Monthly Archive for May, 2007

Thu
May, 31
2007

Blog upgrade

I always upgrade my blog (wordpress) with every new little patch that they release but the last one (2.2) sortof “broke” a few plugins. I ended up having to patch wp-includes/widgets.php because the Executable php Widgets plugin wouldn’t work as-is. I also upgraded other plugins like php-exec, expand-comments (hope this fixes issue with vanishing comments), wpg2, inline-ajax-page, and replaced the old google search plugin with a new, nicer one. (google ajax search) ;) My only gripe with the new google search plugin is that I can’t shut off web searches. It’s still nicer, tho. And just yesterday I installed Spam Karma too. I’ve already got Akismet and Bad Behaviour but you can’t have enough guards against spam or attacks, can you? I’m not sure if keeping Spam Karma means I’ll need to drop Akismet. I’ll keep both until something forces me to decide. So far they’re playing nice together.

After this upgrade was done, I went on to try to speed up the sites. I turned off a few other plugins I didn’t really need and started to tweak my server’s mysql conf file. I still need to go back to that and try to shave a couple seconds of load time off the blogs. Also, now that I have a new and improved camera, I plan on putting lots more photos on here. But I’m not really happy with gallery2’s performance so I upgraded that last week and moved all the javascript from the header to the body so it all doesn’t need to load with the gallery. I’d love to get picasa’s speed here. Goddamn that site is fast.

Future changes include replacing Del.icio.us from the sidebar with the run-of-the-mill blogroll (for speed), and possibly shaving a few words off the about me plugin in the sidebar. Too long! Oh, and way down the road I might replace the image in the header with something new.

I did take a little time yesterday (and will more today) and made a few little changes to the theme. I’ve made so many changes to this theme already that I don’t know if I should give it a new name or something and release it as my own invention. LOL! No, I don’t think I can. It’s still based on someone else’s version of k2. 3k2. Maybe I should call it 3k2o. “O” for “Oh yeah, babyyyy!!”.

Hehehe, snort.

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Wed
May, 30
2007

After a long weekend

This past weekend was like most other weekends for us at home. Boring, stressful, tiring. And it was extra long because of the holiday. We both got Sunday thru Tuesday off work. Dennis did a lot of sleeping, I did a lot of cleaning and laundry and in between we had a lot of the usual child rearing stuff. Whining, crying, nagging for Wubbzy, butt whiping, feeding. And Dennis was his usual grumpy self whenever he’d wake up from his weekend hibernation to deal with the kids.

Then last night Dennis turned to me and asked,
“Ever feel like this isn’t the life you thought you’d end up with?”

Knowing he was referring the stress of having two small kids and the constant exhaustion of having to work full time as well, I said, “I always wanted to have kids but I thought I’d end up with a more upbeat husband”.

To which he replied, “and I thought I’d have a hornier wife”.

My rebuttle, “if I had a more upbeat husband, I’d be a hornier wife”.

His final words, “If I had a hornier wife, I’d be more upbeat”.

No, I didn’t kill him, but the thought did cross my mind.

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Mon
May, 28
2007

BBQ Kaboom

Speaking of death and doom… this one still thinks everything in the world is as safe as her paci and stuffed bunny rabbit.

bbq-kaboom

Ahem, before anyone goes calling CPS on me, the gas was shut off at the valve. ;)

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Sat
May, 26
2007

Nothing to write about but death

I’ve started and deleted about 3 posts in the last few days. It seems about the only things I have to write about are negative, bothersome things.

Like the fact that the last few days it’s become increasingly clear that I need to do something about my obsessive tendency to think about death and doom. Despite having two small kids I should look forward to raising them, I find myself thinking about the inevitable end to my life, their lives, everybody’s lives. To some degree I have stopped living a normal life because of it. I know this sounds bad and probably even hard to believe because I don’t talk about it or even look like this is dragging me down. I guess it’s a dirty secret even tho I’ve touched on it here before.

I think for the past 2,3 years I have let myself be dragged down by these thoughts. There was one other time in my life where my thoughts got away from me and that’s when I was a kid around 12 years old. I used to make bets with myself all the time and if I lost the bet it could mean something bad was going to happen to me or someone I loved. It was like some kind of OCD but I made a decision one day and cured myself of that habit pretty quick. Even tho those old thoughts still creep up on me even today, the same method of pushing them out of my mind still work like a charm and I go long stretches between what now have become fleeting desire to make a bet with myself.

What’s happening to me now has been a long time coming. Let me explain: I used to be afraid of dying and I’d think about dying and push it out of my mind over and over. I did this from as young as I can remember all the way to my college years. Then at some point after graduating college, I started to accept the fact that we all die and I embraced death as something that’s not to be feared but rather as something that is as inescapable as the need to fill my lungs with air to stay alive. And today I can honestly say that I’m ready to die. No, I don’t want to die, but if I were hit with some terrible disease then I would be prepared mentally to deal with the prospect of dying. I wouldn’t be worried about anything except for the wellbeing of my surviving kids and husband.

While this might have been a cure to my previous fears, I find there has been an unexpected side effect to my embracing death. Now I find that I have sortof “wrapped things up” in my mind. I’ve “packed my bags”, so to speak. So I’m ready for death but this has made me a person who finds little visions of the future. Sure I go through the motions with my job and my kids but that’s just that. Going through the motions.

I’ve now transformed myself from a person who was afraid of dying, to a person who is afraid of living. I can’t embrace both death and life. At least I haven’t learned how to do them both at the same time. I’m afraid that if I start to wrap my arms around the life, then I will again become afraid of dying.

Make sense? It does to me.

But it gets worse. When I had kids, I suddenly became obsessed for their safety. I’m no longer afraid of dying but I’m afraid for their lives. I’m constantly thinking they’re going to choke on a small toy or a bit of food so I’m very anal about those things. And the scenes that play out in my mind could make me tons of money at the box office. Just yesterday I nearly put myself in a panic when Dennis didn’t get to work on time because I thought Maya could be dead at that moment in her play area from choking on food. She could be convulsing on the floor while Dennis is yards away in the shower taking his sweet time. I wasn’t sure if I would see her alive again. And these aren’t mere thoughts. They are images and scenes that play out in my mind’s eye. I get to watch it happen, rewind, watch it again. Pause. Fast Forward to my reaction when I to go identify her dead body at the hospital. Yes, morbid. And it bothered me to write it out. But what’s worse, writing it or thinking it?

I wondered how all this hasn’t made me depressed. I’ve wondered that for a long time. But yesterday I was laying on the couch and a wave of deep depression covered me like a body bag. Maybe I am depressed. Very depressed. And I just haven’t realized it.

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Thu
May, 17
2007

Help find Madeleine

Madeleine McCann

Madeleine McCann missing in Portugal. Have you seen her?
Please contact: +351 289 884 500, + 351 282 405 400, +351 218 641 000

Madeleine McCann desapareceu em Portugal. Tem informações sobre o seu paradeiro?
Por favor contacte: 289 884 500, 282 405 400, 218 641 000, 112

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Mon
May, 14
2007

Hormonal Morning

I woke up this morning as usual. With clogged sinuses, sneezing and unable to breath. After I drained my skull in the bathroom I just went to the living room and got on the computer. I felt tired but I felt OK. Then the kids woke up and I started to get Jada ready for daycare. When I saw how she had trashed her room I got pissed off and my morning went downhill from there. We’ve been teaching her to keep her room clean so when she does this (which has become more and more rare these days – Thank God!), we make her clean it up. But this morning she just wasn’t moving fast enough. When I told her to pick up her flash cards, she just did a lot of walking around like some listless autistic child. She wasn’t paying attention and instead was stepping all over her stuff. It took me asking her 15 times and threatening to spank her before she started to do it. By then my blood was boiling. If someone had taken my blood pressure right then they would have called 911 in a hurry.

I got Dennis up to help me out because I was about to snap. He fixed her breakfast and lunch and then tried to tell me it was too late to take her to daycare. He might as well have told me that wasn’t allowed to wear a bra ever again. I just knew we had to get Jada out of the house because I wasn’t going to be able to handle it. We had an argument and he finally just took her to school. Oh, and then he stepped back in the house to tell me that the minivan got a flat. Just Great.

After they left, I sat there stewing in my own misery and I realized then that I was just far too angry. This wasn’t just being annoyed at my kid and not enough sleep angry. This was overheated brain, shoot everything down with my lazer vision, blow up the world angry. Yup, it’s PMS alright. When I’m like this there are only two things that help me get through it. #1 realizing that that’s what it is, and #2 being left alone.

Then I calmed down a little, because Maya doesn’t annoy me as much …yet. I realize that Jada is a lot like I was when I was a kid but knowing that hasn’t helped me grow more patience. It’s really hard, she can be very difficult to deal with sometimes. It figures I get one like her. She’s subborn, a nag, emotional, slow to eat, and slow to follow instructions. Sound familiar?

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