Filed under: Anna
Recently I was reading a newsletter that we get at the studio, and the title of the first major article had a blaring misuse of “who” vs. “whom.” As I write this, I can’t even remember what the offensive sentence was…..just that the grammatical mistake was blatant enough to jar me out of my “going through the junk mail stupor.”
It occured to me, as I sat there being quietly offended by the publication, that I as not EXACTLY sure why the sentence was wrong….only that it WAS wrong. So I set out to refresh my grammatical understanding. In doing so, I found a fun little website called Grammar Girl, which has a searchable section called “Quick and Dirty Tips.”
So, for those of you that are interested, here is the quicker and dirtier version (if you want the full description, I recommend reading the Grammar Girl explanation).
Who is in reference to the SUBJECT of the sentence or clause.
Whom is in reference to the OBJECT of the sentence or clause.
If you are at all like me, when I read this I was like, “Wow. I haven’t thought about subjects and objects of sentences since…oh…..the 6th grade.”
If you need a refresher: The SUBJECT is the “doer” of an action and the OBJECT is the “receiver” of an action (ie: I love you. “I” am the subject and “you” are the object.
The mneumonic that Grammar Girl gives is: If I say, “I love you,” you are the object of my affection, and you is also the object of the sentence (because I am loving you, making me the subject and you the object). How’s that? I love you. You are the object of my affection and my sentence. It’s like a Valentine’s Day card and grammar mnemonic all rolled into one.
Brilliant.
Even quicker and dirtier:
If you can answer the inquiry with “he” the correct pronoun is “who.”
Question: “Who answered the door?” Answer: “He answered the door.”
If you can answer the inquiry with “him” the correct pronoun is “whom.”
Question: “To whom are you speaking?” Answer: “I am speaking to him.”
Brilliantly easy.
So…if you even care, there is a little grammar brush-up, and if nothing else, a little flashback to the 6th grade. 
It is official.
I officially weigh more than my husband.
Sigh.
Pretty soon we are going to look like a “10″ strolling around the streets of Fort Wayne (right now we sort of look like an “18″).
He will be able to stand behind me and you won’t be able to see him at all…..except for his hair, sticking up over the top of my head.
The sacrifices we women make.
As a pregnant woman, one of the questions I frequently get asked is, “Have you had any strange cravings?” As of yet, I have not experienced any really intense and/or strange cravings. However, I have noticed a couple of things. One, while I am not quite as chronically famished as I anticipated, when I am hungry….it has an intensity that is much more pronounced than in my non-pregnant days. When I need to eat, I need to eat NOW. The other thing that I have noticed is an increased polarization of what I like and don’t like. While I don’t think this quite qualifies as a “craving” per say, I do have to say that good food tastes better and if something sounds/smells/looks yucky, it sounds/smells/looks REALLY yucky.
Here is a short list of things that I have always liked, but for which I have a new found appreciation….
1. Crock Pot Stew: Yum. Maybe it is the time of year, maybe it is the fact that this meal has always been one of my favorites, maybe it is the fact that it in the “universally accepted as comfort food” category, but yum.
2. Yoplait “Whips” Lemon Meringue: If you haven’t tried this flavor of yogurt, you are TOTALLY missing out….it really is almost as good as a real live dessert.
3. Peanut Butter on a Spoon dipped in Chocolate Chips (preferably Ghiradelli): Better than a Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup…and I am convinced it is healthier….less preservatives, higher quality chocolate, natural peanut butter….need I say more? (Oh, Nutella on a spoon is pretty good too).
4. Grilled Cheese: Again, another childhood favorite. Mmmmm…..and now, totally justifiable…babies need calcium.
5. Peach Pie: As of yet, this is the only late night trip to the grocery store that Troy has had to endure. He went to go get me some pie late at night and in the rain. What a good husband. I had one big piece…..felt a little guilty after I read the nutritional info (How can they fit 20 grams of fat into 1/8 of a pie? It seems like a physical impossibility)….then scooped out the rest of the pie filling, mixed it with a bag of frozen peaches, and three little bags of peach oatmeal and made a makeshift “peach cobbler,” which I convinced then myself was much healthier than the sinful pie and ate, in its entirety, over the next day and a half. Ahhhh….the power of justification.
6. Guacamole: I don’t know why, but guacamole is especially good right now. Go figure. Mexican food in general is pretty darn appealing most of the time. Shrug. Who knows.
I am sure that the list will continue to grow/be updated over the next few months…..there is still time for the pickles and ice cream thing to kick into high gear.
20.5 weeks
Pregnancy is definitely an interesting experience.
My second trimester has been SO much better than the first, and I am thankful every day that I am one of the fortunate women whose morning sickness was limited to one trimester. All-in-all I am feeling really good and have been going about life as usual.
Having just crested the half way point (we are now at 21 weeks)….my ever forward expanding belly continuously makes me aware of all the things that I used to take for granted.
1. Getting out of chairs. It is definitely getting more difficult. I am great once I get out, but I can see that this may become a problem…..
2. How cute “skinny people” clothes are. When I go shopping at the ONE maternity store in Fort Wayne, I am forced to walk past the windows of the non-maternity stores…..with their SUPER cute new fall collections tauntingly displayed for all to see.
3. Putting on panty hose. Oye. This is all I have to say. It is getting more difficult, and promises to become VERY hard. Putting on pantyhose is much harder than putting on shoes (and the shoes are getting tricky too) because they are connected in the middle, thus preventing the “bringing the foot to the outside of your thigh” or the “sitting Indian style” methods of putting on shoes that are becoming more and more necessary. Pretty much any bending over where I cannot stand with my legs apart is getting pretty uncomfortable….and threatens to be impossible in the weeks to come.
4. While we are on the pantyhose discussion….panty hose in general. So far, I have yet to find a great, or even adequate, pair of maternity panty hose. Even the specifically maternity pantyhose hit your belly in the middle. VERY uncomfortable…..a little hint for the designers of maternity pantyhose…..they need to go ALL the way up….the waistband needs to go right under your boobs. Right now I am buying regular non-control top (control top….WAY TOO TIGHT) pantyhose, cutting off half of the waistband, and pulling them up as high as I can. This has been working moderately well so far, but is a temporary solution. I will soon have to experiment with the queen plus size….or whatever comes after queen…..king?
5. Sleeping on my back (I have MUCH MUCH sympathy for stomach sleepers). I love to be able to sleep on my back, but according to all of the pregnancy literature out there, after the first trimester it is a bad idea to sleep (or even just lay) flat on your back….something about the weight of your uterus compressing the major blood vessels in your lower body…..blah blah blah…… Not only is it sort of hard for me to sleep on my side all the time, but all of my “educational prenatal reading” has freaked me out so much that I will wake up with a start if I happen to roll to my back in the night. I have found that lodging myself between pillows sometimes prevents the inadvertant and horrible “roll to the back,” but it also makes it sort of difficult for my husband to snuggle with me.
I am sure that there are many more thrilling, interesting, and unexpected things in store for me as we continue on this journey…… In fact, I have a feeling that in only a few weeks I will look back at this list and laugh at my inexperienced naivatee.
Filed under: Anna
My previous post and subsequent “blogersations” have gotten me thinking about ALL of the things that I have forgotten since college. Wow. Just to warn you, this is a rather intense session of self-reflection (just in case you are now contemplating a similar self evaluation). It is not for the faint of heart or those with already low or somewhat battered self esteem.
At the top of my list is calculus. The reason it is at the top of my list is because I remember absolutely nothing about calculus. When I say absolutely nothing…..I mean absolutely and totally nothing….not a vague but sort of shadowy idea…..not some of the stuff has faded…….ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. In fact, it took me an embarrassingly long time to come up with the words derivative and integral, which for those of you who have not ever had the pleasure of taking calculus, are VERY central, if not definitive, themes of the subject.
I took two years of calculus in high school, and performed well enough that I was able to take a test to receive college credit for some of my preparatory school efforts. Then when I actually got to college, I took their “introductory math placement test” and was able to test out of even more math. All-in-all, I only had to take one semester of calculus in college…..and somehow, miraculously….I was able to pull off an “A.”
Here is the truly amazing part. Not only do I not remember ANYTHING about calculus. I can’t even remember the class in college. I remember that I took the class, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what the classroom looked like, what the teacher looked like, what the book looked like, if the teacher was male or female……NOTHING.
How is this possible? I consider myself to be a person of at least average intelligence, but my memory (or lack of memory) is so baffling to me. My husband remembers things: trivia, historical dates, playing specific holes on specific golf courses at specific times, lines from movies that he has seen once, what color his sock were at a Christmas party when he was 8…… I, on the other hand, have “tabula rasa” syndrome in a major way. My slate is easily wiped clean, or at the very least it is highly selective as to which things are worthy of being held onto for extended periods of time. It is a running joke in our house that movies are “always new to me.” I can remember that I saw the movie before, but the plot will unfold with only vague recollection.
I guess this post has no real point (and will I even remember writing it tomorrow?). I have printed off a 21 page “basic calculus refresher” from a University webpage. It has been sitting on my desk for the last couple of days….. A small step.
Filed under: Anna
Amy’s comment on my last post sparked my curiosity regarding accuracy vs. precision….one of the many many many things that I once knew in college and have since forgotten……there are an awful lot of those things. I actually think that I have forgotten more things than I remember. I can’t decide if that is a sad commentary on myself, on the educational system, or just a cosmic truth that should be accepted without too much worry…. Food for thought.
For those of you that are interested, see below (it might just be you and me, Amy).
ACCURACY AND PRECISION
ACCURACY
Accuracy describes the nearness of a measurement to the standard or true value, i.e., a highly accurate measuring device will provide measurements very close to the standard, true or known values.Example: in target shooting a high score indicates the nearness to the bull’s eye and is a measure of the shooter’s accuracy. Refer to pictures below:
PRECISION
Precision is the degree to which several measurements provide answers very close to each other. It is an indicator of the scatter in the data.The lesser the scatter, higher the precision. The pictures given below clearly describe Accuracy and Precision.
EXAMPLES
If we measure the length of a foot-ruler and get values of 12.01 in, 12.00 in, 11.99 in, 12.00 in. These numbers are precise enough for us to believe that if we measure it again we would get 12.00+0.01 in. These measurements are precise but necessarily accurate. The foot-ruler may actually be metric ruler of 30.0 cm long. Our measurement is precise but not accurate.
APPROXIMATIONS
Even though physicists usually try for a high degree of precision, there are times when only a close approximation is needed. Physicists some times make rough estimates for making tentative decisions. The accuracy of estimates depends on reference materials available, time devoted, and experience with similar problems.
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE
Some times physicists make orders of magnitude calculations. In these calculations, the numbers may differ by a factor of ten. Example:106 m 10,980 m differ by two orders of magnitude.
Filed under: Anna
Here is a cosmically relevant question for y’all:
Why are you always so much heavier at the doctor’s office?
Is this not always true? I have found this to be a cosmic, scientifically replicable truth….much like gravity. In the science experiment that is MY life, this hypothesis has yet to be disproven.
I have to say that I have generally not been a meticulous scale watcher. I am pretty aware of the 5 pound window that is my comfortable “normal” weight. If I am feeling a little overindulged or chunky, I usually feel it first and then my suspicions are confirmed by my scale….better lay off the late night ice cream, okay….done.
Now that I am pregnant, I have been watching the scale with a little more vigilance. A week and a half ago I was horrified to discover, that according to the scale at my OBGYN’s office that I had gained 7.5 lbs! Yikes! (A quick reminder: at that visit we were at about 10.5 weeks….which means that the baby is the size of a large olive, and when they say “large” they don’t mean those famous 7.5 lb. olives that you hear about all the time.)
Now to put this in perspective for those of you who are not spending all of their spare time reading baby books, according to the books, a woman who starts at a “normal healthy” weight, should gain between 30 and 35 lbs. over her ENTIRE pregnancy. The majority of this weight is generally put on in the second and third trimesters (when the baby is considerably bigger than an olive). So, 7.5 pounds is not a completely ludicrous amount of weight gain for the first trimester, but it is on the high end of the first trimester scale.
Now that I have had a little time to adjust, I am feeling better, and upon further analysis, my initial shock and horror sprang from two major sources.
One (this is the one that I have reconciled): I have to assume that every first-time-pregnant-woman does a little bit of a double take as she first sees the numbers on the scale go up in a significant way. My little “growth spurt” pushed me over my own “emergency alert weight”. Every woman, perhaps every person, has one of these. It is the number that we silently keep in our head that means, “This is an unacceptable amount of weight gain, and it definitely has its root is too many cookies and frappuccinos….. No longer can this be blamed on bloating, water retention, or my unfortunate wardrobe choice of the-heaviest-clothes-that-I-own.” Now, being a relatively sane person, I have come to realize that pregnancy is going to require a re-evaluation of my “emergency alert weight,” and after some self reflection I feel that I am ready to accept this.
Two (this is the one that is sort of boggling my mind): My scale at home did not warn me ahead of time. In fact, according to my home scale, I had only gained a couple of pounds. So of course, one of the first things that I did after recovering from the initial shock of my doctor’s visit, was to go out and buy a new and much higher-tech scale….a scale that promised to be accurate within a half of a pound up to 330 pounds…….and SURPRISE…..it too registered a lower weight than the evil scale at the doctor’s office (although, slightly higher than the old discarded scale, but not over my “emergency alert weight.”)
So how do we reconcile this phenomenon? Someone has to be wrong. I have always assumed (although with no real grounds) that the doctor’s scale would win for accuracy….and I suppose in the end it doesn’t really matter, but it is an interesting phenomenon nonetheless.
As for my current situation, I suppose that the actual number on the scale isn’t as important a measure as the relative change in said number. So I guess I am okay with that…..and I suppose that I can accept the fact that I will always weigh 3-5 lbs. more on the doctor’s scale than I will on my own.
p.s. According to my new high-tech home scale, I am still under my “emergency alert weight;” although, just barely. Talk to me again tomorrow and it may be a different story.
Filed under: Anna
Today my back feels good. Not 100%, but good. I feel confident that in one more week I will be fully recovered from my recent back trauma.
My recent experiment with extreme pain and immobilization has left me feeling very grateful for my, until now, pretty unblemished physical record. Upon examination, I have come to the conclusion that this is my first really serious injury. Being a very careful, clean, and rather wussy child, my early years were pretty uneventful in the realm of physical malady. No broken bones, or bloody noses for me. I do remember a few scraped knees, and once being run over by a bicycle on my way home from school; but by no means was I ever debilitated. As an adult, I have never had a physical injury that has kept me out of work for a full week. I have come to the very non-scientific conclusion that one incident in 28 years is pretty darn good….statistically speaking.
Filed under: Anna
(an excerpt from an email to my friend Colleen)
I have to say that my meds are working pretty well. The cortisone shot definitely reduced the pain; although, I can tell when I move that it has not actually fixed the problem, just masked it, my range of motion is still the same. But masking is feeling pretty gosh darn good right now.
Things I have learned while being incapacitated:
I. Movie Reviews:
A. 21 dresses: Despite what you may have thought (sarcasm), this is not the intellectually stimulating emotionally complex movie that you were seeking. It is pretty slow moving; however, it isn’t the speed that is the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that the speed never changes. This movie is not offensively bad, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it. It is definitely an “11:30 pm, happen to catch the last half of it on cable” sort of movie. The one bright point of the movie is Katherine Heigel’s performance. She is charming and responsible for almost all of the laugh-out-loud moments.
B. Cloverfield: All I have to say is “huh?” I suppose this is supposed to be an attempt at artsy mainstream cinema, but I missed the boat. It is like the Blair Witch Project of alien invasion movies with no real plot. Okay. So if that is what you dig, totally go see Cloverfield. Also, it is only 1 hour and 15 minutes long, which would have made me really annoyed if I had paid to go see it in the theater. “Give me 1/3 of my money back!”
C. Untraceable: A thriller that I had never heard about before (not that I am really into the current media scene). It is a classic FBI vs. serial killer thriller, cut of the same cloth and same plot as most movies of this genre. But “serial killer thrillers” is actually one of my favorite genres (what does or doesn’t that say about me?) followed closely by “Catholic theology thrillers.” Go figure, I would like to think that it is normal and healthy fascination with the dark side, rather than something to cause conern. Untraceable is definitely not going to win any Academy Awards, but it was entertaining and definitely my favorite of the three.
II. Waiter on the Way: A service in the Fort Wayne area that will let you get “delivery” from any of the restaurants on its rather extensive menu list. The service charges a nominal (about $6) fee plus whatever tip you feel is appropriate to bring said food straight to your door step in about an hour. Excellent idea. Added ingenuity: the whole service is on-line (including all the menus) and you can even place your order and pay on-line. Cool.
III. Strange “middle of the day” TV: It is a strange mix of programming that is available to watch in the middle of the day. Interesting movies from the 80’s and 90’s. And by interesting I mean “I wonder how/why they selected that movie,” rather than interesting “fascinating!”
Filed under: Anna
I have somehow managed to SERIOUSLY mess up my back.
I have to say that this may be my first adult experience with serious pain and/or injury, and the stupidest part is that I have no real “incident” to blame for it. Somehow I would feel better if I had actually “done” something to myself: fallen down the stairs, slipped on the ice, bounced off of the hood of a car while saving a toddler and a small dog from certain death….some sort of interesting and mildly heroic story to justify the extremity of the pain that I now feel.
But alas, my story is about as banal as you can get…..a little bit of soreness following a not abnormally busy Saturday of teaching some of my “clingier” students (men will often subconsciously squeeze in with their right hand as they hold the lady in dance position), followed by a very fun introduction to Wii boxing (but only one round) Saturday night, and culminating with my first actual round of golf on Sunday. By the back nine on Sunday I had the feeling that something was “wronger” than usual. The little bit of pain on my left side was blossoming into something much more malicious….. and by Monday night I was kaput, actually having to cancel my last lesson of the evening. By Tuesday morning I was having trouble breathing, as the pain radiated around my left side to the front of my body. The 2000 mg of Tylenol that I had been taking was not even touching it.
And so began my holistic (and might I say idealistic) approach. Tuesday morning I got a massage. It made it worse, quite a bit worse. The massage therapist recommended that I see her chiropractor, who very kindly made room for me in his schedule that afternoon, even though he was supposed to have the afternoon off.
I had never been to a chiropractor before, and to be honest the idea of chiropractic medicine makes me equal parts intrigued and nervous. On the one hand I have a very open mind to alternate and holistic medicine, and I fully and passionately believe that we live in a very over-medicated society. On the other, the idea of someone messing around with your spine is a little freaky.
I went to the chiropractor, a very very nice man who has been practicing for 28 years. Comforting. He spent over an hour with me, discussing my symptoms, telling me about spines, etc. etc. Basically his diagnosis was that two of my left thoracic ribs (#8 and #9) had somehow gotten a little twisted or pushed up near my spinal column. This misalignment is what is pushing on the nerves causing the intense radiating pain, and my inability to take a full breath. Additionally, or perhaps causationally (is that a word?), my whole thoracic area was a little tweaked out (technical term), probably due to lots and lots of things….both environmental and physical…..blah blah blah….slight curvature of the lower spine….blah blah blah…..dancing, Wii boxing, golfing……blah blah blah. So this all makes sense. It sounds good.
I shall spare you the details of the next part…..the adjustment. Ouch. More colorful words come to mind, but let’s keep it clean. This much I will tell you, I kept it pulled together at the doctor’s office, but cried in my car on the way home. It hurt. A lot. But I suppose sometimes things have to hurt to get better. I made a follow up appointment for the following morning (this morning).
I went to work in the PM (I had to cancel the AM, but we had Ingvar in for coaching so I had to go in the PM). I had three lessons (two couple lessons and one single)….I barely made it. And I mean barely.
Ice. Lots and lots of ice. Doesn’t feel to bad if I lie perfectly still with an icepack under my left side and keep my breath shallow.
This morning, woke up…..definitely not better……by the time we got to the chiropractor (Troy took me this time) at 9am, definitely worse. Tried adjusting a bit more, but didn’t get very far….cried inside the office this time, couldn’t wait until we got back to the car. Felt bad for the chiropractor. It must be awful to have girls in pain crying in your office.
Got to respect the chiropractor (Dr. Murdock), as he directed to to call our family doctor to at least get some pain medication. He did not tell me to eat grass and cleanse my seventh chakra or anything like that.
Laid perfectly with an icepack under my left side for several hours and kept my breath shallow.
Got in to see our family doc early this afternoon. He gave me a shot of cortisone in my back, which I have to say is working. Dr. Klein said that it should numb the area for about 6 hours. Ahhhh….. Gave me prescriptions for the triple whammy: vicodin, muscle relaxers, and a mild steroid to reduce the swelling.
So here I am: home from work, feeling pretty useless, sitting perfectly still on the couch with an icepack under my left side breathing shallowly, typing on the computer, waiting for all of my drugs to start working (starting to feel just a tiny bit loopy), and contemplating the pros and cons of holistic health care vs. paying homage to the pharma gods.
On the one hand I would honestly like to be a very appropriately and moderately medicated person, on the other, I will be SO SO SO SO grateful if my triad of pharmaceuticals works. Ah, the hypocrisy of it all! And just when I am starting to feel a little bad about my “homeopathic failure,” I accidentally inhale too quickly or fully and I the dominant thought in my mind is “YIKES! I sure hope this vicodin works and works fast!”
