January 4, 2015
Started back at the beginning—Week 1, Day 1—of the 10K Runner program on Friday. I probably could have started at week 5, which I usually do after a running break, but after a couple hockey injuries and being sick the week of Christmas, I figured it couldn't hurt to ease my way back in slowly. I did Day 2 this morning and forgot to take my inhaler first, and I was wheezing by the end. Technically the chest cold...
August 23, 2013
Played so much bass during last night's adult program practice that by the last song my left hand and arm cramped and refused to grip the strings. In the grand scheme of things it wasn't *that* much continuous playing time—only a little over 2 hours—but that's more than I've ever done before. (Usually I practice for 30-60 minutes a night, my lessons are 45 minutes long, and at the last adult session I sang half the songs because I...
August 19, 2013
I had a to-do list with 12 items on it yesterday, and I kind of can't believe the can of whoop-ass I opened on that thing. I:...
December 7, 2011
A friend happened to favorite a Flickr photo of mine from 2007 today, which led me to re-read the caption on the photo, which led me to look at the other photos in my stream from around that time, which led me to the photos of our trip to Pittsburgh just after Christmas in 2007. Al asked, "what was the name of the pizza place we went to with Craig, do you remember?" I didn't, but I said that...
July 8, 2011
It's been so long since I've written in either of my blogs that I was afraid to even open them for fear they'd been hacked by spammers and were crawling with malware. Tonight I finally got the nerve to take a peek, and found no such thing. Instead, I got caught up in reading old hockey blog posts for a good 30 minutes before coming over here to see what was up....
March 14, 2010
Tonight Al asked me to order something online for him from Brookstone. I found the site relatively easy to navigate, and I even successfully found something extra we needed to get up to the $100 minimum for free shipping. Then this happened:...
January 5, 2010
Even though nothing spectacularly good happened (in fact, a few things went wrong on the deployment front at work), today felt like a good day. I walked home happy. I got two giant and soothing hugs from the Beaner. I ate a lovely arugula salad and drank a pineapple-banana-Korean pear smoothie for dinner. I finished off some work e-mails, placed a drugstore.com order, uploaded a few photos from the Princeton trip, and now I'm calling it a night. That's...
January 2, 2009
I'm going to be brave and declare that 2009 will be:...
December 29, 2008
Just a quick note to say that I've been thinking, reading, and even writing quite a bit lately; I just haven't been publishing anything (here, at least). I've been watching a LOT of The Wire (Al and I made it to season 4 last night), suffering through some sickness (the Beaner's, the nanny's, and my own), and giving a lot of thought to who I am, what I do, and what I want....
December 3, 2008
Just a quick update from foggy San Mateo, where I've been since Monday (when I abruptly stopped blogging due to the changing of the calendar). I'm really glad I came out just now—interesting things are happening at the office, with lots of planning meetings and blue-sky brainstorming and random conversations with colleagues, and I'm also getting a chance to catch up with friends before and after work. This is just what I needed after a couple months of feeling...
November 30, 2008
It's the Beaner's 4th birthday today, and it's a bit of a letdown for him after last weekend's party plus visits from his cousin, both sets of grandparents, another set of cousins, and his great-aunt in the past week. For me I think it's kind of a letdown too, in the sense that my body has apparently given up after all the company and planning and baking and whatnot. I'm tired and sweaty and cold and desperately trying to...
November 21, 2008
As regular readers will know, I work at home. I've been working at home since 2004—first as a contractor, and then, starting in 2006, full-time. One of the conditions under which I took this new job was that I'd continue to work from home. (I already had a job that I really liked and for which I could move back to California if I wanted, and I hadn't done so yet—so why would I move for a new job...
November 18, 2008
Last night I dreamed that I was directing a movie. The dream started en medias res (do all dreams start that way? probably, but in this one, I felt like I'd been dropped into the scene); I was standing on a patch of ground outside a house, and there was a film crew behind me. On the large covered porch of the house were several actors....
November 15, 2008
God, I've had a grumpy day. Started out well, as I recall, but somewhere along the line I got even more irritable than usual, and I couldn't keep my head. I spent much of the day stewing over a dream I had last night—oh, and stewing apples. I'm attempting to make apple butter, at Al's request....
November 12, 2008
Do you ever have those moments when you think, "god, I suck! I can't do anything well!"? Well, I had one on Monday. And the bucket of cold water I threw on myself to snap out of it was to think, "that's not true. I'm good at...." Here's the list I came up with:...
November 7, 2008
I have a bunch of things I want to talk about, but all of them would [a] take too long, and [b] expose too much. It might be painfully obvious, or it might be news to everyone who reads this, but I am a bit uneasy about my public persona. On the one hand, I enjoy sharing here as part catharsis, part family holiday letter, part YOU ARE NOT ALONE billboard. On the other hand, I'm not entirely comfortable...
November 2, 2008
At 2:40am on Saturday morning, Al and I were awoken by about six twentysomethings chatting loudly outside our hotel room. Despite two frustrated SHHHes from me and a "dudes! I'm serious! My kid is asleep in here," they didn't shut up until they'd all piled into the room across the hall and gone to sleep themselves....
October 27, 2008
40
Yesterday I turned 40 years old, and it was good. My actual birthday was the culmination of a lovely weekend away with my husband, spent doing the things I most wanted to do: eat, sleep, read, hike, leaf peep. I have no photos of the sleeping or the reading, but I've got a LOT of photos of leaves....
October 17, 2008
I plan to try a few more of these, because any one 30-minute period can't possibly represent my whole day, nor can it reveal how I manage to fit all kinds of activities in (as Heidi asked about in her comment on my last post). This 30-minute period does reveal, however, how short my attention span is. I've said often that if something takes more that 3 seconds, I'm very likely to switch to something else—which, depending on what...
October 14, 2008
I'm having problems lately with my secondary processor. That is, the mental processor that verifies that my math is correct when I calculate a tip or add two numbers, and that tells my fingers what to type when I have a thought, is misfiring. I looked at a $52 bill today and said to Al, "is $12 enough?" My primary processor calculated $12 as being more than 20% and therefore more than enough, but my secondary processor refused to...
October 8, 2008
Sorry to anyone checking this site for updates; my long silence is all part of my plan to lose the few readers I still have, because I'm of the mind that you can never have too few readers....
September 17, 2008
I haven't been sleeping well lately, mostly due to working a bit too hard and too long, mentally trying to get up to speed with my new job, not feeling well physically (hello, fall allergy season—otherwise known as respiratory distress season for me), never quite getting back in the right time zone after my last trip to the Bay Area (see: working long and hard), and trying to do some long-term planning for the family. Oh, and the recent...
July 11, 2008
One resolution down, more to go:...
July 9, 2008
I am SO off the (wagon|rails) with my eating. All the resolutions I make upon waking up each morning have been broken by 11am, which means those of you who'll be seeing me in San Francisco next week will be seeing someone who's at the high end of her "normal" weight range (as opposed to decidedly fat, thank god; that would be 10lbs. northward of where I am now). It's rather unlikely that I'll be at my goal weight...
June 10, 2008
I'm on Day 2 of 7 where I'm responsible for watching the Beaner from 8:30-11:15am, then working from 11:15 to 7:15 as well as for my usual hour or so after he goes to bed. In order to fit my trip to the gym in and get back and showered before Al has to leave for work, I have to get up at 6:30am....
May 30, 2008
I'm sure I've probably mentioned this before in passing, but in case I haven't: I'm going to a gym these days. I "won" a six-month membership at the Beaner's school auction ("won" being in quotes because what I won was the auction for the membership, not the membership itself—meaning that it still cost me a decent amount) a couple months ago, and upon returning from our Spring Break trip to Disney World, I started the clock on it....
May 28, 2008
I finally got the roll of film that was in the Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim back, and thus I was able to finish off my My Every Day set on Flickr last night. I then stayed up past midnight clicking through each and every photograph in the set, reading the copious notes under some of them, wondering at the choices I made to represent certain days when there were 20 or 30 or 100 photos to choose from,...
May 22, 2008
May 18, 2008
May 3, 2008
I started the day sleep-deprived (on account of staying up late to see the west-coast Sharks beat the Dallas Stars in overtime—woot!) and a bit depressed, and there was a moment where I almost burst into tears for no particular reason except that I was sad and not liking the feeling. BUT! things improved as the day went on, mostly due to three important factors: (1) Al recognized the malaise and most generously offered to stop the car along...
April 30, 2008
I have so many things to say, but for one reason or another—discretion, a desire for privacy, laziness, technological hurdles, lack of time, guilt that I should be doing work/playing with my kid/tending my garden instead of blogging—I'm not saying them here. I've been Twittering some of my observations because sometimes it's easier to blurt out a thought in 140 characters or fewer than it is to expound on it (with photographs!) here, but other observations are just stuck...
March 22, 2008
Yesterday I went to a meeting in New York, a "face-to-face" meeting/discussion/series of presentations with some folks I either don't know at all or have only interacted with via telephone. It occurred to me, when I noticed that one of the other people at the meeting was staring at me, that maybe it wasn't quite proper to be snacking on nuts while taking notes? Later, I wondered if he was staring not so much because of the nuts, but...
February 10, 2008
As I mentioned in the last post, I spent last week at my company's technology summit in San Jose, CA. Aside from brief internet access on Monday morning and Friday evening (the latter's when I pushed the last post, written Wednesday, live), I lived on my iPhone. I'm thrilled that that was even possible, but not having anywhere to download all the photos from my camera and having very little time to get my blog thoughts together means that...
January 23, 2008
Short-answer questions from Unit 2 of my online C++ course, and my short answers:...
January 15, 2008
Hey, want to see me making a total fool out of myself? I knew you would! Al, the Beaner, and I played several games of Dora on Sunday morning, with the Beaner assigning us various roles ("ok, this time I will be Swiper and Daddy will be Dora and Mommy will be Boots") and the three of us acting out Beaner-defined adventures. Here's me in the role of Dora, after Swiper (the Beaner) stole my toy Lexus that Boots...
January 9, 2008
If someone suggests that you take an online course, especially one in some type of programming language, please remember to stick to your guns and say NO firmly and unequivocally. Whatever happens, DO NOT CAVE. Your happiness and well-being depends on this....
January 7, 2008
I, like many others, tend to complain when I'm sick but forget to celebrate when I'm healthy. You notice the headache, but not when the headache goes away, as it were. The same is true for my bouts of depression; when I'm low, I know it, and it weighs on me, often dragging me down further. When I'm not, I don't really notice, and I certainly forget to mention it. You can probably guess just from the tenor of...
December 18, 2007
For any of you who were curious, the doctor just called: It was indeed strep throat. Luckily the antibiotics did the trick, and I'm fine now. Just a little lingering goo from the cold/sinus infection that preceded the strep, but that's manageable....
December 14, 2007
I've been really sick for the past few days with what I at first took for strep throat, but which I now think was probably a major sinus infection. The latter makes more sense, as the Beaner had all the same symptoms *except* for the sore throat, and the icky green goo was coming out of his nose instead of going down the back of his throat, as it was in my case....
November 15, 2007
I realized this morning that all the (non-work) projects on my list involve re-designing/re-configuring. Apparently I am in need of change. I want to rearrange my office, get a new chair, and get an L for my current desk so I have actual space for all my computers. Currently my MacBook is up on a pantry rack, both to keep it cool and so that I have space for two mice underneath; my personal laptop is on the too-high-for-a-seated-person...
November 7, 2007
I'm starting to find my footing again at work, but at the same time I find myself wishing I could have more time off. Running the household, I found in 2003-2004, is a full- time (or nearly full-time) gig. Why I think I can do it competently while also taking on more responsibility at work, I'll probably never understand, but that's my expectation....
November 2, 2007
So I've been packing on the poundage lately, most likely because (a) I've been depressed, (b) I've been sedentary (well, I *did* start walking daily in August and playing hockey in September, but before that my injured ankle made me less active than usual), and (c) I can't seem to get the pregnancy and nursing nutrition guidelines, wherein fat = good, out of my brain. I haven't been nursing the Beaner since December, 2005, and yet I'm still eating...
October 29, 2007
For those of you wondering what happened at Target on Friday—did we get party hats? did we get presents?—an update. It was not necessary to buy presents at Target because when I came down to the kitchen at the (early) end of my workday, I found a bag from the AT&T store sitting on the counter. I tracked Al down and said, "did you buy me an iPhone?" He smiled and nodded....
October 26, 2007
Last night when I put the Beaner to bed I told him that tomorrow would be my birthday, so when I came in to wake him up in the morning, I'd say, "good morning, sunshine!", and he could reply, "happy birthday, Mommy!"...
October 22, 2007
I'm back from San Francisco and eager to see if the trip helps me get through this week. I suspect it will, if for no other reason than I have some small, specific tasks to work on which will be relatively easy to complete. Many small successes are exactly what I need right now....
October 17, 2007
Yeah. Title says it all, really. I didn't explain in my last post that one of the things that cheered me up on Friday was the decision very late Thursday night, after the disastrous work day, to fly out to the SF office for a week. I used frequent flier miles, I was so desperate to get out here and see my colleagues. So far it's helping; I'll have a better idea of where I'm at when I return...
October 12, 2007
The purple is in....
October 10, 2007
This photo is very compelling to me right now. I need to print it out and hang it on my wall....
October 8, 2007
I was saying to a friend today that it feels like for every step forward I take, I take another (bigger?) one backwards. Maybe because I get excited about being happy for a bit, and think it's going to last... and when it doesn't, I'm disappointed in addition to sad. I'm hoping that eventually the steps forward will be bigger than the ones backward. I'm clinging to that....
October 4, 2007
Just a quick post to say that I'm still alive, if not exactly thriving. I actually feel like I'm coming apart at the seams a bit—the demands of work, speaking, motherhood, housework, travel, and my spouse's work have combined to suck me very nearly dry....
September 21, 2007
I've got the blurry vision that precedes a migraine right now, which means that half the screen is obscured. Please forgive any typos; I'm trusting my touch-typing skills, which seem to be getting worse the longer I work on computers....
July 19, 2007
A couple hours ago, I was frantic, on edge, in tears. Over code, and over all the things that were due tomorrow (and partly due to falling hard off the low-sugar wagon). It's amazing what letting go (and a little real food) can do for you. The to-do list is still there, some of the code mysteries remain unsolved, I'm still not fully packed for our trip tomorrow, and the Red Sox are losing....
July 12, 2007
I don't think I even had time to mention that we were back from Denver (and that I sort of solved my strapless dress + sunburn problem) before I took off again for Seattle. I arrived home again tonight hot, nauseous, and not wanting to go on another trip again for awhile. (Hopefully the two roadtrips we have planned for later this month won't be as tiring as all the timezone-crossing plane travel I've been doing lately. Also, only...
July 7, 2007
I swear, I put on two coats of Coppertone Sport SPF 50 before going outside. But two hours of this:...
June 5, 2007
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SIT CROSS-LEGGED WHILE FIXING BUGS LATE AT NIGHT....
May 8, 2007
So a few weeks ago, when I was in San Francisco (i.e., away from my normal personal laptop with its handy mail filters), I got an e-mail from someone wanting to know if I wanted to help NPR. I deleted the message as spam without reading it. A week later, I got another e-mail with the same subject (prepended this time with Re:)... and from the same sender. This time I decided to check out the headers and maybe...
May 7, 2007
So as the caption on this photo explains, the ankle was painful enough on Saturday morning that I returned to crutches for the weekend. I think this was a good choice in any case, because we went down to visit my in-laws, and it's hard to imagine getting around their giant house—not to mention the stores, driveways, sidewalks, restaurants, and parking lots I had to navigate—with a bandaged-and-besocked foot sans crutches....
May 4, 2007
Dudes, I am walking around without crutches today!...
May 3, 2007
Every time I have a string of migraines, I resolve to write them down on the calendar to see if I can discern a pattern... and then I don't have one for awhile, and the resolve goes out the window. Sadly, I find myself resolving again today, as this is the third migraine I've had in the past couple months. This one, unlike the other two, is centered in my head, and is more typical of the kind I...
May 2, 2007
I was a little worried that (a) my ankle wouldn't be healed in time for the Vancouver tournament, and (b) that all this sitting around would leave me out of shape even if it did heal in time. (a) is still a possibility, but I don't think (b) is. GOOD LORD, getting around on crutches and up and down our stairs is strenuous! I feel like I ate a ton of food yesterday (again, while worried about (b)), but...
May 1, 2007
Things I wish I'd done before spraining my ankle last night at open hockey:...
April 23, 2007
OK, obviously I'm behind on blogging—after a week running around San Francisco meeting friends and former work colleagues for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and meeting current work colleagues for, well, meetings, I have a gazillion photos to upload and a few stories to tell. I also have the day off, but I chose to get a massage this morning to help mitigate the after-effects of Friday's migraine, vacuum the remodeling dust off every surface in the house, get caught...
April 11, 2007
Can I just say how much I HATE the fact that Al is considered the Taxpayer, and I am considered the Taxpayer's Spouse, when it is I who prepare our taxes every year? I am constantly misreading instructions in TurboTax and every other tax-related form I receive (hello, I'm talking to YOU, City of Philadelphia School Income Tax Form) because I mistake the you in "Do you or your spouse..." for me. "Your income" is not MY income, but...
Many people can claim to be accident prone. I am FREAK accident-prone. I am sometimes reluctant to describe how I got the various bruises, scratches, and other visible injuries to my body because they either sound so stupid as to be embarrassing, or because no one would believe me if I told them. It's not so much the actual injury-causing thing, most times, that's the unbelievable part. It's the HOW of the story that's nutty....
March 29, 2007
Last week I called Toppers Spa here in Philadelphia (the one on 19th Street) to make an appointment with my favorite massage therapist, Regina, whom I visit monthly. I've learned that it's impossible to schedule my next month's appointment directly after my massage because Regina's not in the system. (My theory is that they save her for last-minute appointments, based on my experience of being able to get one with her with less than 24 hours' notice.)...
March 19, 2007
I've been reading the surprisingly absorbing Cryptonomicon, and the other night I came across this paragraph, which hit me like a sledgehammer:...
February 28, 2007
I actually have a lump in my throat right now and feel ready to cry... over mouse software. It's bad enough that MouseWorks, the software that drives my beloved Kensington Expert Mouse, conflicts with the Acrobat Connect Add-In (which I need for work). Now Logitech's MouseWare is conflicting with an application that I also need to use for work. In this case it's not causing the application to crash, as MouseWorks caused the Add-In to do, but it's severely...
February 5, 2007
Julie commented almost instantaneously on my last post, asking that evidence of my long, thick hair be presented. I actually went searching through my mom's old photo albums when I was at her house last weekend looking for evidence of bershon, but I discovered that mom had thrown most of them out. Sadly, she assumed nobody would want to see me with a sour teenage bershon face, so she didn't even check to see if I wanted them....
February 1, 2007
Have I mentioned that I'm in the process of replacing my entire stock of tops (shirts, sweaters, etc.) with offerings from Gap Tall? I'm doing this because now that I have three shirts whose sleeves reach my wrists, I WANT MORE. Suddenly all the shirts and sweaters that have always been a little short in the torso and the arms look even more ridiculous than they did before, because now I know that there's an alternative....
January 9, 2007
I spent TWO HOURS today trying to write a short bio for myself. I'm still not finished. Why, oh why can I not adequately describe my current position, experience, and expertise in three or four brief sentences?...
December 14, 2006
Since I regularly mix a bit of foundation with my moisturizer, smear it on my face, and call it makeup, I was intrigued when I saw Neutrogena Healthy Skin Enhancer Tinted Moisturizer on drugstore.com. I was shopping during the 20%-off-your-entire-order sale, so I bought one. Unfortunately, "Light to Neutral" turned out to be about 40 shades darker than my actual skin tone, and I didn't realize that drugstore.com guaranteed the color of makeup, so I threw out the packing...
November 26, 2006
I should be clear up front that I am *not* soliciting gifts with this list; rather, I'm just trying to have one spot where my family can go to find out what kinds of things are on my wish list (year-round, not just at Christmas time). The dilemma I've always had at birthdays and Christmas is that pretty much anything I wanted that was under $200 I'd already bought for myself, and anything over $200 was too expensive to...
November 4, 2006
As I suspected would happen, I'm actually finding it harder to blog on the weekend, when I theoretically have no other obligations, than I do during the work week, when I'm supposed to be, well, working. I can think of plenty of things to write about on the weekends, but finding the time to actually write about them is difficult because I'm on parent duty, and I don't want to be too selfish with my personal time. I already...
October 26, 2006
I'm still at MAX, dashing around trying to get to sessions and worrying about whether I'll be able to get my suitcase out of check in time to catch a cab to the airport in time for a 4pm flight, so I keep forgetting it's my birthday. I'm 38 today! Happy birthday also to my former colleague Victor Grigorieff, and to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton....
October 3, 2006
The Good News: My MOO cards came yesterday, and they're SPECTACULAR. For some reason my Flickr buddy icon didn't print as requested, but most of the photos came out great. (See below for the details.) The cards are made of that wonderful plastic-coated pearl-finish paper that's used for trade paperback book covers these days (though these feel even thicker than a book cover), and they're positively divine to rub between your fingers. I can't wait to stick a few...
September 19, 2006
Whatever could have possessed me to brag to my allergist that I hadn't used my rescue inhaler more than twice since I'd last seen him (3 months before), and that I'd stopped taking the Advair entirely—especially on the eve of the fall allergy season? Not two days after that visit, I started having trouble breathing, even though I followed his suggestion to start up the Advair again. Al thought it might be *because* of the Advair, which seemed a...
August 23, 2006
Al took this photo of my sister and me with his cameraphone a couple weekends ago. Even though it's not the most flattering snap of either of us, I love it. Maybe it's the way we're interacting, or the fact that we're looking at the photos she took earlier that day, or that you can kinda see the resemblence between us. Whatever it is, I'm so glad he captured it....
August 22, 2006
Suddenly it's clear to me why grocery-store checkers say, "thank you, sir" when handing me my receipt. I can't blame ratphooey for my haircut or my bone structure, but I *can* blame her for linking to this:...
August 14, 2006
I was already pretty sure that I didn't want to drive down to North Carolina in what is already turning out to be an overscheduled October for my 20th high school reunion, but the invitation addressed to Lori Cho that arrived today cemented it for me. It just confirms that my classmates don't have any idea who I am....
August 10, 2006
Because you asked so nicely....
August 9, 2006
Just made my weekly visit to foggyknit's site and realized I'd been tagged for this:...
August 5, 2006
As a kid, I was NOT a fan of Star Trek. I WAS a fan of Star Wars, and it used to bug me royally when people would confuse the two or mistake me for a Trekkie. After I married Al, however, Star Trek started to grow on me a little. It's still probably not a show I'd ever watch on my own, but I enjoy watching it with Al, who explains all the relationships between the characters and...
August 3, 2006
First, let me say: You know it's going to be a scorcher when you're forced to seek the shady side of the street at 7:30am. Phew! Second: This isn't a humorous post, and it'll probably be totally boring to everybody but me, but I wanted to write about this subject, SO I AM. Feel free to move along....
July 26, 2006
I almost got all freaked out over possibly being the worst-dressed person at BlogHer (you mean my purple Adidas sneakers are too schleppy? a fitted t-shirt from REI is too casual?), but you know what? I'm not going to suddenly get a fabulous wardrobe in the next 5 hours, and I refuse to pack 5 pairs of shoes and every Prada shirt that Al's brother ever handed down to me just in case. (I'm already packing my walking sneakers...
I will not be real-time blogging today, a la amalah, because, although real-time blogging is often hi-fucking-larious, it will in no way calm me down, help me pack, or prepare me for BlogHer. Trust me: Real-time blogging only adds to the stress....
July 25, 2006
None of the hair products I currently own work quite right with my new haircut, so I decided to try d:fi, a product that a good friend's (ex-)girlfriend and Mrs. Kennedy happened to recommended in the same week back in March. I'm allergic to the vast majority of hair products, but tales of a piña colada scent sounded appealing (one of the few products I can tolerate smells like pineapple Life Savers, and in my mind piña colada =...
July 21, 2006
So I'm sitting here at my desk on the top floor of our house, quietly fixing bugs, when a bug of the actual insect variety suddenly FLIES RIGHT AT ME, out of nowhere. I shrieked, of course, especially when I realized it was a WASP. I finally got him with a rolled-up stack of source code printouts, but not before several misses that really seemed to piss him off. I'm still kind of freaked out. Where the hell did...
July 18, 2006
HOT
Exhibit A: Scorching sunbeams...
July 13, 2006
For anyone who's been following along with my tales of BlogHer anxiety, I have an update: I think talking about them here has really helped (hey, maybe that's why therapy works? hmmmm). That, and looking at photos of last year's BlogHer on Flickr. Doesn't look so intimidating....
July 12, 2006
Eson asked in a comment on the shoes post, "what is this BlogHer that you and others talk so much about, and why not want to go?", and I was in the middle of replying to the comment when I decided that really, this demanded an entire post....
[Yes, I'm drinking decaf again, though I'm back to the 3 or 4 parts milk:1 part coffee ratio I thought I'd evolved from when I went to short decaf lattes*.] I love my cozy little nook of an office in what I call the gallery, a 100" x 75" (yes, ", not ') space with a window at the top of the stairs, but goddamn is it hot up here. There's an air conditioning vent just to the right...
July 10, 2006
As I was getting dressed for my walk this morning, it occurred to me that BlogHer is only three weekends away... and I totally panicked. My first thought was, "I DON'T WANT TO GO," and then the following internal conversation ensued:...
June 27, 2006
I mentioned in the post about the migraine that usually caffeine causes headaches (though not usually migraines) for me. It's why I'm a dedicated decaf drinker, though I do worry that lately I've been getting more caffeine than usual given my now daily Starbucks runs. (Even decaf coffee has a little caffeine in it.)...
June 21, 2006
The vision in my left eye is so kaleidescopic right now that it's difficult to see to type this, so don't be surprised if there are many typos. I'm going mostly by feel and what I can see out of my right eye. I'm having a crazy migraine—one that so far has produced not one but two bouts of blurry vision....
June 14, 2006
Old
I don't feel old. I'm 37 and a half, but I feel like I'm still in my late twenties, and I'm told I don't look older than 30. Every now and then, however, just how long I've actually been alive and doing things hits me. Like this morning, when I was searching for a t-shirt to wear on my morning walk, and I hit on my bright pink Rugby Ball shirt... from 1989....
May 27, 2006
Before heading out to Deep Cove (the suggestion of the guy at the front desk) this morning, I took some more photos of the bruise on my butt. I think this one shows the damage pretty well, as well as the migration of the bruise into the previously-swollen area just above my tailbone. I think you can also see the knob pretty clearly, even though this photo was taken head-on (or butt-on, as the case may be...)....
May 24, 2006
It's difficult to show the injury to my butt without mooning the entire Internet (and even harder to photograph your own butt), but I think I've got something that's cropped enough to show some of the damage without violating any obscenity laws. Because of the cropping, it's hard to tell the relative size and position of the injury, so I'll do my best to describe it. The bruising you see is in a sling-like shape under the knob. In...
The knob on my butt: is getting bigger, not smaller. has turned black at the bottom. is very tender. still looks like I'm trying to grow a third ass cheek....
I fell down the stairs AGAIN this morning. I was tiptoeing out of our bedroom so as not to wake Austen (who'd come down at six and then fallen asleep again), with my sneakers and socks in one hand and some cash and my Starbucks card in the other. I'd noticed on several occasions recently that when my feet are dry, the wood floors—and especially the wood stairs—become very slippery, so I should have been more careful here. Of...
May 23, 2006
There's been a lot of walking going on here at Casa Hylan-Cho. It started a couple weeks ago, when I finally figured out how to work some exercise into my day: go to bed earlier. (Duh! Although, as you've probably noticed, going to bed earlier means less blogging.) I now get up when Al and Austen do, put on my exercise clothes, and go out for a walk/jog/hop/whatever. Usually I end my route at a Starbucks, where I purchase...
May 12, 2006
I'm not sure why I have enough time to read through my old blogger archives, buy a new webcam, revive (and redesign) the webcam archives (formerly "the gallery of silly faces," now dubbed "a history of hair", though there are plenty of silly faces still in there), and otherwise procrastinate, but I don't have time to write about all the new words Austen has learned, the fact that my upper back is ABSOLUTELY KILLING ME, the list of things...
May 5, 2006
It's been a busy week here, both workwise and familywise; I can barely keep up with my personal e-mail, and I obviously haven't had time to write here. If I owe you an e-mail response, please sit tight (or send me a reminder). I'm going to use the time I would have otherwise spent on answering an e-mail or two to give an update here before I forget all the things I wanted to say. Be warned: this is...
April 27, 2006
I should preface this post by saying that I am more or less following a plan to get control of my mood swings, irritability, occasional bouts of depression, and generally erratic behavior, and that this plan involves eating a potato every night at bedtime. The potato is designed to boost my serotonin levels a bit—emphasis on a bit. Too much potato = too much serotonin = headaches and wild dreams. So this could all just be the potato talking....
March 28, 2006
We arrived safely home—but sick—from San Francisco on Sunday night. Austen caught a cold on his second day in SF, and he passed it on to me on Friday night. For some reason the version I got was more virlulent, and... well, you probably don't want to know the color or quantity of the goo I'm now hacking up with every coughing fit. Never have I been more glad that I work at home, where I can drag my...
March 12, 2006
I keep remembering new behaviors that Austen exhibited for the first time during his 15th month of life which I neglected to mention in my 15 month update (or anywhere else—I haven't been writing in my little bedside journal regularly lately, either). I figure I'd better record them somewhere before I forget, and here seems as good a place as any. The main three that have come to mind in the past 24 hours:...
March 3, 2006
I am feeling so overwhelmed by the backlog of blog posts waiting to be written that every time I get a chance to actually write one, I end up reading other blogs instead of writing in my own. So yes, I am WELL AWARE that I owe y'all (and myself) a Vacation Summary, Part 2 and an Austen @ 15 Months update, not to mention various and sundry other observations that have been piling up on little slips of...
February 3, 2006
OK, so here's where I admit that I occasionally do wish that I were one of the Cool Kids. Most of the time I'm like, "yeah, I know the cool kids, but I don't hang out with them. Because, you know, I've got my own stuff to do," but lately several of my favorite blogs have all been doing the Four Things Meme, and I confess I was feeling a little left out. Although no one's technically tagged me,...
January 31, 2006
Avid fans of Sesame Street will recognize the title of this post as the line that the Count sings to the Countess after the number 14, which makes it appropriate for a summary of Austen's 14th month of being. (It's also, incidentally, the title of a Cole Porter song.)...
January 23, 2006
From about 9pm to 1am last night, I was plagued with what I can only assume was food poisoning. I'm guessing—but cannot prove—that the culprit was a Brazilian Shrimp Burrito from Whole Foods; I got a bad one once before and almost swore off them completely back then. I *will* be swearing off them completely from now on. I was worried that I might never be able to eat another orange as well after last night's drama—an orange being...
January 21, 2006
As promised, here are the before and after photos from Austen and Lori's Haircut Adventure. The cut I got is very similar to the one I got in May, only with shorter bangs and the part on the opposite side. (I kinda wish she'd left the bangs a bit longer, but I think she did it this way to even them up—they were shorter on the right than the left.) Austen got his cut while sitting on my lap...
January 20, 2006
We are all sick here at Casa Hylan-Cho. Austen has been sick almost continuously since he caught the cold I had at Christmas, and I have been sick off and on with various chest and sinus afflictions since before that. At the moment, Al's the sickest of us all; he's been home from work for a couple days now. I've been washing my hands like a maniac, but as I've said to Al, that doesn't help so much when...
January 17, 2006
A bit of memery copied from ratphooey. My favorites are #s 4, 6, and 9. They seem the most plausible, don't you think?...
January 14, 2006
I had a dream last night that the plan to hire me back full-time at my old company had been delayed, and that in the meantime I was going to contract for them. My boss' boss asked me what I proposed for an hourly rate. After doing some quick math in my head that involved my old salary*, I came up with $6.50 an hour....
January 6, 2006
This just came through the mail slot:...
November 13, 2005
Austen and I went to watch Al's hockey game at the University of Pennsylvania's Class of 1923 Ice Rink tonight. Toward the end of the game, Austen started melting down, so I put him in the stroller and walked him around outside for a bit. I'd just come back in and was standing by the glass near the entrance when I noticed a woman in the stands above me... holding a large bar of one of my favorite kinds...
October 26, 2005
Happy birthday to Hillary Rodham Clinton (58), Victor Grigorieff (35, I believe), and me (37). And anyone else who was born on October 26, too!...
October 23, 2005
I was so PROUD of myself last night for making exactly the meal I wanted from ingredients I already had in the house. I sliced a medium onion (with a knife), sauteed it until browned in a saucepan with a little butter and olive oil, and then added a can of vegetable broth, a dash of dry sherry, and a few grinds of pepper, and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. I then topped it with a toasted...
October 11, 2005
I was thinking that I hadn't spent the time during which the babysitter was here today very wisely—I mostly finished the post I started last night for this blog, vacuumed, worked on improving the layout and navigation over at the ice hockey escapades, started but didn't finish a note to Valerie, and moped about having a cold—but as it turns out, this was probably a pretty good use of my time. It's not even midnight yet, and since the...
September 29, 2005
Suddenly the somber mood of my previous post makes sense: I've got a migraine coming on....
July 29, 2005
Our babysitter (whom the Beaner and I really, really like) was on vacation. Our Mac Mini had a serious hard drive error that prevented it from starting up, that required a three-hour visit to the Apple store just to get most of the data backed up, and that required a complete reformat of the hard drive. Luckily, almost all of the photos I've taken over the past 8 months were salvaged, as was all the iTunes music. We'll be...
March 18, 2005
Last night, when I fell down the stairs for the second time in as many days, Al was there to pick me up off the floor. This time slippery socks were the culprit (it's why I usually wear shoes in the house, to my mother-in-law's horror). Basically, last night's fall was almost entirely different from the day before's; the only thing they had in common were that they were falls down stairs. A quick comparison:   Wednesday Fall Thursday...
November 10, 2004
Cleaning up the house and changing sheets on the guest bed in preparation for a brief visit from the baby's godmother (my friend Sandra). Buying a video camera (it's required when you have kids). Attending (with godmother in tow) the baby shower my sister threw for Al and me at her house in Maryland. (My sister really outdid herself, I must say. Fabulous gig.) Picking up essential items that we didn't receive as gifts at the shower (we specifically...
October 26, 2004
A few random items: dj blurb opened up comments on his endorsement post, and I loved reading all most of the different points of view. (Most—but not all—commenters support Kerry, but whom each person supports not as interesting as why.) Al and I start childbirth classes tonight. This week's pregnancy newsletter from ParentsPlace.com seemed to suggest that I'd be nervous about the birth by now, but for some reason I'm not. I am loving The Price of Loyalty: George...
October 6, 2004
Today Al and I celebrate our second wedding anniversary....
December 2, 2003
I got a direct mail piece (aka snail spam) today regarding my AAA membership. It was addressed to Lori M. M. H. Cho. I sound practically royal....
October 27, 2003
I turned 35 this weekend. I am now what people used to consider "middle aged," though I believe that mark has moved to 45 or 50. I am now at the point where a pregnancy would be considered "high risk". I am now 10 years older than my dad was when I was born. And I feel GREAT. I am relatively healthy, I am meeting my financial obligations, and I am a hell of lot wiser than I was...
October 1, 2003
My name is Lori Hylan-Cho. I answer to Lori Hylan, because that's who I've always been, and even to Mrs. Cho, if I'm checking into a hotel under a reservation my husband has made, but my legal name is Lori Hylan-Cho. It's the name that's listed on my driver's license, my passport, and my Social Security card. It's the name I invented for myself a few hours after my wedding, when I decided that I wanted to both remain...
March 31, 2003
There's a lot to look forward to in April: Daylight Savings Time, a new hockey season, the Easter Bunny's arrival, warmer weather, blooming flowers.... Unfortunately, to get to all those good things, we have to enter April via its first official day, otherwise known as April Fool's Day. Oh, how I loathe April Fool's Day. It's not so much that I don't have a sense of humor (I do, really!); it's that I don't find practical jokes particularly funny,...
March 24, 2003
I chose "bunny" for today's webcam caption, and my husband just asked me why. "Bunny hair," I replied. This doesn't make much sense to anyone I say it to, but whenever I dye my hair pale pink, I refer to it as "bunny pink" or just "bunny hair." The reason is that when I was 5 (or 3? or 1?), I got a pink stuffed rabbit for Easter. Ever since, I've associated that pale pink color with bunnies, even...
March 13, 2003
I was talking to my mom on the phone last night about how lately I seem to be suffering from Weekend Depression, and how I haven't been looking forward to Cleaning Night as I used to (in fact, I'm dreading it these days). I speculated that the two phenomena might have something in common, since they started at around the same time, and both seem to stem from resentment of the Mountain View house. I think that now that...