quest for a faerie child

guests are like fish: after three days......

As spring reluctantly gives way to summer in season if not truly in actual weather, I find myself wholly and completely immersed in the world of Jane Austen, searing sacro-illiac pain on the right side and a houseguest who arrived and appears to not be leaving.

I decided to do a 'Jane Austen' summer, reading my way through her books, which is something I had yet to ever do.  Oh sure, I read Pride and Prejuidice way back when I was in late grade school.  However, I must confess to really having not remembered much of it at all.

I am reading them in order of publishing date and have made my way through Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejuidice and Mansfield Park in the last month.  I am currently about 1/5 of the way through Emma.  The thing about immersing yourself in classics of that sort is that you begin thinking in the manner of language in which they are written and I find it incredibly amusing when my thoughts take on the flow and flavor of Austen.

I have to say although I rated S&S as three stars, I did so only because I do think it is worthy of reading.   But, I truly could not wrap my mind or heart around the heroines.  I do recall this being the case when I saw the Hugh Grant/Emma Thompson/Ang Lee movie in the 90's.  I was not all that impressed with it and the same is somewhat true for the book.  I did find myself around halfway through, reading compulsively and quickly because I did want to know what was going to happen, but the end result was decidedly unsatisfying to me because I really did not care whether or not Elinor ended up with Edward, her character being such that she seemed completely divorced from her own emotions and consequently, so was I.

I was far more impressed with P&P and genuinely liked the heroine, Elizabeth and cared what happened to her.  Mansfield Park irritated me until about halfway through the book and then I wound up truly loving it.

What I am finding, though, is that it genuinely does take me about half the book to get engrossed in the story and not want to put it down...for all of her books.  It's not that I am bored with them, I just don't care all that much about the story as a whole for about the first half of the book, even though they are all worthy of reading.

The fact that we currently have a houseguest who arrived 2 days early for what I thought was a 2-3 day stay, almost a week ago, seems incredibly fitting for my Jane Austen summer.  It feels like a subplot right out of her head.  My mother-in-law arrived last Wednesday and I 'think' she is leaving on Thursday.  I put 'think' in quotes because I thought she was arriving on Friday and staying till Sunday.  She arrived Wednesday and I assumed she was leaving on Sunday.  Then I thought she was leaving on Monday when I was informed Saturday night she wanted to do a day trip on Sunday.  Then I thought she was leaving on Tuesday, when I found out Sunday she was doing another day trip on Monday.  Last night, I found out she is supposedly leaving on Thursday.

However, when Moose asked her when she was leaving yesterday her response was, "Wednesday.... no Thursday.  Wait... am I leaving Wednesday or Thursday?  Thursday.  Yes, Thursday at 2:50."

This does not make me feel very confident.

I shouldn't complain and I am not really complaining.  I just get irritated about not knowing how long someone is intending to stay and I get the feeling that this is a moving target based upon her whims of the moment.  But, she's incredibly good with the kids and she did cook dinner for us last night with enough for left overs tonight.  She also got another meal's worth of food for tomorrow.  She's contributing....

And like I said.... she's great with the boys.  It is good for them to be around grandparents.  I firmly believe this.  But, I'm not one of those people that goes with the flow with people in my house very easily.  It was cool until around yesterday morning.  Now, I'm beginning to feel as if my house has been somewhat invaded and I am longing to have it back to ourselves once again.

That's not unreasonable, is it?

It would be one thing to have expected a 9 day or longer visit.  It is quite another to have it foisted upon you and earlier than expected, at that.

Right?

Right.

Let's all do a little chant for a Thursday departure, shall we?

The final item plaguing me of late is that my unborn baby girl has officially become an awful pain in my ass that no amount of yoga seems to truly hold at bay.  I had this with both of the boys, as well and while yoga helps a great deal.... it seems to only help for a short period of time.  After an hour or so, I am back to feeling like a cripple.

All I can say is at least we are not having a god-awful hot summer so far.  The warmest it has been was 84 and that was just this last Saturday.  So far, I am relatively comfortable from a heat perspective.  I'd be really happy if that could continue....

We could all do a little chant for that, as well....

the austerity plan

Moose and I have placed ourselves on what we call an "austerity plan".  The plan is simple:  drop cable TV and land telephone line, drop cell phone minutes to the bone ( - I'll admit I haven't dropped the minutes yet, because I'm a bit of a coward), ride the bus to work (this is for me, because..yanno... Moose works from home.  It would be a bit silly for him to ride the bus) instead of driving and paying for gas and parking, endeavor to healthily feed our family of four on 10 dollars a day, stop going out to eat in any way (this also includes lattes, mochas, teas and treats from the 5 billion bakeries and coffee shops within a two block radius of our house), and the mother of all cuts:  drop all childcare and arrange our work schedules to handle the kids ourselves.

Why are we doing this?

Obviously because we have no money, but here's the real skinny on why we have no money:  We are still paying on hospital bills from Max's first year of life (just the first year, mind you.  We haven't touched years 2, 3 or 4, yet), We are paying an extra 100 dollars a month for Max's medicare coverage (what??  You thought that shit was free?  No... no it's not.), Max's immunosuppressants cost us between $300 and $400 a month out-of-pocket, our housing costs increased $600 per month when we moved and finally, Moose's work is currently paying about $15/hour LESS than it was at the end of December. 

Yes... I meant what I said.  That was not a typo.

$15/per hour less than what he was previously making. 

No, he did not get demoted.  He's a consultant and the work available is paying at a considerably lower rate than what we are used to for the time being.  This should turn around this year, but right now.... it's kicking our behinds and has completely decimated whatever meager savings we'd been able to cobble together due to the aforementioned medical bills.

We've made all the cuts (except for the cell phone).  This week is the nanny's last week.  Though admittedly, we have gotten a taste for what a nanny-less house is like because she's been sick and in the hospital off and on for several of the last 6 or so weeks.  I won't even mention how badly I feel about having to cut her loose when she's been IN THE HOSPITAL, but you can't get blood from a stone, right? 

And honestly of all the cuts we've made, the nanny cut is the only one that is going to enable us to hold on here.  Everything else helps, but the extra $950 a month is going to REALLY help.  Like seriously.  Like maybe I'll only be half-a-month behind in bills, instead of 2 months.

Yeah buddy... it's been bad.

Having a plan helps, though.  Making the decision to drop the nanny was the pièce de résistance and was brought to us by Moose.  Cutting our food budget way down has been challenging, but a task for which I am uniquely qualified.  All in all, things are going well for us in this plan.

Moose and I work extremely well together in adversity.  Did you suspect anything less, though?  Come on.  You can't have a child like Max and not only still be together but have had two more children and NOT work well in times of stress. 

We buckle down for the ride and get to business.

I'll admit, the hardest thing right now is that I really need a haircut to trim up my sassy semi-new hair and the idea of spending $30 on anything involving me and hair that is just going to continue growing at an alarming, I'm-in-the-throes-of-pregnancy-and-my-hair-is-growing-like-a-weed rate is really difficult to contemplate.  I could not cut it, but every day that passes, I feel more and more mousy.  I feel overgrown in every aspect, my body... my hair....then add in the back pain that is just beginning to take hold and I start feeling like a frumpy, older-than-the-hills, hobbled, pregnant woman...

And honestly, that's not a place in which anyone wants to find me...

Seriously.

You might just want to run.  Like now.