WordPress?

I am sitting on the couch with my laptop. My husband thinks that I am working. I will let him continue to think that.

Has anyone used WordPress for blogging? I am interested in switching to some other platform, simply because I'd like to limit readers to some entries. Believe it or not, there are things in my life that I'd like to blog about that I don't need the whole world knowing. For example, if I want to bitch about my husband, I don't want my entire extended family reading it and thinking that I'm a bitch or he's a jerk or whatever when, in all honestly, I'm just venting or whining.

I know that LiveJournal lets you create Friends lists, but I don't really like that platform very much at all. I've been there and done that, and I don't want to go back.

Killing time

I am having motivational issues. At work and in general. The weather is nice, I want to be outside. I want to go pick strawberries. I want to go home and take a nap. I want to paint my bedroom, and I want to get started painting all of my woodwork. I want to be anywhere but here, really.

I'm very excited that some girls from my sorority in college are planning a reunion in October. It won't be an entire-chapter event; just members who were active between 1993 and 1998. I was active from 1992 until 1995, so I'm covered. The date is not confirmed yet, but it's either the weekend before or the weekend after Reed's birthday, which is perfect timing. I was thinking about it this morning and about how I didn't know if I could go because of location, airfare, etc. It is being held in Evansville, Indiana, which may seem to be an out of the way place, but it's really quite central to the majority of the people who will be attending. Right as I was talking myself out of it, my friend Karen, who lives in Kenosha, Wisconsin, emailed me to see if I wanted to drive to her house and then drive down to the reunion together. This is such an awesome idea and I'm so glad she thought of it, because now I will actually be able to go.

More Nostalgia

After looking for Little People on ebay, I started searching for more toys that we had at my house growing up. I forgot how awesome some of these were (and forgot that I even had some of them, until I saw them on ebay and had an "oh yeah..." moment).



The "TV" - wind it up, it plays music and the screen changes - it loops through some nursery rhymes.





The music-box record player. I loved this thing. It's at my sister's house - her girls were playing with it, last I heard.





The LP airplane - there are several versions of it, but this is the one we have. It's in good shape except for a tail wing being broken. It's at our house and Reed loves it.





My Drowsy doll. This isn't actually mine, but one like it as far as I can tell. Actually, this one looks a little newer than I remember mine being. She had a pull-string and talked.





This was a baby toy, and I really think it was my sister's - I remember it, though.





I guess this was the 70s version of the Ocean Wonders Crib toy that Reed loved when he was still in his crib.






And who can forget the Chatter Telephone?? Loved it.

Cute little boys

Yes, I have one, if I do say so myself, but this isn't about him.

I filmed Reed being a ham over the weekend (using my cool Flip camera, Surly!) and emailed the clip to some family members. I got an email back from my Aunt Linda, mother of Ladybird and Cosmo (actually, Cosmo's grandmother, now that I think about it...). She commented on Reed's performance and also about my recent entry on Fisher-Price Little People:

We have the Little People Hospital. Before Clay started to school, he and his baby sitter and her mother went to yard sales every Friday. We always gave Clay a dollar to spend and he bought some of the best toys.. Carol said he would flash his big brown eyes, smile that little smile he had, show his dollar, and ask if that was enough to buy whatever he wanted. Most of the time, he would leave with the toy AND his dollar.

And yes, if you saw Clay as a little boy (and now, for that matter), you'd let him leave with the toy and the dollar as well! Anyway, Clay...you're busted. You can't work that trick any more. We're on to you, Mister.

Nostalgia

Reed has recently taken a new interest in my old Fisher-Price Little People. Not the Little People of today, but the ones from the 70s that are no longer made because they could be choking hazards. FWIW, I never choked on one of them, and I’m still not sure how that could happen, but whatever.

His new interest in these guys has made me nostalgic for the toys of my childhood. I’ve spent a great deal of the morning on eBay, looking at all of the different “vintage” Little People (I can’t believe that toys from my childhood are now classified as “vintage”). One of the greatest things about the vintage LP is that the people could be played with on their own, and purchased without a big accessory. Sure, we had the airplane and the A-Frame house, but as often as not, we played with the LP on their own. With today’s LP, you have to buy a set – either the train, the racecar, the garage, or whatever – and only get one or two or maybe three people with the set. And all of the LP are outfitted to that scene – no more generic wooden bodies and plastic heads that can fit in with their specific set. We have a racecar driver that came with the racecar and track, a train conductor that came with the train and train tracks, and mechanics that came with the garage.

Something that has amazed me as I’ve been perusing these guys on ebay this morning has been the massive variety of LP that were manufactured in the 70s. Not just the LP, but the other things that FP made. Some of them just seem so random, yet I wish I’d had them in my collection.

Like the snowmobile set, a must-have for Minnesotans...

Or the complete hospital set - the scale, the hospital chair, the wheelchair, the hospital room screen, the hospital sink, and the gurney.

And so you have a place to put all the hospital stuff, here is the children's hospital.

The "laundry center," complete with Mom at the sewing machine.

And my possible favorite, because it's so random - the offshore oil rig.

Rainbows

I always see rainbows at times that I really need cheering up. My primary example - the day of my grandmother's funeral, while we were standing at her graveside after the funeral - it had been raining all day, but finally cleared up and the sun started to come out, and we all looked up and saw a rainbow. Maybe it was her, maybe it was coincidence; who cares because we all decided it was her telling us she was there and fine and happy.

I saw one this morning on my way to work. I was looking up through the sunroof and saw it right above me. There were bad storms last night, and all those Boy Scouts were at that camp in Iowa - I decided that the rainbow might be those four that were killed in the tornado.

You know how the last hour of the workday just drags on sometimes? That's what's happening here right now. I have a massage in an hour (hallelujah), but it makes no sense to leave here, go home and piddle around for a while before I go to my massage. And people who really know me might say, "hey, this is your BIG chance to go to Target WITHOUT Reed," but I would have to point out that our weather map is a mish-mash of green, yellow, and red.

With earlier reports of hail greater than five inches in diameter. That's what, softball sized?

Tonight is my night with Reed. Alex has a work outing - going to the German restaurant. He invited me, and I was happy to decline the invitation. I appreciate being included, but German food just isn't enough to make me give up a cozy rainy night at home. If we were talking about the sports bar next door (they have the best pizza in town), I'd be all over that, and I'd even take Reed. To the bar. Which, in my defense, is more of a restaurant than a bar, but it gets a bad rap. We sit in the restaurant side, but Reed discovered that the foosball game is in the bar, so that's where he wants to hang now. We keep bringing him back to the table, but he keeps leaving again. Nobody seems to care, so I just kind of go with the flow.

So the poor kid got hit in the side of his head with a frisbee yesterday. It was huge swollen when I picked him up - I couldn't believe that a frisbee could do that kind of damage, but there were several witnesses to the whole thing. I also learned yesterday that he knows how to milk injuries for all he can. He was laughing and giggling when I pulled into daycare, but when Sarah (one of the helpers) told me what happened, he started crying all over again. I asked him over and over what I could do to make him feel better, and all he would say is "I don't know." I honestly thought (hoped?) he'd ask for ice cream, but he didn't (nor did I suggest it, against my better judgement). He hasn't figured out that ice cream works miracles.

After some moping and crying, I'm feeling slightly better about the situation I shared on Monday. I know that everything happens for a reason and that mine will come, but it makes the "meantime" seem so long and sad.

We're slated for some combination of clouds, rain, and storms for the entire week. Not looking forward to that - I need sunlight. It would surely improve my mood.

Envy

I'm not going to get into all the details of this story for multiple reasons, but I just found out that a friend of mine is getting something wonderful. She absolutely deserves it - I don't begrudge her that - but I'm still waiting for something similar, and it's just really bumming me out right now. I seriously want to go home and crawl in bed and cry, but that makes me look like a bad sport, and as much as I'm trying to *not* be a bad sport about the fact that mine hasn't come yet, I'm still sad.

I'm sorry I can't elaborate more, but I just needed to unload. Imagine what you want - new car, new husband, new jewelry, new job - and go from there.

Back in the office today, a ton of stuff to do but none of it is interesting.

I got home from my conference on Friday afternoon, just in time to go pick up Reed from daycare. He had a great day on Friday (which was a good thing, because apparently he was headbutting his best friend on Thursday). We had a nice weekend - lots of yardwork and planting flowers, digging up old stuff that wasn't working well, and just relaxing. I planted a ton of hostas and coral bells yesterday, and my back is feeling it today.

I have been asked to be on the steering team for a new MOPS group that is starting up in my area. I had initially accepted, but as time goes on, I have realized that I am already overextended. Tonight is the first steering team meeting that I would normally attend, and apparently there is quite a list of questions for me, mostly about my vision for the group, my faith and how it plays into my everyday life, and what kinds of activities and fundraisers I'd plan for the group. As I have contemplated these questions over the weekend, the expectations of the position have become more clear to me and I've realized that I just don't have it in me to take on soemthing else. I've got a lot going on with the Chamber of Commerce, and I'm expecting to take on some more roles there. I feel kind of bad backing out of the MOPS role right now, but honestly, I think I'd rather just be a member right now and see how it goes, and possibly take on a leadership position there later.

I've also got a headache to beat all headaches. It's not quite a migraine, but my eyes are burning so I'm halfway expecting it to turn into a horribly painful headache. I was just looking at my calendar for the day and trying to figure out what, if anything, I can shove off of it - but since I have to do new employee orientation today at 12:30, it's kind of pointless to cancel everything else.

Funny Reedisms from the weekend:

- I always tell him that his piggies are so cute and that I want them. He always tells me that they are his little piggies and that he needs them, and that my piggies are big and I need big piggies. Well, apparently sharing discussions have started to sink in, because over the weekend he said "Mommy, do you want to share piggies? I give you some of my little piggies and you give me some of your big piggies?"

- We went to the grocery yesterday afternoon - he wanted to carry the list. As I was walking out the back door, I said "Reed, do you have the list?" to which he replied "list, check." From that point on, every time I put something in the cart, he'd say "apples, check" or "salad, check" while examining the grocery list.