A little Damp

 Those of you who know I'm a New Englander may (or may not) be pleased to hear that were we live was NOT hit with the insane flooding and storms that claimed some lives, and apparently from the pictures. some vehicles as well.

 ((Apparently a nineteen year old young man was killed by a falling tree while outside trying to clean debris from his driveway. ))

 We did have some rain, and even some thunder, but it was nothing as severe as what apparently hit areas not actually that far from us. I'm extremely grateful for this, because we DO have several large pine trees in the side yard that could -actually- come down on the house. And that would be really bad.

 Otherwise there's not tons to report. I got some fun new pictures of the Monster that I'll post for peoples enjoyment. He's growing like a weed and loves to go outside, which makes it a shame that it's been wet and gross, and therefore alive with mosquitoes and blackflies. It's also unfortunate for Tilmani, who is a buffet for blackflies, and they make him sick. Litteraly. He reacts very badly to being bitten. 

 MiniMonster has been re-introduced to crayons and has discovered that they are WAY FUN. He now has a coloring book and a blank drawing pad, and he actually seems to like the blank pad better. (I don't blame him.) The only problem we're really having is that he tends to drop the crayons he's not using on the floor, then he gets mad when he wants them back and can't reach them. ((His artistic endeavors are limited to his high chair and tray because... well... white paper... large white blank living room walls..... 1 + 1 = Mom Doesn't want to Scrub crayola off the paint.

 We'll also be joining my In laws for a Memorial Day BBQ at their place, and getting to see the work they've had done on their kitchen, now mostly finished. Man what an adventure they've had on that front. First the contractor 'neglected' to order the cabinets when they were selected, in spite of having all required measurements and the like, and since he didn't order them, lost that chance when they abruptly stopped making them, requiring my poor Mother in law to go pick NEW cabinets because he didn't order them. They also destroyed THREE microwaves ((the contractors)) by slamming them into things, and last I heard had made the brand new stove stop working, because after installing it, they pulled it BACK out to do something, and when they put it back it didn't work. Given the microwaves... one suspects poor handling. Sounds like they DO have water back in the kitchen though after months. This makes me extremely nervous of what it's going to be like if we ever decide to remodel the kitchen. X_X

 Granted I tend to be a little more ready to share my displeasure when I feel like someone needs to fix the mess they made, so maybe things would go a little differently, but who knows.

 Oh and MiniMonster should be all excited, his Auntie is now the Manager of the Candy store where she works. Go Auntie Roo!

 And now pictures! One of them has a link to an appropriate song. ;)

MiniMonster and Nana J.

Crayola, Crayola

Visiting the Neighbors

Helping out Daddy

The Strong Men

Hoisin Chicken or Ho-Sh-- chicken?

 We had our rpg game again for the first time in a few weeks yesterday. MiniMonster spent a fair amount of it relegated to his playpen or to his room because he absolutely could not/would not stay out of trouble.

 Game was fun, and the Dice-Gods decided to show me their great favor at some pretty opportune times, resulting in some really amazing results and a fair amount of Out-Of-Character hilarity.

 We served up some Honey-Hoisin chicken made in the crock pot, a pretty straight forward recipie from a new cook book I picked up. Turtle and Bear really liked it, Tilmani and I thought it was decent, but not the most amazing thing we'd had.

 NomNom apparently thought it was one of the most vile substances ever to grace the earth, waking me up in the night with general nausea and plenty of gas, and a nice round of revenge of NomNom when I got up this morning. 

 Needless to say I don't think I'll be making Hoisin Chicken again any time too soon. X_X

 MiniMonster seems to be coming down with a bit of a cold, dripy nose, reduced appetite and general cuddly blahs, poor guy. I gave him a little breakfast, some snuggles, and tucked him back to bed, wouldn't mind doing the same myself but I've got things to do today.

 Now if I could just find the motivation.

Picture Spam Again

 Yep it's that time again, the time when I sit back, cuss a blue streak at Photobucket, and use Blogger as the means with which to upload AWESOME THINGS PEOPLE HAVE MADE.

 Fayth struck again, this time deciding she had a yen to draw some fine uh.... Jeans. Yeah. C_C Fine Jeans. Very fine Jeans. *cough*Apparently she plans to color this one at some point so I'd be prepared to see it again possibly, since Photobucket really doesn't like me. Or maybe it likes some people out there with an appreciation for 'Fine Jeans'.

 The charm on his phone is a lions head ((Relevant to the character on several layers)), and the thing in his hand is a game-relevant pen.

 ...It's a Henshin Pen. He's a Sailor-Scout. It's a Sailor Moon game. But it's awesome. C_C
     ...Yes he's a boy Senshi/Sailor Scout and no he doesn't transform into a girl or wear a skirt. 

I'm gonna go back to geeking out and loving this picture now.

Ghandi

 Ghandi said "Be The Change you wish to see in the world"
  I'm inclined to think that's a pretty smart philosophy, but then I tend to be the sort of person who likes to take some form of action if I think there's a problem, even if it's just making it clear that there is, by god, a problem. Unfortunately, and maybe it's just a temporary trend, I tend to run into clusters of people who have this infuriating policy of going: "Why bother to do anything, it won't matter, nothing will change."

 I've seen it applied to literally every walk of life, and, it just kills me. Every time I see it in action I have to fight not to fly off the handle, because it makes me -that- angry. If people had gone with that theory with ME when I was newly emerged from the emotionally and occasionally physically abusive horrors inflicted on me by other children during High-school and Grade school, I don't know that I'd even be here today. I mean after all, under that theory, why would anyone reach out to me? I was angry, nervous of people and extremely withdrawn! Reaching out to me wouldn't have done any good, nothing would change, so why should they bother?

 Fortunately people did, and it helped change my entire life. Hell, my husband was among those who reached out to me, and to some extent, vise versa. If we hadn't tried to change things up, we wouldn't be here now, and MiniMonster wouldn't exist, and NomNom wouldn't be working hard to go for round two.

 This particular rage fit wasn't inspired by anything so dramatic as ignoring someone suffering from emotional scars, it actually came up regarding role play, and weather or not it was worth the effort to give people your thoughts, opinions and questions on their 'work in progress' characters when they asked for it. I argue, (no surprise here) that it is worth it. Not everyone is looking for real crits even if they say they are, since some people really just want a pat on the back and to be validated, but far more players than that really really are looking for the opinions of other players who already have active, successful characters. Why? Because you've got an active, successful character, they WANT an active, successful character, and they want, very likely, to be active WITH YOU. Therefore they want your thoughts and opinions to help them flesh out their characters and make them something you would like to interact with.

 Same goes for anyone asking for an opinion. Not all of the people who ask REALLY want it, but some of them REALLY do, and by assuming that no one does, and that it's not worth your time to reach out and make even the smallest effort, you could really be hurting someone.

 Use your best judgement, giving people a chance doesn't always mean you'll hurt in the end.

Awkard Places

 I find myself in sort of an unusual and awkward place at the moment.

 There's a friend I've known for some years now and I need to figure out exactly how to deal with them. We used to be really close, if not physically. We chatted pretty much constantly, and emailed back and forth. They knew me before I even knew my husband. They knew me before MiniMonster was born, and for a short time, they considered a relationship with another one of my friends, (Turtle).

 The relationship with Turtle didn't work out, distance and other things were a factor, but such things happen. That's not the problem. The problem I've been having is that since I had MiniMonster, they've grown more distant. At first incrementally, and then more and more so. There were very reasonable excuses of course. Work, College, A New House, all of these at the same time, plus attending conventions to sell things. We stopped having RP sessions together, and then there slowly stopped being any real communication at all.

 They haven't said specifically that they've got a problem with me, and they're typically not someone who's got a problem with letting people know if they have a problem... but I think I know what the problem IS.

 It's MiniMonster I think. Something about me having become a parent and me going to have a second child (Baby NomNom), has cause a complete withdrawal of communication. I even sent them an anouncement that we were going to have another child, and I personally didn't get a response. Turtle did though. He got a email reply of:
 "They're pregnant again? You know they've identified what causes that."

 On it's own this could be construed as an sort of tasteless joke, but combined with the total retreat, it just comes off as being pretty rude. I don't feel like I've changed that much. I've had to become more responsible, I have more things to do, and I can't drop everything and galavant across the countryside at the drop of a hat, but really with most peoples budgets and jobs... lets face it. Galavanting on a regular, unplanned basis is for people who don't have a real grasp of their responsibilities regarding others.

 I feel like at this point I've got one of two options: I can either just let things die, though this gives me the feeling that the story they'll tell others is that I'm somehow the one who decided that we couldn't be friends any more, or I can take a page out of their book. ((They boast often about their bull headed qualities.)) and be more direct, and send them an email pointing out that I heard, and was offended by their comment, and that I feel as though I'm being cut out of things because I have children, and would like to know if thats really what she wants.

 I'll grant her that she's had bad experiences with -A- woman who had children, a rather unbalanced on, but it's completely unfair I think to judge me by the standards of one, singular individual, who has nothing in common with me.

 It's an awkward place to be and I don't like it.


PS. Once I got past my initial rage-faces, Tangled had funny moments, and MiniMonster liked the lanterns.

Tangled Up

Just started Watching Tangled:
 I'll give a complete review when I'm done, but so far...

 I'm REALLY not seeing why people thought this was so fantastic. So far it's just another case of Disney doing a "Postman" and taking the title off a fairy tale and rewriting the whole thing. I expect I'll be puking on the excessively PC bullshit before the thing is over.

Happy Post Mothers Day

So another Mothers Day has come and gone, ours in relative quiet, although the entire household spent the weekend playing a great game of "pass the germ".

 Friday: MiniMonster was sick, running a temperature, and pretty much slept, or fussed, cuddled, drank, and slept again all day until evening when his temp finally broke and he enthusiastically mugged me for pieces of my cereal, except for the ones that had actually been partially soaked in milk. Those got a "What the HELL is this" expression while he waited for a drier one while holding the wet one pinched between two fingers like a dead animal. He reluctantly went to bed, but only after getting us to agree to let him share our bed, which since he wasn't ENTIRELY back to normal temperature was sort of like sleeping with a small, snuggly space heater. A small snuggly space heater who slowly rotated to use me as a pillow and kick his dad out of bed.

 ((Queen sized bed you can't get here fast enough!))

 Saturday: Tilmani woke up with an upset stomach and the running theory that it might have been monster's bug. This was great except that BabyNomNom ((who we're roughly estimating to be about eight weeks old.)) was feeling ESPECIALLY vengeful, and MiniMonster was feeling more energetic, but not quite energetic as he really wanted to be, resulting in frequent rounds of him fussing about his own energy levels and not wanting to take the rest he actually needed. ((It's frustrating to want to play but be tired.))

 SUNDAY Tilmani woke up with a headache, and I woke up feeling pretty good (for a change) Didn't even have a round of morning sickness.... until after dinner. Then I slid down a horrible horrible slope of misery and nausea and generally didn't even want to be touched. This creates a force field that makes -everything- want to touch you. Especially tiny concerned people who can't figure out why Mommy won't let them drag her off the couch to play, because she really doesn't want to spent the next ten minutes dry heaving at someone. I pretty much got a return to sender notice on my dinner, and was confused (but happier) when some Ben and Jerrys stayed down when my Soup and Sandwich wouldn't. ((Tomato Soup only really tastes good going one way.))
 Did get some reprieve to rest when Nana and Papa showed up to take the Monster for a walk (He enjoyed this and it let us hand Nana her Mothers Day Cards)
 I continued to feel really sick through the early part of the night, which was extra fun because Monster in his anxiety decided he needed to be in our room to make sure we weren't being devoured by monsters, and apparently decided to battle them around two or three in the morning by going into Kung Fu Action! A round of night terrors. Tilmani and I managed to escape without black eyes in spite of being punched, kicked, and thrashed at, and MiniMonster apparently remembers nothing, because he woke up in an absolutely stellar mood.

 Tried to get Grandma her cards, but couldn't quite make the schedule work, so we'll just have to try again later in the week. Perhaps we'll manage to line up a lunch date for the chicken fingers (and maybe some steak-teriaki) at the Chinese place that NomNom seems to be sending up a yen for. Plus it'll be nice to let Grandma have some Grandma time. <3