My Favorites

Here are some of my favorite recent pictures of Jacob. I can't believe he is 1 1/2! He's got the most pinchable cheeks, even when they are covered in yogurt!

And I love the color of his eyes. Sometimes they are grey, sometimes they are blue and JUST SOMETIMES they look hazel. I've heard of blue eyes changing brown even after kids turn 2. I hope Jacob's eyes don't change!

This old fence in our yard makes for some good texture in our Jacob portraits. He loves this dog- he calls it "oof" and wants to take it everywhere.

He recently learnd how to say "moon" and to identify it in the night sky. But now he is always looking for the moon, even in broad daylight.

Quotables.

Things I've been telling myself all day:

"Everything I know about the law, I actually learned from Barbri." Because the first time I learned this stuff (i.e. Con Law, Corporations, Prof Responsibilities) it all seemed like hazy mush in my brain. Relearning it all again within a three hour time frame and from a bird eye's perspective, it actually is starting to make sense! Take that Business Judgment Rule!

"Minimum compentency." This is my hourly mantra. I only have to be minimally competent. I've been mediocre my whole life, how hard can this be?

And my FAVORITE quote of the year, from my all time favorite show: "I'm like the dollar store, because you know, at the dollar store you can have everything you ever really wanted in one package, for a dollar!"

I seriously forgot how much I LOVE American Idol. I forgot how addicting it is. I had to force myself to turn it off halfway through so I could finish my corporations practice problems. I hate you Bar Exam! American Idol might just be the cause of my career downfall.

Highschool Hunky Old Man Crush

I probably won't post much in the next 46 days. But during my spare time I have been diligent about reading other blogs, just too lazy to post comments. During the course of my hateful hours spent barprepping, I actually refresh my blog roll, facebook, and my two email accounts constantly hoping there will be some gift just waiting to interrupt me from the tedium of listening to lectures and outlining.

This is my random thought of the day:

Walking down the candy aisle of the grocery store (I consume like five times my normal amount of chocolate when I'm stressed) I passed a wall of magazines. This reminded me of when I was in highschool purchasing a magazine from this very same store.

People magazine had a huge cover photo of Leonardo Dicaprio. I snatched up the magazine and walked to the check out counter. During checkout, the clerk looked at the magazine, looked at my 16 year old self and smiled.

Then she said, "I guess you're buying this magazine for the hunky man on the cover." I returned her smiled and coyly replied, "yes."

Little did she know that the hunky man on the cover that was behind my purchase was NOT Leonardo Dicaprio. I guess a lot of people swooned over that guy when I was in highschool but I never saw the attraction. To me he looked like a squinty-eyed baby. I hated his hair. I hated his eyes. I hated his movies (yes, EVEN Titanic). When I first set eyes on the magazine, my retinas quickly scaned over DiCaprio's face and focused intently on the man in the upper right hand corner photo.

For in the corner of the magazine was a glaringly handsome photo of Harrison Ford. Now THAT was a real hunk. In highschool I was completely in love with Harrison Ford. Maybe I just had a thing for older guys. He was a REAL man. My ideal man. His rugged looks and crooked smile sent me over the edge.

but what is a 16 year old to do? Confess, explain and justify my true love and obsession with a much older man to a grocery store clerk? Or take the easy way out and let her believe the reasonable conclusion of her own thought process? I took the easy way out.

But my discomfort in expressing my hunky old man crush did not stop me from plastering his face all over my school pcoket cover binders. Ahhhh, Harrison Ford..... A part of me still swoons when I think of him.

That Horrible Seven Letter Word!

Can only be: BARPREP!

I doubt anyone who has never had the pleasure of preparing for the bar exam can EVER understand how painful bar preparation is. I wonder if there is a similarly painful exam anywhere in the world? I don't know how board exams are for doctors so I really cannot compare.

So I started bar preparation this week and sometimes I feel so absolutely hopeless that I want to just abandon the idea altogether. It's like prison. Serious limitations on bodily AND mental freedom. It will last about 6-8 hours a day for 53 consecutive days. People, that's longer than the 40 days and nights Noah was stuck on that dang Ark! The horrible part is that when you are not studying or taking practice questions, the bar is all you can think or worry about. When I'm not commiting slow but inevitable suicide pouring over my bar material, I'm thinking that's exactly what I SHOULD be doing or else I'll completely fail the bar exam!

I'm doing the mobile version of barbri. It's kinda nice because I they lease you a fancy pants ipod touch and you can watch barbri lectures in (pick your favorite): (a) your jammies, (b) your panties, (c) the fleece pants and hoody you've worn ten days in a row without washing, (d) full body alligator costume with matching hat. I'm a personal fan of (c).

But barbri is so frustrating to begin with. It is full of contradictory instructions:
1. Review the subject outline before class. You can either do it or not do it but don't spend more than 30 minutes doing it.
2. Here are some already prepared outlines and checklists. You really should not use these.Create your own outlines. But I'll shove these in your face anyway.
3. Study 6-8 hours a day. You should study for any duration of time you feel necessary.
4. We provide sample student answers to past bar exam questions. They will contain wrong information but study them anyway.
5. Take the practice questions. You wont know the answers but just do it anyway.
6. Take practice bar exam questions found in the W.A.T. book. The book is called "Washington Essay Tests" (WTF? Isn't that WET not WAT?!)
7. You won't have to learn any rhymes or plays on words to remember this subject. Here is a song to help you remember the concept of Ultra Vires....

See what I mean? But my hate of barbri lives in symbiotic co-existence with my love of barbri. Because after the hell of my first week of bar prep, I've already taken ten practice exam questions and I actually can spot all the issues and cite the correct rules for Constitutional and Administration Law. Seriously, I feel like I know Con Law better now (after one week) than I ever did while taking the class. Crazy!

But seriously, this 6-8 hours of study a day, seven days a week is starting to get to me. How did other mothers survive bar prep? By the time I get myself and my baby fed, changed, and out the door and complete the 4o minute drive to his babysitters (my mom or mom-in-law) it's already noon and my day is shot.

Why I Married This Guy, Or Picking Cantaloupe: A Tutorial

My husband is (often) charming, handsome and witty (key word: often). Those are good reasons why I married him. I also married him because I knew he would produce cute babylings. But the fact that my husband worked in the produce department of a local grocery store was the real "clincher." This is what really set my heart-a-fire four plus years ago when we met. I still get weak-kneed when selects the plumbest tomatoes from a tomato mound in a matter of mere seconds. Or when he walks into a grocery store and says, "the produce here is a mess!" Or when he lectures me on the proper handling and bagging of grapes. Swoon.

The following cell phone conversation, which took place about an hour ago, is a good example of why I married my husband:

Me (freaking out): "Help! I'm standing in the produce aisle at the grocery store and there are like a million cantalopes! How do I pick the right one? Should they be green? Soft? White?!"

Husband: "No, don't pick a green cantaloupe, that means it's not ripe."

Me: "But I think they all have some green on them!"

Husband: "Ok first, locate the stem of the cantaloupe."

Me: "Huh, cantaloupes have stems? I guess that makes sense if they grow on trees right?"

I think I can hear him shaking his head in disgust.

Husband: "Well, the stem is probably cut off but locate where the stem used to be. You know, on the end of the cantaloupe."

Me: "Ok, got it- locate the stem."

Husband: "Then feel around the stem. A ripe cantaloupe will be soft around the stem. The actual stem is hard, just the areas AROUND the stem should be soft."

Me: "Ok."

Husband: "You can also try tapping the cantaloupe. If it makes a hollow sound, you know that it's ripe."

Me: "Uh, ok. Never knew this was going to be so complicated."

Husband: "You can also SMELL the area around the stem. Most cantaloupes smell like cardboard. But if your cantaloupe smells like cantaloupe, then it is ripe."

Me: "Uh, ok..."

I proceede to pick up one cantaloupe after the next, feeling them up, tapping their asses, and inhaling their cardboardy scent. I don't stop to think that I probably look like a freak. I feel like saying, "Hey there sexy cantaloupe, you have a fine ass, you feel soft and you smell great- wanna come home with me?" But there is a problem, none of the cantaloupes I see smell great, nor are they soft in the hiney.

Me: "I don't think these are ripe."

Hussband: "I doubt you'll find a ripe one. This time of year, they are rare to find. You have to take them home and wait a week for them to ripen."

Me: "That would have been nice news to know BEFORE I started molesting cantaloupe! I need it for TONIGHT!"

Husband: "You can always go to the deli and grab some freshly cut cantaloupe."

Me: "Gee, thanks."

This Happens A Little Too Frequently For My Sorry-A$$ Married Taste

Husband is under the covers in bed. I am lying on top of him having just passed out after a kiss. Our room is colder than a an ice fishing shack. We are wearing sweat pants and three layers of hoodies.

Me: "We haven't done it in a while." (That would be precisely two days to be exact.)

Him: "You should fix that."

Me: "YOU should fix that."

[one minute silence]

Him: "You should take your clothes off..."

[pause for effect laziness]

Me: "YOU should take my clothes off..."

[one minute silence]

Him: "This is too much work."

[one minute later]

Him: "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

Me: "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

There is always tomorrow night....

Disclaimer: BarBri Is Making Me Crazy

In between trips to the grocery store in my sweat pants for "HELP, MORE CHOCOLATE!" and listening to Barbri lectures on my loaner fancy pants ipod touch, I'm constantly hitting the refresh button on my school email, waiting for the long overdue emails indicating that my grades have started to trickle in. (By the way, funny story: when my son was born one of our good friends told me "Ok, just don't let yourself go and become one of those moms who does her grocery shopping in her sweats!" I didn't know what to say to that considering the fact that I had been grocery shopping in my sweats since college. How are you supposed to fit the donut in the car ride home into your belly if it that belly is being restricted by tight waisted jeans?- DUH!).

So, it's been almost a month since I took my first exam and I had yet to receive a single grade. Meanwhile, one of my best highschool friends took her physical therapist licensing exam to practice in the state AND received her passing results in the manner of two weeks. What's up with that people? The law school has taken my money, the tattered remnants of the last good years of my youth and my self-confidence. Do they want to take my sanity too? Because I'm going crazy wondering if I passed law school or not. Are they trying to wring out as much pain from me as possible? You know as a nice parting gift?

At 4:30pm, I figured I would refresh my inbox one last time for the day figuring if they don't post grades during business hours then they certainly won't do so in the middle of the night. Wistfully and doubtfully, I hit "refresh." My heart skipped a tiny beat when I noticed that I had one new message in my inbox. My heart skipped a medium sized beat when I read the subject of that email: "Grades for Pre-Trial Advocacy Have Been Posted." Oh lordy. Here we go. This was my big whopping 4 credit class and probably the greatest variable as far as my grades went this semester. You see, my professors for this class decided that, although we had to turn in actual legal work product for a pretend case, such as Motions for Summary Judgment and Discovery Requests as well as give a final oral argument in front of a REAL judge, we hadn't received ANY qualitative feedback whatsoever.

I wonder what goes through the heads of other students as they retrieve their grades- what do other students feel? My experiences have always been the same. I click on the link to retrieve my grade and my heart starts pounding wildly in my chest. I have to enter my log in information and I can barely see from the crazy pounding reverbrating through my body to the cores of my eyeballs. As I am about to click the button to load my grades onto the screen, warmth injects itself into all my veins. I seriously can feel the blood pumping through each one in my hands, in my feet, in my forehead. Then I start to tingle. It's the kind of suspenseful tingle you get right before you almost fall off a ten foot ladder but catch yourself just in time. But mostly just my bottom is tingling. Don't ask, I have no idea why. My bottom always used to tingle when my mom would kiss me goodnight as a kid. It used to tingle when my husband would kiss me when we were dating. And, it also tingles when I look up my grades- it never ever tingles outside of these three instances- weird huh?

Ok anyway, enough tingling, the page starts to load and I whisper to myself, "Please God, please God, please God!" Something about the situation always insights the deeply buried relgious zealot on me. And right before I scroll down to see the tiny little letter grade wielding oh so much importance, I pause to think. "This is it. In one second I will either be happy or sad."

The moment of truth arrives. The tingling and the heart pounding has built up into an unbearable zenith and.....


B+.................


I stop a moment to think about if this is good or bad. In college, as like other law students, I received straight As all the time. A B+ in college would have made me sad. But this is lawschool, this is an entirely different ball game. Law school has stripped away most of my confidence and my high standards, leaving me to feel as if I were completely and utterly naked on a busy public street. So, my metaphorical nakedness considered, this is.... the BEST GRADE EVER! (I have received an occasional A in law school, but without fail, it has always been tempered by a big fat C).

I am happy. I think I'll scarf some more chocolates as I sit in my sweats and listen to Barbri lectures.