Things I would like to write about, and might actually do it soon:

1. Emily Kate being universally adorable and delightful
2. our kitchen remodel, now with 100% less knotty pine!
3. probably i could explain the work situation that cause me to drop an all caps f-bomb last week
4. alex potty training – whee!
5. azaleas
6. whiny men – also somewhat related to the work situation, but more to yoga
7. How i feel about hot yoga when it is already 90 degrees outside
8. my wellness blueprint, a.k.a. – my doctor told me I need to drink more alcohol!

I’d also like to start a series: 3am Musings.  For various reasons, I’m awake a LOT at 3am.  I don’t particularly want to be but that’s when my racing brain comes to conclusions about government, parenting, cures for incurable diseases, and other things of great importance, brilliant but forgotten by 6am.  So the series might not work out.

I’ve lost touch with my creative side as I always do when I’m stressed.  It’s increasingly hard for me to have fun and be silly.  I hate clowns more than ever.  Not only have I not found my atman, I haven’t even been looking because I’d created and enforced all these rules for myself about what should go on my blog and nothing fit.

I’m a yoga teacher who doesn’t practice what I preach.  I tell people to let it go, that it’s not important in the end and yet I make myself crazy over stuff that isn’t important in the end.

I want to be creative. I want to write and document my kids and my yoga and even my professional side because that’s a huge part of who I am.  I want to share photos and find other bloggers whose posts I can’t wait to read.  I want to make lists and post about how the lows I’ve experienced have made the highs that much better.

I hope I will.

I never really considered going back there after college, but I always pictured raising my kids somewhere exactly like where I grew up.  I wanted my kids to have the same freedom I did, somewhere where they and I could feel safe, and to be able to shoo them out in the yard to go play.  I wanted them to attend a small high school where they wouldn’t be offered drugs by the time they were 10 and could make it to college without having had sex.

Despite my mom’s reassurances that just like everywhere else, my hometown was getting less safe, with more violence and drugs as people from “the city” moved there for the lower cost of living – I didn’t really believe it.  A small town, one that requires explanation when people ask where I’m from – the nearest big city, a landmark, and failing those things the proximity to a major highway.

The place I grew up is a suburb of Binghamton, NY.  If you ask me where I’m from, I’ll tell you, “Binghamton, NY – small town just across the PA border, right off 81.”

Often referred to as Bimmington, or Birmingham, or Bringhampton – today everyone has heard of it.

Before today, I think the main claim to fame was spiedies and a brief mention in Rounders. 

After today, you won’t know it for the quiet streets, or the good schools.  Nor for the kind of cold winters that often dump a foot of snow in April, or for the spectacular mountain scenery, the warm summer days and cool summer nights, or for the community feel. 

My dad and I always laugh at the hometown newspaper, because it’s usually poorly written and two days behind the rest of the world news.  In fact, the local news at noon today didn’t even cover what happened almost two hours earlier.  When we visit, without fail Brett or I will marvel over the cheap real estate, and wonder if we could find jobs there. 

Now, just like Columbine or Virginia Tech, the place I thought was insulated from the violence that is usually a result of feeling as if you’re owed something that the world hasn’t delivered, Binghamton will always be known for a different reason.

Over the next few days, as the media parades photos of the victims and shooter, and analysts make up motives that can never be disproved, and talking heads overrun the city, I’ll mourn the loss of my personal utopia.

(Thanks to YogaMum for the link to this quiz.) 

Have you ever wondered what superhero you’d be?  Even though I said I really don’t care for capes, I am obviously powerful.  I guess to be Catwoman you have to be a fast runner.  As a result, I am:

Your results:
You are Supergirl

Supergirl 85% Iron Man 80% Wonder Woman 75% Green Lantern 75% Catwoman 75% Superman 65% Hulk 60% The Flash 60% Batman 45% Robin 42% Spider-Man 40%

Lean, muscular and feminine.  Honest and a defender of the innocent.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Now a video!  Take 17 seconds to watch baby perform on cue while you learn the sign language for please.

Manners are important from Heather on Vimeo.

I went to a smoothie place for lunch yesterday because of the unseasonably warm (80 degree!) weather. On the door of the cafe was a sign that said “Make your office an oasis, open a franchise!” Inside, it was so noisy with all the blenders whirring, that I felt like I was at a rock concert. Not exactly what I consider an oasis.

Other things I’m thinking about today include taking a vacation before Baby #2 arrives, refinancing our mortgage, making Brunswick Stew for a potluck tomorrow, how I haven’t written a wordy and thoughtful post in a while, and why for the first time this pregnancy I gag barfed in the sink this morning.

I know you want more details after that.

Vacation – I’m really missing Aruba right now. I’ll settle for the Outer Banks. That means I need to try and book someplace. For May, at the latest June. Any suggestions?

Refinancing – everybody’s doing it! Sure we’re planning on moving so Alex doesn’t have to go to school with 4-year old gang bangers but considering we’ve been talking about moving away since we moved here (10 years ago) I’ve stopped holding my breath. We’re more than halfway through our ARM and rates are low! Where’s my financial advisor to calculate the numbers and tell me if this is one thing I can stop thinking about at 4am?

Food – I have a reasonable amount of free time right now that I spend scaring the crap out of myself reading blogs about what’s in my food. Did you know if the sticker on your fruit has a number that starts with 8, it was genetically modified? Did you know that the government is trying to prohibit labels that would tell you if food is cloned, genetically modified, or otherwise had perverted things done to it? This, combined with my weird aversion to opening the fridge and looking at what’s inside, has ensured that I am freaked out and a little hungry all the time.

That said, we have a potluck at work on Friday, at which I will likely eat nothing given the list so far includes (and I am not making this up) – Groundhog Allmondine, Lamb and Fish Stew, and Oyster Pots. I probably won’t even eat my own dish because the more time I spend preparing food, the less I want to eat it.

Finally, the gag and barf. I apparently have a rogue tooth, which when tickled a certain way with the toothbrush will immediately conclude the tooth brushing process and commence with the gagging. Awesome.

Does this count as thoughtful and wordy? Or just blathering? At least I didn’t write a post about how I have nothing to write about. I hate those.

So to cover the weekend – Alex got his MMR shot a few weeks ago and was one of the lucky few to have a reaction to it. Fever, measles-y-looking little bumps (ooohhhh, so that’s what measles look like…) and general all around misery. Poor kid was also unfortunate enough to be fed something (not the pot pie) by his parents that caused his entire body to break out in hives (big chunky hives) surrounded by a red scathing rash. We think it was pineapple. I physically hurt for him when I would undress him for his bath to see the rash.

It was awesome-tabulous, thanks for asking, especially when I googled “MMR vaccine reaction” and got steamrolled by the “don’t get your kid vaccinated it will ruin him forever” society until I was hyperventilating over the crib to make sure he wasn’t slipping into a coma. I did get a birthday pedicure and now have Russian Navy (or We Are!!! Penn State!! Navy – depending on your preference) colored toes. Unfortunately the pedi was before the googling so the effect was somewhat negated. But the rash is much better today. People have stopped shying away from us in public and the itching/sobbing/cranky seems to have abated.

What I did for ARK Sunday – I made the attempt, I really did – but writing about what I did feels wrong. I’ve resolved to just try to do one nice thing every day, even if the nice thing is NOT doing something. As I get used to this nice-ness concept I hope to graduate from not doing things that would antagonize others Brett others and be super calm and sweet always. Yes. On to the rants…

Dogs. If you don’t live in my part of the country, Michael Vick is not really big news anymore. Or maybe he is, I don’t really watch ESPN and don’t care enough to argue. What got me fired up this morning was a news story that today is the last day that shelters can apply to house the dogs seized from his property in April when the whole dog-fighting thing came out. One local shelter will have 12 of these dogs up for adoption.

If you are looking to adopt a pet are you really going to adopt a dog that was part of a dog-fighting case?

The types of people that would adopt these dogs are a) looking for a mean watchdog to guard their used tire business that is really a front for an illegal drug smuggling operation or b) are looking for a fighter. Or maybe both. Either way, the dog is not likely to settle into a warm, cuddly life with an owner that treats it well. Sure it’s possible, but really? How likely? No family that I know is going to take a chance on a pit bull that was trained for fighting. And at this point, these dogs have been housed in who knows what kind of conditions for nearly 8 months and before that were treated deplorably. So when is it more humane to euthanize them that to continue to subject them to the miserable life they’ve had so far?

And in a classic example of randomness…on to the holidays!

Christmas and Presents. Babies R Us has been playing Christmas carols since before Halloween. If you go to a store and just observe, you can almost feel the level of electric stress in other shoppers rising as more and more decorations appear. Would it be too much to ask that this year everyone just dial down the whole gift giving thing a notch? What are you going to buy anyway, that doesn’t have lead in it?

Well since you asked, thanks to Chris at Notes from the Trenches for this link to Not Made In China products. Amazingly, nothing we own has been recalled, but I find myself looking at everything – especially the stuff that is mostly red or yellow and wondering if I should put it away for a while. we requested that when shopping for Alex, our families keep toys to a minimum. Clothes, pampers, cups, baby gates, college money, but less toys. It could be worse, my friend Jill who at her daughter’s last birthday party got not only a ball pit, but also an indoor trampoline has decreed that all gifts must fit inside a shoebox. And no, that does not include the inflatable princess castle without its air.

My personal prediction is that retailers will recognize the disinterest and start advertising for their lives. Which means more ads, more stupid BEST SALE EVER coupons clogging my mailbox (I’m talking to you Macy’s), more pressure to spend spend spend. I will detach by using my DVR to fast forward through it all when it comes to TV.

What does it say about our culture that we all go around asking each other what we want and no one knows? Maybe its because we don’t want more material stuff, we want time and love and the ability to chill out once in a while. And a crockpot. I really do want a crockpot. See, because crockpot=(dinner already made + extra time)=food=love.