My life as I know it

There is the path of least resistance and then there is the path that I think will be even less resistant than the path of least resistance which actually turns out to be a path with crater-size resistance. Are you following me? Six months ago, when Graham was ready to start eating solids, I decided I was going to make his baby food and save us some money. I was convinced I could make it cheaper and then also make foods that aren't available in the store to broaden Graham's pallet, if you will. In the interest of saving money, I didn't buy the baby food-making blender that I really wanted and instead used the blender we already owned. I had intended to blog about my baby food making experiences long ago but never got around to it. Maybe it's best. A few months ago, my post would have been all rainbows and butterflies. Because that was before I realized that sometimes making your own baby food doesn't save you money but actually costs you more. The day I realiz...

Wow. I'm terrible at blogging. I wasn't awesome at it before having a kid and now with the kid, I'm even worse. I started this blog after my first week back at work, so over a month ago, and never finished or published it. So while Graham is napping on this Sunday afternoon, I made it my mission to finish it. ***** I'm not going to lie, I definitely shed a few tears on my way to work on that first Monday morning. It was not easy to leave my baby boy. One of the positive aspects of having a 45 minute commute is that I have a lot of time to think (this can also be negative, too, depending on my mood). I had 45 minutes to talk myself out of feeling sad and talk myself into feeling really lucky and blessed. So I did. And it worked! And the glass half-full attitude lasted all week long. And to be honest, it wasn't a stretch because I really am lucky and blessed. I was feeling a lot of emotions on that first day back to work but some of the emotions I wasn't ...

So last week, Pat called to tell me that his friend from college would be coming to Cleveland for work and would be staying with us for a night. I was really excited because I love visitors! Pat went on to say that he thought it would be fun if we went to Great Lakes Brewing Company for dinner when he's there. I got even more excited because I love going out to eat and we hardly ever go out to eat during the week! Somehow, though, the communication major misinterpreted the intention of the word "we." "What time are we going out to eat?" I asked Pat. "Well," he replied with hesitation, "when I said 'we,' I actually meant just us guys. You know, a guy's thing." I tried to play it off like I was totally okay with that, "Oh, it's just a guys thing? Okay. No big deal." But deep down, it was a big deal. I felt an overwhelming sense of rejection. So right now, they are out to eat and drinking Great Lakes beer while I a...

I can't believe it is September already. Where oh where did the summer go? Given falls imminent arrival, I was very disheartened to go out to my "garden" tonight only to find that I still don't have any vegetables in my first attempt as a farmer. Can someone please explain to me how I could grow up in a farm town and go to a high school with classes titled, "Future Farmers of America" and "drive your tractor to school day," and not be able to grow ONE tomato? Granted, I didn't ever take an FFA class or own a tractor, but I thought maybe by way of osmosis I would have inherited some of those farming skills. Hypothesis incorrect. It all started when I decided to join up with Erica @ The Gritty Girl Blog for a zucchini growing contest. I thought it sounded like fun. It also sparked an interest in me to grow tomatoes, too. Unfortunately, I waited until the end of May to plant both my zucchini and tomato seeds. Pat (and many others) told me o...

As you know, due to my addiction with the game Words with Friends , I haven't been reading as much as I would like to these days. But I'm happy to report that I did just finally finish the one and only book I've read this summer (how pathetic am I?). I know I'm about six years late and a dollar short, but I finally read the book My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult and it was really good. I haven't read a Jodi Picoult book yet that I haven't loved. If by some slim chance you, too, have been living under a rock and haven't read the book yet, I highly recommend you do so! As usual, I have not allowed myself to watch the movie , starring Cameron Diaz, which came out in 2009, until I read the book first. I always like reading the book first, a lesson learned by my mom very early in life. So now, I've read the book and I really want to watch the movie but after several failed attempts, I'm beginning to realize, things just aren't what they us...

It has been a difficult few days for me. After an accidental dropping of my computer this weekend by one of Pat's friends, my computer would no longer turn on. It couldn't have been broken, I thought, since it only feel approximately two feet from the couch and landed on our carpeted floor. The problem was, I had my flash drive in the USB port and of course since I'm cursed with all things electronic, it landed right on the flash drive causing it to jam internally into the rest of the computer. Pat and I took it to the Apple store yesterday. I held the computer in my arms as we walked to the store to determine the fate of my computer. My lifeline. My love. After doing some testing, the Apple Genius, I believe his name was Jeremy - we will call him Dr. Jeremy, informed me that the results were not good. The USB drive had been pushed into the motherboard of my computer on impact during the dropping. It would cost me over $800 to repair it. I felt like the walls were closing i...

Dear Cleveland Postal Workers, I have had many encounters with various postal workers throughout my last year of employment in Cleveland. None of which have been enjoyable for me. Most of which involved me getting scolded and lectured in ways that I haven't experienced since being a small child. Today's experience, although small in overall comparison to the others, was the straw that broke the camels back. I just don't understand how individuals who so obviously hate human interactions, end up working in customer service/sales related positions such as postal workers. Perhaps it's because of problems in our social structure which require people to do jobs that they don't enjoy. But I have a separate blog for political issues such as these. Many people dislike their jobs and are dissatisfied at work. Not everyone, however, takes it out on innocent people who just want to buy some stamps for their non-profit. Yes, I admit. You caught me putting tape on a stamp once. ...