(no subject)
So after I got back from the trip, I wrote a long entry and then it was deleted before I hit save. I'll try to reconstruct what I can, but, well, certain details may have been forgotten.
I talked with my mother before leaving and she told me she was serious about wanting a print and could I please send one to her for her birthday. :)
On the flight, I noticed how much Alice has grown since December. I bought a special removable sticker books for the Christmas flight and have hidden them and brought them back out for the Florida trip. In December, I had to sit and peel each sticker, hand it to Alice, wait for her to turn the book pages and then stick it down at random. This time, she just took a book, removed the stickers she wanted, and then set about "fixing" all the stickers. "Crabs go in the beach," she said moving the crab from the snow page to the beach page, and "Why Dora in the sky? Bird go in sky!" She flipped the upside down stickers right-side up and matched the silhouettes with the stickers that she was supposed to find for those shapes.
The flight out Wednesday was cancelled, but we were able to slip the trip slightly so we could fly back Sunday instead of Saturday. I kept my attitude positive about the cancellation so Alice would be cheerful too, but then after I put her to bed I had a cry and felt better.
The weather was perfect. We swam in the pool at Uncle Dave's house, ate Mexican food, lazed about, and went to the beach each morning. On Friday morning, the sun was out and Alice rolled in the sand and built sand castles. On Saturday morning, it was a bit cool and foggy and she sat with Dustin in a beach chair while I went tide pooling. The full moon brought all sorts of treasures: medium-large Florida fighting conch shells, banded tulip shells and other beauties. By luck, we were there the same weekend as the Annual Shell Festival. It was less of a festival and more of a shell club fair, but that made it even better. I love meeting serious hobbyists. Even better, there were all kinds of over-the-top shell creations: huge sailor's valentines, bouquets made of shells, hats made of shells, anything you can think of. I have been having kaleidoscopic shell dreams for days now.
Uncle Dave was a very kind host -- he made us breakfast, washed our sheets, offered us water and bought my favorite beer and strawberries before we even arrived. Everything. His house smells of booze and cigarettes, but that's to be expected of a 60 year old bachelor who has been living in the same place for over 30 years. He got out an O Gauge train and set it up in his living room for Alice and let her climb all over everything and play with the train lantern he inherited from his grandfather, a railroad engineer. He loved Alice's Thomas the Train shirt. The two of them are peas in a pod.
Speaking of my child and things that go. One evening while we were there, apropos of nothing, she began demanding to watch racing cars. We kept pulling out her matchbox cars and she was mad that we didn't understand. Finally she ran over to the TV and said, "Watch cars on TV!" so we said, "Do you mean NASCAR?" and she started yelling, "NASCAR! NASCAR!" So, Dustin has only watched NASCAR as far as we can recall once with her around and we didn't think she was even paying attention. He was able to find a channel with NASCAR by luck and I held her in my lap and her whole body relaxed and she was yammering to me the whole time asking me if she could have a black car like the one on TV and where the cars were going and could girls be race car drivers? What about boys? I used my phone and showed her lots of pictures of Danica Patrick and then Dale Earnheart (who was on TV at the time and who Alice keeps referring to as "my favorite"). Then she started talking about when the snow melts that she is going to play soccer and baseball and basketball. Oy! I think I see a lot of expensive sports equipment in the future! And I'm wondering if that sports bar we go to sometimes for hamburgers has been brainwashing her with baseball cards and sports on TV.
Anyhow, when we got back, my sister invited us over for dinner. So we all went over to her boyfriend's dorm and ate the largest pot of minestrone known to humankind amidst a motley crew of up and coming game designers and their respective boyfriends and girlfriends. The deal is they all pitch in a weekly grocery fee and my sister cooks for them all each night but gets to eat for free. I had so forgotten the angsty awkwardness that is college. Ill timed conversations, lack of napkins and drinking glasses, inaccurate time projections for how long it takes to cook things, cryptic messages scrawled on whiteboards, chairs that collapse when you sit in them, burping at the table, laughter at the silliest things. Oh college. I was expecting disaster when we walked in and I realized the place was full to the brim with Alice eye-level miniature figurines, Lego models, board games and computer cables, but no. She bee-lined straight for a computer chair that rotated, somehow managed to find a teddy bear that nobody knew where it came from and happily pushed Cheetah and "Baby Bear" around on the chair and had them climb under and over it and chat with one another the whole time. Baby Bear was declared to be up for adoption and came home with us.
On the way home from dinner, I had horrible stabbing pain in my ovaries. I made Dustin pull over so I could be sick by the side of the road. I was thinking it was food poisoning or a kidney stone until I realized the pain was on both sides and that it didn't radiate up my back like it did when I had the kidney stone before. It lasted for about an hour and then went away. That night, my period started in the middle of the night. So I'm guessing it was ovarian cysts? I've been dizzy and exhausted ever since that happened and Dustin has been on me to call the doctor, but I really don't think they can do anything for me other than tell me to call if it ever happens again. Alice is in daycare today and I should be working on a commission due next Monday, but all I can manage is just some light house cleaning alternating with naps. I finally gave in and started drinking some caffeine a half hour ago so that I will be awake enough to pick her up today.
Oh, and while I was gone, my painting for the group show sold. I didn't even think that would happen, so I priced it on the higher end, but someone paid it. I'm super excited!
In other news, I went in on Monday and picked out a hearing aid for my left ear. I was wrong about my loss -- it dips down in the middle to 40db, not 20db. That makes more sense to me about why that I'm having so much trouble. I'm very excited about the aid. It turns out my insurance will cover $1,500 of it. I budgeted for $3k, and the unit is only 2.5K before insurance, so I went with the one that works with the iphone5 and am upgrading my 4S. Supposedly one of the advantages is that you don't have to jimmy around with complex controls behind your ear where you can't see anything and also you can have more options on the phone. That sounds great since one complaint I read about cookie byte loss is that people hate going in for professional adjustments over and over to get the settings right. This allows the customer to control more of the settings themselves. ALSO, there's a find me feature that hooks up to the phone. I have rfid tags on my car, my purse, my keys and my wallet. It's embarrassing how often I use them, but having one on my earpiece just makes sense to me! It comes next Wednesday and my new phone should be here in the next three days. Hooray!
I talked with my mother before leaving and she told me she was serious about wanting a print and could I please send one to her for her birthday. :)
On the flight, I noticed how much Alice has grown since December. I bought a special removable sticker books for the Christmas flight and have hidden them and brought them back out for the Florida trip. In December, I had to sit and peel each sticker, hand it to Alice, wait for her to turn the book pages and then stick it down at random. This time, she just took a book, removed the stickers she wanted, and then set about "fixing" all the stickers. "Crabs go in the beach," she said moving the crab from the snow page to the beach page, and "Why Dora in the sky? Bird go in sky!" She flipped the upside down stickers right-side up and matched the silhouettes with the stickers that she was supposed to find for those shapes.
The flight out Wednesday was cancelled, but we were able to slip the trip slightly so we could fly back Sunday instead of Saturday. I kept my attitude positive about the cancellation so Alice would be cheerful too, but then after I put her to bed I had a cry and felt better.
The weather was perfect. We swam in the pool at Uncle Dave's house, ate Mexican food, lazed about, and went to the beach each morning. On Friday morning, the sun was out and Alice rolled in the sand and built sand castles. On Saturday morning, it was a bit cool and foggy and she sat with Dustin in a beach chair while I went tide pooling. The full moon brought all sorts of treasures: medium-large Florida fighting conch shells, banded tulip shells and other beauties. By luck, we were there the same weekend as the Annual Shell Festival. It was less of a festival and more of a shell club fair, but that made it even better. I love meeting serious hobbyists. Even better, there were all kinds of over-the-top shell creations: huge sailor's valentines, bouquets made of shells, hats made of shells, anything you can think of. I have been having kaleidoscopic shell dreams for days now.
Uncle Dave was a very kind host -- he made us breakfast, washed our sheets, offered us water and bought my favorite beer and strawberries before we even arrived. Everything. His house smells of booze and cigarettes, but that's to be expected of a 60 year old bachelor who has been living in the same place for over 30 years. He got out an O Gauge train and set it up in his living room for Alice and let her climb all over everything and play with the train lantern he inherited from his grandfather, a railroad engineer. He loved Alice's Thomas the Train shirt. The two of them are peas in a pod.
Speaking of my child and things that go. One evening while we were there, apropos of nothing, she began demanding to watch racing cars. We kept pulling out her matchbox cars and she was mad that we didn't understand. Finally she ran over to the TV and said, "Watch cars on TV!" so we said, "Do you mean NASCAR?" and she started yelling, "NASCAR! NASCAR!" So, Dustin has only watched NASCAR as far as we can recall once with her around and we didn't think she was even paying attention. He was able to find a channel with NASCAR by luck and I held her in my lap and her whole body relaxed and she was yammering to me the whole time asking me if she could have a black car like the one on TV and where the cars were going and could girls be race car drivers? What about boys? I used my phone and showed her lots of pictures of Danica Patrick and then Dale Earnheart (who was on TV at the time and who Alice keeps referring to as "my favorite"). Then she started talking about when the snow melts that she is going to play soccer and baseball and basketball. Oy! I think I see a lot of expensive sports equipment in the future! And I'm wondering if that sports bar we go to sometimes for hamburgers has been brainwashing her with baseball cards and sports on TV.
Anyhow, when we got back, my sister invited us over for dinner. So we all went over to her boyfriend's dorm and ate the largest pot of minestrone known to humankind amidst a motley crew of up and coming game designers and their respective boyfriends and girlfriends. The deal is they all pitch in a weekly grocery fee and my sister cooks for them all each night but gets to eat for free. I had so forgotten the angsty awkwardness that is college. Ill timed conversations, lack of napkins and drinking glasses, inaccurate time projections for how long it takes to cook things, cryptic messages scrawled on whiteboards, chairs that collapse when you sit in them, burping at the table, laughter at the silliest things. Oh college. I was expecting disaster when we walked in and I realized the place was full to the brim with Alice eye-level miniature figurines, Lego models, board games and computer cables, but no. She bee-lined straight for a computer chair that rotated, somehow managed to find a teddy bear that nobody knew where it came from and happily pushed Cheetah and "Baby Bear" around on the chair and had them climb under and over it and chat with one another the whole time. Baby Bear was declared to be up for adoption and came home with us.
On the way home from dinner, I had horrible stabbing pain in my ovaries. I made Dustin pull over so I could be sick by the side of the road. I was thinking it was food poisoning or a kidney stone until I realized the pain was on both sides and that it didn't radiate up my back like it did when I had the kidney stone before. It lasted for about an hour and then went away. That night, my period started in the middle of the night. So I'm guessing it was ovarian cysts? I've been dizzy and exhausted ever since that happened and Dustin has been on me to call the doctor, but I really don't think they can do anything for me other than tell me to call if it ever happens again. Alice is in daycare today and I should be working on a commission due next Monday, but all I can manage is just some light house cleaning alternating with naps. I finally gave in and started drinking some caffeine a half hour ago so that I will be awake enough to pick her up today.
Oh, and while I was gone, my painting for the group show sold. I didn't even think that would happen, so I priced it on the higher end, but someone paid it. I'm super excited!
In other news, I went in on Monday and picked out a hearing aid for my left ear. I was wrong about my loss -- it dips down in the middle to 40db, not 20db. That makes more sense to me about why that I'm having so much trouble. I'm very excited about the aid. It turns out my insurance will cover $1,500 of it. I budgeted for $3k, and the unit is only 2.5K before insurance, so I went with the one that works with the iphone5 and am upgrading my 4S. Supposedly one of the advantages is that you don't have to jimmy around with complex controls behind your ear where you can't see anything and also you can have more options on the phone. That sounds great since one complaint I read about cookie byte loss is that people hate going in for professional adjustments over and over to get the settings right. This allows the customer to control more of the settings themselves. ALSO, there's a find me feature that hooks up to the phone. I have rfid tags on my car, my purse, my keys and my wallet. It's embarrassing how often I use them, but having one on my earpiece just makes sense to me! It comes next Wednesday and my new phone should be here in the next three days. Hooray!