December 30, 2007
Return to Nesting
This weekend is a very special time for me. Not because of New Year's--that's nice and all, but eh. No, what's significant about this time is that as of this past Thursday, it has been eighteen months since we moved into our current apartment. I know, that doesn't seem all that exciting. But it is. And here's why:
This is the first time in ten years that I've lived somewhere for that long without moving.
Seriously. Ten years. Since March of 1998, I've been moving with such regularity that it's amazing I didn't just buy an RV and move into it. I'd like to present a log of my moves over the last ten years, so that you can all see just how crazy it's been. I'd also like to point out that while, yes, all college students move between home and school every year, my situation was a bit different. That's because after the summer after my freshman year, I lost my bedroom. My brother moved into it, my things were... well, not there anymore, and when I was at home, I was sleeping in either my dad's office or a den. That means that for the entirety of college, all of the belongings I wanted access to were with me at college. I didn't leave clothes at home, I didn't leave keepsakes at home, I either boxed them up and stored them, or moved them at the beginning and end of every school year. That said, here we go:
- March 1998: from Plymouth, where I'd lived for 12 years, to a house in St. Louis Park
- August 1999: to an apartment in Toledo, Ohio, for college
- October 1999: to a dorm at UToledo, because my apartment roommates were homophobic party girls who exploded my microwave and expected me to cover for them when the cops came a-knockin and they were drunk
- May 2000: home! to my room, for the last time
- August 2000: to a dorm in Oberlin, Ohio
- June 2001: home! but... to my dad's office
- August 2001: to a different dorm in Oberlin
- January 2002: to another different dorm in Oberlin when I got a promotion that involved a move
- April 2002: home, to my brother's abandoned room, when I had a nervous breakdown
- August 2002: back to a dorm in Oberlin, the same one as the previous August
- May 2003: graduation! off to an apartment in Hopkins, MN with Lauren
- August 2004: wow, a record! over a year in one place! but now off to a dorm at Augsburg when I got an RD job
- October 2004: hmmm, another promotion that involves moving to a new dorm...
- January 2005: and another nervous breakdown that involves quitting and moving. this time to a fabulous apartment in Minneapolis near 50th & France
- July 2005: sadly, we have to leave the great apartment when Lauren gets an RD job in, sigh, Oberlin
- June 2006: and that was all the Oberlin we could handle. off to our new apartment in a res hall at the U of MN, where Lauren got a new job
And here we still are today. And here we will stay at least through June, if not for another year, depending on whether or not they move Lauren after this year.
All I care about is this--I have not had to pack, search for movers, pay movers, or tear my hair out about how to set up a NEW living space in 18 months. It's too bad this apartment isn't the most livable place and has no storage or closets... But it's still a wonderful feeling, to be in one place so long. It still doesn't feel like home. I guess maybe knowing that we could be moved any given year, combined with the fact that it's... well, a dorm, kind of means it might not ever feel like home. But it's still been nice to stay still.
And maybe that's why I've been looking for houses again lately, stalking edinarealty.com like a deranged person. Maybe that's why for the first time in a year and a half, I feel like I can look toward the future. Maybe feeling just a little bit more stable has been good for me and I can finally, finally relax enough to start feeling like I'm not running a marathon just to keep up with where life is taking us. It's a really nice feeling.
Posted to Minnesota & Nesting & Nostalgia & Oberlin at 06:54 PM | Comments (1)
September 10, 2006
It's baby-making time. Sort of.
My body is ready to reproduce.
Lately (for about the last 6-9 months) I've been getting major PMS-like symptoms when I don't have PMS. I've been irritable, moody, tired, and prone to break outs right in between my periods. I am, along with encouragement of this idea from my mom, choosing to believe that this is my body's way of saying, "I'm ovulating! Notice me! Make a baby!"
Considering that my babycraving has been saying the same thing for close to six years now, I'm grateful that my body has caught up.
Of course, I'm slightly less grateful that I'm a moody mess for double the amount of time each month. You should all send Lauren sympathy cards.
Posted to Nesting at 06:09 PM | Comments (0)
May 02, 2006
Maybe I should buy a nice, soft baby doll to cuddle with for now
Today I spent 4 1/2 hours in the Cleveland airport. I used that time to burn my tongue on very hot tortilla soup and to reread the first 60 pages of The Kid, Dan Savage's book about adopting his son.
(Side note: I may love me some BSC, but even I know that it would be really loser-y for a 25-year-old to read BSC books at an airport. Plus, there's no way I could pack enough books to keep in the BSC reading for the next week. Plus I'm still missing #34 and am currently on #30, and am determined to read them in order. So I only brought one Super Special BSC book with me to Minnesota. Now back to the real entry.)
I also spent that time watching a lot of babies. Now, reading about adoption while watching babies is a fairly lethal combination. Especially when the babies have curly hair and big eyes. In the springtime, which is procreation season.
I think it's pretty safe to say that my I-wanna-be-a-mommy-NOW instinct is in high gear. Remind me why we're waiting a couple more years again? Even my zaide agrees. My mom was telling him (probably for the 108th time) how bored I am in Oberlin, and my zaide's response was, "So why doesn't she get pregnant now?" When my mom told him that we'd like to be a little more settled first, he said, "Why? People have babies all the time in all circumstances. The time is never exactly RIGHT."
Yeah, Zaide, you tell 'em.
Only how badly I feel about all the weight I've put on since we moved to Oberlin and I've done nothing but sit around and eat is keeping me from getting down on my hands and knees and begging Lauren to PLEEEEEEEASE go buy some sperm right NOW so we can start already.
I think I need to go to bed and think about something else, like banging my head against the wall until I get a job or my plot to take over the world. Seems safer, doesn't it?
Posted to Nesting at 11:47 PM | Comments (3)
January 20, 2006
This is a much better way to choose baby names than looking through a book.
I've decided that if we have a son, we're naming him after that disgustingly cute little boy on the Disney World commercial who says, "We're too excited to sleep!"
If anyone can find out that little boy's name, I'll either pay you big bucks or make you our son's godparent.
Posted to Mindless Entertainment & Nesting at 11:04 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2006
My other strengths are learner, competition, achiever, and intellection, by the way.
I'm trying very, very hard to let go of starting to PLAN our future kid-getting life. I've spent the last few months doing very abstract research, participating in a conceiving/pregnancy/parenting board, reading personal websites (I'm sorry, I think I'm allergic to the word blog), and skimming pregnancy books. I've looked through a sperm bank's files. I've spent too much time at Name Voyager and have an actual list of names that I not only like, but would actually bestow upon a child. I've learned all about the panel of Ashkenazi heritage genetic tests.
The thing is, there's not much more I can do between now and the actual time when we start trying to start our family, which we estimate to be any time from a year and a half to three years from now. I'm doing everything I can. I've recommitted to getting healthy and losing weight, and I'm keeping an eye out for jobs, since those are two of the three major things that need to be in a row for us to start. But there's nothing else I can do.
And honestly, I need to back off a little. It's only fun to research what kind of potential sperm donors are out there for so long before it starts getting... stupid. I mean, that's what it's come to. This is all stupid. We have a plan for what needs to be in place before we start. I have a plan for what I need to do to get to that spot as well as what I need to do once we get there. What more can I do? Nothing. And if I haven't driven Lauren crazy already, I'm surprised, because even I am starting to get annoyed at myself.
This is just who I am. I like to take action (activator is my number three strength, after all), and when I can't take action, I like to have a plan for action.
But what do you do when the (loose and flexible) plan is in place, but it's not time to start acting yet?
Posted to Nesting at 11:21 AM | Comments (3)
January 13, 2006
She's getting so old!
Y'all have to listen to this voicemail that my five-year-old cousin left me yesterday... Anyone who listens to this and still doesn't understand why I want children clearly doesn't have a soul.
Babies? Now?
Posted to Nesting at 12:33 AM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2005
a matching set of pots and Jewish silverware... what's next?
So, I realized that I left y'all hanging about our Monday night shopping trip. It was a very successful, if expensive, excursion, and we are now the proud owners of a set of matching cookware that is not from a small-town grocery store, actual glass glasses, salt and pepper shakers that are not dirty acrylic hand-me-downs, and nice silverware (which I would post a picture of, since that's a bad picture, but my digital camera is broken).
All we need now is good knives. Oh, and a spice rack. And about a million other things that can wait for a lot longer. And one of those flexi cutting boards.
Honestly, we're trying to be reasonable and not throw away money now that we have some for the first time EVER, but it feels nice to have some things that aren't hand-me-downs. Not because these new things are new, but because they're ours. We didn't get a lot of this kind of stuff for our wedding, so these are the first things we own that are things we picked out together and purchased for ourselves. It feels like we're building a home, which is really nice.
Now I just have to fight my cheap, tight-ass instincts and not freak out every time we buy toilet paper for the next month just because we spent a couple hundred dollars recently on household items.
Posted to Nesting at 02:14 AM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2005
Believe it or not, I find this topic enthralling
Remember my excitement over getting new silverware? Unfortunately, the silverware turned out to be low quality as one would expect silverware from K-Mart to be. We have to return it. And resume the search for silverware we both like.
We will be making a different "grownup" purchase today, however. Two of our pots have had to be thrown out in the last week because the teflon is shedding. We've decided that it's a sign that it's time for some good, grownup cookware. Our plan has always been to make due with our crappy quality stuff and our hand-me-downs until they're unusable and then replace them with the good stuff, so it's now time.
We need to spend this evening out the house anyway because the co-op downstairs will be shutting down for the semester, and since we can hear every word they say down there, tonight's noise may just kill us if we stay home. So today we're going to Bed, Bath, & Beyond and getting a nice Calphalon set. We'll keep some the pieces we have that are still good, but we're getting a whole new set. Thank goodness we've been doing well with not over-spending lately, because even with 20%, that's a big purchase.
Unfortunately, however, this means that we'll have to put off buying knives for awhile. We really need decent, new knives, but ours still work well enough that we can cook, so it's a lower priority.
Oh my goodness, I just wrote an entire entry about purchasing cookware, silverware, and knives. I'm so boring.
Posted to Nesting at 12:56 PM | Comments (1)
December 08, 2005
babies! babiesbabiesbabiesbabies!
Last night I made Lauren take me to the bookstore so I could look at
Taking Charge of Your Fertility and so I could compare The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians and The Essential Guide to Lesbian Conception, Pregnancy, and Birth (the former is wonderful; the latter sucks and was immediately removed from my amazon.com wishlist upon returning home).
No, we're not having a baby. Not now, not in the next year. Probably not even in the next two years. So much needs to happen before we can start that -- IF we decide to go the route of me being pregnant, I need to lose weight, I need to do some intense EMDR and/or hypnotherapy on needles, and we need to have a substantially higher income. In the mean time, however, it does feel time to start doing some real research. Not blog reading. Not random searches on the web. Real research.
Anyway, I was really impressed by what I was reading. So thorough. Written so I understand what's being said. And also, I was impressed with myself. I only got grossed out once, and it was during a conversation with Lauren about what I was reading rather than while reading the book itself. Major major improvement for me.
I also looked at The Baby Name Wizard, which was a lot of fun, but not as much fun as I was hoping for. It had both of the girl names Lauren and I have picked out, but I didn't like any of the suggested sibling names for them. It didn't have the boy name I like, and the boy names that Lauren and I both like and agree on are far too popular. The end. I'm sure I'll look at it more, but I think I got what I could out of it. After all, I've been reading baby name books since I was 7, so most of what was in there wasn't new. Only the sibling name suggestions were really new.
I'm really enjoying learning about this new thing. Anyone who knows me well knows that unless I'm learning about something NEW, I'm bored out of my mind. This is something new, something useful (whether we go that route someday or not), and something fun.
I'm happy.
Posted to Books & Nesting at 12:10 PM | Comments (5)
December 05, 2005
We're almost grownups now!
The highlight of this past weekend: we finally got silverware.
It's not that we didn't have silverware. We had some kind of hand-me-down set of Lauren's that's very frilly and old fashioned. Not me at all. Not really Lauren either. We also had that fake bamboo silverware that I bought at Target for my freshman year of college.
When we created our registry, we chose a set that neither of us loved but didn't make either of us puke. That was a major accomplishment. In the end, though, no one got it for us and it wasn't something we wanted to buy because, like I said, neither of us loved it. So we kept putting it off.
Then on Saturday, Lauren and I went to SuperK to get ingredients for Monkey Bread and Lauren's work secret santa gift. Somehow, after walking past the silverware three times, I realized that we should actually LOOK at it. And on the bottom shelf, in a tiny box that we almost passed over, we found our brand new silverware. 18/8 stainless steel, cheaper than even the set we registered for at BB&B, interesting but still not crazy. And we BOTH actually LIKED it! We bought 2 sets of 4 servings each and we love them. They're super long and skinny and easy to hold and easy to clean and yea! Today I washed our old silverware for the last time.
Yes, I just wrote a whole entry about silverware. What's it to you?
Next on the list? We're going to buy actual glasses so that when we have dinner guests, like we did on Friday, they don't have to drink out of plastic cups from Walgreens that cost $2 for 3 cups.
Oh, and as a semi-related aside, I just followed a link to a LiveJournal group called Saucy Dwellings. I'm already an addict.
Posted to Nesting at 11:21 AM | Comments (2)
December 02, 2005
maybe doing things I don't want to do is what this is all about
I applied for a job.
That's bizarre for so many reasons. The first of which is that it's in Minnesota and starts "immediately" and... well, no "and", just that. It makes no sense of me. Another reason is that it's the first concrete step I've taken toward working in the 11 months since I quit my last job. I applied for one job that I kinda wanted back in March and didn't get it, and I applied for 2 student affairs jobs in April that I ended up rejecting before they could tell me yes or no, because I just didn't want to. And of course, there was that disaster in August where I was offered a job I never applied for and it drove me into the worst depression I've dealt with in 10 years.
But... Something about it just made me apply when I saw the listing last Friday. The HR director called me Wednesday, and I called her back today. Now I'm waiting to hear from her. I have a minute sense of dread, but mostly, I feel resigned to the idea that I'm an adult now and that I need to work and that if I take better care of myself, I can do this.
That's going to be the key. Taking care of myself. Listening to my body. Getting out if I need to, and quickly. Doing the other things that I've found to help keep me sane. Being back in Minnesota would mean I could see my therapist again regularly. I saw her over Thanksgiving break and wow, do I miss that. I could resume EMDR and deal with some of my anxiety that way. I also have a passion in my life besides my family right now, and that's important. It's a passion that, while related to the area in which I plan to work, will remain in my life whether or not I succeed at any job. That was missing during grad school.
I have this serious feeling hanging over me. Not just about this. About babies and houses and money, too. I have this feeling that this time around, it won't be a game. While that feeling is a little stifling, it's also a good thing. I'll be 25 in a month; it's time be a little more grown up. I feel good about that. It's true that if I could, I'd do exactly what I do now for the rest of my life, but I can't. I've accepted that, too.
So I still don't know why I applied for a job that logistically, I can't really accept unless Lauren and I are willing to live apart, but I did. And even though I feel kind of sick about it, I'm glad I did.
Posted to Hardly Working & Mental Health & Miscellaneous & Nesting at 06:35 PM | Comments (2)
November 15, 2005
Maybe my visit with my family next week will fill some of my need...
I'm nesting again. I mean, it's not like I ever STOP nesting, but I'm back to constantly thinking about nothing but babies, home ownership, babies, dogs, and babiesbabiesbabies.
I think I've spent the majority of my sickbed time at Edina Realty looking at houses in Minnesota. Houses that we could afford tomorrow. Houses I think we could afford if I get a job. Houses I hope we can afford 10 years from now. Houses we would never, ever be able to afford. Houses for my parents. Houses in neighborhoods I love. Houses in neighborhoods I could deal with. I also look at Craigslist every day to see what there is to rent and what there is to buy.
I even spent several hours redecorating my grandparents' house in my head when I couldn't sleep the other night.
My mom is on board, too. She finds houses and sends them to me. She sent me this gorgeous thing that's way outside of a price we can afford even if I work. And she sent me this one that's way above our price range but beautiful.
I've also had the TV on a lot while I've been sick, but I haven't been watching. However, whenever a baby pops up, my head automatically turns toward the TV so fast that I get whiplash. And I've taken a billion of those indicators that tell you what breed of dog to get. I was already in love with tiny black cockapoos, but I'm now in love with the Yorkipoo as well. I'm naming them in my head.
At this point, I've lost track of where I'm going with this. Just... Please give me a house, a puppy, and a baby?
Posted to Minnesota & Nesting at 12:08 PM | Comments (4)
October 28, 2005
haunted
I had lots of strange dreams last night, weirder than normal. Amongst the weirdness, I dreamt last night that I was pregnant but hadn't started reading enough about good pregnancy and parenting yet. I keep forgetting about that and then getting strange urges to look for pregnancy books and then remembering.
It's a big letdown.
Posted to Nesting at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)
October 23, 2005
Perhaps this was all prompted by the gift of a Cuisinart
This week:
Posted to Nesting at 08:50 PM | Comments (2)
July 17, 2005
How Lauren is a Big Meanie Head
Friday was our first official goodbye before our move to Ohio. It was also the day that Lauren decided to do the meanest possible thing that can be done to a person who wants a baby so badly that she mutters about them in her sleep. She took me and my four year old cousin to the park.
Given that it was in the mid-90s on Friday, I was already slightly delusional from the heat, so it wasn't a far stretch to imagine that all the cute babies playing in the wading pool were actually MY babies. My babies were wearing adorable baby bathing suits, splashing in the water and giggling with glee, and smiling great big smiles.
We played at the pool for about 45 minutes, and Abby decided that the concrete needed cooling off, and that if she washed it, the sun would dry it "nice and clean and sunny."
After the pool, we went to the playground, where we were the only people crazy enough to be not only STANDING in the sun, but also moving. Rapidly. And I let a four year old taunt me into climbing up the equipment despite the fact that I was wearing those rubber Old Navy flip flips and I could feel every pebble, bump, and metal bar that I stepped on. She was right though; I couldn't catch her.
I had fun. But I'm not doing that again until it's MY kid playing in the nearly 100 degree heat.
Posted to Nesting at 10:41 PM | Comments (1)
July 08, 2005
Everyone who has known me for the last 12 years will be shocked to read this...
I've been sick this week -- sick enough that today I put body wash in my hair during my shower -- and so while I should be packing for our very first cross-country move with professional movers (no garbage bag packing this time), I've instead been reading the entire archives of dooce.com. I'm enjoying it way more than I ought to. I think I'm in awe.
Anyway, it's been prompting a lot of thinking, as she's basically at the exact place in her life that I dream of being -- a stay at home mom with a 17 month old baby and a house that she owns, not to mention that her family lives nearby and she actually enjoys running. This is a place that is not in my forseeable future (even without the parents and the running), but I dream about it constantly.
I've specifically been thinking about pregnancy, to be honest. When was in 7th grade, our health class was forced to watch a video tape of a woman giving birth. I couldn't watch. I turned backward in my desk and cried on my friend Lisa's notebook. I swore right then that giving birth was not in my future. I've held steadfast to that, with the sole exception of a brief period during my junior year of college. At that time, had the financial means been available, I would have dropped out of school, walked to a sperm bank, and gotten pregnant.
I got over it and settled back into my original plan for open adoption unless my wife wanted to give birth, the plan I developed at age 12, 30 seconds after the birthing movie ended. That plan was very comfortable. Until really recently. During the last few months, I've sort of thought about and discarded the idea of actually getting pregnant repeatedly. Reading Heather's account of pregnancy, birth, and the first months of motherhood have had me all over the place on this one...
There are so many reasons that I should never get pregnant.
But at the same time, the same things that drew me to have a Jewish wedding and subsequently to reenter the world of Judaism appeal to me about giving birth. It makes me a woman, something I'm not always sure that I feel like. It would tie me to my mother, my grandmothers, and every other woman who has ever given birth in the history of time. And although this may not be a popular thought, I believe I would, in some way, be fulfilling my biological purpose.
I'm not running out and getting pregnant tomorrow or anything, but if, for some reason, Lauren can't or doesn't want to get pregnant, maybe it would be such a terrible idea...
I guess maybe it's a good thing they would let me get that hysterectemy when I was 15 after all.
Posted to Nesting at 06:12 PM | Comments (2)
July 05, 2005
babies?
Lately I've been nesting so hard that I've been considering, for only the 2nd time in the twelve years since I saw a video of a birth in health class, getting pregnant. In fact, it sounds kind of good. I still want Lauren to do it first, but right now, I want to have a baby.
(Don't panic. I'll snap out of it in a month or so. I did last time.)
Seriously, all I want is a baby. Badly enough that I was going to apply for a secretary job at Oberlin so that we could start saving money, but I had to apply in person and the deadline was last Friday.
Anyway, it seems that everywhere I look, I see babies. The most recent is that I decided, for some ridiculous reason, to read the monthly newsletters that Heather at dooce.com writes to her baby, since I just started reading her site a month ago.
I'm alternating between wanting to cry my eyes out and wanting to buy a bunch of pregnancy and parenting books. And we haven't even bought that LGBT guide to legal issues book yet that's been in the plans for 9 months now.
Babies everywhere. I want one. Or four. Seriously. Now.
I wouldn't complain about a house with an updated cottage kitchen, lots of windows, and a big front porch and backyard, either.
Posted to Nesting at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)