HSN

I recently accepted a job with the Home Shopping Network. I will be able to work from home taking inbound calls so I will be here to make sure I don't miss any major Grady milestones. Of course, I'll have to have a babysitter for him, but I'll be in the house as well so if anything happens I won't have to worry. I am excited for actually starting the job, but the past week of training has been rough. I have to do 4 more weeks and I can't quite figure out why. Well actually, I do know. Aside from myself and maybe 2 or 3 other people in the class, nobody gets it. We spent 3 hours last week learning how to sign onto the computer. Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't that something most people have been able to do since like 1997? Granted we have user names and passwords and such, but even with all that, I still believe it is a task that could have been gone over in as little as 15 minutes. Then we actually got to the order fulfillment screen, at which point I heard the instructor explaining to one of my coworkers about drop down boxes and telling another one how to use the TAB key. WHAT??? We have a 350 page booklet we have to get through in the next 5 weeks and while everyone else is agonizing over if they will ever learn it all, I am wishing they would just leave me alone with the book for a week and then test me to see if I'm ready for action. I know I am a person who picks up on things fast and then becomes very bored and tunes out. Meanwhile my husband has to be at home every night putting Grady to sleep by himself, which believe you me is no easy task. I am trying not to be too negative about it, and at least I have stopped crying when I have to leave for work every night. Only 19 more days...

Growing up quick

Grady at 4 days old
And now at 8 weeks...chubby cheeks, how time flies

Reality TV it's not...or maybe I'm missing something

I cannot accurately judge the cult following that the show "desperate housewives" has inspired, because I have never actually viewed an entire episode. Now, I do think 24 Emmy nominations is a bit much for anything, I mean, spread the love, folks. Perhaps I really am just missing the greatest show ever, I don't know. However, I thought that about "The OC" and was sorely disappointed. Chris and I decided last night that we should probably rent the first season whenever Blockbuster gets it in stock and find out what all the fanfare is about. What I can say about it though, is that none of the housewives I know look like the women from Wisteria Lane, and if they did I am pretty sure they wouldn't be that desperate. What they should do is make a show about women who don't have nannies or affairs with their strikingly handsome pool boy and don't know for sure if a shower will be a part of their activity from day to day. The normal women who don't own one singe piece of Dolce and Gabbana and have never even touched a Louis Vuitton handbag. Those of us who jump for joy when our baby turns a frown into a smile for the first time, and finally figures out that those feet belong to him. I don't feel desperate on a day to day basis though. Tired, yes, but desperate I'm not. I guess I'll leave that to the size 0 housewives with shining hair and sparkling veneers, if there are really any out there.

Things that make you go hmmmm part 2

I admit, I am guilty of doing things in the car that I shouldn't. You know the normal things, talking on the phone, applying makeup, eating a burger. In high school, I even became skilled at changing out of my jeans and t-shirt into tights, a leotard and a dance skirt on the way to dance class, all while driving. But yesterday I saw something that just made me giggle. A woman was driving through the mall parking lot using one of those Susan Lucci microdermabrasion wand thingy's. And I knew then that we as americans are multitasking WAY too much.

Exercise???

At my recent post natal checkup, I learned that I have lost all but 5 lbs of my pregnancy weight. Which is excellent, no doubt. But I know these last 5 will be hard. They are hanging out right over my uterus, adorned with a lovely forest of silvery pink stretch marks. The Doctor congratulated me and after my exam said " just don't resume heavy exercise until the baby is 8 weeks old". Apparently this woman is under the impression that I actually participated in heavy exercise before my baby was born. Granted, there was high school, when I was incredibly fit due to all of the dancing I was doing, but since then, I have been a member of 2 gyms which I went to like twice a month or something. I have the good fortune of looking like I am in shape, but I am definitely not. A few months ago, I could use pregnancy as an excuse as to why I got winded walking up the 3 flights of stairs to our apartment. I am not sure what excuse I am supposed to use now. I know one of these days my luck will run out, and since I'm a big fan of Coldstone Creamery, I suppose I had better find some heavy exercise to participate in before that last 5 pounds turns into 15.

Sweet Southern Comfort

There are a few reasons I hardly ever feel compelled to be sentimental about a tiny town called Jefferson City. This post is not about those reasons. And really, it's not the town's fault anyway. Today though, when it's still muggy and unbearably hot down here in Florida, I am reminded of September in Tennessee. When the last hint of summer is fresh in the air, but you can also smell twinges of autumn creeping through the trees. A few of the leaves will already be changing color, and at night, a sweater might just find it's way out of the closet and onto your back. Had I been there this past weekend, I might have gone to Boomsday, a labor day celebration complete with fireworks and plenty of beer on the river in Knoxville. Carson-Newman would be full of the bustle of students as the new freshman start to feel at home and the older kids invite them to "Dam Parties" (parties by the dam, for those of you who don't get that). The city itself, as I have said before, is small. Not tiny, but smalltown America for sure. It's big enough for McDonald's and Wal-Mart, but small enough that the addition of Blockbuster 4 years ago was a monumental event. I worked at the biggest restaurant in town, Pizza Inn. It was manned mostly by college students, but the actual "adults" that worked there were lifers. I am sure I could go there in 5 years and still see one particular waitress, faithfully waiting on her regulars. But it's a city where folks help each other. Everybody knows everybody, neighbors still watch out for each others kids as they cut across yards to the baseball field. The community pool will be closing soon, it's concrete floors echoing with the laughter of a city of kids, to sit green and stagnant through the winter until it opens again in May, magically blue and sparkling. Perhaps the most sentimental part of this reminiscence is the fact that the child I watched from the time she was a tiny baby is a kindergartener this year. I wasn't there, of course, but I can see her in my mind's eye, standing in front of her house in a new outfit, her lunchbox in hand. She is no longer the tiny tyke I ran through the leaves with in autumn's past, but an independent school-ager. Now I have my own baby, and while I wouldn't trade the scent of his sweet baby skin and hair for that of a thousand autumns in Tennessee, today, I miss them.

How well do you know Courtney

I made a quiz about me...if you're bored it's kinda fun to play. Click the link below. Snaps to Nicole for finding the website.

http://www01.quizyourfriends.com/takequiz.php?quizname=050904093750-904685&c=1&a=08

Overactive imagination 101

Anyone who knows me knows that I should never watch scary movies. For example, during the sixth sense I had to leave the theatre due to an asthma attack. Also, during college some friends convinced me to watch The Ring. Now, I was living in a funeral-parlor-turned-apartment building at the time and I slept with the lights on for a week and turned the TV toward the wall. Still, I was sure the freaky kid was going to crawl with her disjointed limbs out of the screen and attack me in my sleep. Knowing this, I don't know why I thought it would be ok for me to watch Stir of Echoes last weekend. For anyone who hasn't seen this movie, it stars Kevin Bacon and is not really even that scary. I did not even watch the whole thing, but I am pretty sure they wind up finding the girl that haunts Kevin Bacon buried somewhere in his house in the end. Anyway, it was a bright and sunny Sunday afternoon, and Chris was at home so I figured I would be ok. WRONG. For the past week I have been replaying scenes in my head. At night, when I am up feeding Grady, I leave lights on that really don't need to be on and cling to my 6 week old like he is going to do something to protect me. I KNOW in my head that neither the girl from Stir of Echoes, nor the girl from The Ring, nor the freaky under-the-bed girl from the Sixth Sense is going to show up in my apartment, yet I keep peering into the dark. Now I have always been afraid of the dark and, at 24, I have my reasons why I am still afraid of the dark (and no, ghosts have nothing to do with it), but being afraid of the dark and having a very overactive imagination is a deadly combination. All I can hope is that is gives me some perspective and understanding in a few years when Grady starts to have bad dreams and wants to crawl into bed with us. As long as he doesn't invite the girl under the bed to come with him.