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By Julie
My latest read is A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder--How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place
 . I'm about halfway through it. The writing is not exemplary, which is too bad, since it does make some good arguments against our society's illogical bias towards over-organization. I'm still not fond of my crammed drawers or messy desks, both at home and at work, but I'm pretty sure spending more time alphabetizing, labeling, and container-izing is not going to solve anything. If anything has helped it's Scaling Down: Living Large in a Smaller Space , which I'd read last year. I came away from that book convinced that less really is more, and I've been slowly but surely making headway against my packrat tendencies.The best weapon I've found so far is to avoid shopping and bringing more things into the house. Whenever I do go shopping, I tend to buy too many things, whether it's the jumbo bag of onions or yet another V-neck T that I do not need, just because it's on sale. When I give a shopping list to Kevin and ask him to go to the store, on the other hand, he tends to come home with only what was on the list. Judging by our credit card bills, this strategy has already kept a few hundred dollars worth of stuff out of our house this year, so I think it's one worth continuing. Since I do not actually like shopping, it won't even feel like I'm depriving myself of anything. Comments (4) | Link to this entry By Julie
For a good part of last year we kept finding other people's dog droppings on our lawn or driveway every week or two. Finally about a month ago I got fed up. Instead of cleaning up the droppings, I grabbed a broom and swung furiously until they all ended up in the middle of the street, and I asked Kevin to do the same if he should see more. I wanted to send a clear message to the perpetrators, that if I should ever catch them in the act, I will take my broom to both them and their stupid dogs.
Then this morning Kevin caught sight of more dog droppings, except they were in our neighbor's driveway on the other side of the street. I should go lend the neighbors my broom. My doctor's office called with some bad news. My one-hour glucose tolerance test came back a little high, so I'll have to take the three-hour test to make sure I don't have pregnancy-onset diabetes. For the uninitiated, the three-hour test goes something like this: I'll have to follow a stupid diet for a few days, fast the night before the test, then drive to the hospital first thing in the morning through evil traffic, drink a nasty glucose solution, and try not to vomit or black out while they take several samples of my blood over the course of three long hours, leaving scary track marks all over my arms that make the coworkers wonder. I had to take this test the previous two times I was pregnant, so now I'm three for three. Maybe the epidurals have done strange things to my memory, but I do believe this test is worse than giving birth. Comments (0) | Link to this entry By Julie
I'm now 26 weeks, +13 pounds, 2 pounds less than a few days ago. Not sure what happened, maybe I'm retaining less water? Anyway, I've got about 13 weeks left. I can't wait. I'm tired of people looking at my belly instead of my face while talking to me.
We had a busy weekend. Went shopping for a few things Friday night for Alex's birthday party on Saturday, which went better than I had expected. I'd rent a party facility again, even if I weren't pregnant and my back weren't killing me.  In fact, I'm already planning something similar for Ana's party next month. I'll be a month closer to my due date and all the happier for not having to deal with all that cooking and cleaning.  Sunday we went to a lovely baby shower for friends who are having a girl. Most of the women I know who are pregnant are also having girls. Fortunately I do have one friend who is definitely having a boy. Yay, someone to take all of Alex's old baby clothes off my hands! Yesterday I woke up with a horrendous pain in my abdomen. Baby girl had turned during the night, and she proceeded to take all morning to wiggle into a different position. Meanwhile I gritted my teeth in pain as she shoved either her feet or her head against my stomach. Unfortunately, all this took place during my glucose tolerance test. The drink was as disgusting as I remembered. Hopefully my blood test comes back okay and I won't have to go through the three hour test like I did with both Alex and Ana. Just thinking about the needles fills me with dread.  After the glucose test we looked at couches in preparation for turning our study into a coffee house. We didn't buy one, but we saw several that would work. Then I got a hair cut. Alex wondered why. He liked my hair the way it was. (Long.) I thought that was very sweet of him to say. Then we went home and I helped Ana walk on Kevin's back. She's the perfect weight for working out the kinks, as long as she doesn't jump. I had other things to say but I can't remember what. Blame it on my pregnant brain. Labels: kids, pregnancy, shopping Comments (1) | Link to this entry By Julie
My HMO has a wellness program that pays members a lot of money for participating. When I first heard about it last year, I didn't bother signing up, thinking the time commitment would be prohibitive. But yesterday I changed my mind. The requirements turned out to be simpler than I thought. All I had to do was fill out a health assessment (already done!) and then participate in three different health education programs via their website.
My health assessment is a boring read, no surprise there, seeing as I've been on my best behavior due to being pregnant. Thanks to my walking buddy I've even been getting plenty of exercise. The only criticism the website had for me was that I didn't eat enough fruits and vegetables, but that's mainly because I haven't been eating much, period. I can't eat as much per meal as I used to because of the baby butting up against my stomach, so ideally I should be eating 6 small meals a day, but seriously, who has the time to eat that often? I shrugged. Oh well, I'm just doing this for the financial incentive anyway, I thought. But today at lunch I avoided the burger and fries and picked up a tuna sandwich and orange juice instead. Go Hawthorne effect :P Tonight, while watching Kevin play Animal Crossing  ...Alex: Wanna know what would make this game more exciting? Kevin: What? Alex: Earthquakes and fires. Comments (0) | Link to this entry By Julie
Last night I finished reading Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping,
 a chronological series of essays on consumer culture, globalization, and their environmental costs, coupled with the author's personal challenge of not buying anything beyond the necessities for an entire year. I didn't necessarily agree with everything she said in her analyses, but I found her personal journey inspirational. While archiving our blog entries from last year, I came across an entry in which I asked whether it was possible to live within a culture without totally buying into it. I feel like this book is helping me answer that question, at least for myself. Monday I attended the first awards assembly of the year at Alex's school. This one was just for the Kindergarteners, 1st graders, and 2nd graders. Each teacher picked a handful of students from his/her class, and as the child went up, the teacher would explain which one of three reasons they were receiving the award: high academic achievement, most improvement, or good citizenship. When Alex went up, his teacher said that she chose him for his award not only because he's a good student, but also because he's always helping classmates when they're working in the computer lab. I was really proud of him. (But I didn't cry!!!) The assembly also included a presentation about the philanthropic project everyone at Alex's school is undertaking for the next few months -- collecting pennies to help a tiny school in Kenya build a library. I've always wondered about the six degrees aspects of these projects, and this time I wasn't left hanging. Apparently, the son of the school's founder works for our school district! I appreciate these projects because while I agree parents should have primary responsibility for teaching their kids about morality, kids do spend an awful lot of time at school, and I like the tone they set for how the kids should behave towards each other. I also like the emphasis on pennies vs. checks with lots of zeros because it makes kids feel like no good deed is too small.  That night, Ana took on the herculean task of picking all of the pennies out of Kevin's change bucket. She managed to fill up that entire pickle jar with pennies! But I doubt that would be enough to buy a single book for this library, let alone dry wall and roofing material. I think we'll have to supplement with nickels. Labels: books, kids, parenting Comments (1) | Link to this entry By Julie
Two examples:
Today my sister came over and brought the kids Ratatouille on DVD  as a belated Christmas gift. When we got to the scene where the food critic took a bite of his food and experienced the flashback, I started bawling.Also, I've always appreciate opera, but I didn't LOVE it until a few months ago, when I caught Paul Potts's performance on Britain's Got Talent via Youtube. It turned me into a sobbing mess. Now I listen to the opera channel on Yahoo Radio. Labels: famous people, food, music, pregnancy Comments (2) | Link to this entry By Julie
I'm having a rough week. Somehow I managed to mess up my back. Yesterday I was in so much pain I had to take the afternoon off. After an hour of sitting on the massage chair and a good night's sleep, I've almost recovered, but there's still a huge tender spot on my back. Kevin thinks it's a pulled muscle.
 Tuesday was Alex's 8th birthday. The party with family and friends isn't for another week, but we did have a cake for him to make a wish on and a present for him to open. I had to work late, so I didn't get to have dinner with the birthday boy, but I did get home in time to hear all about his day, eat cake with him, and watch his eyes light up when he opened the present.  Wednesday was Alex's first piano lesson. Kevin reported that there are four other kids in his group lessons. Also, the teacher seems to be really good at keeping the kids interested. I'm thrilled. Music isn't supposed to be punishment, and if Alex told me tomorrow that he'd really rather not take piano lessons, I'd say fine, let's stop and find something better to do. But so far he likes it. I asked if he'd want to play a band instrument when he hits 4th grade, and he said yes, he'd like to play the drums. (Yay for my wallet! Drumsticks and drum pads are cheap, haha!) In other news, I'm a Second Life tard. A couple of friends and I got interviewed for an article about SL for a campus magazine, and the photographer wanted to take a picture of us with our avatars. Before we could get shooting, someone asked why my avatar had sticks for arms. I swear, I have no idea how they got that skinny. After much effort I found the setting for fattening up my arms, and in the process I managed to enlarge my hands until they looked like "man hands." By then we had to get going, so I ended up taking pictures with my avatar as is. I must be the only person in SL with an avatar that's uglier than I am in real life. How brilliant is that? Labels: kids, music, parenting, work Comments (1) | Link to this entry By Julie
I started teaching the kids (and Kevin) Chinese over the weekend. They were such good students. We worked on numbers. I taught them 一 through 十二, then extrapolated from there. Here are a couple of the worksheets they completed:
  This isn't among my new year's resolutions, but when I went back to work last week, I confessed to a friend that I desperately needed exercise after lazing around so much during winter break. Right then we made a pact to take regular breaks and go for walks together. It's been great. So far she's reminded me more often than I've reminded her. Then suddenly over the weekend I had a horrific leg cramp. When I mentioned it during my OB appointment today, he said it's probably because I'm over-exerting myself and that I needed to take it easy. Um... okay. Right now I'm at 24 weeks + 1 day. The baby is about a pound. I haven't weighed myself since the week after Christmas when I was at +10 lb. I've also been eating a lot of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Coincidence? Haha. Labels: chinese, food, pregnancy Comments (0) | Link to this entry By Julie
The red hearts started going up the day after Christmas. I noticed them during the after-Christmas sale. At Target it was just a small aisle full of red heart-shaped bowls and the like. The chocolate hadn't been put out yet. It's just as well.
I have a confession to make: I'm immune to the allure of chocolate. It's not that I don't like chocolate or that I don't understand the difference between inferior chocolate and "real chocolate", it's that given the choice, I usually prefer other types of candies and desserts. Most people don't know about this quirk of mine, even people close to me. It's just not considered normal. When I was younger and more self conscious, I even considered fabricating a food allergy to respond to the awkward questions that come up when I turn down offers of chocolate. These days I'm a lot less reticent. When the office holiday party cake turned out to be a chocolate one, I declined. "No thanks, chocolate cake is not my thing." When pressed, I admitted that neither are truffles, fudge, or anything else chocolatey. "You're a freak," said a friend who knew she could get away with saying it. I know, I said. "I wish I had an immunity to chocolate," she continued, forking a bite of chocolate cake into her mouth. The only times I've ever craved chocolate were during my pregnancies, but the craving diminished with each one. With Alex I was devouring pounds of dark chocolate. With Ana, I had a standing order at the local doughnut shop for chocolate chip muffins. But with baby #3 the craving has been sporadic and negligible.  So what does a guy like Kevin do on Valentine's Day with a wife who doesn't go gaga over chocolate? Dinner for two always gets a favorable response, whether home-cooked or at a restaurant. Flowers are always appreciated. As for other treats, here are a few of my favorites:
How about you? What are some of your favorite non-chocolatey treats? Comments (3) | Link to this entry
Friday, January 04, 2008
I'll Have a Hammerhead and a Chocolate Scone - You Have Free Wifi Here Right? By Kevin
Julie sent me an excerpt from today's Unshelved blog discussing a problem we've been banging our heads against for a while now. I'll quote the pertinent section:
Our old family office had stations for me, my wife Sara, my housemate ... Jana, and our kids. But while I work in the office 8 or more hours a day, everyone else just drops in for a half hour now and again. So now in addition to my permanent station the new office ... has a nice old round wood table ... two chairs, and a power strip (the printers and server went into a closet). Jana and Sara drift in, plug in their laptops, do some work, and drift out. The table is perfect for meetings (family and otherwise), paying bills, and the occasional need to spread out.When we furnished our home office five years ago, Alex was two and Ana was still over a year off. The boy already had his own computer (for educational games) and we were planning on having another child so we decided to cram four desks into the smallest room of our house. The logic was that naturally everyone would need their own computer and that putting them all in the same room would give us the opportunity to keep an eye on the kids' web browsing habits. We also felt strongly that each of the kids would need their own horizontal space for doing homework. Well, five years went by and over time it has become pretty obvious that nobody goes into the study unless they absolutely must. The furniture is nice, the task lighting is adequate, and there's a small window for natural light and fresh air. The problem is, when you put the necessary paperwork and office supply storage for running a family into the same small room as four desks it just becomes an unpleasant environment. As soon as Julie and I each had laptops, the study became storage rather than workspace. The allure of the cozy wingback chairs and sofa in the living room combined with the house-blanketing wifi was too great to resist. You get more work done (and have more fun doing it) when you're in the most comfortable space. This is also the case for homework of course. Alex does his in the same place I did as a kid - at the dining room table while dinner is being prepared. We're right there to help him through any problems and he has a vast, well-lit table to spread out on and be more productive. In the ensuing conversation we hammered out the details of our new workspace. It ended with Julie proclaiming her undying love for sofas and both of us anxious to clean off and disassemble two desks so there's room for a sofa and a nice coffee table in their place. Eventually we'll replace the two remaining desks with one big desk and lots of shelves/cubbies over it to hold the necessary stuff. The big desk will be for paying the bills, doing taxes, or anything else that requires having lots of paper out at once. The sofa and coffee table will be the perfect place (when combined with the existing lighting) for reading, blogging, uploading photos from our cameras, doing homework, etc. We've already replaced the home server with an NSLU2 and two Passports so our file server now requires about a quarter of a square foot of shelf space. The printers can go on an end table next to the sofa with USB cables an easy reach for nearby laptops. As a final touch, we'll remove the (previously closed and blocked by a desk) door between the study and living room and close the one leading to the hallway instead. It will end up being a semi-secluded extension of the living room rather than a room in its own right. Tonight Alex learned how to Google by watching me locate his favorite flash games. Julie wandered into the study this evening and found him on YouTube watching nintendo character related fan animation. After getting over the initial shock (and concern) we laughed about the coincidental timing. It's going to be fun converting our old-school office into the home productivity equivalent of the corner coffee house. A place we can all hang out, get things done, and have fun together. Labels: home improvement, kids, toys Comments (3) | Link to this entry By Julie
 We rang in the new year quietly this year. Last new year we went to a Flaming Lips/Gnarls Barkley concert, and the year before that we drove down to San Diego to see Matisyahu. This year we had considered going to New York to enjoy the chaos in Times Square, but we changed our minds and opted for a quiet evening at home in our pajamas instead. The latter actually fits in with one of my new year's resolutions. (No, it's not to Be More Boring, harhar.) Last year I dubbed one of my resolutions the PJ Resolution. Here's how I described it: "I've decided to spend as many of my waking hours during 2007 as possible wearing pajamas." The real goal being to get more sleep, of course. I want to believe that I got more sleep in 2007 than I did in past years. At the least, wearing pajamas made me painfully aware of when I should have been in bed when I wasn't, so I'll count the PJ Resolution a partial success.  In anticipation of needing a lot of rest with baby #3 on the way, I've decided to keep this resolution for 2008. This adorable bathrobe Kevin gave me for Christmas should help with my resolve. It's very cozy, and I was told it's the same robe Brad Pitt wore in Fight Club  . I haven't seen the movie or read the book though. Does anyone die in it?Other goals for 2008:
Labels: chinese, famous people, home improvement, music Comments (0) | Link to this entry By Julie
During our week-long winter holiday we originally had several day trips planned, but the kids got sick, so we took it easy. Aside from shopping and seeing family, we didn't do anything until New Year's Eve, when both kids felt healthy. That's when we all hopped on the train and rode it downtown.
The greater Los Angeles area has some nice public transit systems, but neither Kevin nor I have ever ridden a bus, and I'm the only one who's ever used the Metrolink train system (once). The reason is entrenched in LA's history. This place didn't had the geographic limitations that caused many cities to grow upward, so it grew outward. For instance, the city of Angels is 1.5 times the size of New York City but has less than half the number of inhabitants.    To get on the train here in east Los Angeles County, we couldn't even use the station closest to us because it only runs during commuter hours, i.e. early morning and late afternoon. A few years ago it stopped running midday because it had so few riders during those hours. We caught the 11:30 out of a station that was not only farther away but on a different route. And it wasn't cheap. Total cost of round trip tickets for two adults and two kids was around $30. But our train was impressively full for midday, and the ride was very pleasant. It took us 45 minutes to arrive at Union Station.    From Union Station we walked to Olvera Street. Next to the gazebo at the entrance we saw a Mexican TV station setting up to film the NYE celebration. We also watched three performers in Native American garb doing traditional dances. We strolled down its entire cobblestoned length, then headed over to Chinatown.     In Chinatown we enjoyed a lunch of fried rice and dumplings, then had fun window shopping on Broadway. I was pleased that neither of the kids whined for any of the toys that caught their eye, so the only things we were taking back from this trip were memories and full tummies. We headed back to Union Station via Olvera Street, where we listened to church bells ringing out holiday tunes and ate snow cones for dessert. Alex's favorite part of the trip? Playing navigator using one of the two new compasses he got for Christmas! Ana's favorite part of the trip? Snow cones!  Tomorrow I'll post about good intentions - I mean new year's resolutions! :) Labels: kids, los angeles Comments (0) | Link to this entry By Julie
Hope you all enjoyed the holidays! This year we went over to my cousin Lynn and her hubby's house for Christmas potluck. I made green bean casserole and freshly baked rolls, Kevin made bow tie pasta with sausage, and the kids made chocolate cupcakes with green frosting and red/green sprinkles.
 Here they are on Christmas Eve, each sampling a cupcake to make sure it tasted all right before taking them to the potluck the next day.  On Christmas morning we opened presents at home first. Kevin won Dad of the Year award with this gift for Alex, a Legend of Zelda edition gold Nintendo DS. Alex is being super careful with it and will be buying a protective case with his allowance soon. Then we went over to Lynn's house. During Christmas dinner, Lynn offered me a beer. Kevin and I both gaped at her for a beat before she realized what she'd done. "I totally forgot!" she laughed. "You're so small you don't even look pregnant." Other than Kevin's daily reassurances, that was the nicest thing anyone has said to me since the start of this pregnancy. At the time I was 22 weeks and +9 lbs. I don't even want to know how much I weigh now.  The day after Christmas we hit a few after-Christmas sales. Got some cards, wrapping paper, and lights. We also stopped at Beard Papa's to enjoy their delicious cream puffs. Kevin had the chocolate, and I had the vanilla. Mmmm, good.  I was so inspired that a couple of days later I tried making cream puffs from scratch. Opened up Joy of Cooking  and was delighted to find a recipe that didn't look too hard. The result was ugly but *dangerously* tasty. Kevin and I ended up devouring two whole batches by ourselves. Let's see, other things we've been doing... Cleaned the house a bit. Donated several bags of clothes to get in the last tax deduction of the year. Most of the clothes were mine. I've held on to all of Alex and Ana's old baby clothes for obvious reasons. Now that I know we're having a girl, I'm waiting to see if my sister is having a boy before giving all of Alex's old clothes to my friend T, who's having a baby boy a few weeks after me. (Can you tell I can't wait to give them away? The amount of baby clothes clogging up our garage is just overwhelming.) ADDED 01/02/08: Check out this NYT article, Tackling Clutter to Improve Your Health! I'll blog about our day trip to Olvera Street/Chinatown and our new year's resolutions later. * FYI, #2 comes on February 7th this year. It's going to be the Year of the Rat! Labels: chinese, food, kids, pregnancy, toys Comments (0) | Link to this entry |
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