Utter Failures

I know this thought isn't revolutionary -- I don't know if I heard it from somewhere or if I just sort of learned it on my own and put it to words. But sometime around college it occurred to me that when you say "yes" to one thing, you have to say "no" to another. In the example of college, if I said "yes" to this class, I would be saying "no" to others. "Yes" to shopping meant "no" to studying, etc. Later on, the personal applications changed, but the idea stayed true. "Yes" to paying the energy bill meant "no" to whatever thing(s) I had in my Amazon cart. Or, more personally, "yes" to spending Christmas with this side of the family meant "no" to that side. "Yes" to game night with friends meant "no" to date night with just the two of us. None of the "yes" answers in my examples are bad. None of the "no" answers are either. It's ...

Fails of the week:  1. Was cooking supper... Jeremy picked up groceries for it. I forgot to have him get cheese. Cheese is a main ingredient in said recipe. Thank goodness for kind neighbors who have cheese. 2. Decided to do annual baking of pumpkin muffins. Instead of 1 1/3 cups of canned pumpkin, I used 1 1/3 cans of canned pumpkin. Also since I was doubling the recipe, I actually used 2 2/3 cans. I ended up throwing out a TON of "batter" that was ruined. And yes in theory i could have done the math to balance out the ingredients but everything else was already mixed and I didn't have a bowl big enough to balance it out.  3. Made coffee but forgot to put coffee beans in the grinder part of the coffee pot. So I made hot water.  4. Took off Alice's diaper and lifted her to put her in the baby tub and she peed on me. (That was kind of funny, actually.) 5. Went to friends' house for game night and Alice had a blowout on their couch. Thankfully they have three chil...

So you guys know how I feel about kids in general. "Meh" describes it pretty well. Unless I like you, in which case I probably like your kids too, so don't stress. I posted several times about being pregnant. Here , here , and here . Now it's time for the last post (7 weeks post delivery...sorry. I've been tired and busy!) So here's the tl;dr recap. I went into labor 5 days after my due date. The night of July 9, I started having contractions that progressively got closer together and stronger, so I started tracking them and getting myself ready mentally. The went on through the night for hours, but around 4 am when they were about 7-8 minutes apart, they just stopped. I know because I fell asleep and awoke around 9 am very confused. I called the OB who told me to come in and get checked out. The doctor on duty that day said that he would be delivering that night at the hospital and would probably see me then. He said to go home and wait (and rest!). So...

 A few of the funny/random/rude/odd things I've heard in the past 8 months: General statements and questions: Once you're a mom, that's all you are. (Completely untrue and kind of depressing actually) Your husband will see...you'll be getting rid of that office [for the baby]. (The office was originally set up for me to work from home and for us to both have our computer space...and it remains intact) Is that a real baby in there? (Nope I just got fat, and JUST in my stomach.) How are you doing without coffee? (HAHAHAHA) You don't look pregnant at all! (Um, thanks?) Where's your baby bump?? (I hid it.) Is the nursery ready yet? (ad infinitum) (This wasn't rude at all. It was more the repetitive reminder to me that no, it was not ready...) What's your birth plan? (It is to go to the hospital and have the baby and return home thereafter.) You shouldn't be _____ when you're pregnant: painting (It was non-toxic, no fumes pai...

After college, like just about every college grad, I was looking for work. I had worked during school breaks at WebMD for a few years and had a little other work experience as an office assistant. My first task was to ask WebMD if there was a full-time position. There wasn't. They didn't hire new grads anyway. But they did have a little freelance work I could take on while I job hunted, so I gladly took the offer. I thought to myself, I bet the WebMD brand would at least get me some phone calls, so I applied everywhere I could think of that seemed relevant: American Cancer Society, Children's Hospital, even the CDC. And I got the phone calls, but they all wanted more experience. Sigh. Then a coworker at WebMD mentioned that CNN hired "VJ"s right out of college, and that was how she got started. A VJ, or video journalist, is an entry-level position, but it's in really high demand, so you really have to be impressive to get in. I was told the first six month...

Sometimes these stories embarrass me. This is one. I hate looking dumb in front of people, which is weird because it happens so often. But I especially hate it when I'm trying to look competent. Back in my WebMD days, before my good friend Alicia stepped in as SEO of the UK site, Boots WebMD, I was handling the SEO for both the UK and the US sites. I had two or three main contacts in the UK for their site, and every Friday I sent a status report -- a weekly roundup of trends in search in the UK health sector.  All well and good.  Except on one email exchange, in some sort of context I don't remember, my UK contact said something like "It won't matter by the time they will have got to Nottingham."  Pause here. I like the UK just fine. I find their history interesting and their literature lovely. My favorite authors are from there. However, I admit to not really knowing much about their geography. I mean, I know where England/Ireland/Wales/etc are. I...

This post could really get out of hand. I am also going to be careful because some of my stories involve other people who haven't chosen to broadcast their fails to the world, so for the most part I'll be focusing on my part in these exciting adventures in failure. However, my mother-in-law has agreed to let me share part of her story too in the second section. Let's see, where to start. Well, rather than go in chronological order, let's group by theme. 1. Pregnancy (Feel free to skip if this doesn't interest you.) I have largely avoided morning sickness during this pregnancy, thank God. But of course, the morning of our early flight out of Greenville, I managed to have my first bout. So I got on our flight feeling awful and having eaten a couple of bites of a scone. We got to Chicago where I proceeded to be sick but did manage to eat part of a burger. That layover was 8 hours. Bleh. Then we got on the plan from Chicago to Tokyo for a fun 11 hour flight by AN...