Book Meme

That Girl, participated in a book meme and then tagged me and four other bloggers.

Here's how it works: Pick up a book of at least 123 pages and open the book to page 123. Find the fifth sentence on that page and post the next three sentences. Then you get to tag five people.

Unfortunately, That Girl tagged my sister Sherri over at Desperately Seeking Sherri whose last post is titled "Waiting"...hmmm, should have told us something about what we'd be doing for the next TWO MONTHS! Sherri, you betta fulfill your tag on this one...don't want to make That Girl look silly for putting her faith in you!

Okay, public shaming over, I have chosen Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen because, like Sex and the City, it's just one of those stories that you never tire of hearing and the smallest snippet can make you want to start it all over again.

"Mr Collins's return into Hertfordshire was no longer a matter of pleasure to Mrs Bennet. On the contrary she was as much disposed to complain of it as her husband. -It was very strange that he should come to Longbourn instead of to Lucas Lodge; it was also very inconvenient and exceedingly troublesome."

I tag Alex Elliot , Sherri (because I firmly believe in peer pressure to make things happen) and then I have to pick a couple of people who probably have no idea who I am, but I'm going to tag them anyhow because I like their blogs; Rima over at Rimarama Mama Drama , Dawn at Because I Said So and Karianna of The Karianna Spectrum: Kari's Couch. Let's see how this goes!

Bare Naked Exhaustion

Today my friend Alex and I took our boys to see BareNaked Ladies at the Barnes and Noble...no, that's not a typo...Bare Naked Ladies put on a free concert at Barnes and Noble in a neighboring town today, and all we had to do was buy their new children's cd, Snacktime, which is really good, and arrive at 9am to secure a wristband for the afternoon performance.

I decided about 45 minutes before I was supposed to be out the door (of course, I hadn't showered or begun getting ready yet) that today would be a great day to test out the new double stroller, as I knew that Alex's OS would most likely tire of walking at some point, and H always does better when contained. The double-stroller was still sitting in the hall closet...in the box. After about 10 minutes of struggle, I had it out of the box, with all parts on the floor. It really was easy to assemble, so it wasn't long before I was in the shower, forgoing shampoo for my hair, as the salon blow-style from yesterday still look way better than when I do it myself...okay, out the door and almost right on time.

The only hitch to our grand plan to treat our kids to their first concert was that we then had to arrange activities to occupy ourselves from about 9:30 am until we could go back and be admitted at 2. The first no-brainer was to get a coffee the size of my head at Starbucks, then take it with us to the playspace at the mall. The kids ran themselves silly for over an hour until it was time for lunch.

After lunch, we did a little shopping for really exciting things like nursing tanks from GapMaternity. Yes, say good-bye to the days of flipping through the racks at Victoria's Secret. I have to say that it was worth the time and effort to get the stroller to the car because it was great! I'm very happy with my purchase.

We made it to Barnes and Noble just in time to stand in line, then to be ushered to our seats. We quickly realized that our plan to put our coats at our chairs and have the kids play at the train table until it was time to start was just not going to work. Even worse, Alex and I met each other with a look of horror when we realized that the concert started at 3 THIRTY, not 3 o'clock as originally thought.

Awesome, H is so easy to contain, I'm sure he'll do great with an entire 90 minutes to kill. I ingeniously unclipped the tail from his 'back-pack' wrapped it around his seat and re-clipped it into place. He still had plenty of range of motion, he just couldn't run off...well, at least he couldn't without giving me ample warning.

Although I was getting tired and annoyed by the time the band came on, it was well worth the wait. After about 30 minutes of music, we got our CD signed and left the store...EIGHT HOURS after leaving the house that morning. Yes, EIGHT HOURS.

It was on the drive home I realized that at some point over the last couple of days, the corner has been turned. No more am I upbeat and silly SallyHP who responds to the daily, and unceasing inquiry of how are you feeling? with "Great!" Nope. No more. I am DONE being pregnant. I am so ready to squeeze Baby C out that I can hardly stand myself.

It's like when Carrie saw Natasha whack her face in the stairwell, which made her finally tell Big that they were 'so over, we need a new word for over.'

I decided that in order to speed things along, it couldn't hurt to write the adult version of a Santa letter, but instead of the big one, I'm hitting up the big three.

Dear V, Uterus and Cervix:

While I know that we've had a pretty good run so far, and I've been a little nervous about the whole parenting two kids thing; please finish. Please start contracting with ferocity. Please dilate. Please expel this child from my body in the usual fashion, so that I can regain my waist (and ankle) circumference. Please. Please. Please. I'll never ask this of you again (for at least two more years when the next baby comes). I know that you may be snickering at me, because you know that I'll be even more exhausted in the coming months. But I don't care.

Please. Just go.

I'll even go so far as to quote Pee Wee Herman to convince you how much I deserve to be done; "Believe me Santa, Please, I've practically been an angel."

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Sincerely (and with naked exhaustion),
SallyHP

Where there's poop there's...

Yep, mice. I received a knock on my door the other day and found my neighbor (no, not the freaky nail lady, but a super-nice mom of two young kids, who we'll dub NN for Normal Neighbor) standing outside my door. I used the peep-hole this time and shushed H prior to opening the door, lest my other neighbor have a snagged toe-nail or something. NN said that she was sorry for just dropping by, but wanted to let me know that they had a 'mice problem', and she just wanted to let me know since we share a common wall.

I couldn't help the look of horror that crossed my face, because there is nothing I dislike more than rodents. I tried to think back to my kitchen and if I'd seen any 'signs' of mice, as she said that she'd had pest control out and they patched a hole, but she still had poo on her counters and in the laundry area this morning...double gross. I couldn't think of anything, but you can bet that as soon as I closed the door, I'd found the motivation I needed to deep clean the ole-kitchen.

There's nothing quite as entertaining as a hugely pregnant woman wielding the vacuum hose and gathering the fuzz and dust from around the dryer, refridgerator and under the stove, then on hands and knees using pine sol to clean the floors. I then flew like a maniac from counter to counter with my new 'earth friendly' orange kleen ensuring there were no errant crumbs, and that all food containers were appropriately sealed. After a final perusing of all cupboards and ensuring myself that there were no droppings to be seen and that all appliance fittings seemed secure to the wall, I sat my sweaty self down and finished "Happy Feet" with H, who'd abandoned the movie in order to stand at the entry to the kitchen asking in his Eliza Doolittle lilt "Wha' are you doooooing?"

Once summer during college, I moved my stuff back to my parents house and unwittingly brought a little hitch-hiker with me. When I was getting ready for work and saw him (or her, I didn't get close enough to see) in the doorway to the bathroom, I left the house in whatever state of readiness I was, and called my dad from the road, notifying him that they had a mouse in their house, and that I hoped it would be trapped by the time I got home.

My mom called me at work to let me know that not only had the mouse been trapped, but she had done her own little OCD cleaning of the house, to find that the center of that little mouse's world had also been the center of mine. Yes, she had found mouse poop in my bed under my pillow! I knew that my room was messy, but didn't think that it was literally a rat's nest (okay, smarty, I know that mice and rats are different, but mice nest is not as catchy).

After two nights of dreams filled with mouse poo, I've eased into the kitchen each morning, flipped on the lights and scanned the nooks and crannies. We're in the clear so far, but lets just hope that the inhumane poison and whatever else they used works. Yes, my name is SallyHP and I'm a heartless beyotch.

Cutting Costs

When J and I first started merging our finances, one of the biggest shocks to him was the amount of money that is spent on the cut, color and general maintenance of my hair. A former Army Ranger, his high and tights were the most demanding style he's ever employed as far as upkeep is concerned.

I'm still the only one who spends any real money on my hair, so don't feel bad about it. H gets his hair cut at home, and J goes to the local chop shop. After the cut pictured here, where H's hairline in the back ended up level with his ears, I decided that maybe I'd be just fine learning the fine art of hair cuttin' since J didn't seem to be as concerned about the end result as I might be.

J's most recent experience at salon de sale resulted in him saying with disdain "I'm not going back to that place." I carefully looked at his hair, and saw no difference in the resulting coif, so asked what happened...

Wait for it...

Yes, the 'stylist' attempted to up-sell. Before you gasp in horror, you have to know that when you pay less than $10 for a hair-cut, they've got to recoup their costs somewhere.

While in the middle of the cut, he'd been asked if he wanted a 'camo'. He asked for clarification and was informed that a 'color camo' is a simple procedure in which your gray is covered...he scoffed in return. "Doesn't your gray bother you?" asked the oh-so-silly woman. Ummmm, no, no it does not.

Actually, J's gray is one of the things that I really like about his hair. It's not the ugly springy grey, but the distinguished silver-flecked temples. Love it. Apparently, the retail-whoring did not end there, as J was then asked if he didn't notice that he had a bit of dry scalp. He agreed that he did, which was why his loving wife doesn't allow him to use the Suave Daily Clarifying that he was oh-so-fond of, and buys Paul Mitchell's Tea Tree instead.

I guess that's not quite good enough, because he was told that he needs to start using the conditioner as well. J was about to walk out mid-snip as he has about an inch of hair at the longest points, and is not exactly what one would call metro-sexual; I've just recently convinced him to stop using bar soap on his face, and to apply moisturizer with SPF...that's as far as it's ever going to go.

He paid for his cut and left, using every reserve of strength not to ask the cigarette-smoke infused diva if he could interest her in any Nicorette gum, as her stench was certainly more of a concern than his gray hair or dry scalp.

Meeting of the Mines

Landmines that is...

Last night, I attended a meeting for my mom's group. The meeting topic was "Spousal Relations" and it was intended to be the time and place where we could all get ideas on how to better communicate expectations regarding a division of labor in the household, teamwork in parenting and the other minutae that come up during the course of a marriage that includes one or more children. Nobody had come to the meeting at a crisis point in their marriage, feeling un-appreciated, unloved, or on the brink of divorce (that I know of). The speaker had been chosen based on a referral, although not a lot was known about his credentials as a counselor (because he didn't have any), nor about his world-views.

As I listened to him present his bio and 'expertise' my stomach began to sink. This man was not qualified to speak on the topic we had intended, and he kind of knew it; 'know thy audience' would have been an awesome piece of advice to whisper in this speaker's ear prior to his presentation. After all, (and please note the sarcasm here) I guess it's not his fault that we weren't all there to raptly listen to, and agree with, the ideals that he learned by attending a weekend retreat sponsored by The Sterling Institute (which was, we learned what made him feel he was qualified to address our group on the topic of spousal relations)...he couldn't say enough good things about it, hoping that we'd all run home and tell our husband's to attend. Here's what their site had to say:

The Weekend is led by A. Justin Sterling, an acknowledged relationship expert, author, and founder of the Sterling Institute. His expertise and familiarity with the innermost thoughts of women, has given him the insight and perspective to teach men to be better relationship partners by being more masculine, more honorable, and more disciplined. Men who are not ready for a long-term relationship will find good advice on how to manage their emotional well-being in romantic endeavors, while men who are considering marriage and family will find much needed guidance on self-preparation, choosing the right mate, and staying on the path to a thriving marriage.

Lest you be up in arms that these pearls of wisdom are only available to men, here's what Mr. Sterling himself had to say about the women's retreat, and how he got his start in relationship counseling and 'the weekends':

I had a professional relationship with a director of a women’s organization that counseled women about how to be successful in their career. We began to see a correlation between women’s ability to be successful in their careers and their inability to be successful in their personal relationships. This organization began referring clients to me and I experienced a great deal of success with those clients.

When asked to describe the basic philosophy of the Women's Weekend Mr. Sterling replied:

The basic philosophy of the Women's Weekend is that when a woman begins to accept and embrace all of her female characteristics, then she can make wise choices. These choices are very personal ones, ones that will affect the direction and outcome of the rest of her life. A woman’s freedom lies in the acceptance of her feminine nature, not in trying to adopt what are fundamentally male characteristics. A woman’s happiness and satisfaction in a long-term relationship with a man lies in accepting her man just as he is, without burdening him and the relationship with her expectations that he will change to accommodate the way she thinks he should be. The more a woman accepts herself, the easier it is for her to accept her man.

Armed with the vast and wordly knowledge gained at his weekend, our speaker also added fun on the farm facts such as "sex with your husband will go a long way, and will solve 9 out of 10 problems." Okaaaay...I'm as big a fan of sex with your husband as the next gal, but this sure doesn't seem to give much credit to the intellectual processes of men.

I had a little mini-barf when he stated "...and if you're not having sex with your husband, let's just say you can't be angry if he goes somewhere else for it." Seriously, this man was clearly over his head in presenting to our group, and was ridiculously underqualified given the topic we'd requested he speak to. Nobody had said anything about not having/liking to have a healthy sexual relationship with their spouse. I'm pretty sure Al Bundy had more respect for his wife than this man, and for women in general.

Here's the last portion of the interview with Mr. Sterling that I'll post and then I promise I'll stop. This is just like a 10 car pile-up and I can't take my eyes off of it:

"You say women should be 100% responsible for the success of the relationship - can you expound on that?

Whether or not men will admit it, the success of a long-term committed relationship is not really all that important to them. In a way that’s good, because men basically don’t have the desire or the skills to create a successful relationship; however, women do. Simply put, the one who has the skill and the desire should be the one who is responsible for its success.

If the woman is completely responsible, then what is a man's role in a relationship?

A man’s role is to make sure he doesn’t become feminine in his actions and attitudes, and to begin to learn what he as a man can do to accommodate or take care of a woman in the best possible way. A man who is secure and confident in his masculine identity has more to bring to a woman, which enables her to more effectively assume responsibility for the success of that relationship."

After reading what The Sterling Institute is based upon, I know that I would rather shove bamboo shoots under my fingernails than be married to a man who espoused (pardon the pun) these ideals.

The tragic part of the evening (actually there were many of them) was that we had foregone the use of a member's priest, who actually is a counselor, as we didn't want to offend any members of the group who may not have been of that religious affiliation.

Sadly, the speaker we got was about as appropriate and well-received as a fart in church.