Been awhile!

We got over being sick, eventually, and had a great Canadian thanksgiving.

Since then, I've been stressing about the GREs. I took the general test October 21 and it was fine. Not as good as it COULD have been, but just fine. Since then I've been freaking out about the math subject test.

Y'all, I am so stressed about this test. I have never been more deep down upset about a test in my life. I think it's because I've never set myself up for abject failure before, and it's rubbing my psyche raw. I'm used to excelling. I like excelling. I have even developed, over the years, a really good sense of good enough because I have come to honestly know that my good enough is better than most people's really really good, so I don't have to torture myself to get my own perfect. I hope that comes across correctly and not totally full of myself.

But I am, simply, unqualified to take this test. And it's ok. Because the program I'm applying to says very clearly that while this test is required it is used for diagnostic purposes, not admissions, and I can spin myself golden in the personal statement. I'm not 100% sure I'll be admitted, but I don't think this test is going to be the make-or-break. I know this, but even so I am being physically twisted and bent by the stress of knowing, objectively, that I'm not skilled enough to take this test but I am going to do it anyway. Random nausea, headaches, emotionally labile, distracted, the whole nine yards.

I was feeling ok until Sunday night, when a curtain lifted and I realized that a whole bunch of problems that I thought were level 1 problems are actually level 3 problems written to look like level 1 problems. I'm not at level 3. I can sort of fake level 1. I got so demoralized.

I had set a goal in my head, and it's waaay low objectively, but it would have been ok for me. I got invested in that goal. Now I think it might be much too high. And I'm making myself sick over this. Literally. I dream about derivatives.

Last night at 1am I woke up sweaty with a hot steel poker running down my right optic nerve. I stumbled out of bed and took some medicine, cursing my night owl husband who had made the world's stinkiest frozen pizza. It was the foulest stench imaginable to me right then. I tried to lay very still for a while, but the pain didn't fade. I stumbled into the dark bathroom and took a timeless hot shower. I was asleep on my feet. I remember thinking over and over again that I couldn't sit down (like I usually would in a hot headache relieving shower) because I would go to sleep and drown and wouldn't that be an embarassing way to die, and poor Theo who would have to find me. So I stayed under the spray on my feet. Eventually I stumbled back to bed.

I skipped exercise class this morning, and while I know it would be good for me to go, I just wanted to stay in bed for that hour. *sigh*

Just a few more days, and then it will be out of my hands. Then I'm going to put it all away for at least a week before I start writing the application.





In happier news, there are a bunch of new photos up at picasa. Click on this amazing shot of K on Halloween to go to the album and see them all!

From Fall 09

She LOVED ToTing. They only went to like three houses and she came back with all of six pieces of candy, but oh the frabjous joy! "MAMA, I got candy! Dis one a M+M candy. Dis one a golden candy. Dis one a ... What dis one is? ... Dis one a red skittles candy..."

Let's end with a quote that I don't think made it to facebook:

"Kitty, let's go eat dinner."

"Yes! Because I want to grow big and stwong and heafwy so dat I can drink wiiiiiiine!"

"Well, not until you are all grown up."

"When I'm three?"

"No, not even when you're three. When you're twenty one you can have some wine."

(Theo in the background: Wow, I was going to say ten, but 21, ok.)

"No, when I'm twenty niiiiiiiine. DEN I will get to drink wiiiine."

Ugh

Let's see...

I've had a cold all week. Thursday it turned into pink eye, but I was vindicated because it was viral and didn't need the drops my insurance wouldn't cover. (Thanks, union, for screwing up everyone's health coverage!) Friday I stay home from work due to potentially contagious pink eye, learn to take derivatives and shop for our camping trip. Camping trip cancelled because Kitty caught my cold and is running a pretty high at times fever. I'm disappointed. It goes against their written policy, but I wonder if I can find someone nice at the organization who will let me use our payment for another weekend. I was really looking forward to it!

I have to go into work at some point this weekend to make copies and do some paperwork because we're having a big giant inspection on Monday and it would look bad to be winging it when the team came through. Hopefully today, but the nail in the coffin on the camping trip (even if we were thinking of taking K sick, which we weren't) is that T woke up with a migraine.

But, I bought a turkey to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving, which is Monday. I've invited a few friends over for a turkey dinner. I figure more than a month before Thanksgiving is an ok timing in terms of people getting tired of turkey. I'll try and get a little prep done before. I'm not going too crazy--roast turkey, cornbread stuffing (from the Pepperidge Farms mix), glazed carrots, cranberry sauce, and either mashed or scalloped potatos, and gravy. I keep thinking of things I COULD add, but let's just not. Though I am excited about putting the leaf in the dining room table.

Some Kitty vignettes:
Kitty has been a little fragile lately too. She got honestly upset and cried when a dried leaf that she had given T like three times in the last day got crushed.

And then she had a moment the other day when she wanted gummy fruit snacks, and it was too close to dinner. She asked T and he said No, and she came and asked me. I asked her what her daddy said, and she tried so hard not to lie.

"What did daddy say?"
"Yoouuuu can get them!"
"I could, but what did daddy say?"
"But I would reawwy wike some fruit gummy snacks!"
"I know, sweetie."
"Pweeeeeease can I have fruit gummy snacks?"
"I know you asked your daddy. What did he say?"
Then she got mad and stomped her foot and said, "HE SAID YES!"

And then she got a little talk about how if daddy said no, mama agrees, and telling lies doesn't make mama and daddy happy. I don't know if I set her up improperly with the sort of Socratic questioning, but it was very interesting to watch her mind work. Her body language even changed and she faced away from me and was fiddling with things while she was trying to convince me.

The other night Kitty was giving us lessons in sleeping.

"Fust you put da blankie on tight. I will tuck you in! Den you cwose your eyes. Den da fwum!"

"What do you do with your thumb?"

"You suck it in! Suck it in, Mama! Now we go to sweep! Dweam a dweam."

"What are you going to dream about?"

"Animulls. I am going to dweam about animulls. What are you going to dweam about, Mama?"

"Flowers."

"Ooohhh, dat's cooool! Goo night, mama!"

...

"Now it is not sweeping time. Open da eyes. Now I will tuck you NOT in."

I took some more photos of our pumpkin plants, but I'm too tired to deal with the camera now. I'll do it later.

Last...So the living room floor was getting a bit manky, so I got all industrious and spot cleaned all the popsicle drips and random spots and um, the giant red wine spill that instigated the whole cleaning episode. Then I used the carpet cleaner and cleaned the whole floor.

What do I get for my efforts? You guessed it--the spot cleaned spots are much cleaner and stand out like funny not-shadows. *sigh* I should just not even try.

Weekend

Saturday I went to a soup swap. Everyone brings 6 (plus or minus) quarts of one kind of soup. Then you drink wine, chat, hang out, eventually draw numbers, describe your soup, and then grab what you want in number order. I ate an entire quart of tom kha myself for dinner that night. Yum. It was a lot of fun and we may host one at our house sometime soon.

Kitty did an amazing job in church yesterday! For the first time ever, we sat in the santuary the whole service. We bailed to the narthex for announcements after she finally got too bored and bolted up the side aisle giggling, making lots of people laugh.

What changed? #1, she learned how to whisper reliably. We've been practicing in the library when we go about once a week. #2, I brought a couple sheets of stickers and a small pad of paper with to keep her occupied. #3, I realized how enamored she is of her rosary that usually hangs on the corner of a picture frame in her room. I told her she can wear it at church as long as she whispers only and cooperated. It worked!

And then I laughed and laughed. We have a beautiful holy water fountain in the narthex. Two fonts for dipping and a mosaic stepped pool. Yesterday, there was a matchbox car at the bottom.

This Saturday is the blessing of the pets (outdoors). We don't have a pet who would cooperate, but I think I'm going to bring K and her lovey (specifically mentioned as welcome). I think she would get a kick out of it.

We dyed yarn!

Kitty picked the colors and helped color the yarn, which is good because it's destined to be a winter blankie for her.

photos!

Saturday bliss

Kitty and I went to Old Navy, Bed Bath and Beyond (the Kaboom foam bathroom cleaner really was worth the special trip), the library bookstore, and an unfortuntely closed farmstand, all without leaving our little corner of East Austin. Now dinner is in the oven and we're picking up a little because we're babysitting a friend's 11 year old this evening. I figure we'll make cookies. That's a good way to keep the preteen and the toddler entertained.

Kitty had a banner day! There was a pile of books that she had pulled off the living room bookcase, and I asked her if she could put them away. I showed her the empty place where they went, and she put them all back! She was really proud of herself, too, which was the nicest part. "Iyam doing it, Mama! Iyam cleaning up, and I don't need any help!"

And while we were out running around, she had two clear opportunities to tantrum, and was totally zen about both. 1) I had talked up going to see the chickens and pigs at the farm stand, and they were closed because their whole schedule is pushed back because of the drought. She said, "We will see the pigs next time." 2) We went to a book sale at the library, and then to the park, but I left my phone at the library. I realized as we were parked at the playscape but before we got out of the car. I was ready for whining or yelling or something when we drove away, but she was perfectly patient throughout.

She has also gotten really empathetic lately, in a hilariously bossy way. I told her that we had to let Daddy rest when we got home (because he had texted me that he had a migraine). She said, "Hmm.... hmm... I fink I can fix dat probwem. I fink I can. I fink a bandaid will help." And when we got home, she ran for a bandaid and kissed her daddy's head and I just melted.

Punkins!

I picked up a little pumpkin kit for a dollar at Target. Maybe it can restore my faith in flora.

They're growing!! Tomorrow we are going to repot the little seedlings, even though they're only 2 days old because I have to go to Vegas Sunday morning and I think they'll be hyooge by Wednesday at the rate they're going.

Hope I don't kill them repotting them! Though now that I think about it, I maybe should put them in the ground because pumpkins might not do too well in a container.



We've had blessed blessed rain the last three days. Nice, gorgeous, light, soaking rain. Such an anti-whine. I can't tell you how much it has improved my mood. The unrelenting heat and sun was really starting to represent death and destruction to me.

Off to Vegas Sunday! See you next week!