i'm just-a-yappin'

DH sent me the latest JibJab mini movie. It's pretty funny and happens to go well with this funny map I saw on another blog I stalk from time to time.


I think you can click on the picture and make it larger to see the wording.

I'm procrastinating right now, dishes need to be done, study organized, outline for a paper on TB needs to be finished (good news, no email from the other two in my group, so at least I'm not alone in slacking) , an assignment, two labs and a shower. Also need to take Jake's bike in for repairs. And a whole list of other things that just makes me tired thinking about it. And may make others bored just reading it.
Fun stuff: I found out when the nursing orientation starts; so I think that Jason, the kids and I will spend a week up in the Pac NW this coming August. I can visit my almost 92 year old grandad and aunt and a bunch of cousins then we'll do some sight seeing and then my brother's wedding. We'll have to take the kids out of school for a week. But, I'm pretty sure that college admissions won't frown too heavily on that if it happens before the third grade. We're also planning another two weekends away in May; one with kids, one without. We're going to Oklahoma, which I hear is OK, another wedding. When I called the lodge, there were no more rooms available. The lodge-lady did say they had cabins....pregnant pause....I asked, 'and by cabins, you mean what?' she laughed and assured me that plumbing and electricity were part of the package (yeah, I'm a weenie!). It should be a fun trip with the boys. It's on a lake by a state park. A couple weekends after that, Jason and I are going to Colorado Springs (as far as I'll go with out the kids) and celebrate our 15th anniversary (I was a child-bride.....no, really). Woo hoo, can I say it again, FIFTEEN. And I still love him -- like newly-wed love him.
Alrighty, I'm off to the shower, maybe I'll feel invigorated enough to start the laundry....oh yeah, need to do that too as well as the above.

Duh...

We were watching an episode of "Enterprise" (the most recent of the different TV Star Trek series). It was a bout a race that had a third gender and this gender provided an enzyme to help the male/female couples have a child. However, this third gender wasn't allowed to have an education, make decisions for itself (wasn't female or male) or even have a name. Normally, when you watch a Star Trek episode (ok, how many of you out there actually do???) you can see a correlation to Earth History in the story line. So Jason says, in his dense, very manly way, "I wonder what they're implying here?" HMMMM, I answer, "Feminism" sheesh, it was pretty much spelled out Jason....only good for breeding, not allowed her own name (taking husband's family name), until recently not allowed an education, and at first, the education provided was only to help her children, not for her own betterment, couldn't vote and was subject to the will of her family, husband and/or government.

He answered, "oh yeah"
I still love him, I do.

Another Star Trek moment. Years ago we were watching a "Next Generation" episode and they came across an alien race that only spoke in metaphor. What a light bulb moment, that's exactly how Jason's grandmother spoke. You would ask her a yes or no question and she would answer with a story from which you needed to gather wisdom and meaning.....it just gave me a headache. It was then, I realized my husband's family may not be from this earth.

oh, ouch, they are very loving people, and they've accepted me into their family as their own. And Jason thinks my family is equally strange. It's just blending two loving alien races into a cohesive rich culture...just like Star Trek.

All About Me

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Kinda fun, snagged idea off of Sis-in-law and sis-in-law's-sis's blogs.

One More Day!

The kids just have one more day of school and then it's a three week track off for them! Woo hoo, we'll be sleeping in and doing fun stuff. I even made a reservation for the Mint. Jake did a lot with coins in school. Granted, it was more about the math, but I still thought the Mint would be a neat field trip --a la familia. Then we may take in the Molly Brown house and do a downtown type of lunch. I'll even drive them by Jason's and my first apartment and my elementary school. I do sometimes miss living more in the center of things, but the suburbs do have a charm of their own; the people are great and the schools are fantastic.

I'm doing a project with some people in class....I was planning on doing it on my own. When I thought about it, I realized that I do better that way because I can get a bit resentful when I end up doing most of the whole thing myself. But the person who asked me to do the project is a smart girl who is most likely an over-achiever. Now you'd think I'd say, "Whew, great, not as much work for me", but nope, my thought is, 'Wow, I'm going to have to work doubly hard to pull my weight in this partnership" Apparently, just can't make me happy. But really, I'm happy about this and I think it'll work out well. She and my other partner are very nice and hard workers; I think we'll make a good team.

Isaac was getting out of the car today, complaining that Abi cried when he shoved her. Ummmm, "Ok Isaac, that's allowed. You shouldn't shove her." So then he says, 'Well, she shoved me back and THAT was NOT a good decision" hahaha, yeah like shoving her in the first place was....I did mention that, but with more kindness and less sarcasm....he says, a bit sheepishly, 'oh yeah'. He's also getting obsessed that the drinking fountain is not working at school. This is probably horrible to say, but I do believe he's going to be a bit of a quirky kid.

Jake went indoor skydiving a couple days ago...will update with pictures ---and maybe even a video if I can figure that out.

ok night night time for me...I have a nursing pre-test tomorrow. Basic knowledge kind of stuff. I'm a bit resentful. I do have a BA, even graduated with honors; I think that should be proof enough I can read. I am a little freaked about the math though, for the life of me I can't remember how to do percentages.

Good things do happen...

OK ranting was fun, but what's more fun? Talking about neat things that happen. Yesterday, I popped my head into the nursing office to pick up some paperwork for my background check. I talked with the nursing guru there, I don't think she's the head of the department but she might as well be and she's as nice as can be! So I was asking her when fall semester starts and when the orientation will be. She asked me why I want to know and I told her I had a wedding to go to in August. She asked when the wedding was, and I told her and she said..."Well, we'll just have to work around that"

Let's pause for a moment.
Wasn't that just so nice!

I said, "wow, I just wanted to work around whatever was happening here, I didn't mean to ask for any favorable treatment" She asked if it was a family member, I mentioned brother and she was pretty insistent that I NOT miss that (not that I was, I just wanted to know if I should do more days in the front or back of the weekend out to Weddingsville). So I thanked her profusely... just short of getting on my knees in a 'hail thee' type of pose. Then said, "My brother just got back from Iraq so this is really important for our family". And she smiled and said she was happy to be able to help out.

Woo hoo for nice people, I smiled all the way through the rest of the day.

Ranting

So colleen blogged about her new pet peeve, interrupting. A good pet peeve to have, one that I usually overlook (ok, because I do it myself) until I have something I think is so important to the conversation then I get a little peevish myself. But she did have a good thing going ranting about it, I bet she felt so much better afterwards..... Martha joined in with a rant of her own. So here I am, just copying them as I don't have anything any more creative to blog.

My micro class....it's very interesting (ok, I know I can get a bit geekish at time). But there are a couple of people that really bug me! Before I go off, I'd just like to say, I really like my lab partners and frankly most people in the class, honestly there are only two with whom I have issues. One, I shall call the Condescending Know It All and the other, the I'm Too Smart For This Class and Will Scoff at Your Apparently Stupid Questions While I Get the Teacher Off Track For Fun..... ok, both long names, I'll blame my Cuban side for that. CKIA asks questions and then talks over the teacher answering the questions herself. She ignores her lab partners and writes in her book and she wanders over to our lab, just to make sure we're doing it correctly. ITSFTCAWSAYASQWIGTTOTfF.....ok that really was a long name, will ask questions about unrelated topics, knowing that the professor is easily sidetracked and all of the sudden we're talking about politics (yes a great subject but we're in MICROBIOLOGY) and I want to know about bacteria, not what people think of stem cell research (ok, I do want to know what people think about that...but not my classmates) because I want to know what's on the TEST. I'd love a spirited debate outside the classroom. If I wanted that debate in the classroom I'd take a political, ethics, or a religious course. But I'm taking Microbiology.
Surprisingly, the issue of the professor being easily side tracked is not a pet peeve. I have an affinity for the absent minded professor type, my dad was one (and with your dad, the ability to side track is a bonus). The people in the class who are actually smarter than I am (and most are), I enjoy picking their brain and learning from them. And frankly, the ones that are really smart, enjoy sharing their knowledge and are not in the least way condescending and actually enjoy hearing what I have to say also; it's an exchange. The ones who think they're smarter and are not yet try to bulldoze over me, well, hmmmm.

Well, look at that, I do feel better.

Belly laughs

The challenge of the week...when was the last time you had a good laugh, a belly-almost-pee-in-your-panties kind of laugh...and if you can't remember, why not????

Well that's one thing my crazy family has...we know how to laugh. Is it because there are so many crazies? Maybe? Maybe it's how the rest of us stay sane and how the crazy ones don't go postal...Whatever it is, we do laugh in this family. It's one of the things that attracted me to Jason. He can make me laugh until I'm crying (and/or peeing). Last night, in fact, he had me in stitches. A friend was mentioning that a friend of hers can be condescending to her and Jason started sounding like he was far on the other side of brilliant, implying that's how friend should start talking when condescending friend starts in on her, and he ended with 'would you like to buy a pencil' (ok, I KNOW--- politically incorrect but we were ALL laughing around the dinner table). Then we played Taboo...and Jason's word was 'package' and even though I was on the other team and not supposed to give clues, I jumped in with "and Fabio has a nice....blank" (an aside here, I don't have a thing for Fabio, I think he's actually kind strange looking, but he's a cult stud, so that's why I used his name)....we all laughed, Jason looked hurt (again kidding hurt, not really) and I said, 'well honey you have a nice package too' and laughed again. I had my mother laughing today, after I gave her bad news...because that's what we do....my sister yesterday gave me bad news (news I passed on to my mother because she needs to know) and we laughed about that...and if you knew the news, you'd be appalled at the laughter....but it's what we do. I think the Irish have a good thing with the whole Wake thing when someone dies...the time of sharing the funny, happy, lovely things in a person's life, a time of laughter during a stressful, sad time.

But what truly makes me laugh the kind of pure laughter, from the heart, not from a sad coping place...is my children. Jake is becoming so sarcastic and really I SHOULD do something about that, but he's FUNNY. He rolled his eyes at me the other day and I said, in a mean mommy voice, 'did you just roll your eyes at me' and he said 'yeah, and I'm gonna do it again' and he did....I burst out laughing. Isaac was having a temper tantrum and I looked him right in the eye and said, 'that's not how you do that' and I got on the floor, screamed and pummeled the floor with my hands. He burst out laughing and we both just rolled on the floor laughing and tickling each other. Sometimes...and I'll probably get frowns for this one, I'll hide behind the corner and when the kids run by I'll jump out and scream at them...they get so scared and then just laugh and ask me to do it again and again.

Yup, we're a warped family, but if you were in this family you would develop a funny bone real fast, it's one of our best coping mechanisms! And even in our darkest moments and our most joyful you will hear someone laughing in this family.....so sister dearest after you're finsihed being mad at me for telling brother dearest and mommy dearest call me and I'll tell you a joke or two and you'll get over it.

It's in the air

Wow, today is supposed to get up to 70! It's hard to believe we were recently buried in a mountain of snow for weeks on end. It's been wonderful to go out into the yard and see what's popping up. I can't wait for my bluebells, the delicate little blooms and fragile stalks are so sweet and one of my favorite early bloomers.

In this week's blog assignment (originated on a scrapshare website and emailed to me by Martha) I was asked to share what I did with my extra hour of sunlight with daylights savings just having happened. Like Martha I really saw this as a lost hour. Where as sunlight is great 'n all I'm not really a farmer and don't live and breath for sunlight. I actually think I'm somewhat allergic to it. I'm okay getting up before the sun rises and eating after the sun sets. There's really nothing I can think of that I did differently except maybe whine about something new.

A Weekend Away

I went on a scrapbooking retreat last weekend. I can't say I got much done, but I did get to spend time with my very special friend. I don't see her nearly enough since we both have young families and she lives clear across town. We relish our weekends together. I was working on an album of our trip to Spain (if you can't wait to see it you can revisit it on the October Archives of my blog). Most of my pages looked like this...half done with post-its of what still needs to be done.

My only completely finished page.


The boys visited (the hotel wasn't that far away) and swam and had lunch with us. I did miss them a wee bit and so it was nice to have them come by (look Jason shaved his beard!)

And, one of the funniest 'small world' stories I've heard in awhile. Martha and other neighborhood friend Carol came for a visit and happy hour on Saturday......I think Martha really wanted to see if I scrap booked, every time I go over to her house for that reason I look at idea books and chat, oh once I did sketch out bacteria flash cards for a test, that's kinda crafty isn't it? Anyhow, I think she now believes me. Back to the small-world story. This was the first time she and DF, Shannon met; they both wanted to meet each other since I fondly talk about both of them to each other (lots of common interests and both admirable people). They were doing the thing you do when you meet people, high school? college? Something in the conversation prompted the question, 'do you know Allison -----' Shannon thought the name sounded familiar. She calls her husband, who actually went to the same high school as Allison and there was the connection...Shannon's hubby and Martha and Carol's buddy dated for a month or so in High school. Allison has moved to another state (I knew her casually before she moved, but had she stayed she would have run into Johnny during one of Jake's birthday parties, since her daughter and my son are the same age). More scoop? Check out Martha's blog.

Just One Word?????

And now for this week's blog challenge:

Have you ever tried to describe yourself in one word? One word that sort of sums up who you are, what makes you tick, what sets you apart. It's not as easy as you think. As women, we need to spend more time recognizing and celebrating the talents and positive traits we've been adorned with. Whether we're suburban upper-middle class moms or urban, poor, living-the-moment teens - we all have one thing in common: we're beautiful women with amazing talents, unbridled potential... and we're fabulous, baby. Fabulous. Go ahead. Describe yourself with one word. Then ask three other people to describe you, too. Celebrate yourself. I dare you!

Oh my, just one word.....hmmmm, so very difficult for me who loves to talk (at times ad nauseum, so glad to have to have been introduced to blogging). But here it goes:

Waspina: It's a word made up by DH. My sister, who loves to poke fun at my natural reservedness, so foreign to the Cuban side of our family, the side that she emotionally responds to more than I, was accused, herself, of being a bit cold by her Argentinian husband (of three hours but that's another story). I had to laugh as she had lovingly, for years, accused me of being a WASP (the side of the family I generally emotionally gravitate toward, even if I look more Cuban). So our needling at each other was put to a quick stop by DH who called us both Waspinas making us both giggle with delight.

It does describe me pretty well. Caught between two cultures, not quite fitting in either and yet also enjoying being a part of both. Being a little reserved at times can be quite beneficial when deciding on a course of action. Being a bit emotional can make you a warrior for your family when needed. I enjoy being in the middle, I feel well-balanced, empathetic and at times even somewhat wise.

There are some honorary Waspina's out there. Colleen, who grew up pretty much glow- in the-dark-anglo-saxon loved visiting her Italian family (married into her family, Italian), feeling the warmth, the tears, the love made her feel happy to even witness it. She's declared herself a Waspina. Martha, so loves the idea and has joined the club. Sis-in-law is a member (of course her children, given that she is of the WASPY persuation herself and my brother is Cuban, will be Waspina/os by birth).

So here's to us who may start the evening with a Martini, have some Picadillo and frijoles negros for dinner and finish it off with a nice Cobbler. Celebrating and embracing all of the cultures that make us who we are! And, yes, I do beleive WASP is a culture, you just need to look hard.
(Dad, Wasp, Mom, Cuban, and the two Waspina girls, the dark haired, one is me and the light one is Elena)

This Discovery was Confirmed by Logic

Oh my gosh, I got my letter, I am starting nursing school in the fall. I was supposed to start this spring but didn't have my Micro class yet and had to take a deferment. When I talked to them, they made it sound like I would have to wait another couple of semesters so I had it in the back of my head, NEXT JANUARY.

AHHHHHHH

I know it's what I want, it's what I've been working toward, it's going to be good for the family and for me. But I'm a little freaked out and scarier still, very excited.

DH, cutest man ever, went to Build a Bear with the little one for a birthday party and he came home with a nurse bear for me as a congratulations. I really love him, he's such a good guy. Makes me even feel ALMOST a little guilty that I yelled at him for buying another industrial sized trashcan (we already have 5, I'm really not sure about the logic of having so many huge trashcans, maybe it's a guy thing?).

Title, from Jake's journal, he and his cousin, Bridget went on a rock hunting adventure and wrote about it, they found a rock that they assume to be over 200 years old and decide that it must be so because of logic....lol

Please still be my friend....

Oh my I got 'tagged' by someone I haven't officially met, but really enjoy reading her blog (to the point of stalking) I have no idea what that means but I'm so honored. Being the kid that was picked last for such things in grade school this means a lot! So this is what I'm supposed to do, name 10 things people don't know about me. I did this once before for a 'blog challenge' (Jan 9)which seems very similar to being 'tagged'. I'm so new to the blogging world I'm just not too sure about these things. Anyhow, it was fun the first time so I'll do it again.

10. I really would love to be an 'intellectual' but I am a bit too silly, and frankly not quite intelligent enough.
9. My conservative friends think I'm too liberal
8. My liberal friends think I'm too conservative
7. I think I'm just right
6. I am caring less about what people may or may not think about my parenting. They're bright, curious, healthy (majorly) active little boys. I don't need for them to be perfect and frankly if what they do makes you feel better about your own children and your parenting, I'm happy to provide that service for you.
5. I so dig the whole Big Love polygamous family. Not into the sharing of the husband thing but the whole 'taking a village' to raise the family thing is great! And thank you to my neighborhood mommies colleen (barb), martha (niki) aimee and shaina for helping me raise mine (and, gulp, I'm margine --except shaina thinks I'm barb and to her I probably am, but to the other guys in the group, not so much......another reason why I can't be in the whole 'intellectual' group I'd love to be a part of--I'm a bit of a scatter brain)
4. Sometimes when the kids are perfectly content playing without me I want to go hit them so that they cry and need me. I have never done this, just been tempted. I love that feeling that I'm the one that can solve their problems, with a snuggle and assurances that they are loved. They need that less and less from me and I'm missing it.
3. I lose my temper with rude customer service people.
2. I want a particular ex friend to be 'outed' as a sociopath and then have her move away.
1. I really love doing these stupid list things! and enjoy reading other people's stupid list things.
So now I will 'tag' some of you others to do this too
sis in law , sis in law's sis, tosin another person I don't know but like to read and last but of course not least Niki (that would be you, martha)
And of course feel free NOT to do it. I won't think any less of you.