2/7/10 - Happy Superbowl Sunday!

Superbowl Sunday baby!!! For my own personal football fandom, it’s the apex of football. Well at least this year it is. Which is a little disorienting after so many years of not only not caring much about the teams, but also having the game be such a boring blow out that I paid more attention to the French onion dip than the TV. But it’s been a Manning triple play the last few years (with some Big Ben thrown in for good measure), which I am super stoked about.

The Indianapolis Colts are my team. I love them. And have for several years now. I adore Peyton Manning and definitely think he is the best quarterback in the league right now. And the Colts are in the Superbowl for the second time in three years this year (and his little brother Eli stuck it to the Patriots a couple of years ago in a game that seriously made my day – put that in your pipe and smoke it stupid Brady!).

Several weeks ago I said, “Wouldn’t it be a great game if the Superbowl was the Colts and the Saints?” Well I got my wish. And my nightmare. Because honestly, I think the Saints are just about the only team that could beat the Colts (when they are playing as well as they have been). They are consistent (mostly) and they have passion in spades for their team and their city. They play football not only because they love it and make lots and lots of money, but because they feel like they owe it to the city of New Orleans to play as well as they absolutely can. And that’s pretty cool.

Unless of course they are facing MY team that has maddeningly decided to play conservatively (yes, I’m talking to you Coach Caldwell!!), make really poor decisions in play calling and clock management and give the whole effing game away when it was just within their reach (can you hear me screaming?).

I’m thrilled that the Saints finally won a Superbowl, they played their asses off this year and they deserve it. I just wish it wasn’t at the expense of my Colts.

2/6/10 - Lazy Saturday

It has been snowing all day. Seriously. All. Day. We got the house picked up and cleaned (well the most important parts anyway) this morning, I put a big pot of chili on the stove and we played the Wii and ate Frito pie the rest of the day. Productive and healthy? Not so much. Lovely way to spend my Saturday with my family? Yep.

Frito pie has always something that held little interest for me. Mostly I think because traditional Frito pies involve a lot of onions and I don’t do onions. At. All. So I just kind of wrote them off. But what’s not to like about a layer of Fritos covered with homemade chili, cheese, sour cream and avocado? Seriously yummy. And with a good deal of comfort as well.

I also finished the second book in Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series. It’s also very good. Although she drops a bombshell at the end and almost kills one of my favorite characters out of nowhere about 10 pages from the end of the book. Seriously. That is just not nice. And because I was all amped up after reading the second book, I had to pick up the third immediately. I was going to put off the third one for a while to pick up some Ray Bradbury and possibly some James Patterson and/or Tom Clancy, but I just couldn’t help it. So our trip to the library to stock up on books I’ve never read is going to have to wait a bit longer until I finish this book.

One of the interesting things I’m finding is that she doesn’t really feel the need to explain what things are. They just are. And that is one of the things that has always seriously daunted me about writing sci-fi stories - how the hell do you explain everything to everyone? Yeah. She doesn’t. It’s actually sort of a relief as a reader too, because I don’t really want to read explanations about stuff, I want the story. Much like I don’t have to describe what a door is, she sees no reason why she should explain what a wherrie is. Cool.

Writing Crazy

Ok, so I figured out why I’m having a hard time rectifying these crazy stories I keep writing with who I am. Get a cup of coffee because this is going to be a little on the personal side.

I’ve spent most of my life having to convince myself and everyone around me that I am, in fact, NOT crazy. I had an exceedingly hard time growing up and racked up a pile of therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists. All of which threw diagnoses at me like clinical depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder and oppositional defiant disorder. Those are some pretty hefty diagnoses to be throwing at a teenager already carrying around the baggage life has thrust upon her back. I tried medication after medication and talk therapy after talk therapy session. Until at the end, I just decided to go to college and figure it out on my own. And it’s taken me until today to get to where I am now (funny how that works isn’t it?) and I know I will struggle with this whole “I just don’t exactly fit” thing for probably the rest of my life. But after 33 years, I’m ok with that. Truly. I’ve made peace with my own odd-duckness and I even have days when I embrace it with gratitude.

And then I try this experiment with writing fiction and a whole bunch of crazy comes streaming out of my head. Crazy characters, crazy stories, crazy self-doubt. A whole bunch of crazy that I had no idea was there. And it freaked me out a bit. To the point where I’ve been holding back in the stories, second guessing myself and my readers. Which is not really the point of this writing project is it? The point is to push my own boundaries, to make myself grow as a writer in ways that I simply can’t do other than by doing what I’m afraid of. It’s gotten to the point where I can more easily talk about my mental health history than to let a femme fatale serial killer have free reign in a story, how silly is that?

Well. Not anymore. The filter is coming off.

Whack Job Status

Well, I spent all day working on this week’s story for 52 in 52 and I’m fairly sure that this will seal the deal with my readers thinking I’m a complete whack job. Believe me when I say that I truly had no idea I was going to be drawn to writing these kinds of stories. I really thought I’d be writing these in-depth stories about the human condition, hell, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I started writing sappy love stories and romances. Those would make more sense than the crazy thrillers I’ve been writing the past several weeks.

Instead I’m writing about a bank robber who can eat the money he steals only to have it cut out of him later, and a nightmare coma experience and now a black widow serial killer. Where is this stuff coming from?!? As I’ve stated over and over again, I do not read these kinds of stories. I’ve never read these kinds of stories. I can’t even watch these kinds of movies most of the time. I’ve never been able to. While my mom relishes in Stephen King books and all of my friends adore horror movies, I’ve always shied away from them and loudly cursed when my favorite actors take roles in movies that I know I won’t be able to watch.

My imagination has always been worse than what I could read or watch you see. Gremlins gave me nightmares for months. The People under the Stairs had me so jittery I honestly thought there might be something wrong with me. And my dreams took the fairly benign story of Hearts in Atlantis to a place Mr. King never imagined. See I don’t really need the help coming up with big, bad nasties to populate my dreams. I do just fine on my own without any inspiration.

So it’s amazing to me that I can write these stories. Spend all week planning them out; thinking through the intricacies of character and story. Because I’ve not had a nightmare yet. My dreams have become more vivid to be sure, but I’m sleeping just fine for the most part.

What a crazy creative journey I’ve begun.

2/3/10 - This Parenting Thing Keeps Getting More Complicated

So, in the last week and a half, The Boy has taken first prize in his science fair, gotten 35 out of 50 words right in his class spelling bee and had four notes about his behavior sent home. I’m totally the proud mama on the first two and completely bewildered by the last one. He’s never been a behavior problem in any of his classes since he was two years old and bit one of his preschool classmates so hard he drew blood. Ever since then, he’s pretty much been an easy going kid. Even if he occasionally does have trouble staying in his seat or not chattering in between lessons. But that’s totally age appropriate, expected stuff and it’s never been a problem.

Now all of a sudden, it’s a problem. So I sat down with him tonight to talk it out. Determined to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. Because, maddeningly, the only thing the teacher actually said was “He is having trouble making good choices in PE and my classroom.” Which doesn’t tell me a whole hell of a lot. And actually served to piss me off more than anything. But The Boy and I sat down anyway. It turns out that he’s having trouble with a boy in his class constantly pushing and hitting him and then telling the teachers that he started it. Hence The Boy getting into trouble with the “making bad choices.”

I had several emotions immediately rise to the surface upon hearing this news. The first of which was rage. Rage at this boy for bullying my son and rage at this school for allowing it to happen right under their noses. Also rage at the teachers for taking one kid’s word over another without doing any further investigation. And absolute sadness that my sweet, super sensitive boy was having to endure this at such a young age. As The Boy crumbled into tears in my arms after finally getting this out, I was overcome with wanting to protect him from every cruelty in the world.

Which I can’t do obviously. But I sure as hell will write his teacher a stern email.

2/2/10 - Time Flies...

Oh, hello! It’s February! Wait, what?!? How can it possibly be February already?!? That means Valentine’s Day is only two weeks away. That means that March is really just right around the corner since February feels like such a short month. That means it is time to start researching summer activities for the kiddos. That means it is time to register them for spring sports.

I just can’t figure out how it is already February. I feel like it was just Christmas. And since it is February, that means it’s been 3 months since my dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. He’s still with us, although his pain seems to be increasing on an almost daily basis. And we are all still dealing with the depth (and ramifications) of our own personal levels of denial and anger. And I’ve decided to stop fighting being such a mess and just be a mess. I have a right to be a mess! My dad is dying and my family’s financial health is utterly fucked up! It’s ok to be a mess right now. I can stop apologizing for it, I can stop denying it, I can stop pretending. It’s ok, it is, and it’s not my job to judge its relevance or convenience. It’s my job to just be with it and see what’s there. Right? Maybe I should write that on a post-it and put it on my bathroom mirror. Or, on the box of Swiss Rolls I’m currently BFF’s with.

On a lighter note, February brings with it LOST! The season premier of LOST is on tonight and I’m going to a friend’s house to watch it. This friend also happens to be the person who cuts my hair, so I’m sort of hoping (although not even remotely expecting) her to take pity on me and cut my hair while I’m there. But mostly it will be good to see a friend, have yummy dinner (I am making my famous curry pasta salad), a few cocktails and yell at the TV screen together. Anything else is just bonus.

I get a night off from cooking and my day job, that’s enough for today.

2/1/10 - Project Time!

So. My head is a mess. What am I doing about it? Diving head first into a project of course! I’ve decided that one of my biggest problems with writing lately is that I’m finding myself drawn to writing stories I don’t typically read, so I don’t really know how it’s done, so to speak. So I’m probing all of my friends for their best recommendations in the mystery/thriller/suspense and sci-fi/fantasy genres. And it turns out that I’m not nearly as well read as I once thought I was, which has put a decent sized dent in my ego, I’ll tell you what. I mean I knew I had pretty huge holes in the classics, but other than that I was really pretty sure that I was relatively well read. Yeah. Not so much. There are two entire genres that I’ve pretty much missed out on altogether.

Well, problem recognized and now on its way to be fully rectified. I have a new reading list easily 3 dozen books deep and I would love to just take a couple of weeks and do nothing but read. I’d love to just relish in the feeling that reading something new and wonderful gives and then have the time and mental space to do nothing but fully engage in the host of ideas these newly discovered stories bring with them. Unfortunately, I can’t quit my day job for two weeks of nothing but reading and writing. I think they call that child neglect. Ahem.

So I will just continue on with my research and read whenever I can, in amidst all of the other day to day stuff on my to do list, like making sure to feed my family occasionally. And not completely ignoring The Girl in her pleas to play and you know, make eye contact.

I’m really excited to delve into this new world. Although it will require me getting reacquainted with a little thing called the library, which I know the kids will love. I’m embarrassed to say it has been a while since I’ve actually used our local library.

So it’s newness all around, what better refuge from the mess in my head?

Winter X Games

It’s Winter X Games time again!! I love the X Games. This year has a bit of a different feel to it since the Olympics start in two weeks, but it’s sort of like a preview to portions of the Olympics since all the members of the snowboard and skiing teams are competing this weekend in Aspen. Of course there are also painful elements of the proximity to the Olympics in that the possibility of injury has vastly huger consequences and the injuries that do happen could be catastrophic for the various national teams in Vancouver.

Like Torah Bright having to withdraw because of a concussion during a practice run, or the spill that Shawn White took where he hit the lip of the half pipe so hard with this chin that it popped his helmet off. Or the Austrian team member who wiped out during the men’s snowboard cross and ended up with a concussion, broken ribs and a chest contusion. It was brutal.

But even with the wipeouts it is just so much fun to watch all of these athletes go balls to the wall and see what they can do.

Except for one thing. I do not for the life of me understand why the expectations are so much lower for the women in almost every single sport. I mean is it because women are typically smaller and so don’t get as much momentum and thus as much speed? Or is it that they aren’t as strong? Or is it just that the women haven’t pushed themselves to attempt the level of tricks the men are doing? If it’s one of the first two, fine, I don’t much like it, but there’s not much to do about it really. If it’s the last one however, that is just silly. I mean seriously? I think it’s probably the most apparent in the snowboard half pipe than just about anything else. Shawn White was getting up to 22 feet above the walls, while Kelly Clark was only getting up to about 14 feet. And there was only one woman attempting to do more than just a 900 for tricks. What is up with that?

1/30/10 - Reading About Dragons

After I made my way through The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings the first time, my mom handed me the first book in the Dragonriders of Pern series. I read the first chapter and never picked it up again. I think maybe it was a cross between being burned out on having to work so hard on what I was reading and the fact that Anne McCaffrey wrote the first book in 1968 and so the language was quite a bit more complicated than what I was used to. Either way, I was totally lost and didn’t really give them much thought after that.

But with my writing project on 52 in 52, I am finding that I’m drawn to writing stories that are pretty much outside the typical genre that I choose to read. So, I’m making an effort to start reading in the sci-fi/fantasy and mystery/suspense realms so I can hopefully get a bit more familiar with story flow and language.

So I picked up Dragonflight a couple of days ago to give it another run. I had to struggle a bit through the first chapter as she just jumps right into the story without giving much explanation so I had this overarching feeling of just being utterly lost, but I kept going and finished the book today. And I loved it. I mean, the names she chose for her characters are great fodder for making fun (F’lar, S’lel, mnemnenth – I mean, seriously?) but despite the goofy names, I totally got sucked in. And what I think I loved the most about it was the language that gave me such trouble the first time I picked it up. The flow of her writing is just so gorgeous. She obviously relishes in the words she chooses to tell her story (which is probably a good thing since it balances out the fact that the story itself is riddled with dragon sized holes).

I’m enamored enough with the characters to pick up the next book and then I’ll pick up Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine and a few of Neil Gaiman’s. I’m looking forward to it.

But I really need good mystery/suspense recommendations…hint, hint…

Doh!

The Girl is channeling Homer Simpson. Seriously. She’ll do anything, climb anything, say anything to get donuts. We don’t have them around very often, but when they’re on sale I’ll splurge sometimes and get a box. And The Girl has climbed the shelves in our large closet pantry. She has pulled a chair over to the fridge and climbed the shelves to get them from on top of the fridge. She has climbed on top of the counter and climbed the shelves in our glasses cupboard to get them. It’s an insane obsession. And totally Homer Simpson. Donuts are the only thing she does this for. She will sit and eat them until she’s sick. And then when she can’t eat anymore, she takes the remnants of whatever may be left and hides them in various little cubby holes she has around the house.

Probably the funniest thing about it is that she’s so innocent about the whole thing. I mean I have these images of her in my head of sitting on the counter in our kitchen furiously shoveling donuts into her little mouth as fast as she can, eyes darting towards the door preparing to be caught. But in reality, she comes out of the kitchen, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with her sleeves, smiling sweetly, smacking her lips in the most ladylike way as if she just had a light snack of cucumber sandwiches. But when I go to count how many donuts she just managed to inhale, the number is usually somewhere between 2 and 4. She doesn’t even eat pizza with that much gusto. Even The Boy thinks she’s crazy for her donut obsession.

I guess I should be glad that our favorite kind of donuts don’t go on sale very often otherwise my husband and I would have to put them under lock and key. Oh wait, we already have. Our oven door locks (as a childproofing feature) and as she was stymied by this fact this morning, she got revenge by emptying out my jar of kosher salt I use when I cook, all over the dog beds. You just don’t screw with a girl’s donuts.

Science Fair, Baby!

The Boy won first place for his age group in his school’s science fair today! I’m so proud of him I can hardly stand it! He and his class partner chose to study water, space and sound. They came up with an experiment where they studied the effect that different levels of water have on the space they are in. So they filled different receptacles with water in different levels and then blew the same speed of air across the top of the receptacles and recorded the difference in sound. Basically they took the old game of blowing across the top of a bottle and making it whistle and turned it into a science experiment. But if you break it down like that and build in the fact that they had to do the scientific method throughout their experiment, it’s fairly sophisticated for a first grader in my opinion.

I mean we weren’t even doing science fairs when I was in first grade. We didn’t start school science fairs until I was in 5^th grade and my experiment was seeing if I could train a goldfish to come to the side of the bowl by tapping on the outside of the bowl and then rewarding the fish with food. All I ended up proving is that if you tap on the side of a fish bowl enough times, the goldfish gives up and dies. Ahem.

I’m a proud mama today. My Boy just astounds me. I mean he can pull this sort of thing off on the same day his teacher sends home a note saying that he has spent the last three days being in trouble for talking and/or not being able to sit still during class. He’s like this whirling dervish of brilliance. He spins and spins and spins but when he does sit still he pulls off these amazing things.

I wonder if he’ll ever learn (or want to learn) how to temper that kinetic energy that pulses through him every minute of every day. Or if he will learn how to make it his ally and fuel all of these moments of brilliance. I don’t know, but I’m a proud mama.

Stuck

I wrestled with this week’s story all day long. I am not even kidding. I started completely over three times. I’ve just got this idea, from another dream I had, that I can see and feel so clearly and I cannot figure out how to translate it into the story that it already is. I feel like I am trying to compose in a different language or something, that’s the kind of disconnect I’ve got going on. I am fairly sure that I’m totally over thinking the whole thing and thus making it much more complicated than it actually needs to be. And I think I’ve got myself in some kind of self sabotage brain loop to boot, i.e. the genre that this particular story falls in is way out of my typical comfort zone, so because I don’t know this genre very well it makes sense that I can’t find my voice within it. And while I think there is probably something to that theory, I also think it is a big mind fuck to explain my inability to write the way I want to. Either way, it’s infuriating. The good news is that I finally finished a draft that I didn’t want to immediately erase. The bad news is that there is a very good chance that I will wake up tomorrow, re-read it and immediately want to erase all of it. Which means I would be starting all over again on the day of my deadline. It’s all quite maddening really.

But I am going to try to put my mind down and walk away before I re-read it tomorrow and hopefully I’ll be able to lend an objective eye to the piece and either know there are big problems with it, fix what I can and publish it anyway or just give up and publish it anyway. Either way, I will be publishing something tomorrow. I just hope I don’t cringe when I do it.

There are 48 more stories to tell this year, I’m sure this will not be the last time I get stuck, I just hope I figure out how to deal with it better the next time.

Wall

Ok, so apparently I’ve lost my mind. Or hit a wall. Or something. Because it appears that my current options are either crying mess or harpy. Lovely. Exactly how I wanted to kick off my week! I just cannot seem to pull it together. I’m trying to just be, as uncomfortable as it may be, in the hopes that all of this will just work itself out and I can go back to my own version of functionality. Because bursting into tears every time someone asks how I am is just not acceptable. And neither is screaming at my children just because they happen to be breathing in my general vicinity. I’m being ridiculous.

People keep telling me that I need to refuel myself so that I can keep being strong. And while there is definitely part of me that would like to take that advice and would definitely like to go back to being strong, the me that is right now just laughs and throws dirty looks when I hear that advice. Because right now it feels like it would take years to refuel. That laying on a beach with no responsibilities, no expectations, no nothing for several months straight would do nothing but scratch the surface. And there is no part of me that feels strong right now. I feel like I could very well disintegrate on the spot. Like a stiff wind could just blow the pieces of me away like brittle leaves.

And I wish I could say that I was being dramatic. But that’s how I feel right now, brittle and hollow. And that just really sucks. Mostly because it came out of nowhere. I was doing so well! I mean, yes, I’ve had a couple of crabby days and a bunch of rollercoaster riding, but I never expected anything like this. To just be laid flat with grief and stress before my dad actually died. I don’t know what to do with this. But I’d like for it go away now. I’ll click my heels, wrinkle my nose, apparate, Calgon take me away, whatever it takes I’m more than willing to try. Just no more crying or yelling please.

On the Edge of Panic

We’re home again. And I am really, really crabby for some reason this evening. The drive was fine. The roads were, by and large, fine. I got to listen to a good portion of the awesome CD’s that D made for me. But I got home and The Boy was just bouncing off the walls hyper and full of attitude. And my husband told me about he had to call his parents and ask for money because we couldn’t make our car payment this month. And even though they, of course, graciously offered to help us out, I was mortified that he had to call and ask (their generosity has known no bounds the last few months but it’s one thing to have them send us money because they want to and an entirely other thing to ask for it outright). And I know the reason we can’t make our car payment this month is because of things like me driving back and forth between my parents’ house and home, having a powerful need to eat (can you name the movie?) and unfortunately needing things like shampoo all at once. It’s ridiculous that things like gas and groceries can screw up our entire budget. This whole awful bankruptcy process was supposed to make this better and instead we are still in dire straits. And I feel like I’m inches away from just succumbing to this state of panic and coming apart at the seams. Panic about my dad, panic about our finances, panic about what my mom will do after my dad goes…

And I have this idea for this week’s 52 story but I can’t quite get a handle on it enough to actually write it out. It centers on a woman who gets caught in this sort of dream loop/jump, popping from one dream to another without any control, rhyme or reason. I won’t spoil the end for you, but if I can get it all to work out on paper it could be pretty cool. If not then I don’t know what I’ll do this week, but hopefully I’ll come up with something.

Hopefully some quiet time tomorrow will lend some focus.

1/24/10 - Awe and Shock

Oh Peyton Manning, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

My Colts are in the Superbowl!!! And they are playing the Saints, so it should be an awesome game. It thrills me to no end to have the two top ranked teams in the NFL actually playing in the Superbowl instead of one really awesome team and one team that finally remembered how to play football just in time for the playoffs. I am really sad for Brett Favre though. I really would have loved to see the Vikings make it to the Superbowl and it would have been equally fun to watch Brett and Peyton go toe to toe. But alas and alack Brett got hurt and was unable to hold the team together long enough to pull out the game. They were both still good games and it made for a nice day of watching football with my dad.

And that is pretty much all I did today. Watch football. Well, and I pulled together dinner from a bunch of leftovers for us all, but that’s about it. Which was actually a really nice change of pace, to just do nothing that is.

The Girl and I are heading home tomorrow. I’m looking forward to being in my own bed again, having more than two pairs of pants from which to choose and having some alone time while The Girl is in school this week (I have yet to start on my story for 52 this week, eek!). But I am also nervous, again, about leaving my dad. Seeing him after being gone for two weeks was a bit of a shock. He’s losing weight, and not just water weight, he’s starting to look frail. He’s moving incredibly slowly and I can tell that he is now in pain, regardless of how much he tries to brush it off or make light of it. And so now I am nervous to leave. Because I don’t know what I’ll see the next time I see him. It’s amazing to me how this whole process can just keep getting harder. How the little things can still knock the wind out of me.

Food and Writing

Ah, civilization, how I have missed thee! Ok, that’s being dramatic. We’ve only been snowed in for a couple of days, but I’ve been completely computer and phone free during those days which almost NEVER happens, so it feels like longer. I half expected to get on the computer today to discover The Boy had started college and all of my friends were moving to Florida to retire. Instead it’s only been a couple of days and life has just kept on keeping on while I’ve been away.

My mom took The Girl and me out to lunch today at a new Greek restaurant in Farmington. And it’s the funniest thing to see how people react in this town not only to a new restaurant, but more so to a new “ethnic” restaurant. The place was packed with people oohing and ahhing over the food and the décor and, and, and! It just cracks me up. But it was yummy, and a lovely change of pace from the typical restaurant fare in town. The service was good, although I really wish cute boy servers would pay attention to the fact that all of their cutesy little one liners that they use on most patrons really only work if the customers next to your other table don’t hear you use them on someone else first. Again, it just cracks me up.

And today is my parent’s 39^th wedding anniversary. Although since they’ve been together for 41 years and this will be their last anniversary together, they’re splitting the difference and just calling it their 40^th anniversary. Seems fair to me. So I’m making them the dinner of their choice (linguine with clam sauce and Caesar salad) and another friend of theirs made them a cherry pie for dessert. So once again, we’ll at least have good food and good company if nothing else.

I’m fretting a wee bit about my story for this week. Last week’s story came so easily and has so much potential, but this week, I’m waiting for inspiration to hit. Hopefully it hits sometime soon. This challenge is proving to be a lot of fun, when I don’t have to force it.

1-22-10 - Snowed In

Here’s what I woke up to this morning: The Girl happy, healthy and apparently completely back to normal – YEA!! My dad with bright, well rested eyes despite the road rash – YEA!! More bloody snow – BOO!!

Jiminy Christmas, I had no idea this much snow was in the wings for this trip. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have come if I had known. And at this point, it’s not even really the amount of snow so much as it is the fact that it’s the wettest, heaviest snow I think I may have ever seen. If the temperatures drop, it’s going to become one big skating rink in the Four Corners area. It’s ridiculous.

But if we have to be snowed in, at least we’re snowed in with good food, lots of booze and awesome friends. Even if we don’t have internet, getting the cars out to go anywhere is a chore and a half and the phone lines are only sort of working. Being snowed in, in the middle of nowhere New Mexico is not nearly as much fun as being snowed in at home. But I’ll take it.

The Girl has everyone securely wrapped around her little finger it seems, and they’re almost completely willing to remain there. It’s pretty cute actually. And they all taught me how to play Canasta tonight. There’s a game I never thought I’d learn until I was on a diet of Jell-O and tapioca pudding. But it’s actually really fun. Especially when your partner is a university professor who takes it upon himself to provide you with a detailed rundown of just about every single strategy you could possibly think of, as well as all the rules. Mom and I played two handed after everyone else went to bed for a bit, but it just wasn’t the same. Maybe it was the quiet house, but I think we probably just don’t know all the rules for this particular configuration.

Everyone but me and The Girl go home tomorrow. And I’m going to be really sad to see them leave. These people are as much family to me as my mom and dad are. Maybe it will keep snowing…

1/21/10 - Blizzard

Holy shit ton of snow Batman!! I just spent the last 8.5 hours driving down to my parents’ house. The drive usually takes me just over 5 hours. But just shy of about halfway there I ran into a gigantic freaking blizzard and I never really came out of it. Over a couple of the passes I was putting down fresh tire marks in the undisturbed snow. I was struggling to just figure out how to stay on the road because the landscape was just one huge, consistent swath of white in front of me with no demarcation of where the road ended and the plunging drop to my death began. It was fun.

But we arrived, finally, safe and sound at my parents’ house to everyone worrying and waiting for our arrival. The Girl and I got out of the car, unloaded our stuff and started to get settled in when she abruptly went all whiny and fussy. She spiked a fever out of nowhere and was suddenly just not at all feeling good. I was pretty sure another febrile seizure was on the way with how she was acting, but I managed to get some Motrin down her throat and then she just feel asleep. So I am hoping it was just some weird little bug she picked up somewhere that is gone by morning. I really don’t want to deal with a super sick kiddo when we’re snowed in and I definitely don’t want a super sick kiddo around my dad.

Oh, and my dad. My dad fell on his face right before I arrived trying to carry in a bag of pellets by himself. I could just kick him. With all of these people around and he ends up slipping on the snow and going down. Now he looks like he has road rash across the top half of his face. But what can you do, right?

So I am now going to attempt to settle in with a glass of wine and enjoy the lovely company of our oldest and most loved family friends. I’m so glad they’re here. And I’m so glad to finally be out of the car!

Preparing to Travel Again

The Girl and I are headed back to my parents’ house tomorrow. The mountains pretty much all the way through are expecting a large snow storm tonight and tomorrow, which has me a wee bit worried. As well as the fact that the past couple of days every time I mention heading back to Nana and Papa’s, The Girl starts crying. That’s no good. I know it doesn’t really have anything to do with Nana and Papa. It has to do with her missing more school, missing her brother and dad and being away from her own space and stuff. I get it. We’re both starting to feel a little bit like refugees at this point I think. But this weekend is my parents’ wedding anniversary and I promised that we would help them celebrate since it will be their last. And several of our oldest family friends arrived to their house today as well. These are people that I grew up with, absolutely adore and am really looking forward to seeing. But I’m in no way shape or form ready to battle icy and snow packed roads.

So I’ll have to check the weather again in the morning to see what I’m up against. Right now all it says is “ice.” But overnight might change that for the better. And I think that as long as my dad is still doing ok when I get there I think The Girl and I will head home again early next week. I’m grateful for the chance we’ve had to spend so much time with my parents, but at the same time, I’ve got to work towards striking a better balance between them and my home. I don’t want anyone to feel neglected, and I’ve got a responsibility all the way around to be present and take care of the people I love.

Ever the search for balance. It follows me everywhere it seems. Always work ahead of me. Rightfully I suppose. And there is a part of me that is deeply grateful for the continued opportunity to keep learning. But mostly, right now, I’d rather have a cabana boy delivering me umbrella drinks on the beach.

My Blue-Eyed Boy

My husband told me a story about a 2^nd grade girl tackling my son so that she could kiss him goodbye as he was leaving school for the day. And I just about came unglued. I am SO not ready for those kinds of stories.

I always thought I’d be the super cool mom. The one everyone loves. The one that my kids’ friends will come to when their own uncool parents do something, well, uncool. The one who is easy to talk to, totally laid back and fun. Yeah, my hopes for being that mom are fading quickly. Because the idea of any girl (especially an older one!) kissing MY boy seriously makes me feel unstable.

Maybe because he is my first born, or maybe because I’m the mom and he’s my son. I don’t where this sudden rush of over-protective behavior is coming from, but it’s strong. Like mama bear strong. I’m sure that this same feeling will kick in eventually with The Girl, but she’s still so young that it’s not even on my radar yet. And to be honest, it wasn’t on my radar with The Boy either until my husband shared this story with me.

I mean I always knew he’d be popular with the girls eventually. He has gorgeous blue eyes, he’s outgoing, smart, creative, funny and naturally athletic. All of those elements put together make for one very popular boy receiving many “Do you like me? Check Yes, No or Maybe” notes in class. I saw it coming a long time ago. But I didn’t think I’d actually have to see or hear any of it in reality until he was at least in early middle school. I guess that was a large piece of naïveté on my part. I guess I forgot about the times when I was a second grader pegging the cute boys in class with snowballs and then running away giggling. I guess I forgot how many of those notes I wrote myself to the blue-eyed boys in my own class.

I’d like to freeze time. To put this off a bit longer. Or at least be allowed to lock him in the attic.

Shower Time

In my early months as a new mother, at the top of my list of concerns was how to get a shower every day. The Boy wouldn’t really let me put him down much and he hated the swing. So I spent good portions of my day finagling time and space to take a shower as it was the one thing I was utterly unwilling to give up. Having a clean house? Meh. Getting errands done? Who cares really. Staying caught up on laundry? I can wear jeans more than twice. But even if I was in dirty clothes and never got to do my hair or get on deodorant, I was hell bent on taking a shower every single day.

I kept the same priorities when The Girl came along. Although she was much more agreeable and loved the swing. She was generally pretty easy going and willing to just go with the flow. So taking a shower wasn’t ever really all that hard.

Until now. Now she insists on taking a shower with me. Every. Single. Day. Which isn’t really a huge deal except for the fact that she plays directly underneath my feet. And I just know that one of these days I’m going to accidentally step on her, over correct and end up falling in the shower and breaking a hip. It’s completely infuriating. And it also means that I don’t even get those 10 minutes without her in my shadow. But really? The problem is me falling and breaking a hip.

The Girl would stay in the shower all day long if I’d let her. As long as the water stayed warm, I’m fairly sure she would play happily under the water until I forced her out from underneath the waterfall. She babbles on to herself as I’m brushing my teeth, doing my hair, and finally getting on my deodorant. She concocts elaborate scenarios that often require singing.

And I still have to occupy The Boy so I can take a shower. Keep him busy and distracted, not to mention threatening him with everything I can think of to prevent him from flushing the toilet while I’m in the shower.

Glitz and Glamour Overshadowed

Let the awards season begin! I love awards season. This time last year I wrote about how much I love to be a peeping tom on the glitz and glamour of the whole thing. About how much I loved the fancy dresses and the women dripping in diamonds. And that still holds true.

Except for two things. The first is that there just doesn’t seem to be very many “serious” movies this year. There is The Hurt Locker and Precious which both look amazing, but other than that, there’s Avatar, Nine, 500 Days of Summer and Invictus pretty much. Of those, Precious and The Hurt Locker are what I would consider “typical” Oscar nominated films. The others are comparably fluffy. I just think it’s interesting. It just wasn’t really a year for heavy movies. And if the Golden Globes were any preview (which they often are) Avatar is going to make a clean sweep.

The second is that the whole thing, all of the excess and typical joy and over the top-ness of the award season is currently being vastly overshadowed by the earthquake in Haiti. I haven’t written much about the earthquake because, really, what is there to say? It’s a horrific situation for this country that simply cannot catch a break. It’s heartbreaking and just to think about it makes me want to cry. And there’s not a damn thing I can do about any of it because we can’t even afford to buy carrots right now, let alone make a donation to the Red Cross. So all I can do is try to keep all of those people, all of those children, in my heart and thoughts and fervently wish that someone steps in to take care of these people whose entire lives are beset with tragedy.

Mo’nique was so sweet and honest when she won for her role in Precious, Sandra Bullock looked gorgeous, Kate Winslet looked simply overjoyed to no longer be in the spotlight, Jason Reitman has got to be one of the nicest (and most talented) people in the business right now and George Clooney should be kicked in the shins for hiding his face with that beard.

Return of a Good Day

I woke up this morning from a very strange dream. My first thought was just a simple “huh, that was weird.” And then I started thinking about it more and as I looked further into the dream I thought, “Huh, that would make a pretty cool story.” Still having some of the remnants of my crisis of writing confidence left over from yesterday’s day from hell, I continued to just lay there and almost fell back asleep. But finally the images in my head were so vivid that I got out of bed, got a cup of coffee and turned on my computer. I wrote a 5 page short story quicker than I ever would have thought possible.

I know I said I was going to focus on flash fiction and minute fiction, but this just came. And it was situation oriented; the characters didn’t solidify until I was halfway through the story. I still don’t know if they make sense, I wrote until I was done and then closed the document and I won’t open it back up to read over until at least Monday.

So, all in all, that was a wonderful way to start my day today. And overall, I’m in a vastly better space than I was yesterday. The peace has returned and I had a lovely day hanging out talking music this morning with my husband and then watching football this afternoon and listening to The Girl play with one of her neighborhood friends while The Boy was across the street having some non-little-sister interrupted time with his own friends.

It was a good day, and utterly refreshing to get out of my head and out of the swamp. It started with a story full of energy and is ending with my Colts winning their first playoff game, where they not only won but completely dominated the Ravens. It was gorgeous. I just really love to watch Peyton Manning play football.

Tomorrow I get to have lunch with dearest J and sweetest D. D and I are planning a music swap which I’m much looking forward to and it will be a lovely note on which to start the week.

Bad Day

I’m having a bad day. And here’s the mind fuck that has been chasing its tail through my bad day pity party: I should be above bad days. Or, more to the point, I should be able to rise above bad days. I should be able to just allow them to move past me without buying into their bullshit. I should just make my mind some soothing tea and let it rant and rave without actually giving it any unwarranted attention. I should be able to slough off bad days without a care. But apparently I can’t.

Because I’m crabby and I want to cry. My husband has half the day off and instead of enjoying the family time, I was actually resentful that he was home. My mom called to tell me she was in a car accident and my first thought was “what do you want me to do about it?” What the fuck is wrong with me?!

Here is what’s wrong with me today: my dad has started going downhill again and I’m not there to help or see any of it for myself. My cell phone is dead as dead gets and we have zero funds to get a new one. My car needs about $1,000 worth of work. My husband’s car needs about $1,000 worth of work. I desperately need a haircut. I have zero confidence in my ability to write anything more than simple journal entries and am considering aborting my 52 project. And we have zero wiggle room in our budget and none coming in the foreseeable future and that just flat makes me angry. And we’re out of brownies.

That’s about it. That’s what’s wrong with me. So pretty much nothing has changed. My dad is dying. We have no money. I’m struggling with how to actually be a writer. What the hell else is new? And yet today is a bad day. Because today I’m mired down in the muck of circumstance. Because for some reason, today, I let myself sink down into the swamp water of my mind.

And now I’m all slimy. So I guess I’ll go take a shower and just keep breathing.

Writing Muscle Memory

I’m almost done with the Stephen King On Writing book and I’m not even remotely ready for it to be done yet. It’s not very often that I’m sorry I read so fast. Even books that I adore, it’s ok that they end so quickly because I know I can always re-read them again whenever I want. But for some reason I’m just not ready for this one to be over yet. So I’m only reading before I go to bed at night. And only one chapter.

I think the best way I can describe this book is exhilarating. I just find it absolutely exhilarating for some reason. As if through some sort of paper based osmosis he’s imbued this book with his talent and enthusiasm and simply by reading it, I then get that energy level transferred to me. I’m never ready to sleep after reading my rationed chapter. I’m ready to write. Which is a pretty cool feeling – well not the not sleeping part, I’m so tired lately that my right eye has started twitching uncontrollably, it’s rather annoying.

I guess mostly his writing makes me feel like I can write. And that in and of itself is just a really freeing feeling. It just brings fully into focus the fact that I am the only one holding me back. Do I have a lot to learn about the craft? Absolutely. Do I desperately need a ton of practice? Without a doubt. But, and I know I’ve said this before but I think saying over and over is something akin to muscle memory at this point, it’s only my fear that’s held me back. Because the resources are out there, I just have to be willing and able to track them down. And then I need to just start writing. Playing with words, format, tone and tenor. I have to be willing and able to just write, without paying attention to rhyme and reason. Just character or mood or situation. Just because it’s there to be written.

So that’s my goal for this 3^rd upcoming week of writing on 52 –playing with the words that are already there. Unearthing the characters lurking below.

Baby on the Brain

Babies, babies everywhere!! It’s one of those things where I don’t know if I am just paying more attention because I’ve got babies on the brain or if they really are just everywhere right now. But I just had two friends have babies, another is due any day and three more are just out of their first trimesters. And dearest C and her husband are in the waiting process of adopting a baby. They are everywhere I tell you, everywhere!

And it is making me crazy. And even making me start to second guess myself a bit. I’m sure that the second guessing is coming primarily as a matter of self preservation. Because I’m thinking, well maybe we don’t really need to have another baby. We went out to dinner (a huge splurge) with some friends the other night after our court date and as I was sitting there, I realized that my children are big enough to go out to eat with friends and I no longer have to hover above them ready to avert any impending disaster. They could sit at one end of the table with their friends and eat dinner just as we were eating dinner with our friends at the other end of the table. The Boy astounds me daily with how big he is. The Girl is getting more and more self-sufficient every day. If we have another baby that will mean starting all over. In another year and a half The Girl will be in kindergarten and I will have my days back. Back to do with what I want. Whether that be diving head first into grad school, writing a novel or going to see a movie or watching bad day time TV. Another baby means that in a year and half I would have an infant and spend all of that free time sitting on the couch nursing. Or trying to write with a sleeping baby strapped to my chest or my back.

All of these reasons to be grateful that I’m not pregnant. And yet, at their core they are little more than a way to put off the crushing disappointment for one more month.

Writing Road Blocks

So apparently my problem is not that I don’t know how to write fiction. The problem is actually that I don’t know how to write short stories. I’ve been focusing so completely on finding inspiring characters and then letting those characters tell their own stories that I end up opening these gigantic cans of worms, or in dearest S’s words “Why do you keep starting novels?!?” Yeah. Point taken. And that is indeed my problem right now.

Since I’ve spent the last year keeping what writing I was doing to a mere 365 words per day, I was worried that I’d have a hard time coming up with enough to say. And that’s not been a problem either. Once I get going, the story just unfolds and unfolds. Until I sit back and think, hmmmm, I’m going to have to step in here and either figure out how to just end it or else I’m going to have to just go ahead and write a novel and post it in chapters. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I’d really like to get more comfortable with the whole process before I commit to such a thing.

S recommended that I Google “minute fiction” and/or “flash fiction.” The former are entire fiction stories in 300-500 words, the latter are fiction stories in 1000 words or less. I’m totally comfortable writing within word restraint, obviously, but I’m not entirely comfortable writing fiction within a word constraint, if that makes any sense. I’m struggling with cutting off a character’s voice before they’ve had their right say.

Maybe I could go ahead and write them out and then pick the most interesting piece of their story to polish and post?

I know I’m over thinking this. It’s doubt in my ability. Even though S tells me I’m doing good and should keep going (and if anyone was going to tell me to pack it in, it would be him, in the most caring way possible of course), I’m second-guessing myself to the point of writing paralysis.

I need to put my brain down and walk away. Just focus on the writing and the deadline. Which is fast approaching.

Court Date

So we went to court today. Except it was more like a meeting that just happened to take place in a court room. And with a large audience. And a lawyer. But other than that, it was just like a meeting. I am not entirely sure what I was expecting, but definitely something with a good deal more formality than what we got.

What we got was a guy probably about our age sitting in front of a laptop, vaguely bored, but good natured, asking us the same questions he had asked all the people in front of us. As well as asking interesting questions about what we both do for a living. He was understanding as well as extremely efficient. And I found myself utterly grateful for his humanity. Because I was terrified that we would get grilled about our spending habits and lectured about financial choices we had or had not made. I was sure I would start crying in the middle of the hearing and I was so worried about who we were going to have to come face to face with. Turns out, it was just this guy (and his assistant who was actually the cold one), doing his job, working his way through the massive roles of others in our same position for one reason or another.

I walked away from the whole thing with an overall feeling of relief. Except for the fact that they want to see our 2009 tax returns in case our tax refund can make a “considerable contribution” to offset our debt. What that means is that if they take our tax refund then our ability to shore back up our savings account will take a gigantic hit below the belt. So I will have to work to keep that worry from itching the back of my mind for the next several months and just take it all as it comes.

But mostly there is relief. Relief that we’ve done our court face time and are one step closer to having all of this behind us, so we can continue to focus on where we want to be, and more importantly, where we already are.

Chuck!

Tonight was the return of one of my most favorite TV shows – Chuck. I absolutely adore this show. It is just about everything I love all wrapped up into one. In fact I can’t think of anything it’s not.

It’s got the good old fashioned romance. You know, the kind you have to really work for. That gets so close to working out that I get all bouncy and then something always happens to keep the characters away from the ultimate payoff.

There are kick ass action scenes with a woman who is seriously a billy bad ass. There is Adam Baldwin being the super cool jack of all trades bad ass that he so patently polished in his role on Firefly. And this season, it appears even the title character is getting in on the ass kicking goods.

And then there is the writing. The writing is witty, funny, smart and so perfectly on key it just brings you into this Burbank, CA world. This world populated by a guy who got kicked out of Stanford and thanks to the guy who stole his college girlfriend, found himself sucked into a world of spies and intrigue the likes of which he had only seen on TV. This guy who falls in love with his handler and discovers that his father is the ninja master of all spy technology. Whose father concocts this thing that turns his son into a spy extraordinaire.

Chuck is just an amalgamation of everything that is good about TV. It’s pure entertainment without actually detracting from your IQ. It’s engaging while still making you smile as you get totally emotionally invested in these characters that you wish lived next door (I want to go drinking with Morgan, Chuck and Casey so badly I’ve actually had daydreams about it).

It just rocks and I love it. And I am so glad it’s finally back and also happy to know that it’s got an extended season which makes up for its late return this season. Although the Olympics is going to put a cramp in getting my Chuck fix, but that will just make it all the sweeter when it returns. Again.

Gin and Friends

Yesterday, there was gin. Lots and lots of gin. And laughing and venting and listening and talking and just about every other verbal utterance you can imagine. There was hugging and me close to tears a couple of times because I was just so happy to be with such dear friends. It was hands-down one of the loveliest days I’ve had in a very long time.

C and I started drinking gin at about 11am and then journeyed to Pete’s Kitchen (my all-time-most-favorite diner in Denver which has the best Greek omelet ever) for lunch after exhausting all of the snack food in her dad’s refrigerator. Going to Pete’s used to be a requirement for me upon my arrival in Denver, but it’s a tradition that’s fallen by the wayside the last several years. So it was good to go back, although the poor cooks have a new tool with which to cut the gyro meat off the spit that causes a really unfortunate case of blow back face. Even with that, it was a tasty meal.

Then we were off to pick up S and rescue him from “The Frozen Pipes Incident” and headed straight for the bar. I haven’t seen S for almost as long as it’s been since I’ve seen C, so for me at least, it was a reunion of sorts and a wonderful one at that.

We met C’s dad at a killer restaurant downtown for dinner, where he graciously treated us to a super yummy seafood dinner (crab cake, Caesar salad, scallops and chocolate mousse oh my!). From there C and I made the executive decision to kidnap S and headed back to the house. Where we stayed up until 2:30am. We adjourned to head to bed then, where I promptly tossed and turned for the next 5 hours or so, then got up, kissed and hugged everyone goodbye and headed home where I kissed and hugged everyone hello and made a beeline for bed. And my toothbrush.

It was a perfect day with amazing people. But damn, I am getting old. I just can’t drink gin all day any more. But it was so very, very worth it.

1/8/10 - Bedtalk

I really love my bed. It’s the best bed I’ve ever slept in. Except for maybe the gigantic king sized bed that my husband and I slept in at The Trump Towers when we spent the night there in Atlantic City. That was also a pretty amazing bed. I remember lying in the middle of it and not being able to reach the sides of the bed with my arms completely outstretched. And there were about a hundred pillows. Our bed is not that big and we don’t have that many pillows, but it’s just so very, very comfy. It’s the kind of bed that you can burrow down into and it just makes you want to go to sleep.

And I am so happy to be back in my bed. And in my own house. With all of our assorted creature comforts.

Although I had to leave our bed too early this morning because I’m heading to Denver to spend the day with C, my college roommate, catching up, drinking gin and just enjoying each other’s company for the first time in years. We’ll probably meet up with S as well for drinks, which I am also really looking forward to. I haven’t seen him in way too long considering that we only live about an hour away from each other. And he’s been such an awesome support for my starting the new fiction writing blog.

I do feel guilty leaving my husband and children for the entire day not even 12 hours after coming home. But my husband assures me it’s fine, he has all sorts of plans for the children to put them to work. He’s shooing me out the door because he knows I need some time with friends. Some time to just totally decompress and not have to worry about taking care of anyone. So even though that doesn’t completely assuage the guilt, I’m going anyway and I’m going to have a fabulous time with dear friends whom I adore.

Although I’ll probably end up staying in Denver for the night and that means yet another night away from my bed. But it is definitely a small price to pay.

Sucktastic Day

I know I’ve been doing a lot of very boring “recounting my days” posts lately. And I’m sure that’s because I’ve been so preoccupied with my first story for the new blog (www.write 52in52.blogspot.com just in case you forgot). But I got that sucker finished last night and went ahead and posted it a day early. It’s loose and a bit sloppy in places. It wanders a bit and isn’t entirely focused where I wanted. But there might be some good stuff in there. Maybe some good jumping off points, some nice use of language and perhaps an intriguing character or two. I don’t know, what do you think? (Hint, hint, hint.)

And that’s about the only positive thing I have to say about today.

Packing was more like moving this morning. My children were firmly entrenched into their nana and papa’s house in pretty much every possible way. So I had to scour the entire house to find all their crap so that The Girl didn’t throw a fit at bedtime tonight because we happened to have left her “most favorite” baby behind.

As I was getting dressed this morning, The Boy came in and before I got my bra on, he looked at me and said “Ew mom, what are those things hanging down?!?” I almost cried right there and then.

I haven’t really made this public knowledge as of yet, because well, our current life circumstances would probably make you all look at me (and my husband if you know him) like we’ve completely lost our minds, but we’ve been trying for baby #3 since July and I am, once again, not pregnant this month. We’ve never really had to try all that hard to get pregnant and, well, let’s just say that I’m starting to get frustrated.

We have bare cupboards and the teensiest of money with which to fill them. The children are whirligig spaz cases that are making me crazy and have been the opposite of helpful for the past two days.

And to top it all off? I’ve got another fucking headache.

Tomorrow will be better. There will be gin. And a day with my college roommate.

Home Prep

We’re going home tomorrow. It’s just time. My dad has had three back-to-back fantastic days, I miss my husband, my children need to go back to school, I miss my friends and at this point, in the din of my screaming back, I miss my own bed! The Boy goes back to school on Monday anyway and I’m fairly sure if The Girl doesn’t get back into school, or at least regular playdates with her friends, soon, she’s going to drive us both completely batty. I realized today, as I was looking at the calendar, that The Girl and I have been here for more than 6 out of the last 8 weeks. That’s a long time to be away from home.

So I spent today going around my parents’ house gathering up all of my children’s toys, books and various asunder other items they’ve collected and/or brought with them. You’d think the house was actually my children’s little playhouse. That they deigned to allow us all to live here to with them as long as we didn’t muck about with their things too much. Seriously, they have totally taken over the entire property. Whether it’s the myriad of sticks The Boy has strewn around the deck and yard, the constantly fluctuating Star Wars battalion or the collection of books, DVD’s and Leapster cartridges tucked in and around every nook and cranny in my line of sight.

It is going to take a magic trick to cram all of this into my car tomorrow to trek it all home. Although if it doesn’t all fit, that’s fine too, The Girl and I will be back in a couple of weeks. So we can take another load back then I suppose. Although there’s a part of me that fundamentally objects to having to make two (three if you count the car full my husband took home with him on Sunday) trips to take all of my children’s toys home. I mean, that’s just obscene. But they had a year from hell too, so it’s ok for them to get spoiled rotten after that. I just kinda want to know when it’s my turn. Is that wrong?

The Other Side of Stephen King

My mom has been touting her love of Stephen King for years in my general direction. She’s tried everything under the sun to reel me in – he’s a fantastic writer, not EVERYTHING he writes is horror, he has a wonderful sense of humor, he cusses with abandon! And I’ve read one or two of his books. Mostly the ones that were absolutely not even in the same city as horror and they were great. But I don’t do horror. Ever.

But then yesterday my mom pushed a little book he wrote about 10 years ago in front of me. It’s a book he wrote on writing. I picked it up today as I was waiting for the lunch hour to arrive and I have to admit I’m completely sucked in. He is a fantastic writer. This is not horror, not even really how he wrote horror. He is very funny. And he does, indeed, cuss with abandon. His writing actually reminds me a bit of my own writing thought process when I am at my best.

Interestingly enough, the biggest theme thus far is to write without fear. Which I find a bit ironic considering that is the sole cause for me not writing more often and sooner. Fear of not being good enough, of not having anything worthwhile to say, fear of being rejected, fear of not being able to adequately translate what is in my head into words on paper. You name it and I was pretty much afraid of it. Those fears have served as all the necessary reasoning I could have ever asked for to not write. And they’ve worked well. Until now.

See, now? After this last year? I don’t give a damn whether I’m any good or whether anyone reads it. I just know that I must write. It is no longer a choice. For so long my only tangible motivation to write was for recognition in some way and since my fear shortchanged that motivation, the only option left was simply not to write.

Well, that’s bullshit. So hopefully the book will have some other helpful tidbits to offer and if nothing else, it really is very funny.

A Day in the Life

Headache. Oh. No, wait. That’s a migraine. Perfect.

I woke up with what I thought was just a headache from not sleeping worth a damn last night that then blossomed into a fully fledged migraine. I tried it head it off, but it was pretty determined. So I went back to bed on an off for most of the day.

The suckage of this fact was compounded by my dad waking up feeling the exact opposite of how he felt yesterday. He felt great today. In fact I’ve not seen him with this much energy in days. He had really good color in his face, he was chatty and really wanted to spend time with Aunt T and the kids. And I missed it because I was half blind with pain and just wanted to cry.

Dad took The Boy out to his shop today to tie another fly with him, which just made The Boy beam. You should’ve seen his face. Aunt T took some lovely pictures of the three of them out in dad’s shop soaking up their Papa’s teachings. I must find someone to continue to teach The Boy the art of fly fishing and everything that goes with it after my dad goes. He loves it and practically begged my dad to take him fishing tomorrow with his new fly (in 20 degree weather that’s a no-go unfortunately). So dad is keeping his fingers crossed that either spring will come early or his cancer will allow him to take The Boy out on the river this spring.

They all did homework together too. The Boy and dad working on a number matrix while Aunt T and The Girl worked on the alphabet.

It was a good day and I missed it and that sucks. And now Aunt T has to go home tomorrow, which makes me sad. I adore her and I just don’t get to see her nearly enough. So I’m feeling a bit whiny tonight. I’m tired and my head hurts and I think the time for the kids and I to go home is approaching quickly. The kids could use some routine and friends, and so could I.

Day in Summary

On one hand it was a lovely day catching up with my Aunt T and just hanging out. On the other hand, my dad had a horrible day. He felt like crap all day and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him look so frail. And then there is this story that I am supposed to be writing for the new blog that I cannot seem to start.

I get to talk about things with my Aunt T that I don’t really talk about with anyone else or at least not much. Educational theory and trends, our family culture and history and pop culture. So it is refreshing to change up the topics of conversation around here as well as talking about things about which I am passionate. Plus it’s just really nice to get caught up on what everyone is doing in the family since I’m not in regular contact with them.

I know that my dad is dying. I know that bad days are part of the deal. But it never fails to set me on edge, make me worry and just generally stress me out to see him like that. And it makes me sad. Because no matter how “prepared” I think I am to say goodbye to my dad, I’m not. It’s really that simple. As present and aware as I am, I will never be ready or even remotely prepared to say goodbye to my father. Until I have to. Then I know I will figure my way through it all with peace and acceptance, but until then? I’m not ready.

And I’ve been turning this story idea over and over in my head for the past two weeks. Preparing to write my first “real” fiction story. But I cannot, for the life of me, figure out from what angle I want to approach the actual character. Everything I’ve been coming up with just sounds trite. And I know I’m probably over thinking it because I’m nervous and scared and worried that I’ll suck at this after having committed to doing it for an entire year.

I suppose I should just jump in with both feet. On all accounts.

1/2/10 - Aunt T

Aunt T is in the house ya’ll!

My dad has five sisters and one brother. The middle sister is my Aunt T and is, without doubt or contest, my favorite aunt. There’s just something about she and I that just clicks. Even when I was an angst filled, out of hand, balls to the wall teenager and my dad had all but written me off as a lost cause, my Aunt T was still there. When I went to college in Nebraska about 45 minutes away from my dad’s hometown, my Aunt T was there to greet me with open arms. When I spent my first Thanksgiving away from home and my grandmother invited me to the family celebration and everyone else there was either mean or flat out ignored me, it was Aunt T who stepped in to do her best to make me feel welcome (my grandmother later laid the smack down and the family was nice to me ever after).

She is a brilliant, funny, aware woman who loves to be challenged and think outside the box. She’s currently working on her dissertation to get a Doctorate in Education and she’s the superintendent for a consolidated school district in Nebraska. She spent years teaching on a reservation in northern Nebraska and she saves all year long so that she can spend all summer traveling.

She and I used to meet for breakfast on a fairly regular basis in my college town to catch up and trade familial gossip. I loved those breakfasts. Even though they were in a motel restaurant that only used Velveeta in their omelets, they were wonderful opportunities to have some family connection when I was 500 miles from home.

I’ve always looked up to my Aunt T because she has always unabashedly lived her life on her own terms. Regardless of whether it was conventional or not, she always chose to live in such a way that was not only an absolute celebration of her core values, but also cutting her own path to happiness.

And now, she’s here to spend some time with her big brother before he moves out of this world and into the next.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

My husband and I spent all day today in the car. The roads were crap yesterday, so we decided to wait to leave until this morning, hoping the sun would have time to work on the ice. And other than the fact that my car is in need of an entirely new instrument panel so I had zero idea of how fast I was going, it was a good drive.

We walked through the door and got mobbed by the children, although the first thing out of The Girl’s mouth was “When can we go home?” She’s been here now for more than a month, so I can understand her desire to sleep in her own bed and get reacquainted with her toys and other sundry beloved things that got left behind. I can understand her wanting to go back to school and see her friends. I can understand how the fun vacation at Nana and Papa’s has turned into everyday life, but without all her stuff, away from her friends and living out of a suitcase.

So I think that we’ll stay through this week and then head home for a bit to let both kids get back into school and let my husband and I get this bankruptcy thing moved along (by the way, I’d like to take Bank of America out back and flat out kick their asses).

I am feeling cautiously optimistic about 2010. I started 2009 with loud and triumphant declarations that this was going to be MY year. And it was, just not in any way I ever could have imagined. It was my year to grow and learn, cry and throw temper tantrums, learn some more, grow some more and generally get my life turned upside down.

This year I am demanding 2010 be full of adventure and blessings, preferably in the most calm and boring way possible. I want to continue to love completely, challenge myself thoroughly and dream hugely, just without all the trauma and drama please. I’ll continue to work hard, just stop putting the people I love in danger. I don’t think that’s all that much to ask for, do you?

Year's End

This is it. When I started this blog, when I set this challenge, I had no idea what would lay before me. Hell, I didn’t even know if I’d actually follow through on it. There’s something just a wee bit profound about having documented every single day of an entire year. And what a year I chose to document.

It’s been a wild ride that’s for sure. This time last year, I will admit I had even less of a clue than usual about what lay before me. I was walking the razor thin edge of sanity it felt like, living hour to hour without any will or want to look past that. I was forced, because of circumstance and choice, to confine myself to the absolute present. And over the last year, I can say that there is no longer a gun to my head. The circumstance never let up, not for one minute all year long, but the choice changed. It went from hanging on to hanging in. Never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed the expanse that separates those two things.

As I’ve written before, I am such a different person now I’m fairly sure my very DNA has been re-written. Even though this year has been suspended in a perpetual state of drama and trauma, I find myself more utterly grateful for that shift in being than I’ve ever been for anything else. Even though this year has seen almost every person I love in some sort of danger, I wouldn’t give it back for the world.

I will, however, not miss it either. This year has been hell. And I am now, on the cusp of 2010, wishing fervently for the upcoming year to be completely boring, calm and full of blessings. I could do with some boring.

And I’m setting myself yet another writing challenge. So head on over to www.write52in52.blogspot.com to check out my foray into writing fiction.

As for this blog? Well, truthfully there was one measly day that I missed in April. So I didn’t really complete the challenge did I? Good thing I have another year to try again. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Foresight in Poetry

I was going to write about the fantastic movie we saw last night – Up in the Air. I was going to pull out all of my poetic abilities to share with you the gorgeous performances in this incredibly lovely, and multi-layered, movie. I was going to express my absolute surprise at how well Anna Kendrick held her own on the same screen with George Clooney and Vera Farmiga. Basically I was going to spend the length of today’s entry gushing about the movie in general, because I absolutely loved it and I think Jason Reitman is a genius.

But there’s really only so many ways you can say lovely, brilliant, gorgeous and wonderful. Yep, that about does it on that account.

So, what’s next then?

Well. I’m still not sleeping. Which has rendered me a bit out of whack. More than a bit actually. I’m having a hard time keeping up with the outside world it feels like. I was all impressed with myself for actually getting Christmas cards and my in-laws’ holiday box out the door on time. And then I come to find out that we don’t have my brother-in-law’s correct contact information and not only did my husband not ever get through to him to wish him a happy birthday the beginning of the month, but that they also never got our messages saying thank you in every imaginable way for the extraordinarily generous check they sent us for Christmas. Things like that, and feeling like every piece of clothing I own is perpetually covered with dog hair, make me feel all kinds of out of sorts. Which isn’t something to which I’m particularly accustomed.

I am also still finding myself weeping at every blessed thing I see. Which is highly irritating and I’m sure my husband has started wondering if I need to be dealt with in some way.

Essentially, after three days of quiet alone time, I’m still wound tighter than a drum it appears. Lovely. I wonder what it will take to relax already. Perhaps in ushering in the New Year tomorrow, the constant anxiety will be replaced by the good feeling of waiting for good things to happen.

Date Night

I am showered and shaved with my hair done, make-up on, perfect outfit picked out (including the Mojo Boots) and jewelry chosen. I am more put together, arranged and polished than I have been in months. Why you ask? Because I have a raucous mama’s night out planned? With dancing and cocktails and fancy food? Not so much.

I have a date night with my husband planned. Since I’m home for a few days sans the children we figured we should try to make the most of the time we have. Typically our “dates” consist of sneaking out for a movie at about 11am then hurrying back to the house. They are hurried, low in the conversation department, in the blinding daylight kind of affairs. Neither of us try all that hard to elevate our appearances beyond the effort we put in on a day to day basis.

But tonight is different. Tonight I am going all out. Why you ask? Because I can. And because I deserve to look pretty and my husband deserves the effort. I actually kind of like getting all gussied up. I know I look like a totally different person with makeup and my hair really done. And the transforming power of the Mojo Boots has been well documented already. I like to wear gorgeous, huge earrings which show off my neck because I have short hair. I like the confidence that the extra effort lends; that due to the effort I can walk across a parking lot with my head held high, not caring what size my clothes are or what how old I am. Plus, I like to give my husband something nice to look at every once in a while. Not to mention the fact that he does a little mental happy dance every time I take the time to shave my legs.

So we’re off to dinner at a local BBQ joint that just relocated to downtown and has burnt ends and fried okra to die for. And then to see Up in the Air.

It should be a lovely, slow paced evening and I cannot wait to just spend some quality time with my husband.

College Roommate

My college roommate, C, and I have had an up and down friendship to be sure. We’ve put each other through huge challenges, of the best and worst kind, and been there for each other through some of the hardest and loveliest times in our lives. We’ve also had huge breaks in contact – years in fact. The last of which was more than 4 years. We’ve recently gotten back in touch and while there was some initial timidity on both our parts in the beginning, I think we’ve got the kinks worked out again. Although we’ve spent months only IM’ing and emailing – it was starting to feel like some sort of online relationship formed on some low-end dating site. But we talked on the phone today for the first time in years and although we began with fits and starts and a bit of hysterical laughter as we once again found our footing, at the end of our three and a half hour conversation, we were back to finishing each other’s sentences and giggling like the silly girls we can be.

She and her husband are in the process of adopting their first baby and I’m so over-the-top excited for them I can hardly sit still. And although I’m sure she’s tired of me tossing out tidbits of unsolicited advice, I’m just thrilled to be in her life to watch her become a mother.

In this time of change and shifting and continued transformation, I’m utterly thankful to have her back in my life. Mostly because I feel like I can use all the weapons I can shove into my arsenal and she is one of the most formidable women I’ve ever met. She’s brilliant to be sure, but she has tenacity the likes of which I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered.

At the core of our friendship, I think, is laughter. We make each other laugh without even trying. We can be unabashedly uncouth, bring out the sharpest sarcasm and driest sense of humor and still be in complete sync.

And there is the history. I am constantly reminded how comforting it is to share my life with people with whom I’ve shared history.

Decision Made

I am sitting on my couch. In my house. Writing on my laptop and posting to the blog using our Wi-Fi instead of “borrowed” internet from the neighbors. I’m home. For three and half days.

It was hard to make myself walk out the door. It was hard to leave the children with their beatific smiles. It was hard to leave my dad who woke up feeling crappy this morning. It was hard to leave my mom with everything to handle on her own. It felt utterly selfish. But I did it anyway. Because I know that regardless of what path this process takes, it’s going to get infinitely harder before the end and I needed to take a few days to rejuvenate. To do absolutely nothing I didn’t want to do. To not have my days dictated by my gorgeous little authoritarian offspring. And maybe if I’m really lucky, I will get to meet E and C’s new baby boy before I head back down to my parents’ house.

The drive was easy again thanks to the books on CD (which I shamelessly subjected my husband to). The roads were mostly clear and even though there is something very wrong with the electrical system in my car (I drove home with no speedometer or RPM, oil and battery gauges) we made it in great time.

We only brought one car back, so I’ll be housebound unless I want to take my husband to work every morning (which I don’t). But that’s fine. I have plenty that I want to get done while I’m here. Although I think I probably will take the car one day if for no other reason than to be able to pick my husband up from work and have us do a mega-splurge for a date night (most of our “dates” are shoe-horning a movie in when my mom is visiting and it’s usually at a very non-date time, like first thing in the morning).

I’m giving myself permission to put the guilt down and walk away. So that when I do return, I can resume my role as mother and daughter and be at the top of my game.

Mix Anxiety with Guilt and...

I am feeling guilty. Because I desperately want to go home with my husband tomorrow for a few days until he was planning on coming back to my parents’ house on Thursday anyway. I would love to sit in my house and just enjoy the quiet. I would love to not have to do anything except catch up on my DVR’d TV shows from before I left and watch any and all of the copious movies we got/gave for Christmas. I would love to delve into my music wish list and spend some of the iTunes gift certificates I got. I would love to take some time to start researching and writing notes about the first story in the new blog I’m going to kick off on New Year’s Day. I would love to take three days and just be in a bit of solitude and utter quiet.

Here is the problem. I feel totally guilty wanting that right now. Ridiculously guilty. At this point where my one and only priority should be spending as much time as possible with my dad. At this point where I should be last on my priority list.

I have this sort of double-edged anxiety that sets in when I think about leaving, even for just a couple of days. Anxiety that my mom will call in the middle of the night and tell me my dad has died and I wasn’t there. Anxiety that if I don’t take some time for me, to refocus and decompress that I will very soon lose my footing here and start taking it out on my parents and children. I know the whole theory “if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else.” I know that. And I am even willing to concede that it’s true. But I also know that in situations such as these, where my role as mother and daughter far outweigh any role as individual, that little nugget of wisdom simply does not apply.

So I am struggling right now. Trying to figure out what is the right thing to do and hoping like hell that I am right, whichever way I choose.

12/25/09 - Merry Christmas!

Holy present explosion Batman!! I got a great picture of the two of them on first sight of the magnificent pile of wrapped goodies arranged perfectly behind two grand offerings from Santa. The looks on their faces were utter, unabashed joy. It was what Christmas mornings should be. It was what was so sorely lacking in last year’s Christmas.

The Boy’s Christmas was chock full of Star Wars. And that is pretty much it. Between Santa and all the grandparents, The Boy now has his very own Star Wars armada to cheerfully batter about. He was over the moon! Throw in a couple of super cool tie dyed shirts from Nana Ro, a bright orange Wolverine sweatshirt from mom and dad and super cool Spider-Man slippers from Nana and he was a very happy camper indeed.

The Girl’s Christmas was like a diva/princess/rock star Mecca made tangible. I removed the ban on all things Barbie this year so she was awash with tons of familiar pink bubble writing as well as getting her dress up box tripled with super cool princess dresses and truly divine shoes adorned with rhinestones and feathers galore. Round all that out with her first guitar and drum set and she was ready to rock and roll, literally. I don’t think she could have chosen a more perfect assortment of gifts if you had given her free reign and all the money in the world.

My darling husband surprised me with tickets to see Muse in Denver in April as well as playing to my recent embrace of adolescent obsession with Twilight. And in an effort to plug the one glaring hole in my culinary aptitude, my mom gave me a rice cooker. I seriously cannot make rice to save my life. But now I can! And my husband was happy to get iTunes money and new additions to his sci-fi library.

My mom loved the iPod we gave her and my dad looked like he really appreciated the writing journal I gave him.

Not to mention the fact that I absolutely nailed my grandmother’s cinnamon rolls. They were decadent and perfect.

I could not have wished for a lovelier Christmas.

12/24/09 - Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas Eve!

I remember when I was a kid, Christmas Eve was like the previews of Christmas Day. I spent all day hollering “Merry Christmas Eve!” to anyone and everyone who would listen. We had our big Christmas dinner with my grandfather and my great aunt on Christmas Eve and I would get to open one gift. I would painstakingly write my letter to Santa. I would slowly pour milk into my favorite glass for him to wash down the tasty iced sugar cookies my mom and I had labored over. I would lovingly peel the carrots left for his reindeer and set it all up together in the most prominent (but out of dogs’ reach) place I could find in the living room. Once everything was set up perfectly, I would go to bed, feeling dutiful in my need to be asleep quickly and without fight so that Santa could come to my house as quickly as possible. As if I could imagine him somewhere tapping his fingers on the side of his sleigh waiting for me to go to sleep as the minutes ticked by, quickly screwing up his efficiently run, once-a-year, delivery service.

The whole tradition of it was huge for me. As was my rock solid belief in Santa. I had friends at school telling me left and right that I was just flat silly to still believe in Santa. But I just knew that he was real.

One night, however, I was bolder than normal and when I awoke for no reason and saw the light still on in the living room, I crept to the doorway to try to catch a glimpse of Santa himself. I felt certain that I would see the fuzzy white trim on his bright red suit as I peeked around the corner.

Instead I saw my mom and dad laboring over the Barbie pool I would awaken to the next morning. I was heartbroken to say the least. But in the years to come, I chose to still believe in Santa. Barbie pool be damned. So when The Boy asked me tonight if Santa was real, I could without any doubt, say yes.

12/23/09 - Wraptastic

Here is the only thing I really dislike about Christmas: wrapping presents. I’m not very good at it, it takes forever and you spend all of this time with the paper and bows and tissue paper and ribbon and what not and then in about 7 and a half minutes, it all winds up in a big black garbage back heading for the dumpster.

I had a half marathon wrapping session this evening so that I didn’t have to do all of it tomorrow night. And I turned on Love Actually, like I always do when I’m wrapping presents, which made it mostly bearable. Until I tried to stand up after sitting on the floor for two and a half hours. Then there was pain and I promptly felt really, really old. But I love that movie, so in the end it all worked out.

And my children are going to pull in a haul the likes of which I’m not sure they’ve ever seen. I mean it is almost obscene. Both sets of grandparents and family friends banded together to fill any gaps left by our anemic finances. They are going to be in heaven come Christmas morning. I told them this evening that they could open one present tomorrow before bed, but unlike like when I was a kid and presents would start multiplying under the tree starting about a week or so out from Christmas, we don’t put any presents out until Christmas morning. So not only do the kids wake up to presents from Santa, but all of their other gifts as well. The looks on their faces are always priceless and make every single, painful wrapping moment so completely worth it. So we’ll pick one out for them tomorrow, a small one, just enough to whet their imaginations as they turn over what else might be waiting for them when they wake up.

We spent the entire day doing crafts and transforming the house into a very merry place indeed. Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that my husband can make it here tomorrow. All I want for Christmas is to have my family together. Pretty please?

Next....

As it’s becoming more and more obvious that my career in nonprofit is over, I’ve been spending some time thinking about what’s next. Since we’ve got the bankruptcy in process and our financial woes are going to soon be considerably lessened, I’ve been trying to give myself permission to look at what I want to do from the point of view of what makes me happy, what I feel most passionately about, what makes me want to get up in the morning instead of what I’m qualified for and what’ll pay me the most. And it’s interesting the things that float to the top when you allow yourself to focus on what you really want rather than what you must.

So what gets my blood pumping? Writing and motherhood. Pretty simple really. And I think I’ve known this for a quite a while, it’s just taken me this long to have that fact be ok. And to try to figure out how to do something more with those two passions than just be them; a writer and a mother that is. I’m fairly sure I don’t want to be a freelance writer. I like to write what I want to write too much to write just for the money. So that leaves me writing because I love it, not because I ever expect to be paid or published for it.

That leaves motherhood. How can I kick that up a notch and do more as mother? Bring my passion and love of motherhood to more than just my friends. And I immediately thought of becoming a doula. And to be honest, it’s something I’ve thought would be amazing for quite a while, it’s just not something that I actually let myself think about as a real possibility. But why not? The opportunity to assist women in obtaining the empowered, dream birth they’ve always wanted would be such a gift for me. To be able to advocate on their behalf, to help them plan and realize the labor and birth experience they’ve hoped for would be like making the most nurturing part of my own role as mother tangible.

So let the research and planning begin.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today is my dad’s birthday. I was sitting today trying to remember some of his more memorable celebrations and I couldn’t. Because his birthday is four days before Christmas, it’s become impossible to extract the two from each other. There are a few presents that I’ve given him in the past that stick out in my head, but I can’t remember if I actually gave him those things for his birthday or for Christmas. Given that he’s a born a raised Nebraska boy, one year I got him a super cool University of Nebraska Lincoln Cornhuskers jacket. It was one of those old school, super slick and shiny team jackets. And he seemed so excited about it when he opened, but I don’t really remember him ever wearing it. But it’s still hanging in his closet and not buried in the back.

There have been more books than I can remember. Some proved to be brain candy romps through mystery and intrigue and some ended up being one or more of his favorite historical books about some event or person he loves to learn about. There have been a few attempts to catapult him into current fashion with gifts of the best LL Bean and/or Cabela’s had to offer. There have been fly fishing tools and accoutrements. There have been a myriad of other odds and ends along the way.

But today? Today I spent the whole day cooking. I made orange sponge cupcakes and his absolute, hands down favorite dinner to beat all dinners – lasagna. I really only make lasagna for special occasions. Typically only for my husband’s and my father’s birthdays specifically. It’s not that it’s hard, it just takes a tremendous amount of time and it’s rare that I have that much time to devote to dinner. But tonight I fed my dad lasagna and garlic bread until he was ready to burst. Followed by a single candle adorning a lovely, squishy and very tasty cupcake (which the children helped him eat).

We all spent all day lavishing my dad with every ounce of love and adoration we could muster. Spoiling him rotten for his 63^rd birthday. It was a good day.

Christmas Madness

Let the Christmas madness begin!! Now that The Boy is here, we can start all of the Christmas crafts and cookie making. The Girl has been waiting patiently(ish) for him to arrive so that they could get their crafts for the grandparents done as well as our normal dousing of all horizontal surfaces with paint and glitter. And we are making yards and yards of paper chains in festive colors this year to hang over the windows as well as painting wooden ornaments to adorn the little fake Christmas tree we’re putting up. They had a blast today jumping head first into the creative fray and even got their dada to paint a bit before he had to leave us just after lunch. It’s always so much fun to be able to see how their artistic abilities and color preferences shift from year to year.

The Boy also decided today that he was not to be outdone by his 3 ½ year old sister and demanded to get his ears pierced. So off we went to the mall in search of a Claire’s to perforate my other child. He did great. His eyes flew wide when she shot the earrings through his ears, but other than that he sat there quietly and utterly still. I tried to talk him into a pair of cool dark blue stainless steel ball earrings, but he went for the bling and picked a pair of teeny cubic zirconia studs. To each their own I suppose. And they make him look that much more grown up. Which is not at all what I needed. He is just so dang big! He is as tall as my mom when she’s sitting in her wheelchair now and it’s almost as if I can just see him growing up right before my eyes. It is amazing and heartbreaking all at the same time.

And I am utterly exhausted this evening. I will make myself go to bed before midnight tonight, even if I do just lay there with sleep taunting me from somewhere just out of reach. Because we have another busy day in front of us. Tomorrow? Tomorrow it’s Christmas cookie time!

12/19/09 - Flat Tire

I woke up this morning with a headache. But determined not to let it drag me down because my husband and The Boy were on their way. My husband was dead set on leaving the house at the ass crack of dawn so that they could get down here with as much time to hang out as possible since my husband has to leave tomorrow and be back at work on Monday. So I spent the morning planning dinner and getting ready for them to arrive.

Just as I was starting to get antsy as the time I thought they’d pull into the driveway crept closed and closer, the phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID, but I answered it anyway. And it’s a damn good thing I did. Because it was a strange woman calling to tell me that my husband had a flat tire and was stuck on the side of the road with no way to change his tire. Seriously?!?!?

So I brushed my teeth, put on a bandana and walked out the door to go scour the highway in search of my husband and The Boy. At least I still had my book on tape to listen to as I eyed the sides of the road.

I came up them surprisingly fast and figured out that he couldn’t get his tired off and the spare on because the new wheels he had bought last year came with locking lug nuts and the tire store had never given him the key to unlock them. Seriously?!? So into town we drove in search of said key. After trying a couple of different places we finally found one and back out to the highway we went. At this point we knew we’d never make it to the tire store on time to get a new tire so we just headed back to my parents’ house.

We decided that my husband would drive my car home tomorrow and I’d get his tired fixed this week before he came back for Christmas. Sounds like a great plan right? Except for one thing. He didn’t leave me the key to his car. Seriously?!?!

Gratitude

My dad sort of disappeared several years ago. He found himself travelling down an extremely difficult road and his response was to withdraw to the point of almost completely disappearing. I would occasionally see him emerge whilst playing with his grandchildren. But mostly he was just gone.

Keeping in mind that I have always been a daddy’s girl, you can imagine the anger I felt about suddenly losing my father while he was sitting right in front of me. You can imagine how abandoned I felt. You can imagine the level of sorrow I had knowing that if he would only let me, I could probably be of some assistance along the journey he was on.

And I’ve held somewhat of a grudge for this disappearance. I’ve been angry with him for a long time now. And while it may sound clichéd and hypocritical, when his diagnosis made its way down the pike, all was forgiven. Not forgotten, not by a long shot, but forgiven. But, as most profoundly life changing revelations are, my dad having cancer has proven to be a gift. It’s brought my dad back to me. He is utterly and completely my dad again. For better and for worse, he’s my dad again. And I’m so grateful for that I can’t appropriately put it into words.

So much of who I am at my core is because of my dad. He cultivated in me a deep sense of right and wrong as well as a foundation based in respect, integrity and compassion for everyone around me regardless of their station in life. An absolute commitment to family (in whatever form it may take), constant learning and a relentless wonder at the world around me. A tremendous sense of humor. I do wish however that he’d injected some of his innate patience into me though, that is one area in which I am severely lacking that he has in spades.

Tonight as I listened to us banter back and forth and laugh heartily at each other’s stories and memories, I had to lean back and just be grateful. So very, very grateful for the chance to just be with my daddy again.

12/17/09 - Ice

The only time I like better than winter is early spring, when the trees and flowers are just barely coming back to life. When the sharp little buds are forming on the trees and tentative bunches of grass start peeping through the crispy, freeze dried lawn. When the tightly curled purple fingers of the hyacinths start stretching into bloom after their long winter hibernation. I love the anticipation that spring brings with it.

But I also really love winter. I don’t mind being cold. I love to bake bread and cookies. I love to make the old standby comfort food dinners. I love the holidays. I love snuggling on the couch under blankets watching movies. I don’t even mind shoveling snow.

But today I was reminded of what I really, really don’t like about winter. Ice. The driveway at my parents’ house gets enough sun to turn the buildup of ice to slush, but not enough to actually make it go away. So it slushifies then freezes solid again every day slowly turning itself into a super smooth skating rink. A slick death trap that The Girl and I have to walk across to get to my car.

The Girl went down on the ice a couple of days ago and sliced her hand open. And since then we’ve been moving very slowly across the slippery expanse between the door and my car. But today as I was closing her door after having shepherded her to safe ground, the force required to shove the door closed knocked me off balance and down I went. I can’t remember the last time I slipped on ice and went all the way down. It happens so fast!

I reached out to catch myself and seriously jammed my wrist and bruised the heel of my hand and then landed on my ass. And I immediately burst into tears. Sitting there, in pain, my butt getting soaked, sobbing. Pitiful. But I managed to haul myself up and get the groceries in without further incident.

Don’t you just love those momentary reminders that even when you’re brimming with confidence you can still end up flat on your ass in a heartbeat?

Purpose

I’ve pretty much spent the entire last 18 months in constant drama and trauma. There have been tremendous amounts of upheaval, fear, anger, sorrow, frustration and discouragement. There have been countless days of feeling like I was walking through life in a coma of heightened emotion. Where it felt like I had reached my own personal threshold for feeling; as if there was no way I could possible feel anything else. I have fought and clawed my way back from insanity and apathy so many times I’ve lost count. And it feels like my very DNA has been irrevocably changed forever.

I have had to open myself in ways I didn’t even know were possible. I’ve had to confront and dismiss demons that have plagued me for more years than I’d like to admit. I’ve had to re-learn how to trust, both myself and others. I’ve had to redefine what joy and love and hope mean. It’s as if my very being has dilated.

So where does all of this spiritual pontificating leave me?

Raw. And with the ability to be utterly, profoundly present in every single moment. I never could have imagined that this combination would leave me with much but a teary short attention span. But instead it’s given me an intimate understanding of faith, which is an animal that I’ve been chasing for all my life. And once that level of faith had entered my being, any feeling of impermanence simply vanished. I always imagined being rooted in the moment would make me long for the big picture view, but I never dreamed that I’d get a picture in picture perspective.

And in the end I feel like I’m getting closer to my purpose. And it has nothing to do with any of my previously preconceived notions. It means having the audacity to be unabashedly me in every single moment. In all my different incarnations, wearing all my different hats, using all my best voices, strutting in my favorite shoes, laughing and crying with abandon and utterly embracing life as it arrives on my doorstep. Giving myself permission to simply love, without fear, because it’s what I’m the very best at doing.

Rambling On

Well I kicked into high gear today and jumped head first into all the Christmas stuff I’d been procrastinating on.

I got my niece’s tutu and hair tie made and I got half of our Christmas cards done. It felt really good to start getting back into the spirit of the season as well as ticking a few things off my to-do list. I had to drive into town halfway through the day to get some of my dad’s prescriptions re-filled as my mom was in bed sick all day (and let me just say right now that if I or The Girl get sick AGAIN, I am going to go entirely, irreparably and utterly mad).

My dad and I made dinner together – he grilled pork tenderloin while I made cold pasta primavera. It was nice to share a kitchen with him again.

And tomorrow we’re meeting with a lawyer to get my dad’s will done. So that should be nice and morbid. But the good news is that after that lovely appointment, I get to go have a manicure courtesy of my mom. Hopefully she’s feeling well enough to join me for her scheduled pedicure at the same time.

The Boy is counting down the days until he gets to come here. I’m fairly sure he thinks that The Girl is getting spoiled rotten while he’s not here (and he’s not far off), hence part of his hurry to get here. I think my husband and I are going to take him to see Avatar t his weekend as his weekly advent calendar surprise. I’m hoping against hope that it won’t be too much for him. But it’s only rated PG-13 and only for things like fantasy violence (so is Star Wars) and smoking and occasional language (he probably hears worse out of my mouth on a daily basis). He gets really excited about it whenever he sees a preview for it, so hopefully it’ll be an exciting thing for him.

The Girl gets a pair of ultimate, hot pink, sparkliest of all sparkly princess shoes for her surprise.

I cannot believe that Christmas is only nine days away. Where does the time go?

Over the Top

I have six words for you – Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce. Oh. My. God. This is how my day began. Sitting next to dearest R, having breakfast and being grateful for my taste buds. I don’t usually gush over pancakes, but these were over the top amazing.

It was pretty much an over the top kind of day that just kicked off with breakfast.

My mom was having some work done on her car so the dealership gave us a fully decked out Honda Pilot to drive around while they messed around with her car. This sucker had GPS, the rear camera that turns on whenever you back out and fully automated seats. The Girl crawled into the backseats and proclaimed “This car is awesome!” I had to agree.

We proceeded to the gigantic mall just down the way to polish off the remnants of our respective shopping lists. When we arrived, it was quiet, subdued even. And I was so grateful for it. Then all of a sudden it was jam-packed full of people and I was not so happy. But we found everything we needed and then some.

And the big event of the day was that The Girl got her ears pierced. She has been talking about it for quite a while and we just decided that we would be completely honest with her about what it is to get your ears pierced. We would not leave anything out about the pain or how long they take to heal or anything else and if she still wanted to get them pierced that we’d let her. So today when she proclaimed that she was ready to get them done and I reiterated everything again and she was still gun-ho to go, we took her to Claire’s, let her pick out her first earrings and got her ears pierced. And she cried. A lot. And then she got over it and is now fine and thrilled to have “sparkly rainbow daisies” in her ears.

And now I’m back from our 36-hour tryst in the big city, valiantly trying to pull my head out of the pancakes and put it back into what’s next.

12/13/09 - Mini-Holiday

Here we are, in Albuquerque. My dear friend, R, works for a swanky new hotel in town and she offered to get us rooms for a steal, so we took her up on the offer knowing it would be a nice place. And holy cow am I glad we did. The hotel is gorgeous (not to mention that it’s an entirely sustainable, green hotel so it just sort of makes you feel like a good person to stay there), the rooms are lovely and they have killer views of some amazing murals that have been painted on the sides of buildings downtown. I cannot say enough nice things about the place!

And we got to have dinner with J and J and their gorgeous boy C tonight as well. The male J of that pair is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother. We grew up together and I adore him. I also adore his wife and son, so I was thrilled to be able to get together for dinner and playtime with them this evening. We got to see their house, which they’ve spent the last couple of years gutting and transforming into a lovely home, and watch The Girl and C play until well past both of their bedtimes.

Mom and I were also able to somehow be utterly stealthy by finishing up our Christmas shopping at The Big Toy Store this afternoon without The Girl catching on to what we were doing. As far as she knew we just took her there to look around. And without a doubt, this is absolutely the last year that we’ll be able to carry out such a mission with her within a 10 mile radius of the store, let alone in there with us.

It’s been a good start, albeit extraordinarily busy and fast paced, to our little 36 hour getaway. You just can’t beat the ultimate nice road trip, successful shopping trip, yummy dinner, mojitos, watching beautifully sweet children play happily, fabulous conversation, awesome hotel room to come back to, unbelievably comfortable bed to lay awake in when I should be sleeping, lightening fast and free Wi-Fi and killer mini bar combo.

12/12/09 - Crabtastic

Crabtastic. That about sums me up today. Typically when I internalize stress it shows up with headaches and migraines. I apparently decided to switch it up however and it is now showing up by making me wanting to vomit every minute of today. And no. I am not pregnant.

I miss my boys. And The Girl is constantly in my shadow. And even though I don’t have much to do here, I feel like there’s not enough time to do what I need to do. You know, those things that enable me to keep my sanity? Those are getting swept right under the rug as of late. The making sure I get regular allotments of alone time? Not so much. The writing because I have snippets of stories in my head? Not at all. The reading because I like it? Not as much as I’d like. The brain candy movies/TV/internet time? Ok, that I am getting but only because I’m not sleeping.

I have this whole big writing project that I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of months that I was all set to kick off January 1^st. And now I’m sure if I should or not. I mean I don’t want to set myself up for failure because of my present tense. But I also don’t want to let myself shirk this challenge just because it scares me and my present tense would so easily allow me to do so. It’s an exciting thing to look forward to, although it will take me entirely away from my writing comfort zone. Like into a whole different hemisphere. And I won’t lie, that scares me. But it is also exhilarating to consider the possibilities.

I feel badly for The Girl because I know she’s dying for some play time. She hasn’t had any kid interaction since we’ve been down here and I know she’s probably going nuts with how staid her play life has become. But we’re journeying to Albuquerque tomorrow for a little overnight getaway and to finish Christmas shopping. So hopefully the trip will provide her with some playmates while at the same time elevating my general mood and demeanor. Fingers crossed.

12/11/09 - All for a Good Cause

Every year the big hospice organization that serves the area my parents live in holds a major fundraiser in partnership with the local community college. The art department donates handmade pottery bowls to the event for them to sell for $10 each and you get soup with your bowl as well. It is a lovely idea that so completely embraces the whole idea and purpose of hospice in my opinion. As a career fundraiser it’s so often that you see organizations holding fundraising events that have absolutely nothing to do with their mission. And I have often found myself saying “now tell me again what the hell a silent auction has to do with child welfare?”

But this? This is perfect. You have an organization dedicated to helping patients and their families through the death transition raising money by partnering with a major community based institution whose entire reason for being is to further life through education. Together these two organizations raise money by offering good, homemade, warmth giving soup in the middle of winter served in bowls made by hand with materials from the earth. Maybe I am just feeling overly cheesy tonight, but to me that right there is a circle I want to be a part of.

My mom has been supporting this fundraiser for years and has quite the lovely collection of bowls for her efforts. I have always thought it was a wonderful idea, but haven’t ever been in town visiting when it was happening, until now. Because of the snow days the beginning of the week, my mom has been working all day every day the last three days to get caught up, so I offered to go for her this year since she had to work.

The Girl and I trekked into town to the college campus and wandered around the event looking at pottery and carefully choosing our bowls. She made quite an impression on everyone she met and I walked away knowing that I was not only supporting an organization that does great work in general, but one that will very soon play a pivotal role in my life. And for both, I am immensely grateful.

Emerald City

I just painted my nails a lovely shade of green; the name of the color is Emerald City. I’m hoping maybe I’ll have ruby slippers when I wake up to magically transport me to Fiji. I would do almost anything for some beach time right about now. With unlimited umbrella drinks in my hands and having my biggest worry be making sure to get down to the beach in time to reserve a cabana. I’d like to worry about getting sand in my shoes and whether or not I have enough sun block on. I’d like to lie on the beach and stare into space without worrying about what was being left undone. I’d like to simply forget about grocery shopping, laundry and making sure everyone around me is fed and clean. I’d like to be faced with endless buffet trays begging to be sampled one bite at a time.

Why am I obsessing about a vacation I won’t get to have anywhere in the remotely near future?

Because it is freaking cold here. Really, really cold. And because I’m not sleeping even though I’m exhausted because my brain won’t shut the hell up. And because even though I’m doing everything I can to keep my feet (and mind) firmly rooted on solid and real ground, watching my dad have bad days just destroys me. And because The Girl has attached herself to me in an effort to get away from the mounting tension and uncertainty, not to mention how much she misses her brother and dad. And because I have become a full service Sherpa in my role here.

And at the end of the day, all of the above is fine, totally understandable and utterly part of the process, but I am exhausted. And part of that exhaustion is being so irrevocably immersed in the present. I am so totally engaged with whatever is happening in any given moment that there is no time or availability to day dream or be anywhere else but right now. This is a blessing. I know that. And I am truly am grateful for it. But I would also be grateful for a little beach right now.

Journalistic Meandering

Are you tired of play by play journal entries yet? Sorry. I’m just trying so hard to stay utterly centered in every moment of every day that it’s about all I have to write about at the moment. If I let my mind wander then it goes shooting into the future and starts spinning under the weight of the unknown. So I’d rather bore you with stream of consciousness than choose to go crazy. I hope that makes sense, otherwise there’s less hope for me than I thought.

I’m sitting currently in the little library in Aztec, New Mexico where I can get free wifi watching The Girl meander through tons of books and toys and semi-patiently wait for me to be done on my computer. She’s found all the princess books already and wants to bring them all home. She’s gone through the puppet closet and put on two short plays for me. She’s climbed around and on anything willing and able to hold her weight. It will never cease to amaze me how quickly my children can find themselves bored when surrounded by such a wealth of materials meant to engage and entertain them. But there she is, sitting at the little table, eyeing me warily, wondering how close together she ask if I’m done yet. So I’m hurrying through the stuff I need to get done on the computer, like writing this, so that I can get out from under her impatient eye.

Then we’ll run a couple of errands and see what else we can find to do just to keep us busy and out of the house for a bit.

I miss The Boy and my husband. They’ve been home for the past two days with snow days (The Boy’s school was closed) and I’m jealous since I wasn’t there with them to hang out and enjoy unadulterated family time. But yesterday was a good family day of a different sort, so it all evens out. Next week The Boy will be joining me here and then before I know it, it will be Christmas and then the New Year.

Time just keeps sweeping along, carrying us all with it.

12/8/09 - Snow Day

My original plan for today was to try my hand at this honey challah recipe and work on crafts with Nora while my mom worked all day to catch up from playing hooky yesterday. But instead, the roads were a mess, it was bloody cold and still snowing and we all stayed home; safe and sound, warm and cozy.

And I just don’t understand how women used to make bread every single day with many more than one child running about their ankles. I mean it took me all day to bake two loaves of challah. Seriously. All day. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was well worth it. The bread is so yummy and I have plans of challah French toast for tomorrow morning as well. Although I got a good taste of the whole bread baking learning curve that I was talking about earlier. I’m fairly sure I didn’t get enough flour into the dough. I mean, challah is a very soft, sweet dough, but I’m just thinking it needed a bit more flour to be a bit more manageable and keep the yeast working hard. And I think I may have left it in the oven for about 5 minutes too long as the bottom is a bit harder than it should be. But overall, I’m very impressed with myself and we got two loaves of scrumptiously sweet honey challah bread.

But, because of the all day bread baking affair, we didn’t get the chance to delve into much crafting. Well any really.

My mom gave The Girl these old dolls that were found in a closet at her office (and she since works in a doctor’s office she thought it would be appropriate to bring them home in a speculum box, ahem). The Girl absolutely adores them and has only put them down to sleep. So she spent much of the day playing with those and reading books. And I managed to get caught up on some of the Rolling Stones my mom always saves for me.

It was a pretty good day. Although I can already tell you that we’re gonna need to get out of the house tomorrow!

12/7/09 - Playing Hooky

So apparently I have not yet lost my ability to coerce people into playing hooky (well at least people that are not my husband; I’ve yet to be able to get him to play hooky in the entire 11 years I have known him). Because my mom was supposed to go to work today and then The Girl and I would meet her in town to run some errands. But we got a good amount of snow and my mom decided it was enough to justify playing hooky and spending the day with me and The Girl. She treated us to a lovely lunch at a place that I would have never expected to do such a booming business in a town such as Farmington.

We had decided to get a bunch of arts and crafts stuff for the kids to make to decorate the house for Christmas. So off we went to Hobby Lobby to gather supplies. I have been slowly getting more artsy craftsy as of late but we decided to keep it relatively simple by keeping it to painting ornaments and festive paper chains. The only problem now will be getting The Girl to wait for her brother to arrive before delving in up to her elbows in paint and glue sticks.

I’ve also been having a hankering for bread baking as of late. I have always been just a wee bit afraid of yeast breads. It just seems like so much could go wrong without really knowing it, yielding not quite so tasty bread. And I’ve just really never had the time to get it all figured out. But with the weather turning colder fresh baked bread has just been calling my name. So I brought a honey challah recipe with me, hoping I’d have more time to experiment and perhaps lay down my fear of bread baking. Hopefully I’ll get to that tomorrow.

My dad is a bit better today. Which is a relief. He’s still moving pretty slowly, but there is a spark back in his eye and he was story telling again before dinner. It appears this process is going to be just as unpredictable as life itself.

12/6/09 - Random Thoughts

Target is a time suckage vortex from hell. And I love it. The Girl, my mom and I lost several hours in there today. We meant to run errands today. Do pricing and research for the last of our Christmas shopping. You know, generally be really productive and tick things off the to do list one by one. Instead, we spent hours wandering around Target (admittedly doing some research and pricing). I haven’t just wandered around Target for a long time. Because typically when I just wander around, looking at whatever happens to catch my eye, I end up spending entirely too much money. So I’ve taken to only going in there with a very specific list and I make a beeline for the locations of my items and then get the hell out of there with a quickness.

And it’s not that I had more money than usual or anything. It’s just that, I felt like browsing. The Girl needed new Christmas PJ’s and my mom wanted to find the kids new slippers (she’s dubbed herself the Slipper Queen). It also turns out that we’re in need of some new ideas for Santa since what The Girl had originally dubbed her number one present request is a piece of thin, janky, plastic crap. And I cannot allow Santa to spend money on, or put in our house, thin, janky, plastic crap. So we’re back to the drawing board for her and wandering about allowed for some additional brainstorming on that piece of business.

The advent calendar gave The Girl her tutu for this first week. And it’s a wee bit big on her and I may have gone a wee bit overboard with the layers of tulle. It’s more of a gigantic, gorgeous, floofy, red and pink skirt than a tutu in the strictest sense. And I think I’ll have to tighten it a bit for her to wear it as much as she’d like. But ultimately I think she really likes it, which gives me great hope that my niece will also love hers when I’m done with it.

Anyway, it’s up and down and the breath continues to move in and out.

12/5/09 - Arrival

I must say as much as I love my iPod, listening to books on CD whilst driving is really the very best way to make sure the time goes by ultra fast. At least if you’re listening to a book you really like. Maybe not so much for The Girl, but I’ve never had the drive to my parents’ house go by so quickly.

Generally speaking, upon my arrival at my parents’ house the greeting comes in two waves. The first of which comes via the barking, howling and baying of their three rescued dogs (one of which used to be ours and I love her still as she was my husband’s and my first dog, but she has no love of our carpet). The second is my parents emerging from their house to help with baggage and receive their joyful run and greet from their grandchildren. It’s quite a scene, generally.

Today however, I got only the first wave. The second wave didn’t come until I had the car mostly unloaded. My mom was at work and my dad finally made his way out the door and to the car. And just about scared me to death he looked so awful. He was moving so slowly, had no color in his face and was barely talking above a whisper. And he just continued downhill the rest of the day (we arrived mid-afternoon). By the time it was dinner time I was getting truly worried. I mean when I left him only a week ago he was weaker but still very much my dad. Today however, I fully understood what it meant to be looking “at the shell of a man.”

And I spiraled into this whole thought process of having my children associate Christmas with their Papa’s death. And the anger returned. Because that is so unfair I don’t even know where to start. And needing to jumpstart all of these things that my mom has been actively avoiding and I’ve been just waiting for her to do.

But bedtime has arrived and some peace is returning and I’m remembering that everything is a process and it all starts with breathing in and out.

Christmas Research

**I'm heading back down to almost no internet service, so I'll keep up on the blog as much as I can!**

Well, icy roads and a cumbersome to-do list put my departure back to New Mexico on hold for another day. The Girl and I will be leaving first thing in the morning to head back to my parents’ house for the remainder of the year and beyond most likely.

I spent most of the day on the computer doing research, organizing and getting things organized for having a tightly budgeted, split in half Christmas. Oh, and laundry. There was a fair bit of laundry in there as well. Trying to plan a big family Christmas that was already going to be complicated because of a super tight budget, and has now compounded that complication because we’re going to be in two different places, has required a tremendous amount of organization and research. But I think I’ve just about got it figured out.

Although I’m in a bit of a quandary because what The Girl has her heart set on is a large, expensive piece of flimsy, plastic crap. She desperately wants it, but I cannot in good conscience spend that kind of money on something that in all likelihood will fall apart within the first few days of her playing with it. So my mom and I will be going to Albuquerque at some point before Christmas to do some shopping in “the big city.” An attempt to find something fabulous and worthy of the little bit of money we do have set aside for hopefully fabulous gifts for our children.

The Girl is ridiculously easy to buy for. She knows exactly what she likes and wants. The Boy on the other hand is in an in-between stage where he spends so much time in school he doesn’t have much of a chance to really figure out what he likes or wants. He does know however that he’s moving up a bit as far as toy sophistication goes. The same old, same old is just not going to cut it anymore. So we all know he loves Star Wars, so that’s where we’re mostly focusing. Hopefully there will be happiness come Christmas morning.

It’s a good thing I love Christmas stuff so much isn’t it?

On the way to dinner

“What did you do in school today?”

“We had a sub.”

“Was Mrs. E sick?”

“No, someone in her family passed away.”

“Do you know what means?”

“No.”

This was a conversation that took place on the way to a splurge dinner out after The Boy’s winter program at school. It was a nearly tortuous event that took entirely too long given the age range and time of evening, but we showered The Boy with praise because I could literally hear him singing in the very back of the gym.

He chose to ride with me on the way to dinner and this was the beginning of our conversation about what it means to die. And as I was coming to fully understand the gravity of the can of worms my innocent questioning had just opened, I realized one of the biggest reasons I’ve been avoiding, this conversation with The Boy. I just wasn’t sure how to answer his questions. I’m not a religious person. I haven’t ever been. I just cannot bring myself to buy wholesale into any one dogma or another, so that leaves me without a religious home if you will. I consider myself a very spiritual person, especially after this past year, but not religious. So I had to kind of make the whole thing up as I went along.

“What happens when you die?”

“Well, when a person dies it means that your body stops working. But the part of you that makes you, you, your laugh, your ability to love, all the things you’re good at and all the good you’ve done goes back to the universe. To the stars and sky; it goes back to where it came from when you were born. It goes back to the beginning.”

We talked quite a bit about how your body can stop working and what parts of you go back to the stars.

“Will my toys go to the stars with me?”

“No, baby. Those stay here with your body. But remember how you gave your sister that pink bear you won tonight because you saw she was sad and wanted her to feel better? That will go with you.”

The Un-numbered Stage

I sort of wish that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross had interjected a sadness stage in her 5 stages of grief. Because that’s where I’ve been the last two days. And it doesn’t quite fit. I’m not in stage three – bargaining. I know my dad is going to die. I know there is nothing I can do to avert that, change it or make it any different. It just is. And that makes me very sad. But not depression sad (stage 4). I’m still functioning. I went out with girlfriends last night and was in prime form. I’ve been emailing and talking to people all day. I’ve been working my way through to-do lists (even if one of those to-dos includes making more lists). I know depression inside and out, believe me, and this ain’t it. This is just quite simply, sadness. Every little thing sends me into tears. Not body wracking sobs, but tears. Just soft, mushy, gushy tears.

And I’m thinking that because of how easily I’m suddenly teary (the movie Happy Feet, St. Jude commercials, good gawd, St. Jude commercials, watching The Girl “make” me lunch, you name it), The Girl has been glued to me for the last two days. She wants me to do everything. She almost completely ignores my husband (where she used to go running into Dada’s arms with glee upon his arrival home). She won’t let anyone do anything for her but me. As I was on my way out the door last night for my Mama’s Night Out she clung to my neck saying “But my will miss you Mama!” Jeez, girlfriend, give a mama a break would ya? If I ask her for a wee bit of space, she starts crying in return. And then we’re both tearful messes. Maybe my own tears are making her a bit insecure?

But I’m pretty done with it now. I’ve always been more of a have a huge sobbing fit and get it out of my system kind of gal instead of weepy. This whole constant weepiness thing is exhausting. But I know I’ve not yet seen the end of it. I guess I should just keep tissues in my pocket.

12/1/09 - MNO

**Sorry this is late, but I got home really late last night and plum forgot to post it!**

I’m pretty much an introvert by nature. And typically I contract, withdraw and generally crawl under the covers when life gets out of hand. But over the last year, I’ve really learned that I’m so much better off surrounded by the people I love, and who love me, in those times of crisis as well as those times of joy.

And I cannot say thank you enough to my friends right now. Even if I had thought about pulling in on myself through all of this, they wouldn’t have let me. They’re not letting me use any excuse to thwart their attempts to help me in whatever way they can, big and little (of course it’s all huge at this point). They are all being so completely loving, supportive, funny, wonderful, kind people right now that I’ve no idea what I would do without them.

So when the weekly Mama’s Night Out rolled around last night, my husband all but kicked me out the door. I can’t remember the last time I actually went out; between not having any money and just wanting to hang with my hubby, I just haven’t been able to get myself to go out. But out I went last night. And it was the perfect ending to a truly shitty day. I haven’t laughed that much in a very, very long time.

We went to a favorite neighborhood hangout that has the best mojitos in town and at one point I looked around our three pulled together bistro tables and there were 12 gorgeous, talented and successful women gathered there, all laughing and connecting in a way that only girlfriends can. I caught pieces of conversation covering everything from our children and upcoming New Year’s resolutions to our favorite exploits from our younger years and our current sex lives…ahem. It was such a glorious sight and did my heart good.

Plus there was the added bonus that about half of us went to the late showing of New Moon after three hours of raucous giggling. We were just about the only people in the theater, so we were free to revert shamelessly back into teenage girls drooling over beautiful boys.

Stages 1 and 2

My darling, dear and most appreciated friend M bought The Girl and me lunch again today. She also brought me some books on grief including one to read to the kiddos. One of which is by Elizabeth Kubler Ross who is pretty much the guru of death and dying. It was she who came up with the 5 stages of grief. I have heard her speak and she is without a doubt the kindest, gentlest soul I’ve ever heard utter words of any kind.

My mom and I talked a bit about the 5 stages when I was there and I talked a bit with M today as well. The first stage is denial. After the year I’ve had, I’ve pretty much lost all ability to be in denial about anything, it is just not worth my time and energy anymore. But anger? Anger is something I know a little bit about. And with this particular life event, my anger is twofold. The first of which is absolute anger at the fact that my father is going to be take away from me and my children well before we’ve learned everything he has to teach. The second of which is anger that I am an only child and thus have to shoulder and navigate this cracking a part of my family alone.

Also, I’m angry right now that life seems to not give a damn that my father is dying and so has decided to not just give me a friggin’ break with anything. We are just barely keeping our heads above water financially and are in fact having to learn how to breathe water this month. The mortgage company doesn’t care that my dad was in the hospital, only that I make sure to pay the late fee when I am finally able to make our payment this month. Also? My car is in dire need of some serious TLC and I have no way to provide anything for it but gasoline at the moment, and that only sparingly.

So there’s a tour of my anger. If you’re really lucky you’ll get an equally as thrilling view of the next three stages as well.

11/29/09 - The Drive Home

So my mom, dad, husband and I sat down last night after the children went to bed to have “the talk.” You know, the one we’d all been dodging for the entire week? Yeah, I finally pushed the issue and asked that we all sit down to talk. “What do you want to talk about?” my dad asked. How about how you want to spend the rest of your life for starters? That led us into discussing hospice and the fact that in order to make sure my dad is as comfortable as possible we need him to be really communicative with us as to his pain level and overall state of comfort so that we can be as proactive as possible in taking care of him when we need to. Since they live so far away from town, it’s just so much better to be prepared for anything than try to figure it out as we go along in my opinion. And yes, I’m well aware that this is me trying to control whatever I can wrap my hands around in a situation that is entirely out of my control.

Ultimately, we decided that I’d go home for a few days to get some stuff done and then I’d come back the end of next week and plan to stay for as long as they needed/wanted me there. The Girl will come with me, so I’ll need to take her out of preschool until after the beginning of the New Year. The Boy will stay with my husband until he gets out for his holiday break (my dad really didn’t want him to miss that much school). My husband will come down whenever he can since he has no vacation time left. It sucks that my family is getting split up during the holidays, but such is life at the moment.

So we drove home today. And I thought coming home would be some sort of relief. At the very least a relief to sleep in my own bed. Instead I just feel like I’m in the wrong place. But I will be back where I should be soon, taking care of my daddy.

11/28/09 - New Moon

I talked my husband into seeing New Moon with me. Those of you who think I’m a big silly silly for loving the Twilight series as much as I do should probably just skip ahead to tomorrow’s post.

I loved, loved, loved this movie. New Moon is my least favorite book of the series so I didn’t have high hopes for the movie (especially after the debacle that was the first movie), but it was awesome. The new director, Chris Weitz, did an amazing job of staying really close to the book without it feeling like he was going page for page. He even managed to bring in some pieces that were left out of the first movie back into this one to lay down some history.

The acting also had a huge uptick. You can tell that the actors finally get their characters now. Kristen Stewart really got inside of Bella (she’s still my least favorite character at this point), Robert Pattinson finally got comfortable inside of Edward and Taylor Lautner flat is Jacob. They were all so wishy washy and strange in the first movie, like they couldn’t figure out what to do with themselves (I don’t know if that’s a product of young actors or lack of direction, I suspect a bit of both). But they nailed it this time around.

The effects were brilliant. The wolves were amazing. I was thinking they’d probably make the mistake of trying to use real wolves interspersed with CG moves, which would have looked utterly hokey. Instead they created these creatures from scratch and it’s like they picked them right out of my brain they were so good.

The only bone I have to pick is the casting of the Volturi. I can overlook the concocted fight scene between Edward and Felix in the end because they made it work on screen, but the casting of all of the Volturi just did not resonate with my imaginings of the characters. I mean Michael Sheen is a great vampire, but he’s just not Aro in my opinion.

But overall, I adored the movie and I’m going to see it again with girlfriends on Tuesday evening. Tee-hee…

11/27/09 - Black Friday

Aaaaahhhhh….Black Friday. I always have every intention of skipping it altogether. Of staying in the house or at the very least only going out to places that have absolutely nothing to do with the exchange of money for goods. But I always have to peek at the ads and I inevitably find some deal that I just can’t pass up. So I always find myself out in the throngs of people, cussing loudly as soccer moms cut me off in parking lots and blue haired ladies push me out of the way to grab the last copy of some DVD. And I always end up wondering what the hell I was thinking getting out in this mess?!?

But this year? This year I got lucky, because even though there were a few enticing deals out there, I have no money to spend, so any urge I may have had to fight the masses got taken care of for me. Such a relief.

My husband and I did think, however, that it would be a good day to see a movie. Wow were we wrong. The movie we had chosen was sold out for most showings by 2pm, so we were out of luck. So we just enjoyed the drive back and forth from my parents’ house (which is about an hour) in the relative quiet of having no children in the car. It was a chance for the two of us to share some space, which is always appreciated.

I ended up making beef stew for dinner by my dad’s request (trying to make up for him having to take over Thanksgiving dinner duties for me and my migraine from hell). He was happy, so my mission was accomplished. The kids spent the day with my mom at a bounce house place she found in town, so they were happy (and tired) campers when they got home

All in all it was an easy, quiet day, which is pretty far from how my normal Black Friday goes, so for that I am grateful. Except for the parking lot at the mall where the movie theater was, but I guess we couldn’t get away entirely unscathed.

11/26/09 - Happy Thanksgiving!

I get out of bed with the remainders of the migraine I had yesterday. I go have a very large cup of coffee hoping that the caffeine will chase the dregs away. Within being up for a half an hour, I’m on my way back to bed. For the majority of the day.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

And I am no stranger to bone crunching headaches as you well know. But seriously, this was the worst migraine I’ve had for probably a couple of years. I couldn’t even sleep I was in so much pain. I was about ready to crawl back into the kitchen and beg someone to find me some narcotics. Or shoot me. Something. Anything. Just put me out of my misery. But then sleep took me, thankfully. It was probably close to 4pm before I could even think about sitting up without it feeling like someone was actively trying to crack open my skull. I had to have my husband hang blankets over the doors and windows so that absolutely no light could pierce my eyelids. The dogs and the kids were kept far away from me so as not to affront my tenderized ears.

And aside from this migraine totally high jacking my mother’s favorite holiday, it also meant that my dad had to take over making dinner. Which he was totally not prepared to do. I felt awful. But he turned out an awesome meal with absolutely the best oyster stuffing he’s ever made. I was seriously impressed. My mom has a yearly tradition for Thanksgiving where we all hold hands and go around the table to say what we are grateful for. The Girl said she was grateful for “her whole family.” The Boy said he was grateful for “dinner and the people I love.” My husband was grateful for “the chance to be with family.” My mom was grateful “to have her family all together again and to still have my dad.” My dad was grateful for “the chance to share the meal with his family.” And I was grateful to be able to sit around the table with my family with no pain and eat an amazing meal.

11/25/09 - New Tattoo Day

My mom and I got our first tattoos together for my 18^th birthday. We went to this iconic tattoo shop in Denver, me with an original design in hand and my mom just knowing that she wanted a very simple Sufi heart. A couple of hours later we were both adorned with our first ink and I was hooked. We took our new artwork home to show my dad and all he could do (still does) is shake his head and sigh. We giggled like the rebellious school girls we can still be.

My mom has been planning a new tattoo for months. She found a guy down here close-ish to their house that she really likes and the two of them have been working on a design to incorporate my mom’s longtime mantra “Om Mane Padme Hum” written in Sanskrit and combining that lettering with the image of a thousand petalled lotus flower. She and I spent quite a while not too long ago looking through image after image to find a couple that she liked and could use as inspiration for her own design. And today is the day for that new tattoo. She’s also going to have him touch up that first Sufi heart tattoo she got so many years ago as her love of the sun has not done wonders for her tattoo work.

So The Girl and I went in to meet her towards the end of her tattoo session to meet the guy and see how the whole thing was coming together before we went to Durango to do our Thanksgiving dinner shopping and get some lunch before heading home to greet The Boy and my husband who arrive today. Unfortunately halfway into town I felt an ocular migraine coming on. I pounded some ibuprofen and caffeine upon my arrival and hoped for the best.

My mom’s tattoo came out lovely, we got all of our shopping done and had some seriously tasty lunch at the same time and as I’m sitting here before bed typing this out, my headache has faded enough into the background that I don’t mind it so much. Pretty good day all in all.

11/24/09 - A Little Diva and Lots of Stories

Remember how I was saying that The Girl was being the sweetest, most wonderful, atypical 3 ½ year old you’ve ever known? Yeah, I jinxed it. If it were possible, and legal, to punt my daughter, man she would have been sailing into the next county by now. I can usually blame these lapses of judgment of hers on lack of sleep or not feeling well. But she slept great last night (even slept in!) and she’s totally healthy. If I’m being fair, she’s just responding to the up and down nature of the emotional state of affairs right now. If I’m being as big of a brat as she is, she’s being a gigantic pain in my ass and I’d like for her to just stop it.

My mom, dad and I were up until almost 11:30pm last night listening to dad tell stories like only he can. Watching him remember days far gone in rural Nebraska and missing his own father more than ever, now that he is facing his own mortality. I think he’d really like to have his dad here to tell him it’s ok. That none of this is his fault and life is just life. It breaks my heart to see how much my father still adores and looks to his own father after all of these years. My grandfather died of a massive heart attack about a week after my mom and dad got married. So I never got to meet him and my parents never got a honeymoon. But I don’t think there has been a day gone by over the last almost 40 years that my dad hasn’t missed his own father.

I expect I’m going to get to know that feeling pretty intimately in the near future.

So I am going to give him a journal for his upcoming birthday. So that as these winding tales from his childhood surface to the top of his memory he can write them down. And later, I can weave all the threads together into a story. So we can all make sure that these glorious memories of times, and people, long past go on being remembered and loved.

11/23/09 - Play by Play

It’s Monday. The Girl is going to spend the afternoon with her Papa just the two of them. As my we were leaving to go into town late this morning, they were just sitting down to play with Moon Sand. The Girl doesn’t ever really get one on one time with her Papa, so it will be good for both of them. My mom and I were going to go to the library for a wee bit and get some lunch before she had to go to work and I had to come back home to relieve Papa so he could go in and get some blood work done.

I’m back in surreal world because my dad is walking, talking and acting pretty close to how he normally does (even if he is moving a bit more slowly). He’s playing with his granddaughter and regaling us all with stories from his childhood during and after dinner. He’s still smoking and having his nightly scotches. Although at this point I’d like for him to ditch the roll your own cigarettes he’s been smoking and put the cheap scotch down and walk away. Trade in the econo-models for some good smoke and drink. I mean, if you’re going to go out with a bang, it should at least be worthy of the trouble don’t you think?

It’s almost like The Girl knows that I need her to just be gentle with all of us right now. That I need her to be the sweet girl she is instead of the attitude driven diva she has been test driving as of late. She’s been so super sweet and helpful; it’s almost been easy to forget that she’s 3 ½ years old.

I miss The Boy and my husband. A lot. I’m ready for them to be here and I’m cursing, yet again, how rough this year has been because it’s left my husband with next to no vacation days left. My dad adores his son-in-law, as does my mom, so it will be good when they both arrive on Wednesday.

Sorry for the minute by minute post for today. But that’s just how I’m taking it right now.

11/22/09 - The Drive

There are no words to tell you how good The Girl was on the drive down to New Mexico. She is three and a half and she sat in her car seat for the entire 6 hours that we were in the car, listened to music and played with whatever toys she could reach and didn’t ask until we were about 20 minutes out when we were going to be there. She was amazing.

I can see how people could get lulled into the whole only child thing. One kid at a time is just so much easier than more than one. They get your full attention, so they are more easily pacified. They don’t have to share the spotlight so they are more willing to entertain themselves rather than needing someone or something else to constantly keep them engaged.

And if it weren’t for those amazing times when The Boy is teaching his sister something or The Girl is looking at her big brother with those adoring little sister eyes, I might find myself lulled by these moments of relative peace as well. But I’ve always wanted a big, raucous family and for the most part, I love the chaos. Except when we are in the car, so that brings me back to how unbelievably good The Girl was on the drive down to my parents’ house. It was an easy drive. Not too much traffic given that it is a Sunday. We stopped in Chama (our traditional get out of the car, walk around and get treats to last us all through the last 90 minutes of the drive stop) to get my all time most favorite beef jerky ever, which is only sold at this one specific gas station in Chama, and to get The Girl her stop gap gummy bears.

The only bad part of the whole drive was having to drive into the setting sun for the last hour or so. That gave me a headache, but all in all it was a lovely and painless drive.

And I got to hug my dad. He’s still here. He’s whole, smiling and happy to see us. And I didn’t even cry.

Looking Forward

**I'll be at my parents' house for the next week, still writing everyday, but I may not be able to post everyday, please don't hold it against me!**

The Girl and I are getting in the car to drive to my parents’ house tomorrow. The Boy and my husband will be coming on Wednesday as they have school and work, respectively, until then. I never look forward to the actual drive; it’s just not very fun. Lots of two line highways, small towns and large trucks going much less than the speed limit, all of which make me very crazy. But it’s a fairly short drive and only having The Girl with me will make it go pretty quickly. I’m looking forward to seeing my parents. Each of them. I’m looking forward to hugging my mom and I’m looking forward to laying eyes on my dad. Even though I know when I do, lay eyes on my dad that is, they will be full of tears. But it will do my heart and mind good to remind myself that he is still here.

I am looking forward to watching the kids play with their Nana and Papa and maybe stealing away with my husband to watch a movie. I’m looking forward to having some non-scheduled time to just be. No school, no pick up times, no worrying about this or that. I’m looking forward to the change of scenery. I’m looking forward to some unadulterated family time.

The Boy is having his first sleep over tonight. We went over to P and M’s house for dinner with some other friends and The Boy begged to stay and they said it was fine. So we left him there. And I am terrified that he will freak out at bedtime and we’ll have to go pick him up. I trust them implicitly; it’s him putting P and M through the ringer that I worry about. Also? I’m not totally ready for my sweet boy to start having sleepovers necessarily. When did he get big enough to have sleepovers? It’s one of those benchmark points that you approach and pass as you’re growing up. And I am just not quite ready for any more benchmarks to go whizzing by my head. I have a sneaky suspicion however that they are only going to pick up speed.

What a Difference a Day Makes

Yesterday I was on the verge of hysteria for what felt like the entire day. I was barely able to hold back sobs throughout most of the day. And even when I was, I still felt like a zombie. I had to remind myself to respond when people spoke to me. I had to consciously choose to interact with my children instead of just curling up in a ball on the couch and zoning out to Thursday night television. I had to make myself do normal things like eat and shower and wear clothes other than my pj’s.

Today is a whole different game however. Today everything has gone back to feeling utterly surreal. It’s been easy today to allow myself to forget that my dad has lung cancer. Today it was pretty easy to just hang out with a girl friend while coloring The Girl’s hair pink and bringing my hair color back to black instead of the mousy brown it had become. It was pretty easy to just sit and talk about anything that crossed our minds instead of feeling like I had to focus on the fact that my dad is dying. And it is that ease that has brought back the surreal feeling to the whole thing. I mean, if it is that easy to go back to normal conversation two days after getting the prognosis, then can it really be as bad as we thought? In fact, if it is that easy, can it really be happening at all?

I mean, my rational mind knows that just because my own internal coping mechanism took over for a day to save me from being crushed under the threatening wave of sorrow, doesn’t mean that the whole thing isn’t happening. The wave is still there and at some point it will start building speed again until it comes crashing down on my head and sends me flailing under water gasping for breath and thrashing about for footing. I know that it’s there and it’s ok. Because I have some time to board up the windows and doors. To sandbag the foundations. And most importantly, it’s ok because I know how to swim.

I Choose Company

Typically when life gets hard or when I’m in the midst of something profoundly emotional, I contract. I pull inwards; away from friends and family. It’s how I process. I go inside my head to make sense of whatever is going on so that I can be whatever I need to be to get through whatever is going on.

But contrary to my historical nature, I’m finding myself choosing to reach out to friends and family. I’m being really open with the people around me and with myself for that matter. Maybe I’ve been through enough over the course of this last year that I’ve finally learned how to be gentle enough with myself to truly just be in any given moment. Without judgment or persecution.

I actually went out with friends last night. A woman in the mom’s group I’ve been a part of for years started a Random Art Workshop (RAW) night where we get together and work on whatever art we want to for an evening in the company of lovely friends. I didn’t go last month because of the weather, but also because of that new friend fear I’ve talked about before. But last night, even though my cold was making me feel pretty crappy, even though I was in a more vulnerable place than I’ve been in maybe ever and even though I’m not overly artistic or crafty, I went anyway. And it was lovely.

A sweet girlfriend offered to buy me and The Girl lunch today, so we did that after preschool. And then we went to the weekly playdate. I’ve had more social interaction in the last week than I’ve had in the last month. I just have no real desire to make myself do all of this alone. I don’t want to suffer in silence and play martyr through the sorrow. I want help. I want hugs. I want company. I want to have the tangible proof that I am not alone that being with girlfriends brings.

It is my dearest hope to stay grounded and present through the next few months and right now, being with these amazing women is allowing me to do just that.

11/18/09 - The Shock of Time

**I'm sorry this is late...**

When you plan a fantastic vacation 3-4 months in advance or you have one of your most favorite people coming to visit in a few months, those months can seem interminable. As if they are literally crawling by, taunting you with how very, very slowly they can move in relation to how badly you want something or how much you are looking forward to that distant date lurking on the calendar.

But when the oncologist told my dad today that he has 4-6 months to live, well that is a whole new story. Suddenly those long-drawn-out days upon weeks upon months suddenly got very, very short. The Girl’s 4th birthday is six months away. I cannot imagine my dad not being here to see that. The Boy will be moving out of first grade in 6 months, and I cannot imagine him not being there to give his grandson a huge hug of congratulations. It just seems like no time at all. And I cannot properly express what a shock that is.

When they discovered the large tumor in my dad’s lungs, I was prepared for him to not be around for much more than another year or two. I get that no matter how aggressively lung cancer is treated that it usually is meaner than the chemo and wins in the end using all of the dirty tricks it has in its never-ending bag of tragedy. I get that. I just honestly did not think it would take him this soon. But it will and given how far spread they think the cancer is, it will probably be sooner.

My dad has opted for no treatment, which I totally understand. He just spent that last several years watching his best friend waste away battling (and losing to) throat cancer. So he’s calling the shots on this one. I want the time he has left to be full of joy, peace and laughter. I want him to be surrounded by the people he loves doing only the things that he wants to do. So we’ll do whatever we need to to make sure that happens.

I want my dad to go out with a bang.

A Little Bit of Information

So I’ve known since Thursday that my dad probably has cancer. I thought I was pretty well prepared to deal with it as soon as I had all the information. Unfortunately, that’s just not how medicine works. With modern medicine, you find out there’s a problem. And then you find out it’s a big problem. And then they run tests and you wait. And then the results come in that the big problem is indeed a big problem. And then they have to run more tests to see how big of a problem it is and what or if they can do about it. So you don’t ever really a full picture until you’re sufficiently freaked out and overwhelmed by the lack of knowledge by the huge amount of thinking you’ve had the time to do while the doctors were getting their ducks in a row.

My dad got the biopsy results back today. A day early. He has adenocarcinoma. What does that mean? Well given the research I’ve done thus far, it doesn’t mean a lot until they do the PET scan and can figure out if the cancer has metastasized to other parts of his body, from there they will be able to determine what stage the cancer is in. But long story short, he has lung cancer. A particular lung cancer that has a 17% survival rate beyond 5 years, even with surgery, chemo and radiation. So the odds are not good.

And I am scraping and clawing to keep level headed. I am demanding that my brain not go down oh shit rabbit hole of doom. I am chaining myself to reality. Because it’s not just me that I have to worry about. I have to figure out how the hell to tell my children that their papa is going to leave them forever. I have to figure out how to maximize our time with my dad. I have to do whatever I can to help my parents make some hard decisions and make sure that whatever time my dad has left is exactly what he wants it to be.

I have to be brave enough to stay present with this.

Confessions, Part Two

I’ve several things which if asked point blank, I would deny outright. Because these are things the little bit of my ego and “cool girl” status just couldn’t take copping to. But here I go. I’m going to cop to them. For all to read about. This, ladies and gentlemen, is Confessions, Part Two.

I loved, loved, loved Def Leppard when I was in middle school and early high school. I knew all the band members’ back stories. I felt a certain “kinship” to the drummer because he was an amputee like my mom. I loved their music and thought they were just about as cool as it gets. Now this particular confession is not deniable because of the band itself, but because I was seriously punk at the same time as this foray into hair band Mecca started. There’s no greater treachery to my punk/Goth/new wave roots than to admit to loving a hair band.

When I was in college I followed wrestling. Not the school sponsored, takes immense skill and strength and is also an Olympic sport wrestling. The guys dressed up in copious amounts of spandex all decked in makeup acting out invented personas of varying degrees of sociopathic nature. My best friend in college, her husband and I used to pay actual money for the pay per view events. We’d plan them for weeks. What we were going to eat, what drinks we were going to have on hand, who we’d invite. I even watched the shows by myself sometimes. Oh, yeah, I was a total geek for Sting, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall (aka The Wolf Pack), Triple H and I’m fairly sure I had a dream once or twice about Goldberg.

Lastly? I am so totally in a dither, over the top, can hardly contain myself excited about New Moon opening on Friday. I won’t get to see it for a couple of weeks, if that, but I still cannot wait. Seriously. Cannot. Wait. I stalk Stephenie Myers’ website. I’ve read the books all the way through 4 times in the last year alone. Oh yeah, I’m a total Twlighter.

There you go. Please don’t hold it against me.

Bring it!

It’s Sunday. And Sunday means football. And can I just say, first of all, that I am tired of getting my ass kicked in my fantasy league. For three weeks in a row, I’ve been the one projected to win all my matchups and for three weeks in a row, I’ve gotten my ass handed to me. As the reigning two time champion of this league I am more than just a little irritated to have a losing record going into the last quarter of the season.

Also? What the hell does Faith Hill have to do with NFL football? I don’t get her singing the Sunday Night Football song.

And tonight it’s the matchup of all matchups for my team. It’s Peyton Manning vs. Tom Brady. Peyton has been my boy for years. I loved him before I even knew much about the Colts. But now the whole team is MY team. They are just a bunch of guys who love to play the game of football and they play their hearts out every single week. They work hard, they study hard and they play even harder. Dallas Clark is hands down the best tight end in the league. Reggie Wayne is a fly beneath the radar amazing wide receiver the likes of which you just don’t see often. The defensive line is brilliance in a gigantor package. They are just a really fun team to watch, especially when they are in a grudge match game like this one.

I’ve already made plain my feelings towards Tom Brady. He’s a pompous ass who struts around the football field like he’s king instead of the egotistical Neanderthal that he is. And I don’t think much about the Patriots in general. They are the Yankees of football. Which is to say they buy their team instead of nurturing and creating one. They’re in it to win it instead of playing for the love of the game. And it’s just hard for me to respect that all that much.

So I’ll be yelling from the couch tonight and hoping like hell that Peyton teaches Brady a lesson or two about how to play football like a gentleman.

Trust-ish in the Process

The doctors let my dad go home this afternoon. The jack ass cardiologist (he is actually a jack ass, it’s not just that I disagree with him) decided yesterday that the main priority was to get his heart rate down and if they could manage that, then he could go home for the weekend and go back for the procedures on Monday as an outpatient. So it took two days and an obscene amount of medication, but they were able to get his heart rate down from the 150-160bpm range to the 90’s, which was their target. So they unhooked and unplugged and sent him on his merry way with the absolute instructions to do NOTHING for the next day and half. Seriously. Nothing. I think the doctor’s exact words were to “sit in your chair and watch football, nothing else.” That, at least, makes me happy.

I am not exactly thrilled that they let him go home. But it is what he and my mom wanted. It’s almost as if they are already treating him like a terminal case. Yes, their gut feeling is that the massive tumor in his lung is cancer. And yes, I know that if it is indeed a terminal diagnosis that he will choose the most intervention free path possible. So maybe they aren’t entirely wrong to look at him that way, but until we know something for certain, I’m just not going there. I want a diagnosis. I want a treatment plan. I want a prognosis. I want information and I would like to have it now. Instead I’m going to have to wait for Monday for the procedures and then Wednesday for the results. It’s infuriating.

It’s not that I like to be in crisis mode. I really don’t. But I really do thrive on information and until I get it, there’s just nothing for me to do except sit and wait. And do nothing. And I’m really not good at doing nothing when someone I love is in danger. To be still right now is taking a tremendous amount of faith and trust in the process. I guess it’s good practice for what is to come.

11/13/09 - Growly

I have always referred to where my parents live as Jabuti, New Mexico. The closest town with a real grocery store is 30 minutes away and it is a thriving metropolis of about 5,000 people or so. There is a larger town another 30 or so minutes beyond that, but to say that it possesses significant civilization and/or culture is to dramatically overstate.

I have never really understood the appeal of the area. Yes the rocks are pretty. But it’s unbelievably hot in the summer, it’s infuriatingly windy in the fall and spring and it still snows in the winter. I don’t get why you would choose to live in the high plains desert and still have to put up with snow in the winter. If anything, the weather closely resembles the weather here in Colorado just more extreme. And it’s always dry as all get out, no matter what the weather is doing. It’s just not a very hospitable place to live my humble opinion.

Their house is at least an hour away from the nearest hospital. They don’t get cell service at their house. Their only option for internet service is either slower than dirt dial up or uber-expensive satellite. They lose power and phone service all the time because of the myriad of weather conditions. There is no middle class; the entire population is either over the top rich or just barely scraping by poor.

And now I get it even less.

Because with everything happening with my dad’s health right now, we have to wait until Monday for them to do the bronchoscopy and biopsy because the hospital doesn’t have the staff available for the procedure during the weekends. I dare not think about what would happen if someone came in an emergent situation needing a procedure that they don’t happen to have staff for on the weekend. “Feel free to live here and enjoy the scenery; just don’t get sick on a weekend.”

The waiting is driving me crazy. I hate waiting. I thrive on information and what the doctor’s are giving me right now is the furthest thing from useful information. If I could growl right now, I would.

And Next on the Agenda is...

My mom called me around lunchtime today to tell me that my dad was in the back of ambulance being taken to the hospital because they had discovered he was in Atrial Flutter and his blood pressure was soaring at a routine visit. I mean, the fact that my dad was actually at a doctor’s office was anything but routine. This is the first time I can remember him being at a doctor’s office voluntarily for probably 10 years or more. But this persistent cough he has finally got to him and in he went. Little did he know that he would walk in there under his own volition and his body would betray him and land him squarely in the holding hands of modern medicine.

They did a CT scan and found an 8 centimeter large mass in his lung which is pushing up into his aorta causing all sorts of serious problems. The first of which is the Atrial Flutter, which they cannot get to revert back to normal sinus rhythm. The second of which is full body edema and his blood pressure is through the roof as is his heart rate. His oxygen saturation is way down and he also has fluid in the lower lobes of both lungs.

Is this fucking year over yet? Seriously.

Anyway, they’re now waiting for the cardiologist and the pulmonologist to make an appearance so they can look at the CT results and make a recommendation for what to do now. To me it’s obvious that the mass has to come out. But my mom wasn’t sure if they would want to run more tests first or just go ahead and get him into surgery to take the sucker out.

So for now, I am breathing and trying to just stay present. We’ll tackle this as it comes and until we know more, I’m just sitting still. I’m not planning. I’m trying not to think. I’m just being. I’m kissing my babies and holding them tight. I’m indulging in some serious brain candy with Thursday night TV and maybe having nothing but popcorn and Snickers for dinner. I’m breathing in and out and waiting for news.

This? This is a Vent

I woke up crabbier than crabby this morning so today’s post is just one big ‘ol vent session. I was going to vent on Facebook and then remembered that today is Veteran’s Day and felt like a big ‘ol selfish person for wanting to vent instead of thanking all the soldiers past, present and future. So you get it instead. Feel free to just come back tomorrow.

The children don’t have school today and I would love to take them to Denver and go the Natural History Museum or the Children’s Museum or go out for a fun lunch at one of their favorite places. But I can’t do any of that. I can’t drive to Denver because I have to conserve gas. I can’t even take them to McDonald’s for lunch let alone Fargo’s or Chuck E. Cheese. I can’t really do anything with them today because we have no fucking money.

I’ve tried really hard to stay positive about this whole financial crisis that we’re in. I’ve tried really hard to keep it all in perspective and know that it’s for the best and will give us a chance at real stability instead of credit card funded illusion. I’ve struggled to keep the bitterness at bay by taking responsibility for my actions while not laying a gigantic morass of guilt around my neck. I’ve done all of these things every day since we first realized that bankruptcy was our only option.

But today? Today I am angry and bitter and guilty. Because I manage the money in this house and I am apparently so good at it that I managed us right into near complete financial ruin. I so want to take my sweet children and do something fun and frivolous today and I can’t because I fucked up. And that feels pretty awful. And that’s not even touching the guilt that floods if I consider what would happen if one of the cars broke down or our heater went out.

Today I want to throw a huge, out of control temper tantrum about the whole thing and go to Starbuck’s on the way to Red Robin. But I can’t. And that sucks.

Change it Up

Sesame Street has been on the air for 40 years today. NPR did a big story on how it’s changed throughout the years and what’s stayed the same. Apparently the biggest thing that has stayed the same is that the show could count on the kids loving pretty much whatever they did. Because it turns out that kids are super adaptable. It’s the adults who disagree with the change. I laughed out loud when I heard this.

Because here’s the thing: as parents we go out of our way to get our kids into routine pretty much from birth. Feeding schedules, sleeping schedules, developmental schedules, you name it and we have a schedule or recommended method for it. And the routines only get more entrenched and complicated as the kids get older. We all cuss out daylight savings time for screwing up the kids’ schedules and blame all the temper tantrums and sleep troubles on the slightest disruption in routine. Even when we don’t really think we have a routine. We stay home on week nights instead of having family get togethers because we don’t want to mess up the kids’ routines. We schedule our whole lives around naps and eating and homework and school and anything and everything else we can jam into our daily lives.

But according to all of the child development experts that Sesame Street calls on when constructing its programming, children are utterly and completely adaptable. They don’t care if Elmo is moved around with wires or if he’s computer generated. They don’t care if Big Bird says hello the same way every morning. They don’t care if the Sesame Street sets are the same every time they tune in. As long as the show is there and singing and engaging and giving them awesome Muppets to look at and believe in, they couldn’t care less whether Cookie Monster has teeth or not.

I guess it is nice to know that as long as my kids are engaged and being loved through every day that that’s good enough for them. Now, if I could just figure out how to let go of my need for routine we’d be getting somewhere.

Oh, Procrastination, You Minx!

Procrastination. It’s such a lovely thing.

“Oh, I’m procrastinating!” said in an offhand, giggly sort of way. As if I’m some well to do woman who has a gigantic list of things to do at all times and occasionally gives myself permission to be naughty. Tee-hee, tra-la-la, pish posh and all that.

When in reality, I am a stay at home mom who is literally just taking each day as it comes. My favorite days are actually the days when I can lay in bed and stare out the window until The Girl comes to get me and we end up lying in bed cuddling for minutes on end. When I can leisurely drink my cup of coffee while checking my email or get The Girl set up with some artsy project. I love days that can just unfold. I go back and forth on whether this is because I am really in my core an inherently lazy person or because I just like to dictate my own pace.

But there are days, especially coming after I’ve essentially done nothing for a week while I’ve been begging someone to take me out back and put me out of misery, where I actually have real stuff to do. Lists jockeying for attention in my peripheral vision while I do my damnedest to ignore them. Like today for instance. I actually had several things on my to-do list today and I got exactly zero of them done.

Partially because I didn’t really have a burning desire to do any of it and mostly because I let my college roommate’s impeccable timing on instant messenger steal the bulk of my afternoon. Seriously, she and I could chat for days if we’d allow ourselves to.

But then I hear the garage door go up and I realize that my husband and The Boy are home and suddenly my to-do list is doing a sultry little “I told you so dance” right smack in the middle of my line of sight. I smile when they walk through the door and dodge the “what did you do today” questions knowing full well that I will indeed tackle that to-do list. Tomorrow.

To Play Or Not To Play

Pretty much since The Boy could walk I’ve struggled with the question of toys. He is all boy when it comes to his choice of play things. He’s been able to pick out and identify a huge range of superheroes from the time he could speak. He’s adored Star Wars since he was old enough to not put the action figures directly into his mouth. He gravitates towards swords and guns and other weapons of violence. He’s a rough and tumble, get down and dirty kind of boy (although he does play kitchen, mommy and daddy and dress up with his sister in a really sweet way). I’ve often wondered if we should have only let him play with all wooden toys designed to engage his creativity instead of battery needing plastic play for him sorts of toys.

Here’s where my main struggle comes in. The Boy really wants to play with G.I. Joes. Which I had always planned on shutting down immediately as I was not at all keen on the idea of him playing with toys whose entire purpose was to fight. We live in a neighborhood where almost all of The Boy’s friends’ fathers are in the military. His first best friend was our neighbor B who was in the army and lost his life in Iraq. Several of his school friends have family members in the military. His Papa Tractor is a retired Marine and his Uncle is in the Navy. So now I don’t think I can just put my foot down with a resounding (but unexplained) no without feeling like an absolute hypocrite.

I have a deep respect for the people who choose to be soldiers. In fact because of B, every time I see a soldier in uniform I have to use all of my willpower not to just hug them. So when The Boy says to me “I want to be a soldier when I grow up because I want to help people” it makes me cry and it makes me want to support him in whatever way I can. Because what mother doesn’t want their son to grow up with the sole intention of helping people?

Continued Aftermath

So it turns out that my husband must have some sort of super immune system. Because this vomit madness aftermath has lasted a lot longer than the 24 expected hours for The Girl and me. By yesterday afternoon The Girl was on her way back to normal and I felt sure that other than the aforementioned muscle soreness, so was I. But I actually feel worse today than I did yesterday. I have less than no energy and I almost feel like I do post-migraine. The daylight is a wee bit too bright and I’m pretty sure I’m going to pass out if I move any faster than a turtle. I just can’t quite get my brain to react at a normal rate or form thoughts entirely coherently. I have to erase about every other word as I type it because of typos and I have to re-read every sentence to make sure it actually makes sense. Very strange and I’m over it now.

I’m just thoroughly grateful that it’s the weekend. Because we can all have two full days without responsibilities to catch up, get completely healthy and get everything put back in order. That is, as soon as I can stand up for more than 2 minutes at a time. My husband got called to work some overtime today from home, The Boy seems to be feeling much, much better as he’s outside currently enjoying the gorgeous weather playing with his neighborhood friends decked out in his Captain Rex (red Clone Trooper) Halloween costume. The Girl is curled up on the couch beside me watching episode after episode of Scooby Doo while I clumsily type away on my laptop fighting the ebb and flow of nausea.

Today is also a bittersweet kind of day. It’s the birthday of one of my oldest and dearest friends – Happy Birthday T!! I love you and hope that you have a wonderful day which will set the tone for a fabulous year!

But it is also the fourth anniversary of when our dear friend and neighbor B was killed in Iraq. You are alive and well in our memories and we love you B. Be at peace.

11/6/09 - I Hope You Enjoy Your Stay

Well unfortunately about an hour or so after I wrote yesterday’s somewhat witty quip about needing a thesaurus I was bolting for the bathroom. Every 15 minutes or so for about 8 hours straight. The Girl was plagued all day as well so we had a retching symphony going on in this house. I’m sure it was lovely. And my husband got home to his two completely debilitated girls soon to be followed by a third encore by The Boy. He probably wanted to go right back to work, I know I would have. But instead he dutifully cleaned up the remnants of The Boy’s projectile offering, rubbed The Girls’ back as she leaned over the trash can and eyed me warily as I went to and fro from the downstairs bathroom to the couch and back again.

Obviously we kept both kids home from school today (much to The Girl’s dismay). My husband kicked into gear with the de-pukifying of the house by cleaning furiously (bless his heart) while the children and I spent the morning on the couch watching cartoons. The Boy snagged my husband into an intricate Star Wars game when The Girl fell asleep mid-afternoon and I discontinued the cartoons in favor of catching up on my DVR’d shows. I still have waves of nausea that roll over me, but it appears their only goal is to taunt me, not to actually do anything.

And since I’ve already ventured into “too much information” territory, I will share the worst part of this whole thing. It turns out that relentless barfing for 8 hours straight isn’t actually that bad. It’s the after effects that really suck. It’s the fact that throwing up uses every single one of your core, internal muscles and after 8 hours of that doing something as little as laughing, sneezing or coughing the next day makes you want to cry. And that throwing up nothing but bile for 8 hours leaves your throat raw and makes you cough. So the suffering compounds.

Now that this nastiness has made a complete circuit of my family, I am fervently hoping it will pack its bags and get the hell out.

Welcome to Vomitown

My house has been vomitastic for days now. And let me just state for the record that I am thoroughly done with it now. It’s hit The Boy twice now, it took my husband out for a couple of days and this morning it descended upon The Girl. Although she seems to definitely be getting the worst end of the dry heaves so far. She can’t even keep down water at this point and is rolling from the couch onto the floor to hover over the trash can about every 15 minutes at this point. No fever, thank goodness. But how much throwing up can one little girl take for Christ sakes? I mean at what point do I call the doc for anti-nausea meds? She has zero color in her face and has started trying to fight the heaving which leaves her in tears and screaming by the end of every puke session. It’s heartbreaking really.

I’ve committed to a princess movie fest today in an effort to at least make her smile. We’ve done Cinderella and The Tinkerbelle Movie so far and have just delved into The Little Mermaid. Probably we’ll watch Mulan or Beauty and the Beast next (those two are my favorites, but don’t tell anyone).

And I suppose I should be grateful. Because I would take 24 hours of stomach bug over pneumonia or H1N1 any day. That’s about how long it seems to run; 24 hours of throwing up, low grade fever and generally feeling utterly punk. But then it’s gone and recovery seems to happen really fast. But at this point, I’ve definitely reached my saturation point for vomit.

Right now I’m putting just as much energy into hoping I don’t get this thing as I am wishing time would speed up so that The Girl could be done with it already. I just really have less than no desire to spend tomorrow or the weekend barfing for 24 hours.

But I’m getting more nauseous as the day goes on, so I suppose I’ll have to drag out the thesaurus soon to find alternative words for “to throw up” as I’m sure I’m next on the hit list.

11/4/09 - In the Heat of the Moment

**Sorry. Entire family consumed with vomit madness. Keeping fingers crossed that it misses me.**

I had woken up extraordinarily early one weekend morning when I was little and instead of turning on the TV or reading a book or any of the other totally permissible and appropriate things that I could have done, I decided instead to gather all of my mom’s nail polish and pour it down the banister leading to the basement. And then to add a little creative flair I decided to squirt an entire tube of toothpaste down the same banister and mix it all together into an artistic masterpiece.

As I was putting on the finishing touches, my mom came into the kitchen and discovered what I had done. I remember backing away from her rage and as I turned on my heel to bolt to my room, I ran right smack into the kitchen wall. I hit the wall so hard it knocked me down, and I ended up with the mother of all goose eggs right in the middle of my forehead. I remember looking up at my mom and she was laughing. And I didn’t understand how she could be.

But now I get it. Because when one of my kids aren’t paying attention and end up on their face or their little butts, I find myself laughing at them as well. And it dawned on me the other day that it probably really pisses them off. I remember the indignation I felt at the ripe age of 6 or 7 being laughed at when I felt like the world should have stopped in an effort to bring me recompense for not only the pain of my injury but also the embarrassment.

I also look back on that morning however and understand now that in that moment of me crashing into the strawberry wallpaper adorned wall, all of that rage my mother had was instantly transformed into laughter. And that is always a gift no matter the inspiration.

So what’s the point of bringing up these childhood memories? I guess mostly that I just hope to remember both perspectives in those heated moments and also I hope I have grandchildren so that The Boy and The Girl can someday understand too.

Random Acts of Kindness

I always assume that people will do the right thing when it comes down to it. There is a cynical streak in me however that always points and laughs at that “cup half full” part of me whenever I run into generally mean for no reason people. But today, that part of me that believes that people are generally good in all the ways that matter most, good naturedly poked and giggled at the cynic.

My husband is sick with the same vomit madness that The Boy had, so he has basically ceased to exist for the last 24 hours. In an effort to keep from having to drive back and forth into town in between taking The Boy and The Girl to their respective schools, I decided to splurge and take The Girl and me out to breakfast while we waited. It wasn’t a huge splurge but it gave us a bit of time to talk and color and eat yummy food that I didn’t have to cook. After we were done eating I went up to pay and I swiped my debit card only to discover that the card was expired. Oh. My. God.

Thank goodness I grabbed some cash we had laying around the house on my way out the door (thank you subconscious!), but I was still short. The hostess who was ringing me up totally could have pulled the bitch card on me and been well within her rights. I should be more together and aware than that. Especially now that we are completely credit card free and rely only on cash/debit; I have to have my shit together more than that. But I didn’t. And you know what? She was extraordinarily kind and gave me the difference in cash from her own wallet. And then when I was on the verge of tears because I felt so badly for not being to leave a tip for our server who was equally kind, she offered to give her a slice of pie on her break on our behalf.

I am just so thoroughly grateful for random acts of kindness and I’m on the lookout for ways to pay it forward.

Playdate Bliss

Mondays are usually the days when I map out the rest of the week. We have a slow morning where I play catch up on some computer stuff and generally taking inventory of the priorities of the week and what needs to be done. Mondays are usually just totally laid back, take it as it comes sort of days.

But today The Girl and I had a day long play date with a dear friend that we have been trying to get together with for months and something always comes up. But this morning we both realized we had the whole day free and jumped at the chance to finally get together. I figured we would play for the morning, maybe have some lunch and then we would come home and carry on with our typical rambling Monday.

Instead we were at P’s house all day long. Seriously. I had no idea how fast time was flying until I looked at the clock and it was suddenly only about an hour before dinner. And I suddenly felt simultaneously horribly self-conscious for high jacking her entire day and thoroughly selfish for being so happy that I just got to spend the entire day with P and her amazing kiddos.

Every once in a while I meet someone who is just really a kindred spirit and my number must have been drawn today because I hit the jackpot. Not only does P understand me on a level that I have a hard time putting words to, but her sweet children are also just really my people. Her twin girls spent most of the day alternating sitting in my lap while I read to them and let them play with all of my jewelry. And her son played so sweetly with The Girl and we set a play date for the next time The Boy is off of school so he could have a fellow boy to play with.

I just could not have imagined a better way to spend my Monday. Dear friend, the sweetest kiddos, awesome conversation and a tasty lunch of her awesome lime chicken which I am going to make as soon as possible.

Post Halloween Break-Down

My children have a well documented energy level. I’m sure that if I pooled the combined intellectual capacity of all of my friends that we could surely figure out how to take a small city off the grid just by using the energy these kids generate. But apparently they all have better things to do than do science experiments on my children. Anyway, suffice it to say, they have ALOT of energy.

And this energy typically compounds itself exponentially on and around holidays. At least holidays that involve presents and/or candy. They start bouncing with anticipation about a week or so beforehand and don’t usually stop until at least a month after the holiday has come and gone.

So this morning finds The Girl going back and forth between wearing The Boy’s Clone Trooper costume and her Cinderella dress. Constantly going into the kitchen to make sure that their trick or treat bags, which are overflowing with their candy haul from last night, have not been moved and/or pilfered by anyone. And both of them already talking about what they’re going to be for Halloween next year.

The unfortunate side of this exponential growth of energy is that the more their energy compounds, the less coordination they have. They get so focused on moving that they cease to recognize anything that may lie in the paths. For example, every single year The Boy has gotten so excited when trick or treating that he inevitably trips over a curb or runs across a yard which leads to taking a digger over a lawn ornament. Essentially he somehow injures himself while trick or treating, every single year. So we had a long talk with him before heading out this year about staying with us, not running, setting a good example for his sister, being patient and polite and pretty much everything else we could think of before setting him loose to go trick or treating.

Our mistake? Not having that conversation with The Girl. Because The Boy made it through this Halloween completely unscathed. The Girl however tripped over a curb and ended up with a huge scrape across her forehead. Good thing that candy heals all.

10/31/09 - Happy Halloween!

**Again, sorry this is late. I got wrapped up in the Halloween festivities last night and plum forgot to post it.**

The Boy was almost exactly 3 weeks old for his first Halloween. So trying to be practical parents, we didn’t get him a costume. He slept through most of the trick or treaters and pretty much left the whole day unremarked.

For his second Halloween he was a fire fighter. He loved the costume and wore it continuously for several weeks. We were so excited for him to be able to go trick or treating for the first time when all he wanted to do was curl up in his crib and go to sleep in his super comfy, all fleece costume. But we meanly kept him awake long enough to go up and down our street.

For his third Halloween he was a super duper cute and cuddly dragon. Seriously, it was the cutest, softest little dragon costume ever. Candy was well on his radar by this time.

His fourth Halloween, he was Batman. And he was working on the best trick or treating strategies.

His fifth Halloween he was Spider-Man. By this time The Girl was on the scene and he was busy being the best big brother ever by telling her all about what Halloween was for, helping pick out her costume and teaching her all about the best candy. She was about 5 months old and was a ladybug (the cutest frakking ladybug ever if I do say so myself) and had zero interest in anything but everyone fawning all over her and being able to take things out and put them back into her trick or treat bag.

Last year, The Boy was Boba Fett and The Girl was a Plum Fairy (which pretty much means that we found a super cute purple fairy costume that happened to be called a Plum Fairy but we just thought it was a cute costume).

This year, he was a Clone Trooper and Bumblebee (he had a hard time deciding and we had both costumes) and she was Cinderella. The Boy’s pumpkin trick or treat bag has proven to be too small for his 6 year old trick or treating abilities and The Girl discovered the true joy of Halloween – the sugar coma.

10/30/09 - Pre-Halloween

**Sorry this is late!! I got wrapped up in trying to peel my kids off the ceiling last night and forgot to post!**

Today was The Girl’s first picture day at preschool. So I dolled her up in the super cute clothes that Nana Ro sent her at the beginning of the school year from Ralph Lauren and she even let me brush her hair. The Boy was off of school (because I guess the teachers needed yet another planning day after having a week and half off for fall break and parent/teacher conferences) so I drug him along as the preschool had said siblings could get their pictures taken as well if they were around. So The Boy got studded up in his Ralph Lauren finery from Nana Ro as well and off we went. I thought it couldn’t be any worse than going to a photo studio right? Wow. Wrong. Moved as slow as dirt. So my entire morning went out the window, but I think they got some really sweet shots of the kiddos. So that makes it worth it right?

I did manage to get to Target for Halloween candy, so I was able to tick one thing off of my to-do list.

We came home, had some lunch and then I unleashed the kids on the neighborhood with all of their friends while I caught up on some computer stuff. And then a sweet friend emailed to say she had an extra Bumblebee costume lying around unused – oh joy!! So off we went to pick that up.

Our neighbors across the street had shared with me that the local YMCA was doing a big Halloween celebration tonight, so I had been mulling over whether or not subject myself and my husband to that on a Friday night. Once I found out that ALL of the kids’ neighborhood friends were going, we have decided to take them. One of the neighbor moms (who has 5 boys who are so utterly wonderful with my children that I can’t help but adore her) said they were going to feed them dinner and everything, so it’s a killer deal at $3 a kid.

So off we go, to see how hopped up on sugar we can get both of our children before they just shut down completely.

Google-tastic

I had a totally irresponsible day of getting absolutely nothing done. I spent a good portion of the day chatting with my college roommate and driving back and forth to The Girl’s preschool. I should have dealt with the massive pile of dishes that’s been sitting on the counter for the last two days. I should have a done a number of things. Well, I guess I did go grocery shopping, which really needed to happen. So I guess that’s one productive thing I managed to do today. But other than that? I got nothing. So I was struggling to decide what to write about and decided to Google it. Yep. That’s right, I just typed in “What should I write about?” And here’s a sampling of what I got:

“The 10 Things You Gotta Know About