This (not so) Simple Life

Some Exciting Stuff Happened

2011-01-05T15:04:00.004-06:00

The latter half of 2010 was mostly normal. On the adoption front, we finished our homestudy, got set up with the state for foster adoption, and started working with a very small, private adoption agency. We didn't know what would happen or when, so I nobly spared you those details. Do you remember when David Letterman had "Oprah Watch" on his show? Dozens of nights in a row, he'd say, "Oprah Winfrey did not call today." That's how the waiting game is in adoption. The agency did not call today.

And so it went, from midyear, when all of our paperwork and fingerprints and medicals and whatnot were complete, until September, when our state social worker sent us some preliminary files on a group of 3 kids. "They look scary on paper," she said. "But give them a chance. I think they might be a good match for you." In this group was H, an 8-year-old girl, and her brothers L and G, who are 5 and 4. We read files, looked at pictures and did a lot of thinking and praying. A few other kids' files came along in that time, too. We heard nothing more until mid-November.

Our state social worker called to ask whether I wanted our homestudy considered at the best interest staffing, or not. It was time to stop floating along on a cloud of indecision, but actually making a solid decision suddenly paralyzed me in fear. More prayers ensued. I begged for some kind of solid indication from the almighty powers of the universe. We finally decided that we couldn't say no at this point, so we'd allow the homestudy to be submitted, and take it as a good sign if the kids' team chose us as the best fit.

The date for the best interest staffing came and went. Our social worker said it would be a week or so before she knew which family was chosen. That extra week also came and went. Not meant to be, I decided.

On a Monday morning, more than a month after the best interest staffing, our social worker called. "I just heard that SRS approved you as a match for these kids. Congratulations! I'm sure you're nervous, but I hope you're also excited." I think I was mostly in shock. I called G at work, then called my mom. Suddenly, in the midst of telling my friends that we were matched, I started to feel the absolute assurance that this was right. Finally! The excitement and love from my friends pulled me from my overwhelmed and shocked state, and put me squarely into thrilled territory. With a side of absolute terror, of course. I'm about to be a mom of four. Hold me!

Later that week, we drove 2 hours to an SRS office to read files on the kids. The information in the files was as heartbreaking as we expected it to be. It was a little scary, too, but mostly it strengthened our desire to give these kids the love and peace and stability that they've been denied for too long. After the file reading, we finally got to meet the kids!

We saw them in the hall on the way to the conference room where we were supposed to hang out and play. The oldest, H, kept stealing glances back at us, and I heard her asking her social worker "who are they?" I smiled at her, and she gave me a hesitant smile in return. She's a pretty kid anyway, but when she smiles? Watch out, world.

We played for a while in the conference room, chatting about our likes and dislikes. The boys made Play-Doh mustaches. It was an incredibly strange time, but oddly comforting, too. What do you say when meeting your kids for the first time? We managed, and by the time we left, I was hopelessly in love with all of them.

Two days before Christmas, we learned that we'd be able to have the kids with us for the whole weekend. So exciting! Except, omg. I have no gifts for three extra kids! Or clothes for the Christmas Eve service! Never doubt that I love my children, internet, because I drove to the city and went to approximately 28 stores in a quest to acquire last-minute gifts and attire. I had to go to Walmart. Two days before Christmas. In the toy section. Yeah, I love these kids.

Christmas was an absolute joy with a suddenly bigger family. Our extended family also rushed to get gifts to include all of the kids in the festivities, and embraced all of them instantly. We had a short break just after the holiday, and then the kids came back to our house to finish up their school break. We'll have them every weekend from now until the state decides they can move in forever.

So there you have it. 2010 went out with a bang in our household, with our family size doubling overnight. I predict that 2011 will bring Sam's Club memberships, basement renovations and four times the excitement of the previous year!

Stampede!

2010-11-06T10:46:00.004-05:00

Let's get this out of the way before I start, OK? I will no longer be pretending that I feel some massive level of guilt for not blogging on a regular basis. There are approximately three of you who read this blog, and at least two of you also have access to my antics on Facebook. It's pretty much the same antics. There. Now I won't need to start my 2011 yearly post with an apology.

This morning, M pressed her ear to the living room carpet and called me over in an excited whisper. "There's a stampede coming," she said. "Oh my," I answered. "A stampede of what?" She gave me a look that suggested I am not very smart, and said "stampedes are bulls, mom." Right. Silly me. "How long do you think we have until it gets here?" I asked her. She thought maybe 20 minutes. 30 max. "What should we do, then?" I asked in a faux-alarmed tone. "Well, you should probably gather all of your jewelry," she answered, "and meet me in the basement."

I may be squashed flat by the bulls falling into my basement, but dammit, I will be covered in shiny baubles when I go.

Much Needed Laughter

2010-05-06T22:20:00.004-05:00

The other day, I had to be fingerprinted, TB-tested, hepatitis-tested, HIV-tested and drug-tested for clearance with various agencies that work with kids in our state. It was... exhausting. And not very much fun. On the up-side, I think my daughter may have an interesting story based on the fact that Mommy had to go into the booking area of the jail and later had to pee in a cup, but somehow I don't think her version of that tale is going to cast me in the best light.

I was at the point where I needed to find the humor in this process. My friend Jill was one of our references for our homestudy. I saw her tonight, and she brought a copy of the reference form with her. She thought I might want to see what she said, maybe even read it aloud to the group we were with. What follows is Jill's handiwork.

How long have you known this couple?

I met Heather during my incarceration, which was about 6 months ago. Heather and I served time together for tax evasion.

How would you describe their character?

G's character: Peter Griffin, the father from The Family Guy. Like Peter, G is irresponsible, a heavy drinker, and has an IQ that is borderline at best.

Heather's character: Nemo. She often seems "lost," but is also a fantastic swimmer.

How would you describe their parenting ability?

With the help of SRS, I think they have the potential to become great parents. It may be too late for poor M, though.

Would you recommend them to adopt a child?

Yes. The tax breaks that additional children bring to the family help people like Heather and myself stay honest and up-to-date on our taxes.

Additional comments?

Please don't hold Heather's illegal alien status against her. She's still a wonderful person.

Busy, Busy

2010-05-04T12:49:00.004-05:00

As usual, right?

I'm about a week away from the end of the semester, and I just need to assemble my final project for the one class I'm taking. That shouldn't take long. However, I'm really irked because we had one group assignment during the semester and neither of my group members did their work. Yes, I got two duds in my group. Ugh. So, I am lacking some feedback that is supposed to be included in my final project. It's bad enough when group members don't pull their weight, but even worse when you can't really make up for it. I'm going to try, but I don't have high hopes for getting full points on my project. Boooo.

We met with our social worker about our homestudy last week. We have to fill out all of our initial paperwork again because of some crazy issue with the notarization. The paperwork is perfectly fine, mind you. We just have to copy over all of the info and have it re-notarized. Argh.

In addition, we have to go get fingerprinted and come up with statements on letterhead to verify our employment. None of these things are terribly difficult, but after so many papers and hoops and such, I do start to feel a little bit sad that no one has to check these things before you take a biological baby home from the hospital. Yes, I want them to know that I am a fit mother. It's just that I feel like I am so much more than an income statement.

Currently, I'm baking some parmesan fish that smells so amazing, I can't wait for lunch. My friend Alison sent me a recipe for parmesan chicken that is really easy and yummy. Just throw some mayo and parmesan on top of the chicken, smear around, and toss some bread crumbs on top before baking. I decided to adapt it a wee bit for the fish I had in the freezer. If it tastes as good as it smells, this adaptation was an excellent idea.

Welcome to My Brain

2010-04-26T13:25:00.003-05:00

Yes, it's been a while. I have missed you, my little ducks.

Some stuff has happened between now and 80 million years ago when I last updated this joint. I will not go into all of it. Most of it is incredibly boring. The highlights: I still hurt myself constantly (am currently limping thanks to a softball injury, sporting a bandage on one hand due to a tragic interlude with an orange peeler, and nursing one arm because I apparently scrub my shower far too vigorously); I have the adult ADD; and we are working on a homestudy, which means I have to demonstrate my adequate parenting skills to someone else and hope that they are sufficiently adequate. I have high hopes that the social worker will base most of the homestudy on the most excellent and sparkly state of my shower.

Oh, I started grad school, too. Please don't ask me when I intend to graduate. I'm holding out at least until I know which doctoral program I want to move on to.

The ADD thing... kind of huge. After the diagnosis, I read a couple of books about adult ADD, and I found within them my life story. No one ever noticed that it was hard for me to focus on so many things because I was very good at hiding it. Sure, they noticed that it takes heroic effort for me to be on time for anything, and that I procrastinate, and that I'm impulsive, and that it's amusing that I can change conversational topics 27 times within the same paragraph. What wasn't so obvious was that the constant influx of new and exciting thoughts spinning around in my brain made me feel like my entire life was a house of cards trying to stand up to a Wizard of Oz-level wind storm.

So now I'm learning to deal with it. I'm making schedules (my mom just fainted when she read that). I'm learning that "clean the house" is an impossibly overwhelming idea that I will never be able to start on, but that "scrub the shower and then sweep and mop the floor" is a reasonably good place to begin for one morning. I have not yet figured out how the space/time continuum seems to disrupt itself between the time when I walk out of my front door and actually make it to the car, but I am working on that, too. I will conquer time. I will.

My doctor gave me some drugs, which is awesome and helpful. I was previously unaware that ADD drugs often bring with them a sudden increase in physical coordination. It makes sense, I suppose. It caught me off guard when I turned up for softball practice just after starting the meds and suddenly understood very clearly what it meant to keep one's eye on the ball. No kidding, that phrase never made sense to me before. Of course, I always tried to have a general sense of where the ball was. That's sort of the point, right? Before, though, it was like the ball donned an invisibility cloak just before it crossed the plate, and I would have to swing blindly at it and pray that I might at least come close to hitting it. Now? I have the Marauder's Map for softball, and that invisibility cloak is toast.

The downside to trying to drug myself into somewhat normal behavior is insomnia. Really bad insomnia. Not being able to sleep does tend to give me lots of time to think, though, so that's kind of nice. I'll close with a small sampling of my after-midnight brain activity.

Thoughts I Had Between 2:13 and 2:54 a.m.

There is really no point to having a large bed if your husband is a snuggler. Fifty percent or more of the bed will nearly always remain unused, and you will never be able to claim any more bed space than is required for you to lay rigidly on your side in a perfectly straight line. If you jump over the snuggling husband and try to use the other side of the bed, you will only end up in the same rigid line position but facing the opposite direction.
Is Julia Child's Boef Bourguignon really so amazing? Isn't it just beef stew? With wine? I guess it must be pretty fab if they made a movie about beef stew.
If I were a cat with a cast on my leg, I would not go up and down the stairs constantly, particularly since there is absolutely nothing in the basement that I truly need.
I should try to draw out the bed situation in stick figure diagrams for my husband so he can understand why I make pitiful sounds when he wants to snuggle up to me. Although I love his bulging biceps, one of them is now covering 3/4s of my pillow, and his elbow is in my eye socket.
Every dollhouse I've ever seen either has no stairs, or the stairs go through one of the bedrooms. That would be awkward.
I want this. But it's expensive. And pretty. Logically, I should get this, because, you know, storage space and changing table, etc. But the other one is so pretty.
Being snuggled in this manner feels dangerous. I'm supposed to like this. But I can't move my arms. One of my legs is now dangling off the side of the bed. If I fall, I won't even be able to flail my arms dramatically while plunging to the floor.
The cat gets the last laugh, because it hurts when she walks on my legs with her cast.
Irises are gorgeous, but I hate the way they smell.

Friends, Roofies and Blaming the Victim a.k.a. Would You Pick Me Up in the ER?

2009-10-17T16:14:00.005-05:00

The level of disagreement I feel over DoubleX columnist Lucinda Rosenfeld's "Friend or Foe" advice regarding roofies, friendship, alcohol and the emergency room is without measure. If I had to put it simply, I'd say, "I couldn't disagree more." But specifically, I feel like her advice is wrong on so many levels that I can't quite wrap my mind around it.

Little known fact about me: When I was in college, someone drugged me. That event not only shapes my trust or distrust of others, it shapes my opinion of people who shift the blame for such incidents from where it belongs, squarely on the shoulders of the person who did the drugging, to the victim. Most people seem to understand nowadays that it isn't OK to echo the old "she deserved it" line when it comes to sexual assault. Why, then, do so many people still cling to that ridiculous notion when it comes to violating someone by drugging them? What is the main reason that someone would drug another person? Oh. Right. To subdue them, likely so that they can't/won't fight off a sexual attack. Do they deserve that part, too? Did I deserve it?

Regarding Rosenfeld's terrible advice, it's an insult to almost anyone that she assumes people don't care enough about their friends to get up and go to the emergency room if they are in need. Are you kidding? If I got a call in the middle of the night from a friend in the ER, I'd be out the door before I even hung up the phone. This woman in the article was talking about close friends whom she had known for 10 years. Really? Ten years of friendship and they leave her in the bar, ignore her when she frantically calls for help while almost passed out on a sidewalk, and then get grouchy with her when she needs assistance leaving the hospital? A follow-up letter indicates that her friends ignored her hysterical call for help because, in her drugged state, she danced with a guy one of her friends had a crush on. Those, in my opinion, are not friends at all. I would do better for a complete stranger. Hell, I'd not leave someone I actively disliked passed out on a sidewalk in the middle of the night. This isn't even so much a friendship issue as a "here's what decent humans do" issue.

Rosenfeld argues that there is a limit to what you can expect your friends to do for you. I agree with that statement, taken alone. But she goes on to say that friends are really only good for chats about boyfriends or pets, and if you want someone who will actually be there for you in an emergency, you need to either be having sex with them or they should be related to you. That's a bit silly, don't you think? You can only expect decent treatment if you have a partner or live really close to your parents?

Even worse, though, is that the entire advice piece reads like an indictment of this woman's life and choices. She may have been drinking or (gasp) drunk. She might have engaged in ye olde flirting and dancing with men! Maybe she was doing lines in the club bathroom. It's possible that she had called her friends for help before. But.... none of those things excuse her "friends" for leaving her at a club and then ignoring her requests for help. None.

Even in Rosenfeld's apology, she says she just didn't believe this woman's story. That may very well be the most genuine sentiment in the whole shebang. I did drink a bit in college, but I'd say I probably drank less than many of my classmates. I didn't regularly call for help or end up in compromising situations. In fact, I can't think of a single time that I called someone to pick me up in the middle of the night, for any reason. However, when I told a few of my friends that a young man at a party had drugged me, I got the same treatment as the woman in Rosenfeld's column. They didn't believe me. It took me a few years to really get mad about this. Full understanding of the situation came with age and more realization of just how awful and potentially dangerous that situation was. I do know this, though. That very same guy I tried to warn people about drugged and raped another young woman a few months later. She never even attempted to press charges. Why? She "knew no one would believe her."

My question is this: Would you pick me up from the ER? Would you show compassion to another human being who is clearly in a terrible and scary situation, or would you cast aspersions on their honesty and actions? Is it too much to expect your friend to give you their life savings? Probably. Is it too much to expect that your friend won't leave you for dead on a sidewalk somewhere? Uhh. No.

Facebook - It's Not Really About The Icon

2009-05-18T14:38:00.003-05:00

I recently read an article that condemned women who use pics of their kids as Facebook icons as boring has-beens who now dominate dinner party conversation with discussions of strollers and school lunches. Interesting. I don't use my daughter's picture as my Facebook identity, but it seems a bit off to me to make a sweeping judgment about that many women based on... well, Facebook.

Is Facebook that ingrained in our lives now that we can judge a person's whole life by the photo they put by their name? If so, I suppose I should try to check this monumentally important account more often. Frankly, I'm far more likely to make snap judgments based on the annoyingness of the games and apps and quizzes a person spews onto my wall than I am to care what photo they choose. My friend Alison has a cartoon character. Dare I contemplate what that says about her? Facebook is a tool with which you can find out more about a person's world. Let's not mistake it as their entire world.

If I did choose to put a picture of my daughter up to represent me for a day, I'd do so because I'm proud to have achieved a reasonable level of career success while maintaining some hobbies and a sort of clean house, spending a lot of time volunteering, having an active social life, *and* raising a daughter who is funny, well-rounded and well-behaved. Whether or not that meets anyone else's definition of the healthy, modern woman matters to me about as much as their choice of Facebook photo.

What about those creepy people whose pics show them turned to the side, or with a hand near their face, or even a stray lock of hair falling over one eye? They're obviously ashamed of themselves, hiding their lack of contribution to the world, and should possibly re-consider even being on Facebook at all. It's gotta be a full-on shot of your face, or you're just plain doing it wrong.

At the end of the day, though, if you find yourself obsessively characterizing your Facebook contacts based on the photo they choose as their icon, perhaps it's time to take a little break? Besides, as far the dinner party conversation issue goes, I can't say I'd enjoy someone who wanted to talk smack about other people's Facebook choices any more than a parenting-only conversation. At least the stroller convo might have some useful real-life applications....

A Day With The Soybean Queen

2009-05-05T09:23:00.003-05:00

When you work from home, it's a tricky thing. I love that I have the freedom to set my own schedule, and I can usually bail on work and go have lunch or go to my daughter's school activities, and finish up my work at 2 a.m. or whenever my next free moment comes along. The problems with working from home are two-fold, though.

First, I never leave my work behind at the office, because my office is handily contained in my laptop, which always seems to be nearby. And I love it. I start to get a wee bit twitchy without it, in fact. Yesterday, I went to town without my laptop (normal) but I also forgot my phone (not normal), and I had to quell a rising panic when I realized that I couldn't spend the hour of wait time between my daughter's sporting events checking email, playing on Twitter, surfing the web or catching up on work. Gah! OK, so it really wasn't that hard to stop the panic. I marched my little one off for a mom/daughter dinner and laughed at her restaurant antics (wouldn't mommy like a kiss after EVERY bite of food???). No prob, Bob.

However, when it's ten o'clock and I'm exhausted but I know I could crank out just one.more.thing before bed? It would be handy to be able to leave the office somewhere else. Perhaps I need a time-sensitive lock box for my laptop. This laptop may not be used between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. Of course, then there would be a tornado or something at 1 a.m. and I'd have to gnaw through the lock to check the weather. OK, maybe no lock on the laptop. Whatever.

The second problem with working from home is that everyone else forgets that I work. At all. Well, except my editor. She *always* remembers. :) Even my husband, when he's home during the day, will ask, "what are you going to do today?" Ummm.... well... they actually won't pay me if I don't do work at some point, so I think I'm going to work! Sound good? Yay! Other times I'm working along, typing intently, brow furrowed with the effort (note to self - get Neutrogena to sponsor blog with anti-wrinkle cream for brow furrow), and my husband suddenly decides that he really and truly needs help holding a tape measure or a level or pushing some sort of button on a piece of farm equipment RIGHT THEN. And suddenly I am an unpaid farm hand with a mangled manicure.

Even my mother asks me what I'm doing when she calls me during the day. *sigh* I think part of the problem is that for people who live in my little town, what I do is less visible than, say, someone who assembles things or farms or works in a store or teaches children. Being a writer seems nebulous and unofficial. Being a writer on the internet, even more so. Once, upon hearing that I was a freelance writer, someone said to me, "doesn't that just mean that you don't have a job right now?" Ha. Ha. Ha.

Today's schedule is pretty standard, except that I don't have to go to town for anything. Whew. I'll spend about 4 hours of my day writing things that pay the bills. I might spend 30 minutes to an hour writing things for fun, like this blog (shocker - it doesn't pay the bills! Sure would like some of that anti-wrinkle cream, though). Then I get to do the random stuff that fills up every mom's day.

I need to call the car dealership to find out what options they can get for me on an '09 Ford Flex. I think we're going to (FINALLY) buy one within the next couple of weeks, and I don't want to order one. So, the dealer is looking for one that has most of what I want. As usual, I have very expensive tastes and I am forcing myself to reign it in a bit. Do I really need that Panoramic Vista Roof? Probably not. But I waaaaant it. So badly. Frankly, the light-up cupholders also appeal to me, but I suspect that it would actually send my husband into some sort of catatonic state if I spent money on lights in cupholders, so I'm avoiding that. You can CHOOSE the COLOR of your CUPHOLDERS! Daily! I know.... I'm stopping now.

After I try not to kill my husband with vehicle upgrades, it's off to the garden for a while, where I must plant one Cleveland pear, four heirloom tomatoes (Mr. Stripeys and Brandywines), four columbine, two purple nettles and three yews. Then I need to weed. A lot.

When the wee one returns home from school, it's homework time. Then we play ball in the yard. I claim this is for her benefit, but after my showing at my own softball practice last weekend, I think she knows it's actually for me. While I'm making dinner later, I'll check in with my fake internet girlfriends to see what madness they're up to today. I confess, that's one of my favorite parts of the day.

The evening is usually spent trying to get my child to not use the living room as a toy box and laundry receptacle, being grossed out while she and my husband watch Andrew Zimmern and discuss actually eating the bizarre foods he's sampling, chasing the kiddo off to bed, doing a little more writing, and collapsing into an exhausted (but still really sexy) heap after making some attempt to clean my kitchen and scale Mount St. Laundry.

And that, my friends, is why, when you call and ask me what I'm doing, I say, laughing, "oh, nothing."

Still Aliiiive. Barely.

2009-05-04T13:51:00.003-05:00

My poor, neglected little blog. :( I had surgery in mid-February, and boy, did I underestimate the time it would take to feel human again. I think I'm nearly there, two and a half months later. Let this be a lesson to you, surgery-getters. Take whatever recovery time your doctor gives you and double it.

Allegedly, I should have been able to go back to work 2 weeks post-op, if I worked outside the house. Two weeks after my surgery, I was still sleeping in the guest room so that no one stood a chance of accidentally touching me, I could barely stay awake for more than three hours at a time, and I still wasn't driving myself anywhere because I couldn't wear a seatbelt unless I also put a pillow underneath it. No, that wouldn't attract the attention of the local law enforcement at all! And I'm sure my employer would have loved finding me face-down on my desk every few minutes, too.

Luckily, I have mostly recovered just in time for softball season here in the Midwest. As you may know, we sometimes lack recreational options out here in the sticks, and hence, softball is HUGE during the summer. The little one has coach-pitch practices already, and my husband and I have practice for beer-league softball in another town. It's a good thing I can drive without that pillow now, because I rarely see the outside of my truck unless I'm standing in a ball field somewhere.

I'm not that great at softball on a good day, so getting ready to play after having surgery is humiliating at times. Swinging a bat with 35 inches worth of relatively fresh scars around one's chest/midsection? Ow. It still kind of hurts to raise my arms very far, which makes it really interesting trying to throw a softball very far. The good news is that my performance at practice means they'll be less likely to put me in to play very many games, thus reducing my overall humiliation.

After all of the driving to practices and running after softballs and batting until my arms might fall off means that the small amounts of post-op energy I've regained go away pretty fast. So, if I don't blog again for another 48 years, I'm probably napping. All sayings involving sleeping animals and how you should let them remain asleep apply here.

A New Country

2009-02-23T18:50:00.002-06:00

Tonight, on the way into town for gymnastics....

Kid: I wonder when there will be a new country?
Me: (laughing) I don't know. Maybe it will just be a surprise?
Husband: (puzzled) What do you mean? Like, where?
Kid: I mean, like, next to Missouri.
Husband: Well, Arkansas is kind of its own country.
Me: (laughing very hard)
Husband: Wait. Pretend I didn't say that. It would definitely be wrong on your geography test.

Scene From The Living Room

2009-01-14T07:40:00.001-06:00

During the morning hair-combing ritual....
Me: Tomorrow, some friends of mommy and daddy are coming over. You probably don't remember them, but you've met them before. I think you'll like them. Mr. Dave was the best man at mommy and daddy's wedding!
Maya: You mean he sat still?

The Holidays.... They Are Over

2009-01-01T10:59:00.002-06:00

And I am on my way to China. Yeah, it was a little random. :) More to come on that later. Let me tell you about Christmas.

Maya wanted a Barbie dog, and a Ken doll. No problem, I thought. Oh, how arrogant of me. That thought is the downfall of parents everywhere around Christmastime. I also waited until just before the actual holiday to do my shopping. In retrospect, that may have had something to do with it.

I arrive at the store and look for a Barbie dog. There are none that do not also come with a Barbie. Oh well, Maya will love an additional Barbie. Bonus! I pick one up. She looks great. All blonde and fabulous. I nearly throw her in the cart when I do a double take, curious what that pink stick is that Barbie is holding in her hand. And then I recoil in horror. It's a poop scoop. And then I see them. The tiny brown plastic pellets. Yes. I have very nearly purchased plastic Barbie dog crap. This is... unacceptable to me, to say the least. This Barbie dog has a strategically placed hole in its backside. Barbie feeds it the plastic pellets (yes, those same ones) and then they come out of that hole in some sort of twisted perpetual Barbie recycling program, and Barbie happily picks them up with her pink, plastic scoop, her perfect smile still painted on her face. It's just a little too much for me. I can't buy plastic poo.

There was one other choice in Barbie plus Barbie dog. This set had a mama dog and several puppies. I breathed a sigh of relief and picked up that box. Oh, look! They have cute magnetic noses and can give little eskimo kisses! How sweet. And they have little plastic bottles and you can bottle feed the puppies with real water! ...... Wait a minute. What's that little pad over there in the corner of the box? Are you kidding me? The ONLY Barbies with dogs in this whole store BOTH involve some sort of bodily function? Well, I'm not proud, but I bought the peeing Barbie puppies. It seemed slightly more dignified than the recycled foodpoo.

I still needed to find a Ken doll. Surprisingly, there were only two options for him, as well. One was a beach-theme Ken. His clothes were normal, but his hair was somewhat like a 1970s disco Ken with a heavy dose of shellac. He could surf all day and that hair wasn't going to move. Barbie was not going to be happy looking at that hair after a long day of cleaning up puppy pee.

The other Ken had stylish clothes, very nice hair, a handsome face and a really sweet messenger bag. He was entirely too well put together, actually. I'm not really sure if he was the right Ken for Barbie, either. At the very least, though, he doesn't over-use the hair products, and they can enjoy many hours of shopping for swell clothes and accessories together. Maya loved both of them. And their incontinent little dogs.

Sometimes I Rant About Car Seats

2008-11-25T15:26:00.006-06:00

Being involved in parenting forums has its ups and downs. On one hand, hilarity and support await for the gal who lives in the middle of nowhere and doesn't see a lot of other non-family adults on a daily basis. On the other hand, I sometimes feel like banging my head against a brick wall when people argue with me about car seat safety. The following message was my frustrated attempt to explain why I just.can't.let.it.go when people challenge me on car seat issues. The discussion was about expired car seats (yes, they expire), but it has applications to other safety issues, as well.

There are many good reasons for replacing a safety device before it's absolutely on it's last unsafe breath.

The thing that gets me is this. Vehicle crashes are still the leading cause of death for kids overall (there is a window for newborns when congenital problems are a bigger risk). I'm going to be harsh for a moment here, not because I intend to sound cruel, but because there aren't many other ways to say it. We know that a lot of kids are still dying in vehicle crashes. We also know that a great many parents are using their car seats incorrectly in some way, or many ways, including using them past the expiration date. I did that, too, before I knew better. But now that I know? I will do everything in my power to shield my child from this one thing that I have the ability to provide significant protection against. If people would argue less over what CPSTs and car seat safety organizations are saying, and instead put that energy into following the advice, it's highly likely that we would see a reduction in the numbers of children who are seriously hurt or killed in vehicle crashes.

People get hypervigilant about their child's online safety, or whether or not to vaccinate, or whether or not to send them to public school, or whether or not to let them watch TV, or any number of other issues. And it's not that those things aren't important. They are. But why do people get so excited over those issues and then argue over a car seat expiration date when statistically, their child is far more likely to be affected by its safety than any of those other things? To me, it's like ignoring the elephant in the room in favor of screaming at the mice.

Scenes From Early Thanksgiving With My Family

2008-11-21T20:52:00.002-06:00

My parents are heading to Florida for Thanksgiving this year, so they wanted the fam to gather early to eat turkey and be merry. We arrived earlier this evening and had dinner just a little while ago. Verrrry tasty. The following are excerpts from the evening's conversations.

*Scene* My very pregnant sister, Deb, and her husband are arriving.
Dad: (leaning out the front door) Hey! I opened the garage door. It might be easier for you to get in that way!
Deb: (coming in through the garage) We're not even carrying any suitcases. Why did he want us to come in the garage? Are we too embarrassing to use the front door now?
Me: Uh, Deb? I think he was suggesting that your current girth might make it difficult to *use* the front door.
Deb: Oh.

*Scene* Getting ready to sit down at the table for dinner.
Dad: The chair on the right side in the middle has a structural problem that I haven't been able to fix yet. So, Deb, you probably won't want to sit there.
Deb: Dad! Jeez.
Dad: (laughing) What? You can sit next to me this way!
Me: If she sits next to you, it will be so she can stab you with her fork.

*Scene* Mom is outlining drink options.
Mom: OK, I have Diet Pepsi, Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi, Coke, Caffeine Free Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, root beer, Dr. Pepper, Diet Dr. Pepper, orange soda, milk, water, tea, coffee, Capri Suns, orange juice and Kool-Aid.
Everyone: .........
G: (laughing) Could you repeat that?
Mom: I'll repeat that you can go to the fridge and see for yourself.

*Scene* The food is being passed around.
Mom: There are two types of butter on the table. I know that one person (looking at my husband) requires real butter. There is tub butter for....
Grandma: The tubby people?
(everyone looks at Deb)
Deb: I'm going to leave. Right after you pass the turkey. I would leave now, but it's for the baby.

*Scene* Maya is eating pie and drops a big chunk on her pants.
G: Let me help you with that. (picks up the pie and puts it on his plate)
Maya: Hey! Dad! Don't take my pie! I was still gonna eat that! (reaches over and steals back the dropped pie)

My Kid is Country, Y'all

2008-11-20T21:55:00.002-06:00

Maya is reading and writing like crazy lately, as kids are known to do in first grade. She is encouraged to sound out words and write them down as she thinks they might be if it's not a word they've covered in class yet. She's pretty good at it most of the time! The other day I was looking at some of her school papers and reading some of the cute little stories she wrote, and I kept coming across a word that she spelled as "theon." I was confused. This is not a word I am familiar with, and my vocabulary is probably above average. Trying to understand it, I said the word aloud. And it hit me. "Theon" is how you might write down the word "then" if you're a little girl with bit of a drawl. Two syllables. Oh my.

Tonight as we settled down to read a few books together before bedtime, she decided that mama needed a special bedtime hair-do. "What a great idea," I said, and handed her the comb. She reached for the detangling spray, too, naturally. It's just not as much fun to comb your mother's hair without loading it up with so much detangler that it runs down her scalp and requires her to take a shower once you're solidly asleep. She sprayed and combed. And sprayed and combed more. She put a hair tie in my hair and commanded me to just try not to cry if it hurt too much. She gave me permission to touch my head if it hurt, to help with the pain. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth and said, "this is fun! You're doing such a good job." I could hear some of my hair snapping off. My stylist will wonder what on Earth happened to me.

After studying her work, she took the hair tie out and started combing again. Added a little more detangler. As she combed, she said, "you're going to have something like a ponytail, only messier." I thought that would be just fine for the bedtime stories. Then she said, "Mom, this is just like when you do my hair! Only I do it neater and better. And it hurts less."

Heaven help that child if what I do in the mornings hurts more than what was happening on my head tonight. My ponytail-but-messier is pretty fab, though, which is good, because the detangler overload has dried into a stiff, glue-like substance and I fear the hair tie may never come out.

Strangers! On the Internets!

2008-11-20T16:51:00.002-06:00

It used to be that the internet seemed so big and scary to almost everyone. Today it almost seems cozy to me. Friends can be found almost anywhere, and the few jerks I've encountered haven't made it worth it to give up on all of the wonderful things this huge web-world has to offer.

I love the connections that people feel to one another via the 'net. Members of the same forum. Bloggers and readers. Social networkers. Love matches. Isn't it amazing that in a few short years we've moved from "SCARY!" to "be careful, but have fun"?

I used the internet mostly for email and research prior to my pregnancy in 2001. Then I found a group of other moms-to-be who shared my love of self-mockery and silliness, who would pull together for an incredible support system when one of the group required it. Over the last seven years the group has changed a bit, people have come and gone, and we've moved to meeting beyond the internet as often as possible with this many kids and schedules. I used to call these women my fake internet friends. Recently, one of the women in the group decided that wasn't a good enough name. We were sister friends, she said. I like that. Without the internet, I would never have met any of them.

I was thinking about how powerfully we can feel connections even with people we've never met after reading at Dooce that she's pregnant. She has posted about her previous losses, something that I've experienced, too, so when I read that she recently saw her baby moving on the U/S screen, I cried. I'm about to cry now. I can only imagine the joy and relief, and I found myself silently cheering her on the same way I would a close friend. Amazing, isn't it?

The 'net provides me with quite a bit of entertainment. I live in the country, y'all. Nightlife and museums and book clubs? Those things aren't so much available here. But I think it's not the fun factor that keeps me coming back here. It's the other humans behind the screens. It's the unexpected things we find in common, and the ways we connect to one another.

A New Twitter Storm? Toys for Tots

2008-11-18T12:26:00.003-06:00

Just when I thought no one else really cared about turning the Motrin Moms Twitter buzz engine into something positive, tweets are starting to appear asking people to rally around Toys for Tots to truly make a big difference this holiday season. If you're not familiar with the organization, Toys for Tots takes donations of new, unwrapped toys and distributes them so that kids don't have empty hands on Christmas morning.

Can you imagine wanting to get your child some small gift for the holidays, but having to choose between that and food or rent? As a mother, my heart breaks a little bit imagining that feeling. We all know that the food, shelter, safety and love are the most important things to give our kids. But being able to give them just a little bit more, and to see their smiles in return - that's important, too. Toys for Tots helps thousands of parents do just that on Christmas.

In the aftermath of the Motrin craziness, there were plenty of people who criticized the moms who were offended by the ad. Too much time on their hands, they said. Need to focus on bigger issues and really make a difference. If you felt it important enough to call others out on what they were doing to change the world, I hope you don't consider yourself immune from your responsibility to help fuel a more important Twitter fire. Less talk, more action, folks.

Sheryl at All About Health, Family & Fun suggests using #TFC to tag your tweets so that everyone can see them in search.

Tell your friends. Link them to the Toys for Tots site. Buy some extra toys when you're out and about and find a Toys for Tots drop-off location via the search form right on the front page of their web site. Can't donate toys? Donate money via credit card on the Toys for Tots website! Can't do that? Donate a little bit of your time by tweeting this, posting it to Facebook, blogging it, telling your friends about it, calling your mom, asking your employer about possible gift drives and company gift matching, or see if you can find a way to volunteer some time to the organization.

So, come on Internet! You're a great big, fabulous place. I love you, even when you're being grumpy and foaming at the mouth over pain relievers. Please don't let me, or Toys for Tots, down on this.

The Buzz Works. Now What?

2008-11-17T12:34:00.002-06:00

This weekend's Motrin Moms fiasco certainly showed that mom bloggers and others involved in social media can create a big stir when they want to. The website was pulled, an apology was issued, and the buzz is slowly simmering to a dull roar (save the last few sad people who are still slinging the same tired insults that have been around since internet communication began). Soon the critics will tire of screaming that real moms don't have time for the internet or that mothers don't have any real pull on purchases (that dude seriously needs to do some homework before tweeting again) or that everyone was wasting their time by even caring about something that was less than a global issue.

One point that came from the critics is valid, though, in my opinion. Why isn't this much 'net activity and passion wasn't happening for other issues? The Motrin ad was annoying and was fascinating to watch from a media/marketing perspective, but no one was truly hurt by it.

I know that many of the people who weighed in on MotrinGate do care deeply about bigger causes. Many are active in blogging about them or work to raise money for them or volunteer time in their communities to make a difference. The problem is that those things don't show up on the internet. One blogger's Saturday at a soup kitchen won't get her a top spot in Google results or more than a thousand tweets in a few hours.

The other thing that makes visibility of causes difficult is that we all have different pet causes that we're passionate about. I blog, write, preach, discuss, scream, whisper, tweet and teach car seat safety because vehicle crashes are the number one killer of children of kids under age 14 in the U.S. and therefore I feel it's worth some attention. Others don't feel the same passion for it, so it doesn't create a giant storm of internet craziness. The Motrin fiasco did so largely because it called on one thing that most of the commenters do share and feel passionately about: motherhood.

So, the question is: how do we keep the ball rolling? We know that it's possible to create big buzz and get people talking (mostly) thoughtfully about an issue. How do we get everyone talking about the same cause at the same time? There are hundreds of charities and issues and personal cases that involve children or motherhood. The passion is there. How can we use it effectively and collectively?

Motrin Moms Controversy

2008-11-16T02:51:00.005-06:00

I'm not easily offended, first of all. Have you seen Motrin's new "We Feel Your Pain" ads that are geared toward moms? Their latest, which just so happens to have been released during Babywearing Week, talks about how painful it is to wear your baby, and how women do that just so they can look like an official mom. It's meant to be tongue in cheek, but it doesn't come across very well. It comes across as trivializing the attachment parenting concept.

Whether or not I'm hugely offended, many people were. Angry letters were written. Mommy bloggers posted late into the night. Twitter exploded with #motrinmoms tags, which even trended to the number one spot with more than a thousand tagged posts in about two hours. Let this be a lesson to companies who want to market to moms. Be careful. Ask questions. Invest in focus groups and test panels. Ask women who don't depend on you for a paycheck what they think. When moms get mad? They talk. Loudly. It's so much easier to get it right the first time than to fire your PR firm and beg forgiveness later.

For the record, babywearing doesn't hurt to the point that you need Motrin, anyway. I've used many different kinds of carriers, and they never made me cry or reach for the painkillers. And it was the baby barf on my shirt, not the sling, that made me look like a real mom.

Read more about Motrin Moms.

Motrin Makes Mommy Mistake
Motrin the Anti-Mom
Don't Mess With the BabyWearers
Annoyed By Motrin's New Ad Campaign
Motrin Makes Moms Mad
Would You Like Some Insult With Your Pain Reliever?
New Motrin Ad Angers Twitter Moms Around the World
Motrin's New Ad: Wrong Message, Wrong Time

Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day

2008-10-15T11:00:00.002-05:00

October 15 is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. Everyone knows someone who has lost a baby. Even if you don't know it. Miscarriage is incredibly common, but many women grieve quietly. If you knew some of the things people say when they find out, you might stay silent, too, but that's probably a whole different blog post. Heh. This day is about everyone who knows what it's like to feel the excitement and hope of knowing there is a life inside you and then having that hope disappear. It's entirely unfair. And part of the struggle is that, particularly for women who lose a baby early in pregnancy, others haven't had time to see it as a "real baby." They don't grieve as we do, so the sadness is compounded by a feeling of utter aloneness.

If you're so inclined, this group suggests lighting a candle at 7 p.m. today to remember everyone affected by this kind of loss. The idea is to create a continuous wave of light across the world as everyone lights a candle in their time zone. I don't know that I need the lofty goal of the whole wave of light. But I like the idea of lighting a candle on one day to remember.

Love Purses? Check This Out!

2008-10-15T10:31:00.002-05:00

I almost never write about product stuff on this blog, because I do so much of it for my job. But stay with me, girls, because this is fun. Handbag Planet is launching a new site really soon and they're giving away really cute bags to celebrate the launch. So go to HandbagPlanet.com and sign up, choose the bag you'd like to win, and then wait to see if you're a lucky winner. And if you are, you can thank me profusely and let me gaze adoringly at your cute new purse!

Dear AIG Execs

2008-10-07T15:43:00.002-05:00

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=5973452&page=2

You make me sick. Do you realize that there are people who are struggling to even find a job? People who WANT to work? Imagine what more than $400,000 could have done had you stopped thinking of yourselves for one minute and put it towards people who would like to feed their families this week. What about the people who are still trying to clean up after a hurricane? What about the small business owners who are fighting tooth and nail not to go under because there's no credit to be had now? If you can sleep well at night, you're disgusting excuses for human beings.

Oh, and one of my dear friends who is being hugely screwed by the current state of the economy would like her fancy pedicure, too, thanks. It's the least you could do, really.

That Explains Everything!

2008-10-05T02:33:00.003-05:00

This afternoon, in the car, on the way to a hayrack ride, Maya was telling my sister-in-law about our new kittens. They are quite cute, but they came to us with ringworm, and one of them is losing her fur as a result.

Maya: Aunt Gaylette, we have KITTENS! And they have... (whispering) ringworm.
Aunt Gaylette: I remember when your daddy used to get ringworm from the wrestling mats in high school.
Me: Well, now he doesn't have to wrestle anyone. He can just get ringworm right in our house!
Maya: So THAT'S how he got bald!

September Roundup

2008-09-23T09:18:00.003-05:00

I can't believe the whole month has nearly passed me by. As many of you know, this is the craziest time of year for me with work, so I am slaving away in front of my laptop, just not here at my blog. When do I ever slave away at my blog, you might ask? Good point. I don't.

Early September sent me to Vegas for the ABC Kids Expo. Lots of walking. Lots of great contacts. Judged the JPMA Innovation Awards, which was pretty cool. Over 100 entries. Only 10 winners. That was hard! Also hard? Finding non-fried foods to eat anywhere in the vicinity of The Strip. You'll be pleased to know that I went somewhere other than my hotel and the convention center this year. I met this lovely person, Anya, who is an expert on travel with kids, and she drove me down the strip one evening, and we also went out for a beer during the week. The beer was bigger than my arm and I had to drink it fast to avoid the liederhosen-wearing, bell-ringing, table-dancing, German band at the restaurant, but that is probably a story for another time.

Mid-September is my baby girl's birthday. She's seven! Hard to believe. I still remember how impossibly small she was when they laid her on my chest. I also remember quickly demanding that my husband take her because, holy crap, I didn't know what to do with a baby, for heaven's sake! He actually didn't know, either. Poor M. She's lucky she's made it this far with two clueless parents. At seven, her favorite color is purple, she is still crazy for horses, she loves Webkinz, reads like crazy, thinks fishing with Daddy is fantastic and wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up.

Around M's birthday, I always end up thinking about how I ended up hanging around the online pregnancy forums when I learned I was expecting the unexpected baby. That was January 2001, which means that in a few months, the women I met wayyyy back then will have been my friends for 8 years. I was just looking for some answers to my incredibly noob pregnancy questions (if the test says I'm pregnant, I'm, uhh, really pregnant, right?). Who would have guessed some of those women would become my closest friends?

Fall is finally in the air. My favorite season. Not too hot, not too cold. Halloween. My birthday. Clothes in my favorite colors. An excuse to break out giant wool sweaters. Football! Camping. The occasional bonfire at the lake. I love fall.

I'm making an effort to take more walks this fall. The whole "busy at work" thing is having a negative effect on me. My ass is taking on the shape of my favorite recliner. This is not good. Not good at all. Must walk. Must not become furniture-shaped. Might be hard to find cute fall clothes in recliner-shaped sizes.

My Kid is a Critic

2008-08-14T21:25:00.003-05:00

I was driving Maya home from gymnastics tonight and she was chattering at me from the back seat, non-stop, as usual. She noted that the stars were coming out and announced that she would be making a wish on the first star she saw.

A few seconds later, she said, "I made a wish and I'm not telling it to nobody!" I said, "that's cool. You should say, 'I'm not telling anyone' instead of 'nobody,' though." I could feel her roll her eyes at me from the back seat, and then she asked, "why shouldn't I say 'nobody'?"

"It's not grammatically correct," I answered. She paused for a moment and then said, "ooooo-k, that was a weird thing you just said, mom."

Ooooooooooh! Ghosts!

2008-08-10T18:02:00.002-05:00

Let me preface this post by saying that I'm not entirely sure that I believe in ghosts, at least not as they are commonly shown on the big screen. Every once in a while, something happens, though, that makes me wonder if maybe some of the paranormal realm might just be real.

My camera remote has been missing for nearly 6 months now. I remember when I used it last - I was in the basement messing around with portrait lighting. I keep a pretty close eye on my camera equipment, so the next time I went to use the remote, I was really surprised that it wasn't in it's proper place. I went back to the basement, knowing that if I had left it down there, it would be on one of the two tables by my backdrop stand. It wasn't there. I looked high and low. Under the couches. Behind the backdrop. Up on the bookcases. Through all of my camera bags and in all of my jeans pockets. No camera remote. Every time I've been in the basement in the meantime, I've looked for the remote with no luck. Last week, I started to consider ordering a new remote.

Fast forward to today. I ventured down to the basement to run on my treadmill. As I passed one of the tables by my backdrop stand, on my way to find some TV entertainment for my run, I saw something on the table out of the corner of my eye. In the middle of the otherwise empty table was my missing camera remote. I said, "yay!" and assumed that one of the kids had found the remote and happened to place it right where I probably left it 6 months ago. I put the TV remote and my water bottle down by the camera remote, did my run, then spent some time on the rowing machine, and started to stretch to finish up. No one else had been in the basement during that time.

When I leaned over to grab the table during a stretch, I was surprised to see that the camera remote was no longer there. My water and the TV remote, yes. Camera remote, nowhere in sight. I was a little creeped out by that, but finished what I was doing and then started looking around the basement again.

A little ways from the table, on one of the couches, was the camera remote. Sitting right in the middle of the cushion. Not like someone tossed it there or it got bumped (by the no one who was there!!!) and flew over there. It was face up, perfectly square with the cushion. The weird thing is that even if I had somehow managed to move the remote and then lose all memory of doing so within an hour timeframe, I would never have moved it from the table to the couch. I *hate* chasing things that fall between the couch cushions, so I never set things down on the couches. So weird!

Oddly, I was watching a movie about ghosts on TV when this happened. The other time that something weird happened to me, I was also watching something about ghosts on TV. That was when I was 17 and babysitting. The kids were asleep and I was alone in the family's basement. A ride-on toy wheeled itself across the room in front of me that night. As a 17-year-old I was far jumpier than I am now. I think I managed not to scream but I certainly hauled ass upstairs and didn't go back to the basement again. Ever.

What say you, internet? Camera-remote-hiding poltergeist? Does the spirit realm have a thing for me when I'm in a basement and watching ghost shows? Or am I losing my ever-loving mind? Yes, I'm aware that the last option is probably the most likely.

Laundry Oddness

2008-07-28T21:52:00.002-05:00

I'm trying to scale Mount Saint Laundry and slowly take it down to the ground piece by piece, as it threatens to erupt and kill us all at any moment. As I've been searching my daughter's room for the bits of laundry that did not make it into her laundry basket (which is, umm, 90 percent or so, since the laundry basket makes a better doll bed than clothing receptacle), I've noticed a strange trend. There are socks in my home that do not belong to anyone who lives here.

Even stranger than finding random socks in my house is that these socks always appear in pairs. The socks that belong to my family members? Oh no. They do not mate for life. Or even for 45 minutes in the dryer.

So, I have to wonder how it is that all of these matched sets of socks that I did not purchase have ended up in my house. If someone is breaking in when I'm not home to leave their dirty socks here, could you at least leave pairs that fit one of us? Or leave something other than socks? If I'm doing someone else's laundry, I'd prefer it to be haute couture and in my size, please. A Valentino gown would work just fine.

If You Know Nothing About Car Seats....

2008-07-23T10:55:00.003-05:00

....don't talk about car seats! I am to the point where I have to avoid reading threads about car seats on forums and comments sections on blogs that mention car seats. The ignorance is astounding, and the people who know the least about car seats are always the first to comment. If we were talking about what type of coffee to drink in the morning or which shoe designer is best, it wouldn't bother me. But car seats? When you spread ignorance and myths about car seats, you could kill a child.

I would actually love it if more people talked about car seats. I would just prefer that they do some decent research first. Or, if they'd like to argue about things like expiration dates or why brands cost what they do or when a child has outgrown a seat or when it's appropriate to turn a child forward-facing, it would be awesome if they could at least take the CPST certification class first and put in a few years of work in the trenches so they know of which they speak.

So, I'm going to use my blog as the lovely, venty space it was intended to be for a few minutes. I won't comment on those forums or blogs any more, because it only makes my head feel more explodey. Here are a few of the most common gems on the internet, along with my usual responses.

- We never used car seats as kids and we lived! We got to ride on the back dash!
Yes, so did I. We were lucky, because there were a lot of other kids who didn't live. In fact, I know a guy whose sister was killed when someone rear-ended them while the two kids were laying in the ultra-desirable back of the station wagon. Still today, car crashes are the number 1 cause of death for young kids. We've come a long way, but there is a ways to go yet.

- The expiration date is just a way for car seat manufacturers to make more money.
I'm not a scientist, so I can't explain exactly how and when the plastic parts of your child's car seat break down. But they do. Take a look at this crash test video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvCRz7BRAM0 . That's a 10 year old Britax car seat. Please note that the straps break through the back of the car seat shell on impact, allowing the test dummy to fly almost completely out of the seat. If I can keep that from happening to my child, I'd pay the car seat manufacturers a hell of a lot more than I do now.

- My pediatrician said I could turn my 6-month-old forward-facing because she has good neck control / can sit up / etc.
First things first... your pediatrician probably didn't study car seats in medical school. Peds are notorious among child passenger safety advocates for giving the worst car seat advice. The American Academy of Pediatrics does have statements about car seat issues. If your pediatrician isn't recommending that you follow at least the minimum standards that AAP suggests, I'd find a new doctor. Children are so much safer when rear-facing. It's not a happy milestone to turn forward-facing. Head control or ability to sit up has nothing to do with how your child's body can handle crash forces. Babies' heads are so big and heavy compared to the rest of their bodies, and when they sit forward-facing, their head can move forward so much more in a crash. More movement means more injury. Look up internal decapitation if you really want to know why I recommend rear-facing for as long as possible.

- My baby's legs were sticking over the edge of the car seat, so I turned him around. I didn't want his legs to break in a crash.
Ahhh, I know this one so well! I heard this, too, when my daughter was one! Here's what the EMT who helped me install her convertible car seat told me about it. "In a crash that is severe enough to break her legs, there is also a chance of other very serious injuries. Would you rather her break her legs or her neck, if you had to choose?" Touche, Mr. EMT. I got the point. And for the record, I don't know any CPSTs who have actually heard of a child's legs being broken because they were rear-facing.

- More expensive car seats are pointless. You're just paying for a name and a pretty cover!
I used to believe this one, too. :) As a CPST, my job is to tell people that all car seats on the U.S. market meet the same safety standards, and that the best car seat is the one that fits your baby and your vehicle, and that you will use correctly every time. And that is true. However, to understand why so many CPSTs find the high-dollar car seats to be worthwhile, you have to look a little further. Those safety standards (FMVSS213)? They say that all car seats have to be crash-tested at 30mph on a bench seat, frontal crash only. Some manufacturers *only* do that test. Other manufacturers test frontal, rear, side impact and rollover collisions. But crash tests are expensive, so those costs have to be recouped through the car seats. For me, knowing that my child's car seat has been tested beyond the minimum is a must, because not all crashes are 30 mph frontals. Convenience features also can add to cost. Things like cupholders or a more attractive cover aren't worth the cost to me, but built-in lockoffs, extra EPS foam and increased side-impact protection, easy to use LATCH hooks and non-twisty straps are worth every penny. Those things make the car seat perform better in a crash and make it easier to install and use correctly.

- This custom cover / seatbelt tightener / strap pad is crash tested! It says it meets FMVSS 213!
Accessory manufacturers love to tell parents that their products are crash tested or that they meet all applicable federal safety standards. The tricky thing is, FMVSS 213 does not say anything about aftermarket accessories. There are no crash test standards for a custom car seat cover. They could throw it against a wall and it would meet the current, nonexistent standards. A can of Spam could be labeled to meet and exceed FMVSS 213. The easiest, safest route is to avoid using any car seat accessory that didn't come with your car seat, or that isn't provided by the seat manufacturer. Using aftermarket stuff can void your car seat warranty and absolve the manufacturer of any liability if the seat fails in a crash. Some accessories, like custom covers, can interfere with the function of the car seat if they don't fit the harness strap slots perfectly or add padding underneath the child that could compress in a crash, leading to a loose harness. Custom covers are rarely flame-retardant, either, which could pose a big problem in some types of crashes.

- It's so stupid that states are making kids sit in boosters until they're 8.
Considering that real world crash data showed that kids in the 4-8 age group were still being injured quite often, I'd say it wasn't stupid, but smart. Vehicle seatbelts are made for adult men. They can't work if they don't fit. Boosters help the seatbelts fit kids.

- I don't wear my seatbelt because I want to be thrown clear in a crash / know someone who lived because they weren't wearing a seatbelt.
Anyone who claims to have lived because they weren't buckled should probably play the lottery a lot, because they are statistically very lucky. The biggest favor a seatbelt does you is keep you inside the vehicle in a crash. If you're ejected, you're 4 times more likely to be killed. Not wearing a seatbelt is also incredibly selfish if you have other passengers in the car. When your body flies around inside the vehicle during a crash, you're likely to seriously injure or kill the other people in the car, whether they are buckled or not.

Vignettes from Weekend Travel

2008-07-07T10:32:00.003-05:00

This weekend we went to Orlando, Maya and I. Unlike most of the families on the plane, we were not headed to Disney World, but to my uncle's funeral. Maya never ceases to amaze me, the way she understands things at 6 that I'm not sure I do at 30. She seems to know instinctively how to comfort people. How to just be beside them. To be honest, I needed her.

One of the things not many people know about me is that when I say I want the window seat on the airplane it's not because I'm a brat. It's because I have to be able to see out of a moving vehicle of any type, or I will get sick. Generally, I can control it to the point that the little paper bags in the seat pocket aren't necessary, but let's just say that an aisle seat means that I will be turning green and practicing deep breathing exercises for the whole flight. It's not pretty. Maya knows all of this. And as long as I let her unbuckle for a few minutes and look out the window mid-flight, she's content to graciously let her mother have the window seat. After we got back to Kansas City and were on the bus to the parking lot, Maya noticed that the bus windows were covered with painted advertisements. I was OK because I could see out the front windows, but Maya was really concerned. She put her little hand on my arm and said, "Are you OK in here, Mom?"

In the airport, I saw a trio of women wearing plastic tiaras. I also saw a man wearing two cowboy hats, one on top of the other. I saw a grown woman whining like a child that her Burger King sandwich was not perfect. I saw a young AirTran employee who was far too happy to be awake and at work at 5:30 a.m., and silently envied his energy. Airport people watching is always the best.

Run!

2008-06-24T12:54:00.002-05:00

So, it's summer, which means that it's time for my annual season of feeling like I need to be in 27.3 places at any given moment. And yes, that means I have less time for blogging. I know. I always have an excuse for why I'm not blogging. My apologies!

My plans for teaching the youngster how to garden have been largely derailed thanks to wayyy too much rain. I got her to weed some flower beds by the house, but I made her quit because I kept losing her among the giant ragweeds. It has been too wet to plant my veggie garden, so I am in mourning for the zucchinis and tomatoes that will never be. Oh, how I love eating fresh veggies right from my garden. *sob*

In general, my schedule for the summer goes like this: take child to gymnastics, buy groceries, go to the ball field, put fuel in truck, pull a few weeds, mow half the yard, get a sunburn, go to the ball field, buy more groceries, mow the other half of the yard, buy more fuel for truck, GET YER DANG SHOES ON SO WE CAN GO TO THE BALL FIELD!!!!, prevent child from giving cat another haircut, try to clean mud from floors in house, gymnastics again, more groceries, more fuel, go to the ball field, forget the groceries and let family subsist on foods purchased only at said ball field.

In between those things, my husband and I have been taking classes to get our open water diving certifications. If all goes well, we will be official divers after this coming weekend. It's loads of fun.

If I make it to the fall, perhaps I will consider writing another blog post at that time. Happy summer, everyone.

Things I Want to Teach My Daughter

2008-05-15T10:28:00.002-05:00

Since my daughter is only 6, it's hard to guess what she might choose to do with her life once she moves away from home. Currently, she'd like to be a football player. I hope she intends to be a kicker, because she's tiny and probably always will be. She also would like to be a horse rider, which sounds like the more realistic of her career ideas, oddly enough.

I hope that my daughter grows up feeling like she can do anything. All paths are open to her. At the same time, I want her to find joy in simple things. Baking bread. Making a quilt. Arranging a vase of flowers from the garden. Growing veggies. I want her to embrace everything the modern world, and modern feminism, has to offer, but not forget the little things her grandmother and great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother took pride in.

She already helps me in the kitchen sometimes. But this year, I'm stepping up the effort. This summer, she's going to learn how to make cookies and bread. I'm going to teach her how to sew, too, and hopefully by fall she will be working on her first small quilt. She already helps choose garden plants, but this summer she will pull weeds and water, too. Though it will probably be painful for both of us, I also intend to start teaching her how to make a housekeeping schedule. And stick with it. Which means I will have to stick with mine. Yikes.

My mother did all of those things, and did them well. I think, though, that sometimes we expect that our children will just learn how to do all of that stuff just by watching us. Do most parents have some sort of formal teaching schedule for how to keep the house somewhat clean and get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour and tend the garden and bake delicious cakes and balance all of the other commitments we end up with? My mother did teach me how to sew. And how to bake some of the things she always made. The rest... I've sort of picked up on my own. Or have called my mom in a panic for instruction when I needed it.

So, my goal is to actually take the time to truly teach those things to my daughter. The traditional stuff. The basics. Woman's work (ha ha ha). If I ever have a son, he'll probably be forced to learn it too. This mom will certainly not be doing laundry and grocery shopping for an adult son. Heh. Hopefully, by the time my daughter is old enough to fly the coop, she'll be ready to take on her chosen career, but also to manage her home and enjoy some of the "old-fashioned" hobbies that have almost become lost arts. Maybe she'll even be able to prevent dishes from piling up in the sink, unlike her mother.

I Should Have Named Her Cooter

2008-05-14T08:40:00.003-05:00

I have a really hard time finding anything with my daughter's name on it. Her name, Maya, just isn't one that people tend to put on pre-made objects. And that's OK, really. She doesn't need a lot of stuff to remember her name with. I got her a rockin' pack of princess name labels from Mabel's Labels and she can put her name on just about anything.

Last weekend we went to a craft fair in town. One of the vendors was making wood cutouts of things, including names. I did a double take as I walked by the stand with the pre-made names. You expect to see the usual suspects on the name rack. The Jennifers and Matthews. The Jessicas and Jaimes. The Heathers!

I have to say that I never expected to see Cooter as a pre-made name choice. Or Renner, for that matter. Have you ever even met someone named Renner? I haven't. I have met someone named Cooter, though. I live in Kansas, y'all. What do you expect? I'm also confused by Karren. With two r's it is solidly out of the realm of common names. Julius and June seem odd only when you consider that they did not have Maya, which is far more common nowadays than either of those names. But Jalen? That's not even a name!

Babysitting?

2008-05-09T04:20:00.002-05:00

The time I've spent on the internet has been good for my husband, although he probably wouldn't admit that. I have long been of the opinion that he is a decent person, one whom I enjoy being around, and the tales I've heard on the internet about other husbands and fathers has only served to reinforce my appreciation of him.

For example, my husband has never once expressed irritation at being at home alone with his child. Nor has he ever referred to taking care of his child as "babysitting." Apparently, there is a whole subsection of parents in the world who believe that, when a father magnanimously agrees to care for his kids occasionally, it is called babysitting. Funny, I call it parenting. And it's not something you agree or disagree to. You agreed when you helped create the kid.

/end soapbox rant

Motherhood....

2008-05-02T08:18:00.004-05:00

I'm not sure it's possible to sum up my feelings on motherhood with one photo, but I think this one comes the closest. My daughter and I are in a wheat field, near our house on the farm. I was trying to take pictures of her, but she wasn't content just to pose. She wanted to take pictures, too. And she wanted me to be in the pictures with her. Without her prompting, this picture, which is one of my favorites, would never have been taken. She took the picture via the camera remote in her hand. My daughter is so much like her father - my personality and hobbies rarely make an appearance in her - so her interest in photography is pretty special to me. My influence actually shows in this picture!

For some reason, this photo also reminds me of how much motherhood changed my life. I know everyone says that. Motherhood does change all of us, in many ways. But, I can say, without a doubt, that my life would be entirely different today if my daughter hadn't made a surprise appearance 6.5 years ago. I had just started a new job, in another state. We had been married less than a year, and kids were not even a consideration yet. But the universe had other plans. I didn't have a support system of friends in our new city at the time, so I looked online for information about pregnancy and found loads of forums with women that became my "mom friends."

When my little girl was born early and spent time in the NICU, I realized that 6 weeks at home with her was not even remotely enough, and started down the road that would eventually lead me to become an at-home mom. For someone whose career was of the utmost importance to her before baby, this was a huge change. Babies have a way of doing that. Not long after I quit my job to stay home with the little one, my husband's place of employment closed with only two weeks notice. Had I not quit my job, this wouldn't have been a problem. But I had. So we packed up our apartment and moved back to my husband's family farm. We always planned to be back here someday, but not quite this soon.

Being a city kid, the transition from "career person in reasonably large town" to "at-home mom in rural Midwest" was fairly difficult. Those online friends I made during my pregnancy? They kept me going when I thought I would perish from the lack of adult contact. Later, one of my forum friends would link me to an announcement for a job that was done entirely online. I applied and got the job, which allows me to work as a journalist while still living in the middle of nowhere.

So, my home and career would be entirely different had my daughter not arrived when she did. We wouldn't even have the same pets! (There is no way Danny Phantom the Angry Attack Cat would be living here without a little girl pleading and begging daddy for that cute kitty.) This picture sums all of that up for me. The city girl, in a wheat field, with the surprise daughter who is the absolute best thing that ever happened to her.

This post is part of the Mother's Day photo contest at 5MinutesforMom.com.

Things Girls Can Do

2008-04-24T12:10:00.000-05:00

I am currently annoyed by a commercial that seems to be playing zillions of times a day on E! It's ruining my constant influx of True Hollywood Story and Chelsea Lately episodes. The commercial in question is for Nutrisystem and it features the notoriously annoying Jillian Barberie.

In this Nutrisystem commercial, Jillian proclaims her love of the pre-packaged diet foods and happily notes that she lost 40 pounds. She probably could have lost another 15 by taking out the huge faux boobies, but I digress. This is somehow supposed to be a sports-themed commercial, although I don't think Jillian Barberie and sports go together very well aside from the fact that she may have been in a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue once. She waxes poetic about how she, unlike most girls, is into sports. Right, Jillian. You're the only woman on the planet who loves football. Insert giant, dramatic eye-roll here.

At one point in the commercial, a football comes flying in, slowly, from off-screen. Jillian catches the football, looks impressed with herself, and then puts the final nail in the coffin for this commercial. "What girl can do that?" she asks. What girl can catch a football that is tossed gently to her by a production assistant that is standing a few feet away? Oh, not many, Jillian, I'm sure. My 6 year-old can do it, but she's an anomaly.

The Recap

2008-04-09T12:17:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to decide what I want to say about the New Jersey trip for a few days now. After thinking on it, Camp Baby comes down to three main "take-aways," as we like to call them in the biz.
1. Johnson & Johnson paid for me to go to New Jersey so that I could meet some really interesting people, drink wine with Ted Allen and become addicted to Twitter.
2. Meeting my co-worker Stephanie face to face after merely emailing one another for 3 years was AWESOME. I live for Stephanie's nuggets of wisdom. Also she makes me laugh kind of a lot.
3. I will be happy if I never hear about bladder prolapses again. Though the incredibly juvenile vag jokes that came from that camp session were, admittedly, really amusing.

The hotel was pretty great, which was nice because that was pretty much all I saw while there, aside from a restaurant that served the most amazing chocolate cake that has ever passed my lips. At the hotel, there was a near-constant supply of soda and snacks, so clearly they were prepared for my needs.

Before the wine tasting, they set out a buffet so we could attempt to lessen the effects of the wine to come. There were more than 50 women there, so table space was limited around the buffet. Stephanie and I thought we were being really crafty by taking over one of the trays that was intended for dirty plates (before there were any dirty plates on it, thank you), so that we could eat properly. But then the other trays filled up with dirty plates. And someone put a dirty plate on our tray. And then suddenly a waiter swooped in and snatched the tray right out from under us. I remember the look on Stephanie's face quite clearly. She had just taken a bite from her plate. Her fork was still in her hand. And she had that sort of "is he doing what I think he's doing?" look going on. And then we both started laughing. She dropped her fork on the tray just as he lifted it away entirely. I was only able to save my water glass from the food-napping. I'm not sure if he thought we were eating from other people's dirty plates or just didn't feel that using a tray as a table was appropriate in such a fine establishment. Either way, the guy had guts. I should have bitten his arm when he swooped in for the kill.

Even my water glass was not meant to be truly mine. As we wandered into the room where the wine-tasting was to happen, a man in a black suit, a gatekeeper of sorts, grabbed it out of my hand before I could even protest. "There will be water at your table, ma'am," he said. OK then. No moving water goblets across inter-hotel lines. Got it. The above incidents happened back to back, and frankly, I could not stop laughing about them once we got into the wine tasting room. Thankfully, others seemed to have the giggles, too, so I was not the ONLY person in a room full of grown women being shushed by event coordinators. And then they gave us wine. They provided buckets into which we were presumably supposed to spit the wine after tasting it, but come on! The buckets quickly became hats and the laughter in the room got just a wee bit louder.

The full day of camp in the middle was filled with educational sessions, including the aforementioned bladder prolapse discussion. Other tidbits I learned: we should feed our children fruits and veggies, fecal matter is EVERYWHERE, and there is a nifty program out there called InfantSee that allows parents to get a free eye checkup for their baby in order to get earlier treatment for some eye conditions that could result in vision loss later in life.

I also learned all about Wii sports at Camp Baby. While I was learning about Wii, I also learned that there was an open bar at the Frog and Peach restaurant, and they like to mix their drinks strong.

The following day, before we left for the airport, we visited the Johnson & Johnson headquarters, heard from some of their execs (and they heard from the bloggers, oh yes they did!), and then browsed a store of product samples. Did you know that Johnson & Johnson makes KY products? Yeah, baby. There will be some happy spouses and partners when those samples arrive.

Gah-ROSS!

2008-04-07T14:24:00.000-05:00

I touched a tick this morning. A huge one. Subsequently, I lost my will to live. I have washed my hand 27 times, applied vast quantities of Purell and used that Mary Kay Satin Hands kit that has been sitting in my bathroom for 6 months to scrub away any skin cells that may still harbor tick molecules. But still, I *know* that my right hand has been tainted by tick touching. Ew!

My dog was also traumatized by the tick. Poor thing didn't even know it was there until I petted her and screamed like my hair was on fire. At least we are both secure in the knowledge that a fresh application of Frontline means that tick's days are numbered.

I had other things to say in my blog today, but I'm sure you understand that I need to spend some time in the fetal position under my desk trying to forget what a fat tick feels like. Gah.

J&J Camp Baby Blog

2008-04-01T12:10:00.000-05:00

I've joined a group of bloggers who are also attending Johnson & Johnson Camp Baby. You can read about our experiences at the Camp Baby Blog. I just finished blogging about how cleaning before a trip could harm your chances at wearing your cute shoes on said trip. It's a painful tale. Be careful out there, folks!

Is This Kid Mine?

2008-04-01T09:29:00.000-05:00

Genetically, I don't seem to have much affect on my child. She looks just like her father, with the minor exception of the dimple on her chin, which is all me. She also acts just like her father. I mean, scarily so. We should have named her Junior, I think. If it weren't for that dimple, and her propensity for using big words when a small one would do, I'd really be concerned that she only had a half-set of DNA.

The latest evidence that she is absolutely nothing like her mother came as she happily brought home a dead, dried out frog from a little hike she went on with her dad last week. She couldn't wait to show me. "Daddy saw it on a rock," she said. "And he said I could bring it home and keep it!" I looked at her father. He looked back. I looked horrified. He laughed.

Maya skipped off to her room with her new friend. Through the evening I could hear her singing happily. A tune she made up, with words to match. "My Dried Up Frog and Me." Seriously.

The next morning after she went off to school, I was clearing the usual breakfast detritus and school papers from the kitchen counter when my hand brushed something unfamiliar. Yes, I had come into contact with the dried out frog. Unlike my child, this did not make me want to sing. AND IT WAS ON MY KITCHEN COUNTER! I fought the urge to call the design center and order new counters right then and there. I carefully used one of her school papers to shove the frog onto another paper and move it to her room, where at least I didn't have to look at it. Then I washed my hands approximately 348 times.

In her kindergarten class, they have this thing called "The Sharing Tub." It's actually a baby wipes box. Once a week, M has to find something to put inside the tub to show the class. She writes clues on a piece of paper so the others can guess what's inside. I let her choose her own items to put in there, because she does a good job of it, generally, and she can write her own clues. As long as she's not trying to shove the dog in there, I leave it alone. Though, she does claim to be looking for a very small real dog that could fit inside that box. Hmmm.

On sharing tub day, though, Maya got off the bus with a somewhat dejected look on her face. She still had the sharing tub with her. Usually, the tub stays at school or goes with another student when she's done with it. Not this day. She wandered over and said, "Mrs. P says I have to clean out the sharing tub." What? What had my child done to the sharing tub? A quick peek inside told me nothing. The box was empty and appeared clean. I pulled the clue sheet from her backpack. The clues were as follows:
1. It is green.
2. It is dried out.
3. It starts with an F.
Ohhh, Maya. The dried out frog? For sharing tub? Really? Mrs. P had placed the frog inside a ziplock bag in M's backpack, so I found myself in all-too-close proximity of it again. *fullbodyshudder*

When my husband arrived home, I handed him a container of Clorox wipes and suggested that he be the one to help her clean the not-actually-dirty sharing tub. He asked why. And then he had the audacity to look proud. And he laughed. Heaven help me. There are two of him.

Camp Baby, Here I Come!

2008-03-31T17:54:00.001-05:00

Yes, I have been avoiding this blog for some time now. Maybe I was trying out my new virtual mime lifestyle. Maybe I'm still sitting on my hands to avoid replying to one of those pesky, culturally insensitive mass emails that always show up when I'm in a mood to fire right back. Maybe I just don't have a damn thing to say!

OK, I always have something to say. Today I am merely saying that I am attending Johnson&Johnson's Camp Baby event with dozens of other women who are bloggers and mothers all at the same time. Multi-tasking! We moms do it so well. And no, this blog is not nearly important enough in the grand scheme of things to have earned me an invitation. It's my day job that secured my place on the invite list. I know, you're all shocked that my random blog, to which I post an average of once every three or four months, does not pay my household bills. Please try not to faint!

Based on the limited contacts I've had with a few of the other Camp Baby attendees, I think this may be a pretty cool little trip. Last time I went away for two or three days sans husband and child, I came back with a tattoo. Just sayin'.

I Think Television is Corrupting My Child

2007-12-18T21:21:00.000-06:00

I smiled to myself as she started singing Christmas songs in the bathtub tonight. Then I realized, with dismay, that she was singing, "He sees you when you're in sleep mode..." a la the Mac commercials.

Interview Questions - V. Tricky!

2007-10-30T22:07:00.000-05:00

I had to help interview some job candidates the other day since I'm a member of a local executive board. Most of the questions were pretty standard fare - including the "tell me about your strengths" followed by "tell me about your weaknesses." Most of the candidates were pretty honest and non-cheesy with their answers.

One gal, who said she was originally from Arkansas, had an intriguing answer when asked what her weakness was. "My accent," she said. "I get teased about it a lot, and I think when I'm on the phone people can't understand me."

I find it terribly amusing that, in a county where most people sound at least mildly accented to me, this poor woman is struggling to be understood. If people can't understand someone from two states over, can you imagine if they encountered someone from a whole other country? Like Mississippi?

Now With Medically Enhanced Fertility!

2007-10-28T16:38:00.000-05:00

So, the secret is out. I'm taking a fertility drug. My once young, able-to-get-pregnant-on-the-pill-at-a-moment's-notice body has been resisting the valiant efforts towards procreation that we've endured these long months. And that is how it came to pass that for my 30th birthday, I received a gift of drugs that will hopefully bring me a gift of a new baby for my 31st.

The unfair part of it all is that fertility treatments are incredibly unsexy. The ones I've only read about - injections, sperm analysis, hysterosalpingograms, intrauterine insemination, in vitro insemination - all involve jabbing, prodding and poking by people that you barely know. Ready to sign up for that romantic stuff?

As for my new meds, I'm most alarmed by the "side effects" portion of the patient information sheet. Nausea, diarrhea and flatulence are the most common side effects. Wow. I'm sure it's a lot easier to get pregnant when you're barfing, running to the toilet, and farting. Nothing enhances fertility like a bit of sexy diarrhea, I say.

For the love of ....

2007-10-27T12:29:00.000-05:00

I don't curse very often now that I have a young soul to be responsible for. I now say things like "son of a biscuit!" instead of the choice expletives that may have exited my mouth at previous times of my life. My husband has cleaned up his vocab, too, although cursing is an art form among the guys he currently works with, so once in a while a *bleeeeeeep* will slip out at home.

The other day, M was in the living room, trying to change her clothes, when her shirt got stuck over her head. She's standing there, arms over her head, voice muffled by the shirt covering her face, and she says, in an irritated voice, "Oh, for the love of bitch!"

I guess I should be glad that she hasn't heard the more common phrases often enough to get them right.

I couldn't help myself when she said it. I laughed. Kind of a lot. There was no stopping it. But then I had to conjure up a straight face and tell her that she could never, ever say that again or she would get sent to the "think about it" area at school, or maybe even to the principal's office. She thought about it and said, "Oh, for the love of mama!" I let it go at that.

Really? I Wouldn't Have Guessed!

2007-10-24T22:01:00.000-05:00

Tonight, I wanted to watch a little TV, so I fired up the ole DirecTV guide and started browsing. I came across a re-run of Without a Trace and looked at the description to see if it was an episode I've already seen. I enjoy watching Without a Trace, but if you're not familiar with it, each episode deals with a new case with one or more missing persons. The detectives wander all over NYC until they find the person, and it always happens by 10 p.m. central. Yay!

So, I look at the description of the episode, and here is what it says: Girl goes missing.

Oh, wow! Thank you, DirecTV guide episode info writer! I would never have guessed that on a show about people who go missing that in one special episode, a *girl* would go missing. At least I know it wasn't one of the many episodes in which a boy goes missing. That does help me narrow it down quite a bit.

In the end, I couldn't find anything I really wanted to watch, so my husband and I put on a Jeff Dunham DVD and spent an hour giggling madly over puppets. None of them went missing, male or female.

Saddened, Dismayed, Shamed

2007-10-01T20:52:00.000-05:00

I've come to the conclusion that the TV show "Sunset Tan" represents all that is wrong with the world. This pains me to admit, because it involves telling you that I have watched this horror of a "reality" show and because I feel compelled to tell you that I do not intend to stop watching it any time soon because, as with any train-wreck, I cannot look away.

If you haven't seen Sunset Tan, please do not go and watch it now. No. Take my word for it. It's terrible, and you will be able to feel your brain cells slipping out of your ears as you sit there, mouth agape, hoping that this show is not so much reality as someone's idea of a really sad joke. If you have watched it, though, you know what I mean. How much stupid can they pack into thirty minutes of TV? Oh, it's lots. Lots.

The employee drama represents a good portion of the show. It boggles my mind that in all of L.A., the owners of this chain of tanning salons are unable to find anyone to hire who does not appear to be missing key portions of their brain, completely lazy or who actually would perform some kind of work during their shift instead of claiming that 99 percent of what is asked of them is "not their job." Vapid doesn't even begin to describe the employee roster.

And then there are the customers. Ask yourself this. If you'd like to be bronzed and looking as though you've spent a week in the Riviera, would you entrust said bronzing to someone who is the color of an Oompa Loompa, or who accidentally forgets to spray tan part of someone's body (see Olly Girls)? Frankly, if I want to be orange, I can pick up some gloppy self-tanner at my local Walmart. But I digress....

Perhaps the worst offender in the customer realm was the mother who brought in her elementary-school-age child because she apparently didn't look tan enough in previous school pictures. Being the most tanned girl in the class is tres important for the vapid-in-training, according to this mom. Nice. So, despite the obvious discomfort on the part of the child, she is sprayed all over with the Oompa ink, and is later shown all ready for her school picture. When I gazed at this little orange child, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It was truly a ridiculous sight, so I decided on laughter. But really? There should be a law against artificial tinting of small children. It's wrong on so very many levels.

Actually, "wrong on many levels" would be a great subtitle for the whole series.

Evil Eye

2007-10-01T01:02:00.000-05:00

My daughter was in the back seat of my truck today as we cruised down the highway on our way to visit my sister and her husband for the afternoon. She was happily entertaining herself, as she often does on road trips. She's always been a good car baby. And yes, I get to call her a baby, even though she's six. She's *my* baby, after all.

I looked at her in the rear-view mirror once, and she had one eye closed, and was covering it with her hand. I figured it was part of her usual pirate act, though she didn't seem to have the opposite hand curled into her trademark "pirate hook finger."

After a while she said, "Mom, when I cover my eye up with my hand I can see spots. Red spots." I answered, "Yep, that sounds normal to me." Her face was serious, though, and she thought about it for a few minutes, occasionally putting her hand back up to her face. "Mom," she said, "that's how I can see my eeeeevil eye. It's red, with spots."

Evil eye, indeed.

I knew there was a reason...

2007-09-29T13:01:00.000-05:00

Kindergarten-age girls have a lot in common with teenagers. The diva-like behaviors my own sweet princess has exhibited lately have left me alternately gasping with abject horror and wondering if she truly is the punishment for all of the attitude I gave my mother during my adolescent years.

She has lost two teeth in the last month or so, and has three more loose teeth, so her sassy soliloquies are now uttered in that distinct, lispy voice that only comes from having gaping holes where your fangs should rightly be. This lends a babyish but all-too-adult air to her conversations these days. From a parent's perspective, the constant spinning between behaviors befitting a toddler and a wisened grandmother is maddening and laughable and frightening, all at the same time.

This morning, however, my daughter woke up in the most pleasant of moods. She's everything that is good about age 6. She's huggy, and kissy, and Mom can we go pick apples at the orchard-ey, and hey Mom I brought you a cookie-ey(!!) and it's pure heaven.

A few minutes ago she was quietly working in the kitchen where I couldn't see her, and I became alarmed at her silence, wondering whether the sweet child had vanished and left a home-destroying demon-girl in her place. I asked her what she was doing in there, without the nerve to actually look, in case the ensuing mess was too much for my delicate sensibilities. She responded that she was just getting some water to clean the floor. Hmmm. Any parent will tell you that if a school-age child is cleaning it usually means a large mess has been created and they're now frantically trying to hide the evidence.

I put on a brave face and peered over the counter to inspect the damage, but there was none, save a few bits of soggy paper towel on the tile floor. I asked her what was on the floor that she needed to clean up. Her answer? "DIRT! Duh, Mom."

I'm glad one of us is concerned about eradicating dirt from the kitchen floor. I knew there was a reason we had kids!

Classically Beautiful

2007-08-27T23:40:00.000-05:00

That's what my friend Susan called me tonight. Classically beautiful. I had a stressful day and didn't get enough done and had to get ready for a meeting tonight and my husband was late getting home to take over with Maya so I was rushed getting to town and was feeling very flustered. After my meeting, Susan said, "I was just looking at you from across the room when you were talking and thinking, man, she is just so classically beautiful."

That's the cool thing about friends. No matter what kind of crazy day you've had, a nice word from a friend can put a smile back on your face. :D

Respect My Wishes. Yeah!

2007-08-23T00:28:00.000-05:00

You know how some people say, "when I die, I don't want people to be sad. I want my funeral to be a big party and people should tell jokes"? Well, I am not one of those people.

Granted, I'm not planning on dying any time soon, so don't get any ideas. However, if there are people whooping it up and laughing at my funeral, I'm going to be really mad. Hello? I just died! Why are you laughing?

Also, if I die, no one should believe it if my family says to send donations somewhere in lieu of flowers. Screw that! I want loads of flowers at my funeral. Masses of them! That's not to say that you shouldn't also create a scholarship or something in my name, befitting the huge impact I had on your life. I'm just sayin' don't cheap out on my flowers. Heh.

Don't let my husband bury me in a cut-rate coffin, either, while I'm making requests. Our opinions differ on material goods. He's a saver. I'm a spender. Be sure he knows I require a high thread count lining if I am to rest on it for eternity.

If you're taking this post seriously and you're getting mad that I'm being demanding over a death that hopefully won't happen for many, many years, you should laugh. Because I'm kidding. Except about the laughing at my funeral part. I'm totally serious about that. Y'all better be cryin' it up.

Sad

2007-08-16T19:12:00.000-05:00

I generally try to keep things positive and amusing in my blog, but I don't have it in me lately. My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for a year now, which for those of you not obsessed with all things baby, is the magical cut-off time between "normal couple trying to have a kid" and "ooh, sorry, you may have mystery fertility issues." I thought it would be easy, because, you know, it was with our first. Totally unplanned, in fact. And I was on the pill. But now, six years later, it's not the same.

We thought this was the month. In fact, last week I had a positive HPT. I called my husband immediately, and he was so adorably happy. However, that pregnancy was not meant to be, apparently. Now we're back to square one. And I so didn't want to tell my husband to stop being excited.

If only I were a crack whore or had a terrible home life and abused welfare. Then I'd have no trouble getting or staying pregnant whatsoever.

In other news, my daughter will be starting school next week. I can't believe she's so big and gorgeous. She lost her first tooth last month and has another loose one. She's starting to talk like me, which is funny and alarming at the same time. Poor child is just like her mama.

And, more rain.

2007-06-30T19:27:00.000-05:00

We're now stuck at home thanks to the constant rain. Current estimates are that we've gotten 19 or more inches since Wednesday. The creek near our house reaches flood stage at 23 feet. It's currently at about 29 feet. A town south of us has evacuated some people because they've now gotten over their hundred year flood levels. And the rain just keeps coming! I'm very thankful that our house is up high right now. The idea that we can't go anywhere kind of creeps me out. But, every road that leads to a town is impassable due to high water. A few cars have already been swept off the main road into town. The minor roads into town look something like this:
That's the road that goes by our house, at a low spot about a half mile from home. So yeah, we're not going anywhere. I'm kind of bored.

Rain. And More Rain.

2007-06-30T02:24:00.000-05:00

Do you ever wonder what would happen if it just didn't stop raining? I'm wondering that right now. This is day four of nothing but rain. We've gotten at least twelve inches now, maybe more. I was judging from our swimming pool, since I knew where the water level was when the rain started. But the pool started overflowing yesterday morning, so now I don't know. My little garden is the closest thing to the creek that crosses our property. I knew the creek had been out of its banks because my corn is trampled over as though a herd of elephants meandered through. The rest of my garden is flooded, much like everything else. Thank heaven our house sits on a little hill. I saw a house on the way to town tonight where their garage was only inches from flood water. The Pottawatomie hasn't yet reached its peak there, so I wonder if they'll still have those two pickups in the morning?

I hope to go out tomorrow and take some pictures, if I can go anywhere. The river warnings are one thing, but the creeks, streams, ditches, flooded farm ponds and fields present another challenge. The water is still coming. It's pouring right now, in fact, and I can hear the water thundering in the creek and through the culvert at the foot of our drive. Tonight we had to drive over water twice to get home, only an inch or two deep, but this was on main roads. By tomorrow we may actually be cut off from going to town in any direction.

What will happen if the rain doesn't stop?

Hold Me.

2007-06-28T21:23:00.000-05:00

There is a menace in my house. Some days I cannot even walk across the living room without being accosted. What is the evil that lurks inside these walls? Well, it all started about a week ago, when I was in Dallas.

You see, I have some imaginary online friends. Some of these friends have, in recent years, fallen victim to a cult. It can be found in many malls and possibly even on the internet (look out! It's behind you!). When I spent a weekend in Dallas, I had no idea that their lust for the tools of this cult would put me in such grave danger. I was but an innocent bystander, dragged into the Lush store, the intoxicating scents and cheery salesgirls overwhelming my senses. And in an instant, I too was hooked. I walked out of the store with a half-million bath bombs and some Happy Hippy shower gel, but those things were not the cause of my troubles. Oh no.

Seemingly innocent in its plastic bottle, the Flying Fox shower gel is a powerful agent of evil. I should have known, really, that buying a product that says "aphrodisiac" on the label was a bad idea, no matter how lovely the scent. When my husband spied the bottle in our bathroom, I was just out of the shower in my pajamas, combing my tresses in front of the mirror. He laughed as he read the label, and asked, "did you just use this?" I answered that I had, indeed, used the Flying Fox, and immediately wished I could take the statement back, because I could see by the evil gleam in his eye what was to come.

I ran from the bathroom just a step ahead of him, but he caught me in the hall. There, I had to endure the most horrible fate since my cousin's chihuahua took a liking to me. Yes, people. My husband pretended to hump my leg. I've rarely been so humiliated in my whole sad life. Since that time, I've taken to using the Flying Fox only when my husband isn't home. Most summers I could hide the telltale scent of jasmine easily, but this year, his allergy medications are working surprisingly well. Combined with his catlike agility, I don't stand a chance. In fact, I hear him coming down the stairs right now. Excuse me, I need to hide under my desk.

Confused

2007-06-28T16:41:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to get comfortable with cameras again, after far too long away from my beloved hobby. My latest attempts are definitely better, as evidenced by the following shots of my sweet niece:

Sorry, but I am apparently not talented enough to make these images sit side by side. Know what else I am not able to do? Load photo editing software on my Mac. I've gone back to Mac love, and I'm sitting in my basement office right now instead of upstairs in my recliner with my laptop, just so I can be with my trusty Mac. However, I miss the convenience of the .exe file when it comes to downloading and installing crap on my computer. I lack the funds to buy Photoshop (because there's no freaking way I can justify $650 for editing hobby photos), so I use Gimp software, or a very old version of Photoshop that my old boss had a spare license for. The Gimp software is free, and pretty great, except that to install it on a Mac required several web-guru-software-writing programs, which I had to find and install just to get Gimp to install on a Mac. Then in order to get the plugins that I want, I have to download another program, and input a bunch of stuff in the terminal. Can you see how this is all quickly getting me in way over my head?

So, I get everything I need downloaded, I think. I open the terminal and type -
$ cd gimp-sharp-0.12 as I was instructed.
My computer tells me COMMAND NOT FOUND.

Sometimes I think my Mac really does understand me.

Miguel Speaks No English: Part 609

2007-04-30T21:45:00.000-05:00

Scene - I'm in the kitchen, doing dishes. Miguel comes over and lurks for a few moments. He's oddly fascinated by my household chores.
Miguel: I need to borrow something. Is small, everyone has in the pocket. For working. (Motions to his pocket, and makes a carving type motion with his hands.)
Me: Umm, my pocket knife?
Miguel: No. Is in your bag. Is small and red. Everyone has. For the working.
Me: (Trying to think of anything small and red in my bag) Uhhh, my iPod? You want to borrow my iPod? I can't think of anything else I carry in my bag that is small and red.
Miguel: (With a WTF? look on his face.) No! Is for the working. (Goes to the front closet and looks in the tool bag.)
Me: Ohhh! The tool bag. I thought you meant *my* bag, like my purse.
Miguel: No, I no say your purse. I say bag. (Holds up a pair of pliers with red handles.) This is what I need.
Me: Those are called pliers.
Miguel: OK, pliers. Thank you.
Me, a few minutes later: (Yelling to him in his room, laughing.) Just so you know, not everyone has a pair of pliers in their pocket!

Me and John Deere

2007-04-29T22:11:00.000-05:00

As you might guess, saying the name John Deere gets everyone's ears perking up around here. Or at least the guys, anyway. I spent my Saturday morning at the local dealership, and you'll be glad to know that I came away from that experience with my very own John Deere. Granted, it's a lot smaller than the ones my husband and father-in-law usually drool over, but it will keep my lawn gnawed down to the appropriate height, so we're all happy. Prior to Saturday, we either (a) didn't need to mow because our yard featured only mud thanks to construction and rain, (b) had only the smallest smattering of grass that didn't require mowing because it was too freaking hot for grass to grow, (c) finally had a lawn that was content to be mowed by an old beater mower, or (d) a lawn that was completely out of control because my husband sold the old mower and then we got our tax bill and suddenly freaked out about spending any money therefore rendering our mower shopping over until we could write a check without weeping and leading to a sad incident in which my 5-year-old was convinced that she could control the jungle that was our yard with a small pair of garden clippers.

All of that is in the past, though, thanks to my shiny new yard steed. Considering that our lawn was reaching a state of desperation, and might soon be beyond the help of any mortal mower, I wanted to hop on immediately and get to mowing. But first, I had to learn to use the mower. Remember, I'm a city kid. The lawns I grew up with were much smaller, and frankly, the neighbors would have laughed if you zoomed around your postage stamp twice with a riding mower. Plus, when there was mowing to be done, it was either my garden-obsessed father or industrious mow-for-$10 sister that took care of the business while I lounged poolside working on my tan or cruised the mall looking for a new Hypercolor shirt and pink jelly shoes.

My husband's lesson on the mower began something like this: blah blah hydrostat blah electric choke blah blah blah liquid cooled blah blah. I looked at him blankly for a while, and then said, "uhhh, sweetie? I think this mower might be a little complicated for me if I need to know the inner workings of the engine in order to cut grass." The look on his face was a cross between disbelief and utter pity. He explained again, using smaller, non-mechanical words, and all became clear. Thank heaven, because the daylight, it was waning.

So I mowed. I mowed fast, and mowed slow. I mowed really, really fast just to see what would happen. I nearly overturned the mower trying to figure out how to mow the lagoon dam. I did donuts in the back 40 and laughed kind of a lot. I even had my own little obstacle course going between the apple trees and the creek. After an hour or so on the mower, I got tired of bouncing around over terraces and going around the swingset 40 times and doing a Miss America wave when I passed the front of the house, so I quit. But I felt sort of impressed with myself as I deftly maneuvered the mower into its parking spot after conquering a few acres of unruly fescue. Only later did I learn that my wild mowing had actually managed to puncture one of the tires. Guess I won't be finishing the lawn tomorrow. My husband is being oddly protective of the mower now. See, he used to work at a John Deere dealership, and he serviced lots of new mowers. He's never known anyone before who managed to pop a tire on the very first day.

Splenda and Nutrasweet and Death! Oh my!

2007-04-27T14:53:00.000-05:00

Someone on a message board where I'm a member recently posted "warning" other members about the dangers of artificial sweeteners. Frankly, this was enough to brighten up my day a whole bunch. Why? Because people who are convinced that these sweeteners are death machines usually rely on one or more of the many doomsday-predicting websites that have popped up all over the internet in recent years. And those website are funny!

Some of these websites have faux doctors preaching that artificial sweeteners will cause you to develop leprosy, typhoid fever, Ebola virus, fungus on your toenails, peeling lips, ringing in the ears, hair loss in good places, hair growth on inappropriate places, thirst, hunger, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, fatigue, the bird flu, weight loss, weight gain, instant death, to many bowel issues, not enough bowel issues, social awkwardness and foot in mouth syndrome, all at the same time. The good news is that if you buy the faux doctor's book on the evils of artificial sweeteners, you will learn that you can be instantly cured from all of the above ailments simply by not drinking any diet soda or chewing sugar-free gum. $24.95 plus shipping and the rights to your tell-all testimonial about how quitting Splenda saved your life! No medical evidence of such is necessary, naturally.

Other websites add to the hysteria by decorating their manifestos with spinning, flashing skulls and other graphics that convey the appropriate level of fear I should feel when confronted with 12 ounces of death in a Diet Pepsi costume. Because spinning, flashing skulls trump peer-reviewed medical studies every time!

No matter who is running the website, there are always testimonials. Lots of testimonials from people who apparently lack the insight to realize that just because they ate a tub of sugar-free yogurt and later developed the flu-like symptoms, it may not be the yogurt's fault. Sometimes flu-like symptoms mean, you know, the flu. Or that because they chewed 14 sticks of sugar-free gum and got hives, that maybe they're allergic to an ingredient (maybe even the sweetener! gasp!) and just should avoid that product, or at the very least not chew 14 sticks of gum in one day, for pete's sake. But no, hives mean that the product is evil and should be banned from human consumption, just like peanuts and shellfish.

Most of all, reading some of those websites reminds me of when I was pregnant with my daughter and was a member of some pregnancy boards where "is it OK to drink diet soda?" was a daily question from a newly pregnant mom. Some of the gals I met on those boards are still my friends to this day, more than 6 years later. I still giggle when I see mention of aspartame being evil, remembering the speculation over whether my poor, Diet Pepsi-influenced child would be born with five heads or six. As it turns out, she just has the one head, and it's functioning quite well, tyvm.

And as for me, I had thyroid disease before I started drinking artificially sweetened stuff. Recently, when I tried to cut back on sodas, my thyroid disease got worse. Could it be possible that, instead of being a death machine, that Diet Pepsi is actually trying to cure what ails me? I like to think so.

Notes from my Daughter

2007-04-05T12:18:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I was listening to music on my laptop, and apparently M was listening along with me. After "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol played, M said, "Mom, can you put that sad music on again?" After a few seconds, she said, "I really like that sad, sad love music."

Last week, in the truck:
M - Mom, I'm going to find a baby bird in the yard and keep it as a pet.
Me - That sounds like a fun idea. Good luck!
M - I'm going to keep it in the house, so maybe we would need to put Danny Phantom (the cat) in a cage.
Me - Well, normally, if you're going to have a bird and a cat in a house, you put the bird in a cage, not the cat.
M - Hmmm. That's interesting. I think I'd like to name the bird Chirp. Is that a good name?
Me - Yeah! I think Chirp is a cute name for a bird.
M - Oh good. Well, maybe I would like to name it Pecker.
Me - (stifling laughter) Umm, I really think I like the name Chirp better.

One of those days...

2007-03-30T16:07:00.000-05:00

I'm almost 30 years old, and today, what I really want is my mommy. Do you ever have days like that? I would love to have a day to hang out at my parents house, eat my mom's delicious cooking, and have absolutely no responsibilities. My parents live on the coast (come to think of it, a beach is also on my list of things I want today), though, so getting there is not easy from my rural midwest location. *sigh*

In other news, the constant rain of the last few days has the wheat looking all lovely and lush, which makes me happy. I like looking out my kitchen window and seeing the wheat waving at me.

Oh Yeah!

2007-03-29T02:00:00.000-05:00

I was just looking at one of my old posts, and realized that I forgot to mention that we do (finally) have television channels and (gasp!) high-speed internet here on the farm! We got DirecTV when we built our new house, so yeah, I waited more than a year to break this news on my fabulous blog. I procrastinate. Deal with it! The speedy internet came soon after, which is really, really good because it makes my job so much easier.

So I finally did get to see Sex and the City, though it was in re-runs by the time I saw it, so no one wanted to discuss it with me. Whatever. People here think I'm a movie star when I wear Old Navy, so probably they wouldn't have raved over Jimmy Choos with me. I love my friends in a big way, but I cannot think of even one of them who is even half as girly as me. No one else has shoe love. *sniff* Thank goodness Patty likes to get mani/pedis and shop. She's my only hope!

In other news, my cat is trying to chase the ceiling fan. Poor, dumb kitty.

Miguel No Habla Ingles, Part 10,348

2007-03-27T22:20:00.000-05:00

This is the exact text of a message from Miguel that popped up on my phone this afternoon:

MY PRACTY STAR NORMA

I don't even know anyone named Norma.

How Embarrassing!

2007-03-16T00:11:00.000-05:00

Tonight, I entertained myself by watching a movie on HBO, and I really, really enjoyed it. If anyone had called me while I was watching it, I probably would have lied and said I was watching Gone with the Wind, or To Kill a Mockingbird, or maybe even Casablanca. I definitely wouldn't have admitted that I was watching Stick It. For the second time. And laughing really hard.

Now, I do enjoy a good cinema classic, and I've seen all of the movies I listed above. But there's something about Stick It that appeals to my completely juvenile sense of humor.

I think it's playing again tomorrow night, so if you were planning to dial me up, you may want to check the TV listings first. If you call while I'm watching Stick It, I'm totally lying to you about it.

Miguel Speaks No English: Part 547

2007-03-14T01:46:00.001-05:00

My husband told Miguel twice that he needed to set his clock ahead an hour for daylight saving time. Naturally, Miguel indicated that he understood this instruction. However, when the school bus started honking in the driveway at 7:15 Monday morning, Miguel expressed his confusion at why the bus had arrived an hour early. Since he was wearing only a towel around his waist at the time, he missed the bus. In retrospect, shoving him out the door in his towel might have encouraged him to listen more carefully and let us know if he doesn't understand something instead of just saying yes.

Travel, Exhaustion, Illness

2007-03-14T01:25:00.000-05:00

I spent the last week in a panic, trying to get ready for a weekend trip to San Diego for work. My panic mostly involved attempts to get the house in a clean enough state that I wouldn't have to come home to a total wreck. After a few days of seemingly endless cleaning, I gave up, because every single time I'd finish one cleaning task, someone else in the house would re-make the mess. Tired of the vicious cycle, I finally decided that if my husband and children wanted to wallow in filth for a weekend, they could go right ahead. So they did.

The only problem with that plan was that when I staggered back to my home after a hellish day of travel, the state of my kitchen and living room was enough to make me weep and curl up in the fetal position in the corner. Of course, I had to move 47 My Little Pony toys, two Playstation games, three plates of stale pizza, nine socks and a homemade statue crafted from cat fur and masking tape in order to make room to curl up and suck my thumb.

Second problem - though I had an absolutely wonderful weekend in San Diego, my sinuses went into a tailspin while I was there, leading to extraordinary pain on the flight home. The extreme pain combined with one delayed flight, two uncooperative airport workers, one re-booking, daylight saving time and a very late night flight home has rendered me an unfunny and exhausted lump of laziness who has no real inclination to leave the comfort of my recliner to actually clean up the messes my uncouth family created while I was gone. So don't drop in just now, eh? Mount Saint Laundry will eat any unannounced visitors.

Enough bitching - here are the good things from my trip:
1. Great ideas for productive work gathered from meetings.
2. Met Carolyn and her adorable boys.
3. Ate sushi for the first time.
4. Met Jess and her adorable son, plus her sweet mom.
5. Wore "young and fun" top to cocktail hour and did not unintentionally expose any body parts or spill any substances down my shirt.
6. Had the bestest long layover ever because the three extra hours in Dallas meant that I got to meet Liesl and Jon.
7. Got a big hug upon my return and a sweet little voice saying, "Mommy, I missed you soooo much."
8. My absense rendered my husband so bereft that he started on our deck, a project that has been on hold for a year. Should I leave more often????

Well, Hello!

2007-03-02T00:56:00.000-06:00

Since you're reading my blog, I will assume that you want to know more about me. You love me, I can tell! And since you love me, I will indulge your desire for H-related trivia. I know, you don't deserve this kind of goodness, my naughty little monkeys, but I will give it to you just the same. Yay!

So, where to start, things the average person may not know about me....
1. I'm afraid of sewer drains. Thank you, Stephen King.
2. I've met Stephen King. I won a writing contest and got to meet him during his Insomnia tour.
3. I love horror movies, paranormal stories and cheesy psychic detective TV shows.
4. My shoulders and elbows are double-jointed, or extra flexy or something. I can band my elbows backwards a little ways, and if I hold a belt or long stick behind my back, I can lift it and bring it up over my head and to the front without letting go.
5. I've been a magazine editor, radio DJ, agricultural news writer, baby products expert, copy shop clerk and menswear sales person.
6. I studied horticulture at the university (though it wasn't my primary area of study) but I cannot keep houseplants alive.
7. When I was little, I wished that my name was Margaret.
8. I've known how to sew clothing since I was 8 and taught myself to quilt a few years ago.
9. I'm a certified child passenger safety technician. Please buckle your kids!
10. I've been to Mexico, Costa Rica and China.

And since I've been practicing so hard with my new camera, I will treat you to a rare glimpse of me. Try not to stare!

Girl's Night

2007-02-24T00:24:00.000-06:00

Every Friday night I meet a group of gals in town for a rite we call "basketball." This weekly meeting actually did start out on a basketball court, and involved sweating, jumping, showboating and trash-talking, but since we're all getting on in years, one of us was mortally wounded within the first month. Since Barb's doctor told her to lay off the b-ball for a while, we decided to preserve the girl time while she healed by meeting at a bar, so our families wouldn't get used to us being around on Friday evenings. An innocent beginning, yes, but after Barb's injury we've never made it back to the basketball court. In fact, there are women attending our faux basketball nights who have never even played real basketball with us. And it's raunchy. You would definitely not want to seat small children near our table.

I ran errands before basketballing today. I was in the hardware store, and saw my friend's husband, who asked if I was headed to play basketball. I was wearing stilettos, my hair was in an up-do and I had rather large, sparkly earrings on. The look on the cashier's face when I said I was headed to the court was priceless. I'm sure he wondered how I'd ever run across a basketball court in those shoes. :)

Valentine's Day - 1999

2007-02-14T16:03:00.000-06:00

Eight years ago today, about this time in the afternoon, I was shopping for something red to wear on my first date with the cute guy I'd been chasing for months. He was adorably shy, and I was impressed that I had successfully lured him out of his quiet shell long enough for him to ask me out. My best friend Janet had helped a bit, too. He had stopped at my house to say hi one day in January, but I was at class. Janet, never one to mince words, said, "Heather isn't here. When are you going to ask her out?" Janet says he turned 8 shades of red and said a hasty goodbye. I love Janet.

He picked me up in his rusted pickup truck, and presented me with a card and a scented candle. The candle was a Bath & Body Works Juniper Breeze candle that his sister helped him pick out, because he was confused by the realm of possibilities for girly Valentine's Day gifts. The card had a hand-written poem on the inside that said:
Your hair is red
Your eyes are blue
Maybe that's why
I can't stop thinking about you.

We had a lovely dinner at a steakhouse, and I discovered that he wasn't really all that quiet once you got him talking. We had almost nothing in common, but we had a great time. When he took me home, he came inside for a bit and we talked until late in the night. As he started through the door to go home, I realized that he was far too shy to kiss me. I touched his shoulder as he walked through the door, and when he turned around, I kissed him. I can still remember the adorable look on his face afterwards. And I was hooked. Luckily, so was he.

About 8 months later he asked me to marry him, and another 6 months after that we walked down the aisle and promised to love, honor and cherish, 'til death do us part. He still has that rusted pickup, and every time I ride in it, I remember that first date and how I was nervous, and he was nervous, wondering if the connection we felt was real. And I still have that Valentine's Day card in my bedside drawer, a reminder of why I first fell in love with my sweet farm boy.

Miguel Speaks No English: Part 483

2007-02-08T14:46:00.000-06:00

The other day, the school bus passed by our house without dropping Miguel off. Since I hadn't heard anything about him staying in town after school, I wondered where he might be, but figured an 18 year old was probably capable of finding himself a ride home after whatever post-class mischief he was making. About an hour later, I got a cryptic text message on my phone that said, "I'll be home in 30 minutes. I'll tell you why when I get there." Naturally, I suspected that a friend wrote this message for him, because it used reasonable sentence structure and a contraction, but I digress.

When Miguel arrived home, he explained that, unbeknownst to him, there had been some nominations and voting for winter homecoming royalty. Not only had Miguel been unknowingly nominated and in the running for homecoming royalty for the last week, his classmates had voted for him and he had won the junior class royalty spot. All without even knowing that there was an election going on. He was quite surprised when he was called into the office and asked to be in a picture with some other random people from other classes. He had to ask why they were taking his picture. Heh.

The thing that really irritates me about the situation is that the crappy newspaper in our town was the one that decided to take their pictures after school instead of during school hours like the decent paper does. So they called Miguel to come to the office at the end of school, with no prior notice, and then kept him there long enough that he missed his bus home. I wonder what would have happened if his friends hadn't still been there to drive him 20 miles home? Methinks I would have needed to give the rude newspaper lady a piece of my mind. And not the polite piece, either.

Crazy Sledding Fun

2007-02-07T22:22:00.000-06:00

Earlier in the week, the temps in our neck of the woods were well below freezing. Our east irrigation lake was frozen five and six inches thick all the way across, so we spent a full three days out there sledding and ice skating and making merriment with our family and friends.

The boys enjoyed sledding as fast as they could down the hill. When I say boys, I mean all males under the age of 105, as evidenced by.......

this very pixelated photo of my husband riding a sled atop his beloved brother-in-law. The bigger version on my Flickr page is better, so you can see their expressions of sheer joy. Heh.

Even better than just sledding down the lake bank was sledding down the lake bank headfirst into a giant, fluffy pile of snow. No nephews were harmed in the making of this photograph.

Oh, and there were some crazy ladies that kept stealing sleds from the kids and careening wildly across the lake. What were they thinking? And yes, I did make those boys pay for throwing snowballs at the crazy ladies.

Not content to participate in the normal skating and sledding activities, the boys (lead primarily by their insane uncle, who may also be my husband, but I won't admit that for liability reasons) invented their own winter sport - extreme downhill ice skating.

Also, my husband relived the glory days of his youth by jumping over snow piles on his hockey skates to the wild cheers of his fans, a.k.a the nephews.

At the end of the winter fun, everyone was happy. Miguel was happy. Maya was happy. Even the dog was happy. Yes, that dog is smiling. Trust me.

Sometimes the freeze your butt off cold days are the best days. :) You can see the rest of the photos from our winter fun day at Flickr.

I Am My Mother

2007-02-07T22:14:00.000-06:00

I find myself drooling over appliances today. Appliances. WTF? I'm a hip chick. I like pretty shoes and cool music and parties. And also high-end washers and dryers with flashing lights and noises and energy efficiencies beyond one's wildest dreams. Even sadder than my initial excitement over the amazing washer/dryer set was that I expected my husband to share my joy. Heh. He's a farm boy who loves meat, potatoes and action-packed Playstation games. Not laundry appliances. As I gleefully explained to him the merits of such a glorious pair of washing and drying devices, complete with hand motions and rising vocal volume, he just stared at me as though I was speaking a foreign language. Oh, but when I mentioned that my chosen appliances had direct-drive motors instead of belt-drive, he did, for one moment, seem to understand my happiness. He expressed his shared enthusiasm with a slight shrug and grunt of approval. Or, at least I'm going to accept that movement as approval, because I'm so buying that washer and dryer. I might even invite my mother to come and see it. I know she'll be just as excited as I am.

Nature, in Farm Boy Terms

2007-02-02T14:39:00.000-06:00

My husband is delightfully uncouth in many ways. Since I'm still 12 years old inside, I laugh at the goofy and often impolite things that he says. This makes him happy, when I laugh at what he says Unless he's suggesting that I help with something gross. If I laugh then, I'm in a bit of trouble.

Yesterday, I was rudely awakened well before my customary hour of waking by my husband, who thought that I should go outside in the snow to take pictures of "the whore frost." Naturally, being awoken by such talk made me giggle a little. Whore frost? Really? What did the frost ever do to you!? Apparently, whore frost is what happens when it's foggy but really, really cold in the morning, and the fog freezes onto trees and grass and whatever else is standing still outside. I asked him why on earth the frost would be called "whore," and as usual, he had no idea. It's just what the old folks say, he tells me. I did a little research on the subject, and believe me, you don't want to know what happens when you Google anything with the word "whore" in it. *shudder* As it turns out, the term is actually hoarfrost, and it has nothing to do with sex trade workers at all.

My second favorite farm boy term is "dog pecker gnats." I first heard this term last summer while I was helping my husband put up guttering on our new house. A gnat flew by my face, causing me to swing my arms wildly around and shake the ladder quite a bit. My husband, irritated, informed me that I had nothing to worry about, because this was just a dog pecker gnat flying about, and it wasn't like it would sting me or anything. Umm, frankly dear, if anything that has been remotely near a dog's jimmy is flying in my face, I'd say I have plenty to worry about, thankyouverymuch. Of course, once the words "dog pecker gnat" had escaped his lips, I was laughing so hard that I couldn't adequately express my disdain at having said gnat near my head. I spent the rest of my time on that ladder making up genital-related names for other woodland critters that are commonly found near our home. Watch out for those bunny crotch ticks. I hear they're thick this time of year.

See also, piss elms.

Photo Nerds, Unite!

2007-02-01T15:25:00.000-06:00

When I was in high school, I always had my camera with me. For the youngsters, you should know that back in the dark ages of my youth, a whole 15 years ago, that camera was not digital. No, it used a primitive format called "film." My SLR was my constant companion, and I took pictures of anything and everything. I even developed them myself, with no help from a computer or Photoshop. Fancy!

After high school, I put my beloved camera away for a long time. I thought occasionally about getting it out, but the reality of no longer having a darkroom and total control of my images was too much for my artistic little soul to bear. But now, thanks to the DSLR, I am happily snapping pics left and right again, and I get to maintain my control-freak hold on every single one. Woo!

I got my new camera before Thanksgiving. It's a Nikon D50, and I love it. I would really love to have a few thousand dollars to buy more lenses, but for now, I have 3 lovely lenses that do almost anything I want (I have the 18-55mm, the 55-200mm, and the 50mm f/1.8, for you other photo nerds). Don't wave any macro or wide lenses in front of me right now, though. I might bite. Hard.

I put together a collage of photos of my daughter, taken with my new camera, for my parents at Christmas. They promptly hung it on their wall, just like they used to do with my crayon scribbles of yesteryear. My dad called me today and said that a guest in their home looked at that collage and said, "Boy, you can sure tell a difference when a professional is taking the pictures." Be still my heart! Someone thought my pictures were professional-grade. I know they're not, but hey, I fooled one person. That makes me happy.

Flickr thinks I'm a pro, too. It says pro right there on my Flickr page. Yeah, yeah, I had to pay them to say that. Whatever, haters. I'm a pro now!

I Am Weeping

2007-01-31T15:17:00.000-06:00

The dishes, they pile in the sink
Five minutes after my kitchen is clean
It is now filthy again
And I need more coffee

Now my daughter is sobbing
Because the cat will not
Let her paint his toenails
Or cut his hair

Laundry mountain creeps
Out of laundry room door
Husband's stinky clothes
I don't feel like washing

Have You Met Miguel?

2007-01-26T14:59:00.000-06:00

Since I neglected the blog, again, for a loooong time, the two people who read this blog have probably not heard about Miguel. We decided to host an exchange student this year, because we needed just a little more chaos and distraction in our lives, really. Miguel is 18 and he's from Bolivia. He's a good kid, but we have a very big communication problem in our house now because Miguel does not speak English. We expected this in the early days after his arrival in August. I figured he'd catch up once school began. No such luck, although the kid did manage to play football with absolutely no prior experience, develop quite a following of friends at school, and even have a couple of girlfriends within two months of his arrival, so clearly he is successful at some sort of teenage nonverbal communication. He does send a mean text message. I know, because he sent me one the other day, and it took me a good 5 minutes to figure out why the hell my phone was making that sound. Then it took me another 15 minutes to carefully compose and send a response that read, as follows, "OK, thanks."

I was, at one time, fluent in Spanish, so in the first month or so, I'd try to speak in Spanish to him in order to ease the transition. Then I realized that the point of an exchange program wasn't to feel like I was the one in a foreign country, struggling to remember the words for "do you like to eat cheese" in Spanish while standing in my own living room. Also because I'm fairly sure that I told Miguel at one point that I was pregnant, but I'm not really sure. Those Spanish words, they confuse me a bit.

Miguel has been here for about 6 months now. He has acclimated to the weather, a little. He's from the hot part of Bolivia, so I laughed a little when the temps dipped to 45 degrees and he waddled out to meet the school bus wearing a full parka, snow boots, a hat, fleece gloves and a scarf. It's Kansas, sweetie. Call me when it's 20 degrees and I'll help you bitch about the cold. He much prefers the weather in Florida, where we spent Christmas with my family, but at least he isn't trying to turn the heat up to 89 in the house anymore. All of my blankets keep disappearing to his room, though. I'm counting them as loss for now, because I've seen teenage boy rooms, and I will not subject myself to that just for a few blankets. Remind me to put new blankets on my shopping list, eh?

So, after 6 months, you'd think the English would be flowing a bit more freely, right? No. Not so much. He does know how to ask me to use the computer. Fancy that. However, the other day, when I was going to drive him to meet some people to go to an event, here's what went down.

Me: Miguel, you need to be ready to go at 8 tomorrow morning. I'll drive you to town so we can meet the people who will drive you to the city.
Miguel: 8 in the night?
Me: No, 8 in the morning. And you'll have to live without my delicious cooking for 4 days. Too bad for you!
Miguel: (laughing) OK, 8 in the morning. Good night.
Morning arrives. I'm getting myself and Maya ready to go. Miguel is getting ready to go.
Me: OK, are you ready?
Miguel: Yes.
Me: Can you go start the truck?
Miguel: OK
Ten minutes later. Truck is not started. I stomp outside to start truck. Come inside. Miguel is making a sandwich.
Me: Maya, we'll be ready to go in just a second, so hang out here by the door and get your shoes on.
Waiting impatiently. It's 8:05. Miguel is leisurely eating his sandwich. Finally finishes.
Me: OK Maya, you can go get in the truck now while I get my coat on. I think Miguel is ready.
Miguel: Goodbye!
Me: ........

It's Haaaaaard.

2007-01-07T14:33:00.000-06:00

Because my father-in-law is still quite spry and capable of handling the daily running of our farm, my husband works off the farm for now. He is, in layman's terms, being paid to make hootch. My husband is a moonshiner. I'm so proud! It's legal moonshine, mind you, made from the finest corn and sorghum our state has to offer, and some of you probably put it in your gas tank occasionally. Thanks for that, because he's not only an employee, we're stockholders. Doesn't that sound terribly responsible of us? Investing. It's so sexy.

Currently, my husband is filling in for someone who works nights at the moonshining operation. So he has to sleep during the day. Honestly, I wish I could join him, because who doesn't love a loooong afternoon nap when it's 22 degrees outside and you can't venture out of the house for fear of falling in a ginormous pile of snow and being unable to dig one's way out. Not that this happened to me at age 4, leaving me with emotional scars and an irrational fear of snow. Not.At.All. As much as I'd like to sleep the day away, too, my primary job is to keep the house quiet enough for the husband to get adequate sleep before his next hootch-making shift. I only have one child, and one indoor cat. How hard can it be?

Let me give you a little sampling of my day.
9:02 a.m. - Husband goes to sleep.
9:30 a.m. - Child wakes up and has small tantrum because ice cream is not an appropriate breakfast food (she's not a morning gal, to which I can relate)
10:37 a.m. - Child waits until I've gone to the basement to climb atop the piano, playing it with her feet while reaching for an antique china tea set that sits on top.
10:37:05 - I run up the stairs as quietly as possible while hissing, "Nooooo! Daddy is sleeping!" Child hops off the piano with all of the grace and silence of a bull in a china shop.
11:00 a.m. - I wonder if I should even consider showering, because that would leave the child and unruly cat alone for too long. SpongeBob is a powerful attention-getter, but a whole 10 minutes without supervision may even be too much for the Great Absorbent and Porous One.
11:05 a.m. - I sneak, cat-like, to my bedroom door and slip inside, hoping that I can take the world's fastest shower. As soon as I close the door, the cat, who has suddenly learned how doors operate, begins leaping at the outer doorknob and pulling it with his feet, making a loud thwacking sound followed by a frustrated "Mrrrrrowww." He's part Siamese. Not a quiet kitty. Shower plans are canceled.
Noon - I put on a second pot of coffee, lest I doze off in the middle of my quest for silence. As I make lunch, the feline member of our household decides to investigate the meal prep, despite the fact that he has been forcibly removed from the kitchen every other time he attempted this feat. Child, knowing that feline is not allowed on the counter, leaps onto said counter, flapping her arms and hissing at the cat. Cat is alarmed, frightened by the flapping/hissing thing, and departs the counter rapidly, knocking over 3 coffee mugs and a pitcher of grape juice in the process.
1:28 p.m. - Cat finds himself trapped under a blanket and runs willy-nilly under the fabric of doom, making child laugh so hard and loud that I'm sure my husband will exit the bedroom, groggy and peeved, at any moment.
2:45 p.m. - I'm praying for 5 p.m. to arrive quickly, and don't want to start dinner for fear of setting of smoke alarms, or leaving my child unsupervised long enough that she discovers the brass band that is undoubtedly lurking in the messy basement.

Le sigh.

Fitness Days of Yore

2006-02-16T01:55:00.000-06:00

In my quest for better health, I've gathered quite a collection of exercise equipment and have a small personal gym in my basement. All of this crazy working out has been helpful. I've lost about 40 pounds in the last 6 months. Not too shabby!

The rowing machine is my favorite of the workout gear. My husband got me a super-sweet tricked out pro model rowing machine just like the one I used to work out on when I was a collegiate rower. Using the rowing machine makes me long to get out on the water, though. I haven't been in an actual rowing shell for several years.

If you've never been in one, it's hard to understand the way it calls to you. The calm of the water. The very slight slicing sound as the boat cuts through the ripples. The whoosh of eight seats rolling to the top of the stroke all at once, the click of oars locking into place, the splash as oars plunge into the water, and the swish and power surge when all 8 rowers pull their oars through the water in unison. It's mechanical and musical all at once. I still dream of that sound.

I didn't know it was my last time on the water, and therefore I don't remember the details. I was 19. In the best shape of my life. I assume the last time was an end-of-season practice. In my part of the world, the cold rowing off-season is spent working out in dingy university weight rooms, running stairs in coooold stadiums, and jogging mile after mile through rain, sleet and snow. That winter the nagging pain in my shin turned into a nasty stress fracture that just wouldn't heal. I hobbled around campus with both legs so sore I wasn't sure that I would make it to class. I did have the benefit of university trainers and doctors, since it was an NCAA program. After some bone scans and lots of time in physical therapy rooms, I had to admit that the shin splints and fracture weren't going away. My scholarship wasn't stout enough to warrant the constant pain of training. So I quit, and finally knew what it was like to sleep past 5 a.m. during the week.

I didn't know then how much I would miss rowing, or how ingrained the rhythm and delight of it were in my life. My heart beats just a little bit faster whenever I see a rowing shell, whether in person or on TV. My first thought upon seeing almost any body of water is whether or not I could turn and eight around in it, or whether there are too many obstructions to have clear passage in a boat with a hull thin as eggshells. When I use my rowing machine, I can close my eyes and imagine I'm on the lake with my team. Whoosh, click, splash, swish.

A Cause Worth Considering

2005-12-13T22:33:00.000-06:00

I don't normally preach about social issues. This won't take long, and if you don't care to hear about the problems of others in the world and how you can help, fine. Skip to the next post. Given my track record, the next post might be in 8 years, but do what suits you, eh?

As you're getting ready for whatever holiday you celebrate or don't celebrate this winter, I'm asking you to consider, for a moment, what you have in the way of family, friends, enough food to eat, someone to share your laughter and tears with, enough money to pay the basic bills, etc. Most of us have enough. Maybe not a lot, but enough. Now consider the thousands of children in the U.S. alone who are in foster care, parental rights already terminated, who may have a roof over their heads now, but no permanent family to love them or give them a future. Yes, foster families take care of the basic needs temporarily, but when no permanent family is found, these children are moved from home to home, never sure who will tuck them in at night or who will be the reassuring voice on the other end of the phone when they're old enough to strike out on their own.

A lot of people think they don't have what it takes to adopt. I say there are more people who could. Sure, these kids come with baggage. Don't we all? They need love. They need a permanent bond. I'm the first to admit that I don't have all the money in the world. I do, however, have enough love to share, a stable home, enough room at my table to set an extra place, enough space for one more bed. I can make a few sacrifices if it means that a child won't grow up wondering why they don't have a mom or dad or both like everyone else.

Financial concerns about adoption put off a lot of people, too. Yes, domestic adoption of infants is expensive. Yes, it's pricey to travel to China or Russia or Guatemala to adopt a baby. Do you know what it costs to adopt a waiting child from your state's child welfare agency? In mine, the only cost is the attorney fee to finalize the adoption, and grant money is available to cover that expense if you apply. Wow.

I don't want you to think that I take this adoption thing lightly. It's not for everyone. You need to be ready to handle emotional issues, and you have to have the means to provide the basics - food, clothing, shelter. And you need time to bond with a child. It won't be sunshine and roses, but no one ever promised that parenting would be, right?

All I'm saying is think about it. Really think about it. Look into it. While we're wrapping gifts and making holiday plans to hang with friends and eat pie with family, there are thousands of little voices (and some not-so-little voices) wishing that they just had a family of their own to love them this Christmas. They really aren't asking for that much. They don't care if you're wealthy. They don't care if you're single or married. They don't care if you're young or old. If you've got some love and patience to spare, you could be just what some child is hoping for this year.

Whew! Finally.

2005-12-13T22:06:00.000-06:00

I'm terribly sorry to have kept you waiting for so long. Hey! Wake up! I know you want to know about this fabulous news of my incredibly interesting life. I often wondered if I'd *ever* get to say this, but we moved into our new house. About a month ago, actually. I'm sitting here in my nice, warm living room, gazing lovingly at my Christmas tree with pretty, pretty lights on it. For the last 3 Christmases, we didn't have room for the big tree, you know. Things are going pretty smoothly now, and we should close on our construction loan soon. I've been cooking up all kinds of wonderful things in my spacious kitchen and taking luxurious baths in my new, giant jetted tub. Ahhhh. Home sweet home. I would take a picture to share, as I promised Robin, but all six of my nieces and nephews were here for the last two days, so there's a toy explosion happening all over the house, and my nephew let the dog in this afternoon just as the snow was good and melty so there are hound-sized muddy footprints all over my beautiful, cream-colored carpets. Then, my niece let a cat in for good measure, so there are kitty-prints winding around the doggy variety. My living room looks like some kind of inter-species animal dance studio. Maybe I should take a pic of that, because after all of my work to keep these carpets clean, it's really sort of funny that it all came down to one afternoon with the little ones.

Christmas is coming, and I'm seriously the best wife in all the world because I bought my husband a pool table for our soon-to-be-finished basement rec room. Last year I got him a snazzy electronic dartboard, so the rec room should be fairly entertaining when it's done. Yay! Since many of our early dates were spent playing pool in smoky dive bars near campus, I'm looking forward to challenging my sweetie to a game and remembering the wanton days of our youth. Ha! How old do I sound now? Let me take out my dentures and play some pool, Grandpa. I'm 28. Sheesh.

My daughter wants a horse for Christmas. Specifically, she wants a "water-poofing horse." We don't know what that means, and she can't tell us. Not that she's getting a live horse of any variety this holiday season, but I'd sure like to know what "water-poofing" is and how it relates to the equine world.

I've lost 40 pounds now, and I'm inching my way closer to what I weighed when I got married. My holiday treat for myself? Wardrobe additions, of course. I have a closet the size of Rhode Island now. It must be filled. I recently bought a very foxy pair of black leather boots - mid-calf high with skinny heels. I love these boots. Other women admire them but ask how I can walk in them. Clearly they don't understand that sometimes, for the sake of looking and feeling really sexy, a little foot pain is a small sacrifice. I'm thinking that I need to revisit my stance on footwear. Previously, I decided that I would curb my shoe shopping because A) I don't really go anywhere exciting anymore, and B) No one here cares if my shoes are Manolo Blahnik or Walmart Special. I'm admitting it now, though. I love shoes. I see a shopping trip in my future, and I think pretty soon the people of my small hamlet will be exposed to loftier foot fashion once again.

It's OK! I'm Still Alive!

2005-11-02T02:09:00.000-06:00

Yeah, I know you were worried in my absense. You checked my blog every day, didn't you? And if you didn't, shame on you, because I could have been in serious trouble. And who would have rescued me all the way out here in the wilderness? Not you if you weren't checking in here to see if I was gone. I'm disappointed.

So, I'm a little ashamed that I've neglected my blog. I'm not sure I can recap the last 5 months or so in any form that you'd want to read, so I'll hit the highlights, or lowlights as they may be called.

1. No, we still haven't moved into the house of hugenormous proportions. OK, it's not that big, but it is five and a half times bigger than the shack of impossibly small proportions where we currently reside. And I used a calculator for that computation, in case you know me well enough to giggle when I've committed math. Anyway, after waiting 3 months for the basement to be poured, and waiting for the buckets of rain to dry, and waiting for the house to be liveable, we are now waiting for the utilities dude to hook up the water/sewer/gas connections. The electricity works, so Maya is no longer flipping light switches in vain. To be more specific, we are waiting now for out water heater to be installed. Apparently, there is something so miraculous about a water heater that it holds up the entire rest of the utilities system. The toilets can't even be installed. You may be wondering, as I am, what the toilets have to do with the hot water tank. No answer on that just yet, but suffice it to say that after 7 week (yes! Seven!) of waiting on this stupid pipes/waterheater/toilets/faucets nonsense to be resolved, I'm fully ready to become known as the county bitch, because I don't think people should have to suffer poor customer service just because it's a small town. Oh, I was going to give you the brief version, wasn't I?

2. I had a birthday recently. It was kind of a crappy day. No one really remembered except my mom. I even got an email from a friend on my birthday, asking me to participate in a big birthday surprise for another friend, whose birthday is upcoming. OK, that actually did make me laugh a little, because I'm nothing if not a giggler at irony. That is irony, right? I get confused after Alanis Morrisette's whole irony misuse thing. I didn't have a black fly in my chardonnay, so I guess I'm good there.

3. I've lost 30 pounds or so since May. I think I've mostly seethed it off, really. All of this pent-up rage over the house situation must have some positive metabolic effects. See, while I'm calling the utility contractor a lying manwhore sonofabitch in my head, I'm burning calories! Whee! If you see me on the street and I look like I'm concentrating really hard, don't disturb me. It's like my own personal Gold's Gym of snarkiness and hatery. Regardless of whether it's the anger or the countless hours I've devoted to my elliptical machine and the impossible bendiness of Winsor pilates, I'm lookin' pretty damn good these days. And these? Are pre-pregnancy jeans. Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about.

4. Coffee. www.intelligentsiacoffee.com. Buy yourself some Black Cat NOW! My day is no longer complete without a ginormous mug of Black Cat. BobQ is a coffee god.

Delicious Catty Goodness

2005-05-18T00:54:00.000-05:00

OK, I'll admit it. Though I often hide behind a shy and proper alter ego, the true HC is one catty bitch. This won't come as a surprise to those who know me best, of course. My earliest meow moments were shared with my best friend J. We've known each other since 9th grade, and when it comes to the fashion faux pas of our high school and college classmates, we have looooong memories. To the boy named Kelly who wore the Z. Cav balloon pants well into the mid-1990s, I want you to know that you've provided many hours of giggles, and for that , I want to extend a hearty thanks to you and your fabulously huge pants.

Naturally, we show little mercy towards one another, either. Mostly we laugh about it, but I think J may still harbor a touch of resentment for the time I told her that her new brown lipstick was perfect if she wanted to look like she just kissed a turd. And truthfully, it stings a bit that she still brings up the Perm Disaster of 1998 and asks if I still run from the perm smell near the mall salons. Yes. Yes, I do run. And my perfectly straight hair looks gorgeous fanning out behind me as I seek solace in Nine West.

These days, I have to fulfill my snark cravings online or by phone, as my mostly Amish neighbors don't seem to share my love for all things bitchy. Or maybe they do and they're cracking on my Old Navy yoga pants in German. I hope not, because where could I go with that? Return fire with a dig about the apron being so last season? Besides, which is the bigger sin - yoga pants or bloomers?

One of my favorite ways to get a catty chat fix is checking in with one of the many celeb-mocking blogs. I have a soft spot in my cold, cold heart for Snarkywood, because I've known contributor Martha through Delphi forums for a few years now. Not only is she wicked funny, she's teamed up with two others who share the love of verbal celebrity smackdowns, and the result is extraordinary. If I could snark with these women all day, I think I'd die happy. If you're ever in need of a little pick-me-up, I highly recommend the Snarkywood piece on Donatella Versace, in the March 05 archive. If you can look at Donatella's smooshy collagen lips, incredibly tight and not at all flattering wardrobe and bleary but happy heroin eyes without laughing, there is no help to be had for you.

Back, and Badder Than Ever

2005-05-13T02:06:00.000-05:00

OK, don't know about that last part, but I am back. You may remember me. The one who hasn't blogged in about 107 years? Yeah, that's me. Time flies when you ignore your blog, apparently.

I'd like to start off with a plea to the powers of the universe. Please stop the rain. Just for now. The crops have plenty for the moment, and dry weather would be good 'cause mama needs a new basement. The rain may fall again in August after the irrigation lake is pumped down and my husband is freaking about losing 900 acres of soybeans (and after the new basement is cured!). Thanks.

I was talking with some friends today about what life would be like if you were a phone sex operator. I'm told I have the voice for it, but alas, I'm a prude. Couldn't do it. Probably would laugh and ruin the moment. I guess some guys find laughter sexy, in which case I'm like Bridgitte Bardot times a hundred, but I digress.... If you were a phone sex operator, it would probably be really hard to find people that you could talk to about your work. And you know that phone sex operators have some seriously funny, and nasty, stories to tell about work. How could you keep silent? On the flip side, though, picture Thanksgiving dinner, the family gathered round the table, your cousin Tom telling hilarious stories about his shenanigans in the accounting office. You decide to share a work story of your own. "So, the other day at work, I was talking to this guy, and I said 'Oooh, yeah, baby. I like that. Spank me again, you bad boy.' And then the guy yells 'chocolate pie!' And I was all, like, what?"

Also, would it be hard to remember to answer the phone normally when you weren't working? You know how if you work at a place where you have to answer the phone with the business name, after a while it's hard not to do that at home, too? What if you're on the city bus and your cell phone rings, and you answer, "Hi, this is Cindy, I'm hot, horny and totally na-ked." Your dad, on the other end of the line, would be totally freaking out.

Zzzzzzzz.

2005-03-22T00:32:00.000-06:00



A few weeks ago, we decided to burn an old granary on our homesite. It was falling down and we needed to remove all of the old buildings before we can finish our occupancy permits anyway. So we lit it up. The only problem was that the wind shifted and caught the old barn on fire. Granted, the barn needed to go, too, and we were mostly done cleaning it out for demolition, but we definitely weren't planning on burning it that night. My sister-in-law and I watched as one single ember from the granary floated up high in the night air and drifted lazily over to the barn roof. The old dry shingle didn't put up much resistance, and soon the roof was ablaze. I was in charge of making sure the three toddlers on the scene stayed away from the fire, so I stood back and panicked as my husband and others ran in and out of the burning barn rescuing the few final items that they wanted to keep. The fire was pretty impressive, as you can see from the picture.

Seeing the old barn go was sad, even though it needed to happen. It was built in the early 1900s, and my husband played in and around it as a child. He probably sulked in it as a teen. My daughter and nephews found a huge number of little green plastic army guys in there during the cleanup process. Some were stuffed in knotholes and under stall partitions, and quite a few were still lined up near the hayloft rail, where my husband must have lined them up for battle 20 years ago.

Thanks to the fires, and a weekend of cutting trees, the home site looks a lot different now. I spent the weekend hauling tree limbs after my husband cut the trees down. I swear, trees grow extra limbs during the felling process. I hauled about 850 million tons of tree limbs and stacked them in artistic burn pile formations. By the end of the day I was exhausted and pissed at the trees of the world for having so damn many branches. One tree must have heard the curses I was muttering under my breath because it managed to smack me in the ass as I tossed it onto the burn pile. Then, as I kicked it and cursed at it, this time not under my breath, it landed a sucker punch on my head. Stupid tree. I'm lighting that burn pile on my own so I can have the last laugh. Bye-bye, ass-kicking tree!

I asked my husband what kind of tree he was cutting at one point. He said it was "just an old piss-elm." WTF? A piss-elm? Gee, I wonder why that variety never sold well at the local garden center. I think he makes this stuff up sometimes.

After all of the tree-hauling and barn-burning, I'm one tired girl. My muscles hurt and I have cuts all over my hands and I've broken almost all of my nails. I'm cool with the aches and pains and exhaustion, though, because it reminds me that we're so much closer to moving into our new house. We should be able to dig the basement soon, so long as we don't get a lot of rain. I think I'd haul whole trees off the land by myself if it meant we could move in faster. Just call me Tree-Ra!

Laughter and Tears

2005-03-18T21:46:00.000-06:00

Someone posted this website on one of the forums I frequent - www.overheardinnewyork.com. It's a blog-style collection of conversation snippets heard in New York City. If you're looking for a few juvenile giggles, and let's face it, if you're a friend of mine, you probably are, this site is worth a few moments of your time. My favorite conversation so far:

Guy: I saw that movie Hide and Seek. It sucked.
Girl: I don't know that one. Who's in it?
Guy: Ummm...that guy from Meet the Fockers.
Girl: ...Ben Stiller?
Guy: Who?
Girl: Are you talking about Ben Stiller?
Guy: No, no, the old guy.
Girl: Robert DeNiro?!
Guy: Yeah, him.
Girl: You call Robert DeNiro "that guy from Meet the Fockers"?!
Heard on -- 1 train

Now on to my play for sympathy this evening. I burned my hand. I really, really burned my hand. And the truly unfortunate thing about the burnt appendage is that I don't even get a cool story out of it. Could I have maimed myself last week when we accidentally burned down a barn? Yes, I could have, but instead, I waited until this week, when I maimed myself by daring to take a ham out of the oven. At least it was a damn tasty ham. So, now my hand is the color of ketchup and I can't bend my swollen fingers. Let this be a warning to those of you who may plan on making a ham in the near future. Look out for the steam. It hurts like a sonofabitch.

And finally, a moment of praise. Received in the mail today: the title deed for our home site. We now own 6.25 acres free and clear. Excuse me while I indulge in a nice glass of chablis for celebratory purposes. As a bonus, the alcohol may temporarily dull the pain in my hand. Yeowch.

Inspiration from Unlikely Sources

2005-03-16T18:59:00.000-06:00

Seen on local fire department sign yesterday: PHISH PHRY PHRIDAY. Hee! Phabulous!

I've decided that it's been too long since I indulged my creative side. Yeah, I know, technically writing is a creative thing, but I crave more than that. At one time I dreamed of being a photojournalist. I spent hours behind the lens of my trusty camera and even longer hours in the darkroom slaving over the perfect print. My camera now rests on the top shelf of my closet, where it has been for the past two and a half years. It's easily accessible, and every once in a while I catch a glimpse of it and feel a pang of guilt. It begs to be taken out of its case and out into the glorious springtime sun. I'm not sure what's stopping me at this point. Maybe it's the fact that if I switch back to my beloved film-eating SLR, I'll have to leave the developing and printing to someone else, since I'm sans darkroom these days. Handing over that much control isn't in my nature.

So, for the time being, I've made a deal with myself to keep my digi cam well charged and ready to go. I'm going to document spring and possibly summer in my part of the world and see what happens. I'm going beyond the standard pics of my daughter and pets. Not that I don't love taking pictures of my daughter. The three CDs from her first year alone would tell the truth on that one. I want to capture the spirit of southeast Kansas, or at least try to show a piece of this country that so many people never see. Pasture fires (no, not ones that I have personally set, tyvm Lushes), corn so tall you can hide behind it, my nephews joyfully reeling in catfish from our lake, the perfect golden color of wheat just before harvest, traveling harvest crews, maybe even (but hopefully not) the look on a farmer's face in August when it's 103 and the pivots just pumped the last drops of water from the lake onto a soon-to-be-wilted field of soybeans. Maybe, if I get brave enough to jump headfirst back into the world of photography, I'll steal a corner of our new shop building and invest in the equipment for a darkroom. Then I'd have no excuse but to free my favorite old camera and lenses from their padded prisons. Watch out world, I'm re-armed and dangerous!

Take Me Home Tonight

2005-03-15T15:02:00.000-06:00

I've recently returned from a week-long trip to the east coast. I spent the first few days in Reston, VA in meetings that were productive, but so boring that I even risked IMing my friend Mary Alice in the middle of one just to keep from drifting off to sleep. I had to cut that convo short when, as always, MA started to make me laugh and I was afraid I'd be unable to stifle the giggles. In Reston, I also had a chance to catch up with Lyn, an online pal whose sense of humor is just as natural and perfect in real life as it is via the net.

The second stop on the east coast tour was NYC. Despite that fact that the city is about a bazillion times bigger and scarier than the town we currently live in, I had a great time. Thankfully, the meetings in the Big Apple were more exciting and inspiring than those in DC. I stayed at the Waldorf, which turned out to be a good thing, because I felt like I was experiencing a part of NYC without ever leaving the hotel. I could have lived without the exorbitant minibar prices, though. I spent $11.95 on two cans of Diet Coke before my friend Emily rescued me from financial doom and took me to a deli for more reasonably priced beverages.

Em is a fantastic NYC tour guide, by the way. Not only did she drive to Times Square on Saturday night to pick me up, she took me on an impromptu tour of several Manhattan neighborhoods that I hadn't seen yet, providing interesting commentary along the way in her fabulous British/Brooklyn accent. Em can call me daaahling anytime. We stopped for drinks on the Lower West Side (I think) and later ate "Sex and the City" cupcakes that were so good they should be illegal.

Sunday morning I awoke early, remembering why I had previously called for a self-imposed ban on all tequila products. Next time if someone could please remind me that it would be cheaper and faster to give myself a headache by running into a wall, that would be great. That route isn't as tasty, I suppose. My hours in NYC were running short, so I made my way to Park Ave. and located a cab that would take me to the Empire State Building. The line for the elevators stretched around the block when I arrived at the ESB, so I decided I'd have to take in the sights from the upper deck another time. I did some shopping, picking up souvenirs for my daughter, nieces and nephews. After that, it was time to head back to the hotel and catch the shuttle to LaGuardia. The shuttle driver took a different route than what I saw on the way in, which was a pleasant surprise. I got to see the Queensboro Bridge, which was far prettier and more interesting than the Triboro Bridge that I came in on. The driver also treated his passengers to a quick tour of Queens, but I think I was the only one who appreciated seeing something other than Midtown, based on the grumblings from the backseat.

Before long, I was on the runway at LaGuardia, ready to go home. I have to say, though, that landing and taking off from LaGuardia is one of my favorite travel experiences. I was on a small regional jet, which sucked until I realized that it gave me a fabulous view of the water at the end of the runway.

My daughter and husband met me at the airport in Kansas City. I think they had a fun, relaxed time together while I was gone, as evidenced by the fact that my daughter was wearing her bathing suit under her winter coat for the trip to the airport. It didn't take long to get back into the swing of things in southeast Kansas. Spring truly arrived in the week that I was gone. Tractors are working the fields and bulbs are bringing color to flower beds in every yard.

While I wish I could have had a few extra days in the big city to see the sights, I have to say that it's a nice feeling to be home. And I guess, even with all of the complaining I do about this backwoods rural town, I do feel at home here now. As I was driving the 20 miles into town for groceries yesterday, I sang along to my favorite Violent Femmes tape just a little louder, appreciated the wide open spaces just a little more and breathed the fresh, spring air a little deeper. I love the city, but it's good to be home.

Life is Sweet

2005-02-25T18:16:00.000-06:00

I spent some time reflecting today about how much I love my life. I've recently read a lot of comments from a few people who are so sad and bitter about their lives that they only complain. Admittedly, much of my blogging has been venting and complaining, The internet is therapeutic, you know. After seeing some of these other people and their constant barrage of unpleasantness, I decided I'd better make sure my blog didn't make the ranks of the whine, whine all the time world.

So here it is, a post only about happy things. We're getting a house. Everything worked out, as I should have known it would. And this house is better than many of the houses I would have settled for. All of those friends who said something better was just around the corner were right. I must have really smart friends.

My daughter is adorable. She's wild and trying sometimes, but she's healthy and makes me laugh more than anyone in the world. Last night, she was being somewhat difficult when she didn't want to go to bed. That morphed into a fit about me putting her PJs on her. It was one of those screaming fits that only a really tired toddler can manage. Very nice. Finally, she took her PJs off and then put hem back on, just so the PJs weren't tainted with my "putting on" germs. Apparently, she felt bad about her rotten behavior, though, because after I tucked her into bed, still crying, I heard her telling her stuffed toy, "Little Dog," about how she wasn't nice to mommy but she "was very sad that mommy put the PJs on." She's talking to this dog in that sobbing, hitching voice of complete despair. I was trying not to laugh, but at the same time, I wanted to cry for her. She was obviously heartbroken when she realized she wasn't acting very nicely. After a few minutes of talking the situation over with Little Dog, she came over to me and apologized for screaming and wanted to give me a kiss. I can't even tell you how much I loved her right then, looking up at me with her tear-stained face. She knew she was wrong and she was trying to make it right. She makes me so proud. :)

My husband is taking me on a date tonight. Woohoo! I believe there will be some negotiations for our 5-year anniversary trip tonight, too. We'll discuss possible trip locations over wine and dinner. I can't complain in the marriage department, either.

And finally, I've said before that we're not wealthy people. However, I do know that we're incredibly lucky to have enough money floating around to pay the bills, to build the house that we want, to have a dinner date once in a while, and to allow us to live out in the country, on our own farm, where our daughter can play outside and be safe. I have the luxury of working from home and not having to report to an office every day. My husband enjoys his work and the has the ability to take time off whenever he needs it, even if it's just to take a long weekend with me and Maya. Maybe what we have isn't enough for some people. But for us? It's plenty.

I don't talk much about all of the things we have, because I realize that there are people much less fortunate than us in the world. I'm happy and secure. I just hope I never forget how lucky I really am in the midst of those little everyday complaints.

I blame the child...

2005-02-15T01:28:00.000-06:00

No one really warns you that being a parent can make you feel like you're hovering on the brink between sane and insane. Sure, you can try to pretend you've got it all under control, but can you really, really have control of a toddler at any time? Toddlers, by their nature, are completely unpredictable. Wild cards. Sweet one second and terrifying the next. Just when you think you know what you're doing, the three-year-old changes all of the rules. At least, that's what my three-year-old seems to be doing. It's either that or she was abducted by aliens and switched with a strange alien child.

It's not that I don't adore my daughter. I do. She's a wonderful, hilarious, crazy, energetic drama queen in training, and sometimes part mountain goat, like when she scaled a stack of carpet rolls in the home improvement warehouse the other day. Did I feel totally in control while trying to yell softly at my toddler perched atop the berber mountain? Umm, no.

She used to be compliant at dinner time, happily eating any vegetable I put before her, along with almost anything else. Now, anything I serve had better be free of "dirty" vegetables like peppers or mushrooms, and whatever it is should be doused in ketchup or barbeque sauce. She used to happily wear anything I put on her in the mornings, but now she feels best in opaque tights and a Maryland basketball t-shirt, or some K-State footie jammies (which do look smashing in the grocery store, by the way), or Elmo slippers, a plastic tiara, and a feather boa. I try to ignore the odd wardrobe choices, since I'm a "pick your battles" kind of mom, but the thought of her adorable, coordinating ensembles sitting in the closet in favor of outfits that might also be seen in the local strip bar (sans Elmo slippers, of course) makes me a little sad.

Yesterday she managed to empty a box of potty training wipes into the toilet in the span of a minute as I dared contemplate painting my fingernails. It's like she has a sense of the times when my thoughts shift from her for even a few seconds. She pounces upon those moments, in fact. 75 wipes in the toilet make a very big mess, by the way. Oh, and the baby powder on top made a nice paste that is probably turning the septic system into some kind of superadhesive as we speak.

Today she (and her cousin, who is equally as adorable and maddening) snuck out of the house as I enjoyed a cup of coffee with my sister-in-law. When we snapped out of our brief moment of adult conversation, we found the girls naked in a mud puddle outside the front door. I actually took this discovery in stride, until the girls, surprised at being caught, immediately ran back inside and flung themselves upon my bed, naked and very muddy. So much for those beautiful Egyptian cotton sheets.

Admittedly, her tricks as of late have left me feeling exhausted and much closer to the completely stark raving mad side of the fence. And yet I know that I could not live without this child. That's another thing they never tell you about being a parent. I never knew I would love someone so much, even in the midst of unclogging toilets and wiping Sprite from the inside of my purse and chasing naked, muddy people through the yard and picking individual bits of oregano out of spaghetti sauce and making 867 cups of chocolate milk a day. Yes, I blame the child for my perpetual lateness, wrinkled clothes, mystery stains, wet carpets and absolute insanity. But her charm, her utter mysteriousness, her infectious laugh, the way she works a plastic tiara like it's Harry Winston, and those blue eyes looking up at me from whatever mischief she is knee-deep in.... Maybe insanity isn't too high a price to pay just to be near her.

No, Really. It Was A Beefalo.

2005-01-31T01:35:00.000-06:00

So, a beefalo walked through my yard tonight. We were outside enjoying the frosty winter air and preparing to mock my brother-in-law who was riding down the intersecting road on his bicycle. Don't ask why, he just needed a good mocking and I'm just the gal to do it. Anyway.... This bull comes trotting by on the edge of the yard, along the main road. Bulls can be pretty mean, not to mention that cattle in the road is a major accident waiting to happen, so we got pretty excited to see this ginormous beast amble by. We hid the children and waved our arms frantically at the brother-in-law, because you really don't want to meet a bull on a bike. Then we set about thinking of people nearby who may have somehow lost an animal that weighs about a bazillion pounds and is twice as tall as me.

We couldn't reach any of the likely suspects by phone, so my extra-daring husband hops in the pickup to get a closer look at the animal. I, of course, hopped in too, because thankfully, the pickup is bigger than most bulls, so I felt pretty brave about the whole thing. We drove up to this animal, which was actually moving pretty damn fast for something so heavy. Just as I was starting to wonder what faulty genetics had resulted in a bull with such a funky face, my husband exclaimed, "That's no bull, that's a beefalo!"

I should have known that if it was in my yard, it would be a weird animal of some sort. A beefalo is a cross between a cow and a buffalo. No, I don't know why someone would want a beefalo. I suspect it's either the potential for low-fat meat or just a sick genetics program from hell. The very fact that my husband correctly identified the beefalo gave us our first clue as to who the beast belonged to.

You see, just days before, my nephew, Timmy, who is in first grade, came home bragging about how his friend Mitchell's dad had gotten a beefalo as a gift. Knowing that Mitchell's dad had to be the only one on our side of the county with such an animal, we sped off to locate him.

As we arrived at their farm, we noticed some trucks out by their cattle pen. Apparently, they had hired some cowboys to round up this beefalo, who was a regular Harry Houdini of the pasture, slipping in and out of fences at will. These guys were searching through a tree-packed field, looking for a beefalo who was currently 3 miles away heading for town.

They were none too happy to hear that the beefalo had given them the slip once again. We never did see them come back by our house with the animal in a trailer, so it's possible that Mitchell's family will be dining on some low-fat beefalo burgers for the next few weeks.

I don't know what it is with the animals in this county. First the rogue peeping emu looking in people's windows. Then the creepy coyotes taunting me with their yipping right outside my bedroom window. Now the beefalo taking a day trip into town. I don't even want to speculate on what's next....

As The Living Room Turns

2005-01-22T22:38:00.000-06:00

Thanks to the ginormous new TV, we've had to dismantle the entire living room and attempt to get it back in shape. I'll admit, my husband is pretty handy when it comes to things like moving the entertainment center or assembling a new computer desk, but as for actually removing items from said desk or other home furnishing item, he's quite a hindrance. See, I can clean off a computer desk, even one as cluttered as ours was, in less than an hour, tossing outdated items and re-organizing the necessary stuff as I go. My husband, however, has to inspect every single item that he touches on the desk. He re-reads Christmas cards (30 minutes), he flips through magazines (45 minutes), he stops de-cluttering and decides to check out how we're doing on this year's taxes so far (90 minutes). Now, all of this wouldn't be so bad if he were not IN MY WAY as I am trying to re-assemble our living room, which now looks like three tornados and an earthquake struck in the course of one afternoon. So help me, if he complains about how he wants to go to bed at 3 a.m. when we're still trying to put the new computer desk up, let's hope I'm not the one holding the screwdriver at that moment.

A personal note to M. Night Shyamalan: I watched The Village last night. I just want to thank you for casting Joaquin Phoenix as Lucius Hunt. I might have been scared of those freaky monsters, but thanks to Jaoquin, I pretty much spent the movie in a trance-like state, in awe of his supreme hotness. Now, I'm a little peeved that you didn't cast me as his love interest, because believe me, I wouldn't even have to act for that role, but I'm holding out for something better. When you come up with a film where you can cast Joaquin and Colin Firth in some kind of love triangle, I'm your gal. I'm not normally the type to get all aflutter over celebs, but those two - oh my. Come on, Night, I would make one hell of a savory filling in a Mr. Darcy/Lucius Hunt sandwich.

Feria Therapy, Yurt 101

2005-01-22T00:27:00.000-06:00

You'll be glad to know that I may pass on buying the yurt, because we may have found a way to build our house after all. In case you're wondering how happy I was about that turns of events, let's just say that the shiny kitchen sink in the model home has a nice set of smooch prints on it courtesy of moi. Some better house news and a hair update were just what I needed to snap out of that disgusting slump. Well, a pedicure would have helped, too, but I digress.

However, it's come to my attention that some aren't aware of the fabulous alterna-dwelling known as a yurt (ahem, Kelley), and so, for educational purposes, I will share a link to help you on your way to yurt enlightenment. http://www.yurts.com/ I fully support the rights of my friends to become yurt dwellers if they so choose, but I'm not calling any of you Ghengis, so don't ask.

Now, can we please talk about my hair? It's pretty cute, and I'll have you know that I am solely responsible for the current cuteness. I looked in the mirror last week and was horrified to see that my formerly adorable highlight/lowlight combination was no longer acceptable for public view. Strapped for cash, I started to panic, but deep down I knew what I had to do. It was a choice. Struggle valiantly against the pitfalls of home haircolor, or let the roots show. Ladies and gentlemen, I am no Sarah Jessica Parker, so I hit the haircolor aisle determined to find a workable solution.

Later, in my bathroom, my hands were shaking as I mixed up the foul-smelling potions that could be my savior or my ultimate hair shame (though the perm escapade of 98 is hard to beat). I love that on the home highlighting directions, they don't mention anywhere that you should try really hard to grow a few extra arms before applying the dye to your hair. During the process, you will look absolutely nothing like the smiling girl on the instruction sheet. The bottom layers of hair went pretty well, which is nice, in case anyone is watching when I flip my hair over to dry the underside. As I reached the top, things got ugly.

First, yes, it really does hurt like the unholy fires of hell when you get that haircolor crap in your eyes, so please keep that in mind if you think a little extra color on your wispy, sideswept bangs will be totally foxy. Second, once your hands are covered in hairdye (another thing not mentioned in the directions - the little highlight comb DOES NOT do it all for you) it's bloody impossible to hold on to the hair color bottle. My chosen highlight color was a nice light red, but they like to scare you with funky-ass colors in the dye bottle. So after the first few times I dropped the dye bottle, I actually looked a lot like Carrie after the prom/blood scene. My daughter came in the room at one point and asked me if I needed a Band-Aid.

After all of the trauma, though, I have to say that my home highlighting skills are pretty damn good. I was nervous as I unveiled my new, non-roots-showing tresses at lunch with some friends. I had reason to be nervous, too, because these girls can smell home dye-jobs from a mile away. Would they have called me out on it? Oh my heavens, yes. Hello, I regularly encourage them to rag on bad dye jobs. My sigh of relief came when one of the girls pointed to my shimmering locks and said, "See, that's what I want done to my hair." Sweet victory! Now, I know that I shouldn't be too smug about this one good hair incident, because we all know that hair karma can be a truly hideous thing, but just let me bask for a few seconds, OK?

Last, I am compelled to tell you about my new TV. Techie geek, I am not. So again, fear struck my heart when my husband asked me to fetch a new TV. Determined to make a good choice, I walked into Best Buy, batted my eyelashes, shook my fabulously highlighted hair and laid myself upon the mercy of the youngest, techiest-looking sales guy I could find. I wanted the biggest, best TV that I could get for a specific amount of money (you think my husband sent me with his checkbook and no spending limit? HA!). My goal was to choose a TV a tad bit bigger than our old one, so that it would fill up the entertainment center nicely. No problem. However, I forgot to take into account that everything looks smaller in the cavernous Best Buy store.

When I got home, my "just a bit bigger than the old one" TV was kind of a monstrosity. For normal people, this wouldn't be an issue. When you live in a freakishly small house and your new TV takes up 80 percent of the living room, it's a little bit weird. Needless to say, this TV didn't fit the entertainment center, either, unless I wanted to fit it in there with a sledge hammer. My husband just shook his head. Not to be defeated, I suggested we put the TV on top of the entertainment center for now. Nothing makes a giant TV look even bigger than hoisting it up in the air to hover over you like a great and shining cartoon anvil. Not only is our entertainment center creaking under the weight of this behemoth, we have to lean wayyyyy back on the couch in order to see the picture. It's like being in the front row of the movie theater where you get a sore neck from the strain. The good news is, I think we may be able to use the TV box as an addition to the shack. Fabulous!

Without Hope

2005-01-18T01:32:00.000-06:00

Hopeless. That's how I feel these days. I've been neglecting my poor blog because I just don't have much to say right now that's positive. Here's the thing. I spend most of my day trying to look happy and upbeat for everyone else, and I can't do it anymore. It's not like I can go around lashing out at everyone and snarling, either. So I'm going to rant a bit. Listen if you want, or check back next time if you're only interested in the odd escapades of country life. I do have a rockin' hair dye story to tell when I'm in a better mood.

As you know, if you've read here before, we're trying to buy a house or build a house or invest in some kind of dwelling structure that will get us out of the Shack of Impossibly Small Proportions. Do I feel bad complaining about my house when others in the world live worse than I? Yes. And for two years I've thanked God every night that we have a roof over our heads at all. I'm not ingrateful, and I know things could be worse. But I also know things could be better. How sad is it that my child gets really excited whenever we go into a house where she can actually run in the living room? In our house, she can't even go two steps without running into the edge of the room. She thinks baths are the most fascinating thing ever because she never gets to sit in a bath tub. (Yes, I do clean her, but in the shower, tyvm.) I want the best for my family, and that includes my child having her own room instead of having to sleep on the couch or the floor or with us all of the time.

I know I should keep holding out hope that something is coming along that is better. But how long can I keep that hope up when things just seem to be getting worse? We made an offer on the only decent house near us, and that didn't work out. (We are limited geographically because of the farm.) The loan that we had for the purchase cannot be used for construction, so we can't just build on the farm with it. We saved enough for a 20% downpayment to get a construction loan, but even with our excellent credit the bank now wants a 30% down payment because I'm self-employed. Who would have though that doubling our income would mean that we couldn't buy a house? It just seems that every time we get to a point where we overcome one thing, another stumbling block pops up in its place.

I don't know how much longer I can live in this tiny, cluttered house and stay sane. I know, I could clean up the clutter, right? Well, I'd like to see anyone else live in 500 square feet (only one closet, remember) with a toddler, a home office and a quilting business and not have clutter.

I'm seriously considering purchasing a yurt. How bad does one's situation have to be before they consider living in a yurt in a place where there are tornadoes? Exactly.

If you've read this far, congratulations on your excellent attention span. Thanks for listening. You just made it easier for me to fake a smile tomorrow.

Here We Go Again...

2004-12-20T00:24:00.000-06:00

It's just another day on the roller-coaster I like to call "How Home-Buying Can Be Your Own Personal Hell." We stepped away from the "gee, I'm sure we can build a house with our bare hands" camp for a few minutes, and, given my two fab new freelance jobs, decided that we could possibly afford to buy an actual, real, already built house. Maybe even a nice, real, already built house. It didn't take long to identify the perfect house. The one where, when you step out of the car with the realtor, you hear angel voices singing and the sun shineth upon you, etc. For us, the perfect house is only five miles down the road from our farm. So far, so good.

The first lesson in harsh reality hit when we approached the bank for a loan. Get this: before, I was working as assistant editor of a small-town weekly newspaper, making not much over minimum wage, part-time, hardly covering fuel, daycare and the required Thursday night cocktail with the office mates (oh, come on, you *know* that counts as a legitimate work expense). Now, I have two really good freelance jobs and one OK freelance job, plus that pesky custom quilting business that I started from the ground up, and I'm making, well, a lot more these days. In fact, I'm pretty much doubling our income. The bank should like this, right? Umm, no. See, I'm now self-employed, and the crappy thing about achieving that part of the American dream is that the bank HATES self-employed. Especially newly self-employed. Hey, thanks for letting me know!

So after our first discussion with the bank we learn that, thanks to my income not counting AT ALL, we can barely afford the tiniest mobile home on a weed-infested half-lot. Since that actually wouldn't be a step up from where we live now (I know, that's really hard to believe, a place worse than this!), we declined to work with said bank.

Now I think we have a new bank lined up, one that is actually willing to work with us on a loan, so we may be making an offer on this place soon. Wish me luck, because after all that we've been through on this house madness, we really need a break. If anyone reading this happens to be an incredibly wealthy benefactor looking for a charitable cause, I am that cause! I'll even take a pic of my daughter looking sad in front of the shack of impossibly small proportions, just to show you how cramped we are. But hey, at least the hole in the floor is fixed now, so you can't hop into the crawl space from the foyer....

The new house, on the other hand, has no gaping holes anywhere, has about 6 times the amount of space we currently take up, and is on 7 acres with a lake and a gorgeous view. Please stars, align for me this week! I'd like nothing better than to get a call on Christmas Eve (while, incidentally, I'll be relaxing on a Florida beach, thanks to my parents choosing a warm retirement spot), saying that we will finally become homeowners. It's been a long road. Let's hope this is the end of the line!

Festive Holiday Cellulite!

2004-12-03T03:07:00.000-06:00

So I was signing up for a coupon site the other day, in hopes of finding some formula coupons. No, I'm not pregnant, and my three-year-old isn't going to start drinking formula now. Let's just call it a work experiment. This coupon site had some really bizarre questions on it, and they had to be answered before you could see any actual coupons. The first thing that struck me as odd about this site was that, no matter how many times I clicked that I wanted coupons and deals for baby products, it kept giving me links for Hormel meat products. Does anyone else see the connection? Am I missing something here?

However, the Hormel thing wasn't the weirdest. I'm reading along, answering bizarre question after bizarre question, until I get to THE question. The one that takes the cake. The one that made me pause to wonder whether this particular survey writing company has any proofreaders, or whether the proofreaders are smoking crack. Read along with me. Let me know if I'm the only one who thinks this is the weirdest freaking question ever.

As the holidays approach, which of the following worries you the most:
a) eating healthy
b) credit card debt
c) removing unpleasant cellulite

Huh? Are there really that many people who take time as holidays approach to dwell on cellulite? First, why the holiday connection? If one were terribly concerned about cellulite, wouldn't it be a year-round thing? Is there some strange obsessive disorder that causes holiday cellulite panic? All I want for Christmas is some anti-cellulite cream? Jingle Bells No More Jiggle Lotion? Festive Hannukah Anti-Cellulite Eight-Night Gift Set? (Guys, if you're reading this, let it be said right now that actually buying anti-cellulite cream for your sweetie at any time would be a very bad, even horrendous, idea and I'm definitely not advocating the practice. So don't blame me if you try it and end up with an anti-cellulite-cream-bottle-shaped indention in your head.)

Second, unless you live in a tropical clime, which I do not, as the holidays approach, your cellulite is happily ensconced in a triple layer of winter warm clothing. No one can even see it under your corduroys! And I suppose if they can you probably need more than a discount coupon site cream to handle the job. I'm still not sure what the link is between the holiday season and removing unpleasant cellulite, but I'm guessing that, if this coupon company has its say, it will somehow involve Hormel meat products.

Happy holidays, folks. And please, don't spend your holiday season worrying about your unpleasant cellulite.

Brrrrr!

2004-11-24T00:17:00.000-06:00

Like many people in southeast Kansas. I own a weather radio. For those of you who get to watch TV and have fancy local radio stations, you may not see the value in these contraptions. They're kind of annoying, especially when the mechanical radio man voice interrupts your sleep with a very urgent test of the emergency broadcast system. And if there should actually be a weather event worth mentioning? Trust me, there's no way even the people at the cemetary a mile away could sleep through the beeping that radio emits. My husband hates it. I hate it, too, but during the summer tornado season, it's my best friend. We don't get the weather channel out here, and the closest severe weather siren is 4 miles away. In other words, we wouldn't hear it. So you can see why a storm-phobe like myself would require such a radio. It's the only thing that allows me to sleep during thunderstorms, because I know there's no way a tornado could sneak up on me with that weather radio blaring in my ear.

Right now I despise the weather radio. See, I've been trying to deny that winter is coming for a while now. Mother Nature has, up until now, played along with my charade, providing unseasonably warm weather and lots of sunshine. Gray November? Not this year. But winter *is* coming. In fact, winter has charged in like a bull in a china shop today. The first sign was the wind. Not just a little wind, but the howling, gusting, leaf-swirling kind of wind that even sounds cold as you listen from inside your warm house. (The shack of impossibly small proportions does have an up-side - it's easy to heat!) Next was the rain. Cold, half-freezing, sloppy rain, driving in wind-propelled sheets. And now, the weather radio is sounding its shrill warning. Pretend no more, summer-lovers.

I'm trying not to listen to it. I'm trying to pretend I didn't just hear 6 inches and snow in the same sentence. Please, someone make it stop!

If there's going to be 6 inches of snow, let's at least hope it's a nice snow. Not sloppy, wet, half-snow. The only good thing about a big snow is cross-country skiing. I'll try to look at the bright side. I do look really cute in my ski gear. ;)

Copy Machine Part 2 and Cheap Wine

2004-11-22T23:22:00.000-06:00

1. You may recall my ongoing feud with the copy machine at my office. Fortunately, there haven't been anymore flames, other than the verbal kind I launch at it when it refuses to spit out a mere black & white 11x17 copy. However, it has developed a new and equally as irritating habit of jamming when I even get near it. How is that even possible? All I know is that twice in the last week, I've been walking by the copy machine when, somehow sensing my presence, the machine begins flashing the paper jam message. It's taunting me.

2. Meanwhile, I've recently learned that one of the new, giant machines in the back of the newspaper office is a copier of enormous proportions. And it's fast. 120 copies per second. If I can cause a regular copy machine to catch on fire, can you imagine what I can do with this machine? I've been trying to steer clear of the behemoth copier, but since it's near my new desk (the desk furthest from the other copier, naturally) I have a hard time keeping my distance. I'm a little nervous, though, because if I somehow offend this new copier, or it senses my hostility towards a smaller member of its species, things could get ugly. I'm just saying that if you hear about a girl in Kansas being crushed under a rogue copy machine, or that a giant nuclear-sized copier-machine-induced explosion has made a crater out of the whole Midwest, you'll know why.

3. Random note: I heard someone today talking about how they'd finally found a wine they liked. It wasn't too dry and tasted much better than other wines. What is this miracle potion, you ask? Boone's Farm. Yep, the $1.99 wine. Now, I'll admit that the stuff isn't awful, but calling Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill "wine" is like calling that processed cheese food "cheese." It might look vaguely like its natural counterpart and taste somewhat similar, but it's definitely not the same.

"Real-Life" Friends

2004-11-17T01:08:00.000-06:00

My husband says I'm internet-addicted. He laments the amount of time I spend staring at my computer monitor, reading my various forums and laughing at the antics of my forum friends. I've been involved with forums for almost 4 years. Some days I can't believe it's been that long. Other times I feel like I've know my online buddies forever. Lately, I've been noticing how some people on the forums distinguish so much between forum friends and "real life" friends. I've decided that, for me, it's high time I stop making the distinction. Friends are friends, no matter how you meet.

Most of them I've never met face-to-face, though I've had the pleasure of hugging a few of them in a non-virtual way. All I know is that living in the middle of nowhere is a lot more pleasant knowing that I can log on and laugh with other kindred souls. Like any friendships, we share harder times, too. In fact, I feel more free to share my own struggles knowing that if a tear slips out as I'm typing I won't feel like I need to hide my face. Life is a little easier with a cheering section, even if you can't see their faces.

In the past four years I've shouted joyous congratulations for countless babies born, threatened to strangle several unruly or otherwise obnoxious husbands, prayed for sick family members, waited on news of new jobs, rejoiced at long awaited positive pregnancy tests, cried over miscarriages and family deaths and giggled at countless bawdy jokes and late-night chats. What's not "real life" about that?

OK, so you're wondering what the point of this rambling is. I don't really know, to be honest. There's not a deeper meaning to be had. I'm just glad to live in an age where internet has made it possible to have a group of "fake internet friends" spread across the country and across the world. Huh. I guess I could have said that in one sentence.

Woe the Humorless Hack

2004-11-09T03:02:00.000-06:00

So, it's been a while since I've updated my beloved blog. I'll be honest. There has been almost nothing funny that has happened to me in the last few weeks, hence my lack of blogging. I like a blog with some humor, and at this moment, mine is lacking. It pains me, but I'm also not willing to create situations like the bicycle and crazy nephews incident just for your amusement. I'm sick, but not that sick.

One of the reasons I've been absent is because I spent the last few weeks slaving away in front of my computer to create a sample website for About.com in hopes of becoming their new Guide to Baby Products. Thankfully, I got the job, so the lack of sleep paid off. I also have a new freelance writing job with Bullseye Midwest Edition, which you haven't heard of unless you run in my fabulously bitchy, I mean bitchLy, farm circles. While these things are great for me, they have resulted in a serious lack of time for funniness. Weep for me!

Right now I have the flu, which sucks immensely, and I can't sleep because of a particular flu-induced pain in my back. So here I am, desperately trying, at 3 a.m., to think of anything mildly amusing to add to my blog. All I can think of is a dream I had recently, which is uproariously funny to my co-workers. We'll see how it fares with you.

As you know, unless you live under a rock, we had some elections recently. The election fever must have reached a limit in my brain, because I started dreaming about local candidates. One such candidate, in a hotly contested county commission race, earned an extra-special spot in my normally tame dreamscapes, though. We'll call him Bob. I've never actually met Bob. His name came up often during elections, though, because his competitor was engaging in some illegal campaign tactics, like stealing Bob's signs and hanging disparaging posters around town. In my dream, I went to an election night soiree, dressed to the nines, with my husband. I was looking fine in this dream, and of course, I was 30 pounds lighter (I *love* dream-world!). Picture a presidential inauguration, and you'll be getting close to the type of event this was in my dream. My husband was in a tux, which realy should have tipped me off that it was a dream, but I digress. Someone in my dream introduced me to Bob, who leaned in as though he was going to give me a kiss on the cheek. Here's where it gets odd. Instead of kissing me, Bob licks my cheek. Not just a little lick. More like a St. Bernard lick. I woke up just as my dream-self was hissing under my breath to my husband, "Oh my God, Bob just LICKED me!"

OK, dream interpreters, I dare you to take that one on. I'm scared to speculate on it too much. Even weirder, though, is that I saw Bob in person a week after the dream. He announces the local football games, and my husband pointed him out to me as we cheered on his alma mater in their bi-district game. I'm telling you, Bob looked *exactly* like he did in my dream. How weird is that? Not only did I dream that the man licked me, but I dreamed him with dead-on accuracy. Bob has never, as far as I know, given any indication that he would actually lick a person, so let's count the possibility of prophetic dreams out for the moment, eh?

One final note - the shift key on my new computer (new to me, not new overall) doesn't like to work with the i key. If you notice lots of lowercase i's, it's not because I'm channeling e.e. cummings.

Copy Machine from Hell

2004-10-09T15:58:00.000-05:00

Let me first say that electrical objects in my office have a tendency to act up for me and no one else. Especially the copy machine. It has never once gone through a run for me without jamming. Does it jam for others? No, not really.
Last Friday, I was working late, alone in the office, and making my usual copies of the newspaper layouts to take home to proofread. Miraculously, there was no paper jam, but I did hear a strange popping sound, and smelled electrical smoke. I noticed that the area around the copier plug was blackened, so I unplugged it, left a note not to plug it in, and called my boss to explain. He said he'd have it checked.

Monday morning, the copier worked fine, no sparks or smells, so I was teased mercilessly the whole week about my copier paranoia. Did the copier have any more issues during business hours for the whole week? Umm, no.
Last night, I again was working late. A co-worker came in after shooting football pics, just as I was getting ready to make my layout copies. I joked that I was glad he was there to witness the copier freaking out on me. He laughed, until the first pop rang through the office. I glanced warily over at the plug and saw a flame shoot out. "George, oh my God, the copier is actually on fire!" I shouted. Another pop echoed through the building. This time, not only did the flame shoot out of the plug, it stayed out, and grew larger. I had one of those moments where you don't know what to do, so I shifted from foot to foot, anxiously, trying to formulate a plan to take down the flaming copy machine from hell. I turned off the copy machine, grabbed the cord and yanked it out of the wall. The vicious whipping of the cord through the air extinguished the flames. I dropped the cord and surveyed the damage. Foul-smelling electric smoke and the scent of charred plastic filled the office.

George was now standing beside me. The look on his face was sheer amazement. I'm sure he was wondering how the copy machine could hate me so much that it actually burst into flames. I told him I was glad he saw that so he could tell others it was true. He said, "Well, even if they didn't believe you, the char marks on the wall pretty much corroborate your story." He was right. Black streaks snaked up the wall and over the formerly cream-colored speaker plug that was in the top spot on that outlet. The bottom outlet hole, previously occupied by the copier, was all melty and weird-looking.

After more notes and another call to the boss, I'm banned from using the copy machine at work, especially after hours. I think I'm cool with that.
Admittedly, I did enjoy springing this story on my husband and sister-in-law when I got home on Friday night. I often use the phrase "putting out the major fires" when describing the tasks I have to finish before leaving the office. Imagine their surprise when my story involved actual flames!

Time is running out...

2004-10-04T21:40:00.000-05:00

I've had a secret for the last four years. A dirty, shameful secret. Well, actually, I'm not all that ashamed, but the dirty part, yeah, that's accurate. I'm a slob. A hopeless, can't-throw-anything-away and can't-declutter-to-save-my-life slob. Somehow I've managed to (mostly) hide this fact from my husband for the last four years. Why did I not think about the everyday horror of keeping up this charade when I convinced him to marry me? Sure, he probably would have married me even knowing about my secret dirty side. But you can't just let all of your flaws hang out while dating, right? No way. All bets on disclosing secret shames are off in the dating world.

Why am I letting you in on this now, you might ask. On Saturday, when I called my husband in Kazakhstan, he announced that he had done all of the damage he could do in that country, and would be returning home to continue his reign of terror in the good ole U.S. of A. "Oh, when will you be back?" I tried to ask casually. The fear was creeping in. Tuesday. The answer rang ominous in my ears. Tuesday. As in three days. I had to face the facts. My daughter and I were complete slobs. I had to reverse all of the damage that we had done our little house in a mere three days or risk unveiling a perfectly good cover-up operation that has been going on for quite a while. No. The mess will not win this battle. I will not be exposed for the neatness fraud that I am.

On to the next problem. This one, not a secret from my husband, mind you, is possibly worse. I'm a procrastinator. In addition to the messy house, which by the way I have not even started cleaning yet, I also had a specific list of tasks to be completed that my beloved could not do while he was away. Some tasks, marked *urgent*, remained to be completed. Since I learned of his imminent arrival on Saturday, that really only left me one weekday in which to complete any tasks involving service or stores, since nothing is open on weekends around here. Yikes.

Naturally, being the procrastinating slob that I am, I didn't feel the need to do much this weekend. I did sort out laundry that needed to be washed. I sorted it mentally and not physically, though, so I'm not sure if it counts. My living room still looks like a toy store exploded in it, and my sewing area has fabric samples heaped precariously high over patterns and spools of thread. The kitchen is not so bad, thanks to the fact that I use my mother-in-law's kitchen to cook most meals. Thank heaven for small favors. The laundry situation, though, is most dire. How many loads of laundry have I done since Gaylon left? One. One load of laundry. Being the amazing shopper that I am, Maya and I have plenty of clothing to go for a while without doing laundry. I hate doing laundry because in this tiny house I have nowhere to put the laundry when I'm done, with only one closet and all. So not only do I have to wash the clothing tonight, all 589 loads, I have to fold it all and find some new nooks and crannies in the closet in which to shove our spectacular clothing assortment. I may need to find a hammer and some boards and just build a laundry shed on the side of the house. In fact, building a laundry-concealing structure might even be faster than fixing the laundry problem by actually washing the clothes. It's really that bad. Perhaps Ty Pennington has an emergency phone number for Extreme Laundry Makeovers. If so, I'll be calling him STAT.

So, here I am, with less than 24 hours until I must leave to pick my husband up from the airport. I managed to complete most of the items on my *urgent* list today. I sweet-talked the guy at the co-op into fitting my appointment for an oil change in this morning. I balanced the checkbook. I checked to see that the old pickup battery was working. I hand-harvested 50 pounds each of goldenrod and liatris (don't even ask why my husband's to-do list involves picking wildflowers). I'm sure Gaylon will know that I did all of these tasks last minute. As I said, the procrastination is no secret. Yet, I wonder if there are penalties for forging the date on those little oil change stickers they give you. It would save me the merciless teasing on the way home from the airport, you know.

The house, however, must remain a secret. I'll likely get little sleep tonight, instead roaming the house in search of rogue toys and old magazines. Maya? She's of no help whatsoever. Suddenly, after weeks of not sleeping, she's tired. Imagine that. So tonight, before you snuggle into your warm bed and sleep, think of me. There's a heavy price to pay for keeping secrets, folks.