Because The World Needs More Cute

(Source)

"Here's the play-by-play: a baby kitten is dreaming while asleep next to its mother. Said baby kitten starts twitching its tiny, adorable paws. Mother cat squeezes baby kitten into a warm, nurturing, fuzzy hug. Everyone in the world collectively loses their minds with joy. And scene" - Huffpost Comedy

The Familymoon is Over

After the wedding, everyone settled into life in our multi-generational home as if nothing had happened. We had a few more boxes and lovely gifts taking up some extra space but aside from that everything was status quo.

Goofy photo from our wedding to break up the tension. I'm too lazy to email our awesome
 photographers, Ohana photographers, for the high quality versions right now.

However, now that we've been married for almost two months, I'm beginning to think that we really need our space. On the superficial side, we desperately want our own physical space to spread out our stuff and create a home together. They never mentioned a nesting instinct in all the marriage articles I've read but damn do I desperately want to create a little nest for us.  I hate having all our stuff in storage and we have no room to hang our ketubah or fingerprint tree and no room to put up prints from our wedding.

S: OMG We're married!
E: I know!! Yay!
S: OMG presents!
E: OMG Yes!
S: What do we do with it all????
E: ..................

On a more personal note, my family has moved from passive aggressive about my schooling choices (or lack there of) to downright hostile and I feel like I have no relationship with my mom anymore. She's no longer the mom I always got along with and rarely disagreed with in my 24 years. She's somehow become the pushy roommate, who badgers me on a daily basis about school, invades my personal space without knocking or guilt and who has no respect for our boundaries as a couple or as human beings. She comes into our room, the one space that's supposed to be ours, without knocking, sometimes while we're still asleep.  She throws things out, moves things, and complains about the clutter filling our tiny quarters. We no longer spend time together aside from passing in the hall and most conversations contain barely veiled hostility. It's quite unpleasant and is really stressful.

Goofy photo number two because this is getting depressing. I love weird socks <3

I can't even begin to describe how our conversations go.

M: What are you doing with your life
S: I haven't decided which grad program I want to apply to yet
M: blablahyou'reworthlessifyourenotadoctorblahblah
M: You'd better not get pregnant
M: You'd owe your grandma 10 grand
M: I'd kill you
S: Thanks

In addition, this pregnancy scare has really changed how I view our situation. While E and I do not want a babe now, I'd like to think that if we ended up expecting one my family would be supportive. If you've been reading my blog, now is probably where you'd point out how stupid that assumption is. My family has a friggin' 10 thousand dollar bet on whether we'll get pregnant this year and that should have been enough to warn us just how unsupportive they'd be. Still, I didn't expect this level of unsupportiveness, I feel like they see us as one of the screwed up teenage couples on "16 and Pregnant" instead of the mid twenties married couple that we are.

I also feel like we're constantly cleaning up after everyone. My sister left for a vacation this Thursday. She left the hose on in the backyard drowning the vegetables. I didn't find out till it flooded the driveway. The cat that's supposed to be hers was left with no food and no water, he clued me in when he came into my room crying and looking for Button's food. My mom left bad food on the counter and a thick layer of crumbs on the cutting board, her dirty bowls in the sink for someone else to clean up. Bleh. I feel like a stay at home mom in someone else's house with no babe and no space.  I also think I'm watching too much daytime TV in between schoolwork since I have an irrational fear that I'm gonna end up like one of those ladies who has her baby in a toilet on "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant".

Some sweetness to wash away the bitter

Bottom line, cold hard truth style, this is where we need to be. We need to save up as much as we can right now so even though it's painfully obvious we need out, it's more important that we stay. The truth hurts but we can't avoid it.

Ketubah and Fingerprint Tree

Fingerprint Tree Framed!!

We went with turquoise and purple fuzzy velvet, it was too colorful to do something boring! My bestie M painted the tree for us, she's an amazing artist. The frame is a solid black and the glass has UV protection. 

We ripped open the package!

E and I are the little owls in the heart of the tree <3

Double mat with a floating top mat and overmat mounting. My grandma just had to sign
all the way to the edge so we couldn't go with a traditional matting. 

Ketubah Framed!!

Since this is a more "serious" wedding document, we went with a traditional mahogany frame and 4" blue mat to match the hydrangeas. We also went with a museum quality glass that's glare free and has UV protection. 

It's way bigger than it looks here!

Hydrangeas close up

The mahogany frame has really rich tones :)

So what do you think? I think we did pretty good with the framing. We had everything done at Aaron Brothers when they had their 60% off custom framing sale.

Spots, Ahoy!

Well we're now six days late, but we have spots!!! Not enough spots that I would call it a period, but enough that I know I'm not imagining it lol. We also got our bulk order of $0.19 pregnancy tests today so E and I took 4 of them this morning and are 99% sure they were all negative, though there was some speculation about the one E took! haha. We do have one interesting symptom to add though, even more spots! but this time they're moles.

It's hard to take a picture of your back

Out of nowhere, I had six new moles grow overnight. My back has been killing me so E has been giving me massages every night and one day my back was clear, the next there were two little moles on my lower back. Further scrutiny shows new moles on my chest and legs that weren't there the day before. This makes me nervous since I haven't had a new mole in years and my mom grew tons of moles when she was pregnant with me, BUT hormone changes in general can cause skin changes like mole growth and I think I can safely say that something weird and hormonal is going on, probably just not pregnancy.

Sperm free zone

My doctor's nurse got back to me and told me they generally don't worry unless you've missed your period for three months in a row. That seems like an awfully long time but since I'm also due for an annual I think I'll just go in for that. I still feel pretty crappy and there's definitely something up.

AHHHHHHH

Still not here...

No word from the doctor yet!

I'm pretty sure that if I ever get my period E and I will never have sex again. I think we're both prepared to live with E as my gay roommate until we have our own place and tons of money saved up.

(Source)

Watch, now that I've said that, we definitely won't be preggers and it'll probably be because I've stressed myself into not ovulating anymore. We'll probably have tons of trouble conceiving when we want to and will be yearning for the fertile days of our youth. Le sigh. 

P.S. According to my mom, that tiger will eat you even if you are using condoms. DUN DUN DUN! 

NOT PREGNANT but still no period??

So the hubs and I got a digital pregnancy test and took it this morning. The results? Not Pregnant. Before I took the test I asked him percentage wise if he thought we were really preggers. He said about 22% of him thought that we might be, and 11% of that wanted it to be positive. Once we'd taken the test though, we were pretty much 98% (Ha!) relieved so it's clear that a babe right now isn't a good idea.  However, despite the big fat negative, there's still no sign of my period!

Bwahahaha

Now for more TMI. If I'm on track, I should have started spotting six days ago though my period is technically only four official days late. WTF body? What have you done with my period?  Where are you stashing it?  I just sent my OB/GYN an email and we'll see what she says and if she wants me to come in. 

Logically, there could be many reasons why my period is MIA. It could be left over wonkiness from going off my pills last year. It could be stress from planning the wedding or picking a grad school to apply to. It could (maybe?) be the post-wedding weight I've packed on. I just hope its not something sinister because I'd take a sweet babe over uterine/cervical/breast cancer any day. 

Since my family has a history of some cancers, I caved and asked my mom if she'd ever been late. She said she was wonky for two or three years after birth control which made me feel a little better (it could be nothing!) but she also said it took her like 2 months to get a positive pregnancy test with me. This was probably due to the general lack of hCG sensitivity in the late 80's pregnancy tests rather than freakishly low hCG levels so I'm not too concerned about that. She did, in true mom fashion, slip in a nasty comment about how I'd owe my grandma 10 grand if we screwed up. Thanks, mom. You really know just what to say!

Given my family, we could probably assume it's just stress -_-

Could we be screwed?

So I've been pretty quiet lately on the blog and I figured it was time for some explaining.  Essentially, I've had a weird little cluster of symptoms that have me and E worrying very seriously if we might be "in the family way". I present the evidence thusly for your scrutiny.

April 2011: Very, very light period. Like half a period really. Not sure if that means anything.

May 2011: So tired, sore breasts, back pain, have to pee all the time, heartburn, bloating, hungry and now....MY PERIOD IS LATE.

WTF WHERE DID THIS BELLY COME FROM?????

The kicker here? E and I have never done the deed unprotected. As in ever. As in no glove, no love for you Dr. Jones, WTF really? Condoms are 98% effective, so 2 out of every 100 ladies will become pregnant using them every year. Could we really be that (un?)lucky?  We're literally the most anal people on the planet when it comes to pregnancy protection and it would be pretty damn near impossible for us to be pregnant now. Not to mention, how much would it suck to get pregnant without actually having fun baby making sex??

To make things more confusing, most of the symptoms I described above can easily be attributed to menstruation. So essentially, I could be pregnant or my period could just be really late. Though if I'm being honest, you could practically set your watch by my period, except that would be gross.

Getting serious, E and I are no where financially stable enough to have a child. Everyone and their mom knows how badly we want a baby, but everyone also knows how irresponsible it would be. We live with my mom. I'm trying to get into grad school. E is just getting his career off the ground. We just got married less than 2 months ago. While we're emotionally ready, none of the other cards line up. I'd like to have my baby with a couple hundred thousand dollars in the bank, a nice 6 figure job, and our own house with a nursery I can decorate. Having a baby now would check approximately zero of those boxes.

If we are pregnant I'm not sure what we'd do. Maybe my family would be supportive?

(Source)

HAHA NOT. My aunt actually took out a $10,000.00 bet with my grandma AGAINST me that E and I would get pregnant during the first year. I would really really hate to let my grandma down (especially since we weren't irresponsible ARGH) and my family would not be supportive. At all, essentially.

I think tomorrow E and I are going to get some pregnancy tests and get our pee on. We're either pregnant, or I've just shared waaaaaaay too much information about my period and our sex life on the internet. Whoops. 

Wedding Shards Mezuzzah

After careful consideration, E and I decided to have a mezuzah made out of our broken wedding glass. Since we're not glass artists, we contacted Enid Traisman to have our gorgeous mezuzzah made and she went above and beyond our expectations. Because we didn't have that much glass from the champagne glass we smashed, we sent along a broken blue mason jar as well.

Enid Traisman's Etsy Shop

Item: Wedding Shards Mezuzzah

Price: $45 + $4.95 shipping + ($5.00 shipping for the frame + $7.00 shipping the glass to her)

Little known fact: you can't fuse glass from two different sources together without them cracking. So no champagne-glass-mason-jar-mezuzzah. Boo.

Luckily, we had just enough glass to make the mezuzzah. Because we love blue, she added some tint and beautiful little jewels to spice it up. She sent it to us packed in a beautiful little box with instructions on how to hand it but somehow the post office managed to break it, right down the middle.  We were pretty broken up about it since we'd been anticipating its arrival but Enid was able to fuse it back together for us with little lasting effect.

Mezuzah and frame before fusion 

Throughout the process, Enid sent us progress photos so we could see how everything was coming together. Since we couldn't use the mason jar glass in our mezuzzah, Enid used the extra glass to make us a gorgeous photo frame.  She only charged us shipping for it and included a little acrylic holder at no charge :)

Frame with Enid's doggy in it!

Our Mezuzzah, Before it Broke

Top Down View

I love how the little jewels are raised! A few got slightly skewed when she fused it back together. 

The back depression where the scroll goes

So what does everyone think? I love our mezuzzah and think its a perfect way to make your wedding glass something special that you'll see everyday :)

Happy Mother's Day 2011

Happy Mother's Day!

...to all the mamas, mamas to be, grandmothers and other mamas!

Extra hugs and kisses to my mama, my grandma, my bestie Mishi aka the most awesome "new" mama around, and a secret shout out to a new mama to be!

A Sticky Situation: How To Handle A Coffee Spill On Your Macbook

Nooooooooooooo!

After years and years of owning computers, I have finally done the unthinkable and spilled coffee on my laptop. Ironically, it wasn't my coffee and I wasn't drinking it but I somehow splashed some on the keyboard. After the initial freak out during which I frantically wiped off the keys and thought for a moment that it might be alright, my poor macbook turned off and I knew coffee had made its way into the insides of the computer. Since Apple doesn't cover liquid damage and my macbook is outside the warranty period anyway, the only way to save "Ping" was to open him up and dry him out.

Currently, E and I are house sitting in Agoura Hills. This means that I didn't have my tools with me and the house is somewhat unfamiliar. To fix Ping, we needed a lot of drying apparatuses and all of them pull a lot of power. We found a fan and a hair dryer but ended up unintentionally plugging them in to an outlet on the same breaker as the TV and all the electronics. This of course blew the breaker and we had NO clue where the breaker box was. It was 11pm, we couldn't find flashlights, and once we found a flashlight we couldn't find batteries for it. Note to self: Make sure there's always a flashlight WITH batteries in an obvious place. After an hour spent walking the perimeter of the house and checking cubbies and closets, E eventually found the panel in the front of the house (duh) and we reset the breaker. With our lights and power restored, it was time to tackle the macbook!

How to (Attempt) to rescue a Macbook from coffee:

Disclaimer: This guide is entirely use at your own risk. Opening your macbook is likely to void your factory warranty if it hasn't already been voided by you spilling on it. If you've already spilled, you pretty much have nothing left to lose. If you haven't spilled yet, keep these instructions handy in case you do. 

Tools:
- Fan, hairdryer, drying apparatus
- Super tiny phillips head screw driver, preferably with magnetic tip and short handle
- Q-tips
- Dishes/bags for screws
* Compressed air (optional)
* Rubbing alcohol (optional)

A Guide to Name Changing

When I decided to go ahead and change my name, I never gave much thought to the amount of paperwork it would take. When you think about it, your name is pretty much on everything you touch and you have to change it on everything. It sounds worse on paper than it actually is, but I thought it might be helpful to put a guide out there so people can prepare.

Step 1: Get Married! You'll need to apply for a marriage license and pay the fee to do this. It was $90.00  in Los Angeles.

Step 2: Submit your signed marriage license to your local courthouse in person or have it notarized and mail it in.

Step 3: Pay $14.00 per copy for a certified marriage license. We got 2 which I'm hoping will be plenty.

Step 4: Wait 6-8 weeks for them to mail you your certified copies. Depending on your DMV, you may want to make an appointment during this time if it has a long wait period.

Osama bin Laden Dead

While I never support violence or death, I have to help spread the word that Osama bin Laden has officially been declared dead. It feels unnatural to celebrate the death of another human being, but as a country I think America needed this "victory" against the figurehead of terrorism. Oven the past 10 years, my stomach sinks when I think that we've probably killed as many civilians in our attempts to kill Osama as the terrorists killed when they attacked the twin towers  of the over 9,000 civilians we've killed in Afghanistan and ONE MILLION civilians that have lost their lives in Iraq.  I hope that Osama's death marks the end of this chapter of violence. The cost of one man's death, of these wars, of the civilians and soldiers who won't be coming home, is much too high. 

Ironically, today is Holocaust Remembrance Day and I think it's oddly fitting that such news should be shared on the day we remember so many others lost to Hitler's terrorism. The human race has a morbid history of death and violence and I hope that today becomes the precursor to healing and peace. For the families all over the world who have lost loved ones, in the twin towers, in these wars, because of this man and our attempts to catch him. 

President Obama's speech, while befitting the situation, also made me a little sad since so much of it feels overly optimistic. While I do think that America came together as a nation after September 11th, I think it also begot an undercurrent of hate and prejudice against anyone who might be middle eastern. The republicans voted against health care and college funds for the first responders of 9/11. People rallied with hate against the building of a mosque near ground zero. So much hurt and hate and violence has gone into and come out of America and I hope and pray that it is now over.

The End