Category Archives: Friends & Family

6 months

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It’s strange how you get caught up in your daily life, vaguely remembering the day of the week, because you’re counting down to the weekend, but not stopping to think much about the date on the calendar. And then suddenly a particular date catches your eye, and it knocks the wind out of you.

Today is October 7th. It’s been exactly six months since Madeline Spohr passed away.

Six months since the worst day of Heather and Mike’s life.

Six months since I turned my blog purple in her honor.

Six months since this community of bloggers organized teams across the country to March for Babies and raise money in Maddie’s memory.

Six months. Half a year.

Madeline Spohr

Maddie, we miss you, and we love you.

To Heather and Mike, sending so much love to you and your family (and especially Binky), today and always.

Type-A Mom Conference Recap

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We got home from the Type-A Mom Conference yesterday afternoon. This was only my second blogging conference; BlogHer was my first. It feels odd, to go to two in one year, when I’ve been blogging since 2003. I’m not sure how it worked out like that, but there you go.

I think that overall, the Type-A Mom Conference was a lot more enjoyable for me than BlogHer. At BlogHer, it was like Overstimulation Central. The schedule is packed, there are tons of people there, the marketers and their swag are all over the place, everything is rush-rush-rush, and while I certainly got to meet a lot of the bloggers I adore, I didn’t really get a chance to spend a lot of time with any of them. And that’s not really a criticism of BlogHer, honestly, I think it’s just the nature of the beast. By the time it was over, I was so glad to be home again.

By comparison, Type-A Mom was totally different. For one, just the fact that you’re at a resort in a smallish mountain town instead of being in a hotel smack in the middle of downtown Chicago gives it a different vibe. And the fact that it’s a smaller conference means that instead of rushing around trying to meet everyone, I had the chance to actually spend time with people; to have a real conversation and form an actual connection with them, not just a “hi! OMG you’re here! So great to meet you! Ok bye!” Which is sort of what BlogHer felt like to me.

Also, for me personally, Type-A Mom was different because Dave and Catie came along with me. In some ways that was harder (no “I’ll take a nap whenever I damn well please” policy like I had at BlogHer), but it was also great because then I didn’t have that urge to rush home to them – they were already there. Saturday morning, I totally skipped out on the morning sessions, which ok yes, maybe I would’ve learned something if I’d gone. But I spent the morning lying in bed with my family watching cartoons, and I can honestly say that there was nowhere else I wanted to be at that moment.

Oh, for the record? Catie freaking loved Kid Con, which I wasn’t expecting at all. She cried the first time Dave dropped her off there, and we tried to stagger her time there to keep her from getting too overwhelmed. But seriously, after that first time? Every time we took her back to “daycare school” (her term), she’d run into the room with an “Ok, Mommy, bye! You go now!” She was glad to see us when we’d come back for her, of course, but she clearly had a fantastic time there. That was an amazing program that they set up for the kids, all blogging conferences should follow that example.

So, yes. It was great. At BlogHer, I was so exhausted and couldn’t wait to get home by the end of the weekend. With Type-A Mom, I just felt sad and melancholy the whole drive home because I had so much fun, and I wish that all of those fabulous women lived in my neighborhood so I could see them all the time. Sigh.

@kaisermommy, @mrsflinger, me & @al_pal

VDog & me

me & Heather

@debontherocks & @anissamayhew

me & Angie (@alotofnothing)

Oh, and Catie’s take on the conference?
During:
oh hai, Daddy dressed me & he forgot to brush my hair!

After:
this is pretty much how I felt after it was all over, too.

I know how she feels.

still unpacking. no, really.

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I don’t have much to say, since I’ve been in Crazy Unpacking Mode for the past several days. A brief progress report:

* We’ve been doing all of the shopping that you have to do when you move into a new place: we bought a new washer & dryer (because this house came with none, and I’m not hauling our stuff to a laundromat), a new box spring for our bed (since the one that Beaumont spent the night inside on the moving truck reeked of cat pee), a couple of ceiling fans for Catie’s room and a spare bedroom, a new shower head (which feels like getting a scalp massage by angels, no lie), plus some towel hooks and other random stuff.
* We celebrated Dave’s 38th birthday on Saturday. When we asked Catie how old Daddy is, she said, “Forty.” Ouch. Dave is convinced that I taught her to say that, but I honestly didn’t.
* We went to see They Might Be Giants on Saturday afternoon. We met up with Cat & Tony for that, and Catie and Elizabeth had a great time running around dancing. I took some pictures that I need to get uploaded.
* While Dave enjoyed his birthday weekend by lounging around watching the first couple of seasons of “Prison Break” on DVD, I single-handedly emptied the garage of all of the boxes our movers dumped there, and moved them upstairs to the attic. My arms & legs are killing me, but I can now park my car in the garage, and there’s almost enough room to get Dave’s car in there too. We have never, in the history of our relationship, had a garage that was clean enough to actually park a car inside of it, nevermind two cars, so this is huge.

I’m going to try to get some pictures of the house posted soon, as soon as I have it remotely presentable. In the meantime, here are a few of my favorites from our trip to my parents’ house last week.

pulling a Flashdance move with her shirt
Pulling a Flashdance move with her Tinkerbell t-shirt.

tunnels are fun!
Catie recreated the moment of her birth.
(Seriously, that’s the caption I wanted to put on Flickr, because the pink tunnel made me think of it, and the look on her face just cracked me up. But I knew my parents would be offended, so I’m keeping it here.)

flying unicorn!
Catie became a flying unicorn, with a little help from her Pop-Pop.

playing with the hose on my parents' patio
We played with the hose.

Mimi & Catie
And Mimi taught Catie all about gardening.

memories, like the corner of the storage room

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For ages, my parents have nagged me about the fact that I have a lot of stuff still at their house. They’ve been griping about it for years, but it’s primarily been an issue since they moved into their current house in 2004. It’s smaller than the house I grew up in, which means less storage space. So the fact that I demanded that they keep all of my Barbie dolls, Baby-Sitter’s Club books, and about a bajillion other things from my childhood? Yeah, it’s been kind of a hassle for them. And I get it. But for the longest time, I was living in an apartment, so I had no space for my stuff either. And even after Dave & I got married, what were they going to do, haul all of my crap out to Seattle for me?

Well, now that we have a house in North Carolina (which, OMG y’all, we have a freaking house!!), they’re saying that they’re going to load up a U-Haul and drive this stuff up to me. I’m also getting my Grandmother’s piano (which is so beautiful, and was made in 1910) and a very nice dresser for my guest room, so this is a pretty sweet deal for me.

The only catch? I needed to rummage through all of the boxes of crap so they’d know what to bring to me. Which meant spending a couple of hours in the extremely hot & muggy storage room off the side of their garage, sorting through boxes and labelling what I wanted to keep.

Here’s how that played out.

Toss:
* The box of toys that had molded. Yuck. I don’t need any of it that bad. It was particularly sad because it meant throwing out my Princess Leia Barbie doll as well as my John-Travolta-as-Vinnie-Barbarino doll, but seriously, it was not salvageable. Throw away, move along.
* The Barbie dolls that spent the last 20 years in the attic; their faces melted and their hair got all sticky and gooey. Eww. No need. (I am, however, keeping the Barbie clothes, because OMG there is some awesome 80’s style up in there.)
* My notes from my journalism classes in college. I kept the final papers, but notes I took in class? And random pop quizzes? No. Gone.
* My cassette tapes. There might’ve been a couple of gems in there, but I don’t think I even have a tape player anymore. And do I really need all of those hair metal tapes? Um, no. I can’t remember a single song by either Lillian Axe or Lynch Mob, yet I had both of their albums. Why? I honestly don’t know.

Keep:
* A few treasured stuffed animals that I’d like my kids to have.
* My books. Including school yearbooks. (I also came across an awesome photo album from when I was a kid, so if any of y’all knew me then and happen to be my friend on Facebook? You should be very, very afraid right now.)
* A box of letters and cards from various people over the years.
* All of the old school Fisher-Price little people, including all of their accessories (and dude, did we ever have accessories: the house, boat, schoolhouse, bus, etc. etc.). Catie promptly lost her damn mind over them and has been playing with them all day.
* My grandmother’s old jewelry and perfumes, which made me cry to sort through, because there are just so many memories attached to that stuff (she died in 1996). I honestly don’t want most of it, but it’s such an intense association of her to those things, I can’t stand the idea of tossing or selling any of it. So I’m hanging onto it. At least for now.

Of course, now I’m going to have to try to explain to Dave exactly why my parents are showing up with a U-Haul full of junk at our pretty new house when they come to visit for Thanksgiving. I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to spin that, but hopefully he won’t be too mad.

catching up

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I finally got the wireless set up at my parents’ house, so I can actually blog now that I can use my laptop. (My parents’ computer is not conducive for writing.) I don’t know where to start on the recap of this week, but here goes. Brace yourselves, this might get long:

1.) The flight to Mississippi was amazingly easy. Catie was an absolute angel, she had a minor meltdown on one of the three (THREE!) planes we had to take to get here, but overall, she was fun and delightful and just a complete breeze. I can only hope our return flight is as easy.

2.) The only bad part of the flight was that the airline lost our suitcases, so we panicked and ran to Wal-Mart to buy emergency supplies – pajamas for Catie, underwear and deodorant for me, etc. But the suitcases were found and delivered to my parents’ house by around 10 p.m. that night, so I returned most of the stuff that we bought.

3.) The funeral for my dad’s cousin was yesterday. It was great to see all of my cousins who I haven’t seen since my grandmother died in 1996. It’s odd because we’ve all reconnected through Facebook, so we keep up with each other and see pictures of each other’s kids, and it felt like getting to see old friends, which was fantastic. At the same time, it sucks that it takes something like a death in the family in order to bring us all together.

After the funeral, we all went to my cousin Suzette’s house for food and conversation – because, you know, that’s how we roll in the Deep South. They don’t call it comfort food for nothing, right? And all of my cousins’ babies were there, so Catie got to play with a bunch of other kids, and she had an absolute BLAST. In fact, she had so much fun that she completely wore herself out and she slept the two-hour drive back to my parents’ house. Nice.

4.) One thing that came up in the last few days that I haven’t mentioned, is that there was a remote possibility that our money issues were going to get straightened out, and that we’d be able to close on our house on schedule. So, before I left for Mississippi, I ran to the escrow attorney’s office to sign a document giving Dave power of attorney for me**, so he could close on the house without me, just in case the money came through on time. Turns out, the money DID come through on time, and Dave closed on the house today. The movers are unloading our belongings at our new house as I type this.

So, when Catie & I get home, we will be going straight from the airport to our brand-new house. My mind = BLOWN. It feels so weird that I’m not there for the move, but since Dave is calm about moving and I tend to freak out, it’s probably better to have me gone and let him handle it on his own. I’m sure he’s happier that I’m not there nagging at him about every tiny detail, but still, he is racking up the Good Husband points like you have no idea.

5.) One bit of bad news: when the movers came to pack up our stuff yesterday, they had both the front and garage doors open, and somehow Beaumont got outside. Dave has searched everywhere and hasn’t been able to find him. Our neighbors are all on the lookout, and I’ve posted a “lost cat” ad on craigslist, but I’m sick with worry. He hasn’t been an outdoor cat for a long time, and even when he was, we lived in the sticks. The street behind our house is very busy (with a 45 mph speed limit), and I’m freaked out that he could’ve gotten hit by a car. Or that he’s hiding in the woods, terrified. I hope he turns up. He’s a pain in the ass, but he’s ours and we love him. Please come home, Mr. B.

** For the record, the power of attorney document only applies to this one real estate transaction. It does not give Dave the right to have me committed to a loony bin. I sure hope he realizes that.

EDITED TO ADD: Beaumont has been found. Apparently he was hiding from the movers inside our box spring (there’s a tear in the fabric on the bottom, he hides in there a lot), and so he got loaded onto the moving van & spent the night there. He’s completely freaked out, but ok. I’m saying a prayer of thanks that we closed today and didn’t have our stuff sitting on the moving van for a week!

Mississippi-bound

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Ever do something that seemed like a good idea at the time, and the next morning you sort of can’t believe it? Surely I’m not the only one.

Last night, my parents offered me some frequent flyer miles if Catie & I wanted to fly to Mississippi. My cousin hasn’t passed away yet, but since she now has pneumonia and isn’t conscious, we’re thinking it’ll be sometime in the next day or so. But more than that, I was thinking that since we’re going to be moving out of this house and then going into a holding pattern for at least a week, it might be less stressful for Catie if I could take advantage of the Mimi & Pop-Pop Distraction Factor.

So, we’re flying to Mississippi on Wednesday, and we’re coming back next Tuesday (the 15th). I fully expect that we’ll be attending a funeral sometime in there, but regardless, it’ll be good to keep Catie from getting all frazzled about the move.

Of course, now that I’ve booked the trip, it’s starting to sink in that I’m going to be leaving town two days before we move, and I’m making a mental list of all the things that still need to be done, and how I’m essentially dumping the entire move on Dave’s lap. So besides the moving worries, I have a nice Bad Wife guilt complex on top of it (even though Dave says he’s totally fine with us going, and in fact encouraged me to take the trip). My stomach is in knots. I haaaate this.

But hey, if you happen to live in the greater Jackson area and want to hang out later this week, drop me an email at poobou76 -at- yahoo -dot- com.