taking stock

for non agressivly guilting me into reflecting on this year..

I dont know if i can do a month by month recap of 2007 like andrea, or be as verbose as my main man ryan, but here goes

In January Dale won the trip to the Colts vs. Bears superbowl in Miami Fl

Mya made the front page of the local paper (the freeman) and by front page I mean THE WHOLE page (over the folds)


February 2007 brought my five year wedding anniversary with Dale (02/02/02), we had always planned on doing Vegas (since we have never been), but we went to the superbowl instead...

I guess its the theme of the year for me "plans change."

That being said, I think the last 5 (almost 6 years) years of being Mrs. Dale Baumer have been more happy than they have been sad, and I am very thankful for Dale and for the kids his sperm has wroght. I am also sad that we don't get to see this guy as much as we want to. But once Owen potty trains himself, we are going to texas to have him meet his "fairy" godfather.

Feb also brought Dale and I to DC to watch Bryce get married for the 2nd time (also in Feb (again)) to a MUCH better lady, Carla.

bryce is my oldest friend. we rarely talk, we rarely see each other, but when we do meet up we are like peas and carrots again and its like no time has passed. Plus dale and I had our first visit to DC. DC is pretty cool, cold, but cool


Spring was kind of a blur, I'm sorry that I can't think of much that happened (to me anyways) I know I had some long phone calls with people down in Atlanta and at least one memorable dinner with this lady:
in which i totally forgot to pay and then was really embarassed afterwards. But I think I made it up to her by buying at the Chancery (home of the best Bloody Me's ever. mmmmm bloody me's.....) Somehow I am the queen of being friends with my friends Ex's....Vanessa (ex of Matt and now our son's godmother, Renee LONG ago Ex of Mark, she was in our wedding, and Andrea Ex of Ryan who is my best friend and I like her pretty much too)....

Summer brought a visit from this guy

no wait, thats not ryan, those are turkeys, my bad!

here he is, Ryan or as I like to call him in my brain when I think of him: my brother by another mother as I am his sister by another mister, my long lost twin, yin to my yang, best friend, soul mate (in a totally non sexualized way) and all around good guy (when he is not an asshole) and the best toy my kids could have (or jokingly , the mostly mexican version of "The Toy") Mr. Bear:

Please come visit soon, my couch and or floor is always open for you.

Summer also brought gifts from Mike in Japan


it took us up to Door County for a yearly family reunion and the girls turned 4 (holy crap, 4...)



we went to endless (and winning even!) Brewers games
and fairs (sometimes with ryan, sometimes not)


and then something interesting happened.
I got bangs!

no i'm kidding (well i did get bangs, but its not really interesting)


I lost my job. It was shocking, but not unexpected since I really hated working there from day one (actually from 45 minutes on day one), but I did have some good things happen there, I met my best friend, I have met other good friends (sally sue, carrie, nate, 'MoTom) and my experiences there (and the experience) helped me land my new job @ smith barney. This may be the best job I have had in years (since GE). I missed corporate (big) america.

Dale also got a new job (we started our new ones on the same day) and he loves it and they love him. I think my job loves me...I have nice bosses, a window, a big big desk and benefits to kill for (*please dont kill me)


this fall also my cousin matt married Kate. The girls were flower girls

they spent most of the night before throwing up or pooping all over the hotel room. I don't think ive ever spent a more miserable 24 hours. but kate is beautiful and wonderful and I am happy she is in our family!

the girls are too (even if they love paul more)
(you cant tell it here, but I'm exausted, stressed, about to collapse from exaustion and overwhelmed)


the girls did well, didnt puke on kate and had fun after the ceremony


fall passed into winter and winter in wisconsin means this crap

38 inches and counting of this crap.

i turned 31. dale turned 33.
dale's grandmother ginny passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly. she was 85, lived at her own home alone till the moment she died and was a wonderful and giving person. we are now down to one grandparent left...thankfully it seems grandma dorothy is doing OK....

then we moved to the end of the line..
december means christmas and christmas means family

it also means (and ryan I think your gift is lost in the mail...freaking post office)
my son.

owen turns 3 tomrorow. this time 3 years ago I was mentally committing myself to getting this baby out of me in time for my tax deduction.....Owen was born at 12:17am on 12-31-04. I am nothing, if not, committed to getting what I want when I want it.

I'm thankful for all the friends I have, all the old friends I now have reconnected with, and the family.

I have no goals or resolutions for 2008, I hope the coming year passes safely and quietly. The girls start school, I hope owen potty trains, I want to visit ATL and DAL.

I hope your new years eve is wonderful and fun. I'll be at chuck e cheese celebrating and eating pizza.

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me and andrea at the mall

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its been a week of highs and lows
highs christmas
lows christmas
highs, talking to dan and dylan on the phone (i love you guys)
lows, thinking about people i USED to be friends with
highs, kiera and her grandparents and uncle came to dinner tonight, pizza and tackling grampy bob
lows, taking my car to the shop for 400.00 worth of work which turned into 2500.00 and i cant have my car till monday night so we are homebound this weekend.
highs: new books
lows, owen has a black eye from mya or grampy bob, i dunno which
lows: robins cat (s?) pooped and peed in her bed while on vacation and so she had to replace her mattress
which isnt a low for me, but at least someone else had a crappy thing happen to them so i know at least its not me.

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thanks kate!

this is one of the pics from kate's wedding in oct...
the girls look awesome
thanks kate love!

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happy christmas

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please, can’t we NOT have Darwin-ism? since darwinism doesnt exist (as our lovely misguided uber christian bible literalists would have us believe) could you please help me understand the Spears family (drunk dad Jaime, useless waste of space mom Lynn, beyond dispicable daughter Britney and now knocked up by her 19 year old boyfriend, 16 year old JaimieLynn Spears) would not have ever been in existance because those parents (the aforementioned Jaimie and Lynn). please dear creationist friends, this is what thou hath wroght. STUPID PEOPLE CAN (and do) BREED. which i guess is OK since they are breeding a plethora of stupid children (see britney the train wreck and JaimieLynn the 16 year old douche that doesnt have the sense god gave a rock to have her rapist (by law) boyfriend wrap his prick and get herself the depoprovera shot) and its OK since she is rich and decided not to have an abortion (which seriously, if that was my family history i would think seriously about bringing a child into that hot mess...wait, i'd fucking have used birth control in the first place)

ah darwin, you bastard, proving that stupid people can evolve and breed because there is no predators above us to eat the fucking retarded white trash like the entire spears family. where are the t-rex's when you need them.

i'm irritated, i'm crampy, i'd like to kick a wall

on the plus side i think dale got me jewelery for christmas. i like shiny sparkies.
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i hate christmas

at the rate we are going ill be done with christmas sometime in february. my parents dont want to do christmas if we open gifts with the kids on that same day, my sister in law is a nurse who works 12 hr shifts and its hard to do christmas where she wouldnt be working that night (and I dont want her to NOT sleep just to open gifts!) i have 3 christmas parties to attend, 4 relative parties to attend and i just am so done with it already.
bah

and my husband doesnt know what to get me because i want "everything' so unless a miracle happens, i wont get anything for myself that i dont buy myself .

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Winter

whoo hoo it's my birf-day

i'm 31, yippie for me. dale got me a dinner by design gift certificate, i go on monday. yeah food! we went to see bee movie last night, it was pretty cute. we also ran into Jamon! which was nice. hi jamon! today, groc store and cooking!
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happy turkey day

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happy birthda to me--saturday

happy birthday to me....saturday its the 1st anniversary of my 30th birthday on saturday. you are welcome to come over and share it with me at my house. i plan on cleaning the house and forcing dale to play board games with me..

one of my bosses is out of the office this week so its SLOW! That combined with the rainy grayness of the weather=sleepy mary.

not much else is going on...im not doing black friday shopping, im done with my xmas shopping and ill be done with the christmas cards shortly

if ya want a christmas card and i dont have your address let me know what it is, im hand making them this year...

thanks for the card shannon!
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sad day

Dale's grandma Ginny just passed away this afternoon suddenly. She was 85 and will be missed.
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arg

so today my boss (or one of them anyway i have 4) Kevin said "are you and dale packer fans?" I said yes. he said I have tickets for the packer/rams game in st louis on dec 16th, my buddy is so pissed at the team that he is giving away his season tickets, they are yours if you want them. so im all like, st louis is about 6 hours away...sure why not....so im all happy and up and i make a hotel reservation, only to find out that neither one of my parents can watch the kids saturday night and my inlaws cant either...so i am scrambling to see if my sister in law or my brother could watch some of the kids that weekend. or if anyone out there that i know and trust and has kids is willing to watch mine saturday night there is much good things in it for you...if not im gonna drive myself down and make conserv8 drive up and we'll go, or ill take carrie
fuck, i hate when things dont go how i plan.

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this crap has got to stop

friday morning owen wakes up covered in his own poop and puke again...back into the shower he goes, he does go to school since it was "farmer/cowboy" dress up day and he wants to go, ok no problem. He makes it the whole day at school, I pick him up get him home, change his diaper (he has mondo diaper rash) and dale gets home...."hey, lets go out and get a fish fry." (since the girls are at grandmas house for the night) so we go to the gasthaus and wait for like 25 min to sit down and Owen is all happy and eating pretzels and string cheese whatever. we sit down and our table is next to the guy playing acordion, which makes owen mental happy and he is clapping at every song and chatting with the acordion guy....cool. mommy gets a grey goose and cranberry as she has had a hard week and we get our fish frys which are yummo and owen is eating the applesauce and having a blast. terrific. at the tail end of the meal he wants to sit next to me, ok i move his chair over and he sits next to me. im about to finish off my drink and eat the last latke when he looks at me, says "mommy?" and proceeds to linda blair in exorcist projectile vomit all over himself, the table, my lap, my leg and my arm. he then starts to cry. so I am sitting there, covered in his puke and he is covered in puke and we grab our waitress who was very sweet about getting us a few wet soapy towels etc...dale wraps owen up in his coat and takes him to the bathroom. I pay the waitress (and in all the confusion I take off one of my rings and leave it at the table....dale goes back in like 10 min later and the ring is gone, im sad but at least it was just a cheep-y art fair ring_ tip her like 25% for cleaning up puke and dale brings owen outside naked in his coat. we find some clothes in the car and get him dressed and go home for me to hose myself down in the shower and dump my clothes in the wash. i slept on the floor in his room last night since he was making gaggy noises all night. im totally spent.

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there arent enough swear words today I am woken up by my mostly naked husband yelling for me to get in Owen's room where we greet the day with a bed full of puke and poop....nice chunky puke and nice runny green poop. all over bed, blankets, animals, sheets, pillows and most importantly, my son. he is now home with me.
I cant go into work till after 10am since Toni cant get here before then. I am now at home with Owen (who looks OK and is eating a cracker while watching Disney channel, but is very pale) who at least (unlike his stripped down bedroom) smells good since I had to HOSE him off in the tub this morning (to remove the nice puke/poop). Why does this shit always happen when my parents go on vacation and I have no backup system in place? Is the universe against me? Seriously there are not enough swear words to describe my frustration at this week I have had 7 days of kids pooping and barfing on me or in my general vacinity.
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this is from dale

I forgot to tell you about my talk with Mya and Malinda last night. I told them that I was building a new computer and that they would be able to use my old one. They asked if I would put their games on it and I said yes. Then Mya asked if I would put "daddy's" games on it. She said she wanted to play the bunny game (Candy Mountain Massacre). I told them that they didn't want to shoot bunnies, and their answer threw me for a loop. What they told me was something along the lines that it's ok to shoot some bunnies to make sure that the rest of the bunnies have enough food.
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my day

After picking up Owen from daycare we hit the dr, he's OK and no ear infections...we went home and he napped for an hour...I did some mail, reading newsweek and scrap'd a bit, this afternoon he wasnt throwing up and we went to the store to get some milk....stopped at the library, and my book on hold was missing (wasted trip) and got the girls. My mom made her magic beans before they left for Hawaii so that was dinner. Tonight is Chuck and Heroes, I may also watch a bit of the Packer game (but prob. not since I'm done with my fantasy team and I won, I beat Ben BIG TIME!).

My Knee is still swollen and I can't take anything for it, which sucks a big one.

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my long weekend 2

which actually started out OK... Thursday the girls and I drove down to Lake Geneva (with the sun in our eyes the whole way) I bought the kids Chicken Nugget Kids meals to eat on the way with apples (this will be important later) and all is well. We check into the hotel, watch some TV, get dressed for the rehersal:


and proceed to practice. The girls do very well. I have no complaints.

After the rehersal, we go to Gordy's in Lake Geneva for the rehersal dinner...pizza and pasta (this will also be important later) and some cheesecake....

At about 9:30 the girls have had it and we leave for the hotel, my parents in tow as well.... My mom helps me get the girls in bed (they are mostly unconcious) and I read till about 11. I have some trouble getting to sleep, but I'm good till about 1:30am. Mya gets up and she can't sleep and her tummy hurts. So now I have her in bed with me and I am holding her tummy...till about 3:30 am when I hear Malinda get up. Malinda proceeds to puke up her pizza apples and mcdonalds all over the hotel room floor. I'm running around to the bathroom with her and she also now has the runs and she is puking in the ice bucket. After about 10 min of this, she gets back into bed and I'm trying to clean up everything with towels.

Then about 15 min later, she pukes on the floor again..repeat process above, this goes on for about an hour. I finally get her back to bed and get back with Mya when about 5:30am, Mya wakes up and she has the runs all over...and Malinda is puking up water.

sigh
Most of the day Friday, which was to be spent swimming, and shopping in Lake Geneva is spent by the girls doing this:

and me trying to stay awake on the bed to run people to the potty to poop or puke or just generally cry. Thankfully they took a break from that for about 45 min so I could run with them to walgreens for kids Pepto and tylenol.

Dale finally got in about 1 and we then got ready for the wedding.

Malinda puked a bit in the car on the way there, but not on her self. We took some shots outside

and did the wedding. I let the girls walk down the aisle, then wisked them to the back and everything seemed to go well.. Malinda only puked once in the parking lot and Mya only had bad poops once in the church. Hoo-freaking-ray.

The dinner was at the Grand Geneva golf course and the girls had fun dancing all during dinner while I chatted with my older cousins, Mike, Paul, and Mark and my brother and Mike's Girlfriend whose name I forget. We quit the reception about 9 and the girls had an uneventful night. I slept like the dead, considering the night before I had maybe 2 hours of sleep, this didnt surprise me.

Yesterday was good, no puking no pooping. Took a 3 hour nap when I got home with Owen and accomplished nothing other than dishes around the house.

Today I think we need to rake as the leaves are coming down.

I am exausted, although from this pic I look OK

welcome to the family Kate. I'm glad no one puked on or near you during the wedding.



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my long weekend

pictures from the wedding...as of today my profile picture is my new cousin-in-law Kate Anderson and Malinda.



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So I have to (well I don’t have to, but its strongly suggested that I do so) take a test (a 6 hour test) to get my Series 7 license which will allow me to buy and sell and trade things for our clients. It will make me a registered associate, I think I get a raise, I get my own business cards and stuff, whatever. I got the books (which is this HUGE set of two generous binders) to start reading this stuff before I go through this 15 week class to learn this crap, which will then allow me to take this crash course for a week (40 hours straight of cramming) which then allows me to take this 6 hour test. The book is pretty OK until I get to chapter 5 which is calculating yields on bonds and essentially requires me to remember equations and apply them to bond selling and buying situations. I AM SCREWED. #1 because I can't apply anything with equations, I can't remember equations, and I know on that part I am doomed to fail, and fail miserably. I suck at math, which is the understatement of the year. I think my track record of failing algebra and having to retake it the year after and barly passing that time before Geometry and Algebra II preceeded to kick my ass was proof enough of my failure as a mathmetician.

Plus this stuff is so boring, page after page about yields and par values and SEC rules that makes me wonder why ANYONE in their right mind would want to be a Finance person. What causes me to despair is the fact that everyone in my position who has had to take the test says "yes, you really don’t ever use any of this information in your daily job, and you don’t need to know any of the stuff you have to know cause our system just does it all for you." well !&^%$*^@)!!!!!!!!!!!! And that I know I am investing a huge chunk of time reading and trying to remember all this crap and if I fail this 6 hour test, then I have to take it again 30 days later, and then again 6 months later and by that time its very unlikely I will pass this test.

And I am a horrible test taker.
And I got myself an english degree cause its easy to read the book and spit back bullshit on an essay for 10 pages discussing how Huck Finn and Jim really had a homoerotic relationship on that raft and that its obvious to see that by Twain's use of alliteraion on page 168. I didn’t have to take many "remember this crap or you will fail miserably" kind of classes. I ran very very fast away from physics, and math, and science unless necessary.

Plus Ive been out of school for like 8 years. I lost that test taking, memory craming with facts and figures brainset. I think its impossible to pick that zone back up again. By the time I finish reading something its totally gone outta my brain replaced by "did we remember to take the kids mittens to school" and "what time is ballet on Friday."

I have mom oatmeal for brains and this totally totally sucks and is a horrible waste of my time, the time I could be spending looking out the window at the family of wild turkeys plotting their takeover of the business park with the Canada Geese.

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GAH!

i hate ryan’s job the owner of the clinic should rot in hell for telling the employees not to wash hands after using the bathroom.
the owner should rot for taking the coffee away
owners of pets who want to kill their dogs for licking a stranger who is now suing the owner for the dog licking and dont want to let the clinic take the dog should rot in hell

the job is killing my brother by another mothers' soul.

ryan, do yourself a favor, find a safer and less stressful job, perhaphs lebanon, or iraq, or north korea. i bet people in those places at least get coffee at their jobs.

fucking lousy job you have. come work with me. we'd have fun and i'd have a friend at work.


condolences go out to Kathy (my boss) and her family. Her sister Gretchen (age 62) died last night in her sleep after a long illness.
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