♫ Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders
These twists and turns of fate
Time falls away,
But these small hours
These small hours
Still remain ♫

The other day while I was in a PMS snit, Hubby made the mistake of asking me if the house alarm was on. The alarm panel isn’t rocket science and most people could have learned how to use it on, oh, day two. We’re now on year four and he’s still a little confused by it. Here’s a giant clue: there is one LED on the front that says “ready” next to it and one that says “armed” next to it. Even if you are not in front of the panel, the ready light is green, and the armed light is red. So most of us can glance at it from 10 feet away and know if it’s on or off. Yet Hubby still finds the system confusing (god only knows why).

So in my PMS-y state, Hubby asked if it was on or off while standing right in front of it, and I yelled at him to look at the fucking panel and figure it out. Then, while he was in the garage, I got up, made a big sign that said, “FOR THE STUPID: Green = OFF Red = ON” and taped it above the alarm panel.

Um, not quite so sweet and loving. Oops. That’s not my usual loving state. But now I think the sign is hysterical and Hubby even giggled about it (afterward).

So today in addition to sending him the fortune cookie picture, I emailed him Daughtry lyrics:

All that I’m after is a life full of laughter
As long as I’m laughin’ with you
I’m thinkin’ that all that still matters is love ever after
After the life we’ve been through
‘Cause I know there’s no life after you

And then posted them on facebook, too, dedicated to him. I figure it’s the least I can do to make up for that mean sign I made earlier in the week. See, I don’t need some silly 1001 book to find ways to be romantic and make up for being a bitchy wife during PMS.

Similar to the gal the other day who posted on the facebook fan page, today someone claiming to be childfree and non-religious posted in my rants journal that they were offended I insinuated all childfree people are pro-choice (I had written “it’s a great big DUH that Childfree people are also pro-choice“). In other words, this gal today was offended I suggested one can’t be pro-life (anti-choice) and childfree. Now, I’m not the MORAL AUTHORITY on what is and what isn’t childfree, but I don’t think you can be childfree and anti-choice. I mean, you might as well say meat-eating vegetarian.

It’s great if you are a lesbian and so you don’t have to worry about getting pregnant. Or if you’re a gay man and don’t have to worry about impregnating someone else. Or you’re asexual (either my choice or lack of partner) so you’re sure you won’t have to face an unwanted pregnancy. Or maybe you are fixed and you’re certain you can’t get pregnant or impregnate. And if you’re a woman, you’re sure you’ll never get raped and pregnant that way. Great. So you have nothing to worry about jeopardizing your childfree status. But how can you then sentence your childfree peers to parenthood if they get pregnant? How arrogant and mean is that? That sounds more like the attitude of a bitter infertile than someone who celebrates childfree CHOICE.

Of course, this might be one of the, “Well, I ALWAYS use birth control, but I’m totally going to have a kid if an accident happens” types, like the gal on the facebook fan page recently. Bully for you, but I’m not sure I would call you childfree then, as you’re totally open to having a child, if the circumstances were right! That’s not the same thing. And hey, great if you hope to have a kid someday through an “accident” but you have no right to tell the other childfree people that they have to do the same!

Still, this could be one of those “Just give it up for adoption” types, which piss me off. There aren’t enough people to adopt all the kids out there already! And adoption is not simple. A woman still has to give up almost a whole year of her life to this one mistake, which isn’t fair. It’s not physically easy or comfortable and it’s not without dangers. And if you think it’s hard socially to be a childfree person, try being a pregnant woman who doesn’t plan to keep the child — people are vicious! I would never subject a woman to all of that. It’s horrible!

And something that’s always pissed me off about adoption is that so many adopted kids think they need to track down the birth parents and demand answers, explainations, etc. For one thing, that’s not fair to the parents who raised them. “I’m sorry mom and dad, but I think genetics are more important and I need to know about that person!” But maybe the birth parents don’t want their lives interrupted. Holy hell, I’d be mad if after two decades someone showed up on my doorstep demanding answers from me. I’d be livid! Don’t come interrupt my life because you think I owe you something!

If one doesn’t celebrate choice, and doesn’t want their fellow childfree to have a choice or to have the freedom part of childfreedom, then how can one call themselves childfree? I just can’t wrap my mind around it.

The book on romance must be rubbing off on me because I came up with a funny-romantic original thing to do for Hubby today.

We stopped by to get our free Chinese food at Panda Express today and the fortune cookies were totally lame. Later, while he was off at his final exam for one of his classes, I checked on facebook what my daily horoscope was because they also have your daily fortune cookie there. I wanted to see if I got a better fortune. This one said:

You will have a very pleasant experience

So I took a screen capture of it, went to photoshop and added the words “To Hubby” above it and under it “in bed. Love, Phoena” and then saved it as a jpg and emailed it to him. I can’t wait until he gets home and checks his email and see what he says about it!

I know I was always complaining about the census paperwork because it seems stupid since the government already has all this information but they’d rather we do all the work for them. Still I’ll fill out the paperwork when it comes (supposedly soon). After all, I do love the census records on ancestry.com for doing genealogical research!

Someone online was throwing a huge tantrum about the “horribly” intrusive questions on the census form that she was going to refuse to answer and someone asked what horribly intrusive questions were on her form. “THEY WANT TO KNOW HOW MANY TOILETS IN MY HOME!!” Have we reached new levels of paranoia that the government knowing how many toilets we have is a problem? Man, this made my own ranting about the census seem much less lame. One could argue that the government already knows this information — hell, you can’t put in a bathroom or build a house without a government permit! — but I’m not afraid to admit how many toilets I have in my house on the census form. It’s a silly question, but I have no fear of answering it.

I get that this is about sewage treatment, and figuring out if the city needs more facilities for such, but it does seem like a dumb question. The city already knows the number of toilets in town, and if I have 12 toilets or 2, no matter how many people live in the house, the number of flushes a day will be the same! But we’ll play along. It’s not that big of a deal.

Uninteresting items of note:

I haven’t gotten any new music in like, forever. I’m still in love with the Timbaland CD that I bought before xmas and I listen to it all the time, so much so that Hubby is like, “OMG, not that song again!” (Okay, he didn’t say it, but I’ll bet he thought it!!)

I’m a couple of days behind on my Backlash reading because, well, most of it is dull! I wish I found it more interesting I found myself skimming the readings over the weekend, and I haven’t read yesterday’s or today (I challenged myself to read 15 pages a day just so I wouldn’t quit altogether). Perhaps tonight I’ll try and force myself to skim 30 pages. Or maybe I’ll just give up and not read this one. Actually, that’s not such a bad idea — I should look for the more updated version anyway.

I read the first three chapters of the first Naomi Novik novel about dragons during the Napoleonic wars. It’s a fairly easy read even if it is kind of ridiculous (dragons are born speaking English and they will either attach themselves to one human immediately upon hatching or they will be forever feral – I’m so sure! *laugh*) but if you take the leap of faith and forgive the ridiculousness, it’s kinda cute. I’ll keep reading.

I read 100 of the 1001 romantic ideas book last night and figure I can probably read 100 a night for 10 nights. Hubby and I are already fairly romantic (as romantic as either of us can stand) and we’re quite happy together, so I don’t really need the tips, but they are cute. The book was laying around so I figured I should read it. It absolutely highlights how neat our marriage is. If you need a book to tell you that your marriage would be more romantic if you didn’t bitch at your spouse all day long, well, maybe you shouldn’t be married! I have other things I could say about what I’ve read so far, but I’ll save it for the “official” review of the book.

Speaking of romance, I found out when my husband’s former unit is having their annual military ball and I told him we’re going! I LOVE dressing up and going to balls! We have so much fun. Thank the gods I married a guy who loves to wear a tux and/or military dress uniform. (My Prince Charming! I get so disgusted at guys who think the world would come to an end if they ever had to dress up in any way.) Anyway it’s not until summer but my calendar is already marked! We can also go to my unit’s balls, but the cavalry balls are just so much more fun. ‘Least they used to be; I haven’t been to one in a couple of years. I hope they are still fun!

Hubby got our taxes done today and we’re getting a decent sum back. YAY for being semi-retired! Man, just think if we had kids, we’d be rich! *snort* I’m using some of that money towards the new energy-saver dishwasher I’m getting next month. Hopefully we can qualify for the the cash for clunkers appliance program and get money back for that!!

I’m taking tomorrow off and ha, they can’t fire me for it! There is a freebie at Panda Express, and I have to go sign our tax papers and hubby needs to get his volunteering paperwork done so he can start volunteering and I said I’d go with him to walk him through the process. So that’s our morning plans. Then in the afternoon he has classes and I’m coming home and spending the rest of the day writing, most likely. Speaking of, I redid my book covers, and now I have an image on the backs AND the spine of all three. FANCY! *snort*

While on the phone with Mother today, I made the mistake about talking about making proof copies of my first two books in this series — I totally didn’t mean to tell her anything about that. Now she insists she needs to read my books. Well, that’s not likely to happen, as I just don’t feel comfortable letting her read them. It isn’t even fear she’d hate them or worried that they are too “risque” for her (there isn’t that all that much sex or violence in them), but I feel, I don’t know. Maybe that giving it to her to read is letting it out of my control, because who the hell knows who all she’ll let read it. Right now I feel like I can control it somewhat and it’s “MINE” and not for every Tom, Dick, and asshole relative to read.

Longass Preggo coworker update/rant: Some of this is rehash but I feel like rehashing it. The preggo at work is driving me nuts!!!

First of all, she’s gone at least twice a week for (at least) half days for “doctor’s appointments” and she’s only in her 4th or 5th month — who the fuck needs to see the doctor twice a week for 38 weeks?! That’s ridiculous! She has had THREE ultrasounds in the last month (who the fuck needs an ultrasound every week?!) and brings them to work thinking we all want to see them. Here’s a tip: even people who are interested in that shit (not me) are bored by the second set of photos! I can’t imagine why anyone would be interested in even the first set, but even if someone is, it gets old really fast!

Then because preggo is out so often, we’re falling behind at work, which doesn’t hurt ME but it is screwing over the customers. Of course, the coworker who is bestest friends with her was making excuses for her saying, “Well, she can’t heeeeeelp iiiiit! She has appointments!!!” Don’t give me that! The number of appointments she has is BULLSHIT which is the very problem I have with preggos in the workplace! But okay, let’s say for a minute that she really can’t help it – that doctors FORCE preggos to come in for two appointments a week. Then women like her need to be moved to a different job with almost no responsibility or time-sensitive deadlines, even if they don’t like it. Obviously they can’t handle anything more than that. I’d say the same even if it was a worker who had some serious illness, though, just like Idid when one of Hubby’s former coworkers was out all the time due to her illness. It fucked over a lot of people because of her being out of the office so much. The Powers That Be should have moved her to a less important job for everyone’s sake, including her own. The last thing she needed when she was ill was to come to work and be stressed out because she was so far behind.

Meanwhile, unlike someone who didn’t CHOOSE their medical issues. Preggo did this on purpose and obviously didn’t have any consideration for the company or the customers when she chose it. So really, I’m not sure why the company owes HER any consideration. Hell, I have more consideration for the company, customers and coworkers and I’m a damned volunteer there! I show up more faithfully than she does. But I’m not a selfish, inconsiderate bimbo either!

Women who work only for the maternity benefits who really don’t take the job seriously should not take jobs where work actually has to be done. Let them work at jobs where they answer phones or get coffee or something bimbo-y like that — this way when they decide to show up only 3.5 days a week, no one cares. Oh sure, it’s annoying to customers when no one answers their phone, but it’s far less annoying than their paperwork not getting processed because some bimbo thinks she should get paid to only show up once in a while to check her messages but she didn’t take the job to work. And don’t give me this crap that the company should have to just hire more people to do the job so that no work gets slowed down. Why should the company have to spend more and hire more (redundant) people just to accommodate breeder bimbos who want a trophy job because they don’t really plan to do — just so they can a) pretend they are doing something with their lives and b) get maternity benefits? Ridiculous!

This gal was only at the job about eight months before she got knocked up — probably the exact amount the law requires one to be at a job before full milking-the-system benefits kicked in. It’s not like she’s been a faithful employee for years and years, and I doubt she’ll be a faithful employee for years and years to come — I bet she’ll quit as soon as she’s milked up the last of the benefits she can get. I really have no respect for her kind.

Yes, you can blame it on the company for not moving her to a different position, but for all I know, they tried and she whined “DISCRIMINATION” or whatever, or maybe they are afraid of that kind of bullshit discrimination suit so they are afraid to do anything. Preggos today are far too quick to claim victim while victimizing everyone else. *eyeroll*

I was TRYING to be patient with preggo at work and not assume she’s just a breeder bimbo, but the constant doctors appointments, the constant passing of ultrasound photos and the stupid “PMS” naming bullshit has made me decide she is nothing more than a dumbass bimbo. This is her third kid (second baby-daddy) so she’s pulled this crap at other jobs, too. She constantly calls the fetus by the cutesy name she picked out. Personally, I find it weird to name the thing months before it’s born… even if I was pregnant and decided I REALLY loved a particular name, say, Mariah for my baby, I would still wait until it was born in case I changed my mind or I looked at the kid and thought, “Oh no, this is not a Mariah. This is totally a Karoline!!” You know? It just rubs me the wrong way to name your kid way ahead of time and to refer to it as such constantly. There is something not-quite-right about it. But that’s just me. What do I know?

Love Poetry Out Loud by Robert Alden Rubin was book #14 of the year. I planned to read a little bit every night this month, but I got tired of it and finished it up tonight so I could move on to something more interesting.

I’m not a poet or a poetry lover. I read this book because it was one of the items in a romantic gift basket my husband got me last year, and I figured I should read it. Also, I thought it might help me appreciate poetry more. But not so much. There were notes on margins to explain what the poems were about, but even then, I found myself generally bored and uninterested. A lot of the poems were from earlier centuries, leaving them full of odd phrases and words which rather turned me off. And of course, they’d be written in code so as not to offend people. While I understand that, it’s still annoying. I hate trying to interpret someone’s code! Say what you want to say or don’t say it!!

I didn’t love this book, but someone who loves poetry might!

***

Next up, I’m reading another book found in that romantic gift basket: 1001 Ways To Be Romantic by Gregory Godek. I’m already enjoying it better.

I read the third Michelle Moran book, The Heretic Queen, over the weekend. This was book #13 for the year. This was the story of Nefertari, wife of Ramses II of ancient Egypt. The author takes some liberties so it’s not entirely true to history, but since most of us who read it won’t be uptight experts on the time period, it doesn’t matter.

I liked this one best of all the Michelle Moran books. The plotline was a bit more interesting and the suspense was a bit more fun (would Ramses ever pick a Chief Wife?!). I loved this main character better than the last two. All three of Michelle Moran’s female characters were almost too perfect, but this one somehow seemed more real somehow and her allies where better, too.

This wasn’t exactly a sequel to Nefertiti, but it did somewhat refer back to it, so I was glad i read this one after Nefertiti instead of before it. Still, you could read this one without ever reading the other. (Neither book connected with Cleopatra’s Daughter, which happened in a time period 1000 years after these two books.)

This isn’t in my list of favorite books, but it was certainly worth reading.

***

Next up I’m moving on to reading His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik, the first in a 5 part series.

I wore my jacket to work today in case it would rain, but it only sprinkled a bit (at least when I was out and about) so when I got home, I hung the jacket up. When we headed out again to do some shopping, I left the jacket because it wasn’t raining. Of course, six blocks from home it start pouring like someone turned a faucet on!

Then getting in to and out of Target we got drenched! Hubby was like, “Wait! I’ll get the umbrella!” and I said, “The wind is blowing too hard for the umbrella to make any difference!” So he insisted on dropping me off at the door but I still had to walk 6 feet from the car into the store and I was drenched from that. Oh well. I should BE so lucky as to shrink! :-)

Hubby parked the car and tried using the umbrella from the car to the store, and the wind bent it! So much for the umbrella!

When we came out, it was still pouring rain. He insisted on driving up to the door to pick me up after we were leaving Target and I got soaked (again) just from the door to the car. Still, we were laughing about it as we started driving home.

We were driving along the access road next to the freeway because that on-ramp is being worked on and is closed. Suddenly, there was nearly no visibility, and the construction barrels that were blocking that exit had blown all over into the road! So at the very time we couldn’t see more than like 2 feet in front of the car, we were driving through an obstacle course of construction barrels. It was SO FUNNY. Maybe you had to be there, but we found it hysterical. Hubby didn’t hit one of them! He’s such a good driver. I was laughing so hard there were tears running down my face. He was laughing too and joking about what a terrible time it was for an obstacle course but if that had been his driving test, he’d have passed with flying colors! He suggested maybe it was “pop” driving test! OMG, it was so funny.

Then I got to thinking about how totally pissed off my dad would have been if he had to drive through that. He would get so impatient and frustrated while driving! It makes me love Hubby so much more that he’s the kind of guy who finds humor in anything, even that craziness!

I can’t believe anyone (outside of Hollywood) still watches or takes seriously the Oscars or any awards shows.

In writing news, some very good ideas for my book came to me last night/early this morning. I’ve been struggling with how to build a religion for the people in my book. Kinda hard for an atheist who doesn’t believe, but a religion I get to control might be fun. I just wasn’t sure how. So far all I had was that there were “gods” who spoke to my main character and told her what needed to be done, but she couldn’t see them and she knew nothing else about them. I knew she’d have to figure out more about them once I got to the final book, as she’d have to teach the people about these gods, but I was at a loss as to what she’d say. Like, was I going to tell the people they would go to “heaven” if they were good? I hate that concept! But if not heaven, then what was their reward for being “good?”

Maybe reading about all these Egyptian gods in the Michelle Moran books inspired me. I’d never intended to personalize any of the gods in my book, but now I decided why not? It’s easier for people and for my story. So I have an idea of who the three biggest gods are, and what their “reward” is, etc. I figure there will be “lower level” gods and maybe even some “upper level” gods that are above the three main gods but are unreachable to the people. I kinda like this. It’s fun!

Also, I got an awesome idea about the storyline involving the guy she need revenge on. It’s still not quite what she’ll do to get revenge on him, but I think it’s another step closer. But it’s such an interesting plot twist I’m excited to execute it.

In reading news, I’m almost done with the third Michelle Moran book and I think I like this one the best. I hope to finish it today and then move on to the first book in the Naomi Novik series so maybe I can get these books returned to her and move on to reading my own.