Rutabaga Dreams

Emily tagged me with this, so I thought I would give it a go. I added some comments in an attempt to make it more interesting, but I’m not sure if that helped or hindered my goal.

Four Jobs I’ve Had:
* Telemarketer - I didn’t even last through the training, but I did make about $50 from the job, which made a huge difference considering I lived that entire summer on about $800 - and paid $500 of that for rent!
* Pizza delivery - I thought I knew Davis well *before* I took this job.
* Trade show/conference coordinator - I got to travel around the US and not pay for it - a great job for a single gal, but it paled considerably when I met Matt.
* Website developer - I started doing this for pay back in 1995, practically the dawn of Internet era. It was a nice cushy way to earn some money for college and paid about as much as you could hope to make working as a student for the university.
I’ve held a job since I was about 11 (there are no child labor laws when your parents own the company!) until I was 26 so I’ve worn a number of different hats. This selection is intended to give some idea of the variety.

Four Places I’ve Lived:
* Chino Hills, CA
* Davis, CA
* San Jose, CA
* Walnut Creek, CA
(I have never lived outside of California, in case you were wondering)

Four Vacations I’ve Taken:
* Italy - with my sister, mom and aunt after my college graduation and my sister’s high school graduation
* Northern Rockies - So beautiful! I really want to go there with Matt someday
* Upstate NY - My step-father is from there, so we would fly back and take long driving vacations there to see the sights and where he grew up. I really fell in love with that region, but I’m not sure a wimpy Californian like me could take the winters
* Italy, Austria and Germany - My honeymoon, although it really wasn’t that great of a trip overall. We should have just gone to Hawaii for a week, I think it would have been far more relaxing and appropriate for who we were at the time.

Four Vehicles I’ve Owned:
* Bicycle (lots of them!)
* ‘90 Toyota Camry - well, I didn’t actually own it, it was a long term loan from my parents while I was in college.
* ‘94 Mazda 626 - what I bought after I graduated
* ‘04 Subaru Impreza - The first new car Matt or I have ever owned (and probably the last new car too)

There, I did it! Anyone else want to do it? Matt?

These past couple days I’ve really felt good about the people I’ve gotten to know a bit through being on the board for my local mom’s club and my book group. Both groups gave me little baby showers and in lieu of baby stuff (which is what they gave to other women who have recently had second children in each group) they gave us books. Talk about perfect gifts for my family!! It is so nice to feel noticed and to feel like someone has some sort of an idea of what you’re about. I know I’m the “weird one” in both groups with my cloth diapers, sling, etc. but I also don’t wear my crunchiness on my sleeve (no tie-dye here! *grin*) so you have to get to know me a bit before you start getting any sort of an idea of what I’m like. And since I tend to be a bit on the quiet side, especially in bigger groups, that takes a little bit of time. I remember having so many years of presents from various parts of my family where it was obvious that they paid no attention to me at all (hello, make-up for me was not a useful gift - perhaps a hint, but not a gift I would appreciate!) and had no idea about me… so I think I got rather used to not being noticed. I must say, it is nice to be noticed a bit! I was preparing myself to get a bag of disposable diapers and a gift pack of all the Johnson’s and Johnson’s stuff (recent gifts to other people) and trying to figure out how to appear grateful for stuff I neither used nor wanted and it was so wonderful to be genuinely pleased and thankful!

What’s that line that Eeyore says? Ah, yes. “Thanks for noticing me…” *grin* (now I’m trying to remember… is that in the books, or is that something that got added in the animated version(s)?)

Either I am coping really well with having a second child in the house, or I am just turning manic. I am vacillating between the two options, although I would really like to believe it is the first one! I feel like I am doing more and getting more done during the day than, well, ever, really. My laundry is under control, my kitchen is staying clean, the house looks pretty decent, my daughter is getting reading lessons, played with and read to, Gregory is fed, changed, walked, etc. as necessary, and we are even getting out of the house for errands. We are also doing more social type stuff than we have done in the past - we had a play-date this morning, another one tomorrow, a park day with the local homeschoolers on Thursday (which I have been trying to get myself to go to for ages now) and we may have one on Friday. I went to a Mom’s club social event on Saturday, a board meeting last night, and book group meeting tonight, and I’m not collapsing. Hmm… probably manic.

I do need to do more social stuff for Emma’s sake though, poor kid. I kind of wish we had a child in between Emma and Gregory, as I think Emma would have enjoyed that. Not that they wouldn’t have fought and driven each other nuts, but still I think it would have been a good thing. As we were leaving our play-date this morning I drove past the elementary school I went to and pointed it out to Emma. She mournfully asked if she could go to school there soon, and I asked her why. She said that she wanted to go to school there so that she could be around other children. I told her that she wouldn’t get to play much with the other children at school because that’s not what it is for, but she said that would be ok. She said that she didn’t want to just be home with me and be all alone without any other children around. Ah, poor kid, I guess we need to get out more. I asked her if we were to start doing more with other children during the day if that would help, and she said that it would, so I think I need to really make an effort to be more social. Too bad I haven’t met anyone with a child my daughter’s age that I could even imagine spending an hour with while Emma plays… all the moms I’ve met that I’ve liked in the least all have younger children. The little girl Emma played with today was 16 months old and they both had a good time, but I could tell that Emma would have liked to do a bit more than what a toddler can do! The little boy we’ll be with tomorrow is only 10 months old… at least the little boy we’ll most likely see on Friday is (almost) 3, that should be a bit better. *sigh* Pairing an anti-social and shy mother with an outgoing and social daughter is not an easy match… but then again, I believe parenthood is all about growing, learning and developing for both parent and child. Also, I’d hate to inadvertently give my daughter any of the same neuroses I have (I think the phone-phobia thing is the worst of them, thank goodness for email!). I seem to have inherited many of my mother’s, although in milder forms, and I’d rather give Emma the opportunity to develop her own. *grin* I want to give Emma some more social opportunities and help myself in the process. I can only hope!

My Mom has been cleaning stuff out at my grandparent’s home and she found this buried in the den.

Cut out newspaper article, paper is brown but in good shape:

Father Fined $ a Pound For New Baby
San Leandro, July 12

The honor, prestige and happiness that comes of parenthood is worth one dollar per pound-weight of the baby, it was decided at today’s luncheon meeting of the local Kiwanis Club. The unfortunate or fortunate parent was Karl Hyrup [my great-grandfather], local grain dealer, who last Sunday night became the father of a lusty baby girl weighting eight and one-half pounds.

Upon motion by L.S. Pratt, assistant Treasurer, who claims to be a connoisseur of fine babies, Hyrup was sentenced to pay a fine of $8.50. The unlucky or lucky father was fi ned another dollar when he admitted that he did not know the baby’s name. Telephone interviews with hospital nurses by Pratt revealed, however, that the baby’s name was Evelyn Nadine [my grandmother!].

That would then be July 12, 1927! Can you believe he didn’t even know his daughter’s name?? Anyways, I just thought it was amazing this survived and that it was a neat little piece of family history.

Emma and I started listening to Anne of Green Gables in the car earlier this week. As a young girl, I absolutely adored these books. I read them over and over again, especially when I was at my father’s house all summer long. Listening to the beginning of the book really reminded me of just how isolated and lonely I felt there - no friends, a step-mother I did not get along with, and few entertainments other than my books and my imagination. I was also struck by Anne’s vocabulary - so extensive, yet with a few misplaced words here and there to show her age. As an adult listening to this all over again, I am very impressed by how Montgomery wrote this character… she really does sound like a verbose, precocious young girl. And therein lies my problem, because, well, I listen to books in the car in part so that I don’t have to listen to my verbose, precocious almost four year old the whole time! Even when we’re listening, we’ll still frequently pause the story for questions and comments, but still… listening to Anne of Green Gables is not unlike listening to an older version of my daughter, except with a story added to the questions and stream-of-conciousness monologue!

Emma is absolutely enthralled by the story and asks me if we can go run errands so that we can listen some more which makes me think that this one is definitely a keeper. Besides, it is better than listening to The Hobbit for the forth time through… I think I’d like to wait at least another month before we go there and back again with dear Mr. Baggins!

I am suffering from computer withdrawal already… yesterday I installed some updates on my 3.5 year old laptop and shut it down. Later on, I opened it up again to turn it on and I found that it wouldn’t comply. Matt and I fiddled with it for awhile but to no avail. It looks like it is dead. *sniff sniff* Too bad my AppleCare ran out in July… We bought that computer while I was still working, and there really isn’t any money for replacing it… especially when we have other computers at home. I knew this day would come, I just rather hoped it would be farther off in the future.

I don’t think there is any data loss, but it will be a bit of a pain to extract the hard drive and get it hooked up to something else. The biggest loss is a lifestyle one I think… My laptop lived at the table in the kitchen, and it enabled me to be on the computer for little moments here and there while I was going about my regular day. It also was what I read during breakfast, and sometimes during lunch as well - my newspaper replacement. This morning I read a magazine during breakfast rather than reading blogs, email, and websites and it was not nearly as personal or satisfying. But I did spend a lot less time on breakfast, so at least there’s that. I’m also bummed that I lost my whole RSS setup. I think there’s going to be a lot of changes with this!

We had talked about moving a computer out of the office and downstairs, and I’m sure this will accelerate the process. The only reason I can be in the office today with my munchkin entourage is because Matt had to go to a meeting this morning. When he’s here working, I generally stay out of the office as much as possible, meaning I won’t be able to be on the computer at all during the day.

Oh, woe is me, I know I’ll stop complaining now. But if posting and emails are light, you’ll know why!

Hello everyone, and welcome to my new blog. My husband recently set up his blog using Word Press and I got a serious case of blog envy… so I asked him to set me up a new blog too. I really am enjoying all the features (categories! form based blogroll editing! link management! better template management!) although it has taken me some time to get it all set up. I still have more links to add to my blogroll and more posts to categorize, and I also need to add my Library Thing widget… however I would rather use this software than fiddle with it forever.

As for the name, well, you see I have this thing about rutabagas. Well, that’s not really accurate - the root itself does nothing for me (although I do like looking at it) it is the name I like. It is a word I use frequently with my daughter, and have since she was very little. It is a teasing word for us - rutabaga girl, come here my little rutabaga, that sort of thing. I’m not sure when the whole rutabaga thing started, although I do think it has been a favorite word of mine for quite a long time. So, when it came time to name this new blog, I decided it was time for a new name (since my old name, Listening To Myself, was no longer terribly accurate as I now have some regular readers!) and of course my favorite word popped into my head. As for the dreams part, well, it was just what seemed to pair well and I thought it had a nice ring to it.

I hope you all will update your links, bookmarks and RSS feeds and keep commenting so we can continue our acquaintance. Thanks, and enjoy!

We completed lesson 4 today in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and all is still going well. (a shorter title for the book would have been nice though) She’s getting better at watching the page and my finger rather than looking at me, which is making things easier. I tried having her point to the page and the letters, but it seemed like too much for her to think about at this point! For some reason though when we do the say it fast exercises, she likes to say the word fast in this breathy, whispery sort of voice that makes me think of Marilyn Monroe or something. It’s pretty funny, but I’m definitely trying not to laugh so as not to encourage her. I just have her do it over again, after asking her “use your normal voice please”.

We also have started working on the writing too, which is going fairly well. I realized that she didn’t know how to hold her pencil correctly, so we’ve been working on that. In the course of doing this, I’ve realized that I don’t hold my pencil correctly either. *sigh* At this point I’m teaching her how to hold the pencil the way I do it because I can’t seem to demonstrate how to hold a pencil correctly and I certainly can’t write that way at all. What’s that again about old dogs and new tricks?? She’s a lefty like me anyways, and I think we’re doomed to write a little differently no matter what - between having to push across the page, dealing with the dreaded hook and all that sort of thing that drives elementary school teachers nuts.

I remember being in the first grade and being mortified because I was singled out to receive a special pencil with a big rubber grip on it because I still was not holding my pencil correctly. I wasn’t doing the full preschooler fist anymore, but I would somehow hold the pencil between my thumb and my ring finger. Awkward, now that I try it again, but at the time it was so hard to go to anything else! I remember saying exactly what Emma said to me earlier this week - “but this way works for me, why do I have to do something else?” Definitely an interesting reversal of roles, and not the first or last time such a thing has or will happen!

Because of Mrs. Darwin’s discussions of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons I decided to borrow a copy from my library and take a look at it. In the fall, I bought another book about teaching your child to read but I haven’t done much with it because they want the child to know all their letters and most of the letter sounds before you start it. Also, they don’t give all that much aid to the parent/instructor, so I felt a little lost with it. I didn’t get 100 Easy Lessons at the time because the reviews were somewhat mixed for it - some calling it too repetitive and too scripted. Well, it turns out that I think that’s exactly what we need so I think that this book is going to be the right one for us.

I read through the introduction and the first couple lessons last night, and we did the first lesson this morning. I am reasonably pleased with how it went, and I think Emma has the general idea of how it is supposed to work. I think the main complication is that when she is doing the letter sounds, she starts off looking at the page, then looks up at my face (for approval, I suppose) and doesn’t see when she is supposed to stop making the sound. Telling her to watch the page made her want to put her face right up to the page, so I think that is going to take a little work. She also had some trouble repeating the word slowly to me, drawing out the sounds of the letters. She just wanted to say the word quickly - am rather than aaammm, for example.

All in all, it went well for a first lesson I think. I’ll do some review this afternoon and try doing the writing portion then. The hardest part of the morning was when she asked if she could do more learning games with me, so I suggested a number game that we have and that she usually enjoys. It started out ok, but then she starting having trouble doing things that she was doing earlier, and trouble remembering a number from one moment to the next. I don’t know if we had just reached saturation point or if she was getting bored or what, but it was extremely difficult to play the game with her when she all of sudden could no longer count to 8 and when she did manage to do so, could not remember that she had just counted to 8 about 2 seconds later. I was trying to end the game on a positive note, but things just were deteriorating so fast that finally I had to just call it quits before I tore my hair out. I’m not sure how to recover from this sort of situation - I’ll have to give it some thought.

OK, time to make lunch for a hungry little girl (and mommy!)

I’ve been keeping track of all of my reading since halfway through 1998. In case you’re wondering why I decided to start halfway through the year, it’s because I started keeping track the day after I graduated from college. It’s an enjoyable exercise and even more fun now, thanks to LibraryThing. One of these days I’ll get the rest of my reading log imported into LibraryThing, but right now I’m waiting for Matt to finish a script for me that would find all the ISBNs for the books in my Access database. Unfortunately, I kept all sorts of information about the books I read, except the ISBN - the one piece of information LibraryThing uses when it imports data.

I’m going to do a similiar tallying as I did last year, based on the stats at Librarian.Net’s blog (via Anirvan at Bookfinder)

Without further ado, here’s my reading stats for 2005.

Total Books: 61
Total Pages: 20,944
Average number of books read per month: 5.08
Average number of pages read per month: 1745
Greatest number of books read in one month: 8 (December)
Lowest number of books read in one month: 1 (October - Not sure what happened there…)
Number writen by female authors: 21 (35%)
Number writen by male authors: 38 (62%)
Collections of essays: 2 (3%)
Number non-fiction: 22 (36%)
Number fiction: 39 (64%)
Number of books I liked: 42 (69%)
Number of books I am ambivalent about: 16 (26%)
Number of books I disliked: 3 (5%)
Number of books I don’t remember anything about: 0 (yippee! much better than last year)

Historical Data:
2004 - 63 books, 22,044 pages
2003 - 55 books, 15,836 pages
2002 - 70 books, 19,880 pages
2001 - 91 books, 32,494 pages
2000 - 82 books, 26,025 pages
1999 - 79 books, 28,245 pages
1998 - 58 books, 14,414 pages (only 7 months recorded though)

My post from 2004 on reading statistics