Suburban Bliss:: Birth Control Via The Written Word

I Spectated The Hell Out Of That Marathon. Where's my medal?

Logan and I went to Chicago this weekend.

One of the unofficial things on my Life LIst is going away with Logan once a year. It's hard to ask my mom to stay over. She prefers her own bed.

But I decided that Logan and I really need to get away together once a year, even if we haven't hired a sitter who can stay for the weekend. Last year we went up to the cabin and it was as amazing as you might imagine. This year we went to Chicago to watch three women (women makes them sound old) Logan works with run the marathon. 

I've always wanted to stay in a house in one of the northern neighborhoods of Chicago but it's kind of pricey for one family since the kids don't have jobs. 

Carrie, Lisa and Jackie are women (girls) I've wanted to get to know better so when I heard they were all doing the marathon I suggested we get a place together. It worked out cheaper than a hotel and much more pleasant than having to navigate our way around the pricey downtown hotels, restaurants and bars. We ended up staying here and it was exactly as advertised in a great neighborhood and cost about $300 for our entire 3 night stay per couple.

I realize this sounds like I was attempting to create an elaborate orgy. Isn't that a plot in a porno? "Hey, I know! Let's all stay in a house together with my husband and have naked pillow fights!" But everyone is attached, except Jackie and she's allergic to feathers. [Sad Trombone]

So yes, Logan and I travelled away from our kids for a STUPID marathon. Again.

But listen this was way better. Way, way better than going to New York for a marathon and losing my husband to the city. Way better than roaming around a city by myself trying to catch a glimpse of my husband. Way better than sobbing in a bar convinced my husband had gone missing.

It was actually nice for Logan to see what goes into watching him run a marathon. I'm not claiming watching a marathon is as hard as running a marathon, but it's not the easiest thing. Here's how it goes. 

Make time markings on a map based on how fast your runners think they'll go. 
Make your way through a city inundated with people (3 million for the Chicago...I don't even want to think what it was for New York).
Get to various spots and wait.
While waiting, redo the math several times.
Question if you've missed your runners.
Maybe they're going faster?
Where's that ambulance going?
Oh God, he's hurt.
Is that him?
Nope.
Wait...is that him?
Nope.
Should we skip ahead to the next spot? 
Oh! Hey! THERE THEY ARE! WOOOOOOO!

Repeat.

At the end of the day Logan said, "I can't believe you do that all by yourself. What a boring day."

And I replied, "You know what's great? When I do that and then you get lost in New York City!"

Heh. Never Forget! It's my motto!

Logan made signs for the ladies.

He may or may not have spread rumors about Oprah pooping her pants during the marathon.
But everyone knows Oprah poops diamonds. 

This is one of the signs on the L, this was nice because the L was crowded and we pretty much hit every passenger in the head with our signs. Chicago loved it. 

All three of our runners finished the race, did not poop and also had whiskey. I consider this success.

Aside from spectating we ate a lot of good food. I personally consumed a lot of macaroni and cheese and Logan ate a hamburger topped with cheese and bacon and a fried egg. He ate the entire thing, plus a side of macaroni and cheese.

Logan and I explored Andersonville a little stopping into Brimfield where I had an Antique-gasm. Then spent 14.2 hours trying to get a cab to head over to Hot Doug's...where we made a lot of predictable jokes about sausages in our mouths. 

On our way over to put sausages in our mouths, we stopped for a little day drinking at Mirabell. There Lisa's boyfriend told us about his dream. Several of Lisa's faceless naked friends are sitting around covered in oil rubbing their bodies together with occasional spankings here and there. 

As it turns out Lisa's boyfriend has the most predictable dreams in the history of the world.

Unfortunately for him we played that scenario out, but he was busy napping. Oh well, maybe next time.

Life List: Hand Knit Baby Sweater

I added "Knit Sweaters For All The New Babies In My Life" to my Life List. I did this because I enjoy knitting but blow it off a lot of the time and when I had Maddie I got a couple of beautiful hand knit baby sweaters and they were some of my most cherished gifts. I've saved them to pass down to my grandchildren. 

The last baby sweater I made was for Mary, who started kindergarten this year. It was time. 

Our friends Adam and Deidre had a baby about 6 months ago. I made a baby sweater for them, actually pretty quickly. But then it turned out I expected their baby to be born malformed with one arm much longer than the other. 

They had a normal baby with perfectly proportioned arms so the sweater was wrong for them and that's on them. Way to take your prenatal vitamins and avoid radiation during pregnancy guys. 

I redid the sweater and I actually like the color combination better than the original. (Sorry about the pictures...stupid phone pictures. Waaaaa I miss my camera!)

Also the appropriately sized arms. 

I'd never made a hooded sweater before and this one is cute with a little umbilical cord at the top. Well it's cuter than an umbilical cord.

And look, a tag. Logan gave these to me about 8 years ago and I still have approximately 2000 of them. I should make more stuff. Maybe I'll start putting them in Max's lunch box every day. 

I used a pattern found on Ravelry. It's called Duck Soup by Jujube & Lolo.

It was very simple to make (aside from the inevitable mishaps I always have when knitting). But remarkably I found the knotted buttons and fasteners to be the most frustrating thing. The sweater sat in my knitting bag almost complete for over a month because the fasteners made me so furious. In the end I rigged up buttons and closures.

Here's another piece of advice if you're planning to make something for a baby. When babies are newborn they grow really fast. They're also curled up like tiny shrimp most of the time so the sweater you spent hours and hours on will not only fit the baby for about 8 days total, they'll also be all curled up on it so no one will see it. 

If you knit a sweater in a 6-12 month size (or bigger) your gift will be worn for longer and be more comfortable for the baby. This particular pattern is meant to be a little big so one season it can be worn as a light jacket and then, toward the end of the winter, as a regular cardigan.

This is good because after the amount of time I spent pulling out stitches, redoing sections and those stupid button closures, that baby is going to need to wear the crap out of that sweater.  

Life List: River Float

This summer we went on a river float. This is an item on my Life List. The best way to tell you about our very first river float would be to show you some colorful, slightly tweaked photos. They'd put you right there. Give you the sense of how great it was. 

I'd show you the cooler full of juice boxes, I'd show you the other cooler full of very light beers (practically water) and the other adult concoction Logan whipped up for the event.

I'd show you the sweet Rottweiler who lived at the place we went to. I'd show you how dirty our car got finding the place we rented our tubes from. I'd show you all the times we turned around and passed the other two families who went with us because all three of our GPS's told us different ways to get there. 

I'd also probably have a pretty good picture of me falling into the water not even two minutes into the float, trying to save the cooler tube from floating away to Canada...(Pro Tip: Ask if they have rope where you rent your tubes. If they don't and you're floating down a river with ten kids and six adults...bring some rope.)

I can't show you these things because someone dropped our camera so this entire summer, my Best Summer In A Long Time, will forever consist of crappy iPhone photos taken with my 3g phone. Sigh. 

We went up north again this summer with some friends, like we did last year. This year there was another family with us and another couple of kids thrown into the mix. 

I'd mentioned I wanted to do a river float before we headed up, everyone was into it, sounded like fun. So we prepared to do it the day before our family went home.

LIFE LIST!

Two of the kids had a traumatic experience with a rain storm a few weeks prior and it threatened to rain at several points during this day. The result was these poor kids were scared the entire time that it might rain. Like two tiny terrified meteorologists...from Texas. (Where rain is considered a state of emergency.)

LIFE LIST!

As we waited to get on the road one of the kids in our group decided the van we would be travelling in to be dropped off up the river to start our float was not suitable. And I'll grant her that. It really wasn't suitable as anything other than a giant rapist van. It was only missing curtains on the windows and maybe some sort of airbrushed eagle. Or angel. But we went on anyway.

LIFE LIST!

One of the older kids told the littler ones there were snakes in the water. Ha ha ha! ...... So those little kids were pretty excited to get in the water. 

LIFE LIST!

We get in the water and the two littlest floaters are, in a word, petrified, though they'd done this before in Florida. I almost brought up the gators in Florida, they should have been scared then not now! But one look at my friend's face as she held the hand of her terrified child told me it wasn't a good idea.
So we floated down the river with a bit of a soundtrack, a soundtrack I'd entitle, "I don't want to do this." One of the kids cried for so long he actually fell asleep. Or maybe he left his body and went to his happy place to endure this particular level of hell. [Enter adult beverages here.] 

LIFE LIST!

A little ways down the river one of our party gets stuck in the branches on the side of the river with one of the really terrified children. As we try to talk them out of their predicament, she screams so loudly I thought to myself, "Holy Crap, the kid was right about the snakes."
It wasn't a snake but an enormous spider. Her husband jumps off his tube to rescue his wife and child who we think are being attacked by a water moccasin. When everyone is safe he realizes...he's lost his wedding band at the bottom of the river.

LIFE LIST!

This is the part of the float where we regrouped. We got our everyone's tubes together, all 10 kids and 6 adults. We got everyone a beverage, the sun came out so the Terrified Meteorologists could relax, the little kids either passed out or started to relax. We came up with a plan for keeping everyone connected and started floating down the river.

Life List!

Keeping all our tubes connected was a little like a giant game of Twister. You grab that persons ankle and another person's hand. Then you switch and someone's holding your ankle and you're grabbing another person's hand. But don't let go without telling someone you're doing it and making sure they're holding onto someone else!

Life List!

Sometimes we ran into trouble, A couple kids stuck on a branch. Or someone accidentally letting go. By that time Maddie had gotten used to walking along the murky river and we'd send her against the current to help collect people and reconnect them to the group. Or more importantly distribute beverages where needed. (Everyone got two!) We started calling her our "River Otter". As in, "River Otter! Help!" I don't think I've ever seen Maddie so happy to help anyone. Even her brother.  

Life List!

One of our friends likes to yell "Hey Oh!" Maddie thinks it's when someone says something inappropriate. I think of it more as an all-purpose exclamation. We started a Call and Response halfway down the river. One person yelling "Hey" everyone else yelling "Oh!"

Life List!

By the time we arrived at the dock, with the big friendly rottweiler waiting to greet us, we were all relaxed. Everyone had had fun (except maybe our youngest travel companion who was happy...it was over).  We were all in sync. 

We were a team. 

Life List!

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. 

Authenticity

Years ago I read this quote: "Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." It's been attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but that's disputed as well.

I don't actually care who said it, I've always gone back to it.

It's not that I never talk about people, of course I do, but when I spend more of my time with friends talking about people I feel like I just ate a giant bag of cheetos and my fingers are dyed orange and I can't get the stains off my hands. I feel gross and even though I've stopped eating the cheetos, I've got the reminder of my binge on my hand and I feel like a shitty person.

I'm not a fan of that feeling.

I find my relationships with other people most satisfying when our Idea/Event/People is 40% Ideas, 40% events and 20% people.

There are two things that are deal breakers for friendships in my world. Feeling that I'm giving more than I'm getting and feeling like I am complaining about a friend more than I'm not.

When that happens, I just don't feel good about myself.

This last week I decided both those things were true about a friendship in my life. Over time our friendship had changed and I was okay with that given that our personalities didn't always match up very well and I was getting out of the relationship what I was putting into it. Not very much.

But then she had a project going on and I felt like I was supportive and excited for her to be trying her hand at what will hopefully become her career after being out of the work world for years and raising a family. I volunteered, my husband volunteered, I lamented the changing of expectations at home when you go back to work, I felt like a cheerleader telling her happy I was she'd found her talent and was using it to start a career. I celebrated her success.

Then a couple of weeks ago I had some excitement in my own life. A front page article in the Free Press and a local radio interview I think I handled pretty well, especially considering it was over the phone and at 7:30am (early wake up + talking on the phone = BOO!) I was also given the opportunity to speak at a local-ish conference.

These were exciting for me because I've had some career goals in mind and one of those things is to be more locally known as a blogger in this genre.

I didn't hear a word of "way to go" or "nice job" or "how exciting" from this friend and after many emails to both Logan and I about various aspects of her project and reminding me of my volunteer duties coming up, without a word about any of the exciting things going on in my life. I realized, "Ouch. I don't like this."

And so I told her I didn't like it and we agreed it would be best if we moved forward expecting nothing from one another. 

Sounds civil enough, yes? Clear enough? Not angry or catty? A friendship that grew apart and finally ended when I realized I couldn't be my best self while letting this person under my skin and that I couldn't give anything when I didn't feel I was getting anything in return. 

And yet, the rest of my friends are all worked up about what this means. They feel put in the middle or like I've ruined the group or like I'm too difficult. People look scared of me even, patting my back and saying, "I'm worried about you." 

And I'm left sitting around my house alone on a Saturday night wondering what the answer is. Logan still volunteered because he a) doesn't like conflict and b) enjoys working his ass off for free. He's got a tattoo, it's a heart with a banner across it reading, "FREElance".

Is the answer to pretend to be friends? Is the answer to bitch or "vent" about someone who pushes your buttons behind her back and play nice to her face? It just doesn't seem right to me, doesn't make me feel like a good person and makes me feel, like I said, like I just snorted the dust out of the bottom of a bag of cheetos.

Ideally the answer would be to feel neutral about a person you no longer want to be friends with and let it fade away. This is much easier when they're not a part of your social circle and perceived to be in your core group of friends. 

A few years ago a similar thing happened with a friend. I realized I was increasingly talking about her behind her back and so much of what she said and did was grating and it wasn't just me who felt that way so of course I had a group of friends who were spending more than the healthy (for me) portion of time talking about this other person. Eleanor Roosevelt would be stunned at how very very small our minds were.

Finally I'd had it. I realized it wasn't just one thing this person did that she could maybe stop doing and we could get along. It was that her entire outlook on the world was in direct opposition to what I wanted in a friend. I told this friend enough was enough we couldn't be close friends anymore but if I see you around, I certainly don't want to be enemies. 

And again my circle of friends bristled. A friend's husband even called me to tell me I needed to try harder. That I was being silly! Other friends felt put in the middle, Logan thought I was being a terrible person.

I felt like a terrible person for keeping a friend I felt compelled to bitch and vent about every time I was around my girlfriends. After I "broke up" with her our friends would start to tell me the latest vent and I had to stop them. Not only did I not care anymore, if they were going to keep being friends with her I needed them not to talk about her behind her back because guess what? If people are talking about one person to you? They're talking about you to other people. [Word Of Wisdom for Maddie #5]

I'll admit it's undeniably awkward when you say something out loud that most people just let happen over time. Honesty makes people bristle, I've got the email to prove it!

But I don't know what the answer is. I've felt like shit about myself ever since. I've felt isolated from my group of friends, unsure what my social life is going to look like now that I've cut a big personality in our circle out of my core group of friends, Logan is mad at me because he hates conflict (boy did he marry poorly in that realm) and I'm bowing out of the Girls weekend I've been looking forward to since last year. 

I don't believe in knowing everyone or making sure everyone knows my name. I don't believe in inviting everyone to the party so no one thinks you're a bitch and I don't believe in having aspirational friends.

Certainly I don't want all my relationships to be at the same level. I don't expect or want every friendship I have to be "best-pal" quality. 

But I really just need all the relationships in my life to be authentic.

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).