It's feast or famine with news in the Dykstra house. Good news at least. It's been monnnnnnnttths of interviewing for Google. (No, thank you for asking. No offer yet.) Not to mention house hunting and trying for baby #2. And then, out of nowhere, here has what has transpired in the last two weeks:
- Dan will have a third interview with Microsoft
- Google has suddenly been communicating with Dan- even calling at home during the evening- to "consider him"
- Dan was voted in to become a deacon at our church as of Monday night
- We got back from Charlotte last night around 7pm, went directly to see a house in Aurora, liked the house and went directly to the realtor's office to prepare an offer on it. (Only Emily went to the realtor's office- Dan and Morgan were wiped.)
I should be freaking out about the fact that our house is closing in 4 weeks, but when there has been so much drama in our life in the past 8 months that this kind of news pales in comparison. I'm still type "A", but a little more subdued. I'm "A-okay". Alright, that was bad, but I'm one tuckered out Emily. A little grace, please.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Monday, April 9, 2007
Charlotte
Morgan is getting used to her two cousins who she rarely sees. It's kind of cute to see them fight, then play, fight, then play.
The funny thing is that she keeps calling her cousin Britt another name. For some reason she keeps calling him "Drew". Naturally he doesn't answer and she gets a little frustrated at "that little boy who I play with". It's hilarious.
We're having a grand time and are trying to forget that we have to leave tomorrow.
Baby Chet is a hoot. He's adorable, of course, and likes to "attack" people with his slobber kisses. He is very smiley and drooley and if I get him too excited, he laughs and thrusts his slobbery face onto mine to suck on it. That baby sucking reflex is amazing. He thinks the whole world is a bottle.
Well, I gotta go. Morgan is resisting a nap b/c I am in her room typing. *sigh*
The funny thing is that she keeps calling her cousin Britt another name. For some reason she keeps calling him "Drew". Naturally he doesn't answer and she gets a little frustrated at "that little boy who I play with". It's hilarious.
We're having a grand time and are trying to forget that we have to leave tomorrow.
Baby Chet is a hoot. He's adorable, of course, and likes to "attack" people with his slobber kisses. He is very smiley and drooley and if I get him too excited, he laughs and thrusts his slobbery face onto mine to suck on it. That baby sucking reflex is amazing. He thinks the whole world is a bottle.
Well, I gotta go. Morgan is resisting a nap b/c I am in her room typing. *sigh*
Friday, April 6, 2007
Background Music
My mother and father made sure they documented our childhood in video. They did a decent job of keeping up with birthdays and holidays. A few years ago, Mom and Dad decided to send these videos in to a professional company to have them put on VHS (okay, maybe it was more than a FEW years ago). The company also added music to the background of the video.
This sounds like a marvelous idea: send in your video bits, have a company stitch them together and plop some Enya in the background. When we got the videos back, we enjoyed them alright. But for all the wrong reasons.
When I say that the video company added background music, I should clarify: They did not consider the scene on the video to which the music was synched. Consequently, when we watch footage of my baby brother bouncing in his baby seat, there is a crescendoing jingle playing in the background which makes the viewer think that the infant is about to do something fantastic. If you consider drool fantastic, then you're not disapointed. It's hilarious to watch. It's a little bit like watching foreign films with English subtitles. A little.
If you think on it, I'm sure everyone has had this kind of out-of-sync experience before. That's why elevator music is so bland... to appeal to the masses. If you just got laid off and you're in the elevator on your way out the door, they want to make sure that YOU enjoy the music as much as the intern next to you who just got your job. Whatever tunes they're piping through need to get a thumbs up from both Johnny J. Rocker and Susan B. Perfect. In reality, of course, elevator music is only appreciated by the elderly.
A step up from elevator music is grocery store music. Have you ever heard Madonna's "Like A Virgin" played on a flute while shopping for produce? (Shiver.) I have.
I bring this up because someone has set my background music to "groovy" when it should be put on "easy listening" or "it's time to panic, stupid, you haven't bought a house yet". There's a lot of waiting going on in the Dykstra household. If I were on a game show, the prize behind Curtain #2 would be: more waiting.
So, if the music is wrong, I'm going to have to change the scene. I'm going out of town for a few days to see my sibs and there will definitely be some grooving going on there. Set tuner for "Dixie Chicks". Happy times, here I come.
This sounds like a marvelous idea: send in your video bits, have a company stitch them together and plop some Enya in the background. When we got the videos back, we enjoyed them alright. But for all the wrong reasons.
When I say that the video company added background music, I should clarify: They did not consider the scene on the video to which the music was synched. Consequently, when we watch footage of my baby brother bouncing in his baby seat, there is a crescendoing jingle playing in the background which makes the viewer think that the infant is about to do something fantastic. If you consider drool fantastic, then you're not disapointed. It's hilarious to watch. It's a little bit like watching foreign films with English subtitles. A little.
If you think on it, I'm sure everyone has had this kind of out-of-sync experience before. That's why elevator music is so bland... to appeal to the masses. If you just got laid off and you're in the elevator on your way out the door, they want to make sure that YOU enjoy the music as much as the intern next to you who just got your job. Whatever tunes they're piping through need to get a thumbs up from both Johnny J. Rocker and Susan B. Perfect. In reality, of course, elevator music is only appreciated by the elderly.
A step up from elevator music is grocery store music. Have you ever heard Madonna's "Like A Virgin" played on a flute while shopping for produce? (Shiver.) I have.
I bring this up because someone has set my background music to "groovy" when it should be put on "easy listening" or "it's time to panic, stupid, you haven't bought a house yet". There's a lot of waiting going on in the Dykstra household. If I were on a game show, the prize behind Curtain #2 would be: more waiting.
So, if the music is wrong, I'm going to have to change the scene. I'm going out of town for a few days to see my sibs and there will definitely be some grooving going on there. Set tuner for "Dixie Chicks". Happy times, here I come.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Eggs
Today Morgan and I were invited to join Beth Tukker and Ann Vandermeer in the Easter tradition of egg dyeing. We had a blast.
These two women are a bit more seasoned than I am at things like, oh I don't know, allowing youngsters to handle highly fragile objects and drop them in dye. I was a bit on the skittish side but I put on a brave front. There were 6 children and, as fortune would have it, 6 available dyes. Initially the idea of letting each child dye whatever color they wanted to dye their 6 eggs was put forth, but when the demand for purple and blue was high, we decided to ditch that effort. Each kiddo got 6 eggs and had to dye one of each in the 6 colors. It was extremely fair. Their little worlds were happy.
Morgan was given two eggs to take home, a green and a blue one. I told her to put them in the fridge. She them in the fridge alright. Her play fridge, the one I bought her for her two year old birthday. Grrr. Semantics.
Not long after promising to "keep them safe" in her fridge, my daughter called for me, crying hysterically. "Mom! My egg hatched! My egg hatched!" Yikes. Didn't see THAT coming. Isn't there some kind of process to keep those things from becoming chicks?
Further investigation showed that one of the eggs CRACKED; it didn't HATCH, thank goodness.
My daughter was still crying so I showed her how to peel the egg and eat it. Apparently she was unfamiliar with "hard boiled" because when I showed her the inside, she was astounded. I let her eat some while watching her tears fade to joy. It was vaguely like watching the moment Sam-I-Am in Dr. Seuss decide that he DID like green eggs and ham.
I asked her how she liked hard boiled eggs. "They're good. But they're not hard, Mom. They're soft."
These two women are a bit more seasoned than I am at things like, oh I don't know, allowing youngsters to handle highly fragile objects and drop them in dye. I was a bit on the skittish side but I put on a brave front. There were 6 children and, as fortune would have it, 6 available dyes. Initially the idea of letting each child dye whatever color they wanted to dye their 6 eggs was put forth, but when the demand for purple and blue was high, we decided to ditch that effort. Each kiddo got 6 eggs and had to dye one of each in the 6 colors. It was extremely fair. Their little worlds were happy.
Morgan was given two eggs to take home, a green and a blue one. I told her to put them in the fridge. She them in the fridge alright. Her play fridge, the one I bought her for her two year old birthday. Grrr. Semantics.
Not long after promising to "keep them safe" in her fridge, my daughter called for me, crying hysterically. "Mom! My egg hatched! My egg hatched!" Yikes. Didn't see THAT coming. Isn't there some kind of process to keep those things from becoming chicks?
Further investigation showed that one of the eggs CRACKED; it didn't HATCH, thank goodness.
My daughter was still crying so I showed her how to peel the egg and eat it. Apparently she was unfamiliar with "hard boiled" because when I showed her the inside, she was astounded. I let her eat some while watching her tears fade to joy. It was vaguely like watching the moment Sam-I-Am in Dr. Seuss decide that he DID like green eggs and ham.
I asked her how she liked hard boiled eggs. "They're good. But they're not hard, Mom. They're soft."
Broken
When Dan and I first transferred to Chicago five years ago (has it been THAT long?) we had been married a little over a year. Our Naperville apartment had virtually all new furniture, dishes and linens. Everything was new and fresh.
Now we are reaching that "everything is breaking" part of life- the "maintenance" period.
A few weeks ago, I tried to mow a small section of our lawn but the lawnmower had a missing piece which made it not work.
Last week my friend Ann came over to use my sewing machine. It's not a glamorous machine, but it's a Bernina and it's supposedly built like a work horse. Well, it wouldn't work either.
But the freakiest, and strangely enough least expensive, of maintenance issues has been our basement flood lights. We have 19 can lights in our basement which we installed at the same time, roughly two years ago. The past two days one light has burnt out each day. The reason it's freaky to me is that the light burns out suddenly, almost flash-like. Sometimes I jolt when I hear the *poof* sound of the light's weary filament. I tend to scare easily, but it doesn't help to know that 17 other lights are bound to go any day. They're like 17 mini ticking time bombs. What's more, now that we've sold our house, I'm not particularly motivated to replace them with flood lights. Nope-ordinary bulbs will have to do. Can't let the new buyers think their house is perfect. *ahem* Even though it is.
Now we are reaching that "everything is breaking" part of life- the "maintenance" period.
A few weeks ago, I tried to mow a small section of our lawn but the lawnmower had a missing piece which made it not work.
Last week my friend Ann came over to use my sewing machine. It's not a glamorous machine, but it's a Bernina and it's supposedly built like a work horse. Well, it wouldn't work either.
But the freakiest, and strangely enough least expensive, of maintenance issues has been our basement flood lights. We have 19 can lights in our basement which we installed at the same time, roughly two years ago. The past two days one light has burnt out each day. The reason it's freaky to me is that the light burns out suddenly, almost flash-like. Sometimes I jolt when I hear the *poof* sound of the light's weary filament. I tend to scare easily, but it doesn't help to know that 17 other lights are bound to go any day. They're like 17 mini ticking time bombs. What's more, now that we've sold our house, I'm not particularly motivated to replace them with flood lights. Nope-ordinary bulbs will have to do. Can't let the new buyers think their house is perfect. *ahem* Even though it is.
Baby
Last night Morgan wanted to see video of herself as a baby. She has an infatuation with acting like a baby lately. In fact, as she was watching the video she made mention of wanting to be a baby again. I'm unsure why.
Watching the video of her as a newborn causes floods of memories of how I felt as a woman (fat, worried, tired, happy). It was neat watching video of her because, quite honestly, it's a blur to me. I was too tired to remember. As a new mother, my neck tightened whenever Morgan cried. I didn't know how to make her happy. But watching this memory appear on the screen, I don't feel the tightness anymore.
I had another surprise as I watched this video. Though I'd like another child one day, I didn't ache for one while I watched these baby memories flicker on the screen. I felt a peace. And joy too--I laughed at how round faced my daughter became as she reached the 6 month mark. She was almost completely spherical. I had a sharp chin even as a newborn, so these were definitely Dykstra traits. What a cutie.
Speaking of babies, I have yet to meet my 5 month old nephew, Chet. His family lives in Charlotte. This weekend Dan and I are flying there to see my sister and her family. Her first son will be 3 in June. His name is Britt. The last time I saw him was last May. I understand that he has changed a lot. I talked to him on the phone a while ago. He doesn't talk to me much, but if you get him to talk construction equipment, he'll excitedly talk about backhoes and cranes and trucks. He's so boy.
His brother Chet is a very happy baby, I'm told. I'll try not to smother him with kisses.
Watching the video of her as a newborn causes floods of memories of how I felt as a woman (fat, worried, tired, happy). It was neat watching video of her because, quite honestly, it's a blur to me. I was too tired to remember. As a new mother, my neck tightened whenever Morgan cried. I didn't know how to make her happy. But watching this memory appear on the screen, I don't feel the tightness anymore.
I had another surprise as I watched this video. Though I'd like another child one day, I didn't ache for one while I watched these baby memories flicker on the screen. I felt a peace. And joy too--I laughed at how round faced my daughter became as she reached the 6 month mark. She was almost completely spherical. I had a sharp chin even as a newborn, so these were definitely Dykstra traits. What a cutie.
Speaking of babies, I have yet to meet my 5 month old nephew, Chet. His family lives in Charlotte. This weekend Dan and I are flying there to see my sister and her family. Her first son will be 3 in June. His name is Britt. The last time I saw him was last May. I understand that he has changed a lot. I talked to him on the phone a while ago. He doesn't talk to me much, but if you get him to talk construction equipment, he'll excitedly talk about backhoes and cranes and trucks. He's so boy.
His brother Chet is a very happy baby, I'm told. I'll try not to smother him with kisses.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Wind Sock
I saw the strangest marketing technique the other day. Outside a Verizon retail store was a large wind sock blowing in the breeze with the Verizon logo on it. It was a black and on the top of it was the shape of an upper torso of a body. It had two arms, a head and stringy hair blowing wildly in the wind, all black. Think voodoo doll. When the wind caught the arms and hair sharply, it would dip up and down in the wind like a boogey monster.
I'm unsure what the message was behind this wind sock, so I came up with possibilities:
- We're airheads!
- Death to all who enter
- The Verizon "V" stands for "Voodoo"
*sigh* At least it made me smile.
I'm unsure what the message was behind this wind sock, so I came up with possibilities:
- We're airheads!
- Death to all who enter
- The Verizon "V" stands for "Voodoo"
*sigh* At least it made me smile.
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