Making Decisions: A New Approach

Yes, I did just actually do this...

I was going to make smoked salmon quiche, however I made it on Monday night and have been eating it all week. While it was good - I'm sick of it. 

It did help me make a decision but now I have to fill out another one. Wish me luck!

Snaz Fisheries aka My Battle with a Dangerous Predatory Animal

Saw these guys at the Kansas City Zoo a few years ago. Glad I saw them there and not out in the wild as described below.

Hello Everyone! We've had a lot going on the past couple of months (I mean A LOT)...had a baby, bought a house, that kind of stuff. I'm not going to bore you with those details. Instead, today I was reminded of this post by reading a Popular Science article today about an African fish that can catch and eat flying birds. I had to post this blog again because as soon as I saw this article it was all I could think about. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!


I originally posted this back in April of 2010, but thought I'd post it again, since it's one of my favorite Hulabuns nightmare stories and I'm pretty sure most of you haven't read it.

This one goes back a couple of years. One night Binderclips and I were in bed sleeping. I was sleeping with my head on his shoulder (this was before we realized what happens to me when I get hot while sleeping, more on that later). So, he was on his back and I was all snuggled up on my side laying towards him with my head on his shoulder, near his ear.

Anyways, I was having a dream that basically consisted of me watching a documentary on predatory animals. It started with the black bear and how it "cautiously sneaks up on elk and moose" (said in a documentary type voice - think Alec Baldwin-ish (but not the yelling at his daughter Alec, more like 30 Rock Alec)). It went on to describe how "the black bear only hunts salmon at night as it's dark fur is easily seen during the day". I found this to be gripping and could not stop watching such a fascinating documentary.

Next came the Snaz fish, in which "sneaks up on it's prey, then, without warning, eats the prey whole in one gulp!" 'HOLY SHIT!' I thought, 'it looks like such a harmless fish'. I was obviously not expecting it to eat the nice little fishy it was following (think Finding Nemo with Dory following around Marlin type deal) whole - in an instant. 'And I thought they were friends!' I thought, devastated.

Then, all of a sudden, I was dropped into the water to compete with the Snaz fish. "Swim quick and keep chomping" said the documentary type voice "you must catch the prey before the Snaz fish does." So, what did I do? I FREAKING STARTING SWIMMING AND CHOMPING SCARED FOR MY LIFE!! I was chomping and swimming and swimming and chomping and just could not catch the darn prey AND THE SNAZ FISH WAS QUICKLY APPROACHING!! I just tried to swim faster and chomp harder!!

Next thing I know I'm looking at Binderclips who's looking at me with a terrified look on his face.


I'm awake. 'Crap, guess I lost that competition' I think. "What are you doing??!!" he says (in a terrified voice). I respond with "Oh, I was just having some dream about a documentary in which I was in a competition with the Snaz fish. I had to eat the prey before it did, you know that kind of stuff" (thinking he must have just woken up from a terrifying nightmare himself). I follow it up with "Are you ok? Must have been some nightmare you were having, you look terrified". Still looking terrified he says "NO, I'M NOT OK! I thought you were going to bite me!!"


"Bite you! Why would I do that?" I say. "Because you were squirming all around and chomping at my ear!" he says. To which I respond to with a burst of laughter. I flash back to my dream and do recall doing both of those things, however did not think I was really doing them or was I?

I finally get him to believe that I was not actually trying to bite him (it was harder than you might think as we had an incident before this in which he was teasing me with a piece of chocolate and I MAY have bit him, accidentally, of course).

To this day he does not let me live down the Snaz fish incident. In fact, on occasion I find that he's named things 'Snaz Fisheries' (he made something on my computer this name, I forget what it was exactly). We still have discussions on how I came up with "Snaz fish" as the type of fish, which I honestly have no clue why that was it's name. :)

Have a great day folks! Later gators!

Originally posted 4/7/2010

Baby A - Makes Her Entrance

Baby A's inquisitive look

Wondering what I've been up to? 

Baby A decided to make her entrance on September 15! Only 9 days early! I thought for sure she was coming the week prior to that...I was having consistent Braxton Hicks (every 2-5 minutes for a couple days there) and that's what happened the day before Baby G decided to make her entrance (she was 11 days early).

Our little smiler, she's' always smiling in her sleep!

Any who, in case you were wondering (and really even if you're not, cause I'm gonna tell you anyways) how the whole labor and delivery thing went - I figured I'd share the story.

First thing's first though - isn't she cute??!! Seriously. She's probably the cutest thing you've ever seen, I'm sure of it. ;)

So back to the labor and delivery:

At around 4:30AM on 9/15 I woke up because I was uncomfortable. Thinking that I just needed to adjust myself and how I was sleeping because I looked like this and was HUGE:

I tried to adjust and realized my discomfort came about every 3-5 minutes. The real contractions had begun. Binderclips had went into Baby G's room around 2AM and had fallen asleep on her floor waiting for her to fall back asleep. To make matters worse, Baby G, who had never done anything like this before, somehow found her way to directly in front of her bedroom door to sleep. This made it near impossible for me to open the door and tell Binderclips what was going on without waking her up.

By 6:30AM my contractions had gotten more serious. I decided it was time to wake the hubs up. I opened up the door and peered into Baby G's room and whispered "this is it" over and over again until he woke up. He finally got up, called his parents to come and get Baby G and they showed up in between 7:30-8:00. By this time, my contractions were definitely getting stronger faster. I kind of struggled to get Baby G's diaper changed and get her dressed to head out the door with her Grandparents.

We arrived at the hospital at 9:00AM...so that makes the count for how many hours I was in labor at this point 4.5 hours. They checked me and I was only dilated to 4cm. By 9:30 they admitted us.

I also should mention that because my contractions were so powerful at this point I decided that standing up and leaning over onto the bed made them slightly (ever so slightly) less painful. From 9:30-10:00 I stood there taking my contractions in stride. Almost right on the dot, my water broke at 10:00.

I asked for an epidural immediately. They told me the anesthesiologist was giving another patient one at the time and that they needed my lab work before he could give me one.

It was amazing that I even survived the half hour between 10:00 to 10:30. I literally thought I might die. I continued to stand there, leaning over when contractions hit and got increasingly more painful. I kept asking where the anesthesiologist was and eventually all I could say was "please help" as my brain and mouth combined seemed to not function anymore than that. In my head I was saying the worst profanities you can imagine. I'd like to say that this is a testament to what it would take me to drop an f-bomb in public. I came close but not even childbirth itself was able to bring it out of me.

Do you know that when your water breaks things (and we'll just leave it at that) continue to find their way out? Well they do. Every time it happened I would say to the nurse "{insert object of your choice here} is coming out!!" and she would say "that's normal". It was around this time that the nurse said to me "Now, if you feel any pressure, you need to let me know as soon as possible."

Well, people, I felt some pressure right at 10:30. I told the nurse and she told me I needed to lay down. Did I mention that the anesthesiologist still hadn't came?? I laid down so she could check me, to which she said "Ok, honey you're ready to push."

"WTF!!?? Push? PUSH?? No. NO. I'm not ready to push! My body and this little girl were ready, I'M NOT READY! I didn't mentally prepare for having this baby with NO pain relief. OMG OMG OMG!! I'M NOT GOING TO MAKE IT! " I thought frantically.

It was at this point that I also started to think about how mad I was at Binderclips for doing this to me. As he walked around the room I thought "Must be nice to be able to walk around IN NO PAIN WHAT-SO-EVER....JERK!"...amongst other things.

At that point the doctor had made his way into the room and I began to push. By 10:37 we had welcomed a perfect little girl into this world!

The only difference between her and Baby G was a half of an ounce. I'd like to think my body hits it's max capacity when the baby gets to 7 lbs 13.5 oz (Baby G was 7 lbs 13 oz) and 21 inches (both were this long). (There must be no more room left at that point or something, who knows.) Baby A came out looking around at the world taking it all in almost immediately.

So, there you have it. I had Baby A au naturale. I guess the good thing is now I can say I did it once!  Enjoy the pictures!

The girls together, one of my favorite pictures

Love is a Battlefield (well pregnancy is, at least with Baby G #2)

Awful, absolutely awful! That's how good I am at updating this blog....

I am going to try something a little different for today, todays' post is dedicated to Binderclips. So, here I go, wish me luck.

Dear Binderclips,

Sometimes life is a struggle, but it's easier knowing you will always be by my side.

I don't tell you I love you enough, but that's because I feel like you already know - but maybe you don't. I could say I love you more than all the stars in the sky (a saying my Mother said to me often), although I don't think that fully expresses how much you mean to me either.

I could say I love you more than anything but then that makes me think of how nothing is also something and we have no idea how big it really is. So, I guess I could say I love you more than nothing too, but that doesn't sound as nice. However, knowing you, you are now contemplating if "nothing" is, in fact, "something" and if so, what is it? Oh how I enjoy doing that to you.

Anyways, FOCUS (I'm talking to you Binderclips)!

The point is, how do you tell someone how much they mean to you, what is the best way to articulate it? I don't know but I'm going to try...

I miss you always

I've never felt safer than I do when I'm with you

I've never trusted someone more than I trust you

Even though you may not believe it, you give me strength when I'm going through hard times

I will continue to grow as a person for us and our children

I can't wait to grow old with you

Now to the good stuff....

At this point, I'm 34 weeks pregnant and look like and feel like I am going to have twins. This is clearly your fault as you are tall. Many times you find me looking at you with a grumpy look - what am I thinking?

YOU did this to me! 

This is all your fault! 

Baby G #2 (that's right folks, we're having another girl people - good luck Binderclips!) is kicking the crap out of my insides. Last night she kicked me so hard in the ribs it took my breath away (I considered doing the same to you to show you what I was going through but decided against it). My hips feel like someone took my legs and tried to rip them off of me (imagine a giant ripping or trying to rip the legs off of a person, but being unsuccessful and giving up and deciding to leave them there). I can't sleep at night due to the hip pain and all of her movements.

In short, I love you Binderclips but I really wish you had to deal with these things to see how it felt. You. have. no. idea. The only reason I would ever do this again is because I love you and our children so much that it doesn't matter. However, make no mistake, I WILL complain about it as much as I want to. Anyways, I love you.

NOTE: In my next life I hope I have the sense to be with someone who is not so tall ;)

Love,
Hulabuns

In All Honesty?

In deep discussion about aeronautics at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in DC back in December. Clearly I knew more than this guy as he didn't have much to say. ;)

I have a serious question for everyone. And I've been asking myself this one a lot to try to determine the right answer.

Have you ever caught someone in a lie? If so, how did you handle it?

Now, let me start off by saying that I have not always been entirely honest about things and I am aware of this. I have told lies for a couple of reasons in the past, however I have entirely gotten away from doing this. As I've gotten older and more lets call it "mature" I see no point in it (clearly most of my posts show how truly "mature" I am - wink, wink).

I guess the reason I had done it in the past was to; not hurt someone's feelings, I was embarrassed about something, or I just wasn't as secure with my decision. Nowadays I don't think any of these are good reasons to lie (is there ever a good reason?). I've learned that it's more hurtful to not tell the truth then to lie and that I have to be very secure/sure of why I made the decision I did. Therefore, I'm less likely to be embarrassed by my decisions.

If I've ever lied to you and hurt you let me just say - I'm genuinely sorry. I'd also like to say that if you feel like confronting me on it - please do. I only ask that you email/call me directly, so we can discuss it with each other that way. Not only is it good for you to get it off of your chest, it's also good to be able to be confronted/confront someone. (Hey, not all conversations are flowers and rainbows...learning that and being able to handle it is also important.) Believe me, I have had plenty of awful confrontations in my life (most of them with addicts of some sort) - I've learned to do my best during these confrontations; staying true to myself while trying to remain compassionate to the other person's perspective.

It was a tad cold that day, so baby G was bundled up. Being that she was born in WI, she tends to like cold weather - go figure.

Anyways, a while back I caught a friend in a lie. I didn't call her out on it at the time and have struggled with confronting her on it. On one hand, I've wanted to confront her because it changed the way I viewed our friendship. On the other hand, I think she lied to not hurt my feelings, which, of course I can understand.

I keep asking myself what I would want if we're in her shoes and I'd like to be confronted, but I do know not everyone has the same perspective as me.

So what do you guys think? Has this ever happened to you?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! Later gators!

Don't Judge Me

Today is not one of my better days, let me just start with that.

Like any other morning I got up and got dressed (sounds normal so far right?). Things were as usual until I was in the middle of a call for work.

As I sat on the call I noticed something moving near my foot out of the corner if my eye. I looked down to see a gigantic (and I mean HUGE) centipede crawling around. Immediately I screamed as if I was being kidnapped or something. At that point I remembered I was on a call for work. My first thought was 'thank goodness I was on mute!' My second thought was 'great! Now I have to present my teams' information' (which is on my computer in the area where I encountered the centipede, the area in which I can't bare to be in).

At that moment they call me to present our information...I grab the laptop and like a madwoman rip the cord out of the wall. I'm out of breath because I'm so stressed from the encounter with the bug. Standing, with my laptop in my hands, I give our status knowing that I sound as if I just ran a marathon.

I decide to go sit down at the kitchen table to calm myself down, then see this post it note that I wrote out earlier today:

In case you can't read my chicken scratch it says "I put my bra on inside out today and didn't notice for a couple if hours."

I'm not sure what's worse; the fact that I wrote myself a note like this (I wrote it to remind myself that I did it because I wanted to remember to tell Binderclips, and lets face it - I'm VERY forgetful lately) or the fact that I actually did it?

OR that I forgot to fix it and, therefore, am still wearing my bra inside out? (Oh come on! It's a sports bra type thing in my defense.)

Any who, I thought you all needed to know about all of this (as embarrassing as it is). Don't judge - you know you're not perfect either and surely you've put something on inside out at some point?

Alrighty, that's it from me. Later gators!

Repost: Casualties of the Underworld

Ok, ok, so there may be some confusion over on facebook about whether or not I've had bugs in my undies at some point....to clear up the confusion here is the post regarding how I may have lost some undies at the doctor's office. Enjoy!!

Here are some pictures from Baby G's 13 month photos. :)

Originally posted 9/1/2010

I had to go to the doctor's a couple of weeks ago. So, I got there early, checked in with the receptionist, then decided to meander around the waiting room (which, was empty at the time) looking at the literature they had posted.

Just as I picked up something to read the nurse called me back. I followed her back to the "surprise zone" to undergo some surprise testing. I've decided to call it the "surprise zone" because I had no idea that; 1) The test being done would be much more invasive than I had originally expected and 2) The lady who performed the surprise test also surprised me by trying to sell me jewelry at the end of it.

Any who, after making no jewelry purchases I was essentially on my way out and done with my appointment. This is where things really took a turn for the worse....

As I started to head out and back into the waiting room, I noticed the receptionist carrying some paper towel and heading out there as well. As she opened the door we both walked out. It was at this point that I noticed that everyone in the waiting room was in a fit of laughter (the waiting room was full also). Then, I heard one of the woman say "Someone was in a hurry to get a PAP smear!" followed by even more laughter.

As if in slow motion I looked down to see what everyone was looking (and laughing) at....

It was a pair of my underwear!!! Specifically, Michigan State University underwear that Binderclips had bought me some time ago. In my head I began to freak out thinking "What do I do? What DO I DO??!! Binderclips is going to KILL me!! And they are one of my favorite pairs of undies!!" By the way, when I told this story to my friend it was at this point that she responded with "Abandon the undies!!! Abandon. The. Undies!!!"

As I looked at my undies on the floor of the waiting room I had a flashback to the day prior to the appointment and that's when I realized what had happened. The day before the appointment Binderclips and I had went swimming. I had been wearing the jeans I wore to the doctor's appointment and had taken them off with my undies in them and forgot about them. When I got dressed for the appointment I had put my jeans back on and must have pushed my undies down into one of the pant legs (please tell me I'm not the only one who has done this before?).

Anyways, after some major contemplation, what do you think I decided to do? If you guessed pick them up and say something like "Ooooo, sorry about that. Let me just get those out of your way." as I picked them up - you're wrong. Sadly, I actually left them behind.

However, as I walked out of the waiting room (again, saying goodbye to my beloved MI State undies) I tried to hold my laughter in. As soon as I got into the elevator I started laughing hysterically, thank goodness I was alone.

When I got out to my car I decided to give Binderclips a call. I asked him "So, do you want the good news or the bad news first?" I shared the good news first (everything looked A-Ok according to the doctor), then broke the bad news to him. I simply said "I lost my undies, the MI state ones." After describing how it happened to him, he responded with "You know, it wouldn't be so bad if you hadn't done this before!" Then he reminded me of the time that I had the same thing happen early on in our relationship, except that time it happened in a grocery store. Someone saw me drop something (I'm not sure if they realized they had dropped out of my pant leg or just thought I had dropped them) and went to pick them up to hand to me. When they realized what they were (think embarrassing undies, unlike my MI State undies - which, were boy shorts) - they said "Ooo, ummm, never mind" then walked away embarrassed.

Now when I leave the house Binderclips tells me to "come back with the same number of undies I left with". Only me folks, only me....

So, have you done something like this before?