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May. 25th, 2009 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarflameI went out with Ananda today for awhile, just the two of us. We sang songs together with a cd the whole way to Barnes and Noble in Kendall.
Sidetracking: I love this local, small, family owned bookstore I have here in town and refer everyone to and I give them all my book buying money, normally, and...argh. I finally broke down and admitted today how they are a great theory but in reality I way, way prefer Barnes and Noble :/ I go to B and N, everything and anything I want is in stock, and there is more than enough inventory for me to browse freely. The kids' section is set up so that it's easy for kids to entertain themselves in lasting ways (train sets, big free areas to sit and read, tons and tons of stuff of course). There is a Starbucks cafe. There are interesting and far more urban seeming people all over - I get in interesting conversations with strangers anytime I go.
Which I haven't much at all, for the last two years, even though it used to be a frequent, regular destination. Out of loyalty to this homeschooling, la leche league hosting family that is putting EVERYTHING into this local store.
This hole in the wall place where I have already seen everything, where there is nothing for my kids to do but get in trouble, where there is never anyone but the employees and us unless it's Friday night. Where the only thing to eat or drink is from a vending machine and the single bathroom is pretty wack. Where they don't even carry magazines. Blah.
You know how I loathe the whole concept of giant chain stores and big business in general? It is a conundrum for me to think, maybe everyone goes there because...it's better. This of course is not even bothering to note the fact that little local place has higher prices, as that is something I really do understand, ethically...
So anyway Annie and I had a great time. I got a new Tracy Chevalier book, Burning Bright - she is the author of Girl With a Pearl Earring, which is all about the fictional backstory and leadup to the actual Vermeer painting of the same name. This book takes the same historical fiction concept, but set around a real William Blake poem. Also for me, I got Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head which is a really, really intriguing and fascinating psychological thing presenting and examining this huge scale study done on peoples' private fantasies and how they impact their lives, and relationships, and real sex lives, and societal assumptions and taboos vs what is actually happening in single minds...I can never get enough of that sort of thing and I haven't come upon a real gem since The Brain That Changes Itself.I'm hyped to have books to read again.
Ananda though. Geeeeeeez, it took her forever. She could just barely narrow it down to 3, which she bought for herself with her own money - the first Spiderwick Chronicles book (she's seen the movie and has the journal and is in love with it all), Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (she's read two other Fudge books), and The Mysterious Benedict Society (based on my reading her the back she exclaimed, "Ok, that only basically is the coolest book EVER!"; then we saw that the reviews compared it to both Harry Potter AND Roald Dahl).
I also bought her two, for her birthday, which she has to wait for - Fortune's Magic Farm, which I really think she will adore, and Schooled, which is the story of a little boy named Capricorn who has never eaten pizza, watched tv or heard of the police, because he's being raised and homeschooled on a hippie commune farm by his grandmother, Rain...until she falls out of a tree while picking plums and is hospitalized, landing Cap in public school and foster care until she's well again. It is presented in a much more lighthearted way than that sounds and is really interesting overall.
She's so big, and so beautiful. The top of her head comes to my chin. She stands there in dark jeans and a long sleeved, clingy blue shirt, with her hair all brushed and shiny, and we talk about everything under the sun...devouring novels and practicing in her room for her musical theater and lyrical show and just..I don't even know. She'll be 9 on June 1.
We went out and had soup and mushrooms and virgin pina coladas for dinner. We did all the little competetive games in the kids' menu and I told her how generally proud of how she's turned out so far I am. I wished I had my camera with me.
This quote appeared on my google homepage yesterday:
A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.
-Segal's Law
Melissa came and got my sewing machine earlier today. It occurs to me to wonder if she realizes how pretty and thinner and cool and generally awesome and striking she's looking.
Grant and Shaun are out there playing scrabble. Shaun is visciously whipping his ass.
I made a twitter account awhile back, a private one, just to do updates for Grant while he's working. At his request. And I keep getting random real life and internet people requesting to follow me on twitter, and it's getting old trying to individually explain to all of them that I don't really "tweet" at all, but when I do it's just like a conversation between he and I...and it occurs to me to wonder if I should maybe consider using a different username someplace sometime.
I am liking an increasing amount of music that I feel is innapropriate for my kids. It's getting irritating, as I mainly listen to music en route to places in a vehicle they are also in. Usually the only music I don't want to listen to around them is Ani Difranco's most explicit or Snoop Dogg's one amazing song, Sensual Seduction. But now I'm really starting to love a lot of music by Lily Allen, the Dresden Dolls, and so on, and...bah. I blame a combination of late night Pandora and childless roadtripping with iPod in tow.
LAST.
Physical activity.
I need/want/have to have more of it!!
I feel so insaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanely limited by my screwed up abdomen and overburdened back. A friend on facebook this morning posted this video as WHAT THEY ARE ASPIRING TO - and one of their friends commented that it is their morning routine - and I am just open mouthed and gaping with longing. I cannot even imagine. I don't bother writing about it anymore, but I still get asked if I'm having a boy, when I'm due, etc, EVERYWHERE I GO. Everyday. And when I cough or laugh the whole mass of herniation and prolapsed muscle jumps and it's, like, horrible.
I bike, walk, or swim "when I can", or clean I guess, for excercise, and comfort myself that at least I look like a hot pregnant lady. But I'm starting to think this is nowhere near enough. Sometimes I have some fantasy that I could do pilates and magically stretch my muscles back into the right place and not just, you know, land myself in the ER.
I am so stir crazy in my own body. It seems insurmountable sometimes, the idea of rebuilding myself, fighting through months and years of not just diet and excercise but also major surgery...but I am young. And my kids are young. And I can't just give up. Gah.
Sidetracking: I love this local, small, family owned bookstore I have here in town and refer everyone to and I give them all my book buying money, normally, and...argh. I finally broke down and admitted today how they are a great theory but in reality I way, way prefer Barnes and Noble :/ I go to B and N, everything and anything I want is in stock, and there is more than enough inventory for me to browse freely. The kids' section is set up so that it's easy for kids to entertain themselves in lasting ways (train sets, big free areas to sit and read, tons and tons of stuff of course). There is a Starbucks cafe. There are interesting and far more urban seeming people all over - I get in interesting conversations with strangers anytime I go.
Which I haven't much at all, for the last two years, even though it used to be a frequent, regular destination. Out of loyalty to this homeschooling, la leche league hosting family that is putting EVERYTHING into this local store.
This hole in the wall place where I have already seen everything, where there is nothing for my kids to do but get in trouble, where there is never anyone but the employees and us unless it's Friday night. Where the only thing to eat or drink is from a vending machine and the single bathroom is pretty wack. Where they don't even carry magazines. Blah.
You know how I loathe the whole concept of giant chain stores and big business in general? It is a conundrum for me to think, maybe everyone goes there because...it's better. This of course is not even bothering to note the fact that little local place has higher prices, as that is something I really do understand, ethically...
So anyway Annie and I had a great time. I got a new Tracy Chevalier book, Burning Bright - she is the author of Girl With a Pearl Earring, which is all about the fictional backstory and leadup to the actual Vermeer painting of the same name. This book takes the same historical fiction concept, but set around a real William Blake poem. Also for me, I got Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head which is a really, really intriguing and fascinating psychological thing presenting and examining this huge scale study done on peoples' private fantasies and how they impact their lives, and relationships, and real sex lives, and societal assumptions and taboos vs what is actually happening in single minds...I can never get enough of that sort of thing and I haven't come upon a real gem since The Brain That Changes Itself.I'm hyped to have books to read again.
Ananda though. Geeeeeeez, it took her forever. She could just barely narrow it down to 3, which she bought for herself with her own money - the first Spiderwick Chronicles book (she's seen the movie and has the journal and is in love with it all), Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (she's read two other Fudge books), and The Mysterious Benedict Society (based on my reading her the back she exclaimed, "Ok, that only basically is the coolest book EVER!"; then we saw that the reviews compared it to both Harry Potter AND Roald Dahl).
I also bought her two, for her birthday, which she has to wait for - Fortune's Magic Farm, which I really think she will adore, and Schooled, which is the story of a little boy named Capricorn who has never eaten pizza, watched tv or heard of the police, because he's being raised and homeschooled on a hippie commune farm by his grandmother, Rain...until she falls out of a tree while picking plums and is hospitalized, landing Cap in public school and foster care until she's well again. It is presented in a much more lighthearted way than that sounds and is really interesting overall.
She's so big, and so beautiful. The top of her head comes to my chin. She stands there in dark jeans and a long sleeved, clingy blue shirt, with her hair all brushed and shiny, and we talk about everything under the sun...devouring novels and practicing in her room for her musical theater and lyrical show and just..I don't even know. She'll be 9 on June 1.
We went out and had soup and mushrooms and virgin pina coladas for dinner. We did all the little competetive games in the kids' menu and I told her how generally proud of how she's turned out so far I am. I wished I had my camera with me.
This quote appeared on my google homepage yesterday:
A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.
-Segal's Law
Melissa came and got my sewing machine earlier today. It occurs to me to wonder if she realizes how pretty and thinner and cool and generally awesome and striking she's looking.
Grant and Shaun are out there playing scrabble. Shaun is visciously whipping his ass.
I made a twitter account awhile back, a private one, just to do updates for Grant while he's working. At his request. And I keep getting random real life and internet people requesting to follow me on twitter, and it's getting old trying to individually explain to all of them that I don't really "tweet" at all, but when I do it's just like a conversation between he and I...and it occurs to me to wonder if I should maybe consider using a different username someplace sometime.
I am liking an increasing amount of music that I feel is innapropriate for my kids. It's getting irritating, as I mainly listen to music en route to places in a vehicle they are also in. Usually the only music I don't want to listen to around them is Ani Difranco's most explicit or Snoop Dogg's one amazing song, Sensual Seduction. But now I'm really starting to love a lot of music by Lily Allen, the Dresden Dolls, and so on, and...bah. I blame a combination of late night Pandora and childless roadtripping with iPod in tow.
LAST.
Physical activity.
I need/want/have to have more of it!!
I feel so insaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanely limited by my screwed up abdomen and overburdened back. A friend on facebook this morning posted this video as WHAT THEY ARE ASPIRING TO - and one of their friends commented that it is their morning routine - and I am just open mouthed and gaping with longing. I cannot even imagine. I don't bother writing about it anymore, but I still get asked if I'm having a boy, when I'm due, etc, EVERYWHERE I GO. Everyday. And when I cough or laugh the whole mass of herniation and prolapsed muscle jumps and it's, like, horrible.
I bike, walk, or swim "when I can", or clean I guess, for excercise, and comfort myself that at least I look like a hot pregnant lady. But I'm starting to think this is nowhere near enough. Sometimes I have some fantasy that I could do pilates and magically stretch my muscles back into the right place and not just, you know, land myself in the ER.
I am so stir crazy in my own body. It seems insurmountable sometimes, the idea of rebuilding myself, fighting through months and years of not just diet and excercise but also major surgery...but I am young. And my kids are young. And I can't just give up. Gah.
