Picture this:

A boy, nearly 3 years old, wearing a nice thick sweater with a warm under-shirt, no pants, no underwear, no socks, no shoes, sporting thick padded headphones with a 6' cord trailing like a snake behind every inch's progression of a miniature blue electronic ATV upon which he rides. He first insists his name is Juanito, but then changes it quickly to Juan Juan.

It really makes you wonder what this child's been exposed to, doesn't it?

(headache update: still alive, still kicking.)
(soot update: nikolai's feet are still black following any romp on the carpet.)

ugh

So, I'm on day 2 of the second worst headache I've ever known. I've been mostly out of commission since yesterday mid-day. I pray this is gone by tomorrow. Perhaps I'll have something interesting to say then (although, I don't advise holding your breath).

Hello, my name is Rebecca and I'm a smoker

and I have been smoke free for 3 years, 6 months and 15 days.

thank you

My self esteem is soaring

On the way to school/daycare/work this morning we were all three in the car driving along Mt. Hermon Rd., on the way to Melissa's school. Nikolai was sort of going in and out of the sun as we turned slightly left and right. He really dislikes the sun, especially when it shines on him, and so he said to me "Mama, can you turn the car so the sun isn't shining on me?" I felt so sorry for him (I really don't like the sun much either), but there was nothing I could do. I told him "I'm sorry, sweetie, but I have to stay on this road, and turn wherever the road does." About 2 miles later, after driving in silence, I turned left onto Scotts Valley Drive into the shade, and up from the back seat pipes Nikolai, "Good Job, Mama!!"

I feel so good about myself.


on a side note, while I was composing this post I attempted to map mt hermon rd in scotts valley as a link up there so you who aren't in this area would know the geography of the story, and this is what yahoo maps gave me:
(click here)

:: cough cough ::

I can now add the title of Chimney Sweep to my list of self made titles. Last night, in an act of desperation, Matt and I decided that we needed to take matters into our own hands.

For quite some time (since we moved in) I've been trying to get someone -- anyone...? -- to come to our house and clean our chimney. Because it is winter and demand is high, everyone is so buried in work that it's been impossible to get someone out to sweep the chimney.
Yesterday, much to our dismay, the worsening situation with the woodstove cumulated into a smokey disaster in the house. The smoke would no longer go up the chimney, and so it filled the house. Matt spent the better part of the morning trying to flush smoke out of the house, but it was still sickeningly stinky well into the afternoon. We lit a fire in the fireplace, but it wasn't nearly enough heat to heat the house. The woodstove is really the primary source of heat for the house, and without it, we're in the high 40's and low 50's in the house (52 usually).
So! Matt was out and about and I asked him to stop by ace hardware and pick up an 8" chimney brush and enough lengths to get down our 18' chimney, as well as a shop vac and a ladder.
Unfortunately, our strategy could have used more forethought.
We climbed up on the roof, and assembled the brush and 4' extension rods. While I frantically attempted to assemble the bizarrely shaped and seemingly random shop-vac parts into something that would suck a lot, Matt discovered that the spark arrestor cap's screen was completely blocked with soot. He cleaned that out and then ran the brush up and down the chimney a few times. He asked if I could start to vaccuum the soot out, and having mostly assembled 75% of the shop-vac parts I agreed.
I decided ahead of time that having a sheet of something over the floor in front of the chimney would be a good idea, so I pulled out a painting drop-cloth that I've been moving from house to house for about 5 moves (wow, I'll bet that drop-cloth's value has increased quite a bit). I draped it over the hearth, and pulled the tube out of the bricks to discover it was packed SOLID with soot. I grabbed the shop-vac and got to work. I sucked and sucked and sucked. After a few m inutes, I'd removed about half of the soot packed in the bottom, and I had black hands. I don't think I've ever been this dirty. The vaccuum seemed to be losing suction, so I decided to empty it. When I opened it up, the filter was completely caked with very fine ash and soot, and so I grabbed a brush to try to clean it off as well as I could. It occurred to me that maybe the soot and ash was too fine for the filter, and that it might be more effective if I just removed the filter so the soot and debris could go straight into the shop-vac without having to go throught he filter. so, I reassembled the shop-vac, sans filter, and brought the vac in for round two. I turned on the vaccuum (oh man...I am such an idiot), and POOOOOF, the whole house was black. I couldn't see the front door through the thick cloud of crap. Maybe we do need the filter.

It took hours of cleanup to repair from my momentary stroke of genius. Needless to say, my boogars will be black for a week.

I'm spinning

So, we're being spun. I'm really really excited about it, and can't wait to see what the future brings. I can't say anything about it, really, except that the IDEs in the company are spinning out for an acquisition by a third party. Woo hoo!

On the home front, things are going pretty well. We're finishing up our second week of full time responsibility from me. For those of you who don't know, Melissa has been with her father on the weekdays for the first part of this school year. She made a decision to be with me full time a few weeks ago. Matthew also started another job (a great one, I might add), and is commuting to san jose every day. So, I've taken over responsibility for drop off and pick-up of Nikolai at Gail's. Mornings are a bit of insanity while we all get up and ready and out the door, and then evenings on the way home equally as insane as I pick everyone up and head home to make dinner and do homework and take baths and do laundry and clean and then fall into bed exhausted. It's a one woman show, now.

I'm caught in a tornado.

valentines day

sucks.

I did, however, get the CUTEST card from Nikolai with a picture of a puppy on it saying "RUFF". For those of you who haven't hung out at our house and don't know, Nikolai's alter ego is a puppy named Ruff. He often will drop down on "all fours" and crawl up to me, expecting my surprise at the arrival of Ruff. Sometimes Ruff flails around and waves his arms and legs and rolls over, and I'm expected to note excitedly that Ruff is an "exercise puppy". Ruff often disappears and reappears suddenly, which Nikolai finds quite amusing. Nikolai (or was it Ruff??) also got me the movie "The Secret of Nimh" (how thoughtful of him, I've always wanted that movie), and a pot of flowers. The flowers are the same as 3 other plants I have. It must be a very popular flower.

Bed bugs

So, on Sunday night Nikolai went to bed as usual, happy as can be. Around 1:00 or so AM he woke up screaming irrationally. I couldn't sooth him, and it took some for him to calm down on his own enough to be able to make contact with reality again. After he had calmed enough to actually annunciate, he started saying "BUGS! BUGS! THEY'RE COMING DOWN!" I responded with "What bugs, sweetheart?", to which he replied "THE BUGS ARE EVERYWHERE!!" I gave up on rational conversation and just attempted to calm him down as much as possible. By the time he had gotten relaxed enough that he might have a hope of falling back asleep, he was wiiiiiide awake. It took him 2 1/2 hours to fall back asleep. By the time he did I was so exhausted that I fell asleep before I hit the pillow.

The next morning I relayed this story to Kris, and he said "Hmm...maybe we shouldn't have played that bed bugs game..."

Here is Nikolai the next morning. I wish I looked this chipper on Monday morning.

How time flies

Wow...was it really a week ago that I posted that?! It seems like it was just a few days ago. I really need to get on the ball with this blog thing. I'm totally slacking. This is inexcusable.
Louise and Kris were here over the weekend, and were able to attend the housewarming. I literally could not have done it without them. Kris helped lug things around and make trips to the dump, while Louise was my damsel in shining armor cleaning and cooking and doing all the grunt work so I could enjoy my party. We had way too much fun shopping for curtains and other various decorations for the house, but it turned out very nice. I had a lot of fun, and was so excited and happy to show everyone my new home. Here's a great photo of some guests sitting around the table at the party.

And, I just can't go without showing a picture of Nephew Nikolai with his Uncle Kris

Is something in retrograde?

I realized this morning, while talking to Gail, that everything is falling apart at one level and coming together at a much more important and fundamental level. I've actually been able to buy a house, this is a miracle. Matt got a job that pays regularly and very well, this is another miracle. The house is in good enough shape, and we're very happy there. It suits our needs and has more space than I even imagined it did...this is a huge miracle. Melissa has decided to stay with me full time again, this makes me very very happy. Yet in the background...
Nikolai is covered in scrapes and bruises. He dropped something heavy on his toe and it split open. He ran into my bed frame while I was assembling it and got quite a gash on his heel. On the way to the vet yesterday morning, Tigger crawled over his lap and scraped up his leg. I got out the band aids last night when he got out of the bath, and realized how bad it was when the box was empty and I needed more. Giovanni bit his thumb, and broke the skin in 3 places. He's a mess.
Melissa fell yesterday and twisted her ankle and damaged her foot, I think one of the small bones in the foot might be broken. Later in the day she twisted the other ankle. I slammed her finger in a drawer, and then later the next day she smashed her finger with a basketball in P.E.
Darth Tigger cost me $700
Lumpy nearly died.

Something's in the stars. If you know if something's odd in the planets, please do tell.

In spite of it all, I'm HAPPY. I feel fulfilled. Having a house and stability for my family and myself was what I have been seeking all these years, and I'm so very happy. Broke, but happy.

Pet insurance never looked so good

When I first saw the brocures some years ago I snorted in disbelief at how ridiculous the concept was. Man, who were these suckers who would actually pay something called "Pet Insurance". $1100 later, I'm thinking it's lookin' pretty attractive. I took Tigger (the large rotund one) to the vet this morning, for the second time this month, to be seen again for his blocked nasal passages. The poor thing really can't breathe through his nose at all, but he's in denial about it, so he insists on attempting to take breaths through his nose (unsuccessfully) and begrudgingly and reluctantly sucks loudly through his mouth to get the necessary oxygen. It's painful to listen to and painful to watch. Here's the run-down of our vet estimate:

EXAM/CONSULTATION COURTESY
ANASTHESIA INHALENT 0-50#
PULSE OXIMETER/RESP MONITOR
PRE ANASTHETIC INJECTIONS
PAIN KILLER
HOSP OUTPATIENT/RECOVERY
INJECTION ANTIBIOTIC
IV CATH & FLUIDS MINOR SURG (ugh...poor poor kitty)
PHARENGEAL EXAM (mmmm)
RADIOGRAPH 2 VIEWS
CUL & SEN #400
CYTOLOGY REFERENCE LAB
STANDARD PROFILE #74
DISP: CLAVAMOX DROPS 15ML
Estimated total cost: $692.72

This is not a good month for pets.

Lumpy comes home

So last night I brought home our sweet precious little cockatiel, White Lump. She's an albino, and they are not very hardy creatures. She has malformed wings which have been broken several times, but she's the sweetest little bird I've known. We brought her into the hospital a couple of days ago because she was not doing very well. She seemed lethargic and her left wing was drooping. Turns out that because she's been on a seed diet (contrary to popular belief, this is not what bird's diets should consist of) and has been laying eggs faster than a flock of chickens she was suffering (dying) from malnutrition. Poor little lumpyhead. So, she had to be hospitalized in a little birdy hospital for a few days, being given vitamin and antibiotic injections. She took it all very well, I was impressed. All in all it was about $530.

To all you disaffected parents of toddlers out there

An article that truly captures the pain we suffer every moment of every day. Please, do comment on this article in my blog here. I'd love to hear what others have to say about this...

http://www.slate.com/id/2134938/

Thanks goes to Stephanie (another disaffected parent of young children) for discovery of this article.

New excuse this time

OK. I know I'm totally slacking in my blog responsibilities these days, but I've actually been ill. I sort of have an excuse. Combine that with dial-up that robs me of any ability to receive phone calls (or voice mail), and a computer that's been so ridden with viruses as to be totally hi-jacked, it's made for a pretty absent Rebecca.

I resolve to fix this moving forward. I just have to figure out how to get some high speed internet up at my house.

The poor people came to install directv at my house the other day, and discovered that the only place possible for the dish was at the top of a mountain (and even on the top of the mountain the signal had to miraculously be intercepted through a miniscule break in some redwoods). They climbed a mountain three times, and communicated through the high tech means of yelling at the top of their lungs back and forth to each other in spanish to actually get the thing working. And that was just one TV. Apparently they'll have to come back and go up and down the mountain a few more times to connect the other two tv's, as each has to have its own dedicated line from the dish to the receiver. Additionally, to make it work I, personally, have to supply 1000 ft of "duo" coaxial cable. Where does one get 1k feet of "duo" coax? Anyone...?

More to come later.