Mom’s Blog
Psychic Eggplant » Just because it's January…
I think I'm suffering from "New Year's Syndrome." This is something I just invented to explain the feeling I suddenly have that I need to DO SOMETHING about my weight. It's actually not bad – I need to lose about 10 pounds to get back to "normal" – but it just seems so DAUNTING. And it sounds all well and good to start eating better (read: less cheese) and exercising more (read: at all), but I start school next week and I just know that there's no point in trying to start something until I know what the term is really going to look like. My work schedule is even more travel-heavy in the spring than at other times of the year, and I just don't want to do what I did last fall, which is to try to start working out only to find that I was too exhausted to make time for it. When your only real workout options are 5 a.m. or 9:30 p.m., it's pretty hard to find any motivation. Those are sleepy times.
I guess I hope that because I'm only taking one class this semester, and I don't think it's going to be too work-intensive, maybe I can get myself together and actually do something. I'm at the point where it's just kind of a nagging annoyance that I've gained weight, and I'd like to reverse the trend before it becomes a) worse and b) even more daunting than it already seems. I think it must be true that your metabolism starts to tank in your 30s, and my metabolism wasn't really firing on all cylinders to begin with.
But really, I'm not going to think about this anymore for another week. That's when class starts and I'll see how time-intensive the syllabus looks. If I won't have 2 hours of homework a night, maybe exercising at 9:30 won't seem like such a bad idea. 
Psychic Eggplant » Done done done! (For now.)
Yesterday was the last day of this semester at school. It has been completely brutal. It didn't help that I had to travel a lot for the first half of the term, that my work AND B's work were insane, that I was taking the most work-intensive class of the whole stinking program, and that BOTH of my classes had group projects. I just realized I didn't even post here for almost two months!! Not that anyone probably really missed it, but it does say something about how busy things have been. It also says something about how busy things have been when the thing I'm looking forward to most is now having time to clean the shower.
I have always loved school. I'm that person. I'm the one who loves to learn things just to learn them, who actually likes writing papers, etc. I've especially loved grad school for two reasons: 1) sometime in my 20s, I lost my shyness, which I had to fake my way through in all my classes as an undergrad, so I've made more friends and participated a lot more in class; 2) I can actually use 90% of what I'm learning (the only real exception here is my PR class, which was a giant waste of time). But this semester, an alarming thing happened. I started to understand why people don't like school. I even started to understand why people drop out with a class or two to go. This semester really sucked. I think I did well in both classes, although the capstone class might have blown my 4.0 (down with group projects!), but I've also grown up enough (barely) to be able to realize that nobody but me cares about my GPA.
When I came home last night, though, my awesome family had decided to take me to dinner at my favorite restaurant, and I ate almost an entire bowl of guacamole by myself, and things started to look up. When I woke up this morning, my very, very first thought was: no homework today! So I'm going to just enjoy the next few weeks before I have to go back, and try to tackle more things at work and at home that I've been meaning to get to. Like Christmas shopping, which I haven't even started!
I’m pretty proud that in all of this craziness (me on overdrive with work and school, B having to work extreme amounts of extra hours), H doesn't seem to have noticed that we've been stressed out. I think that's the most important thing.
I’m so happy! Weeks and weeks off, and my last class in the spring has the potential to actually be fun. But for now, it's time to relax! 
Psychic Eggplant » Things I'm going to do when I graduate
I have come to hate school so very much this semester that I've decided visualization might be the only way to get through. Thus, I have taken to imagining myself walking across the stage at graduation, wearing my nifty hood and feeling ecstatic that I'm done. In my imagination, I am also shouting, "Woo hoo!" at the top of my lungs, and smiling really big. I must make this vision a reality, and so I have to power through 7 more months of school.
I’ve decided that, as further, motivation, I am going to start a list of stuff I'm going to do after I graduate. This is just the beginning:
1. Sleep.
2. Go out to dinner and drink a lot. I haven't made up my mind if it's going to be martinis, or if I'm just going to get a big bottle of Riesling. I have time to decide.
3. Do something fun with B and H.
4. Have a HUGE party. I'm inviting everyone I know. One of the reasons I decided NOT to push it, and to go ahead and graduate in the spring, is so the weather won't suck and I can actually have a party. I didn't have a chance to celebrate my undergrad degree because it was December in Indiana, and we had snow storms, and they interrupted our graduation ceremony to announce that parts of I-65 were closed.
5. Avoid school for a long, long, time, with the exception of H's school. Her school is fun.
6. Actually exercise with some regularity. I'm holding out hope that I might have the energy for it then.
7. Sleep some more.
8. Start watching TV shows again.
9. Re-institute movie night with B.
10. Eat cake. I think I will have earned a cake. Cake for everyone!! 
Psychic Eggplant » The Workout Log – Day 2
I did it! I got up early again this morning and worked out. I skipped yesterday because I figured that overdoing it my first week would just make me bitter and resentful about the whole thing.
So, good for me, I guess. 
Psychic Eggplant » The Workout Log – Day 1
I finally got tired enough of being tired, gaining weight, and feeling stressed to actually make myself get up early (er, on time) and work out for 20 minutes this morning. It's dorky, but I actually bought a kickboxing video and used that.
News flash: I am SO out of shape! I had no idea it had gotten this bad. About 30 seconds in, I was thinking, "Wow, I used to be able to do this for a whole hour, and I already feel like my legs are going to fall off." And let's not even talk about the crunches. They've never been my favorite and I've never been that great at them, but holy abdominals, Batman, those were hard today.
So…I hope this trend continues and that I actually have a "Workout Log – Day 2" to share with you. I figure a little activity is better than nothing, and it might help me lose some of the weight I've gained over the past several months. I'm forming a loose plan in which I use the Wii Fit on my off days from kickboxing and crunches. If I can be just a little bit active every day, it will be better than I've been doing. It did work really well for my schedule to get up early and get it out of the way, but getting up early is not an easy thing for me to do!
Wish me luck! 
Psychic Eggplant » 10 things I wish everyone would realize about traveling
1. You know those little boxes at the gate that show you how big your carry-on can be to fit in the overhead bin? They are not a joke. Your bag really won't fit if it's bigger than that box. Save us all some time and stop trying.
2. If you cannot lift your bag over your head, you will not be able to put it in the overhead bin. You should not expect anyone else to help you with this. You should CHECK YOUR BAG.
3. Guess what? You can even beat the system and gate-check your bag. You still don't pay, and the rest of us won't have violent thoughts when you're holding up the line trying to cram your oversized, overweight "carry-on" into the bin. This will also save those of us who always sit on the aisle a lot of stress, as we won't have to worry about your bag falling out and giving us concussions. And if that doesn't happen, there's no chance we'll sue you! See, everybody wins!
4. Check-in counter and gate agents should really have the authority, ability and initiative to make you gate-check your bag if it is going to make the rest of the plane's passengers feel in a way similar to that described in #3. Only once have I ever seen a gate agent actually come around and tag carry-ons whether you liked it or not. That person was one of the heroes, people.
5. If you go to LAX and I go to LAX, you will always be the one to see the famous person. I have the worst luck with that!
6. My bag has a bright pink handle cover on it. I have never seen any other luggage with bright pink covers on the handle. The reason I have the bright pink handle cover is so I can recognize my bag, and you can recognize that it's NOT your bag. So…hands off my luggage.
7. No matter how comfy the hotel bed is, it is never as comfy as your bed at home. Never. I wish the hotels would stop trying to convince me otherwise.
8. Room service is never as good as it sounds on the menu. It is convenience food. But it definitely beats sitting in a restaurant alone. Some people don't mind that, and good for them, but I hate it!
9. I get to go to a lot of "cool" places for my job, but I never get to do any of the "cool" stuff there. Business travel is really not all that fun, exciting or glamorous. That's why it's work. The best business travel is…effective. Woo! Effective!
10. Life would be better if every rental car came standard with satellite radio and a GPS. You'd know how to get where you were going, you could find a gas station close to the airport, and you would never be faced with choosing between the best of three different local country stations. 
Psychic Eggplant » OBX, Day 6: homeward bound
Well, that's it. We're home. And I've already started on the laundry. 
Yesterday was our last day of vacation, and consisted mostly of traveling. Therefore, it's not a terrifically exciting story. We checked out of the hotel, loaded up the car and drove to Norfolk. We stopped for lunch on the way, and dealt with H's somewhat snippy attitude. We think this was a combination of 1) being bummed that vacation was almost over; 2) being tired; and 3) dreading the plane ride.
We’d planned to kill some time in Norfolk because our flight wasn't until nearly 6:00, but H fell asleep right when we got into the city, so we felt like we should just drive around and let her sleep (see "snippy attitude," above). I managed to figure out how to use the Maps app on my phone to get directions, so we just drove around for awhile. We drove by the Battleship Wisconsin, which looked impressive. There was a big waterfront shopping district that also looked interesting, but we didn't stop. I got the impression that downtown Norfolk is kind of a neat place.
We headed for the airport and considered stopping at the Norfolk Botanical Garden, but decided it wasn't worth $20 to kill just an hour and a half or so. We just returned the car instead and headed for the airport terminal. H had definitely perked up and returned to her usual sunny self by then, so we were all in a better mood. H and B went to explore the airport a bit while I sat with our many bags, and they returned with Starburst and chocolate chip cookies.
After we checked in, H found a little play area and made a new friend in the playhouse. It turned out she and her family were on our flight back, so they also got to hang out a bit at the gate. H had bad memories of her ears popping on the first flight, so she started whimpering before we even got on the plane. After we were seated (in a nice, new plane, actually), she kept up a steady stream of crying and saying, "I want to get off, I want to get off." I explained we couldn't get off because the plane was thousands of feet in the air, but this didn't seem to help. Neither did cookies and a whole lot of Starburst. Our theory is that the IDEA of her ears popping was worse than they actually felt, because my ears weren't that bad and I have terrible airplane ears. I let H sit in my lap when the seatbelt light went off, and did a totally mean mom thing and told her if she cried anymore I was going to make her sit back in her seat. However, it worked. I could handle the whimpering and being unhappy, but there was just no call for crying. After awhile, I think she realized her ears actually were okay, and she sit back in her seat and colored and had a fairly good time. Big props go to B for distracting her and making her laugh on the flight. We told her that she'd have to get used to flying, because if you want to go anywhere really cool, you usually have to fly there. I think she's resigned to it. In fact, while we were landing, my ears were the worst they were on the entire flight, and H didn't seem bothered at all! We were totally perplexed. See? Happy:
We’d made reservations with a car service to bring us home from the airport, and they sent a stretch limo! So we ended our vacation in style. H kept saying, "Why are we riding in this very long car?" I think she thought it was pretty cool.
Oh yeah, and I need to write the Official List of Atchison Outer Banks Vacation Quotes. So, here it is:
1) Arp Weefee! (Still hilarious, and I don't care what anybody says.)
2) "It's not a bear butt, it's a dog butt!" (This takes explanation. I told H I saw her bare butt after a bath one night, but she was pretending to be a dog at the time, so she corrected me.)
3) "Sorry, we're out of velociraptors. I only had one and somebody took it!" (See the family blog for explanation.)
4) Pool Weefee! (Seen on some other hotel marquees.)
5) "The kite is gonna hit that cloud! I'm just joking!" (H likes flying kites.)
6) "I don't want to go in the water!" (Guess who said that one…a lot.)
And that's that. We had a great time. Now we have to think about where we want to go next. H suggested India, but we think that might be a bit expensive… 
Psychic Eggplant » OBX, Day 5: NC Aquarium, souvenirs & Tropical Storm Danny wimps out
This was our last day in the Outer Banks. 
Because we'd basically done everything we wanted to do, we got a nice, lazy start to today. We didn't even leave the room till after lunch time (well, I went to the lobby to get breakfast, and B had to make a potato chip run, but other than that…). This about sums up the morning: I read, B did stuff on the computer, and H painted in her new paint with water book. It was quite nice.
Today was another blazing hot day, and there was a chance of rain, so we thought indoor activities were in order. We decided to go to the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island, and it was so worth it! It was a neat place, and we got to see lots of the fish and other animals that are native to this area up close. We especially enjoyed looking at the turtles. (Picture to be added later. The aarp weefee connection is very slow tonight.)
H really liked the sharks, and I have to admit, they were pretty cool. She stood right next to the glass of their tank and talked to them as they swam past: "Hey you shark! Hey, big shark!" They did not seem to pay much attention, but she also didn't seem to care. I think she just liked looking at all the different kinds of fish – especially the big ones. I liked the river otters. There were some cool snakes there, too. I think B just liked watching me and H look at everything. We did get to touch stingrays (well, I did), and there was also a tank where you could touch starfish, sea urchins and hermit crabs. H stuck her hands right in both tanks, which I found amusing; I mean, she refuses to walk in water even with water shoes on, but she will plunge both hands right into a tank with swimmy/crawly/spiny things in it. Weird.
We finished our trip to the aquarium in the gift shop, where we got H a big stuffed shark. She named it…Shark. I was hoping for something more creative, but whatever. We brought him back to the hotel, where he met Chilly the penguin, and they seem to be getting along fine. H also introduced Shark to Leap and Tad the toy turtles, but he tried to eat them, so I'm not sure that relationship is going to pan out very well. Leap and Tad kept having to hide in their shells because, as H put it, "The shark wants to eat their squishy bodies, but he doesn't want to eat their shells."
After the aquarium, it was still too hot to do anything outside (we briefly mentioned Festival Park, but decided we'd had enough of being sweaty on this trip), so we set off to go souvenir shopping. We learned that one of the difficulties with being from a major metropolitan area is that none of the malls around are very interesting, because you can get any of that stuff at home without having to worry about going over the weight limit with your suitcase. Still, we found a good store with lots of OBX stuff, so B got a hooded sweatshirt. Then we headed back to Kitty Hawk Kites, where we'd seen some T-shirt possibilities for me and H during the week. I got a long-sleeved Life is Good T-shirt with the Cape Hatteras lighthouse on it, and H got one that says, "I climbed Jockey's Ridge." I think all of us liked that spot best out of all the places we went on this trip.
This evening we went to someplace called Miller's for dinner, after our third unsuccessful attempt at Tortuga's Lie. I don't know what time you have to get to that place to get a parking spot, but it's just going to have to wait till our next trip out here. We also drove by Carolina Seafood, and it, too, had no available parking. It was a little humorous, actually, because we just kept driving up and down the same road, looking for a restaurant that a) looked good and b) had parking. Miller's ended up being a good choice. H said they had good applesauce, AND you get a whole basket of hush puppies with your dinner. I love hush puppies dearly. B and H liked them, too.
After dinner and a bath for H, we played two more games of Kids of Carcassonne, then we ate popcorn and rocked out to music for awhile on B's iPod. H invented a new dance we're calling the Postage Stamp, since it looked like she was licking a stamp when she did it. It is hard to describe, but believe me when I tell you it was hilarious.
We all agreed we've had an awesome vacation, and the best part was getting to spend so much time together. It has been blissful. I'm sorry it's almost over.
Tomorrow is a travel day…let's hope it goes smoothly! 
Psychic Eggplant » OBX, Day 4: more beach, more sand dunes, more kite flying, mini golf & Tropical Storm Danny Watch continues
Today was a fairly lazy day where we still did a lot of stuff.
One of my favorite things about vacation is not having to hear an alarm clock. Who cares what time we wake up? This morning I woke up to the sound of H talking to herself in her bed. Much better than a dumb alarm clock.
After breakfast, we played two more games of Kids of Carcassonne. I won one and B and H tied for the other one (which H helpfully pointed out meant that I had NOT won that one). Then, we headed back to the beach. I made a sand castle that I was fairly proud of (below), and I took a picture of it before H came through and stomped it. (This is her favorite part of building sand castles.) B found a couple more cool shells. We hung out. H still refused to go near the water…we tried to bribe her into putting her toes in, but no go. It didn't seem worth it to try to force the issue. It would ruin the vacation vibe.
After the beach, it was time once again for baths and showers for all – especially H who, as previously mentioned, would not go in the water, so she was covered head to toe in a thin layer of sand. After cleaning up and eating lunch, we proceeded to sit around in our room for an hour or so. I read my book and posted yesterday’s recap. H played games on my iPhone (she's addicted). B looked up stuff about Tropical Storm Danny. I know that makes for a really boring story, but honestly, just sitting around is so great.
In the afternoon, we went to play mini golf, and we all got holes in one! Even H got one, and it was on a tough hole, too. I actually got TWO holes in one (and dominated the game), but I am trying not to gloat. H and I both did "hole in one" dances (that's her in mid-dance at left)…but now that I think about it, B didn't do one. We should've made him. Anyway, it was fun, but pretty hot again this afternoon, so after mini golf we needed ice cream. This made H very happy. The Dairy Queen was in the same building as an arcade, so we wandered over there and they had my favorite arcade game – it's like those claw games but with plastic toys, so it is really easy to win. (This is the same kind of machine they had at the bouncy house place where we had my 30th birthday party, where I won my current collection of dinosaurs, orcas and unicorns.) I won two turtles for H. She spent the rest of the day playing with them. She named them Leap and Tad, after the frogs in the Leap Frog toys.
The weather started to cool off a bit after ice cream, so we went back to Jockey's Ridge State Park (still our favorite spot from vacation) to fly H's penguin kite again. The wind was perfect – the kite flew higher than it's ever flown before! I actually remarked to B that I couldn't figure out what makes flying a kite so fun, but it really is. H had a great time running around on the sand dune and drawing shapes and lines. It was just so relaxing, with not a ton of people around. We all love that place. We even got to see some people taking hang gliding lessons.
Dinner tonight was at a place called Jockey's Ribs, and it was great. Much more family-friendly atmosphere than the place we went last night (which we chose because it advertised its "extensive children's menu," but when we got there it was all quiet and had a lot of glassware). I had shrimp and lump crab meat (a great invention – crab without all the work), B had ribs, and H had two bites of cheese pizza. I think she wasn't that hungry, and also preferred to play with Leap and Tad the turtles.
Tomorrow is our last full day in the Outer Banks. It's looking like Tropical Storm Danny might not cause too much of a problem, but of course we're keeping an eye on things. We do officially have a Tropical Storm Watch here now…which sounds like they don't expect it to be too bad. Luckily, we've really done all the things we wanted to do, so we're just planning to do some souvenir shopping and maybe find something else to do that's indoors in case it rains. The weirdest thing about tropical storms/hurricanes, at least to someone who doesn't regularly have to deal with them, is that you get DAYS of notice. This is, of course, useful if you're someone who might have to board up your house and flee…but when you're used to sudden summer storms where you have to hustle for cover, having days to wait to find out what the storm is going to do is sort of strange. It's like stretching out your storm freak-out…you just want someone to say something definitive and get on with it! However, having notice is certainly better than not having notice. We're going to be watching the weather closely tomorrow, since if Danny affects this area, they expect it to be tomorrow night/Saturday morning. Guess we'll see.
I love vacation. The thought of going back to work is just…meh. Woo! Vacation forever! 
Psychic Eggplant » OBX, Day 3: Roanoke Island, Cape Hatteras, Tropical Storm Danny Watch, scallops
This post is a day late because last night we had wifi issues at the hotel.
Which reminds me of the funniest thing, and I know it's not going to translate properly in this medium, but I'm giving it a go anyway. So, at our hotel, they offer an AARP discount. they also have free wifi. On the marquee outside, it says, "AARP WIFI" on one line. B pronounced this "Arp Weefee" and said it sounded like a singer from the 50s, and I cannot stop laughing about how funny "Arp Weefee" sounds! I'm laughing right now. Yesterday I was driving when he said it and I almost had to pull over because I was laughing so hard I was crying.
Anyway.
Yesterday we started the day by talking about Tropical Storm Danny, which is really threatening to put a damper on the end of our vacation. We are monitoring it closely. Right now it looks like we're just going to be dealing with rain and isolated storms. The latest news says it's tracking farther East than they originally thought, so we might not have a big problem with it. It could pose a challenge for our flight home on Saturday, but we're just going to have to wait and see. Yesterday and today are beautifully sunny and hot…so who knows.
Anyway, we drove to Roanoke Island yesterday to visit the Elizabethan Gardens, which were quite nice, but hot and full of mosquitoes. H got two bites, I got about ten, and B got zero. He never has trouble with mosquitoes. Still, the gardens were very pretty. They gave H a little worksheet with pictures of a bunch of things she could look for in the gardens, and she had a good time circling the things she saw with a tiny pencil. Fort Raleigh is right next to the gardens, so we checked that out, but it was sort of anticlimactic. The "fort" is a pile of dirt with grass growing on it, and putting up a sign that says "Fragile Earthenworks" does not convince me that it is more interesting. It was an old pile of dirt. But that's fine, because it was free.
We had some time after the gardens and fort (we'd expected to spend more time there, but it was just too hot yesterday to be outside too long), so we decided to drive to the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. We'd been planning to do that today, but figured we'd go ahead and do it in case we had tropical storm issues. H slept most of the way there (it took over an hour to drive out that far), but that was probably a good thing. She's been staying up late every night, so a little nap couldn't hurt. The drive was beautiful, and the lighthouse was cool. We got H a coloring book and crayons at the lighthouse so she'd have something to do on the drive back, and we all had to get snacks because we were hungry.
We’d planned to eat dinner at a restaurant called Tortuga's Lie, which a friend recommended to me, but by the time we got there it was completely packed and there wasn't even anywhere to park! So, we're going to try to go there for an early dinner tonight to see if we have any better luck. We ate at a place called Port O'Call instead, which was pretty good. I ate scallops and they were delightful. H had a hot dog with no bun, and B had shrimp fettucine alfredo. (Not that anyone cares what we ate, but food is important to me.)
We didn't get back to our room till about 9 o'clock, but H really wanted to play the new game we brought with us, so we did that. It's called Kids of Carcassonne and it's very fun. Very age-appropriate for her, since she seemed to pick up on it fairly quickly. I think we played about three games, and then it was time for bed. She liked it so much that we had to play two more games this morning.
And that's it for Day 3.
Everybody cross your fingers that Danny stays out of our way, the punk. 