Ahhh.  The joys of air conditioning!  I got tired of the house smelling musty and yucky, so I got a rare hair up my butt and decided to steam-clean my carpets.  Boy, were they dirty!  They’re probably still not completely clean, but they are far less dirty than they were.  The only thing that was driving me nuts was having to refill the reservoir for the steam-cleaner over and over again.  They should make a steam-cleaner with a bigger reservoir!

Without air conditioning, I couldn’t have done it, though.  It would have been too damn hot in the house otherwise.  Plus the carpets would have taken days to dry with the humidity we have here.

But the floors are cleaner.  It makes me happy.  However, the house still smells kind of musty.  I am not sure what else I can do.  I’ve sprayed Febreze all over the couches multiple times, I’ve washed the dog’s bedding several times, I’ve spread baking soda in the carpet… I wonder if there’s something coming up out of the carpets from the previous tenants.

Speaking of which, we were at our friend’s house this weekend, and I noticed their carpeting was super cushy.  So I asked if they’d had new carpet put down with some sort of plush padding underneath.  Well, it wasn’t extra padding that was making their carpet so cushy.  Apparently the maintenance people simply laid new carpet over old till there was four layers of carpet there!  I cannot even imagine.  In a way, it’s good because our floors are really hard, what with old carpet and old padding there.  But then most people say that we have the best carpeting because ours is brown Berber.  Everyone else has brown industrial-grade carpeting.

It’s the small things, I guess.

There’s a big thing coming up on my horizon for this weekend!!  I am heading southward to Pennsylvania to see my family for the holiday.  I am so excited about this.  I was chatting online with my cousin tonight, and apparently everyone is going to be there.  All four of my grandparents’ children will be there, along with most of the grandkids.  I haven’t seen my one aunt and her husband and family since we all gathered for my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary way back in 1997, so this will be a nice reunion.  Unfortunately my sister won’t be able to make it, which is a shame.  And one of my cousins won’t be there either, so we’ll miss some folks.  But they’ll be there in spirit, I am sure!

My uncle has a pool, and Grace is just going to be so thrilled to be able to swim in his pool!  She so loves the water.  I swear, she’s part fish.  She probably gets that from both of us because Kurt and I both love the water.  We’ve been taking her to the pool since she was six months old, so she’s quite comfortable in the water.

What’s also exciting is that we are staying with my cousin and her fiancé.  Usually we stay with my grandparents, or sometimes we stay in this little guest house that’s part of their retirement community.  Either situation is good for us, but the little guest house scares me a bit.  The bed that’s for us to sleep on is an antique wooden bed, and when Kurt and I lay our combined nearly 500 pounds on it, it tends to creak and moan.  I keep thinking we’re going to break it, so I rarely sleep well when we are there.  I’d much rather stay with my grandparents.

But this time we’re staying with my cousin.  And this means staying with someone my age, who likes to do fun things, and who is just an overall cool person.  And the icing on the cake — she just adopted the cutest little puppy that we’ll get to play with and love on and cuddle!

However, this mini vacation of mine means that I probably will not be on the internet for the next five days or so.  Scary thought, huh??  But when I come back, I’ll have loads of photos to share with you all!

Have a fantastic Fourth of July!!

Our weekend was quite lovely.  How was yours???

On Saturday we engaged in some excellent retail therapy at the premium outlets with my good friend Angela and her mother.  These two ladies are seriously some of the excellent-est women in the entire world, and I thoroughly enjoy their company.

Of course, I saw something I could not live without… but somehow I managed to restrain myself.  I’ve been wanting a new food processor for eons, and I saw a KitchenAid 11-cup food processor that was to die for.  Not only that, it was PINK!!  Pink!!!!  My heart went all a-flutter, but alas.  It was not the right time to drop $200 on a kitchen appliance.

Why can’t I just win the lottery already and have all kinds of money at my disposal??

What made me even more excited than an appliance I could not afford (pink or not!) was finding not one but two pairs of summer sandals in my size.  They are slightly too large, in that I really need the 7.5WW instead of the 8WW, but they didn’t have the 7.5WW.  I was just so thrilled to find shoes that fit me!  I have a really hard time finding open-toed sandals because I have such amazingly wide feet, so I usually go all the way up to a size 9 before I can fit my toes under the strap.  Of course, that does not make for a very comfortable shoe.  I had never before seen a double-wide shoe at a retail store before.  I’ve gotten them online, but then there is always the concern that they won’t fit once they arrive.

It goes without saying that I bought both pairs of sandals.  They were on sale, so I managed to pay $5 more to get them both than what one pair cost at full price.  Excellent!!  (For those of you who are curious about what they look like, the white pair is HERE and the brown pair, my personal favorite, is HERE.)

On Sunday, we decided to clean the house.  Kurt elected to work on the garage, while I tackled the house.  Bad day to clean, let me tell you.  I about killed myself because it was so darn hot in the house.  The humidity here is really amazing.  Yes, I’m from Virginia, but good golly, we always had air conditioning!!  The high yesterday was supposed to only be 79º, which is a very manageable temperature.  But the heat index made it feel like 89º.  Oh, it was horrible.  There was no breeze coming in through the window; the air was still and stagnant and moist.  Plus to be pregnant and cleaning…. Yuck.  Let’s just say I did not accomplish all I set out to do.  I managed to clean the kitchen, unload and reload the dishwasher, vacuum the house, and mop the kitchen floor.  By the time all that was done, I was done.  I had planned on cleaning the bathrooms too, but I just couldn’t get that far.

The bathrooms can wait, right??

But we indulged in a treat after spending the day getting nasty and sweaty and dirty.  It was off to our neighborhood pool!!  It’s just a couple of blocks away, and while it’s small, it more than does the job for cooling off on a hot day.  We ran into a slight snag when we were told we needed a pool pass, but the lifeguard let us in anyhow, and I’ve rectified that problem already.

However, as soon as we had jumped in and gotten comfortable in the pool, Kurt’s phone rang.  It was his friend, the couple we’d hung out with at the picnic, and they were inviting us over for a barbecue!  I had no idea what I was going to make for dinner, so this was definitely a serendipitous occurrence.  But the party was starting in just an hour, and it takes me that long to shower, get dressed, dry my hair, and put on my makeup.  The worst part is drying my hair.  It takes forever to dry with a hairdryer from sopping wet.  Usually what I do is shower, let my hair dry naturally for at least thirty minutes, and then it doesn’t take very long.  Plus it ends up looking better.  Go figure.

But once we finally made it there, a wonderful time was had by all.  The wife is a really awesomely sweet lady, so easy to talk to and have a good time with.  She makes me feel like a schlump, though.  They painted their entire house (they have the same house we do, except theirs is the mirror image of our unit), and she’s planted a gorgeous wildflower garden in her backyard.  I have nothing in my front garden, let alone creating a backyard garden, and my house is still the boring creamy beige color that all our units are.  I just don’t have that level of creativity.  Then again, she wasn’t working for a few months, and they don’t have children yet.  They do have the most adorable puggle named Daisy, though.  Grace chased that poor dog all over the backyard, but they both enjoyed themselves immensely.

One thing we noticed while at their house was they had air conditioning.  Wooo!  It was so beautifully cool in their home after spending all morning cleaning a hot and humid house.  They had one unit in the living room that cooled the living room, dining room, and kitchen, and they had another in the master bedroom.  The other two rooms (plus the laundry room) were kept closed so as not to overwork the units.  Seeing how well their system worked, we broke down and bought two air conditioning units of our own at the Navy Exchange.  No sales tax — woo hoo!!  We bought the same unit they had in their living room, but got a cheaper (yet more powerful) one for the bedroom.

See??  I knew there was a reason I didn’t buy the food processor on Saturday!

Putting the big a/c in was unbelievable.  In every unit, there is a hole cut out of the wall of the living room to allow for an a/c unit since we have no windows that will accept an a/c unit anywhere in the main living area.  We figured that it would be a simple matter of taking the unit out of the box and slotting it right into that hole.  Ha!  Wishful thinking on my part.

The a/c unit was a fraction of an inch too large to fit into the hole because there was a metal box installed into the hole to help support the a/c unit.  That box was just a nooch too small from the top to the bottom to allow for the a/c unit to fit into it.  So Kurt decided to remove the box.  That took him at least thirty minutes because the darn thing was glued in!

But finally, finally, the box was out, and it took Kurt all of five minutes to slot the unit into the hole and get it working.  He’s got plans to reinstall the box around the a/c tomorrow so that there is more support, but it’s fine for right now.  There is no way that he’s going to install the bedroom a/c tonight.  He’s wiped out from fighting with the living room one!  Hopefully the bedroom unit will go in quickly and easily, and we can start having the whole house air conditioned.  Today’s been breezy and cool, so we don’t even need it on, but it’s so nice to have a lot less humidity in the house!

Now I won’t mind the heat come August.  Woo hoo!!

Lena was so kind as to tag me for the six-word memoir meme that’s been making the rounds.  Here are the rules:

Write a six-word memoir.
Post it to your blog including a visual illustration if you would like.
Link to the person who tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogsphere.
Tag 5 more blogs with links.
Don’t forget to leave a comment in the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

I didn’t think I would be able to come up with just six words to describe my life.  But as I began this entry, on a completely different topic, it came to me.

A mother and wife, she waits.

Because you know, as a military wife, that’s what I do best.  I wait.  When Kurt’s out on deployment, I wait for his return.  Once he comes home, I wait for the next deployment.  Even now that he’s on shore duty and home for three straight years, I am waiting.  Waiting for his return to sea duty and deployments.  It’s never far from my mind, which is why sometimes we get somewhat frantic in our activities.  We try to stuff as much fun and time together into these three years as we possibly can.

And one year’s almost gone already.

I’m supposed to tag five more people, but I’m not sure who hasn’t been tagged yet.  If this sort of thing is up your alley, let me know you’ve done it by leaving a comment on this page so I can check out your creation.  I look forward to seeing what you all come up with.

And back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I am, at the moment, reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, sent to me by my favorite inhabitant of Louisiana, Elle, who had packed up a box of random books and shipped it northward.  I don’t normally read non-fiction if it’s not a biography of some kind, but this one looked interesting.

I’ve come to dive into this book with both feet.  It’s really very good, a journey of self-discovery by a woman who travels to Italy, India, and Indonesia.  I’m assuming that’s where the title comes from; that she learns to eat in Italy, to pray in India, and to love in Indonesia.

I’ve gotten through Italy thus far, and there was quite a bit in there that really resonated with me.  Gilbert contrasts the Italians’ ability to relax and enjoy themselves with Americans’ inability to let go at all.  She uses the expression il bel far niente, and explains that it means “the beauty of doing nothing.”  This is what all Italians aspire to after a life of hard work, to be able to sit back and do nothing.  And the better and more beautifully you can do nothing, the better.

Contrast that with her description of Americans:

Generally speaking, though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure.  Our is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one.  Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn to theme parks to wars, but that’s not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment.  Americans work harder and longer and more stressful hours than anyone in the world today.  But as Luca Spaghetti pointed out, we seem to like it.  Alarming statistics back this observation up, showing that many Americans feel more happy and fulfilled in their offices than they do in their own homes.  Of course, we all inevitably work too hard, then we get burned out and have to spend the whole weekend in our pajamas, eating cereal straight out of the box and staring at the TV in a mild coma (which is the opposite of working, yes, but not exactly the same thing as pleasure).  Americans don’t really know how to do nothing.  This is the cause of that great sad American stereotype — the overstressed executive who goes on vacation, but who cannot relax.

When’s the last time you heard of a family going on vacation just to enjoy themselves?  There’s always a reason, a purpose, to wherever it is that they are going.  When the husband tells his friends at the water cooler that he’s taking the family to Hawaii or Chicago or wherever, the very first question after that is, “Oh yeah?  What are you going to do there?”  Imagine the response if the man simply said, “Just have fun.  Relax.  Do nothing.”

We are not encouraged to do nothing.  We are chastised for sitting in front of the TV because that’s time we’re not doing something else.  Our kids are overscheduled, going to school and karate and swim lessons and ballet.  Come summertime, they go to one camp after another to keep them occupied and busy.  Kids don’t go outside and play aimlessly till the street lights come on anymore.  We have to have structure.  We have to do something.  We have to accomplish something.

Gilbert goes on to write:

For me, though, a major obstacle in my pursuit of pleasure was my ingrained sense of Puritan guilt.  Do I really deserve this pleasure?  This is very American, too — the insecurity about whether we have earned our happiness.  Planet Advertising in America orbits completely around the need to convince the uncertain consumer that yes, you have actually warranted a special treat.  This Bud’s for You!  You Deserve a Break Today!  Because You’re Worth It!  You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!  And the insecure consumer thinks, Yeah!  Thanks!  I am gonna go buy a six-pack, damn it!  Maybe even two six-packs! And then comes the reactionary binge.  Followed by the remorse.  Such advertising campaigns would probably not be as effective in the Italian culture, where people already know that they are entitled to enjoyment in this life.  The reply in Italy to “You Deserve a Break Today” would probably be, Yeah, no duh.  That’s why I’m planning on taking a break at noon, to go over to your house and sleep with your wife.

Even I have this problem.  You know, I thoroughly enjoy being a stay-at-home wife and mother.  But I feel such guilt that I love my job, that I enjoy it so much, because we’re not supposed to enjoy it.  We’re supposed to be miserable in our jobs, waiting till we can finish this job and move on to the next miserable stage of our lives.  I’m constantly justifying it, not just to other people, but to myself!  “It’s best for the kids,” “I’m supporting my husband in the best way,” “It’s hard to have a career when you’re moving every three years,” “It’s okay because we can afford it.”  I feel like I can’t just say, “Well, I’m having the time of my life over here, and I’d rather not quit.”

We are a nation of sacrificers, and we want our sacrifices recognized.  “I work sixty hours a week so that we can live in this McMansion.”  “Your mother works so we can send you to the best colleges.”  “I hate my job, but the bills have to be paid somehow.”  But what is it all for???  Where does that get us?  We’re overtired and overworked and overstressed.  We can’t even enjoy our vacations because we’re supposed to be achieving something even during our downtime.  We can’t sleep, so we take meds.  We don’t have time to cook, so we eat artery-clogging fast food.  Families grow up not really knowing each other because the kids have practice and the parents have to stay late.  Parents feel guilty that they don’t spend enough time with the kids, so they max out their credit cards buying their children all the latest and coolest gadgets to make it up to them.

I am thinking we could learn something from the Italians.  Maybe we should strive to learn to do nothing beautifully, to sit in the sun at the park and soak up the sun without worrying whether the laundry’s been done or what we’re going to say at the business meeting tomorrow.  To enjoy a glass of good wine without fretting about the caloric consequences.  To join in the children’s game of hopscotch just because it looks fun.  To spend an entire day curled up with a good book without concern that we’ve just wasted an entire Saturday.

We would all be just a little bit happier, I think.

…. but bringing myself back out again!!

I feel soooooooooooooooooo much better today.  No tears today; instead I am laughing and joking with Kurt.  You can see the relief in his face when I laughed out loud for the first time today.  He just doesn’t know what to do with me when I’m crazy like that.

Maybe it was due to my lack of iron.  I’ve been horrible about taking my iron pills this past weekend, what with being so busy on Long Island with Kurt’s family.  I brought with me enough prenatal vitamins and iron pills to last me the weekend, but I just couldn’t remember to take them.  And the iron pills are so hard to plan around.  I have to take them two to three hours after eating, but an hour before eating again.  Here at the house, that’s pretty easy to do, since there’s usually a large gap between our lunch and dinner in which I can take them.  But when you’re out, it’s nearly impossible to plan for something like that.

We also got White Castle on Saturday while at the mini family reunion, and that really messed me up.  They don’t call ‘em gutbusters and belly bombs for nothing!  I only had three (if you aren’t aware, White Castle burgers are tiny things.  Kurt can eat one in two bites, so the fact that I had three does not make me a pig.  Kurt’s cousin’s son had six, and then followed it with a plate of Chinese food), but I felt so sick for most of the night.  I ended up spending at least twenty minutes in the bathroom on two separate occasions Saturday night.

So!  Notes to self:

1. Do not eat White Castle burgers, no matter how tasty, no matter how tempting.
2. Remember to take both prenatal vitamins and iron pills.  NO EXCUSES!!!

On to other matters.

The picnic today wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.  It didn’t start out well, however.  I got into the massively long line to get buns for burgers and hot dogs, condiments, and your choice of macaroni salad or potato salad.  I was doing so awesomely, balancing my plate and Grace’s, along with my bag of chips to boot, when I decided to grab some potato salad.  Somehow, I don’t even know how, down went my plate onto the floor, spilling my two burger buns (hey, I’m pregnant!), my dill pickles, my potato salad, everything.  For some reason, that hit me really hard, and I almost began sobbing.  I think I was mainly freaked out by having to stand in that line all over again, but fortunately another man at the picnic saw my distress and rescued me by giving me a new plate and allowing me to “cut” in line ahead of him.  He also really put me at my ease, calming me down by simply being calm and funny himself.  It was like I was drowning in the deep end of the pool, and this guy said, “Just put your feet down!” and lo and behold, my feet could touch bottom.

Lest you think Kurt was lacking in his role as Knight in Shining Armor, he was busy cleaning up the mess I’d made, thereby getting ketchup all over his shorts.  Poor guy.

Once we got all the fixin’s for our burgers, etc, we stood in yet another line for our meat.  This is where the clusterfuck occurred.  Seriously.  What kind of piss-poor planning has just one grill going with burgers and hot dogs, when the burgers have to be cooked from frozen??  It took yet another thirty minutes of standing in line to get our meat, and we were one of the first people in line.  Why they hadn’t started cooking before the picnic even started to get a head-start on the burgers, I have no idea.

On the allergy front, that picnic was a bit on the nerve-wracking side.  I had no idea what the cookies that were being served had in them, and of course, every child there had a cookie in his hand.  We’d already decided to stay away from the sweets, so we didn’t feel all that deprived.  But once we got there, we noticed two turkey fryers filled with peanut oil.  So no fried turkey for us, though it is one of our absolute favorite things to eat.  Why they couldn’t use another oil is beyond me.

It was clear early on that Grace was going to escape unscathed, so I managed to relax.  Then Kurt and I found his friend that he bikes in to work with every morning, and we sat with him and his wife.  That’s when I really began to enjoy myself.  She and I got along swimmingly, and I found out that she is exactly my own age!  This is terribly exciting because I normally get along best with folks older than me, and while it’s usually no big deal, occasionally I’ll get the “you’ll understand when you’re older!” comment that drives me batty.  Yes, yes, I realize that as one gets older, one gets wiser (one hopes, anyhow).  But at the same time, would these same people appreciate it if I threw their age in their faces?  “Oh, you wouldn’t understand.  You’re too OLD.”

But here was a girl who’s the same age as me, and who has a pretty similar view on life.  She doesn’t have children yet, but she’s really very grounded.  She’s sweet and charming and smart and just a joy to be around.  We talked for the entire picnic, and then some.  The guys had finished their clean-up by the time we said goodbye, and that’s saying something.  I expected to be there only a couple of hours, no more.

The forecast called for storms and pouring rain.  We got instead a lot of overcast skies and a few drops.  I much preferred the clouds to full-on sun, though, so I was happy as a clam.  There was no shade at this picnic, and I tend to burn.  Plus too much sun makes Karyl a very sleepy person.

I also managed to avoid the one person I wished to avoid the most, the dreaded TC.  She spotted me fairly early on, I believe, but I’m not positive she recognized me.  I have a totally different hairstyle, which is now bright red, and I’m pregnant.  But she most likely recognized Kurt (how could you not??) and assumed that the girl with him had to be me.  She was wearing a loose halter top with no bra, which really made me think of Lena’s Jane, only thirty years younger.  Yuck.  Eventually I couldn’t avoid her any more; she approached the group I was sitting with to take some photos.  She really weirded out my new friend because she had no idea who this TC person was and why she was photographing her.  I explained the whole situation later to her.  But TC quickly moved on, and I didn’t speak to her or her husband the entire time.  Kurt spoke to the husband, but then he works with him.  He kind of has to talk to him.

And if taking my pills, being a lot more cheerful, enjoying the picnic, and meeting new friends weren’t enough, I received a surprise phone call from our own favorite border-crosser, Shippie, all the way from Canada!  She just wanted to cheer me up and get me to smile.  Could there be a sweeter gesture?  And during that conversation, Kurt arrived home from seeing the latest Indiana Jones movie, and in his hand was food from Wendy’s.

I guess I’ll have to chalk this up as quite a banner day!!

It is clear that I’m in the grip of a hormone-induced malaise.

This is not a good thing.

Today was no better than yesterday, and in fact, it was quite a bit worse.  However, today’s depression wasn’t sparked by anything.  Not really, anyhow.  I woke up at 8:30am in a panic, realizing that I had most probably left Grace’s flip-flops on Long Island.  For most people, this would be Not a Big Deal.  But it was enough to propel me out of bed and begin a desperate search through all the possible places these flip-flops may be.  Of course, it was to no avail.

Those damn flip-flops better be enjoying their time at Kurt’s aunt’s house.

See, they’re flip-flops by Buster Brown.  They’re clear plastic on the bottom, with butterflies printed where you put your feet.  The thong part is see-through blue plastic, and when Grace moves, the shoes light up.  I call them her “dressy flip-flops” because they go with everything.  They’re also the easiest shoes to get on her after her swimming lessons.

Not only that, I spent $15 on them.  That’s a lot of money to me for just a pair of flip-flops.

So that was upsetting.  Not a big deal in the scheme of things, I know.  But I hate leaving things behind, I hate losing things, I hate misplacing things.  It drives me nuts.  I think it’s the way I was raised.  My father hammered into my head, “A place for everything, and everything in its place.”  He had no patience for a child losing something or other.  If I misplaced a book and ended up with massive late fees, I was responsible for those late fees.  Seeing as I only got $2 a week for an allowance, I was constantly in the red.

Then Kurt came home and made the completely innocuous statement that there’s a softball game tonight.  Again, that really ought not to be a big deal — but he sprung it on me at 1:30pm when it’s a 6:30pm game.  That pretty much kills our entire evening because Grace goes to bed at 8pm.  And I know I needed just to get out and do something, and preferably not chasing after Grace during a softball game.

I found myself in bed for another hour or so, and I actually slept.  That surprised me because I didn’t feel tired.  But I guess I’m getting myself so worked up that I’m wearing myself out.

Gotta stop that.  It ain’t getting me anywhere.

Grace had swim lessons today, which was good as it forced me out of the house.  She’s been moved up to Level 1 already, which surprised me as she’d just finished her first toddler swim class.  Apparently she takes after her momma utterly; she’s a fish!  I guess Grace even has a pretty good backstroke, which amazes me as I can’t even do the backstroke.  The swim coordinator, who had been her teacher last session, thought Grace was four, but when I told her she was just three, she replied, “Whoops.  Well, technically she’s too young for Level 1, but she’s ready!”  I about burst with pride at that remark.

I also bought her a bubble, those flotation devices that go on a kid’s back to help them float.  The pool uses them on occasion with the kids, and I figured it’d be good for her to have when we went to my uncle’s for Fourth of July, as he has a pool.  Of course, Grace, being typical Grace, picked out the bubble covered in veggies.  The clerk behind the desk said, “I think that’s the first time a kid’s voluntarily picked out the veggie bubble!”  That’s my girl!!

Kurt decided to skip the softball game and instead took me out to dinner.  I was in no mood to cook.  See, that’s another reason I know I’m down in the dumps.  I’m not cooking.  I don’t even want to cook.  And usually I’m scouring the internet for more good recipes, more delicious food to make, more new foods to try.

We went to our favorite Mexican restaurant, which is about thirty miles away.  It’s a bit of an extravagance, what with gas prices the way they are, but it’s totally worth it.  The Mexican joint near the house has the worst service, and while their food is okay, it just can’t compare to the place in Massachusetts.  Besides, we have this discount card for the Massachusetts place which gets us $5 off each time we visit.  Can’t beat that with a stick!

All three of us ate for $25 tonight, which is shockingly cheap for Mexican food.  For one thing, neither of us got sodas (we hardly ever buy alcohol), and I ordered the sopa de albóndigas, which I am finding out means “meatball soup.”  It was goooooood.  Meatballs, chunks of carrots and potatoes, in a broth that seemed to be chicken-based, with diced tomatoes, and garnished with fresh cilantro.  Oh, yum.  It was a huge bowl, too.

I managed to engage in some retail therapy after dinner as well, since there’s a mall right next door to the Mexican place.  Grace has very little in the way of warm-weather clothing, and I am finding shorts in her size to be hard to come by.  I’ve been to two separate Targets only to find the toddler sizes of shorts to be completely wiped out.  Kohl’s was no better, and tonight’s foray into The Children’s Place didn’t get me far either.  I just want shorts, people!  Denim and khaki shorts.  Plain.  Nothin’ on ‘em.  No funky or fun colors, so that if Kurt gets her dressed in the morning, he can simply grab one pair of shorts and one shirt and be certain that they match.

Apparently I am the only one in the universe who wants such plain shorts for my daughter.  Also, I don’t want to pay much for them.  The $4 shorts at Target are totally in my price range, but as I mentioned, they were already cleaned out.

And yes, I’ve checked the thrift stores too.  For some reason, size 4 is a hard size to come by.

However, I did manage to score three pairs or so, two of which came from Sears.  It’s not my favorite place to buy clothing, but when the going gets tough, the tough cannot be choosy.  It’s just amazing to be surrounded by children’s clothing, but to have to reject 90% of it because it’s not the right size, it’s too expensive, it’s too hoochie-mama, it’s too whatever.  I also managed to score a new pair of light-up flip-flops at Sears for Grace.  So all is right with my world.

Now I’m feeling a bit better, with delicious soup in my stomach, a trip to the mall under my belt, and my spicy ginger-and-honey tea that I got at the Korean store in my tea cup.  Tomorrow is the command picnic at Kurt’s work, so I have to gear myself up for that.  The infamous TC, the girl who wanted me to babysit her kid full-time after meeting me twice and who dumped her kid on me without notice, will be there with husband and child.  I am not looking forward to that, but fortunately I now know other wives I can chum around with.

Besides, I have a feeling they will be drunk and/or hungover.  They’re in the process of cooking a whole pig as we speak, and as soon as the beer arrived, TC’s husband was going to start drinking.  I will be interested to see how sober he will be if he has to teach tomorrow morning.

I have a feeling that by the time these people are in their 50s, we’ll be seeing a reincarnation of Lena’s Jane in TC.  It’s pretty sad, if you ask me.

I should really take my own advice more often, wouldn’t you think?  Or at least the advice on the signs I have around the house…

So yeah, I seriously need to put my big girl panties on and just DEAL WITH IT already.  But in my defense, it hasn’t been the best of days.

Did I mention my parents went to Israel?  Oh yes.  They left on Saturday, the very same day I went to Long Island to meet mass quantities of Kurt’s family.  See, my parents have done a ton of research on the situation in Israel, and they believe the Palestinians have a legitimate complaint, and that Israel isn’t being all that fair to them.  There’s probably much more to it than that, but all I know is they don’t side with the Israelis.  That makes family reunions on my father’s side rather interesting, as my father comes from a very Jewish family who are understandably very pro-Israel.

Me, I don’t know what to think.  I don’t think I’ve researched what’s going on there enough to make a very informed decision.  In a way, I find it odd that the UN could simply step into Palestine and decide that it’s now going to become a Jewish state in reparation for the atrocities the Jews suffered during the Holocaust.  I sympathize with the Jews wanting a home to call their own, but what about the Palestinians?  Did anyone ask them whether it was okay for all these Jews to move in and take over?

Anyhow, that’s about as in-depth as I have gotten thus far.  But my parents belong to a group at their church that is very pro-Palestinian, which is not to say they support extremists of any stripe.  They denounce the terroristic acts engaged in by both sides.  But my mom’s got some harsh things to say about a lot of the Israelis in power.

Their group at church decided to take a trip to Israel to see things for themselves, which is how my parents came to be in Israel for ten days.  And I am pretty much a nervous wreck.  Yes, my friend and his fiancée just went there for Passover and came home in one piece, and I know tons of tourists visit Jerusalem without any ill effects at all.

Part of my problem is I don’t know where in Israel they’re going to be.  I’m assuming there will be a trip to Jerusalem, because what is a trip to Israel without visiting the Holy City, but I don’t know if they’ll be going to Tel Aviv or the West Bank or the Gaza Strip as well.  I do know they’ll be in the company of the Palestinians.  Whether that is supposed to be comforting, I don’t know.

It doesn’t help that MSNBC.com was reporting that militants in the Gaza Strip had fired rockets into southern Israel, breaking the five-day-old truce between the Hamas-led Gaza Strip and Israel.  Then today a police officer committed suicide at the Tel Aviv airport during a departure ceremony for French president Nicolas Sarkozy.  At first it was feared that it was an assassination attempt, but now it’s being reported as just a suicide.

And you know, my mom is one of those people who cannot seem to keep her mouth closed when it would behoove her greatly.  I have this fear that she will mouth off to exactly the wrong people and that she will land herself in some kind of hot water.

These things do not reassure me.  It doesn’t help that I have no means of contact with them.  My entire family is far too cheap to have an international plan on our cell phones, and my father left his laptop at home (shock of all shocks, if you knew my father).  All I can do is hope and pray and cross my fingers.

So.  There you have it.

It also doesn’t help that Kurt and I got into a nasty fight today, sparked by my discovery of the little car being used as a trash dump.  See, when I went to take Grace to school this morning, the van wouldn’t start.  This isn’t a huge surprise; for some reason, it is easy to kill the battery in the minivan.  I could have left the tiniest of lights on, and the battery could have been dead in under twenty minutes.  Don’t ask me why it is; it just is.  The good news was that Kurt rode his bike to work today, leaving me the little car in which to get Grace to school.

But when I opened the door to the car and saw crap all over the back seat, no car seat (which he later told me he keeps in the trunk; how was I supposed to know that??), and garbage covering the entire space on the floor between the back seat and the passenger seat, I saw red.  I realize that I cannot expect Kurt to keep the car as clean as I do.  He’s not a neat person.  But to trash it like that?

I was really, really mad.

I became even angrier when it was clear that Kurt felt I was overreacting.  When I tried to explain that I was upset because that had been my car that I had paid for with my money from my first job, and that I expected at least some sort of respect to be shown to it, he didn’t understand.  He simply told me he’d clean it out, it was no big deal, he’d take care of it.

He did end up cleaning it out, but the situation also ended up turning very, very nasty.  I ended up taking a three-hour nap this afternoon because I was so upset, and because I am still exhausted from our busy weekend.  (And then I woke up to the dog having peed on the carpet while I was sleeping…. gahhh.)  We’ve apologized and made up, but I am still pretty…. depressed.  I’m not sure if that’s the right word, but I do feel myself shutting down to a point.

But it stormed today.  Maybe that’s not good news for most of you, but I enjoy a good summer storm.  I know it was storming fairly hard while I was napping, and then again after dinner.  We even got an Emergency Broadcast Alert coming through the tv, warning of severe thunderstorms in the area.  Since when do the Emergency Alerts do anything but run tests??  I got all excited.  But it was just a lot of big thunderclaps and some heavy rain.  Grace was a bit scared, but I made sure she knew it was all noise and couldn’t hurt her.

So here’s hoping tomorrow is a better day.  Oh, and that 1 July and my parents’ safe return comes quickly.

I’m baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

The weekend went extremely well, of course.  Why wouldn’t it?  We ran into a teensy bit of traffic getting across the Throgs Neck Bridge (what the heck is “Throgs Neck” anyhow?) between the tolls and a closed lane, but it only added fifteen minutes to our trip.  I thought we were going to be quite late to the party; we’d been told to be there any time after noon, but it was already 1:30pm by the time we showed up.  However, we were by no means the latest people there.

It was my father-in-law’s family that had gathered together on Saturday.  He’s the baby of his family, having four older sisters, one of whom is his twin older than him by five minutes.  His eldest sister’s granddaughter had gotten married on Friday, so they took the opportunity of having everyone in the area to stage a mini reunion.  It was actually much smaller than I thought it would be.  There were only about twenty to thirty people there.  That is really small, considering how large my father-in-law’s family really is.

Grace totally stole the spotlight.  She charmed her way into everyone’s hearts, and the family was more than willing to keep her thoroughly entertained.  That was nice for me, since that meant I got a tiny bit of a break from having to try to contain her boisterousness.  The bride, who had just gotten married the day before, really took a shine to Grace.  I had to make sure she didn’t abscond with her in her purse when it was time for her to leave the party!!!

Finally it was time to head with my in-laws to my mother-in-law’s brother’s house to spend the night.  He’s in the process of moving to North Carolina, so it was just his wife that welcomed us.  I worked on putting Grace to bed while everyone else worked on pouring a few stiff drinks.  Good times, good conversation, lots of laughs and silliness kept us all up till 2:30am.  And I wasn’t even drinking!

The next day found us in Brooklyn, visiting friends from my Flickr group.  And you know, it was so much fun.  We didn’t even do anything that exciting; we hung out at Jen’s apartment initially, then walked the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.  Again Gracie charmed everyone.  She kept going from one of my friends to another, allowing them all to partake in the joy that is Grace.  And of course, each one was totally captivated.

That girl of mine is something else, let me tell you!

Our tummies started to rumble, so we headed towards the Brooklyn Bridge to eat at Grimaldi’s Pizzeria.  Somehow we hit the jackpot in our timing!  The line wasn’t too long when we arrived, then when it began to rain, it was time to be seated inside.  The whole time we were waiting on our pizzas and eating them, it was pouring cats and dogs outside.  By the time we were finished, the rain was gone.  But anyone waiting in line after us ended up getting soaked.

After eating at Grimaldi’s, I can see why New Yorkers are fanatical about their pizza.  Grimaldi’s uses a coal-fired oven to bake their pizzas, which lead to a hot, hot oven.  We got three pies — a mushroom, a plain, and a pepperoni.  The plain wasn’t simply a cheese pizza you’d find at other joints.  Thin crust, delicious sauce (but not too much), torn basil leaves, and slices of fresh mozzarella, all baked together in a lightning-fast oven.  Oh, it was divine!!  The pepperoni was equally delicious, as they make their own pepperoni, and even the mushroom was to die for.  The girls were kind enough to give me two slices to take home, and I managed to finish them off for lunch today.

And now I want more Grimaldi’s pizza!  No wonder it was rated #1 pizza in New York by Zagat.

I love this photo of Kurt and me in front of the Brooklyn Bridge.  In the interest of full disclosure, he’s not simply patting the baby.  He’s also covering up a stain on my shirt left by pizza sauce that I acquired at the pizzaria!

I can be such a sloppy eater.

There’s a reason I am so fond of the Brooklyn Bridge, though I’ve only been across it once.  Way back in the summer of 2001, I was living with Kurt after I graduated college.  We were still just dating, though we were obviously pretty serious.  Kurt came up with this fantastic idea of taking me to New York in August to propose, right there on the Brooklyn Bridge.  But not long before we were supposed to go, I managed to land a job.  And since I’d just gotten the job, I couldn’t take off work my very first week!  Instead, he took me to a fancy seafood restaurant in Portsmouth, Virginia, and proposed to me on the banks of the Elizabeth River.

But each time I see the Brooklyn Bridge, it reminds me of Kurt’s original plan, and of his wanting to start our future together at such a beautiful place.

If you ask me, I’ve got a pretty romantic husband!

Not to keep posting photos of my 7 Days run, but this photo pretty much sums up what is going on in my life right now.  Just… ugh.

For one thing, we’d just filled up the gas tank at $4.05.  That’s the best price on the island, fortunately, and it hadn’t even been raised because it’s Friday.  Stop & Shop was running $4.14 with their club card (5¢ off the regular price), and Shell was $4.11.  So $4.05 was pretty good.  That was still $60 worth of gas, and we weren’t even on empty.

Yes, yes, Europe has higher prices, try paying $11 a gallon like they do in Europe, yadda yadda, etc and so on.  I get that.  I totally understand that.  However, my impression of Europe is you can actually get around without a car, and without spending your entire life on mass transit.  You can get from Newport to Providence for a mere $1.50 on the bus, but it takes two hours to get there.  Two hours to go about thirty miles.  I could drive up to Providence, run a few errands, and get home in the time it takes just to get there on the bus.

Anyhow.  Enough about that.

It’s just been one of those days where nothing’s gone right.  Sadly enough, the two bright spots in my day were when I got to chat with Grace’s preschool teacher (whom I adore) as I picked her up, and when I was out washing the minivan and my neighbor came over to say hi.  Three of us women ended up standing outside for a good hour just babbling about what’s going on.

The rest of the day was just a mass of various frustrations.  I did manage to get three loads of laundry washed and folded in preparation for our trip tomorrow.

Oh, yes.  This will be my last update until probably Monday.  Tomorrow we head to Long Island for a family reunion on my father-in-law’s side.  None of the family have met me, let alone Grace, so we’re sort of obligated to go.

It doesn’t help my anxiety that I am going to know nobody but Kurt, Grace, and my parents-in-law at this shin-dig.  I don’t know how many people are going to be there, but I am guessing quite a few.  My father-in-law is the youngest of five children, and while some of his sisters won’t be able to make it due to distance, there are still plenty of his family (and my mother-in-law’s as well) left on Long Island.  There could be a hundred people there!  I don’t know.

I have no idea what the internet situation is going to be.  I am counting on being away from the internet for the weekend since it’s just a weekend.  I’m sure I can handle being away for that long.

This also means I won’t be commenting on all your blogs either.

Don’t miss my extraordinarily long-winded comments too much, okay?

About my friend who was in the hospital — she’s home now, resting quietly.  We visited her today, and I found a lovely bouquet over at Stop & Shop to bring to her.

The doctors never did figure out what was wrong with her.  Initially she was hospitalized because she couldn’t stand upright without vomiting.  Many, many tests were run on her, trying to figure out what was wrong.  Kidney stones, pregnancy, even gall bladder issues were all ruled out.  The doctors were giving her pain meds as often as she wanted them, and apparently she woke up in the middle of the night and asked for more meds.  But the narcotics ended up depressing her respiratory system, so that’s why she quit breathing.  The next couple of days were spent in the ICU recovering.

So now she’s home, and she’s still in a lot of pain.  Apparently the doctors cannot figure out whether it’s muscular pain or bone pain, so they can’t pinpoint the source.  I feel so badly for her because she’s in such pain, and she can’t really do anything.  Fortunately her sister-in-law has come to stay for the week to help take care of her son, but I don’t know what’s going to happen when she has to go home again.

Just please keep praying for her, or whatever it is you’re doing.  I figure mass quantities of good thoughts couldn’t hurt!!!

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s entry that I indulged in a lovely pot of something called “chirashi sushi” during lunch with my in-laws.  As they ate relatively normal food, I dug into a bowl full of sashimi and seasoned rice.  Yes, folks — I ate raw fish.  Plus there was fish roe in my rice.  And you know, it was delicious.  I had wanted sushi, but I couldn’t decide which roll I wanted, except I knew I didn’t want the sushi lunch.  I was starving, you see.

Little bit of linguistics here, folks.  Sushi is NOT raw fish.  It simply refers to vinegared rice that is topped with various things, which can be raw fish.  But it could also be egg or vegetables or whatever else.  Sashimi is sliced raw fish.  So when someone says they love sushi, and you say, “Ewwww!!  I don’t like raw fish!” just know that sushi doesn’t refer to raw fish at all.

The chirashi sushi (also translated as “scattered sushi”) was the best possible solution to my dietary dilemma yesterday.  I got my hankering for fish fulfilled, since I usually get nigiri — hand-formed sushi which is a lump of rice topped by fish.  (You can see an example if you click HERE.)  The only two types of nigiri I will not eat are made with octopus and with squid.  I just can’t do the rubbery texture of those two meats.  Anything else, I will eat.  Sushi lunch specials generally feature six pieces of nigiri and one sushi roll, usually a California roll.  While delicious, I wanted something a bit more.

That was totally fulfilled with the chirashi sushi (photo HERE).  The bowl was filled with sushi rice and topped with many slices of sashini, from tuna to salmon to mackerel.  I keep forgetting that I don’t care much for mackerel; it’s a bit too fishy for me.  But I just sort of gobbled it down as quickly as I could.

And the rice!!  Oh, it was so delicious.  Usually I sprinkle just a bit of soy sauce over my rice, but this didn’t need it.

I’m making myself hungry again.

I think my mother-in-law is now resigned that I am just the crazy daughter-in-law.  Over at Flickr, it’s time again for 7 Days, which is a project in which one takes a photo of oneself for seven straight days.  OK, so it sounds goofy, and maybe it is.  But I look at it as a way to increase my creativity, to learn how to see things a bit differently.  The only major rule of 7 Days is that you are to take a photo of yourself.  That means, you have to press the shutter button, or use your self-timer, or (as in my case) use a remote in order to take the photo.  But you can use other people to help, like to hold the camera if you don’t have a tripod.  I use Kurt for ideas sometimes.  You wouldn’t think it, knowing how much of a science-y, engineering type guy he is, but he has got a pretty strong creative streak.  Or maybe it’s just that he sees the world in a completely different way from what I do.  And you know, that’s a seriously good thing.

This season’s 7 Days run happened to fall right smack dab in the middle of my in-laws visiting.  I figured I was going to experience no amount of ribbing from them that I was “vain” enough to be shooting myself every day to post to the internet.  But they really took it well.  They even got into it a bit, giving me ideas on how to position myself for my shot with the Pell Bridge (click HERE for the photo).  Not only that, but they didn’t mind at all being part of my shot for another day, when I took a family photo of the five of us (click HERE for the photo) using my camera’s remote.

They also took it totally in stride when I started taking photos of my food.  Not only did I photograph the chirashi sushi at the Japanese restaurant, but I also got a shot of my stuffed lobster at the seafood place.  And neither time did I get teased for it.

I was pretty amazed, really.

Like I said, I think my in-laws have just come to realize that I’m their crazy daughter-in-law that does weird things, and since it’s all harmless, there’s no sense in making a fuss over it.

Speaking of 7 Days, today’s photo was so hilarious I have to share it with you.  I promise you this is not Photoshopped in any way.  This is exactly how it came out of my camera, not even the good one either!  This came out of my little point & shoot that I carry in my purse at all times.

I took Kurt back to work after lunch today, and I usually let him drive onto the base since his ID card is on a retractable lanyard attached to his uniform.  It saves me the trouble from having to dig through my purse to find my ID to show the gate guard.  Kurt had rolled down Grace’s window to kiss her goodbye, and I was standing next to the van talking to him after switching drivers.

I just happened to glance at my reflection in the van’s window and saw this:

I couldn’t have planned a better shot if I had tried!!

Stick a fork in me, I am DONE.  Finis.  Todo.  Finito.  The END.

*lays head down on laptop, begins to snore*

Who knew having company was so tiring?!  Let’s just use my pregnancy as an excuse.  I’ve been doing it for a while now; don’t fix what ain’t broke, right?

My in-laws arrived safely in Newport on Monday, hence the lack of updating.  Did you miss me?  I made dinner Monday night, and it went smashingly well.  I stole a recipe from Nigella Lawson involving a cut-up chicken, a marinade made from English mustard, olive oil, lemon juice, dried sage, Worchestershire sauce, fresh lemon, and onions (in which the chicken marinated over night), and Italian sausages roasted together in the oven in the same pan at high heat.  It’s also supposed to feature fresh sage, but I forgot itt in my excitement that dinner was going to be as simple as firing up the oven, dumping my marinated chicken into a roasting pan, adding the sausages, and forgetting about it for an hour and fifteen minutes.

Ah well.  The last time I added the fresh sage, I couldn’t really taste it anyhow.

My in-laws were quite impressed with my culinary skills, even though this was not a complicated recipe at all, mainly because my mother-in-law hates cooking.  She really does.  When we visit them, it’s my father-in-law’s job to make breakfast, which he’s really good at, and then Kurt’s grandma usually makes all other meals.

In fact, it is impossible to go hungry while visiting the in-laws in Tucson.  We’ll be sitting on the couch, kicking back and relaxing since we are on vacation, and all of a sudden Mom-mom will appear with a sandwich in her hand.  She’ll hand it off to Kurt, then disappear back into the kitchen to make me one.  An hour later, she brings us popcorn.  Perhaps thirty minutes after that, she’s back with cheese puffs.  And the cycle repeats itself ad nauseum until we head for the airport.

I have never once experienced a hunger pain or even had the thought, “Hey!  I’m hungry!” while visiting the in-laws in Tucson.  It’s a rather disconcerting feeling.

This visit of my in-laws to Newport ended up being all about the food.  The last time we ate at the house was Monday night.  I probably gained ten pounds these last few days.

My mother-in-law adores seafood.  However, it’s not exactly easily obtained in Tucson, at least not the fresh variety.  She informed us before arriving that all she wanted to eat while here was seafood, and we were more than happy to oblige.

On Tuesday, we went to Anthony’s Seafood for lunch.  They have amazing clam chowder (New England, of course, though they apparently also serve a Portuguese version), and lots of mainly fried seafood specials to choose from.  I got the Cajun breaded fried clam strips, which had the perfect amount of spice on them, and they were incredibly delicious.  My mother-in-law got the regular clam strips because she didn’t realize they had the spicy ones on the menu.  My father-in-law opted for a burger.  He’s not really into seafood.

For dinner we went to the Lobster Pot in Bristol.  Ohhhhhhhhhh, dear Lord.  There are simply no words for that meal.  They were having a special on lobster, $5 off each lobster ordered.  Now, you don’t have to have just plain ol’ lobster (as if that were a bad thing) if you don’t want it.  You can have your lobster boiled or broiled or grilled, or you could have it stuffed, fisherman’s style!  That’s when the lobster meat is removed, mixed with scallops, and returned to the shell.  Then breadcrumbs are sprinkled over the meat, and it’s baked a little while longer.  Oh, friends.  There are no words to describe the deliciousness that is this stuffed lobster.  None at all.  And the scallops, three of them, had been buried underneath the lobster meat.  When I found them and bit into one, it melted in my mouth.  The creaminess was unbelievable!

Today we started off the day by grabbing breakfast at our favorite breakfast diner, where I got yelled at for hurrying the owner/waitress.  See, I had asked her for a milk for Grace, but when our food came and we still didn’t have the milk, I asked the other waitress for the milk.  The owner overheard me and yelled from across the diner, “Don’t hurry me!!  I got it!!”  That’s what I love about diners; you become a regular and you get a hard time from the folks that work there.  It’s all in good fun.  I got my absolute favorite breakfast ever — egg, bacon, and cheese on a bolo with home fries.  Bolo levedos are Portuguese muffins, more like an English muffin than what we Americans call “muffins,” but they’re slightly sweet.  The salty egg and bacon and cheese on a sweet, flat, toasted “bun” is a taste that I cannot get enough of.  I thought they were a special at the diner, but then I was informed that they have it available every single day!  Mmmm, yummy.

The best part of the entire visit had to be this morning when we swam in the pool of the hotel where my in-laws were staying.  Grace is a fish, I’m tellin’ you.  She adores the water, and has no fear at all!  Her favorite thing was leaping off the edge of the pool and letting Daddy fish her back to the surface.  It was so funny to watch.

My mother-in-law insisted on buying a Rhode Island lottery ticket for the drawing tonight, so we went to the record store to get one.  I scored a Lily Allen CD on sale (YAY!) and some green Hello Kitty nail polish for Grace.  See, any time Grace sees anything green, she points out, “Look, Mommy!  It’s GREEN!  Green’s my favorite color!”  This happens multiple times a day.  So I figured green Hello Kitty nail polish was a necessity for her.

Lunch (after that giant breakfast!!!) was sushi.  My in-laws are not Asian food eaters, so we went to the hibachi grill where they could get more “normal” food than just sushi.  Grace, of course, got a roll of sushi, while Kurt got the bulgogi (Korean grilled beef) bento box.  Bento boxes are so cool!  You get your entree in the main compartment (bulgogi, in Kurt’s case), and then in the other compartments around the main one, you get vegetable tempura, fried rice (or a California roll, depending on the restaurant), gyoza, and a salad.  And to start, you get a bowl of miso soup.  It’s really a lot of food, which is why Kurt loves to get them.  My mother-in-law opted for the pork katsu (breaded, fried pork cutlet), and my father-in-law got the chicken teriyaki.  My mother-in-law didn’t find the miso soup to her liking; apparently she didn’t like the taste of the tofu.  I had to giggle only because tofu has no taste.  But you know, miso can be an acquired taste, and I’ve definitely developed a fondness for it.  So has Grace.

So food, food, and more food.  Is it any wonder that tonight I simply had a salad for dinner?  I might not eat again for a week!