The sex of the babies

I bet that title caught your eye since I have clearly stated I don't want to know :)    Well, sorry to spoil your excitement, we still aren't finding out!

Oh and for those few of you who read this blog, but don't actually know me in real life - I got too busy to be consistent with my blog updates, so I never made the announcement on here - but my husband and I are expecting twins!   It was a big surprise, but one that we are so thankful and excited for!

So anyways, I saw this quiz, Should You Learn Your Babies Sex, on one of the HUNDREDS of baby emails I now get.   And although I knew we didn't want to find out, I decided to take the quiz anyways.   A couple questions in, I was starting to get annoyed, because the questions and answer choices were clearly going to lean this quiz to state that I should learn.

For example, here are some of the questions, my answer choice is in red:

Would you categorize yourself as a control freak?

• Yes
• No
• I'm not sure

MY NOTE: I could never deny this - I need to plan everything out, everything always has a place in my home.   I fully admit I don't just have OCD tendencies, I am probably mildly OCD (I don't fully freak out when things are out of order, but I usually fix them as soon as I notice, and after I while it really irks me if it continues or I don't have time to fix things)

You're the type of person who likes to go on:

• A Vacation that is clearly planned out
• A road trip with no destination
• Somewhere in between

MY NOTE: It would probably be an understatement to say this.   If I go away for even just a weekend, I usually have agenda from wake up to meal-times to things to do.   We don't follow it 100%, but I plan it to the max, and then knock it down a bit.    Just ask my friend Kelsey - Adam and I went to visit her our in Oregon a few years back (when they were still state-side) and I sent her my agenda to see if she thought it was possible.   I can't imagine her immediate response or her facial expressions, cause she nicely said it was a lot for a short vacation (and it WAS, we ended up cutting 1/3 to 1/2 of it out when we were there).

Do you like surprises

• Yes, I love them!
• No, I hate them!
• Somewhere in between

MY NOTE:  I love the idea of being surprised with something awesome, but I usually figure things out first or am disappointed because it isn't as great as I thought.

Are you really hoping for one sex over the other?

• Yes - I've always wanted a boy/girl
• No - as long as he/she is healthy, it doesn't matter to me
• I have a preference, but its not a strong one

My Note:  To be honest, the answer choice that fits me best wasn't there.   Its more a combination of the No and the one I chose - what I really wanted to say was "I have a preference, but as long as he/she is (are in my case) healthy, it doesn't matter to me.

These are just 4 of the 11 questions - but that's still a third of the quiz - so you would guess they would tell me I should find out - right?

Well apparently, I answered the rest of the questions on the opposite side (i.e. Do you have to dress your kid in gender specific clothes?   No) and enough in the middle that it actually said I shouldn't find out.   I was really shocked that it said this based on how I was going through it, but I was also really excited.

So there, even parents magazine agrees with me - I shouldn't find out :)

Well hello there! Oh and Buffalo Wild Wings

I've had like 3 blog posts in my mind for the past couple weeks, but just haven't been able to sit down and write them - so hopefully after I get tonight's blog out, Ill get better about writing more consistently again.   Of course if that happens, I can pretty much guarantee it will all go downhill in about another 4 months when two little ones come into the picture.  But I'll at least try and give this a shot again because I feel good when I write :)

So anyways - now I'm back and tonight I'm writing about Adam and my interesting dinner experience.  This morning, I told Adam I would email him a recipe for a crock-pot chili to make for dinner, except with the craziness that was today, I didn't remember to email him until 5pm when I should have already left the office.   So that was off the table, but I was thinking making dinner MIGHT still be a possibility.   That was until I didn't leave the office until 5:30, heard on the radio that I was gonna be stuck sitting in "traffic" because of a bridge opening, so decided to take a detour to Buy Buy Baby and didn't get home until 7pm and in a bad mood.

I really needed to go for a nice LONG walk - like a good 8-10 miler.   But seeing as though it was 7pm, I knew I had no chance of that.   And Im still trying to teach Kalas the "fine art" of walking on a leash without pulling, which means I can't last more than a mile with all that pulling and attempting to train.  But none the less, the first thing I did when I got home was take the puppies out for a walk, because I NEEDED to relieve the stress of the day - even if Kalas's lack of training was not gonna make for a complete stress-free walk.   

By the time I sat down at home it was 7:30pm and nothing was started on dinner, and I already decided I needed to go to one of the great ice cream places in the area, Dairy Delite, since it was such a beautiful day and my day was so hellish.  In thinking of a place somewhat near, we decided to go out to Buffalo Wild Wings because we heard a bunch of great things about it.

Our experience was not  a good first impression.  The service was great, the atmosphere was fine, but the food was no better than "eh".   We had wings to start with and I decided I was in the mood for boneless wings, but the sauce we decided on was a dry rub, so our "wings" were really seasoned chicken nuggets.   And for chicken nuggets, they were still just moderate.   I had to use lots of the ranch dipping sauce - and I'm usually not much of one for ranch.   For dinner, I ordered a Buffalo Ranch Wrap and Adam ordered cheeseburger sliders.

My wrap just wasn't good, but nothing specific to talk about.   All buffalo sauce was at the bottom of the wrap.   The ranch dressing tasted more like mayo - which I hate, and the filling was just eh.   I only hate half of it before I gave up and ate all the fries for my dinner.   Adam's sliders were interesting.   Instead of making small little burgers, they created one large, long, overcooked slab of meat and then slapped it across three mini burgers rolls and called it sliders.   They didn't even bother to cut the sliders apart- they left that to Adam to do.

But what made the night the most interesting and worthy of a blog post was the older couple at the table next to us.   They weren't older, just older - I would guess 60's.   Definitely baby boomers.   The woman seemed to have a bit of OCD to her, but then at other times, it totally wasn't there.   I also thought maybe she had certain dietary restrictions, but this was over the top for that.   And for both of them, if those were the case, Buffalo Wild Wings isn't where those folks would typically go.   

I first noticed something when I looked over and saw that she had a half-filled nalgene bottle that she just put back in her gallon-sized ziploc bag and carefully closed up the bag.   I didn't think the Nalgene bottle was all that interesting, because I carry that or bottled water around with me a lot, although I don't take it out at restaurants, and I don't keep it in a ziploc bag.   Then I realized that she poured her own water....

As I was continued to watch the tv, I also kept an eye on them to watch the interesting situatin unfold.   At one point, she called the waiter over, and I'm not sure what she asked of him, but he walked away with her plate of food that was just delivered and he mumbled something like "you can't move it yourself?" as he was walking past my table.   He came back out with the plate, so I'm thinking she wanted like the tomatoes or something moved off her burger.  

When he came back, I watched her take her own napkins out of her bag and wrap them around the burger (just the meat) - seemingly to blot off all the extra fat.   I understand trying to watch your calories, but thats going a little too far - especially using your own napkins.   While she is doing that, I notice two more plastic baggies sitting on the table filled with various items that I couldn't quite figure out at that point.  

After "cleaning" her burger she puts it back on the bun, and takes out her own tin foil to wrap something up (never quite saw what she wrapped up) and put in her bag.   Next, she took out her own salt shaker from one of her baggies and salted her burger.   At that point she started to eat and our bill came, so we left - but I was really curious to stay and continue to watch them/her - because it was really weird and interesting.

I definitely understand dietary restrictions and sometimes bringing your own items.   But half the things she did had nothing to do with health, so I don't think it was a health thing.   Although everything she did could have fit into an OCD category, there is so much she didn't do that would have made more sense - such as bringing her own silverware over blotting the burger.   Or just not going out to that restaurant altogether.

Whatever the case - it made for an interesting night...

The obnoxious lady on my flight

Here is what I wrote on my flight on Thursday:

I have been absent from this blog for quite some time – I apologize.   Life has been busy, and amazingly I have not really had any crazy scenarios to truly bitch about – which are what typically spurns my posts.    Well that is until the flight that I’m on as I type this up.   Of course by the time I post this, I will no longer be on that flight as I’m on a plane without internet access – but that’s beside the point. J

As some of you may know I’m a frequent flyer.    I’m not high up there in frequent flyer status, but I hit between 25,000 and 35,000 miles every year mostly on US Airways, thereby obtaining silver status with US Airways.    Being a frequent traveler, I know a decent amount about traveling and have encountered many folks and many different situations.   Typically I just roll my eyes and laugh at them or something.   Well – that’s except for my redeye that Delta placed a man in the middle seat that needed two – but I digress.

On today’s flight, I was sitting in one row and two seats over from a woman in her mid-50’s (I’d guess).   This woman was listening to her music from the moment she was in her seat, which is totally fine with me.   What bugged me was that I could hear her music as clear as if I was the one with the ear buds in my ears.    Mind you, that’s also keeping in mind that the plane’s engines are roaring, and I could hear it that clearly OVER THE SOUNDS OF THE ENGINES!!!

I kept my mouth quiet about this, but it was interrupting my attempt to read and my sleep, and I knew I wasn’t the only one getting annoyed by this lady’s rudeness as there were at least 3 different people who kept looking back/over at her.   So after about an hour plus of listening to this I finally hit my point (mind you this is a five-plus hour flight) and politely tapped her on her shoulder to get her attention and politely asked if she could turn down the music.    She immediately questioned whether I could really hear the music and I politely responded that we all could hear the music and got nods from those other folks around me.   I thought we were good.

But then 10 seconds later when she starts to realize what just happened, she got up from her seat and turned around and stated that she was on 5 flights today and no one else had said anything.

At that point I thought about taking out my laptop and starting this post, yet I didn’t (yup …it gets better).    Here were some of my initial thoughts at that point:

-          5 flights in one day?  Seriously?    There is no place to go between that would require you to take 5 flights in one day.   I can’t even come up with a scenario where that would happen.   Say you were coming from some small island over by Australia or something:

o   You take a small flight from small island/city to closest major city

o   You take a flight from major city to next major city at the halfway point – that would be San Fran where this flight started)

o   Now you are on flight 3, not flight 6.

o   MAYBE, I can see how you added another stop in there, except I can’t think where that plane would have stopped at.

-          Once I finally got past the ridiculous 5 flights comment, I couldn’t get over the arrogance of this lady.   I’ve been on many flights, and very rarely can I hear someone else’s music.   Typically when I do, they turn it down because it’s too loud for their ears, other times it just lasts one song.   I’ve never heard anyone listen to something so loud that would require someone to say something.

-          When I do hear really loud music, it is usually coming from a teen or twenty-something, not an adult in their mid-50’s.    Don’t you know that you can blow out your ear drums just by listening to music at a moderate level – which was the level that I could hear it at when it was 5 feet away from my ears?

I eventually just let my mind subside and went back to reading (because as tired as I was before, this little situation woke me up).    Then she got up to go to the bathroom, and as she walked by me she snidely said “I hope you never have kids”.   

I thought about responding with a lie and just saying that I do have kids, but I raised them well and they are more polite than she will ever be.   But I held my tongue and just took my laptop out so I could get my frustrations out in this post.

You have a personal music player with your own ear buds.   That means that the music is for your ears and not for everyone around you – therefore you should play it at a reasonable volume.   And if someone says they can hear it and politely ask you to turn it down – and others agree – that doesn’t mean you should question that person.   It means you should politely say “I’m sorry; I didn’t realize I had it that loud”.    It surely doesn’t mean that you should doubt that person’s ability to raise children and be a good parent just because they don’t want to hear your crap music on a long evening flight that should be void of most noises outside the occasional screaming child and sound of the engines.   Even though I don’t like to hear the former on my flights, I expect to hear those noises.

Oh – and she kept her music down for about an hour, but I can hear it again, this time not as obnoxiously, so I’ll keep my mouth shut until she brings it back to full volume.    And if that happens, I won’t be so polite – and I’ll tell her if she is going to be stupid enough to fly 5 flights in one day, than she should just invest in the noise canceling earphones, because the sound barrier goes both ways on those.

Since I typed this on the flight, the lady did end up blasting her music for the last 45 minutes to an hour, all the way through when the wheels touched down.   Which means again, she ignored the announcement that all electronics should be turned off during the decent and the flight attendants let her get away with it.   I was quite annoyed, especially since there was no way they couldn't hear the music when they walked by, especially since more and more people were giving the lady dirty looks.   But I decided I just wanted to get home in a peaceful mood so I could easily fall asleep, so I ended up keeping my mouth shut.   Then when everyone was departing she was yelling across the plan like 5 rows back to her husband/partner/travel partner/whatever he was.  She was seriously the most obnoxious person I have ever been on a plane with - and I have been on a plane with some doozies! 

Feel free to comment on this story or share your own crazy flight stories in the comments section of the post.