Saturday, October 17, 2009

outside dogs?

if you're thinking about getting a dog to make it an outside dog, you need to reconsider. I could not agree more with this article. Our dogs are our babies. They're our children. Mi casa es their casa. For some reason, people buy dogs and then put them outside. WRONG!

http://thespiritdog.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/outside-dogs-right-or-wrong/

Friday, October 16, 2009

Am I just that naive?

I was seriously bugging over the boy in the hot air balloon thing, but more on that in another 'am I just that naive?' post.

For now, I'll blog about the LA judge who would not marry an interracial couple. uh, complete bullshit. he said he did it for the children. WHAT? I would like to point out that not being married is definitely NOT birth control. there are too many baby-mama and baby-daddies running around. So, if his intentions were really in the best interest of the children, I find that hard to believe. maybe he didn't want another Obama running around....hmmmm?

I went on MSNBC tonight to read some comments and was unpleasantly surprised. I hate to think white people think this way, but reading some comments made me think we haven't come very far at all. Here are a few:
Blacks are out of their F'ing minds! WaaaH! You got everything handed to you and you still cry. And white people are so confused with white guilt that they would let blacks step on them. Modern America is so up its own ass with this equality crap. NO ONE IS EQUAL. All men are not created equal. This is an antiquated notion. This means we were created in gods image. What is it was evolution? Then, this means the strong survive. Whites dominated, Africa, India, China, and N. & S. America. HOW do you think your equal to that? You never won your freedom from conquest! We killed ourselves to give it to you. And you never stopped begging ever since. P.S. Obama's mom was a F***ing whore!!!!!! White women are too good for blacks. White girls only mess with em cuz rap is cool now. It's like a ghetto status symbol of coolness. But it's just plain sad. Way to reverse evolution! We're going back to the zoo!!

another:
The Judge is just well aware that the white bride will have herpes & LeRoy will be long gone by the time the white girl gives birth. We'll have to pay the salaries of the US Marshals to track him down for non-payment of child support & then we'll have to pay for his incarceration out of our tax dollars. The Judge is just old and has been around the block & can see whats coming next. At least someone in the country still has some sense and is not afraid to speak his mind of his opinions without fear of a camera crew from BET looking for answers.
and....
I have two close friends, both of whom are biracial (half black and half white). One was conceived when her white mother was raped by a black man, and then she was given up for adoption and raised by whites. She has always hated---and I mean hated---her black half, because her black "father" was a rapist. She married a white man and had children...she told me she is "trying to breed the black out of my family line".
Another biracial woman I know insisted she was not harmed by being biracial, and would go on and on about how well adjusted she was...but then after her parents died, she told me the truth. She never admitted it during their lifetime because she wanted to spare their feelings.
I feel parents who do this kind of thing to their children are selfish and horrible...if you want to marry, at least don't inflict this kind of lifelong grief onto your children. Children at a certain age need to know who they are, and develop a firm sense of identity. A biracial child belongs nowhere, accepted by neither race, and they know it.

and of course people wanted to express their hatred for gays & lesbians (i'm not saying a white person said this...ignorance can fall on people of all races):
the problem with gay/lesbian couples is that it's an abomination. Evil. They are pernicious demons. They will burn in hell forever and ever, amen!
Oh, and it's GROSS! Ha!

am I just that naive that I didn't realize that people really feel that way about black people and gays & lesbians? Aren't we all children of God?
It just makes me wonder if when people see 1. me or a 2. black woman at the grocery store with two kids, or 3. a black man with slightly sagging pants they automatically think 1. poor biracial child...she has no idea who she is...2. single black mother on welfare 3. deadbeat black guy with no job.
I just want to say that I do have an identity. I have a clear understanding and appreciation for both my black and white sides. It didn't come overnight. Was it difficult? Yes. Did I have a lot of questions growing up? Yes. Do I now? Yes. However, if that was the biggest problem I faced as a child, then I'd consider myself lucky. I see white kids and black kids who face far larger issues. My issue ended up helping me become a happy, healthy individual. It is difficult to be both because sometimes people say stupid stuff, but eventually I realized that's not my problem; it's their problem. I can't wear their insecurities. I can only be me. I also can bring people together who may not normally interact. For that, I am thankful.
okay so enough about that. I'm just ranting because Aunt Flo is in town and Mr. Soup found another lump in my other breast. The last time this happened it was just a cyst. I'm almost convinced I have fibrocystic disease. Both my mom and grandmother have it, so it's a possibility that I do too. Nevertheless, I need to have it checked out.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Yes!

Last night Mr. Soup goes, "babe, we should go to Canada on our two-year anniversary!" He knows how badly I want to go and he wants to go too! I kind of like that we're making a tradition on our anniversaries. I know we won't be able to take expensive trips each year, but we can while we're childless. So:
March 2010 - Punta Cana, DR
March 2011 - Canada

Saturday, October 10, 2009

all I wanna do is....

have some fun! no, but seriously. ever since mr. soup and I had the baby talk, it's motivated me to get in action some of my life-long goals. I think we both have. many of our conversations start like this, "when the baby comes." or "we should do this before the baby comes." people, please understand that we have not begun to even try to concieve nor will we for at least a year and a half. so, this talk of "the baby" is very premature. but that's just the way we operate. we're always looking for the next big thing, which is wrong because I feel you should live in the moment to some degree and especially since I'm not getting any younger. I'm one of those of people *guilty* who works towards the weekends (small milestones) and big trips (big milestones). I do admit there are days where the only thought that gets me through the day is knowing there is a happy hour at the end of the week or a road trip or vacation coming up soon. But I digress...
Things I've been working on:
finding a balance between work and home---FAILED. I blame it on the swine flu. I was doing a good job of keeping things maintained at home and at work, but that damn flu set me back like a mo' fo'! I want to incorporate regular exercise (the gym is making so much $$ off of me in my absence), quality time with the dogs, cleaning and organization time and cooking into each evening at home with occasional time set aside for grading papers and blogging. I want this to become natural so that.....you can fill in the blank....."when the baby comes" I can make more time for him/her.
Getting mr. soup to do more work around the house----SUCCESS. Well, I didn't get him to do anything. For those of you who know my husband, he is not easily swayed by anyone, including me. However, he has been picking up after himself, ironing our clothes each day, doing the dishes, etc. I do realize that laundry and making the bed are going to be hopeless battles, but I can still try. He says he likes it when I leave him little notes about what to do around the house. I think that's so cute! He's a far better person than me, because I hate being told what to do, especially in a non-verbal way. I should remind you that Mr. Soup works 7 days a week (internship 5 days and work on the weekends too), so keep that in mind. Isn't my husband great?
cooking at least four days a week---that means two days of left overs and one day of eating out ----SUCCESS. I got in the habit this summer. we never ate fast food and rarely ate at sit-down restaurants. and I've been successful at keeping it up this school year (except when swine flu 2009 hit)
Things I want to do:
go on a honeymoon---so close to being a success...we're five months away from it
go to Canada---I've always wanted to go there and I lived vicariously through my girl Tish who just went there this week.
submit short stories to a magazine and have them published. I've been working on a couple of short stories. i have some good ideas, but it's hard to flesh 'em out. I feel like I know my characters, but I struggle to tell their stories.

those are the only goals I have right now, but everyday I find new ones and keep achieving ones I set for myself!

I want to have a drink with her....

you should check out her blog. she's an amazing writer and likes to dispel lots of myths about black people (like that we're all in gangs, or we all think the same or that we blame all white people for our problems)

cool people:
http://angryblackbitch.blogspot.com/

Monday, October 5, 2009

a woman's role?

lately I've been struggling a lot with my role as a woman in society, specifically my marriage. it's one of those things that I didn't expect to happen. I felt like lately Mr. Soup and I have gotten into "traditional" roles in our marriage. We didn't do that before, but lately I've been doing most of the cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping and I felt like Mr. Soup was doing all the other manly stuff like dealing with money and saving. My parents did a pretty good job of splitting the household duties, so I wanted to make it that way. We both work and plan to after we have kids, so there is no need for one of us to prepare to take over all the household duties (unless we become fabulously wealthy oh wait we would just get a maid) Not that I don't love keeping a home for my family. I do. I love cooking meals and decorating and I even love cleaning, but I just felt like ugh...is this it...is this what I have to look forward to...maybe it's because this weekend after I was sick I was overwhelmed with getting things back in order, or maybe because we just had a serious talk about starting a family, but I just felt like I wasn't an equal to my husband.
We had a big talk about it over the weekend and I felt really good about it. My husband always does a good job of trying to see things from my point of view and making me feel appreciated. Also, I went to church on Sunday and heard a really good sermon about the relationship of marriage. My pastor talked about how men in Biblical times regarded women as property and easily discarded their wives once they found a younger, prettier women. Jesus preached on this and reminded men that women were created to complement men and to be their partners through marriage. He felt that men did not see their wives as equals and were treating them as such. He did not make marriage to be about submissiveness, but about complimenting each other as partners. The pastor went into a lot of other stuff about the pain of divorce, which I thought was really good, but this part about being equals really stuck out.
The sermon made me feel better about my feelings, like they were justified. Of course, my wonderful husband validated my feelings too. I know that I complement him in that I'm better at the household things, but he acknowledged that this is a partnership and we're building our lives together. So, while he may need constant reminding to clean and help with the groceries (we had one of our grocery dates tonight at Sam's Club....love those!), I know he wants to do those things and wants to be my partner in life. We're working out the kinks now so that when we do have children it'll be smooth sailing in that department, because Lord knows we'll have bigger problems to face once we're parents.
And while I do embrace my domestic qualities, I'm much more than that. Let's face it. I'm fabulous! I have a wonderful life (despite swine flu)! I make kids read, damnit! Sometimes I make them like it!

Sunday, October 4, 2009

uggh....

the cost of moving to a rental house is so not worth it....
I priced it out
$1100 -$1300 security deposit
$350 pet deposit
$270 moving costs
plus if we can't find a place that has yard work included, we'd have to buy a mower and do it ourselves.

So that's almost $2000 without yard care. That's $2000 we could put towards a down payment on a house. After Murad and I discussed that, we decided to stay another year. With that $2000 plus other savings we should have a down payment by 2011. not bad, eh? plus a rental home will cost us $1100 (at least...most of the good ones are $1300 and up) and with good credit and down payment we could get a bigger house for $1100.

Okay, so back to saving for a down payment. Now to strategize....

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Wichita the movie

Mr. Soup always teases me about the lack of notoriety my hometown of Wichita, KS receives. Today, I just happened to pick up and purchase an Us Weekly (mostly because it claimed to have more information on the Mackenzie Phillips saga...still having a hard time accepting that Papa John could do that...*sigh*). As I flipped through the magazine I saw a few photos of Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz with the tagline "Together Again." They starred in Vanilla Sky together back in 2001 and now they are filming a movie titled.....(wait for it)......WICHITA! It is set to release in the summer of 2010. Despite having Wichita, KS as the setting, they are filming outside of Boston. Go here for more information on this movie: http://www.inentertainment.co.uk/20090916/wichita-movie-2010-tom-cruise-and-cameron-diaz/
So how does it feel to have a movie not only about your hometown, but the name of the city is included in the title? AWESOME! Eat your heart out, Mr. Soup!
Well, Mr. Soup and I recently celebrated our six month anniversary (I'm not sure if you can call it an anniversary since the prefix anni- implies some sort of yearly event) and our 2-year engageversary. On September 26th, 2007 Mr. Soup asked me to be his wife. We're kind of in that phase where the newlywedness has worn off. We have all these hard decisions to make. I'm really looking forward to going to NJ for Thanksgiving and Punta Cana for our one-year anniversary. It will give us a chance to reconnect as a couple. You know? Just take away the stresses of daily life.
We've made some big decisions in the past few months of our marriage. Mr. Soup is definitely starting his master's this spring at Texas A&M Commerce in Mesquite (boy that's a long name). He's doing the fast track, so he'll be done in December 2010 which means we'll be poor for another year. We've done a really good job with saving our money, so I think we'll be okay. We're hoping to move to a house this spring. We also want to continue saving because in the next two years we want to buy a house and try to start a family....

Thursday, October 1, 2009

What it's like to be me....

Well, as most of you know, I tested positive for H1N1 aka swine flu. Nice, right? So how did it happen? well, I had three or four confirmed cases of the swine flu in my class at school, it was bound to happen. so here is a little timeline of events:

Sunday
woke up with pain in chest and coughing. Had planned to go to church, but felt really tired, so I went back to bed. Woke up from nap with chills and shaking like a crackhead. took my temperature and had a slight fever. got the fever down to normal and started feeling better

Monday
woke up at 2:30am from coughing and chest congestion
checked my temperature...it had skyrocketed
fretted about what to do
made sub plans
went back to bed
woke up and made dr.'s appoinment
went to the doctor and found out I had THE swine flu
cried
told Murad who then rushed me to the pharmacy to get tamiflu

Tuesday - Thursday
coughing
no more achiness or chills
fever goes up and down
major headaches
major worrying about my kids at school
major not being able to sleep through the night
major sleeping randomly throughout the day
major boredom from watching daytime television
major cuddling with my dogs

So that is swine flu in a nut shell. it sucks. i'm being very careful and my husband keeps reminding me that I need to rest and drink lots of fluids. we both had a little scare when a student at a local high school died, but most of the people who died had other health problems. I think the stigma of the word "swine flu" is the hardest part.