Suburban Bliss:: Birth Control Via The Written Word

Back in the Saddle

We woke up at 6:30 this morning after a summer of lazy mornings lounging in bed for longer than I'm willing to admit publicly. Lucy looked around and said, "What the hell is going on?" 

We are still working with one car, though I'm sure very soon I'll lose my patience with the situation now that there are no more busses. When this happens I'll probably steal your car. Sorry. As of now I'm running a literal chauffer service just like the most cliched cliche. 

When I drop Logan at the office I yell as loud as I can, "Make sure you're waiting for me after school! I don't want to have to find you!!!!"

He's loving it. 

I think I'm going to see a movie all by myself today. It's the kind of thing I always mean to do but never really do. 

Since I am still just an unemployed nothing, I'm thinking I need to do more of those things I always mean to do during the day. Mostly so I don't sit around the house wishing I was being more motivated to do things. 

Which brings me to my School Year Resolutions:
Find a shared work space. 
Build routine into my day, everyday.
Conquer the several painting projects I have around the house. 
Repaint the entire first floor and upstairs hallway.
Nest the hell out of my house. 
Get back to cooking for a bit.
Buy a new camera. 

Do you have any resolutions for this school year? "Eat Frosting Naked On The Kitchen Counter"? Or "Finish That Thesis"? 

Show off.

Simple.

The kids and I slept in the tent we bought for our upcoming August camping trip. 

Every time* Max sleeps in a tent, it rains. It doesn't just rain, GOD IS PISSED MAX IS SLEEPING IN A TENT. 

God opens the sky and pours out his rage at everyone for letting Max sleep in a tent**.

*This is literal: Every time Max has slept in a tent it has at least rained. Rained A Lot. 

**I don't know why God is mad, I suspect it has little to do with Max in a tent, but I'm just using the context clues. 

While we were in the tent a lot of storms blew over us. Maddie is not a fan of storms because storms mean she isn't in control of the gravitational pull of the earth and this is upsetting to her. I mostly understand this, luckily when I worry about things, nothing bad happens to my family or those I love. Madison hasn't learned to hone her worry to those sorts of things.

I mean really? Trying to control weather? How juvenile. 

Maddie cried a little, especially when a crack of thunder happened directly over our heads. Logan says (he slept in the house) (He isn't as much fun as me) (except in a lake) the power went out with that crack of thunder.

I held her head on my shoulder on the air mattress and I put her hand to my chest and put my hand over it. Max, laying next to us, put his hand underneath. They both fell asleep like that. 

I wish all their fears, all their problems, were so easily soothed.

Summer Fun

I've been charging my computer up about once a week. I barely open it.

Luckily I'm not working for anyone else this summer so there's really no guilt and shuffling of priorities and the unending guilt that I feel when I can't do something with my kids because I'm working. 

I'm pretty happy with how the summer has been going, surprisingly. Of course what is this? Week three?  

The weather this summer so far (KNOCK ON WOOD) has been lovely compared to last year's aggravating Festival Of Rain. We've been entertaining friends again (last week 3 times!), something we kind of stopped doing at some point over the winter. 

Yesterday we spent the day out at Cass Lake with friends and their kids. Max, Maddie and Logan all went tubing on our friend's boat, for the first times. One of the only experiences I have had and Logan hasn't. On the drive home I said to Logan, "I swear I feel like we're up north." 

If you're not from Michigan you should know that Up North is like Situational Prozac or maybe Enviromental Prozac. 

My favorite thing about summer vacations up north with the kids is the nights after playing in the water all day. Around 4 or 5 you start considering scheduling showers for all the adults and kids in the house.

Everyone's skin smells like summer and feels warm to the touch...but you're not uncomfortably hot. You feel that excellent water logged relaxation in your whole body. You sit at a restaurant, usually with several families and eat a good dinner and by 9 you're ready to crawl into bed with a good book because tomorrow you're going to get up and hang out in the water all day again.

After our afternoon on the water we stopped for dinner in town with the kids and I realized I want almost all of our summer to feel like we're on vacation up north. 

That's what I've been trying to do. Staying away from the computer for the most part, spending 3-5 hours at the pool, going to the movies, eating dinner on our deck, sitting on the upper deck with Logan having an evening cocktail watching the bats fly overhead at dusk. 

Also driving this view of a relaxed, easy summer is the realization that I think I'm ready for a job out of my house. (Lucy? Is not happy to hear this.) July 14th I have my long awaited interview. 

This could very well be the last summer I have to just hang out with the kids every day in the summer. We are all well aware that acting as my children's Number One Source Of Entertainment doesn't fit me very well. But I'm smart enough to realize that all this time with them, all this time to fill, all this flexibility, is something I will miss when it's gone. 

Now it's true I still bristle when I take Maddie to the pool and she rolls her eyes and says, "LAME". Or I tell her to call a friend and she says, "No, I'll just sit here all day bored.*"

*In so many words.

The nice thing is, on the good days of this summer I think to myself, "I just want to absorb all this so I can remember it forever, we're so lucky to have this time together." 

And on the more annoying days I think to myself, "Next summer I'll be working out of the house and Logan will have to be here some of the time and they'll have to go to day camp and they'll have to have a sitter who will keep them entertained."

Somehow it makes everything feel more tolerable. It's okay, you can say it, I'm losing my edge. 

The Summers' Welcome To Summer Dinner Party

Hey, depression got you down? You should throw a party.

I've wanted to have a dinner party in our back yard to welcome summer. This year it was especially important to host a party because since we left the Dream House I've been more reluctant to host parties. I just haven't been feeling it. 

For months I've been collecting ideas and inspiration. But mostly I didn't do anything to get ready for the party until 3 days before the event. I point this out because it wasn't entirely pleasant but on the bright side it goes to show how reasonably easy it can be to throw a dinner party for 10. 

I knew I wanted blue hydrangea and a really bright pink flower to go with it. I wanted a menu we could prepare and serve outside and I wanted to eat at a big round table. My round table dreams were dashed into the ground by a miscommunication with the place I reserved the table from in April, prime wedding season and a car that's not big enough to haul a 60" round table. Darn. 

I used the hanging lanterns I bought to use at our New Year's Eve party. I got them from Paper Lantern Store. Unfortunately the large pink one I bought came with the wrong size metal brace so we used orange instead. Logan hung a cable from the porch out to another cable he strung between two of our pine trees. We're adding a string of lights to it and will leave it up year round. Cost: $25. I may buy the nylon version to keep outside for most of the summer.

The blue hydrangea I bought at our local flower shop weren't quite as blue as I'd wanted. 

But they also had peonies and peonies make me want to cuddle. With them. I know, it's awkward now.

My camera is still broken. It's incredibly painful. Thankfully my guests had nice cameras and brought them for me to use. 

There was soda and Sierra Nevada to drink, but also other yummy things.

Like Helen Jane's White Sangria. 

Maddie stamped the napkin rings. Ideally I would have used real flatware but I own 8 sets and had 10 guests so we went this route.

We made the award-winning fish tacos from that Beyond The Shaker Challenge dinner we attended this winter. Logan made these little cards for me to write what each of the toppings for the tacos were. Each card said something we love about summer. 

Our friend Phil is The Grumpy Barista. He roasts coffee beans and makes a delicious cup of coffee at Tasi in downtown Royal Oak. He makes a fantastic BBQ sauce and also a fire roasted tomato salsa that makes you want to marry him even though he's kind of grumpy and you're a straight man. I'm speaking from Logan's perspective here. 

We asked him to make a batch for us to give our guests as parting gifts. Logan made the label and it looks fabulous.

Another of our friends was having a birthday on Monday. His wife made delicious mexican ice cream and I bought sparklers to stand in as candles. The wishes you make on sparklers are a lot better. 

Or so I hear. 

Even the embarrassing moments are bigger in Texas.

I can't tell if my trackpad is acting weird or if I've just been away from my computer so long I've forgotten how to use it. 

I gotta be honest, May kind of sucked. I know, I know, I'm bringing bad things on myself by focusing on how bad each month stinks. I was over April about halfway through. In May my animals all decided to get sick and require lots of cash to be spent on them to prevent them from filling my house with urine.

But June? June has been pretty darn great so far. 7 days in and I am living it up. 

I decided to take a trip down to Texas to see the Mitchell's. The family I've mentioned before who I used to babysit and for a while before I got married, lived in their basement. Which wasn't as creepy as that sounds. 

I used to come down here to visit when I was exceptionally overwhelmed by my marriage or by parenthood...or both. But now I just come down because the change of scenery is nice, the pace of this house is calming, and there is a lot of good food in this part of the country. HOLY CRAP. 

Oh and there's the pool...and 5 O'Clock happy hour...and Cake Wednesday (On Thursday).

I also decided to come down to San Antonio because I needed a shot in the arm of what I call "Jean". The part of me that would like to be normal and not a raging lunatic about silly things, like the phone. Progress on the phone has been minimal but I do feel more normal.

I chose this specific time to take the trip because it was the same time as the Moms Gone Marginally Wild trip to Florida. I decided not to go this year for a bunch of reasons but I was still torn and the thought of trudging through my daily routine while getting texts from my friends lounging at the beach and having a great time together was just too much to face. 

I can vouch it's a lot easier to hear about how much fun your friends are having while sitting next to a pool with an ice cold margarita.

So, here I am. 

So far I've gotten my nails done. Stalked Sophie the dog. 

Drank a few margaritas and ate some molten cheese served in a bowl of volcanic rock. 

Watched some hockey. Hung out with Miles and his siblings (oh and his mom). 

I gawked at Austin and became even more convinced I will have to bash Logan over the head and move him down there. 

I worked REALLY hard on getting some color on my blindingly white skin (I KNOW I'M GOING TO DIE FROM THAT). Oh and I performed a stunning act of acrobatics last night before bed. 

Here's the text I sent Logan moments after.

11:01pm "I just fell ass over apple cart over Dan's green truck. WTF?"

Here's Logan's reply at 

8:21am "What is this? Are you okay???"

So yeah I went up to bed around 11 after a little time in the hot tub and maybe one too many glasses of wine. There's this really cute antique green pedal car in the room I'm staying in. I walked into my room, trying to be quiet since the dad of the house was already in bed in the room next door, shut the door and managed to fling my body over the truck, head over heels, slamming my entire body into the wall behind.

.....

Just go ahead and picture it. 

.....

It's pretty funny, I don't mind.

So I'm laying on the floor, my head against the baseboard and my body up and over me along the wall, and I'm pretty stunned. I think I just did a back handspring, albeit a really clumsy and comical one. Then I remember Joe in bed next door probably thinking, "What the hell?" So I jump up and quickly try to act natural.

"That noise? No I didn't hear any noise. Weird. I mean, I was doing a little acrobatics before going to bed, but other than that....nothing unusual going on in here. Good night!"

I head home tomorrow and I'm going to try really hard to remain upright for the entirety of this next 24 hours. 

June, you and I are going to get along just fine.

I never told that lie again.

I was in sixth grade, feeling increasingly uncomfortable in my own skin. Sixth grade was a hard transition for me. The middle school building felt too big, so did the eighth graders. 

I hated riding the bus. There were these two girls, both in eighth grade, who knew my brother from the sub shop he worked at over the summer. They smoked and I was terrified of them.

They wanted me to sit next to them on the bus, in the back of the bus. Where they treated me with a mix of awe, because of who my brother was, a senior in high school and pity, bordering on teasing because I was a very small sixth grader who was obviously terrified of them.

One day on the ride home in the back of the bus, one of the girls started teasing me about not ever having had a boyfriend. This was true and would remain true until I was 20 years old. I'd never really thought about having a boyfriend, but I knew I was behind everyone else. I mean, I wasn't even smoking cigarettes like these girls. 

I felt ashamed that I wasn't normal. I didn't want them to know I wasn't normal. So I lied. 

There was a boy I grew up with down the street. He was the most popular boy in school all through elementary school and now in middle school as well. We'd played together as younger kids but the older we got, you know, he did boy things. Or rather things with the popular kids who were a little more normal than me. 

I told them he'd been my boyfriend, just for a little while over the summer, and I'd broken things off. 

They didn't believe me but I stood behind my lie.

The next day as we all filed off the bus one of the girls yelled after the popular boy who was walking with a group of his friends. 

"Hey! Melissa says you were her boyfriend this past summer. That's not true, right?"

I stood there knowing I'd lied and knowing I was about to be humiliated and there was nothing to do but stand there and wait for it to happen. 

The popular boy turned around, looked a little uncomfortable, and said: 

"Yeah, we went out this summer."

That's one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. 

Whining Is Winning.

I realize I'm a gigantic baby, but working at Logan's computer was really awful. I'd login to gmail and think, "Why the hell am I getting all these notes about bicycles?" or "Why are my friend's husbands emailing me about that stupid bike ride they're doing?" I was especially concerned when a note came through about my successful registration for an upcoming triathlon.

Let's pause there. Me + Triathlon. 

I should do it just for the comic possibilities. I told you all about the time I tried to do a 150 mile bike ride with Logan. We were still dating and I thought, 'Oh, it will be fun to do this together!'. In a moment of intense frustration during the ride I hurled my bike off the side of a hill into the woods. If I got frustrated while swimming, what would I do? Splash and cry? Probably. Or even better, if I got frustrated during the run I'd have to hurl my body over the side of a hill. 

Hilarity.

Logan's been on deck to get a new bike for quite a while. I'm not totally heartless and want him to be happy. When he compared our family Christmas present sofa to his bike though, flames may have shot out of my eyes. Instead of burning his flesh, I tell him not to sit on it since it's MINE ALL MINE.

I've had my laptop for 7 years. Last year it died and a friend was kind enough to put a new hard drive in it for me. Honestly I was as happy with that solution as if I got a new computer. I don't need much out of my computer, so it's fine to use Logan's computer when I wanted to edit pictures, load music on my phone or watch videos (though watching porn at the desk in the dining room is super awkward).

So Old Reliable kept it together pretty well for another year. I had to buy a new power cord after getting one from a reader ("Hi Laura!") and promptly destroying it after tripping on the cord and taking the whole computer down with me. (MagSafe FTW!)

I suspect when I dropped the computer (for the 23rd time) I likely broke the Image Thingie Maker Thing and the computer was not coming back. 

My goal for this computer is to not drop it. I'm going to try real hard. 

Logan had a freelance check coming in he was going to use for his bike when ***bam*** my computer died and a bike moved down on the totem pole of needs. This is because a bike doesn't earn us a single penny...unless Logan's going to become the next Lance Armstrong. I know it's unfair to say this but I can't stand Lance Armstrong. 

Logan's getting his bike next and I'm going to keep whining on the Internet so we can pay for it. 

Wait....okay I'll try to be marginally entertaining soon.

Year Of Flowers: Update #1

Part of my 2010 Resolutions and my Life List was to buy flowers for myself once a week.

This has been going pretty well thanks to stops at Costco and Trader Joe's. Picking up flowers in February feels so luxurious it makes my skin tingle. Literally. Even though I spend under $10 per bunch.

A couple of things I'm learning about flowers.

I need more vases.

I need some flower arranging tutorials.

Flowers last about 2 weeks (as long as Gary The Cat keeps his mouth off them).

Currently crying under the table because I'm not on the sofa

Well the dog is definitely settling in. She's on a routine that's reasonably tolerable. She wakes up at 5am when Logan leaves for the gym and this gives me another reason to LOVE marathon training! WOOOOOO!

She is still in her crate and is doing just fine with it aside from Friday night when she cried like a maniac and the kids slept on the floor next to her crate. I think I messed up our routine by relying on the white noise machine a friend brought over rather than HGTV. Turns out Lucy is really into interior design and not so much heartbeats, static, birds or the ocean.

The kids had Thursday and Friday off of school last week and Logan was out of town. Then Monday was a snow day I was not at all expecting or emotionally prepared for. Even the dog was like, "Don't they have somewhere to be? When's the Cuddle Puddle in the big bed?"

I had the follow up CT Scan on Wednesday last week to check and make sure the mystery spot on my lung hasn't changed into a piece of broccoli. Last time I had small allergic reaction to the iodine contrast dye so this time I was premedicated. This worked pretty well until Thursday night when a batch of hives broke out on my neck and chest. But things got a lot sexier on Friday night when my lips developed a sand paper rash on their edges. So Sexy!

The technician told me we would have results in 24 hours and this made me happy. However Thursday and Friday passed without word, which means good things obviously but still a little rude yes? I decided I would call Monday morning if I didn't hear.

And then Monday I totally forgot to call. And you know what that means. 

I am clearly NOT WORRIED enough and now the sky is about to fall on my head.

But now I'm worried about how not worried I've been so hopefully by the time the doctor returns my call I'll have turned the situation around.

Update: Just got the call: "Previous Abnormality Has Resolved."

Valentine's Treats 2009

I got organized to create something fun for Max's class this year almost an entire month before Valentine's day.

....And then three days before the party the class decided to have a "green" valentine's day meaning no individual valentines. Classic.

Instead they're each making one big valentine and every kid is saying something nice about everybody else on their valentine. How "green"...(no really it's a great idea and probably saved a bunch of parents a lot of time and saved the earth a lot of garbage.) (BUT STILL.)

I sent Max with his treat because I wasn't finding 28 random people to give valentines to from my kid.

I was inspired by this gumball idea at les petits presents (excellent inspiring site, fyi).

I started out by browsing my favorite packaging site, SKS Bottle and Packaging. I was drawn to the metal boxes at the site, not the cheapest option, but I got 48 hinged "Altoid-Like" boxes for $31. I used 28 of them and I'm sure I'll find other little projects to use them for.

Logan made the stickers and I picked up gumballs at the party supply store, a large jar of them for $10. You can get them in bulk for less but then you've got 850 gumballs. Though I don't know, I loved looking at our gumballs in a jar on my counter.

After I placed my order I found these square plastic boxes that were much less expensive than my boxes. I love the clear plastic so that you have colorful little packages to pass out. You can find a pack of 50 boxes here for just $12. Slap a label on the front and you're done.

I put the Happy Valentine's Day stickers on the front.

The inside was filled with gumballs (which I carefully placed so there was a nice distribution of color)(could have used more yellow)(stop looking at me like that).

Under the gumballs is the punchline. "You blow me away! From, Max!"

It looks complicated but really wasn't. Next year I'll revamp the label and give you all a downloadable PDF.

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

We Passed!

Our pup gets to come home Saturday at noon!

Pictures to follow as soon as I unwrap Madison from around my head!

Computer dead. Typing on phone. Help.

My computer has been acting up. It worked for a while if I wrapped the power cord around my face and held my tongue to the exposed wires with a piece of foil wrapped around my toe.

I actually decided over Christmas that I don't want, or rather don't need, a new computer. Of course then a week later I had a power cord and a piece of foil rigged up to make the damn thing run.

Now it's dead. D-E-D

No matter how I hold the cord or how I place the exposed wires on my fillings the cord won't power up the computer.

In the meantime we've been trying to adopt a dog. Tomorrow we have our home inspection, and if our home is good enough we could have our girl by Saturday.

!!!!!!!!

I was going to wait to tell you about her until she'd moved in, but enh, it's all over Twitter as I've been terrified we'll be denied adoption.

Anyway, please keep your fingers crossed the rescue lady thinks our home is safe for a dog. Also cross your fingers that I go to the Apple store and all I need is a new power cord for my computer. She's pretty old, but we have history!

(I'm typing this on my phone so forgive the typos and such)

Beyond The Shaker: Salt Challenge

I ate a lot of salt this weekend. Monday morning I went to have an MRI and needed to take my wedding ring off and pretty much couldn't and the whole time I thought, "DAMN YOU SALT!".

Logan's friend Tyler has started a gourmet salt company with his brother called Beyond The Shaker. On Saturday night we gathered at another friend's house to taste 12 different dishes made with each variety of salt Beyond the Shaker sells. The best dish, as voted by everyone, would be awarded a trophy.

When I got my invitation to participate in this Beyond The Shaker Salt Challenge I thought, "Oh yeah, sure, Logan will make something!"

But then I realized I was one of the 12 people included in the challenge. Which meant I would have to make a dish myself.

As evidenced by the Beef Stew debacle, I'm not exactly capable of even adjusting a recipe, much less creating one all by myself.

Luckily my friend Laura is a chef and gave both Logan and me free consulting for this contest. Logan and Laura came up with an amazing pork tenderloin with a cider honey sauce. I found this a little fussy so I decided to make something easier, I love the taste of salty sweet things so I asked Laura for some dessert related ideas. 

I was assigned Everest Wet Salt, which, if I were a foodie type person I'd say, is a salt that tastes of lime, lemongrass and a bit of wasabi. Not so easy to cook with, so of course the girl with no culinary imagination got this salt.

I realized something about myself, while creating recipe after recipe that failed miserably. a) I'm not much of a "chef" b) I hate failing c) I often don't even try just to avoid failing.

(I already knew about myself: d) I need to chill the fuck out about 89.95% of the time.)

Giving up before trying is an excellent life skill.

I finally settled on coconut macaroons and with a little tweaking from Laura, I ended up with a pretty intriguing cookie. And I mean intriguing in a good way.

Doctor's Orders!

Sometimes I forget to eat through out the day and on some days, I'm just not even really very hungry when dinnertime comes. This happened on Tuesday.

I am obviously getting enough calories, or so my weight says, though I'm sure this awful habit of mine is destroying my metabolism.

On Wednesday morning I had an appointment with the doctor to discuss my ability to throw my body to the concrete. So I raced off and didn't eat breakfast either. I wasn't very hungry so I didn't even think about it. Quite often I don't eat all day until dinnertime.

I spent, three and a half hours, at the doctor. Waiting for various images of the places I've tried to break myself. Amusingly though my elbows look the most battered, my knee is the thing that's most jacked up. Like a bone is pointing in the wrong direction. No wonder it was a "little stiff".

I have such tremendous body awareness I couldn't figure out why I was so hungry while stuck in that office. "Gee, I rarely eat before dinner, why am I so hungry now?" Finally I left the doctor and stopped to have a sandwich at the restaurant where our friend Phil sells coffee. (I should clarify, not just coffee, locally roasted coffee.) I ate a sandwich and thought that would fix things given that I quite often don't eat until dinner.

But I got home and still felt awful. I had a headache and laid on the sofa feeling completely depleted of all energy.

It wasn't until Logan asked me what I'd eaten that day that I realized I'd had a sandwich over the last 48 hours.

No wonder my body keeps flinging me to the ground. My God.

So the doctor showed me my xray where my knee cap and bone were having an argument and not speaking to each other.

She said, seriously, "So, until we figure out what is going on in there I want you stay off your knees."

And didn't laugh, at all. Even when I did.

She also added, looking a little like she had some seriously bad news to break to me.

"The other thing is...you really shouldn't run with your knee like this."

WHAT!? OH NO!
What about that marathon I was planning to do?

My doctor doesn't really know about my negative over all impression of running. So once again she stared at me while I got a good laugh about that order.

Resolutions: 2010

If I wasn't so positive 2010 was going to be a really good year I may have been concerned by the fact that I've fallen on the ice twice in a span of 3 weeks. The last time was on New Year's Day as I left a friend's Pasta and Meatball Open House. I may have had some wine but, and you can laugh all you want, I've been in denial about winter and I keep wearing my favorite shoes even though they have no traction and I can't really wear socks with them. Like if I keep wearing this tankini, winter will magically stop.

Take That Winter!

So I ended up practically underneath my friend's car on my back thinking, "Maybe people didn't notice."

And right then all my friend's husbands came rushing over to help me back up, making it quite difficult to pretend I didn't just fall beneath a car.

But no, 2010 is just joking with me. Because that's the kind of friends 2010 and I are. We like to joke around, these bruises on my elbows? Oh you know ha ha ha....2010, such a card.

Really I think 2010 is just trying to convince Logan that I don't belong in a place that has ice just waiting to take me out for half the year.

I didn't give myself any goals for last year. I kind of felt like, "Well work isn't going the way I want, we're leaving the neighborhood I've always wanted to live in, oh well, this year's a wash!"

Gee, I just don't know why 2008 didn't work out that well for me.

As a family we've decided first of all to get Gary a bit thinner and boy is he happy about it. I think he's going to eat my arm off in the night and we're only on day 3.

Maddie's goal for this year involves getting a dog (not going to happen, unfortunately) and Max just wants to go to Chicago again.

I assume Logan wants to run until his toenails fall off. Again.

For my new year's goals, I've decided to chip away at some of my Life List

So this year I will:

Host a welcome to summer dinner party.
Canoe for a day with a long picnic lunch.
Buy fresh flowers for the house once a week for a year.
Surprise Maddie at school with a huge bunch of balloons on her birthday.
Make our backyard into a bird refuge.
Take the kids to the candy store and give them $10 each to spend as they wish.
Make new Christmas stockings for the whole family.
Find a perfect black dress.
Send birthday greetings to all my friends for one entire year.

My year in review: we survived.

I wasn't exactly a fan of 2009. 

That's probably putting it a little mildly.

I wanted to beat the shit out of 2009 at regular intervals for a large part of the year.

I lost income, Logan lost income, we downsized leaving a(n overpriced) house that worked really well for our family (except for the Jerk Off* Landlord named Brian Lanfear and the water in the basement.) (I wonder if he's disclosed that issue now that he's trying to sell the house.) 

We had to sue Brian Lanfear to get our security deposit back from him and that was stressful. More stressful was collecting the money while the Internet (and by the internet I mean that annoying woman with that annoying website) whispered stupid things in my ear like I should just "let it go". You know, because we're the Rockefellers over here and burn money normally. $2000? Screw it!

Even if we were millionaires, I still would have taken that man to court. He was wrong and I don't deal well with people being assholes.

We had health scares and the summer into early fall was marked by marital growing pains that weren't entirely pleasant to live through. (Though we've done that before too.)

I spent a large part of the night looking through my flickr feed for the year and, you know, it really wasn't a bad year. I mean, I don't want to relive it, Jesus. But it wasn't a bad year when you step back and get some perspective.

Moving from our dream neighborhood was terribly hard for me, but saved us from certain financial ruin as we both lost income this year. I got to take a few great trips this year with women I love. I was able to give the kids an amazing experience in Washington DC and we spent time up north with friends who are like family. Friends who tried to have a baby for a long time, got two little girls. I watched my 11 year old start Middle School and she did it with amazing flexibility and emotional strength. Logan and I got away as a couple where I remembered that I don't just love him, I really like him. 

Liking someone makes it a lot easier to ride out the growing pains of a long term relationship, love only goes so far (unless it's your kids).

Don't get me wrong, 2009 can still go to hell, but it was better than my overall impression. I swam with bioluminescent plankton, I'm not sure I can call it a complete bust.

But 2010, let's be a little kinder to each other.

Happy New Year Everyone!

*Just My Opinion!

Our Holidays So Far.

How was your Christmas?

Ours was lovely, though a little bourbon heavy at the end. Each Christmas I make bread pudding for Logan and I to eat. It's the kind of thing that we don't eat on a regular basis because it's really not what one would call 'Good For You" but it is SO GOOD.

I made a new bread pudding recipe from Elise's Simply Recipes. The bourbon sauce calls for 1 cup of bourbon, and in the recipe it says "Add bourbon to taste." I assumed this meant 1 cup was the starting point so I poured the entire cup in, thinking I'd probably add more.

I like bourbon in sauces, like a mustard bourbon sandwich spread, but I don't generally drink bourbon straight.

I was surprised however when this sauce on my bread pudding blew my eyebrows off and then knocked me across the kitchen and put me to sleep moments later.

Wow.

Logan, aka "The Titanium Liver" however deemed the sauce "Strong but amazing." So your results may vary.

Aside from food there were gifts. The nice thing about older kids is that their gifts cost more so there are less of them and my goodness does that make wrapping a much easier task. (Also nice is how Max never questions the questionable explanation that Santa has a budget.)

Logan wanted a new iPod shuffle as a reward for completing his last marathon but money just wasn't available for such a thing, so I bought him one for Christmas. I engraved it: "Nothing Is Chasing You. xo"

That pretty much made my Christmas. His other large gift was a leaf blower and I know this is on par with getting a waffle iron or a vaccum for your birthday but it made him happy anyway.

In December we've entertained family, friends, co-workers, went to parties and dinners. Remember a while ago when I was lamenting all the time I spend in my bedroom? This is a lot of face time for someone like myself who's used to talking to a lazy cat for the larger part of each day.

One more party tonight and then the big annual New Year's Eve Free For All. You know the night where we invite a bunch of people with kids over and we eat, drink and talk? Then in the morning we pray the house is still standing?

Some people devote January to something like renewed motivation toward fitness goals.

My January will be devoted to alone time.

Hard To Feel Self Actualized Laying On Concrete.

This past weekend was one of those really nice ones, you know the ones where you feel sort of self actualized?

I never really bonded with parents at the kid's first school. I'm not sure why that is, probably mainly because I generally need someone super awesome, fun and outgoing to meet my friends for me. Then I just grab onto their legs and say, "Hey, like ME too!"

Case in point: I met two of my favorite friends through my other favorite friend. And it turns out, my one of those favorite friends likes to know everybody and my other favorite friend is also a pretty good ringleader.

Between the three of them (plus Logan) I'm not sure I've ever made my own friend. This makes me, well, pretty pathetic. When I changed schools and two of my socially intelligent friends had kids there, my world of social opportunities with other fun parents increased about 10 fold.

This weekend we had pizza and beers at one couple's house with eight other couples and ended up at a theater dancing to Mega 80s. Some of us didn't watch, some of us tried to climb on stage. (Hint: Wasn't me!) It resembled our old life before kids, only all of these people had kids.

It made me thankful for the moves we've made and the community we are a part of.

On Saturday we went to another party at a fellow parent from school's house and then moved onto the progressive in the old neighborhood (remember when I got to host it?). The one, you know, I dreamed about living in for 3 years and then had it ripped out of my clutches by a man who refused to negotiate a purchase price. (I am seriously going to try to give that last bit of bitterness up for New Year's Eve.)

Logan's friend Marguerite did my make up that night, she does it on the side working in advertising as the main course. She wants to do make up as her full time gig doing house parties as make up tutorials to augment her existing photo shoot gigs. I like a woman with a dream job, so I went over to try her out.

I sacrifice for my friends, it was a hardship.

So I went to the parties Saturday night and I was social, not just social. I was actually excited to be social. As opposed to years ago when I had to force myself to be social. Logan and I were talking Sunday morning about how different, more confident, I am now than I was in my 20's. 

We high-fived and got ready for a day of errands.

I'll admit I had a little strut to my step, wearing a cute scarf and cute shoes, as I walked out to the car.

I stepped off the deck, onto the concrete (not knowing it was a little icy) and ended up sprawled on the driveway.

I've spent the last three days limping around. Clearly I got a little too cocky.

Oh Hey! Shutterfly has extended my contest until Monday 12/21/09! So you have time to make your own book and share it with me. (click the "Add" tab in the upper right hand corner. Password, if you need it, is 'goober') See the original contest announcement here.

A smorgasbord with only a little whining.

Pro Tip: Make sure your kid doesn't still have a tube in his ear drum before you decide to pour peroxide in his ear canal to clean out wax. I hope only the "Whining" part of Max's brain was eradicated when I doused it with hydrogen peroxide. While my son openly wept in pain, I felt pretty good. A big shiny ball of Shitty.

We've got an ear infection. Again.

I'm thinking Max and I should just hole up in my bedroom chronicling the ways our bodies continue to fail us.

Although Max is no fun because you give him a shot of ibuprofen and he's no longer mad at the world. Unlike me, who, as you might imagine, is pretty fed up with my body and all this crap. I'm 36 body, let's keep it together.

*****

Aside from sitting around asking my body why the yoga isn't making it happy? And the mostly vegetarian dinners and the broccoli and breakfast shakes packed with nutrients? We need therapy my body and me.

When I'm not doing that I've been doing things like making homemade vanilla extract. I was going to take pictures of the process but then I remembered that everybody did this project last year. I mean I did mine naked only wearing a mustache and a flower brooch, so it wasn't totally Last Year. But I couldn't exactly share those pictures. But listen if you're making vanilla extract as holiday gifts this year? You have to do it naked wearing a mustache.

I made 24 four-ounce bottles and that's a lot of vodka. I had to make another trip to Costco for a giant bottle to finish the project. However, since I'd already done my Costco shopping, I ended up buying bread, deli turkey, cheese, to make the giant bottle of vodka less noticeable. No one really batted an eye. The turkey must have distracted them.

I also didn't have a funnel on hand so I may have used one of the kid's water bottles filled with vodka to get the vodka where it needed to go. Don't worry, I used almost all of it before putting it back on Max's nightstand. He's got an ear infection, a little vodka won't hurt. 

*****.

I thought one or two of these might be our Christmas card photo, but Logan said* "No one wants to see us."  (*didn't say but kind of meant.)

Since we're using another shot for our xmas shot I thought I'd share a few of the other shots from our fun (unedited, ignore dust on the disc) photo shoot last week with Joe Vaughn.

Here's our Christmas Miracle. No one's eyes are closed and I don't look morbidly obese. Maybe Tiny Tim will live after all.

Max loves her no matter how insane she acts towards him.

I can't believe she's 11.

Here's our very own gap ad.

(If you can read Max's shirt, make him a sandwich.)

You never forget your first.

We cooked our first turkey this year.

Since we started spending Thanksgiving as a team, we've eaten out or we've made just a little turkey breast (sometimes wrapped in bacon). This year we decided to conquer a full bird, a 10 pound bird, but still.

When I say "We" I mean Logan made our first turkey. I can't seem to stomach preparing a full bird.

I once, with friends, decided to conquer my fear by roasting a chicken together one night. I went in, armed with rubber gloves, and an hour later Logan found me hiding under the island whimpering softly.

Not a fan. Logan though, he's a trooper.

We spent our Thanksgiving cooking all day long, together. I worried this kitchen would be too small to cook together. That it wouldn't be as fun as it was in the old house. But it was fine, even with less space.

We took breaks and played board games with the kids. When we weren't playing with them, they...GASP...got along.

At one point Logan asked, "What are your pet peeves about me?" And Holy Shit you guys. I couldn't come up with a single thing.

It was a warm, cozy, content day in our little house.

Many years ago when I decided it wasn't wise to keep the relationship going with my in laws, I worried about holidays. I still wish my kids had other kids to hang out with for these days. But all those years ago I didn't know we'd have a day like Thursday.

I kind of always thought I wanted, needed, busy frantic holidays with lots and lots of people. But this year I realized our life is full of friends and friends who are like family. Spending the day playing games with the kids and cooking with Logan in our pajamas was the perfect place for us to be.

I finally feel like we have our own traditions we're handing down to our babies.

Thankful.

Pretty thankful for these baby faces, with mustaches that make them just a little more mature.

Also a talented husband who can make Bar Mitzvah invites for a friend's kid and get us back a photoshoot with Joe Vaughn. (Granted it helps if the Bar Mitzvah invite is for a kid who's step-dad is Joe Vaughn.)

Max chose to wear that fedora and the blazer. He already has more fashion chutzpa than his mother.

Maddie is wearing a hair tie around her wrist because I forced her to wear her hair down. And I forced her to let me blow it out. The minute this torture (you can see from her face the torture she endured) was over she threw that hair back in a pony tail. 

We did this shoot on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Our kids don't usually like having their pictures taken but something about that night made them relax and have fun with the process. Also Logan was there and he helps make things fun.

After the pictures we made pizzas and talked about sleep away camp and ate salad and talked about business plans and played hide and go seek.

Maybe the adults should have played less hide and seek and listened to more business plans.

Portrait and an update

A few months ago I came across Jennifer Maher's custom toy portraits site via a blog I can't remember now. That's the problem with a reader, I can never remember which site lead me where. I'm looking at my feeds and then blam-o I'm at an excellent porn site and I can't even remember who led me there.

Or maybe I just ended up there.

I love these toy portraits because Maddie is a huge fan of stuffed animals and has had a couple favorites over the years. Now that she's ELEVEN (!!!) I'm sure she'll be feeling the pressure to put them away soon. I want her to have a memento.

I shared this find on Twitter and mentioned how nice it would be to have a portrait of Choppable. Remember Choppable? Here's the story if you don't remember.....but how could you forget. 

Jennifer saw it and she took me seriously. She likes a challenge.

 

Even better she's sending it to me. It's going in our bathroom so that our guests are terrified.

Thank you Jennifer!

*********

The doctor called last night. The good news is two of the spots are clear. The bad news is one is opaque, which means it can't just be dismissed as nothing. It could be a scar from an undiagnosed case of tuberculosis, it could be a lesion from sarcoidosis, or it could be cancer.

Which? If I have cancer in my lung then fuck you second hand smoke.  

The next step is a PPD test for tuberculosis....and then if I have had TB we do another scan in 4 months to see if that spot has grown. If I did not have TB we look at it again in 2 months.

Overall this is good news, if all three spots were opaque, we'd be much more concerned. But...I'll be honest, I'm not thrilled the doctor didn't call to tell me everything was clear and now we just go forward trying nasal spray and an extra dose of antiacid to get rid of this stupid cough.

Instead I'm still coughing and now I'm waiting another 2-4 months to see if cancer is growing in my lung.

Not bad news and that's good. But not the news I wanted.

Yes I realize I haven't posted in a while.

Monday was a fine day of relaxing and trying to recover from my weekend which involved a night at a concert where I caused my husband's friend to say, "You know, I've known you for five years and I've never seen you drunk, until tonight."

And it was true, I "let loose" as the kids (may or may not say). When we arrived home (via a sober designated driver) I chatted with the babysitter which is the adult version of talking to your parents while pretending like you haven't been drinking.

We had a nice conversation most of which I don't remember. And in the morning I couldn't recall if I had paid her as I pretended to be a not a little more than tipsy responsible adult. That was a fun phone call. "Hi, Emma? Uhm...Not that I had more than a responsible amount of alcohol or anything. Actually I have amnesia, it comes and goes. Who is this?!" 

Tuesday was the election and so the kids had no school. I was okay with this as long as Maine kept their gay marriage laws intact. But no....the kids stayed home for nothing. I mean aside from preventing a crazy person walking unfettered into the school to vote and making a detour to shoot innocent kids. 

On Wednesday I spent a greater portion of the day than I'd like to admit talking to myself (and Twitter) about what utter bull shit it is to deny adults the right to marry who they love.

I stated it nicely.

"I have very little patience for people who think they are entitled to anything they justify denying others."

And I was also a bit prickly, which probably horrified the moms from school who have unknowingly "friended" me on Facebook not realizing what a crap shoot that is. 

"Clearly my love has more value because I like a penis in my vagina. Hold on a minute...why can't we let gay people get married again?"

People get a little shy around words like Penis and Vagina. Unfortunately that forces me to say those words more.

I also tried to do a Did They Eat It on Thursday. And, because I get overwhelmed by reading more than 10 sentences in a row, apparently. I failed to notice the part where the chili simmers for 2 hours. Did They Eat It: Middle Of The Night Edition. Logan and I ate the chili at 10 o clock, like we did with the stupid potatoes from last week and oh my it was good. But seriously I have to pull my head out of my ass at some point.

And Now it's Friday and, OH MY GOD we almost didn't have any plans! You guys, Logan and I would have just been SITTING AROUND doing NOTHING! Logan mentioned, "Hey, we have nothing on the calendar this weekend, how did that happen?" And I said, "Wow, that sounds nice. We should get a movie to watch or something."

And now we're having a bunch of families over for pizza. I hope everyone wants to snuggle on the sofa in front of the fire.

Halloween 2009: Bacon Edition

I kind of hate dressing up for Halloween. I know there are people who think I am "crafty" and that perhaps I "enjoy" making things, but this is generally untrue.

Generally I like things to be finished, so however I can get to "finished" as fast as possible is how I go.

I have friends who LOVE dressing up for Halloween, sometimes even throwing in an extra night of dressing up like we looked in the 80's. Except that of course they love this because these friends have had four kids and can still wear their prom dress.

I did not attend prom, my thigh might be able to wear a dress I would have worn to prom in the 80's and also I spent pretty much every day of the 80's thinking my life would always suck as badly as it did right then.

So, ahem, my friends and I are on different pages as far as dressing up in costume is concerned. They love it. I do not.

For the last 4 years I've managed to be something reasonably lame at the annual Halloween party. I slapped a mustache on one year, wore a bandit mask another, oh and there was that regrettable year I was what I like to call, "What was available one hour before the party began."

This year I had big plans to be bacon! I know everyone on the internet is So Over bacon but I live in the Midwest where everyone is just starting to "get" the bacon joke (and the mustache joke), so put a lid on it San Francisco.

I bookmarked this costume months ago and had every intention of amazing my friends with my magical full-on-effort-exerted costume. Until I priced the foam ($15 a YARD?) and started to read through the directions...at step 9 (of 17) I was out.

Like I said, I like things that are finished.

Instead Logan had a friend at work in possession of a Cookie Monster costume which I wore to the delight of my friends.

The costume was fine except that I was hot as hell and I nearly died of dehydration. I had to spend the entire night outside in the back yard trying not to pass out. (I hate Halloween.)

The only problem I was left with after that hot sweaty night proving to my friends that I don't ALWAYS have a lame costume, was that I told Madison she could be bacon after I was done with the costume and now there was no costume.

I procrastinated and thought about how I could get out of making a bacon costume. I tried to buy one but it was expensive and was really just a stupid bacon scarf. I just wanted it to be finished as that is the goal of all my projects. Done, quickly.

Finally, last week after we came home from our relaxing trip up north I braved the fabric store wearing full body armor. I hate the fabric store, I know I'm not alone because I saw the bodies of several small children laying in the aisles, dead, after waiting for their mothers to stop looking at fabric already.

I moved quickly locating red, pink and white felt. If you don't want to die at the fabric store you have to move.

I needed something to make the top of the bacon stay square but I was no way in hell going to buy a full suit of foam at $15 a yard. (Hate Halloween) So I found a square piece of foam that cost $10 (Stop taking my money Halloween) and took that.

I stood in line at the cutting table for 39 hours, when it was my turn I jammed the scissors into my eyeball and then asked for 4 yards of the red felt (eyeballing how tall I think Maddie is), 1 yard of the pink and a half yard of the white.

I didn't even take pictures of the process because I performed the task with such terrible haste and annoyance. But here's how I did it.

I traced around the back of Madison's head and cut a circle out of the foam square. I had her put her face inside the hole, draped the red felt over her making sure the felt covered just the back of her head and most of her front. I marked where to cut the face opening out of the red felt and I then stapled it into place.

The next day I made rough strips of white and pink and hot glued them to the front.

Maddie loved the costume mainly because everyone yelled, "HEY! It's Bacon!" at her as she trick or treated. People also said, "You just take whatever you want." from their bowls of candy because she was Bacon and people can't resist it. 

And best of all, it's finished.

Retreat.

The cabin is up north on Grand Traverse Bay, it's kind of back behind the woods a ways and every time we drive up (even as a kid when I'd go up to babysit for my favorite family) I get a tingly little head rush. For the first hour I walk around seeing what's different than the last time I was there and also taking deep breaths reminding myself to savor every moment. Especially now, when time away with Logan is so rare.

The place belongs to a friend of a friend. My sister in law once told me this little rule of thumb, "Friends of Friends Can't Invite Friends." Luckily no one told these friends about this rule because we'd be out of luck. Truly we could have gone anywhere and we'd be happy just to have the time away. But on the first day when it rained, it was nice to have an excuse to stay in all cozied up watching the water.

Getting The Robot to sit down and relax is not easy. He has a touch of the ADD mixed with a program malfunction that makes him constantly doing 23 things. Luckily the cabin acts as a sedative. He took it so easy I started to feel antsy, this is noteworthy since I am a champion loafer.

We spent a lot of time reading, sighing and watching for the eagles that have nested on the property. 

We watched scary movies and tried to freak ourselves out. It didn't really work. 

We did a pub crawl in Sutton's Bay which consists of four bars. We made it to three of them. We skipped the fourth since it looked like we'd hate it. We started our pub crawl at 4pm and were just in time to drink with the Early Bird Special Diners.

Fall is definitely the best reason to live in Michigan. Being up north in the summer has definite appeal, the slow pace, the smell of sunscreen and the sand sticking to your feet. I love going to dinner at crowded restaurants at the end of the day with lots of other families with kids who have been playing in the sun all day. Everyone gets dessert, even if you didn't eat all your dinner because, "We're on vacation."

Fall up north is quieter and, in my opinion, prettier, even on rainy cold days. Places that are usually packed with people are empty. Perfect for quietly remembering why you like being half of a couple with a Robot.

Then it's time to go home and about eight hours later you're screaming at the kids to "STOP FIGHTING AND START BRUSHING" at bedtime.

Serenity now.

Gone Fishing, by fishing I mean I'm not writing

Logan and I have managed to get away (not for a marathon) to the cabin we spent our honeymoon at years ago in northern Michigan.

It is so lovely here I just don't see how we can leave.

We have another day and a half where I plan to soak up the magic that is this little place on the bay.

Tuesday is a lot nicer up here.

Broad Summit 2009 : Feminism 101

I was incredibly fortunate to be invited to The Broad Summit this past weekend and I've been asleep ever since.

I called Logan Friday night and said, "I just don't know how I'm going to talk this much for the entire weekend." And he said, "Uh, you went away on a weekend with 30-ish women, what did you think was going to happen?" I guess I thought we'd IM each other. But thankfully we did not IM each other because it's kind of crazy to laugh so much at a computer screen. But laughing (a lot) with a group of women sitting all around you, that's okay!

We gathered at Boon Hotel and Spa in Guernville, California and I arrived with Jenny, Laurie, Chris and Susan via a very nice Toyota Highlander that Toyota trusted us to drive around in. Now that the car is safely back in their possession I can tell Toyota about my pesky habit of wanting to drift off to sleep whenever I drive on a long stretch of monotonous highway or about how I have had one accident while actually driving my car but I tend to bash my car into non-moving objects while going 10mph or less. Thanks Toyota!

Let's see, I had a massage, had a skincare consultation, ate really good food, learned a lot about wine, tasted a lot of wine & consumed a lot of wine. I took a nap with two other women (less sexy than it sounds) and gave my pants to another woman (also less sexy than it sounds).

I learned more about how people are making their websites pay them for their hard work and was inspired to keep focusing on making this site what I want it to be, without giving away content or being taken advantage of by corporations who see blogs as a free advertising service.

No wonder I've been sleeping for the last 24 hours.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the nature of jealousy between women. How instead of trying to build each other up a lot of the time we seem to fall into a really ugly pattern of tearing down women we feel are more attractive, funny, friendly, successful, or whatever, than us. I see it on the internet, but I see it in my every day life even more often.

Recently I made a new friend, someone whose gregarious nature and love of having her picture taken really intimidated me. I even caught myself a couple of times resenting her ease in her own skin because I often feel so not at ease in my own skin and in front of the camera look incredibly hideous most of the time.

It dawned on me so clearly in that moment that while I can only be who I am, I can also choose to look at others and be inspired by their achievments, or sense of style, or personal drive, or sense of humor or ease in social situations. Or I can try to tear them down (mentally or by being bitchy and rude). I don't have to be someone I'm not, but admiring someone else for their talents doesn't minimize all the wonderful things about me.

I realize this sounds so simple and it is, and really all of this is not something we're entirely conciously aware of. But since I've realized this aspect of being a woman, I've wanted to hold all of my girlfriends closer and that makes me happy.

This weekend was an extension of that feeling and I'm incredibly grateful to Maggie, Laura, Aubrey and HelenJane for making it happen (with a little help from the Broad Summit Sponsors).

Most importantly, I did not catch my period from anyone.

(You can see a list of all the wonderful and inspiring attendees here and you can view other people's pictures from the weekend (because I was too busy picking my nose to take a lot of pictures) here.)

Annual Firehouse Pig Roast

A couple of weekends ago we traveled north to a little town called Goodrich where my sister in law's parents own an old firehouse they use to restore antique fire trucks. Yes it's a thing.

Once a year at the end of September they host a big party, roast a pig and let the kids look over the fire trucks they're currently working on restoring. My brother and his wife came to town this year so we had to go. Plus the scent of cooking pig made it impossible to resist.

I hope we get more pig roast next year.

I hope it doesn't end up in the basement of the alamo

All summer we've been looking for a bike for me, just something I can ride around town, maybe up to the market on the days when I don't keep the car. I have been using Logan's mountain bike, which is sized perfectly for a 6 foot tall man, for these tasks and that was okay. But I ended up showing Royal Oak my underwear and damaging the delicate area of my womanhood whenever I had to stop or get off the bike.

There were lots of bikes available for purchase but Logan and I are cheap and wanted to spend no more than $50 on this bike. It looked like a bike purchase would be put off for another season and I'd just have to stuff my underwear with bubble wrap to save my lady parts.

Then Friday night we ran a couple errands and found this bike for $30 on the side of the road. I should really let Logan tell this story because he has inherited from his mother a love of finding really great things in the trash or at roadside sales for very little money. He'll talk about his finds for days, weeks, years.

Where I'll tell you, 'We drove down the road and Logan saw a for sale sign on this bike so we turned around, went back, rode it around a little and offered the man $30 for it. He said okay."

Logan's story will go something like this, "It was one of those days, one of those days when you're shopping and you just feel like there's something more, something better, a better deal....you just don't know where it is yet. The weather was beautiful on this particular day, sunny but with the beginnings of a fall chill in the air. It was just about 6:03pm when we drove down Coolidge, sometimes we go another way but that day, we took Coolidge, remember that for later because it's important...."

And so on and so forth.

Additionally you'll sit around for the next day or two and every 2-3 hours he'll say out of the blue, "THIRTY BUCKS! Thirty Dollars! Wow!"

On Saturday he spent a few hours polishing the chrome on my new bike and taking pictures of it and then he made some phone calls, 'Hey, Mike, you gotta come over and see the bike I found for Liss.'

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm excited but my excitement is more like this, 'Hey! Bike! Yay. Let's go ride it'

That afternoon we took the kids for a ride to the ice cream place and then by the aquarium store, a rare day of Burning Daylight during the fall. It was a nice outing until about 1/3rd of the way in when my bike started to make a sound which made the entire city of Royal Oak say, "What The Fuck Is That?"

It was me and my new bike. For reference it sounded a lot like this.

And this marked the first time Max was embarrassed to be seen with me, but God Damn It, my underwear did not show.

(Fifty bucks says it costs $100 to get the squeaking issue taken care of.)

Dog Swim 2009

It had not occurred to me that going to a dog swim without a dog is a little odd. I told our friends about it and a few of them likened it to going to a playground to watch children play even though you don't have an actual child.

I swear I didn't wear a trench coat or offer dog treats to any of the dogs.

I mostly just watched and giggled.

Madison watched and mourned her lot in life; Lame parents with little tolerance for chaos and so, no dog.

Then we went home, I put on my red birthday shoes.

And went out to celebrate. I am 36 now and I like to watch other people's dogs play at the pool.

I'm probably not going to outgrow this.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

growing up

School so far has been going okay. 

Max, I've noticed, is fine as he gets used to school, he just rolls along and doesn't really think too hard about what's different and what's the same. Even riding the bus, something he didn't really want to do this year by himself, he's kind of just accepted he's going to be on the bus and that's that.

His problems come later when he gets overwhelmed by a particular project and spends an hour at bedtime sounding like a mammal in some terrifying mating season call. But let's not even worry about that now.

Madison, shocked me after her first day at school. Going into the building without wrapping herself around my head and grabbing onto my brain stem for dear life. You know, that's progress. Still I worried a little throughout that day. I just wondered how awful pick up would be.

She was happy at pick up. She said "I only got lost once." "Someone liked my shirt." "I felt so popular seeing all my old friends!" (From the elementary school we attended before we moved).

We walked home that day and I floated home above her and she held a string tied to my ankle so my joy, relief and pride wouldn't shoot me right into foreign airspace.

She teased Logan when he called to see how it went, "Well, it was awful. I hate it. I never want to go back." Then, after a pause, "No! I loved it."

We made a fatal mistake that night.

We put her to bed. Where her brain could think about what could go wrong. 

All the things you remember about middle school. Do you remember middle school as clearly as I do? I wasn't normal of course, but everyone I talk to has at least a couple of stories about the terror of getting lost, not remembering their combination, the thrill and the terror of all this new independence.

To avoid all of this we should have given her a little cocaine so her brain would never slow down. She'd have gone to bed last night thinking, "I'm in a whole other amazing dimension and it's sparkly and full of pulsing light."

Yes I realize that's weird but come on. The tears....they're heartbreaking.

Last night Maddie asked, "You know, I just don't understand why you can't just have the same teacher all day in middle school? Or at least have them walk you to your next class?"

And we said, "But this is independence. This is your first chance to be a little more grown up. To try different classes and to learn even more about every subject."

"But it's really hard to get used to."

Today I was running late after having lunch with a reader in Toledo, (Hey! Staci!) so I asked a friend to pick Maddie up at the school.

When Maddie didn't see me or my friend, she decided to start walking home by herself. It's very close and that's the plan eventually, to have her walk. But we didn't want to push it.

When she walked up to the house she said, 'I walked home all by myself, can you believe I didn't freak out? I feel so grown up!"

Then later, "I was thinking I'd take that dollar you gave me to use at lunch and get ice cream on my way home. Can I do that next time?"

Yes you can baby girl. Yes you can.

Not really naked but the point is I could be.

All summer long people asked me, "Oh boy! Middle school! Are you nervous?"

And I laughed and said, "I'm about to kill my kids, that's all I'm nervous about."

This morning I woke up and a wave of totally unexpected anxiety washed over me.

I don't typically indulge in a lot of "MY Bayyyyy-Beeeee" stuff but.

My Baby! Is in middle school!

So it was a momentous occasion dropping her off. She's struggled with school anxiety for most of her life and this year was of course no exception. Her best friend from preschool is at her school for the first time since they were 4 so that helped ease things and unlike years past we didn't have to surgically remove her from my head.

She had decided she wasn't going to cry, it's middle school MOTHER.

I watched her face, knowing exactly how those gears were shifting in her head. "I don't want to do this. I am going to do this. I don't want to do this. I am going to do this."

I know exactly how she's feeling....and I'm surprised how hard it is to watch.

I mean it's hard, even though I'm sitting here in my living room naked eating all the cookies out of the cookie jar.

Cottage Vacation

We went up north last weekend with my good friend Leslie, her husband Tom and their four kids. Leslie and I headed out on Wednesday with all the kids and Logan and Tom drove up the next night after work. We decided to go up on Wednesday as early as possible so we could enjoy the beach because...of course...it rained the rest of the weekend.

So we spent several hours at the beach at a nearby state park. We also had ice cream.

Leslie has four kids 8,7,5 and 4 and her life, I learned after our weekend together, consists of a lot of tattling, time outs, preparing meals and cleaning up after meals.

I know we all knew this already but I'm a parenting wimp and watching what Leslie's day is like every day...yeah I just don't know how you do that and don't kill anyone. Then again most people aren't as tightly wound as me.

Here's a helpful tip I learned from Leslie and you guys, it's crazy how this works. Well it at least saves you from having to intervene in 482 altercations a day between your four kids.

Kid: "So and so took my shovel!"

Leslie: "So tell him not to do that."

Kid: "Okay"

And that's it...it happened over and over again and every time I was in awe.

The second day we were there, it rained (of course because that's what happens to us when we plan fun outings) so we put the kids in the car and drove up to Gaylord to see dead animals at Call Of The Wild. I know you're jealous.

Luckily the rain stopped but it stayed cold so we were able to have campfires and when the dads arrived we let them be in charge of making smores. Leslie channeled her inner Pioneer Sister Wife and started the fire before they got up there. I sat...on my ass.

The next morning Logan made all the kids into Burritos.

Here's another thing about having 6 kids running around. When you do something fun with one? Pretty soon you've got an hour or three of "Do It To Me Now!" "It's My Turn!" "Me Next" coming at you.

At least they were cute burritos.

The next day the dads took the kids fishing and Leslie built a barn out in the backyard while I sat on my ass. I'm the worst Sister Wife Ever.

Ironically the smallest fisherman caught the biggest fish.

Maddie, oh Maddie....is cursed by being the oldest of all my closest friend's kids. So she is often stuck at parties with 3-5 preschoolers stuck to her legs and she's not exactly a fan of being the idol of all the little kids. So she was somewhat dreading this weekend. 

She just sort of sucked it up and suffered through.

I felt terrible for her and all the suffering she did.

I just hope next year she has a tiny bit more fun.

Crazy Camping: The Pouring Rain Makes It Crazy!

Each August, a whole bunch of families from the elementary school converge on a state park campground to enjoy campfires, smores, the beach, games of horse shoes and euchre, endless loops on scooters and, inevitably, torrential rain.

I am as surprised as anyone to say this. But I love camping. I love how inexpensive it is and how it gets you out of your normal routine and how free it makes the kids to do and explore.

If you go with friends, it's just like living in a commune.
Except everybody still shaves their legs.

(One of my Sister Wives.)

Granted we still have electricity and bathrooms and showers (though what I saw in a shower on my first day up there has scarred me for life....I would tell you but then you'd be scarred too.) (Okay fine, someone thought it wasn't a public shower. They dropped the L.) (Oh my God I just gagged again.)

(Let's burn that from our collective brains.)

Most families come up on Friday after work and stay until Sunday. According to my friend's 5-year-old daughter Sarah though, "The Moms come up on Thursday and do all the work and then on Friday the Dads come up and drink all the beer." Which is remarkably accurate.

(Would like you to know he set up the campground before he drank beer.)

This year we drove up Thursday evening as a family because Logan had Friday off (Hooray for Unpaid Days Off!) and had a great time Thursday evening, all day Friday and Friday night.

Friday was a great day, except exhausting.

On Friday all the talk was weather, "Big storms coming through!" "Wide radar stretch of heavy rainfall."

But my phone said, "60% chance of rain." So I opened my big fat trap and said, "Well that means there's a 40% chance it won't rain!"

(Plus it was so beautiful, it couldn't possibly rain!)

When I woke up Saturday morning my phone said, "100% chance of rain." So much for optimism.

(At least there was bacon.)

We rigged up a rain fly for our rainfly-less tent and it was pretty....janky looking. It rained and rained and rained some more. Our little campground started to look like the saddest shanty village.

I started out the morning saying, 'I can handle the rain! I'm not a baby!'

After the first 4 hours of rain, my resolve began to leave. In the 5th hour, with my daughter standing next to me asking every 2.3 seconds if we could go home now, I tried to have a drink to see if that would numb me to the ridiculous rain pounding our communal canopy.

(I may have gotten a little angry about the weather, but I swear I didn't do this.)

That didn't help so I flipped off the sky, got in the car and waited for Logan to drive us home, leaving all our camp stuff up there until the following morning.

This was the third annual Crazy Campers trip and it's rained every Saturday since this event had a name. Every year we think, "There is NO WAY it can rain again next year."

Then it does.

That's what makes it crazy.

(Doesn't this look crazy?)

Hong Hua Authentic Chinese Dinner

Our friends Joe and Cari invited us to dinner at their studio the other night.

Tip: If you get invited to dinner at Joe and Cari's house...say yes. Joe is a photographer who works with lots of people but is especially well known for his food photography work. Chefs appreciate him making their restaurants and their food look so good, and sometimes they offer to come over and make dinner for 10 or 20 of their closest friends.

Hong Hua was Hour Detroit's Restaurant of the Year and Joe photographed the spread for that review. The owners of the restaurant wanted to share their food with some of Joe and Cari's friends.

Sometimes I'd like to trade services or products, you know I'll give you this thing of value in exchange for this thing of value, but my dramatic lack of marketable skills makes this difficult. Good thing I have friends with lots of marketable skills.

As a special surprise the guest list was kept secret leaving me to debate if they'd invited my in laws, or our ex landlord.

Luckily they didn't invite them, but WOW that would have been a really fun party!

If Joe would have invited my in-laws, he'd have been laughing at the choking tension in the air. Instead he was laughing at funny witticisms. Phew.

While I was taking pictures, Logan said, "Oh thank goodness someone's here to take pictures." Sarcasm, it's what makes our marriage go around.

Overall a lovely night. Maybe if I offer up a bushel of apples I can get a restaurant to come to my house and make dinner for a bunch of my friends.

Grand Rapids Zoo

Quick piece of advice. If you're trying to get out of a particularly difficult time in your life, and the gray fog that typically accompanies that kind of time, you're going to want to do things. Things besides staring at a blank computer screen trying to find something, anything, to write about aside from the gray fog you don't want to talk about.

Last week my friends Leslie and Jodi (and me) took our kids to the Grand Rapids Zoo. This zoo is about a two and a half hour drive from my house and since my car was doing a nice thing last week where it would overheat if I spent more than 40 seconds at a stoplight, the kids and I rode in Leslie's car.

We drove to Grand Rapids together, three of her kids and all two of mine, and there was spitting on siblings and kids calling someone else stupid, and someone not SHARING THE WATER BOTTLE. Then sharing it but throwing it at a very thirsty kid's head.

At first on the drive I felt that every sound from the back seat required attention, then, I followed Leslie's lead. Which is pretty much you ignore the din of noise until something rises above, then you deal with it. I guess this is what happens when you have twice the number of kids I do. Or you're conveniently deaf in your right ear....maybe she had that surgically done.

The Grand Rapids zoo is significantly smaller than the Detroit zoo, but the exhibits are far more hands-on, easier to view the animals and also they feed their animals crack cocaine. I couldn't believe how active they were. A mountain lion debated eating us, a snake came up to the glass and opened its mouth, a snow leopard pounced on something (a squirrel?). At the Detroit zoo the penguins are enclosed in glass and in Grand Rapids the exhibit is open. I never realized how loud they are. Holy hell they're a loud group of animals, just like our collective eight.

Maddie isn't what you'd call "daring", she likes safe things like reading a book. I mean why ride a bike when you could walk a lot more safely? Imagine my surprise when she pleaded, no, begged to ride a camel. I didn't necessarily want to spend the 8 bucks for the two of them to take a slow walk around a circle on a camel, but if you're Maddie's mom and she asks to do something even slightly daring, you say yes.

Hopefully she doesn't ask to share needles with a guy on Woodward anytime soon.

This camel is saying, "Whoa, is that Madison Summers? Wouldn't she be safer a little lower to the ground?"

Next we went to touch the Sting Rays, which was pretty much mind blowing.

Mind: Being Blown

Turns out stingrays like to have their backs rubbed, we didn't have any food to give them and they kept coming up for more.

They swim around the tank, sometimes jumping out of the water, or flapping their "wings" against the side of the pool.

Don't touch their tails though or they'll gnaw your arm off. Not really, they only have teeth in the very back of their mouths and their barb has been clipped (it's like a finger nail) so they're perfectly pleasant.

The kids spent about an hour touching the stingrays and the occasional shark. There are sharks in the tank too, but don't worry they're "nice". I guess they asked them for references.

In San Antonio we got to feed and touch dolphins at Sea World, it kind of blew our minds, even though there was an unnerving feeling that the dolphins were smarter than us.

As we left the Sting Ray lagoon Maddie said, "I liked petting the dolphins at Sea World, but you could tell the dolphins just liked us for our food. The sting rays just liked us I think."

I think my kid feels unconditionally loved by a sting ray.

Bike Parade 2009

Let's try this....

On Saturday Maddie and I went over to our old (beloved) neighborhood for the annual Block Party.

There were pinatas, egg tosses, crafts, water balloon fights, a movie outside, scavenger hunts (2), a kid's bake off, candy, 20 desserts and yet...

If we'd only shut the street and let the kids ride their bikes up and down all day long they would have been just as happy with the block party.

The last time I had a week long vacation was 2006

I realize I've been incredibly absent from this website. It's the daylight burning......not enough time to sit around thinking funny things.

Here are my pictures from my fun trip with Maggie Mason to check off "Swim with BioLuminescent Plankton" from her Mighty Life List. 

Bad: I lost my luggage on the way down and on the way back and faced buying a Puerto Rican flag string bikini if my things did not show up.

That changes a person.

Good: Swimming with water that sparkles off your fingers is one of those things you didn't know existed a few months ago and yet, you got to do it and that is amazing.

Oh Internet, you expand my tiny world. And I'm not just talking about the porn.

Life List: Rough Draft Volume 3

Please see Volume 1 and Volume 2.

1 Take an annual picture of each of the kids with some sort of prop or cool setting, starting this year.

(I need to think on this more.)

2 Go horseback riding

(This is one that I don't necessarily love. But I just think it's stupid I've never been on a horse. At the same time I'm never going to add Learn To Ski to my list because, skiing is for assholes. You know what I mean.)

3 Grow sunflowers

(I've tried, bugs always eat them. I will persevere.)

4 Host an annual party everyone wants to be at.

(Some of the items on my list are party ideas, I don't know which one will spark interest but I want one to be the one everyone thinks about and looks forward to each year.)

5 Knit Baby Sweaters for every baby my friend's have from here on out.

6 Find a babysitter we can have stay for the weekend

7 Plant a small garden with the kids.

8 Make our backyard into a bird refuge.

(I have a really weird love of birds. I've named some of the ones in our yard, like Robirda (the robin!) It's scary, I know.)

9 Get new wedding bands we both love.

10 Spend a day shopping with Maddie and buying her a lot of the clothes she thinks are "cool".

11 Sew some lovely things.

12 Take the kids to the candy store and give them $10 each to spend as they wish.

(Their heads will explode)

13 Take the kids to Storybook Gardens in London, Ontario.

14 Do karaoke as a family.

15 Ride the swan boats at Belle Isle

16 Find a perfect black dress.

17 Buy a house our grandchildren will visit us in.

18 Go to a U Pick Orchard

19 Visit the Sting Ray Lagoon at the Grand Rapids Zoo

20 Learn to use knives

(for Cooking!)

21 Make tamales with friends

22 Make new Christmas stockings for the whole family.

23 Plant a garden of succulents

24 Throw a memorable baby shower.

25 Have a sleepover party for Maddie's friends with Root beer Floats.

*I should really add visit Puerto Rico and swim with bioluminescent plankton to this list because that's what I'm doing next week. But alas, that was not on my life list. How lucky am I to get to tag along on this amazing adventure?

"There are just so many wines for under $15!"

On Saturday Logan and I went with our friends Joe and Cari on a Taste-full Tour to explore Ann Arbor.

We explored several spots in Ann Arbor, this picture was taken at Everyday Wines in Kerrytown. ("For days ending in Y")

Joe is a photographer and here's the thing about photographers, even the pictures they take with their iPhones make you feel a little envious. 

Joe took this picture of Logan and I, I've dubbed it "Taste-Full Tours Is For Lovers"

*On August 8th Taste-Full Tours is heading back to Ann Arbor for a full Zingerman's tour. If you like food, you MUST visit Zingerman's.

It's green, but that's not why we did it.

We decided a few months ago to turn in Logan's car at the end of his lease and not replace it. Years ago when we were in serious financial trouble, we talked about getting rid of one of our cars. Back then Max and Maddie were much smaller and the thought of living with one car and being trapped in the house alone with two small kids without any freedom gave me massive amounts of anxiety.

When we lived at the last place, we debated getting rid of one of our cars since the kids walked to school and all the socializing I could ever want was all right there. When we decided to move, I felt certain we needed the second car. I didn't know there was a bus to school a block away and I didn't know at the time that I wasn't actually going to drive my car back to the old house and stare longingly in the windows all day from my car. Eating tear soaked fritos from the bag.

Turns out, you can't do that. It's "weird" or "disturbing" or "mentally unhealthy".

I realized a month or two ago that without my compulsive trips to the old neighborhood I really don't drive more than 2-3 times a week. Logan works literally 4 minutes away, the kids ride the bus to school, I work from home and when I need to get somewhere during the day, almost everything is within walking distance of my house.

Including you know walking to the courthouse and then the bank to file garnishments on people who steal money from you. Heh!

Also, sushi.

So at the end of May we pulled the plug and gave back Logan's lease and walked away without a car payment.

And then the car we own needed work and the bill was exactly the same amount as our lease payment (plus $70), because this is the way things work around these parts.

A few years ago I tried to buy Tigers tickets for Logan as a birthday gift. I looked online and paying $15 in service fees really pissed me off so I drove downtown with the kids and took them to the science museum and then over to the box office to get tickets.

The science center cost $25. The parking ticket I got outside was $25. So you know maybe just paying the service fee would have been wise. But that's not how the Summers do things.

We also flush dollar bills down the toilet for fun!

So far the one car experience has been painless aside from a few snags. Like scheduling two meetings for the same time on one day. Or the time Logan left for work at 3 o clock in the morning [hyperbole] and I needed the car but there was no way in hell I was getting up at that hour.

I'm trying to feel "green" about the decision to go down to one car. I mean, technically it is a pretty green thing to do.

But the truth is I'm just hoping I can get my haircut at some point in the next six months.

Vacation In Pictures

Here are my pictures from my long weekend away with friends. You can read the notes in the browser to see my sometimes witty or irreverent comments, or you can go to the Flickr Set to read them that way.

We found the perfect house at Seaside the six of us can go in on. It's even under a million dollars. I figure if I return cans and bottles after our party Friday I can come up with the down payment in NO TIME AT ALL!

Moms Gone Marginally Wild II

My friend Andrea's mom remarried a couple of years ago and she chose well because not only is he a good man and a great match for her he also owns a home in a little resort town in Florida called Seaside. It's the place they filmed the movie The Truman Show and the place is so sweet it'll give you a cavity.

Six of my friends flew down to spend a long weekend at the house and then yesterday my friends tied me to the roof of the car and forced me to come home.

The running joke all weekend was how I was down in Florida doing all the things I rarely do when I'm home. Like swim, eat ice cream, and stay up until 2:30 am a couple of nights in a row. I found this riotously funny and wanted so badly to send pictures home of me doing all the things the kids think make a vacation really fun, like buying Webkins, eating candy and maybe playing Marco Polo in the water for hours on end. But then that seemed mean.

It was mean enough that I stayed up that late dancing at a bar and making a general ass of myself when I rarely do that when I'm with Logan. One of us has to remain reasonably adult and since I married a middle-aged fraternity boy, that person has to me.

Thankfully I did not simulate oral sex to a southern business man like I did on my last girl's weekend with these ladies. I mostly just danced and attempted to make a poker face that looked more like a bad case of constipation. The men of Seaside will never be the same after that. Or after one of the (nameless) members of my party "accidentally" lifted her dress and shared her ass with the crowd.

You know it was a fun night when a text goes to one's husband the morning after, "I just want you to know, before you hear it somewhere else, I accidentally mooned a crabby bartender last night."

Oops! I'm accidentally unaware of the length of my dress!

I'm sure I'll have more stories (and pictures, not of the moon) to share very soon. Right now I've got to go sleep.

But to sum up: Girl's Weekends = ++++ Highly recommended.

All he had to do was ask.

This is a week I've been dreading for a couple of months now. On Thursday Logan is strapping a muzzle on my face and we're heading into a courtroom with our ex-landlord. I am going to try really hard not to flip him off under the table and I will most likely not stick my tongue out at him either.

In preparation for the big day I've been reading over old emails. Like this gem, in response to Logan letting him know that tiles had fallen off the wall.

"Keep the shower curtain closed and don’t leave the wall wet when using the shower. If it is wet then dry it.  Common sense."

Uh....I guess I could have tried to take a shower without water.

Sigh...this is going to be fun. In other news....

April starts a new season in our house, the season of opening and shutting windows. It's a fun little game Logan and I like to play. He tries to freeze me to death by opening every window in the house and I try to regulate my body temperature by closing all those windows. When I turn my back he reopens all the windows, just so I don't get too comfortable.

He finds the cold "refreshing", I find it Arctic and uncomfortable. On Sunday morning I had to throw on a parka to eat breakfast.

But the good news is when summer comes and it's hot and humid outside, he also likes to open all the windows and let the heat in forcing me to take off all my clothes just to regulate my body temperature.

Wait a minute...

Hershey's Night At The Museum 2: Blogger Event

Hershey's invited the kids and I to come to Washington DC to take part in a promotion for the upcoming movie Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian. They flew us, and nine other bloggers into the city to have dinner, take an after hours tour of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and then go back to the hotel where the kids could stuff their gobs with s'mores and all the candy you could ever dream of shoving in your mouth.

I'm not sure which part the kids loved the most: the car picking us up and driving us to the airport, the plane ride, seeing the icons of Washington DC (even in a whirlwind way), the way the people held the doors for us at the hotel, the bathtub in the hotel, the Abe Lincoln look-alike, the tour of the Smithsonian, the candy, the late night slumber party movie viewing, or just finally seeing how what I do all day can actually benefit them.

This was the first PR thing the kids were invited to go on and I have to tell you, it was pretty refreshing to wake up at a blog related event without facing an action packed day with a mild to severe hangover. Thank you Hershey's!

The tour was amazing, my kids love museums to begin with but having a personally guided tour by museum curators was beyond great for them. They're at an age where they really get this stuff, and Max in particular is enthralled with air and space. Additionally, they're excellent travel companions at 8 and 10 with almost no bickering at all.

Except for that 45 minutes before dinner on Saturday when I nearly fed them the other's arm because they were crabby and hungry and I wasn't paying $10 for mini bar cashews.

The best part of all this is you can win a similar trip from Hershey's. Read more about it here. There are two really nice things about visiting the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum after it closes. No lines for the bathroom and no arguing over the gift shop at the end of the trip.

You will love this, I hope you win.

I never revealed my secret (unfortunate) Proctor and Gamble Logo Tattoo*.

A few months ago an invitation was extended to me to spend a couple of days with the people at Proctor & Gamble in Ohio. I was invited down to talk about Pampers which is a pretty narrow product to discuss especially since I have been diaper free since 2004...and so have the kids. But I like seeing other bloggers, I like seeing how large corporations build a culture, I enjoy seeing what happens behind the scenes in consumer based companies and I like hearing intelligent people discuss blogging and their audiences, I also love hearing about what people are passionate about, even when it's diapers and baby care products.

I am also a big fan of mommy bloggers in hair nets and goggles. It turns out I'm also fond of mommy bloggers in beard nets who are actually men.

Pamper's People put on a great event for us talking about all sorts of interesting things, like how the diaper market is different all over the world, they recently unveiled a diaper in China (where cloth rules) that is the cost of an egg and will allow a Chinese baby to sleep through the night without getting soaked. Helping babies sleep through the night is a mission I can get behind. Oh, and the one pack = one vaccine thing is nice too but man. Sleeping through the night, you can't go wrong. Obama should get that on his agenda, right after he steals all my brother's money and gives it to me.

Yoga Lies.

My friends and I are taking yoga classes once a week from our friend Chef Laura who isn't happy being just a kick ass chef, she also wants to be a yoga teacher. I'm married to a Type A and I keep finding Type A people who become my favorite people. Something's happening here.

Here's how I remember the first yoga class Laura taught us:

Her: Just be gentle with yourself. Take a nap.
Me: I like yoga.

Here's how I remember the second yoga class Laura taught us:

Her: Keep moving!
Me: Oh! Funny Twister! How neat!
Her: Keep Moving!
Me: Wait....I'm sweating. I thought this was napping? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Today I'm sore and I don't know how to tell you this.

Yoga is.....
it's something horrible...

Yoga is exercise.

Laura is a liar.

Life List: Rough Draft Volume 2

So wow, here's what happens. You start writing down what you want to be doing? And all the sudden you can't stop thinking about all the things you can do. It's actually fun to think about everything you can do.

Back when we were in the middle of packing up and moving across town, giving up one dream in favor of another, and I was barely holding my shit together. Maggie and I had a weekly phone call during that time and her way of handling stress is to dream about the next thing. (Little known fact about my friend Maggie, she's very good at dreaming.)

During that time I could barely bring myself to think about what next month would look like, much less make plans involving more time and money.

Now that we're settled here and figuring out everything, it's fun to think of all the things we can do.
Nothing on my list is all that dynamic or difficult but they're all things I want to do. I can't imagine staring at at a list of things I should be doing, but don't really want to. Isn't that what my bill paying station is for?

These are all little things I want out of my life.

I want things on my list I can pull out on a day with some free time and pick something to do. Something fun.

I also want things that will take a little more time, effort and luck. If you're inspired to make your own list, I hope you make it exactly what you want it to be.

A few months ago I caught an episode of Oprah, just a little of it before the kids got home, because it was about S-E-X.

This episode was about how women are coming to this place where they demand sexual satisfaction. And they brought this group of moms in on Skype and one was all, "Oh My God. I'm so busy! I have to worry about being sexually satisfied now too?"

Let's rephrase this statement. Let's say, "Oh God, I have to do something totally pleasurable now!?"

How could you not want to do that? This isn't a chore, it's fun.

Think about a life list the same way.

Delicious....I Mean....Cute....Cute New Babies!

Just before Max's birthday our friends Rachael and Mike had a couple of babies. A couple of babies, I say like they just grabbed them at 7-11. They had two babies they dreamed about and prayed for hooray! And they're here. I worried about it so I feel like I can take credit for them arriving safe and sound. Except, not really at all.

Still, thank God I worried! Who knows what would have happened!

Oh they're cute. They are so cute. They have tiny fingers and noses and little grunts and tiny legs and little arms. They also like to keep their parent's sleeping at a bare minimum and I appreciate that because I'm psychotic without enough sleep so, hey! Thanks girls. You just, by being normal babies, kept me from regretting that vasectomy.

Listening to Rachael and Mike talk about the babies, they're plowing through. They have perspective on raising newborns (two at once)(!!!) that I was never able to get and as I listened to them talk I thought, "Yep, you guys are going to rule at this part of being parents."

Here's a picture of me with one baby, you'll note my chin is the size of this baby's head. This made it very hard to resist putting her head in my mouth. But Mike had strongly warned me against doing this.

Life List: Rough Draft Volume 1

One of the things I've learned from being friends with Maggie Mason is how it's okay to dream big. After my last visit out to see her a year ago, I decided I wanted to get better at having ideas. That's something that's had mixed results because, I am a do-er. I'm less good at having huge ideas because I stare up at them and think, "But how will I get the dishes done?"

So very suburban and not surprising considering the life I live, you know in suburban Detroit where every day seems to be all about getting to the next.

Over and over again Maggie has suggested I do a Life List, like hers at Mighty Girl and over and over I've resisted.

Today I thought I'd just throw 25 out there and then I'll throw out 25 more and so on (editing and revising as I go) and pretty soon I'll have 100 things to do before I die.

Let's start.