It's time for a #change. Like now.

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @JenSquard

I’m normally a super happy person.  Positivity is something I always try to maintain, but lately I’ve been feeling really...shit-head-y.  I’m not sure what it is......actually, I know exactly what it is.  2010 sorta sucked.  Not just a little ween, either, like a fat stinky ingrown hair-riddle scrote.  Okay, that’s a little harsh, we did get a gorgeous baby this year.  Mostly everything else blew fat ones.  Up until this last week I have felt like my face is getting pounded in the dirt around every corner.  

See, to start, my hubby was “on call” all year, which basically means he got to work about 40% of the time.  We live very simply, but mortgage companies gots to get their dough.  Kids apparently get hungry and need food.  All silly things, I know, but we’re pretty insistent on having a place for our kids to sleep and yummies for their tummies.  The stress of not knowing if we would be getting a paycheck from week to week is not only hard on us as individuals, but because it is hard on the individuals it is hard on the couple.  

I also had an incredibly difficult pregnancy.  I had gestational diabetes, which means a whole bunch of things - the baby could be huge or tiny (my son-pregnancy #2-was 10 1/2 pounds at birth), could be stillborn, could die shortly after birth...all sorts of crazy complications.  Which means that I was on a crazy strict low carb high protein diet.  Two things that should never go together: pregnancy + diet.  Or pregnancy + low carb.  Or pregnancy + high protein.  So hard, it made me feel like total shit all the time, on top of the stresses of being pregnant.  I constantly felt guilty for needing to be on medicine, and the fear of harming my daughter if I ate too many crackers was hardcore.  Recovery from the c-section was awful, like super awful, and to top it all off, one of my hubby’s parents treated me poorly in the hospital, and even got upset that I asked my husband to help me take a shower one day when he was supposed to be home working on our remodel.  Apparently that’s a nurse’s job and it’s 1950.  

All of these things have hardened me a bit.  I find myself getting angry easily, staying annoyed with people over little things, and not giving new people much of a chance.  That is sooooooooo not me.  What the hark?  I no likey.  I no likey one bit.  I’ve been judgemental and intolerant.  And it’s time for a change.
No more of that bullshit.  I want to be positive again.  I want to be funloving again.  I want my fuse to be loooooooooooooooooooooong.  And I’m starting today.  It’s all starting from within, and it’s time to re-evaluate EVERYTHING.  So buckle up kids, it’s going to get bumpy. 

The transformation begins today.

See for yourself on Twitter or Facebook.

My Grandma = #Insane in the membrane

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @JenSquard

Oh, man, this takes me right back to my youth!  My grandma tends to be a little cuckoo for cocoa puffs.  When my sister and I were kids she used to send sweatsuits that she decorated for us.  The elaborate designs were some kind of strange cloth picture that she would outline and "paint" with that super thick fabric paint, and usually the kind with sparkles.  We got tigers, big flowers, Disney characters, pretty much everything you could think of.  We thought they were terrible, but it's your grandma, what can you do?

Now that I have kids of my own, grandma sends all kinds of stuff.  She likes to send things with the price tag on it - so like a dollarstore necklace with a tag that has a suggested retail price of $20.  And lookey lookey what she sent this time!  A reprisal of an old classic!  Hahaha!  SOOOOOO good.  So so good.  Thanks for the goodies, Grandma!  You crack me up!

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#Randombling: @JenSquard

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @JenSquard

Randombling: A 5 minute long unedited random stream of consciousness produced by a nerd for nerds.

#nowplaying: Still Dirrty - Christina Aguilera

Wow, rough picture.  Eh, rough face, that's sorta what happens when you get your behinderooskies handed to you at beer pong.  I played for the first time ever last night!  FUN!  And I lost bad.  And got soooooo drunk that I could barely walk.  It was AWAWAWAWAWAWsome.  I was totally still a little wobbly when I woke up, so this giant bowl of hot chocolate is doing a great job of soaking that biznez up.  

It was sooooo good to get out and be with friends.  This has been a super rough year on me and the hubbard, so every chance we get to go out and let it all hang out is great with us!  I really think things are starting to turn around, though - which is great great great.  He has an awesome new job that he will get to use his big dinosaur brains in, I have this amazing outlet for my brain jibbles (Thanks TNTML!), our kids are healthy and out of their minds, and and and and and...and everything.  Life is amazing.

I totally totally think that if you just put yourself out into the universe it will all come back to you.  I found TNTML just by having a great friend in @TGumb.  The hubbard found a new job at exactly the right time.  We don't need some dude in the sky to feel like things are going to work out, we just do good things and eventually good things come back.  Lovin me some life right now!  Now off to clear the fluffy head.....

Wanna be my friend?  I wanna be yours! Twitter me...ta ta ta today, junior!

#ThingsThatMakeMe ... FEEL REJECTED

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @JenSquard

My dad is a nut.  Total nut.  Like borderline sociopath, I think.  He thinks the rules don't apply to him, he's an angry person, and he honestly honestly thinks that he has control over everrrrrything.  Literally, he told me once that if I pissed him off he would go down to the DMV and tell them to revoke my license.  Right, that's how it works, brainiac.  He was incredible emotionally and verbally abusive while I was growing up, and I finally left his house when I was sixteen.  I didn't talk to him again until I was 24, when his mother died.  I went to her funeral to be supportive to my grandpa, and he mostly acted like nothing ever happened. 

We talked, he was nice to me, and everything seemed fine.  He got to meet my daughter (she was 1), and I felt like a pretty generous person by giving him another chance.  I decided at the time that if he wanted some sort of a relationship, I would be open to it. 

I talked to him again a couple weeks after the funeral.  He called to tell me to call my grandpa.  Not for any particular reason, just to remind me to call him.  Cause I'm not a grown up, and need to be reminded to be a good person, apparently.  I told him that I was pregnant, again, and he said congratulations.  And then I never heard from him again. 

Well, not really.  He sent a present for my son on my daughters birthday.  4 months after he was born.  And last Christmas he sent a savings bond for both of my kids.  He has yet to acknowledge that I have three kids now.

You know what?  Whatever.  I haven't had a good dad ever, so it's not like this is new stuff.  But I have kids now, why would anyone not want to know their AWESOME grandkids?  Here's what gets to me - he has a relationship with my sister.  He bought her son a high chair not too long ago.  He calls her up to let her know that my grandpa is going to be in town, and takes her out to lunch.  And the kicker - he frickin called and invited her to Thanksgiving.  Let's not forget that my sister got tired of the abuse and left his house when she was 17. 

So what the fuck?  What did I do to deserve that bullshit?  It's easy to say that I don't care, but guess what?  I do.  He's my dad.  The only one I've ever had.  And for him to live in the same town as me and just not want to be around me ever?  Eff off, doucher.  I honestly think it's because he can't handle the fact that I am a successful, accomplished adult.  Really, if he can't be telling me what to do, he just doesn't know how to have a relationship with me.  It's so frustrating, and sooooo hard to stay confident when your own father choses not to love you. 

I know all I can do is be a good mom to my kids.  I can cherish the relationships I do have.  But damn, Daddy issues fuck with the brain, and they last forevvvveeeerrrr.  Forever.  I'm not sure I will ever be fully healed.  I forget and move on a bit, but then I hear that he invites one of his daughters to Thanksgiving.  Busted wide open.  Damn it. 

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#KnowledgeBomb - Golden Jellyfish

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @JenSquard

I am totally losing my danged mind over National Geographic's Great Migrations.  I LOVE LOVE friggin LOVE animal documentaries like that - Planet Earth, Blue Planet... and now Great Migrations.  It's all about the journeys different species have to take for food, sexy time and survival as a whole.  I don't entirely think this video shows a great migration, but it is one of my favorite stories of evolution.

So here's the thing.  Jellyfish capture their food by stinging and often paralyzing them through nematocysts located in their tentacles.  When the nematocysts come in contact with prey (or predators) they fire off into the flesh, releasing some sort of nuero-toxin.  That's why it hurts like a bitch when you stung by a jelly.

These Golden Jellies are different.  Jellyfish Lake is connected to the ocean through a series of inlets and lagoons, and a large number of Golden Jellies have settled there.  There are fish and other small prey items in the lake, but the jellies evolved a symbiotic relationship with algae living in their tissues. 

Symbiosis is when two different organisms live and work together, to the benefit of each.  In this case, the jellies get food from the algae, and the algae get a nice warm place to live.  The jellies migrate throughout the lake following the sun, which is how the algae makes the food.  AMAZING, right?!?!???

That's the beauty of evolution and symbiosis!  Becuase they no longer needed the protection or predation of their stinging arms, they basically lost them.  They still have nematocysts, but in super small quantities, and nothing that will harm a human.  Do you know what that means?  YOU CAN SWIM WITH THE JELLYFISH!

 These are the things that make my nerdy brain explode!  Aaaaah! 

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