checklist

here's my check list of things to be done before my family gets here this weekend for sean's birthday:

things we've finished:

• cleaned the bathroom
• cleaned and sweeping the floors
• cleaned the kitchen counters
• grocery shopping
• made the spaghetti sauce
• made the meatballs
• made the yogurt
• made granola
  

things we still need to do:

• marinate the meat for the carnitas
• defrost the meat and dumpling wrappers
• make cupcakes
  

yes, a lot of things are radiating around food. :) here is our planned menu for sat-sun

saturday
breakfast: granola and yogurt
lunch: dumplings
dinner: carnitas, roasted corn, mexican rice, cupcakes

sunday
breakfast: blueberry pancakes and bacon
lunch: spaghetti and meatballs, salad

dr. t

i went to my really good friend t's defense on friday. she's one of my closest friends here in champaign-urbana. we actually visited uiuc together in the spring of 2002 to decide which grad school we'd go to. we basically survived the first year together--taking almost all the same classes. we hung out together a lot our first few years, and though the time we spend together has steadily declined, i still really enjoy our time together.

anyways, back to t. she did a fabulous job at her defense. it was well organized, her slides were interesting without too much text, and she presented it very well. i was very pleased that she presented her work in such a fashion that people that aren't in her area could understand the work. it was a job very well done. she has worked so hard at finishing up the past weeks, and it showed when her committee signed her defense paperwork such that she passed with no revisions needed. she is going to make some slight revision to clarify some points brought up in the defense, but other than that, she's done! :) say hello to dr. t!

i'm so proud of dr. t. it's been a hard and long road for her with regards to advisors, research, support from the department, and various other things. but t knew what she wanted, and she needed a phd to teach at a university. i know that there were many days (even months, perhaps years) where this thought of teaching would be thing that would keep her going. well, she's finished and she's got her dream job at teaching at her undergrad university in a city that she loves. i'm so incredibly happy for her.

i can't believe it's already been 6 years since the day she started her phd. time has gone so quickly, and to be honest, we both thought i'd be the first to leave. t had lamented the fact that i would be gone and that she would be here in champaign urbana without me. my how the tables have turned. :) now, i'm the one lamenting. actually, i'm currently in denial. t had told me the date that she was going to leave, but it just crept up on me so fast. in a blink of an eye, it was the beginning of july, and then when i came back from vacation, she was defending in 2 days. now, she's leaving on tuesday. we're having dinner together tomorrow night, but i'm still in denial that she's leaving. i'm just not ready to say good bye yet.

i love you dr. t. i'm so proud and happy of what you've accomplished these 6 years. i've seen you grow so much during this time, and i'm so glad and privileged i could share this time with you. i know you're going to do great teaching! don't forget all those hints for topics and lectures for computer security that we came up for you! :)

my vacation according to wordle

i copied all the text from my blogs during our trip to MA. here's what our trip was like according to me via wordle.net:

yarn 2, ramona 1

i finally untangled that big mess the 2nd day on vacation. i rolled it into a ball that had a center pull. i finished crocheting the blanket, using the same pattern as sean's first afghan.

unfortunately, i when i laid out the afghan, i realized it looked really warped at the top. it bulged out a lot. i couldn't find the mistake. nat couldn't find the mistake. so, last night, i undid the afghan to the point where i thought the afghan didn't looked warped; this left me 1/3 of the afghan. i could have left it, but i'm a perfectionist and i wanted to give it as a gift. i know that a few of you had commented that mistakes are good b/c you know it's handmade. this mistake was too evident, and i couldn't bring myself to keep it in. here's to another few hours working on this afghan. :) cheers!

gift for stay at home parents

after being on vacation with nat's family this week, i'll let you in on a secret.  if you have a spouse that's a stay at home parent, i have a great gift you can give them, and it's free.

take care of your child for them.  why?  well, i find that being a stay at home mom, i get burned out after some time.  the only time i really relax is when sean is down for a nap.  otherwise, i feel like i'm always having to watch sean.  i might be laying down on the couch, but i still have my "mommy guard" up.  i think that wears me out.  after doing this "job" day in and day out, the responsibility of raising a child most of the day wears on you.  a lot.  

so how do you go about this?  just do it.  just say to your spouse, "i love you, and i want time to yourself.  i'll take care of our son/daughter.  i want to spend time with them while you recuperate".  i think it works for as long as you can hold the fort, but if it's only a couple of hours, that's fine as well.   i think these words and actions work especially well for me.  the words say to me: 1) that nat really cares for me as a wife and understands how hard my job is day in and day out and 2)  that nat enjoys spending time with sean and that it's not a chore to him.  

i think on this vacation, i'm really appreciating the "enjoying your child and it's not a chore" attitude of taking care of the child.  there are nights when we're both tired, and nat is willing to take care of sean, but i have to ask him if he will.  this makes me feel guilty b/c i feel like nat would rather not take care of sean b/c he's busy or tired, so i should just do it instead.  whereas when nat just takes sean and says he wants to do it, i feel more carefree.

anyways, those are just my thoughts from this trip.     

are you kidding me?

so after my frustrating night, i had a frustrating morning. i was supposed to go to the library while sean was sleeping b/c nat was at home working on a paper submission. did i get to do that? no.

why, you ask? well, i wanted to hold our mail, so i wanted to do it online. my computer had restarted b/c of an update that installed last night. opened firefox. couldn't connect. if i shut off zonealarm, i could use the internet for a minute, but i couldn't use any other part of my computer (i.e. windows would say, "windows cannot access...."). so i had to restart. if i wanted to use the other parts of my computer, i couldn't use the internet. after much sifting, we found that it was b/c of the windows update i installed last night (KB951748) and zonealarm. i took an hour of my precious' husbands time to figure this out. even then, it took some time to find the windows update log file (it's under the WINNT folder or WINDOWS) b/c it's not on the GUI for the windows update. then we had to find it in "add/remove software" after we checked the "Show updates" box at the top. cryptic.

now, everything is back to normal. i have found, though, if i turnoff zonealarm, my computer is rendered useless. i can't access anything on my computer. RIDICULOUS! how did zonealarm do this? and why? WHY? WHY? i will not be installing zonealarm if i ever rebuild my computer (or get a new one).

thanks nat for taking out your precious time to help me with my computer. i love you. and yes, i know you think i need a new one now, but i don't. ;)

yarn 1, ramona 0

AHHHHH! i hate, and i mean HATE it when a ball of yarn tangles. GRRRR. i think i've been 50% successful at finding the yarn in the middle of the manufactured ball, and of that 50%, i've been 50% successful at crocheting it without any tangles.

yesterday, i bought a new ball of yarn to finish my crochet. i thought, "hey, i'll get a lot done while we watch the movie". the movie started. i fished for the start of the yarn in the middle. no where to be found. i dug deeper and pulled out the middle. still, i couldn't find the beginning of the yarn. eventually, i had a tangled mess with all the middle of the yarn ball in my lap. GRRRR. i started to make a ball using the outside piece of yarn. then, i hit tangle and knot after tangle and knot. GRRRRR.

i was SO frustrated that i was tempted to throw the whole thing out and buy another ball. but, i regained my cool (it also helped that nat raised his eyebrows at me as if to say, "you're going to waste all that yarn b/c you couldn't untangle it?"). i vowed that i would finish untangling the mess tonight. 2 hours later, i have a stiff body from trying to wind the yarn, and i still have half of a mess left. GRRRRR!

if you have any hints to help me avoid this situation, i would greatly appreciate it. if you have any hints of how to avoid tangles after i found the middle start piece in a ball, that would be fantastic as well. otherwise, it might be years between my crochet projects. YEARS! :P

stay at home mom

i never realized how difficult being a stay at home mom is until i was one. and i just wanted to say "yay for stay at home moms!*" it's hard and sometimes overlooked as one of the most difficult, yet worthwhile jobs to have.

so why this post? well, i was sitting in bed last night, and it dawned on me that one of the hardest reasons i have being a stay at home mom is that parenting falls more on my shoulders than nat's. it's not that nat doesn't want to share that burden, but when he's working most of the hours that sean's awake, it's hard to share that 50-50. there are days that i wish i could just let someone take care of sean or teach him how to do something**. and yes, many people have offered to watch sean for me so that i don't get burned out. and in reality, i do want to be the one parenting him 99% of the time, but there are still just those days. :P (moms, you know what i'm talking about.) and in reality, sean is not a hard little boy to take care of. he's pretty easy, and i know that. i think it's the constant needing-to-be-alert-so-that-he-doesn't-get-into-trouble mode that i'm in that wears at me. the only time in the day that i get a break (when sean's awake) is when nat comes home and i make dinner***. so for all the moms out there that feel the way i do, i say, "YAY mom! good for you to stick it out! :)"

on another tangential note, nat and i had a little tiff about parenting last night. i began to feel the burden more than my liking. i had been feeling that i wasn't really getting a break from watching sean when nat came home b/c sean would be crawling around in the kitchen getting in my way. of course, i was terse and mean with nat and pointed out these things (b/c i was angry). at night, he admitted that being a dad is much harder than he pictured, and when it is, he just kinda shuts off and wants to be lazy. (hmm, much like what i described in the previous paragraph. with nat, he gets the luxury of me being at home and slacking off, though) but i'm very thankful that he was humble enough to admit these things to me last night (even though i was angry and didn't really respond to what he said). i'm also grateful that he desires to be a better dad, especially when it's hard. so here's a "YAY!" to all the dads out there that love, support, encourage, share the burden, and know how difficult it is for their wife to stay at home.

* i know it's hard to be a working mom as well, my mom was all her life.
** i think it's my human lazy mentality of letting someone else do it. :P
*** ironically, before sean, that was the time of day that i was most stressed.