If my baby would sleep at night

I used to make Shawn breakfast every morning. I'm not talking cereal either. Eggs, bacon, sausage, grits, pancakes, omelets; I even tried to replicate a sausage, egg, and cheese mcmuffin once because he basically said he'd rather have McDonalds (rude, right?)
As I got into my 3rd trimester I started going back to bed after he left for work, then I quit getting up at all. Then, well then i had a baby.

There was a window of time when Will was sleeping through the night when I was going to start getting up and making breakfast again (I think I did once) but that window quickly closed. Now the longest stretch of sleep we get is maybe 3 hours at best.

Breakfast isn't the only thing I'm missing. If Will would sleep at night my house would be more organized, I'd bake bread again. Man, I used to bake bread. I would read, oh how I miss reading. I would blog more often; so many times I've started a post and put it off because my brain was too tired to process it. I would write; I have ideas galore for stories or articles I could pitch to web publications, for money. money! but I'm just exhausted. All. The. Time. If you don't get it, you've never experienced sleep deprivation. I mean, my brain does not function the way it should.

Maybe I would even do some of these crafts that I keep buying supplies for.

The book situation

We have a book situation, or maybe a book storage situation.

We finally got a big rug for the living room (this is related, trust me). The main reason I wanted a rug is so that Will can play on the floor. Even with a thick blanket, I don't like the idea of him bumping his head on the tile, so the only rooms he's played on the floor in are our bedrooms. A rug in the living room will hopefully make it easier for us to do things while he plays and still keep an eye on him.

The rug is going to go in front of the couches, but the coffee table is there now so I have to move the coffee table. But before moving the coffee table, which I'm actually going to relocate to the empty kitchen/breakfast nooky (that doesn't sound right) area, I have to clean it off. (Since Will was born the coffee table has become a major pile collector and has made me question the existence of it, but I love it. But, wow, does it look awkward in it's new location). So, I started cleaning it off last night when I was met with the book situation.

There are books on the coffee table, on the bottom shelf of the coffee table, and on the floor beside the coffee table. I checked the bookshelves and there is only room for 1 more book! I hate laying books across the tops of others on the shelf, so I refuse to do that. I looked over the titles to see if I could get rid of any but I don't want to do that either.



I would really like to have two "built-in" type bookcases, one on each side of the wood stove but that's only going to happen if we buy this house. For now I think I'll have to settle for creating another shelf by using a bookend on the top of this bookcase. And by "bookend" I mean stuff that's already there, like a photobox.



Really, I feel like the whole wood stove part of the room seems awkward (and now the coffee table in the breakfast area makes for matching awkwardness). It needs something on both sides to look right. Built-ins, like I mentioned would be perfect. Sigh.

Oh, and here's the rug, if you'd like to see. Bonus cute baby.



So now we have a coffee table problem, it looks odd where it is and I don't really want to part with it. I should have taken a photo of it so you can understand my love for it. I probably should just get rid of it though, I know it's not safe for Will once he starts pulling up on things, since it has wheels. The other half of the coffee table problem is that now we don't have a place to sit drinks or prop our feet in front of the TV. Husband wants to sit his drink on the floor, to me that's just asking for a mess.

While it won't solve the place-to-put-your-drink portion of the problem, I do hope to make an ottoman. I say hope because who knows when I'll have the time. Like how I keep thinking about getting my own sewing machine so I can sew things, but when would I even have time to sew? Silly. Anyway, I would make an ottoman using these instructions (though about half that size) out of a wood pallet.

Are you dealing with any silly home decorating situations? Want to buy a coffee table?

You can comment on this page, I won't bite.

Sleep Training

We started sleep training today. I do not believe in "cry-it-out" methods (I think I would implode!), what we are doing is different. The method we are using is called Pick-up/Put-down (or PUPD), and it's from The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems. Basically you put him down before he falls asleep and only pick him up if he cries, then you put him down when he stops crying, and repeat. And repeat and repeat and repeat.



This is tough stuff. I tried it for the first time for one of his naps today. I gave up after what felt like 2 hours but was probably only 30 minutes or so. He just screamed and screamed, he didn't know what was going on and he did not like it. I did get him to go to sleep without the pacifier though, but he doesn't always need it to fall asleep anyway (though he has more lately, which I hate. I also hate the swaddle, but that's another thing). I don't think the pacifier is a big problem though, he only wants it when he's sleepy.

Tonight Shawn did pick-up/put-down. I warned him it would be hard, he says he's tough, I wonder if he has a soul. After over an hour, Will is finally sleeping. I feel so bad for him. I mean, he's being held and comforted and everything, but I know he doesn't know what's going on and he definitely doesn't like it. Now that he's asleep I just want to go in there and pick him up and hold him.

Scary movies: a list

Every year when Halloween rolls around, or even a Friday the 13th, I like to watch some scary movies. I also hope it's dark, gloomy, and storming. Not the kind of storming that would make the power go out though, then I wouldn't be able to watch scary movies.

Years back you used to be able to find scary movies on cable (edited of course), but that has seemed to become more and more rare, plus we don't have cable. So, this year I made a list of requested scary movies and submitted it to Shawn, because he's in charge of such matters.

All of these movies are from the "horror" section of the book 501 Must-See Movies, which I'm slowly working through.

• Nosferatu (1922)


• Peeping Tom (1960)


• Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962)


• Deliverance (1972)


• Eraserhead (1977)


• The Thing (1982)


• Angel Heart (1987)

What I learned from pregnancy nutrition books

Like any expectant mom, I want to do whatever I can to ensure that my baby is and will be healthy. One thing I was concerned about was my eating habits. Even though I make sure that I take my prenatal vitamins everyday, I know they are no substitute for for healthy eating (and they do not counteract bad eating habits).

I really wanted some ideas for meals that would give me and Will a lot of nutrients we need while not forcing me to eat 1,000 extra calories a day instead of just 300. I didn't know if these books would really be useful to me, so I checked out two from the library instead of buying them. The books I chose were What to Expect: Eating Well When You're Expecting and The Pregnancy Cookbook. I really only read much of the first one since I didn't realize when they had to be returned to the library, but I'm not disappointed.

I'm not disappointed in the fact that I didn't really get to read them, that is. After going through just the first bit of What to Expect, I realized that I don't eat that bad after all. I'm not saying the books are useless by any means, I'm sure for a lot of people they would really help. But do those who would be helped by these books ever care to pick them up? If your eating habits are terrible to begin with maybe you do try to do better when you're pregnant, but what would I know, mine aren't that bad.

The book has a little quiz in it too to help you see how much adjusting your diet really needs. This quiz may have been the most amusing part of the book to me; I was just shocked at some of the answer choices. Seriously people, the creamer in your coffee is not going to fulfill your baby's calcium requirements.

What I learned from these books is that I could be a lot worse off. Evidently a lot of people with very poor diets before and during pregnancy still end up with relatively healthy kids. Does this mean I'm going to give up and start eating bread and ice cream for lunch like I'd like to? No way, but it does mean I'm not going to feel bad about the handful of pepperonis I just ate because I don't do it every day.

"Dragon tattoo" in the title should have clued me in

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson has received many great reviews along with the two books that follow it in the best-selling series. I, however, cannot give it a great review like most others have. Don’t get me wrong, if you can get past the sexual perversions of a couple of the characters (it is somewhat graphic in one section), and the explicit language used, it was a good book. It has mystery, suspense, crime, drama, and a small touch of humor, but it’s just not my style.

I like mysteries, but when I say I like mysteries I mean I like mysteries in the vein of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler (and, let’s be honest, the Encyclopedia Brown series). Larsson’s novel has all of the makings for a good mystery story, at the same time the crime they are trying to solve is from the 1960s and very intriguing, but it’s the way they go about solving it that bothers me. An investigative reporter, Mikael Blomkvist takes on the job, he goes through papers and old photographs, (this I can handle, this I enjoy). It’s when he starts working with Lisbeth Salander, a skilled computer hacker that my interest starts to wane.

Technology takes the fun out of what would otherwise be a great gumshoe story. If you’re doing all of your work from a computer there is no chance of getting gum on your shoe anyway so the name doesn’t even fit. If this story had been written 15 to 20 years ago, before we relied on technology to assist us with every need, Salander’s role would have been much different and I would have a much higher opinion of the novel. Then again, without technology they may have never been able to solve the mystery. As it stands, however, I have little desire to move on to the second novel in the series.

A Slow Goal

Due to reading In Praise of Slowness and some other thoughts that have been swimming around in my head lately, I've decided to go for a new goal.

My new goal is to cut out pre-made or over-processed foods. I guess I don't know exactly how to define the type of food I'm talking about. I'm talking about things that people made from scratch 30 years ago but now we depend on mixes or frozen boxes for.

This isn't a big leap for us; I already cook nearly every meal we eat at home and most of our grocery shopping is already from the perimeter of the store. I haven't bought frozen pre-cooked chicken fingers or bagel bites since we've been married (5 months today!). Those used to be my go-to lunches, so if I can cut those out, it won't be hard to stop the rest. I already no longer buy canned vegetables, they're either fresh or frozen fresh, and we don't buy pre-cooked meats other than pizza toppings. So for us this means no more Bisquick pancakes (I've made pancakes from scratch many times, so not a biggie), no more brownie or cookie mixes (everyone loves these anyway), and no more Kraft mac & cheese.

The last one will be the hardest, I eat mac and cheese for lunch all the time. Don't get me wrong, homemade mac&cheese is no stranger to me, this is just one area where convenience has me so won over it will be hard to break the habit.

Thinking on this same topic last night I asked Shawn what he thought about getting rid of the microwave. I don't think that idea went over too well.

Some books are hard to read

I have loved to read ever since I learned how. At my peak I can read 2 or 3 books a week, sometimes though I hit a slump. Usually these slumps are due to reading a book I find hard to read. If a book is hard for me to read or if I'm just not that interested in it, it can take me over a month to finish it. Occasionally a slump can be caused by a book I'm really enjoying though, it's like I want to savor the book so I read it slowly to stretch it out instead of rushing through it.

What makes a book hard to read? Aside from finding little interest in a book, things that can make a book hard to read for me are not what you would probably expect. The author has a need to show off their vocabulary? Not usually a problem for me, and if I happen to not be able to figure out what a word means from the context I just look it up. Complicated sentence structure? No problem. Strange book structure, like no punctuation or paragraph breaks or 7 pages for one sentence that is entirely in italics with a open parenthesis that never closes? Been There.

What makes a book hard to read for me is when I can't pronounce the characters' names. This may sound strange, but if I can't pronounce the names, I can't follow the story in my head. I had a professor who said he would give nicknames to characters whose names he couldn't pronounce, but this hasn't worked for me. This is why I've been reading Doctor Zhivago for almost a month now and am only on chapter four.

What makes a book hard to read for you?

I like books

This morning I read that Amazon, in response to Barnes & Noble lowering the price of their e-reader, NOOK, has lowered the price of the Kindle to $189. I thought about it for a minute, do I want an e-reader? I admit I do think they are convenient and have their advantages like being able to carry over 1,000 books with you in a small device. Plus, if you got an Apple iPad, you have way more than an e-reader. But when it comes down to it, for me, I like books. I like holding a book in my hand, feeling the pages, turning them. I like the smell of books, I like the smell of libraries and book stores. With a physical book people see the cover and ask you about it, with an e-reader, they ask you about the reader, not about what you're reading. And who really needs over 1,000 books with them at all times anyway?

So, no e-reader for me. However, if I were not an English Lit major, where most of our books for class are novels, an e-reader would have been a more serious consideration for me. I would definitely choose a gadget if the alternative was lugging around heavy text books.

I cannot end this post without mentioning that Nintendo has stated that e-reader features may be in the 3DS, now that would be something else to consider since I already want a DS.

Fear or Justified Avoidance?

Last time I mentioned that I'm currently reading The Confident Woman by Joyce Meyer, while I am enjoying this book I've reached a part that has caused me a bit of confusion. I'm thinking that maybe this confusion is just a personal thing for me and someone can give me some insight.

Meyer writes about doing things on purpose, not waiting till she "feels like" doing them. She writes about not being afraid or doing things afraid, so as to not let fear rule you. That I get. But she also says things about how she, at times, will decline speaking invitations or other such things because she doesn't have peace about it.

My problem is this: how do you know the difference between something being a fear and it just not setting right with your spirit?

I considered prayer as the answer, and maybe it is. For prayer to be the answer though, a person would have to be completely open to hear God and be able to tell the difference between what God is saying to them and what their own feelings about the situation are, something that is incredibly hard to do if fear is involved.

Why I gave up consuming "Something to Tell You: A Novel"

Something to Tell You: A Novel

by Hanif Kureishi

I just couldn’t get interesting in this book. I read up to page 60-something and still felt it was going nowhere, just a bunch of flashback-like storytelling that didn’t seem to connect with each other in any way except that they were all part of the narrator’s life. I also didn’t care much for the narrator’s character himself nor his style of storytelling.

See more about Something to Tell You: A Novel

Dark Knight Coverage

Even if you haven't yet had the chance to see The Dark Knight in theaters, you can check out the coverage of it on PCitylive.com. I haven't seen it yet myself, but I have read the novel, my review can be found here. And here is a direct link to the film review.

If you have seen it or read it, where's your review?

Oh, and did you hear about Christian Bale being arrested for assault?

Who Knew? Benjamin Button

Am I completely behind in knowing that there is a movie in production based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"?

I was browsing a few websites, looking for new books to review and found a new edition of Fitzgerald stories is being released in August and it's because there is a movie based on "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" coming out this Christmas starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.

For those not familiar with the story, it is one of Fitzgerald's less common fantasy stories. The idea for the story originated from a comment that Mark Twain once made about it being a shame that the best part of life was at the beginning and the worst part the end. So the story is part joke, yet melodramatic as it tells the story of a man who is born old and grows younger and younger. He falls in love but while she ages normally, he continues to get younger.

Enough chit-chat, here's the trailer.


I think it's going to be strange, creepy, and fascinating. More than that, I think it's a great opportunity for those less familiar with Fitzgerald's work to give the new edition of short stories a chance. While I was searching for the trailer I even found a website where you can read the story (and other stories from Tales of the Jazz Age) in it's entirety.

What do you think? Will it be good, bad? Maybe you don't care; what movie are you looking forward to?

Multimedia Monday: PSA-Water

I've actually been meaning to write about the water crisis for several months, but have put it off repeatedly. Today I found this video on Virb°, it's a public service announcement from Charity:Water, that puts everyday Americans in the situation (to an extent, that is) that many in Africa face daily; it pushed me to make this Multimedia Monday's post on water. (If you're viewing this post in a feed reader, click over to see the video.)

Other videos, photos, and media on the Charity:Water website are worth your time as well.


One of the things that I wanted to post when I originally decided to post about the water crisis was this photo essay from TIME, which includes photographs from the book Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World. Right now you can download the book for free, in pdf form, from that Amazon page. Though, if you can afford to, you can purchase the book from Charity:Water and $70 of the purchase goes to the charity.


While Charity:Water is a great organization, I know more, and feel more strongly about giving to Blood:Water Mission (yes, the charity started by members of Jars of Clay). Blood:Water exists to provide sustainable water sources in Africa by building wells with emphasis on reducing the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Check out the site for information on what they've already done, what they're doing now, and how you can help.

Papa Hemingway said it, I feel it too

Our people went to America because that was the place to go then. It had been a good country and we had made a bloody mess of it and I would go, now, somewhere else as we had always had the right to go somewhere else and as we had always gone. You could always come back. Let the others come to America who did not know that they had come too late. Our people had seen it at its best and fought for it when it was well worth fighting for. Now I would go somewhere else.

-Ernest Hemingway, from Green Hills of Africa

In my head

Sometimes when some new thing comes about, be it a movie, band, tv show, or in this case a book, and everyone is talking about how great it is supposed to be I tend to ignore it. I can't really explain why, and it isn't with everything; I haven't pinpointed the filter in my brain quite yet, but it needs to stop.

I'm currently reading a book I should have read when it first came out, Freakonomics. If you ever wonder why I'm not as talkative as everyone else you know, this is the answer. Questions like the ones presented in this book are going through my head constantly; this is how I think, I just don't have the hard data that they did to come to a definitive answer.

I think a major problem people who want to read non-fiction books face when they actually set out to do it is that while the facts may be interesting, the author(s) doesn't present them in an interesting way. Freakonomics does not have that problem, it is the epitome of interestingness. For example, "Why do crack dealers still live with their moms?" this is a question everyone thinks about and the authors of Freakonomics step up to answer it. If you haven't read this book yet you're missing out.

Spring Break ToDo

1. Finish up and email my articles (need to do that today actually)
2. Read for fun, not because I want to pass my classes. Starting Tropic of Cancer today.
3. Relax, if that's at all possible.
4. Start my Lit. paper or at least decide on a topic.
5. Publish this post that's been sitting in drafts for months.
6. Shopping maybe?
7. Look for new job? I had been thinking about getting a second job just for the summer, but now my job is changing in a way that means $20 less every week, so now I need a new job altogether.
8. Sun.
9. Remember what I'm forgetting.
10. Wii!
11. Clean out my reading queue.
12. Taxes, ugh.
13. List stuff on ebay.

Lovin'

This is the issue of Life's Great Photographers Series that's on shelves right now, the subject: Audrey Hepburn, "Remembering Audrey 15 Years Later". I'm a huge Audrey Hepburn fan if you didn't already know, and if you read much about her you'll love her too, not just as an actress, but as an altruistic humanitarian. My mom saw this issue of Life at Target today and picked it up for me, rarely I never spend this much on a magazine, but to me this is definitely worth it. It's filled with wonderful pictures, and what I've read in it so far is great as well. It won't be on shelves much longer, so if you want a copy you best get it now or ebay. I now have a great desire to collect every issue Audrey Hepburn has been on the cover of (I'm finding 7 others so far), and to get a pet fawn.

I also just finished reading How to be Lovely: The Audrey Hepburn Way of Life, which is full of quotes and stories that are very inspirational.

And now for some music I'm lovin'
I just started my Best Albums of 2008 list with these two albums:
The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely: While I loved Broken Boy Soldiers, I'm glad this album isn't just a repeat of that. It's different, just as great, if not better.

Unwed Sailor - Little Wars: I will venture to say that this is the best Unwed Sailor album to date! It is brilliance to my ears. It's a more melodic sound closer to Unwed Sailor's older releases, but it's more than that, I don't know how to explain it but it makes me feel nice and I'm in love with it. The LP version has 2 bonus tracks, and I usually hate it when bonus tracks are only available on the vinyl because I like to listen to it on my iPod and in my car, but this LP release comes with a coupon for free digital download of the entire album plus bonus tracks. How awesome is that!

What other albums should make it onto my Best Albums of 2008 list?

What are you lovin' right now?

"New Look!" or "New, Look"

New WordPress theme here, come check it out and let me know what you think. I'm not settled on the header image and the colors just yet, I still have a few things going through my head.

I also added content to the articles page that had been sitting there all blank and lonely. It now has the 2 most recent issues of my college's newspaper that can be read in full.

Speaking of articles, I finished reading Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography and even already wrote my review of it. Unfortunately, it's way too long and I'm going to have to cut it down a bit.

I'm proud of myself for keeping to my goal of not procrastinating (at least for the most part, I should be studying right now though), but I'm really not doing so good on my goal of taking a photo every day.

How are your goals going?

How...original

This coming Thursday, March 20, would have been Mister Rogers' 80th birthday, and in honor of the best neighbor ever it is Sweater Day. Weather permitting, I will be wearing a sweater, how about you?

Next time you need to promote something, think of Christvertising it. Hilarious. (via Joshua Blankenship).

At this moment I am drinking my coffee with granulated sugar. I am not a happy camper. While I only have a few snobberies about my coffee, this is one of them. It reminds me from part of the movie Le Divorce, where Naomi Watts' character feels insulted by her mother-in-law calling her use of sugar grains "original."

"Sugar grains. Original."
Meaning how bizarre.

Meaning, "Why don't you have sugar cubes
like a proper French girl?"

I'm also listening to the music you guys recommended right now and will make a post about it shortly. Though I should be finishing up this book I'm writing a review of for the school paper, and doing my other school-related reading.