Trees

So, I've been reading about all my friends in Minnesota having crappy weather. I should have remembered that we get your weather a day or two later.

So now all the money I'd saved for our Disney vacation next year now gets to go for a deductible. Grrr.

The suckiest thing is that our well and pump is under the shed. We had to cut enough of the tree away last night to get a tarp on it to keep the rain out. If a lot of water got it, it could contaminate our well.

Oh yeah, the power to the shed blew, probably to do with the light that was mounted in the center of the ceiling, and we have no running water in the house today.

Thank goodness Craig knows enough to fix that today.

Anyway, at least it didn't land 10 feet to the left. It would have smashed both of our cars.

MTU
I'm going to be going up to Tech for the career fair in October. I'm also doing the Northern one while I'm up there. I'm overly excited about this. I'm also going to do a little presentation to some of the STC kiddos. Am I cool or what?


Anyone else going to be up there?

Mommy Wars

Having a mother that stayed home with me and my sisters, and never worked outside our home after I was 2, I've had to deal with all kinds of guilt issues about having a career. I can tell you that I have the utmost respect for what my mom did and still does. After working part time for six months, I was relieved when I started working (almost) full time.

Working in an office is much easier (for me at least) then staying at home with two kids under three. This realization is what causes me much of my guilt. The other major guilt provider is my mom, who believed that people shouldn't have children if they're not going to raise them themselves and that daycare is evil. (She has come around some, since on Chase's bad days she too is convinced that Cory is much safer in daycare.)

Brought up the way that I was, I had never been to daycare, had never come home to an empty house, and been able to stay at our cottage for most of the summer, since we didn't have to be home for my mom to go to work. How could I not be that same kind of mom? I've struggled with this for three whole years, and finally, I feel that I'm at peace with the fact that I'm just not that kind of mom and probably won't ever be.

I enjoy my job. I enjoy being out of the house. I enjoy the validation from other people that I do a good job on my work (which is not something that a stay at home mom gets much of.).

And that's OK and my children won't be horribly messed up because I work. (Repeat)

Although, I do think that Chase is better when I'm around him and interacting with him constantly, I have even come to terms with this. I'm never going to be able to be there for him 24 hours a day for the rest of his life. He's going to have to learn how to cope with "the real world". Isn't starting now better than pushing him into it when he starts kindergarten? But I digress.

Anyway, there's an article from Newsweek written by a women who is sick of hearing all about the great "should mothers work or not" debate. I found it interesting, funny, and validating. The last line of the article is:

It's nice to read something that "gives us permission to be worse mothers," she says. Permission granted.

Thank you.

It constantly amazes me when someone that I see as super-involved with their kids says to me, "Wow. You do so much with your kids. I should do more." or "You have so much patience." or "How do you handle that?" --- Um, are you talking to me?

It seems to me that women who overdo the fight of stay home or work might be covering up their own uncertainty that they are doing the "right" thing. I know that's what I did when I was trying to convince myself, as well as whomever I was talking to, that staying at home was THE ONLY way to go.

I think that most, if not all of us, focus on our mothering shortcomings, not what we do that's good and right. Maybe today we can all try to concentrate on the good things that we do and not what things we're messing up.

Or, maybe we can just think that there's got to be worse mothers out there. That makes me feel a little better too.

How old where you?

How old were you when you got married?
(Please, fill in the survey to the right!)
I was 25. It never really occurred to me that 25 was young for marriage. I remember thinking that my mom had been "old" when she got married. She was 23, but in comparison with my best friends' moms, who were 19 and 20 when they were married, it did seem old. (Boy that seems funny now.)

I know plenty of unmarried people my age. There are plenty of times that these people are all going out for drinks after work and Oops! I'd LOVE to go, but I've got to pick up the kids from daycare. There are plenty of days I would like to just put the married/mommy stuff on pause and just think about myself again.

Anyway, I saw this article on the front of MSN.com:

I actually haven't read the whole article yet, because just reading that intro made me think. Had I been crazy in love? Just Crazy? I think that I was naive. I never realized how much my life would change. Also, it wasn't so much the getting married thing as the getting pregnant a month after we got married that put a bit of a damper on the "fun" stuff.

Would I do it over again?
YES. I have a wonderful husband and two beautiful children. I am happy, just stretched to my limits some days.

I just wish that I would have appreciated single life more. I wish that I would have taken road trips with my girlfriends, visited friends that moved far away, kept in better touch of friends, and just turned the TV off more often.

In all of this bad stuff...

...there are the stories of the people who lived.

This bridge thing is bothering me WAY more than it should. I think it helps me to hear about the people that survived. I won't go on forever about the bridge thing, but there's a story about a couple that barely made it out of their car. They were on their way from Wisconsin because the woman's 2-year old daughter had been airlifted to a hospital in Minneapolis.


Wow. Someone was really watching over them. I hope that the little girl is OK, too.

Bridges

I heard last night about the 35W bridge. I can't believe it. I just hope that nobody that I know was involved. (I'll feel better when I hear from you all.) I'm pretty sure that everybody that I know lives and works north of the bridge, but it's so scary.

(I had to take the picture out.)

I've been terrified since I was a child of being on a collapsing bridge. And this happens to a bridge I crossed tons of times. I haven't heard a word here in Michigan about the construction that was taking place on the bridge. I wonder if the work being done, plus the weight of the cement barriers, plus the weight of all the cars is what did it.

It's one of those things that is never supposed to happen. How many times have I sat on a bridge or in a parking garage and felt it move as other cars go by? I sometimes feel a little panicky, and then I think, "You're being dumb. Bridges don't just fall."

My heart goes out to all the people and families involved. My thoughts and prayers are with them all.

Ice

My mom likes to eat lots of ice. My sisters like to eat lots of ice. I like to eat lots of ice. If you like to eat lots of ice, you can appreciate my excitement for the new ice maker we have at work.
It makes these great little thimble-shaped pieces of ice. Because of their shape, they hold just the right amount of pop in them. It's a really nice thing to have when I want a snack at work. Ice and Diet Pepsi, zero calories, fat, and point. Nice.

So what's sucky about this? My tongue is pretty much constantly frozen and I have to wear my coat in the office. But, it's soooo worth it!

Garden
Craig is a garden nut. We've had a garden every summer we've been here in Michigan. It seems to get bigger every year. Here's pictures of his first big harvest.

He made spaghetti sauce last night with some of the tomatoes. I'm glad that he's motivated to can this stuff, because I'm totally not.