suzyness.com

In terms of the internet, I’m out there. My persona, my name, my likeness… all of it. I’m “google-able”, if you will. I do try to sensor my posts, at the very least omitting my last name from my blog. I’d rather remain somewhat anonymous in terms of the world wide web. However, for someone skilled in this area, it’s not that difficult of a task to figure out who I am.

So, as I prepare to re-enter the working world, I’m asking myself this question… should I care?

My blog, be it fairly open and somewhat random, really doesn’t contain too much unsavory information. I’m usually fairly tame in what I post here. Even if a potential employer searched me out, and discovered this blog, would it be an issue? I’d like to think that my blog reflects a well rounded picture of me – I feel like written communication is one of my strengths, and hope it comes across here as such. The only place I see it might be an issue is if an employer is anti-family, but (aside from the illegality of this) that’s probably not a job I want anyway. Please, go ahead and screen me out of that one. You’ll be doing us both a favor.

I have the option of using my formal name for anything job related. It creates one additional layer to peel back before stumbling upon the rest of my public information, but maybe that’s all I need. A cursory google search reveals nothing other than my Linked In page, which is perfectly fine by me, as that only contains professional information. Entering my common name, the one everyone knows, pretty much points you straight here. Just check out the third entry in google.

So now I ask you… should I care? Should I be doing more to obscure my blog from probing eyes?

I know I shouldn’t be so snobby, but one of my biggest pet peeves is improper use of the English language. Yes, I have my snafus and errors, just like anyone else, but what I’m referring to are consistent and overriding errors that make a passage unintelligible.

I get it. English is hard. We have words that sound the same, but mean different things and are spelled differently. We have silent g’s and k’s. We have Oxford commas. We have commas and colons and semicolons. I know I don’t always get it right, but I try. I think back to that AP English class from high school and pull out what I remember. I recall college English and creative writing, trying to remember where to place the comma or period in relation to a quotation. I’m fairly certain I make errors there. I’m sure my English major friends would happily correct me. But, when it comes to the words I use, with the exception of typos (thanks swype), I am deliberate. I want to say what I mean and put care in to my work. If I’m not sure I’m using a word correctly, I look it up. Google is a wonderful thing. If I’m still not sure, I pull it and use I word I know is correct. It’s important to me.

When I was in the dating pool, browsing on match.com and other popular dating sites, this was one easy way to weed out potential contenders. Sure, you may be hot, with your perfect smile, smoldering eyes and defined muscles, but really? If you don’t know the difference between there and they’re… no thanks. A single mistake, or even a handful, I can overlook. When it’s clearly a typo, no problem. But when a poorly constructed paragraph gives way to crimes against the English language, I draw the line.

It wasn’t that I thought myself above these people. I just knew this was an effective filter for finding someone who was compatible for me. Someone who cared about all those stupid rules some scholar thought up however long ago, and adhering to those rules because that’s just what you do. Chatting with Ben over IM those first few months of dating was a great way to know he got it, too. He passed with flying colors.

Here are my biggest pet peeves, in no particular order, and some tips on how I keep them straight in my head…

There, Their and They’re
- There is used to describe a place or in stating a matter of fact. As in “here, there, and everywhere”. Or, “There were two cupcakes left.

- Their is possessive. It is used when something belongs to someone. As in, “Don’t eat their cupcakes!”

- They’re is a contraction. Only use it when you can replace the word they’re with the words “they are“. Otherwise, it’s a no go. “They’re going to eat cupcakes” becomes “They are going to eat cupcakes” with ease, as it should.

Your and You’re
- Your fits the same rules as their above. Think possessive. Belonging to someone. “Your cupcakes look yummy.”
- You’re is the same as they’re. If you can replace you’re with “you are“, go for it. “You’re going to eat all those cupcakes!?” You can swap it out easily. Otherwise? Don’t use it.

Lose / Loose
You don’t loose weight, you lose it (after you eat all those cupcakes, right?). You lose your cupcake because the lid was loose. How do I keep it straight? Replace the “L” with an “M” and sound it out… Loose –> Moose. Helpful, eh?

To / Too
- To tells about an action, as in, “I’m going to the store to buy more cupcakes!”
- Too means also. One can be swapped for the other and the sentence will still make sense. “I’m coming, too!” (“I’m coming, also!”)

Yeah, I know. In the big picture, this stuff doesn’t matter one lick. It still bugs me, though. By the way, I have no clue where the cupcake theme came from. Maybe they just sounded good.

Now that I’ve put this in writing, someone will no doubt call me on the errors I’ve missed in my own writing. Oh well, let the onslaught begin.

Did I really only gain 2.5 pounds during our whole ten days in hawaii? It seems highly unlikely, and, yet, that’s what the scale says. Keeping me at the midway point of what I consider a “respectable” weight range. And Ben? This is so unfair that I don’t even want to state it, but he only gained one pound.

How is this even possible? We indulged! We ordered dessert! We ate chocolate covered macadamia nuts by the bag full! We ate bread! And potato chips! We drank rum and POG cocktails! We drank wine and champagne! And ate tortilla chips! And guac! And yet, the juice fast before our trip seems to have reset things and allowed our bodies to process these rich indulgences more efficiently, thus, creating less impact at the end of the day.

I do think we were conservative with some of our meals, which probably helped. In addition to the indulgences I mentioned, we had lots of fresh, healthy meals. Lots of incredibly fresh fruits, smoothies, fresh coconut water and salads. But I kid you not when I say that we went through those chocolate covered macadamia nuts like they were… well… candy! One bag of each – dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and milk chocolate covered toffee. And several more bags of savory style macadamia nuts. The dry roasted and salted ones. And the onion and garlic ones… mmmmm.

I definitely feel less fit than I did when we left. I think a big part of that is not working out daily during our time away. I got a few mini workouts in, but nowhere near the length and degree of intensity that I normally get at home.

Still, pretty awesome to come home and realize that the damage wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be. Yup, pretty darn happy.

I know it didn’t go unnoticed that I broke my recent blogging streak over the weekend. I’m sure some of you were oblivious to it, but others, those frequent (or formerly frequent) bloggers out there, probably took note. Just over a solid month of daily blogs, and then I slip up and miss a day. At least I already gave myself an out, right? Pssshaw… I know, even I find that reasoning weak.

This was, in fact, not due to lack of subject matter or creative juices. Or a matter of simply being too busy. I had a post lined up and ready for Saturday afternoon, just waiting to go live. Or so I thought. As it turns out, my post was still marked draft, even though it was slotted to publish at 11:59 a.m. on Saturday. Yes, it wasn’t until Sunday evening that I noticed the missing post. Frustrated to see it hadn’t made it’s way to the blog, I checked the post in WordPress.com and noticed the status error. Sigh.

I know it doesn’t really matter. It’s not as if there’s some blogging God out there, tallying up the good posts versus bad, blogging attendance and the like. It was just a personal goal to keep daily posts going as long as possible, and I certainly wasn’t lacking in material. Oh well, like I said, it doesn’t really matter. I’m probably the only one keeping track anyway.

The streak already broken, I felt it would be cheating of sorts to backdate the entry that was supposed to go live. I’ll slate it in the queue again soon enough. I guess it just wasn’t ready to grow up and become a real live post yet.

Oh shopping… how I despise thee. And, yet, every so often I have a magical shopping day where everything fits, looks good and is on sale. Those shopping trips? I don’t hate so much. In fact, you might even say that I like those trips.

I had one of those days not too long ago at White House, Black Market. My mom is always the one to find deals, if any are to be had. In fact, she rarely pays full price for anything. So, when she spotted a sale as we walked past, I was game to check it out.

Sale prices in this establishment leave something to be desired. Most items cost more than I’d normally spend paying full price. But the clothes are beautiful, well made, and the sizing gives you a nice ego boost (being that I fit in to a size 6).

I found quite a few really nice things that day, and ended up spending more than I’d planned, but my shopping trip was partially subsidized by my mom, so the damage wasn’t too bad.

What did I end up buying? A black and white shirt, a simple black dress, and a pair of gorgeous black shoes that called my name and molded to my feet when I slipped them on. Oh, the shoes. Devious, delightful things. They were the only things not on sale, of course. I wouldn’t have even tried them on, had I seen the price tag beforehand. When the sales attendant asked if I needed heels to try on with my skirts and dresses, I said yes, and they were waiting in my dressing room for me, price unknown. It wasn’t until I was already in love that I asked the price. It was in the *gasp* range. Well, gasp for me, at least. I know plenty of other ladies who spend upwards of $100 on shoes, and the price tag on these came just below that amount.

My immediate thought was to just walk away. Then, on second thought, I asked if these shoes ever went on sale. “Nope,” the sales attendant said, “these are our most popular shoes, and I’ve never seen them go on sale.” Drat, I thought. Ok, I conceded, I’ll let them go. But when my mom offered to buy me the dress and shirt she and I both loved, it seemed only logical that I get a fabulous pair of shoes to go with them. Yup, I plunged in head first and decided to get them.

Curious to see the shopping haul? Here it is…

The truth is, I love my new shoes. And my new dress. And my new shirt. Considering how infrequently I have a successful shopping trip like this, I feel like it’s economically reasonable, as long as you amortize my purchase over twelve months or so. Did you forget I’m an accountant? I can’t just shut that off, despite how I may try… :)

(trigger happy upload fingers and sloppy editing lead to this post going live before review… oops! I seem to have issues with posting errors far to frequently these days)

Another installment of favorite things friday. Really, just an excuse to tell you all about things I love while meeting my once a day posting quota.

- macadamia nuts. Yummmm.

- burt, you and your bees have done it again. I love, love, LOVE this lotion. Amazing stuff.

- crazy straws. Can anything else make you feel five so quickly again. Need I say more?

Just a short one today. Happy Friday!

Remember when you were in school, what an awesome feeling it was to get homework done early? Not just on time, not at 2 a.m. the night before school, not minutes before the bell, but actually finishing it early? By several days. Or a week. Or doing the assignment immediately when you got it. Yeah, it didn’t happen much, but man, when it did, I was on top of the world. “Homework done, sweetie?” my parents would ask. “Yup,” I’d reply confidently.

Maybe that was just me, though. I was a bit of a nerd in school. If a teacher made the mistake of giving us all of our assignments at the beginning of a semester, and I found myself with spare time, I would do it all and have it queued up in my binder ready to go. It felt great to know that I was on top of things and that I could push that worry from my brain. Hell, I even did this during the masters program I was in a few years ago. I guess I’m still a nerd.

I’m discovering that’s a great bonus to writing out draft blogs and scheduling them, instead of releasing them immediately. The delayed gratification has some perks. It’s like my “homework” is already done. Or, at least it’s near done. A variety of drafts in the line up, in various stages of completion, ripe for the picking. A new idea strikes? I create a quick post with a title and the jist of the idea. Some are skeleton ideas that I drafted weeks ago, still in the infantile stages that may never see the light of day. Some are nearly complete, but cover topics I’m not so sure I want to post publicly, so they may stay in draft form indefinitely as well. But, they’re there. Faithful soldiers that they are, standing strong and awaiting my orders.

It’s great to write again. It feels indulgent; I find myself writing sometimes when I probably shouldn’t be. While Claire is playing or eating, when I should be engaged with her. I try not to. I really try to only turn on my phone when she’s napping or fully distracted elsewhere. I try to be with her when I’m with her, ya know? Can’t be perfect all the time, though.

Thanks for reading.

My feelings about the Swype keyboard on my phone run hot and cold. Hit and miss. Love and hate. Throw in another cliche here if you wish.

Here’s the thing… it’s SO mind numbingly easy to write with the Swype keyboard. Using only one hand, tracing the path of the word, and most of the time, the correct word comes back. That most is the big caveat here, though, and the reason I sometimes despise the Swype keyboard. For example, when I tried to write “sometimes” just now? My keyboard thought I wanted to say “Dungeness”. Ah, yes, and flagrant typos abound. If I hadn’t caught it just now, and then missed it during review… well, you’d have the quality of posts that I’ve been achieving with the first versions that have gone live on my blog recently. Shameful, error ridden posts with incorrect words and typos scattered throughout. I know some of you have seen them. I assure you, these are not Freudian slips, but rather, Swype’s clever method for determining just what it is I’m trying to type.

It’s most likely user error. Sloppy fingering, incorrect spelling or some other reason that lays the blame squarely with me. But I’d like to lay at least some of that blame on the fact that Swype seems to be missing a critical common sense component. I mean, really, “Dungeness”? How often is that word really used in common conversation? Aside from crab fishermen, that is. Enough that it’s a more likely candidate than “sometimes” when a similar pattern is drawn? I highly doubt it.

I’ve tried other keyboards, and consistently return to this one. It fits me well, despite the time I spend correcting errors. Hey Swype developers, can you add a feature to help fix this? Maybe learning a user’s commonly used words? I love the keyboard, but see above for my gripe. Thanks! :)

Couch Potato Claire

If the title of this post is nonsensical to you, you either don’t have children or managed to avoid the resurgence of ska in the nineties. Feel free to skip this post if you so desire.

Have you noticed that The Aquabats are guests on Yo Gabba Gabba a lot? Not that it’s a bad thing. I like the Aquabats. They’re a fun band and have some entertaining costumes. I remember seeing them in concert at UOP in the late nineties. Multiple costume changes during the show, great tunes, great energy. I imagine they’re a good band to keep kids entertained, too. The costumes can’t hurt for this.

I made this observation, because, obviously, we’ve been watching a lot of Yo Gabba Gabba on Netflix recently. A quick wiki search revealed that, in fact, Christian Jacobs, the lead singer of the Aquabats, is a co-creator of Yo Gabba Gabba. He and his co-creator wanted to create a show that they could enjoy with their children. Adding to the all star team, I recently discovered that one of the creators of Homestar Runner is a writer and director for Yo Gabba Gabba. If you hadn’t noticed before, Homestar Runner secured a permanent spot on my “favorite links” page long ago. Love.

Don’t think me a bad mom because we watch tv. I was pretty adamant about the “no tv” rule for the first year. Then, we discovered Baby Signing Time (thanks, Karri!). It’s a fantastic sign language program designed for babies and toddlers. Claire already knew some basic signs that I’d taught her, so by the time we started showing her these DVDs, around a year old, she ate it up. Lots of great music, bright colors and action (and don’t let the high price tag of the full package scare you off, we did just fine with just the DVDs by watching with Claire and learning the signs along with her, making it “together” time).

Once we made our way through the first four Baby Signing Time DVDs, and had watched them each at least a hundred times, we ordered some of the Signing Time series. It’s designed for older kids, but Claire loved it all the same. We got one called The Great Outdoors, which we watched before we went camping last June. While on a hike, Claire bursts out, “We’re on a trail! We’re on a trail!”, and signs ‘trail’. She was excited not only to know the sign, but to be able to relate the things she’d seen in the video with real life.

I think we have around 15 signing time DVDs all together now. Claire loves them and we’re happy to let her watch. She knows all of the basic colors, her letters and a whole lot of other signs, much of which I attribute to the videos we’ve watched together.

Signing times has saved us on a few inconsolable nights, too. When Claire hasn’t been able to sleep because of a bad cold, gas or teething, we’ve resorted to putting on a signing time video, and it’s distracted her enough that she calmed down and was able to go back to sleep.

From there, Sesame Street started feathering in to our watching, turning on PBS in the morning while I put breakfast together. Clifford and Thomas the Train eventually made it in to the mix, too. It just evolved… Netflix has some great streaming programs, and getting twenty minutes to switch out laundry or hop in the shower is critical sometimes. Claire is happy to sit transfixed while I do what I need to do.

I’m not the mom I thought I’d be, and I’m perfectly ok with that. I turn the tv on when I need a break, and as long as it’s educational and not all day long, I don’t feel bad. I never expected to feel this way. I thought is be much more rigorous about keeping the tv off. I turn on music during the day when we’re playing or doing art work, but sometimes Yo Gabba Gabba is the way to go. Yup, you never know what you’ll do until you’re there.

Lots of links in this post… Wikipedia and otherwise. Check them out and enjoy. And try not to judge. :)

If you caught the first version of this post, complete with it’s egregious typos, my apologies. They’re fixed now. Hopefully I got them all. For some reason they just don’t stand out to me until we’re live. Go figure.

My husband has an amazing ability to keep things tidy. I like to think of myself as an organized person, but he blows me away when it comes to things like putting away a suitcase or a bag of whatever. It seriously impresses me. When we come home from shopping, a trip, wherever, bags are unpacked and put away almost immediately.

I have a terrible habit of leaving my suitcase always half packed, grabbing things out as I need them, but never fully emptying it. Maybe it’s a holdover from the days when I traveled constantly. It never benefited you to fully unpack, as you could be out the door again with less than a days notice.

When we came home from Christmas this year, bags were unpacked from the car to the living room, then all of Ben’s things were sorted and put away the next day. Mine? Not so much. I’ve tried to pick up some of his good habits, and go through my bags in a reasonable amount of time, but some stuff resides in bags for weeks. Maybe months. Ok, ok, I may have a bag from christmas last year hiding away somewhere. That’s me, the bag lady. Not quite what comes to mind when you hear that phrase, but applicable all the same. Just ask my husband.

The thing is, I have a system. I know where to find what I’m looking for with my “bag” method. Not saying it’s the best system, by any means, but it works. I’m generally able to find things when I need them, so this terrible system of mine works. There’s not much down side to it. Until that happens, I probably won’t change my ways, as much as I might want to.

Enthralling blog today, eh? Running out of steam these days. The ideas aren’t flowing as well. It could be the vice grip that this headache has over my noggin and the fogginess that accompanies it. I’ll blame it on that.