Leah Barr

I like Rufus Sewell. I’ve seen him in various movies (he was insanely good in Cold Comfort Farm) and was surprised to see him doing a television show. He’s in a new science fiction show called, Eleventh Hour. I haven’t seen it, it could be utter crap…but his interview with Wired is great. Here’s a short exchange that made me giggle.

Wired.com: The performance in Eleventh Hour seems kind of reined in, compared to other things you’ve done.

Sewell: You mean The Illusionist where I’m playing a deranged psychopath who kills himself?

Wired.com: But you did it so effectively.

I love my new phone. It’s a beautiful concoction that allows me to call everyone and mess around online as much as I want. I love it!

I got a new, blue, LG Chocolate3. I didn’t like the original chocolates (or the second generation) as I thought they were fairly ugly and clunky. I love mine though, it’s so exactly what I wanted.

So the kids are done with their homework and have harassed the dog into a frenzy so she should sleep well tonight. That dog drives me nuts. I wish she’d just leave me alone but no, I’m apparently exactly the kind of snack she’s looking for. I think I’ve been licked to death.

Do you ever have one of those days where everything seems hectic, for no apparent reason? I feel like I’ve got a million things I need to get done but other than dinner (spaghetti) I really have nothing pressing. I just am seriously feeling stressed. Must be because I have so much happening soon.

So I’m on the lookout for my next phone. Yes, I know, I have an LG enV but…I don’t like it. I’ve never liked it.

It has a full keyboard and that is a cool thing when you’re able to sit down at type but I spend most of my time typing while I’m grocery shopping, walking around and not at the computer or driving. I know, but I actually can text message without looking at my phone and make a decent amount of sense. At least I can when I’m using the regular number pad instead of the full keyboard. Trying to type with the full keyboard when walking is a pain in the butt and completely unsafe while driving. It’s cool for internet stuff though. I don’t know. I just really don’t like the phone.

Matt was being very kind and thoughtful when he suggested I get it and his reasons were valid, I just think it’s a better phone for him maybe (if he didn’t already have a Centro). It’s hard to really know what kind of phone will appeal to someone else. He had a Q forever and I thought it was ugly as sin. I had two different razrs and he didn’t like those but I thought they were adorable and did everything I really needed at the time.

I work from home/wherever I am so I need to have a phone that will allow me to work when I’m not home, which will let me keep in touch with whomever I need to and will let me access everything I need to.  It’s just that the phones that do that are…not attractive. I’m not going to become part of the blackberry horde and I certainly don’t want to have to fight with my phone to make a call…so where does that leave me?

Do I get a phone that is pretty but doesn’t have all the functionality I want or should I go ahead and get an ugly phone that does more than I need and that I slowly grow to hate? I know, how pretty the phone is shouldn’t come into the equation but it’s something I’ll essentially have with me all the time. I don’t care what other people think, at all, but I want to find my phone pretty/attractive/aesthetically pleasing.

Do I just wait until the next set of phones come out and see if I can find something I like better? Is there anything coming out that will combine attractiveness with functionality? Why am I worrying about this?

Ah well, I’ll figure it out eventually.

In the meantime I’m watching my kids fight with Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. They are enjoying it immensely. The small one is having a problem as she is not winning much but the older ones are being really good sports.

Maggie is having a spaz attack since I put a second tag on her collar. She jingles and she can’t get away from it.

Our dog had to be put down on Tuesday, he had dementia and had started to slide further downhill. It was a devastating loss for us all and many tears were shed. We miss Hunter terribly and no other pet will ever take his place.

Matt is doing really well, managed to fight off whatever stomach buggy type thing we had a couple weeks ago and is napping a lot lately but mostly because there’s been some late nights lately.

We have a kid free weekend coming up as of tomorrow night but we might have my sister and her husband staying with us.

I hear complaints from quite a few women about how difficult it is to get promoted. The glass ceiling is something that has often held women down and has only been shattered by a select few. The morals on why that is, and whether or not it should be so, are something I am not going to get into here. I am, however, wondering about the dusty glass ceiling available to stay at home moms.

Stay At Home Mom…it’s a crap title. It says nothing about the constant errands to be run, the household issues that are settled immediately (instead of procrastinated on and worsened because time isn’t there), even discipline and organization are overlooked.

Worse than being a SAHM is being a Mom who WORKS FROM HOME. Now, you may ask, how is that worse? When you work from home can’t you just do things when you want? Don’t you just sit on your butt and watch tv and then pretend to work? What I say to those people is….ppppppppfffffffffttttttttt

I own my own business and it is BOOMING right now. I am not complaining, but it does make it more difficult to be as active in other things as I’d like. I try to make sure the kids are not just sitting around playing video games all summer. In fact, the oldest kid is FLYING through books this summer. I’m so glad he’s found a love of reading. The middle kid has to be FORCED to read, but someday she’ll realize how great it is. The short one loves to read but, since she’s just now going into 2nd grade, is somewhat limited on her reading choices.

People assume I can just hang out, that I don’t have to schedule everything and that we just have fun. I wish that was true. Every single little thing has to be scheduled. Which order the kids take showers and even what time they eat their meals has to be planned in advance. It is a little overwhelming at times, but it makes for a much more relaxed household (oddly enough). The kids know that they have to have breakfast by 9:30 or have to wait for lunch (which is between 12 and 12:30) and they don’t complain when they wake up late. They have to have their beds made and rooms picked up (and get dressed and brush their hair) before they play any games, watch any tv or do any reading. It takes them each a grand total of, at most, five minutes and then their rooms are good for most of the day. On Mondays we do heavy cleaning, scouring bathrooms and wiping down the mirrors in the dining room…the stuff you don’t do every day. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have aquatherapy so they get to hang out on the bleachers at the pool and play games or read. On Wednesdays we go to the water park after lunch with their Dad (or Stepdad, respectively) and on Fridays we go to places we don’t normally get to. Today was the Yellow River Game Ranch, next week and the week after will be the Coke Museum and the High Museum of Art. Weekends are spent with Matt and we tend to go garage saling on Saturday afternoons if I’m up for it. Sundays are lazy days and everyone sleeps in. Since I have church on Saturdays (as well as Tuesdays and Thursdays) it’s nice to have that day to snuggle up and spend the morning with my husband.

It’s a busy life. In between all that I clean, cook, do some laundry (my wonderful husband helps out with that too) and make sure the kids aren’t killing each other…oh, and I work.

Matt is in Ohio for one night. He has to be there for an appointment in the morning and we felt it was better for him to be there early than risk a morning flight being late. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand him being gone all night. It feels like an eternity before he’ll be home.

So for tonight I’m going to be stretching out across the entire bed except for the ever increasing space the cat takes up. I should be happy that I have the evening to hang out and maybe do any of the things I used to do when I was single. Computer games and reading until all hours of the morning, oooh or I could go to bed early. That sounds better than I expected. Sleeeeeeeep.

Anyway, I can’t wait until my honey comes home tomorrow evening. In the meantime the kids have managed to forget all about making their beds or picking up their rooms in the wake of us getting a Wii. Oh how electronics make their brains mush.

I miss my honey.

Me: Would you want me to sing at your funeral?

Matt: No, I want you to go first.

As much as that sounds callous he wants me to go first so that I don’t have to deal with living without him, knowing that he’d rather be the one in pain than having me in pain…I think it was really funny.

I got back in touch with some old friends today. It was good to hear about their lives and all the stuff they’re doing. I find myself completely cut off sometimes, so much so that Saturday night, when I went to a small party at a friends house, I managed to learn all kinds of developments. Some people had lost weight, some had gained, some had cut their hair (me included) and some had grown it out. Some had started new relationships, were progressing in their relationships or had ended it. It was like being thrown into a reunion and, honestly, I realized how much I’ve missed all of them. They’re great people and so generous and caring. I couldn’t ask for better friends. That and Apples to Apples is a kick butt game.

So today was a bit of a loss. I got things done but only under the surface, nothing big. We’d been moving furniture around all weekend to change around the rooms. Once I’m done I’ll post pictures. The place is looking great. Today was fighting with the ever growing paper monster and figuring what our next steps were (and not lifting anything because my back was ticked off from the even minor lifting I’d done this weekend).  

Do you ever look back at the past and realize that the answers to things you didn’t understand are so much clearer now? I mean the reason I left jobs or relationships now seems so much more understandable and sometimes…weren’t very good reasons for the change at all. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy and all my mistakes and weird choices have led me to being married to a wonderful man and having three great kids who keep me on my toes. Add in the lame (literally) dog and mentally disturbed cat and it makes for one fun household. I don’t know that I’d change anything, except maybe the cat litter. Have to do that in the next day or so. What I mean is that I realize how childish I was at times, even in the relationship I’m in now. I’ve said and done things that were so stupid and yet he loves me enough to let it all go and just be calm. I love my taciturn man.

This is one of those moments I feel like we should discuss what we’ve learned today but I think I summed it up. The cat needs her litter changed and Apples to Apples is a great party game when you’ve had a couple drinks and of course muscle relaxers and pain killers are necessary if I lift anything more than about six pounds. Go back and neck injuries!

Well, I’m done rambling. I know you’re relieved.

Stay out of trouble.

My wonderful husband woke me with a phone call this morning as my alarm clock (aka cell phone) was dead and in another room. Just like me to not have noticed that. It was great to hear his voice. He’d forgotten his cell phone (do you sense the pattern too?) so he called me from work.

There are moments in time that seem to run together, disappearing before you even realize they are happening. And then there are moments that hang in the air like a dust particle caught in a sunbeam, twisting and dancing before your eyes and feeling as if they could last forever. Sometimes I wish the moments with the kids were always the latter but so many of the former happen that at times I feel they are growing and changing right before my eyes. I am not complaining, I’m blessed enough to have them with us the majority of the time and to help them with their homework and know that when things bother them they know they can come to me.

 Matt came home from work for lunch and I had lunch ready for him. I’d changed out the days in his Franklin Covey organizer and packed him his mp3 player, cell phone and headphones in it. I’d also put in a week at a glance bookmarky thing that told him that in his role as Husband/Father his only work to do was “Be loved”. He also said he needed WD40 and tissues so I had those next to his organizer. Sometimes I just wish I was more imaginative in things I can do for him. I sometimes show up at his office with candies he likes and fill up the little jars I bought him. I get him movies he wants on the day they come out and have them under his pillow and I try to surprise him with little things but I feel a little lame, like there’s a much better way to do it. I do something similar for the kids, surprising them with things for dessert or dinner and sometimes having presents for them in hidden places that they come across once they get a hint. Matt and I have a HUGE surprise for them later this year but I’m not giving any hints here. Suffice it to say, all three of them are going to be so excited they might never stop grinning again.

 Maggie is giving me the “turn off the computer and pet me” look so I should probably go before she starts gnawing on my hands.

This week is flying by. I’ve had a lot of work to get done for my Vegas clients and the kids have had a ton of homework. I know that CRCTs are coming up but so is Spring Break. These poor kids can’t think straight for how much they want to go outside. I can’t blame them. I’ve got a bit of cabin fever myself. I type and type the day away with the porch door open and a cat whining for me on the porch.

Blonde girl had a friend over to work on their science fair project. It seems to be going alright, we’re doing a presentation on the rainforest. I say we because guess who has to go make all the copies and type it all up. Good times.

So I should probably be starting on dinner but I have no earthly idea of when Matt is coming home. He has no earthly idea I have a bottle of champagne in the fridge waiting for our celebration tonight. The kids have no earthly idea of where the boy’s DS games went. We’re all frickin clueless.

Ah well, such is life. I heard from an old friend today. It was great to hear from him and hear how things are doing on the other side of the Atlantic. He’s a really nice guy and I know he’s going through some stuff but I hope it gets better for him soon. In the meantime he’ll have a friend to talk to.

Ok, enough rambling. Time for me to get off my bum and get something cooking.

Sunday morning was, thankfully, rather relaxed. I didn’t have to check out until noon but Amy and Rob, who were taking me to the airport, had to check out by 11. At ten thirty I took all my stuff and had some breakfast and checked out. I could wax rhapsodic about how hotels used to have better foods but instead I’m going to make a very important statement: Florida has the worst coffee. Amy and Rob say it’s because no one there drinks coffee and they don’t know how to make it. I was acutely aware that the person who made mine hadn’t ever had coffee before or was blind/had no sense of smell/not paying attention. It was horrid and I didn’t drink it.

The drive to the airport was uneventful and I settled into a seat and started reading. I have my bouquet still and at the time I had taken an empty gatorade bottle (see the post about Friday) and rinsed it out and filled it with water and put my bouquet in it. It got me a LOT of looks. I was asked repeatedly if I was the bride and had more than one person tell me that it was smart to have saved it that way. I was rather proud of myself as well.

So I’m in the airport with a purse and flowers in a gatorade bottle and I realize every time I look up that I’m being watched. Everyone and their cousin was looking at me and smiling and it was with very little surprise that the people I sat with on the plane wanted to know what was up. They said they’d thought I was the bride but since no young man ever joined me they realized I wasn’t going on a honeymoon by myself, so I had to be a bridesmaid. I assured them I was and the conversation wandered, as it often does, and they told me about their son who played the tribal leader in Disney’s Lion King at WDW and now is in Japan in the Blues Brothers show. They were very nice people and absolutely charming to talk to.

I made it back to the airport and picked up my luggage (and the kids luggage from their failed attempt to go to Ohio) and found my way to my car and drove home, just glad I was back home in Atlanta. I was completely and in all ways more exhausted than I have felt in a very long time. I got home and had to lay down and Matt was a total sweetheart and snuggled with me and we read (and I think did a crossword puzzle). The short one came home that evening and seeing Matt and the kids and hugging them all was the perfect end to a crazy weekend.

Yes, I know, the ending is sappy. I slept like the dead that night.