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Monday, February 06, 2006

things that are not working out for me right now

• My diet. I ate not one but two large chocolate milkshakes yesterday. Hey, I was sick, it was sick-person food. Right? I felt like a ton of bricks when I went to bed, I'll just say that.

• The darn woodstove. Free heat my eye. For that to mean anything I have to be able to actually light a fire. I think the wood must be wet. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Meanwhile it's quite chilly in here. Of course it might help if I changed out of the capri pants and tank top I wore to sleep in last night.

• DPChallenge. Remember, the photography contest site with which I was so infatuated for a few months. I can't please those people a-tall now. Every photo I enter scores well below average. I refuse to believe that my photography is that bad; I'm just going to assume that it's just not the dpchallenge style. Presto! Self-respect is rescued. ;) It does kind of suck the fun out of taking pictures if I'm doing it for a bunch of people who are going to hate them, so I think I may give up that site for a while and just take pictures for myself, and maybe the photo blog, where at least if people don't like it they keep their mouths shut about it and don't give me a 3 on a scale from 1 to 10 just to make sure I know how lame I am.

• Blogging. Everything I would write about, I've already covered in extensive (or perhaps I should say excessive) detail -- housework or the lack of it, the kids and how they are or are not getting along, our Bible reading and whether we do or do not (usually the latter) do it every day, etc. I don't think I want to close this down -- where else would I post my books each month? -- but I think I'm just going to have to come to accept that anything over one or two posts a week is going to be the exception.
  

The good news is, though, that everything else is going just fine right now. Rather boring, but just fine. :)

Friday, January 20, 2006

what the doctor ordered

You know what I'd forgotten about myself? That for all my gregarious blabbermouth tendencies, I'm actually an introvert, if you define an introvert as someone who finds refreshment in solitude -- and solitude has been in short supply lately around here, since staying up late can't count because of all the darned guilt.

Today, though, I drove to Yosemite, thanks to dpchallenge.com (I am totally dpchallenge's slave). I went by myself, because Jenn couldn't come up after all, and T had the day off and never sets foot in Yosemite unless he has to (and he frequently does have to, since he, er, works there), and why torture the kids with one of Mom's photography trips if it's not absolutely necessary, right? And it was perfect. The park's quiet this time of year, and largely empty, and there was snow, and solitude, and silence, and I didn't have to worry about pestering any companions with my frequent shutter-junkie fixes. I took about two hundred and twenty pictures (lots of bracketing; I think I kept about forty of them, maybe fifty). I hiked about two and a half miles; I stopped to take pictures whenever I wanted to, and I took as long as I wanted to before moving on. I set up my tripod and I tried different lenses and I bracketed and I stood and just stared, and thought, and smiled. And I listened to The Four Seasons, and "Winter" was just starting as I crossed the Pohono Bridge coming into a frosty, snowy valley, and I got an Anne-Shirley-ish 'queer ache' and I almost cried.

I feel so much better. Now if only those elves would show up and do all that laundry for me....

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Dismantled, by the numbers

• Height of our Christmas tree, in feet: 4 1/2
• Number of strings of lights on said tree: 5 (not short ones, either)
• Number of branches disconnected from the base by our cat who discovered the joy of climbing up the fake trunk: I neglected to count; I'd guess 8 (so roughly 1/3)
• Ornament casualties (not counting those that were broken before it was time to start taking it apart): 5
• Knowing that your husband is snickering with glee over having got out of taking the dratted Christmas tree apart for yet another year: priceless.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

I. Hate. Fresno.

But you know, today it really wasn't that bad. Even though we had hoped to go to the zoo, but couldn't. (It doesn't help that the zoo is only open five hours a day in the winter.) We all had gift certificates and Christmas money to spend, and I bought three books. I made a vow that I would not buy classics -- I always end up buying classics when I have bookstore money, because I want to buy something I haven't read but know for sure I want to own anyway. This time I just bought books that I've read before, but that I want to read again (and again and again): The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (I wonder if her publishers asked her to consider a pseudonym? my goodness, that's hard to spell), Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes (which I've had from the library three times, I think), and A Thread of Grace, which is the best new book I've read in years. Have you read it yet? Didn't I tell you to read it? Get on it! (All except Mary, who already did as she was told and thanked me for ordering her around in such a bossy manner. Well, sort of. Mary, you may relax and feel superior now.)

Also we got new tires put on our car. Whoopee. Can't you sense the excitement just coming off me in waves. AND we ran into my parents, in a huge Wal-Mart many miles from home, as they were on their way home from an overnight in [heavenly chord] Morro Bay. Me, envious? (Oh, you know I am. The waves were up to the dunes again and I missed it. Sob.)

Lastly: This is far too much fun. My new advertising slogan:

I am totally putting that on my business cards.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

snippets

Let's see how many snippets I can type before T finishes setting up LT's computer game:

1) Yesterday I wore eyeliner (family took me out to dinner because of my birthday) for the first time since my wedding on March 19, 1994.

2) Speaking of birthday: If you had told me when I was ten years old that I would someday not find it an eternity between Christmases, I would maybe have believed you. I might even have gone along with it if you'd said that I wouldn't always think Christmas was the be-all and end-all, best day of the year hands down. However, if you'd told me that I would ever be unbelievably glad to see the end of the Holy Grail of days -- I'd have laughed in your face. Maybe even until Christmas Eve of this year. Not anymore. Ack. C was sick and was totally unenthusiastic about all her presents (including the matching nightgowns for herself and her brand-new doll who also came with a really enormous horse), T and I got in an argument, I went to sleep crying. Yippee.

3) The day after was much, much better.

4) I have only read three books this month so far. All of them were written by Beverly Cleary. I blame the typing jobs and the sewing projects.

5) A waterbath is THE ANSWER to a crackless cheesecake. I swear, the moment I removed a crack-free cheesecake from the oven was among the most triumphant of my life. Granted, my life has not exactly been what one would call overly triumphant in general. But still.

6) LT got Star Wars Trivial Pursuit from his paternal grandparents for Christmas. So far we've played it twice -- the whole family -- with tonight's game being a rematch, because guess who inexplicably lost the first time. It wasn't me, even though I don't know a blockade runner from a hole in the ground. (He was vindicated.)

And the answer to the question above is apparently 6. Good night all; I'm heading for bed with a Jane Austen book.

Friday, December 16, 2005

a snapshot of my life of late

• A few days ago I took my flute out of its case (to take a picture of it, not to play it, sigh, bad me). The flute is now on the piano tray and Mary has found that my open flute case, on top of the piano, is a fantastic place to hang out where that pesky new cat Elizabeth (who is really a darling, but you have to look at it from the big-sister point of view here) will leave her alone. If I ever do take up the flute again, I'll likely be finding cat hairs in it for the rest of its life.

• Sewing all night (well, till the wee sma's) + transcribing all day = one major crick in my back, right between my shoulder blades. (sympathy cards and backrubs can be sent to Rachel at 123 Pity Party Way.)

• I have been mulling over Psalm 4. I keep thinking that in between the cooking and cleaning and transcribing and sewing and picture-taking and cat-brushing and child-minding and home-schooling and just about every other hyphenated task you can think of, I would sit down and do a nice Kristen-style exegetical post about it. At the rate things are going, that might happen sometime in 2008. The parts that have been sticking in my brain like play-dough in the carpet (add play-dough-making to the list above) are: the bit about "in your anger, do not sin." I guess that would mean, "In your anger, do not go ballistic and frighten your children with the yelling," wouldn't it. Ouch. And also, on a more cheerful note:
  

  
  6 Many are asking, "Who can show us any good?" Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD. 7 You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound.
  8 I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.
  

  
  Which means, in plain Rachel-ese: Sometime life seems really rough. But God, He's good. He gives us lots of joy if we know where to look, and also peace, if we know to whom to look. Easy to forget that, in all the stress, sometimes.

• I have discovered that December is a very, very bad time to decide that I want fresh green beans. You'd think a society that could put a man on the moon could grow green beans that didn't cost an arm and a leg, even off-season. But no.

• I found the bottom of my laundry hamper the other day. High fives all around! Unfortunately, I lost it again in short order. BUT I KNOW IT'S DOWN THERE. I might even find it again, when the kids are grown, or maybe when we go to move out of this house, whichever comes sooner.

• In the space of about a week, T acquired about ten hours of Mopar-related documentary programs on DVD. This means that even if I had time to watch a DVD, I couldn't, because it's always Mopar time.

• This is the two and a half weeks of the year when T is six years older than me. Funny how I thought he was so old and mature when I was twenty and he was 25. In four short years he'll be forty, which I thought was ripe middle age when my dad hit it. Obviously I was totally wrong.

• Speaking of T, he has the week after Christmas off work (his boss actually let him use his use or lose this year. Doesn't mean I have to start liking the man.) We are going to spend the time puttering around the house and maybe traveling as far as the zoo one day. In other words, we're going to have a truly relaxing (and truly cheap) vacation. Look at me trying to convince myself I don't want to go to the beach and spend our retirement. (Seriously, I am genuinely looking forward to ten days of having the family together with nothing pressing to do. Really I am.)

• I came home from grocery shopping yesterday evening and left a five-pound container of sour cream to sit on the counter till morning. Did I mention that thanks to our woodstove, the front part of our house is about 85 degrees at night? I am SO SMART. Sometimes I just amaze myself.

  
  
  

************EDITED TO ADD***********

While I was typing this entry, there was a lot of very secretive shuffling going on in our house. T and LT took off on a mysterious trip to the store and brought me back a bag of Jolly Ranchers (for transcribing, of course), but would not disclose their other purchases. Then there were many secretive looks and whispered conversations, and it was decided that C should take a bath. Meanwhile I'm whining and moaning about wasted sour cream, right? About the time I was starting to really know something was probably up, I was escorted into the bathroom where the three of them had set up a bubble bath (my husband bought Calgon at the grocery store. For that, if nothing else, he deserves a Husband of the Year medal, no?), complete with candles and a warm, neatly folded towel, and Chanticleer on the CD player. The kids came and sang Christmas carols outside the door, which, it later turned out, was a cover for the sound of the mixer, as T was making brownies to serve with my Dulce de Leche ice cream.

You are free to say 'awwww' now. (I am still smiling.)

Friday, December 02, 2005

What we do at Christmas

We don't have a whole lot of rich, deep, from-our-childhoods Christmas traditions. Well, we don't have any. But we do have these:

1) Movies. We have a few Christmas movies, and we take turns choosing which one to sit down as a family and watch. It's my turn next and I'm going to pick It's a Wonderful Life, even though I never really think of it as a Christmas movie. It's just an excuse to force everyone to sit and watch it with me. And I always, always start to cry as soon as Uncle Billy comes in with the basket of money, and I don't stop until the end music.

2) Speaking of music, I get to pick out a new Christmas music CD every year. This dates from our first married Christmas. Last year I got Chanticleer's Sing We Christmas, and I've no idea how I'm ever going to top that. I probably can't.

3) We set up the tree on the evening of the day after Thanksgiving, and take it down on New Year's Day or New Year's Eve.

4) The newest, and our favorite: the nightly ornament. We bought two packages of plain burgundy glass ornaments last year, and we numbered them 1-25 with a gold paint marker. We put a verse reference relating in one way or another to the Incarnation on each one, and then each evening from December 1st through Christmas Eve, we read and discuss the verse from the appropriately-numbered ornament, and one of the kids puts the ornament on the tree. On Christmas morning, the reference is from Luke 2. Tonight's was Isaiah 9:6, which I always want to sing, because I'm nerdy that way.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Oh no. It's after eleven and she's updating. You know what THAT means.

I do tend to get a little rambly late at night, for those of you who might be new. You've been warned.

I just cut my bangs and I think I bungled them a bit. Good news: they'll grow out fast. Bad news: they still have to be on the front of my face while I wait for that to happen. Sigh. Usually I do pretty decently at it but I wasn't in the proper frame of mind for it tonight, and they just NEEDED to be done. I always swore, thanks to unpleasant childhood experiences, that if I couldn't cut my daughter's bangs (assuming at the time that I ever had a daughter, which of course I do now) in a way that looked OK, I would take her to a professional, every month if need be. Fortunately, T did not have to take out a second job to cover our child's haircuts, but I do live in fear of someday inflicting One Of Those Bangs Jobs on poor little C.

Thank you to all who posted clapping rhymes in response to my last entry. C and I are having a great time, and I have the Joanna Cole book on hold at the library -- thank you, Courtney, for bringing that to my attention. Because we all know I need more books to read.

Speaking of books, I'm currently reading Bee Season, because someone told me it was about a girl who won spelling bees, and I wanted to look for any uncanny similarities between my experiences and hers. There are none. Except that [drumroll please, maestro] the little protagonist sees words in her head, just as I do! Sometimes in neon! I am not alone in this world!

I had a frantic kind of day today. I baked an apple pie AND a cake, I made thank you cards for our AWANA club leaders, I became increasingly frustrated with how easily the house gets messy and how hard it is to get it clean, I did not get a check in the mail from the person (I will restrict myself to neutral nouns to represent this individual, but I want to go on record saying how difficult that is for me to do) who misused my picture in his magazine. Along about 4:30 I began to realize that I was going to be in trouble about dinner because I had nothing thawed, and was probably going to have to fall back again on pancakes which UGH I AM SO TIRED OF, when my dad called and asked if we wanted a pizza. I think someone was praying for me. If I had unorthodox beliefs about angels, I would say that my dad is an angel in overalls and a cowboy hat, but since I know that that's not likely to be the case, I'll just say 'yay' for having parents whom I would choose as friends even if I weren't related to them. And also to God, who was so nice to whisper in my dad's ear about that pizza. But we were still half an hour late for AWANA, sigh. It's not our fault that they schedule a meeting at a location half an hour from our house that starts forty-five minutes after my husband gets home from work.

I am SO HUNGRY but since I accidentally caught a glimpse of myself in these accidentally-form-fitting pajamas on my way out of the bathroom after messing up my bangs, I am going to content myself with a glass of water. Or I'll at least try to convince myself to be content, and fail. I have had two friends in the past week mention that they were having problems because they don't weigh enough. At least I'm a big enough person (hardy har har) not to be jealous about this. Much. ;) If I ran the world there would be some way for me to give them a few of my pounds. I have plenty to share.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

the rattling contents of my cranium

These are a small sampling of the sorts of things that have been rattling around in my mind over the past 24 hours -- a mental snapshot, if you will.

(Speaking of snapshots -- I almost made a very Freudian typo there, and I'll let you figure out what it was -- I feel like I will never take another decent photograph as long as I live. I have the amateur photographer's version of writer's block. It's painful.)

*********

thing one: I realized today, when I was humming "One Special Boy" from Bye Bye Birdie, a show I haven't seen since I was in its pit combo in high school, that at that time (high school) I don't think I ever actually grasped that that song is pretty much a parody of teenaged girls and their obsession with Going Steady. I thought it was a serious song. That's because I was, as one classmate once informed me, book-smart but life-stupid. Also, I was a teenaged girl obsessed with Going Steady. Hey, at least I knew "How Lovely to Be A Woman" was a joke, right?

**********

thing two: T and I, like most people, have come up with several name-based descriptions for certain types of behaviors. We have a name for people who are whiny, attention-seeking hypochondriacs, for people who are very neurotic about food, for people who call in sick to work every Monday, for people who think work is more important than life itself, for people who tune you out while you're talking to them, and so on, all based on real people we have known for whom these activities were, well, characteristic, shall we say. And that got me thinking about what "pulling a Rachel" might be. I have no illusions about this. As much as I would like a Rachel to be, oh, I dunno, being a good and creative mother, or having a perfectly Biblical response to a stressful situation with my husband, or coming up with a brilliant rejoinder in a debate, or something of that laudatory sort, I know that this is not the case. No, a person has pulled a Rachel when he or she has done something utterly, ridiculously, embarrassingly absent-minded. Like putting his or her head in a rotating ceiling fan, or tripping over the coffee table, or saying "excuse me" to the dog and expecting the dog to get out of the way, or leaving her purse in a Kentucky Fried Chicken across the state and not realizing it until she goes to unlock the door at home, thus necessitating a six-hour drive in the pouring rain the next day with a screaming carsick infant. Not that I've ever necessarily done these things (ahem). But I am fully confident that there are people who have actually used my name in relation to this sort of bumbling inadequacy. Because that is how cool I am.

**************

thing three is a little story. Once there was a woman who took a pretty decent picture of Half Dome and its reflection in the Merced River, framed around Sentinel Bridge. She gave a print of this picture to her father-in-law, for his realty office, and a guy who published a travel magazine saw the picture and asked the father-in-law if he thought the photographer would let him run it in an article about Yosemite, with a photo credit. The father-in-law told him to call the woman and ask her, and the publisher did, and the woman said, "OK, but please send me a copy of the magazine in which you use it." The publisher didn't even say thank you after he got the picture, let alone send a magazine to the woman, so the woman figured he'd decided not to use it, except that he did. In an advertisement for which the woman later found out he was paid a four-figure sum. So after thinking about it for a while, and after much encouragement from several different people, the woman sent him a bill. Yesterday. The woman is not totally sure she didn't do something pretty pointless and maybe stupid, and yet the woman has also already mentally spent the imagined money.

Monday, October 24, 2005

the GUILT

Well, I can talk again. (Sorry, everyone.) The unfortunate thing is, though, that now I actually think I am, you know, SICK. With a cough, and this whole sinusy thing going, and stuff. And the REALLY unfortunate thing is that over the weekend, our friends brought their miracle baby for a visit.

Which would, of course, NOT be an unfortunate thing at all (isn't she adorable?), except that they arrived just as I went from sounding kind of cool and hoarse like Bonnie Raitt or Colleen Dewhurst, through having, I dunno, scalding coffee poured directly down my throat every time I tried to speak, and landed on "nothing comes out but whispers no matter how hard I try but at least it's not painful" (but they left well before this morning's arrival at "hit by a Mack truck"). So not only did I spend their entire visit whispering, scribbling notes, and attempting to croak out words... I also possibly gave them and their ten-month-old this miserable yuck (although I was careful not to touch the baby or their things and I never did get a fever and I washed my hands every time I moved and look at me trying to justify myself!).

Go ahead, you can despise me now, like the mom who drops off her green-snot-nosed child in the church nursery and swears it's "just allergies", like the parents who send their kids to school sick and contagious because they can't get the day off work, like everyone else who heedlessly infects innocent cherubs with vile illnesses. Your loathing for me will be nothing compared to mine, I assure you.

And with that I'm going to take my cough, my guilt, and a box of tissues back to bed for a while. I feel a "writing assignment, free reading and math worksheet" school day coming on.

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