Secular Confessions

[missychrissy]

Kate, I wouldn't worry about the burger. It's just today, right? So continue eating healthy throughout the rest of the day with the goal of eating healthy for the remainder of this week. When I was really into watching what I ate and exercising, I talked to many people that just ate whatever on the weekends. That's two days! And at every meal!! Sure, it slows down your weight loss process, but it doesn't totally derail it.

[daylilies]

Avo and cucumber soup. Mmmmm. Is it a cold soup or a hot one? Sounds kind of advanced - to make, I mean. Would you mind sharing the recipe (don't bother if you have to type it out.) Yum.

I'm on the desktop right now but later tonight when I'm on my laptop again I'll copy/paste it.
It was a sort of long process, you have to simmer cucumber slices and then puree them with the avo and everything else and then you stir in some yogurt. It can be warm or cold but I chilled it.

[daylilies]

Kate, I wouldn't worry about the burger. It's just today, right? So continue eating healthy throughout the rest of the day with the goal of eating healthy for the remainder of this week. When I was really into watching what I ate and exercising, I talked to many people that just ate whatever on the weekends. That's two days! And at every meal!! Sure, it slows down your weight loss process, but it doesn't totally derail it.

Yeah but, it's been sort of an every day thing for a while now.

[missychrissy]

Do you want me to swat your bottom?

sorry, I don't mean to make light of it because I do know full well how frustrating it is. I go through long periods where I seem to have no will power either. I'm not sure what to do about it.

[daylilies]

Haha...umm...no?
I can't see the smilys you posted...they're just red x's lol
Yeah, I was great for a while. No sodas, no bad carbs, I lost 20 lbs for pete's sake! of course in the time I did it I could have lost 30. But I'm gaining weight back. I think it has to do with the struggles I've had with DH, and Josh, and other things, and eating junk makes me feel comforted. I wish eating healthy made me feel comforted but I just feel hungry. LOL

[missychrissy]

The red x's are weird. They show up for me?

I wish stress made me lose my appetite. I'd be 120 by now.

I'm still feeling the after affects of my wonderful lunch. I think I really needed that...to just get away from everything and laugh and be goofy. I'm amazed I could forget it all even for that brief time, but I did. Now I'm thinking...maybe I should make friends irl and actually 'do lunch' or something.

[demigraf]

I don't know where willpower comes from. If there were a formula for it, I'm sure I'd be a Size 2 by now.

kate - that'd be awesome if you shared the recipe with me. DH & I started watching Iron Chef just this week, and we were mesmerized for an hour over the competition over who could make what with cucumbers. I still don't completely get the rules (like why was someone named "Iron Chef Simon" competing when he's already an Iron Chef, and I later saw him judging on another show?). But it felt like a Brave New World to me that my husband and I would actually be watching a cooking show together. I don't think either of us had ever watched the Food Network before, and now I'm kind of hooked. I love that Alton Brown guy (having made his recipe for homemade marshmallows in the past and never having seen him).

OK, here's a minutiae overshare. I hate it when people are rude on the job via e-mail. I don't know whether it's just the medium, or if people sort of abuse their senior positions by being too brief (and thus incomplete) and condescending. Take this exchange with one of the directors today (I blinded all the identifying info w/<these brackets>). You can ignore all the jargon that doesn't make sense, but note the difference in her tone:

From: C <beeyotchy director>/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>
To: "<me>" <me@<M.Com>.com>
Cc: "<my boss> L" <<my boss>.L@<M.Com>.com>
Date: 08/09/2011 07:12 AM
Subject: <Search Engine> feed

In nyc and I have a question. Do we send our <W> ids to <Search Engine>? If not I would live to add to my requirements. Lmk ASAP Thanks

=================================

From: <me>/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>
To: C <beeyotchy director>/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>@<M.Com>Inc
Cc: "<my boss> L" <<my boss>.L@<M.Com>.com>
Date: 08/09/2011 09:36 AM
Subject: Re: <Search Engine> feed

Yes, we are sending <W>Id (Product ID) with the <Search Engine> feed. In fact, we're sending it to two targets in the feed: <x>ID & <IG>ID (which unites all variants of a single product).

Did you have any new business requirement you want us to capture that depends on the presence of "<W> ID" in the feed, C ?

Thanks,

<me>

=================================

From: <my boss> L/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>
To: <me>/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>@<M.Com>Inc
Cc: C <beeyotchy director>/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>@<M.Com>Inc
Date: 08/09/2011 09:41 AM
Subject: Re: <Search Engine> feed

Yes, we are and we will be sending <w> Id (Product ID) in the <Search Engine> feed (even after re-design)
Thanks
<my boss>

=================================

From: C <beeyotchy director>/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>
To: <my boss> L/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>@<M.Com>Inc
Cc: <me>/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>@<M.Com>Inc,
Date: 08/09/2011 09:42 AM
Subject: Re: <Search Engine> feed

do we actively change the <W> id when NYC sends out an error report?
C <beeyotchy director>
Director of Search Marketing

=================================

From: <me>/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>
To: C <beeyotchy director>/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>@<M.Com>Inc
Cc: <my boss> L/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>@<M.Com>Inc
Date: 08/09/2011 02:13 PM
Subject: Re: <Search Engine> feed

Hi, C -

I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner, as I was in a training earlier today. To answer your question - although I'm not sure what the error report case would be that requires that we change the web ID - we don't change or edit the web ID in any of our feeds at this time.

If there's a need for us to change it in any of our feeds, please let us know the circumstances that would require the change and I'll look into adding it as a requirement.

Thank you,

<me>

=================================

From: C <beeyotchy director>/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>
To: <my boss> L/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>@<M.Com>Inc
Cc: <me>/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>@<M.Com>Inc,
Date: 08/09/2011 02:16 PM
Subject: Re: <Search Engine> feed

If we know there is an error in our data, why wouldn't we want to correct the data?

NYC commonly screws up web ids

C <beeyotchy director>
Director of Search Marketing

=================================

From: <me>/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>
To: C <beeyotchy director>/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>@<M.Com>Inc
Cc: <my boss> L/<MYCOMPANY>/<M.COM>@<M.Com>Inc
Date: 08/09/2011 03:10 PM
Subject: Re: <Search Engine> feed


Ah, I wasn't aware that there were erroneous <W>IDs in our feed. Is there a chance you could forward some examples of errors or point me to someone who could provide them so I can better understand what needs to be corrected?

Also, could you please clarify for both me and <my boss>, which responsible team and report you are referring to when you say "NYC"?


<me>

Do you see how I am polite and friendly and take the time to give complete answers, while she is abrupt and doesn't properly explain what the problem is? Then she starts coming at me for not correcting bad data, when she didn't really explain that the initial problem was bad data. My boss & I are even scratching our heads when she says "NYC". I mean, I know she's in NYC on business right now, and that's what she initially meant, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't referring to the city when she talked about it sending error reports and screwing things up. I'm sure this is a really classic problem in business communication in general, but this is the reason why I lose my patience with people who can't or won't communicate.

[missychrissy]

Um, where did she indicate there was an error until further down? How were you supposed to know? Is she a technical person, or strictly marketing? I swear people that don't have technical skills think you're supposed to just know stuff through osmosis.

[demigraf]

chrissy, the other reason I pasted in that whole thread is that you might notice the number of times I essentially said "I don't know" throughout the discussion.

I've often found myself saying it over the years for 2 reasons:

a) "I don't know how"
b) "I don't know what the heck they're talking about because they don't know how to make sense"

In my case above, it's really a hybrid of A & B, but it's a neat little trick to be able to disguise an A as a B.

This lady is fairly technical, but in other technologies.

[missychrissy]

I was leaning toward B. You seemed to know what you're talking about.

ps-can you see my smilies?

[missychrissy]

That reminds me--I did get a feeling that it would be perfectly ok for me to not know everything. From them at the interview today, I mean. I will still want to know it all but that's part of my work ethic. They seemed very willing to train and essentially I'd start out just doing the help desk stuff until I learned the ropes. It was a huge relief to me and made me think that this would be an excellent move/opportunity.

But now that I'm away from them, I feel the doubts coming back. And I admit it...I'd miss my boss and everyone in 'my' building. And just the comfort of being in a familiar place. It makes me sad to think about leaving....as aggravating as things can be at times.

[demigraf]

I can't see your smilies. But that doesn't mean they're not there.

[missychrissy]

I can't see your smilies. But that doesn't mean they're not there.

Something weird is going on. I can see your wink clearly, but when I opened Safari it's just a generic blue question mark. Random emoticons show up in Safari, but others do not.

I only use Safari for testing.

[daylilies]

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/cr...mber_soup.html

Here it is.

[daylilies]

With Iron Chef, one of the chefs is the reigning iron chef and the other person is competing for the title. I love watching that. The techniques and ingredients they use so naturally without having to think about it inspires me. I love Alton Brown too. He's always my go to guy when I'm looking for a recipe for something.

[Gwenn]

I'm having some sort of issue with smilies. I'm in firefox.

Back from my training workshop today. I'll vent about some of it later but for now, I'm simply going to say that the woman who presented was a.ma.zing. I've seen her before and I just wish I could bottle her and carry her with me. I suspect she'll influence blog post #2 strongly.

Secondly, ran into an old friend who was on the 2-year autism training team with me. She's a social worker, and she asked me how I was doing, and well the whole story about the RE and adoption thing came out and I explained all our discussions and had decided to wait on pursuing adoption. She listened patiently (being a social worker, she has fabulous listening skills) and when I was done she looked me in the eye and told me she thought I was making a mistake. I told her all my reasons, including my lack of kitchen, financial issues, etc. and she told me none of that was a real obstacle if we presented it in the right way and asked for pointers on what needed improvement and that I was the sort of person a social worker would be looking for to adopt. She said 4 or 5 times that they were looking to see that the child would be "safe and loved" and that was what mattered.

So then I called my mom and told her the whole story and asked her what she thought and she thinks DH and I made the right decision but I should talk to him about it. Then went home and told DH about the whole discussion and he said it's my decision to make, he just doesn't want to see me get hurt but if I want it, go for it. Which is nice to know that he will support it but I want it to feel like it's OUR decision, not mine. So I told him I wanted to feel like he was really on board and he laughed and said he just didn't want to not go through with the RE, otherwise I could do whatever I wanted. And then he said he should qualify for a percentage of the post-911 GI bill and he could put off using it and save it for the baby to go to college and we could present that to the social worker. Hmph. Still don't feel any sense that this is a decision we have made.

[demigraf]

Thanks, Kate! I'll let you know how it goes. Alton always seems so enthusiastic and good-natured, and his comic timing is perfect. it's amazing he can cook too.

C - now I'm on safari on my iPhone and all smilies are blue ? too.

[Gwenn]

I totally love Alton Brown. He's that type of funny-geeky-smart that's very appealing. Myles, I don't know if they still show Good Eats but that's Alton Brown's show and it's great. You'd love it.

[missychrissy]

Oh Mandy. Goodness, i couldn't help but think that your old friend was a bit presumptuous. I think she should have taken you at your word that you'd made your decision. But then, maybe she was simply trying to be encouraging.

I know how you feel about wanting your dh to be a part of the decision. Well, not about RE or adopting exactly, but in everything at our house it's all my decision to make. When you're discussing the possibility of adopting a child, it's really unfair to leave that up to just one person. (that's a hug, in case you can't see it).

[demigraf]

Mandy, I agree with you that you'd want your DH to have a strong want one way or the other. He clearly wants to try for a biological child, and seems like he'd just go along with an adoption too. What if you had 2 children only 4 or 5 month apart? Would you want that? I think there must be some adoption readiness questionnaires out there (Jennifer?) that could help him think it through. I think you'd want definitive proof that he wants to be a father (w/ all the care & worry that comes with it) to an adopted child, and not an indulgent husband with regards to your desires. Not that he'd be one-dimensional like that.Then again, did you ever see The Mighty Aphrodite? The adoptive father there was sort of railroaded into adopting by his wife, and he absolutely fell in love with his son. So there you go... hope springs from Woody Allen. lol.

I'm happy to report I'm full after 6 pcs o' sushi, when I can easily eat 12. DH & B are at a dinner playdate w/ some friends of ours which leaves me to entertain m'self.

[Gwenn]

I can't see it, but thanks. I need it. I just feel like I'm so wishy-washy about this thing and I absolutely hate it. I usually take my time and consider my options, but I don't consider myself wishy-washy. She really did approach this from a place of caring and concern.

There's another issue at play here, too. I know she is a religious person, although she is quiet about it at work and never in anyone's face but I know her well enough that I've absorbed that about her. I think she was trying to tell me I shouldn't walk away from an opportunity that seemed to be pursuing me without my pursuing it. That gives me a lot to think about, as I'm not 100% sure how I feel about fate, so to speak. She felt that this was happening to me for a reason.

Maybe you're right, Chrissy, and she was overstepping, although I know she would not have said any of this if she didn't sincerely care about me.

[Gwenn]

I really do think in the end that is what it comes down to, Myles. I want to know he wants not just A baby, but THIS baby. And all I've heard yet is "I'll support what you decide."

[missychrissy]

While I'm no expert, I think most couples come to the decision of adoption after a lot of consideration and conversations about various options. This one was essentially someone else's idea, and even if you had discussed the possibility of adoption (who hasn't, even Rich and I have through the years), it still wasn't in any definite, soon to occur manner. It's really a lot to process.

I know other people have made 'snap' decisions and everything worked out. I'm confident that whatever you ultimately decide will be the best option for you. But getting there is indeed bound to be difficult.

Oh, and I wouldn't call you wish-washy. You're simply considering and re-considering again. There's nothing wrong with that.

Any way to get your dh to be definitive? I think for us, Rich would have loved any child 'we' had, by any means we had it. Perhaps that's your dh as well and that's why he's leaving it up to you. I know, it's still not fair.

[Gwenn]

DH would love any baby, I know he would. We've talked about it. He even said the other day, how he didn't think we would love an adopted child less or feel it was less "ours" and he knew that was true because we feel like our dogs are our children and, well, they're dogs! I certainly wasn't pregnant with them. So he said if he could feel that way about Gwennie he would certainly feel that way about a baby.

We've also talked about what would happen if our child had special needs, since that's a reality to me and not some far-off what if. Every day I meet people with special needs kids who never expected to have them so I know it could happen to anyone. In that sense, I do have a sense of fate that that might be coming for me, and I think most people who work in special ed feel that way. DH is really cool about it, he's just said we'd love them for who they were and just expect what they were capable of and no more. I don't expect him to be that accepting to be honest (I hate to say this, but his military background doesn't give him the most accepting exterior) but when it comes down to it he is very inclusive and accepting. He has an aunt with Down Syndrome so I guess it's something he knows is a reality, too. He also said if we adopt he really doesn't care if it's a boy or a girl, or what ethnic background, or anything else, just that it's our baby. I really do love that about him.

[missychrissy]

I know what you're saying about the military background. It can be a bit of a roadblock and I do think sometimes 'they' don't even realize how 'hardass' they can be about certain things...even while it's happening. I'd definitely feel concern about that as well, but you know first, it might not even happen. (he may do just fine) And 2nd, it could happen with a biological child and you'd still have to contend with it and him. I know it's not easy.

My other thought-just thinking out loud because obviously I do not know your husband at all-but what if he's really wanting to pursue this but is hesitant to put that pressure on you in case you're not on board? Just 1 idea. Men are far more complicated than women, so it's anyones guess.

I'd definitely keep talking to him. In the end, it's totally between you and you really need to feel like it's something he wants for himself as well, not just something he'd go along with to make you happy. Just my feelings on it.

[Gwenn]

Yeah, the special needs thing could go for either bio or adopted. Didn't say that but of course I've worried about that with a bio kid for ages. Honestly I'd worry MORE about special needs with a bio kid, given how many people in my family have markers for Autism.

[missychrissy]

I definitely know that fear. Mine was psychosis. There's just no telling. But at least with you if you did have the worst case scenario, you're already educated about it you know? It's not like you'd be totally blindsided and not know anything about it.

[Gwenn]

That's what I've told myself. I think if I did have a child with Autism I'd be super-ready for it and the child would have a more prepared home than many kids on the spectrum do. So if that's my fate (fate again) I'll accept it.

[missychrissy]

Well you're right. Your child would have the absolute best chance of any with the same dx. I'm sure you know the chances are very slim though. I know it's impossible not to worry, but I'm telling you not to worry anyway. (insert cheesy grin here)

[Gwenn]

Since the cheesy grin smiley is broken. <cheesy grin>

Thanks. I'm sure there are plenty of parents out there better than I could be, but I would know what I was doing.