Posted on August 8th, 2008

It feels like an amazing milestone.  Ten years.  At the same time, it feels like the blink of an eye.

We were so young back then.  (I was so THIN!)  We had our lives ahead of us.  We had nothing but potential ahead of us, the promise of the years to come.  There was no way of knowing if the years would be difficult or easy.  I’d like to think I knew better than to expect easy.  But with my best friend at my side?  How hard could it really be?

I remember when we booked our photographer, over a year in advance (we had a long engagement).  She said it was a good thing we had, since 08/08 was viewed as a very “lucky” date in the Chinese culture and that had spread to Western culture as well.  As such, many couples were lining up to get married on that same day.  After all, who would refuse a little extra luck to start off their married lives?

Honestly, I just picked the day because I liked the repeating date.  (12/12, 08/08, 07/07… you see a trend?)  That and it was in August.  I was basically told by my mother that August was a good month so I remember picking up a calendar and scanning the Saturdays.  It took me maybe two seconds to pick it out.  Easy, peasy.

For years, I expected that on our tenth anniversary we would do something special to celebrate the day.  In fact, for a very long time my idea of the perfect anniversary would be to return to Mendocino, where we honeymooned, and enjoy some cool, coastal air.  Perhaps we’d even stay at the same bed and breakfast we stayed at all those years ago.  Perhaps we’d even stay in the same room.

Yeah, not going to happen this year.

Shoot, with two little ones and one not so little one, we can’t even manage a nice dinner out and a movie at the theater.  But, we’re also mature enough to realize that those things don’t really matter.  We can have a special anniversary without going anywhere.  Maybe we’ll fix a nice dinner here at home to have after (most of) the kids are in bed.  Maybe we won’t.  We might not be able to bestow fabulous gifts on one another, but we can look at each other and know that another ten years will be a breeze, as long as we’re together.

Happy Anniversary, sweetie pie.

Tags: anniversary, Kile, wedding
Filed under Fantabulous-ness |

Tags: anniversary, Kile, wedding

Posted on August 5th, 2008

I thought I’d do something different today.  I want to take a look back at my “internet history”, sordid as it may be.  (And it is.)  So the best place to start?  The beginning.

Okay, that’s probably too far back.  But, gosh, wasn’t I adorable?  You can’t deny it.  I sure had the whole “baby” thing going for me.  I wonder what happened.  Because somewhere along the way I went from “Aww, how cute!” to “Eesh!  Put some makeup on, woman!”  But looking at this picture, I can see influences on my own children which is pretty freakin’ cool if you ask me.

But yes, advanced as I was as a wee thing, the technology wasn’t there (not at our house, at least) and I was not quite yet on the internet.  Give it a couple years.

My dad worked for IBM so you would have thought we would have lived on the cutting edge.  Alas, this is not so.  My dad did at one point in the 80’s bring home one of those old dinosaur IBM computers and I remember for a while it was set up in my room and he would come in before I was awake in the morning and dial in to the IBM whatchamacallit and… do what exactly?  I don’t know.  But I remember hearing the phone dialing in the computer’s (extremely loud) speakers and the resulting beeps and boops as it connected.  WILD.

There was a small amount of internet going on in high school but for the most part is was learning all about Tetris and Solitare (all the computers in all the classrooms AND the library had Solitare!  SWEET!).

I went to Nevada to go to school and my friends… did not.  One stayed behind in San Jose and another went to school clear out in MICHIGAN.  That fall was rough as I would hike to the post office in hopes of letters.  And my dearest friend in Michigan began to urge me to get an “email account”.  WTF?  Email?  Why would I want to do that??  I had no computer of my own, anyhow, and was forced to use the computer lab for writing papers.  Finally, I signed up.

It was all downhill from there.

I think my first email address was something like mskurtz@unr.edu.  I could be wrong because it has been EVER SO MANY YEARS and I only have so many brain cells left.  I do remember we had to use “PINE” to access the email.  Graphic based?  Only in our dreams!  I think it was only the VERY NEXT DAY that I had some very helpful friends on campus show me what a “talker” was.  Do any of you out there remember “talkers”?  It was what they called chat rooms before there was chat rooms.  The one I started out on was called “Crossroads” and it was, as far as I knew, the biggest of it’s kind.  It wasn’t a game, like a MUDD (which I did get into along the way, never fear), but rather a big, text-based, multi-”roomed” program that allowed a bunch of nerdy college kids to chat with one another.  Essentially.  I became something of an internet flirt.  I was able to email and (once I talked her into logging in) chat with my friend in Michigan and I met new friends. We eventually migrated to our “own” smaller talker, “Eye of the World.”

I thought I was terribly clever.

It wasn’t long before I was trying out MUDDS and the like.  I got hooked up with one from some guys that I had actually MET in person.  They were decent fellows, which looking back, I realize is nothing short of a MIRACLE.  (Evie, don’t you ever THINK of doing anything I did.)  I lost a lot of my college existance in MUDDs, actually.  Between that and the talkers, it was a miracle I (eventually) graduated.

Lucky for me, I met someone my junior year of college and he sort of mellowed me out.  (I also used to wear a lot of baggy-ish clothes.  WTF?  I wanna go back in time and tell my dumbass self to enjoy the relative skinniness while I had it…)  But I turned him into an internet addict too.  Actually, while I tell people that we met on a camping trip, that’s not altogether accurate.  See, I had just learned about this awesome thing called “Geocities” and had spent a goodly amount of time in the dorm computer lab putting together my own monstrosity of a webpage together (I was located in Hollywood, I think).  And, for whatever reason, I bookmarked it on the computer I tended to use the most often so that I could go back and access it easily.  It just so happens that one day this older fella was using that computer and browsing the bookmarks and found this webpage of mine.

I was hunched over another computer at the time, talking feverishly to my friend in Michigan about something that was undoubtedly important.  I can’t remember NOW, of course, what it was but I do remember the urgency of the moment.  I hear this person, who I have no idea who they are, say “Marilyn!”  My head whipped around and I saw this older fella.  I think I glared at him.  “I like your webpage,” he said.  I grunted, perhaps a rudimentary “thanks”, perhaps not, before returning to my conversation.

Talk about your auspicious beginnings!  You can see why I stick to the camping story.

ANYHOW.  The point is, I got my dumb self on Geocities in the fall of 1996.  I learned how to fiddle with HTML and such things and got a real taste for having a presence on the web.  I LIKED IT.  I would continue for the next several years to maintain Geocities webpages and other sorts of webpages on other various servers.  At first, it was all about the FREE.  Free was good.

When that older fella (his name is Kile, btw) and I got married in August of 1998, I was still doing the Geocities thing.  And the MUDD thing.  What can I say?  Then I got pregnant in the spring of 1999.  I joined an expectant mom’s email group for gals due in November of 1999 and got embroiled in that.  I kept an offline diary of my pregnancy from virtually the moment I found out.  Why not online?  I don’t know, but I was something of a fuddy duddy and there was something about paper and pen that I enjoyed embracing.

I would continue to journal offline through my son’s infancy and the ensuing years where we tried to get pregnant (AND FAILED).  I would also continue with email groups and eventually an online message board group over at the Ovusoft Forums.  I still marvel at how I was STILL not journaling online at this point.  No, what I did instead was start playing The Sims.  And then, because I am a ginormous nerd, I started up my own Sims website.  See, you could “make stuff” for the game.  I joined an existing site for the purpose of selling my “wares” before eventually setting up my own site.  I had a friend help me through the process of signing up for my own webhost account and getting a domain name configured.  Enter: HOSTGATOR.  Gosh, when was that?  It was the summer of 2003, I think.  I’d already been in The Sims website game for nearly 2 years at that point. My first url was simlair.com.

It took about 18 months before I thought about blogging myself.  I had certainly heard of blogs by this point.  But, to be honest, I thought they were more for “kids”.  Teenagers and college kids.  I saw them as more of a social networking thing.  This was until a friend showed me some blogs of some infertile women out there, one in particular.  I was hooked from then on.  And it was via Julie’s blog and her awesome blogroll that I found a lot of the other blogs that I still read today.  And I was encouraged to start my own blog.  Which I did.  ON BLOGGER.

*bangs head on the wall*

It took me about 5 days to wake up from THAT and set up WordPress on my Hosgator account.  So my first blog url was inconceivable.simlair.com.  OH YES.  And I remember my first design too.  I had to do that because I couldn’t stand the default look and there was virtually NOTHING out there for chick bloggers that I could find.  I figured if there wasn’t anything available, I’d make my own.  By New Years 2005, I had a WordPress blog and my own custom design.  GO ME.  I (obviously) haven’t looked back since.

The internet has been a huge part of my life, that’s for sure.  Blogging has been an even LARGER part of my life.  I had to go through some painfully geeky periods of my life before I got here, but I got here.  And I guess you could say I’m STILL geeky.  And I would have to bow my head and say, “Yes, you’re right.”  But at least I’m geeky in the company of some awesome women.

BLOGGERS RULE.

Tags: about me, blogging, college, Kile, origin
Filed under It's All About Me |

Tags: about me, blogging, college, Kile, origin

Posted on July 25th, 2008

This is the LAST BLOGHER POST! (everyone who was unable to attend cheers) (even those who were able to attend are cheering because DUDE, enough already) I’m just going to clear up some odds and ends.  And then we can be on our way.  (Well, this is a damn, dirty lie because my YNTR post tomorrow will heavily feature post-BlogHer posts, but at least they won’t be MY post-BlogHer posts!)

Okay, I want to talk a little about my session.  This is the first time I’ve done a panel-type session and you know what?  Kinda fun.  Seriously!  I actually kind of enjoyed being a part of it.  It didn’t feel so much like speaking as it did leading a group discussion.  I kind of got into that.  The only bad part was losing half our audience before it was all said and done.  We started out with a pretty packed room which was VERY COOL.  I was excited!  And before the time was up, we’d lost a good half of those people.  I guess we weren’t exciting after all.  Which, you know, is okay.  Elisa herself had encouraged people to not be afraid to leave and find sessions that DO speak to them.  But on the other hand, this is a session led by INTROVERTS.  And I replayed all those people standing up and walking out in my head a good 50 times that weekend.  Was it something I said?  Do I offend?

All I want to say about drama is this: You cannot go to an event like BlogHer with sky-high expectations.  If you read nothing but “a-list” bloggers and you have dreams of going there and becoming their BFFs, well, you’re probably going to walk away disappointed.  Yes, even if they have responded to your comments or whathaveyou.  Because they’re going to be busy (as we all are at BlogHer) and they’re also shy like a lot of us are and I don’t know about you, but giant free-for-alls like this wear me the heck out.  And I’m NOT under a spotlight.  Doesn’t excuse out and out rude behavior but I didn’t hear of TOO many stories like that this year, thankfully.  It’s best to go in with the expectation that you want to meet up with people who you read who also read you and connect with you and with the hopes of meeting new people.  Because BlogHer is FABULOUS for meeting new people.

Also: Some people will look for drama even where there isn’t really any.  That’s just the nature of the beast sometimes.  People like to rubber-neck.  So sometimes we are the community’s own worst enemy.  We need to knock that off, seriously.  It’s not doing anyone any favors.

All in all, I had a great time.  Next year I want to do some things different (don’t I say this every year??):

• I want to go SANS KIDS.  No children.  Nadda.  NONE.
• I want to room together with a bunch of buddies so we can stay up late braiding hair.  Or drinking at parties.  Or, heck, both.  Think of the money savings too!
• I want to stay an extra day or two (or three).  I want to be there the day before for any pre-parties and I want to be there the day AFTER, to decompress and sight-see.  I’m talking four nights in the hotel.  I don’t want to feel rushed.  I want to soak it all in, damnit.
• I want to make GINORMOUS efforts to meet people that I decide beforehand I want to meet.  Mrs. Flinger and Jennifer?  THAT MEANS YOU.  Among others.
• I want to take so many pictures that it literally makes my flickr account WEEP.
• I want to go to several parties.  I want to have alcohol at some of these parties (if not all).  I most especially want to go to a CheeseburgHer party as I have now missed it TWO YEARS IN A ROW.  And those cheeseburgers look yummy.

I think that covers it.  Now, let us never speak of it again.  Until next year, of course.

***

In other news: OMG, my husband has started a blog.  A daddy blog, of sorts.  I think.  Though he has yet to mention our actual CHILDREN, but whatever.  (Who am I to talk?  How often do I talk about the kids, really?)  Anyhow, I think he got a look at all the fun we had at BlogHer this year (and all the guys who were there getting all the attention) and decided he wanted a piece of that pie.  Whatever his reasoning, stop by and say, “Whatup, yo?”

Tags: BlogHer 08, Kile
Filed under BlogHer 08 |

Tags: BlogHer 08, Kile

Posted on June 29th, 2008

OY.  We haven’t even been through Sunday yet and I’m already feeling like i’ve had a very full weekend so far.  Some of it good.  Some of it… well.  Maybe not so much.

Friday was a lot of fun.  We met Kile’s sister, her husband and boys at the hotel they were staying at here in town to go in the pool.  It’s a great pool.  I was on the fence about actually going in, seeing as how I lack a bathing suit that fits.  What I ended up doing was putting on a one-piece that does NOT fit, layering a tankini top over that (I don’t have the bottoms) and wearing some old shorts on the bottom.  It worked.  We ALL went into the pool, Evie included.

Once she got over the initial shock, she really enjoyed it.  I held her part of the time we were in the water and, I kid you not, she SLEPT.  Being in the pool PUT HER TO SLEEP.  The girl loves water.  It completely soothed her.  Liam, on the other hand, was VERY unsure about the pool at first.  I carried him in and he whined and clung to my neck as I brought him deeper into the water.  Eventually, however, he was charmed by the splashing and by the bubbles a waterfall feature created.  While Kile was holding him (he was actually able to hold him in the water!), he learned that he could pretend to dunk Kile’s head and the faux-sputtering noises Kile would make were HILARIOUS.  To Liam, at least, who laughed harder than I’ve ever heard someone laugh.

We had to get out of the pool, however, when Liam’s lips turned blue.  It was a little on the cool side.  I took him into the bathroom/locker room to change and there was NO changing table.  Grr.  So I changed him on a towel on the counter.  And then I lost my mind and set him down on the floor next to me and told him to stay put so I could dry myself off.  RIGHT.  I love how I expected that to actually happen.

Liam took off like a shot, so I hurried after him.  I was just behind him as he ran out of the bathroom and towards the gym located opposite the doors.  Of course, the gym was walled in glass.  No one told Liam this little tidbit and he ran RIGHT into the glass wall.  Just like you would see on America’s Funniest Home Videos or something.  As it happens, a group of foreign tourists were walking by at that exact moment and expressed concern.  I assured them he was fine (no crying, etc) as I picked him up and carried him back to the pool area.  Goofy kid.  Of course, he was no worse the wear.  Becuase his head is actually made of granite.

As late as that night was, Saturday started pretty early.  I had my hair appointment at 1pm and I wanted to make sure that I got Evie taken care of and Liam down for a nap before I had to go.  Thing is, we also desperately needed groceries as we had NO FOOD in the house.  I figured that we could solve that by getting up and going out to a quick breakfast (perhaps even just McDonald’s for egg mcmuffins) about 8:30 or so and then go to the grocery store.  As long as we were back by 12, it was no problem.  Well, Kile’s sister and brother in law wanted to meet for breakfast.  They suggested 9 am and I made the mistake of thinking, “I wouldn’t want to be meeting any later than that!” while Kile was thinking, “I wonder if they’ll even be awake by 9.”

Turns out?  Kile was right.  So we met at more like 10 am.  And we went to Denny’s, which was fine, but we went to one that was heck and gone from anything else, including where we live.  We had to stop and get gas and got there just ahead of them and got seated.  After breakfast, we went to the nearest Walmart which was still a good ways away from there.  It was a lot of driving.  They took Harry with them for the day, as they were doing a little shopping and then going to a water park.  I was unsure about that, since our schedule was a little precarious, but knew Harry would have a blast and I didn’t want to deny him that.

By the time we got to Walmart, it was almost 11:30.  NOT MUCH TIME.  We decided we’d just have to go again tomorrow and to just get what we needed for the day.  And quickly!  I was impressed… we made it out of there just before 12.  But the drive home was stressful.  Stuck behind slow drivers on two lane roads and then a big accident on the interstate slowed us down.  We didn’t roll into our driveway until nearly 12:30, which is about the time I needed to leave for my appointment.  I had just enough time to lay Liam down for his nap (he’d already dozed in the van, so I was nervous that he would take a nap at all) and get going. I didn’t have time to feed Evie or anything.  I felt bad leaving Kile like that.

I hurried downtown and made it to my appointment just in time.  It was a cute little salon run by a bunch of adorable looking gals.  It felt very trendy and I felt very nervous about my haircut.  I went in there with hair that basically looked like this:

I walked out with hair that looked like this:

OH. MY. STARS.  Where’d all my hair go?? I’m having a real hard time getting used to it.  Sure, it’s a cute, hip, modern ‘do and that’s something I haven’t had in a real long time.  On the other hand, it’s a cute, hip, modern ‘do on ME and I’m just not used to that.  Every time I catch a glimpse of my hair, I double-take and then want to go hide somewhere because WHERE’D ALL MY HAIR GO??

I’m going to be dying it a little lighter.  I wouldn’t mind some accenting highlights but I’m SO cheap that not only will I not get it dyed in a salon (hello Herbal Essences hair color!), I’m also too cheap to buy a box of highlighting goop.  But you heard me mention before that my overnight stay at the Westin is in jeopardy here so I’m cutting corners where I can!

So what do YOU guys think?  It freaks me out, even looking at pictures of it.  It’s sure lighter though, I’ll give it that.  I find myself hoping I’ll grow in some length soon.

I got home and Liam was crying in his crib and Evie had resisted all manner of bottle and contents before reluctantly taking SOMETHING to tide her over until I got home.  Liam settled, who knows why he woke up in the first place.  But Kile was obviously beat and fell asleep promptly in his chair.

We had plans to go to the drive-in and see “Wall-E” last night, but my sister in law still had Harry and we didn’t know when we would be getting him back.  And no one answered their cell phone when we called.  It got later.  And later.  My dreams of having pizza for dinner (a real craving of mine lately) faded.  Before long, we wondered if we would even make the drive-in at all.  Finally, they called and we went to meet them.  If we were going to the movie, we were going to be cutting it close.  We’d have to pick up fast food for dinner on the way and eat it there.  OR we could go to the movie on Sunday night and go do pizza up right.  We made the mistake of presenting the options to Harry.

Harry wanted to see the movie last night and burst into tears at there mere notion of having to wait a WHOLE DAY to go see it (and didn’t understand when we assumed he was tired because of the irrational tears).  So, we made a break for it.  And wouldn’t you know, the drive-in was PACKED.  Apparently, word has gotten out that drive-ins are cool again because everyone and their DOG was there.  We got a fairly horrible spot back by the snack bar but at least it had a straight-shot view of the screen.  It was a good hour or so until the movie was set to begin so we had plenty of time to eat our dinners and get situated.

I wasn’t real crazy about it; I’d forgotten Evie’s bouncer seat AND Boppy pillow, both of which are handy at being places to have her be without having my arms tied up.  Plus, we were packed in like sardines and I’m sorry, but that’s not real condusive to private breastfeeding.  Also, the light and noise from the snack bar were pretty distracting.  But… we made it work.  And the movie was adorable.  I wouldn’t mind seeing it again under less stressful circumstances.

We were surprised at how much Liam seemed to enjoy it.  Close to the end, he started to get whiny and such but he was exhausted by that point.  Until then, he watched the screen with rapt attention and laughed and shrieked and had a grand ol’ time.  It was really cute to watch.

Still, we ended out the day on a very frustrated note.  Kile was tired and admitted he hadn’t had a very good day at all.  Neither had I, partially because I felt it was my fault (the whole hair appointment and everything) that he had such a bad day and was so grouchy.  I hoped Sunday would be better.

And really?  It has been.  We haven’t done much besides go shopping (we missed church because we were rather lazy this morning).  We checked out the new Whole Foods here in town (LOVE) and ate at In ‘n Out Burger and shopped at Walmart and Sam’s Club.  We have food again!  YAY!  I won’t have to be so gosh darned hungry this week!

I am exhausted now though.  I have aches on top of aches.  Lugging Liam around, even for short distances, is starting to take it’s toll.  While I am hoping for toned arms, I am definitely getting stiff and sore shoulders.  The top of my back hurts every time I move it.  My legs are screaming at me for the miles I’ve traversed in the name of retail today.  And I’m STILL not used to my hair.

Tags: drive-in, Evelyn, family, haircut, Kile, Liam, shopping, swimming, Wall-E, weekend
Filed under Family Circus, It's All About Me |

Tags: drive-in, Evelyn, family, haircut, Kile, Liam, shopping, swimming, Wall-E, weekend