More Than Mommy

PSA for cat owners

Do you have a cat?

Do you currently use that awful, dusty, smelly, clumping cat litter?

If so, I have great news for you!

I too used to subject myself to the horrors of standard clumping litter, and I dreaded scooping the cats.  I’d hide my nose in my shirt, and always come out of the room hacking and coughing from the dust.  I can’t imagine the cats liked it either.  And don’t get me started on the teeny gray pellets.  With the tiniest flick of a cat paw, they’d scatter across the floor like drunk teenagers scrambling to leave a busted garage party.  At the merest hint of humidity, the scattered rocks turn into a gluey mush, both slimy and sticky at the same time, and impossible to scrape off any surface once they dried.

And then I discovered Arm & Hammer Essentials, Natural Clumping Litter!  

At about eight bucks for a 10.5 lb bag, it seems expensive at first glance.  But a little goes a long way!  This litter is twice as absorbent as other clumping litters, and, get ready for it…it smells good.  That’s right, good.  I pour it into the litter box, and instead of being enveloped in a cloud of grey, poisonous, smoke, I actually lean in and inhale a little, just because it smells so darned nice.  Don’t get me wrong, it does start to stink once it’s been used for a while, but it just doesn’t ever get that awful chemical smell the other kinds have.

It clumps hard, and the cats really like it.  I mean, I have a cat that has peed outside the litter box for 11 years, and I noticed a very significant reduction in that behavior when I started using this litter.  She still did it, but a lot less often.  Probably because the litter box doesn’t smell like a chlorine gas factory.  The litter does still scatter, maybe even a little more than heavier kinds, but it doesn’t melt and mush, and it’s very light and easy to vacuum up.

Just to hammer (pun not intended, but awesome as I discovered it in my re-read) my point home, I switched to this litter about a year ago.  I used it steadily for most of that time, but about 2 months ago, I managed to convince myself I was imagining just how much better this litter was.  I decided that the added cost wasn’t worth it, and litter is litter.  I decided that I must have made it all up.  So I switched back to Scoop Away, or Tidy Cats, or something…one of those other clumping cat litters.  Ugh.  I have been living in a sneezy, smelly, poisonous, chemically house, just waiting for the bag to be empty so I could switch back.

Arm & Hammer, I’ll never leave again.

P.S.  Despite what it may sound like, I was not paid to write this, or asked to endorse A&H in any way.  I just really love this cat litter and want to share the joy.

Today I tried…

So I’ve decided that every month, when I go grocery shopping, I’m going to try something new.  Something I’ve never tasted before, or maybe something I’ve never prepared by myself before.

Today I tried…

Carambola, or Starfruit

I’ve seen these in the store before, and been intrigued by their unique shape.  I figured the kids would get a kick out it, and it was 50 cents for one, so we gave it a shot.  Honestly, I wouldn’t have known if it was a fruit or a vegetable, save for the name.

As it turns out, we picked a great starter for this idea.  This fruit requires absolutely no prep, peeling, or pitting.  Just cut and enjoy, skin and all!

The texture is very similar to grapes, but perhaps a bit crunchier.  The flavor is fruity and a tiny bit tart, and reminds me of Sweettarts or Pez.  It isn’t my favorite flavor in the world, and I wouldn’t sit down and eat a lot of it, but it could add a really interesting texture to a fruit salad, and who can resist that artsy shape?

For the mommies out there, the kids were way into it.  They loved the shape before it was cut, and took turns holding, squeezing and inspecting it.  After it was cut, they about fell out of their chairs with excitement.  ”Mommy it’s stars, IT’S STARS!!!”  ”Did it live in the sea?  Was it in the sky?!?”  Frankly, you could totally have a tea party, and serve these with toothpicks and you’d make any kid’s day.

Stay tuned for rutabaga next month!

I wonder…

Brought to you today by Walmart.

I wonder if the smoker I’m walking behind knows she smells like an old ashtray.  I apologize to all my smoker friends out there – I really do love you anyway – but you should know, you stink.  Like, really stink.  Worse than you think.

I wonder if inconsiderate people really know how inconsiderate they are.  I mean, if you’re inconsiderate it means you don’t consider others’ feelings when acting, right?  So, do they just not think about other people?  Are they really that oblivious?  Or are they willfully self-centered?  I have to admit, I think I’m rooting for the second.  I tend to feel like being actively and consciously rude is better than living in a world where you are the planet, the moon, and the sun, and little you’s orbit around you.  Sadly, if I’m honest, I think there’s more of the oblivious kind than the rude ones.

I wonder who buys those really weird looking unlabeled vegetable (or fruit??) things off in the back of the produce section.  There’s this whole bin of stuff I’ve never seen and don’t know the name of, and it has no labels on it or anything.  I bet it’s some kind of “hide it in plain sight” contraband racket that Walmart runs on the side.

I wonder how they decide which doors will be for “enter” and which will be for “exit”.  I also wonder if it’s a conscious rebellion that people use the wrong one virtually 90% of the time.  I’m a rule follower, I enter in the enter and exit through the exit.  I usually find that I’m actually disrupting the flow more than following it.

I wonder how I got so lucky to be born into my family, in the USA, in northern Virginia.  I can walk into a Walmart (or anywhere else) and buy anything I want or need.  Any time.  I’m spoiled, and I’m selfish, and I don’t deserve the amazing winnings from this lottery I didn’t even enter.

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We live in a very, very backwards world.

There are signs everywhere.

I’m losing my ability to control my outrage.  What was that bumper sticker?  ”If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention”…

Things that have recently been brought to my attention in social media as “disgusting”:

1. Breastfeeding.  Yes, I know there is debate about how a woman should cover herself, whether or not she should take pictures of herself, whathaveyou, but breastfeeding in itself is DISGUSTING?  Really?  16 year olds posing like prostitutes are not disgusting?  Bikini clad women on every magazine cover that my children see in stores are not disgusting?  I’m pretty sure that when I breastfeed you cannot see my:  collarbone, shoulders, ribs, navel, hips, thighs, knees, or ankles.  I guess if I was wearing capri pants you’d see my ankles…  Oh, and I thought this article was interesting.  Outraged people that their kids might learn about how mammals feed their young.  Ridiculous.

2. Perhaps this next one wasn’t classified as “disgusting” per se, but it still comes up as a point of completely unwarranted outrage in our modern society.  At my most recent Creighton Model followup session, I was chatting with my instructor, who happens to be a mother of nine (two adopted).  She matter-of-factly confessed to me that she was once confronted by a “gentleman”, who screamed at her “can’t you just control yourself”?  He was sorely affronted that she dared to have nine children, and was certain that must mean that she spent pretty much all her time having sex.  I can tell you from having three children of my own, that she didn’t have much time to empty her bladder and shower, let alone do the dirty.  Her recounting that episode, led us to chat a bit about marital relations and frequency of sex and the like.  In her work as a Creighton instructor, she naturally meets myriad people from many states in life.  She has discovered that people who chemically or barrier contracept generally have exponentially more sex than she, and incidentally I, do.  Yet it is they who are so quick to be angry and lash out at those of us who choose to plan our families to be bigger than what society at large deems appropriate.  What I can’t figure out, is the anger.  Why does it make people so furious that Michelle Duggar has so many children?  How is she hurting them?  How is she bothering them?  Why does it anger my neighbor so much, that I choose to have three young children in our small townhouse, and be “pregnant all the time”.  Why did Mrs. Creighton instructor’s “friend” have so much venom?  I can understand someone feeling anxious, or perhaps, when they see me running more ragged than usual, relief that they don’t have do deal with so many kids.  But I cannot understand where the anger comes from.  Mrs. Creighton Instructor believes it must be spiritual pain, and I can’t think of anything else.

3. Funerals for babies.  I don’t even know where to begin on this one.  I can understand someone being uncomfortable about the subject of death.  I can understand them wanting to avoid talking about it, or shying away from the deep emotions and questions it provokes.  However, calling tasteful, artistic, funeral images disgusting, and lashing out at a woman grieving for her child?  This one also falls into the same category as number two.  Why do people get so angry?  It’s one thing to express your opposing viewpoint.  It is another thing entirely, to hurl directed, personally injurious, mean spirited insults at a woman who just lost one of her children.  I don’t care where you stand on the abortion issue, society still does recognize the validity of pregnancy, and the joy that it can bring to a family (at least for now).  We have 3D sonograms raking in huge profits just for families to take a more graphic peek at their soon-to-be-born members.  I don’t know anyone who doesn’t offer condolences when a friend suffers a miscarriage.  So why is Michelle Duggar’s loss lessened, and so despised?  Have your opinions, but calling her and her family’s beautiful memorial service disgusting?

I must admit, the backlash from that one tasteful, simple funeral photo, very nearly provoked me to put up truly disgusting images.  Show you what disgusting really looks like.  In the name of almighty “choice” we decapitate unborn human babies.  Rip them apart inside the “safety” of their mother’s womb.  Saturate them with saline that burns their skin off and murders them painfully and horrifically.  Allow them to be born alive, and dump them into buckets in the corner, like so much unwanted trash.  Turn away if you want because it’s upsetting.  Act like it’s a “social issue” and someone else’s “choice”.  But I’ll tell you what it is:  it’s reality.

And it’s disgusting.

Screeching out of 2011 and Slamming into the New Year

Howdy.

Well, coming off a whirlwind Christmas, five days and six nights in the hospital with my infant daughter, and a flat tire, I’m finally willing to recognize the beginning of 2012.

For the last few years, January has been a tough month for us, and I’m really not sure why it always seems to be that way.  Let me demonstrate:

January 2008 - I finally decide that my psychotic, biting dog is hopeless and take her to be put down.  If you’ve never experienced that, I can tell you it’s not pleasant.

January 2009 – Pregnant with my second daughter, I spent a sleepless night wondering where my husband was, and alternately calling the jails and the hospitals.  I picked him up from jail the next morning (not sure if that’s better than the hospital or not) after a binge night and a DUI, then spent the next week and a half between the hosptial and home, dealing with the strep throat, double pneumonia, and rhabdomyolysis that almost took his life.  Best January ever!

January 2010 – Reprieve from the madness.  Fun trip to NYC with the girls.  Everyone needs a break!  :)

January 2011 - Discovered that daughter number one has microhematuria (blood in her urine that you can’t see).  Spent this month between Children’s hospital Nephrologist (kidney doctor), Quest Diagnostics getting blood drawn on tiny veins, and radiologists getting kidney and bladder sonograms.  Still don’t know what the deal is.

January 2012  - Infant in the hospital and all that…

So in the past five Januaries, there has been only one that was not filled with some kind of medical (or veterinary) drama.  Does anyone else out there have a “cursed” month?

Merry Christmas, people!

I tried to do a real post today, but sat here with my hands hovering over the keys for about 2 minutes and realized it wasn’t happening.  I can barely keep my eyes open, and there’s a heck of a lot more to do still.  Thankfully, my blessed mother in law has volunteered to take the older girls tomorrow, leaving me a window of hope that I will be ready for Christmas.  Also, happy Birthday Jen, my eldest sister, one heck of a mom, teacher, and friend.  Simply an amazing woman, and often the person I compare myself to a la “what would Jen do?”.  Love you Jen!

So praise God for the gift of His Son, and the less significant but still awesome gift of UPS having Monday off.

Full disclosure

So, in an old post I said I was starting a 14 day challenge to obtain a more grateful heart.  I made it through 3 days.  Before you laugh, please realize that I stopped consciously because it was just ridiculously not working.  My husband works about 14.7 million hours a week, and that is when it is not Christmastime.  He’s a manager at UPS, and it’s just plain silly how much they work this time of year.  Back to the point though, he works so many hours a day, he was not even noticing the things I was doing – or rather – he was having no time to partake in them.  See:

Day one – pray for him.  Check.  Done and done.  Easy peasy.

Day two – give him a great morning before work.  Ok, I tried to warm his towels like it says, but he locked the door while showering.  Plus, he overslept his alarm, unbeknownst to me, and was rushing around like a crazy person.  I started his car for him (yay, one point), and he cut me off and barked that he didn’t have time for breakfast before even noticing I had cooked a big, hot, breakfast.  Oh and the “smokin hot kiss” I was supposed to send him off with?  Yeah, that was an irritated cheek smooch because I was holding him up.

Day three – date night.  Yeeaah, so I did good “picking the entertainment”, since I knew he’d want to play his video game.   I made a cutesy little sign that said something about foot rubs and back rubs and them “costing’ a kiss or some other nonsense, and put it on his pillow, and made the bed all up.  I moved some extra candles into the room too, and even had matches ready.  When he got home, the great dinner I made got eaten reheated at 10pm, but there was wine, so that was good.  I took a shower, made sure I smelled super nice, put my hair up tousled, and put on *ahem* “something cute” *ahem* under a bathrobe.  He did not notice the candles, foot rub sign, or the bathrobe, cheek kissed me hello, and high tailed it back downstairs to play his game.  Thankful he didn’t see the ridiculous sign, I threw it away, changed back into sweatpants, and watched TV.  Yay date night!

Looking ahead, I saw day four was supposed to be free time for him, and with his job, and the three solid weekends of travel and family gatherings we had ahead, there was just no way it was happening that month or the next.

So there you have it.  Please note:  I am not bitter, nor do I blame him or anything.  This is how our lives are right now, and we make the best of it.  His job enables us to have all the blessings we do, and we both sacrifice and work really hard to keep things how they are.  I just wanted to keep myself honest, and put it in writing that I will accomplish this one day, but I will probably start it when he has a week of vacation or something.

Until then, we’ll keep surviving!

Someday I will…

…go back to school.

And study whatever it pleases me to study, simply because I want to learn about it.

I am only a little ashamed to say that I left Virginia Tech with no degree, after 3 full years of study.  There were an awful lot of factors contributing to that decision.  I think pretty significant emotional immaturity coupled with being in a serious relationship (you know, that guy I’m married to) with a boy who wasn’t at school with me, was probably one of the top contenders.  Then there’s having a somewhat mild but troubling enough issue with impulse control, discipline, and alcohol – that probably didn’t help.  But the issue I really have to cite as the reason, is having absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and a very misguided belief that my major in college dictated what I ended up “being” in life.

As a 17 year old high school senior with hippie tendencies, I was certain that money meant nothing to me, I wanted to be outside as much as possible my whole life, and a degree in Natural Resources, specifically Wildlife Management, would suit me perfectly.  My second year, I realized I liked being near water as well, so I changed laterally within the Natural Resources college to Fisheries Management.  At the end of that year, prompted by my mom, I began to look for internships.  That’s when it hit me like Ike Turner:  I actually like showering, restaurants, and prefer day-trip hiking.  Every single internship had requisites like: “be able to carry 50 pounds for 8 hours at a time” or “ability to subsist on raisins and dry oatmeal, and live in a tent for up to 2 weeks” .  I would like to say that there was a point in my past that those things appealed to me, but I’m not even sure anymore.  The reality for me was I was just not that person, and I didn’t want to spend my life camping in the mucky wilderness for weeks at a time.  I panicked, having made all my decisions based on “what I wanted to do in life”, and finding I didn’t want to do it anymore.

Reeling from the epiphany that I was not going to be a park ranger, I made the completely ridiculous snap decision that I should swing a sharp left and major in music.  I knew there was no way in hades I could be a performance major, but my honest thought process went something like this: “well, I don’t want to be a park ranger anymore…what else do I like?  Well, I play the trumpet in the marching band, and I have a knack for learning new musical instruments.  Plus, I like to sing a lot…I know!  I’ll major in music!  Wait, I hate practicing my trumpet, and I’m really not that good…ok, I’ll sing.  Wait…I hate singing in front of people.  I know!  I’ll be an education major.  Wait…I’m totally opposed to the public education system, and I hate other peoples’ kids.  Well that’s ok.  I know I’m going to get married and have kids, so I’ll just teach piano lessons.  Yeah, that’ll work.  I’ll major in vocal music education so I don’t have to practice an instrument, learn some theory, and then I’ll be a piano teacher.  Yep, totally logical.”

So, since all my friends were band members, and many of them music majors, I decided to join their ranks.  After a lot of stressful research, help from Brian practicing and creating computerized accompaniment, and one miserable and gut-churning audition later, I was accepted into the music department by a very accommodating, and sadly, lecherous voice teacher.  That was my last year at Tech.  I was vaguely aware of improprieties involving said teacher and other students going on around me, but too naive to really understand the extent of it.  A lot of it is blurry now, but I’m pretty sure he was trying to get into my pants at every opportunity.  Not directly, not violently, but enough to really undermine my confidence (what little there was), and convince me that the only reason I was there was because of his designs.  Added to the fact that (in hindsight) I was not really a “music person” and never really wanted to go that route with my life, the whole thing was a very, very bad decision.  Please resist the urge to be judgmental – I realize that these things probably should have been obvious to any half wit, but it is what it is.  I tended to fly by the seat of my pants (still do in some ways) and leaned heavily on intuition and emotion in my decision making process.  Not great, but lessons learned.

I finished that year quite poorly, confused and apathetic.  I left school having completely exhausted my ideas of “things I wanted to do with my life”.  I was burned out, and still as undisciplined (if not more so) than ever.

Summary of the whole story – there are a whole lot of reasons, but no real excuses for me not having a degree.  It’s so cliche and hackneyed, but so depressingly true: I wish I knew then what I know now.  Now, I would study something I enjoy learning about, simply for the knowledge.  I’d recognize that life is a meandering journey, not some kind of arrow shot toward a bullseye.  I’d almost definitely still end up in exactly the same place I sit right now, but I’d sit here with a bit more satisfaction and peace, and a whole lot less regret.

Thought for the day

Hey, so apparently I was taking a vacation last week.  I didn’t realize I was taking a vacation, but since it was a solid week of no updates (read: laziness and nothing to talk about), let’s just agree to go with “vacation” ok?

Regarding being “more than mommy”, here’s a discovery this blogging thing has led me to:  I am only 2 months and 21 things to talk about more than a mommy.  After that, I appear to be grasping at proverbial straws.  Here’s hoping for some epiphanies soon!

On to today’s post, which is my random thought for today:  people who eat strikingly non-breakfast foods for breakfast are gross and weird.  My husband is one of those people.  Interestingly, the opposite is not true; omelettes for dinner equals awesome, and bacon should only be eaten anytime, whenever, and always.  It is not cool, however, no matter how much Ben tries to prove me wrong, to eat:

• lasagna
• pizza
• buffalo wings
• leftover dinner
• chili
• pho
• any other markedly non-breakfast item

Appetizing, yes?  Those are indeed buffalo wings from 7-11 next to his coffee, proving that it wasn’t just a lack of breakfast items in the house or some lame excuse like that.  He made a special AM trip for this breakfast of champions.  The dead baby on the table should tell you something about the situation.

Some things are just so UNjust

When my dear Grandma Dee was in the last months of her life, we were blessed to have a beautiful soul named Jala come into our lives.  She was a nursing student, and my parents employed her to live with them part time and help care for Grandma.  She turned out to actually be an angel.  She brought peace, and love with her, and helped my mom find resolution and prepare to lose her mother.  Since Grandma’s passing, we have remained in touch, and she is a good family friend.

When I was about mid-way through my pregnancy with Kathryn, Jala discovered she was pregnant with twins.  She had had difficulties in pregnancy before, and this turned out to be no different – she began labor at just 23.5 weeks, and they were unable to stop it.  Josiah and Journei were born at St. Mary’s hospital in Richmond by Cesarean on September 29th, and were just 1lb 8 oz. each.

Jala has been living in a small house on the campus of the hospital ever since, wanting to be close to the babies to watch them grow through all the surgeries, and scares.  They are doing well, but were born so early, there is always the fear that they will have permanent issues from all they have faced.  I went to visit her yesterday, and just sit and chat.  It was wonderful to see her; she has great faith in God, and is trying to stay positive, but the sadness is still there.  It just breaks my heart to think those beautiful tiny people have suffered every day of their short lives.  Jala matter-of-factly told me that Josiah has chronic lung, and often stops breathing while she is with him.  He turns blue, and she prays while she tries to get him breathing again.  That’s hard for me to fathom.  She has strength I can’t imagine.

I pray for her and those babies a lot, and I ask anyone reading this to do the same.  This world is so unjust, and I know it’s up to us to bring little rays of peace and mercy to it.  Jala did it for our family, I wish I could return the favor.