Eyeliner and an apology

I think I named my last entry incorrectly. What I meant to convey was, "Are you an over-eager overachiever too? Or something like that. Eyeliner. Right. If you are here to read one of my funny stories, stay posted because I have a few in my mind. I really wanted to talk about eyeliner because to the dismay of Bobbie Brown, I feel naked without my eyeliner run and therefore I am in a make-up rut. Whatever. And I also saw some ladies doing The great Eyeliner Hunt, which I was not invited to participate in but I have plenty of input. You see, I shun the pencil in favor of the cake eyeliner. In a pinch I'll use liquid. In an even bigger pinch I'll use a pencil. My all time fave is Laura Mercier Cake eyeliner in Aubergine, which is no longer made. This has a heavenly color and texture. It lasts all day and DOES NOT BUDGE. The color is a rich burgundy, and it is a nice alternative to brown. I also have a black cake eyeliner made by Studio Gear.This one is not as nice. I notice that I really need to use a sealant, like She-laq by Benefit or this one will run in the summer. It does make a nice consistency and it is very easy to work with. I have the corresponding eyeliner brush and this is a very nice brush. It is about four years old and is going strong. I just rinse it after each use. Those are my only two true cake eyeliners. I also have a MAC gel liner in Sable, which a a very nice dark green, forest green color. This one WILL NOT BUDGE. You could do a Ironman decathlon in this one, and you would still be perfectly lined. Can be a bit tricky to remove, I suggest an oil based remover. So those are my cake eyeliner suggestions plus one gel. I think the cake are a bit more forgiving in term of applications that the liquid. It is much easier to control the brush, and I get my best line with a cake eyeliner. If I want the smudged look, I'll just smudge a line of darker eyeshadow color using a stubby brush from MAC, I can't recall the number. I much prefer the sharp line look, myself. I am not a fan of tightlining. I have tried it once or twice and really didn't see much of a difference for the amount of work. I'll make another post covering liquids and pencil.

Are you stupid, too?

I am using transcribe feature. I hate it. I suppose it is better than the crazy feature of the old palms, but it is still real crap. I probably really should go in and make sure it recognizes how I make all my letters. Which I haven't done yet. I am on travel, again. The reason I am writing this on my pocket pc anyway. So here I am. One of the reasons I travel is to give these seminars. Today our room is set up like a lecture hall. We were expecting thirty people so we set the room up. The room probably accommodates approximately ninety people. So we set up the (thirty) places toward the front of the room. We use these PowerPoint presentations, and the further away from the screen one sits the more difficult it is to read them. So we set up the room. The next morning we sit outside the room, greeting the attendees as they arrive. After a bit (maybe 15 minutes) we get people coming out and asking for pens, packets, etc. WTF? It turns out people do not want to sit in front, they want to sit in the back like a throwback to high school where they all sat in back being idiots and wasting their time. You may be able to tell that I am more of a front of the room type person. Yes. It is true; I actually sat in front and learned something. Wow. It is always incredible to me that as a country it is so wrong to be smart and actually interested in learning something. We seem to value stupidity and it is so much better to be ''cool" and sit in the back and learn nothing. No, Don't be one of those "geeks” and sit in the front and learn something. So basically these people are just wasting their time by sitting in the back where they can't see clearly. Personally I would rather be a geek.. than an idiot. At least I move through life learning instead of going out of my way to be cool and hence, learning nothing. This brings me to something else. I have seen this. Mostly in the parents of young children. When the parents are themselves are very young. So we have, for example a twenty year old parent or thereabouts who barely graduated high school. Most likely because said parent spent more time in the back of the room being cool rather than learning something so what we have is a parent who thinks school is stupid and they pass this attitude along to their child. So this kid is now sitting next to my kid. Who has been taught the opposite and my kid is now going to realize that lots of his classmates also feel this way. STUPID. I fear I’ll end up with a child that thinks it is “cool” to be “stupid”.

Huzzah!

I just went to the new little coffee shop around the corner. It as I feared. The espresso has that "burnt" taste. That which separates, in my opinion, the good from the bad from the ugly. This is not so bad to be ugly, but lands it solidly in the bad. I usually get a drink called a Cafe Carmello. I love caramel, and it has only lots and lots of pure caramel in it, no syrup, only caramel. Today I just got a regular latte, small. Burnt coffee taste. Yuk. Needs caramel. Last night was a good sleep night. Emma woke up at some point, then nursed and wanted to play. So I just let her play and she eventually got sick of looking at her fingers and toes and dropped back off. Martin woke around 4:30, Jason went and got him and brought him into our bed. You know, having the kids in bed really doesn't bother me one bit. I know some can't sleep with their little darlings taking up 90% of the real estate, but it bothers me not at all. I just curl up in the corner I have left and sleep away. That's how tired I am these days. But then, I had a good two solid years of practice, I mean TRAINING, while I slept in the Army. That will teach you how to sleep anywhere. I have even fallen asleep, standing up, in formation, wearing full battle gear. So take that. Sleeping in the corner of a bed is heaven in comparison. Yuk, this latte is terrible. I bought it, so I am drinking every last burnt drop. I finally brought my ipod dock/player thingy into the office. This was actually the reason I got this for Christmas, was for work, and now it is finally here. So I can listen to all my podcasts while sitting at my desk. Yippee. Or rather, listen but not really. So the podcast is playing and I only hear maybe 25% of what is occurring. I really should turn it up, but then I don't want to disturb my neighbors/co-workers. Oh yes, and I now direct you to Wikipedia, where you can learn all about the Giant Rhubarb. Learn something new everyday, I say. That's all for now. Happy Tuesday.

undereye circles are not cute...

Honey. No they are not. Not at all. They scream sickness and exhaustion. At least I can cover mine up, with much help from Prescriptives. Jason just has to go through his days, looking that tired. Poor thing. Is there such a thing as late-onset colic? Something, anything people. I am grabbing at straws. So friggin tired I cannot even think anymore. Sleep is more important to me than anything else these days. I can live without food, sex, ot TV. Just give me sleep. unfortunatley it is easier to get food, sex or TV. Why is that, I ask? Martin has mastered the ability to climb out of his crib. Yes, the mattress is on the lowest level, no the side bar is not lowered. We have an inexpensive crib we got from IKEA where the sides do not adjust, so I cannot even be so stupid I don't realize the side is indeed, lowered. It is not. He is strong enough to lift his leg over the side, and pull his body up and over the crib. It terrifies us because obviously we do not want him to hit his precious little noggin. What it means is that our household has been thrown back into BS. That is, Before Sleep, where we could just dump Martin in his crib (after a cuddle and a song and/or a story) with his sippy cup of diluted (very) juice. He would drink sippy cup, maybe play for 20 minutes and then fall asleep. Heaven. Now, we have to maintain a vigilance and it takes him anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep because daddy is in the room. But if we leave him alone, he will crawl out. It is a lose-lose situation. We were thinking of getting him a bed, but then we would have to stay in the room. I wish it would be easy to just put him in a bed and have him stay in there. I could write a book about our little sleep issues, but I really don't want to. It took me a long time to realzie that Martin is just a bad sleeper. I can already tell the difference in Emma. I don't think she will have a problem going to the crib. She still wakes up to night nurse, and I was willing to let that go until she in really good into solids, so maybe three or four months from now then she will go into her own room as well. She does very well at sleeping in her bassinnet though. Much better than Martin ever did.

Hello, look at me

You know, I was just checking in at the airport and I remembered a funny thing that happened. The woman in front of me in line was Amish, I think, she had on one of those dresses with the panel over the bodice and side ties, if you know what I mean. She also had on one of those little net hats as well, and a pair of crocs. I’ll talk about those later. Anyway, her husband had a President Lincoln beard and a brimmed hat on. So the last time I saw one of these “amish” people (if that is truly what they are), I was waiting for the midwife during one of my earlier pre-natal visits. In walks a younger woman, in the same gear but, alas, no crocs) and her husband was dressed in regular business casual clothing, you know non-descript khakis and some short-sleeved shirt. Anyway, he had a cell-phone on his belt. I turned to Jason and gave him the, WTF look. He just kind of laughed and said, “well, did you see a horse and carriage out front?” I had to laugh. It was just funny. I did a Google search and I think they were Old German Baptist Brethren. So I did learn something new today. Like I said, I am at the airport, to be specific, I am at the Indianapolis airport. I got her Monday afternoon, and now I am leaving for Detroit. I should be home tomorrow evening. Getting sick of all this travel, BTW. I also can’t help but just feel so blah, with all the restaurant food and what-not. I feel like all I ever do is eat on these trips. Do you ever see women with kids, and you just want to call CPS and demand they get their children taken away from them? There is a lady sitting on the other side of the terminal, and she had three small (under 6) children with her, including a baby. SO the baby starts fussing, and she picks him up, places him in the seat next to her and her starts screaming. Poor little guy. It’s not like she was chasing one of her other two around, they were just sitting there. I can’t stand people who just let their kids cry and cry in public like that. Sure, I do it at home when I am just busy doing something (cooking dinner) and the kids are just fussy because no-one is paying attention to them. Generally as a rule, however I do not do this in public. If they start up I try and calm them down, especially in a captive situation like the airport, for crying out loud. Besides, she is already guilty of child abuse I am sure, as I just saw her cramming fast food down their little throats. I guess she figures she doesn’t want to be the only overweight person in the house. I just don’t understand people sho eat absolute CRAP and then feed it to their children. No wonder obesity is such a problem in this country, people just do not understand what good nutrition is all about. Trust me, I understand being busy, but I still do try and cook dinner (really cook using raw meats and veggies) at least four times a week. I will admit that I do get by on pasta occasionally, but I draw the line at stopping of at McDonald’s or KFC on my way home from work. Okay, getting off my soapbox now. I am sure that I do things that other people find abhorrent as well. My pet peeve just happens to be about good nutrition. I can’t wait to get home tomorrow.

Travel, OI!

I have been doing much business related travel lately, so I haven't been able to post as often as I would like. There are several benefits to air travel, one of them being that I have finally been able to listen to some of the 'casts clogging up my ipod. A benefit. There are also many drawbacks. The obvious drawback is that I am away from my family. And I really do miss them terribly when I am away. A drawback. Another benefit, I am able to get nice sleep. It used to be when I traveled I would still wake up in the night to pump, but I have since dispensed with this as 'I really need my sleep. So I just sleep the night away waking up in pain, but well- rested. Oh yes. I should also mention that am writing this on a plane using my old pocket-pc Dell Axim as, which is tedious at best. I am using the transcriber. Which is a pain to us. It’s letter recognition is spotty at best with my messy handwriting, so forgive me if there are some weird misspellings in this entry. Anyway. I have a lot of clean-up to do, but I feel it is only north it because I have been away for too long. Back to Benefits / drawbacks of travel. A current benefit is that I am away from my mom. Whom we have all but decided that our home will be much better off without her. But that is a for another post. Anyway. Travel update. I was in Huntsville, Al, home of NASA space camp for work. It should have been an in and out trip. Fly in on Wednesday. Do the seminar on Thursday. Fly out right after. Only away from home around 36 hours, ok fine. Well, what happens is that my Flight gets cancelled out of Huntsville, so we were scheduled to leave Friday morning now. So. Friday am. Bright and early. Flight out at 8 am on the plane, un logically of to FRIGGIN DALLAS don’t even get me started about AA and how it was cheaper to fly through FRIGGIN DALLAS to get to ALABAMA. Go figure So, we get to Dallas with time to spare, and get on the plane to BWI. I’m happy because for the second time in my life I have an exit row seat so of course the plane falls apart on the runway and after sitting on the POS for an hour they finally call it deceased and we all file off of the plane like good little sheep. Then in FRIGGIN DALLAS all us good sheep then must leave the secured area and go out to the ticket counter so we can be re-ticketed for another flight. WHY? Because even though we are in FRIGGIN DALLAS, the HUB of FRIGGIN AA, they cannot seem to find another plane to load all the sheep onto and fly to BWI. There were about one million people packed on the plane (a Super 80, and it wasn’t all that I assure you) and all pissed-off and I am hearing words I don’t want to such as tomorrow morning and baggage claim 5. I get to the counter a week later and the lady sez tomorrow morning and I am just thinking about the milk in my bag ad how I can’t stay in FRIGGIN DALLAS for another MINUTE, let alone another 18 hours. No way, no how and she finds a flights but it goes to DULLES and arrives in the TEETH of rush hour, Washington D.C. style. I say fine, I’ll take it.