Too Many Books

In late May, we attended another graduation party. Damn Murphy cousins finishing high school and costing me money! Jussst kidding. I didn't mention yesterday, but I am proud that both cousins are amazingly brillant and one will be attending Ohio State while the other will (blech) attend The University of Kentuky. I don't hold it against him, though. Many of the Murphy's are UK fans. I just pretend I'm down. So, some other cousins came to this second shin-dig, which was super exciting because they have a little baby boy who was born December 16th, just TWO days after my Stella. Caleb has the prettiest eyes, and I'm not jealous that he is soooo much longer than Stella, because she might be peanutty, but I like her like that. (Also, she rolls over way more than he does.) On Memorial Day, otherwise known as Hotter than Hades Day, we took Stella downtown for the first time. We attended this annual music festival called "Abbey Road on the River," in which a b...

Maybe I should just commit to blogging once a month... er, hello again! (Let me catch you up on things.) Stella has now visited her third state... Ohio! In May, we attended a graduation lunch, so we had to get fancy. I'm ever so slightly proud of the following photos. It took us about four hours to get home from Ohio... because someone I married decided not to realize when he missed the exit and overshot our route by about thirty miles and also did not notice a large sign which said "Welcome to Indiana." Someone else was in the passenger seat playing with her iPhone. Also, on May 26th... this happened: It's hard to be too upset, considering that our bedroom is to the left of all that. It was so weird though... we didn't hear it fall. It happened on one of those horrid storm nights, but after the worst of it came through. $300 later, I'm thankful that my house is still standing, but I do miss the shade when I'm out of the back porch roasting in this J...

I was afraid to log in to blogger. I thought all of my posts might be MIA. Looks okay so far... I saw quite a few tweets from those of you who worried that posts might be lost to the bowels of the internets. Did everyone get their work back? We're weekending here at the Murphy homestead. Hubs just went to a buddy's house to fix the brakes on his car. I'm seriously wondering if he'll be home before midnight. Those boys can make the simplest thing take all. day. long. (And by simple, I mean, shouldn't we just pay someone else to do it?) Stella and I are enjoying a lazy morning. (And by lazy, I mean, I've started laundry, cleaned up clutter, and tried to make a dent on the housework... while she's napping.) She's five months old today. We're celebrating with bananas, assuming Mr. Murphy gets home in time. Stella's been doing great with rice cereal and we are so excited to start her on new foods. I need to put the camera battery on charge STAT...

A Little Lame I'm so lame. I never have time to comment on blogs these days. It does make me sadspice, so I'm going to work on catching up on the 1342 posts in my google reader. (Seriously. Thirteen hundred unread posts. I follow waaay to many blogs.) Saving a Little After giving birth to an expensive human being and also purchasing iPhones, we are cutting corners here in the Murphy household. I'm looking for ways to save money. So far, not going out for lunch is helping me to keep more money in my checkbook to pay the bills. However, I need to find other ways to cut back. I'm semi-addicted to TLC's Extreme Couponing, and want to try to start cutting coupons. Howevs, I don't even get a paper in the mail and I keep forgetting to leave the house on Sunday to go buy one... oops. Just wondered if any of you are "coupon-ers." How's that workin' out for ya? Any tips for getting started? Reading a Little It's a far cry from my readin...

Derby Schmerby. I'm like a kid at Christmas. I finally got an iPhone this weekend. It's my first smartphone and stuff, so I'm literally giddy with excitement. (It's SO easy to text people now!) The only problem is an ache in my neck from spending the entire weekend looking down at the screen... uploading apps, checking facebook, sending a casual tweet... I'm completely addicted to Words with Friends. Completely. What are your favorite apps? Is your smartphone a huge timesuck? Don't you think that an iPhone was the perfect 1st Mothers Day gift to myself? Gotta go. I want to play some Lemonade Tycoon before I head back to work, and I only have about 15 minutes left on my lunch hour.

I'm getting a little lost in a world of diapers and daycare. So I decided to start writing again. I've revamped my WIP and it feels amazing to work on it. I struggle with every sentence. I have this issue with perfection; I don't just want to spill it out. Stooopid. Before I got pregnant (or maybe while I was, I don't remember) I had an idea that I felt would take my WIP to a better place: a mysterious narrator, with a payoff for the reader at the end. So, I'm working with this idea, and playing with the ways to include narration without overtaking the "present action" (I'm generally a past-tense writer, so saying "present action" always seems funny and false to me.) And, I'm trying to be a more scene-oriented writer. When I read, I find it very irritating when a writer chooses to skip time without so much as a paragraph break. Yet when I look at the chunks of text I've already written, I find I do it, too. So, I'm off...

I've given up breastfeeding. I lasted four and a half months. In truth, I've mostly just been breast pumping , because my supply was never extensive enough to keep up with Stella. For weeks now, I've been pumping less and less milk... it just wasn't there. And it wasn't worth the time it takes (5 to 6 pumping sessions a day @ about 30 minutes each = time I could be playing with Stella. Or sleeping.) I did nurse her sometimes, and I thought I wanted to have "one more" nursing session with the knowledge that it would be the very last time I would feed her from my breast. I knew it would be hard, emotionally, so I decided to forget it. Usually, I'm a sucker for anything that will make me feel sappy and require Kleenex. But I'll always have fond memories of the last time... The last time I nursed her was a couple of weeks ago. She had the flu, and she wouldn't take her bottle. I literally had to force her to eat; she was only getting an ounce...

Things sure change in a year's time. Here, hubs and I celebrated at the St. Patrick's Day parade in 2010: I'm pretty sure it was beer-thirty in this picture. Here we are, parading in 2011! Guess which breastfeeding mom was the designated driver?  We are breaking Stella in early so that she knows what to expect with the Murphy side of the family. Also, I considered putting green food coloring in her bottle, but then wondered if that might not be the best idea. I intend to write an actual, real blog post next week -- you know, one that has more words than photos. I have many post-partum shennanigans to share. I shall return.

I haven't blogged in about a hundred years. I'm very broken up about it. I've missed it terribly. Stella is keeping me busy every moment. (Well, Stella and my breastpump and the endless bottle washing and rocking and sing-songing and diaper changing and cooing and oohing and ahhing...) Yeah, so, mostly Stella. Look how she's grownspice!  Remember this little December peanut?  Well... Here's her most recent glamour shot. :)   How are you people doing? What'd I miss?

  "Who IS this woman holding me? I don't even know her anymore!"   Clearly, I've had no time to blog since returning to the working world last Tuesday. Le sigh. Any free time I have in the morning and evenings is reserved for Stella. God, the guilt of being away from her for so many hours SUCKS. I know it will be even harder when she's a little older and screams, "Mommy, nooooOOOO! Don't leave meeeeeeeeeeeee!" Hubs was home with Stella last week, but she starts day care tomorrow. I'm a little concerned about how on earth I am going to get the two of us out the door, drop her off, and still and make it to work by 8:15 in the morning. (Let's just be honest. I pretty much know I'll be late to work tomorrow, since it will be our first try... but I'm talking about how in the hell I'm going to do it everysingledayspice.) Anywhine, going back to work was a bit stressful, but not completely horrible. Trying to catch up on...

Yeah, I've been in such a baby bubble for the last 8 weeks that yesterday afternoon I told my husband I was going to cheer for the Jets to win the Superbowl. (And I actually do like sports!) Fail. It's my last day of maternity leave: I go back to work tomorrow morning. The mix of emotions is intense, and Stella doesn't even start day care until next Monday, since hubs is on vacation and will be staying home with her this week. (I'll be coming home at lunch time for a little breastpumping/ cuddle session. YAY!) Speaking of breast pumping, I'm a little concerned as to how that will work out for me at the bank. I'm thankful that my right to pump is federally mandated, but, um... bank branch = cameras everywhere. And a few camera monitors, too. I'm pretty sure my pumping location options include:  a freezing cold restroom (thankfully, there are two restrooms in my branch, so I could theoretically occupy one for twenty + minutes without any inconven...

I'm kind of sadspice. I go back to work Tuesday. Stella will still have another week before she starts daycare, as hubs is taking a vacay week next week to stay home with her, which means we'll all be home together this weekend and on Monday. Soooo.... my point being... today is my last day of just Stella & me at home. Maternity leave pretty much rocked. I mean, I guess it's kind of like being in labor... it isn't so wonderful while you're in the midst of it, but looking back... it was amazing. There were moments during those days alone when she was fussy and I was exhausted that I just wanted to trade places with my husband and RUN back to work to get a break, some adult interaction, a full night's sleep (yeah, he gets that. I let him sleep, because I might be dog tired but I'm still a control freak.) But, now that it's basically over I feel like maternity leave was the most precious time. I will never get to spend that much time with her alla...

thankful that Stella is all better now! Well, I thought I would just be able to blog my little heart out all the way through my maternity leave. Whoops.  Yeah, I'm behind again! After I posted my stellar-musical-performance, all hell broke loose in the Murphy household. My husband had been sick. I got sick. Then, the baby got sick. It was just over a week ago on a Saturday evening when I took her rectal temp to try to make her go poopie... and was shocked that the digital readout said she had a fever of 101.7! (They don't want little babes to have anything over 100.4.) We ended up taking Stella to the emergency room -- thankfully, there's a nice, new offshoot of Kosair Children's Hospital (which is alltheway downtown) out in our neck of the woods. After several hours, a urine cath, blood drawn, an IV in the back of my baby's hand, and a chest x-ray, they ruled out flu and RSV. Next, we had two options: IV antibiotics for 14 days OR a spinal tap to check h...

I was born in a storm, when the earth opened up like a fist unclenching and swallowed the dark. My first wails were not in mourning, not for life lost in a cloud of ash, billowed and blown, on the day I was born. You wrapped me, covered me, sheltered me from the branches that broke, from the thunder that you heard in your core on the day that I was born. And then the skies clear -- yes, autumn leaves settle down. Warmth turns up the corners of your mouth. You watch me dance in the puddles that formed on the day that I was born in the storm. When night falls, when the wind howls again and your screams resound: I will hold you, lift you up. I will be the calm in the eye of the storm.

1.) The auto-turn-off on your coffeepot shuts 'er down before 8:00 a.m. 2.) You drop a deuce and smile because you're able to do that again. 3.) You stare at the toilet thinking, "Is it necessary to flush that? Because if I do, and it wakes my little one..." You decide the flushing can wait. 4.) Your last 30 facebook updates include the word "baby." 5.) You've forgotten what hot food tastes like. 6.) Six hours of sleep in one night? Amazing. Six hours of sleep allatonce? Absurb and unknown. 7.) You take more photographs now that you ever have in your whole life, total. Many are close ups of little feet and hands. 8.) "Weight Checks" no longer apply to you, because why torment your post-partum self? 9.) Your nipples are no longer your husbands playground. In fact, if he went near them, you would punch him in his nutsackspice. 10.) It takes ninety minutes to watch a sitcom, four hours to watch a basketball game... and, if you...

Happy weekend!

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before? Got impregnated , birthed a baby ... also weighed my melons , got interviewed on the radio , loved my niece , (okay, loving my niece wasn't new) survived a bank merger buyout merger   in which my original bank was not the one in charge,  was the subject of a blog post written by someone other than me , attended a St. Patty's day parade with the Irish, got yelled at by my own thighs , painted a room, nested. 2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I tried to read 100 books. I read a respectable 68 books. I had low daily word expectations for 2010 , and I exceeded that... er, fail. Resolurions for 2011? Nah, notsomuch . We're just going to enjoy the baby. 3. Did anyone close to you give birth? If, by close to me you mean... rightherespice. *waves* (Also, my two besties from high school had babies in early 2010, another high school gal pal had twi...

Hubs is back to work, and Stella and I are just chillin' at the homefront. Mom is trying not to spend tooooo terribly much money on Shutterfly, and Stella is trying not to be toooo terribly disgruntled in spite of her chapped little ass. My poor baby has her first diaper rash. (My blog is sexy, I know.) I think I'm going to take Stelly to the pedi's office today -- get her weight checked and see what they reccommend for the red tushie. It's starting to blister a little and I'm afraid it will turn into a yeastyspice-thing. Yummy. I'm a little nervous about venturing out of the house with my Stellabelle... I'm yet to drive her anywhere at all. I'm great at being in the back seat next to her, but I'm supes anxious about just the two of us in the car, and me all far away in the driver's seat. Good thing the pedi office is only 5 minutes away. In other news, Stella took her first road trip this weekend to Mommy's home state! We My mo...

Blog Photo Review: A visually stimulating two years August 31, 2008: knot = tied Got Hitched I adored every single inch of my modern wedding... rooftop ceremony, reception in an urban space overlooking a glass-blowing studio.. all the purple and yellow and black and white... the way I looked... the euphoria of pulling off the event... love is grand, but a kick-ass wedding is, too. Sept. 2008: Fish outta water! Honey, moon me... Hubs and I spent the week in Myrtle Beach, SC and were there for Tropical Storn Hanna. Not a highlight: super hard wind and rains. Definitely a highlight: forcing my new husband to take my photograph on the beach, me sportin' my wedding dress, even though our wedding took place back in Louisville.  November, 2008 I spy a Hoosier!  Floor Seats in Assembly Hall, Bloomington Yeah, we played nobody IUPUI. It was still top-ten on my most awesome life-experience list. Summer 2009: Got a new ride. I drove all night... to get to you. Her name...