Little Pink Houses

Drill Me

2012-01-17T16:26:00.003-07:00

I've been on two cruises now. The first one, on Norwegian in 2004, was my favorite. Great food, fun entertainment, decent cabin, good service. It also contained an emergency escape practice session. It took place a couple of hours after setting sail. We had to get on our life jackets, walk up to the deck with the life boats, and stand in rows at our assigned muster station, where we would go if there was an emergency and we had to abandon ship. We stood there for maybe 10-15 minutes. The crew member assigned to our group of 20 or so went over some safety information, I'm not sure exactly what, and they took roll to make sure we were all there. I found it a bit annoying. We were just settling into our room and getting ready for dinner when the drill took place, and interrupting our cruise for this safety measure cramped my style.

Last year we took our second cruise, aboard the Celebrity Century. A few hours after setting sail we were asked to go to the lounge with about 100 of our fellow passengers. No life vests, just us. We sat and chatted with the people at our cocktail table for a while. Then the single crew member assigned to the lounge went over some safety information, unimpressive enough that I don't even recall what was said. But I know for sure we were never shown our muster station. I had no idea the route to the life boats or which one we were assigned to. And no roll call was done. After a few minutes, we went back to our room. It made me a little uneasy that they had done such a poor job at the emergency drill, but I remember thinking that since we wouldn't likely need that information, I was glad that we hadn't been forced to put on our life jackets and stand out on the deck.

In light of the recent events, where a trained, licensed, experienced captain can run a titanic-sized cruise ship into the ground, a few hundred feet from a rocky shore, despite state of the art navigation equipment, putting the lives of 4000 people in danger, and then fail to sound the alarm for over an hour while people already abandoned ship, and then leave the ship himself, giving no care for the safety of his passengers, I now amend my opinion of safety drills. By all means, I now say, drill me! Put me in my life vest and let me tie it on properly, show me my life-boat up close and personal, let me feel it's smooth hull, check off my name, explain everything in detail. Because even though I will hopefully never need that information in my life, just as I count the rows to the exit on my airplane, every single time, I want to be prepared for the worst.

And thank you, Norwegian, for caring about our lives enough to inconvenience us. Hopefully, from now on, all the other cruise lines will care that much too.

How To Make The Perfect Pillow In Five Steps

2012-01-15T10:25:00.005-07:00

Sometimes you need a little pillow surgery to get your pillow just right. Just Right = fluffy, not to high, not too low, fluffable, puffable, moldable.

Step 1: Get an Ikea Goosen Side-sleeper pillow. It has just the right kind of fluffable, puffable stuffing.
Step 2: Get another Ikea Goosen Side-Sleeper pillow, because one doesn't have quite enough of the wonderul stuffing and you will find yourself sometimes, in the middle of the night, with all the lovely fluffable, puffable stuffing at two sides of the pillow and your head in the middle lying on the mattress.
Step 3: Unpick the seams on one of the pillows and cut open the end of the other.
Step 4: Take about 1/2 the stuffing out of the cut pillow and stuff it into the other pillow.
Step 5: Marry someone who is a way better seamstress than you so he can perform the pillow surgery for you.

Voila! The perfect size, shape, and fluffability. Sweet Dreams.

The OTHER Best Thing About Christmas

2011-12-27T10:27:00.006-07:00

Yep. There is Jesus. The best thing about Christmas for sure. And then there are Christmas cards in the mail. Really that is a truly awesome part of Christmas. BUT, over the last week I've discovered something that just might trump Christmas cards. Especially now that that Christmas is over and so are the cards: NOT having to drive my kids anywhere. Ever. Or wake them up for school. Or get them dressed in a hurry while shoving toast down their throats. No frantic searches for the other shoe at 7:30 am during which the baby wakes up and is starving and poopy and needs my attention NOW. No hurriedly slapping together a peanut butter and honey sandwich while Daphne has a melt-down about her sock seams and whether or not she gets red Doritos or blue Doritos in her lunch.

I am not a morning person. Never have been, never will be. So getting up in the am with my kids to get them (mainly Daphne) ready for school is a HUGE sacrifice. I would love to tell her to get herself ready so I could keep sleeping. Or to find a school that starts at 10am and keep sleeping. But neither of those is going to happen, so I just have to get up and suffer through that frantic hour before I push her (usually literally) out the door and throw her school bag after her (not literally. She can't catch that well.)

So at this special time of year where we give thanks for Jesus and his birth and life and sacrifice and atonement and Christmas cards in the mail, I also want to give a massive thank you for school vacations and turned off alarm clocks. Haaaa-aa-leluia.

Beyond the Obvious

2011-12-19T22:00:00.006-07:00

There are lots of reasons to like Christmas. Baby Jesus, for one. Christmas lit streets, for another. Presents, of course. Especially watching your kids open them. I feel bad for anyone who thinks they will keep themselves younger by not having kids. Ya, you'll lose some sleep if you have kids, but you will regain the joy of Christmas morning, which is worth a few lost z's--even coming from this sleep connoisseur. Eggnog. Yes, I like it. Sue me. Really cute wrapping paper. Ornaments. Carolers, when you're lucky enough to hear them. But honestly, my favorite thing about the Christmas season has got to be the mailbox. For once in the whole year I actually enjoy getting the mail. Normally it's full of junkmail and flyers and the occasional bill. But for 2-3 glorious weeks, it's full of REAL mail, mail from PEOPLE, people who don't want money from me. Well, maybe they do but they are polite enough not to ask for it. Anyway, today, for example, there was no junk mail, not even any shopping ads. Just TWO CHRISTMAS CARDS!!! Sigh (of contentment)...

It's been a kinda sparse year for Christmas cards. Normally our Christmas card holder (i.e. blank kitchen wall) is packed. We have lots of space left this year. You may notice that you haven't gotten one from us either, so I may sound like a hypocrite But we are sending one out. No, really. Just as soon as it gets here from the printers. (I may have put it off just a tad too long this year.) Anyway, thanks to those who sent one. It made this already joyous season a little more fa la la-ier.

Just When You Think You've Seen It All

2011-12-03T07:18:00.003-07:00

Today's post will be about poop. Yes, poop. Oh don't get all self-righteous and squirm around like you can't handle it. We ALL have poop! But fortunately this post isn't about our poop. That's not very interesting. No, it's about the amazing world of baby poop! So much more fun. And today's episode is no exception.

Let me set the scene for you. I am at my husband's work, to exchange my phone since his company get on a new plan and they're letting me tag along for the discount. I've had to bring all three kids. The baby is in high spirits, cooing and smiling at everyone. And then I hear a loud sound emanating from her lower half. Even though I know every man in the place is a father, many with small children themselves, I realize it isn't proper etiquette for your baby to fill her diaper at work. So I whisk her off to....hmmm....where can I change a baby at a workplace full of men dressed in khakis and pullovers? I spy an empty cubicle on the way to the bathroom that I already know has no baby changing station. It's covered in some wires and cables and ancient computer monitors the size of helicopters. There is an empty square foot or two on one desk. But no, someone might walk by and not appreciate the view. So I continue on to the bathroom.

As expected, no baby changing station, and the bathroom counter isn't big enough to lay a baby on. The floor (ew) is the only option. So I lay my coat down (the things a mother will do for her child), lay down her diaper changing mat on that, and set to work.

A scream emanates from the bathroom. A shrill, alarmed scream. It is my scream. For there in my baby's diaper is...a half pound of melted lipstick with the title "Cherries Jubilee." Red, no fuscia poop, and slightly creamy like a smoothie, is what greets me. Not even a hit of the usual baby poop colors. This whole thing looks like someone dumped a bowl of melted raspberry sorbet in there! I am shocked. And just a little bit freaked out. The good thing is, it doesn't look like blood. Blood is scarlet. And brownish. This is seriously pinkish red! Plus she's smiling at me while I have this tiny heart attack, so she clearly isn't in pain. So I clean her up, save the diaper just in case the doctor's office thinks I'm making this up, and head to tell my husband and the three guys standing in his office about what I just saw, because I know their Friday afternoon hasn't gotten this exciting in months.

Luckily, one of the other young dads present has experienced this before. It happened to his son. "Is she taking antibiotics?" he asks. Why yes, as a matter of fact she is. "It's the antibiotics. It does that. Turns their poop red." Well you'd think the doctor might have mentioned that when he prescribed her Cefdinir the day before. But why would he do that and rob us of all the excitement!?

So--10 days of Cefdinir, 10 days of raspberry sorbet. Oh joy.

Just thought you'd want to know.

Does This Count As Keeping The Sabbath Day Holy?

2011-12-01T21:42:00.007-07:00

At 4pm Sunday afternoon our kitchen looked like this:

But fortunately, by 4:30 it looked like this:

Can you tell which house ~~Big Daddy~~ the boys were in charge of and which house ~~Mom~~ the girls were in charge of?

My favorite features of the boys' house: The poptart door. (Cut with a ban saw, which is pretty much cheating.)

My favorite features of the girls' house: The melted snowman. (The stupid boys stole all the white gumballs. Jerks.)

Daphne decided to be the judge of the houses. She got a piece of paper and pen and held it so officially as she walked around them, writing things down (either critiques or possibly doodles of panda bears) and making mysterious judgement noises. In the end, though, the girl house won. No, I don't think she was at all biased. It was all based on the artisanship displayed. For sure.

Anyway, the best Sunday afternoon I've spent in a long time. Maybe next year we'll actually let the kids participate other than sampling the candy.

Nah.

.

Welcome to the neighborhood.

How To Keep From Overspending At Christmas Time

2011-11-29T23:00:00.002-07:00

I don't know about you, but I've never walked out of Costco EVER without spending at least $100. Even if I went in there JUST to buy a tray of cocktail shrimp for $9.99 (doesn't everything at Costco cost $9.99??), I always end up throwing a bunch of really good bargains (i.e. super delicious mega sized portions of whatever that lady was handing out at the end of the aisle) into my cart.

So today when I went in for a pack of AA batteries, I came up with a foolproof way to keep from overspending which I will generously share with you: Don't get a cart. That way you can only buy what you can carry.

As it turns out, I can carry quite a bit. 1 pack of AA batteries, 1 giant case of taquitos (hey, we're almost out!), a bag of truffles (teacher gifts are coming up, you know), some wrapping paper (I am addicted. Seriously, disturbingly, ADDICTED to buying Christmas wrapping paper. I'm pretty sure I could wrap all the presents in North America right now. But this paper was so cute...I couldn't resist!), a Christmas music CD two pack (um...no excuse for this one. Just a pure impulse buy) and a giant package of Oreos (you should see my kids inhale Oreos!). I am pretty sure my biceps increased by 2 inches by the time I got to check-out. BUT...only $57! Cha-ching!

So, almost foolproof. You're welcome.

Tigers, Skeletons, and Stuffed Sausages

2011-11-05T16:10:00.003-06:00

Here are a few pictures for the friends, relatives, and other random strangers who enjoy pictures of my kids.

(And I can I just say, in case it isn't clear, that I no longer have any input on my kids' choices for costumes? Well, except Pippa's. And let's just say this about hers: It was NOT my first choice. My first choice was a darling bumble bee costume that Costumes4Less was supposed to ship to me between Oct 21 and Oct 26, but who informed me on OCT 27th that, oops!, they didn't actually have that costume in stock. They also informed me that they would "do everything in their power to make it up to me." But when I told them they could ship me a different costume with expedited shipping that they'd pay for themselves, not only did they not do that, they never responded at all! So, for future reference, DO NOT ORDER FROM COSTUMES4LESS!!! They are a terrible terrible company who doesn't mind screwing someone over 3 days before halloween and forcing them to dress their baby in a horrible $5 costume from the local party store which didn't even remotely fit her although it was sized 6 months larger than their baby and which required them to use the shoe covers that came with the costume for a beanie because, though the costume was made for a 1 month old, the shoe covers were made for a 6 year old.)

Phew! I just had to get that out because I told Costumes4Less I would if they didn't come through.

Now on to the lovely, scary, amazing, and very rotund pictures of my kids at Halloween 2011...

The One Thing You Don't Want To Forget To Take On Your Trip

2011-11-02T23:30:00.004-06:00

Bathing suit? Check!
Pajamas? Check!
Toiletries? Check!
Socks? Check!
Underwear? Check!
Clothes? Check!
Sunscreen? Check!
Lube? Check! Check!
Cell phone and charger? Check!
Laptop and charger? Check!
Blistex? Check!
Sweater? Check!
15 pairs of shoes for a 4 day trip? Check!
Ok..That's everything.

Now let's go over here by this beautiful waterful, with the sunset and ocean in the background, and have someone take our pict...
CRAP.

Boo Humbug!

2011-11-01T21:11:00.003-06:00

I realize that this post is going to make me sound like some kind of cranky Halloween Skelescrooge, but I can't help it. I've got some bones to pick (get it, BONES?) about Halloween and the various way people evidently enjoy spoiling it for small children.

1) No costumes at school. Really, School? Because spending a whole 7 hours in costume is going to monumentally ruin my children's long term education? The absolutely FABULOUS education they're getting? LAME. Can't they even dress up as someone historical to brain up Halloween a little? Sheesh.

2) People not giving out candy. Seriously, how hard is it to give out candy? You spend $3 on treats, turn on your porch light, and start watching TV. Every so often, get up and hand some candy out. What's so hard about that?? Well, evidently it's super hard because this year (and in past years) at least half my neighborhood didn't give out candy. Do you know how lame it is explaining to your kids over and over again that they can't go knock at that dark house because mean weirdos live there who don't like candy or children or holidays?

3) Trunk-or-treat. I'm not sure if they have this where you live, but where I live they have this strange condensed version of Halloween where instead of the kids going door to door, all the people in the neighborhood gather their cars together in a small area like a cul-de-sac or church parking lot, and the kids just go trunk to trunk as the people hand them candy. It's kinda handy if the weather is super cold. And an indoor trunk-or-treat can work well if it's rainy or snowy. But this year it was a balmy 65 degrees. And yet they did a trunk or treat. So that probably explains why the houses were all dark and no one was giving out candy. And why no kids came to my house to eat the loads of candy I bought. Trunk or treat is such a lazy killjoy version of Halloween!

4) Houses who leave their porch lights on but who aren't home. Hello? How long have you been alive?? If you're not participating in Halloween (LAME) then turn your porch light off!

5) Similarly, people who deck their house all out for Halloween with giant spiders on the facade, big blow up Frankensteins in the yard, ghosts hanging from the trees, spooky music playing from a stuffed black cat, skeletons sitting on the porch welcoming you, AND THEN THE PORCH LIGHT IS OUT NO ONE IS HOME. I like to call that FALSE ADVERTISING.

Ok, that pretty much sums it up. Stay tuned in a few weeks for my Thanksgiving and Christmas versions of griping about the holidays and how everyone else does it wrong!

It's Time For a Pipdate!

2011-10-17T23:25:00.005-06:00

5 months old. How is that possible? I'm pretty sure 5 months of pregnancy feels like 5 years. And five months of your first child's life feels like at least a year. But for some reason 5 months of your 3rd child's life feels like 3 weeks. Yet here it is.

Pippa is:

GORGEOUS. Something about her is different than my other two kids. I think they had my coloring. So they looked...normal. But Pippa is golden. And pink. And fair. Her skin is so pale, her eyes are still blueish-grey, her hair is so strawberry blond. And she is sooooo plump. She is just different looking than my other babies. And I LOVE to stare at her. She is breath-taking.

BUSY. That girl. That girl! She cannot hold still! She is on the go, she is looking around, she is turning from one side to the other, stretching to reach what is just beyond her hands, above her head, behind her back. She can't quite roll over, but she's close. And trying ALL THE TIME. She's too busy to eat. Any sound makes her head whip around, away from her bottle. She's too busy to sleep. My once easy sleeper wants to roll and turn and grab and look. Sleeping is so passé. Even her binky is so passé. She puts everything (but not her binky) in her mouth. Every gross thing you hand her or she finds near her. She sticks it in her mouth (by way of her eye or nose or cheek, because her coordination isn't quite honed yet). But baby food? Oh no. That makes her face squinch up like you just fed her something crazy. Dirty socks? Acceptable. Sweet potatoes? No way lady.

BIG. 16 pounds big. 9-12 month clothes big! I've never had a big one. I remember my babies both being fat at one point or another, but Daphne was always several sizes behind her age, and Beck was lucky if he was on target most of the time. Pippa? She wears a size 3 diaper and a size 12 jammy. And the rolls on her arms and thighs are delicious.

SWEET. When I kiss her neck and shoulder really fast, when her brother jumps up and down in front of her, when her sister sings her a song, when Daddy throws her in the air, she laughs this sweet laugh, like water trickling down a pebbly stream. Like a small pop of firecrackers. It's perfect. And when I hold her in my arms, and she drinks her bottle, and she looks up at me with this look like I'm the most beautiful, wonderful person in the world....ahhh, then my cup is full.

Five wonderful months.

M.I.A. or A.W.O.L?

2011-10-17T23:07:00.003-06:00

I'm here. Really I am. It just appears as though I have fallen off the face of the earth. Or maybe it doesn't cause there is no one out there to notice.

These days I feel really proud of myself when I spend 10 minutes reading and commenting on other people's blogs. It brings back fond memories. Of when I spent 2-3 eager HOURS a day reading and commenting on other people's blogs. And another joyous hour writing a few of my own. (Remember that? When we would write MORE THAN ONE BLOG POST A DAY?) How did we do it?? Why did we stop?

We stopped because there was life. Oh that. Life. Kids. Kids who need attention. Kids who don't want me to shout "Just a minute...I'm almost done with my post!" from the other room while I upload and edit the pictures that will go on the blog post I haven't even begun composing yet. And a husband. A husband who wants a meal when he gets home from a hard day's work. And a kiss. And a hello. A hello not wedge in between the third and fifth edit of my blog post. And then there's the laundry and the sweeping and the dishes to put away and the bathroom to scrub and the and the and the.

And then there was the baby...and, well, she trumped everything. 'Cause she just doesn't wait for me to sort through my reader, looking for the most neglected blogs to catch up on before I hug her and change her and make her a bottle.

And so, it appears, I am missing. But not lost. I'm out there somewhere, mentally composing clever, witty, interesting posts. With pictures. Perfectly framed pictures.

Anyway, I love and appreciate so much those real-friends and stranger-friends and virtual-friends who have continued to read my blog despite my becoming a super dooper LAME blogger.

I dream of the day when I will have the time (and will?) to get back to the good old blogging days. I'll have to go out and search for new bloggers to read me. Bloggers who don't have LIFE pulling at them from all directions. So let me know, you guys, when that's you--when your laundry and kids and husband are all done and loved and satisfied and paid-attention-to and everyone around you is begging you, please, to just sit down for a few hours and blog. OK?

I'll see you then.

(p.s. I'm not quitting blogging. I just realized it sounds like I am. No, I'm just making excuses for how much I suck. I will still be here, in a few days, continuing to write to a make-believe audience who hangs on my every word, don't worry.)

A Little Slice Of Heaven

2011-10-13T13:54:00.002-06:00

Kids at school

Baby in Bed

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal cookies, warm

Milk, cold

Say Yes To The Dress" on DVR.

Ahhhh....27 minutes of heaven.

What does your slice of heaven made of?

Paparazzi

2011-10-02T22:01:00.002-06:00

I have taken so many photos of my kids lately, I swear I feel like their own personal paparazzi. Mostly it's because I'm getting used to my new camera. Also because I happen to think they're extremely cute. I'm not biased, I'm a photo-journalist in my dreams, so it's completly objective. Here are a few I've taken lately (grandparents, this is mostly for you.)

At Bridalveil Falls...

Her Royal Cuteness

Beauty School Drop Outs

Her Royal Fatness

At Cascade Springs (We have been getting in some serious nature lately. 9:00 church rocks!)...

(Look! I'm actually IN a picture!)

SO Attractive...

Well, that should tide the relatives over for a few more months, right?

The History of a Pant Leg

2011-09-18T11:10:00.008-06:00

It was 1986, and we wore our jeans high and narrow. The waist went way past the navel, the pant leg should be as skinny as humanly possible. In fact, we couldn't get our pants narrow enough at the bottom. Everyone wanted the skinniest pant leg possible, so skinny your heal would barely fit through when you pulled them on. But for some reason, no one actually MADE pants that narrow. Sometimes you could find one with zippers at the bottom and it was proclaimed "totally awesome." Mostly you just had to buy straight legs and peg them. We folded, rolled, sewed, pinned, and tucked our pants into our socks in order to achieve the skinniest pant leg possible. And when we watched old shows from the 70's, we hooted and pointed and wondered how they ever wore something so hideous as bell-bottoms. "All fashion comes back around," my mother told me. "Well, I will NEVER wear bell bottoms," I informed her. "I swear it on my life."

In 1990 I headed across the Great Pond and inland to Germany for a year. When I got to school, everyone said, "Vy do you do zat to your cheans? "Cause I'm cool," I thought. "Duh." But within a few months I realized the Germans were not so into cool and that I just looked weird, so I stopped pegging my pants.

Flash forward to 1991 when I returned home and realized that it wasn't that the Germans weren't cool. It's actually that they were fashion forward. Because guess who wasn't pegging their pants anymore? Anyone. Good thing all my German jeans had been straight leg.

Somewhere after the horror of the fashion-dead-zone that was the 1990's, a retro 60's-70's look came back in fashion. The baggy, shapeless shirts of the last decade were out and tight-fitting baby shirts were in. Guess what else was in? Bell-bottoms! Only they were called flares now. And they weren't the horrible high-waisted type that went up to your ribs like the 70's versions, luckily. (Because nothing became so abhorrent to the child-of-the-80's once the 80's were past as the high waist. ) But I still resisted. Then just as I was about to keep my promise from 1986, I tried them on. And that's when I realized: nothing is so disgusting for a hip-heavy figure like mine than pegged pants. Flares, on the other hand, seemed to distract the eye and make me look far more proportional. Flares it is! My new love! Forget that silly promise I made in my early teen years. What did I know then anyway??

I lived happily for nearly a decade in my flares. The degree of flare changed slightly. The shape and location of back pockets moved. The waist-lines got ever lower and lower and lower until you were lucky if your underwear didn't creep 6 inches above your belt when you bent down. But still, flares prevailed.

And then came the horrible day a few years ago when I saw them: skinny jeans. I would have died for these in the 80's. The skinniest, narrowest, most tapered leg you've ever seen in your life. Matched with stretch material, they could be skin tight and you could still get your heels through the bottom of the leg holes. Only this time around skinny jeans were super-low waisted, creating the soon-to-be-ubiquitous muffin top. Only 11 year olds could wear them without waist fat hanging over the top. It was unlikely for most teenagers to look good in them, and it was hopeless for moms. Fine with me. I had already come to accept that flares were more flattering, and this new ultra-low-rise version of pegged pants was the worst of both worlds. So I just watched from a distance with a baffled expression as teenagers by the thousands ran out and stocked their closets with these super tight, super low, super super ugly skinny jeans.

But soon pant legs in general followed suit. I tried to hold out. As skinny jeans pretty much took over all the stores, and flare legs became nearly impossible to find, though, I had to adjust slightly. To the bootcut. The bootcut is not nearly as flattering to my hippiness as the flare. But what can you do when even Target doesn't carry flares anymore?

And then, last week, it happened. I saw these while out shopping...

"The High-rise Retro Flare" A.K.A, the bell-bottom. I don't know what to think now. I'm nearly dizzy from how fast fashion seems to be cycling through. I've gone from bell-bottoms to pegged pants to straight legs and back to flares, back to skinny jeans and now on to bell bottoms again! Shouldn't fashion cycle through more slowly, like every 20-30 years at least? Wait, has it been that long already? Well, still...am I really going to have to go to the high-waisted retro flare in order to save myself from the ultra-low-rise skinny jean? Sigh... so be it. Beauty is pain.

It's Time For a Pipdate!

2011-09-14T22:46:00.007-06:00

Do you ever feel that with each consecutive child that time goes by faster? Cause it sure seems that way. I am pretty sure every second of my pregnancy crawled by, but for some reason the last four months have gone in the blink of an eye.

Pippa is 4 months old!

Stats:
Weight: FAT! (14.4 lbs, 60%)
Height: Longer than our other babies, still slightly below short (24 inches, 44%)
Noggin: Gargantuan (I forget what this stat was, but her enormous brain is in the 79%)

She Rocks At:
Grabbing things--her binky out of her mouth when she should be trying to sleep, my hair, her bib during feedings, not her bottle.
Making her siblings laugh--Beck has almost burst blood vessels in his brain from laughing so hard. Mostly this occurs when he's teasing her, but also from watching her laugh at him. They get each other going and Beck usually ends the laugh fest by running to the bathroom holding his crotch.
Burping--she lets out the biggest, loudest, most resonant burps ever. Also a source of Beck's hysterics. Burping never gets old when you're four.
Standing--whereas Daphne started standing at age 1 1/2 weeks and never looked back, and Beck wouldn't even straighten his legs until he was like 2 years old, Pippa has chosen a nice happy medium of 3 1/2 months to start standing. She loves to lock her knees and stand on our laps. But this means not so much snuggling in my arms. She wants to be a big girl. :(

She Sucks At:
Sleeping. My former star sleeper, who slept through the night from age 4 days old on, has regressed a bit. She wakes up about 3:30 am every night lately and is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, chirping, talking, ready to rock and roll. After 3 or 4 binky applications she sometimes goes back to sleep. Sometimes I must resort to using the-tool-which-no-baby's-eyelids-can-resist: the swing. And then I get to sleep for a few more hours. I refuse to pick her up or feed her. I am so not down with that.
Napping. Similar to sleeping, Pippa has suddenly decided napping is so passe. She'd much rather stare at the birdies on her wall, gab and slobber, wiggle out of her swaddle and try to roll over. ARG.
Keeping her food down. She has followed in her siblings' stinky, messy footsteps and has developed reflux. Not as bad as either of them, but bad enough to require a bib or burp cloth at hand at all times. And lots of changes of clothes. Mostly mine.

Eyes: Pippa's eyes are giving me hope. They have not turned brown! I was looking at pictures of Beck at this age and they were definitely brown by now. Pippa's are still a steel grey-blue, but quite clear, with a starburst of brown in the very center. A bunch of her aunts and uncles on Big Daddy's side have eyes exactly like this, so I'm hoping and praying they'll stay this way.

Hair: Still rather strawberry blond, but in some lights it looks just plain mousy brown.

Skin:
Somewhere between transparent and actually glowing. The doctor yesterday said, "You're doing to need to apply a lot of sunblock to this one!" Thanks a lot, Grandma Boppie.

Overview: I have to say, Pippa is still a delightful, easy child, despite her sleeping boycotts. She smiles all the time, laughs, coos, hates her carseat, but forgives me after a day with many trips and looks at me like I'm chocolate ice cream. I love her.

Sloppy Seconds

2011-09-13T13:13:00.003-06:00

Here I sit, on my bed, reading blogs, eating leftovers. I love leftovers. Not my own cooking's leftovers. At least, not passionately. But I passionately love restaurant leftovers. How awesome is it to go out to dinner, eat a fantastic meal, and then get to eat it again the next day!? It's very awesome, that's what. Even if you do have to share some of your coconut-crusted mahi-mahi leftovers with your cat, who is suddenly on the bed next to you, staring at you pitifully with eyes that say, "I know I won't even look at dry catfood containing seafood, and I scorn even the Fancy Feast if it has fish in it, but if I don't have a bite of that coconut-crusted mahi-mahi right now I will jump into a tank of foaming pitbulls, I swear." So you share a few nibbles to keep her from such an awful fate, and you enjoy the rest yourself, grateful that you are eating something delicious that you didn't have to cook yourself and which, of course, contains ingredients you would never buy in a millions years anyway. And that is what makes leftovers so wonderful.

You?

Idaho, You Da Ho

2011-09-09T06:49:00.000-06:00

Let me give you some advice: If you want to impress people with the location of your summer vacation, don't start with "Idaho." "Idaho" doesn't really make most people's eyes widen and heartbeats quicken. And "Boise" will get you an even less impressed response. They might even walk away at this point, regretting that they even asked. Nevermind that you got to stay in a huge, awesome 3000 square foot cabin. That you got to golf, swim in two different hot-springs-fed pools, that you roasted marshmallows every day and had s'mores for dessert every night. Nevermind the wildlife you were able to observe and the cool bear and wolf and elk tracks you were lucky enough to spot. It doesn't matter that there were a bajillion stars visible overhead, and complete peace and quiet all around. No, people won't care about all this stuff when you tell them "I went to the Boise National Forest in Central Idaho." It just doesn't have any cache. So if you want people to think you went somewhere really cool for summer break, just keep it vague. "An awesome cabin" will usually suffice. If you've got an interrogator on your hands who just HAS to know more, try adding "in the woods" and "on a mountain." Cause that's just going to sound way cooler than than anything starting with "I" and ending with "a-ho."

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!!!

2011-09-08T13:32:00.004-06:00

No, not Christmas. Back to School!

If you've ever read my blog, or listened to me talk around, say, early August on, you'll know that I have never been a fan of back to school. When they start putting out the school supplies in July, I usually sit right down amongst the markers and note-books and bawl. Back-to-school not only carries with it the long ingrained feelings of dread that both 18+ (+++) years as a student instilled in me as well as 6 years of being a teacher. There is just something wholly depressing about realizing that your summer vacation is coming to an end. And when they throw that at you in July, well it's like rubbing salt in a wound.

Then there is also the fact that I am a summer girl. I love the spring and summer, the heat, the flowers, the blue skies, the wearing of flip-flops, the not wearing of coats, the going outside without a thought for bulking up your wardrobe, vacations, crickets at night, cool grass under your toes, the smell of hot asphalt (I'm serious), staying outside long enough to notice the stars and moon....summer just has so many great things to offer. And fall, though fall itself isn't TOO bad, is just the segue into winter, which I hate. So I have always dreaded the end of summer and the beginning of fall.

But this year, ah, this year was different. Because this year I had two kids who were driving me NUTS. Driving each other nuts. Sick of being home, sick of each other, sick of me, sick of reading and play-doh and swimming in the kiddie pool, and the trampoline, and the slide, and all the other things that were so novel and fun at the beginning of summer. They were even, gasp, sick of the TV and internet and iphones! Mostly I was sick of them FIGHTING OVER EVERYTHING. And since I added a new baby to the mix, I was soooo ready to get rid of them and have just a little peace and quiet for myself and for Pippa and me.

So it was with a happy heart--despite the fact that this year meant getting up early in the morning to get Daphne off to school, and making lunches for the first time, and having to drive my kids to 2 different schools at 2 times of day, neither of which is close to my house--that I took these pictures, kissed their cheeks, and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Beck, Age 4 1/2, Preschool

Daphne, Age 6, 1st Grade

South Beach Phase 1 Wrap Up

2011-08-16T07:50:00.005-06:00

So I finished Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet on Sunday. (It was a 2 week phase.) Let me give you the breakdown on how it went:

Total Weight Loss: 5 lbs. That is actually a pretty good loss for 2 weeks. But I am a bit disappointed it wasn't higher considering that the book says you'll lose 8-14 lbs the first two weeks. AND because I lost four of those 5 lbs the first week and only 1 the second week. In fact, I lost that 5th pound the first day of week two, and nothing thereafter, so watching my weight plateau for 6 straight days was frustrating. Still, I can't complain too much for dropping 5 lbs so easily.

How It Went: I stopped doing daily play by plays of my food intake and stuff because I didn't want to bore anyone. But I continued to eat either eggs or my spinach pie muffins for breakfast with a glass of milk, usually a salad for lunch (or sometimes leftovers), and a lean protein with vegetables for dinner. My snacks mostly consisted of string cheese, nuts, hummus with cucumbers, or a PB eggnog. Except for the occasional feeling of being "proteined out," it was a pretty satisfying diet.

As far as hunger goes, after day 3 I hardly ever felt hungry. In fact, my hunger was way less on this diet than it normally is between meals when I'm not dieting. See, aside from the strong sugar cravings we all know we get from eating sweets, not eating any carbs made me realize that carbs in general are what cause hunger, that gnawing "I'm starving!" hunger. Because once I stopped eating carbs altogether, I simply didn't think about food and never felt starving. I often didn't eat breakfast until 9 or 10 (after waking up at 7) and often delayed meals and snacks because I simply wasn't hungry. What a novel experience...to be on a diet and not be hungry!! For that reason alone, I can highly recommend this diet. And the sugar/dessert cravings that usually plague me 3-4 times a day just went away. It's been 3+ weeks since I've had a single treat and although I'd enjoy one, I hardly miss it. But the main thing about this diet is, I feel good. I know the extra greens and veggies have done my body good. Like I said, occasionally my stomach has felt over-proteined and heavy, but then I'd eat a big salad and I felt fine again. So other than that, this has been the easiest and body-friendliest diet I've ever done.

Now on to Phase 2.

Phase 2 of the South Beach Diet is where the real weight loss is supposed to take place. Not at the high rate of Phase 1, but Phase 2 is the long-term diet. Phase 1 is really only supposed to cleanse your system of all the carb-havoc you've done, get rid of the cravings and the insulin resistance you've built up, and allow you to diet for real without feeling hungry and craving sweets. On this phase of the diet (which lasts as long as you still want to lose weight), you are supposed to lose 1-2 lbs a week. You slowly reintroduce good carbs into your diet (whole grains and low glycemic index fruits and veggies). In week 1 you have one serving of either fruit or whole grains a day. You monitor what your body does--if it doesn't gain weight or start up your cravings again, you go up to two servings of either fruit or whole grains a day in the 2nd week, and so on.

Yesterday, I started off with my new carb being a strawberry smoothy. I used to eat those on HCG--just strawberries, non-fat Greek yogurt, milk, ice and Truvia--and they are satisfying and healthy. But at lunch my whole grain Kashi tv dinner was calling my name, so I ate that (which had a small portion of whole grain rice-ish stuff). Then I decided maybe I'd take the whole day off my diet, and I had fajitas (with two tiny tortillas) for dinner. So I actually had 3 carbs yesterday instead of one, but today I feel fine, no extra cravings or hunger, and no weight gain. And the break was nice. I feel totally ready to go back to super-low carbing.

So, today I'm not sure what whole grain or fruit I'll have, but I'm only going to weigh myself 2x a week now--Monday and Friday. As long as I'm not gaining, I'll feel OK to increase to 2 carbs next week.

Deep Thoughts, by Arianne

2011-08-12T18:08:00.004-06:00

I used to be really anal retentive about my kids' play-doh. I would make them be super careful not to mix the colors, and to put it away immediately when they were done to keep it soft and fresh. And then I realized, "Hey, I don't give a crap!"

South Beach Days 5 and 6

2011-08-07T10:40:00.006-06:00

Yep, pissed was a good word for it. When I weighed myself on day 5 (yesterday) I had GAINED A POUND. What the? I'm not sure why. I kept to the diet pretty well the day before. I had one small cheat where I ate 1 of bid daddy's coconut shrimp when we went out to dinner. Shrimp is allowed, but coconut is not allowed. And there was probably approximately 1/2 tsp of flour attached to the coconut breading, also not allowed. But other than that, I did really well. Even going out to dinner, I ate very well. Salad, no croutons. (But there were carrots. Hmmm.) Vegetables for my side dish. And Halibut Oscar for my entree. I even drank a, gasp, DIET Coke. So I don't know. Maybe water weight being recouped from my stomach bug? Who knows. But I was not happy about it. I decided, however, to stick with the diet, even after 3 days of no weight loss. And I'm happy to report that today, Day 6, I'm back down that 1 lb I gained yesterday, and within .4 lbs of my lowest weight on this diet. So it's not all bad. Still, after nearly a week, I'd hoped to be down more than 3 lbs. I guess I still have today.

And I have to tell you, I am AMAZED at the change in my body. Not how I look, but how I feel. I have pretty much stopped being hungry! I am eating far less calories a day than I have for the last year (around 1200-1400 a day) and I am NOT HUNGRY. Last night, for example, we went to a family reunion. We were all asked to bring our favorite hors de oeuvres. Knowing I probably wouldn't be able to eat anything there but maybe a burger patty, I made deviled eggs, which I can eat. Then right as we got there, Pippa had a blow out. By the time I got her changed into new clothes and a fresh diaper, nearly all the food was gone. And there were no burger patties there at all. It was ONLY hors de oeuvres. So all I got was a scoop of spinach salad, some of that cream cheese covered with shrimp and some red sauce (no crackers), a couple of Swedish meat balls, and some bean dip. Not even a single deviled egg! It was about half a plate of food. And yet, I wasn't hungry for the rest of the night. It's amazing how little I think of food now. I don't get cravings for desserts, and I can subsist very comfortably on way less calories than I should. So that's one thing I can say for this diet--getting my body off the carb cravings has been very eye opening to how powerful they can be and how much they cyclically make you hungry for more.

So the results for today? Down 1 lb, down 3.2 overall.

And I feel very encouraged about continuing this diet. Especially since those spinach pie muffins turned out DELICIOUS and I've been eating them every day for breakfast, hallelujah no more eggs.

South Beach Day 4

2011-08-07T10:34:00.004-06:00

I have to say, this diet is getting easier. I'm getting more used to what I can and can't eat. I'm feeling less and less hungry. And I miss carbs so much less now. Yes, I'd still like a nice big slice of chocolate cake every day. But I don't crave it. And I don't miss carbs at lunch and dinner so much. I even went to a party last night where there were plates filled with fresh fruit, cookies, candy, and fresh salsa with chips and I didn't have any of it! I did, however, eat quite a few chunks from the cheese plate. Thank goodness for cheese. ( I also may or may not have had a dream about making out with a gooey chocolate chunk cookie. Allegedly.)

Really the only hard time for me is breakfast, like I've said. It's when I do my best job of loading carbs directly onto my hips. But I am trying a recipe today that may help. Have you ever had those Greek spinach pies (spinakopita)? It's a recipe for those with no phyllo dough. I got the recipe here. I put mine in muffin tins so I could heat up a couple for breakfast (it made 11 spinach pie muffins).

Here's what I ate yesterday:

Breakfast: 2 hard boiled eggs + 2 slices of turkey bacon. 1/2 cup 1% milk.
Snack: Peanut Butter Eggnog (no egg. My stomach felt too off for a raw egg.)
Lunch: 6 oz broiled Dijon salmon, steamed lemon spinach
Dinner: Cobb Salad + 8 squares of various cheeses
Snack: Celery with Laughing Cow Cheese on it

How It Went: I think I was still feeling the effects of the stomach flu, so I wasn't terribly hungry yesterday and nothing really sounded that appetizing. So eating minimally was pretty easy.

Result: 0.2 lbs gain. :( I can't say I'm completely surprised. I got very dehydrated from that stomach bug, so I think my body has been trying to recoup all liquids for the last two days. BUT...if I'm not losing weight again by tomorrow, I'm going to be very sad. No, pissed. Pissed is more the right word.

A Hammer and a Nail

2011-08-05T09:59:00.005-06:00

Make that a blow dryer and a nail. Last night I went to a party that featured Jamberry Nails, a new company that sells self-manicures, so to speak. They make absolutely adorable patterned (and even plain) nail covers that are somewhere between vinyl lettering and shrink wrapping your nails. They last a long time and look oh, so cute! Check it out...

I was sold just on the fact that they don't chip. I only paint my finger nails about twice a year because I HATE how the very next day they are chipped. It's just not worth all the effort. But these stay shiny and look fantastic for quite a while, I'm told. I've only had mine on for a day, but after having done the dishes, washed the kitchen counters, and cooked breakfast (requiring me to wash my hands several times), they are still on, still looking perfect. Woo hoo!

It starts with a page like this:

You cut them down to the right size, hold them to a blow dryer for a few seconds, apply, and smooth down. The ultra clingy adhesive sticks down really well. And yet it peels off easily, without damaging your nail, when you're done with them. After having done glitter nails, which looked awesome but ruined my toe nails when I tried to take them off, I'm all for this.

Just thought I'd pass it on!

(And no, they didn't pay me to say this. But they probably should!)

South Beach Diet, Day 3

2011-08-04T07:45:00.002-06:00

So my stomach flu continued all day yesterday. I had been up all night with Beck, who was puking. Pippa slept through the night, but she puked a lot during the next day. So between my runs and those two kids' issues, it was a long hard night and an exhausting day. And my appetite never returned, so I ate very little. My calorie counter put me at about 850 calories.

Breakfast: 1/2 cup Carnation Instant Breakfast, 3/4 cup low fat cottage cheese. (When I woke up and got hit with a huge wave of nausea, I had to put something in my stomach immediately that would calm it so I wouldn't barf. So even though this was a cheat, it was a lifesaver for my nausea.)

Lunch: Turkey burger patty with provolone cheese and 1 TBS guacamole

Dinner: 1 1/2 cups bean with bacon soup.

Late night snack: two handfuls of pistachios

How it Went: Surprisingly easy! LOL. Nothing like an upset tummy to squelch your cravings. I didn't even want any faux dessert.

Result: 0 weight loss. Yeah, that was a disappointment because, after eating so little, I'd expected a couple more lbs loss. But maybe I ate so little that my body went into starvation mode. Or who knows. But after the 2.4 lb loss the day before, I'm still down 3 1/2 lbs for 3 days of dieting, which is super awesome.

So far, overall, this diet isn't that hard. It's not that hard leaving off the carbs at mealtimes. I don't really crave the rice or pasta I usually eat with dinner. It would be nice to have it, but it isn't killing me to go without it. Breakfast, on the other hand, is hard. I don't really like eggs. I have to choke them down. So right now, with my stomach still being off, there's no way I can attempt eggs. And low fat cottage cheese just isn't that filling or delectable. So I'd kill for a bowl of oatmeal or a piece of toast right now.

Also, there is a general lack of fullness you feel when you're not eating ANY carbs. Even when I had that delicious piece of salmon with veggies, and the taste and amount were totally good, there's a feeling of satisfaction you get in your stomach from carbs that just doesn't come from protein or veggies. You always feel just a little bit hollow, even when you're full. I'd love to have just a half a slice of whole grain toast with each meal. I guess once I get through this 2 week cleanse, that's precisely what I'll be doing. And it will feel GREAT.

South Beach, Day 2

2011-08-02T17:03:00.004-06:00

Day 2.

Breakfast: Peanut Butter Egg Nog* (This is a little thing I ate a ton growing up. It's not like the rich, decadent eggnog you have at Christmas. It's a thinner, poor man's version, made with milk, not cream. You put nutmeg in the original version, which gives it a vaguely egg-noggy taste. Or you can make the peanut butter version, which ups the protein quotient and gives it a yummy flavor. See the recipe below for my South Beach version).

Snack: Hard boiled egg (about the only way I actually enjoy eating eggs.)

Lunch: Spinach salad with spicy pecans, feta, and dried fruit. Yes, I did eat that 1 TBS of dried cranberries and pears that came with it. I thought about throwing them out, but I don't love spinach THAT much, so I guess that counts as my first cheat.

Snack: Cucumber slices with hummus. YUM! Not terribly filling, it turns out, but super delicious. Also, I ate a sugar-free fudgsicle. In case you've never tried one (and why would you...you're sane, right?) let me just say, they are only vaguely reminiscent of fudgsicles. Slight buttery taste, very slight chocolate flavor, a faint sweetness...pretty gutsy trying to pass those off as a dessert, Fake Fudgsicle People, but better than nothing at this point, I guess. How diabetics do it, I don't know.

Dinner: Chicken Cordon Blue, roasted veggies.

Desssert: South Beach Peanut Butter Cup (Which is a sugar free fudgsicle, 2 tsp lite cool whip, and a TBS natural peanut butter all stirred together until smooth. It was so delicious I literally LICKED THE BOWL.)

How It Went: Better than yesterday. No hunger headaches. I felt mildly hungry several times during the day (mostly at/after snack times, which are usually my big carb load ups), but nothing awful. And knowing I could go have another snack if I really wanted to helped me from feeling deprived and wanting to gorge on dark chocolate truffles just to show my stupid diet who's boss. (I'm not the only one who does this, right? I just hate a controlling diet, always telling me what to do!)

Result: 2.4 lbs loss!!! (Now before you get too excited, I need to add that I got the stomach flu in the very early morning hours, and by the time I weighed myself, I'd already made about 7 trips to the bathroom. So, this is not a normal weight loss.)

*South Beach Peanut Butter Egg-Nog
1 1/2 cups low fat or fat free milk
1-2 TBS natural peanut butter, depending on how peanut-buttery you like it
3 Packets Truvia
1 egg
Mix in a blender or with a hand blender until frothy.

South Beach, Day 1

2011-08-01T17:51:00.004-06:00

I've just finished my first full day of the South Beach Diet, so here's a little breakdown on how it went.

First, if you don't know anything about the South Beach Diet, its simplified version is pretty logical and sound: Eat less processed sugar and white carbs, eat more whole grains, lean meats and vegetables. It was started by a cardiologist who invented the diet for his patients to make them more healthy and improve their "blood chemistry." But he noticed a lot of weight loss occurring, so he tweaked the diet to make it a more mainstream weight-loss diet.

Phase 1, the first two weeks, you eat NO CARBS. None. No sugar, no flour, no grains, no fruit. Nothing. The idea being that we've all become totally insulin dependent and our bodies are completely whacked out from all the refined flour and sugar we eat. So this a sort of cleanse to get your body responding normally to food again. During this phase, you DO eat as much as you want of the approved foods, so it's not about starving yourself. Approved foods include most vegetables, most meats (no bacon, sausage or super fatty cuts of beef, though), eggs, dairy, nuts, olive oil, and even full-fat dressing! After HCG, this feels positively liberal. You're supposed to lose 8-14 lbs during Phase 1.

Phase 2 lasts as long as you want to continue to lose weight. You are supposed to lose 1-2 lbs a week. In this phase you slowly re-introduce whole grains and fruit back into your diet. Oatmeal, whole grain bread, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, etc. are all allowed now, as well as fruits.

Phase 3 is basically eating normally. The hope is that your new "normal" includes lots of whole grains, lean meats, veggies and fruits and very little processed sugar and white flour. However, it does allow you an occasional indulgence, as long as you don't overdo it. If you do overdo it, and you notice a weight increase, you go back to Phase 1 until you have it under control.

Sounds good, right?

So here's how it went yesterday...

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with ham and cheese
Glass of milk

Snack: String Cheese

Lunch: Chef Salad, Crystal Light

Snack: Pistachios, Dt. Mountain Dew, later a piece of lime-marinated turkey breast

Dinner: Pan-Seared Salmon and Sauteed vegetables

Dessert: Sugar free hard candy

How it Went: First of all, I don't really like eggs. So eating eggs for breakfast each day is going to be very hard for me. I choked them down (they're more palatable with cheese and ham, but still not that great). By 10:30 I was pretty hungry. So I had some string cheese. Within half an hour I was so hungry I had a headache. I usually do fine with a salad for lunch, but I think the lack of carbs for breakfast and no carbs for a pick me up left me feeling quiet hungry after lunch. So I ate some pistachios and took some Advil with my Mountain Dew, just in case it was caffeine related, not hunger related. I was still really hungry after that, and my headache was still there, so I found a lime-marinated turkey breast from a few days ago in the fridge and ate that. That satisfied me for quite a while. By dinner I was hungry again, but my headache was gone and I wasn't starving. We ate out and asked them to replace our potatoes with more vegetables. It was a fantastic dinner and left me feeling very satisfied all evening. I got a little hungry before bed, which I always do. I thought about making an approved dessert (there are a few), but I decided not to eat any calories before bed. Instead I just sucked on some fruit candy, and, surprisingly, that kept my mouth and mind off food. Overall, it wasn't too bad. I definitely could have used a slice of wheat toast with lunch, but the rest of the day didn't feel too different.

Result: 1.2 lbs loss! WOOT!

Visiting Florida, Metaphorically Speaking

2011-08-01T10:07:00.006-06:00

I'm in South Beach! No, not this kind. Not even the white sand beach in Florida kind. I wish. It would be a lot more fun than the South Beach DIET, which is what I'm really visiting. But the sad fact is that any and all baby-weight loss that was going to happen on its own stopped long ago, and now it's sliding back uphill. It has left me about 23 lbs heavier than I was pre-baby. WAH. So I'm going to have to buckle down and start doing something about it.

If you have read my blog, you'll know that I did the HCG diet last summer. It was very successful. I got down to my college weight (i.e. my super mega dream weight), and I felt fantastic! But the HCG diet was brutal. Really brutal. I-want-to-die-just-thinking-about-it brutal. So clearly I don't want to have to do it again unless it's an absolute last resort. I thought about (and actually signed up for) Weight Watchers 6 weeks ago, but either my pregnancy hormones were messing with me or it just wasn't enough of a diet because I lost no weight in that time. So I thought I'd try something new--The South Beach Diet.

I was a little worried about posting my progress with a new diet on my blog. I don't want to come off as a wacky, repetitive crash dieter or anything. But the fact is, I need somewhere to document my progress and to force myself to be accountable. And last time I did that with the HCG diet, it really helped me to be able to post what I was eating, how I was feeling, and how well it was working. I even got a few people respond with their experiences, which helped a ton too. So if you don't like reading about me dieting (those 3 of you left who still read my blog), I'm sorry. I'll try to post a few other things to keep you all from completely abandoning me. But if you have comments, questions, thoughts, support, or know someone who is in the same boat/has experience with this diet, please chime in, send them over, or just give me a WOOT should I actually happen to shave an inch or two off my gut.

Here goes...South Beach or bust!

Getting Organized, Part 2

2011-07-19T15:47:00.006-06:00

Preceding my three-legged silver jewelry stand bought at a cheap, teeny-bopper store, was a purple, sparkly, three-legged jewelry stand bought at a cheap teeny-bopper store. It didn't have enough necklace holding hooks, so I got the silver one, and the purple sparkly one became my new hair accessory holder. Before the purple, sparkly hair accessory holder was a bowl. A gold bowl. All my hair accessories were in there: Clippies of all sizes, barrettes, hair bands, head bands, bobby pins, etc. All jumbled up in a big wad. It drove me nuts. So I was pleased as punch when I recommissioned my old purple sparkly jewelry holder as a hair accessory holder. Except for one problem. It was three-legged. It was three-legged as a jewelry holder, and it continued to be three- legged as a hair accessory holder. And if you need a recap on why three legs suck, here it is: Whoever invented three-legged things has never heard of the laws of physics. Albert Einstien explained in the 4th law of thermodynamics, "If an object with three legs comes into contact with any other object, person, force or thought wave anywhere near or far from its vicinity, it will tip over. If there is a sink or trash can nearby, it will tip over in that direction." So just as I eventually came to despise my silver, sparkly, three-legged jewelry holder, I came to despise my purple, three-legged hair accessory holder. And I came up with this solution:

It couldn't have been easier to make. I actually completed the whole project in one session instead of spread out over days and days in between feeding the baby and taking the kids to swimming lessons. Here's how to do it:

1) Buy a length of ribbon (mine's about 2 feet long, 1 1/2" wide). I chose a ribbon with holes to make it easier for the clippies to attach to it.
2) Buy 2 artificial flowers. Something flat on the back is preferable. Detach the stems.
3) Buy another bit of ribbon (I reused the 1/2" red ribbon from my jewelry holder). It should be about 6-7" long.
4) Hot glue the ends of the ribbon to the backs of the flowers.
5) Make the narrow ribbon piece into a loop (like those pink cancer ribbons) and hot glue it to the back of the top flower.
6) That's it! You're done! Just attach your hair clippies, barrettes, etc., (it doesn't hold hair bands, unfortunately, unless you want to loop them over your flower. But I decided to just put them in a drawer.) and mount it to a hook or nail on the wall.

This little piece of organization cost me about $4 and partially covered up a spackle job on the wall left by the previous owners. More importantly, it may have prevented a future stroke on the party of Big Daddy, who despised my stupid, tipping-over, three-legged, purple sparkly ~~jewelry~~ hair accessory holder with a passion nearly as much as I did. Ok more. Much more. Hence the impending stroke. So, hooray for organization!

Getting Organized, Part 1

2011-07-18T12:19:00.005-06:00

Last week I was infected by a strange bug. It took over me and left me feeling odd and not like myself. It caused some bizarre symptoms too. I suddenly wanted to clean instead of nap. I no longer wanted to continue the love affair with piles that I nurtured so carefully during my pregnancy. I actually wanted to get rid of stuff instead of save it.

The most notable symptom of this bug was the overwhelming desire to organize. Deep inside I am a very organized person. I like to clean, I like to put things where they go and have a place for them. Going to The Container Store is like Disneyland for me. But mostly I keep this desire to organize bottled up inside, thickly padded by the desire to sleep, read, watch TV and get on the computer when I have free time.

This week was different. I DID SOME STUFF. So I'm going to highlight some of the super-mom, ultra-organized, crafty person projects I did that left me feeling very impressed with myself.

Part 1: My Jewelry Holder.

I bought a jewelry holder a few years back at one of those teeny-bopper jewelry stores. It looked vaguely like a wedge of cheese married a carousel. It had a tray for bracelets. It had little hooks to hang necklaces. It had little holes to hang earrings from. It was just right. Except that it also had three legs. Let me tell you something about three legs: Three legs is the reason why chairs and tables and everything else has four legs. Three legs suck. Three legs tip over and dump all your jewelry on the floor every time a slight breeze passes your dresser. So after the eighteen thousandth time of cleaning up my jewelry and putting it all back on my jewelry stand, I decided to come up with a better idea. So I ripped off my sister's* jewelry holder idea, made a few adjustments, and this is what I came up with:

The nice thing is, it filled an empty spot on my wall as well as creating a neat, easy-to-access place to put all my jewelry. Here's the How To in case you're interested:

1. Go to the craft store and get a poster frame with your 40% off coupon (mine is 22x25"), some ribbon to match your room decor (1 1/2" and 1/2" widths), spray adhesive, quilting tacks, a roll of cork board, and some push pins. You can also buy some fabric to cover up the cork board if you don't like the look of cork board. Just don't go with a crazy pattern as your jewelry won't stand out against, say, paisleys or plaid.)
2. Remove the glass and cardboard backing from the frame.
3. Carefully place the glass somewhere your husband won't step through it. Flat on the garage floor, for example, is not an ideal spot. Don't skip this step. Especially if you have plans to use the glass for another picture whose glass has broken. And especially if your husband has a habit of walking around the garage barefoot.)
4. Spray both the back of the cork board and the cardboard backing with spray adhesive.
5. Lay the cork board on the backing crooked.
6. Realize that spray adhesive bonds instantly and you won't be able to adjust the cork board.
7. Carefully try to peel the cork board off the backing.
8. Realize that working with cork board glued to cardboard with spray adhesive is about like trying to work with wet crackers.
9. Find a chisel and remove the many pieces of cork board left sticking to the cardboard backing.
10. Go to the craft store and get some new cork board.
11. Con your husband into helping you lay the cork board down. Just tell him you heard somewhere that it's easier with two people.
12. Fight a bit about whether or not a rubber roller is needed to smooth down the cork board. (He will be right about this, of course, but you can get by without one).
13. While you are fighting, go fetch a broom and dust pan to clean up the glass shards from the glass insert you didn't prop up somewhere out of the way.
14. Fetch some tweezers and apologize profusely as you remove glass shards from your husband's feet.
15. Lay out the stripes of ribbon across the front side of your cork board. How many to use and how far apart to place them depends on how much/what kind of jewelry you have. I recommend laying your jewelry all out side by side on the cork board so you will know.
16. Secure the edges of the ribbon with quilting tacks.
17. Every 3 inches along the smaller ribbon, place a dot of hot glue. This will keep your ribbon from sagging when the earrings are hung on it.
18. Hot glue the ends of the ribbon to the back of the cork board/cardboard backing.
19. Place clear push pins just above the wide ribbon, every inch or so, for bracelets, watches, and necklaces.
20. Mount the frame on the wall and hang up your jewelry!

Voila!

*(The credit for this idea goes to my sister, Jennie, as do all good ideas I have. One of the best benefits of having an older sister is that someone else weeds out the bad ideas and passes on all the good ones!)

Which Witch?

2011-07-14T07:30:00.000-06:00

Which do you like better?

Clipping your toe nails or painting your toe nails?

Going on a trip or sleeping in your own bed after a trip?

Wearing a new shirt or throwing away a ratty old shirt?

Putting a crabby baby to bed or getting a happy baby out of bed?

Putting on fuzzy warm socks or peeling off too-hot socks?

Curling up in under a warm blanket or climbing between cool sheets?

Cooking a meal everyone enjoys or eating a meal you didn't have to cook?

Getting in your car, warm in the garage in the winter or getting in your car in the summer after being in an over-air conditioned room?

Watching a movie or making a movie?

Paying a compliment and seeing someone's face light up or recieving an a sincere compliment you weren't expecting?

Skipping church or missing a dentist appointment?

Opening presents or shopping with a gift card?

Walking on the beach or strolling through the woods?

Listening to a thunder storm rolling in or finally hearing it roll away?

Having the money to buy that expensive item you never could afford or finding an item you always wanted on sale?

Losing a pound or eating a perfect slice of cake?

Walking through a beautiful garden or getting a bouquet of cut flowers?

Hearing the phone ring or hearing the answering machine pick it up?

Knowing it's Friday night or knowing it's Saturday morning?

Just a TITCH late--Happy Birthday, Daphne!

2011-07-13T08:29:00.000-06:00

Ok, so her birthday was a month ago. I have had a few tiny things to do in the last month. Like breast-feed non-stop and go through endless boxes of clothes trying to find one solitary pair of short or capris that might fit me without the use of a rubber band or liposuction. That took the better part of 3 weeks, truthfully. So, lest she feel slighted when she grows up and reads this blog, here is the recap on Daphne's 6th birthday:

It started with Daphne wanting a dress-up party. But not a princess dress-up party. More like a costume party. She just wanted everyone to dress up as something. Daphne chose to wear her Cleopatra costume from last Halloween. Likewise, Beck wore a Halloween costume, but from two years ago. So he was a Cowboy in Floods.

Next Daphne requested a piñata. A rainbow unicorn piñata, to be exact. And animal print decor. Then she picked out cupcake invitations. And her cake was a giant purse. Are you sensing a lack of cohesion here? Big Daddy tried to make her change some things, to make it more matchy. But I said, what the heck. It's her birthday, let her have what she wants. So a Mexican Costume-Jungle-Cupake-Purse Party, it was! There was a general black/white/hot pink-ness to it, but that's about all that tied it together. And it turned out great.

We played musical chairs, did a relay race, heard the REAL version of Rapunzel, told by Daphne's grandma Boppie, ate cake, jumped on the tramp, and hit the piñata. Here are a few pics:

We started the piñata game with each girl getting two blindfolded hits.

Then we went to three non-blindfolded hits. But even our experienced Mexican princess couldn't get it open.

Eventually we had to break it open the hard way: by 9 iron.

But then candy and toys were a-flowing.

Finally there was cake and ice cream.

And presents...

At age 6, here are some things you should know about Daphne: Daphne is a very unique child. She talks (and argues) like a grown-up, wise beyond her years. She isn't afraid of anyone or anything. She loves all animals, from the biggest down to the smallest (which means she is always bringing "pet" bugs and worms into the house). She doesn't care much for girly stuff like princesses and make-up and jewelry. But she does have quite a liking for the boys already. She hates school but loves her teacher. She doesn't find much need for sleep. She doesn't eat a lot, won't touch any potato product (including french fries), but loves her vegetables. Daphne cares a great deal for frosting (hmmm, wonder where she gets that from?). She is HIGHLY determined and precocious. Just try changing her mind about anything. Daphne is a very talented artist. She is very conscious of textures (tags and seams are her worst enemy). She isn't much of a snuggler, but she is very tender-hearted. She cares for every last creature on this earth and wants to take care of them all, especially her baby sister. Although many of Daphne's more stubborn traits can be less than endearing now, I know they will serve her well as an adult and that she will do something truly amazing with that tenacity. I expect great things from my Daphne.

Happy Birthday, Little Girl!

It's Time for a Pipdate!

2011-07-12T14:54:00.006-06:00

There was bad news and good news at Pippa's 2 month appointment today. But on a side note, can I just scream this out loud: "TWO MONTHS??? HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!?" I seriously can't believe it. I love newborns. ADORE newborns. I love when they first come out and they are just this helpless puddle of sweetness and softness. They lie on your chest, they love your warmth, they occasionally sigh in contentment, and you might see them crack half an eye open now and then. I just love it. But it was WAY too short-lived. Now she is awake for long periods of time (well, 1 1/2 hours seems long), she smiles, she is beginning to coo, she looks around and has a definite personality. Where did my tiny newborn go??

Ok, so back to her doctor's visit. The bad news is that she is to be yet another short child of mine. None of my kids have made it past the 20th percentile for height. Pippa is in the 19%. The good news is that she is a fatso! 60th percentile! Daphne was below the charts...still is. Beck's fattest weigh-in put him at 25%. So I'm pleased to say that Pippa is a big fat porker!

She is also sleeping 11 hours a night (on good nights. Some nights she only sleeps 8 or 9, eats and then sleeps 3 more). That's really amazing for a 2 month old. She eats like a champ (clearly), she's very patient, and she loves to look at me and smile this big, open-mouth, squinty-eyed smile at me. She hardly ever cries. She squawks when she is hungry or sleepy and only breaks into a real wail if you ignore her squawks. She has the most monstrously chubby thighs you've ever seen. Her belly button is an outie that has a swirl to it like a galaxy. Her bum is so round it looks like a goose-egg stuck to her back. Her eyes are actually getting lighter and less muddy (come on, blue eyed child!). They are currently blue-ish grey but with a definite greenish tint to them. Her eye lashes are very long but nearly white. Her eyebrows are all white and so they're pretty much invisible. Her hair continues to be a sort of strawberry blond or pale auburn. It'll be interesting to see what color it turns when it grows in.

All in all, I'm very pleased with this baby. I can hardly find a complaint at all. (Other than that she blows out nearly every diaper. She's not a very lady-like pooper!) I think if I was a teacher and she was in my "How to Be a Good Baby Class," she'd get an A+. Or maybe an A. Points might have to be deducted for the number of times I have to wipe poop off her back. Otherwise, Great Job, Pippa!

Oh, and she has a big head. 85%. But then, all my kids do. Due to the massive brains they inherited them from me, no doubt.

So that's the update on my short, stocky angel baby.

Dream A Little Dream of Pee

2011-07-03T23:41:00.001-06:00

Have you ever had a recurring dream in your life? One which happens the same or nearly the same over and over throughout a period of/your whole life? I have one. It's kind of gross. But it is one where I am in a public bathroom and I have to go. BAD. But every stall has something wrong with it. A door is missing on this one, no seat on the next one, only a rim. Most of them are full to the brim with nastiness. And usually the floors are covered too, making it impossible for me to find a place to go.

I have been having this same dream, with variations on location and number of disgusting stalls, my whole life. I always wondered why. And then recently (yes, it took me my WHOLE LIFE to figure this out!) I finally figured out what this dream means. It's nothing deep. Not Freudian. No therapy or dream books required. No, it simply means I have to go to the loo and my body is trying to keep me from doing it in my sleep!

I've been having this dream a lot lately. And I realize it's because I have been drinking more than usual. I'm not a thirsty person. Generally the only time I get thirsty (and also the only time water tastes good to me) is between the hours of 8-11pm. And with the extra intake of water to help with milk production, I tend to take in about 24-32 ounces of water right before bed.

I really need to work on drinking between the hours of 9-11 am, but water is just gross that time of day. What can I say?

How about you? Do you have any recurring dreams? And more importantly, when does water taste good to YOU?

Pippa's Room

2011-06-19T21:08:00.013-06:00

I finished Pippa's nursery a few days before she was born, but I never got a chance to post pictures. So I thought I'd do it now since my life is too hectic at the moment to do much of a real post.

This is how the nursery looked before:

World map on the wall, tan paint color, no valance, no style. It was our general purpose room--Big Daddy's closet, book case full of my travel mementos, extra boxes, ugly 2nd hand recliner, etc. So I had my work cut out for me, turning this into a girly nursery. I also didn't want to make it like Daphne's room, which is pink and green and yellow with flowers and butterflies. I wanted girly, but in a whole new way.

First came the beautiful bedding. It started with a swatch of fabric I saw online at a fancy (i.e. expensive) nursery design website. : It became the inspiration for Pippa's nursery. So I bought a few yards of that pricey fabric and then bought coordinating fabric from the local fabric store (i.e. WAY cheaper), handed it over to the capable hands of my seamstress mother, and this is how it turned out:

The birds and the polka dots became the theme of sorts for the rest of the decor.

Next I had Big Daddy print me a giant wall sticker. I got the idea for the tree from this picture I found online:
I made some changes and Big Daddy found some birds to put in the trees instead of the flowers.

Cute, huh? Pippa loves to stare up at the tree while she lies in bed.

By far the biggest project (for me, at least--the other big projects were done by everyone else!) was the alphabet wall. I saw the alphabet frames idea on a blog called Design Sponge. Hers looked like this:

So I spent a week or so collecting various sizes and shapes of frames from the local thrift stores.
I think I only spent bout $45 for all the frames! Then I took them all apart, ripped off the stands if they had them, cleaned the glass, and spray painted them. While they were drying, I measured the holes, found fonts online, and had Big Daddy print the inserts for me. Then I cut them down, put them in the frames, and laid them out on the floor so I could rearrange them 600 times. Finally, I put them on the wall. What do you think?

(Pippa absolutely LOVES to stare at the letters on the wall while I'm changing her diaper. The contrast of black and pale pink is so fascinating to her.)

Then I just had to add a few more touches. Once again, Mom came to the rescue and made a slip cover for the 2nd hand reclining rocker to match the trim on the bedding.

A lamp and some wall art finished it off. I still have one or two more things I want to add, but I felt good enough about the way things looked to put the baby in the nursery and not stress. I guess there were a few advantages to Pippa coming late.

This is the final product as it stands...

If I have a few spare hours over the summer, I may get the gumption up to paint the tan walls. The tan doesn't do anything for me. Maybe a pale blue? Or a soft yellow? Or maybe they'll end up staying tan because I'd rather be at the pool with my kids, working on MY tan. At any rate, there is a beautiful, one of a kind nursery where a modge-podge room used to be. Hooray!

At Some Point I'll Stop Blogging about Pregnancy/Baby Stuff, I Swear

2011-06-09T17:17:00.002-06:00

What can I say? It's what's on my mind, it's what my life is about, it's what's taking up 90% of the time in my day. My baby. Sweet, wonderful, good little baby. But she doesn't leave me much time for much else. So what am I blogging about? You guessed it...

Top 10 Things I Am Loving About No Longer Being Pregnant:

10. Breathing. Oh that little thing! But when your entire diaphragm is squished to the top of your neck and your lungs have the capacity of a piece of paper, breathing is something you can no longer take for granted. But I'm happy to say that putting on socks no longer makes me winded.

9. Breathing through my nose. I get stuffed up about 2 months into pregnancy and I don't get to breathe through my nose again until a few weeks after delivery. So just about now, I'm able to stop wearing breathe-right strips every night and shooting as much Rhinocort Aqua as I'm allowed up my nose only to suffer from poor sleep and nose bleeds anyway. Hooray for breathing!

8. Bending over. Seriously, not being able to bend over sucks! First there is the fact that everything your children touch stays or lands in a space from your knees to your feet. You see their stuff there and you think, "If it was metal, and my hand was magnetic, I would clean it up. Really I would." And then you walk away and leave it there because, well, your hand isn't magnetic and bending over causes your pancreas to end up in your esophagus. Also, your children suddenly develop complete amnesia about how to put on socks and shoes. They want YOU to bend over and do it. I don't even tie my OWN shoes when pregnant. Ask me why I wore the same two pair of shoes my whole last 5 months of pregnancy: NO laces.

7. Medicine. You can actually take medicine again. Try having a cold and not being allowed to take any decongestants. TORTURE. Torture + a lot of snot.

6. Sleep! Oh glorious sleep! Not even the wakings of a newborn can make you feel bad about your sleep when suddenly your rib pain doesn't force you out of bed at 6am, your sleep apnea doesn't wake you up a dozen times (see # 9 above), there isn't a baby doing cartwheels in your belly from 10pm-1am, and you can actually roll on your stomach! Sometimes I want to make out with my mattress, I'm so happy to be face to face with it again!

5. Not puking. Although I only puked a couple of times this pregnancy from morning sickness, I was almost always 1 heave away from tossing my cookies. Every time I brushed my teeth or smelled something gross, I had to fight with all my will not to puke. It's so nice now to hork up a loogie without gagging.

4. Lack of pain. Ok, so this one has been intermittent. Throwing out my back, which turned into a horrible pinched nerve, the week after the baby wasn't fun. Neither was mastitis. Neither is the thrush I'm fighting because of the antibiotics to kill the mastitis. BUT it isn't non-stop rib pain, non-stop ligament pain, lower back pain, etc., all the time 24/7.

3. Ankles. Not the former cankles, but real ankles.

2. Proximity. Mostly to Big Daddy. It's one of the things I miss most all pregnancy long is no longer being able to get close to him. You can't spoon. You can't hug. You can't...you know...in any positions that don't leave you feeling rather whorish. Just being able to walk up, press against him, and lay my head on his chest is magical.

1. Definite #1 best thing about not being pregnant:

It's Time for a Pipdate!

2011-06-03T14:09:00.007-06:00

I have had thousands of adoring fans (hers, naturally, not mine) request more pictures of Pippa, more details about Pippa, Pippa's social security number and fingerprint sample, so I thought I'd do an update on her. I'm all about pleasing my her fans. (Psst, Grandma and Grandpa, this is really for you. I don't actually have thousands of fans. Only many many hundreds. Ok, a few dozen. Alright, four. )

Pippa had her two week check up a few days ago. She did great. In fact, the pediatrician pronounced her "PERFECT." So, yeah, good work Mommy and Daddy. You created perfection!

She weighed in at a hefty 8 lbs 3 oz, a full half pound over her birth weight. (Hello? Can you say PORKER?!?) They usually want them back to their birth weight by then, so the weight gain was a nice surprise. Pippa's weight, in fact, is in the 60%! By far the fattest of my babies. Her height was in the 40%, which is 15% higher than my tallest child. Her head is in the 80%, about standard for my kids. What can I say? They have huge, brain-packed noggins!

Other tidbits about Pippa:

- Her name is the nickname for Phillipa, which is a Greek name meaning "lover of horses." We didn't name her Phillipa, though. Just Pippa.
- We got her name from a Robert Browning poem called "Pippa Passes."
- We are SO into Victorian poetry.
- Yeah, not really. We got it from excessive watching of the BBC's coverage of the royal wedding. DUH! (It's the name of Princess Kate's sister. )
- Pippa is my biggest baby.
- Pippa is my tallest baby.
- Pippa has white eyebrows, white eyelashes, and reddish-golden hair.
- Pippa is an extremely patient, mellow baby. She only screams when you take off her clothes or diaper. (I'd scream if someone were always taking off my clothes too.)
- Pippa smiled at only a week old. And just in case you think it was a fluke...or gas...she has smiled numerous times since. Mostly at me, of course. Or else tons of gas.
- Pippa is sleeping through the night. Mostly. She goes to bed about 11pm and sleeps until 5 or 6 am. Sometimes I have to wake her up to feed her because my boobs are going to explode. It makes me wonder how late she would sleep if I didn't wake her up. (But not enough to let my boobs explode to find out.)
- Daphne and Beck really like Pippa.
- Daphne likes to kiss Pippa on the head.
- Beck likes to growl at Pippa and shine flashlights in her eyes.
- (Hey, we all show our affection differently.)
- I am madly, passionately, unreservedly in love with this baby.
- Sometimes I want to eat her up.
- But then I realized that I just spent 9 months trying to get her OUT of my body, so I'd better let her remain unconsumed.
- See, once again, we all show our affection differently. Daphne? Kissing. Me? Cannibalism.

And here, by popular demand, are more pictures of Pippa. I just got some professional ones done this week, but I don't have them back yet. So mostly you're going to get ones where her eyes are half closed or she's staring off into space. Sorry, it's the best I could do while holding a camera and trying not to let her fall head first on the floor at the same time.

She's Here!

2011-05-14T15:40:00.004-06:00

So it turns out I got to "plan my own wedding" and "open my presents Christmas morning" after all. Because the night before I was supposed to be induced, I went into labor, all on my own!

I started having pains, not even contractions per se, Thursday morning, and by the afternoon, they were quite painful pains. But they weren't really like any of the contractions I'd felt up to that point, so I was still hesitant to believe it was labor. By 5pm I started timing them, though, because they were quite painful and beginning to come fairly regularly. They were 8-12 minutes apart and 1/2- 1 1/2 minutes long. I still figured they'd fizzle out, but by the time the kids went to bed, I was running out of cuss words to scream through each contraction, so I thought it might be real labor. Finally, by 10, I couldn't take the pain much longer, so even though the average time between contractions was still 6-7 minutes, I called the doc and he gave me the go ahead to go to the hospital! By the time I got there about 11:30pm, I was dilated to 5 cm and 90% effaced, so it WAS real labor! Halleluia!

I got my wonderful epidurdual, which left me still able to move and feel pressure, but no pain, and by 5am was nearly ready to push. The doctor got there and at 5:30 we went at it. At 6:02 my sweet baby girl was born. Please meet:

PIPPA JANE ELEANOR

7 LBS 10 OZ, 19" Long

And 100% sweetness

So happy you are here, sweet girl. Hopefully God won't hold all those swears against me and your daddy will forgive me for telling him he drives like a grandma on the way to the hospital. (But seriously, though, stopping at a yellow light??).

Welcome to the family!

Scheduling an Induction, Analogously

2011-05-10T09:26:00.004-06:00

Imagine it's the day before your wedding. You've been planning this event, in one way or another, your whole life. Ever since you knew what a wedding was, you've dreamed about how yours would be. You've sketched out countless dresses, chosen bridesmaids (who have summarily been dismissed and reassigned through the years), mentally arranged bouquets, planned the food, and even practiced writing your name with the last name of various beaux. This is one of the biggest events of your life and you know just how you want it to go. Of course, as the REAL event approaches, you have to acknowledge that you haven't been able to afford everything the way you envisioned it. You've had to cut a few corners and give up a few fantasies for the sake of the budget. But still, everything left is going to happen to your taste and specifications.

But then, the day before everything is to take place, your wealthy aunt, the one who likes to have a say in everything, announces that she has a surprise for you. Without you knowing, she has rearranged everything. With her vast sums of money, she has gotten rid of your small center pieces and substituted them with large, garish ones. The cake is now covered in bright blue butter cream flowers, just like hers were. Your tight bouquet of daisies has now become a streaming bouquet of ivy and lilies. And the location you chose for its sentimentality has now been moved to a large ballroom across town. All of it is the best of the best, the most expensive available. But it's not what YOU chose. It's not what you envisioned. Sure, you'll still be marrying the man you love, but all the imagining and excitement and anticipation is muted by the fact that this is not what you had planned.

Oh, so you're not the plan-your-wedding-since-you-were-four type? Or you're a man? Here, try this analogy:

It's Christmas Eve. You've been watching presents appear under the tree for weeks now. You love to look at them, pick them up and shake them, imagine what's inside. You can't wait for Christmas morning. And then, as you stand there the night before Christmas, someone comes in and tells you what's inside every single present. You know that Christmas morning will not be the same. Yeah, you were going to get those same gifts, either way, but without the excitement and anticipation of not knowing, opening them just isn't going to be the same.

Well, that's how I feel about the possibility of having to be induced. I know there is a baby. I know she's coming either way. But from the time I was little and knew where babies came from, I've imagined what it would be like for me. I never anticipated all the trouble and heartache that infertility issues would cause. I pictured deciding to have a baby and then, bada bing, being pregnant. It did NOT work out that way for me. Not when I wanted to, not how I wanted to. So to also anticipate going into labor, my body deciding how it would go--my water breaking, or labor slowly starting during the night, or suddenly getting hard contractions one afternoon, or whatever--and then not getting to experience any of that either, but just setting an appointment, going in and getting an IV, and having them pretty much force the baby out, well, it's just not the way I wanted it to go. And considering this is most likely my last child, I just had really hoped my body would figure things out on its own. The anticipation and excitement of seeing how things would go is what has gotten me through the last 9 months. It's my very favorite thing about being pregnant, just those last few hours once you know THIS IS IT! The baby is coming!

So yeah, it's my due date today. And unless this baby shows up tomorrow or the next day, I'll be induced on Friday. So please, if you're the praying time, pray for a Christmas miracle.

Putting Down Roots

2011-05-06T14:14:00.003-06:00

When we left our beautiful old Victorian house, we arrived here at our new house with so much promise and anticipation. It has some serious improvements over our old house--like no drug dealers for neighbors, or hoarders for neighbors, the ward doesn't seem quite so needy, and we have those wonderful 20th century inventions called air conditioning, a garage, and storage rooms. Really, we have a lot to be thankful for.

BUT...this house isn't IT. This house and neighborhood brings with it its own issues. There are actually fewer kids in the neighborhood than our old neighborhood. So the drama that occurs every day after school when my kids want to find friends to play with and there are none continues (especially for poor Beck who has four boys his age nearby and they are ALL anti-social with anti-social mothers who have no desire to make play dates). Also, a good portion of the neighborhood is still very rural, so there are smells you never bargained for in a suburb, flies galore, and even the crowing of roosters and braying of goats every morning.

The problems we had at our old house with heating and cooling are just as bad here! Hard to believe it for a house built in the 1990's compared to one built in the 1890's, but it's true. Our old house pre-dated vents, so radiators were our only source of heat. And they did OK in the rooms that had them. But several rooms didn't, leaving them freezing cold and requiring space heaters all winter. Then in summer, we had a swamp cooler, but it was noisy, required the windows to be open (i.e. more noise) and didn't make it to the main floor very well. Eventually we put externally vented a/c in half the house, but the other half remained 20 degrees hotter then the rest. Well, here we have a super crappy vent system so that the 3-4 rooms closest to the furnace get all the heat and cold air. And the ones furthest away are 20 degrees colder in winter and hotter in summer. JUST LIKE OUR OLD HOUSE. It's ridiculous.

Other little things include doors that don't seal, walls and floors that have no insulation or sound proofing, and the fact that our yard isn't fenced off, so I still have to worry about my kids when they're outside. Anti-social neighbors abound. And a newly-wed/mostly dead ward mimics our old one almost exactly. So, ya. A lot of the things I thought I was leaving behind seem to have followed me here.

But this time of year, the time when everything starts shooting up out of the ground, bursting forth out of buds, turning green, and flourishing, I want to plant. I want to plant strawberries and vegetables and flowers. I want to dig in the dirt and see my handiwork blossom and produce. But (beyond the fact that I'm not physically able to do it at the moment), I feel the futility of it here. Our lease ends in a year and 3 months, we're not likely to renew it or to buy this house, and so it just seems dumb to put all that effort into a yard where I won't be here to see the results.

But tell that to my gardeners instinct. It doesn't want to listen.

It's sad knowing that we'll most likely be moving again in less than a year and a half. But it's also exciting to think of what lies ahead--maybe we'll build our dream house. Maybe we'll move out of state. Maybe we'll find a place that's just right for us where there are lots of kids, and nice neighbors, and big shade trees, and a perfect space for a garden.

I hope so. I can't wait to put down deep deep roots.

I Scream, You Scream

2011-05-04T08:58:00.005-06:00

As I've said before, and though you might not believe me after all that talk about frozen custard and stuff, I'm not much of an ice cream fan. It's not that I don't like it per se. But there are just so many other sweet treats that come first on my list of sugary delights. Mostly baked goods--cake, brownies, cookies, pie, truffles, etc.

But in the summer time, and even in the spring when the days are getting warmer and my blood starts to stir, I do appreciate a good scoop of ice cream. SCOOP is a big part of it, because soft serve is, to me, a big swirly waste of calories. So unsatisfying. But a nice, rich scoop of Baskin Robbins, for example, is just the ticket every once in a while.

When I was a kid, I went through phases of liking a certain flavor and only getting that for a very long time. My first love was Daiquiri Ice, light and refreshing. Then came Chocolate Fudge. (Ironically, this is now Daphne's favorite flavor--totally unsuggested by me--and when I tasted hers, I about died from chocolate overload. I guess some things do change.) Then came a phase where I only liked Jamocha Almond Fudge. Even as a kid, I loved the taste of chocolate and coffee together.

During my teens and early 20's, Baskin Robbins had a seasonal flavor called Chocolate Raspberry Truffle. It was TO DIE FOR. And it only came out a couple of times a year. You were very lucky if you went while it was in season. That was, and still is, my all-time favorite ice cream flavor. But, alas, I haven't seen it in years.

Now my fave is Chocolate Peanut Butter. I love how the huge wedges of peanut butter get semi-frozen and then melt in your mouth. Wonderful. I will occasionally try something new. And when I'm in the mood for something not quite as rich, I will sometimes have a scoop of Pralines 'N' Cream or my old standby, Daiquiri Ice, but I'm pretty much a Chocolate peanut butter girl for now.

What about you? Are you an ice cream fan? And what's your favorite flavor?

Princess Bride

2011-04-29T21:38:00.000-06:00

I just finished watching the Royal Wedding (could I truly call myself a woman if I hadn't?). I didn't get up at 5am for it or anything, but it was just starting when I turned on the TV after breakfast, perfect timing.

I have to say, I LOVED Kate's dress and I truly hope this sets off a new trend to put sleeves back on wedding dresses. I watch the show Say Yes To the Dress religiously, and the one complaint I have about 99% of the dresses is THEY ARE ALL STRAPLESS! And I can't tell you how many times I've heard a bride on that show say, "I want to look sexy on my wedding day." First of all, looking sexy is not what weddings are about. It's the one day of your life you should at least try to look pure. Also, by "sexy," those girls really mean "trashy," because having your boobs hang out on your wedding day is trashy, ladies, I hate to tell you. Three cheers for Kate Middleton for showing that you can look absolutely stunning, set off your amazing figure, and still look classy and elegant. Bravo!!!

Other comments:

I found the ceremony quite spiritual and touching. A lot of really great messages in there. I wonder how much anyone, including the bride and groom, internalized them in that largely un-religious country. I wonder if Charles was internalizing them when he said "I will" to Diana whilst having an affair with Camilla. I surely hope the fact that William and Kate have dated for 7 years already means they really do love each other and intend to be faithful.

I felt sad for a minute at the end of the ceremony that Diana couldn't be there. And sad for her boys that that homewrecker, Camilla, got to walk down the aisle after the bridal couple. Does Charles have no shame?

I wonder what Elton John was thinking through all that talk about marriage being between a man and a woman. Did he feel like walking out? And, for a professional singer, he sure didn't look like he was singing with much gusto. Way to give it a D+ performance, Elton.

What is with the uni-color lady-suits with matching hats? Hasn't anyone ever heard of mix and match colors or patterns??? (Although I was happy to see all the hats. I really wish hats would come back into fashion.)

Is the Queen supposed to sing "God Save The Queen?" It IS the national anthem, after all. But kind of self-promoting if she does sing it, huh?

I called Daphne over to the TV so I could show her a REAL princess and prince getting married. She looked at Kate getting walked down the aisle by her dad, just behind the Dean of Westminster, and said, "I wouldn't want to marry THAT prince!" I said, "That's her dad." "No, THAT guy," she said, pointing to the Dean. "No, that is the priest who marries them," I said. "You mean the one who tells them they can kiss?" she asked. "Yes," I clarified.

A few minutes later, they showed William and Harry walking towards the front and I told her those were the two princes. She asked which one the bride was going to marry, and I told her the one in red. "Well, I wouldn't want to marry him either!" she told me. "But I WOULD like to marry the one in the blue and gold. He's so HANDSOME," she said, curling her hands under her chin and batting her eyelashes at Prince Harry. Oh geez, I'm in trouble.

Any thoughts about the Royal Wedding?

The Bluest Eye

2011-04-25T21:35:00.012-06:00

We are a brown eyed family. By "we" I mean my mom, dad, brother, sister, and me. All of us. My dad's eyes seemed to have grown greener his whole life, and my sister's eyes are definitely at the golden end of the brown spectrum. But my mom, brother, and I all have just plain brown eyes. Dark brown.

Then my brother, sister, and I all married blue-eyed spouses. So there is this kind of running competition in our family to see who can produce a blue-eyed child. The background is this:

My maternal grandparents had eyes like this:
Green
Brown

My paternal grandparents had eyes like this:
Blue
Brown

So on both sides of our family tree, we have one brown-eyed grandparent (B = dominant) and one blue/green-eyed grandparent (b = recessive). So if you remember your 9th grade biology class, the genetics chart for my own parents looks like this IF they both inherited that recessive gene from their light-eyed parent:

So they technically had a 1:2 chance of having blue or green eyed kids. None of us did. But that recessive gene could have showed up with further children or not at all. The question is, did they CARRY the recessive gene? Yes. (The evidence is below). But do my siblings and I? That remains to be seen.

Our own genetic charts (me, Jennie, Ben, together with our spouses) look like this if we carry the recessive gene from those light-eyed grandparents: That would mean I would, in theory, have a 1:2 chance of having a light-eyed child.

But if I didn't inherit that recessive gene from my light-eyed grandparents, my genetic chart would look like this: Meaning, if I don't carry that recessive gene, it doesn't matter that I married a blue-eyed man. My kids will have zero chance of having blue or green eyes.

Why does it matter? I guess it doesn't. Only, I'd like some variety. Roughly 9/10 of the world or more has brown eyes. They're just so...redundant. And in my case, the color is so static. I love that light-eyed people--be it green, blue, grey or hazel--have such variety to their eye color, such depth. Me? Just straight, plain, poop brown. So for the sake of interest, as well as the sake of phenotypical variety, (I just love finally using words I learned in junior high and have had zero use for until now), I'd really like a blue eyed child.

So, here is how the eye color for our family has turned out so far:

My Sister Jennie - brown, becoming more golden with time. This picture doesn't really show it.
Mr. Jennie - blue
Their kids...
India - brown
York - brown
Finn - the greenest of the brown-eyed grandkids. Would you even call his eyes brown? Or green? Hazel?
Arabella - brown
Adelaide - blue!
Jasper - Brown
___________

My Brother Ben - brown
Nicki - blue
Their kids...
James - brown, but definitely greenish
Avery - brown
Briella - brown

_____________

Me - brown
Big Daddy - blue
Our Kids...
Daphne - golden brown
Beck - brown
# 3 ????

_______________

Did you catch it in there??? The ONE AND ONLY blue eyed child? My sister Jennie's 5th child, Adelaide, has blue eyes. So Jennie for sure has that recessive gene. Which means one or both of my brown-eyed parents carried it and passed it on. Did my brother get it? Did I? I don't know. But it should be noted that Briella's and James's eyes--my brother's kids--were both very blue for quite a long time when they were small. You'd have sworn they would end up being blue-eyed kids. My daughter Daphne also had very green eyes until she was 2 or 3 and now they're golden-ish brown. I wonder if this hints to there being a recessive gene for both of us?

There is only one way to know. And it rests in the eyes of the child I carry. If her eyes are blue or green, I will know my gene is a Bb. If not, I will never know, because I'm pretty sure she will be our last child. So if you believe in God, PRAY. Pray with all your might for the eyes of my child to be blue. If you don't believe in variety or interest, at least do it for the sake of my curiosity.

April Miscellaneous

2011-04-20T09:51:00.015-06:00

1. Triumph is when your spell checker doesn't correct your spelling of the word "miscellaneous." (It only took me 30 years to get that one right.)

2. I am enjoying this beautiful spring weather more than you can imagine. The smell is heavenly. The sunshine is amazing. The warmth is stirring. It makes my soul feel alive.

3. It also makes me want to garden. But gardening requires bending over.

4. I cannot bend over. You can't bend at the waist when there is a human beach ball trapped inside you.

5. Speaking of said human beach ball, I am 37 weeks 1 day today. I had Daphne at 36 weeks 5 days and Beck at 38 weeks. ANY DAY NOW!

6. I could go to my due date. That IS a possibility I'm forced to consider. VERY reluctantly.

7. I will NOT consider the possibility of going over my due date. No. That cannot happen. WILL NOT HAPPEN!!

8. My doctor is out of town until next Monday. Evidently he thought it was more important to take his family to the So.Cal theme parks than to sit around here waiting for the possibility that my baby might come early. Jerk.

9. I guess I'll try to wait 5 more days to have this baby so I can accommodate his schedule.

10. Dr Smith, I'm only kidding! If you ever read this and thought I was actually mad, I would kill myself. I love you! Not in a crazy rabbit-boiling kind of way. Just in a you-are-my-favorite-doctor-EVER way!

11. The left click button on my laptop is broken. Sometimes it won't work at all, sometimes it works if you push really hard on the far end of it. It is driving me NUTS. Whenever I want to highlight something, I can't. If I need to hold it down to drag and drop, good luck! This is the crappiest laptop EVER. I don't care if Consumer Reports gave it a fantastic rating, the Sony Viao is GARBAGE. Pretty much every part of it has broken at some point during the last 2 years. But the left click button....man, is that a pain!

12. I have just been going through my photos folder and I realized how many pictures I have taken that I meant to blog about but never did. So I think maybe I'll make the rest of this random post a random photos post. Enjoy. Or not. Depending on how much you like to see random pictures of my kids. And depending on how much you like looking at photos taken on an iPhone in bad lighting. What can I say? I was between cameras.

13. I'll start off with something totally disgusting: Cankles.
I took this picture in Texas. Evidently traveling from 3500 feet to sea level does not improve water retention in very pregnant women. The good news is that they have resumed their semi-cankle status now that I'm back at high elevation.

14. Getting a new 7 inches off haircut while you're super pregnant and enormous is not a good idea. Because you will hate your hair no matter what it looks like simply because you hate your body. Or maybe because you realize too late that the haircut you picked doesn't actually suit YOU. But here it is.

15. The Baby Bump. This was at about 32 weeks I think. The one and only picture of my belly this time around. Boy, this third child is already getting the shaft. I hate to be so predictable!

16. Gelato. Usually I'm not much of an ice cream fan. But the Gelato at SetteBello in downtown SLC is UH-MAZE-ING. My favorite? 1/2 Pistachio, 1/2 Nutella. This time I noticed a new flavor, the second one from the left on the top:

Can you guess what it is? My guess was sweet cream with chocolate sauce. Uh, NOT EVEN CLOSE.
The sign below says "Ricotta with Balsamic Reduction." EWWWW!!! That is just sick and wrong! Someone needs to be committed for that travesty against dessert.

17. While getting some frozen custard (I know I'm not convincing you here that I don't like ice cream-ish treats, but I really don't!) at Coney's, I saw this description for a hot dog: "Topped with caramelized onions, bacon, pinto beans, melted cheese, fresh hand-cut salsa, guacamole, cilantro cream sauce and cilantro." On a HOT DOG. Does that seem bizarre to anyone else? I laughed while asking the cashier if anyone ever ordered it. His response was, "Yeah. The guy in front of you just did. It's our most popular hot dog!" I guess it's just me whose crazy. What do you think?

18. Crazy Hair Day at School. I'm pretty sure Daphne won.

19. Do you ever make recipes that require melting caramels? I make one or two, and it is a pain to unwrap each individual caramel and then wait for it to slowly melt. I recently discovered this product and I will never buy wrapped caramels again!

20. And finally, I have really enjoyed my new bakery discovery "The Chocolate." That is the name of the establishment, not an item there. Although the best items there are all chocolate baked goods, of course. Here are a few pics of my kids enjoying their sweets. (Out of 26 shots of Daphne, already spastic from sugar, the only one where she held still enough to be in focus was, well, you'll see...)

I sent this last one to Big Daddy via MMS and his only response was, "You took our kids out with no shoes???" And then later, "I love how the Mona Lisa on the wall is like 10x bigger than the real thing." Nothing about how picturesque his little boy was with the light from the window and the fresh flowers in the background. Men! Sigh... (In my defense, it was an impulse stop. I hadn't planned on feeling the overwhelming need for cake until I passed The Chocolate. But chocolate overrides bare feet every day of the week. Sorry for being so white trash, Hon.)

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Babee Nayms Too Dye Fir

2011-04-18T22:39:00.004-06:00

You all know my opinions on baby names, right? RIGHT? Well, then you'll appreciate this wonderful blog post I read today that talks about the "wonderful" names people in Rexburg, Idaho have named their kids in the last year. Be sure to read the comments--they add some that are at least as good as the blog post itself!

Click HERE

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Back In the Saddle?

2011-04-15T09:38:00.002-06:00

Today I read 12 different blogs. Not posts, blogs. Probably 25 or so posts, with comments. And that's after going literally 3 weeks without opening my google reader at all. And it's been more weeks or even months since I read my favorite blogs regularly. So getting back into it felt GOOD.

I don't know what happened. Burn out? Morning sickness followed by nesting followed by rib pain followed by the onset of gigantism? At any rate, my usual list of 190~ unread posts climbed to over 500. And I didn't even think about reading blogs that whole time. Can you say self-absorbed?? Well, maybe partially self, partially baby-absorbed. It's hard not to be when she stomps your bladder and punches your lungs on a minute-to-minute basis. It kind of puts her on your mind, you know?

I also don't know what has suddenly changed to make me start blogging and reading blogs again. I'd like to think it's that it's springtime and I'm feeling an inner awakening. Or that I magically got my blogging mojo back. But when I think about it and allow reality to filter into my thought process (something I generally try to avoid), I think it has been an exchange of time--I used to clean the house and make dinner and play with the kids instead of blogging. Now I am too big and fat and uncomfortable to do any of those things, so the house stays messy, we eat pizza a lot, and the kids have been playing an awful lot of Poisson Rouge.

The upside? You might actually get a comment from me in the next couple of weeks. But after that, once Miss Mustbefedconstantly arrives, all bets are off. I might actually have to trade blogging for Beef Stroganoff again.

Parenting For Lazy People

2011-04-14T08:48:00.004-06:00

You know how every birthday and Christmas you try to have one big, awesome present to top all the rest? A pièce de résistance, if you will? Well, last Christmas, it was bunnies. Real, live, baby bunnies. Nothing could top that, we knew. But we also knew that Beck would most likely be terrified of the bunnies (he was, uh, still is) and that Daphne would be so infatuated with them that we'd have to limit her 1 on 1 time with them in order to preserve their lives (we've already had at least one incident that ended with bunny blood being spilt). So we wanted to provide some other super fun gift that would not lose its novelty so fast and which might actually provide some educational value. Racking my brain, a few days before Christmas I came across the Leapfrog Tag system. Quickly, and without reading any reviews (shame on me!), I ordered a Leapfrog Tag Reading System from Amazon that came with 12 different books. I ordered it fast mail for $12 extra dollars so the kids could have it in time for Christmas.

On Christmas, the Leapfrog Tag reading system was not under the tree. It arrived FOUR DAYS after Christmas, even though the cat drinking fountain filters I ordered 2 days before Christmas, not for Flossie's Christmas present, and not with expedited shipping, arrived Christmas Eve. Boo hisss!

But seeing as how most of the presents on Christmas morning tend to blend into one mad, chaotic scene and lose their potency, I figured having the kids open this present a few days later wouldn't be such a bad thing. Plus, it would give the bunnies a few day to take center stage and then be forgotten (yep).

Well, flash forward four months....That leapfrog system gets even less play than the now rather large bunnies. It is the stupidest invention ever! Let me give you my mock commercial for this device:

"Parents, want to avoid spending any time with your kids at all while pretending they're learning how to read? Then get the Leapfrog Tag System! The included electronic pen will allow your kids to touch all the pictures in the page to hear their sound effects over and over until you want to shoot yourself, or let them push the "read" button so the text is read allowed by a sterile mechanical voice, while ensuring that they never push the tiny diamond at the end of the text that lets them sound out the words or hear the letter sounds. So you will never have to read to your kids again AND they will never get any closer to learning how to read. Perfect!"

Ya, that pretty much sums it up. So let me make a recommendation for any of you with young children for the next birthday or Christmas: Don't get the Leapfrog Tag System. Get them cat drinking fountain filters. They'll be much more useful and 99% less guilt-inducing when you toss them in the nearest trash.

Blame It All On the Fetus

2011-04-06T19:28:00.004-06:00

I think it's safe to say I've nearly lost the will to live. I certainly have lost the will to get up. And my will to cook meals that take longer than 45 seconds in the microwave left a long time ago. That's why my kids had cereal for breakfast, cheesy roll-ups from Taco Bell for lunch, and are about to be served Papa Johns pizza for dinner (I WILL put some lettuce and Ranch on the table because, you know, I want it to be a balanced meal.)

And posting, poor posting, sigh...I remember when I actually used to post. When I had things to say that didn't consist of whining and whinging. And I remember a very distant time when I was clever and witty in saying them. But alas, most of my brain is now taken up with forming complaints about my body and fighting the urge to punch my baby back when she places a left hook firmly on my liver. So for now I'm going to re-post a super hilarious post my sister sent me that hits home in a way only those of you who have had children come out of your hoo-ha can relate to. From the blog Scary Mommy I give you: The Six Week Post-Partum Check Up:

The six week post partum check up
I’m not great with dates. I can never remember minutiae like Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November or that New Years Day is exactly one week after Christmas. The individuals who know when Harvest Moons and Daylight Saving Time occur must be calendar makers or descendants of Nostradamus. If it weren’t for computerized alerts, I’d never be aware of birthdays, anniversaries, or the days Oprah is giving away gold-coated Maytags and half-sisters. The one date I can always remember – after three pregnancies in as many years – is the one that falls six weeks after delivery: The six week postpartum checkup. It’s the appointment in which the OB will stare at your nethers under the glare of a strobe light mounted to a hardhat as she asks leading questions to discern how many times you’ve fallen down the stairs in a fit of delirium and how closely you identify with the movie The Omen. As you gently hint at the likelihood of getting a script for Tylenol PM for Infants, your doctor will smile at you, offer congratulations for your bundle of colic, and will utter the one sentence you are – no matter what her speculum says – entirely unprepared to hear:

"You can resume sexual activity now."

Your Gone Fishin’ sign was just yanked right off your vagina. Mayan Year 2010 hit your private parts. If this visit follows the birth of your first baby, your husband is likely standing beside the table as this news is delivered. The grin to spread across his face will outstretch the one you saw when he was first handed his newborn child. The smile fades as he witnesses your descent through The Five Stages of Grief, all of which occur in dramatic flair with your knees still touching opposite coastlines.

Denial. “I think you have the wrong file. I just delivered a baby. A human. See, that’s her right there. That was inside of my body until she tore her way through it, like a goddamn Trojan Horse. Are you certain you went to medical school?”

Anger. “Why did you ask me here? I was told by a woman I work with that you were going to give me happy pills at this appointment, not tell me I need to be having sex with… (unsubtle head tilt in partner’s direction). And I would like my underwear back now.”

Bargaining. “Listen, I may have overreacted. Let’s find some middle ground. You pop a couple of those episiotomy stitches down there and I’ll tell all of my friends with yeast infections to come see you. Deal?”

Depression. The utterance of words during the passage through this phase ceases altogether as you consider that the only moments your day permits for a shower and a status update on Facebook have been stolen.

Acceptance. You nod slowly, shifting your eyes from the doctor, to the baby, to your husband, understanding that all are working in chorus to destroy your personal anatomy and your DVR queue.

You exit the physician’s office, quite possibly still wearing the oversized Maxi pads you absconded with from the hospital, with a slow and wearied gate. Dead Vagina Walking. Your husband, on the other hand, has a buoyancy to his step and is already suggestively whistling something by Marvin Gaye.

This is when the calendar floats into your consciousness again. Whatever day this 6 week postpartum check falls on – a Tuesday, a Friday, May, December – is the day that will be listed on your tombstone. This is the day you’re going to die. Your friends and family will eulogize your life with somber nods, “She endured too much. Sleeplessness, poor oral hygiene, elasticized waistbands, a diet of fistfuls of cereal. Despite this, her doctor told her she was ready for exercise and sex. It was too much to bear.”

Too much is exactly what it is. A nurse once whispered in my ear, upon walking out the door with my firstborn child, to be wary of the six week post-delivery time as this is the period babies present colic, when postpartum depression rears its vicious head, and – tragically – when the help and casseroles from those around you disappear. The weight of these stressors only compounds when your husband starts in with the bedroom eyes. It’s not that you don’t appreciate those eyes. May God grant Sainthood to the man who can see beyond the facade of sagging skin and stretch marks to the woman he was attracted to once before. It’s not that you don’t love your husband. It has very little to do with him actually. Your body has been hijacked by hormones, your erogenous zones assassinated by nursing, and your ability to lay prone in the dark without falling comatose has been lost. And you’re a bit terrified because your lady innards still feel a lot like Hiroshima must have looked after the A-bomb.

However, he will start dry humping your leg like an un-neutered Jack Russell Terrier if you continue to cite ‘funky stuff you don’t want to even know about down there’ as your reason for celibacy. He will start to suspect you’re stretching the truth when you say you’re considering a Divine calling to join a Roman convent. Even you understand, with the small portion of brain matter you’ve got left, that reuniting may make you begin to feel more like your old self. You’ve weathered pregnancy and delivery together without any casualties, thus there must be hope for the same outcome in the bedroom. After all, isn’t marriage about compromise and leaps of faith?

But it’s completely fair to say you’re not taking your sweatpants off.

Oh man, the joys that still await me. In the meantime I'll try to put together at least two original posts. They might even include some humor. But don't quote me.

A Baby is Born!

2011-03-23T10:08:00.007-06:00

Most of you probably know that I'm pregnant. But only some of you know that my husband also conceived a child. And he has been carrying this child for five years. For FIVE YEARS. And it finally has been delivered! We have named her...

THE CUTTERPILLAR PRO.

She is a totally amazing, wonderful, sharp, brilliant child. Here are some pictures:

The CutterPillar is a scrapbook trimmer, paper trimmer, photo trimmer, church flyer trimmer, kids' school project trimmer, homemade card trimmer, school teacher trimmer, and much much more. She cuts like a dream. She's got a gear-driven rotary blade. Gear-driven means it isn't pushing the paper as it cuts. That equals straight cuts, every time. It also means a blade that stays sharp with 360 degrees of cutting surface.

Other fabulous qualities our baby has include the back-lit cutting edge (it shines light up through your paper or photos so you can see exactly where you are going to cut), a two-blade cutting system (as well as the rotary blade, there is a stationary flat blade at the edge of the cutting surface that the rotary blade slides against, creating a clean slice like scissors make), AA battery powered LED lights (for incredibly efficient energy consumption and easy portability), a storage drawer underneath the cutting surface (for storage of extra batteries, scrapbooking tools, paper, or current scrapbooking projects), and a 15" surface to work on that cuts just a hair shy of 13" paper. And all for a fraction of the cost of similar cutters.

Doesn't our baby sound wonderful? She is! And she is up for sale! Well, her twins are. (We've had her cloned. Part of the reason for a 5 year gestation period. Poor Big Daddy! You should see the stretch marks.) You can read about it on our facebook page, on our website (www.cutterpillar.com), and if you are local to Utah, you can come to the Southtown Expo Center this weekend (March 25-26) and check her out, live and in person, and even find her on sale. Our child is very well behaved, much cheaper than a live child, and, unlike most children, will actually make your life much easier. Come on, it's time to adopt!

(Oh, and stay tuned. I'll be giving one away soon on my blog!)

St.Patrilicious Day

2011-03-17T15:29:00.011-06:00

I am usually quite a failure as a mom when it comes to theme-ing up my house/my kids lives for holidays. Maybe it's because thus far my kids haven't really understood about holidays or cared. But for some reason they have been super excited about St.Patrick's day all week. It's got to be the lamest holiday of them all. I mean, I don't even know who St.Patrick is or why we celebrate it, other than that it gives people a chance to wear great and pinch each other. But my kids could not WAIT for St.Patty's day this year. So I had to do something.

First, breakfast. Green pancakes with green milk. Daphne swore the green made the milk sweeter. Beck wouldn't even try his. But they both ate their shamrock pancakes.

Second, lunch. I thought they'd had enough of the green thing, but when I tried to serve them plain macaroni and cheese, they both freaked out and demanded green. So I died it green. Then Daphne said it looked liked slugs and refused to eat it.
Her bear seemed like it just fine, though.

Finally, a leprechaun hunt. When the kids got home from school, they spied a note left by the cat door and a sparkly green footprint. That tricky leprechaun must have been in our house when we were gone! The note said:
"I'm a leprechaun, and I visited your house! See if you can find me and steal away my treasure. I'm very shy, but you can follow my sparkles to see where I went, and if you find a gold coin, that's a clue! Keep on going. If you can find the favorite place for a leprechaun to sleep, you might find my pot of gold. Good luck!"

So we followed his advice and headed outside, because, of course, leprechauns only like to sleep outdoors where it's nice and green. There on the back steps, we found another footprint.

A few feet later, a gold coin with green sparkles on it. He must have dropped that coin!

We followed the trail down the sidewalk, and off into the grass.

A few gold coins left here and there led the way to the cherry tree in our back yard. There at the bottom the kids found a green pot and another note!

I guess we missed him. Shucks! Well, at least he left a bunch of treasure behind!

Maybe we'll be faster next year. Or maybe we can be more stneaky. Daphne's advice, after realizing we'd scared him away, was, "And next year, Mom, NO TALKING!" I guess next year I have to direct this whole endeavor silently. Well, a small price to pay for the joy of making your kids believe in little red-headed green men. Even the green stain all over my fingers was worth it.

How Vegetables Made My Day

2011-03-17T09:01:00.004-06:00

I admit it: yesterday I bribed my kids to try salad. Salad is so inoffensive. Practically tasteless, no texture issues, just a nice crisp crunch. And smothered in Ranch, their favorite condiment, how could they NOT like it?? But my kids are very mental eaters. Especially Beck. By that I mean that all of their eating issues are based in some sort of mental block they have created that has no basis in reality. For example, both of my kids love lasagna. And they both love baby shells in tomato sauce. But when I serve them giant shells stuffed with cheese, the same shape as their beloved baby shells and the exact same ingredients as lasagna, they both act like I've served scab and rat tail stew for dinner. I know if I can just get a bite into their mouths, they'll say, "hey, this is good!" The challenge is getting their taste buds to over ride their brain. And for that, it sometimes takes money. And I'm not talking spare change, here. I'm talking about paper money. Dollah bills.

So last night Daphne was the first to take the bait. She tried some salad with ranch and, guess what? She didn't die! I think she may have actually liked it, though out of pride she always pretends to hate these things she tries for bribes. Beck wasn't so easily convinced. Even the fact that a clean, crisp dollar bill was soon sitting next to his sister's plate wasn't quite enough to convince him to risk life and limb over. So I sweetened the deal. "How about if we take our dollars to the dollar store after dinner and you guys can buy WHATEVER YOU WANT IN THE WHOLE STORE." Well, this caught his attention. Despite having more toys than the entire nation of Belarus, my kids still feel like shopping for a new toy is the best thing that could ever happen to them. So Beck suddenly said, "Ok, Mom. I'll do it." One bite of crispy, Ranchy salad later, both kids were analyzing their bills, comparing serial numbers, making speculations on the eye at the top of the pyramid on the back, and declaring that their dollar bill was bigger. And I was quietly planning a dinner very soon in which salad played a main role. Mom:2, Kids:0.

But now to the best part of the story: The dollar store. We live in kind of a dollar store free zone. There is the one by our old house that we used to shop at. It's about 10 minutes north. But then Big Daddy found one about 7 minutes south, one we'd never been to, so we decided to try something new.

OH MY HOLY MECCA OF CHEAPNESS.

I have never seen a dollar store like this one. It was the superstore of all dollar stores. Like Wal-mart on steroids. Like IKEA for cheap people. I mean, cheapER people. Normally I get a bit giddy at the dollar store, looking around at all the ~~crap~~ stuff I can buy for only a dollar each. But at this dollar store, I practically hit Nirvana. The enormous Easter section alone sent me into an excited tizzy. And by the time I got through the stationary and gift bag section, 3x the size of my previous dollar store's, to the toy area, I had decided I would need to come back soon. Very soon. They just had such a huge selection of things to occupy my kids for a couple of days and then get thrown away, I couldn't believe my eyes. And the kitchen goods, tools, and hair accessories areas...ahhhhh, they nearly put me in a swoon. Yes, me and my $25 would soon be back to have the time of our lives.

So, the moral of this story is: getting your kids to eat salad is all well and good, but bliss, pure bliss, can only be found at the dollar store.

I've Never

2011-03-15T10:24:00.004-06:00

I don't know if you've ever played this game at a shower or party, but it's kind of fun to take stock of what things you've judiciously avoided in your life, what things you have gone for, and what things may have occured like-it-or-not. Anyway, I was thinking about it for some unknown reason while my children were creating mayhem in the McDonalds playland last week (my go-to activity for energy burn-off when Big Daddy is out of town and the weather is bad and I'm on the verge of committing double filicide--your vocabulary word for the day, look it up). Here's what I came up with:

I've never...
1. Had a manicure
2. Ridden in a limo
3. Had to wear a cast
4. Worn a diamond ring
5. Gone mountain biking
6. Worn fake nails (unless you count the fabulous set of Lee Press-On Nails I got for Christmas in 1985, which I don't because they only stayed on for 10 seconds at a time)
7. Died my hair black (how I missed out on this one, I don't know. I still think about doing it all the time.)
8. Slept out under the stars (Are you kidding me?? Hello, BUGS!)
9. Been Scuba diving
10. Shot an animal (Though I did kill a spider once by applying nail polish to it and then feeling guilty and applying nail polish remover to it. Probably more cruel than shooting it.)
11. Owned a dog
12. Been to a pro football game
13. Eaten an ice cream cone (even as a child, I only wanted it in a dish)
14. Shoplifted
15. Made out in a movie theater (although I've seen it more times than I cared to, ew)
16. Driven without my seat belt
17. Been to court
18. Had a cold sore
19. Owned a jean jacket (Yes, my high school years were sorely lacking here)
20. Driven the speed limit the whole way somewhere
21. Worn jeans with high heals
22. Read Harry Potter
23. Mowed a lawn
24. Lost my keys (misplaced? Oh yes. Truly lost, not yet, knock on wood.)
25. Actually committed filicide

What about you?

I Used To Be Chicken, But...

2011-03-10T15:41:00.005-07:00

Is this what my blog has come to? Posting about recipes for soup with bad puns as titles? YEP. Two kids, one ginormous belly, and serious spring fever (it's 68 degrees today!!!) will do that to you.

So moving right along...

I'm not much of a soup fan. Soup seriously takes way more effort than it's worth. Stew is a maybe. But most soups, especially brothy soups, are just a cheap imitation of a meal. Plus most of it ends up dribbling down your chin. It's not just me right?? Well, maybe I'm not very talented at eating soup. Whatever. Anyway, I generally never eat soup. But yesterday both Daphne and I had yucky-tummy. Nothing sounded good to us except chicken soup. And Campbells, I'm sorry to say, is the worst version of soup because there is hardly anything in it but the mess. That left me no choice but to make chicken soup from scratch, something I (for obvious reasons) have never done.

So I found a recipe on allrecipes.com that had ALL FIVE STARS for its user rating, which rarely happens, so I figured it was sure to turn out well. AND I happened to have all the ingredients on hand. So guess what? It did turn out well! And the best part? The recipe actually called for the half eaten carcass of our rotisserie chicken from a couple of days ago that I had been keeping in the fridge on the off chance that I would need the remaining chicken for something even though I never do and always end up throwing it away a week later. Bonus!

This recipe is for a ton of people. I halfed it and it was plenty for the four of us for dinner and at least 2-3 servings to go in the fridge. I served it with a delicious ciabatta bread from Kneaders, but I have a recipe for amazing homemade ciabatta bread that I would have used if I had known 24 hours ahead of time that I would have yucky-tummy and an chance to actually use up my rotisserie chicken. (It's an easy recipe but you do have to start the dough 24 hours before and let it sit. I'll post it if anyone is interested.)

Five Star Chicken Soup

First you make the base:
2 quarts chicken broth
1 quart water
1 store-bought roast chicken
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large onions, cut into medium dice
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into rounds or half rounds, depending on size
2 large stalks celery, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves

Directions
1. Bring broth and water to a simmer over medium-high heat in a large soup kettle. Meanwhile, separate chicken meat from skin and bones; reserve meat. Add skin and bones to the simmering broth. Reduce heat to low, partially cover and simmer until bones release their flavor, 20 to 30 minutes.
2. Strain broth through a colander into a large container; reserve broth and discard skin and bones. Return kettle to burner set on medium-high.
3. Add oil, then onions, carrots and celery. Saute until soft, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add chicken, broth and thyme. Bring to a simmer. (Can be refrigerated up to 3 days in advance. Return to a simmer before adding the extras of your choice.)

3 cups egg noodles (I let the kids choose the shape. They went with bow ties.)
1 cup frozen green peas
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions
1. Add 3 cups egg noodles, then simmer until tender, 10-20 minutes: (I only simmered mine as long as the noodles said to, which was 7 minutes)
3. Before removing from heat, stir in: 1 cup (5 ounces) frozen green peas and 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley. (The peas will be fully cooked by the time the soup is served.)
4.Final touch: Add salt and pepper, to taste.

So there you have it. Delicous! And very good for a yucky tummy. And actually it was quite easy, but the de-meating and simmering parts take a while, so make sure to start this soup well ahead of time. Also, if anyone wants my recipe for amazing crusty artisan bread with a chewy center, let me know.

Substitute Mother Bird Needed

2011-03-08T07:53:00.001-07:00

During the second trimester of this pregnancy, I got the nesting instinct. Big Time. I spent hours online looking at baby bedding. When I couldn't find any I liked, I went crazy going from fabric store to fabric store to find the perfect combination of cloth for my mom to sew. I did a lot of shopping for stuff for the kids' rooms, too, I cleaned a lot, organized a bunch, painted some stuff, remodelled a few things. I had all these great plans for getting my house ready for my baby bird.

And then I ran out of steam.

But evidently Mother Nature feels like the nest isn't ready yet because all I can think about all day is all the spaces of the house I DIDN'T get done.

For example, I wanted to choose some colorful pillows and accent pieces for our living room. It's all neutrals--grey, beige, and black with ocre walls--and it needs some punches of color to spice it up. I thought about a bright plum or violet, but I never found any pillows that color.
I'm also thinking of a light robin's egg blue. But if I do that, I want to paint the currently sage green kitchen/dining room the same shade of light blue, which I adore. It would look so darling with the red and white accents I have through out the kitchen.

But I just don't have the energy.

The guest room, which has brick red bedding and accessories with touches of sage is in a room previously painted LAVENDER. Can I just tell you how much that clashes??? It looks so sickly in there. But once again, I'm out of steam for repainting.
(This picture is fuzzy, but it shows the true shade of the walls best)

Back when I had some energy, I picked out new bedding for Beck. It's in dark red, blue and white, with stars. A little bit American looking, but very subdued. I'm not into the whole countrified Americana theme. AT ALL. But he still needs a matching valance, snd some matching art-work. And the zoo animal border on the wall that was here when we moved in probably needs to come down, but...I think you know what I'm going to say here: I'm just too tired.

And then there's the baby's nursery. It currently has a giant world map taking up the entire back wall. It still has the sewing table up from when my mom was here. In December. The walls are tan. I can live with tan, I guess. But I have the feeling they should be painted more to match the baby's bedding, which my mom is nearly finished sewing. Here is a swatch:

And there is this great old bookcase in there. Currently it's kind of a dusty turquoise. Big Daddy hates it. I could paint it to match. Or I could just move it somehwere else. Most likely neither one of them is going to happen any time soon. But, hey, I still have two months 'til the baby comes, right?

I should probably either pick out a new color of towel for the master bath or else paint it. The walls are a cross between clay grey and moss green. Our towels are brick red. It's not the greatest color combo. But what is the solution?

See? I just have too many projects and not enough mojo. Anyone want to lend their design sense? Or their painting arm? Pay is crappy and hours are long. But you might get free baked goods out of the deal. They seem to be pretty plentiful around here lately. That's one thing you can always count on a pregnant lady for. Energy? No. Sweets? Heck yes.

A Rose By Any Other Name

2011-03-03T13:43:00.005-07:00

Yes, it's fair to say that baby names have been on my mind a bit lately. I haven't moved to a serious state of decision yet. I'm more in the "search and destroy" phase right now. We have a list of about 7 or 8 names that have survived the carnage and are still looking for new and fresh options, but we probably won't decide on one until "Bebe Trois" is born. We like to see what a baby looks like and what name fits her before we decide.

I have very specific tastes in baby names, in case you haven't noticed. And if you don't know me well enough to know my "rules" on baby names, I'll lay them out for you:

1) The name must be heard of without being common.

2) The name must be easy to say, spell and remember. (I know "Daphne" might not fit those qualifications for some people. But it is a 3000 year old name and I spell it the traditional way. So I figure if you can't say or spell Daphne, it's your fault, not the name's fault.)

Those are the two main qualifications. But the sub-qualifications are:
3) The name has to be a real name with a real history, i.e. not made up. Not even from combining syllables from real names. (No Janalyns, no Jaydens, no Karalees, no Briannas, etc.) So... traditional, but still uncommon.

4) The name can't be a last name turned first name with two syllables ending in er/or or en/on (i.e. Taylor, Brighton, Hunter, Addison)

5) Absolutely NO alternate spellings allowed. In my mind, it doesn't make the name more unique to spell it weird. It just sentences that child to a life of having an average name without the benefit of anyone being able to spell it right. And as someone named Arianne, I know a thing or two about having to spell your name out EVERY SINGLE TIME. (p.s. Hey, Moms-to-be? It sucks! Don't do it!)

6) Nothing trendy. No matter how cute I think it is, I won't use a name in the top 200 most popular baby names from the last decade, preferably not in the top 500. How can I know this? The Social Security baby names website, of course! It's pretty much the best invention ever for choosing a baby name. How many times have you heard a mother say, "I had never heard of another Jennifer/Madison/Ethan/Kaden when I named my child that!" Well, if she had checked the S.S. baby name website, she would have known that it was the #1 most popular name for the last four years. So...before I choose a baby name, I check the S.S. baby name site to see the trend for the name I like. It'll tell you how that name has done in the last 10 years, 100 years or more; it'll tell you how popular it is by state; it'll let you browse the top 1000 names for any give year; or you can look up a year and see what people were naming their kids then (which is especially helpful if you like names from a certain era. Yay 1910! Boo 1966.) That way I can be sure that I won't accidentally end up with four other kids in my child's class with the same name.

"Daphne" for example, has not ranked higher than 476th out of 1000 in the last decade. Perfect. "Beck" hasn't ever been in the top 1000. Even better.

(Side note, Daphne actually had another Daphne in her class at the beginning of the year, and, despite my careful planning, she had to go by Daphne T. until she moved to a different class. Can you believe it?)

So as I consider the list of names I like, I have to hold them up to my rules and see how they do. All of the names I like are fairly uncommon. Some of them more than others. I recently discovered that one of my favorites has jumped from the high 200's to #108 last year. So that's probably out. Another that I like is very uncommon, between #570 and #935 in the last decade, but a possible nickname for it has sped up the rankings to #101 as of last year, dangerously close to being a popular name. A couple that I like are not even in the top 1000 names and haven't been for about a century. Those names fit my specifications best, but they may not be the ones I like the most.

And then there is rule # 7:

7) I can't name my child something that someone else I personally know has recently named their child. It's a weird thing about me I can't explain. But that's just the way I am. I guess when you go to all the trouble of choosing an uncommon name, you don't want someone you know to use it too. That defeats the purpose. And so similarly, I feel like I can't go using a name someone else I know has just used.

Which brings me to the main point of this post. (Yes, there is one. Surprise!) In the last two weeks, I have had FIVE of my most favorite, yet most uncommon names, taken by other parents! I haven't ever voiced my names aloud, so it's not that they stole them from me. They just...stole them from me. Don't get me wrong. These are still very uncommon names. I'm not afraid of having three of these in my child's class at school. But I still have this thing where I feel like I can't name my child the same name as someone else I know, even someone I don't know well and don't often see. So what do I do??? Use the name or not?

ARG.

I'm not asking for actual advice here. I realize I am on a remote island when it comes to baby names and I have learned by now that pretty much no one out there shares my opinions enough to give me advice I would listen to. Usually, I don't even share my names or rules...I just know no one will agree. So I guess I simply wanted to voice how frustrating it is to have this great list of names and then, only 2 months before the baby is due, to have five of them picked off my list (IF I follow rule #7).

Hmmm...Maybe I'll throw out rule #7.

Or maybe I'll just name the baby Mildred so I won't have to worry about it at all.

Blah.

Adventures In Pregnancy

2011-03-01T08:09:00.001-07:00

There are four things that are not very conducive to a good night's sleep:

1) Going into labor at 1:30am
2) Being 29 1/2 weeks pregnant when said labor kicks in
3) Knowing you are 45 minutes away from the hospital where you plan to deliver
4) Getting two shots of terbutaline which, as far as I can tell, is the OB's version of speed.

There are four ways to help make up for the loss of sleep:

1) Knowing there's another hospital only 5 minutes away, even if it doesn't host your favorite doctor
2) Having relatives who stay up until at least 3 am and who can drop everything at a moment's notice to come over and watch your kids
3) Knowing your little babe is staying put for now
4) Skipping church

I guess there are worse things than having the baby punch me in the ribs all day.

McSwanky

2011-02-28T13:16:00.005-07:00

For three tragic months late last year, the McDonalds near our house closed down for renovations. By "renovations" they meant "tear the whole thing down to the ground and start over from scratch." Though I'm not a huge McDonalds eater, I do appreciate a good Big Mac now and then; their grilled chicken sandwiches are especially tasty; and, let's face it, nothing beats fresh, hot McDonalds fries. But the biggest draw for me at McDonalds is the play land. All winter long when my kids are going stir crazy, and even in the summer when it's too hot to be outside at a park, the possibility of letting my kids scream and run and slide and socialize in a climate controlled environment with Coke refills for me is nearly irresistible. So I was a bit sad when our McDonalds closed down. Well, except for the fact that that particular location was A GIANT PIECE OF CRAP. The whole concept of climate control was in theory only. Because in summer there was no a/c in the play land. It was easily 100+ degrees in there. Not that my kids minded. But I had to move my sweaty self out to the main restaurant area in order to keep from melting. In the winter they somehow failed to heat the play land, so it was only slightly warmer than outdoors. And what did they say when I complained, numerous times, about the heating/air conditioning situation? Every time it was, "Well, the climate control box is locked and we don't have a key," or "The owners don't let us adjust the temperature." This was coming from the manager! After a while I simply stopped going to that location.

But I am pleased to announce that as of a couple of months ago, they finished the renovations and the new Micky D's is up and running. And, boy, did they go all out! You almost feel like you are in the lobby of a posh Manhattan hotel. Well, IF you hold your nose so that you can't smell the odor of hot grease. Well, AND if you plug your ears from the constant sounds of children screaming. But anyway, it's pretty nice. Not like any McDonalds I've ever been in, for sure. The walls are covered in neutral colored pebbles against an espresso-stained wood background. Sleek stools with trendy colored cushions sit around cherry wood (laminate, this is McDonalds) high-tables. Smoked glass pendant light fixtures in a modern shape dangle above the booths. Really, it is pretty fancy. For a Mcdonalds.

And the play land, ahhh...heat AND a/c! So luxurious!

Now if only they could manage to get your food out to you in less than 10 minutes. I mean, this is FAST food still, right? But I guess you can't have everything. I have thought about complaining, but I'm afraid they'll just say, "It's the kidney bean shaped tables or a hot Big Mac, lady. You choose." Well, I guess I choose a luke warm Big Mac. Just keep the Coke refills coming, and it's all good.

Compromise

2011-02-25T09:50:00.006-07:00

We have had a few warmish days over the last few weeks. Not many. And not VERY warm, but you could feel the hint of spring in the air. You could go outside without a jacket. I even wore flip flops one day because I was overheating! But then it turned cold again. Yesterday was REALLY cold. A nice "haha" from Mother Nature. But I'll tell you what, when I'm longing for spring, and I'm so sick of cold, and I really just want it all to be over with already, there is one way to still make me happy about a lingering winter...

A giant snowstorm!.

Ironic, I know.

Nothing tastes as good as fresh snow...

Someone has to protect these little (dead) plants from the blizzard!

Mom, I'm ready to come in for some hot chocolate now...

The Princess And The Pea

2011-02-23T11:51:00.003-07:00

Today Daphne suddenly decided, after five years of wearing them, that socks were absolutely, positively, and in every other way, intolerable. She simply could not handle wearing them. As I was getting her ready for school, she burst into tears and tore them from her feet screaming, "I hate socks! I really hate them!"

This isn't the first time she has exhibited sock issues. She has inherited a little bit of her sock OCD from me--I do have some rather strong preferences concerning my socks, starting with what they are made of (predominantly cotton with 5-10% Lycra to keep them snug. No wool, no polyester, and definitely NO animal fibers like cashmere or angora. Yes, the actually make socks out of angora!), how high they go on my leg (I don't like ankle socks unless I'm wearing athletic clothes or golf shorts or something. And knee-highs make me batty. Also socks that are meant to me mid-calf but slide down around my ankle go straight into the garbage.), and also if they are on correctly (doesn't everyone feel like pulling their eyeballs out if the seam of their socks across the toes is askew???). But Daphne takes it to a whole new level. I feel like getting her socks and shoes on exactly how she likes them is about the same as dressing a medieval knight for battle. With only two socks, and two shoes, you'd think it would take 30 seconds. But there is so much adjusting and fidgeting and whining and changing that it feels like I have personally carried and tied on a full 100 lb suit of armor by the time I am done.

And then, still, on some days like today everything is still not right. She couldn't possibly wear THOSE socks in THAT position with THOSE shoes AND wear her glasses AND deal with the tag on her pants touching her skin and STILL go to school. So in the end, the socks come off, the shoes get changed into her favorite boots (sans socks...EW!!), her shirt gets tucked in to provide a buffer between the pants' tag and Her Majesty's skin, and only the glasses remain as they started before this battle began. She looks like a cross between a major geek and a street urchin. AND ALL THIS FOR 2 1/2 HOURS OF SCHOOL!

At least the girl in the fairy tail turned out to be a real princess after all that pea-under-the-mattresses drama. But Daphne? She seems to be more from the story of Beauty and The Beast. And I don't mean Beauty. Where is my fairy godmother when I need her? I don't ask much. Just a little spell to bring on summer. Or an early spring. Some situation in which socks are no longer required...
Bibbity-bobbity-flip flops!

Wearing Funny

2011-02-20T10:55:00.007-07:00

My husband showed me this funny website with these funny t-shirt slogans on it. FUNNY.

And finally, a few dedications:

For Daphne...

For Mindi...

For Beck...

For Big Daddy...

For Jennie (Although I'm sure Big Daddy would say this one is for me.)

For Mr. Jennie...

This website makes me wish I actually wore t-shirts!

How To Make A Victorian Whiteboard

2011-02-18T11:52:00.006-07:00

Step 1) Collect :

1 Small Cookie Sheet

1/2 Cup Sugar (or so)

1 Chop Stick (or finger)

Step 2) Start Drawing in the Sugar.

Step 3) Give the cookie sheet a little shake to clear the image.

Step 4) Begin again! This is a great way to get reluctant students to work on their letters, numbers, name, or spelling words.

Step 5) Reward the artist with a little lick before you clean up.

Total Freaking IDIOT

2011-02-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

I am referring to myself here. Because who else makes it through the majority of a year thinking they're a different age than they are? AND NOT A YOUNGER AGE. I would at least call myself pleasantly delusional if I'd spent the last year thinking I was a year younger than I am. But no, I spent the last year thinking I was 37 when, in fact, I was 36. It was only today that I realized my mistake. My birthday is coming up in a few weeks, so I was thinking about what it was going to be like to be 38, so dangerously close to 40. And then I realized, WAIT. Big Daddy is turning 40 this year, and I'm 3 years younger than him. That means I am only 36 going on 37. WTF? How did I spend a whole year thinking I was older than I was?? I don't remember the exact moment after my last birthday when this dementia kicked in, but lets just say I can't actually remember thinking I was 36. EVER. What an idiot!

Well, at least I get to have another year before facing that awful 38. And I can still refer to myself as Mid-Thirties. Without lying about it. (Small consolation to what is evidently the early onset of Alzheimers.)

Me And Him

2011-02-16T09:09:00.007-07:00

My mother called today to wish me a happy anniversary. "What were you doing at this time exactly nine years ago?" she asked.

Well, let's see. It's 10am, so that means the mall was just opening. The wedding was at 1pm, so by now I was at the mall trying to find some shoes to go with my wedding dress. And some jewelry to go with my wedding dress. And some little gifts for my flower girls. If you think that is last minute, my husband wasn't even going to leave to get his hair cut for another 2 hours! He showed up about 10 minutes before the ceremony began.

It was a pretty thrown together wedding. But that's what happens when you're the last of all your friends to get married and they've all moved away and your husband is on his second marriage and wants to make the whole thing as low-key as possible and your mother just isn't the fussing-over-wedding-details type and you have a pretty limited budget for your wedding and you didn't even get engaged (officially at least) until a couple of weeks before the the big day, and you aren't the type of girl who has been planning every last detail of her wedding since she was five--a lot can go wrong.

I should have had a rehearsal (then I would have realized that there was no one to start the music when I began walking down the aisle, that the flower girls had no idea how to throw petals and walk at the same time, that my mother and I could not fit side by side down the aisle because it was too narrow, you know, those types of little details). I should have spent the bulk of my money on a photographer instead of cheaping out and asking a relative to do the pictures. I should have researched honeymoon spots more. I should have hired some kids to serve at the reception. I should have bought my shoes, jewelry, and flower girl gifts weeks before. I should have gone to a salon to get my hair done professionally. I should have gotten to my reception early to take formal pictures (which I have NONE of). I should have requested samples of my flower arrangements to see how they'd look. I should have stopped being so emotional so I could smile normally in my pictures. I should have practiced my "You may now kiss the bride" kiss. I should have invited more people to the ceremony. I should have gotten married in June!

But the cake was delicious. And the reception hall looked great. And the food was good. And we made it through the wedding and reception without any MAJOR disasters. And except for the fact that I threw up that whole night and was sure I had given all my guests food poisoning (nope, it was just me), I guess everything worked out fine.

Most notably, I got to marry the most wonderful, fantastic, caring, hard-working, funny, smart, creative, sweet, generous, ingenious, amazing man ever. He is the best father I could imagine. He makes me laugh every single day, sometimes until I fall on the floor, gasping for breath, tears streaming down my face. He gets up with the kids in the night and gets their breakfast in the morning because he knows how much I love to sleep. He brings me flowers on special occasions even though he thinks flowers are dumb. He has great taste in shoes. He always gives me the last bite of his dessert. He gave up the big closet to me when we moved to this house even though he has 3x the clothes. He is an excellent driver. He works incredibly hard to provide for our family. He cries at movies. He can fix anything. He tries really hard to make sure I'm always happy. And you know what? It works. I am happy. Terribly, hopelessly, wonderfully happy.

Thanks for the best nine years of my life, Sweetie. Here's to 90 more. (Wait....)

Four-Eyes

2011-02-12T07:39:00.000-07:00

I'm so sorry, My Dear, for cursing you with bad vision. I'd blame it on your dad, but considering you only have one bad eye and one good eye, and it's the exact same bad eye I had when I got glasses, I'm pretty sure it's my fault. But, hey, only three more years until contacts!

Protecting The Fourth Estate

2011-02-10T09:22:00.006-07:00

I generally avoid talking politics. A) I don't keep up on them enough to know what is going on most of the time. B) It's boooooring. C) Almost all politics disgust me and make me want to move to an uninhabited island, D) "Around here" no one wants to hear my liberal views anyway.

HOWEVER-

Today I heard something on the news that even I, an admitted Obamaphile, had to shake my head, roll my eyes, and grab my cheeks in an Edvard Munch's "Scream" sort of way over: The federal government's proposed plan to bring high speed wireless internet to 98% of the country.

It's not the money part of this issue that bothers me. Because supposedly this project will be self-funded. They plan on auctioning off 500mhz of bandwidth which will generate far more money than the cost of this project (according to their economists' calculations at least). It's the fact that I highly resent the government taking control of any of our information outlets: radio, TV, newspapers, and internet.

When I was an American history teacher, something I fell into ass-backwards when I was teaching English and World history, I learned a lot of stuff I didn't know before about the U.S.A. One of the things that impressed me most about our country was the idea of the Fourth Estate or Fourth Branch of Government. We have three branches of government that everyone knows about that create a system of checks and balances: Legislative, Judiciary, and Executive. But the last is one with unofficial status, but one which is absolutely necessary for democracy to be preserved. It is the media, the free and unhindered spread of information to the people. Because how can the people be in charge of their country unless they know the truth about what is going on in their country?

So the idea of the government sponsoring the spread of wireless internet all over America scares me. Because when the government provides it, the government can determine what happens to it. In China the government provides the internet and it determines exactly what people get to find out about and what they don't. I'm not suggesting that Obama's plan is tantamount to introducing communism into America. But it is a scary step in the wrong direction.

The thing that I find most amazing and great about our country is its freedom to choose, the fact that the people have more power than the mayors, governors, senators and presidents...IF we maintain it and don't allow it to be usurped. Sometimes giving away some of our freedoms to the government--temporarily, in order to insure our safety, in order to catch terrorists, etc.-- seems harmless. But those freedoms, held close to us, are exactly what make America unique. As soon as we give them away, for any reason, we step closer to a government that rules the people instead of the other way around. No tyrant ever got absolute power overnight. He always couched it in a desire to protect the people, provide more prosperity, ensure safety, etc., and then little by little more of the powers of the people ended up in his hands until it was too late and the people were powerless to stop him. (And I'm not referring to Obama as a tyrant here. I'm referring to the Federal Government in general, the executive branch specifically, but definitely across party lines. I mean you, Bush.)

Call me radical, but I fear ANY instance where we give the president or any other branch of government license to go outside the law (Patriot Act) or do things under the federal umbrella that we should be doing for ourselves. If we need more internet in rural places, then lets find ways to encourage the privately owned companies to do so. It's the only way to maintain control of the Fourth Estate. I appreciate Obama's desire to help those in rural areas and possibly (though I really don't buy into this part either) boost the economy in those sections of the country. But it's just anti-American to go so far out on a limb--financially and politically--when it's something the private sector should be doing for itself.

Ok...back to making peanut butter sandwiches and folding socks. I just had to get that off my chest.

(p.s. If you'd like to comment, feel free. I welcome different opinions. But please do it in a non-crazy-person tone. Crazy-people-comments will not be published. Thanks!)

Trying To Put Gillette Out of Business

2011-02-04T07:59:00.008-07:00

I believe I have spoken several times before about my laser hair removal triumph. I will say it again, it was the BEST MONEY I HAVE EVER SPENT. I had it done on my bikini line and lower legs about ten years ago. And I cannot describe to you (although Big Daddy probably can!) how awesome it is to never have to shave my legs, to have smooth and attractive legs all summer long, all winter long, to be able to rub my legs up against someone in the summer without fear of slicing them up with my stubble, to be able to go swimming at a moment's notice without dying of embarrassment over my hair situation, to wear pantyhose or no pantyhose to church and never fear for the state of my legs.

Anywho, I just got an email today from citydeals.com (for those of you in the SLC area) for a coupon that gives you six laser hair treatments (which is usually enough to get rid of your hair) for $99! You get to chose from several areas to have done, including half legs AND half arms together for that price! This is an amazing deal. When I had my half legs and bikini done, I probably paid about $800 over the course of a year. And when I recently purchased my package to have a couple of new areas treated (I'd tell you which ones, but then I'd have to admit to having hair in areas a lady never wants to admit to having hair), I paid around $600. So this is a super, dooper good deal. And it applies to men too, so if your man is a bit hairy and needs some help, this would be a great gift!

JUMP ON IT. If you have ever considered laser but found it too expensive, or if you ever look at that spot on your body--belly button? Chin? upper lip? Legs? Beard?--and think "I hate this hair! I hate shaving all the time! I wish I could get rid of it!" then this is your golden opportunity because I have never heard of a price like this. If I hadn't already bought my package at 6x this price, I would jump on it myself! In fact, I'm sure I have more hair to get rid of somewhere, so....maybe I will!

Here is the link: citydeals laser hair removal

You are SO welcome. And so is everyone else who has to look at your gross hair. :)

(Edited to add: Reading on their website, due to the popularity of this sale, they are shortly going to change the half arms AND half legs treatment, which is currently considered one area, to two areas. So if you're considering this one, JUMP ON IT NOW, before you only get one or the other for the $99 price.)

Period England + Melodramatic Scandal = Perfect

2011-02-03T11:59:00.008-07:00

I have been watching the BBC America presentation of Downton Abbey over the last couple of weeks.

IT IS PURE GENIUS.

I've always been a sucker for a period piece. I'm fond of Jane Austen stuff, and the Bronte sisters, and even some lesser known writers of the time. Anything is good as long as it involves England, complicated social behaviors, foreign customs, forbidden romances, gorgeous costumes, archaic language, breathtaking manors and estates, and puritanical values.

I wasn't sure if I'd like Downton Abby. For one thing, it was written currently, not in the 18th or even 19th century. For another thing, it takes place in the 1910's, not the distant past. Thirdly, it stars Elizabeth McGovern, star of She's Having A Baby, which I thought would throw off the authenticity. Really, I didn't give it much of a chance at all. But I underestimated just how effective it can be to take all the things I love about period pieces and then make them into a SOAP OPERA.

Brilliant!

The plot centers around the Earl and Countess of Grantham and their three grown daughters, but it also deals equally with the "downstairs," the lives of the house's servants, which you seldom see in period pieces. Though the values and morals of the time are preserved, and the characters generally behave with the decency, honor, and integrity you expect of people from bygone eras (which is what I love about period pieces--reading about people who behaved so much better than people do now), the story still manages to get the characters into all kinds of scrapes and situations that really keep the plot twisting and turning and bringing you back for more. It's like Days Of Our Lives 1913-style!

If you haven't checked it out yet, I highly recommend you do. I'm not sure how you'd get ahold of the past episodes. BBCA reruns? On Demand TV? Hulu? Pirating them somewhere on the internet (which, of course, if you're a network exec reading this, I don't support AT ALL.)? But find a way to watch this show. I guarantee, you'll love it. Unless you're a straight man. Then skip right over to footage of Jimmer Fredette. You'll get the exact same high.

Practically Shakespeare

2011-02-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, before I published my Dostoyevsky post, I ran the spellcheck. It came up with the following misspelled words:

Ikea
cardboardy
Blech
Craigslist
baggied
ARG
matress
orangey
PalPal
hyperdrive
and
matresses

This tells me four things about spellcheck:

1) It obviously hasn't been updated in the last decade. It doesn't recognize Ikea, Craigslist, Paypal, or hyperdrive, words that every American today knows and uses on a nearly daily basis. Especially hyperdrive.

2) Its database is extremely low on useful expletives. For Shame, Google, for shame.

3) Really the only word I don't know how to spell is ~~matress~~ mattress.

4) I just coined at least three words! I am a genius!

In conclusion, please feel free to consult me any time in the future that the English language just isn't doing enough for you. Except in cases of actual misspellings. Then I am NOT your girl.

A Little Dostoyevsky Before Bed

2011-02-01T18:00:00.002-07:00

I'm exhausted. I realize lately that my body just doesn't work like it did before. It gets tired easier. And I can't just push through it like I used to do. It just reaches a certain point and then it GIVES UP. Period.

Also my belly is now officially ginormous. And I've officially gained way more weight than my other two pregnancies. AND I still have three more months to go! How is that possible???

I spent most of the day today preparing for the arrival of the much anticipated loft beds. We had to steal away Daphne's toddler bed/former crib to use for the baby's room, and Big Daddy thought she'd enjoy a loft bed (like a bunk bed but with no lower bunk). Then we figured if we got one for Daphne, Beck would be sad, so we'd better get one for both kids. It's time they moved up into big boy/big girl beds anyway.

They had perfect sized ones at Ikea, and at the right price, but BUTT ugly. Plain pine, plain natural stain, plain lines, and cheap plastic coated cardboardy inserts. Blech. Then Big Daddy found a local guy on Craigslist who custom makes loft beds for a very reasonable price. So we ordered two: one in white to match Daphne's white furniture, and one in cherry, to match Beck's.

In order to get ready for the delivery of the beds, I spent the morning taking apart the old beds. I unscrewed all the bolts, baggied and labeled them and taped them to the frames (all official-like). I carried Beck's frame, piece by piece, off to the storage room. Daphne's bed I carried, almost entirely in tact, up the stairs to the future nursery where I realized, just outside the nursery doorway, that the basement doors are about a foot wider than the upstairs doors and the crib wouldn't fit through in one piece. So there in the hallway I had to disassemble it, carry it through the threshold, and re-assemble it. ARG. Back downstairs to get the mattress, back upstairs to put it in the crib. Back downstairs to vacuum the areas under each former bed, back upstairs to put the vacuum away. Wash all the former bedding, wash all the new twin-sized bedding, fold it, carry it back downstairs, pack away the toddler bedding.

Then, finally, after weeks of waiting, the loft beds arrived and were...CRAP. The cherry one, which should have matched Beck's furniture, wasn't even remotely the same color. It was light reddish orangey brown, like a redwood-stained deck. But lighter. And looked unfinished--no varnish or polyurethane coating. And Daphne's, though painted white, was full of nicks and scuffs and was short a coat of paint in several places. Both were made of awful framing-grade wood, not furniture grade (pitted, holey, dinged, knotty). And both hadn't been sanded down! They were rough and scratchy and even had places where one might get a splinter!! I was so shocked by the color of the cherry bed, and so uncomfortable with confrontation in general, that I didn't say anything to the guy when he delivered them. But after Big Daddy got home and we looked the beds over, ran our hands (carefully) over the surfaces, and compared them to the pictures online, we decided we'd have to call the guy and complain. After having had to threaten to revoke our paypal payment when they hadn't arrived a week ago as promised, and he wouldn't return our calls and emails until Saturday, we were sure he wouldn't pick up and we'd have to put a stop on the payment and hold it hostage.

BUT the one silver lining is that he did answer the phone, he was apologetic and cooperative, and he is willing to take them back and try to fix them to our liking. I'm still a little worried about them coming up to our standards. I mean, if he is willing to give them to someone the first time with them being so awful, what will it take to bring them up to a standard that is acceptable to us now? AND we will have to wait another week+ to get them back again. SIGH....

SO...all that work to get things ready today, and the kids, who were practically in a state of hyperdrive all day in their excitement, had to go to sleep on mattresses on the ground, and I had to soak in the tub for half an hour to try to relax my pulled back muscles.

What I wouldn't give for 800mgs of Advil!

I know, sob sob sob. It's nearly as bad as Crime and Punishment. Sorry you had to relive AP English. (Maybe next time I'll offer some Cliff's Notes.)

H2 Oh Yeah Baby

2011-01-31T22:15:00.003-07:00

Why does water taste so awful during the day and so absolutely wonderful just before bed?

Is it just me???

(I wonder if it's because my body ENJOYS waking up to pee 12 times a night. That must be it.)

.

Remodel Project # 2

2011-01-27T15:50:00.004-07:00

It's a little bit disappointing to me that I've been living in this house for six months and I'm just barely starting to redo, remodel, repaint, and renovate the things I've never liked. I feel like this should have been done in late August or early September. But in late August, I was still sorting through boxes and finding spots to hang up pictures. Then in early September, I found out I was knocked up, and morning sickness started shortly thereafter, so doing anything besides surviving was out of the question.

Now I'm starting my third trimester. The 2nd trimester energy is still going strong and I think my 3rd trimester nesting instinct is already in full force, so I seem to suddenly have boundless energy (for fixing up the house at least. Not for laundry or cooking dinner or anything as mundane as that.)

So I already showed you the repainted upstairs bathroom (the only project I managed to get done when we first moved in. Now for remodelled bathroom # 2, the kids' bathroom downstairs!

This was it before:Dark, boring, dated, and completely lacking in any personality at all.

The first step was to redo the circa 1990 vanity. Oak with antique brass fixtures is not really my thing. And the old water stain in one corner was an eyesore. So I sanded the entire thing down to the raw wood.

It was quite an undertaking, I won't lie. There was sawdust everywhere for days. I had to wear goggles and a face mask (which steamed up the goggles) and use several sanding tools and grits of sandpaper. I was worried I might jiggle the baby loose! But I was pretty proud of myself when I got the sanding done. Such a manly job for a pregnant lady and I did it all myself!

Next was wiping down the wood and priming it. I got the hardware store to tint the primer brown -- painting a dark color over white primer just means more work. Two coats of espresso brown paint came next. And finally three coats of satin-finish polyurethane to add some shine, waterproofing, and durability. THAT was the hardest step. Who know that applying polyurethane would be so hard?? You can't just slap it on like paint. It is very watery, very persnickety, and it dries almost instantly. If you put it on too thick, it gets a milky finish. If you try to go over an area you've already done once it has begun to dry (which is 20-30 seconds after you've applied it) it starts to pill up in little gummy crumbs. If this happens, you have to wait for it to dry completely, sand it down smooth, and re-apply in that area. So basically, you have to do a super thin coat, only going in one direction, leaving no thick spots or drips, and you have about 25 seconds to get each area done perfectly. Any mistakes have to be allowed to dry, sanded, and then gone over again. And hopefully you won't sand down through the paint, requiring you to repaint that spot before applying the polyurethane again. And, of course, every step from primer to polyurethane requires 6-12 hours of drying time. Yes, the process took a LOT of patience. But finally it was done.

I ordered some satin nickel knobs online and picked up a couple of coordinating pulls from the hardware store. A very inexpensive matching satin nickel faucet got rid of the chrome and gold one (gag). Finally, some accessories and towels from Target completed the look.

Voilà!

A definite improvement, don't you think?

Haus Frau

2011-01-24T09:34:00.003-07:00

On Friday night, my husband and I attended a mini high school reunion for all his high school buddies and their wives. Some of them he still sees fairly often and I know them, others he hasn't seen in years and years and I've only met them once or twice. Some of his high school friends I've never met, even though they've all stayed within a county of where they grew up. They're an amazing group of guys. I'm sure they had a lot of nice things to say that evening, but we wives immediately segretated ourselves so we could do some good "girl talk."

This included, but was not limited too:

Giving Birth and Nursing (as one of the other wives is fortunately still having babies--I'm not the very last one)
Kids and school
Getting our kids to do work around the house
Getting our husbands to do work around the house (fortunately not something I struggle with. Props to you, Big Daddy.)
Sex
Lack of sex
Too much sex
Accessories (for our clothes, not for sex, you dirty minded person!)
and finally...
Cleaning ladies

This last topic was one I was particularly interested in hearing about. It has been a fantasy of mine for a long time to have a cleaning lady. I'm pretty good at tidying up my house, keeping it looking fairly clean and uncluttered (Shhh...be quiet, Honey. I know this is all relative). What I'm not particularly good at, and what I enjoy the least about cleaning, is the deep cleaning. You know, washing base boards, scrubbing that area behind the toilet that your mop won't reach, dusting the nick-nacks on the bookshelves, etc. I realize my cleaning skills are all about making the greatest transformation possible: if the floor is super dirty, I love cleaning it. It really shows. If a room has gotten super cluttered, straightening it out and clearing off all the surfaces gives me joy. When the silverware drawers have gotten full of little crumbs, taking out the silverware and washing the tray is actually a pleasure. But when you really can't see the difference, as is the case with most of the deep cleaning (if you can't see the dirt, does it really need to be cleaned?), it just isn't dramatic enough of a change to make me excited to do it.

SO...enter the idea of a haus frau. When I lived in Germany, everybody had a haus frau, a cleaning lady. Even people with tiny apartments and town houses had a haus frau come once a week or once a month to give the house a good shine down. Big Daddy hates mowing the lawn, so he hires a crew to come and do it each week. For about the same money, I could get a cleaning crew in once a month to do all those little deep cleaning chores I hate the most--and I would know that at least once a month, my whole house was clean. Not just tidy, but REALLY REALLY CLEAN.

So when I found out a bunch of my husband's friends' wives use a cleaning lady, I thought....maybe I should do it!

So I ask...do you haus frau? How do you like it? Any recommendations or advice? I'm all new to the idea so I welcome any thoughts.

And While I'm On the Subject Of Christmas...

2011-01-17T09:39:00.003-07:00

I know it's 3 whole weeks since Christmas and so this topic may seem SO passé, but I'm just now finishing up the last of my stocking candy (What can I say? I like to nurse it.) and it lead me to wonder...What kind of candy do YOU put in your stockings? Do you put different stuff in yours than your kids? Do you have traditional candy items you put in every year or do you mix it up depending on your mood? Do you also put in presents, fruit, or other things? Or just candy?

Do tell!

As for us, we Davis kids grew up with real socks, not those giant store-bought stockings. They were my mom's cable knit knee socks. We had no mantle to hang them on, so usually they were just laid out in front of the tree or the Franklin stove. In a way those socks were really fun. Because they were stretchy, you could see shapes and bulges in them, which lead your imagination to run riot for those few minutes until you could open them and find out what those shapes were. You could always see a big bulge right in the center where the orange was stuffed, like a an ostrich who has swallowed a baseball.

Inside we almost always had peanut M&M's, my dad's favorite. There were mini peanut butter cups in honor of my mom's favorite candy. There were always nuts of some kind, usually cashews. And the rest seemed to vary year to year. My parents weren't big on presents in our stockings. Maybe a pair of socks wrapped up or a small item like a nail polish or chap stick. Mostly they left the room for lots of candy.

As a mom, I usually try to stick in a few small gifts for my kids--things from the dollar section at Target, their own box of tic tacs or a pack of gum, that sort of thing. I put in peanut M&M's to satisfy the traditionalist in me, and a Reese's peanut butter tree (better peanut butter to chocolate ratio). I throw in some cashews for protein, and the rest is filled with each child's favorite: mint for Beck, peanut butter for Daphne, Milk Duds for big Daddy, and usually a Ritter Sport Marzipan bar for me. And then Big Daddy and I usually try to sneak a small gift or two into each other's stocking without getting caught.

So, that's my stocking story. How about yours?

The Only Reason Why I Love Winter

2011-01-15T10:45:00.005-07:00

Guess What?

That means my favorite--

And my second favorite--

And even my former favorite, which is now too sweet for me, which is now my kids' favorite--

(Does anyone even eat those other crappy flavors???)
Hint:

I'm sorry if my local Brownie feels like this come March...

Because I think my car will be packed with happiness.

p.s. The above picture does not demonstrate an intent to distribute. I am strictly a consumer (on a massive scale).

Sick Of It

2011-01-14T14:13:00.003-07:00

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm sick of the snow. Sick of winter? Oh, I'm sick of winter when it's still October and barely even cold yet. But despite hating the cold, I've always loved a fresh new snowfall. And the nice thing is that here in Utah, winters are generally so warm (relatively, of course--they're not Maui, but they're also not Minnesota) and sunny that within a couple of days after every snow, the sun has melted it all away and the ground is bare, the streets are clear, and we get a break before the next snow comes.

This year, however, it has been unbelievably cold. Instead of the upper 30's and lower 40's we tend to have in between cold spells, we've had 20's and teens on a regular basis. And that means the snow we got just after Christmas still hasn't melted off. It's gotten greyer and crunchier, icier and dirtier, but it still hasn't melted away like usual. More snow has been added on top now and then, making for some really exciting adventures walking to the mailbox. But it's been a long long time since I've seen the bare ground or the dead lawn. And, weirdly, I miss that.

Also, I'd like to take the trash out without having to put my boots on. I'd like to be able to run out and grab the mail w/o thick socks and shoes and my pants rolled up. I'd LOVE for my cat to venture outside of our bedroom some time this winter. But evidently her dainty feet can't stand the snow, so she goes from on to under our bed in 12 hour shifts each day, with a 15 minute break for eating and peeing in the house somewhere.

Seriously, Winter, warm up a bit already!

How To Prevent 10 Minutes Of Daily Screaming, Whining, and Fit Throwing

2011-01-13T13:06:00.008-07:00

I asked Daphne if she wanted a haircut.

"Noooo!!!" She shrieked, "I want to be Repunzel!"

Well, if you let me cut your hair, I won't have to use the ouchie brush to get through that rat's nest on the back of your head every day.

"Really? No more ouchie brush?"

Really.

"Mommy, cut my hair! Cut it right now!!!!"

Voilà!...

(This was her hair before the cut, in case you're not up on D's hair. If you look closely, you can even see the rat's nest emerging from her hair in the back.)

Ahhhh....now what to do with those extra 10 tear-free minutes each morning?

Dear Heartburn, I Hate Your Guts (Get It? Guts?!?)

2011-01-07T18:43:00.003-07:00

Here is the conversation my body has been having with itself lately:

Stomach: Hey, who wants to see what dinner looks like again, this time soaked in gastric acid?

Throat: Ooo, me me me!

Brain: I hate you guys.

.

Misc. January

2011-01-03T13:25:00.004-07:00

It's a good thing the word "miscillaneous" has an abbreviation because, as you can see, I have no idea how to spell miscilanious. Miscellaneous? Miscalaneous?Seriously, no idea. My guess is that no one else can spell it either and that's why someone finally said, "SCREW IT, I'm just writing "misc." from now on!"

First off, I am somehow still alive after the craziness that was December. I ended up not doing teacher gifts, which I feel super bad about. I even planned to make up for it over the break and make some and send them with Daphne and Beck this week, but that never happened either. Maybe a heartfelt thank you card would be just as good? Or maybe I should just forget about making soap and go get some gift cards to Target. Everyone can use those, right? Anyway, cutting that out might just have saved my sanity.

Also, after shopping 12 hours a day for 4 days straight, I managed to get gifts in time for Christmas. Gifts I think the people I bought them for actually liked. Of course, it didn't really matter what we got for Daphne other than this one present because, well...I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Meet Cuddles and Lollipop, baby Netherland Dwarf bunnies. Unfortunately, Daphne thinks the bunnies are toys and has been playing with them a bit too imaginatively. She actually lost Cuddles for 4 hours on December 26th--after spending an hour and a half ripping the house apart and not finding a single trace of Cuddles (we started eyeing the cat suspiciously at that point), Big Daddy sat quietly in the library (the last known location of Cuddles) with the lights off and just listened. Eventually he heard some scratching. Cuddles ended up being in a 3" high space on top of the books but under the next shelf, a shelf 3 1/2 feet off the ground. Cuddles did NOT get up there by herself. We've also found the bunnies in drawers, in doll-houses, dressed in doll clothes, and there was one incident that involved a toy hammer and a bloody bunny nose. We've promised not to discuss that one with anyone, so mortified is Daphne. Nonetheless, Daphne has been sentenced by the Court of Mom and Dad to have only supervised visitation rights until further notice.

New Years Eve was kinda lame, but I was Ok with it. I guess that makes me kinda lame. But I'm OK with it. We got a bunch of cocktail shrimp and some Meyers sparkling grape juice (SO delicious--if you haven't tried it, do! I recommend the Cold Duck), and a chocolate silk pie. Then we ate and drank and watched TV until I fell asleep on Big Daddy's chest at 11:30. He woke me up at midnight with a kiss and said "Happy New Year." And then we went to sleep. We are loads of fun.

Three exciting things are in my future:
1) My camera that I got for Christmas is on its way. Well, I traded in the one I got for Christmas for one that isn't so embarrassingly behind my photographic capabilities. And that one is on its way. I am sooo excited!!!

2) I am getting cabinet and drawer pulls for my kitchen. It currently doesn't have any and it has bugged me since we first looked at this house. I hate having to pull open the drawers and cupboards by sticking my fingers under the corners. Here are the contenders:

Thoughts?

3) That rash I got under my ring is going away. I finally found out that it is a sort of yeast infection caused by too much moisture staying under the ring when I wash my hands. So I got some OTC cream and it's almost gone. This may not seem worthy of a Top 3 Exciting Things That Are Happening To Me list, but trust me, it is. If you saw how gross my finger looked, you'd understand.

On a down note, I have now gained more weight at the 5 month mark of this pregnancy than I did in both my other two pregnancies by the very end. Which makes me wonder: Is it more worth it to eat whateverthehellIwant now and for the rest of my pregnancy even if I end up having 40 lbs to lose afterward? Or is it more worth it to take it easy on the eating now, do some exercise, and try to minimize any more weight gain so I don't have to kill myself losing it later? Hmmm....tough call. I'll decide after I finish the last slice of Chocolate Silk Pie.

School is back in session. This morning I was forced to get myself showered and dressed by the shockingly early hour of 11am. Let's just say I let those little things like hygiene and being clothed slide a little bit over the last 3 weeks. Hey, I had to prioritize, and laying around doing nothing was just higher on the list.

Ok, I think that sums it up. How was your December?

I Hereby Sentence Myself To The Naughty List

2010-12-21T09:22:00.004-07:00

Why can't I prepare for Christmas in November? WHY??? Why do I wait until the last minute and make the few days before the holiday so stressful and crazy that I can't even enjoy them?

I currently have several days worth of goo on my kitchen floor from...
Attempts at making gingerbread men by my kids and their cousins
My mother making her shoes glittery. (Don't ask)
Me making rolls, then coffee cake, then tacos.

I have 60 Christmas cards sitting out on the ottoman that need to be stuffed, addressed, stamped, and hauled likitysplit to the post office in hopes that at least a few might arrive before New Years.

There are 18 loads of laundry to be done; 4 from our trip and 14 from my kids, who decided to spill on every pair of pants and every shirt they own while we were gone.

I still haven't bought gifts for my husband or children (but at least the relatives' gifts got bought, wrapped, and carried by hand to all the out-of-state relatives by my brother and SIL who just left from visiting us. THANK YOU for saving my butt on that one, Guys).

I still need to make neighbor gifts (candied cinnamon almonds) and teacher gifts (handmade soap. And yes, I realize that school let out a full week ago and I'm not going to see any of my kids' teachers before Christmas, but my guilt at not making gifts because I was on a cruise is clouding my sense of logic on that one right now so we'll see how it all turns out after the soap is made).

And my cat has decided that the house would have a more festive air if she used her kitty litter pebbles as confetti.

Seriously, next year I am going to start doing all this stuff in November. November will be the new December, and my cut-off for making Christmas cards, buying presents, and making teacher/neighbor gifts will be Thanksgiving. Never mind that I'm utterly NOT in the mood for Christmas in early November and it offends my sense of proper holidays to skip ahead. Come hell or high water, I WILL ENJOY DECEMBER NEXT YEAR!!!!

Here's A Big Hint

2010-12-17T15:53:00.005-07:00

I wasn't able to post from our cruise about the sex of the baby. In fact, I wasn't able to get cell service OR internet service (well, for under $500 a minute) the whole time. I have to tell you, it was weird. Weird being so disconnected from the world. Weird not talking to anyone I knew but my husband for a week. Weird not reading facebook or checking emails or getting text messages. I felt like I was in the 20th century again, that grand old time when you could actually take a vacation without essentially bringing the entire world (especially your husband's office) with you. The upside is that I did manage to avoid a dozen or two phone calls from my mother (who was watching the kids) about where the lid to the food processor was, or how to make the DVD player work, or where the cookie cutters were, etc. etc. and so forth. But I also wasn't able to do any of the internet Christmas shopping I had intended to get done, and I wasn't able to browse baby stores to choose new furniture for the new nursery. And I sadly wasn't even able to do a tiny little post about the sex of the baby. So here is your big hint. If you know your classic nursery rhymes, it should be easy...

Sugar and Spice
And all things nice.

And can I just say I was SO surprised. And also that I actually started BAWLING in front of the ultrasound lady. Like sobbing big ugly I-can't-even-talk sobs. Because I was convinced I was having a boy, and I was convinced Daphne would never have a sister--the greatest blessing to every living woman . So that, mixed with the relief of not having up with a boy name and buy a bunch more red and blue clothes for the next 18 years, just brought the tears up. Big Daddy was crying too, I'll have you know. But I think he was crying out of excitement at getting to choose girly bedding. Ya, I think that was it.

Anyway, that's the news. Tune in soon for pictures and anecdotes from the Caribbean including how I sneezed and peed a little bit--with no underwear on (don't recommend it), how I accidentally got drunk--well, buzzed at least (not the best idea while pregnant), how I won an Alaskan Cruise while on my cruise to Grand Cayman, and how I outwitted a Jamaican con man by eating poisonous fruit. Good times!

No Death Threats, Please. (Parentheses Version)

2010-12-09T07:38:00.004-07:00

I hate it when I don't have any completed blog drafts saved. It results in 9 days with no posts, especially when it's early December and I have bajillion things to do. Like making neighbor treats, and going to kids' concerts, and decorating the house, and putting up the lights (which should not take all frakin day, but does. Why does going through the light strings take so long???), cleaning in preparation for my mother coming to visit. Oh, and PACKING FOR MY CRUISE!!!

Yes, it's true. We (meaning me and Big Daddy, NOT our children--we're not CRAZY) decided to skip out on all the excitement, joy, caroling, food, (snow, cold, wind, hectic shopping, and bad holiday traffic) and fly south for (a tiny portion of) the winter. Specifically Jamaica and Grand Cayman.

CAN I JUST TELL YOU HOW EXCITED I AM??? I am already dreaming at night about (virgin) piña coladas by the pool (which I won't swim in because it's SEA WATER, EW) in my adorable (maternity) polka dot tankini with my (not so adorable) belly hanging out. At least I'm (artificially) tan. Plus, I will be able to stuff my face silly...GUILT FREE. I'm sure taking a cruise while pregnant is the best idea I've ever had. (Not finishing my Christmas shopping before leaving? Probably the worst idea I've ever had. But those dang light strings!)

Anyway, I'm sorry to have to leave you all behind. I'd offer to hide someone in my suitcase, but those extra suitcases cost $35 extra now (such a racket!!), so forget it! But as a sort of make-up gift (i.e. incentive to read about my tropical adventures while you shiver in your freezing cold arctic winter) I will be making an announcement from somewhere on my trip on what gender ) my baby is. I find out today. Tune in soon! (Or you might NEVER find out what I'm having. ) (Well, at least for another five months.)

Shopping Elf (or Christmas Miracle) Needed. Apply Within.

2010-12-01T10:03:00.001-07:00

Every year it turns December and I get really excited.

Excited to put up the tree. Slightly less excited about putting up the outdoor lights because it's always buttfreezingcold by December and putting up the outdoor lights takes FOREVER. But I do like it when they're done and my house looks so cheery all lit up.

Excited about making and receiving holiday treats for/from my neighbors.

Excited when the first Christmas card arrives in the mail. It's the only time of year I actually look forward to getting the mail.

Excited about doing holiday traditions with my kids, like breaking out the Christmas cookie cutters and decorating sugar cookies, opening a window of their Advent's Calendar so they can eat the chocolate each morning, lighting the candles on my German candle pyramid so the characters turn and dance while we watch, and waiting for a good snow so we can build a snowman or make snow angels.

But THEN I get hit with panic.

Panic that I haven't made/ordered/bought my own Christmas cards yet. Panic that I don't know if I want to make them or buy them in a store or order them online or make my husband design me some. Panic that I don't know if I want them to be edgy or cute or religious or if I want the picture to be separate or preprinted. Panic that I won't get them done and mailed by Christmas. Panic that I have no idea where I put my address book so I can address my nonexistent Christmas cards. Panic that I won't have enough stamps and I'll have to wait in line at the post office DURING DECEMBER to get more stamps or that I'll have to break down and get those horrible, generic, non-holiday ones from the automated machine that are of antique cars or famous librarians.

And then even worse panic hits when I realize I haven't bought a single, solitary Christmas present yet and NOW IT'S DECEMBER and the stores will be packed with people and I'll have to park way at the back of the parking lot and walk through arctic weather with a gigantic down jacket and gloves on so I don't freeze solid between my car and the store and then I'll have to tote that huge jacket around the burning hot stores with me because I was too wussie to leave it in the car and sprint through the snow and then I'll have to battle my way through crowded aisles to try to find presents for people that I have no idea how to shop for and I'll end up getting the wrong thing, or worse, gift cards that make me feel like I'm a total slacker and have walked so far and carried my coat around the store for nothing and then I wonder will I even be able to get the presents and gift cards in the mail in time for them to get there before Christmas because I'm pretty sure I have no shipping boxes and no wrapping paper and definitely no tape or sharp scissors and I'll end up having to wrap them in bubble wrap and newspaper and tape them with duct tape and hope they make it in one piece.

Sigh...

IS IT JANUARY YET???

My, Aren't We Groovy?!

2010-11-30T14:01:00.002-07:00

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

10 Ways To Lose Your Tip

2010-11-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

I went to dinner the other night. Granted, it wasn't a five star restaurant. It was maybe a 2 star restaurant if I'm lucky. But still, after waiting tables from Detroit to San Diego over the course of 9 years, I formed a few opinions about waiting tables. And one of them was that you don't have to be serving $45 Filet Mignon to do a good job. If you work for tips, you should smile, give good service, and treat your customers like they're eating at The Ritz. Unless they don't serve food at the Ritz. Then forget that analogy.

Anyway, the waitress who served us made about every serving error I can think of. And my sweetheart of a husband still left her a 5-spot. But I thought I'd share my thoughts about waiting tables and losing tips when I'M paying the bill.

If you want a good tip...

10. Don't forget to greet me, ask how I'm doing, and introduce yourself when you come to my table. It's a small thing, but a basic friendly greeting isn't so hard to do. And giving your name so I can call it out later when you are royally screwing up is key too.

9. Keep my drink filled up. I think most people would agree that nothing irritates them more than having an empty drink glass. Whether it's water or pop, just keep it filled. And don't ask me. If you see it's nearly empty, and I'm not walking toward the front door yet, just bring me another drink! As quickly as this will lose you your tip, keeping on top of my drink will increase your tip.

8. Check back on me shortly after the food is delivered. Worse even than having an empty glass is sitting there with a hot steak and no silverware to cut it with, or no steak sauce, or no ranch for your fries, or your side dish being wrong, or your side dish being missing...AND THEN WAITING FOREVER for the server to show up. When I worked at Appleby's, a singular nightmare of a job, one good thing they did right was require a 2 minute check-back on your tables. Within 2 minutes of the food going down, whether you delivered it or someone else did, you checked to see if everything was OK. This is a must.

7. Don't make me look for you. If I need something throughout the meal, I would hope I could catch sight of you within 3-4 minutes. If I don't, I WILL flag down your manager or anther server to go hunt you down, and that will be an automatic tip deduction. (No lie, at dinner the other night, I had to get up FIVE times to go look for something the server should have brought me/the server herself/another person to help me. That server should have owed ME a tip!)

6. As much as this may sound contradictory considering my last two points, you don't need to ask me how everything is EVERY time you pass by. One check back at the beginning, and a few visual check backs, where you look and see if I'm glancing around for someone or not eating, is all you need until the meal looks like it's winding down. I do like my server to be visible and available, but I don't like to stop my conversation every 2 minutes to say, "Yes, everything is STILL fine." You know?

5. When you refill my drink, please bring me a new glass before taking my old one away. It makes me very uneasy when you take the glass I'm currently working on (leaving me with nothing while you're gone) and bring it back to me. How do I know you're not going to accidentally mix it up with a total stranger's while you're in the back??

4. And while I'm on the subject, take my empty glass away. And my empty plates. You should never leave the table side empty-handed. Clear something away with each trip, and when you see that we're done, don't leave the plates to go get the check; take them with you! It's nice to be able to have some clear space in front of you after you eat to lean your elbow on or set your purse on while you look for your money. This is especially true of a buffet style restaurant or one with a refillable salad bar. If I'm going for my second round of food, I better not find my same plate there when I get back.

3. Don't be afraid to apologize. And make things right if things go wrong. I know, as does anyone who's ever worked in a restaurant (or anyone with any common sense), that a lot of the mistakes that take place with food are not the server's fault. If the food is slow, it means the kitchen is backed up. If the steak isn't cooked right, I don't blame the waitress for overcooking it. And if I asked for no sauce but it showed up with sauce, I'll give the benefit of the doubt that she ordered it right but the kitchen screwed it up. But regardless of who is to blame, it's the server's place to apologize and make it right. If it's a minor thing, have it remade. Bring a free app for me to nibble on in the meantime. If it's a big screw up, bring over the manager, have him apologize, and make sure he adjusts the bill. In all my years working in restaurants, I've never once heard a manager say, "I can't believe we had to discount that check." But I've heard many complain about angry customers walking out because they weren't treated right. Comped food is cheap, lost customers cost a lot.

2. Room for Dessert? I may say no, I'm too full, but knowing me I chose your restaurant because of the desserts, not the food. So if you fail to ask me if I'd like to see a dessert menu, you're not only losing out on a potential ticket increase, but potential tip too.

1. Check, please! Other than the frustrations of an empty drink glass or a wrong food order, waiting for your check long after you've finished is up at the top. It's not so hard to print out the check as soon as the customers have started eating so it's ready to give them when they're done.

So those are my restaurant pet peeves. And honestly, avoiding them isn't that hard. Smile, be friendly, communicate about problems, keep up on drinks and dirty plates, and fix things when they go wrong and you should find yourself with a nice big tip at the end of the meal.

Unless you wait tables in Utah. In which case, I'm truly sorry for you.

The Storm of the Century

2010-11-24T08:58:00.004-07:00

For those of you out of state, or those of you who didn't happen to watch the news last night, Utah battened down yesterday evening for the worst blizzard to hit the state in at least a decade. Some were predicting the worst winter storm in a century.

Schools closed early.

Universities called off evening classes.

Concerts were cancelled.

Hospitals postponed surgeries for another day.

Holiday travel plans were forfeited in lieu of staying safe.

There was a rush on emergency supplies like flashlights, batteries, and thermal blankets.

Grocery stores were flooded with people doing their Thanksgiving meal shopping a day early because, as the weather reports foretold, there would be so much snow on Wednesday that you would not be able to get to a store.

By 4pm yesterday evening, nearly the whole state, from top to bottom, had shut down and people could talk about nothing else.

So, for the enjoyment of all of those of you not able to look out your window and see it for yourself, I give you...

THE GREAT BLIZZARD OF 2010!!!
.

Wait a minute. Let's try a close up to see if we can see that snow better.

Hmm.....maybe let's try the back yard instead.

Ummmm....uh.....no...WAIT! I see some! There on the wicker sofa!

Boy, I sure am glad all those weather guys went to meteorology school for all those years. But, hey, it is 13 degrees out, so maybe we should give them some credit?

Nah.

They're all fired. I hope.

Basket Case

2010-11-18T08:53:00.002-07:00

I just cried at a Folgers commercial. A FOLGERS COFFEE COMMERCIAL!!! I'm a disgrace. I mean, this wasn't even a Hallmark commercial. Not even one of those touching AT&T ones where somebody calls their grandma on her birthday after she thinks everyone forgot. This was a commercial about a guy coming home from Africa for Christmas and bringing his sister a present, and she sticks the bow on him and says "You're my present this year" and then they drink coffee while I bawl like an idiotic baby. Over a coffee commercial. Nevermind the part where the guy smells the Folgers and says "Mmmmm, coffee!" like he never got coffee the whole time he was in Africa. Hello, coffee COMES FROM AFRICA. But did that stop me from turning into a sobbing mess? No. Because I'm a total freaking basket case.

Thanks, hormones. Thanks a lot.

McPhee Madness, Part 3

2010-11-15T20:30:00.000-07:00

While scanning through saved drafts of posts I never published, I ran across this one: the final installation of McPhee Madness. McPhee Madness took place over a year ago when I came across a catalogue for McPhee gifts and novelties. With a slogan like "Slightly Less Disappointing Than Other Companies," I had to go to their website to see what they were all about. And what I found was...interesting, bizarre, gross, hilarious, and sometimes even disturbing. But mostly clever and hilarious. So here, only belated by 23 months, is the final installment of McPhee Madness, sharing some favorites from the McPhee catalogue.

1) I always thought toast was a boring breakfast item. Now I know I'm not alone.

2)Too chicken to get your own tattoos? Then tattoo your young daughters! And wear a shirt to brag about it.

3) There's a special class of nerdiness reserved for people who like to mix Greek history with fantasy play. You know--you sat next to him in homeroom. And here is the perfect present for that kid. Plus, it's been updated to the 21st Century with a black leather pants-suit for Medusa. Groovy.

4) Just tell me why-oh-why someone would want to wear this shirt!

5) Tired of all the squirrel johnsons hanging around your yard? No problem.

6) Um, this is just horrible and wrong! (And I know my son would absolutely LOVE it!)

7) Sacrilege or Sensational? It does have wheels in the feet for smooth gliding action and a list of biblical quotes on the back.

8) In case that Jesus Action Figure wasn't cool enough, they do make a deluxe version. And I had to quote their description: "There is no action figure more deserving of a deluxe edition than the Son of God. This 5-1/4'' tall, hard vinyl figure comes with eight amazing plastic accessories: five loaves of bread, two fish and a jug for turning water into wine (not guaranteed to work for real). Also features 'glow-in-the-dark miracle hands!'" Unfortunately, this version does pose a choking hazard, so not for disciples under 3.

9) Probably the weirdest and most disturbing item in the whole catalogue, is the baby(?) on the cover of their memoir book. I'm having nightmares already, and I'm still awake!

Well, that about does it. Feel free to go back and re-read my other McPhee Madness posts for more hilarity. Or just head on over to the McPhee website to start your Christmas shopping early. I guarantee they have something for that difficult-to-shop-for someone who has everything.

Me and My Boyfriend, Blogging Jones III

2010-11-13T20:31:00.006-07:00

My relationship with Blogging goes something like this:

1. First Sight. Blogging Jones III and I met in 2008. I first noticed Blogging watching me from across the smokey room. He was cute. I felt excited, even a little elated at prospect of someone new and interesting in my otherwise mundane life. I felt curious. A little nervous. A little like I might want to throw up. But mostly curious and excited.

2. The Introduction. After that first glance, I started kind of keeping an eye on Blogging. We had some mutual friends, so he kept showing up at places that I went. Ya, Blogging was attractive. But I didn't really know him at all. Mostly all I knew was hearsay, what my friends told me. I decided I needed a way to get to know him better. So I asked a friend to introduce us.

3. Giving It A Go. It was clear from the start that Blogging Jones and I had some things in common. I had a feeling we could be friends. But could it be more? I wasn't sure what kind of a partner Blogging would make. Would he be fun? Demanding? Boring? Would he talk to much? Or not enough? Would he bring me around to meet his other friends? Or would our relationship be so exclusive that we would become solitary and lonely after a while? Despite all these worries, I decided the only way I would find out was to give Blogging a try. So we went on our first date.

3. MAJOR Infatuation. Blogging and I, as it quickly turned out, got along great. He was everything I hoped he would be and then some. He brought me joy. He introduced me to great friends. He was exciting. He got me to think and analyze. He encouraged me to take more pictures, to work on my creative writing, to communicate more. Overall, he was a really supportive, scintillating, thrilling new boyfriend. I'll admit it: I was madly in love.

4. The Real Thing. As all new relationships do, my relationship with Blogging Jones III soon reached a crossroads. For a lot of people, after the fire of infatuation dies down, they discover either that they really don't like the person they've been with, that he wasn't as cool as they first thought, and that their former passion just wasn't meant to last, OR their infatuation turns to warm, glowing embers, the perfect temperature to roast a marshmallow on. That's how it was with me and Blogging. The initial fire may have cooled down, but it had reached a nice comfortable place, a place of honesty and genuine caring. We were happy together.

5. The First Fight. I can't say that Blogging and I had a real knock-down, drag-out fight ever. But we kept having disagreements. About how much time to spend with each other mainly. Because, the truth was, he had become a little demanding after a while. Then we would fight about how I wasn't paying enough attention to him, or he wasn't paying enough attention to me. Some of our friends became jealous of the time we spent with each other, and that caused each of us stress. So the more demanding he became, and the more my friends complained, the more I began to withdraw. And soon the distance between us was palpable; things weren't all peachy keen anymore.

6. The Break-up. Once the signs of trouble in Paradise began to surface, I found myself avoiding Blogging a little bit. And his response? He began ignoring me back. And my response to that? I was hurt. And then mad. And then a little jealous when I looked around and saw all my friends enjoying great relationships like the one Blogging and I used to have. And then I decided the only way to protect myself was to become indifferent. So without really making any formal declarations, Blogging and I decided to take a break.

7. Reconciliation. It's true. I really did love Blogging. Nothing showed that to me faster than a little time apart. I realized how much I missed his attention, his wit, the way his positive attributes rubbed off on me, the way he brought out my good side, and the honesty we shared with each other. I knew we had to get back together. I just missed him too much! (And then we had a really good make-up session, Blogging Jones and I.)

8. The Carousel. Since our first fight, separation, and reconciliation, Blogging and I have had our ups and downs. Things have never gone back to the way they were at first. I guess they never do. You can never hold on to that giddy, head-over-heels feeling you have when you first meet and fall in love. But we still like each other a lot. We still spend time together when we can. We still value the things we give to each other and get from each other. The nostalgic part of me is probably keeping him around out of remembrance of the good times--man, there were some fun ones! And, I suppose, part of it is that we've never found anyone else to replace each other with. (Plus, I've become pretty good friends with some of his friends, and I wouldn't want to give THEM up). So we'll probably keep going like this for a while. I'll keep Blogging Jones III in my life as long as the relationship continues to be mutually beneficial.

Or until he cheats. Then he's DEAD MEAT.

The Mouths Of Babes

2010-11-06T07:31:00.000-06:00

Today Beck came up to me with a mini Halloween slinky he got in his trick or treat bag. He stretched it out in front of my face and said, "Let's see how big your head is, Mom."

He looked at the slinky as if it had measurements. I was curious to see what he'd decide to tell me. And then came the result:

"Wow! You're 14 dollars!"

That's a pretty big (expensive?) head.

Thinking SwimSuit Season Yet?

2010-11-05T07:58:00.000-06:00

I know, I know. It's November. 3/4 of a year away from swimsuit season. At least half a year away from spring break/I-might-go-somewhere-warm-where-I-might-need-a-swimsuit season. But if you wait until either of those two to look for a swimsuit you'll find A)high season prices and B)most likely the best selection is long gone.

Soooo....

I just got a 50% code for Hapari Swimwear. They make really cute, modest tankinis (Jr's sizes too, in case you have a tween/teen). I usually spend all summer lusting after them but not being willing to shell out full price. As of today, I THOUGHT AHEAD. Or shopped ahead, I guess, and got myself a cute tankini for next year. Bring on the spring break trip to Cancun!

Or maybe I'll have a baby. Whichever.

FYI, if you don't see the code on their home page, it's "fall50."

The Honeyguide Bird and the Badger

2010-11-04T07:40:00.000-06:00

In case you don't know, my preferred method for sugar intake is mixed with flour, butter, salt, eggs, usually chocolate, and then some amount of baking. Frosting is also usually involved.

I'm not much of a candy eater. Certainly not milk chocolate. I think there was a time when I preferred milk chocolate to dark. I think I recall being pissed off when I got a Special Dark in my Halloween bag. But somewhere along the lines, that changed. And milk chocolate became too intense for me. But even back in the days where I enjoyed it, candy just wasn't my thing. And chewy, sour, fruity candy wasn't even close to being on my favorite treat list.

So come Halloween, I would usually dump out my pillowcase full of candy, organize it into groups: candy bars, gum, fruity candy, candy with little pieces, suckers, etc., then further break it down by name, count it all up and write it down to compare to previous years, and then retreat to my room to eat a few choice pieces. Usually the Almond Joys and Mounds first. Then a Twix. Maybe some peanut M&M's. But by the next day I was pretty much over it.

My mother's great idea for sparing our teeth from weeks of eating sugar was to demand that all candy be consumed within 24 hours, and whatever wasn't would be confiscated. And despite the fact that I neither relished my candy nor intended to eat much of it past the first day, I am, by nature, a saver. Mostly out of panic of not having something later when I really want it. So I would find secret places to hide away most of my candy so that it couldn't be taken away. In shoes. In coat pockets. In jewelry boxes and Barbie car trunks.

And then I would forget all about it. Ya, I might run across a small stash now and then. I can't remember if I would eat any of it. I just know that keeping the candy was very satisfying to me. Eating it? Meh. Christmas was the same story. Easter? You guessed it. One time I got a giant 1 lb Hershey's Kiss from a friend for Valentine's Day. After a small nibble, it went on a shelf next to my knickknacks until it eventually went stale and got thrown away. Or so I thought... But more on that later.

My sister, who bunked downstairs from me, was cut out of quite a different cloth. Her love affair with candy was not the patient, bashful one mine was. It was passionate, voracious, and all-consuming. She usually DID eat all her candy within 24 hours. Halloween was her fondest dream, as far as I knew. And any opportunity to spend money was always, always spent on candy.

So flash forward to years later. About 25 years later. My sister, brother, mom, and our spouses were sitting around one night playing games and laughing over old times when my sister confessed to me that she would secretly sneak up to my room following each holiday and hunt around for candy. She knew of all my secret hide-outs (even my mom never bothered to look in my snow boots, but Jennie did). She scoured every corner. She unearthed all my stashes. And ATE THEM. Ate every piece. Remember that giant Hershey's Kiss on my shelf I thought had been thrown away? Eaten. Slowly. Once tiny slice at a time over a period of weeks. Carefully, so that I would never notice.

Well, I didn't notice. Not with the Kiss. Not with the Easter candy. Not with my Christmas stocking. And certainly not with my many stashes of Halloween candy. I guess I pretty much functioned as The Candy Store Upstairs. I just never cared about candy enough to notice. (You're welcome, Jennie). I think, really, we had a symbiotic relationship. Like those fish that follow sharks around and eat the slime off their gills. Or those birds who live on Rhinos' backs and eat all their fleas. We worked well together, even if I didn't know it at the time.

So what now? What am I going to do with my sister living a thousand miles away and all this extra candy around the house?

I think today I found the answer hiding behind the couch....

Perfect. At least until the next dentist visit.

The Power of Many

2010-11-02T19:28:00.002-06:00

I recently redecorated...or rather decorated (finally getting around to decorating here) my kitchen with a red and white theme. We finally, after 8 years of marriage, got a real dining room set. It's black and rather modern looking. And then I have accented my kitchen with red and white cushions for the chairs, red and white valances for the windows, and red and white dish towels and other accessories. But what I'm missing, what would really complete the look, is some red and white candlestick holders. I'd love a set of three. Varying heights. Red and white stripes would be perfect. Red and white polka dots would be very nice. But even some other pattern with bright red and white would probably work. But I can't seem to find any anywhere! Red? Yes. White? Yes. But red AND white, no! Not even with Christmas approaching.

That's where YOU come in. I know the power of the internet x the power of women x the power of shopping online = many many eyes all over the massive world of .com shopping who might just run across the perfect set of candlestick holders for me.

SO...if you do, please, pretty please, let me know? I might even persuade Santa to send a little sumpin extra your way.

THX!

Free! Free! Free!

2010-11-02T07:14:00.000-06:00

Ok, Who wants something free???

Here are your choices:
1) a free 20-page 8x8 photo book with hard photo cover. (I have bought several of these. They're gorgeous and great for Christmas gifts to hard-to-buy-for relatives.)

2) 10 free 5x7 flat stationary cards or 10 free 5x7 folded greeting cards. (Time to start thinking about Christmas cards already!)

3) 101 4x6 prints (Need to run off pictures from that full memory card? Here's your chance to get 101 of those prints free!)

4) or $10 off an order at Shutterfly.com.

What's the catch? All you have to do is be my friend and be one of the first 5 people to request one of these freebies. It's Shutterfly's gift to me to give to my friends (FYI, if you're already a Shutterfly member, you can only get 10% off an order.) I have ordered several photobooks and custom designed photo calendars from them and they've all been beautiful. So anyway, if anyone would like one of these freebies, let me know!