Borders chai: FOUND!

Every now and then I get visitors here who surfed their way in googling Borders chai. Apparently I'm not the only one missing the stuff. Some people have asked me if I'm going to start a petition. Nope, I'm not quite that fanatical about it.

HOWEVER...I just got a comment from Anonymous with wonderful news. According to Bob Sassone at slashfood.com, another Borders chai fan did some detective work on his own and tracked down the original manufacturer. Behold: Mystic Chai, made by Key Essentials. And it's availabe at Sam's Club. Guess what C_ has? Oh yes it does, it has a Sam's Club!

Great thanks to Anonymous for letting me know of this update.

Lost in Lost

After two seasons of resistence, I have given in and let myself get sucked in by Lost (thank you very much Thomas J. for being the final nudge towards this addiction). I started not long after we moved, when I found Lost: The Complete First Season at the local library. Of course this tells you I was already thinking about LETTING myself get sucked in, because I don't normally browse videos unless there is something specific I am looking for. And I found it.

Now it's a pain because the third season has started, and I haven't even finished watching the first season. Theoretically, I could check out the whole season's worth of DVDs at once, but at this library videos are due in a week, and unlike the library in F_, they cannot be renewed (what is with that??). And I only have so much time available for video watching in a week. So two discs at a time is all I've managed, except for the first part only had one disc in it. Basically I've watched (I think) twelve episodes, and if each disc does indeed have four episodes each, then I still have 16 to go. Meanwhile, I don't want to wait until I've gotten through all of Season 1 and Season 2 (which I just noticed the library NOW has, didn't last time I checked, woohoo!) to start Season 3, because it may be half over by the time I get there, even taking reruns into consideration. And by the time Season 3 comes out on video, Season 4 will have started, and I'd still be behind.

What this means is that I'm watching Season 3 while I'm catching up on Season 1. This can be confusing, especially when they start doing flashbacks, and sometimes as I'm watching the DVD and putting things together, I think about a flashback and wonder, was that in an earlier first season episode? Or season 3? Or was that just in the review of seasons 1 and 2 that they showed the week before season 3 began? (because of that, I know a lot more than I probably should while I'm watching season 1!)

It was a shock when I saw the first couple season 3 episodes and realized Sun could speak English so WELL, and wondered if she'd just managed to learn it, and then a few episodes of season 1 later I realized she knew it all along and hid it for a while.

I'm still figuring out other characters, and I love that they are not flat and predictable. Locke is one of my favorites, just going by my gut for the moment. I've seen the flashback where he was involved in growing marijuana, but from everything I've seen on the island, he seems to be a guy to rely on.

Sawyer...so far I can't stand him, but he seems to be a little more likeable in season 3. I think it's partly the dimples, but I'm sure it's also just written into the script, since there seems to be some chemistry between him and Kate. I guess, like her, we're supposed to be torn between whether she should end up with Sawyer or Jack. Jack is the obvious "good guy", which means my bet is on Sawyer. Jack is too obvious. Of course, I'm still missing over a season and a half, so I could be wrong...perhaps she will get together with Jack first? (DON'T TELL ME or I will spam your blog with hate comments!).

I hit a new snag a few days ago...I MISSED an episode of the current season! I have gospel choir practice Wednesday evenings (I may post more about that later), but I'm usually home with plenty of time to catch it at 9:00. This week I just spaced it. A few days later I remembered reading somewhere that ABC was posting recent episodes of its most popular shows on its website. I wondered if it could possibly be free, and to my great surprise and joy, it IS!

However, getting it to work has been spotty. The first night I tried to watch it, I only got through a few minutes. I'm mostly trying to watch on the laptop upstairs, but for some reason the wireless connection is still not great up here. We think the router may need repositioning. In the meantime, I've been trying to watch over the past couple of days. I'll watch, get disconnected, reconnect, try to remember how many minutes in I was, lose the signal again, etc. Also annoying...the price of "free" means there are commercials...limited, yes (only three 30-second ones per episode), but each episode is divided into three segments. If I lose the signal in the middle of a segment, once I manage to reconnect (which could take numerous tries), I have to watch the commercial preceding that segment before I can then even click on the point where I got disconnected last time. I had a bit of time tonight and managed to get through all but the last half or so of segment three...and then lost the connection and just haven't been able to get it back and keep it. NOW the darn thing is telling me THE COMMERCIALS ARE NOT AVAILABLE so I can't watch at the moment, try again later, thanks for playing! Arggghhhh....

The other annoying thing about the library DVDs...not only can't I renew them, I also can't reserve them! So if I look online and see that the disc I need is on the shelf, I can't put it on hold, and even IF I could jump into the car and run across town (Ha!), there's still no guarantee it will be there when I get there.

Tonight I'm watching the third (I think) Harry Potter movie on ABC, which is good because I haven't seen it yet...but darned if I won't be checking my connection and abc.com to see if I can finish watching last week's episode of Lost!

My baby is growing up

The date on the photo is wrong; it happened last night.



Audrey was wiggling her tooth when she came home from AWANA last night, and invited me to wiggle it to see how loose it was getting.

"Wow," I said. "It really is getting loose!" As I let go, I felt a little pop in the back of the tooth.

"OH! Umm..."

"What, Mom, what?"

"I think I just pulled it a little bit looser."

She wiggled it herself again, and I told her to pull it forward as far as it would go and let me see. When she let go, I could see *underneath* the tooth from the back.

"Keep wiggling it, Audrey. I bet you could get it out tonight if you really want to."

I went out of the room for a moment, and as I was coming back, I heard her say "I got it!" I looked, and she was looking at the floor...it had fallen out of her fingers. I picked it up...it was so tiny! Are all baby front incisors really small?? I don't remember my first lost tooth being so little.

So we took some pictures, put the tooth in an envelope, and put it under her pillow. And when she got up this morning, the tooth fairy had left her a new, crisp, one-dollar bill. One whole dollar! Boy, talk about inflation. All I ever got as a kid was a quarter.

Miscellaneous, because I can't seem to find time to blog these days

I love my new kitchen. (Sorry, I also can't seem to find time to take pictures of the house, let alone post them...do I already have some in the hard drive, from before we moved in? Maybe...I'll get back to you on that). Anyway, yes, I love my new kitchen. I love it so much that it makes me want to spend more time in it. I think this kitchen will generally look significantly cleaner and tidier than the one at our old house (that is, if the dishes aren't washed, they will be stacked tidily in the sink...but that's partly because the double sink is DEEP enough to stack them in). I keep digressing. Sorry. But I LOVE my kitchen. Did I say that already? I did, didn't I?
Sometimes I find myself sitting down to read at the kitchen table in the breakfast area (I LOVE that we have a BREAKFAST AREA) just so I can be close to my kitchen. There is so much storage space. I think I have all my kitchen stuff completely unpacked, even the stuff that is rarely used, and there are still cabinets that are empty or mostly empty or at least still have plenty of room for more stuff. Not that I'm planning on filling it, not all at once anyway. I'm enjoying all the extra space. I'm also realizing I'm GLAD we don't have a kitchen island, because I think it would be in my way a lot, and about now I would be getting really annoyed with it and wondering to myself, "WHY was it that I thought I needed an island?"

Tonight, for the first time, I finally got a chance to use the jacuzzi. Ahhhhhhhhhh... I wanted to try it out especially because I think the baby will be born there. We had planned on using a blow-up kiddie pool like we did with Audrey (didn't get to use it with Aislinn...see her birth story in December of last year for the explanation of why), but I'm thinking the jacuzzi will be just heavenly, especially with a couple of inflatable bath pillows, one for my back and one to sit on. Yes, to sit on. Probably the main reason Aislinn was not born in our old bathtub in F_ (besides the fact the tub wasn't deep enough to submerge me for effective pain relief) is that I could not brace myself against anything to push. I kept slipping around the bottom of the tub. With a pillow to sit on, and a tub wide enough to sit sideways in so I can brace my feet against the opposite side of the tub, THIS tub will be perfect.

I'm rambling a bit, I think, but there is SO much about this house that I just want to talk about! Mostly good, but there are some things...well, lets just call them "challenges" because I would not want anyone to think I am complaining about this house. Because I love it.

• The kitchen sink that is deep enough to stack dishes in is so deep that I have to lean over a bit when I'm washing dishes. This is also partly because my belly has gotten so big that I have to stand about six inches farther from it than I normally would. I'm hoping this won't be a problem I MEAN challenge anymore when I'm no longer pregnant.
• The water heater is located in the center of the basement. It's not close to any faucet or shower head in the house. This means I have to brush my teeth while I'm waiting for my shower to heat up. I don't mind the waiting so much as I do the waste of water (we are currently paying two mortgages, the second of which is two to three times more than the first. I'm feeling a bit anxious about waste right now.)
• Speaking of waste, how about electricity? We have some very cool, recessed lights in a few rooms in the house (kitchen, master bath, basement office, and a few other places). Unfortunately, each of these is occupied by 100 watt flood lights. In the kitchen alone, to have light, there must be at least one and possibly up to six or seven in use at one time. I've been avoiding using the ceiling lights, using mostly just the task lighting in the kitchen, and it's actually sufficient, but even then, that's when the one 100 watter is in use (along with some other much smaller bulbs).
  

Enough about the house issues, though, because what I love far surpasses what I don't.

• Our huge backyard, in which Audrey has already caught two additional preying mantises (after the current one that we brought from F_ died).
• The space in the kitchen where we have put a desk, MY desk, MY little space. It's not private, but that will come. Later, when all children can navigate the stairs. I'm just happy to have a desk of my own.
• The hardwood floor that stretches from the laundry room, through the kitchen and breakfast area, through the great room and into the half bath. SO easy to clean, just Swiffer it every now and then. Well...except I'm still trying to figure out how to MOP it. Swiffer Wet isn't cutting it, it smudges. Should I just damp mop it with water only? Will it spot? Someone who knows, please tell me!
• My huge master bathroom with two sinks. When Leo and I want to brush our teeth at the same time, we don't have to subject ourselves to yoga moves to both get a spot at the sink. And if he splashes water all over his area? Oh well, I don't see it! Also still lots of unused drawers in this room.
  
• Our walk-in closet that I usually just get dressed in. Most of my clothes are there, the hampers fit in there too, it's private, perfect. Still plenty of unused place, though some of it is too high for me, but once the maternity clothes are gone, I will have more room to play with. This is a good thing because Aislinn's hang-up clothes are currently in here, as will be the baby's. Aislinn sleeps in our room right now (as will the baby when it comes), and she rarely goes upstairs. There is no reason for me to be dragging my pregnant self up the stairs if I don't need to. (Her dresser is in our room too...and the baby's will be too. There is space for us all!).

OK, some other miscellany that I have been saving up for a post:

• Audrey's tooth is still in her mouth. I think with all the excitement of the move and all the changes, she has not been wiggling it! She recently realized this and has been wiggling it more, because I told her the more she wiggles it, the sooner it would come out.
  
• Aislinn's vocabulary is EXPLODING. She even is showing signs of having some manners, using "please" and "thank you" appropriately (without prompting usually), and even "sorry", which is adorable because it comes out "warry". She frequently puts two and sometimes three words together ("Mama wash" and "Aud'ey eat dadoo {crackers}"). Some of her pronunciation and syntax can only be interpreted by Leo, Audrey, or I ("deep" is "cup" and "appy" is any fruit or even a tomato, not just apples). But she's adding a new word or two every day, and it is so fun to see her making all the connections. My current favorite? "See you!", said very clearly.
• I like my new Curves even better than the old one (no pun intended!). In F_, a lot of people tended to keep to themselves, and I admit that, because I'm an introvert, I was one of them. Here, the mornings when I go in, the owner (or her lone employee, I have only seen the two of them) is going around the circuit chatting with everyone. I can't imagine that she goes around and around all day long, but she makes sure to engage everyone.
  
• I've been going to MOPS here in town, and I love it. I could find my "group" here. It meets every other Tuesday, with childcare provided with the dues, and on the off weeks, you can drop your child(ren) off for a couple of hours with the same caregivers they have on the other Tuesdays. For various reasons, I have not been getting my regular weekly mom's night off, so these Tuesdays, both the ones with meetings and the ones without, have been wonderful. They also schedule a night to eat out together at various restaurants around town once a month, and the two I've been to so far have been fun.
  

I'm still getting used to the town. If it wasn't for that daggone U.S. highway running south-east through town, I would be figuring it out a lot faster. But I know where all the Starbucks are (there are three, including the one in Target), where Walmart is, where Target is (it's not a Super Target, but I'm not complaining...I had to drive the next town north to get to one before!), and where the library is (wish it was closer...or at least that they had drop boxes other places around town!). Now...all they need is a Borders. I'd even settle for a Barnes and Noble.

Didja think I fell off the face of the earth?

I really did not think it was going to take us three whole weeks to get hooked back up to the internet, but here I am, and we moved three weeks ago.

We're settling in. Day to day stuff was unpacked within the first few days, but there are still boxes (and boxes, and boxes) of stuff that is easier to procrastinate.

I'm adjusting to a new place, which ranges from figuring out what direction I'm facing* at a given point in town, to figuring out where things are in the new Walmart.

Audrey is settling in to her new school fairly well. I have had moments that *I* have had feelings of doubt about this school, which continue (for example, hers is the smallest first grade class with 24 students. Some classes have as many as 27.), so I'm proceeding with caution. Today was a real low when I realized her teacher had not even scheduled us for a parent-teacher conference. She thought since Audrey was so new, we wouldn't need one yet. I think that BECAUSE we are so new (and missed back-to-school night), we probably had MORE questions than the average parent. We managed to get into an open slot this afternoon, and after talking with the teacher, things are cool now. Tomorrow I have to call the school's ESL coordinator because somebody somewhere assumed that since Audrey's dad does not speak English as a first language, Audrey must need remediation. She's been dragged out of class a few times a week to meet with this teacher, and I only just today verified my suspicions that this is what it was for (no one told Audrey that was what she was doing, improving her poor broken English, so she could not really explain to me what she was doing, just that she was leaving class.) They certainly could not have assessed her to reach this conclusion, because her language skills are probably among the highest in her class. At her old school, they actually sent home a form *asking* if we wanted her in remediation. Of course I replied "NO". This school did nothing of the sort, just plopped her in a remediation group. When I told her tonight she wouldn't be going anymore, she cried. She said it was fun, and she liked spending time with the other little girl from her class who goes with her, a Hispanic girl who Audrey's teacher said also does not really qualify for remediation. My next project is to contact the school board asking about class sizes and requesting a copy of the budget (the teacher says this is a system-wide problem, and they have no plans to hire more teachers, despite the fact that more and more families are moving into the area). At times I have been so irritated by this school (this is just a sampling of some of the problems I have with it) that I've seriously contemplated revisiting the homeschool possibility if I don't feel better about things by Christmas. Yeah, I know, I'm having a baby. But Leo's parents will probably be here (or perhaps his sister), and would be able to help with the baby and Aislinn while I worked with Audrey, if necessary.

We are loving the house. The first night, I felt oddly let down and depressed. I kept feeling overwhelmed at the unpacking, at the size of the house and all the increased housework it promises, and thinking that I don't deserve a house this nice. Then it occurred to me...it felt a little like post-partum depression. Anyone who's been there knows: the feelings of inadaquecy, feeling overwhelmed, wondering why you're not happy because you have this wonderful new baby (house). When I put it in that perspective, I realized it would pass (at least it's not hormonal in this case!), and it mostly has. We ARE loving the house, and are currently shopping for new living room furniture that will go with the house (as opposed to our hand-me-down/Goodwill/college type furniture we've been using for ten years).

Got to run now. Still haven't checked e-mail or stopped in at the parenting message board I frequent, let alone caught up on blog reading. This could take weeks!!!!

*Not as easy as it used to be. I have lived most of my life at various points along a certain U.S. highway that runs north-south...except here in C_. Here it takes a southeast turn, and it has really thrown off my sense of direction...which was not wonderful in the first place. I'm now trying to find my way around town without using or even thinking about this highway, even though it is THE major thoroughfare, to better orient myself.