New uses for ordinary things

If you are like me and have massive amounts of long hair falling out and seemingly disappearing on your bathroom carpet, then a small garden rake may be your answer. I use mine to rake up hair before I vacuum the carpet, so as not to clog my carpet roller with hair (at least not as soon). I still spend a fair amount of time on the floor or the front porch stripping the roller of my hair, but it doesn't take nearly as long.

When I have raked up and discarded as many tumbleweeds of hair as I can, I put strips of packing tape around on the floor and rip it up repeatedly, collecting as many stragglers as possible before finally running the vacuum. It's like giving your carpet a wax treatment...RIP!

May I suggest...

Bandit Tape Dispenser - I love my Bandit! I'll take it over a real tape gun any day for ease of use and convenient storage.


FlyLady.net - The place to go if you, too, are a Sidetracked Home Executive (SHE) living with CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) and longing for peace.


Pampers Bibsters - The answer for those of us who need bibs at random times when we didn't think to pack the regular bib from home. Disposable bibs for occasional use...what a great idea.


Shout Stain Catchers - Hooray! Now I don't have to hold new clothing items out to wash separately several times so they don't bleed on everything else! Stain Catchers collect the extra dyes in the water so your other clothes come out of the wash like normal.


Baby Trend's Snap N Go - The aluminum stroller frame designed to carry your infant car seat so you can just take 'em out of the car, snap it on the stroller frame, and GO! What a great idea. And a big help for people who shouldn't lift unwieldy or heavy items. It's so light and easy to dash in and out of the trunk!


Nasal Aspirator from the hospital - The one from the hospital is the only one worth it's snuff...I mean, sniff. Some friends told me this before Ava was born, and they were absolutely right.


Blue Bell Light Ice Cream - During pregnancy I craved "ice milk," something I hadn't seen sold in stores since childhood. Well, I went label reading and discovered that today's "light ice cream" is basically just ice milk with a title that speaks to the diet-conscious masses. It was a party in my mouth! I liked it even better than regular ice cream! And it has almost as much calcium as a glass of milk!!! Worth the calories.

Techy oopsy

Last night I composed quite a blog entry. One I was proud of. Something worth reading and thinking about. When I had it just right, I hit "Publish Post" only to be met with the dreaded CANNOT FIND SERVER page! (I had lost connection without realizing it.) Oh, the sinking feeling that produced! Remember that part of You've Got Mail when the Meg Ryan character complains that she can never think of the right thing to say at the exact moment when she wants to say it? Well, I can relate to that. So I finally had something to say and said it just the way I wanted to, and it got eaten by my computer. One of these days I will learn to save everything as a draft. I'm still a rookie blogger.

Craving kolaches

It's 5:22am, and I have no idea why I am wide awake. I shot up in bed out of a dead sleep about an hour ago. I was having dreams about fleas infesting some preferred possessions and my husband throwing them in the trash. My childhood security blanket and teddy bear were among them. What does it mean? Probably just that I'm preoccupied by fleas. So I tried to go back to sleep, but I was too hot to pull the covers up, and I don't usually have success falling asleep without covers.

So I got up and checked on the soapy pan of water in my bathroom that is supposed to be catching fleas. No captives. We probably don't have a bad enough infestation for this to work. (Thank goodness!)

So next I checked on the baby. Sometimes when I awaken for no apparent reason, it's because something is up with her. Usually it's because that pesky ear has folded over and suctioned to her head again. (It's shape is changing, as a result. So I peel it off and go back to bed.) To my surprise, she was wide awake playing quietly in her bed. I know all the books say wakefullness happens in a baby's sleep cycle, and that's exactly why you should bed-train them (otherwise they can't go back to sleep without crying out for you to put them to sleep in whatever manner they are accustomed to...rocking, swaying, feeding, etc.), but in all the nights I've checked on her, I have never found her so awake. Huh, I thought. I wonder if she does this every night and I just didn't know it.

Well, next item on the middle-of-the-night agenda is hunger management. I stood in the kitchen gauging my hunger levels (whether or not I would be able to go back to sleep without eating, or if I would be too preoccupied by my hunger), noticing the soft pink glow of approaching dawn. I haven't felt this one with the night since this time last year when I started night waking every night during my pregnancy. (Well, and all those nights when Ava was a newborn and needed many feedings, but we were functioning on the 24 hour clock at that point, and night was just like extended day, only dark.) I decided to opt for eating something. When I was pregnant, the fare of choice was usually mixed nuts. (I would sit on the couch in the dark, the nut can poised on my fat belly.) We don't have any nuts. I used them up in preparation for the move. So what can I eat that won't give me indigestion when I lie down again? Bread. Bread and milk, how 'bout. Down two slices and a glass of milk, all the while contemplating hot, fresh from the oven kolaches!! I seriously considered sneaking out to get some fresh kolaches, but I didn't want Britt to be alarmed that I was missing, and remember the baby is awake in there and would hear the door and get freaked out. So I had to stick with my boring bread and milk. But I've really been preoccupied by kolaches lately. I craved kolaches when I was early pregnant. Hmmm... Up in the night to eat, just like when I was pregnant. Craving kolaches, just like when I was pregnant. Too hot to sleep, just like when I was pregnant. Wanted a random corn dog with mustard (!) the other day, just like when I was pregnant (and I don't like mustard). This is starting to freak me out.

Actually, I've been paranoid lately that I'm pregnant again too soon after Ava and right before we settle across the country for law school on a small fixed budget and without a support network. (Poor dear friend Ginger, having to bear that burden alone!) I'm sure it's just that fear of the loss of a support network, starting anew in a place where I know only my child, my husband and my best friend. (That's quite a good start, however.) I told Britt the other night that I'm sure that's all it is, that I can imagine no scarier time to have no support system than pregnancy or cancer. (Cancer being admittedly way worse! I'll take untimely pregnancy to cancer any time.) If I were pregnant this soon, I'd be freaking out not just about the support thing, but that something must be happening to my body that requires me to have all my babies all of a sudden. (Like how my 33yo cousin came down with colon cancer out of the blue and ended up w/ a total hysterectomy; it was a good thing she'd had her 3 kids by then.) I am obviously a hopeless worrier. But my hair has been falling out by fistfulls daily since Ava was about 2 months old (maybe sooner but I was just too exhausted to notice).

You know, that's one thing about having been pregnant. Gas bubbles in your tummy can set off memories of those first tiny perceptible kicks of a growing baby inside you. Much more entertaining than just plain ol' gas. And that's yet another thing about my life that pregnancy changed forever. Gas.

Well, Ava finally went back to sleep. I've been in here typing for 45 minutes, and I'm still not sleepy. At least I'm not hot anymore. Still want kolaches, though. I'm still hungry. If I were pregnant, I could justify waking Britt up to go across town at 6am for kolaches. But, alas, I'll have to stick with yogurt or peanut butter crackers or something.

These Texan fleas must be ousted!

The fleas are back. Or perhaps they were never eliminated. This is, as I say, a BAD DUDE! I need to start packing more than just books and items fleas wouldn't choose to inhabit, but we are afraid doing so will ensure that we will be hosting these Texan fleas in Virginia after our move! That would be a nightmare. Imagine allowing them five weeks to multiply in all these boxes. Unpacking and resettling is hard enough without dreading a subsequent flea invasion. I have resorted to some natural home remedy web site suggestions. I think tonight's attempt will be to put a pan of soapy water under a lamp all night to capture the stupid ones. Then vacuum like a crazy person for days on end. Meanwhile, I'll put mint all over the house. And cedar. And if that doesn't cut it, I'll put Borax and salt in the carpets to supposedly dehydrate their habitat and vacuum some more. Geez, I need a better vacuum cleaner for this. And either moth balls, cedar pellets, or a flea collar to put in my vacuum cleaner bag to kill the trapped ones, apparently. This could be so much worse, but it's bad enough right now. The invaders must be evicted! OUT, I SAY! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!

Love pulp, stirred

Every night right before I finally go to bed, I check on my peacefully sleeping daughter one last time. It used to be that I needed to turn her head to the left to keep her from making her plagiocephaly (flattening of the head) any worse. But now she tends to face the left on her own, making it less than necessary for me to check on her. Nonetheless, I am compelled to make one last stop in the quiet room whose night light dimly peeks out from behind a clear plastic container we call a toy box. I usually just confirm that she's positioned appropriately in her bed and that her ear isn't folded over and suctioned to her head and move along. But one night recently I couldn't leave her. I felt the need to stand over her, silently watching as she breathed in and out, in and out. The soft rise and fall of her chest stirred within me that deepest love I have for her every second of every day but that tends to settle to the bottom like orange juice pulp--the sweetest, most flavorful part of the juice--that needs to be reincorporated in order to taste its full flavor. My full-bodied love for her was urging me to lean over and kiss her soft, sweet face, but I was afraid I might stir her if I did. Then it occurred to me that it won't be very long until she will be able to sit up in her bed, requiring us to lower her mattress and raise the rail. (Her lack of mobility has given us an extension on keeping the rail down.) Once that mattress is lowered, I won't be able to lean over and kiss her anymore. I have to tip-toe to do so as it is now. I suddenly felt the pending loss of this stage of her life, of her delicate infant-ness. Once the mattress is lowered and that rail is raised, I will know that we have turned a page in her life. She will still be soft and sweet, silently sleeping in her dimly lit room, but she will not be my tiny baby anymore. And I will not be able to lean over and kiss her soft sweetness in the still of the night. So I kissed my sweet baby right then, and she never even knew it. But I will cherish those moments always.

On blogging

That last entry took off like a lead balloon. I guess that's just how it will be from time to time. You can't come up with something brilliantly insightful, interesting, or just plain entertaining every time you write. I feel like this blogging thing may be just another hobby that I try out on a whim, this time at the urging of a fellow blogger. I thought about it for a few weeks before jumping into blogland. I finally decided that blogging would be good brain exercise. Really. Brain exercise. I told my DH way back when I became a SAHM that I needed to find some resource that provided research-produced exercises for different areas of the brain--areas that tend to be underused (which we would only know about from the neurology research, of course) when your most common activities are playing pat-a-cake and putting shape toys in the shape sorter so that your baby can take them all out again and start over, all while watching every rerun TBS can show of the Cosby Show and Fresh Prince of Bel Air. (And that's all before 2pm.) I have been free from my workforce job for over four months now. (Woohoo!) That's four months without having reason to write anything other than thank you notes (which I am so behind on it is just nauseating) and daily correspondence via email to my dear friend. My reading had become limited to parenting and child magazines, propaganda sent to my mailbox by Gerber, and rare BabyCenter newsletter articles of interest. (I have since attempted a Nick Hornby novel that fell flat and am now well on my way toward finishing a home maintenance method book called Sink Reflections.) My adult conversations include the morning "Don't forget to [fill in the blank] today", early evening supper plan/"when are you coming home from work today?" phone call, and bedtime "oh, I forgot to tell you..." episodes with my DH. Doing math in my head is worse than ever. And I am shamefully dependent on the spell check these days. My brain needs a good workout! I tried reading daily my friend's brilliantly insightful blog (Among the Ruins), at the urging of my DH, but I find that my mind cannot process adequately to absorb deep thought anymore. It was WORK to read it, which was frustrating b/c I could see how important and interesting it would be to me if only I could get past the words! (I am still encouraging my brain to work on that.) Anyway, I haven't found that well-researched neurological resource providing me with a system of brain exercises (someone should make one! people would buy that...tell them it would make them live longer, more active lives and they would totally buy that!), so I figure it is up to me to vary my activities to activate different areas of my brain. Perhaps I should do some research to discover what the different areas of my brain are supposed to be doing. And what would exercise them. In the meantime, I will just keep blogging and singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider.

A new way to shop

Another first happened today. My m-i-l called from the Petite Sophisticate in Lubbock wanting to buy me some clothes on sale before she comes here to visit in a few days. She proceeded to tell me what she saw, hoping to get an idea of what I might want. Overwhelmed with options I could not see, I suggested I take a few minutes to look around on the PS web site and then call her back. When we reconnected, I had a better idea of what she was describing, and I could help guide her toward items of interest. I stayed online and shopped with her for quite a while. It will be interesting to see what our shopping trip rendered. I imagine it will be just like when I am at PS in person. I collect every garment I have the slightest interest in and have them start me a dressing room. When I think I have one of every item I remotely like, I head to the room and start trying stuff on. Before my fashion show is over, I have narrowed down 10-20 items to about 3 or 4, two of which are usually questionable for some reason or another. I can generally manage to talk myself out of at least one or two, leaving with less than 3 garments. So of the eight or so garments my m-i-l will arrive with next week, I wonder if I will find at least 2 or 3 worth keeping. I have a lot of trouble buying clothes now that my daughter's milk has taken up semi-permanent residence inside my shirts! Oh, to be small-chested once again!

Random word thought for today

Why is a person who escapes called an "escapee"? Shouldn't he be called an "escaper"?

It's Towed Vehicle Week!

Evidently I missed the memo on Towed Vehicle Week. I think I saw one vehicle being towed by a chain or rope hooked to the back end of a pickup for the third time this week. Odd. Maybe it's a sign. Britt's car died on Sunday (just as we are preparing to sell it...how convenient), and we haven't had time to try jump-starting it to take it in for service. If that doesn't work, then we'll have to call Woody's and pay to have it towed again. Or perhaps we can just tie a rope to the back end of my car and pull it across town! Knowing our luck, we'd crash our cars together. Can't have that.

Insect of the Day: Mutant Mosquitoes

Well, the bug man came today to spray for fleas. (Yes, fleas even though we own no pets. Right when we are packing to move. How frustrating.) That meant picking up every item we own that is on the carpet, which is a lot of stuff. I'll have to be cautious about Ava making contact with the poisoned carpet now. So it's a really good thing she doesn't crawl. Maybe the fleas will die and get sucked up by the vacuum cleaner very soon so that I can get back to packing. Hope so. The new problem is the HUGE mosquitoes in our house!! We had the door open for a while today while the bug man was spraying (long story), so I guess a few got in the house. I never even thought about that. These are bizarrely large mutant mosquitoes! I have never seen them so big!!! When we came home earlier, britt freaked out by the front door and said he thought there was a bee...Get the fly swatter! I thought, Oh my gosh we can't have a bee on the loose in here with Ava unattended all night. I won't sleep a wink. Well, it turned out the "bee" was actually an enormous mosquito! A mosquito the size of a bee! That freaks me out. I mean, maybe those are the rare mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus and the reason no one gets that around here is b/c the mondo variety of mosquitoes are so rare! And apparently all in my front yard! Another one attacked while I was feeding Ava, and it totally freaked me out. I mean it was LOUDLY buzzing around me, and kind of charging me. So I'm desperately trying to protect my daughter and myself, yelling for Britt (who was on the phone) to get the swatter so i could keep track of the bug. It got away, so naturally I was possessed until it reemerged and we beat it to death. Now I'm afraid there may be others lurking about. Oh my. Always something new and unusual to keep my mind occupied.

Shopping Kartma

Yesterday I had an opportunity to shop for groceries without my 7-month-old, so I raced off to the HEB for a quick shopping escapade. I parked near a stray shopping cart so I could just grab it and head directly into the store. (I figured I would build some positive karma by rescuing the lonely cart and keeping that HEB teen from having to hike all the way out there to get it.) So I was feeling good about all this...infantless shopping, easy-reach cart. Once I got into the store, it occurred to me that I had retrieved perhaps the most smoothly gliding cart ever! It had great handling too...no veering! The Mommy Heavens opened up and sang loud hosannas for only me to hear! And then I got to the jugs of purified water. We usually buy them 6 at a time, filling up the under-cart rack. Lo and behold, there was no under-cart rack. NO RACK!!?? AARRRGGHH!! This was perhaps the best cart ever in the history of grocery shopping (and I KNOW GROCERY SHOPPING), and it had no rack! I think that karma thing didn't pan out after all. (I've never understood how that's supposed to work anyway.) Fortunately, I hadn't put much more than produce in the cart at that point, so I didn't have to excavate too deeply to create space for my waters. Maybe Mommy Heaven was telling me to buy a Brita filter. (I've probably built up negative karma putting so many plastic jugs into the landfill.) The perfect shopping cart is out there somewhere, just waiting for me to appreciate its perfection. I just know it.

Make mine a Mini

In recent years I have become quite enamored with the Mini Cooper. I guess that would be my dream car if infant seats were no consideration. Although I must admit that it seems a bit small, impractical, and possibly unsafe. My dad would call it a cracker box. I am a person who needs four doors, cargo space. Practicality is key. So why this love for the Mini? No idea. But every time I see one, I light up inside. Maybe even exclaim to my husband, There's a Mini! Seems so silly. I went to their web site one time, and it was thrilling to design my own Mini. I think it was blue with black trim. The ones with white trim seem happy too, now that I've seen several. But white seems so hard to keep clean. See, it's that practical side of me squelching my desire for a happy novelty car. Anyway, I can get a sparkle every time I see a Mini and think of mine. A girl can dream.