Bi And Large

It's late on a Sunday night so I'm doing another copy/paste job. Hope no one minds who's reading both! I know most people reading this blog known the background on my attachment to my grandmother already so please forgive the repeat.

 Sam, Greg, Heather, Sharree... update your own damn blogs people! I have no idea what's going on with any of you!

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 Growing up I was VERY close to my paternal grandmother, Grandma Amy (that my Amy is named for.) She and I had a special bond and she was always so kind to me. My maternal grandmother was abusive, so times when I got to go see grandma Amy were like heaven. Grandma died of Alzheimer's when I was in college. They lived in Utah (dad's family is all Mormon / LDS) and we only got to see them once a year maximum, but even so I was the last person she recognized before the Alzheimer's took her mind completely. I have spent a lot of my life trying to emulate her intelligence, grace in difficult situations, and generous spirit. I love love love love her like no one else in the world except my girls and Pete.

When my parents were here visiting a couple of weekends ago my mom let slip that my grandfather.... get this... was apparently a POLYGAMIST. And when my grandma married him, he had another wife! Eventually wife #1 went away, was divorced, something - my mom isn't sure. But for some time they lived as a polygamist family. Mom knows because at the end of her life, with Alzheimers, Grandma and my mom were cleaning up one day. Mom said "Gee, it's kind of nice having two women around to share the cleaning" and grandma said oh you're not kidding! I really miss it! And went on about how wonderful it was when there were 2 wives.



I have no idea who else in the family knows. Mom whispered it to me so I'm not even sure my dad knows this about his parents. I am dying to call my aunt and ask her but I don't want to let slip if it's not common knowledge. Pete and I think this is so awesome. Kind of amusing, but a really fascinating piece of information!

The woman I have spent my whole life trying to emulate was in a polygamous marriage! Whoo!!!

I went through and FINALLY updated both the girl's albums so there's some pictures in there that aren't like, a year old now. I know you're excited!

We're supposed to be snowed in all weekend, which is kind of exciting! It would be NICER if we were snowed in on a weekday sure, but I'll take it. We've got lots of snacks, a warm house, and an internet connection. What could be better :) They're predicting about a foot of snow which is a pretty significant storm. Of course, after the first flush of excitement, I notice it's early Saturday morning here and it still hasn't snowed at all. I just went outside to check even. It's kinda cloudy. That's about it. When we first moved here, we were under the impression that everyone in Minnesota - incuding and especially so the climatologists on tv - exaggerates the weather. They get all freaked out by a 4" snowfall that would have the people in Tahoe cheering and grabbing their skis, if you know what I mean. But I am more convinced now this is the case. HOPEFULLY we'll get snowed in. The ground could use the water. If not, well, here's hoping we get some!

Sorry so quiet, we've been awfully sick. We've all had Norwalk virus, you know the one that makes people sick on cruise ships? Finally got it diagnosed yesterday. It's nasty nasty nasty. Iris got it first, then Amy, now I have had it today, and Pete is starting to feel sick. For about 24 hours you can't hold down anything, not even fluids. It's 5pm and for the first time today I am able to sit up. I've been trying to drink tiny sips of water or pedialyte, like a teaspoon at a time every 15 minutes. No lucky, just puke it all back up. Utterly gross. Can't sit or stand without puking. I had to call Pete home from work because I couldn't take care of the kids. I tried by filling a big bucket with apples, grahm crackers, raisins, and big sippy cups of water. I put it where they could reach it on the playroom floor, turned on the tv, and collapsed on the couch with my puke bucket. But very soon I discovered I wasn't able to change diapers, and they both have diarrhea... and while I was trying to figure out what to do about that I spiked up a 102 fever that basically left me incompetent for the rest of the day. I'm not looking forward to Pete getting it tomorrow. A nurse friend of mine says nothing but bleach kills it (confirmed by our doc when I asked.) So not sure how to even make the house liveable again. I can't even open the windows, it's still too cold!

Anyway say a prayer for our icky fragile tummies.

My very good friend Michelle, who also cloth diapers and does a lot of natural family living stuff, just convinced me to buy two fitted dipes for Iris made from a new material... bamboo. Did you hear me? The diapers are made of BAMBOO. She swears it's soft like silk and trimmer than cotton, plus more sustainable. I paid $30 for two brand new bamboo diapers. I must have lost it.

Honestly though I can't wait to see what they are like!

Way back in 1999, when we were first trying to get pregnant (yeah, I know, we were married in 2000. So don't tell my mother!) I joined an online forum that supported fertility charting software. I quickly made friends and we became quite close. Other than a break I needed to take after our adoption failed, I have been there without fail every day. I practically broke out in hives if I went more than 12 hours without checking in. I've met several of the ladies there IRL now and 8 years later we are all still good friends. It's become quite the community.

Well maybe 6 months ago or so some crap started going on with their admin team, and we tried and tried and tried to work it out. It didn't work. Eventually they started randomly deleting accounts and pulling threads where people asked what was going on, and the exodus began. It has gone from bad to worse. I mean, I have been an internet junkie for about 20 years now. WAY before the web. Hell I met my husband online. I know how these things go in cycles, but this was a massive massive exodus. Most the active posters left and started their own forum on another site, including myself, and just continued to enjoy our community there. We've got about a thousand members now. Admin flipped. They just made up a new rule saying that it is a bannable offense to copy YOUR OWN POSTS from their forums and post them elsewhere. So if you keep a journal there, you can't post the same thing on your blog. You also can't belong to a list of other sites. They think they police the internet now I guess.

ANYWAY I went through an hour or so ago and found all the FAQ's I had contributed to over the years. And it was a lot. And I changed every single one of them to read a big old fuck you to admin. And I got my ass banned. Banned. I can hardly believe it. I don't CARE, because all the people and community I care about are elsewhere now. But I'm kind of shocked (I shouldn't be I know) and it's a sad milestone. The death of something that was my lifeline through a lot of dark points in the past!

So with that said, I'd like to cordially invite you all to the new boards. FYI, it's almost exclusively women there, but men are welcome too as long as they don't mind everyone around them sporting a vagina. It's morphed from a fertility-based board to a more general chatter / life / health board, but it still has strong sections on fertility, trying to conceive, and parenting.

http://www.thespeakeasyboards.com Tell em Sonnet sent you. And send me a PM while you're at it.

April sounds good to me!

Oh, and who DOESN'T dream about Greg? He's a sexy beast. Rowr.

Copy and Paste job. Sorry!

 Just got back from Target where I put $100 on the credit card Pete *just* paid off I bought all kinds of stuff to make a Valentine's dinner party for the girls. Cards for everyone, from everyone, flowers, candles, pink streamers, heart cake pans and red sprinkles.... I think DH will smile when he walks in the door. (Before he finds out how I paid for it, I mean.) Hopefully! I know Amy is basically beside herself already. She sure does love "Love Day."

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You know, I was never really one for holidays before we had kids. I liked them fine and all, but I didn't get what the big deal was or why people devoted so much time, money and energy into celebrating them. Pete tends to forget birthdays, anniversaries, etc - and that was always fine by me. If he remembered great, if not no big deal. It was always kind of another day to me. Until I had kids.

Now seeing the absolute delight in my daughters eyes as they enjoy decorations, special food, being together, cards, presents, traditions... it is amazing to me. Amy has been asking every day for about three weeks now to decorate her room for Valentine's Day. Every day I say yes, every day she makes a new decoration of construction paper or stickers or string or playdoh, and festoons her room and bed with them. She loves to count down the days, and she has written Pete and I maybe 50 cards so far this month made of folded binder paper and marker. How can you not love a holiday with someone like that around?

We twisted pink and red crepe streamers together and made big swags from the lights above the kitchen table to the corners of the room. We had red roses in a vase, and a new tricolored pillar candle. We had cards from everyone, to everyone - that's quite a stack! The girls sat at the kitchen table very engaged in their cards today while I decorated - scribbling with markers, glueing, adding stickers, until it was just right. I cut out different colored and sized paper hearts and had them glue them together and draw on them with glitter glue, and then we punched a hole and tied them to the lights with pieces of streamer. The table looked very, very festive! I made Pete's favorite dinner (parmesan chicken, mashed squash with brown sugar, broccoli, strawberries) and wished I had remembered a bottle of wine. Instead we all had pink milk with crazy straws Iris sat in a booster seat at the table instead of in the high chair for the first time. We all had a wonderful dinner! And afterwards, oh yum... I had used those springform heart shaped deep cake tins to make some gorgeous choc cakes. Devil's food with handfuls of chocolate chips stirred in. They were about 6 inches high and *perfect.* I spooned sliced strawberries on the side, splotted a huge dollop of real whipped cream on top of everything, and sprinkled red and pink non pareils on top. It was soooooo good. Of course now after eating all that I could totally puke I'm so full, but it sure was fun! We opened cards while we ate cake and everyone loved the ones they got. Amy even read hers all by herself! (It said: "I AMY. MAMA." and she read the whole thing!)

Anyway Pete has the girls in the bath now scrubbing off the chocolate cake and cream, and he agreed to clean the kitchen since I cooked God bless him, and if I can get him to drink some water and relax I might even get lucky tonight. Fingers crossed!

(BTW I very much did NOT get lucky tonight. I'm disappointed but I have to admit Pete's had a hellish week. Every day so far this week he's been doing catchup work on a document that several people dropped the ball on, starting when he wakes up in the morning and ending when he collapses. Last night he worked until 2:30am and was up again at 6:30; right now it's 11:00 and he's downstairs on the couch with his laptop trying to get it worked out. So, I can see why he might not want to waste that much time. I know, it's a great stress release and all, but.... *sigh*)

I just spent about $160 on plants for the coming spring!! I could NOT be more excited. All my plans and what I am putting in are gone over at the Garden blog, which is linked somewhere on this page. I know not everyone gets as excited about it as me!

I also managed tonight to finally finish Amy's blog. http://www.amygoesoutback.blogspot.com for those who don't know the address... I did the last entry without her input and using mostly pictures from our camera, not hers. You're going to have to cope!

And with that I'm going to sleep!

ETA - Oh, and I realize I haven't updated my albums of the girls in like, a year (ack!) I'll try to fix that this week!

Oh, and Em, I know I'm copy/pasting my journals between here and SpeakEasy right now. You're gonna have to cope with it :)

I learned a lesson this morning in trying to do too much.... by 9:00, as I was trying to head out the door with the girls, I had a really severe nosebleed. Part of my health issues involves frequent nosebleeds, but this was out of control. And I couldn't stop it. By 9:45 I was still bleeding hard and getting kind of woozy, and definitely couldn't drive, or go to my appointment. I couldn't talk on the phone but I did text Pete and he ended up leaving work and coming home to watch the girls. I got the bleeding under control more than an hour after it started, and felt like crap... drank a couple big glasses of water and crawled back into bed. Slept until 3:30. It felt fantastic. Screw the glasses, I can pick them up Monday. I had dinner already in the crockpot so that was done, and since Pete was home he really helped me with cleaning. We got everything done, he even took the girls and picked up my family, and everything was perfect. We had a great dinner, dessert and coffee, their bed was all made up with sheets right out of the dryer, the house smelled good, the floors were all cleaned, the kids looked cute... I am relieved! I even thought of a gift we can give my dad tomorrow, Pete can take him golfing (they both golf) at an indoor virtual kind of thing they have here. So we're all set!

I feel like I didn't accomplish anything today personally. I'm so thankful for a husband who does as much as Pete does for me. He neevr fails to pitch in above and beyond when I need him too. Growing up his parents also really struggled with chronic illness so I guess I feel comfortable to him. I kind of feel bad about it. But then I think, if I can't do stuff, and he feels good about helping, is there anything wrong with that? We're also lucky his work is so flexible and he can work from home any time.

In other good news, we got our tax refunds today. Over 7 grand, baby!!! That's from having the house and a baby in 2006 and a couple other things. Not that it isn't all already spent, it will all go to debt except for a bit towards our savings for a new roof, but still. That's a good chunk of debt! Yay!