Answers to Your Burning Questions

Okay, ready for the answers, kids?

1. True.

My sister was the big picky eater in the family. For years she would eat nothing but hot dogs or chicken nuggets. That said, she's now a major foodie, so all the moms out there worrying that your child will be 40 and still eating only PBJ? You're likely safe.

2. Also true!

I work in a male-dominated field, y'all. And although there are four women at work including me, the rest of them are glamazons and are 5'9" or so.

I'm a freaking shrimp. It's very disconcerting, as I know I'm taller than the average American woman.

3. True again.

I work with sick, sick people, y'all. Heh.

4. I already said this one was true in comments below :)

5. TZ, hate to tell you, but.... true again! I swear, I laughed so hard when I got your comment. This is really too funny!

6. Okay, this one was false. Although I'm sure the skeletons of countless small vermin litter our storage room, we don't have a replica of a human skeleton in it.

Couches? Yes. Filing cabinets? Yes. Spare beds from various staff members' homes they no longer have room for? Yes.

But no skeletons.

7. Obviously, this one was also true.

(And it's still unused. Dammit.)

8. And again, this one, sadly, is true. It's a point to all you commentors that no one said number eight had to be false!

Yes, my nerdiness has firmly established itself. It's good to know..... hee.

Eight (More) Things About Me

I'll be answering ATM's meme when I get a few minutes. Check back!
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Okay, here I am. I got most of the bills ready for The Great Bill Paying Frenzy at the end of the month, so I'm available to meme.

If anyone here doesn't read Addicted to Medblogs, first of all, you were waiting for what, like an engraved invitation? Go, go ahead, get yourself over there and read her stuff!

That said, this is the first in ATM's series of posts entitled "Amanda Gets Meme'd", due to the fact that I simply couldn't remember (for the tiniest period of time) whether ATM had outwardly identified herself as female or not.

Of course, this memory lapse occurred while I was posting.

And I mentioned it.

Whoops.

SOooooooo.... every Monday or Tuesday, ATM is going to "meme" me. And I shall, of course, respond.

First up, as noted by the new-and-improved post title, is the infamous "Eight Things About Me" meme. However, this is with a twist: I will list eight things about myself, but one of them will be false. Have fun guessing which one! :)

1. Back when I was a teenager and we went up into Canada on vacation, my little sister refused to eat at McDonald's because it was "foreign food."

Okay, that one's not so much about me, but it really cracks me up.

2. At a mere 5'-7" in height, I'm the shortest person in my office.

3. My bosses have decorated my desk with one tiny dried frog corpse and one tiny not-quite-mummified lizard corpse.

4. I have finally reached my pre-pregnancy weight!

So it's four/five years later... so what? Only six more to go until 150, baby. WooHOO!

5. I stutter. Not always, but enough so that it's obnoxious (say, when I'm on the intercom in the office, or using "all-call", worse yet).

6. The storage room here at the office has stored in it, among other things, a replica of a human skeleton.

7. There is one "mint tingle" condom left at our house.

And it better get used soon...

Finally, last but not least:

8. My avatar has purchased a house and land in Second Life. Yes, I am that huge a dork.

Conversation

(handing a marked-up report back to its originator)

Me: I need you to translate this for me.

Boss: Huh?

Me: Runic script went out quite awhile back.

Speaking of "Busted"

Uhm...

I appear to have used my elder son's actual name in the below post. It slipped my notice until now, which means this is already on everyone's feed (those who have it) and is likely already cached somewhere.

Well, fortunately, my kids have very common first names, so it's not giving up much. The four-year-old is Nicholas, a.k.a. "Nicky", by the way.

I'll likely keep referring to them as the Elder and the Younger, though. For consistency's sake if nothing else.

--------------------

On just one more "amusing things my younger son has said" note, Ms. P related a doozy to me today.

It appears my little angel was hovering over the computer while one of the younger children was using it. This, of course, displeased my child because he wanted to play with the computer and didn't really see the point of his eighteen-month-old little friend using it.

So Ms. P, wise woman that she is, announced, "Hey, Nicky, I'm turning on Nick Jr. Want to come watch?"

He drew his eyebrows down into his nose, looked at her sternly, and said,

"You're dust twying to distwact me."

God help me, I laughed and laughed.

Busted

You know those fine people out there who are utterly convinced of the perfection of their offspring? The ones who, when approached about the misbehavior of Little Pwecious, are insistant that surely THEIR child couldn't have done anything so heinous?

Yeah, well, I'm not one of those parents.

Both of the offspring (darling little toads that they are) tried to put one over on me last week.

Let's just say they failed in their attempts.

Attempt No.1, by No. 1 Son
My elder son has been off track for the past three weeks. Now what this means to those of you who have kids with normal school schedules is that his school is scheduled by "track," which has the school open year-round. They're on nine weeks, then off for three, or thereabouts, with one longer stretch akin to summer vacation for each track.

Two of the tracks have their long stretch over the summer. Our track? His long vacation is from Thanksgiving to the New Year.

Anyway, his particular track (which is obviously warped anyway) went back for the new school year about four-and-a-half weeks ago. They were in school for a week and a half, then went off track for three weeks.

I mentioned warped, right?

Well, anyway, while he was on-track, the Elder kept saying he had a stomachache each morning. However, miraculously, the moment he went off-track, he was cured!

Then Thursday arrived.

"Mommy, I have a stomachache," was accompanied by weak groans and a constipated looking expression.

"Really?" I raised my eyebrow. "You know, I find it amazing that for the entire three weeks you were off-track you didn't have a single stomachache, but today on the first day you're going back to class, you suddenly have a stomachache again."

He lost the pained look and comprehension flashed across his pwecious widdle face.

BUSTED!

I've heard nothing about stomachaches since.

Attempt No. 2, by No. 2 Son
Now as those of you who have more than one child know, with each additional child you're not just getting one more darling child to care for, you're also putting the additional element of the relationship between the new child and the existing child into play, which makes it more than twice as challenging going from one child to two.

I hear once you've gone to three kids you might as well have four because at that point you're so outnumbered you might as well just give in.

I'm totally not putting that to the test.

Anyway, and I know this comes as a shock to some of you, but sometimes children lie to get each other in trouble!

Yes, it's true. I'll pause a moment for that to sink in.

. . .

I had dropped the Elder off at school and the Younger and I arrived at his daycare. We walked in the door, and my beloved second son bonked into something while his daycare teacher and I were talking.

Dramatic sobs.

"Mommy! Michael pushed me!"

Ms. P and I looked at each other and then quickly looked away before we laughed out loud.

"Uhm, sweetie? Your brother's at school."

Dawning comprehension on sweet little four-year-old face.

"There's no way he could have pushed you."

BUSTED!

"Oh. Weww, it weawwy huwted." *

Because that, obviously, is a perfectly good reason to blame your elder brother for injuring you from over a five-mile distance.

Eyeroll.

It's no wonder my colorist makes a killing off me.

*Note: This says "Oh. Well, it really hurted." for anyone who isn't fluent in preschooler-ese.

T.G.I.F.

It's 4:30 on Friday and I'm supposed to be dashing out the door.

So what am I doing sitting here at my desk, blogging instead?

I'm staring at the sheets of rain outside that are going sideways. I can see it clearly as I sit right by the storefront door/ window thingie.

And in this I get to navigate around idiot drivers, pick up the offspring x2, and somehow miraculously make it home without someone killing me.

Have I mentioned I have this tiny little "driving in the rain" phobia? Something about me rear-ending a semi back in 1990 up in Lexington, North Carolina, with my little sister, mother, and grandmother in the mini van.

Shudder.

So... wish me luck! I'll catch y'all when I make it in.

Chantix Day Something-or-Other

I'm going to have to be fast with this.

Dreams getting less weird, or at least I'm remembering them less.

It appears, though, that I've now got a lovely upset stomach issue this morning, coinciding neatly with shortly after I took the Chantix.

Yes, I'd eaten.

So this could be coincidence, as I think you're supposed to take the Chantix after eating to avoid such a reaction. But then again, I could just be "lucky".

We shall see!

My Goodness...

My posts have been full of potty talk lately, haven't they? I think subconsciously I've been trying to make sure I don't drop from an R-rating yet again... heh.

----------------------------

I ate too much today. Again. DRAT.

I do fine with food as long as I keep temptation away from myself. So in general, I make sure the freezer at work is stocked with my breakfast and lunch, as well as various low-cal/ healthy snack items.

Unfortunately, for the last several weeks the office has been inundated with food. Not just any food, but food I like... such as nice cakes from our local snooty bakery, cheese bread from same, a dessert delivery from one of the lighting sales reps, and three "Lunch & Learn" meals wherein sales reps from varying specialties bring in food for the architects and staff to gorge upon as they give a spiel regarding certain aspects of architecture and how their product is the superior choice.

These classes also give the architects (and soon, our interiors consultant, who's about to be licensed herself) Continuing Education Units which are necessary for maintaining their licenses. They need 20 CEUs per year, and it's nice for them if they can take care of them during lunch and be fed into the bargain, so there's really no escaping the Lunch & Learns.

Sigh.

It's not that I'm weak. It's just that I know my limits, and my limits are severely stressed by having Panera, pizza, subs, Olive Garden, and other foods brought into the office on a semi-regular basis. And as I'm the official set-up and clean-up crew for these little adventures, those leftovers just sing my name.

LOUDLY.

I've got to figure out a better coping mechanism before I'm forced to use the "I'm not fitting into my clothes" one again. I just don't want to go there.

An Open Letter to the Women at Work

And to Any Men Who Can't Read the Damn Bathroom Door Signage

Dear All Those Who Use the Small, Northern Ladies' Room:

Leaving the last paper towel on the tube (the one glued to it) is NOT considered "leaving enough for the next person."

Leaving two squares of toilet paper on the tube is DEFINITELY not considered "leaving enough for the next person."

For the love of Pete, people, I don't care if you put the new toilet paper or paper towels on their dispensers. Seriously, I don't.

All I care about is that I'm not washing my hands and then left to wipe them on my clothing.

Don't even get me started on the horror I feel when I've sat down, begun my business, THEN realize that there are two squares of toilet paper (maybe!) left.

If the bathroom is low on paper products, here's a helpful hint:

Get a fresh freaking roll out of the storage room and put it in the bathroom.

There, now, was that so hard?

With gratitude for your future cooperation in this matter,
Amanda

P.S. And male-types, I know you use our potty. WE do not leave the seat up. However, there are those among you who have been known to do just such a thing in the Ladies' Room. I know this because I have caught you at it.

Quit it. Honestly.

With annoyance,
She Who Distributes the Paychecks.

Crazy Chantix Dreams and Other Stuff

Edited 12/09/2009 to address the jackasses who seem to think that commenting here is going to help their advertising or something:

I have and will continue to delete each and every comment linking to a marketing site. If I chose to have advertising on this blog, I would do so overtly and *I* would be the one profiting from it. Your decision to market via my blog constitutes theft, and if I could figure out a way I would press charges.

Save yourself the time. I check this stuff daily. Don't bother.

Thanks.

---------------------------------------------

Well, lookee here! I managed to pull myself out of Second Life.

They said it couldn't be done, but the lure of Blogger (and my blog addiction) is an amazing power unto itself.

On the Second Life stuff, it's an interesting virtual reality setting... or rather, multitude of settings. I haven't even seen half of what's there yet. Like any type of chat/ interactive environment, one should always exercise caution in what one reveals, but I do have to say that I'm having a good time. Just seeing some of the designs (beaches, castles, tree houses) people have created and put on Second Life is absolutely amazing to a graphics-phobe such as myself!

And obviously, as I've made it out alive and still blogging, you can too. So come have a look around. I promise you won't be bored!

Unless you get stuck somewhere awful. During a teleporting outage. Bleah.

---------------------

Anyway, onto the main title of this post, the Crazy Chantix Dreams. I've had my share of these already, but one from this weekend really took the cake.

I dreamed I was trying to go to my bathroom, but there was a line. Now, this being a dream, the fact that there was a line to use my toilet didn't bother me.

Nor did the fact that the people waiting in line were complete strangers.

Nor did the fact that my pocket bathroom door was suddenly a swinging door (which pushed me nearly into my husband's closet since the lady in front of me backed nearly OVER me when the door opened to permit the last occupant to exit).

No, what did bother me was that when I got into the bathroom:

A) The woman in front of me hadn't flushed (eeewww), and

B) There was a man laying tile in the shower stall (eewww!!), and

C) There was a freaking HOLE in the wall of my shower, through which I could see another guy putting up suspended ceiling in the room next door.

As soon as I saw them, I knew they were from "The County."

I did not use the bathroom. Not even in my dreams am I that uninhibited.

I stomped out there, muttering about why "The County" had to do all this construction when all I wanted to do was go to the bathroom in my Own. Damned. House. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently so.

-----------------

Apparently it's also too much to ask The County to do road construction work that will necessitate traffic from one of our town's main drags being re-routed past a local elementary school.

On the opening day of school.

Oh, and this detour? Is my normal route.

I hate traffic. And it appears my loathing for The County knows no bounds.

Second Life

Sorry for the blog silence tonight, y'all. I just discovered Second Life, along with my husband, and we've been playing with the silliness with the avatars and exploring and stuff.

If anyone else does this insanity, send me an e-mail and I'll hook you up with my SL name. Not that I can pronounce the last name to save my First Life, and of course they've now enabled voice chat!

Anyway, I'll be back tomorrow. For now, my avatar and I are exploring.

Note: This post originally contained my Second Life name. Then one of my SL friends found my blog through that name. This isn't a problem whatsoever with that particular individual, but after much repeated thought I feel that it might be best to at least keep this aspect of my SL identity to myself and only give it out to regular readers.

Hormones

I hate freaking hormones.

I hate them in artificial form.

I hate them in their natural form.

Or, in the immortal phraseology of Dr. Seuss:

I do not like them here or there.

I do not like them ANYWHERE.

. . .

Especially when they manifest themselves as a zit.

I'm thirty-freaking-seven, y'all. I do not need zits. I especially do not need this particular one, which erupts like bloody clockwork every 23 days or so, on my left cheek, middle, right below my cheekbone.

GLARRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!!

(Okay, that's all... we now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.)

Food I Can't Keep in the House

You'd think this post would be about chips, or pizza, or something.

Well, you'd be right about the pizza.

But it's not just that. It's stuff I like, that's good for me, that my kids insist on snarfing up the moment it enters the house. These would be the foods I can't keep in my home:

-Broccoli. Neither kid can get enough of it. Preferably lightly steamed, with a little garlicky olive oil over the top. As a special treat, there's a little soy-sauce bowl of natural light ranch on the side.

-Tomatoes/tomatos. See previous item, sans steaming. And sans the ranch. They eat those things like apples.

-Tuna. Now this one is a bit of a cheat, but once they see tuna, they want tuna salad sandwiches. Doesn't matter if it's the nice foil-packed-in-water tuna, or canned tuna, or whatever. They just Want. Tuna. Salad.

So I make it for them. Mostly tuna, some light ranch, some light mayo/the evil that is known as Miracle Whip, some wasabi/ horseradish mayo, some Boar's Head Deli Mustard, freshly ground pepper, and dill pickle relish.

On wheat bread. With more mustard. And a tomato slice or four.

All of which I love, and they eat as if it's going to disappear yesterday.

-Lean Cuisine. Now granted, it's not terribly good for me as far as sodium is concerned, and there are still some trans-fat issues to be considered, but honestly... between Lean Cuisine and a frozen Totino's pizza, which would the diet-conscious choose?

Yeah, it'd be the one my kids choose. Their/my favorites are the basil chicken pasta, the chicken Cesar bowl, and the chicken carbonara. They all have pasta and chicken in common, and all have veggies, but the sauces are vastly different. Regardless, I'm lucky to keep even one in the house past 3 hours of entry.

I possibly should buy more, though -- I still tend to buy as a single person watching her weight rather than as the mother of two small boys who want FOOD!

-Other "diet" frozen meals. Because my foods are much more fun than pizza. Seriously.

And last, but not least...

-The tiny little 100 calorie ice cream sandwiches. No, they're not "good for me" in the ultimate sense, but I adore them, and a 12 pack would normally last me a few months.

With kids? Two weeks, max. And that's only because I keep them hidden in the garage chest freezer.

Looks like I need to stock up on broccoli and ice cream sandwiches, stat.

Chantix Day 12, and Cat News

Today was day 12, 5th day of full dosage of Chantix.

It appears that the dizziness is fading, to be replaced by a weird (albeit milder) version of both side effects this has on me, that being a) I'm dippy, but not as dippy as I was Saturday, and b) I'm not so much dizzy as I am feeling as if when I walk, it's through really heavy air.

Not increased gravity, just very dense air.

I'll say this for the Chantix, it's certainly interesting. It's also affording my bosses endless amusement opportunities as they watch my memory fade out, then snap back in.

Fortunately the guys have a good sense of humor.

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In cat news, Daniel went to the vet today. Yes, again. This time it was for a weird black thing in his left nostril.

I'd let it sit for a couple of days thinking it was just mucus, maybe a touch of blood (we have three cats, there was no obvious injury... go figure).

Well, yesterday I was trying to look at it more closely, which is no small feat considering Daniel's resistance to anything remotely resembling an inspection of his face. I managed to touch the blackish thing and I swear, it felt like it stung me!

It had kind of looked spidery prior to this point, but I figured that was ridiculous. However, the weird stingy feeling made me rethink.

So this morning I called and made an appointment for His Majesty to go to the vet. My husband took him as I was at work and he was off (note to self: do TRY to give Himself more than 55 minutes notice to get cleaned up and crate the cat next time).

One pissed off cat, one harried husband, and seventy dollars later, the diagnosis?

Mucus. Mixed with blood.

And I'm the psycho cat-mommy who thinks snot stung her.

Emily goes in next Monday for a well-kitty check and a claw trim. I'll be lucky if they don't try to drug me.

Chantix Day 10

This higher dose is still making me dizzy. I think it's going away faster (I didn't fall asleep at my desk today, much to the delight of Those Who Sign My Paycheck), but that could be because I was busier today than yesterday.

So this effect of Chantix seems to be similar to the likely psychosomatic itching at least in that I don't notice it so much when I'm distracted by other things. I'm going to go with the theory that this means it really is going away more quickly, and that my body is adapting to the increased dosage.

Here's hoping! Because right now? I'm about to fall asleep on my keyboard.

Peas

I've mentioned before how I feel about peas.

To make a very long story very short, peas = bad.

So since my husband knows this, and since my one concession to peas in our home is that I gulp them down whole when he fixes them with dinner, I expect him not to put peas in the freaking fried rice.

So of course, tonight, for dinner?

Peas.

In my freaking fried rice. Which cannot be swallowed whole, thankyouverymuch.

I picked them all out and gave them to my younger son.

"Here sweetie, I saved some peas for you."

"Oh sank you Mommy!"

Whew.

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In Chantix news, yesterday was "high" day with the new higher dosage. Today has been "low" day with it. I took my second pill of the day about an hour ago, and am just now back to moving with anything resembling speed. I've spent much of the day on the couch, and even took a nap.

I also did laundry and hosed off two small boys, so I haven't been a total slug.

But dang, I hope I adapt to this newer dosage quickly. I work full time and have two-to-three children (depending on how old my husband is acting at the time -- love you, sweetie!). I don't need to be drugged into exhaustion. I can get that way quite adequately without chemical assistance.

Chantix Day 8

Oh dude, the switch to the higher dosage was so funny!

As mentioned below, I'd gone to a local mall with my mother and sons. I took my first higher dosage of Chantix at lunch.

Right after lunch, the boys wanted to ride the double-decker carousel. Okay, cool!

So we're standing in line waiting for the current batch of kids and parents to dismount and... it hits me.

Whoa!!!!!!!!!!!!

Total dizziness.

My younger son wanted to ride on the upper deck. Of course.

So I rode a Giant Panda round and round and round... the kids loved it, and I stayed upright.

And I made it through the entire outing only wanting a cigarette once.

Not bad, folks, not bad.

(except I'd ride a dragon the next time, because they're WAY awesome!)

Retail Therapy

Or... not so much.

Today, Mom and I took the boys to one of our semi-local malls.

Back in the day I'd have said "to the mall" or "to [insert name of mall here]." Because back in the day there was one local mall (we now have two) and other malls were far enough away (i.e., more than 15 minutes) to merit a name mention.

Now? Two local, like I said, and several others under an hour's drive. Welcome to growth central, AKA central Florida.

Anyway, we went to one of the semi-local ones which was new a mere 15 years ago and which has also just had a face lift. Our primary purpose? To burn some Saturday hours. Our secondary purpose?

To purchase a bedding set for the eight-year-old. Sigh.

Remember the child back in the Walmart/SpongeBob post? The one who didn't care what kind of bedding he had?

Uh-huh. Those of you with kids older than mine knew what would happen. He finally wanted to pick out his own comforter and sheets.

We ended up at Sears (not Macy's -- I'm crazy, not stupid).

Thankfully, he ignored the delightful Sponge Bob display.

Unfortunately, he spied the Pirates of the Caribbean display.

Ouch.

So now my eight-year-old is the proud possessor of a Pirates comforter, bedsheet set, and decorative pillow (with glow-in-the-dark appliques!).

Need I mention there are a couple of skulls in all this happiness?

Yeah.

So anyway... one kid, Sponge Bob Central.

The other? Skulls.

On the plus side, at least we have an "at sea" theme going. Eyeroll.

(Amanda wanders off, clutching her head, and hopes she'll shake this new practice of referring to herself in the third person in short order...)

My Speeding Non-Ticket

Babs just posted about how she got out of a speeding ticket, and I was inspired to share my story.

The one ticket I ever got out of was just off I-10 in Florida. I was driving back to Tallahassee from visiting my little brother in Gainesville.

Well, at that time I-10 was 60 MPH. I'd just taken the exit and was on US 90.

Which was 50 MPH.

I had no cruise control, and it appeared that gravity was weighing a bit heavily on my gas pedal, so I was still going 60.

The nice FHP guy in the median just stuck his hand out of his patrol car, pointed at me, and waved me to the side of the road, where I very politely and panickedly waited while he put on his lights, did a U-turn, and pulled in behind me.

I was hyperventillating pretty well by the time he got to my window.

"License and registration?"

As I handed them to him, I just burst into speech:

"Officer, I swear I wasn't speeding. My foot was."

He stood there for a moment, stunned. Then he choked and laughed.

"I take it this means you'd prefer a written warning?"

"Sir, I would adore a written warning."

So he went back to his car and ran my information. When he came back to my car he handed me my warning and told me to raise my right hand.

"I want you to repeat after me:

I swear I will never again speed in the State of Florida.

And if I feel the need for speed, I will go up somewhere in Georgia and do it."

I did what I was told. As he walked back to his car he was still shaking his head bemusedly.

Poor guy. I think that was the first time he'd had someone blame her foot for breaking the law.

Aging

I just had to take off my glasses to read fine print.

This is likely a bad thing.

Ouch. I have this strong suspicion I'm getting old.

The fact that my sciatica moved from my right leg to my left today only further confirms this hypothesis.