Rockstar

In an effort to spread love, peace and happiness rather than festering annoyance, I’m changing the tune here and am doing a post wherein I list the things that are making me smile these days.  Believe it or not, there are a few!

• Reading “Eclipse“, but not too quickly because I can’t get “Breaking Dawn” before the middle of next week and I don’t want to be without EDWAAARRRD!
• Teething or not, Evie in all her six-month-old glory is freaking adorable.  She’s so sweet and watching her little personality emerge little by little is one of the true miracles of life.
• Liam’s delight in just about everything that he comes across.  Pesky though he may be, the twinkle in his eyes never fails to charm me.
• My iPhone.  Yes, I still love it.  How did I ever exist without it?  At the same time, I can’t believe it can really do all the things it can really do.  It’s the single coolest thing I’ve ever had.
• Rockstar energy drink, preferably in the “Punched” or “Juiced” varieties.   I wish I had some right now, even.  That stuff is seriously addictive.
• “Fringe” and “True Blood”.  These two new shows are just awesome.  They fill the void that “Lost” leaves during the fall season.
• Rachel Maddow, whiz kid of MSNBC.  I love her new show.  She cracks me up and makes crazy sense all at the same time.
• Facebook’s evil crack game, “Make Me a Celebrity” (it’s part of the Mesmo TV application).  OMG, ya’ll.  I need more entourage if I want to win more Faceoffs.
• That it is now officially Fall.  I vastly prefer Fall to Summer, but I just wish it would get cooler quicker.  I’m so tired of the sun.

See?  I’m not all doom and gloom after all.  So what’s making you smile today?

Everything is so cluttered.  And it’s not just my house (though, lord in heaven, the clutter in this house threatens to eat us all).  My mind is filled with useless clutter.  So, since I have to start somewhere and it’s unlikely I’m going to be starting with the house itself anytime soon, I’m starting with my mind.

How to you de-clutter your mind?  You spit out the random snippets of things that are dancing around in there, clamoring for your attention in a blog post, that’s how.  Now you know.

***

Thanks for everyone’s questions about WordPress!  Keep them coming!  I’m not sure when I’m going to start the series, but I’m thinking it’ll be sometime this week.  So stay tuned!  I’m seeing a lot of the same sorts of questions so that tells me what you all REALLY want to know.  Which is good!  And I’ve got some great ideas.  Hopefully, I can help some people out.  And if I lure just a few people away from the vile clutches of Blogger, then I will consider it a raging success.

***

Liam is feeling unwell today.  He was unwell yesterday too.  Runny nose, slight fever.  General crankiness (beyond the normal “I’m 2 years old and a little shit”, at least).  Poor guy.  He was very upset this morning when we couldn’t find his dolphin.  Because heaven forbid the child should have to drink his morning milk without dolphin in hand.  I’m hoping he starts feeling better before he a) infects me and or b) infects Evie.  I do not want Evie to get sick and I can’t afford to feel under the weather right now.  Plus this is a particularly sucktastic week for Kile at work so he can’t afford for me (or him) to be sick right now either.  Sick, sick, go away!!

***

Evie is sleeping in our bed pretty much full time now.  I know I had mentioned putting her in her crib a bit before, but we’re kind of moving away from that.  At least for now, we are.  Liam was 10 months before he slept in his crib and until then he had slept in our bed for naps and bedtime.  Since Evie is just shy of 5 months old, I figure we’re sort of jumping the gun anyhow.  She has already been taking naps in our bed, though admittedly, she often draws me in with her for at least 20 minutes or so.  I took a cue from what we did with Liam and the past several nights have been taking her up to bed when Kile’s putting Liam down and start nursing her.  Kile comes in when he’s done with Liam and reads a story to Evie while she finishes up and then it’s off to dreamland she goes!

So far, it has worked great.  She’ll wake up maybe once before I go to bed, and it’s usually shortly after she goes down so I figure she’ll stop doing that fairly soon.  It sure has been strange to have the evenings entirely kid-free around here.  Nice, but weird.

***

Hey, I’m doing my own ads!  I toyed with BlogAds (again… I had run them once upon a time but… meh) and for the last week I tried Performancing ads.  Which was well and good until I got an email from a sweet gal telling me that she had been trying to purchase ad space on my blog with the Performancing ads and kept erroring out.  Well, shoot, that’s not going to do!  So I found a WordPress plugin and am serving up my own ads now.  Middle-man be darned!

So this fabulous gal and her WAY cute products are now my very first advertisers!  Check out the link under the BlogHer ads in the righthand sidebar.  Click away and let her know that you think she rocks too (cuz she so totally does).

And if you’re interested in advertising, check out my new advertising page for details.  Look at me, trying to be all legitimate and stuff!

***

It’s less than two weeks until I get my iPhone.  The waiting is TORTURE.

***

How awesome are the Olympics this year?  I barely remember the Olympics in Athens or the one in Sydney.  I guess I’ve been a) busy and b) uninterested.  I think Twitter has really helped the Olympics be awesome this time around, as have all the blogs.  Getting to be excited about it with a bunch of other people at the same time what makes it fun, right?  GO PHELPS.  That man could probably get away with murder right about now.  Golden boy, indeed!  Shoot, all the American athletes have been amazing this year.  The gymnasts just blow my mind, for example.  I’ve even enjoyed watching the athletes from the other countries.  There have been ome great stories this year and I love watching the human spirit at work!  Good examples of this: the women’s marathon and the runners from Jamaica.  I’m going to miss these things when they’re done.

***

Good gravy I’m tired today.  Trying not to rely on the Rockstar too much this week but I think I’ll have to make an exception today.

***

I stop and realize where I was at one year ago today and I can’t believe it’s been a whole year and that everything last year really happened (well, maybe not the positive pregnancy test part because I do have a wee, adorable baby to cuddle this year because of that!).  Last August was a nightmare.  I wouldn’t say this August is a dream or anything, though.  I wish I could just go ahead and get this funk behind me once and for all.  The thyroid pills help, but I still have more “off” days than “on” days

***

Okay, time to move on with the day.  I think I’ll go get some Rockstar and give my ass a proverbial kick.  Do Mondays always suck this much?

I have zero concentration this week.  I have about a bazillion things buzzing around my head but I feel like I’ve been unable to concentrate on any one thing at any one time.  Even now, I’ve gone and laid Evie down up in her crib in her room (with the monitor within arms reach of me down here, of course) and Liam is distracted by “Jack’s Big Music Show” (LOVE) and a pile of plastic blocks.  But do you think I can concentrate long enough to gather my thoughts into a cohesive post?

NOPE!

I feel like I’ve been pulled into a million different directions lately.  A little piece of me is needed here, a little piece over there and another piece needs to be thinking about that over there too.  Nothing has my full attention and that is worrisome to me.  I’m scattered, is what it is.  I’d quite simply forgotten what it was like to feel this way.  Friggin’ thyroid.

Here’s just a little sampling of what is buzzing around in that empty cranial cavity at the moment:

• I’m trying to make an appointment with a new doctor.  Our new primary care physician on our new insurance has a web-based appointment maker thingie.  I filled it out yesterday but haven’t heard back yet.  I hope they haven’t tried to call because our landline is at the mercy of two very f’d up phones that can’t hold a charge for more than two minutes and the charging stations are nowhere NEAR where I sit and nurse Evie.  So if they’ve called, chances are I’ve missed it.
• You’d think, then, that I would check voicemail to see.  But I haven’t.  I should probably do that.
• Speaking of phones, I won one.  You know, nothing much. ;)  Those that follow me on Twitter probably saw me lose my freakin’ gourd over it last week.  The only thing is that since we’re already AT&T customers, I need to wait until the end of August to renew my contract in order to get the reduced cost.  I think.  I’m still rather confused by the whole thing, to be honest.  But very excited to get my hands on it.
• Evie is sleeping in her crib RIGHT NOW.  That freaks me out.  She didn’t sleep in there very long last night.  Only an hour or two and was in bed with us by the time we went to bed but STILL.  Baby steps.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not too excited to get this particular milestone achieved just yet.  She’s only 4 months old!  SHE MAH BAYBEE!!!
• I’ve discovered Rockstar in the last week or so and I really kinda like it.  MUST GET MORE.  May just be the only thing to punch through my Thyroid Fog right now.
• Still haven’t seen “Dark Knight”.  Am pretty sad about that.  Hoping to remedy this little problem at the drive-in this weekend.
• Am so glad that Noggin’s monthly theme will switch in a couple days.  Am rather tired of the “Are we there yet?” song.  Actually, I think I was tired of it after the first day, to be honest.
• Where was I?
• My anniversary is this month!  TEN YEARS, yo.  Do we have any plans made?  NOPE.  Not that I know of, at least.  Crap.  Should really start thinking about this.  Anyone want to take bets on if I can get a DSLR or laptop out of this?  (That hysterical laughter you’re hearing is my husband.  He thinks I’m SUCH a kidder!)
• Liam goes in for a speech therapy evaluation tomorrow.  I haven’t really mentioned much about that, have I?  I don’t know why we’re not doing Early Intervention or if Nevada even DOES Early Intervention.  So in lieu of that, we have to journey clear across town to see this therapist.  And pay a standard office visit copay to boot.  Oh well.  It’s for the Good of the Child, which you can’t ever really bargain away, can you?

I’m sure I’ve got more.  But my brain keeps slipping away and thinking of stupid things like, “Should I do diaper laundry before or after lunch? This evening?  How about a shower?  Should I try to take one today?  Oh!  Don’t forget to Evie’s prescriptions filled at the grocery store!  When should I go to the grocery store?  Tomorrow?  Yeah, right, as if I’d go by myself.  Dang, when’s lunch?”

So… yeah.  Sorry about that, folks.  I’ll try harder to whip my lazy brain into shape for tomorrow’s post.  In the meantime, feel free to read yesterday’s post which I have on good authority is a pretty good one.