I was raised by cannibals

The Bean-Mom recently wrote about how she teases her children with threats of cannibalism (you’re so cute I could eat you up. But I’m not food, Mommy!). I too, had to fear being eaten by my parents and siblings, along with many other torments. Commenting on Bean-Mom’s blog inspired me to write a post about some of the most creative teasing I endured as a child.

First a little back story: I’m the youngest of seven children (yes, my parents are Catholic). The oldest six were born over the course of just nine years. Then my parents went on a nine year child production hiatus before I was born. So my sibs range from 9 to 18 years older than me (we all have the same two parents). I would also like to say upfront that I feel I was raised in a loving and happy house and that I really think this stuff is funny rather than traumatizing.

Okay, the torture stories of my youth:

• When I was an infant who could crawl, my sisters would sit in a circle with me in the middle. They would all call my name to get me to go to one of them, which they decided would indicate who my favorite was (at six months!). The story goes that I would usually end up confused and crying in the middle.
• My mom used to sing this song to me, “found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut in a shell” in a way that indicated I was the peanut. I just loved that song. Of course, the lyrics go on to say that the peanut was rotten and induced vomiting.
• Both my mom and siblings often said how they intended to put me into a clothes dryer to shrink me so I would stay a cute little kid forever.
• My siblings had me actually convinced that I was adopted. They told me which house down the street I came from and how that family couldn’t take care of me so our parents took me in. They had good evidence. They cited the extreme age difference between the older kids and me and how years before, when my parents had six kids between the ages of 2 and 11, they had taken in a foster child for a year.
• My siblings told me that I was really the oldest, but that I had a disease that kept me from growing. They said that our parents had decided that everyone should act like I was the youngest so I wouldn’t feel bad about not growing.
• This one's not really teasing, but I remember going to bars and frat parties starting when I was 3, until the last sister who went to an out-of-town college graduated when I was about 12. The kids who were younger than the one at college got to go visit for “little sibs weekend”. Can you believe my mom let her 16-year-old drive her three youngest kids, including her 3-year-old the four hours to visit their college freshman sister? To be fair, my mom now can’t believe she let that happen either.

The worst part of all of this is that my sisters and brothers have produced thirteen wonderful nieces and nephews who I’m not really allowed to tease. Those diabolical teenagers grew into adults who think it’s not nice to tease their adorable children. The injustice!

More snow

We're getting another winter storm tonight. This time, it's starting with sleet and changing to snow overnight. Lovely. Total accumulation of 6-12 inches is expected. This is by far the snowiest winter since I've lived in this place.

Lab Conversation

Ecogeofemme: You know what I hate?
Awesome Technician: Puppies.
EGF: Well, yeah, but that's not what's on my mind now.
AT: Other people's kids.
EGF: That too, but not now.
AT: Whole Foods.
EGF: Not it.
AT: When people leave messes in the lab.
EGF: Also true, but not right now. Maybe I should just tell you. I hate when a really interesting conversation gets interrupted and you know it won't get revisited again.
AT: yeah, that sucks.

Then I went on to tell her about the aborted conversation with Research Advisor, which we discussed for at least 30 min.

This made me realize how cranky I must be. But to be fair, most of the the conversations that led to me announcing I hate something were pretty funny, i.e. I don't actally hate puppies or Whole Foods (but I don't much like them either).

Better day

Today has been a better day. I finally read my friend's dissertation (very, very cool project), which I had promised to do several weeks ago. It felt so good to email my comments to her. Then ecogeoman and I went to the botanic garden for about 30 minutes. It would have been longer but we got a little lost getting there and we didn't have much time left before sunset. It was cold, but the whole place was blanketed in thick snow and it was quiet and beautiful. On the way home, we picked up Indian take-out (yum!). After dinner, we went for another walk since the one at the garden was cut short. Now I think I'm going to start my tax return, which sounds suckful but will feel good if I do it without procrastination.

I think that part of the reason I was so upset yesterday is that I had been alone for two days straight. I stayed home on Friday (when it snowed) while Ecogeoman went to work at work. Then on Saturday, I went to work and not another soul was there. I got home that evening feeling really icky. I don't consider myself a people person, but I'm not a loner either so too much time by myself is not good.

ETA (2/3 9:03): I did a first run through my taxes and it looks like I will owe a little. Not as much as last year, but more than I thought. sigh... I'll get a second or third opinion (i.e. use another service) before I file. There's always confusion about the tuition waiver.

Guilt

I almost never remember my dreams, but I had one last night that came back to be this afternoon. In the dream, I had a new born baby. I nursed it, laid it down to sleep, and then forgot about it for many hours. When I remembered it, I fed it again, then put it down and forgot about it again. This kept happening, once overnight; I woke up after sleeping for 10 hours and realized I had never woken up to feed the baby during the night. Each time, to my relief the baby was fine but I felt terrible for forgetting it.

I feel this has something to do with my guilt over not working during the snow day yesterday. Something about ignoring my research and worrying it will die. Or something.

It just nags at me. I had a really productive day today, which you would think would make up for yesterday. My goal is to feel like if I work hard during "work time", i.e. 40 hours or so each week, then I can forget about work during "play time." This is fine, but if I slip up at all, like yesterday, it all falls apart. Plus, it doesn't work in reverse -- I don't get give myself much extra credit for working on a Saturday. And, I feel bad that I'm not passionate enough about my research that I want to work on it more (like Ecogeoman and many friends seem to do).

If I'm going to continue in science, I need to get this guilt thing sorted out. There's no way I'm going to live the rest of my life this way.

NYR Update

I should have written this post yesterday, but whatever. Here's my progress on my New Years' Resolutions, to keep me honest. My theme is "Gettin' It Done" but I had a bunch of specific goals too.

Project Efficiency:

There have been only a few instances of fake working. The fact that I can remember them suggests that I have cut down on this behavior.

I have been pretty good about setting goals for each day. Even if I don't write them down, I've still been better at breaking down tasks so I can figure out something useful to do right now, which helps with the procrastination.

I've had mixed success with avoiding procrastination. Some things have gotten done faster than usual, but other things still get put off. For example, yesterday I did nothing on my snow day and felt all guilty about it. If I had stopped procrastinating and just decided to either work or take the day off, I could have gotten something done or had fun. As it was I did neither. On the other hand, I've been good about knowing when I can't focus/sit in my chair anymore and then finding some small lab task to do so I get something done when I know I would otherwise goof off.

I have dramatically reduced blogging and other personal internet use at work. I did slack on this the last few days, but I resolve to get back on track now.

Money: Doing really well on this one!

I opened an IRA

Put a little leftover 2007 money in my ING savings, along with extra January money. More importantly, I set my automatic tranfer to the amount that I had been paying on my credit card last year. We haven't been going out too much, so hopefully this extra money thing will continue.

Health:

I have been cooking more than three times each week and one meal usually has chicken.

Work:

The Project Effeciency stuff

I have made lots of progress on Paper 1, but fear it's going to start dragging since I've done most of the easy parts. I hope that regular meetings with at least one advisor and confessing my progress here will keeep me on track.

I made little bits of progress on Chapter 2 labwork during breaks from working on Paper 1.

That's it for this month. I still have much work to do on my main issue of keeping work at work and home at home. That probably warrants its own post soon.

*The Blogger spellchecking seems to have crapped out on me. Anyone else have this problem? Sometimes I write posts in Word and paste them in blogger, but not always, so I like the spell check.

Snow Day!

I'm breaking the rules and blogging early today. I figure I've blown it already by sleeping till 10:30.

I got up at 6:00 this morning, checked the traffic report (no less than 2 hours for my normally 45 min drive to work), listened to the weather forecast (still snowing), called my carpool buddy (of course we're not going), and went back to bed. Turns out that my work was closed till noon anyway! My street is still not properly plowed, which is surprising. One of this town's strengths is its efficient snow removal.

I'm going to do some work this afternoon (at home). I think I'm going to be satisfied with whatever I get done today and not feel guilty for goofing off. It's a snow day after all.