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The problem with RSS feeds is that you usually don’t subscribe to your own feeds, so you don’t know that they’re broken until someone tells you. So…yes, I know my feeds are broken. Hopefully I’ll find time this weekend to fix them, but if not…well, obviously you’re not missing much!

Last year on Thanksgiving, I was impatiently waiting to meet the baby I’d been wanting for so long. I was just past my due date and finally getting tired of being pregnant, really feeling ready to get the show on the road and get the baby born already.

We went out for dinner with my in-laws and my best friend - I was afraid to go all the way to my in-laws’ about 40 minutes away, and didn’t think that trying to plan for a big meal at our house the day after my due date was a great idea for any number of reasons. I wasn’t a big fan of going out, really. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holiays of the year, and going out to eat just never “feels” right, somehow. We had a good meal, though, despite the fact that I finished dinner just as pregnant and not-in-labor as I started it.

This year, I have so much to be thankful for that I can’t even believe it myself. I couldn’t have imagined the past year - I tried to, and it hasn’t been anything like I thought it might be. It’s been harder, and better, more frustrating and infinitely more joyful than I could have believed. When we go around the table and talk about what we’re thankful for, I can start and end right here.

I swear, this is not going to be the housework blog! But I need help, here.

See, we have dogs. Two of them. We love our dogs! We do not love muddy pawprints all over the floor. Unfortunately, that’s what we have. No matter how well we try to wipe their paws when they come in, they track mud all over the floor. Because of the crawling issue, that means that we’ve had to confine the dogs to the family room for huge chunks of time so that the mud stays in one place.

We’ve tried towels. We’ve tried wet cloths. It seems like the only way to keep the mud out of the house is to keep the dogs out of the house, which just isn’t an option. We don’t want to keep the dogs inside all the time, either - the biggest reason we bought this house is the big backyard that the dogs have to run around in. I hate watching them sit at the back door wanting to go out and making them stay inside because I just don’t want to deal with the dirt.

So, other dog-having people, what do you do? Do you just live with the dirt? (Like we did pre-crawling-baby?) Do you only let the dogs out when you can walk them? (On pavement, thus scrubbing the mud off of the paws?) Something else that magically makes it all shiny and good that I just cannot figure out for myself? Share!

Sometimes it’s about all I can handle…this one has been around for awhile, but I swiped it from Sarah at ClubMom. Items in bold are the ones I’ve done. What have you done?

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said ‘I love you’ and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa.
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper (only a few hundred times)
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends - still do
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken 
69. Toured an ancient site
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played Dungeons & Dragons for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an ‘expert’
83. Got flowers for no reason
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently well enough to have a decent conversation
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised (raising) children (child)
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad
135. Selected one ‘important’ author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life
151. Finished a marathon

Today was a really bad day. Abby’s ear infection had her up half the night last night, and she flatly refused to nap today in spite of the fact that she was so tired she could hardly sit up. She finally (about 11pm) fell asleep after I’d put her down almost three hours ago. All she did all day long was cry, cry, cry. Not just crying, but alternating between the whiny, grating cry and the all-out screaming of misery.

Probably the best thing I can say about the day is that I did manage to get out to vote. I hope you did, too.

For 2,973 people, the last five years in our nation’s history have been a memoriam of sorts. Actions taken in their collective name; angry words spoken on their behalf. Actions they never asked for; words they never spoke. What would they have done, given the chance? What would they have said, if we could listen?

“I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.”
- H.L. Mencken

For each innocent life taken five years ago, another has been taken in an unlikely matchmaking - 2,974 U.S. military service members have been killed in Iraq and in the so-called “war on terror” to date.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities”
- Voltaire

Almost six thousand lives gone. Six thousand flames of unknowable potential, snuffed needlessly too soon. Six thousand sons and daughters. Six thousand sisters. brothers. Six thousand mothers. fathers. husbands. wives. best friends. soul mates. Every one was someone’s baby. Every one was someone’s world. Every one deserved so much better.

“We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the things that you learn when you become a parent is to expect the unexpected. Somehow, though, no matter how well you think you’re doing that, the unexpected still crops up where you least expect it. In this case, I find myself suddenly - and very unexpectedly - unemployed. Okay, it’s not “sudden”, exactly, since I haven’t actually been working since before the baby was born in November, but it is unexpected.

I was supposed to go back to work full time this week - yesterday, to be exact - but we haven’t been able to get Abby into any of the day care situations that didn’t make me cry just thinking about it. We’ve been on the wait list for a number of places for a long time, but good day care slots in this area are not just crazy expensive, but also ridiculously hard to find.

What I suggested to my bosses was that they start passing me work that I can do from home - not the project management that needs someone in the office all day every day, but things that I can do while Abby’s napping or in the evening after J. gets home. That would let me start getting back into the flow mentally, and it would take some of the workload off of the rest of the team until I could get the day care situation sorted out.

They wanted to talk about the options in person, so I went in to the office this morning, thinking we’d iron out the specifics and see if we could set a target to get back to full time. Turns out, though, that the real agenda was to let me know that they don’t actually want me back full time at all. Ouch.

They don’t have a problem with me, they were careful to say, but I’m more than they can handle full time right now. While they desperately need project managers (and are looking to hire more than one, I understand), they’re apparently looking for underpaid project managers, because they can’t afford me and don’t want to ask me to take a pay cut. Or so the story goes. I don’t actually know how much more I am (uh, was) making than the other project managers there, but I do know that I was making a good bit less than colleagues at other companies. Make of that what you will, I guess. Either they want (and/or need) to pay far less than market rate or they just don’t want me there.

On the bright side, they did promise to send me what work they can on a contract basis and to refer projects to me that are less than what they want to deal with. They say they want to keep me around and hopefully keep me as busy as I want to be at home, and that’s great if it pans out, but the reality is that I expected - and budgeted - to go back to work full time. Sure, I’d love to make enough money in naptime and evenings to avoid going the day care route at all, but I’ll believe it miracle when I see it, and (even more to the point) when my bank account sees it. Our budget definitely does not call for me staying home with Abby, no matter how much we might like that. I need to be able to sleep at night without nightmares of watching our savings go down the drain. Suddenly instead of going back to the job I expected to have waiting for me, I find myself looking at hitting the job market when I least expected it and least wanted to. Cue the nightmares.

This has been a hard year in a lot of ways - losing the house that we’d really invested a lot of time, energy and heart in, for one thing. When I weigh that against the good, though - the miracle of finally knowing that we’re going to be parents after so many years of hoping and wishing and trying - I have to admit that I have a damn lot to be thankful for. I have a great family and a good life, and anything else is just more.

And for once, yeah, I really am thankful.

Don’t wait for something to happen…make something happen.

I really need to remember to keep better track of what I read. I read such an immense number of books, and a few months later I’d be hard-pressed to tell you what I read at all. The plots all run together, the authors are interchangeable, and it all fades into so much mist in the past.

Not that I need a book blog, mind you. Oh, no - no ubiquitous blooking for me. Maybe just a category.