we’ve spent a few evenings outside gathering with the neighbors. We have a wonderful small neighborhood where everyone knows everyone else. It’s a neighborhood like I’ve always wanted to live in (did once when I was in 3-9 grade).Â
* Our puppy is getting HUGE. Sookie is gorgeous and I hope to have pictures of her up soon!
* Speaking of Sookie I am counting down the days to True Blood’s second season! June 14th!! I read book 9 in one night and have already marked the date of book 10 on my calendar. I’ve watched every preview that’s come out and purchased season 1 on DVD. I even started following the characters on Facebook! They give me such a giggle.
* Yeah, I finally caved. I said I would never Facebook…but my husband got on, and I don’t remember the reason I caved, but I did. I’m glad I did…I found my old middle school bestest friend in the world who stuck by me through some big crap. I found out my cousin was on FB and her husband, and a good high school friend of mine. I’ve made some great connections. Because it’s my real name and connected to my hubbies real name I’m choosey about who I let in…but if you want in email me 😀
* Speaking of Facebook…it’s because of that, and this post…that I’ve officially come out of the broom closet with my family. Oops…but I had to spread the word about the Modern Pagan!Â
* I need to have surgery more often. Being stuck on the couch for a week led to frequent blog posting and reading…real life is way to wacky!!
* And so I close this bulleted list having said a whole lot of nothing! Hopefully more frequent posting is upon us again…and you’ll get a new better picture of me if the ones I took on date day came out okay 😀
by Sarah | May 15, 2009 | All About Me, Crap
I used to hear stories of women that claimed they didn’t know they were pregnant and gave birth thinking they had heartburn or gastritis. I thought they were insane. How could you NOT know? When I was pregnant with my first I had symptoms before I knew. With my second it took a couple weeks to sink in, but I knew. I got HUGE with my first, but only had a bump for my second.Â
So I thought all these women were nuts.
Then it happened to me.
When Riley was born we agreed that was it. Two was our limit. We were done, finito, kaput. I was breastfeeding, had the pill and we took…other precautions. At no time was there less than 3 forms of birth control happening.
When Riley was 4 months old her reflux came to the forefront, as did her FTT. I stopped breastfeeding and switched to formula in a desperate attempt to have her gain weight (what a joke…but that’s a diferent story).Â
All of the health care visits for Riley kept me busy. Not to mention working nights waitressing. I was busy, tired, and not paying much attention.
In December I wrote the following on my LiveJournal entry:
I feel pregnant still/again. Nearly 100% sure I’m not…because it would be almost physically impossible to be…and if I was, I’d be about 6 months along right now and a bit bigger than I am…so I think I have another cyst. Probably pretty nasty too, because when I was taking a bath the other night I realized one side of my abdomen is relatively solid. There’s definitely something in there. I’m still 10 lbs. above pre-preggers weight and I don’t eat a ton…I eat like I always have. My boobs are still a cup size over pre-preggers and leaking…and I’m moody as Hell…I’ve started getting the sharp pains around my ovary area that I got when I had my last one…but they aren’t as frequent.
So what did I do? Nothing.Â
January came around and about mid-month my eyes flew open at 5:30AM. Mind you, I am nowhere near a morning person – if I DO Wake up at that time I’m usually half-dead. But no, that day I woke up WIDE awake. I placed my hand on my stomach and said, “What the hell?” It felt like a baby kicking.Â
So what did I do? Blew it off as gas.
It was another TWO WEEKS before I randomly picked up a pregnancy test at the grocery store for kicks. Because really…there was NO WAY I was pregnant! Right?
Test came up positive. I freaked. Bawling my eyes out crying. All the reasons we could NOT have another kid racing through my head I called Archie and asked him to come home. Despite my protests that I couldnt tell him over the phone, he forced it out of me and was home 20 minutes later.Â
I still didn’t believe it. I called the doctor’s office and my wonderful nurse (LOVE her!) told me to come in first thing in the morning and she’d draw the blood. I had to wait another 24 hours but my wonderful nurse (again, LOVE her) called me before they even opened to let me know she’d snuck a peak into the computers pre-paperwork and gotten my results. I was in fact pregnant. She then said…
“Let me see if we can get schedule you in about 4 weeks out. By these numbers I’d say you’re very early, about 4 weeks.”
My response was immediate:
“No. You don’t understand. My FIRST symptom was the baby kicking! I think I’m WAY beyond 4 weeks.”
In shock she agreed that we had to get in for an ultrasound ASAP.Â
4 days later I found out the sex of the baby…on her first ultrasound.Â
I was 23 weeks.Â
She was born at 36 weeks.
The doctor said I set a speed record for him in pregnancies.
In my defense, after this visit my pregnancy did far more than set a speed record. It was like the minute my pregnancy was confirmed my body took it as a big thumbs up to REALLY let loose.
I had SEVERE pain (Pubic Symphysis Diastasis) – so bad I couldn’t roll over in bed at night. I blew up and looked pregnant within a week (I hadn’t up until then). I was put on modified bed rest within a month of my ultrasound – true bedrest when I went into pre-term labor at 35 weeks (lifted @36 weeks). It became almost a nightmare once I knew I was pregnant…
But for 23 weeks I didn’t know I was pregnant!
by Sarah | May 11, 2009 | All About Denver, Tween-ology
“Something happened at school today.”
I look at my son in concern. This could be anything.
“I almost asked out a girl.”
Uh…back the truck up, you WHAT? I just grin, and ask why he didn’t.
“Someone beat me to it.”
I blink a few times, trying to digest this. Clear my throat, “Okay. So why didn’t you ask her out too?”
“Well, cuz then she’d be going on a double date.”
I resist the urge to facepalm right in front of him, stifle my laughter and point out that this is NOT what I meant.
He has since assured me that this coupling won’t last because Cindy* is country, and the other boy is city/hiphop. “It won’t last until next week.”
My poor boy. I’ll be having his Dad have a chat with him tonight. He needs a few clues thrown his way.
