January 2009 Archives

    1. My hair fits in pigtails again.  It's looking a little silly with all the grey.  I'm choosing to not really care.

    2. The climbing little mini roses are starting to do their thing.

    3. Today we went to the dentist.  Soph had a little cavity, Willow needed her new molars sealed and her bottom baby teeth pulled.  I was too worried about it to tell her, and when we got there I pulled (heh) her dentist aside to find out what the game plan was.  He told me that he could pull her teeth without her even knowing, and said that if she was nervous about being there he could give her some nitrous oxide.  He did his thing, and she came out a little later on, chomping on some gauze and totally unaware that she was down a couple of teeth.

    4. The tooth fairy JUST came!  Awesome.

    5. My mom and stepdad were on a weekend getaway when they found this sign for me.  It's metal.  I was going to put it on the wall over my bed, but it's too small for the space.  Instead it lives on top of a bookshelf by the window.  It's kind of perfect there.

    6. It's been beautiful here the past couple of days.  Even the moon played along tonight and came up over the hills just a teeny crescent with a star (Venus?) right next to it. 

    7. All my wonky abnormal lab results are because of the medicine I have to take.  P W E W.

    8. I redid my blawg.  I'd still like to pare it down some. 

    9. There is a bunch of stuff in the back of the van that is waiting to be dropped off at the Goodwill Donation Station.  And?  More stuff in the house to put out there.

    10. I had to rip out my progress on a new knitting project I am working on.  I actually don't mind doing that.  It's humbling, and sort of fun to watch all the loops come undone.  I was only about six rows in, so it made sense to just start over. 

    11. Right now?  In my fridge?  Gluten free beer.  (sweet!)

    12. I worked in Willow's class today.  I got to help make one of the best art projects that the kids do all year.  They take a piece of white paper, glue some narrow strips of black paper to the short top and bottom sides, and then put about five or six drops of ink on the paper.  Real ink; the kind that will stain your clothes and not wash off your hands easily.  Then they take a drinking straw and blow on the wet ink so that it runs along the paper in little lines.  Those are tree branches.  Next they use the eraser side of a pencil to mold squares of tissue paper into cherry blossoms and then they glue those to the ends of the inky branches.  I was really wishing I had my camera with me. 

    13. Mini marshmallows taste ever so much better than I recall.  They are great with a glass of port, too.

    14.  Lex wants to cut his hair.  That is a GoodThing.

    15. I remembered to put the trash at the curb.  This means I won't have to run out to the street in my pajamas at the crack of crack with armfuls of garbage and recycling.

ok - the picnic editing app in flickr is way way cool.

that is all

Seriously.  I am having a moment over here.  A moment defined by a kid saying, "I totally don't respect you," (he apologized (sincerely) later) and by LOSING half of the Girl Scout Cookie Order Form.  Only *I* did not lose it.  I put it on the bookshelf in the living room and Sophie took it down and *she* lost it.  But, still, if you ordered cookies from my kid there is a fifty percent chance you'll want to kick her ass in a couple of months.  Thank Maude she didn't collect money yet.  I'm betting that I will find the form later, and then I will just buy the stuff on it out of pocket and deliver it and collect the money.  So it will probably work out in the end.  Right?  (Why yes, YES you did order 10 boxes of Thin Mints, not 1.  Sure, we take checks. . . )

Other parts of the moment are all about me feeling like I am doing too much and none of it well.  The kids get to school daily, but rarely on time and hardly ever rested, fed, warm, or clean enough for my liking.  Homework is hit and miss.  My house looks like someone turned it upside down, gave it a good shake, and then put it down again.  Dinner tonight?  I am horrified to admit it was Annie's Mac and Cheese, apple slices, and Coconut Shrimp from TJ's.  Not a green thing to be seen.  I had chips and salsa and a glass of port, which isn't really any better.  If you need clean socks, they are in the hamper of clean stuff on top of the washer, not in any drawer.  Same goes for underwear (unless you are the one adult who lives here.  I do put my own away).  The yard looks so much like Sanford and Sons that I sing the theme song whenever I walk up to my front door.  (That link was close as I can get, because of copyright crap issues.)   

I don't sleep enough, there is a stack of laundry that is taller than me, my car needs servicing, and Lex really, really, REALLY needs a haircut.  I spend money I shouldn't, I work when I should be sleeping and do my banking while I'm in my little grey cube.  I have not told my daughter that she'll probably be getting TWO teeth pulled on Thursday. 

I had surgery two weeks ago, and I took a vicodin a couple of days ago because I was tired of listnening to the kids bitch and gripe, not because anything (except for my brain) hurt.  The sad thing is that I didn't even register it.  (So I should take two?  Or take it with booze?)

I vented to my 12 year old about stuff he shouldn't have to hear.  I told my five year old that I'd hold her if she would Just.Stop.Crying.  I recycled artwork that I swore I'd keep.  I borrowed money from my kid's savings account until I get paid on Friday.  I was kind of a bitch to my boyfriend (he is patient and kind and I was being a drama queen). 

I ignored my next door neighbor when she said hello (because I am not feeling forgiving toward her past horribleness) and I purposefully cut someone off on the freeway. 

Maybe I can blame all this negative energy on seeing The Wrestler.  Holy crap was that a downer.  It was really great, but one of those stories that makes you willing to claim your own problems as yours and move on, grateful to have them.     

oh! Can't forget Grace In Small Things (sorry, SueBob)

1. Too Much Candy (if this doesn't melt your heart, you are a robot)
2. Meatballs with Pretty Sauce (how cute is she? omg)
3. My Sophie, talking to herself under her breath: Warning!  Everybody must shake their butts at their bosses!
4. A stack of unread books on my bedside bookshelf.
5. Sandeman Reserve and a quiet house to drink it in.

1. Shark teeth. Willow hasn't lost any baby teeth, but two permanent teeth are mostly in. She thinks it's awesome.

2. Half-assed blogging in bed with iPhone.

3. Hot chocolate made with Ibarra.

4. An egret floating over the freeway on a draft. Not flapping its wings, the wind strong enough to keep it hovering in one place. It was getting dusk and the white feathers nearly glowed.

5. Finding out that there is a second work from home day being added to my week.

1. Gluten free cornbread recipe from a total Goddess.
2. A couple of hours before the sun went down, the clouds were all white, purple, and grey and there was a wintery pale blue sky behind them.  It was even more lovely after a few days of all grey and rain.
3. Really great breakfast cooked by a really great man.
4. Happy text messages from my kid.
5. Walking out the front door past the one electric guitar (in its case) and the two skateboards propped against the wall makes me happy.  I'm a cool mom.  Or my kids are cool.  Whatever.  There's coolness in the entryway.

Grace In Small Things

1. Jolie Holland's music.
2. A red-tailed hawk sitting on a streetlight in the rain, looking down over the highway.
3. A quiet, rainy morning.
4. I was almost to work when I saw an older woman in a motorized scooter trying to cross the street at the crosswalk.  She had bright decorations all over her scooter, and a giant rainbow colored paneled umbrella to keep her dry in the rain, but her scooter quit working when she was about a quarter of the way across the street.  I was a few cars back in the stack of two lanes of cars waiting for her to cross.  One of the guys at the head of the line jumped out of his truck and ran over to her, smiled at her and helped her all the way across the four lanes of waiting cars and up to the sidewalk.  He made sure that she was going again before coming back to his truck, and everyone on the street just waited for him.  It was so NICE. 
5. Remembering that I made this video ages ago (it takes a little bit to buffer, because I put way too many photos in it)
6. Having five things that made me happy before lunchtime (and there are actually way more than five)

Grace In Small Things

1. A book loan from my lovely coworker.
2. Jenny coming to my house last night with presents and her awesome self for a sleepover featuring rum and coke and late-night tacos and candy, and lots of laughing while the kids slept. 
3. A visit from Yvonne, which means I got to laugh until it hurt. 
4. A text message that said, "Baby, yuz hotter n doughnut grease."
5. Getting into bed early when every bit of me is tired. 

Grace In Small Things

1. Coffee in my red coffee cup.
2. Mailed my LAST federal tax payment (for 2007 taxes).
3. New issue of The Sun in my mailbox.
4. Turning on NPR this morning and hearing about what President Obama is up to (but, again, not a Small Thing).
5. Unexpectedly working from home today.

Grace In Small Things

1. Awesome lunch of leftover dinner made for me by my guy.
2. Found my missing favorite hair pin.
3. Sunshine.  Lots and lots of sunshine.
4. Puppies!
5. Listening to the inauguration on NPR while I drove to work, and honking and cheering along with other drivers on the freeway as Obama was sworn in (actually, that is a Big Thing, not a Small One).

I'm participating in Schmutzie's Grace In Small Things exercise, and hopefully I will find a minute or two every day to list some of all the many things I'm grateful for.

It's after midnight and I'm getting the kids' new printer set up (finally) so I can type and print and then glue to a posterboard the narrative for a kinda storyboard thing Nate is working on.  Usually, my kids do their own projects, and it shows, but it SHOULD and someday when their fine motor skills improve and their stuff looks better they'll feel great about their progress.

Anyway.

I'm reminded of times when I was a kid, doing that hunt-and-peck typing (and, most likely, long and drawn out sighing), and getting on my mom's last nerve (she was a legal secretary and could type several thousand words a minute).  When she just Could. Not. Stand. It. anymore, she'd beg me to give her the paper so she could just type it for me already and get it done with.  Or maybe I just begged her to do it for me.  It's a little cloudy.

This is reminding me of that, a little bit.  Only in this case, the only reason Nate didn't do his own typing is because I didn't get the printer set up in time.  I gave it a try, but the only cable that came with it wasn't really an ethernet cable, it was more of a phone jack cable thing and that just didn't work when plugged into the wireless router.  And, because I'm a dork, I DID know that the printer had no cables with it.  I knew that back in December before it even arrived from my dad as a Christmas gift for the kids.  Don't worry, Dad, I said, I will pick up a cable.

Yeah.

I hate it when my own kids say Don't worry, because I know that it means that I should.  And now I see that they get that from me.  Awesome!

And so I called SG to gripe and whine and he was all, Baby, I've got an ethernet cable and I've got a USB cord.  Want me to bring them over?  And even though I knew he'd been at work all day, and then gone to two night classes after that, I said YES.  YES I WANT CABLES.  BRING THEM OVER, KTHXBYE. 

So he came over around 11, bringing me not only the cord and the cable, but also an ice cold bottle of Patron because he could tell over the phone that I was a wee bit stressed.  And then, he said I was pretty, even though I was wearing my red flannel cowboy pajama bottoms and a blue tshirt and had been up since 5:30.  So even though right now life can be hard, really I'm spoiled and lucky.  Now if I can just get this damn printer software to load, I might get a tiny bit of sleep before I have to go to work.

I like retail therapy.  Wendy is SO awesome.   

I also like reading blogs so well written that I forget I'm just taking a five minute mental break from work and, whoops, that was more like ten minutes, but I feel better and will go be productive now. 

YAY! Therapy.

but isn't that a little cliche these days?  (No offense to any retired bloggers intended)

Jenny talked me down, which actually wasn't too hard, but even if I had made up my mind to be done, I am sure she'd have been successful because, seriously, have you ever talked to her?  She's funny and can talk you into anything she wants to.  It's her superpower. 

I don't really want to stop blogging.  It's been part of my life for over six and a half years now, and besides all the stuff I've recorded that I'd never remember otherwise, my blog has led to my job and some of my most cherished friendships.  It's been around longer than my youngest child, it started before and outlasted my second marriage, and let me be included in an anthology that you can totally order off of Amazon. 

But honestly, it's gotten a little bit weird.  Even writing this post is like pulling teeth because a) blogging about my attitude toward blogging? Not exactly interesting.  In fact, VERY self-indulgent and booooring, and, b) um. shit.  I forgot while I was rewriting the last two and the following three paragraphs (now deleted). 

So, I won't quit, because I don't think I can.  I don't really want to.  But I am feeling a little odd and awkward here.  I guess because my life is very much changed since July of 2002, but with just a couple of clicks it's all right there.  Like almost every blogger, the things that make it into posts are not always pointing toward reality, even if they are word-by-word true.  I chose to not write much at all about my divorce; and now that the kids are getting older, lots of their stories are off limits.  And, while I'd be perfectly happy to put up post after post about how I totally scored (big time) in the love department with SG, my feet are on the ground enough to know that the only person willing to put up with listening to me go on (and on and on and on) about how happy I am is Jenny, and really I am sure she puts the phone on mute and watches something funny on YouTube while I gush.  At least I hope she does. 

(Damn.  This is the part where I backspaced so much my delete key got welded to my finger.)

I should be sleeping, and I'm halfway through my third beer.  What am I trying to say here?  I don't even have a clue.  I'm restless and impatient and unsettled right now.  I'm having a hard time getting back into the demanding rythym of work and school.   I really miss yoga.  But underneath it all I am happy and content like I never have been before.  Which I know makes no sense, but there it is. 

I was littler than the other kids when I was ten, but I was wiry strong and stubbornly determined to do the things I put my mind to.  I didn't ever tell anyone how fearful I was; how I'd spend hours every night, awake under the covers having a hard time breathing because I was scared.  Of a tree falling on my house.  A brick being thrown through the window.  My parents dying.  Something unimaginable under my bed.  Ghosts.  Car accidents.  A plane crashing into my house.  My teeth falling out.  Aliens.  The devil.  And, probably the one that took me the longest to get over: someone looking in my window, just the top of their head and their evil eyes visible down in the corner by the windowsill. 

My own kids get a vague sense of worry about something in the night and they're suddenly there, clinging to me and whispering I'm scared, I'm scared.  But I never thought to ask for help.  Really, never, like as in it didn't occur to me to do that. 

I look back and see that I was a weird little kid. 

Once, right before we moved to California when I was ten, I was with a bunch of other kids riding my bike in the field behind the apartments where we lived.  For forever that field had been empty.  I had soccer games there, or practices anyway.  I buried my goldfish in a white cardboard jewelry box right up against the fence line.  The shallow ditch of a creek that cut through the field was where I'd seen a dead animal up close for the first time; a deer that the other kids dared me to poke with a stick.  Her skin was dried out and papery and the stick made a hollow scratching sound against the side of her belly.  That kept me up at night for a long time, not because I was scared so much as I was just sad over how beautiful the deer must've been and how sickening the kids were acting toward it.  But this day, this weekend before I left to move away, we were there checking out the early stages of the construction of a retirement home.  The first thing to change the field was a road, and I remember looking from the edge of the grass at the soft grey curves of pavement, the color of rainclouds, and how silly it seemed to not just make the road straight when there wasn't anything to get to or go around on it.  No buildings, no trees.

There were tall piles of dirt around the field, black and brown and rocky piles on the grass.  It smelled good.  It was springtime and not so hot yet.  I was trying to ride my bike to the top of one of the dirt mounds with of course no thought as to what I'd do at the top.  Just be there, I suppose.  But I wasn't more than halfway up, pedaling furiously, before I started to slide back down.  It was steep and the dirt wasn't as compacted as it looked, so as I pedaled my tires forward faster and faster, I slid backward helplessly, unhurt but hyperventilating and badly shaken. 

It was such a terrible sensation that I went home and got into bed to cry.

I still have dreams like that.  Usually I am in a car driving up a hill when suddenly I'm sliding backward, down the hill, panicked and as not-in-control as it's possible to be.  I wake up from those sweaty, my heart pounding, feeling sick. 

I think in pictures a lot.  Or scenes is maybe a better way to put it.  When I feel helpless I don't necessarily have this inner dialogue that says, Wow, this sucks.  I feel helpless.  Bummer.  Instead, I get a flash of myself dogpaddling in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight.  I was trying to figure out what to write about here not too long ago, and the image that came to mind was of me trying to run track in ice skates.  That was picture-think for Huh, I'd really like to write about this stuff, but the way I want to do it doesn't really fit the space, all things considered. 

It's maybe a little hard to explain. 

Tonight I was really missing SG.  He was here last night for dinner, and he stayed afterward to skate with the boys and then watch a movie with me after all the kids were in bed.  Today he came back after a motorcycle ride to take the boys to the skate park.  The girls and I tagged along.  We went to In-N-Out Burger first (dude, protien burger has lettuce instead of a bun which makes it gluten free enough for SG and me) and then to the park.  The boys haven't done more than skate the sidewalk and driveway, so they tenatively watched the other kids flying around and skating up ramps, trying it out gently themselves.  I'm sure they were worried about looking like the novices they are, so I was feeling all the more proud of their efforts.  I'm going to take them back tomorrow.  It's free, and I can drop them off there, which makes me laugh because OMG! RIGHT ON! FREE SKATEPARK BABYSITTING! 

The park closed up at 5, and SG took Nate out to get him a new deck (they won't let ripsticks in the park, so Nate and Lex had to share Lex's) while the girls and I went to the hardware store to get paint.  Willow has been begging me for a desk, and today I finally figured out a side-out-rotate furniture move that has my desk being bumped to the boys' room and Nate's unfinished wood desk, which used to be my little sister's, going to Willow.  But first, it needed to be cleaned up and painted.  Willow wasn't crazy about the desk, and she cried a little because she wanted a new desk, so I told her she could pick the paint colors.  We came home with yellow, blue, green, the palest pink they had, and purple. 

We all met back here, and that was when I got that feeling; that pedaling uphill and sliding backward feeling.  My house is seriously trashed, which is embarassing enough, but even moreso when SG is here.  I know he understands and doesn't judge me, but I also know mothers who keep their houses clean and nice and orderly (somehow) and since his place is always clean and no one would ever be terrified to eat something from his kitchen (ahem), I feel like a huge loser about it.  I'm finally on a lower dose of prednisone, but over the past few days I've noticed that it's made my face really round and puffy, I've put on about five pounds, I am insanely irritable, I am starving all the time, and I can't sleep (like NOW, just for example).  Willow was understandably excited, and kept asking WHEN? WILL WE PAINT? THE DESK? and I just wanted to sit next to SG on the couch for a minute, because Monday is the return of work for both of us and night school for him (he's working on his MBA at a local, private, ReallyGoodCollege) and I'm not going to get to see a whole lot of him for the next, oh, seven or eight months.  And the boys were begging him to come out and skate, and Sophie was griping about her DS game, and it was getting late and I had no clue what to do for supper, and I'd realized that the HUGE project Nate has due in January had been forgotten for the entire break, which is bad, bad, BAD of me.  And so there I was, in my own living room but really in this field in Texas, killing myself trying to get up this damn hill and watching the top move away from me and the ground come up to smack me.  You know?

Finally (after kissing me and telling me what a hard job I have) SG went on home to study and maybe stare silently at a wall for an hour to get over the afternoon (another picture-think: sometimes after a long day with my kids, I feel, in every sense, that I've been operating a jackhammer all.day.long.).  I left the boys home alone to be picked up for their sleepover, and took the girls to Whole Foods where I stupidly spent probably 3/4 of the next two week's grocery budget on tonight and tomorrow's dinner ingredients, plus three boxes of mac and cheese, two boxes of popcsicles, a big bag of animal crackers and 18 chocolate milks for the kids' school lunches, a gallon of milk, two avocados, and two six packs of gluten free beer.  I had that feeling again at the register, because spending so much was really, really, stupid of me.  True, we do have to eat, but much as I love Whole Foods, the prices kill me dead. 

Personally I have never been happier than I am now, but my single mom budget only really works in theory.  I mean, on paper, it looks like I've got enough to pay bills, feed my kids, and fill up my gas tank (barely), but the reality is that I'm always coming up well short of even each month and I've been depending on help to make it.  Probably not the sort of thing to be fessing up to, but there it is.  Somehow cutting back on my yoga membership and not replacing my eye and face cream and sunblock as they run out isn't quite filling the gap left by one less salary and the addition of a day care bill.  I was too embarassed to tell my dad that the hundred bucks he put in my Christmas card went toward children's motrin, a tank of gas, and a cash visit to the grocery store, but at the same time, that was really and truly what I needed. 

Eventually the girls and I came home and they had salad and rice and chicken for supper and then we busted out the paint.  I've got a tiled entryway, so we just set up our stuff there and started painting.  The top of the desk is blue, the legs are yellow, the front is purple and the sides are pale pink.  The drawer is green, with a yellow knob.  Tomorrow we will paint different colored "sun with line designs on it," per Willow's orders, and when it's dry we'll snausage it into her room somehow.  I've promised to drop the boys off at the skate park, and then I need to get posterboard and put some photos Nate took onto a memory card and go get them printed so he can do something toward this project tomorrow night.  I still need more groceries so I can pack lunches for Monday, and we need to find and clean out the backpacks that haven't been touched since the Friday that started winter break.  I'm not sure that everyone has clean socks and underwear, so I'll need to do some laundry.  I should get a grip on my work email before Monday morning smacks me in the head.  I need to balance my checkbook to see if there is anything left to get me through till the next payday, write a couple of thank you notes, and vacuum the goldfish crackers and whateverelse out of the carpet.  Pedal.  Pedal.  Pedal.  I love New Year's Day, and the new year in general, but right now I'm looking at it like it's one big pile of dirt.  I guess I need to get off the bike and just crawl on up to the top. (sorry for that shitty metaphorish thing there)  I know I can do it, and honestly now that I've completly vented about it all, I do feel much better.  In picture-think: it's like that feeling you have when you barf your guts out after feeling sick to your stomach all day long.  Still kinda bad, but better!

A noise I couldn't figure out woke me up this morning.  It wasn't exactly a clicking sound, but it was rhythmic: tick tick tick tick tick  It sounded like the furnace going wonky, maybe, so I got up to check.  Partway down the hall I realized that it was Nate playing drums on Rockband. 

I looked around the living room:

• candy and candy wrappers - everywhere
• kid who slept in and was still wearing yesterday's clothes shredding his drum solo
• television, DVD, and Wii remotes strewn about, some open and missing batteries
• iPods, headphones, and a tool box on the ottoman
• empty wrapping paper tubes, broken from swordfighting

and the kitchen:

• empty glass coke bottles (Mexican Coke yummmm)
• squeezed lime halves
• empty glasses that held rum and coke the night before
• Cup 'O Noodles wrappings in the trash
• more candy and candy wrappers

The clock read 9:38 a.m., and Nate and I were the only ones up.  He said good morning to me, and reminded me that after SG gets back from his motorcycle ride, they are going to the skate park.  I stood there, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, and realized that winter break is almost over and our frat house ways are going to have to come to an end.  

Christmas this year was awesome.  It was quieter than it has been in years past, but definitely all the better for it.  Soph was stoked about the chocolate coins in her stocking:

SG came over at the end of the day, around 9, and we bundled up and went outside to ride skateboards and new bikes until 11.  I don't want to get all sappy, but it was nice because it was joyful.  It felt like Christmas is supposed to but never seems to anymore. 

The next day we went to Granny's to meet up with and introduce SG to all the local family, plus my brother and his wife and their not-born-yet baby, visiting from Portland.  That was pretty great as well; it was sunny so I sat outside most of the day watching the kids (and SG) skate and run around.  Soph brought her giant tray of makeup that she got at her dad's house, and the girls' older cousin put makeup on them.  It came out much better than the makeover Soph gave me.  (Contrary to what Sophie thinks, I cannot pull off the blue eye shadow, unless by "pull off" you mean "look like MiMi from the Drew Carey show.")

I had a lovely and very much appreciated weekend with my guy while the kids all went to their dads' houses.  

This is going to be a good year.  We started it off right by eating our black-eyed peas for good luck and toasting each other with mismatched fancy glasses full of apple cider (champagne for Willow and Sophie, margarita for Nate, red wine for Lex and a mini mason jar for me).

Happy New Year.  Here's to love, warmth, happiness, and laughter, and to always having enough of them in our lives to make the hard stuff more bearable.