The Measure of a Mountain

I just finished reading The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Ranier by Bruce Barcott.

It was recommended by the library for my interest in something else. I was really drawn into it. The book was super packed with tons of information about bugs that can only live at freezing temperatures and mountain climbing accidents, and plane crashes, and feelings.

I read all the time, and I can honestly say this is the first book I have really wanted to recommend to everyone that I've come across in a long while. It reminded me of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, except with mountain climbing, so better (Sorry Annie, you're thread worm was pretty cool, but it's no match for altitude sickness at the top of Everest).

So you should read it. For the funs. Don't buy it, though. Get it from the library for free:)

Wow, this day

Late last night I got a text from a friend, letting me know that she was heading to the Children's Museum with her kid this morning and wondering if I wanted to join her. We were going to head to the library, but I thought for once it would be nice to be one of those moms that actually meets other moms and enjoys herself...you know, visiting with other moms. 

I don't know why I thought that would work. First, my children are overtired. Super overtired. Their grandparents were headed out of town for the week, so that meant they wanted to spend every spare moment with the kids before they left. Good in theory, as I got some time to work around the house. Bad for bedtime routines and basically any sort of routines, which wreaks havoc on my kids' sleep schedule.I am "blessed" with children that wake up at 5:30 am no matter what time they go to sleep. They also seem to sleep worse the less sleep they get, so, they were up about 15 times in the night for various reasons, and still awake at 5:30 am. 

I considered aborting the museum mission at 4:30 am while I was nursing the youngest and Stinko was yelling for oatmeal from the kitchen. Ever optimistic, I arose with a smile, and after 2 cups of coffee was feeling like I could pull it off. 

It took 2 hours to get my 4 year old to put on her shoes.

I had to change the 2 year old's shirt twice because he kept going outside and playing with the hose.

The baby was good, but by the time we finally got all loaded up, he screamed the whole way because he was hungry again.

While at the museum, my kids flat out refused to play with my friend's kids, and instead insisted on playing with all of the things we already have at home. They played with Play dough for 45 minutes! They made things out of pipe cleaners. Stinko clocked Chompy upside the head with a golf ball. 

We spent an hour in the bathroom washing our hands. I exchanged maybe 3 words with my friend aver the sound of my infant screaming his head off.

I suddenly realized that I needed to get them out of there as soon as possible to avoid any injuries, Chompy laid down on the ground and kicked and screamed. She threw such an epic fit that another mom THAT I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW handed her baby off to her husband and offered to help me get my kids to the car. I truly appreciated it, and should have taken her up on it, but I was too embarrassed.

We made it home and had a quick lunch, and I believed, mistakenly, that they would take naps easily because they are so very very tired. While I was nursing Doomibear, Stinko managed to find a bottle of blue nail  polish. He painted himself, he painted the carpet. He climbed into my bed to "snuggle" and painted the king sized sheet with the nail polish on his leg. Now Chompy has been yelling at me for 10 minute to open her door. It's shut because she just got in trouble for trying to take every blanket out of the linen closet and put it on her bed. It's 110 degrees here. She doesn't need any more blankets. 

It's only 2 pm. I'm going to go on a road trip to Ohio with these kids in a week??? I'm exhausted already.

So's Doomi:

So...I haven't blogged in a while.
Why not, you ask? I got discouraged, I got busy, I picked up more hours at the hospital lab.

I had a baby!
That last one was the hardest one. Lots of people are really good at being pregnant. I am actually really bad at being pregnant. Good at rock climbing, check. Good at running super long distances, check. Good with animals, check. pregnancy is my kryptonite

Lot's of people glow. They spend their time exercising vigorously: going on hikes, jogging, dead lifting. I'm pretty sure the only exercise I did was run to the bathroom in time to throw up. I basically spent my time sleeping for 12 hours a day and puking for the other 12. I sucked at pregnancy the first time, and I sucked at it the third time, too. In fact, if it's possible, I think I get worse at pregnancy every time.

And if that wasn't enough, I can't even manage to push the baby out at the end. My first baby: 24 hours of labor, no progress, c-section. Second baby: 36 hours of labor, head stuck in the birth canal, c-section. Third baby: I didn't even try. C-section.

Luckily I get a cute little magic fat baby at the end. Another little werebear-doomicorn hybrid
AKA a doomibear to eat all my food and make me poor.

But I'm back at it! I got to exercise my smarts so I don't lose my mind!
Also, Phoenix is still rad. It's hot, and rad. HOTRAD.

We're also going on a road trip with toddler, which I am going to intensely blog about. In order to save my sanity.

I'm a Superfresh Candypants Sugarblossom

So I'm going to be lazy today, because I just worked the overnight shift, and I gotta be up at 4 am to work the 12 hour day shift tomorrow. Sick people, they need their blood, you know?

But this, this is a beautiful thing. You should go to this website, you should read all of the captions to the pictures, and you should laugh and laugh.

How to Be a Ladyperson During the Holidays

Marginalia

I do this all of the time, much to the chagrin of some of my snobbier reading friends. At least I'm in good company.

http://simplicity.laserfiche.com/content/scribbled-margins-capturing-knowledge-marginalia

Caterpillars that look like bird poop and an osmetarium

We walked out of the house to explore our new neighborhood last Tuesday and I noticed a pile of what appeared to be a giant pile of bird poop on our little lemon tree. I check on it pretty closely, since we're trying to figure out the best place to plant it in our yard, and I'm watching to see if it's getting enough light water, etc.

I was puzzled as to why a bird would get under our eves to somehow manage to poop on our tree, so I leaned over to look up to see if there was a bird's nest above it, or somewhere convenient to perch, and there wasn't. I leaned in and blew on the pile to assess it's wetness for cleaning purposes and out popped the caterpillar's osmeterium, a red fleshy organ apparently only possessed by swallowtail caterpillars. At least I didn't try to flick it off the lemon tree. Now we check on him every day! He grows really fast, we're waiting for him to turn into a chrysalis and then a butterfly!

Here he is with his osmeterium!

And here is 5 days later!

Finally, here's my amazing family feeding the animals on the farm on 15th avenue carrots the day after Thanksgiving!

Melted Computer

So, No post for a while, but not because I've been overly busy, or no more busy than usual. Certainly not for lack of interesting things to post.

We recently melted our computer. Due to a combination of bad choices and, well, just more bad choices, we first drowned our computer in the bathtub and then melted it inside the oven.

More later, my phone is also broken.