Yeah. I think Psychobabble has reached the end of the line. Not me though. I'm blogging at a few different places. First is my new photoblog, Behind the Camera. I'm also blogging my Tae Kwon Do journey to becoming a Black Belt (hopefully) at Minivan Ninja. Feel free to join me there and comment if the mood strikes you. For whatever reason, I kind of got over the need to blog every detail (well not every detail) of my life. Having multiple blogs, each having a specific focus, seems to have taken some pressure off, and I don't feel like I need to post constantly either. I tend to post nearly daily on my photoblog, weekly or so on my Tae Kwon Do blog. So far it seems to work out for me. I can still be in the blogging world yet not have the pressure to be "on" all the time. If you want to reach me, drop a comment at either of the above sites, or send me a Flickr mail.

As always, I'm also on Flickr.

I disabled the email I have through this blog. All it was good for was junking up my inbox and making me more vulnerable to threats. When I get 100+ spam messages a day it's time to cut the cord. I might create a new one, but for now, I need to kill the spam.

Was looking for my cell phone this morning and couldn't find it anywhere. Not in the car, not in my coat pocket, not on the counter (the three places it would be). Didn't think much of it as I'm a bubble-headed twit who would misplace her own head if it weren't firmly attached to her neck.

After not finding it anywhere, called my cell phone company to report it lost. Figured I'd suspend the service until it turned up. Decided to look at usage online to see if someone might have it.

Lo and behold, there is a number I don't recognize. I get an answering machine playing music. Steve calls the number gets an "ethnic lady" (his words).

Alarm bells start going off, so I call our (new) cleaning company. They look into it and call me back to ask for that phone number to see if it matches any of their employees. I get a call 20 minutes later from the owner of the company apologizing and saying that he will pay for a new phone because the number matched one of the ladies that was in my house yesterday and she denied all knowledge of a cell phone not actually belonging to her. Despite the fact that there is one outgoing and one incoming call from her home number.

GAH! Seriously, after my wedding ring and necklace go missing with a previous company I went a long time with a never-quite-clean house because I was hesitant to have anyone in my house again. Unlike last time, I was able to get in touch with the company and have the issue resolved within an hour. The owner surmised that she may have dropped the phone and thought she broke it, but the fact that she used it and tried to access voice mail tells a different story. Either way, I'm getting a new phone. And he said he is going to have the same team in every time they clean and they will be employees that have been with him for quite some time. At least this time I had proof that something belonging to me was in their possession. Funny, but I remember hearing something crashing to the floor yesterday when they were here. Still, pretty ballsy for them to take it right out from under my nose.

It's ultra-tempting to get an iPhone as a replacement, but I'm not going to be greedy. No sense in giving them actual reason to steal from me or do shoddy work. Time to go phone shopping. *sigh*

You'll never guess what we found evidence of in our house this weekend!



Ugh. Doing the flappy hand dance while doing my best not to gag.

Update: In 3 days we've caught five of the little bastards

For whatever reason, I have no photos of Amsterdam. Probably because the time we were there was so short and rushed. But I do have pictures of Paris.

Notre Dame, with added raindrops on the camera lens (oops). It rained the entire day we went sightseeing:



The ceiling in Sainte-Chappelle. What I didn't know is that there is a church here in Chicago made to look like it:



The Fontaine Saint Michel:



The Louvre:



The Arc de Triomphe. This was the one single day of clear sunny skies:



A French market:



And as promised, our tiny hotel room in Paris:

Before I left on my trip, I ordered a new computer from CyberPower. It hopefully gets hooked up tonight. Once I get it going and get everything hooked up and loaded, it means no more lagging in my games!

Woot!

We arrived yesterday from our whirlwind European vacation. Seriously, we could have used a minimum of two more days to get a little more sightseeing in. I left Thursday evening to meet my husband in Amsterdam. It was the first time I had ever flown by myself for a flight lasting longer than 3 hours. Thankfully, I had a good seat-mate, one that actually showered and believed in deodorant.

Having Steve meet me in the airport was such a relief. I'm not sure how well I would have navigated Amsterdam by myself, even with our new toy. After spending two nights and one full day there, I'm still not sure how I feel about the city. It's very charming with it's architecture, canals and bicycles (they are everywhere and have the right of way). Yet it's a little disappointing with the emphasis on the red light district, sex shops and coffeeshops (which are the hash bars). They really have a graffiti problem too. Oh, and the food. If you ever go there, you need to be very choosy where you eat. For the most part, the food sucks. Steve took me to an Italian restaurant that was better than most out here. It had been recommended by a Dutch colleague. And before we hopped in the car for the drive to Paris we stopped at the Fromage and Brood (aka the Kaas and Brood, which is Cheese and Bread). We purchased a baguette and some cheese and were on our way. I must say, it was probably the best tasting cheese I have had, like ever.

If you ever get a wild hair when out in France and want to see Paris, may I suggest not driving (first mistake - but chose it because of recent transportation strike out there) on a Saturday night (second mistake) into the heart of the Latin Quarter (third mistake). What should have been about a 5 hour drive took about 6 1/2 hours, the last 1 1/2 hours just creeping along in the weekend traffic. Made all the more hair-raising because of the motorcycles which are allowed to ride between the lanes of traffic. Where Amsterdam was small and charming, and most people spoke English, the first thought I had once we started walking around was "Holy shit, everyone is speaking French!". I really didn't think it would intimidate me so much, but it was overwhelming, especially with the added sensory overload of the crowds on a Saturday night.

Oh, and I didn't mention our hotel room. It was small. Like so small, once our luggage was in there, we had to crawl over the bed to get to the bathroom small. And the elevator! It had a capacity of 3 people. I think it was more like 3 supermodels. When we arrived, Steve and I had to go up separately with our own luggage, because our two bags and the two of us wouldn't have fit. Oh, and the bed felt a bit like they took a concrete slab and put some sheets on it. It was hard! But it was the most charming room I have seen anywhere. It had windows that opened up to a balcony that looked down on the street below.

We saw most of the normal tourist sights except the Eiffel Tower. Well, we did actually see it. From the Metro. And I didn't take a picture, so you'll have to take my word for it. We decided that barring any future transportation strikes, next time we go to Paris (and there will be a next time) we are going without a rental car and taking the Metro everywhere. It was surprisingly easy to navigate and it saved a ton of walking. I don't think I have ever walked so much in one weekend in my life.

And while we didn't eat at any fancy restaurants (we stuck to cafes), the food was so good! It is hard to explain exactly why, but I'll try. Of course, the taste of it is phenomenal, but it was how it made you feel. You could eat surprisingly little, yet still feel satisfied. And we felt fantastic after eating. Here in the states, usually I feel like crap, even halfway through a meal. Not sure if it's eating too quickly or too much, or if it is eating stuff that is chock full of preservatives, but I almost always feel heavy and bloated after eating out, even in the nicer non-chain type places. In Paris, you are not hustled out the door to increase table turnover. Lingering over coffee is expected and encouraged. It isn't as easy to find food "to go" as it is here. And the portions are much more reasonable. And things are not dripping in oil and butter. The food just tastes....clean. Even the desserts don't push you over the edge. It's like you eat, and you are done, none of those thoughts of "I shouldn't have had that".

We went back to Amsterdam to spend the last night there and leave from the Schiphol Airport. We got in kind of late and nothing much was open. We decided on sandwiches and donuts. BIG mistake. The sandwiches tasted like they may have been sitting there for a day or two, and the donuts tasted so bad we spit them out. We have a feeling that the places that were open at the time were catering to the coffeehouse crowd and their munchies.

I had such a good time, and having that child-free time to reconnect with my husband was worth it. It's so easy to let our day-to-day shit get in the way of communication, or our itinerary to replace it, and being able to sit in a cafe with cups of coffee and just talk for hours uninterrupted was a gift we needed to give ourselves. I really think this trip may have changed us for the better. Not only did it improve our relationship, but it showed us what eating good food and sharing ourselves can do for us.

I still need to download and edit photos, but they will be coming shortly.

Sheesh, I ignore this thing for a while and it gets all dusty and musty.

I've been in a weird space in my life lately. This year has been huge for me in how I see the world around me. I can't really expand further on that right now, but suffice it to say that I'm far more liberal and feminist minded than I ever realized, and certain things that I hadn't given much thought to in the past suddenly has occupied my thoughts and caused me to question a hell of a lot. Outside of my husband, nobody else really knows my stance on this one thing and I don't want to alienate myself from my family, so I can't elaborate on it at this time. I'm considering re-tooling the blog to include this, but it would also require a domain change to make me feel comfortable sharing. It would be a lot of work for something I'm not yet committed to continuing, yet I feel like this domain and blog in it's current form is stale and prevents me from sharing everything I would like to.

Moving on.

Last month, I tested for and received my Orange Belt in Tae Kwon Do. It was tough, especially the board breaking. We only get three tries to break it with our Gyeokpa (board-breaking kick - a different one for each belt), and I finally busted through on the third try. Doubt creeps in so quickly and can easily sabotage the best effort. I don't have pictures because I've been slacking horribly in the photography realm. The passion I had for it faded, and faded fast. I haven't wanted to force it, but I sort of gave up entirely. I'm sure it will come back. Some of it has to do with the total lack of good natural light in this house. Living on a mature landscaped lot is pretty, but very shady.

And lastly, in the exciting news category, I'm going to Europe in a week with my husband. It will be my first trip overseas and we are flying to Amsterdam and spending the weekend in Paris. I am totally taking pictures when I'm there. What I'm not looking forward to is figuring out the childcare. My tendency to micro-manage bubbles to the surface.

My energy level is WAY down right now with the short amount of daylight. Compounding that is the 2 days of rain and drearyness we've had. I have to use my light box more regularly. I'm going to try to post more often than once a month, but I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't.

As you've seen, I haven't been around. I'm not exactly sure what happened. I may have outgrown the blog thing.

Used to be I'd see/hear/do something and think, "I have to blog that!", but now? Not so much.

Yet I can't quite bear the thought of giving it up and shutting it down.

Oh. My. God.

I just discovered a place called Library Thing.

It's a place where you can catalog your books online.

I'm going to dive in and check it out right now. I might lose myself in there for a while.