Friday Fragments

Friday Fragments is brought to you by Mrs4444!

Tonight I'm going to a massive mom's night out. More than 40 moms from an online community that I belong to are descending upon a local restaurant. Margaritas and queso dip for everyone!

Look what I found last night - Sam Adams Pumpkin Ale. OK, well maybe C found it in his Sam Adams Fall Variety Pack and then I stole it from him, but either way it was freaking tasty.

Wow, two posts and two mentions of alcohol. Think I'm a lush yet? No? Well here's a third. Not only did Woodchuck bring back their delicious Fall Cider, but they're also releasing a Pumpkin Cider this year! It's only going to a few select cities, and thankfully Cincinnati made the list. It will only be on the production line for 150 minutes! Time to start stalking the Party Source!

Ok, no more alcohol posts. Let's move on to a slightly more depressing topic. Last night I learned that all dreams do not come true. Football returned last night, and sadly, the Saints defensive line was not able to take down Favrererere and break his leg on the first play. Oh well. At least the vikings lost. Go Jets!

I found this little thing outside my garage last night.

Had no idea what it was. I didn't get a picture of the fangs, but it had two bright orange fang-like things that unrolled from what I guess was it's mouth. Can't really google "brown bug with yellow fang thingies that looks like a Pokemon." But wait! In a google image search for the Pokemon called Caterpie this little guy actually showed up! Turns out it's an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail in the final stage before cocooning.

That's all the nature I need for a while.

Kitty Charlie Darwin is adjusting nicely to life in our house. He's very playful and sleeps a lot. He's also very patient with Charlie. I love hearing Charlie talk to his kitty. He automatically uses that high-pitched voice that people use when they talk to babies. It's very cute.

Our house feels so much more complete with a four legged friend running around.

I was faced with a moral dilemma this week when the red sux played Tampa Bay. I reeeeeeeally want Tampa Bay to lose every freaking game. NEED them to lose them, is probably more accurate. I just can't get past the idea of wanting the red sux to win. It's just not in my nature.

We have seven games left with Tampa and three with the red sux. I can't take it! Hoping for more of this in my life when October rolls around.

I redesigned my blog after some confusion about whether or not I was *still* pregnant. Nope. I think this picture says more about me than the old one did. Regardless of how cute the superbaby picture was, it was waaaaay out of date. Two years out of date, in fact.

Have I mentioned that I love fall weather? I hope that it's here to stay. Cool at night and perfectly pleasant during the day. No more of this 90 degrees BS, ok?

Things You Want Wednesday - A Good Photographer

Charlie's daycare center does school pictures twice a year. We haven't had the best luck with those.






To be honest, I find them somewhat reminiscent of Awkward Family Photos. Check out that site, if you haven't already, and be prepared to get sucked in for hours on end.


Thankfully, we found Steph Carson way back when we were getting married, and she has taken care of our photography issues! We treat ourselves to Charlie/family pictures once a year, and I always wait anxiously by the mailbox for the CD to arrive. We're never disappointed. So that's what you want, a good photographer to capture the emotion and character of all of your most important memories. Do I sound like a hallmark card?

























I love that her photographs do such a great job at capturing the character, especially when it comes to Charlie. You can just see his excitement leaping out at you. They really are works of art.

Meet Charlie Darwin

So on Friday I mentioned that we were considering adopting the kitten that we met at the vet's office. We went in circles trying to decide if it was the right thing for us to do (well, moreso me than Husband Charlie), and finally came to the conclusion that it was just perfect to have met a kitten named Charlie who was pretty much the inverse of Einstein - mostly black with spots of white.

I called to "reserve" him on Friday afternoon and we picked him up and made him a member of our family on Saturday. To alleviate the confusion of three beings named Charlie, we've decided that his full name will be Charlie Darwin, keeping with the scientist tradition in honor of Einstein. We'll just call him Darwin.

Friday Fragments

Friday Fragments is brought to you by Mrs4444!

I'm probably crazy, but I've already started considering getting a new cat. Obviously no cat could ever replace Einstein, but when we were at the vet's on Saturday there was a 16-week old kitten there. He looks like negative Einstein, black where he was white and white where he was black. The best part? His name is Charlie. At the risk of sounding cheesy, it almost seems as though he was just meant to be our cat. Of course, as my friend Alison pointed out, adopting him would make me the only being in our house not named Charlie.

(If you missed my original tribute post to my kitty, you can read it here.)

Losing a pet is much harder than I thought it would be. I've always been a "pets are more than just animals" person, but Einstein really was a member of my family.

In trying to return my blog to lighter topics, I posted an awesome collision of Facebook "likes" yesterday. It makes me laugh every time I see it, so I'm posting it again.

Did you know that Cap'N Crunch is now made with real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup? True story! I've been craving Crunchberries for years but didn't really want it in the house. I picked up a box at the store the other day to see if they had removed the trans fats. Now it contains no hydrogenated oils and no HFCS! Obviously that doesn't mean it's healthy by any stretch of the imagination, but I sure did miss having my mouth shredded to pieces every once in a while.

The Woodchuck Fall Cider is finally out and in stores! I had one last night to celebrate. It was tasty, but will be even tastier once fall weather shows up.

I can't wait for it to get cooler out! I love everything about fall - the weather, the colors, the pumpkin spice lattes, the football, and the postseason baseball. My Yankees now hold a 1.5 game lead over the devil rays. I can hardly stand the stress! I don't know how I'm going to watch the six games we play against them this month.

I turn 29 tomorrow. I guess it's just the first of an eternity of "29th" birthdays. Makes me feel old, even though I know I'm not.

I got my birthday present early because Charlie was afraid that it might have been damaged by shipping. It was a new lens for my camera! I can't wait to try it out.

I'm so glad I have a three-day weekend ahead of me. My aunt is in town for a short visit and my friend is coming over tonight for some much needed chat time and drinks on the porch. It's been a long and difficult week, and I'm glad it's over.

Finding Humor

WM Guilt (Again)

One of my favorite working mom bloggers announced on Monday that she's leaving her job to be a stay-at-home-mom. This isn't the first working mom friend of mine who has done this. It's happened a lot over the last two years. Every time it happens, I'm very happy for them because I know that they're making a decision that will make their lives more bearable, but I'm also irrationally sad. I almost feel as though I'm losing a club member, a part of an exclusive clique of moms who are bound by the common thread of trying to balance work and family.

The reason is always along the lines of "it's just what's best for a family," or "I want to be the one raising my kid," or "it's where I belong." Then I start to wonder if there's something wrong with me, because I don't want to be a stay-at-home-mom. I finally have a job that I love, doing something that has the potential to make a huge difference in the lives of thousands of people. I like working, I like the adult interaction, and I like the intellectual stimulation. Sure, I would love to work part-time or have a flex schedule, but we depend on my income so it's just not possible.

Most of the time I'm fine with that. Sometimes I'm not. When women that I've bonded with over that common thread start deserting their posts to be something that I don't really want to be, I start questioning myself and whether or not I'm "short-changing" my child, as it has been put to me by so many anti-working-mom idiots. If these well-educated, professional women truly believe that they're doing the best thing for their child, does that mean that I'm not? Will they judge me, now that they're on the "other side?" Is there something wrong with me because I don't want to stay at home?

I'm sure the answer to all of these questions is "no," but that certainly doesn't stop me from asking them.

Is the Internet Making You Stupid?

Yesterday, a FB acquaintance of mine posted about a wonderful new cleaning solution she had concocted that got her shower whiter than it had ever been before, with NO SCRUBBING!

Naturally, other friends asked her for specific details about what she was using, so she came back a while later and posted the "recipe" - powdered comet, vinegar, and bleach.

The recipe was met with further "I can't wait to try that!" comments, which sounds like a logical following for a recommendation that will take precious minutes off of a cleaning routine. Unfortunately for these excited posters, mixing bleach and vinegar is a dangerous thing to do. What happens when you mix bleach and vinegar? Why, you get chlorine gas.



Then, of course, you get someone else who comments on your warning comment that that really isn't the case, and that the only thing you have to worry about is mixing bleach and ammonia. Unfortunately for her, my materials engineer husband and Dr. Google both confirmed that mixing bleach and vinegar does, in fact create chlorine gas. Guess I wasn't sleeping through all of high school chemistry, after all.

So here's my daily tip: Don't take random internet advice at face value. Do your own research, especially when it comes to things like mixing household chemicals and things like that. Otherwise you'll just end up hurting yourself.

Goodbye Dear Friend

On Saturday I had to say goodbye to one of my oldest and dearest friends, my 17-year-old kitty, Einstein. I always wanted a cat when I was little, but dad didn't like cats, so we had a dog, instead. I loved our dog, but I still wanted a cat. For my 12th birthday my parents surprised me with a pair of black and white kittens. I was about to start 7th grade, and was eagerly looking forward to my new math class, so I decided to name them Einstein and Algebra. Sadly, Algebra was only with us for a few short weeks (the dreaded feline distemper). But Einstein was perfectly healthy, and remained that way for the next 17 years.

Einstein was there for me through all of my biggest life changes. Starting junior high, becoming a teenager, moving 600 miles away from all of my friends and family. He was there when I started high school and at the foot of my bed throughout my parents' messy divorce. There through fights with friends, breakups with boyfriends, and all of the happy times, too. He wasn't able to stay with me in my first college apartment, but re-joined me when I moved into the second. I got married and had a baby and Einstein was there for all of it. And now he's not, and it's weird.

Not only is it weird, but I feel like the decision to let him go was the biggest and most difficult decision I've ever had to make. It was absolutely heart-wrenching, but I knew I was doing the best thing for him. When I got home from work on Friday he could barely walk, and he had gotten much much worse by Saturday morning. We lost our fair share of pets growing up, but I've never had to be the one to decide when it was time. The saddest part is Toddler Charlie, because he keeps asking where Einstein is. I've been able to redirect and distract so far, but that's not the right thing to do. I can't put it off forever. This is just another big bullet point on why growing up really sucks :(

During the day I keep expecting to see him sunning by the back door and running over to snatch up the tasty bits dropped from Charlie's chair. That night, we took Charlie to a baseball game that we had tickets for. It was a nice distraction to be in a crowd and among friends (and the mini bottle of wine that Alison brought for me didn't hurt, either!), but once I was back in the car driving home I was a total mess again. It seems like the dark makes it worse. It will obviously get easier over time, but right now it just totally sucks.

Poor Einstein. Best kitty I could ever ask for. He was very well-loved and I will always miss him.

(Photo by Steph Carson. How fortunate that she snapped this one a few weeks ago when we had our family session.)