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WARNING Downton Abbey, season 3 spoilers!!! Stop reading if you are one of the people who hasn't seen season 3 yet!!! So, pretty much everyone I know used Tunnel Bear, or Bit Torrent or something to watch all of Downton Abbey season 3 ages ago, but I didn't! Handsome Bryce and I have been watching them when PBS posts them. Last night was the final "Christmas Special" and I can now join the rest of the world in saying, "DOWNTON ABBEY, WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING???" I actually have figured out what will happen in season 4. WARNING Downton Abbey season 4 spoilers that I made up!!!! Do not read if you, rightly, think I am psychic!! In season 4 there will be more pregnancies and a lot more deaths. Mary will name her baby "Matthew" and then one by one each adult character will die off and be replaced with a baby of the same name, thus laying the foundation for the zany new show:  When your castle looks kind of weird, and you wish that you weren't th...

In my last post I appealed to people to help them stop saying awkward things to pregnant ladies. The thing is, whoever you are, pregnant or not, people are going to say awkward stuff to you, and you have to find a way to deal with it. I learned to deal with it when a super-awkward person came into my life, and I knew this person was never fully going to leave my life, ever. This person was going to keep popping up and keep being awkward FOREVER.  At first I dealt with them the way I always had dealt with awkward people: smiling blankly and making non-committal remarks to pretend like our conversation was not insanely awkward. This did not work well. The whole time I could not stop thinking about how crazy annoyed I was at how awkward this person was making me feel, and I could not stop pretending to be polite. And then, suddenly and simultaneously I ran out of fake-politeness and I ran out of energy to be annoyed, suddenly I was just honest, and I said: I wasn't mad, or feeling sup...

I have addressed this somewhat in the past , but it has come up in a few conversations recently, and I think it is time to help everybody out. For some reason pregnant people are magnets for awkward, sometimes hurtful comments. I think that when people see a pregnant lady they get over-excited, like how you would feel if you noticed that a co-worker suddenly got a full-face tattoo. People just really want to comment about it.   No one says that though, that would be weird. Instead people explode out some comment like: Because that is not awkward at all. People also want to joke around with pregnant people. They think they are being pretty original, but the thing is, pregnant ladies hear those exact same jokes over and over, and they never were and never will be funny. NEVAH! Guys, this is madness. Pregnant ladies are often uncomfortable, emotional, and tired. You really can't predict how they will react. It is smarter to tease a knifey-hobo than to tease a pregnant lady. It's a...

As a kid, I loved to read, and I am enjoying sharing that with McBaby. I am starting to realize though, that many of the books I loved as a child now give me the SUPER-CREEPS. Thus, I present: Here is how my perception of the characters has changed: His size is what first struck me when I read this story as an adult. Dr. Seuss features cat-sized cats that walk on four legs in some of his stories. This cat could easily have been cat or even child-sized, but he is not he is human-adult-sized. This makes him more powerful than the children. It also makes him super scary: A. GIANT. BI-PEDAL. CAT. Also he is wearing a hat, gloves, and a tie but no pants...what the heck?  The cat does whatever he wants, regardless of what the fish says. The fish constantly says that the cat "should not be here when your mother is not." It is clear that the cat would not behave this way if their  mother were there to protect them. He makes a huge mess. I do no even want to think about what "Thi...

I have been thinking about New Year's resolutions and changes I would like to make. I know a lot of people, especially moms, spend a lot of time beating themselves up about what they could be doing better. For the most part I don't have this problem, (I'll save the crippling guilt for the future when my children out-number my hands.)  My current self is pretty nice to me, it's the ghosts of past Rachels that are the real jerks. It usually goes like this: I have decided this kind of thing is actually healthy. The burning humiliation is a sign that you have grown from someone who once thought that action was perfectly ok, into someone who cringes even at the idea of it. So friends, whatever your resolutions are, you can feel good that at least you are not as awkward as you were in your mid-teens. And for my friends who are in their mid-teens: You can't fight it. You can never be so cool that future-you will not think you were totally lame. Don't worry though, futu...

I have posted about general ideas on dreams before, but I never really addressed the aspect of dreams that I like to call dream torture. Your brain is the creator of all of your dreams, and your brain is the part of you that feels the effects of dreams, so I would like to know why your brain is sometimes a total jerk to itself. Why do our brains create terrible scenarios for us to suffer through while we are trying to relax? Sometimes I have fantastic dreams where I am hanging out with super-heroes, or making the best cake ever, but sometimes I have dreams that are torturous.  My torture dreams usually include a very important but ultimately impossible task, like warning everyone about imminent danger that only I am aware of and only I care about.  I also often have dreams where I have to solve a very important equation, but the numbers are all shifty and I can't keep my train of thought on the solution.  Then I have dreams where I must write down something very importan...

Periodically I decide to recommit to exercising. It always makes me feel gross. I have a  friend who likes to use the expression, "I feel like I was hit by the poo-truck of tiredness." I have decided that there really isn't too much of a difference between being hit by a poo-truck and running. Observe: McBaby likes the running better though, because then he can sit in his stroller and eat animal cookies, like a sultan.