Just Another Busy Mama

2010-12-14T06:43:00.000-05:00

If you're remotely curious as to where I have vanished to you should head over here and read the posts for reverb10 that I currently have. I'm incredibly behind since most of my writing time is going towards writing papers right now but come Friday afternoon I'm free.

Go To My Tumblr. Now.

2010-08-28T18:00:00.000-04:00

So yeah, I haven't been updating here, in case you haven't noticed.
However, I have been updating my Tumblr. So go there and read it and follow me if you have one.
Lately I've been blogging a bit about switching phones. I ditched my Droid in favor of a regular phone to simplify my life.
Also I'm sure that I'll have school blogs since I am taking Social History of Women 1875-present, Myth and Ancient Religion, Japanese, Visual Media Poetics, and Digital Humanities. I'm really looking forward to this semester, which starts on Monday!
Thanks!

My Desk and Major Change Time

2010-06-22T10:47:00.001-04:00

100_0047-1
Originally uploaded by four12leafclover

In case anyone was ever curious what my horribly ridiculous desk looked like here it is. The Flickr page has some stuff tagged.

Ugh, so my summer class begins next week. I mean it isn't a horrible thing but it is at the same time. Two hours a day, four days a per week, ending the first week in August.

After some careful consideration I am changing my major to Media Study. Once I finish that degree I may go back to Computer Science, but this will I will graduate sooner (my Digital Media credits count for something). Since I need to take at least 3 classes with the department before I can be accepted as a major I am taking one of the open ones left for the summer, Pervasive Gaming. I mean it isn't really want I want to do but the sooner I get into the major the better so that I can take the classes that I need, which are restricted to majors only. I hopefully can do that starting in the spring.

I'm also super-excited, due to Mini-Geek and school and life in general I don't really go very far. I haven't left this little area in years, I haven't left the state in about as much time either. In fact since he was born I went to Pennsylvania (the next state over, big deal) once and Canada once (which to Western New Yorkers really doesn't even count as much of anything if you only go to Niagara Falls). I left Western New York a few times. Object of My Affection has suggested a weekend getaway for he and I. I said either very soon before my summer class gets too involved or sometime in August, maybe early September.

Also, congrats to my baby sister who graduates from high school on Friday, making me feel so old. It doesn't feel like she can be doing that. It doesn't feel like it's been long enough since she was mailing me that child-scrawled book while I was away at school in Maine. She posted her prom pictures on Facebook the other day too. Only one girl in their limo work a solid-colored dress, they were quite the colorful group!

Poor Honey and Good Drugs for Me

2010-06-15T09:54:00.001-04:00

So Object of My Affection swears that I'm not bad luck but I am starting to question this. He made TWO hospital trips in a matter of days. First on Friday he found out that he has some old person disease despite being under 30 (Which is totally how I am referring to myself from now on. I mean like forever. I will always be "under 30". I'm not "rapidly approaching 30 anymore, nor will I ever approach 30.). Then Sunday night his air conditioner fell on his head while he was sleeping. Why he was sleeping underneath his air conditioner is a bit beyond my understanding. He's okay though, 3 staples, no concussion, and I am assuming a pretty large headache.

Yesterday was dentist trip number 1, for just some fillings. My dentist is amazing. I am terrified of needles. Like I am talking sometimes I sort of pass out a bit. She wrote me a nice prescription and the world was wonderful and I may or may not have dosed off a tiny bit at work the night before (She said take 2 the night before and 2 an hour before but I took 1 at work on lunch. I think.) and had a crazy dream and woke up and kept dreaming. Then I had to verify if my friend was really really talking about making blue balls awareness bracelets or if I was dreaming it. He really was talking about getting some made up.

Mini-Geek heads to the dentist in about an hour and I'm still in lazy bum shorts (but showered!) and he has no pants on and he isn't wearing the shirt that he currently has on out of the house so I suppose I should get going and remedy all of this.

Dealing with the hard stuff

2010-06-10T15:10:00.000-04:00

Today Mini-Geek had his pre-k evaluation. He was amazingly enough an angel while she evaluated him, listening and cooperating and being very unMini-Geeklike. That really wasn't the case when she was talking to me, but hey, we can't have everything. I have praised him like crazy, bought him a book, and took him out for ice cream where he promptly misbehaved. Sigh.

I really don't know if I should cry right now. I don't know if I feel horrible or relieved either. I've had some, well I suppose we'll call them, "concerns" about him. My concerns lead me to Asperger's but I'm not a medical professional and it's one of the big things at the moment so you can't help but think about it. My mother also had concerns and she spends a good amount of time with him. Well today my concerns feel fully justified. The woman doing the screening said he is all over the place with skills, some really high, some really low and he is being referred for further testing. ASAP.

So on one hand, yeah it's great, he can possibly get some help and we can both learn ways to deal with everything and hopefully our home will become more peaceful.
On the other, well, I mean something is possibly not fully right with my baby.

But to be totally honest I wouldn't have him any other way. He's smart, he's funny, he's creative and imaginative, and I absolutely love him. Okay, I would not object to fewer meltdowns. Especially public meltdowns.

So we'll see where things take us, they are mailing out paperwork for me to sign and then I will be bringing him in for more testing in the near future.

Did I mention I am taking a summer class on Mondays and Wednesdays for 4 hours per day? And that I need a bunch of dental work done, some cavities filled and a root canal? And that needles and I do not get along at all? Like I am talking I got blood work down and sat there for nearly an hour after because they wouldn't let me leave because I was turning green and white and couldn't really walk. The only good part of this is that due to my intense fear of needles I am getting some stuff to calm me down a bit before I go to the dentist. I am starting to wonder if I just need a permanent anxiety meds prescription with all of this.

Of course Object of My Affection is absolutely wonderful and sweet and I really don't think I could ask for a better person to have there for me. Although I do feel bad that he is sharing all of this with us.

The Beach is Closed for the Season...In June

2010-06-02T16:19:00.000-04:00

So yeah, I did not stay off of those blogs. However I took Mini-Geek to the lake this morning and we saw a "pirate ship" and they'll be giving people rides on it soon hopefully and I'm sort of excited and he wants to go. For some very strange reason the beach is still closed "for the season". It's June. It's been unseasonably warm ever since Mother's Day, back when it was horrible because it snowed for Mother's Day and that's pretty crappy. Other than the closed beach we had a lovely time wandering around in the little shops and going out on the newly-opened pier. But yeah, the blogs. How could I want to stay off of them when I find things like this? She just made a super-cute bracelet out of an effing shower curtain ring and some fabric! I mean really, how awesome is that?!

Then I got all bored but too lazy to the leave the computer and do something and too lazy to open up Dreamweaver and Photoshop and do something and too lazy to even play Sims 3 so I took a quiz and it told me so many useful things about myself based upon the colors I really liked and the colors I didn't like. Things like I am currently creative, imaginative, and intellectual, which seems like it'd be far more useful during the school year than the middle of summer when I am on vacation and stuff. I also " have an emotional relation with the environment but really who doesn't right now after the horribleness going on with the oil spill. You'd have to be pretty hardened to not be at least a little bit sad over that.

Ooooh! I also purchased some new cookie cutters today, a shark, a pirate ship, a cute kitty, and a baby. The baby cookie cutter will do double duty, both as a cute treat for my sister's shower and for my friend to eat a baby the safe way.

Fairly Boring, Okay Really Boring

2010-06-01T14:43:00.001-04:00

I desperately need to to stay off of these crafting blogs. Browsing them takes up an embarrassingly large amount of time, or at least it did yesterday. But I'm on vacation. Like full-on vacation, vacation. I didn't go anywhere, but no work, no school, and this evening no Mini-Geek even. I tend to get in this mode where I don't want to go anywhere and I just want to sit at home. This evening though I am doing something with The Object of My Affection, I have no clue yet, but we're doing something that involves no Mini-Geek. I suppose I should figure that out. I live in isolated me-land. I don't watch TV, I only started watching stuff on Hulu really in the last year, I never know what movies are even coming out unless I heard someone bring one up. Is a picnic at the lake too lame??

Or I can keep reading these blogs and pregnant sister can hurry up and find out what she's having and I can start making cute girl or boy-themed stuff. She was supposed to find out last week but they had to reschedule.

Cephalopods and the zoo

2010-05-26T10:08:00.005-04:00

The other morning I was searching for cuttlefish wallpapers because cuttlefish are pretty much the cutest things ever. I came across a new blog with an entire post on cuttlefish so I am demanding that you go read it and learn exactly the level of awesomeness that these things achieve.

Also because I really like cephalopods in general (which Blogger is telling me is not word) I ordered an octopus necklace the other day. It is absolutely adorable and I am in love.

Today Mini-Geek went to the zoo for the first time since he was a baby. We went with my step mom, siblings, and the, well, we'll call him the object of my affection. I have never seen that child so well-behaved. He was good and quiet and very unlike his usual wild and loud self. Sadly a number of the animals were napping and we didn't get to see them or at least not very well. At one point a little girl was chattering away next to him and my step mom suggested that he talk to her. He said "I don't have anything to talk to her about." A few minutes later he turned to tell her that the polar bear went into the water but she was already gone. He also decided that he did not want to really hold any of my family's hands, just the object of my affection's hand. If he realized that he was holding someone else's hand he would let go and find him instead. My stuffed animal-fearing son also had little interest in most of the stuff in the gift shop. He ended up with a T-Rex mask, which he then wore and roared at my family.

Preparing for the worst, hoping for the best

2010-05-20T09:16:00.009-04:00

This picture is a bit old, but I haven't posted very often for quite some time now. Early this year I was shopping online for Mini-Geek's Easter outfit (I told you this picture was from awhile ago, I don't even have that car anymore.) and I was attempting to ask him for his opinion on some clothes. I don't know why I expected a reasonabe opinion from a 4 year old boy who wants to spend his entire life in shorts, hoodies, and skateboarding shoes, but I thought I would try. He promptly proclaimed everything "ugly and disgusting". I tried a new site, still no good. We were on Old Navy's site and freaked when he saw this hat and decided he "needed it". Then we found the glasses, those became a sudden necessity as well. We're seriously talking life or death here. Months later he still wears them at least on occasion, which is pretty impressive for his short attention span.

I'm starting to get nervous. On the 10th of next month we're going to the school for pre-k screening. She said they could do it in the fall if I did not care if I was there or if I wanted to be there or I had any concerns then they could do it over the summer. Well to be totally honest I do have some concerns. I'm not entirely sure that everything is right in Mini-Geek world. In some areas he is ahead on development, he seems like he is a pretty smart kid, and everything looks great. But in some areas I am not so sure. He still can't pedal a bike, he got his first bike over two years ago, he has very frequent meltdowns, he won't even try to draw or paint anything concrete, everything is still scribbles and swirls, and there's just so many little things but when I add them up they worry me. I found this chart. His drawings are still in the 2 year old stage. He is nearly 4 1/2. He just recently started to enjoy coloring, up until last week coloring was a very rare activity for him. There's a ton of other things that are small concerns but when added up have me a bit worried. Maybe it's nothing but it is far better to address these things now rather than have a big problem later. And really, look at that sweet sleeping boy, how could anything be wrong with anything so perfectly beautiful?

Under Construction

2010-05-11T12:08:00.001-04:00

This blog is slowly making a few changes. The header will be different, but what's there is there for now. If things look a bit wonky until I figure out exactly what I want (and who knows when that will be) you have been warned.

Random Mish-Mash

2010-05-11T08:16:00.005-04:00

I'm free now, Internets! Just work and Mini-Geek to worry about until August 30th! Then it's back to no sleep and Japanese homework every single school day because apparently they like to do that to us in a class that is already every day. However this upcoming semester should be far better. Some pretty great things have been happening in my personal life, I'm not quite ready to share them with everyone just yet, maybe soon, we'll see.

I took Mini-Geek for Pre-K registration last week. Oh what fun that was. He was wearing a giant wood beaded necklace that we made and a hot pink glittery Barbie bracelet. He threw a bit of a tantrum over only being able to have one piece of chocolate and then another when we got outside and we didn't have time for him to play on the playground. Also when I got to the front of the line I saw him walking up with one of the people watching the kids in the play area, he had to go potty. Fortunately we were able to just jump back to the front when we returned.

I got some lovely Gerbera Daisies in a purple teacup flower pot from Mini-Geek for Mother's Day. Let's hope that I don't kill them because I bought some Gerbera daisies before and I killed them despite the fact that I'm usually pretty decent about not killing plants. Well other than Edward but he deserved to die because I named him Edward because he thought it would be a good idea to sparkle in the sun.

Currently I have a few small plans for the summer, Memorial Day weekend I'm going to the zoo with the family. I would like to take Mini-Geek to the Rochester Museum & Science Center because they have a planetarium and we are currently redoing his room in a space theme (Complete with the Laser Stars Projector, which I sometimes steal after he's asleep). And of course I would like to go camping at the place where I grew up camping on the weekends. I'd also like to sleep rather than staying up for 27 hours, sleeping for 2 or 3 and then being up for another 24 or whatever ridiculousness I pulled all semester long. I love sleep. It's wonderful and we've been reconnecting hardcore lately.

Tattoo, Nerdery, Aunthood, and Pre-K. I really should update this thing more

2010-04-15T09:13:00.005-04:00

So after being horribly scared of getting a tattoo for years because I am the biggest baby ever I did it. I got a Commodore 64 in memory of my father with his name and birth and death dates on the screen. It was our first computer and a lot of family bonding happened because of that computer and my dad was on the nerdier side and I'm not exactly the least nerdy girl ever. It started as a joke when I suggested it but then the idea grew on me.

I truly must be some sort of masochist. I am signed up for 17 credits this fall. And I just might have one of the nerdiest schedules ever. I am taking Probability Theory, Digital Systems, Data Structures, and Japanese. The Japanese is because I want a class that will make up for the total bombing of calculus and my friend was majoring in it until he decided that one does not need to go to school and he says he'll help me and then he and another co-worker and I can have top secret conversations in Japanese and it'll be super-awesome.

However, the summer is all mine.

I also recently found out that I am going to be an aunt! I'm super-excited since there haven't been any babies in my family since Mini-Geek, who will be attending Pre-K this coming fall. That is, until we get kicked out of Pre-K because he has informed me that if he has to learn with paper he will rip up the paper because for some reason or another learning with paper is a very bad thing.

2010-03-18T14:05:00.002-04:00

It's March 18th.

April 26th is the last day of classes.

It can't come soon enough.

As if that isn't enough I am planning on having Mini-Geek screened for some things soon. I really hope that it is nothing.

I also bought a new car. It is shiny and blue and had mud all over the side before the odometer hit 100 miles.

And I want to make a new blog because, really, eff this name. I'm more than a mother and I'm not "just another" anything. After a few changes have been made in my life I am regaining my confidence and just overall admitting how entirely awesome I truly am. So if anyone still reads this stay-tuned for a new blog. But not right now, right now I am going to go read some cell bio and in a couple of hours I will sleep for a few hours, work for 10.5 hours, and then head to campus where I will be for 8 hours, although on my break I may go make a Target run since the LP is too ghetto for a Target and all we have is one of the nastiest Walmarts in Western New York, a Bon-Ton attached to a now-closed tiny mall (not even a food court), and lots of bad for you food places and I need a collection of items (cat food, boxes and boxes of pomegranate fruit leather, cat litter, and who knows what else, yes I am trying to obtain crazy cat lady status but I need more cats first).

LULZ 69th POST GUYZ

2010-02-09T14:07:00.004-05:00

The title is me fighting this whole aging thing here. Next month is my super-awesome special birthday. You know, the one where you turn the age that's the same as the date? Which would be great if my birthday wasn't March 27th. I'm going to be freaking 27. It sounds dangerously close to 30. Think about that for a minute. I mean I barely feel like I can call myself a "20-something" anymore. It's like I'm moving into this new grouping, the "nearly 30 set" or something. My one friend is declaring herself 21 again this year. I wouldn't mind just being 26 again at this point.

I'm seeing the nearly-30 problems begin, namely the slowing metabolism and inability to go through live on astoundingly small amounts of sleep. Everyone says to my school full-time + work full-time + parenting in the amount of time left that I'm "young and can handle it". Sure, I can handle 3 hours of sleep at best all effing week long. Right. I'm not young now. I'm "nearly 30". Well I will be in a month and a half. A night of some fun and drinking has me thinking about the pointless calories I just ingested and severely lacking in energy the entire next day instead of just into the early afternoon, and I didn't even drink that much. (Yes on very rare occasions I do get out a bit.) I may or may not have walked into McDonald's, declared to the fine people in attendance with me that I did not want any of the lovely food but two juice boxes sounded just delightful. And that may not have been in those exact words. But those two juice boxes were delicious.

Taking Delight in the Little Things

2010-01-03T11:38:00.006-05:00

Today I was showering and noticed something different but I couldn't figure out what was making this shower any different from yesterday's. Then it occurred to me, yesterday afternoon I put up a new curtain after my friend broke my blinds and I threw a blanket over the bathroom window temporarily (a month or two because I suck, also it wasn't like some Looney Toons thing or anything like that). This new curtain only covers the bottom half of my window because the top has privacy blurry stuff on it. Why only the top has privacy stuff on the glass is beyond me. I just live here. But for the first time in awhile there was a more substantial amount of natural light coming through the window, making the water seem clearer. There isn't much natural light because we're in the middle of a days long snow storm that seems like it will never end and makes it appear as though the roads never get plowed rather than the rare plowing that they get. I don't know the last time I saw any road out my window and I live on a fairly busy road in this "city". Visibility has not been good at any point in time in the last couple of days. My car, however, is clear because I'm at the right end of the row and it's super windy. It's amusing to look at the line out my (now curtained) bathroom window, the other end has plenty of snow and each car a bit less of the evil stuff as you go down the line.

Anyways, for some reason sunlight (or barely there natural light) and running water have always just given me this all around good feeling. I absolutely love showers on a sunny day with light coming through the window. Oddly enough as I was thinking about this Mini-Geek was heard asking me why I was having a "good shower". He does strange things like that far too often, interrupting my thoughts with things that following them uncomfortable close.

Step Four: Buckle Down

2010-01-02T08:47:00.004-05:00

I am a horrible time-waster. And it seems the more stressed out and busy that I get the more I tend to want to waste time. This past semester is a great example of that. Towards the end I got frustrated. I did not want to study or even do the reading, or pay attention in class. I knew I wouldn't learn the material magically but I began to lose my motivation. I do feel though that getting more of my home into order has the potential to help me get more of my mind in order, thereby making the semester slightly easier to deal with. The more that I have physically organized the more mental clarity I am finding. Unfortunately classes start the week after next.

Quick side note, who the hell drives off without clearing ANY of their car off?! I just looked out the window to see this car with a back window, and the entire passenger side full of snow, as in can't see a speck of clear space, leaving my parking lot.

Back to buckling down. The fact that school will be starting up again soon does not leave me very much time at all to finish this mission. Although the first week or two I won't have that much crap to do. Next weekend I am having Mini-Geek's birthday party since my family will be back from Hawaii (may they have a snowstorm for their return, similar to the one that we're having now) by then.

I need to learn that I do not need to my google reader a zillion times a day and read every single thing on there. The world will not end if I do not see every lolcat posted on icanhascheezburger. XKCD is not a necessary start to any Monday, Wednesday, or Friday morning. I do not need to at least skim through every article that Wired posts. I do, however, need to stay on top of woots. They sometimes sell out.

Step Three: Eat Better

2010-01-01T17:45:00.004-05:00

My diet sometimes contains some crap, especially during the school year. I am constantly grabbing this and that out of the vending machine or a slice of pizza on the way to class. I try to make it better things out of the machine, I don't eat chips, they're awful things. I look for granola bars and whatnot. This needs to end. Or rather not continue once the semester starts back up.

I've considered going vegetarian again, but I am not sure yet. I really don't eat much meat and I rarely, if ever, eat red meat.

I eat too much bread, I already know that.

Since break started I've been eating a bit better. I'd like to do even more of our shopping at the little local place, assuring that I buy less frozen food and more fruits and vegetables. I go there some but I'd like to go back to doing most of my shopping there again.

As for the exercise, I think that I broke one of my toes earlier. I apparently developed this problem earlier where I could not walk around without slamming my toes into something. I whacked all 4 smaller toes on my left foot into the Wii Fit board earlier. The second from my left is rather bruised and they hurt like hell still. Super way to start a new year.

Perhaps We Need to Work on Patience

2009-12-31T09:33:00.003-05:00

Today won't be another "resolution" or whatever, instead I have an update and a story where I become "that mom".

After the story that I am about to tell you I went through the storage unit downstairs. I ended up donating a literal car full of stuff to the Salvation Army. I mean the trunk, back seat, and front passenger seat were piled up with bags and boxes of things we no longer need or want. I was more than happy to clear some things out of here. Now onto the story.

Yesterday was Mini-Geek's check-up. He was dreading the doctor's and yelled at the idea of going but I figured all would be good, or at least close to it when we got there. I even came prepared with a change of pants and underwear (for him, not me), a granola bar, some fruit leather, a few smnall toys, a drink, and a book. Ha, was I ever wrong!

As soon as we pull into the neighborhood his doctor's is in he begins to argue with me and yell that he does not want to go to the doctor's. I tell him too bad. He gets out of the car, needing a minor amount of assistance because he's fighting it a bit and then begins to actually struggle, I was seriously that mother. The one dragging a screaming and fighting child. I had to pick him up and carry him through the door. He screamed and cried and yelled while we waited, fortunately he was in the morning's first bunch of patients. Never in my life have I been so freaking thankful for an 8:45 appointment. They called his name and I felt so relieved.

I again had to carry him through the door and into the exam room, where he continued to scream. The nurse was a very sweet and nice woman however she told me that if he does not calm down enough to weigh and measure him we would have to reschedule, as though he'll be so much better next time. I explained to him that if he did not calm down this will take far longer and we may have to come back another day and that she wanted to see how big he's getting and if he's getting bigger than my brother. He agreed and then went nearly catatonic, not talking, staring straight ahead with these blank eyes. Whatever, he was quiet. The nurse did her thing and asked him to strip down. Again the screaming began.

While we waited we read If You Give a Moose a Muffin three times, he wanted to listen so he'd stop every once in awhile and then begin the screaming yet again. I offered him toys, he ate the fruit leather, screaming between bites, he drank his milk, screaming between sips. He was quiet for a bit when we played with a Cars magnetic set my step mom had given him for Christmas.

When we got out the to the car I was telling him how disappointed I was in and blah, blah, blah (which is pretty much how it sounded to him I'm sure) and asked him why he didn't like the doctor's so much.

"Because it takes too long"

Step Two: Exercise

2009-12-29T04:22:00.004-05:00

This past semester I gained some serious weight. Not just a couple of whiny pounds. Not like 30 pounds, but more than I'd like. I started off doing so well but a lot happened and the exercising didn't very often. One of my good friends thinks that a lot of it was stress. I was probably more stressed than I've ever been these past few months.

Again, this semester I'll have a bit more time so hopefully I can make some changes here with a bit more ease.

The last couple of weeks I've been on the Wii Fit pretty regularly and adding in my yoga DVD nearly every day, sometimes managing both the morning and night sections, and my evil exercise ball DVD with the woman who says awful peppy work out like things in that irritating voice.

I don't get why I don't do yoga more. I feel amazing after I am done, physically and mentally. Being all stretchy is super-fun. And this woman doesn't mess around when it comes to the morning one, she makes sure that you sweat by the time that it's over. I miss yoga classes at school. Naturally they're full for spring so that's sort of out of the question.

I know that once classes begin again I won't get as much exercise time in, but I would really like it if I could at least bother to do it a little bit this time around for the entire semester.

As far as Decluttering goes, rather than finishing this post yesterday I spent a bunch of time going through one of the hall closets. I cleaned out an insane amount of junk, both to donate and to trash. I just felt so much better taking that one small step that I cannot wait to drop off Mini-Geek with his grandma and get to work on today's project, either my bedroom closets or the basement storage!

Step One: Declutter

2009-12-28T09:55:00.005-05:00

A new year is rapidly coming up and I'm preparing to make changes in my life. They are things I've been wanting to do for a little bit now but I have been putting off because I took on far too much this semester and then I was doing the whole Christmas thing and now I have time to relax. If I get on it I'll write a post a day for each of things I want to change.

I was reading a post the other day and it further enforced that I want to declutter my life, starting with my physical home. I have too much stuff. Some of it has no point. I'm a pack rat. I have a Jones Soda Co bottle because it has a hysterical cat picture on it sitting on my desk, somewhere around here I have a cheesy little trinket box that I have had for well-over 10 years, probably closer to 15 than 10 for reasons I really do not understand. I realize that with a 4 year old (as of yesterday!) and being a student "stuff" can't be avoided. Papers will occasionally overtake my desk. Toys will migrate throughout the house. However there is far more than I need to be in control of that I am not. I have a basement storage unit that is full of stuff, most of which I don't need or use anymore. Having a child and pretty much wanting another one, eventually, doesn't help. But I do need to remember that when that "eventually" comes I will be in a different position than I am in now. I will have more disposable income than I currently do, heck I have more now than I did when I had my son. Getting rid of things like the giant plastic high chair is really not that big of a deal. Toys do not need to be kept. Ever. I mean aside from a few special ones. Maybe. Clothes that I do not wear need to go.

I just have too much meaningless stuff.

I also have a nasty habit of not putting the more used stuff back where it goes. I often find I have a pile of text books, papers, and whatnot on the floor by my desk. Piles of hoodies find themselves throughout my home. (It's really more than cold enough that I should be wearing an actual coat by now. I think I'm holding out until it gets down to at least 12 at night so it doesn't seem so cold or something.) Wii games and DVDs don't get put away. Some mess is just more familiar to me I think. I grew up in a good-sized family. It's a big family by most American standards now. I had 3 sisters and a brother, my sisters are considerably younger than me (they're technically my half sisters). A mess here and there was completely unavoidable. Sure the toys got picked up the evenings and everything, but there was nearly always a pile of school papers and drawings and mail somewhere. The bedrooms were nearly never all spotless at once.

I also spent a lot of time with my packrat grandma, even living with her for a few years when my parents first split. I miss her very much and loved her dearly but when she passed away stepping into that basement truly made me realize she had a bit of a problem. She died in 2005. There were Brand Names catalogs from the 1980s in the basement. There were school papers from my father. There was tax stuff from much, much farther back than necessary. She also had this habit of writing notes to herself. There were little pieces of paper everywhere, tucked away just waiting to be discovered. We found stacks of paintings of people in the garage. She had once said she didn't know who they were, they came from her father's house.

I don't want that to be me. So decluttering, here I come.

My thoughts on the Droid so far

2009-11-19T08:45:00.003-05:00

I have a Droid for about two weeks now and if you're wondering what the hell a Droid is then get out from under your rock for a bit.

Yes, I lost another BlackBerry Storm. This time my brother's line was up for renewal, mine is soon, I struck a deal with him though. Also since the Storm 2 is out now the stores quit carrying any replacements for the old Storm. I said eff this, it was new phone time.

The apps, sure it's nothing quite like that other phone has, but oh my goodness there are so many more apps than the BlackBerry App World had. And they are cheaper if they cost anything at all! I have tons of apps to entertain Mini-Geek in case of emergency even! And ones to teach him things. I found one kids' app in the BB store and it wasn't free. I have soundboards, I have swimming fish, a virtual panda, super-fun games, Google Sky, a magic 8 ball, xkcd delivered right to my phone, lolcats right on my phone too, and more!

Also there's far more memory to put these apps, which means I can take full advantage of the plethora of free ones!

And it doesn't get all laggy like my Storm used to get. It hardly ever freezes up and if it does it's just for a split second. Anyone who has ever touched a Storm knows that the lagging on the Storm is just painful.

However the keyboards are not that great. I liked my Storm's keyboards, that is when I could see what I was typing and my phone wasn't frozen. I liked the portrait view, I liked the BlackBerry keyboard done in touchscreen, I never complained about the SurePress or whatever, it wasn't that awful. However, as I am sure you have heard, the hardware keyboard is not the greatest thing, but I'm adjusting. My Storm keyboard's had their adjustment period. Also the touchscreen keyboards are ehhh, the one in landscape is just awkward when texting, it takes up most of the phone and doesn't really offer spellcheck. The portrait view keyboard has the world's smallest keys but the suggestions are super-helpful so everything seems to balance out.

So yeah, I am definitely digging the phone. I know I said nothing that hasn't been said somewhere but get over it.

I am humored by a 3 year old

2009-11-14T09:33:00.003-05:00

So yet again I am sick. It came out of nowhere on Thursday morning and kicked the crap out of me. Fortunately Wednesday night we had off for the holiday and I had taken a vacation day on Thursday, keeping me free from work until Monday night sometime, probably 12:30 am since we're usually told to go in late on Mondays.

I skipped classes yesterday because I could not fathom walking around campus. Mini-Geek has taken to fake coughing every single time I begin to cough. Yesterday I called my doctor because I did not want to spend the weekend getting sicker and sicker when I have a calculus test on Monday and let's face it, I can't really afford to be sick at all. They called me in a prescription for amoxicillin and everything is hopefully getting better.

So Mini-Geek wanted me to ride in his "really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really big truck" AKA the couch. He asked where we were going and I suggested the ocean, after telling him to put his sippy cup down because drinking and driving is not allowed and normally when I ride in said truck we crash about 20 times, which consists of him throwing himself around and onto me. He agreed and tossed the pillow onto my chest, which honestly started a coughing fit that he imitated. It took us all of 45 seconds to arrive at the ocean despite living in the Buffalo, NY area. The ocean was in our dining room and kitchen, we looked at it and he told me that the animals must all be asleep and we drove back home. I honestly feel as though he was humoring me by agreeing to drive to the ocean but wanted to make our stay as short as possible!

Alright, I'm back to downing this half gallon of orange juice and putting Wall-E in the DVD player.

Briefly coming out of hiding

2009-10-28T10:44:00.003-04:00

So if anyone ever says hey, it's a great idea to take 17 credits, work full-time, running a household, and raise a child on your own they are full of shit, ignore them. Run away because they are probably crazy.

Taking a lot of credits at a decent school is far different than taking a lot of credits at a community college. First of all I have recitations and then add that to the slightly more homework, well at least more learning on your own, and that just makes for way more work. One more exam left from midterm-time, that's Friday night. Yes, an exam on Friday night, I apologize if I've bitched about these stupid Friday night tests before but they are downright ridiculous. I mean really, I realize we're done by 7 but way to start off the night on a shitty note. And anyways, don't they encourage more drinking as people walk out of there happy to be done with the stupid test but wondering what they got and knowing they did shitty because nearly everyone does awful on their bio test. And since this is only a 200-level course most of the people in there are underage.

I've decided I desperately want a pet octopus. For bio we're doing a presentation (for extra credit--yay!) on the evolution of an octopus eye vs. the evolution of a human eye. We're in a group of 4 and my work is to research the evolution of the octopus eye which has read to reading up on the organism and oh my gosh I did not know that they were so smart and have little personalities and everything! Once an animal has a personality I want it. My mom won't get me one for Christmas. :(

One of the wonderful things about school is the educational discounts on things, I can purchase Windows 7 for $30. My mom's birthday is today so I was considering buying it for her and looking like this great daughter and only spending $30. Thoughts?

My step dad purchased Mini-Geek a Visible Man. What I imagine most of you don't know about these things is that every piece needs painted and put together. I apparently don't have enough to do, I mean I only have/had 2 tests and a quiz this week and 2 quizzes and 2 tests last week and an apartment that needs a good cleaning, and pumpkins that need carving, and sleep that needs catching up on, and so much more. I spent Monday night painting and assembling rather than studying for the quiz on Kingdom Plantae, specifically the coniferous life cycle, that I had at 9:30 am Tuesday. I hope that I still did well.

Speaking of the little creature, Mini-Geek is going to be a ninja for Halloween, I think it's because he wants to carry around a sword honestly.

Oh and awesomeness--Monday my bio professor was out sick. With swine flu. On the day we talked about viruses. (He had someone fill-in for him.)

Oh hey, did I mention I'm clumsy?

2009-10-04T10:08:00.003-04:00

So I'm currently typing with one hand. Stop the dirty thoughts. I fell in my bathroom, hitting my forehead on the counter and have a goose egg right above my left eyebrow that is larger than my eyeball and is raised up nearly 3/4 on an inch. I feel like a small child or old woman. Who the hell falls and injures them self in the bathroom as an able-bodied adult?!

School is still going well, I have gotten an A or an A- on like everything I've gotten back so far.

Life is just weird. I feel like I've stepped into Bizarro Land, things that I never in a million years expected to happen keep happening to me.

Okay, it's hour later and I quit typing up this post earlier. The bump is still effing huge and it's probably only half of its original size so I re-cut some side bangs into my hair and I will be quite emo with my hair over my left eye somewhat to cover this bastard as I'm on campus tomorrow with classes solidly from 7:30am until 12:50pm, as well as a lovely 9.5 hour work night before that. (You're all totally jealous of my life right now, I can tell.)

I need to stop buying Halloween decorations. I can't help it. I'm addicted. They are way more awesome than the rest of the holidays' decorations. I can fill my apartment with skulls and not be told to grow up. I can hang up pretty purple lights in my window! I can put skull lanterns in my kitchen! I love my apartment at night right now and wish I didn't work 3rd shift so that I could enjoy it more. I'd try and get pictures but it's hard to get good pictures of lights with a craptastic camera. I despise my camera and may get a new one soon. It feels so cheap, the interface is not intuitive at all, and I am just not a fan. And for me to complain about something's interface it must suck, I pick them up pretty quickly usually and I've had this thing for months now and I still can't get used to it.

Alright, homework and making sure my hair looks okay now that it has dried more.

My BFF died

2009-09-16T11:59:00.003-04:00

So I had to make a trip to the Verizon store the other day. My BlackBerry Storm has been having charging issues for a bit now. First the wall charger went. This was sad but I decided to get by until I had time to get to the store with my car charger and the computer cord.

But then the computer cord didn't like to stay connected. And the other morning when I got up for class it was still at 2 out of 5 bars. I charged it in the car and headed to Verizon after Bio. lab. (Where we dissected owl poop and played with skeletons.)

They were pretty empty and I didn't have to wait, I handed over the cords and my beloved phone. And I waited and waited, completely lost without my phone to text or Tweet or anything. After about 252 years the guy came back with bad news. It was my phone. I mean yeah, I only lost my apps and I just have to re-download them, which is a pain in the ass and all but this was my best friend. My trust little buddy. He has entertained me for six months. He has constantly been by my side other than when I am at work where phones are banned outside of the stupid lockerroom due to security stuff and clients and other stuff. He never even had a name. And now he's gone. He's been replaced with this much stiffer-screened refurbished nonsense that has the new version of TwitterBerry where everything is ugly and not nearly as pretty as the older version.

I will hopefully bond with this thing, but he'll never replace the old one. :(

Also, we were in Tim Horton's yesterday and out of nowhere Mini-Geek says to me, "I want to eat these people's brains." People, I can't make this shit up. This kid needs to learn to write so he can start blogging his weird stream of consciousness. Then again, I'm starting to wonder if it'll be beyond our comprehension by then.

Exhausted

2009-09-14T18:27:00.004-04:00

I hate Mondays. I know everyone tends to, but holy poo on a stick do I. Sunday nights I work 9pm-7am, then I have classes from 7:30am until 12:50pm with absolutely no break. Do you have any idea how exhausted I am right now? How little I feel like reading over my lab for evolutionary biology in the morning, the lab we have a quiz on tomorrow?

Red Bull time.

All that's left of my sickness is a cough that's slowly going away. Mini-Geek barely even has his cough anymore.

Although there's over 3 months left to plan all of this out Mini-Geek has requested the following birthday party/cake: "McQueen and Dory and Nemo and Wall-E and Eve and Shark Movie." Shark Movie is Jaws. Yes my three year old son's favorite movie of the moment is freaking Jaws, which puts me right up there for another award along with the one I should be receiving soon for his favorite songs being "RE: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton and "The Whole Night" by Ani DiFranco. Zombies and girls getting it on with each other, although it's subtle enough that he has no effing clue. While I do listen to both Jonathan Coulton and Ani DiFranco and I take sole responsibility for that whole thing, I did NOT introduce him to Jaws, that would be entirely Boppa's doing. And Mini-Geek being, well, Mini-Geek, was not phased by it one bit.

I mean really, this is the child whom I look up cross sections of human legs for on the Internet. The child who at 3 years old knows the organs of the body and what most of them do, that hydrogen and oxygen make up water, and blood has red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. And all of this has been just attemps at sating his curiousity. He wants to move onto cell content. I am not ready to explain the content of cells to my preschooler. I mean don't get me wrong, I know what's in cells and that's even the chapter I am currently reviewing in my Bio book for class, but he is 3 years old.

This child, he's exhausting and the nerdiest 3 year old ever and I wouldn't have it any other way. Well okay, maybe a bit calmer. And he could stop exposing himself to me. But other than that no other way, seriously.

Onto that lab and the final load of laundry now!

2009-09-12T08:01:00.002-04:00

Maybe I also felt like crap because after I posted my last post I realized that I was up for 21 hours and was going on 4 or 5 hours of sleep for 2 days.

Is it swine flu???

2009-09-11T16:42:00.002-04:00

I only have the cough left of my sickness, and my chest is starting to hurt from it. Mini-Geek had a very short-lived version that started out with a fever and congestion the other night and by the next day he was far better, but he also has the cough. So yeahhhh, we aren't ruling out swine flu. His doctor's office didn't care to see him so whatever. I mean it has been in my town for quite some time now and with me going to a large school, and working in a department with a lot of people getting it is not improbable.

But hey, we're both still alive!

I'm sick of people reacting to this thing like it's the Bubonic Plague back in the day and we're going to have bodies lining the streets and tons of orphaned and crying children.

I'm lacking severe motivation to do anything, even read stuff in Google Reader. However I realized I haven't eaten all day so getting some food into me has helped a bit.

Maybe I'll go fold laundry or something.

Naturally I would get sick on my day off

2009-09-07T12:16:00.004-04:00

I left work super-early last night because I felt like absolute crap. Driving home I found myself crossing over the line. It's just a cold or something I think but it's messing with my head and I felt rather messed up last night. It took me three tries to unlock my door.

I don't take medication very often at all, I'm just not a big fan. I considered getting something on my way home but getting out of the car seemed like too much effort.

After some sleep and just rest in general I feel a bit better now, but I'm still rather congested. I'm going to beg my friend to bring me Panera chicken soup later.

I had told one of my co-workers that perhaps I'd go to the zoo with a bunch of them today but definitely not now. It's probably better that way, Mini-Geek is obsessed with certain parts of himself and flashes me so often I am considering purchasing a little tan trench coat for Christmas. No amout of appropriateness talks are working on this one. I guess it's a phase we need to just let pass. He hasn't done it in public yet, but he did do it at a friend's house. But yeah, I'm pretty sure that my co-workers wouldn't be too fond of seeing my son's boy bits.

School and Zombie Party!

2009-09-05T10:28:00.005-04:00

This whole big school thing is new to me. I've attended other schools and they have all been small. The school I went to in Maine was ridiculously small as far as colleges go. UB, definitely not so much. Bio has about 450 students in it. I haven't ever had a class over 100. I don't know that I have ever had a class with over 50 students in it. I even had a class last year with 2 of us it. Now there are professors who don't know me and probably never will remember my name.

I was all set to go camping this weekend, but things changed. First my friend said he didn't know if he'd be able to head down and hang out, then yesterday I sent a text to another friend who asked if his girlfriend (I'm not facebook friends with her I think) had invited me to her birthday party tonight, that he has been super busy (he recently had a status up saying he worked 170 hours in two weeks). So he sent me an invite and how could I resist, it's a zombie party! So I called my mom telling her that my social meter was red and she said I wasn't a Sim and I explained I was only trying to put it into terms she'd understand. So I'm dropping Mini-Geek off there right around his bedtime to sleep there.

For reasons I don't really understand Mini-Geek never heard the word honk properly and still says "NONK", sorry, random, he was just nonking his nose.

We're now up to "What's in blood?" in the many times per day anatomy lessons. I told him he needs to remember red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets before I start explaining their contents.

He was very upset when I said my Evol. Bio. book was still in my car, we had to run outside and get it so that he could read it and show Belle what her skeleton looks like.

As for my blog post from the other day, I do apologize for it. I am not taking it down though. Things do look a bit better. I think that all involved parties are dealing with a lot right now, probably more outside things that are having an effect on everything as a whole.

Also, I am totally addicted to Jamba Juice. There's one on campus and I swear that they are putting crack into that energy boost (which I always get because I do not have time to sleep).

Hatred

2009-09-03T08:50:00.002-04:00

Do you know how much I cannot stand people who act one day/do one thing and maybe even say a bit to back that up and then turn around and say something completely different?

Do you know how much I cannot stand people who say something major that hurts you but aren't willing to explain themselves?

Do you know how much I cannot stand people who think other people's emotions are a game, a toy to play with?

I want to out someone for who they are...but I love them too much to do it.

Back to school

2009-08-31T16:28:00.005-04:00

First off, I would like to start this post by thanking Jamba Juice for putting one in on campus because they are truly amazing. I, of course, decided mine could use an "energy shot". I had a delicious Pomegranate Pick Me Up. Amazing. And I only had my usual energy drink on lunch at 3:30 and I'm not really tired despite having been up for nearly 20 hours now.

Evolutionary Bio involves dissecting a rat. This saddens me. I like rats. I have had rats as pets. He seems like an interesting guy and the class shouldn't get to boring as a result. He also informed us that if we miss a test we are missing the experience of taking a test.

My intro to computer science course has a very disporptionate number of guys and girls, unsurprisingly. And I'm sure I am probably the oldest person in the class. He seems rather energetic and makes attempts and jokes.

Discrete structures, the class I magically got put into, is in a similar predicament, although there seems to be a few more girls. He started teaching within the first like 10 minutes of class. We learned that there are infinite number of decimal numbers.

Tomorrow brings bio lab and calc...I still need to offically determine which recitation I am going to for discrete structures, but we aren't starting those until next week.

Plants

2009-08-30T10:39:00.006-04:00

So I love plants. In fact I have several more than you will even see in this post. Eight more to be exact, although in all fairness I am giving a couple away, they are ones that I have rooted for a friend who has a bad habit of killing plants so spending money on them seems wasteful. However she's kept her palm tree alive all summer so I am shocked and impressed. If I remember to take her her plants next time that I see her I will have at least two for her.This is my China Doll plant, which I think is one of the most beautiful plants I own. Well, except when it's going through an awkward phase like it is right now. I turned it but the

growth is still fairly one-sided. Apparently these can grow into good-sized trees if you plant them in your yard.

Next up is a picture of a good portion of my plants. I have some herbs, a pathetic strawberry plant, a prayer plant clipping I took from my mom, some China Doll clippings that are rooting, a ficus clipping off of my bonsai, a hoya, African Violets (with no flowers, just buds right now), and an avocado seed that will soon be ready to plant.

Now I present to you Edward, my Cape Sundew. He does not have much goo right now, but a new flower stalk is starting to grow, you can see it all curled up. Also my camera randomly decided to put the time and date stamp on. The very top of his pot has just perilite, which has turned colors from the stuff he's in. (They don't like regular potting soil.)

He attracts cat hair as well since Belle has taken up hanging out around the plants, but the only plant she still eats in my spider plant, which is now hanging in my kitchen.

I hereby declare this the worst summer ever

2009-08-28T19:14:00.003-04:00

Today certainly felt like summer is ending, what a way to start my weekend before classes start. I mean it really is coming to a close, it was only a few years ago that roughly 6 weeks from now we had that wonderful October snow storm., a night that remains clearly etched in my brain. Having a snow day off from work after being up until like 3 am talking is never a bad thing. Today was quite cool, I shut some windows for the first time in awhile due to cold. The last few nights on breaks at work have required a hoodie. I don't think I have seen the sun other than this morning.

This summer has been the most awful that I can remember. I haven't been happy for most of it, there has constantly been something pretty rough looming if not happening. Many of these events are deeply personal and since many people I know in real life can easily get to this blog I am not willing to share them here. I'm rather glad to see it come to a close to be entirely honest. Of course my nerd side can't wait to be back in school.

I bought a new monitor today. I just went from a 19" to a 22". I'm going to hook both of them up, but I am super-lazy today. My 19" monitor used to look big. I also got a new video card, I just had the onboard one and Sims look so much prettier with a better card. Not that I'll be playing much now. Actually I went through like a 2 week phase where I played earlier in the summer and I haven't touched it since.

I've been keeping up with working out and whatnot. I lost 6 pounds this week! If I could pull that off every week I'd be done losing weight in a matter of weeks, but I'm realistic. I also managed to pull a Wii Fit age of 20 today, those days always make me happy.

Roommate Horror Stories, Ironically Twitter's Trending Topic is #fatpeoplearesexier

2009-08-25T09:25:00.006-04:00

In light of everyone returning to school and Organic Meatbag's recent post I decided to talk at you about one of my roommates back when I went to college after high school before "taking a year off" (in my defense my dad was diagnosed with cancer in that year, then he kept getting sick, then he passed and I was going back and then I realized that I would soon find squishing my belly behind a desk would be near impossible so I decided to wait). We shall call this girl "Bertha" for privacy purposes.

Bertha seemed nice enough on the phone, I was transfering to a new school and despite my friend from high school being there, I was taking on a new roommate. I'd heard too many stories about high school friends hating each other after being roommates. When I met Bertha the first obvious thing about her was her size. She was a big girl, just remember this, it makes the story more appalling later on. She was nice and seemingly normal, she didn't appear to be anyone I'd be OMG BFFS 4-EVA with, but a nice girl still.

Things were not that great for me that semester and I started it off with some pretty bad insomnia. I slept every 3 nights for about 3 hours. I'd take walks, I'd waste time on the Internet, but I'd keep to myself during the late night hours and I'd keep quiet. She began to mimic my schedule, only she couldn't make it so she slept during the day. Now maybe the glow from my laptop bugged her, and if it did she should have said something, I don't know. We barely ever talked. She started sitting in the TV room lounge. She'd take her books and just live there practically. I'd come home from class to find her asleep in her bed, more often than I like to remember in a t-shirt that was riding up and underwear with the blankets thrown off of her.

Then she quit showering. At first the smell was just in my room, but it spread, soon the entire floor could smell her. People kept complaining to our RA. The TV room where she spent evenings and nights was in the middle of the floor, right in front of the elevator. Our RA was such a sweet girl and I can't imagine her talking to Bertha, she was too nice. She said she did but it didn't make too much of a difference. I think Bertha took a shower that day but continued on with not showering after that. It was awful, one night my friend and I took the elevator down to the mail floor to get some food from the desk. It reeked in there, the girl at the desk said that Bertha had been in there a half an hour or so ago, but it had been awhile and some people had been in it since, allowing the doors to open and air it out a bit.

Needless to say, I was making plans for a new roommate ASAP. I was trying to figure out a cordial way of saying good bye you stink, I'm finding someone else who showers when she announced that she was leaving.

I guess my new roommate and her mother spent quite some time scrubbing the walls on her side when they got there. Their rags were black with dirt.

I don't think anyone ever kept in contact with her and the following semester we even dared watch TV in the TV room! My new roomie was awesome and type of person whom I happily called roomie and left away messages on AIM to entertain and agreed that boys were really dumb.

I am making a huge commitment to myself

2009-08-24T09:47:00.003-04:00

This commitment I am making starts now.

It's okay to have unread things in Google Reader.

It's even okay to unsubscribe from things that I don't usually read or enjoy reading. I can unsubscribe from the SharePoint stuff since I am not working on the site at work really, it's okay. I will save that tiny bit of time that I spent clicking mark all as read or scrolling down.

I will make it a point to exercise as much as possible. I realize that not every day may be possible, I lead a busy life, especially once classes start, which is only a week away now.

I will bust my ass this semester and surprise even myself with my grades. Or at least do very well with a tough professor.

I will make it a point to try and eat better, I know with my life it isn't always easy but I can try. We don't eat too badly now but I tend to indulge too often.

I will try and meditate every day.

I will be calmer.

I will assess situations and remain more rational before reacting. I will think first.

I will try and have more creative time for Joey, we haven't really been doing many projects lately.

I will fix everything that is broken right now and make it right again.

My sister scared the crap out of everyone last night. I went on last break at 5:30 this morning and I saw my step mom had updated her status about 15 minutes before that to say she was still up. I assumed my baby sister hurt herself and it was a night in the ER or something because she tends to do that regularly and it has been awhile again. She text me before break was over saying it was important and she needed to talk to me. I told my friends to let them know there was a family emergency and I'd be a few minutes late.

She apparently never came home after getting out of work at 11:30 last night. There were numerous texts and phone calls which went ignored. They called her employer to confirm she left, she did, her car was gone. They called the police who said there were no accident reported and drove down the road to check. Nothing there either.

Since she's 19 nothing further could be done until she didn't show up for work.

She arrived home around 7 this morning, she left her phone to charge in her car and stopped at a friend's where she fell asleep.

I can only imagine what she walked into after my step mom had been up all night. I am certain she was livid.

I mean really, in that situation I don't know if I would want to hug or hit my own child. Honestly that has to be what is going through one's mind at that moment, relief that they are safe but anger at their inconsiderateness.

More job stuff and orientation

2009-08-22T20:17:00.004-04:00

So I haven't heard anything on that other job...which is sort of depressing but they might just be dragging their fight.

However, I do have an interview on Friday someplace else. I occasionally check out the postings on craiglist, but I'm looking at Buffalo's and let's face it, Buffalo's job market is not all that super when the economy is doing well. But I saw this one the other day and I figured why not and now I have an interview.

Orientation was, as predicted, boring. I was falling asleep after the first 2 hours of being talked at, I worked all night before that, so I decided to skip the next being talked at thing and put my money on my card and go buy my books now. Super-cheap this year, I bought a new bag, a few school supplies, and a hoodie for Mini-Geek too and still spent slightly under $300. I forgot to ask them about the lab fee for Evolutionary Bio though so I have another $30 to go still. I bought Mini-Geek the hoodie because he's very sad that he isn't going to school with me this year. The last 2 years he went to the child development center at the community college I was going to. Now I've moved on and although they have a daycare there are no grants here and the site makes it seem like space is sort of limited so I decided to leave him with family. The child development center was a small place and the school was all in one building so I was right there, UB is nothing like that at all so I feel more comfortable this way. And they are just a day care, I don't know how much they work with the children like they did at NCCC.

But yeah, the total nerd side of me can't wait to get back to school. The adult with responsibilities part is wishing for more time because once school starts I won't have any.

I have a new issue with Mini-Geek. He has decided to begin shouting "Look at this! Look at my *insert body part here*!" which is great until it becomes a body part that is less than appropriate. We've had several talks about things that are and aren't appropriate and bad touches and alone time and blah, blah, blah. I'm not sure how to make him get it. We were at my friends and he so kindly was pulling it out of his diaper and letting it hang. Of course with 2 little brothers she has seen it before but I put pants back on him and quickly after that and when we got home we had another nice talk.

Yeah, the potty training isn't going that great by the way.

New job soon? I can hope!

2009-08-16T07:26:00.004-04:00

I saw the perfect job posting up on craigslist for me the other day, not a bunch of experience, not a Bachelors since I'm still only working on that yet, and in my field. It had been posting a day earlier. I bookmarked it and said I'd get to work on a cover letter after Mini-Geek headed to bed. It was gone from the main page and although my bookmark still worked the email did not. I felt a bit dejected, especially since my horoscope had oddly enough discussed this great job opportunity and although I don't really follow them since they are so general, I occassionally read them for amusement.

Also I Internet-know a psychic and had spoken to her recently about the dark cloud that keeps ominously hovering over me in life, The Thing I previously mentioned in my last post, and thought I'd bring up career stuff. I don't hate my job, but it's far too easy and I'm sick of third shift and it just is enough to put a person to sleep. She mentioned a new job at the end of this month/beginning of next. I can only hope she's right. She's said some pretty detailed things about my friend's ex when she spoke with her and she knew nothing about my friend.

Then the other morning I was dozing on and off on the couch and my phone rings. It's a good friend of mine but we typically talk at work, on AIM, and in texts. I thought that was a bit strange, he wanted to know if I was still interested in a possible job where his friend works doing exactly what I want to do right now. Yes yes yes yes yes! A million times yes! I had just spoken with him not that long ago about it and he said that by the sounds of things they didn't want anyone else.

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed tightly that all of this works out for the best, the job and The Thing.

Last week was also been depressingly hot. I've had no desire to do much of anything and really I've had more chances to sleep and less chances to be at home. This heat needs to break so I can accomplish something.

This week won't be fun, I'm chaning my work schedule around. We were able to go down to 4 days and still maintain hours nearly a year ago. With my life I need at least 2 of those days off in a row. Our department works every night except Saturdays. Previously I had Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday off. Well now I have Evolutionary Biology at 7:30 am on Mondays and Wednesdays once classes start and I sleep normal on my nights off so getting up super-early to get Mini-Geek off and all didn't seem fun. They don't want to add people to Mondays since the work loads are low. This left me with Monday, Friday, and Saturday. Obviously there is a fight to get Fridays off amongst those who do not have children and want social/drinking lives. Many of those people left to work on the new project that is only just barely starting to run on 3rd shift. So I asked for Fridays and thankfully I was rewarded with them. Now I haven't had 2 days off in a row since Monday and Tuesday and won't get them until Friday and Saturday and I have school orientation Friday from 9 am until 4 pm. I'm going to try and sneak out early. I know how college works by now. I went for 2 years out of high school for some completely unrelated stuff, and I just spent 2 years going to school. Give me my ID, let me buy books since I'm there, and let me go home.

2009-08-11T18:13:00.004-04:00

A number of not-so-great things have been happening lately and they've sort of occupied my mind a bit, decreasing my blogging and whatnot.

But things will be better soon. I know this.

On a lighter note school starts in a few weeks and I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited. Yeah, go ahead and say it, "Nerd." There's just something about new notebooks and textbooks, or the carelessly tossed around ones with yellow "USED" stickers that make me snicker as I get this urge to stick them on people.

On Sunday I was stuck in the Worst Storm Ever. I met Joey's grandma so that she could play with him for a bit and I decided to stop and get some Panera and then get some sleep since I had to work that night and I went in the night before until 2 am for some Continuity of Business testing. Well a few minutes after I left from our meeting place it began to rain. Pour isn't even the word for it once it got started, I had my wipers on full blast and I could not see. I arrived at Panera to find the parking lot flooded. I never see that lot flooded, in spots it was to the bottom of cars. I became very thankful that they just fixed my parking lot's drainage issues a few months ago because the slightest rain could cause those conditions, this probably would have had water pouring into the basement apartments' windows. I wanted to take a picture of the lot, particularly the Mini Cooper, but it was still raining and my phone isn't a big fan of rain.

The awful weather continued the rest of the day, I went into work at 10 that night and watched the non-stop lightning on my drive. Apparently there were several tornadoes throughout the Southern Tier (the southern part of Western New York for you non-WNYers).

For years I've been wanting a carnivorous plant. As I previously mentioned, I picked up a Cape Sundew on eBay for $10 a couple of weeks ago. Since these plants tend to produce a "goo" that sparkles in the sun. I came to the conclusion that the only reasonable name for such a plant would be Edward. Not to say that I am a Twilight fan, but it amuses me nonetheless. I have actually neither seen the movie nor read the book and I probably never will. Give me old school vampires, not this fluffy nonsense! The shipping stressed dear Edward a bit and he quit producing goo for awhile, but he is acclimating well to his new home and has began to make this goo again.

Hey I'll give you 5 bucks if you crap in your pants

2009-07-28T18:09:00.002-04:00

Today I learned that my son will be the kid who is offering to pay his friends to do the most messed up things his twisted little mind can think of.

He offered me five dollars to crap myself. I asked where he was going to get the money since all that he has access to is change and he told me from the bank.

Honestly if I were a teller and a 3 year old came in asking me for $5 to give their mom to crap herself I might just give him the money from my own pocket.

I ordered a Cape Sundew plant the other day. They are a carnivorous plant that makes goo that sparkles in the sun. I am wondering if I need to find Twilight vampire names to name this thing. I have never read nor watched it but I mean this thing does sparkle in the sun.

I forgot to mention...

2009-07-23T20:36:00.002-04:00

I forgot to mention that I have become hopelessly addicted to Dollhouse. I've been on vacation (tonight is my last night :( ) and decided to check it out. I don't watch TV typically but I've heard enough that I have been meaning to check it out. Perhaps I will add the Season 1 boxed set to my Christmas list if I don't buy it before then. My Grandma already has written on my facebook wall asking what I want this year. I was a bit paranoid that some pervy friends were going to ever so kindly answer for me and I was going to quickly have to delete the second my BlackBerry chimed at me.

Produce, guts, and caulking

2009-07-20T13:11:00.004-04:00

I have been looking up local produce. The place where I used to live had a stand right around the corner that carried a huge variety of fresh-picked fruits and vegetables but now the area I am in is a bit less rural and I don't have that convenience. So in my search for local food I found this site. They drop off food either weekly or biweekly on Saturdays right to your door, leaving it in a cooler in a pre-determined spot if you aren't home. They offer meals too, so you don't have to worry about that either. I am fascinated and may have to try them out sometime soon.

Mini-Geek has been his usual self. Lately I have been enduring countless questions about what is inside of bodies. His lovely children's book on the human body, complete with transparent people-shapes with a new system on every page apparently is not good enough. (I may have been encouraging some nerdiness when I purchased it (it was on sale!) for a 2 year old. Remember, biology was a part of my previous two college majors.) We had to Google image search what exactly it looks like inside of a human leg the other day.

My shower kept leaking into the guy below me's apartment. It was all tile, maintenance caulked it up (hehe) but a couple of days later I saw my neighbor's son who said it was back. They ended up putting a surround in and hopefully everything is fine. Mini-Geek was riveted by this entire event and I had to hold him to keep him out of the way.

I had the most bizarre dream the other night about someone I have not seen in years and haven't even thought about in forever. It was rather strange and came out of nowhere.

Warning: Children can cause serious injury.

2009-07-08T20:40:00.002-04:00

I'm supposed to be getting up for work right around now.

But I'm here, blogging because I called in tonight.

I'm not one to normally call in but I could not sleep because I am in pain and my only defense is some lame 600mg ibuprofen, which may have to change tomorrow.

This pain was caused by the one and only Evil Mini-Geek.

After lunch he dragged every single blanket he could find into the living room, including my heavy satin comforter and my nice warm and snuggly and quite heavy microfiber one. But he was entertained so I let it be and then he wanted me to come join.

We were playing around, he's obsessed with the furniture being a boat. The blankets were part of the water. We had to go in the water. Okay, fine, I can handle this, everything is just super-de-duper. Then he had to try and drown me or something because he covered me in blankets (I despise having my head under blankets, it seriously freaks me out a little.). He must have them immediately crawled up on the couch, while I was on all fours under some blankets, and from there he proceed to leap onto my unsupported back.

It knocked the wind right out of me and then the pain started.

I ended up calling my doctor's when they opened at 1 and they had me in at 2. They found trace amounts of blood in my urine and are sending to the lab, it's looking like he injured my left kidney. They took x-rays to check out my ribs and spine as well, she said it's quite possible he cracked one of my ribs too.

Joy.

I tried to lie down but it was hurting like hell when I did, after some Internet research I am coming to the conclusion that he definitely did something to my kidney.

In other news, I turned on my camera yesterday to try and get a picture for my school ID so that I could upload it and discovered that it refuses to focus on anything anymore so I ordered a new one online. I tend to obsessively track things so I have that a random shirt from shirt.woot on the way. I love random shirt day.

Mini-Geek is proving to be stranger and stranger by the way. He wanted to lick my brother's hair "because it's different." Also, out of nowhere, he tells me yesterday that he wants to talk to transformers on the computer. Double you tee eff.

His adoration of all things science-related is growing, we have been talking about bees a lot lately. He picked out a solar system puzzle the other day too. I picked up an old globe for $3 and his geographer is coming out, he is constantly asking me what countries he is pointing to. A child's thirst for knowledge just amazes me, they absorb everything. He repeats some of this stuff to other people in his young attempts at conversation and the entire process is really something to watch.

If you follow me on twitter you can see the occasional stream of updates on super-weird stuff that Mini-Geek tends to say.

Linux or Windows?

2009-06-24T01:14:00.005-04:00

I don't often include pictures or video of Mini-Geek. There's a bit of backstory to that actually. I was being a new mom and taking pictures of tiny feet and hands and uploaded them to Flickr. My grandparents, at that time, were spending their entire winter in Florida and I wanted to be able to share pictures with them and the rest of my family. It's far easier to send a link once than to gather up a bunch of attachments all of the time anyways, not that they didn't ever get pictures in emails but they could practically track his daily life at that point.

One day I was checking pictures that people had favorited when I discovered someone favorited a not-that-great picture of his foot. I clicked on the account to discover they had no pictures available and had just favorited a bunch of pictures of baby feet. Well I was rather creeped-out and shortly after that I made his pictures viewable to only friends and family and urged my family to create Flickr accounts if they wanted access. I mean really, baby feet? It's fine to like them but there aren't any other pictures on Flickr that you can favorite? Just 30-some pictures of baby feet?!

However I took this video last night when we ran to the store at bedtime for some diapers because I didn't realized we were out. We occasionally have this "argument" but it has never been caught on video before. He started it by commenting on the Linux fish on the back of my car. And now, without further ado, I present to you "Linux or Windows?"

I Have Nothing to Say in the Summer

2009-06-16T09:46:00.006-04:00

The problem with summer is that my life becomes so incredibly boring that I have nothing to blog about anymore.

For example, the first thing I am going to blog about is the weather. The freaking weather. I despise summer. I do not like heat. Keep it under 70 and I'm content. Once the highs begin getting around 75 I get irritable. On those days it hits 90 or so I am miserable. And so is everyone around me.

Mini-Geek says so much crazy shit I cannot keep up with it all. A few minutes ago he asked for his people. I asked if he was Moses.

Earlier this morning he brought me a "birthday cake", singing and all. When he returned from my step mom's house there was a bag of stuff. It contained his Batman Easter basket and a few other small Easter things. The basket had some evil blue grass in it. Which is now in my livingroom since he got at the bag before I had the chance to hide it.

See, I told you that my life is incredibly boring. It's just sleep, and cook, and laundry, and work, and websites, and Sims 2 since I don't know that I want Sims 3 yet. I've heard mixed reviews and I don't like how the people look. They do look more plasticy. Maybe I'll just wait until it gets cheaper. They always do drop in price after a bit... I mean the jump from 2 to 3 is NOTHING like the jump from the original Sims to Sims 2.

i cheated

2009-06-03T14:07:00.000-04:00

I am using someone else's background. For now.

Mini-Geek's Room

2009-06-03T13:11:00.007-04:00

So today we finally have Mini-Geek's actual dresser and I'm no longer keeping his clothes in my room. Yay! My step mom's boyfriend dropped it off since it has been at my step mom's house for quite some time now.

So since his room is clean and nice I took pictures. I hate my brown carpeting but oh well. I blurred out his name on the wall, but rest assured that they are very nice letters, hand-painted by my sister.

Yay mini-vacations and seeing!

2009-06-01T23:36:00.003-04:00

I don't work until Friday night! I took a couple of nights off in addition to my regularly scheduled two nights in the middle of the week (I prefer the middle of the week when school is in session. And I still have Saturday night off. Yay four day work weeks!) I'd like to get something done with this blog. And I'd obviously like to work on the zillion projects I have. I actually did work on the one a bit tonight.

I picked up my glasses today. Seeing better is nice, adjusting is strange. I've needed glasses in the past, but then I quit needing them, but never full-time before.

There's an alarm going off somewhere, it's getting rather annoying. Ooooo maybe someone robbed 7 Eleven! I'd totally rob the Slurpee machine. Screw the money, I want unlimited Slurpee's.And some Swedish Fish. And give me 2 of those Red Bulls while you're at it. Actually it really does sound like it's coming from that direction.

I subscribed to The Buffalo News's RSS feed but it's terribly depressing and I may unsubscribe soon. In the last 24 hours we've had "Father gets 20 years for killing baby daughter", "Ex Boxing Champ Stabbed in Gang Attack", "Randolph Children's Home Probes Riot By Residents", "Family Friend Arrested for Sexually Assaulting Girl", "Dog Arrested--And So Are Two Humans", "Man Accused of Sex With Teen Boy", and "Boyfriend With Knife Arrested After Threat". On a positive note the Tonawanda GM plant was saved, some other boring crap, and everyone is complying nicely with the new border crossing policies.

The alarm stopped.

I desperately want to watch Filth and Wisdom. Now to download this would technically be wrong. However, if I cannot find any other way to watch it other than to purchase the DVD shouldn't it be permissible? In all honesty if I like the movie I will probably buy it. I mean really, Eugene Hutz is my future husband, he just doesn't know it yet.

I got back into baking bread again! We had BLTs with veggie "bacon" for dinner tonight on homemade bread. Amazing.

2009-05-26T08:04:00.003-04:00

Mini-Geek is bordering on obsessed with space. I decided to do some research and see if there's a planetarium around here. I remember one coming to my school when I was younger, with a giant inflatable dome that they put on the stage and projected the sky inside. I found one in Buffalo. However the site hurt my eyes too much to look for hours and whatnot. So I decided that I'd be willing to drive and searched Rochester. I found the Rochester Museum & Science Center, which looks quite exciting and lists hours! So at some point in the nearish future we will be making a trip up there.

Up comes out this weekend and I'm considering taking him to the drive-in to see it. He's been obsessed with the tiny preview at the beginning of his other Pixar movies and always has to watch it before we can skip to the menu.

The potty-training is moving along. He is not really pooing in there but peeing is going quite well and I'm pleased with that at least. I told him that it makes me happy when he uses the potty and I'm not very happy when he doesn't, exploiting his desire to please.

Sleep is a great thing until it gets in the way of life

2009-05-20T14:45:00.005-04:00

I'm always exhausted now. It's like school let out and I just died. I'm asleep by 8 on all of my nights off, even Tuesday nights when I had off the night before and slept nearly 12 hours. Sometimes a phone call will wake me so I am up for a bit in the middle of that but if no one is talking to me I pass right out. I think my body is recovering from the school year. I mean it hasn't been that long yet. I also am quitting the excessive amount of energy drinks I was consuming while classes were in session. It was disgusting how many I was drinking to get through life. I had one yesterday, which probably just reset everything my body has been fighting. Hopefully within the next week or two I'll return to normal again.

On to the potty training front lines...

GeekDad had a post up today with a toilet seat that Mini-Geek saw. It was a Marvel seat and he became very excited over the idea of sitting on Spiderman and The Hulk. I don't call him Mini-Geek for nothing. He just one day developed a love of Spiderman out of nowhere and this has extended into other Marvel characters and lately he has been branching into DC as well. He told me that he'd use the potty if he I bought that seat and I'm always looking for new encouragement. The last day or two telling him that when he doesn't pee in his diaper or pull-up and instead pees on the potty I am very happy has worked somewhat. Evil Mart carries just Spiderman seats apparently so we purchased one and he has been more than happy to use it the last couple of hours and wants to take it to my mom's tonight...I am hoping so incredibly much that this is putting the end to diapers.

We have also made our foray into the exciting world of Legos. They are all that he plays with now. A big set has been promised once we are an underwear-only household. I don't mean one of the insane $100+ sets, the biggest one he has I think cost $20 or $30.

I've been on the Wii Fit every day for the past five days! So has Mini-Geek actually, he enjoys pointing out his Mii whenever he shows up when I am doing something.

I have not played any other games yet, although I've been itching to get back onto Mushroom Men. I have a ton of movies I need to watch. I don't want a TV in my room but I am thinking of lugging one in mine to at least start movies when I go to bed so I can get some of these watched.

Done!

2009-05-14T15:57:00.003-04:00

I am finished with that place! No more school there at least!

Also if you like bizarre twitter accounts follow my friend, @AchooEric. He has been counting his sneezes for years and I suggested that he started tweeting them and he finally did. Hell, follow me if you want too, @kimmp.

Thanks to my mom's idea Mini-Geek is now in the pull-ups that go cold when the poor child pees in them. I made a somewhat big deal about this so now he's scared to pee in them. I vaguely remembered hearing about them when he was a baby. They weirded me out. I am now the desperate parent of a 3 1/2 year old.

Tomorrow he shall be spoiled. He usually sees his grandma weekly but they just returned from Disney World and therefore have not seen him in nearly two weeks. So I know she's going through withdrawal or something and they spent a ton of money on him in Florida and Thomas the Train is in town so she's taking him there. I'm not sure that even want to deal with him after that.

I am also watching him for red dye sensitives. I wonder a bit but I am not sure.

Wrapping it up

2009-05-13T14:19:00.004-04:00

Just one final and one discussion post remaining. I think the final is now up although it's supposed to be tomorrow in Angel, the SUNY online deal that sucks more than a Dyson. The post is due at midnight.

As of right now I have four different sites to work on this summer with the promise of more. So it's like I am not even on summer break!

I need to call the student loan companies and get things straightened out. They're crazy if they think I am paying them $250-$300 per month this summer. I am attending school this fall. They're just confused because I am about to graduate and procrastinated on applying.

Mini-Geek had a little girl beg for a hug before we left, today was his last day at the child development center, she kissed him too.

I have started the super-thorough cleaning. The bathroom has been scrubbed, ceiling and walls even, and the living room is in progress.

I re-installed Sims 2.

I bought a new chair for at my desk.

And in a few days I will have a degree. Granted it is only an A.S. but it's something. Four years, three majors, and a major gap in the middle is all it took. The first two were nothing like now, marine biology and biology going for pre-vet. I almost switched to psych once too.

Life isn't too awful. It needs angel food cake I think. With strawberries and whipped cream. Which isn't that bad when it comes to fat content. It's okay, right? Did I mention my diet yet? And the Wii Fit time that will resume soon?

THANK YOU!!

2009-05-06T16:53:00.003-04:00

I am done with my portfolio. Well, done enough to turn it in and receive a decent grade. Just a few finals, a programming project, a bunch of discussion posts, and making a small store-like set-up left to do.

Do you have any clue how happy this makes me!? My biggest stress is out of the way! My ActionScript works! My JavaScript works! My HTML validates! My images all show up!

This weekend I will be doing A LOT of cleaning. I've really let the cleaning go the past week or two. I cannot deny this.

I will also be rearranging and setting myself up into a more office-like setting as I begin my freelance career and prepare for another two years or so of school...only now as a computer science major. I'm in debate if I want to turn the dining room into my office (I have a table in the kitchen) or section off a large part of my living room. The dining room has no windows. :( Currently it contains my bike and sewing machine stuff, as well as an old CRT monitor and recently-worn shoes. I am thinking I may just move the TV and couch and stuff down and my desk over by the windows to create my "office". And maybe buy a ginormous bean bag chair for homework purposes since they're like $45 at Evil Mart. And a file cabinet. And a second video card and monitor.

Mini-Geek's Favorite Songs

2009-05-03T14:44:00.003-04:00

So now he's developing his own musical likes. He has chosen two favorite songs. The first was Jonathan Coulton's "RE: Your Brains". He likes to sing the chorus, particularly the part about not eating eyes because this cracks him up. The other day I was listening to Ani DiFranco in the car and "The Whole Night" came on. He started freaking out and insisting that it was his song and we had to listen to it the entire way home.

I think this qualifies me for some sort of Worse Parent of the Year Award or something, my three year old's favorite songs are about zombies and girl sex.

Crunch Time

2009-04-20T19:09:00.002-04:00

With just a few short weeks remaining in the semester I do not know how frequently I will be blogging. Not that I'm a super-blogger, but yeah... Or I may blog excessively to avoid the mountain of crap to do and/or to take breaks, who knows. But don't abandon reading me if you don't see much between now and May 15th, I will return! I'd recommend subscribing to the RSS feed if you don't want to appear as a stalker weirdo. :P

Giving up dreams

2009-04-15T06:07:00.004-04:00

Back in the day when I getting ready to graduate from high school, as I have previously mentioned, I had every intent to go to school and eventually become a marine biologist. You know, like a lot of teen girls do, only I knew what it entailed and the reality was it was not playing with dolphins or whatever they think. I loved biology in school, I did well in AP Bio. Naturally this drastically limited my options for school and Florida, California, and Hawaii, all seemed way too far away for me. I began looking at schools in Maine. In the fall of my senior year my dad and I went to Maine to visit two schools, College of the Atlantic and University of Maine at Machias.

COA was gorgeous, I highly recommend image searching the buildings. The ocean was right there. I was in love with the campus but not ready for the program. It was rather extreme. They grew their own food, they had only recently began serving meat. Everyone receieves their degree in human ecology. It was too out there for my rather-sheltered Christian-family self.

I went to UMM and then became homesick and transferred closer to home. After a year at that school I decided to take a year off. And that year was rather eventful for me, including my father's cancer diagnosis so I didn't return right away. There was never an "if" I go back, I have always meant to. When my dad died I began making plans to join my then-boyfriend at RIT. Then I found out that I was pregnant, orginially I was thinking about adoption and began thinking about going to school after the baby was born. Obviously I changed my mind and promised a very mini Mini-Geek that I wouldn't go back until he was at least a year old. When he was a few months shy of two I began taking classes and now here I am, one month from graduation, well and a day I think, I don't know I'm not going.

This has a point. Stay with me. Please?

But I always wanted to go back for something like marine bio or something oceany and earthy and did consider conservation biology but I wanted the ocean experience. With Mini-Geek I am tied to this area, where there are family to help.

I am planning a vacation for next year. I've got too much going on this year since there's a specific time I want to go that consists of about a one month period and waiting until Mini-Geek is another year older probably isn't a bad idea. I want to go back to Maine. One of my friends wants to come along as well so we're starting to look at places to stay and all. I want to go before black fly season but after school gets out. None of us mind the cold so going to Maine at the end of April-beginning of June isn't ridiculous at all and we don't mind the cheaper prices and fewer people! It's touristy and all, but I think we're going to Bar Harbor. I mentioned that she needs to see the buildings at COA. And now I'm wishing I had gone there. I've wished that several times over the last few years but now that I went to their site and everything...

And the wheels are turning. She asked why I don't go there. I said it's too much, I'd have to find a new job that pays what I make and has benefits and Maine isn't known for their super-jobs, I'd have to pay for day care while I was in class and at work and I can't afford that and I won't be able to find anyone to watch him that much, no day care would take him at those hours since I work full-time and I don't want to leave him in someone's home when I just met them, that's even weirder. Heck, I'm going to have a hard time with day care being in a seperate building if it ever comes to that. Then as she complained about a lack of a calendar on a site when picking dates it all clicked. Perhaps I could do web stuff for the local places as well as remotely? Then I would only need to worry about child care while I was in class. And I cannot help but wonder if there are mama commune-type things there... But the school is expensive. Far more than UB costs, that's for sure.

Underwear? In your kitchen? It's more likely than you think.

2009-04-10T09:55:00.006-04:00

Internet, there are underwear in my kitchen. These are not of the black lacy thong strewn about in a fit of lustful desire either. Instead they are a lovely pair of fine Spiderman and Friends little boy's size 4T tightie whities with red trim were found near the Lightning McQueen and Mater table. They feature a juvenile Spiderman on the front, a grinning Wolvervine on the left, a very ridiculous-looking Hulk (seriously, kiddie Hulk doesn't work on anything, he always looks awful) on the butt, and another young Spidey on the right side. I know they aren't truly "dirty" because a near and dear (most of the time) friend of mine decided to put them on over Mini-Geek's pajamas the other night. Exactly why Mini-Geek thought the kitchen to be an approriate place to shed and leave them is beyond me.

Currently I am trying to break Mini-Geek of the blankie habit. The severe blankie habit. He feels the need to take the thing everywhere. It's going okay. Not great but not truly awful. Just okay.

BumpTop

2009-04-08T15:51:00.002-04:00

zomg_desktop
Originally uploaded by four12leafclover

I had to go download it today, I am really considering paying the $29 for the pro version. It is amazing and fun and I really need to do my Flash homework before I go to bed in about 45 minutes or so. Seriously, go get it.

Sad Post

2009-04-07T15:45:00.003-04:00

I haven't mentioned my dad on here. On the 28th it will be four years since cancer got the best of him. Mini-Geek was a few cells big, too small for me to have a clue that my life was about to radically change in yet another way. Since his passing I have tried to make him proud, I think the dead can see us.

I talk openly about him with Mini-Geek and we have pictures of him in our apartment. We have gone to visit his grave at the cemetery many times as well.

Over the last four years I have heard from both my mom and step mom that Daddy would have been proud of me. A few days ago it all finally sunk in that he really would have and I began to cry. I mean here I am doing my best at raising this child, working, I'm in school and doing well. I'm about to have my Associate's and am transferring on to get my Bachelor's. I have a decent enough I suppose job at a well-known business and I do well at it. I have my own place that isn't too horribly much of a disaster most of the time. He really would be proud of me.

I just wish I could hear him say it.

I think that Mini-Geek sees him though. He tells me he does see Grandpa Geek. (And geek he was, when I was just a bit older than Mini-Geek he bought a Commodore 64, which brought me hours of fun. And let's not forget that Star Trek-watching he used to do, among other things.) One day not all that long ago we were in the living room and he told me Grandpa Geek was there. I asked where and he pointed by the windows and said "right there" like I was an absolute moron. I suppose I should get used to that tone because the future holds many words said like that. I asked what he was doing and he said reading my book. My programming book was on the other side of the coffee table, hidden from my view. Last week or so, nearly a month later, that same book was on my desk and Mini-Geek told me that Grandpa Geek reads that book. Also, ever since he was just a Very Mini-Geek he has occasionally acted as though someone was there when there was no one we could see, sometimes scrunching all up and giggling as though someone were tickling him.

Music::The Depreciation Guild

2009-04-05T10:30:00.004-04:00

If you want some 8-bit awesomeness that is pretty awesome musically aside from the 8-bit awesomeness then head over to The Depreciation Guild's site, complete with free downloads!

Sleep? What the hell is that?!

2009-04-05T09:02:00.005-04:00

When I first signed up for this whole parenting thing I heard a lot about not sleeping when you're living with a newborn.
I miss those days. I mean aside from the mouthiness, the lack of getting a drink every 10 minutes, relentlessly watching the same movie over and over, toys all over my apartment, and all of the other things that come along with having a three year old, I miss sleeping that much. Once Mini-Geek was a bit older I could go three or four hours at a time with sleep and then do what needed to be done and sleep again! Now I get about as much sleep as I got between those feedings several time a week.

I worked about 7 hours of overtime this past week. Sure I've had a job where I worked more but I wasn 't trying to go to school full-time as well. Or taking on large projects. Or had a three year old who sleeps way less than a newborn.

In other news, I did get some interesting and positive information at work the other night. I shall share more if and when it happens.

I'd type more but I have a programming project due soon that's calling to me. And a portfolio that was in progress and I now hate and will probably start over. Again.

Conversations I Never Thought I'd Have and "A Day In The Life"

2009-03-31T19:38:00.005-04:00

After his bath Mini-Geek asked if he could take out his tongue. I said if he did he wouldn't be able to talk anymore. He wasn't entirely convinced so I went into a brief discussion on taste buds.

Tuesdays are nice. I don't work the night before and I don't work that night. I don't have class either. Tuesdays are my day to spend with Mini-Geek and to get things done.

Otherwise here's a normal day in the life, at least for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday:

Wednesday
6:30 wake up, get self and Mini-Geek ready
7:20 leave (riiiiight)
7:45 arrive at school, drop Mini-Geek off, purchase Amp if necessary
8:00 babysit computer lab, usually getting nothing done on Wednesdays
9:30 Multimedia Production I begins
10:45 Class ends, pee, buy Amp now if needed
11:00 Database-Driven Websites begins
12:15 class ends, pick up Mini-Geek, usually wait for him to finish lunch
12:45+Arrive home
1:00 do whatever I need to do, Mini-Geek time, grocery shop, homework, online tests, clean, project, etc.
4:30 drop Mini-Geek off at my mom's
4:45 go to bed
9:00 get up and shower
9:30 leave for work, earlier if I need to purchase an Amp
10:00work starts
Thursday
7:00 leave work
7:30 get to Mom's, get Mini-Geek dressed
7:50 leave Mom's
8:20 arrive at school, purchase Amp if needed again, drop Mini-Geek off
8:30 Portfolio class begins
9:20 class ends, pick-up Mini-Geek
9:45 arrive home, do whatever I didn't do yesterday
4:30 drop Mini-Geek off at my mom's
4:45 sleep
9:00 get up and shower
9:30 leave for work, earlier if I need to purchase an Amp
10:00work starts
Friday
7:30 leave work
8:00 get to Mom's, get Mini-Geek dressed
8:20 leave Mom's
8:50 arrive at school, drop Mini-Geek off
9:00 computer lab babysit!
4:00 pick-up Mini-Geek, entertain for the next hour in the lab
5:00 leave
5:20 drop Mini-Geek off at Mom's
5:30 sleeeeeep
9:30 wake up and shower
10:00leave, earlier if I need to buy an Amp
10:30work starts
Saturday
7:30 leave work

Yeah.....

Spring break soon.
You have no idea how excited I am. I am taking a vacation day or two I think as well. Especially since Phase I of the project should be completed by the end of the month.

P.S. The schedule is NOT an April Fool's joke!

School Post

2009-03-31T15:31:00.005-04:00

Applications are finally in for my schools for the fall. (I know, I'm a huge slacker.) Unless I find a super-awesome job between now and then (haha and I am realistic enough to know that I won't) then I will be a computer science major rather than digital media in the web developer career track. There's really only one school that is realistically close enough for me to attend and I do not like the price tag or the idea of taking religious classes. I take enough non-major crap, I don't need to take more, I just want a degree and then a job. I am a busy person, time is important.

Honestly that is fine by me. I want to emphasis the programming aspect anyways.

For philosophy (pointless B.S. class....) I can write an optional 10-page research paper on anything that I want. You know, just to pass all of that extra time that I have. So I am choosing to write one on raising children in such a technology-based society. I will look at "BlackBerry Moms", Baby Einstein and the recent studies that it is counter-productive, Edubutu, the laptop programs for children and everything else I can think of.

I may be rather geeky but Mini-Geek has been raised without all of the toy crap out there as much as I can. I won't say that family members don't buy him flashy electronic toys, but for the most part I try and pick out educational things. I don't substitute electronic story-telling toys for mommy's lab and a book. I buy wood over plastic. If the toy does something for him over him doing it himself then I don't buy it. We don't have cable or dish, which I may have mentioned. I despise television. The Internet will give me news faster anyways. (I may secretly like Yo Gabba Gabba a tiny bit though. Come on, 8-bit graphics! And monsters!) I tried to avoid the Disney trap, that was more my mom's doing. I owned Finding Nemo, once upon a time I was a marine biology major, a homesick marine biology major. It makes sense. Heck, if I didn't have Mini-Geek I probably would have gone back for marine biology and never discovered the fun of coding. She put it in, then she got her hands on Cars and it was all over. Pixar mania began.

2009-03-29T10:21:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was one of those horrible days that you wish would hurry up and end because your child is so obnoxious and so tired but won't sleep.

This morning started out that way but has seemed to make a change. I'm hoping it lasts.

I made Rice Krispie Treats because I cannot remember the last time that I had them and the evil store put them marshmallows right by the cereal (just a local little mostly produce and deli place) and they sounded so good. Jerks.

I've now had my BlackBerry Storm for four days. I have already forgotten what life was like pre-BlackBerry when I just had my little LG Venus.

Today is a dark and rainy day, just the way that I like them. The high is 51 and I wouldn't want it much warmer. I have strange weather preferences, I know this. iTunes is all about the Sigur Ros which makes the weather that much prettier.

Fired?!

2009-03-27T17:26:00.002-04:00

I was just fired.
This firing won't be like the rest of you who have been laid off or fired due to our current economy or just your general sucking at work. Oh no, this firing will actually save me money, tons of money.

I was fired by Mini-Geek.
For singing the alphabet.

I quit.

2009-03-24T19:04:00.003-04:00

I told Mini-Geek it was bath and then bed time. I was getting ready to wash hair and he gave his usual, "you like me dirty" which I have grown used to, the giggles are gone.

Then I hear, "you like me dirty in bed." I stepped out of the bathroom, shampoo still in his hair. I couldn't handle it.

He's off to bed in a few, it's an Amp and a Mountain Dew Slurpee (I love living right by 7 Eleven!) to keep me up for awhile so I can code more. This morning was quite productive and aside from that some new awesomeness may happen but I don't want to write about it and curse myself so let's just see.

I hate how the nice little to-do list on my computer won't stop growing. I mark something as complete and then I add three more things. I do highly recommend Rainlendar though if you need calendars and to-do lists to help keep you on track. It's skinnable too.

2009-03-24T09:53:00.003-04:00

I passed out on my couch somewhere between 9 and 9:30 with Socrates in my arms and a discussion post due at midnight that never was made. Oh well, I'll take the one point for a late post today and do some more in the hopes of earning points.

We won't discuss all of the other tasks that I had planned on working on throughout the night for a few more hours. The program that's due tonight at midnight (I have it nearly done this morning. I am getting one error that I cannot figure out but I need a break from it. Of course once that one error gets straightened out there will be like ten more. But it is going all of the way through the program because it gave me errors from the last function (way to forget semi-colons!)), the project that I'm working on, the flow-chart that I finished this morning and the story board to go along with it, my portfolio...working on any of these would have been perfectly acceptable. Tonight I shall. Today I will continue some more soon, but I am supposed to go birthday shopping with my mother later on today since my birthday is Friday.

You know those chocolate sticks from Pizza Hut? Yeah, amazing. If you have an account set up online you get an email for free ones during the month of your birthday. Last night I figured why not, Mini-Geek wanted pizza, I didn't feel like cooking, and I had to order them soon or miss out. Mini-Geek can keep those cupcakes!

Too much time at the computer lately

2009-03-23T15:10:00.006-04:00

I have reached a new level of geekdom.
I dreamed in code the other night. Not even anything in particular. The street signs and my IMs had HTML tags, I remember seeing the telltale question mark and greater than/less than symbols designating PHP and I think I remember something resembling the structs we are currently doing in C++.

And if that isn't enough, I also downloaded some PHP tutorial podcasts and put them on my iPod for work last night.

Oh and even a tiny bit more, the program we use at work has us hit F12 to zoom. Due to the amount of Flash and Photoshop time I have had lately I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't zoom when I was hitting Ctrl+. Like I did a few times before I realized that I am a moron.

Mini-Geek thinks the word "soaking" is actually "smoking" so he was "smoking wet" when he woke up the other morning at my mom's. She tried to correct him but he argued and asked her if she was "smoking hot."

They made cupcakes last night and my mom asked if I could have one. He told her no, they make mommy sick.
He's clearly looking out for my thighs and my "fat belly."

Boxers

2009-03-22T12:14:00.002-04:00

Mini-Geek just put on boxers for the first time.
He promptly reached down and adjusted himself.

Trying to avoid a programming project

2009-03-22T10:52:00.002-04:00

I really don't feel like working on this project. This very empty project for my programming class. It has the include files and the functions and that's about it. It's due Tuesday and I prefer to get them done early in case I get stuck.

So instead I am sitting her typing a blog entry! There aren't plenty of other things I could do! Homework, projects, cleaning, working on that whole learning to knit, nope nothing at all.

I have entirely changed my portfolio. I didn't like the direction it was going in. I think I like it now.

I am thinking about going to Niagara Produce later after I plan out some meals.

I am really trying to avoid homework.
It's a yucky gray day and it's being reflected by my lack of desire to do anything.

Ah crap, I have to do a post for philosophy online today. He always has posts due on Sundays and just poo to him for ruining my weekend. I can't wait to see if he makes us do stuff over spring break, which cannot get here soon enough.

Alright, trying to motivate myself now...

2009-03-17T01:18:00.001-04:00

Today we found Wall-E underwear. Mini-Geek, as he will by known from now on, is obsessed with Wall-E. He has a Wall-E hoodie and the very idea of laundering said hoodie results in tears if not a full-on tantrum. At least he wears another shirt under it? When it sits in the hamper waiting for me to bother doing a load of laundry I hear "Is Wall-E shirt all clean?" about 600 times a day and when I say no I hear "I like it dirty!!!" He has Wall-E curtains and random non-Pixar colorful robots adorning his walls, and a Wall-E light. I do believe I mentioned Interaction Wall-E previously. Wall-E stuff is not nearly as prevalent as Cars. My bank account is pleased. The underwear were packaged in with other Pixar ones but I was hoping his Wall-E adoration would encourage some potty training. I also let him pick out a package of boxers thinking maybe he has already developed a preference and doesn't know it and maybe if he wears them he'll like it. Hey, I'm desperate here. I want to be able to use my diapers if baby #2 ever happens. Granted around $400 for over two years now is nothing to complain about, I mean he's worn disposables in there too but had he not worn cloth I would have spent far more. There's also the year before that, about six months of that year he wore old school cloth diapers with pins and rubber pants when we were home since they were too much to deal with out (I have no issues with his current diapers and leaving the house though.).

He wanted me to open the package right away.
Good sign?
I told him we need to take care of our purchases first and asked him to take the toilet paper to the bathroom please, figuring it'd be dropped in the hallway.

I made him sit on the toilet before he put them on, "I'm not wearing them backwards!" because he previously wore underwear backwards on occasion to see the picture on the butt. I didn't care, he was wearing underwear. I asked him every twenty seconds or so if he had to use the potty after that.

And he pooped in them.

I was not pleased.

Then later I realized that the toilet paper was not dropped off in the middle of the bathroom doorway and I wondered what my dear sweet boy could have done with it.

All was forgotten because I had to go meet with someone and we left the house.

I just used the bathroom and discovered that he had placed it on the floor right next to the toilet, underneath the holder.

I forgot about the rest of the day after taking pride in the logic he used. My baby is growing up into a smart little boy.

Conversations with a 3 year old

2009-03-15T07:43:00.001-04:00

One of the most awesome part about having kids is the stuff that they say. I don't get embarrassed by penis talk in the store, I just explain it isn't the time or the place and on the inside I am laughing though my face is serious. I deserve every minute of store penis-talk. My step sister and I were horrible whenever we were in public, even once we knew better.

The other day my son told his grandmother that I feed him pretty rocks. I think he was talking about the fish tank. It came with that spongy stuff that makes up the background and bottom and looks like some sort of rock formation. Well it was starting to come apart, tiny pieces would fall off when I cleaned the tank and then I saw The Evil Fish That Kills Everything taking bites out of it so I decided it was time for some gravel. He picked out some purple gravel and a plant and I picked out a plant. He's been watching TEFTKE more now and he noticed that he eats the rocks and spits them back out. And he has to tell me about it every time he witnesses it so I know that it excites him.

Then my brother posts the following conversation on my facebook wall the other day, the "me" being my brother:

Me: **** did you eat at grandma Barb's
My son: yes
Me: What did you eat?
My son: poop
yeah he definitely your son

He's also convinced that I am a lesbian. Every single day, at least ten times if we're together all day, seriously at least ten times, I'm not exaggerating, ten times, he has to ask me if I have a girlfriend. Every single time I tell him no. Finally the other day I was like "no I am not a lesbian so let's drop it!" out of frustration. He replied with "Haha you're a lesbian, that's funny!"

WTF

I suppose it's better than the usual conversation or some slight variation on it that we have:
My son: Mommy, you have a penis?
Me: Am I a boy or a girl?
My son: You a girl, you don't have a penis. Girls don't have a penis.
Me: You're right.
My son: You want one?
Me: No I am happy being a girl.
My son: YOU WANT ONE! YOU WANT A PENIS!

I can't handle these conversations!

2009-03-12T14:55:00.000-04:00

So I had this nice pretty little post started the other day. And then Vista decided to be Vista and randomly decided that it didn't need to use my wireless Internet anymore and it wasn't going to tell me about this either. I was getting mad at Verizon and my laptop and the entire world until I realized what had happened and by then in my anger I had gotten rid of my post and I haven't had time to re-visit since then.

I desperately need to get Ubuntu on this thing so that I don't have to go into Vista unless I want to. My desktop now has Linux Mint which makes me quite happy. Okay, enough really nerdy talk because I have a feeling that people will be even less likely to read this thing now.

Have you ever been so busy that your life is boring? I'm always on the go but I have nothing exciting happen because it's always the same crap. I mean the "highlight" of the last couple of weeks was when my son peed on the potty (yay!) and then walked into the hallway and pooped on the floor (not so yay). And making my own bread from scratch, that was pretty awesome. No bread maker, no mixer, nothing, just my wooden spoon and hands. There's something about making it yourself that turns it into the best bread you have ever had in your life.

I suppose I should go back to reading all about structs and making some discussion post comapring Neo from The Matrix and Socrates.

The Rundown

2009-03-03T15:27:00.001-05:00

I'm another busy mama out there, nameless and faceless, indistinguishable from any other stressed out or peaceful child-toting woman out there.

I tend to bite off more than I can chew and figure it's all okay, I work better under pressure. Until one more thing gets thrown into the mix and then there is all too much there.
Take the last week, thrown into our mix was the flu. Both my three year old and I had it, six days of what I deemed "The Worse Flu Ever." Well now I've missed 2 and a half days of work (yay for 4 day work weeks at least!) and am so far behind on school work and I missed some school responsibilities as well. And now I am overwhelmed and not wanting to do the homework that is waiting for me. Programming makes little sense to my exhausted brain right now. Searching for my two products to learn how to make an online shopping cart system seems daunting (Try Google image searching for "fish sippy cup" and see how many useful hits you get!). I think I need to brush my resume and write a cover letter for my portfolio class in the very near future. And probably make some random stuff with Flash. And let's not get into good old Socrates.

Quite frankly I would love to just sit down and get Ubuntu on both my new desktop and laptop. I'm using Vista and the security pop-ups are irritating. Then with the included McAfee stuff on this laptop and all of its pop-ups I just want to scream. These are productivity inhibitors.

So yeah, if you didn't pick up on it, I'm a busy and geeky mama. Full-time job, full-time student, part-time work at school, full-time single mama in a decent-sized 2 bedroom apartment full of Cars "stuff" and one Interaction Wall-E that must stay off for reasons that I don't comprehend that Daddy thought was a necessity. Maybe it was, Eve looks kind of like a tempting purchase now. And I am so over Cars and definitely prefer Wall-E.