Below are the most recent 9 friends' journal entries.

Monday, December 21st, 2009
spacefem	9:01a	home-buying aspirations Most of you know that I've been proudly renting apartments for the past seven years. When I first got my job, the guys I worked with told me it was STUPID to rent because it's "throwing money away" and I needed to be saving money for a house now, get in with the smallest downpayment possible, just get in! Well I ignored them. At the time I was paying $400/mo for my apartment, and the kind of house I wanted was going to cost a great deal more than that. I could put the extra money into savings, and did. And I knew that your first few years in a house you only pay like $100/mo off the principal, so if I could put more than that into savings I was getting way more cash built up than equity. Sorry for the boring paragraph just explaining things, plus it sums up my general attitude about renting: It's a good thing. Am I paying a lot now? Sure. But I don't have any "surprise, you need $10,000 for a new sewer line!" sorts of issues that come up like homeowners do. That all said, I really think I need to buy a house next year. The big thing is that I'm having a baby and there's no room for it here. Marc and I are in a split-level "one bedroom" that has no walls. I often feel like with just the two of us, we're outgrowing it. An office would be nice. A basement for storage would be nice. A second bathroom would br PRICELESS. And finally, a room for the baby, where we can close the door and watch TV someplace else while it snoozes away. Last year we kinda looked at some places, but after about two days of cruising neighborhoods on Sunday afternoons for open houses we decided we weren't ready. We couldn't really afford anything we liked and didn't really like anything we could afford. Plus there was no hurry, not like we were having a baby or anything. So we signed another one-year lease on the apartment. I got pregnant right after we signed the lease. The timing was outright weird. So here's the timeline we're considering: April 1 - $8000 tax credit for first-time home buyers goes away. If we've "bought" the house by then we get the credit, if not too bad. June 11 - have a baby. I should mention that I have a family history of late babies. July 1 - Close on the house to get $8000 tax credit. August 31 - lease is up. Getting out of the least before that costs about $2000 If it weren't for that damn tax credit timing, I'd just chill out and get a house when our lease is up in August, or even a little after, September could be "move/overlap" month. I don't worry much about bringing a newborn into the apartment, they don't need much stuff, kids don't even sleep in cribs until they're 3-4 months old. We just need diapers and a dresser drawer. And there are benefits to bringing a new baby home to this silly little apartment... we have fleets of neighbors here who love us, and would love to be part of all this. It'd be adorable to put an "it's a girl!" sign on our door. (if it's a girl. still hoping.) But the tax credit drives all these other questions into my head, maybe we should try doing this earlier. Close by July 1? So in June, we'd have a baby and close on a house... does that sound too busy? Maybe we could close before that, and try to move out of the apartment while I'm eight months pregnant? I read a real estate article once that said "First time buyers should know that the right time to buy a house is whenever YOU are ready to buy a house. Do not try to time the markets or take advantage of amazing offers, just buy when you're ready, this is your home you're talking about." And Rich Dad, Poor Dad also really stresses the fact that a house should not be your big investment asset... it's just where you live. So don't think too much about money. Just live there. The other thought in my head is that the tax credit has already been extended once, and may very well be again. If we buy in August and they don't extend for us, well, it wasn't really our money to begin with was it? I don't feel so bad gambling with money that isn't mine. It feels like such a maze. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
metawidget	10:45p	Exciting discovery of yesterday: Marché Jovi, which is the Marché Joannette of Hull, it seems: a grocery store run by someone excited about beer and good food. Christmas has snuck up on me a bit, with my epidemiology course running to the last Thursday, but I think we'll have a good holiday. I've got the week between Christmas and New Year's off, and we'll have a couple of out-of-town guests who I'm looking forward to seeing: one of my prodigal co-workers is in from Missouri, and Elizabeth's cool cousin is coming down from Winnipeg. We've had plenty of opportunities to get out and be festive to date, and taken many of them, including amazon_syren's solstice gathering last night, which was fun and very tasty. (Comment on this)
spacefem	5:06p	girl party First, can I post a pigture I took recently? This is The Brain. He is truly wise. You can ask him questions, and he will meditate quietly until finding a clear answer (as shown below). he also likes sniffing. and shedding long white hair on things. In other news, I spent the weekend in Topeka with my sister where her friends were throwing their annual Lenaia party. This is loosely based on an ancient Greek festival, but their idea is that a bunch of women get together to celebrate womanhood, drink white cosmopolitans, get their feminist rants off their chest, dance, laugh, be merry. Great party! I enjoyed being with a group of women who weren't selling junk or showering someone. I took a nap in the afternoon before driving to Topeka and still got THE SLEEPIES in a bad way. Around midnight or 1, I was just about to lose it. Finally one of the girls at the party must have noticed, and said if I felt like I needed to lay down I was welcome to go upstairs and invade somebody's room and I was like, "Oh thanks, I'm having a great time! Might just go up and stretch out a bit though." three hour later I was totally rested and ready to party, but everyone else was going home, so crap. Everybody was cool about it and totally blaming it on the pregnancy but I gotta be honest... I like sleeping, and this is not the first time I've crashed a little early at a party for no real reason. Here's the conversation of the night... some gals brought up the fact that my sister and I get along so well, it's amazing we have so much in common. At first I was like "What? She totally let me down forever, she's not an engineer." They were like "But you still get along so well then, how come?" I thought about it a bit. Then finally said, "Well I'm proud of her... I mean maybe she's not an engineer but I still feel like she's a nerd in her own way and that's what's important." They all quickly agreed... Nerd definitely! It was the sort of agreement you don't really want your close friends to have about you that instantly, I don't remember if she was around or not. But anyway, there are technical nerds, but if you look at the broader term it really means "one who totally over-researches things that other people cannot possibly relate to their interest in." And that's her. You can be tall, good-looking, have friends, throw good parties... and yet those close to you will still know the truth. And love you for it, if they're nerds, or if they're just loving people, it works either way. And it's sad but I've met a lot of non-nerd engineers. They're horrible. They seem to have fallen into the field by flipping a coin, and stayed because it's a steady paycheck, but the passion just isn't there. I don't see how they can be that good at what they do. Get up, come to work, complain, go home, watch sitcoms, join the softball league, mow the yard. And that's about the highlight. You think these people can't end up in technical fields but they seep in. We have nothing in common. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
spacefem	2:03p	some rambling, some pictures, some pregnancy I'm really trying to keep the lj balanced these days and think I'm doing a pretty good job. The ratios I'm aiming for: 30% pilot adventures 25% pregnancy updates 10% guinea pigs 35% observations about the world It could happen. I probably need more observations but I'm doing okay. To be honest, when I look back on my old lj entries sometimes I wish I wrote more about current events and things, more "time capsule" kinda stuff. But today's entry is about pregnancy. I decided to take some pictures of myself, because humaazul is convinced I'm hiding something. Also even though I don't think I look different, I realized that if I don't take pictures now I'll never know when I DO start looking different. The changes are so gradual. Even with my clothes, it wasn't like I woke up one day and they didn't fit, it changed with the days and the times and still in the mornings I think a lot of stuff fits just fine. ( Read more... ) (20 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 18th, 2009
spacefem	6:09a	christmas inaction my Christmas slacking has reached amazing levels of non-motivation this year. Never did get decorations up. Every other year we do a TREE... buy a real one, deck it out with blinky lights and ornaments. This year was not that year so I got out the little three-foot fake one I've had since college and set it on our side table... and that was as far as we got. I never put anything on it! Finally marc put a CD on one of the branches. It's pretty bad. Oh, it's got a tree skirt. That's about the highlight. I bought my first Christmas present for someone on Wednesday. There were no catalog orders this year, because I was too far behind. I'm hoping the weekend gets me in the spirit. It's early mall people-watching weekend! I do look forward to this. Every year on the saturday before Christmas when I know it'll get crazy out there I get up and go to the mall at 8 or 9 in the morning. The stores are all open early special hours but most people don't know about it, or are too lazy to come in early. I get a good parking place then watch the crowds swell around me. Also this year marc and I have done a lot of driving around Wichita looking at Christmas lights, that's fun. It seems like in every neighborhood, rich or poor, someone goes all out with the lights. I'd want to do that with my house someday but I can't kid myself, if I can't even be bothered to light up a tree every year what makes me think I could haul 900 pounds of inflatable santas and icicle strings up from a basement? I just have to admire those who do it, every year. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 13th, 2009
spacefem	5:47p	one six right (& aviation movies in general) I had a flight scheduled for today, so of course the forecast took a quick turn from "mostly sunny" to "freezing fog". Le sigh. In the afternoon it started to clear up but then we had winds right on the edge of my limit, and after last week's unfortunate attempt at a flight in borderline weather where I had to turn back after one pattern, I was not about to go up unless I was sure it was a nice day. And speaking of that flight my school is holding a special session this week to show everyone how to use the defroster sprayer thing. I feel a little hurt. I think every student should have to learn to use the thing in actual 20 degree weather at 7 am like I did. But I digress... instead of flying I watched a flying movie. At this year's SWE conference I met this brilliant girl Erin who told me about the movie and promised to e-mail me a link. She did. I wanted to e-mail her back after I watched the movie, but procrastinated long enough that my work inbox ate her e-mail. So she never heard back from me and this makes me a horrible person who seems to only be nice to people on conference highs. Digressed again, crap. Anyway One Six Right is a documentary about Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles, California. This area of California used to have 60-some general aviation airports and now there are nine. The documentary tells the story of the airport, interviews people about the wonderful things that happened there, and makes a case for why general aviation airports need to exist. Wikipedia says this little airport moves over 1000 airplanes a day. LAX moves 1700. So hell, just imagine what LAX would be like with over 50% more traffic. But there are other reasons to keep the little airport too... it's REALLY good for the economy, it has amazing history, once you plow it under you can never get it back. The interviews were great. I liked how many women pilots they found, from fresh young helicopter pilots to WASPs who ferried planes in WWII. I also realized I am NOT the most cursed student pilot ever, I know I complain about weather a lot but one pilot interviewed told the sad story about how he was literally lined up on the ramp for his first solo flight when the airport was shut down for an emergency. Pearl Harbor had been bombed. He had to wait an entire YEAR for his first solo, and it was of course part of an armed services training program. Anyway if you're not into airplanes you'll think One Six Right is cheesy. They have too many scenes of single engines soaring freely through the clouds with sweeping music in the background. But if you kinda like airplanes, or LOVE airplanes, I'd recommend this film. I got it on Netflix. This is the most meaningful aviation movie I've ever seen. I love any movie with an airplane in it... but trust me I've seen some horrible ones. Like Soul Plane. This year my husband put me through Iron Eagle, which was so bad I couldn't look away but in the end I wished I'd had that time in my life back. And isn't Top Gun more about guys playing sand volleyball than pilots? Except that reminds me, I gotta ask my instructor when I learn to buzz the tower. Where I work, we love Fletch. It's an all-around good movie and there is one scene involving an airplane, where Chevy Chase explains to the A&P mechanics that "it's all ball bearings these days". That line works EVERYWHERE, even in avionics, you'd be surprised. We also love AIRPLANE, especially because we install autopilot systems and wish ours was inflatable. Anyway if I'm missing any other movies with airplanes, let me know, they're all terribly important. I did not see "Amelia" this year. I read too many horrible reviews of it, I was afraid it'd break my heart to see it done badly. Let me know if I'm wrong. (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
metawidget	3:16p	Galumptious mac and cheese This recipe was passed to me by my mom, adapted by her from Cook's Country TV somewhere. Preheat oven to 350°F. Boil 1 lb. of macaroni; undercook slightly. Save 1/2 c. pasta water and set the rinsed pasta aside. Prepare topping: rip up 3-4 slices bread (or procure an equivalent quantity of croutons), drizzle with 4 Tbsp. melted butter, add 1/4 c. shredded parmesan and mix. Set aside. Prepare sauce in big oven-safe dish: over medium-low heat, start a roux of 4 Tbsp. butter and 4 Tbsp. flour. Cook to golden brown. Add 1 tin evaporated milk (or a bit less if someone ganks some for their coffee). Bring to a simmer, dash in hot sauce, dry mustard and grated nutmeg to taste. Add lots of cheese, slowly: about 4 c. shredded cheese, mostly cheddar but add in Monterrey jack and/or brick or (once Peter Watts gets an apology, his coat and all charges dropped) American cheese. Once everything is melty and homogeneous, add the macaroni and pasta water to it, mix well, top with bread topping mixture and toss in the oven at 350°F for 20–25 minutes. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
spacefem	8:37a	pregnancy & wardrobe adjustments This week I officially got sick of my work pants not fitting right. Over the past few weeks I've had days where if I ate a big lunch I'd have to undo a top button or something... I just figured it's because I'm a freaking pig, or bloated. Everybody's got those days right? This week it was practically every day regardless of what I ate. I already have "pants that don't work" in a section of my closet, and I'm down to "pants that were big on me" having to be unbuttoned, really? Wednesday I ate a damn salad for lunch and felt constricted, Thursday I didn't even make it until lunchtime, just existing did it to me. Finally this little voice in my head whispered "maybe it's because you're 14 WEEKS PREGNANT." So I posted in june2010babies about it and half those gals have bought freaking maternity clothes. I figured that'd be a spring wardrobe thing for me. What's more, I've always been afraid that buying anything pregnancy related would show a degree of confidence I just don't deserve quite yet, because I'm still so afraid that something will go wrong. That's when somehow, I came to the exciting conclusion that I have worried enough. Don't ask me how long this attitude will last. Probably a week. But ever since I took that pregnancy test I've felt like I was on eggshells, always preparing myself for a miscarriage or no heartbeat or for some doctor to say "your labs last week show that your fetus has half a brain and no working spleen" or something. And you know what? I feel I've reached my worry quota for all that. I'm prepared. If it happens, nobody will call me naive, I will not feel caught totally offgaurd. In the meantime it's getting almost stupid of me not to prepare for a statistically more likely scenario: my fetus has a WHOLE brain, it's becoming a freaking baby, it's causing parts of me to grow, I will not be able to wear my normal clothes. I still weigh about what I always did... I gained back the 10lbs or so I lost in the first couple months, so I'm at my weight, if my clothes aren't fitting it's because my shape is changing and I should not be ashamed of this. So on my lunch break I went to Target and got this Be Band thing that the other ladies recommended. It's just a spandex circle of fabric that you put on around your middle, and you can wear your normal pants underneath it all unbuttoned and undone and noooobody knooows. Your pants stay up, your midsection feels liberated. And it was the best thing ever. I spent Thursday afternoon just smiling because I'd finally figured out a way to look Business Casual but feel like I'm wearing my sweats. I actually think everybody in the world should own one of these things, it's $15 but just so darn handy. And eventually, maybe in January when the sales are good, I WILL go shopping for maternity clothes and will not feel ashamed about it. Stop worrying, learn to love the bomb. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 11th, 2009
spacefem	6:54a	sick pig update II lemme tell you, until you've had a sick guinea pig cough rodent snot on your clothes you haven't really experienced ALL the joys of pet ownership. Billy Dee is back on meds since he almost died last weekend. The saga kinda began a week ago, I just didn't really have the heart to tell the story because I was so afraid I'd be, like, typing it and he'd just go. Anyway Friday morning I'm getting ready for work and heard Billy sounding positively awful, like he was trying to breath underwater or something. I went downstairs and gave all the pigs some fresh hay and watched him a little. He's spend the night in a pigloo near the window, which was a little cold. It was about 60° downstairs... one of the issues with loft living is that in the winter we have a ten degree difference between the floors and there's not a lot we can do about it. But anyway that's a bit cold for guinea pigs, they're supposed to be kept between 65-80. While I'm watching the pigs Billy started walking away from the hay, wheezing his head off, then suddenly misstepped and fell flat over on his side. I screamed and scooped him up because I was sure he'd died right there in front of me. But he was okay. Soooo we called the vet again, got a refill on the cortisone, and asked what our options were. The vet said based on his xrays (from last month, showing scar tissue in the lungs) "there's not much we can do". During the day Billy seemed fine, kinda breathing loud but he didn't sound like death, so we thought maybe the medicine was kicking in or it had just been a fluke of a bad night. But when I woke up at 1am on Friday night I heard him again and he sounded bad. I laid there for a minute and decided I had to do something, so I threw some old towels in a laundry basket, set up a special dish of pellets and extra water bottle, and brought billy upstairs to sleep in my room where it was warmer. He'd wheeze, then STOP WHEEZING FOR A WHILE, then sneeze, then start wheezing again. We did not sleep well that night. Saturday we had our big party and just had billy spend the night in the basket again as a precaution. This week we turned the heat on, kept medicating him, moved the pigloos away from the window and kept close watch and he's been better, sort of. Doesn't sound terrible, no stumbling, maybe it was just a bad weekend? Either way all week we've felt like we were walking on eggshells, with this helpless little furball we can't really make better. (6 Comments |Comment on this)