In Search of Myself

More Jake-isms, 7-29-05

Funny things Jake has said the past week:
(Nana was being silly in the car)
me: Jake, say "Nana, you crazy."
Jake: "Mama, YOU crazy."
(smart kid.)

Sometimes when Jake is being goofy, I'll say "You're weird," but in a silly way, so it sounds like "Yah whii-rrrrrd."  Now when I say this, Jake says "No, YOU weird."  Hey, thanks.

Nana promised Jake in passing one day that she would buy him some sunglasses.  So when Aunt Kathy was headed out the door to go to Walmart, Jake grabbed his shoes and ran after her.  When asked what he was doing, he said (loudly) "Sunglasses!  Sunglasses!"  Kathy started laughing and said "Well, you DID promise him, and he remembered."  So they went to Walmart and the sunglasses he picked out have Scooby-Doo on them.
(in the car on our trip Saturday)
Jake: "No!  Bad sun!  Sun in mine eyes!"
me: "Jake, just put on your new sunglasses."
Jake: "These DOG glasses."
(I really need to get a picture of him wearing them, he looks SO cute.)

And STILL, when I say "I love you, Jake," he says "I love dog" or "I love Sadie-dog."  If I ask him to repeat "I love you, mama," he says "I love you, doggie."  But the other day he very sweetly said "Mama, I miss you."  I said "Dude, I'm right here."  He said "At work."  "Oh, you miss me while I'm at work?"  "*cute sigh* yeah."  He says this ALL the time now.  He knows it melts my heart.

(laying down with me Sunday afternoon for a nap)
me: [pretending to sleep and ignoring him so he would go to sleep]
Jake: "hey mama?  mama? . . .  what you doing?"

sitting in high chair, eating chips:
"Mama, I need more chips."
"No, you've had enough chips.  You need some healthy food."
"NO.  NOT HEALTHY FOOD."
(and for some reason he always chooses to ask me these things while I'm in the middle of changing a load of laundry."
"When I'm done with this, I'll get you some good food."
"NO.  NOT GOOD FOOD.  CHIPS!"

The next day, we told him he couldn't have any cookies or chips or something until he had some dinner.  He yelled "No!  I can't like good food."

Most days when we finally get home after work, commute, picking Jake up, and driving home, I am STARVING.  I usually sort through the mail and throw junk away immediately, put things up that are laying around, then grab something to eat.  This usually takes 5 to 10 minutes.  Jake always wants me to do something with HIM immediately, even though every day I tell him to give me a few minutes.  Lately as he's bugging me, I say "I'm hungry.  I need to eat.  I'll play with you in a minute" and he says "No!  You not hungry!  Not eat!!!" He then just keeps at it: "Mom not hungry.  Not eat!  Play!"  (You'd think I'd lose weight, eh?  heh.)

Priscilla and the girls were in Maryland for over two weeks this month (and yes, I went insane) and Jake kept asking and asking about seeing Elauna.  He's used to seeing her at LEAST once a week, if not more.  So I kept telling him, EVERY DAY, when he would ask, that she was in Maryland.  He would repeat "Mare-luhnd?"  So then he'd skip asking me and just tell me "Lana in Mare-luhnd, mama."  Once she got back, he started randomly saying "Lana not in Mare-luhnd any more" or "Lana done with Mare-luhnd." He says it ALL the time.

Jake loves to draw -- with markers, colored pencils, crayons, pens, whatever -- and he's getting BETTER about being deliberate, but mostly he draws squiggles.  Or he thrusts a marker in my face and tells me what to draw, while he carefully observes and over-sees my work.  (And boy do I hear it if I don't do it right!)  The other day he made a lot of circular scribbles, then held it up to me and said "Planets!  I made planets!"

We were coming out of my mom's house on afternoon and he heard a loud buzzing noise, as a neighbor was doing some yard work.  He stopped and listened and said "I hear wheeeed-whack-uh!"  (Weed-wacker."  You have no idea how hard this made me laugh!!!

~ ~ ~

Leaving work at lunchtime today, gonna hang out with my sister Sheri and go see Chris perform with his drum & bugle core.  More on that later.  Have a good weekend!!!

Rumor = Slow Down.

I got this in an e-mail today.  I don't know if it's true or not, but on the off-chance that it IS true, you may want to be conscious of your speed if you're driving through Tennessee!!!

Tennessee will launch a 30-day speeding ticket frenzy beginning July 31, 2005.  The state of Tennessee estimates that 9 million dollars will be generated in speeding tickets. 1 million will go to pay state troopers overtime. There will be 57 state troopers on duty at all times patrolling.

They will be patrolling the following:

I-24 east and west
I-40 east and west
I-65 north and south
I-75 north and south

Now 5 mph above the limit can justify a ticket and every state trooper is supposed to pull a car over and write a ticket every 10 minutes. They have issued 30 brand new unmarked Crown Victoria cruisers and they are bringing all their part timers on full time. I was told 101.5 FM confirmed all of this.

So be safe and don't forget speeding tickets are on you.

It was [boss] who sent me the e-mail with this information, and I just heard her laughing at the reply I sent back.  I'm glad she has a sense of humor and she gets me.  It's a good thing she was laughing, because this is what I said:

thanks!  I'll have to be careful.  This means I may be later to work some days.  HA HA.  just kidding

My therapy.

There are days I honestly think that Priscilla and I keep each other sane.  Sometimes I think about my friends -- on-line and in real life -- who struggle with depression, and about the times I've been depressed.  I know that depression is real.  I've been on Zoloft two different times for depression -- once in college, when I was in a funk, and once starting at the end of my pregnancy to help ward off postpartum depression.  I could feel the highs and lows coming and it scared me, and knowing that it takes several weeks to recognize the problem, get diagnosed, take the meds and get them to start working, I didn't want those weeks to be in the midst of a deep depression with a newborn.  I think I did avoid a lot of the bad feelings and the extreme lows by doing this, and somewhere in Jake's first year I felt good enough to stop taking the pills, and I haven't had to take them since.

And especially after spending an evening with Priscilla like last Friday, I think she's a huge reason why I don't need to.  When people go to therapy, a big part of what they are there for is to have someone listen to them, to ask questions to dig deeper, to help them work through their story and come to an understanding of it.  I know that some people have other goals for therapy, and some people need more professional guidance -- especially if they're working through major issues -- but I think some people just need someone's undivided attention.  I know that I do.  I need a safe place where I know I can say just about anything, and to be told it's OK that I feel the way I do, and to have a deeper conversation to figure out WHY I feel that way or WHY the person who is in my path is doing what they are doing. 

I think I will probably struggle with depression my entire life, because of my genetic inheritance.  I can't tell you how many women on my mom's side of the family have had chronic depression.  There have been times when I start to get depressed for NO reason whatsoever.  And it sucks.  I hate it when I start to feel that way, and I hate how hard I have to fight to make it go away.  I also hate when idiots spout off about depression and say that if you were just a Christian or if you just took vitamins or you just didn't feel sorry for yourself, you wouldn't feel depressed.  Until you've been in the middle of it, you can't possible understand and thus you have no ground to stand on to talk about it.

When I haven't spent time with Priscilla in a while, I honestly feel different because of that lack of an outlet for my thoughts.  I'm not going to spiral into depression if I don't see her for two weeks, but it does feel weird to not see her.  Some days I think we should be charging each other for our time together.  "Ok, that was a great talk.  We both owe each other $80."  LOL.  I'm not saying that if you need therapy it's because you don't have friends.  That's not it at all.  I'm just saying that for ME, this particular friendship accomplishes all the same things I think I would get from therapy, only it's better because it's free and she brings me Starbucks.

Question about ME . . .

Ok, so those of you who know me -- do I put out a "please touch me" vibe?  (Get your mind out of the gutter.)  I guess the better way to say that is: do I put out a "please pat me on the shoulder/back as you walk by" vibe?

I mean, I know in my skinny/cute days I could flirt with the best of them, but I'm not flirty at all anymore.  I joke around with people a lot, but not in a flirty way.  I see no point in flirting, because I don't CARE if people like me or not.  I'm not unfriendly, but I'm really not going out of my way to impress and/or charm people.

But here's the thing: at work, whenever I've been helping people and then they walk by me -- other university employees, random visitors, vendors, contractors, anyone -- they feel the need to pat me on the shoulder.  Usually it's when they're leaving and I guess it's how they're telling me good-bye, but sometimes it's as they're walking by on the way to see [boss boss] and saying "thank you" for helping them.

I talked this over with [boss], and she said no one EVER does that to her.  She's floored that so many people do it to me.  She thinks maybe I should be offended.  She's 60 and Southern.  A VERY nice woman, but seems unapproachable if you don't know her.  And I think maybe that's what it is: I am VERY approachable.  I'm laid back and fairly non-judgmental and mostly friendly.  I think people feel comfortable with me, like a cousin you don't really know but hey you're family so a hug isn't out of the question (no, I don't hug the random people who come into the office.)  I always had guys in high school getting crushes on me.  Never the ones I wanted, of course, but the geeky, awkward, shy guys.  I was nice to them.  So they returned the favor by falling in love with me.  One even went around telling people we were dating!  (Andrea: three guesses who.)

Small children figure out pretty quickly that out of all the grown-ups in the room, I'm the one who will let them climb all over me.  I'm not sure how they just know this, but they do.  And that's fine -- they're usually more fun than the adults anyway.  But that puts me back to the vibe theory.

And the only reason I bring it up, is it happened like 3 times yesterday, twice with total strangers.  And it's just got me wondering.

PRISCILLA *edited*

Dude, either you lost your cell phone, or it's turned off.  It goes to voice mail on the first ring when I call.  You're making me crazy here, girl.  Did you forget to turn it back on after church or something?!!!  Call me.  Jake misses Lana.  And when I'm bored, you're supposed to be there to talk to me.  ;o)

*edited*  P finally called me yesterday afternoon.  She'd been out of town with no cell phone reception.  I almost died laughing when she said "I promise I'm not trying to phase you out!"  (If you're a hard-core "Friends" fan like us, that's HILARIOUS.)  We had a good time catching up (because we hadn't talked since *gasp* Friday!!!), but we won't be able to squeeze in seeing each other until next week, unless Saturday magically works out.  :o(  (We usually see each other 2 or 3 times a week.  Sometimes I feel like I'm in high school, with the way we act [in a good way, though]).  She is SOOOO funny, you guys.  I'm so lucky to have such a cool friend.

Jake-isms, 7-27-05

I have a TON of Jake-isms to post, but no time.  So here are a few.

Lou bought me a new flat-panel computer monitor for my computer in the dining room.  It's not one of the huge ones, but it gets the job done and I really like it (our old monitor was being very wonky and we got tired of fighting with it.)  Also, the old one was white, the new one is black.  Once Jake noticed the new monitor, he got really upset.  He said "What happened that computer?"  We told him it was a new screen, and wasn't it pretty?  He said "No!  Not black one.  Need white one."  He's seriously been upset about this since Sunday.

Jake has been wanting to go play in his room lately, and he likes playing Star Wars with daddy up there.  He went to the stairs and said "I go find dad.  Go play in room.  I be right back."  Then he paused and looked at me and said "You can't come."

We were driving home last night and Jake has been in the habit lately of telling me where to turn.  He really knows his way around our area.  When he realizes I'm not turning where he wants, he gets mad.  (On Saturday when we were driving up for the wedding, Jake did NOT want to go on a trip.  He kept telling me we had to go home.  We stopped to get gas and he was hoping that we would go back home, but as I made the turn toward the interstate he started WAILING because he realized we definitely weren't going home.  He seriously whined the entire drive up there, even told my mom to "get out of the car."  LOL.)  Anyway, yesterday we got to the intersection where we turn from the main road to start to go toward our house.  He pointed right and said "Turn there.  House that way is."  Ok, Yoda, thanks.

Two random thoughts for the day:

1.  Watching a 10 episode DVD of SpongeBob TWICE right before bed makes for some pretty strange dreams.
2.  I think God is trying to teach me humility.  My face has been breaking out lately (I swear I wash it), and I am getting an ENORMOUS fever blister on the side of my lip.  It's ugly, and it hurts.

Where am I lately?
I know I haven't been around.  I am working (again!) on a new blog.  This one is about DIGITAL scrapbooking.  I upped my Typepad account to Pro, so now I can have as many accounts as I want (whee!!!)  So many people have asked me about digi-scrapping, and there is a lack of resources that take you step by step through how to do it, so I am stepping up and taking it on.  I will still continue to update Scrappin' with Jen, which is about paper scrapping.  (You know, for the three whole people who read it.)  This new one is purely for digital scrapbooking.  Give me two more weeks and I will open it to the public.  ;o)  It will be Photoshop focused, so you may want to start thinking about buying Photoshop if you are interested and don't have it yet.

The irony in all this is I don't have time to scrapbook because I'm putting all my energy into telling other people how to do it.

Have a good day!

The best picture from Friday

I got a TON of pictures of Aowyn on Friday night, about 10 of them REALLY good.  This one is my favorite at the moment.  She is SUCH a little sweetheart.  I haven't had a chance to edit the others.  Will try to get to that tomorrow.  She will be 1 on September 19th!!!

Happy Birthday, Nathan (very late)

I have a horrible habit of letting things fall off my radar, things that mean a lot to me and things that are important.  I blame it on being flighty, on having so many other things to do, on being distracted with life.  Then it hits me out of the blue one day how many things I've let drop, and then I feel just awful.

My nephew's adorable son turned ONE last month.  I still haven't met him.  I haven't seen his daddy (my nephew Mike) since I think 1994.  (Sheri, is that right?!)  I didn't send a present or a card.  I feel HORRIBLE about this.  I finally popped in the disk of pictures that my sister sent me of her trip down to see him (a trip that I honestly would have made, had I had the extra money sitting in my back pocket), and that kid is ADORABLE.  And I feel so bad for being so absent and so not in contact with his family.  I think ALL the time about sitting down to write them letters, and I never get around to it.

(and I'm seeing now why I never get anything done.  It's taken me a 1/2 hour to write this.  Jake keeps interrupting me.  AAUGH.)

These pictures are Nathan at age one, and my sister Sheri and her boys.  I'll get to see Sheri and Chris this weekend, the Cavaliers will be in M'boro and we're going to the show Friday night. 

Happy Birthday (very late) Nathan, from your flighty auntie.  I love you, even if I'm beyond horrible at showing it.

Jessica's wedding.

(Jessica is Lou's first cousin, the daughter of Uncle David.)

The wedding was absolutely beautiful.  I took a lot of pictures, and some of them came out really good.  Jessica looked STUNNING in her gown, her new husband is a very nice young man (met him for the first time today and I am already impressed), everything about the wedding was gorgeous.  We drove 3 hours this morning up, 3 hours this afternoon back, so we're ready to hop into bed!  I just wanted to post some of my favorite pictures from today while it's fresh in my mind.  ;o)