4/14/10 - Daily Rundown

The migraine plague has returned full force, so I’m sorry, but you’re getting a rundown of my day today and that’s about all I can offer.

The Girl and I got to listen to the baby’s heartbeat for the first time this morning. And I got my OB thinking again that I might have more than one in there. Apparently I’m quite a bit bigger than I should be at this point (yeah, I knew that already), so she ordered another ultra sound to be done on Monday to see for sure if I’ve got one or two in there. The Girl got quite the kick out of hearing the heartbeat and it never ceases to make me smile too. Such a cool thing.

And I’ve apparently been adopted into the neighborhood stay at home mom coalition. Because every time I step outside I get surrounded by neighbor moms wanting and needing to chat. I’ve always kind of been a loner in this neighborhood with the exception of a few people that I really connected with. But this group of women just decided they weren’t taking no for an answer anymore and I must say that I’m actually pretty happy about it. They are all military wives so I get to continue asking all the questions I used to ask of L when she lived next door and The Boy and The Girl adore all of their children. C lives next door in L and B’s old house, A lives across the street and has 5 boys, K lives next door to A and has 3 boys, S lives down the street and has 2 boys. So pretty much The Boy is in heaven in this neighborhood and The Girl would do almost anything to have a girl to play with. But in the meantime is totally happy kicking all the boys’ butts at sword play and Avatar.

So we hung out and chatted while cussing out cars driving entirely too fast down our street and reminding the kids to watch for cars as they rode their bikes up and down the street.

It was a good day, even if the migraine plague has returned.

4/4/10 - Happy Easter!

Oh yeah, that’s right, it’s Easter. Happy Easter! I had almost totally forgotten about it. It’s just such a holiday that’s not on my radar really. I’m not religious so it holds little personal meaning for me in that respect and it always creeps up on me. More so this year than most given everything else that’s going on. My mom sent me to the grocery store yesterday (yes, on a Saturday, again, and the Saturday before Easter, so not a good idea) to restock the fridge and get a few things for the kids for an Easter egg hunt this morning. This morning still arrived as a bit of a shock.

My Mom had taken The Boy outside to enjoy the gorgeous morning while I set up the indoor egg hunt and strategically placed their bigger Easter gifts. The Girl woke up lat morning after falling back asleep on the couch and came to me with an egg in hand saying “What this?” She caught on quickly though as she kicked off the hunt with a good head start on her brother. They had a good time.

Dad got up after the hunt was over and was still not doing well, so Mom called the new on call hospice nurse to request a home visit today. Dad moved as little as possible and read the paper. The Girl played with her new Barbie princess and horse and The Boy begged my Mom shamelessly to get started on his new medieval castle herb garden which would require painting. It was a normal Sunday morning except for the pain and discomfort etched across my Dad’s face.

But my Dad has gotten better as the day has gone on, The Girl seems to be fever free although her cough has evolved into a nasty wet thing that needs little provocation, The Boy had a grand time painting and planting his indoor garden. The hospice nurse arrived and took a thorough account of my Dad ending with a long talk about pain management and a declaration that the gout med should be utterly discontinued.

Now it’s on to dinner and sneaking the ears off the kids’ chocolate bunnies.

4/2/10 - Fever Watch

Yep. The Girl is sick. My mom sent The Boy to get me before the sun was up after The Girl came to get her up with a nasty croupy cough and fever. So in I came and she and I sat in a hot, steamy bathroom for about 30 minutes and then got some prednisone and Motrin into her. By this time she was calm enough to go back to sleep for a bit (Thank God). When I got up the bark was gone from her cough, but she was still not feeling well at all. Which is so not a good thing on a couple of different levels. The first of which is, of course, that I don’t want her to get sick at all. The second is that I can’t have her being sick, especially with a respiratory sickness, around my dad. So we’ll ride out today and if she’s not better by tomorrow, then I’m afraid we’ll have to go home a week early. We’ll just have to wait and see.

I am not entirely sure where she managed to pick up a sickness in the middle of nowhere, but she did. I knew something was coming because her dry, out of whack asthma cough came back a couple of days ago and then before bed she said good night in a hoarse voice. I can spot the croup a mile away and I knew it was coming. But I still hoped it wouldn’t.

So we’ve spent the day watching movies and cuddling. Which is fine by me as I’m just about as tired as The Girl is/should be. And there’s a part of me that is ready to go home. I miss my husband. I miss my bed. I miss the Wi-Fi in my house. I miss my friends. But I’m here to be with my Dad and that’s what I’m trying to do. So if I can get The Girl well in 24 hours we’ll stay. And if nothing else, for the first time in a month a story idea came to me whilst sitting in the dim, wet bathroom early this morning. That is a very good thing.

4/1/10 - Bouncetastic

I’ve had it up to here with this whole isolation thing. I’m tired of feeling so out of the loop with my world. My friends are spread all over the country as well as all across the city I live in and the internet is the one way that I get to keep in touch with them all. Not having regular access to the internet has left me feeling utterly disconnected. And irritated.

So today I took the children to this place called The Big Bounce. It’s essentially a huge warehouse full of close to a dozen of those big inflatable bounce houses. They have mini golf and their own version of a Build-A-Bear as well. My children love it. The Boy can literally spend hours there doing nothing but moving from group of kids to group of kids; melding into whatever game they may be playing. No matter the age difference. If they are running and jumping and laughing, he’s all for it. The Girl has a bit less use for running than her brother. She’s content to run and jump for a bit, but then she needs activity of a more sophisticated sort. She typically finds this in crashing other people’s birthday parties. Or cozying up to one of the employees with her big blue eyes, corn silk blonde hair, pixie voice and sweet demeanor until they fold and let her tag along with them while they do more interesting things. Inevitably employees or parents will track me down asking if it’s ok if she has a piece of birthday cake or a little snack from behind the desk. She’s shameless.

Me? I try to take advantage of the free Wi-Fi for as long as I can until The Girl’s antics guilt me into corralling the boy back into the car (much to his dismay). Today was a bit shorter than usual however, because The Girl seems to be getting sick. She had very little interest in running or jumping at all and there were no birthday parties to crash. So she spent most of the time on my lap while I furiously tried to catch up on email. Sigh. Not enough time.

3/30/10 - How to Train Your Dragon

My mom and I took the kids to see How to Train Your Dragon yesterday. It’s a movie that we’ve been looking forward to seeing for a while now. First because we all love dragons, second because it just looked awesome. And it was. In its entirety.

The story was awesome and the moral was a really good one for my kiddos to see – just believe in yourself and that faith alone will bring you where you want to go. And yes, it’s an animated movie so it can’t show all the trials and tribulations people run across when following your heart’s path, but it didn’t spoon feed them a fairy tale either. It struck a nice balance, moral wise.

The animation was lovely. Especially in the dragons. They created all of these different dragons each with their own personalities and attack strategies. And yes, they were a bit goofy, because you know, they couldn’t very well create big scary dragons because it’s for kids. The dragons they had scared The Girl enough as it was. I’d hate to see what they would have come up with given more freedom to roam towards “realism.”

The main characters, Hiccup the Viking lad and Toothless the Night Fury dragon, were by far the best part about the whole movie. Hiccup is funny, sarcastic and smart. He’s also a pitiful physical specimen for a Viking. But still, awesome in spades. Toothless is of the most feared variety of dragon. He has this amazing lightening fire breath and is almost impossible to see at night. He’s so fast you can hardly see him. And, he has retractable teeth, hence his name. Also? He has the best facial expressions. And apparently a better understanding of human nature than most humans. If Hiccup teaches Toothless a bit about trust, then Toothless teaches Hiccup everything else.

The cherry on the top of the movie however, was getting to listen to Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson unveil their Scottish brogue in all of its glory for 90 minutes. I was in heaven; smiling at every rolled “r”.

The Boy gave it a resounding thumbs up. The dragons scared The Girl. I loved it.

3/25/10 - Gentle Day

I got to meet my Dad’s hospice nurse today. I’d talked to her on the phone a few weeks ago, but it was nice to put a face with the name. She’s super sweet and genuinely seems to like my Dad and vice versa. It was interesting to watch them talk and see everything that she keeps track of. I really had no idea what to expect. But she took all his vitals, counted out his meds to see what needed to be re-ordered and talked to him for quite a while about his pain levels and just in general how he was doing. It was nice to watch someone with him whose entire reason for being here was to support him. To do anything and everything she could to make and keep him comfortable and see that his needs were being met. There was no distraction or agenda; she was fully and completely here with him while she was here. It made me happy to see and it was also nice to get an objective evaluation of how he is doing. Because it’s really easy to get dragged down into the daily pill monitoring, the ever vigilant watching of his every wince and sigh, wondering when his body will finish this betrayal it has perpetuated upon him and everyone who loves him. It’s easy to allow yourself to sink into the drama and trauma of the whole thing, to lose perspective. So a dose of objectivity does wonders for tempering what the mind will talk you into.

And I think if I can pry The Girl out of her favorite princess nightgown, that will one day soon be permanently melded to her skin, I might take the kiddos into town for a little treat this afternoon since Dad is taking a nap and I’d like to get them away from the TV. I’ve spent the majority of the day making my Mom CD’s, catching up on writing and writing Easter/thank you cards to The Sisters and my cousin D for their lovely trip here. It’s been a nice easy day. The sun is out, the wind isn’t blowing. It feels like a gentle day.

Heartbreak

So The Girl took the weather delay as a cue and spiked another fever last night. After being on antibiotics for three days. I took her back to the doctor this morning and she changed the antibiotic to something stronger and more broad spectrum. Although we’re both starting to think that this sucker is viral. Which really bites, because that means we just have to wait for it to pass. And it’s been a week now. So even though it scared the crap out of me, I tried a different tactic this afternoon and did not treat her fever. I thought maybe that if it got high enough it would burn itself out. It topped out at 103.5, which is .1 below the temperature she had a seizure at so I was terrified, but it eventually started coming down a little. When we just put her to bed it was down to 102.3. Who knows if there’s anything to my theory or not. I just know I’m ready for her to be done with this now. She is so completely miserable and it just breaks my heart to watch her feel so punk.

Also today, I found out a good friend of mine from college has been missing since Tuesday. And that is such a “those things don’t happen to me or people I know” kind of thing. I mean she’s always been a crazy girl, but never the disappear and not at least check in with her family kind of crazy. I’m just hoping against hope that she’s safe and sound somewhere but out of cell phone range. Or maybe a new boyfriend whisked her away on a surprise vacation and forgot to tell her family. I’m hoping that she is not in trouble or in pain somewhere scared out of her wits praying to be rescued. It’s a scary thing and it breaks my heart to think about.

So it seems that my heart is breaking in all sorts of ways today. Heart break and worry abound today it appears. So join me in asking the powers that be to get my daughter well quickly and to protect J and keep her safe.

3/8/10 - Fever on the Run

Ok, so an ear infection is the culprit. Our pediatrician gave The Girl a thorough going over and she checked out totally healthy except for the fact that one of her ears was flaming red and unhappy. So she’ll be on antibiotics for about 10 days and then we should be done. I think probably the fever will be broken for good when she wakes up the in the morning. Which means the plan for right now is to get the kids and me down to New Mexico by Thursday. That is about a week and half earlier than I had originally planned, which means taking them out of school, but it’ll be ok. I think The Boy is more than ready for a break anyway, although little does he know that I’m having his teacher put together a whopping packet of homework for him to work on while he’s gone. Hopefully that will keep the rust off his brain.

And my sweet friend P made us dinner tonight! How cool is that? To make an awesome surprise even better, she made her famous chicken and quinoa with an awesome spinach salad and a chocolate cake. I was in heaven. Seriously, P, you rock the casbah.

So now I’m in get ready to leave my house for a month mode. Which means finishing and returning library books. Getting new child-friendly audio books to listen to on the drive. Getting everyone’s laundry done so we have clean clothes to wear. Pulling any recipes I may want to make while I’m down there. All of the stuff that makes me feel just a little bit better about leaving my life here for a month, or more.

And, if you read my 52 in 52 blog, you will have noticed that I’m quickly falling behind. I am sorry; I’ve just got nothing right now. I think I’m in such a state of overload with everything going on right now that my creative juices are pulling a deer in headlights move. I’ll catch up soon though and get back on track, I promise. In the meantime, if you have any story ideas to share, I’d love to hear them.

Going with the Flow

Day three of fever watch with The Girl. Yeah, I’m done with it now. She woke up at about 2am last night throwing up and her fever had started to soar. So my husband spent the rest of the night on the floor of her bedroom while I tossed and turned, convinced that every single noise was her seizing or throwing up.

Her temperature has continued to volley around, keeping us all on our toes. The Girl goes from relatively cool one minute and almost back to herself to screaming hot and listless the next. And more than anything that’s what has me worried. Because it’s the rapid rise of fever that causes febrile seizures, not necessarily how high it goes. And her fever is all over the place, rising and falling pretty rapidly. When The Boy had this it only lasted about 24 hours, so I thought we’d definitely be in the clear with The Girl by yesterday afternoon. Not so much apparently.

So, now I’m tired and still no closer to getting down to NM. I’m so scared that by the time we finally get down there that my dad won’t be my kids’ Papa anymore. He’ll be just a physical shell of the man they adore and look up to. I don’t want them to remember him that way, frail and dissipated. I want The Boy to remember tying flies and learning about nature. I want The Girl to remember reading stories and seeing the beauty of the desert through her Papa’s eyes. And perhaps I’m over-reacting, but the picture my mom has painted of my dad’s current state is not a pretty one. Even if it does change on a daily basis.

So I suppose this post is more of a vent than anything purposeful. I’m tired and scared and frustrated. I’m doing my best to just go with the flow and be as present as possible. I’m just tired of feeling like the flow is always going against me. That me going with the flow actually means just accepting that life is just hard right now. That the flow means learning to accept the fear and anger in the present.

Ode to Immune Systems and Baby!

The Boy must have an immune system like a friggin’ tank. I’m tellin’ ya’. When we put him to bed last night, he had a 104 degree fever, had been projectile vomiting all afternoon, had the croup and was basically the sickest he has been in a very long time. When he woke up this morning, he was fever free, vomit free, breathing freely and essentially back to himself. I still kept him home from school though, mostly because if he was still contagious I didn’t want him spreading this plague to someone else. Also, I didn’t want to have to go pick him up should his fever and/or vomit return. I know, I am such a super compassionate mom. But he’s definitely going back to school tomorrow. He’s kept all his food down today, had no return of the fever and been back to my sweet boy again. For which I am utterly grateful. He so rarely gets sick anymore that when he gets that sick, it freaks me out just a little.

The Girl seems to be fine so far (knocking on wood, furiously) and other than being stuffy, I appear to be fine too (screw it, I am just going to make sure some part of me is always touching and/or tapping wood until summer arrives).

On a decidedly non-sickness related note, my college roommate and her husband just got word last night that they were chosen by a birth mother to adopt her little boy!! So they are going to be parents in about a week and a half, if everything continues to go along as planned. I am so excited for them I could bust. I mean seriously. I’d do almost anything to be there with them to go shopping and put together furniture and move stuff around. I would just love to be there with them through this amazing time. But they know I’m there in spirit and I’ve told C to call me anytime for anything. I can’t wait to see pictures of the little guy, I’m just so excited! I said that already didn’t I? Fine. I’ll just go back to planning their new parent/baby care package.

3/3/10 - Sickness, Again

I can’t remember the first time The Boy got the croup, he wasn’t very old. And it’s a tradition that The Girl has kept up with. I can spot the early stages of croup a mile away. So when The Boy came home from school a few days ago with a bit of a hoarse voice, I knew we were in for something. I just kept my fingers crossed that maybe it wouldn’t fully manifest. But last night at about 2am, my husband and I were awakened to The Boy crying and gasping for air in our bathroom. I knew from the moment I heard the strider in his voice that it was the croup. And of course I was out of the correct dosing of prednisone for him. So we sat with him in a steamy bathroom (at least I got a good facial out of the deal) with him for about 20 minutes until we could get him calmed down enough to get his breath back. Oh, and he also had a fever.

We got The Girl dropped off at school this morning and then headed straight to the doctor. Yes on the croup, ruled out strep. His fever wasn’t too bad when we were in the office. By late afternoon however, his fever was up to 104 degrees and he had started projectile vomiting. And I’m here to tell you that cherry slushy and nachos does not come back up well. I don’t think my favorite couch blanket will ever be the same after being christened with that colorful mixture. He was able to keep down a good dose of Motrin though and we got him to bed. So I’ve got my fingers crossed that this will all have turned around by morning. And I’ve got my toes crossed that it just passes The Girl right on by, because she doesn’t need to be having anything that carries a 104 degree fever with it. It’s been almost exactly a year since her febrile seizure and I’ve no inclination to do a repeat performance as a way of commemoration thankyouverymuch.

I am ready for this week to give me a friggin’ break already.

Dad

“I don’t want to scare you, but…”

That was how my mom started our conversation when she called last night at 9:30pm to tell me Dad had just had an hour long spell of not being able to breathe. At one point she thought she had lost him. My immediate thought was that I should grab the children, pour their sleeping bodies into the car and drive like a bat out of hell to NM post haste. It didn’t scare me necessarily, but it did put me into ready to rock and roll mode. I slept with the phone by our bed last night (if you could call it sleeping) and got up early hoping my mom would call early to give me an update. Which she did. Dad slept fairly well once he got settled in last night.

My Aunt T flew in this morning and Dad was still sleeping when my mom left for the airport. He slept until nearly 10am and then took a 3 ½ hour nap at about noon. So he's been asleep for most of the day. Both times I talked to him he sounded awful. Like gasping for breath awful. And again, it made me want to just jump in the car with nothing but my tooth brush and children and get there as fast as I could.

But he’s had really bad days before and then rallied. So I’m trying to stay out of panic mode while simultaneously making plans for how to get out of here as quickly as possible if need be. The last time I called the hospice nurse had just arrived, so I gave Dad instructions for someone to call me when she leaves with a full report.

Once we decided that we probably would not be leaving today, I took The Girl out for a day of fun. We met some friends for lunch and played then went and got ice cream just the two of us (sshh, don’t tell her brother). Came home and sat out in the sun (sun!) and talked with some neighbor friends. It was good day, even if part of me is still on pins and needles.

It's a Blech Kind of Day

Do you ever have one of those days where you look at everything you’ve done and everything you’re doing now and just think, huh, wow, I’m just not all that good at much of anything. Yeah. I am having one of those days. It’s an utterly silly day to have, I know that. Rationally. With the rational part of my mind, I know that these sorts of thoughts are silly and useless and do nothing but cosign my own bullshit. But nevertheless, here I am, having one of those days.

As I was driving home from taking The Girl to school I was thinking about all the work I’ve done in fundraising over the last 10 years. And for some reason I could not think of one absolute success through my entire career. There was always something there to taint every single thing that I did right. And the fact that, of my own choosing, I haven’t worked in more than a year and even though this time last year was sending out resumes every single day and never got past a first interview with anyone just seemed to put the last nail in the coffin of my career.

And I’ve committed to writing. Because I have to. It has always been my heart of heart’s passion and it’s time that I stopped talking myself out of it and just did it. But my weekly story deadline is tomorrow and I can easily think of a hundred other things I’d like to do rather than finish this week’s story. Of course, then the little self doubt voice chimes in with “Well, it’s not like you’ve got a huge readership anyway so they probably won’t even notice if you skip a week.” Yeah, not so much with the helpful.

On top of it all, with the severe cold and tons of snow, I have been using TV entirely too much lately. The Girl is bored out of her skull and I’ve got a serious case of “I’m a bad mom” going on.

I know it’s mostly just cabin fever, stress and haywire emotions. And that ultimately, tomorrow will be different. It’s just one of those days.

Field Trip

The Girl had a field trip with her preschool to the main firehouse downtown this morning. And aside from the part where I totally spaced it and was late, it was great. Except for the one other little point of me being crabby when my morning got totally screwed because my preschooler went on a field trip that I had to drive her to, supervise while there and then drive her to school. So, you know, I was essentially paying her preschool so that I could take her on a field trip with her friends. Cool. Only not. I know it’s not a big deal. But these couple of mornings a week that I get to myself to write and read and do all the things I don’t get to do when she’s around are precious to me. Utterly precious. And disruption of them thoroughly rouses my inner crank.

The firefighters got all dressed up in their firefighting garb which of course, scared the bejeezus out of The Girl. But she eventually got brave enough that she wanted to try on the gigantic boots. The firemen were all extraordinarily nice. They just adore it when kids come to take tours. It always surprises me how much they love the kids. The Girl was most interested in all the gear and the kitchen. She didn’t much care about the pole or the big truck. But she wanted to know what every single thing on the uniform and firefighting gear was for. And she seriously could not wait to see their kitchen; she desperately wanted to see where they made all of their food. And as we were walking out one of the firemen asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up and she responded with “A princess!” He was very sweet with her and chatted a bit about what princesses do and how he thought she would make a glorious princess. It was pretty cool.

Then as we were walking out and she was proudly sticking her fire chief badge sticker on her shirt she said to me, “Actually mama, my think my want to be a firefighter.” Rock on girlfriend, rock on.

New Books

The Girl and I went to the library on Friday as I was fast approaching the end of the last in the Dragons of Pern books that I had on-hand. I knew it would be closed on Monday and I wanted to make sure I had books through the weekend since it’s really the only time other than bedtime that I’m guaranteed to have any time to read. We even went to the big library downtown. Our library is much newer, but also much smaller. And I must say that I was a wee bit disappointed. I made a very specific list of books that I was looking for. Granted, several of those books are older, but I also know they were extremely popular so I didn’t think I’d have any trouble finding what I was looking for. Turns out I was pretty wrong.

The list I made had a pretty nice mix of sci-fi/fantasy and mystery/suspense; my thought being that I just swap back and forth as I made my way through to determine which authors I really liked and then I’d go back and get more of those authors. Except that I couldn’t the most of James Patterson’s Alex Cross series, pretty much only the newer ones. I couldn’t find any of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series; I couldn’t find any of Catherine Coulter’s FBI series. They only had two Ray Bradbury on the shelves. They only had a handful of Neil Gaiman. I was not happy. I was able to find Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, thank goodness. But I was still seriously disappointed by the lack of depth in these overwhelming popular and prolific authors.

Thankfully, my dad is a total mystery/suspense junky. So he said he’d go through his bookshelves and pull his favorites for me to get while the kids and I are there for their ridiculously long Spring Break. So I’ll have that to look forward to at least. Because I did find one James Patterson book that sounded fairly interesting. And I’m here to tell you that if the rest of his writing is this bad, I don’t want much to do with him.

One of those Days

I wanted to do nothing but lie on the couch, read and eat cookies today. Alas and alack, that’s just not allowed when you have a 3 ½ year old dictator nipping at your heels constantly for food, drink and entertainment. I mean seriously, when is this pup ready to get her own damn juice?! There are just days that are harder than others to remain civil when The Girl asks for the umpteenth time for a snack or a different show or exclaims in her best Scarlett O’Hara impersonation that she is bored. Today was one of those days.

Today was one of those days that when The Boy’s school called mid-afternoon to tell me he had a fever and would I please come pick up my germ infested child and The Girl was dawdling in getting dressed that I found myself screaming at her to please just put on some pants already. How hard is it to just put on pants?! Because she had switched out her pretty princess nightgown for the infinitely more weather appropriate shorts and a t-shirt. In February. When the high the last week hasn’t been above 30 effing degrees. Today was one of those days when little things like that simply drive me over the edge.

Today was one of those days when I was resentful to have a sick kid. A day when I found myself fervently praying that his fever breaks tonight because if I have to keep him home tomorrow then I don’t get my alone time while The Girl is in school. And my sanity is demanding alone time. Plus I haven’t even really started this week’s story for 52 in 52. I have the general premise in my head, but no clue as to how I’m actually going to write the sucker.

Today is one of those days when I am crabby and find myself teary while reading a story to The Boy before bed. One of those days when I would have been happy to not have to talk or listen to anyone. One of those days when my best bet would’ve been to lie on the couch, read and eat cookies.

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.

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…