Most of my future posts will be public posts. To leave a comment here, you can either comment anon, which will be screened until I read the comment, use the openid feature, or you can create a livejournal user name. If you wish to read the occasional locked post, you will need a lj username and friend my journal. Eventually, my archive will be mostly public again and properly tagged.

It took a lot of work and effort, but we managed to get our belongings into storage. Major furniture that was broken and needing to be replaced was given the proper furniture funeral.

On the 31st, we were finishing removing our belongings and hit the road. The funny thing is when I was packing clothes for this move, not all of them fit into suitcases or a box. My pants in particular were the items I was really concerned with not making it into the van. "This stack has to go in the van." "Don't forget my pants." "I won't have anything but undies to wear if you forget MY PANTS."

As the van was packed up tight with stuff, one box didn't make the trip and went into storage. The following morning as we were getting dressed for the day, Homer asks where *his* pants were. Um... well... let me look. Eeep. Sorry Homer, your pants were in that box you didn't want to take in the van. You have nothing but undies and suit pants to wear. HAHA! I was such a harpy about my pants.

The nice part of this move is the general mood of our family has changed for the better. While each thing we are doing down here would have been done up there, each step is sort of energy and emotionally draining. If we were still up there, I'm sure our rebound back into action each day would be much more difficult. Here our funk lasts maybe an hour or two and then we are back to enjoying the move and different scenary.

Homer is invited to interview at his preferred location to work, and is going to go attempt to do that today. Cross your fingers!

but they can all suck my nose at this point. =oP

I attempted yesterday to order a replacement video card for our desktop computer in attempt to resurrect it back to life. The website had google as a payment option, and I did it and received a receipt of the order. Google even authorized the card for the amount of the charge.

And the company who is supposed to ship the card has no record from google of the transaction. The order number that google gives for this purpose is useless to this company. Their suggestion is to cancel the order, except I have no option to do so.

Wankage.

I know I've been away for a while. My internets are back, and I have a new topic going round and round in my head right now. Assemblywoman Ma introduced AB 372 in California, and now that is less than a day from being heard by the Judicial committee, the bill has already been compromised. It suggests that adult adoptees (over the age of 25) can request a copy of their original birth certificate and get it if the birthparents are contacted and don't protest the release. That is the bare basics of what is going on, and in order to get my mind fluent and wrapped properly around what is being proposed and what I shall say in opposition to this bill, I'm going to prattle on a bit in my journal. Agree, disagree or poke me with questions, it's all good. The drama llama is invited to come out for these posts.

Sorry I've been away. Things keeping me away for the moment:

1. Serafina has become a borg and is obsessed with all things kid related on the interwebs.

2. Serafina has also become potty trained, but there are a million zillion, "I HAVE TO GO POTTY!!!" followed by "No potty in my butt."

3. Athena is moving from full force crawling, to cruising while hanging on to everything in site. Also she is biting only me a lot. Apparently Homer is too hairy and possibly wrong tasting.

Anyway, that is the boring update of my life. I must attempt to regain access to the borg collective from my child.

OH! And for lent I have given up soda. I'm actually rather pleased with my body reaction. No migraines and the urge to sleep during sleeping hours is lovely. On the other hand, having Homer keep looking for Mexican Coca-cola to drink while I am giving up soda is the suck.

First the groups, then the blogs.

Apparently the activity is based on this group with the acronym CARE. From what I'm reading in the blogs, the message that their group gives for their intentions has changed dramatically from criticism earlier this month. http://www.ca-care.org/

Because CARE is choosing to admit that they aren't going to get a clean bill passed, and are going to compromise, Cal Open has come back out! http://www.calopen.org/

As for the blogs, the two I was reading last night are:

http://bastardette.blogspot.com/
http://bbchurch.blogspot.com/

I fell down the stairs last night. I made it down two steps and then slid down the rest injuring my back something fierce. I feel as if the stairs became a car and ran me down from behind. My neck, my shoulders and my hips are just aching. It puts a huge damper on continuing to unpack and get this household into shape. =oP Now the goal to survive without moving my body much at all today.

Last night, I was trying to figure out long term planning since the short term planning has been working well. When it is time to enter seminary studies, either I could move down to the bay area with my family, uprooting everyone and seeing our cost of living spike dramatically, or I could commute and miss out on a lot of family time, or I could study from home with occassional commute stays on campus. If I studied from home, I would need to be already participating in an emerging ministry, which happens to be my big idea anyway. So I spent last night brainstorming (much to the approval to Serafina, aka Imagination Mover's biggest fan) every part I could think of about my big idea. Once my computer had finally been turned over by Juliet and Serafina, I was attempting to catch up on two weeks of blog reading when I discovered on Marley's blog that California appears to be about to tackle open records again!

Exciting stuff this is! Never mind that I haven't figured out which assembly member is going to present the legislation, and never mind that I am fearful of the group putting the effort behind this legislation is stating they are willing to compromise access for some adoptees in order for many to have their records. But the fact that it has been so long since the last attempt is darn exciting. I joined Cal Open immediately so that I can keep up with what is going on, and to make sure I am sticking with the group that unapologetically insists on a clean bill with no adopted person's rights being trampled for the others.

This week has been the week of phone tag. Each and every phone call has been me needing to then call someone else to get a suitable answer and then that person referring to someone else. Most of the time the phone calls have been circular too, ending back at the first person called. Some of the calls I wasn't allowed to speak because they wouldn't accept verbal authorization from Homer, which was entirely frustrating. When we were first married, Homer had no patience for making any phone calls in which things needed to be resolved with companies. It would take approximately two minutes of discussion and Homer would blow his top. Over the years, he's mellowed out a bit and is able to make basic request phone calls without losing his cool, but definitely nothing like the wild goose chases that happened this week.

Unrelated to the wild goose chase phone calls, I am within a spits distance of transferring schools. All of the course I am registered for this semester are actual degree required courses, and the application period for transferring comes up this August for Spring admission. I am thrilled.

I have a picture post coming up soon from pictures taken on Sunday. Over the weekend, Athena decided that two bottom teeth were not enough and grew four additional teeth on top. Her smile of pure joy turned to an embarrassed painful awkward smile.

Athena has slowly started eating regular food. Because of the family histories of allergies, I am pretty methodical about what foods are given and when so that I can watch for a reaction. Also, because of Juliet's texture aversions when she was little, I also give the girls a chance to really acclimate to the foods for seeing if they are chewing or swallowing alright before moving on to the next food. Athena basically for the last few weeks has been experimenting with rice crispies. In the last week or so, she's finally figured them out and how to eat them, so I've been contemplating which food to give her next.

Earlier this week I baked up a batch of the most awesome tasting Sugar Cookies ever. I promised the cookies to Homer, Juliet and Serafina before Christmas, and well it took until earlier this week to finally bake them. But it was so worth the wait! Each of us really had this look of utter content while eating these cookies, and the sad sack of Athena baby gave us either the look of disappointment she couldn't eat the cookie too, or it was the look of frustration that demanded we hand over the damn cookie already.

The cookies ran out by late Wednesday evening, but around the house Serafina left a partially eaten cookie or two around the house. Yesterday morning Athena was crawling around the bedroom floor getting into her usual mischief when I noticed that it had gotten really quiet in the room. The kind of quiet that means your child is up to no good. I peer over the end of the bed to see what the baby is up to, and next to a low coffee table, Athena baby is laying on her back with the most awesome happy face ever as she has clenched in one of her fists a petrified partially eaten sugar cookie. Athena happily gnawed on that cookie with smug satisfaction that she finally got one.

I picked Athena up and took her downstairs to show Homer what had happened, and we were in giggle fits over her determination. Homer battled it out with Athena trying to get that cookie out of her fist. She held tight while trying to cram that cookie back into her little open birdie mouth.

http://ljbackup.yamnet.co.uk/

Ljbook is overloaded unless you pay.

eta: rumor mill article http://valleywag.gawker.com/5124184/the-russian-bear-slashes-a-social-network

Cleaning is not my favorite task because of how tedious it becomes.  But in an effort to encourage myself to continue on, here is a list of why cleaning is rather cool:

• We find stuff that got misplaced.  Others may rotate toys in an efficient put away a box manner, we do it by losing it to the clutter.
• Cleaning keeps the girls entertained.  They follow from area to area taking full use of open space created and new ways to create forts and play areas.  Yesterday involved making bunk bed forts out of Juliet's bed because it was clean underneath.  And playing store with the dresses hung in the closet.
• The feeling of not being shoved smaller.  The openess feels awesome.
• It gives Athena more places to crawl around and discover.

In other news, Athena sits up without help for about three seconds before dumping over.

The trouble with trying to pick some New Year's resolutions is that it points out the one major problem with following through.  There isn't enough time in the day to do all the things I'd like to do with the amount of focus and detail I'd like put towards it. 

Of the ME!!ME!!ME!! resolutions:

I'd like to be swimsuit fit where I don't put one on and completely want to hide.  Not perfection mind you.
I'd like to knit more and not with my stash of red heart yarn that will outlive the cockroaches.
I want to learn photography and not be such a noob.
I want to write more.
I want to make a serious damn difference in attempting to open original birth certificates to adoptees from California.
I want to read the bible in a year.
I want to find fiction that interests me.
Heck I want to read for pleasure and not necessity.
I want to visit my sister at school.

And that's just off the top of my fluff filled head.

DANCE!  I want to dance ballet.  I can't forget that.  Sigh.

I have to admit I'm rather brilliant waiting until the last minute like this to register for classes. Of the online courses left, I had old people classes to choose from. Nothing against old people I suppose, it's just I don't really have an interest in studying them. But I need six units to get back in the swing of school and to defer my loans. So old people classes it is. I'm also on the waiting list for two English writing courses. One I am the fourth on the list, the other I'm the sixth. If I get either, you can bet that I'm dropping the other courses I enrolled in!

Previous post here

Just for today, I tried my best not to toss my family out the window as I got driven bat shit insane.

Just for today, the house decided to invite in an army of ants.

Just for today, I attempted to clean but the house fought back and I lost.

Just for today, I ended up a cranky exhausted woman who helped the postpartum hair loss go quicker by ripping my hair out like my icon picture.

Just for today, the day could just be over already.

On a positive note, Katie met her total complete food goal allocation for the first time in about two months. We now are attempting to still increase her stomach capacity per feeding so that the meals aren't hourly.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will live through this day only. I will not brood about yesterday or obsess about tomorrow. I will not set far-reaching goals or try to overcome all my problems at once. I know that I can do something for 24 hours that would overwhelm me if I had to keep it up for a lifetime.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will be happy. I will not dwell on thoughts that depress me. If my mind fills with clouds, I will chase them away and fill it with sunshine.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will accept what is. I will face reality. I will correct those things I can correct, and accept those I cannot.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will improve my mind. I will read something that requires effort, thought and concentration. I will not be a mental loafer.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will make a conscious effort to be agreeable. I will be kind and courteous to those who cross my path, and I will not speak ill of others. I'll improve my appearance, speak softly, and not interrupt when someone else is talking. Just for today, I'll refrain from improving anybody except myself.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will do something positive to improve my health. If I'm a smoker, I'll quit. If I'm overweight, I'll eat healthily -- if only for today. And just for today, I'll get off the couch and take a brisk walk, even if it's only around the block.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will gather the courage to do what is right and take responsibility for my own actions.

(Not written by Mr. Rogers, but has that feel good feeling!)

I have this goal of tagging ten past entries a day. If I go all crazy above and beyond that, I would burn out and stop tagging entirely. So ten is spiffy.

Today I learned that three years ago I was just starting out on journaling through "Self Matters."

I also declared at that Thanksgiving that I would probably have my next child when Juliet was around three years old.

My dad was complaining about 16 by 9 televisions.

And more fascinating, Homer broke his elbow! This entry gave me the giggle fits all over again!

I figure if I find gold like that elbow doctor post, I'll probably link you all up as I go through this tagging fun.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will live through this day only. I will not brood about yesterday or obsess about tomorrow. I will not set far-reaching goals or try to overcome all my problems at once. I know that I can do something for 24 hours that would overwhelm me if I had to keep it up for a lifetime.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will be happy. I will not dwell on thoughts that depress me. If my mind fills with clouds, I will chase them away and fill it with sunshine.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will accept what is. I will face reality. I will correct those things I can correct, and accept those I cannot.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will improve my mind. I will read something that requires effort, thought and concentration. I will not be a mental loafer.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will make a conscious effort to be agreeable. I will be kind and courteous to those who cross my path, and I will not speak ill of others. I'll improve my appearance, speak softly, and not interrupt when someone else is talking. Just for today, I'll refrain from improving anybody except myself.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will do something positive to improve my health. If I'm a smoker, I'll quit. If I'm overweight, I'll eat healthily -- if only for today. And just for today, I'll get off the couch and take a brisk walk, even if it's only around the block.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will gather the courage to do what is right and take responsibility for my own actions.