Good and Productive

Let the spring cleaning commence!! I delved into my twice a year routine of cleaning out closets today and with gusto. Typically, I don’t do much nesting when I’m pregnant. And when I do, it generally manifests in cooking and baking, not cleaning. But I’m a bit of a freak about closets. I get crazy when the kids’ clothes get out of hand. The Girl has grown 7 inches in the last nine months and The Boy has grown almost 6 inches in the last year, so the majority of their clothing no longer fits and just gets in the way. There are tangles of t-shirts and socks mixed in with sweat pants and shorts and it just flat makes me crazy. Plus it was time to re-organize my own closet to better reflect, well, the clothes I can actually wear at the moment. It was the maternity overhaul I’ve done twice before in an effort to shove my regular clothes to the side and fully embrace and celebrate my growing belly for the next several months. I’m usually pretty good at not being too hard on myself about gaining weight when I’m pregnant or allowing my growing belly to change the way I feel about how I look. If anything I typically feel that much more powerful, it’s pretty cool. But I’ll take all the help I can get, hence the closet shift.

And we got the house mostly cleaned today and caught up on laundry. It was a pretty busy day all in all and I was grateful that I felt good enough to be doing it all. I’ve been struggling for the last week with recurring migraines that have been kicking my ass and I was just thrilled to be able to be productive today without also being in pain.

My husband and I called it quits late afternoon when the kids found play mates braving the rain and the cold to come and ask if they could play and we found The Breakfast Club on TV. I said lines along with Bender and the rest of the crew while my husband snored loudly in the background. It was a good day.

4/10/10 - Reintegration

So here’s the part about being home that I always forget about in my excitement to just be home – the reintegration process. I always forget that the kids and I are in our own routines and daily patterns and so is my husband. And that my internal daily to do list is vastly different at my parents’ house than it is at my own house. So there’s always several days of relearning how to live with each other in this day-to-day life.

Plus, and this always emerges no matter how hard I try not to let it, there’s always the issue of the fact that my husband essentially just got a 3 week vacation. Yes, he was still working, but that’s all he had to do. He was wonderful and did a bunch of stuff around the house we’ve been meaning to get to, but I even envy him that. Because of the simplicity. As I’ve said many, many times, his life is no easier than mine, but it sure is a whole lot simpler. Because he has dedicated time to do everything in his day. He has dedicated time to work. Dedicated family time. Dedicated alone time in his commute to and from work. Whereas I have to carve out time for all of that stuff. I have to juggle between time with the kiddos playing, laundry, cleaning and everything else that crowds my plate. And when I go down to my parents’ house, that plate just gets even more crowded. So inevitably my husband will say something about having to get up a bit earlier to take The Boy to school and I end up yelling at him. I know it’s silly and doesn’t make sense. But there you go. I’m just badly in need of a very real vacation.

In the meantime however, I need to get our laundry done, start back with my meal planning and compiling a grocery list to re-equip the kitchen with non-bachelor mode food and assorted other things. As well as catching up with friends, getting the kids back into the swing of things with school and so on and so forth.

All in a day’s work.

3/12/10 - Watch Duty

My husband took the day off today to spend some time with us before we leave for a month or so and it turned into an incredibly busy day. I took the opportunity for some alone time to go get my prenatal lab work done without having to juggle children whilst peeing in a cup or having needles stuck in me. Then we headed to Pueblo to see a dear friend who just started work at the main library up there and get some books and audio books for the trip. I’m here to tell you that the Rawlings Library in Pueblo is far superior to all of the Pikes Peak Libraries combined. Their kid section is amazing both in books and activities and the general layout of the place is just lovely. So since it’s only about 10 minutes further than the big downtown library in Colorado Springs (which is lame) we’ll be going there for now on. Plus whenever we go there, I get to see M! That right there makes it all worth it.

So we are now equipped with new books all around and I got us Eragon by Christopher Paolini to listen to in the car. It will be a bit on the old side for The Girl, but it’s all about dragons, so I think she’ll still dig it and it’s a book I’ll even want to listen to, so hopefully when we’re actually able to leave, it will make the trip to NM feel much shorter.

And all I want to do right now is eat. It’s just crazy. I have never been this continuously hungry in my entire life. I never thought I would say that I was tired of eating, but I really, really am. Mostly I think I’m so tired of it because even though I’m having monolithic sized cravings, nothing actually tastes good when I put it in my mouth. I do one or two bites and then I want to vomit. So mostly, I’m just hungry. All. The. Time. Which tends to set you on edge just a wee bit.

So I’m on weather, sickness and food watch presently. I know, you’re jealous.

Good News to Share!

I’ve got some good news to share, finally. I am pregnant! I had my first OB appointment today and everything is where it should be and looking perfectly healthy, happy and on track. Although my doctor got my heart beating a bit when she wanted to do an ultrasound immediately following my exam because she thought I might have twins in there. But there’s just the one little bean, that we could see anyway. She said that it was possible there was another bean hiding behind the first one, but she didn’t think so. We’ll know for certain as I get farther along I suppose. I’m due mid-October, which I’m not exactly sure why I thought was a good idea. Since I swore that I would never, ever do my third trimester in the middle of summer after The Boy. And here I am, doing it again. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a cool summer, or for my husband to get a raise so that we can afford me to have the air conditioning running full tilt for three solid months.

Speaking of my husband, he’s ecstatic. He would have been telling people several weeks ago if I’d have let him. He’s convinced it’s a boy and he’s already got the kid named. I keep trying to tell him that it doesn’t even know what it is yet. But he doesn’t seem to care.

I think we will wait until I’m showing a bit to tell the kids so they have something more tangible to focus on. Although I think that will probably be sooner rather than later with this one as every single pair of my pants are already uncomfortably tight, which is mildly infuriating. But at least I get to change up my wardrobe now. Granted, it’s with the introduction of maternity clothes, but still, they are clothes I haven’t worn in almost 4 years.

And I’m excited. Really excited. Thrilled that it finally happened before I lost my dad. Thrilled at the prospect of a new little person entering our family. Just keeping my fingers crossed for a healthy baby and an easy pregnancy. Cross yours with me, would you?

Goodbye Joplin

About 10 years ago the contractor that gutted and renovated my parents’ retirement house told my mom about a puppy they had gotten and could no longer care for. So we went out to their house to take a look at her. I will never forget walking around the side of their house and catching sight of this sweet little yellow girl just as she leapt directly into my arms. It was love at first sight and a few minutes later she was riding in my lap happily licking my hands, until the car sickness sank in that is, and then I was desperately trying to get her mouth pointed toward the floor instead of my lap.

She was my husband’s and my first dog. We named her Joplin, after Janis of course. We spoiled her rotten. Although to this day she’s the best trained dog I’ve ever known.

And last night she died. Out of nowhere. I mean, yes, she was about 10 years old, but other than some arthritis, she was in great health. Unfortunately we had to send her to my parents to live after The Girl was born because Joplin got pretty angry. Actually I think she was more sad than angry. She loved both kids, but she was so sad to lose her parents to them. And more to the point, our attention. So when she started peeing every single day in the same spot in The Girl’s bedroom, we took her back to my parents’ house where she would have more room and all of their attention. She was happier there although I missed her desperately and her us. But last night when my parents got home from dinner she had lost all use of her back end and was having trouble breathing. She was gone within about 15 minutes. The vet thinks she probably had a heart attack.

And I am devastated. She was my girl. So I am just going to envision her running full out in a huge grass meadow, chasing down endless tennis balls. Young and gorgeous and lightening fast. Keep on running my sweet blonde dog, keep on running. We love you so much.

2/28/10 - A Little of This and That

I’m making myself get into a semi-upright position to write this today. I think that’s about all I can muster though. It seems like I’m doing pretty good through the weekdays. Because I know that I have no choice. I have to be on the ball and on time because I have no backup and no time to just check out. But on the weekends? That’s a different story. The past two weeks, I’ve just totally checked out come Saturday. I figure if that's the worst of it, that I foist upon my family, having me disappear a bit on the weekends, then I’m doing pretty good.

Yesterday, I took a three hour nap. I never take naps. Today I found a Karate Kid marathon and I’ve glued myself to the couch to watch every single moment of it. I wish it was on just about any other channel than ABC Family so that I didn’t have to watch commercials for the silly tween shows they are so proud of.

On a non-TV note, I’m about ¾ of the way through Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman and I love it. His writing reminds me a bit of Christopher Moore, only not quite as verbose and colorful. Although I think I’ve discovered that I should have read American Gods first, but oh well. I still need to finish Dandelion Wine as well; I got a bit distracted and needed something slightly less brain intensive for the moment. But I’ll get back to it.

And I still haven’t finished my story for last week. I’ve got to get on that sucker; it’s starting to haunt me now. Actually it’s not. That’s the problem.

My dad is about the same as yesterday. My mom said he had another spell of not being able to breathe, but it wasn’t as bad as the one on Thursday night. They are going to start having someone from hospice come out almost daily. Alternating days between an aide and a nurse to help out around the house as well as to keep tabs on his health. Thank goodness, but I still think we’ll be heading down there in the next weather window.

Smooshed Car

Here’s a little karmic riddle for you. If we take the responsible path, use a good portion of my husband’s annual bonus to pay off his car once and for all, saving us that monthly car payment to put back into our budget which will help tremendously, one would think the universe would reward us by smiling down on us in some way right? Yeah, apparently, not so much. Because instead of being bathed in the light that comes from making the right financial choices, my husband instead got into a car accident this morning on his way to take The Boy to school (he and the kids are both fine, thank goodness). So now, we have to use a good chunk of what was going to be socked away into savings to meet our deductible to get his car fixed. I’m sighing hugely right now. But everyone is safe, so I’m trying to focus on being grateful for that.

And we got our pantry almost completely restocked today as well, so that’s a good thing. My husband tried valiantly to talk me into getting a PS3 or XBOX 360 but I reminded him that it was choices such as those that got us into trouble to begin with. He laughed and agreed with me, but there was still a glint in his eye that told me all I had to do was say “Yes, my darling husband, you work your ass off so if you want to take some of your bonus that you worked your ass off for to get a new toy, by all means, have at it!” Perhaps if he hadn’t smooshed the front end of his automobile this morning I would have relented, because he does work his ass off and he totally deserves a new toy. Alas and alack however, his car is smooshed and in need of repair. Plus I think we’d both rather use any extra money we have to put into a travel fund to go see his parents or take a family vacation. Maybe I’ll just save my pennies and get it for him as a huge present. Christmas is only 10 months away right?

Happy Valentine's Day

I find Valentine’s Day to be utterly loathsome. But I think I regaled you enough with my abhorrence of this day last year. And I’m actually in a good mood today. So if you are looking for my more snarky side, please, feel free to look up last year’s post.

For everyone else, let’s talk movies! I took The Boy to see Percy Jackson and The Lightening Thief today. We got him the books by Rick Riordan for Christmas this year in an attempt to get him really interested in stories instead of him always thinking that reading is only a chore to be done in school. So we’ve been reading them before bed every night. Not only are the books really good, but it also gives The Boy and I a chance to connect every day which is lovely. But we’re both totally sucked into the books and we are just starting the third one. So when we saw that they had made a movie of the first book, we were both totally stoked and I thought it would be a really fun thing for just him and me to do. So we met some good friends at the (sold out) movie theater today and strapped in for some super fun frolicking through Greek mythology. Instead it was like they took all the characters’ names and then decided to tell a totally different story. I think maybe they sat down with the author and said, “OK, we really like your story Mr. Riordan, and we’ll use it for inspiration, but we have other ideas. You’re ok with that right?” I mean, yes it was a good movie. It just had very little to do with the book on which it was supposedly based.

My husband and I have a long standing love affair with zombies. So how better to spend Valentine’s Day than to watch Zombieland? We have both wanted to see it for forever and it was well worth the wait. We both loved it.

Movies, a big fat box of chocolates, time with my Boy, a super sweet card from my hubby. This may very well be the best Valentine’s Day ever.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

12/23/09 - 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?

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?!?!

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.

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…