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Sunday, November 30, 2003

last dial-up entry, I hope

I just wanted to note that this is probably my last dial-up DIaryland entry, unless something goes wrong tomorrow or I can't figure out how to configure our new computer to use LTL, or something. LTL Man is coming tomorrow to work his magic. I am trying not to get my hopes up TOO much -- reasoning with myself that maybe it's NOT our modem that's making things slow, maybe some sites just ARE slow, stuff like that -- but really I'm pretty jazzed. Stay tuned tomorrow for some gushing gladness about finally having caught up with the rest of Western civilization...


We got more Christmas lights put up this evening. It's very pretty from the road. Then we came in the house and I had this laundry kind of spree where I actually felt like doing laundry so I folded all I had clean and washed some more and folded that and then I cleaned my room and T got into the spirit of things and cleaned off our dresser and WOW, it looks like we actually live in this house, as opposed to that refugee-piling-stuff-everywhere look. ("The fleeing-my-homeland motif", as Robin Williams says in "Mrs. Doubtfire"). Still have more laundry to fold but I think I'm going to take a shower (so as to be all nice and clean getting into our clean sheets) and get to bed. ahh, horizontal and soft sounds SO nice right now.

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Saturday, November 29, 2003

the season can start now!

Our Christmas tree is up! hurrah! just had to share. :) I've been listening to Christmas carols, sitting by the crackling fire drinking cocoa -- bliss. I love this time of year (as if you couldn't tell, right?).


also, just so you all know, this is approximately my fourth update in two days. Sorry for spewing out so many so quickly; it just kind of happened that way. There are links below in case you haven't been checking your Diaryland buddy list every four hours today. yeah, like anyone besides me does that...

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Friday, November 28, 2003

icicle lights can't beat me!

Today I put up our new icicle lights on the front-facing peak of our roof (even though the neighborhood on the next hilltop over has an excellent view of the back of our house, we don't have a tall ladder OR a death wish so that peak will remain lightless. Sorry guys). I learned a few things (ooh, ANOTHER list! How many lists can I cram into one day?):

• There's a reason that people very irritatingly leave their icicle lights up all year, even though it looks remarkably untidy. This reason is that it would be far easier and more efficient to throw away the icicle lights each year and buy new ones, than to attempt to pack them back up with any semblance of correctness, and get them out again untangled the next year. Perhaps if we could hire the Chinese worker who packed them originally to repack them for us -- but that would be even more cost-inefficient than buying new lights next year. This thought (buying new ones every year, not hiring the Chinese person) has seriously occurred to me. We would build up an enormous store of spare bulbs if we kept the old strings instead of throwing them away.
  
• Related to the above: another possible reason for leaving them up is that perhaps there is the hope that eventually, gravity will cause the little icicle strands to straighten themselves out instead of hanging in very messy-looking (and occasionally gap-creating) zigzags.
  
• It is generally a good idea to check the lights by plugging them into a socket before you spend hours and risk your neck hanging them. Undoubtedly my organized and forward-thinking husband would have remembered this. However, if this thought doesn't occur to you till you're about three minutes from the end of a long light-hanging project, God has a special providence for forgetful individuals which will usually cause everything to turn out OK.
  
• Stepladders lie. Or at least they stretch the truth a bit. When you know enough about a skill or discipline, you know when you can improvise and when you can't. There are some areas where I'm really good at this, like cooking (example: celery seed is not substitutable straight across for celery in a stuffing recipe [hi Toney!]. But you can leave the parsley out of your spaghetti sauce recipe and you won't even notice). However, there are many, many topics and jobs about which I am so clueless that I cling to the letter of the law like a fanatic. Up until today, "THIS IS NOT A STEP" was one of those things. Necessity prevailed, today, however, and I gingerly found out that "THIS IS NOT A STEP", at least on the top level of a folding stepladder, really means, "Don't stand on here unless you absolutely have to. And if you're going to stand here, do make sure that your ladder is extremely stable and that you have a solid structure to hang on to or balance yourself against. Also, no matter how careful you are, if you fall to your death while standing on this surface, your heirs can't sue us." I did NOT fall to my death, I DID successfully get all the icicle lights up, go GIRL POWER!
  

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the day after -- especially for Valerie

Breakfast is in the microwave as I type this. Mmm. Can you guess? No? Well, I'll tell you then.


(wait a minute, it beeped, gotta go turn it; the turntable part of our wedding-present microwave died about six years ago)


OK. Here we go.

• small portion turkey
  
• small portion mashed potatoes, dotted with real butter
  
• medium portion stuffing (I am a sucker for stuffing)
  
• all of the above items with yummy rich turkey gravy
  
• corn casserole
  
• small portion ham
  
• (not in the microwave; waiting patiently to be added cold to the plate) corn salad; this is my brother's specialty recipe, nicked from the railroad museum where he used to work
  

Of course, we had more last night -- we had green bean casserole, caesar salad, cranberries, rolls, I cannot even remember it all. At least I virtuously decided to save the one piece of remaining pecan pie for a snack later. We also still have cherry pie and pumpkin pie, but those are the kids' favorites. In fact LT is having cherry pie with vanilla ice cream for breakfast.



The above paragraphs were entered expressly for the viewing pleasure of Valerie, my new Australian friend who bemoans the fact that she must wait till Christmas for a feast like this. Hope you enjoyed it. ;-)


Now I must eat my Thanksgiving Part II breakfast, and get on to work with this resumé that has to be finished by this evening. ack.

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Thursday, November 27, 2003

soleil du turkey

Today is going more easily than I thought it would. (did I just hex myself?). The turkey and the ham are in their respective ovens and I am free from culinary duties till around 1:15, when all hell will break loose in the kitchen for the following hour and a quarter or so. Guests should start arriving in about half an hour, and the house smells properly appealing.



It's funny, I'm using a roaster oven for the turkey, and the instructions for cooking a turkey in there state very plainly several times that you WILL NOT GET a brown turkey out of this oven unless you use browning sauce on it. And since no Norman Rockwell grandmother ever served a pasty-pale turkey, I can't either. Browning sauce is like fake tanning lotion for turkeys, seriously. I was spreading it on (mixed with melted butter) trying to keep it as streak-free as possible, cause who wants an obviously-faked-tan turkey on the Thanksgiving table? It was eerie seeing the turkey look all brown and crispy when it was still completely raw and cold.

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what a nice day!

Aahh, peace. Everything went really well (nothing worth panicking about at all), with only the 45 minutes or so right before dinner feeling frenzied. Of all the problems to have, we had good ones: Too much food, and the turkey (such a tender turkey!) and ham were done ahead of schedule so we ate a little bit early. I did not overdo too much, although I did get really full which I haven't done much lately so it seems really uncomfortable. Oh my, the pecan pie. It was way too good. Fortunately there's only one piece left so I can't do myself too much damage with the leftovers. (refusing to think about the barely-dented three cartons of ice cream in the freezer).


Also of note: No broken bones. Although we didn't get the lights up, either, come to think of it. Maybe I'll work on that tomorrow while T is at work, if I finish early enough with the résumé I'm working on.


Now I'm going to build a nice fire, take a shower, and read a book in my bathrobe until I can't stay awake anymore. I'm sighing with bliss already.

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apples (I never said I was normal)

Here's one for my I Am A Goofball file: Before eating an apple, I still twist the stem while saying the alphabet, and I still "fix" it so that the stem comes off on the initial of the person I want it to "fall" off on. Even though I've been married to that person since before any of the little girls who carry on this tradition with their elementary-school lunch apples were fully potty-trained.


I have discovered a new favorite apple. I have never, let it be noted, had a favorite apple before, but I am borderline obsessed with these Southern Rose apples which my local grocery has started carrying off and on (just "off" enough to make me go crazy buying pounds of them when they're "on" for fear I'll never see one again. Brilliant tactic, not necessarily to be expected from a wannabe supermarket like ours, whose marketing expertise in the past only extended to covering the past-date dates on the meat with sale stickers. They must have hired someone new). They are as crunchy as Granny Smiths, without the creepy, skreeky teeth-vs-peel conflict that I despise about Granny Smiths; they're just tart enough and just sweet enough and altogether lovely. mmmm. A bowl of apples and a red sweater do more to make it seem like fall than anything else around here.

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Wednesday, November 26, 2003

keeping the panic at bay

I am in hearty denial about the sheer magnitude of the task that is before me in the next two days. Any time I allow a thought of Thanksgiving dinner, the preparation leading up to it, and the denouement of dirty dishes, cranky children, and leavetakings etc. to creep in around the edges of my mind, I feel the beginning of a wave-edge of sheer panic which prompts me to shut the door on that thought right quick before I'm enveloped by it and have a quick nervous breakdown.


I will instead focus on the positive:

• as soon as dinner's over the Christmas lights are getting turned on, assuming the weather's good and the men put them up as planned while the women work on dinner (please, PLEASE, God, no broken bones. Oh please. Thanksgiving Day was not good to us last year in this regard. T will not be playing in any football games, so that's helpful, but climbing around on the roof... just please, let this be the first Christmas since 1997 when he's uninjured and well. I'm begging here.)
  
• We'll listen to Christmas music while we clean up.
  
• We'll put the Christmas tree up on Friday.
  
• We finally bought icicle lights, now that garland lights are all the rage instead. (always a few steps behind the times, that's us).
  

hmm, noticing a theme... that was supposed to be good stuff about Thanksgiving. Must still be blocking that day out of fear of the aforementioned wave of panic.


Seriously, though, we will have a good time, I'm sure. Even though the whole family-reunion aspect of Thanksgiving is kind of lost on us because, hello, every single person who will be there is at the same church every Sunday morning, not to mention at my parents' house on an average of probably once a month for anything from a birthday party to an impromptu Sunday afternoon barbecue. And hopefully we'll be able to keep our minds on actually being thankful -- like, for instance, that nobody has any broken bones this year. (please God PLEASE).

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pausing for breath

I'm going to sit down and breathe for just a few minutes. I have a pumpkin pie in the oven, and a crust ready and waiting for the pecan pie that will go in after that. For something as sinfully delicious and calorie-laden as it is, pecan pie is alarmingly easy to make. Must forget, must forget.

You know what part of pie-baking I hate the very most? That whole putting-foil-around-the-edge bit. They make it sound so easy, but dang, you've just spent ten minutes making the crust and fluting the edge and then you're trying to wrestle aluminum foil onto it in such a way that it a) doesn't cover the middle of the pie b) doesn't touch the filling of the pie (cause there's nothing like having the foil baked into the pie, oh yummy yummy) c) doesn't squish the neatly fluted edge and d) covers the edge completely so that you don't end up with blackened fluted crust. If you think that's easy and you've never tried it, you're wrong. And if you HAVE tried it and you think it's easy, tell me where you're located and I'll make a big messy raspberry in your direction (but not over my pies, no sirree). C has been "helping" me with the pies. This consists of cracking one egg and playing with the leftover piecrust dough à la playdough.

Things are mostly ready for tomorrow. I have to scour the bathroom a bit, and sweep/mop the kitchen floor, and sweep the rest of the floors, and empty the dishwasher to get it ready for a massive assault tomorrow. The roaster oven is sitting on the counter waiting (must remember not to use the microwave while it's on tomorrow; it throws the breaker in the little power strip it's plugged into), the turkey had darn well better be entirely thawed or I am going to have some SERIOUS issues, my cupboards are crammed with ingredients, and I have three kinds of ice cream (yeah, this weekend is just going to be fantabulous for my diet) in the freezer to have with the cherry Costco pie (hello Emily! You know, the best Costco pies are the pecan ones. I'd have bought one yesterday if I hadn't already bought pecans to make my own. mmm mmm good, and totally freaking enormous). I am as ready as can be expected for this point in time, but I do foresee a bit of a late night with the last-minute cleaning I have to do. At least the turkey doesn't need my attention till 9:30 a.m.

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Monday, November 24, 2003

Calgon, take me away!

OK, so it wasn't precisely Calgon, it was melon-scented kids' bubble bath (thank you C). But it was a nice, dim, hot candlelit bath, and I feel so-o-o-o much better. mmm. All melty and relaxed and tired.

Also (you are all strictly forbidden to cast this up to me at any time in the future, understand?), there is definitely something therapeutic about getting a job done. The kids' rooms are clean, I have a bunch of laundry folded and some put away, and, while it's not exactly ready for Thanksgiving dinner, the house is probably at a level where I wouldn't be ashamed if someone dropped by. Of course this means that nobody WILL drop by, they'll wait until there are dishes stacked on the counters and last night's cooking pots on the stove and a veritable explosion of toys, laundry, papers, and shoes all over the living room, and then they'll drop by. Especially my in-laws. Ack. Anyway. It feels better and clearer to have that done. But the bath was definitely the kicker, the catalyst between "it will take me twenty minutes to fall asleep and I'll wake up five or eight times in the night and in the morning my jaw will be sore from grinding my teeth" and "I will be asleep like a warm limp rag fewer than eleven seconds after I achieve a horizontal state." Speaking of which....

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Friday Five. So it's a couple days late, so sue me.

I forgot to do a Friday Five on Friday. No biggie except it actually looked interesting. :) Don't miss the staggeringly brilliant entry from earlier today.


1. List five things you'd like to accomplish by the end of the year.

By the end of THIS year? Yikes. I'd like to...

• lose 10 more pounds
  
• become less addicted to the computer
  
• get into an exercise regimen
  
• get my house back into a "maintain" mode -- I have a schedule which works brilliantly for this if I will just use it...
  
• read two books I've never read before
  

2. List five people you've lost contact with that you'd like to hear from again.

• Kelly, who was my piano teacher in junior high
  
• Joanna, friend from school who moved to the UK
  

That's all I can think of, really!

3. List five things you'd like to learn how to do.

• knit
  
• scrapbook (it just feels WRONG that this is used as a verb). I will have to give in eventually.
  
• you know that braid, for hair, that looks like a rope? I'd like to be able to do the fancy French version of that in my own hair.
  
• I'd like to learn sign language, for fun
  
• Does it count that I'd like to take CPA classes and/or nursing classes? It'll have to, I can't think of anything else
  

4. List five things you'd do if you won the lottery (no limit).

• Build a decent house in the middle of a large piece of property, so as to keep subdivisions at least that far away from my home no matter what happened to the parcels around ours
  
• Have my husband retire at age 33
  
• give a lot of it to various charities and our local library
  
• set up a fund for families of sick children so that they could spend less time stressing about money and more time dealing with more serious problems and enjoying their children
  
• never have health insurance again. Never ever ever.
  

5. List five things you do that help you relax.

• read
  
• take a hot shower
  
• read
  
• vege at the computer
  
• read
  

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this is not a cheery day.

Here's one for me to show the kids when they get in an "I can't wait to grow up so I can do exactly what I want" mood.


What I want to do right now:
Send the kids with their grandparents, or have T arrive home four hours early for some special reason and take over. Sit with a diet Coke and something warm and savory to eat (bowl of chili?) and read a book next to a cozy fire. OR, drive with the radio up nice and loud, go to Barnes and Noble, sit in Starbucks with a caramel brownie and a caramel macchiato and read. Oh yeah. The second one.

What I have to do instead:
Somehow manage to fold and put away about four loads of laundry AND drive 50 minutes with two very crabby children in the car, listening to them nitpick each other, with the radio quietly playing something kid-friendly (no veggietales, though, I put my foot down at that). Buy some groceries and some household stuff while keeping them from making too much noise killing each other in the stores. Hang my head in shame because I always swore I wouldn't be one of those mothers who brings unruly kids out in public. Drive back, unload the car, put stuff away. All within about seven hours.

oh, please, can't I just check myself into a quiet mental hospital instead? sigh. I have that stressed-out cloudy-head-pressure-in-chest kind of feeling that makes me want to go outside and yell and scream. And it compounds itself, because when I feel that way, things that ordinarily don't bother me at all (like my son being physically incapable of moving through a room without making light saber/fighting sounds, just as an example) make me sit here and twitch and freak out. This is not a cheery day. Please pardon the downer, I'm sure I'll be normal tomorrow.

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Sunday, November 23, 2003

quiet kind of Sunday

A few short things today. Ooh, a list, how exciting.

• Someone has been finding my diary through a Yahoo search for "pictures of outie belly buttons" (ooh, there I go, higher in the search results...). First it was just that phrase, and then today it was "different pictures of outie belly buttons" (higher yet!). Something tells me that I should be creeped out by that. ick.
  
  
• My eye feels much better. Thanks, Mom-On-Roof, for your concern. It just stings a teeny bit now, so I don't think I'll have to go fifteen rounds with Blue Cross over a clinic visit. whew.
  
  
• My husband and son are having a battle involving ships made of Duplo blocks, with much throwing of pieces. This is a game they've played for years, but it was originally played on carpet. Much much more alarming on a hardwood floor. If I had come up with that idea, I would be chastised for teaching the kids not to respect their toys. AHEM. T, are you reading this? TOO NOISY, PLEASE STOP.
  
  
• I was helping someone with a résumé today, and the program I was using closed without prompting me to save. Fantastic, nothing like losing a couple hours' work in one shot.
  

Otherwise, not much going on; today was a quiet kind of day. T managed to finish the job he had been working on when he ground a sizeable hole in his arm a couple of weeks ago; we had my parents over for lunch; C and I took naps. Bummer that tomorrow has to be Monday...

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Saturday, November 22, 2003

ouch

brief entry. cut wood, pulled brush today. free heat all winter is nice, but i think i may never move again. typing painful. had a nice hot-dog roast though. more tomorrow.


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(later)

I'm feeling slightly more mobile, but not entirely better. However, while piling up brush today, I managed to poke myself in the eye (why no, my name is not "Grace." What made you ask?). I was quite surprised that I could still see out of it -- in fact, based on the amount of pain it caused, I was surprised to discover that the copious quantity of fluid (well, copious relative to the amount of fluid that usually comes out of an eye; not copious compared to, say, Yosemite Falls in April) pouring from my eye was not blood, or any kind of weird eyeball stuff, but just tears. In fact within minutes I felt pretty much normal, except that I had (and have) this really strange headache behind my eye. A bruisy kind of headache. No pressure or I'd be dashing straight to the ER, imagining brain swellings or something. You know me, Miss Rational. And now the eye is beginning to sting again. Infection maybe? It kind of feels like an infection. Oh, those get so pretty, really happy to think about having one during Thanksgiving week, don't you envy me? I am really hoping I do not have to go to the doctor about this. It's amazing, our insurance company saves tons of money, I'm sure, by simply making it such a freaking hassle to get them to pay medical bills that their subscribers would rather go to their local Native American shaman* and pay in animal hides than make an appointment at the clinic. I won't go into examples, there are too many and my hands still aren't totally back to normal and it would just raise my blood pressure unnecessarily.


* no Native American shamans were harmed during the typing of this entry.

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Friday, November 21, 2003

the Ugly Duckling Girl at 29

This morning I was getting ready to go out with the kids and I looked myself in the mirror and gave my reflection a great big raspberry. The nerve of my skin, to look so - so -- THIRTYish! I mean, I'm not OLD, and my skin doesn't look OLD, but it doesn't look 16 either, all even and glowing. It's more blotchy and multicolored and just ... thirtyish. I looked like the "before" picture in a magazine woman-on-the-street makeover. I read a while back that once you're thirty you can't get away with the "natural look" unless you're really blessed, and you start to actually need makeup, and I decided that today was the day I hit that point, at a month shy of 29. Now the problem was, what to do about it. I do own makeup, but I wear it so infrequently that it generally gets bad long before it gets used up. I couldn't find my mascara (which actually was probably only barely out of date; I wear that probably once a month), so I just put on eyeshadow (the eyeshadow I bought in 1994, for my wedding. Seriously. I also wear this maybe once a month). Didn't like the effect of that, my skin still looked distractingly icky. So I pulled out a sample-pack of Liquid Powder (bought for family pictures in May) and used that, still felt the need for a little powder on top of that, because it just felt wrong not to put powder over smeary stuff. So much for the "all in one" idea, I guess. I tried actual lipstick (don't know how old it was, so let's not think about it), liked the autumny red color and faint sparkliness it had, but got sucked into the "too much -- blot -- not enough -- add -- too much" vortex and finally gave up and pulled out my trusty "Touch of Bronze" CoverGirl LipSlicks -- a product which I think is aimed at 14-year-olds but I still like it, so shoot me. It's the only makeup I wear with any regularity at all. I also dug out a pair of earrings and put them on (later on I forgot I had them on, felt a tickle on my earlobe [which was, of course, my earring], and went to pull on my earlobe to un-tickle it, nearly ripping the earring out the painful way. duh. And I'd forgotten how weird it is to try and talk on the phone with earrings on). The effect of all this was that I looked, well, nowhere near the "after" picture in the magazine, but better than I had looked before, at least.

The whole experience made me feel like the Ugly Duckling Girl. You know, in those movies with the "ugly" girl, except in the movies it is sickeningly obvious that she is actually a staggering beauty who's been given professionally frazzled hair and unflattering clothing and accessories in an attempt to make her look ugly until her character learns to wear the right makeup and clothes and emerges as the staggering beauty she has actually been all along? Yeah. You know what movies I mean. Anyway, I was that girl, not in the shining emerging-beauty-gasp scene. Nope, never had one of those and don't expect it. No, I was that girl in the just-before-the-makeover scene where she attempts to put on her own makeup. Just so unsure and clueless. When my junior high best friend graduated from eighth grade, her guardian took her to the makeup counter at a department store and, as a graduation/coming-of-age present, bought all kinds of makeup and had the makeup person show her how to apply it properly and all that. That is such a great idea. I wonder how long and hard they would laugh at my retreating back if I went in at 29 and requested the same service. I need a good slumber party, that's what I need. Any takers? :)

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Thursday, November 20, 2003

up early, long day ahead

I have a fun filled day in the valley today -- shopping for Thanksgiving dinner, getting a few more presents, and taking the car by the dealership to get a new keyless entry transmitter tag thingie since when my keys were lost they got wet and the one we have is almost ruined and only works very intermittently (so that one becomes T's, and I get the new one, grin). It's not that we're some kind of snobs who can't bear to actually use a key -- sheesh, for the first five years of our marriage we never drove ANYTHING manufactured after 1972 -- it's just that I keep remembering this one time I was in Fresno at night and this drugged out person was following me pestering me to give him money (of which I had none on my person) and that keyless entry thing allowed me to get in my car just in time before he actually reached me. Plus we had already ordered the thing before my keys were turned in.


Anyway. I woke up from a nightmare at 7 am, after having been awake reading The Princess Bride (I LOVE THIS BOOK, and does anyone still believe that S. Morgenstern was real?) until *ahem* 2:30 a.m. I couldn't get back to sleep, so for once in my life I am awake and both the kids are asleep. I feel like I should commemorate this moment in some way. A pester-free shower maybe? except I took one last night. Gonna go wake them up before I decide it's my duty to use this time to wash dishes or something horrid like that...

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Wednesday, November 19, 2003

80's music quiz

I ordinarily do not post those goofy little quizzes here, but this is cool; anyone born before 1977 or so should go do it, now. :)

have fun! :)

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firsts and lasts survey

First kiss:
Fourth grade, with my "boyfriend" Brian, my brother's friend who lived near the paddock where we kept our horses. It was a little peck, very quick, very embarrassing.

First real kiss:
Ninth grade, with my first serious boyfriend, Randy.

First job:
I just did a long post about this sort of thing; first job was working in the church nursery as a preteen.

First screen name:
rachelellen (good old WBS chat!)

First self purchased album:
Def Leppard, "Hysteria"

First funeral:
My grandfather's, when I was in sixth grade

First pets:
A little black dog named Tipper and a slightly larger, shaggy black dog named Belle

First piercing:
Ears, age 6

First true love:
Probably Randy, ninth grade. Although that's stretching "true love" quite a bit -- but we were very emotional about each other and stayed boyfriend and girlfriend for a year and a half. What we had pales in comparison to real adult love, and we were way too immature for a relationship really.

First big trip:
Nine states in two weeks, summer before ninth grade.

First musician you remember hearing in your house:
I was going to say Roger Whittaker but I think I have memories of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, etc., from before that.

Last big car ride:
How big is "big"? It's about four or five hours to Morro Bay, and we did that last summer. Five hours to LA, did that three and a half years ago. Twelve hours to Washington, did that four and a half years ago.

Last kiss:
This morning as T was leaving for work.

Last good cry:
about a week and a half ago.

Last movie seen:
"The Princess Bride", a few evenings ago

Last beverage drunk:
milk on my cereal (about to remedy that one also, with a yummy Diet COke)

Last food consumed:
Crispix (it's crispy times two!)

Last phone call:
T just called me right before I started typing this.

Last TV show watched:
Don't watch TV. Probably the last one we watched was the Super Bowl. Oh, wait, we plugged in the antenna for war coverage too, so Evening News with Dan Rather, last March.

Last shoes worn:
black canvas shoes, $4 at Wal-Mart

Last CD played:
Evanescence, "Fallen"

Last item bought:
holy cow, we just did a ton of Christmas shopping. I don't remember what the last thing was. Oh, wait! I went grocery shopping yesterday, and the last thing I put in the cart was a 12-pack of diet Coke.

Last disappointment:
I'm trying to help a friend of mine figure out how to do a Make A Wish trip for her son and we found out that part of it probably isn't going to be able to happen.

Last soda drunk:
Diet Coke, Diet Coke, Diet Coke (sung to the tune of "Let it Snow")

Last ice cream eaten:
Generic peanut-butter cup, about two weeks ago

Last shirt worn:
I have one on right now, my uber-comfortable baseball-jersey-style sweatshirt, heather-navy with navy sleeves, about three sizes too big for me, so so cozy.

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Tuesday, November 18, 2003

letter to myself

ooh, interesting one today from Diarist.net (it's actually a random one, not today's per se).


Pretend to be 20, 30, or 40 years older and write a letter to your present self.

Dear 28-year-old Me,

First off, way to go on losing that weight. Good thing you did it at 28, because lemme tell you, at 58 you don't even want to try it, it's just too depressing. And while we're on the subject, would you quit griping about your looks already? For crying out loud, look at your skin! No wrinkles! Look at your hair, it's all there! (yep, you guessed it, those Flint thins-before-it-grays genes are just sitting there waiting for you. Sorry to break it to you.) You're worried about some stretch marks and that weird faint bumpy breakout you get and your teeny little mustache? I'm not even going to tell you what you have in store for you, just appreciate what you have while you've got it is all I'll say. And drink more water, and take your vitamins, for both our sakes.


And while we're on THAT topic -- appreciating what we have while we have it -- let's talk about those kids of ours. Yeah, I read where you whined about them not loving you enough. Girl, you do not know what you HAVE, did you not just carry that sleeping 4-year-old ballet princess to bed? And get a stuck-on kiss from the local Lego champion? They might be less attached to you than they were last year, but hon, they love you. They need you. They're there every single day for you to love on and influence and take care of. You want to see "don't love me enough," wait till they live an hour away with their own families and dogs and mortgages and kids and worries. Grandkids are fun, your parents (God rest their souls) are right about that, but it's just not the same. Quit looking at what you haven't got and enjoy what you have. And give them a big kiss for me while you're at it.


And woman, your priorities are screwed way up. Who cares if people read your goofball diaryland ramblings? Who cares if they leave comments? Did you really need to spend two hours today reading episode guides from "Little House on the Prairie" and "Saved by the Bell"? Not to mention the sneeze? OK, so maybe the sneeze was worth the time. But for the love of God, get away from that computer and do something! You're only young once.


See you in 30 years. Brace yourself, it's going to be rough at times.

love and kisses,
58-year-old you

OK, so it's not L.M. Montgomery. ;-)


funny link for today:

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every job I ever had

Daydreaming On Paper gave me this prompt this morning:


List all the jobs you've ever had.


Well, you know me, I can't just list, I have to discuss. Here goes. :)

1. When I was 11 or 12 I started helping out, for $3 a week, in the nursery at the Methodist church I grew up in. I wasn't going to mention this, but then I realized that it really did influence my life in a lot of ways. And it's shocking to see the near-adults who were once babies I cuddled and changed.
   
2. The spring and summer during/after eighth grade, I spent nights at the home of my great-great aunt who had Alzheimer's. At that point in time she was fine with just someone in the house with her at night; they just didn't want her to be alone, and I lived right down the road and knew her quite well. She had a different idea of who I was every night, and she always offered me raisin toast in the morning for breakfast. I can still remember the pleasant old-ladyish smell of her house, the strawberry shampoo she had, the letters I would write to my friends lying on her guest bed. It was while I had that job that I learned that I could just concentrate as I was going to bed on getting up at a certain time (I always forgot to bring my alarm clock over there) and it would work. I can still do that when I want to. This "job" paid $12 a night, and it ended at the end of the summer when Aunt Hazel's caretakers started having full-time professional nursing care for her. I got paid all at once at the end of that summer and bought my first "cool" expensive clothes for the next school year. This was also a huge lesson -- I could see why my parents shopped at bargain outlets once I put down a whole summer's work on about two outfits (including a red sweater! even then...) plus a pair of very expensive shoes.
   
3. Then during ninth grade I had a boring job at the local Frostee-type place, taking orders for hamburgers and fries, making milkshakes and ice-milk cones. It was my first time-card taxes-paid kind of job, and nothing interesting happened there.
   
4. The next summer, I babysat full-time for a local single dad with two little boys. It only lasted about a month; after that the dad remarried and I was no longer necessary. It was another job where I learned a lot about little kids, and it was my highest-paying job till that point at $5 an hour, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, under the table. The father worked in a shop right there at his house, and his assistant would pick me up for work every day as he drove past my house in his 1963 Dodge Dart station wagon. This is possibly the ugliest car ever created. It is at least in the top 3 ugliest cars.
   
5. The summer after tenth grade I worked as a maid in a hotel. This is simply not my kind of job. You don't mix with people, and you have to be so meticulous, and, well, I'm not and never have been.
   
6. In eleventh grade I had another frostee-freeze type job, at a different little diner in town. This job lasted six months. I gained 20 pounds in those six months; I developed the perfect (but extremely calorie-laden) burger; I learned to mop a floor properly and to flirt and to ward off unwanted advances (which was a heady feeling at the time, since I'd been a definite ugly duckling all my life). I went home every day reeking of bleach, and when I unbraided my hair and stepped into the shower at home there was a definite smell of French fries and grease pervading the air. It took a summer of being strict with myself and walking six miles a day to lose all that weight.
   
7. After that one, during the summer after eleventh grade and the beginning of my senior year, I had a job at a Mexican restaurant which was actually a lot of fun. The cooks and dishwashers were bona-fide card-carrying Mexicans, who sang to the waitresses and hostess in Spanish. The food was amazing, although I had learned from my previous job that sucking on the after-dinner mints all day and skipping my free meal would do my figure a lot more good than snacking from the nacho bin and eating a full plate on my dinner break. There was one night when the cooks and dishwashers all failed to show up; the owner cooked, the waitresses bussed their own tables and took over my hostess job, and I, in my silk skirt and blouse, ended up washing dishes. It was a very interesting experience, and it completely ruined that outfit in spite of the apron I had on.
   
8. had another brief stint after graduation at the second frostee-freez-ish place. It did not go well and I did not enjoy it.
   
9. I was rescued from that job by a family I had done a lot of babysitting for over the years. (I have neglected telling about all the babysitting I did; there were three or four families who used me a lot. It was a fun feeling to have them booking me for New Years' Eve two months in advance, before another family could get dibs. I loved all the kids and learned more from those jobs, as far as stuff I use now, than I did from any of the others.) Their in-home daycare provider had to have surgery and they asked me to take over. Thus began the best two years of my job life -- from 6 am to 6 pm, three days a week, I was in charge of three kids. When I started the full-time job they were ages 2, 4, and 7. The oldest, a girl, was the flower girl in my wedding. I worked there until I was pregnant with my son; the mother of the children was laid off work for a time, and when she went back, their previous provider was able to take over again. I see the children around town now -- the flower girl is now a senior in high school and a star on the volleyball team, the middle boy is a freshman, and the littlest girl (whom I held all night one new year's eve as she was teething) is in junior high and is taller than me. *sigh*. The scary thing is that that's going to happen with my children too, just as quickly.
   
10. During and after the time when I worked for them, I did a lot of substituting as a teacher's aide and secretary for the local school district. This was also a very interesting job and really informative and educational. I was an aide in a special education class, and I went with various kids as they "mainstreamed" into the HeadStart next door or into an elementary school classroom. Between that and the stint as assistant secretary in the special education department, I learned more than I ever thought I'd know about the workings of that system, and began to cement the thought in my mind that any children I ever had would be educated at home.
    
11. When my son was a baby I had a very brief child-care job with another family. I also spent a few days as a receptionist/hostess at my in-laws' microbrewery. Neither of these jobs were the least bit enjoyable or interesting.
    

And that's it. For seven years my job has been raising and teaching my own children. The pay is very low, but the benefits are just amazing. Best job I ever had by far. ;-)

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Monday, November 17, 2003

the ballet lesson and other stuff

C's ballet lesson today was just precious. There's no other word for it. Unfortunately since we haven't bought a digital camera yet (although it's in the works), and Snappy sucks and I don't have it installed on this machine anyway, I can't post pictures yet. I'll have some up when I get the film developed, and you will agree, "precious" is the only suitable word. The studio hasn't changed in the ten years since I was last there (nannied for a family whose daughter took ballet there), and there's just nothing more precious (really! with all its connotations) than a gaggle of 4-year-old girls in ballet clothes running around on their tiptoes to the tune of scratchy vinyl LP music (the same music she played when I had ballet lessons 20 years ago, I'm sure it's the same records), there just isn't.

I am feeling all this parental guilt, though, because now things are uneven. As far as scheduled weekly activities go, C has ballet and Awana and Sunday school. LT just has Awana and Sunday school. Maybe this is how families wind up with five different activities for every day of the week. We've been contemplating Cub Scouts for LT but they meet on the same night as our Bible study so we're still just thinking about it. That's as far as we're going; I refuse to do soccer and all that (LT doesn't want to anyway). I simply won't. Maybe gymnastics...

Today I experimented and made mini meatloaves (in muffin tins), for the sake of speed of cooking. I wholeheartedly regret this now; I ate too many of them (BAD me!) and now just typing about them is making me nauseated. urrrgh. For the record, however, if you should want to try it, it does make cooking much faster, but cleanup is a royal pain, especially when the smell is making you sick to your stomach. Oh, please, can we talk about something else?

I finished a book today. I've been reading a new-to-me Maeve Binchy, Circle of Friends. I really do like it; it may be my favorite of hers so far. I love how real her characters always are, and in this one she does an even more masterful job than usual of exploring the relationships among her characters. If you like that sort of book I can definitely recommend this one.

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Sunday, November 16, 2003

diving into the Christmas chocolate already

mmm, oh yum, bliss. I was a really good girl today diet wise (and I'm down to 171 lb! lowest weight since 1995!), and then right after the kids went to bed I got a huge, HUGE, H*U*G*E chocolate craving. I commented to T that I was contemplating driving to the little convenience store downtown (yes, our teeny town has a convenience store, and it's actually open until eleven p.m. No traffic lights or big grocery chains, but there is one convenience store) to satisfy it. T instantly got this mysterious, scheming sort of look on his face and said that he could provide me with chocolate if I were truly desperate. wink wink. So he raided the stocking-stuffer candy he'd bought yesterday (while we were completing all but three people's worth of our Christmas shopping, did I mention that? Jeesh, the nightmares I had last night about our house burning to the ground with all that stuff in it and no renter's insurance...) and produced a few Hershey's miniatures for me. Bless him, praise him, he is perfect. Those four miniatures have satisfied me wholly without giving me a huge load of guilt to carry around about having ruined my good diet day.


Also in the Feeling Good About My Accomplishments category today is the fact that the four of us pitched in and cleaned off our porch (note: I am glad I proofread. For some bizarre reason, this sentence had read "cleaned off our couch" until I caught it. Perhaps it's some Freudian thing; our couch is a 7-foot expanse of stacks of folded laundry right now and has been since last night). You know that Jeff Foxworthy bit, the redneck one, and one of the things he says is that you might be a redneck if people think you're having a yard sale all the time and you're not? That's us. Well, we say "that's us" about a lot of those redneck jokes, but this one -- we were really bad. We have a huge porch and there was a whole pile of stuff over in the corner, mostly T's stuff that I'd gotten tired of moving from one place to another in the house and so I'd put it outside waiting for him to take it to the basement. Someday our basement will just explode, we cram it so full of stuff that has no other resting place. Hmm, maybe I'd better check out that rental insurance tonight. Anyway. Our lovely large porch is now fully respectable-looking, and I'm having porch swing fantasies again. Our porch would be perfect for a porch swing. Maybe in the spring.


Tomorrow is C's first ballet lesson. We decided to let her start now instead of waiting for Christmas. Tomorrow is actually the "trial" day -- she'll go and watch, maybe participate a little, and make sure it's something she really wants to do. If not (ha! not likely) she'll have some darling ballet clothes for dress-up, I suppose. The teacher she'll have is the same one who taught my ballet lessons when I was in elementary school twenty years ago*. We're not expecting the next Isadora Duncan to come from our family -- neither C nor I are built along dancer's lines, and we're slightly more graceful than, say, a pair of 18-wheelers, but only slightly -- but it'll be fun for her and she'll learn some body control and make new friends as well. It does mean that this was a really bad night for me to wait until 10:30 p.m. to think of the fact that T needs clean uniforms tomorrow, since I now have to be up till 12:30 to get his uniforms out and hung so they don't wrinkle, and the kids and I have to be dressed and ready to leave by 9 tomorrow. oops. I am a girl who likes my nine hours, even interrupted as they usually are by a young ballerina-to-be wanting drinks of water. oh well.

*There's small-town life for you, that kind of thing happens all the time. One of our high-school secretaries called me by my mom's name all the time when I was there (and still does, when we run into each other around town) because she, like a number of the other staff at the school, had also been there when my mom was there, and Mom and I look similar.

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Saturday, November 15, 2003

look at me, being all smug

Only three more. Three little presents to buy and then I will be able to go around feeling all superior while everyone has the annual Holiday Panic, because our Christmas shopping will be all done. It is amazing how many people were shopping today. And you'd have thought it was Christmas Eve or something, the way T and I were going around in a near-panic because we couldn't find just the right thing -- as if there were no time at ALL to look around online or in other cities or whatever. (Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a frilly nightgown for a little girl that doesn't have Barbie on the front? Never did find one today; that makes four presents yet to buy, I guess)

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Friday, November 14, 2003

whiny post about kids

You know how I mentioned, in that inverted Smothers-Brothers kind of way, that both my kids love their Daddy best? They fight over who has to sit next to Mommy instead of Daddy at the table. They fight over who has to hold Mommy's hand instead of Daddy's when we're walking through the mall. T tries to put a stop to this; he is by turns diplomatic and stern about it. Honestly, all kidding aside, this whole thing really breaks my heart and makes me feel more than a bit resentful (it feels frighteningly like sixth grade, actually, and kids fighting over who had to sit next to me on the bus) and I really hope it's temporary. Here I am, the one who has put her entire adult life into raising these kids the right way, I stay home with them, I put off going to college for them, I educate them, wipe their noses, cook their meals, bandage their wounds, answer their embarrassing questions, teach them to get along in the world, not to mention love them so much it brings tears to my eyes on a regular basis. And it's not like Daddy doesn't love them just as fiercely as me, and he works really hard so that we all have a place to live and food to eat and all that fun stuff, and he does discipline them and do all that daily-care stuff for them when he's here, and very well, I might add. But because he's gone all day and I'm the one home with them (ironic, isn't it), he is [insert Monty-Pythonish heavenly cloud chords here] DACY THE MAGNIFICENT and I am Just Mommy. Except -- and this is where I was going with all this on this particular morning -- except at 3 a.m. What name comes flying out of C's mouth when she's cold/hot/thirsty/had a bad dream? "MOMMY!" Sometimes three or four times a night, or should I say morning. I suppose I should be grateful that I at least am this important to her, but I'm not, I'm resentful as hell about it, especially at 3 a.m. when nobody is inclined to be rational.


In my sane moments (OK, most of the time), I don't mind this too much. I certainly don't regret being a stay-at-home mom or homeschooling them (yet). I know that they really do love me very much. I still get plenty of hugs and kisses and "surprises" and cuddles. I know that when they're adults they'll look back and appreciate me in that reverence-for-Mom sort of way. I just wish I didn't have to wait quite that long.

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Googlers, finally

It's interesting; I have finally started to get Google hits in my referrer stats. I'd been feeling all left out and rejected reading about the ones other diarylanders were getting. ;-) Today I had one for "i sneeze like". O-K... sounds like someone was maybe looking for a site they remembered, but couldn't remember the URL? I dunno.

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yum-o-rama

I was being so good on my diet. Then we went out to dinner tonight, at my favorite restaurant. This is the kind of restaurant where they serve really, really wonderfully good food, the kind of food you think you should be able to cook at home except it's way, way better than anything homemade. It doesn't seem fancy, but it tastes fancy. And they serve it on these huge plates. Plates the size of turkey platters. Plates with their own ZIP codes. Plates the size of minor unpronounceable Hawaiian islands. Plates loaded down with enough amazing food to make up for three or four days (at least) of eating exactly according to plan. But oh, so worth it. mmmm. I was determined to only eat one deck-of-cards-size serving of my steak, and take the rest home, but I arrived home, mysteriously enough, devoid of a takeout package, having consumed a serving more the size of a trade paperback novel than a deck of cards. In other words, the whole wonderful delicious mouth-watering steak, complete with mushrooms and sherry gravy. My excuse was that we'll be out all day tomorrow so the poor steak would feel all lonely and rejected in the fridge. Much better to put it out of its misery in the restaurant, n'est-ce pas?

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Thursday, November 13, 2003

kids' therapy

Those of you who are mothers (fathers? any fathers at diaryland?), you know those moments when you're doing something with your children and you look at them and just know exactly what they're going to say to their spouses (or perhaps their therapists) in twenty years about that very moment? Tonight I had one of those.

LT [TWENTY YEARS HENCE, LYING IN BED LATE AT NIGHT WITH HIS WIFE HAVING ONE OF THOSE PENSIVE MARRIED-PEOPLE TALKS]: Yeah, it was after an Awana club meeting. Mom and Dad had this idea that we'd go to a restaurant and get pie and cocoa for dessert, and of course we're kids so that sounded great even though I'd just had a candy bar AND a sucker at the meeting and my sister had had this little four-year-old's snack with crackers and peanut butter. It's pie and cocoa, right? And I'm sure Mom and Dad thought it would be this nice family bonding time. Except I was just too damn full, and feeling sick from all the chocolate I'd already had, and I ordered this chocolate cake and it came and it was almost ALL frosting and I just hated frosting. And my sister kept insisting the cocoa was too hot even though it wasn't, and she got her sleeve in her pie like four times. And Mom just had diet Coke, even though we had, like, hello, a refrigerator full of diet Coke at home, because she was on her perpetual diet, except she ended up eating most of my cake. Dad was trying not to be mad and Mom was sitting there begging him with her eyes not to get mad and it was just a mess. I felt bad for them, they meant it to be so much fun for us and it just ended up being stressful for everyone. Man.

Oh well. It could be worse, right?

Speaking of my perpetual diet, I was down two pounds today from last Thursday, woo hoo! I'm back down to my lowest weight so far -- 172, halfway to my goal. Of course that was before the cake tonight...

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Wednesday, November 12, 2003

book review -- The Magician's Assistant

I had this book recommended to me by someone whose taste in literature I trust, so I sought it out and read it, and I was not disappointed. Let me say first off that the subject matter of this book is not something I would ordinarily read or enjoy, but I was able to put that aside and really enjoy the storytelling. Ann Patchett is a brilliant writer; her characters live in a very rare way. I can't say too much about the book without starting to spoil the story; just try it yourself.

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Tuesday, November 11, 2003

keys have been found!

My keys were turned in at Albertson's! That's almost good enough news to actually cheer me up today. I feel all down and grumpy for some unknown reason. Ooh, I have a Symphony bar in the refrigerator too, and I haven't had lunch yet, think I'll have a Symphony bar for lunch just this once; who can blame me? Getting cheerier by the minute...

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emergency room, ho hum

T was grinding this afternoon. He had been, as was his intention, grinding the metal on a truck rear end. Then, for a change of pace, he ground his arm. Um, ouch. Big gaping scary-looking (but not very bloody, good thing) wound on the outside of his wrist. So off we went on our third ER visit in the last twelve months. It was not as bad as when we brought LT in, last February, for a split scalp -- we were only there about 2 1/2 hours, as opposed to 4. He has to go back on Thursday to get his wound stitched; they cut away some of the dirty flesh and irrigated it, but decided to leave it open but bandaged for a couple of days to reduce the risk of infection, since the grinder wasn't exactly sanitary when it bounced off his bone. Yeah, ouch.



Surprisingly enough, this doesn't feel like a cruddy day. I smiled a lot. The kids were well-behaved during the long, tedious ER wait. I had to drive and pick up some tools for T (this was before the grinding thing; in fact I was picking up the grinder, come to think of it), and I listened to Tchaikovsky's "Marche Slave" at full volume on the trip there and back. Didn't get a lot of cleaning done -- I was just gearing up and getting started on that when we had our little ER detour.

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housecleaning and related microscope thoughts

I have been feeling really un-diary-ish for the past couple of days. My keys never turned up and we're buying new ones. I went on a cleaning fest yesterday (yes, my house is so bad that realizing that people are coming over for Thanksgiving in two weeks was enough to send me into a cleaning panic) -- the kids and I cleaned their rooms and washed windows and windowsills and cleaned off the MOUNTAIN of stuff on our counter -- mostly T's stuff. Today I have a lot more cleaning ahead of me. It just never ends.

On a somewhat-related note, did you know that if you make espresso and then forget to take the grounds out and leave them in the machine for, oh, about a month or two (honestly, I do not even remember the last time I made espresso, and they'd been there since then), you get a lot of very interesting-looking powdery black mold in and on your little espresso grounds filter thing? It made me wish I had a microscope, honestly; we are finally getting one "for school" (and for my curious mind which always wants to see things magnified; even the torn edge of masking tape looks very interesting under a microscope, did you know that? me, a nerd?) but it hasn't arrived yet, and the interesting mold sample is already multiplying merrily on its way to the local wastewater treatment facility. Oh well, when you clean out your refrigerator as infrequently as I do you know you'll come across more mold eventually. ;-)

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Sunday, November 09, 2003

lost keys

Isn't it amazing how hard it is to think about anything else when you've lost something? Tonight I lost my keys. I don't think I've actually lost (as opposed to misplaced) a set of keys since I've been married. It's a really long story, but here's the short version: I had them in my hand, absolutely for sure, when we got in the car after being at one store. We went straight (LT driving, with his keys) from there to Albertson's. At the checkout at Albertson's, I'm pretty sure I had to move them aside in my purse to get my checkbook. When I got to the car (in the pouring, pelting, driving rain, no less) immediately after that, no keys. Nobody has turned them in yet at Albertson's (two hours later). I retraced my steps around the parking lot (yes! still in the driving rain!), cleaned out my purse entirely, checked all my pockets, checked all T's and the kids' pockets, even went back to the 99c store and looked in that parking lot. When we got home I practically dismantled the car looking for them. And I can't get the bleeping things out of my mind for more than half a second at a time. It is driving me crazy. Granted, it'll be an expense (even if we don't replace the really pricey keyless entry thingy, the ignition key for our car has one of those computer chips and those make replacement keys cost around $50 from what I understand) and a hassle and I'll always be wondering if whoever picked up MY keys and didn't turn them in is going to go drive around parking lots pushing the trunk button hoping to hit a 150,000-mile-but-still-quite-nice gold mine (at least we live 40 miles away from where I lost them -- but still, I do a lot of shopping there). But we can manage the expense right now, what with the overtime, and chances are everything will be just fine -- so why can't my brain just let go and move on? I dunno. sigh.

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Saturday, November 08, 2003

the nanowrimo storm has passed

I am at peace, floating on calm seas. The NaNoWriMo storm has passed. I thought it all out last night. It's the whole conflict/beginning/middle/end/climax/resolution/believable dialogue thing. It just isn't going to happen. I like some of what I write in here -- although not all of it -- some of it makes me laugh or smile when I go back and read it later. But an online diary doesn't have to have any of the above elements, and a novel does. So, having reasoned all this out, I am now free to move on to obsessing over other things. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

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Friday, November 07, 2003

will... not... submit... will... not...

It's sucking me in. I'm trying to resist, I really am. But do you know what I was doing as I was mixing biscuits tonight? I was thinking about an idea for a story. Now, I have not had an idea for a story since I was in, say, eleventh grade. And this is A Good Thing, it really is, because, well, my ideas for stories had always historically been quite hokey, except before eleventh grade I didn't know any better and would actually write the stories, which generally, well, sucked, in the usual way that stories written by pretentious adolescents suck. But tragically, we never manage to find that out until we've written these things, shown them around proudly, and grown up -- only to look back in horror and embarrassment at the trash written under the influence of that haze called teenagerhood. In my personal case, I went from writing horse stories about girls named Katrina with Appaloosas who entered horse shows (age 12), to writing thinly-veiled future-fantasy stories about myself, my boyfriend or crush at the time, and our children (age 15), to writing angst-ridden self-important "deep" stories about girls who fell in love with boys only to find that the boys could never love them back because of some serious problem (like AILT) (age 16). And of course there were others along the way, frequently with characters all coincidentally bearing the middle names of my friends and me, rocking out and styling and learning to drive and having cool no-parents parties and getting boyfriends and all that stuff. These are just some of the more memorable actual examples, stuff that I would write and then promptly envision as the featured piece in Redbook, with the subheading "Riveting Fiction by Youthful California Prodigy" or something like that. Even the imagined subheadings were cheesy, see? Anyway. As you can tell, it was the by the providence of a benevolent God that I stopped inflicting this stuff on the people around me, right? So why, WHY, do I feel compelled to start afresh, years later, when really, I know better?


OK, I've talked myself out of it again. If I keep this up, I'll be safe, because NaNoWriMo only runs through November (November being, of course the Mo in NaNoWriMo), and then the pressure will wear off.

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pictures of the boa

We just got a CD from my FIL of pictures from his birthday. Here are a couple of C with the infamous feather boa.

Close-up, with just the boa and the tiara




The whole ensemble. The pink blur to her left is the wand, which was being waved in a wandish sort of way.

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beautiful day today

If the weather could be like this every day, all year, it would be a perfect world. Well, at least weather-wise; I suppose even blissful blue skies with puffy white clouds during the day and rain every night wouldn't solve problems like sin and death and corruption and the IRS and all that. But it would be a good start.

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peer pressure

I will not. I will NOT do it! There is no novel inside me waiting to get out, I can't even think of a story to tell; I am NOT going to go (belatedly) join NaNoWriMo no matter how many other journalers do it, or how much fun they make it appear to be.


I think.

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Wednesday, November 05, 2003

shudder

Seen (several times) at Wal-Mart tonight: ATTENTION CUSTOMERS: HOLIDAY ITEMS MAY NOT BE RETURNED AFTER THE HOLIDAY FROM WHICH IT COINCIDES WITH. Ouch. That is all I can say.

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caution -- you will never look at Yoda the same again

If you are at all familiar with Jane Austen movie adaptations as well as Star Trek and/or Star Wars (or if, like me, you are obsessed with anything that involves Jane Austen's books or characters, and you have two family members who are likewise obsessed with Star Wars), you must visit this site: Galactic Jane Austen. My personal favorite is the Mr. Bennet one (not to give too much away). You decide for yourself, however.



Warning: empty bladder before visiting.

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starting my diet back at day 1

I haven't gained back the weight I'd lost, but after about a month of eating at a "maintain" level instead of a losing level, today is hell. I'm going back to my strict 1300-1400 calories/day plan, and OUCH, I am starving. It doesn't help that the kitchen is full of candy and chips, from the aforementioned heap-o-treats brought home by T. I keep seeing that box, with the Starbursts and Cheez-its on top, and it's taking every ounce of my willpower to avoid having "just one" -- or "just one at a time," which is more realistic. I am persevering, though. I'm trying to remember how great it felt to lose those 20 pounds, one day at a time, and also how it got to where it felt totally normal to eat more healthily. I have got to get those other 24 pounds off. I hope that by Christmas I'll have a good start on them.


Meanwhile I feel like I'm hollow inside. must not munch. must not munch.

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update:

well, sigh, I sort of caved. C wanted some White Cheddar Cheez-its, and I opened them for her. I looked at the back of the package and saw that the whole package only had 220 calories, so I ate a small handful -- probably not even a fourth of the package. Gotta just move on and put that one behind me... and forget how blissful and salty and crunchy those darn things tasted...

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Tuesday, November 04, 2003

today just sucked

If I were a swearing kind of person I would indulge right now. I have just had a hell of a day (that's about as raunchy as you're gonna hear from me. Except I do say/type "crap" with some frequency also). The previous post pretty much sums up my morning, and then the afternoon got even worse and things didn't really pick up till the evening, when T went out for takeout. Um, yeah, it was that bad, that cheap takeout was a huge pick-me-up.



Today C decided that she loved Daddy better than me. And showed it -- with a vengeance. I didn't do anything wrong -- but I didn't disappear for ten days and then come back with a heap-o-treats either (people who work on fires get famously loaded up with treat-ey goodness, in their lunches and stuff. T always saves his to bring home to the kids). Anyway, the shock of having her insist on DACY every time the possibility arose -- she even wiped off the kiss I put on her owie so that Daddy could kiss it -- was substantial, considering that for the past four years you would think, as far as she was concerned, that I hung the moon and stars just for her. Not that she didn't adore Daddy too -- but I was the healer of wounds, the recipient of kisses, the cuddler in bed. Now I'm apparently just that superfluous woman who lives in our house.



me bitter?



anyway. That wasn't even the worst part of my day. T was grumpy almost all day (something having to do with work, it turns out). I spent half the afternoon hiding myself away to cry and lick my wounds (crying literally, licking metaphorically). Then C and I went to take some chicken giblets (I was roasting a chicken, so as to have cooked chicken tomorrow for chicken enchiladas) to the neighbor's dog, whom C has always adored, and this ordinarily totally calm friendly meek dog bit her. My poor baby, she has scrapes on her face and her arm (which fortunately was inside her long sleeve, otherwise this would be way worse, I think), and bruises, and a newfound terror of dogs, live and in person or otherwise. And I'm afraid she'll have nightmares.



All in all, I'm glad this day is over and I dearly hope tomorrow will be better.

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real value

Bacon, eggs, gravy mix, sausage, milk, and OJ for family's favorite meal: $14.00

Time involved from shopping to starting the dishwasher: 3 1/2 hours

Spending 20 minutes watching everyone bicker ungraciously with each other while eating it: priceless

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Monday, November 03, 2003

lego-mania

We just got back from an impromptu trip to the toy store (oh, and a whole bunch of other places too, but really, what else matters?). So now, not only is the floor behind my chair strewn with Lego creations awaiting the big Daddy Vs. Son Lego Battle tomorrow morning, but the table also the site of much Lego-mania. Both "boys" (one age 7, the other 33) got new kits tonight. T got one with his hero and alter ego, Darth Vader. They're discussing how they're going to destroy each other in the battle tomorrow. I think half the reason T wanted a son first (which he got) was so that he would have less time to wait before he'd have an excuse to play with Legos. And we haven't even made the trip up to his mother's yet, to get the much-discussed ICE CHEST FULL OF LEGOS which was T's when he was a boy (we did, however, get about a bushel of them -- that's a small laundry basket worth, people -- at a flea market last summer for $3. Yes, $3. T gloated about that one for at least a month). I foresee a thousand-mile-each-way trip in our near future.

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inundated by punk flamingo feathers

Yesterday we went to my father-in-law's house to celebrate his birthday; my brother-in-law and his wife were also there, and they brought presents for my kids since they had missed their birthday parties this year. C got a dress-up set -- shiny pink shoes with fuzzy feather trim, a beaded, beribboned, glittery wand, likewise with feather trim, a tiara (with beads and "jewels", but alas, no feathers), a frilly little skirt, and the pièce de résistance -- a 4-foot-long vivid pink feather boa. This is C's newest Princess Outfit, and periodically she puts it all on and parades around in a princess-like manner, gathering accolades left and right, posing for pictures, you name it (gotta teach her that wave, her public would love that). The one drawback of this get-up, aside from the fact that C's head is getting so inflated that she'll soon have to give up passing through doorways, is that the feather boa sheds feathers in a really most magnificent manner. Everywhere you look in this house, you see bright-pink-with-magenta-tips feathers. Adhered to the carpet, floating through the air, skidding gracefully across the hardwood, collecting in corners -- they're everywhere. It's like a troop of punk flamingoes took up residence for a few days and then left in a hurry. Minus the really stinky droppings.


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feather update: I think they're surreptitiously breeding. Surely there are more of them loose than can possibly have been part of the boa -- and the boa is still just as poofy and full as ever. At this rate, by this evening we'll be buried in feathers, like Pat Boone and James Mason in that eiderdown warehouse in "Journey to the Center of the Earth".

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Saturday, November 01, 2003

He's coming home!

T called tonight and said that he is coming home on Monday. I am so totally jazzed. Only two more "sleeps".

It's ironic in a frustrating way, the things that have gone wrong while he's been gone. His two areas of emphasis in his job life have been electronics/telecommunications (in the Navy and for the past 2 1/2 years at his current job) and automotive mechanics (his teenage job and nine years as an adult in a machine shop). And what are the two things that wait till he's gone to break? Our phone system on Thursday, and now, today, our car. After a phone consultation, our theory about the car is is (you don't live with a mechanic for 9 1/2 years without learning a good deal of stuff by osmosis, so yes, it is our theory ;-) that it's either the fuel pump or the starter. It turns over and over and over but never starts. Yesterday it did this also, but just at the last possible moment before I would have to stop trying to start it, in order to save the battery from being completely wiped out, it started, and then proceeded to start just fine every time we needed it to for the rest of the night. Today, when we were heading out to my parents' house for my grandmother's birthday party, we weren't so lucky. So I have the loan of my parents' van until T has time to fix the problem. At least, for once, this happened when we have ready money for parts, thanks to the overtime he's been slaving away at for the past week.

Good news though -- I bought myself two pairs of size 12 jeans yesterday and they fit, they really fit! I actually am officially a size 12! That's a number I'm glad to see -- especially if it's on its way to a 10, but hey, even on its own merits I'll take it gladly in exchange for the 14s I was busting out of this summer. I had been putting off buying or trying on any clothes in stores, because I was afraid of that awful feeling when the size you think you should be buying doesn't fit. But I only had one pair of long pants that actually fit me well, so it was time to buy some more. I got them at Goodwill, for $2 a pair. Go me. :) (also a red ribbed turtleneck for $2 which I think suits me nicely. I love Goodwill).

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