milk and cake

birds and bees and all that jazz

2012-02-04T12:19:00.000-07:00

i feel like as far as being a step-parent goes, i do an okay job. the kids and i get along, i take the parenting that i do seriously, we are a happy little family. i have days, though, where i think "i'm totally supposed to be here" because i realize that i have skills that my husband doesn't.

case in point; yesterday i came home from work and while D and i were in the kitchen fixing after-work chelada's, he very quietly told me the boychik and his girlfriend had been home alone for a big chunk of the day and that when he came home she was putting her socks on. he put those words in italics, i swear. he got even quieter, and said, "jesus christ, i hope they don't make a baby." i asked him if he'd talked to the boychik about that, if the kid knew how he felt. now i think D is a boss dad; he never once wavered in his dedication to the kids, he doesn't bitch about the years he spent being a single dad, he didn't jut give this kids to his folks when their mom bailed. however, when i asked him if he'd talked to the boychik about sex stuff, he positively blanched. i told him, "wait here. just give me five minutes. i'll be back."

i'm not going to say those were the best five minutes of my life, or that i was smooth and suave and we had a hallmark moment, but thanks to all the sex-ed teaching i did in college i got through it mostly on auto-pilot. if there is one thing i know, it's where to get free condoms and birth control. so we talk. i try to explain that more than anything, i just want him to know he has options and that he's got his whole life ahead of him, and that birth control isn't just his girlfriend's responsibility. at the same time, i don't really know if they are doing it, or if they've talked about it, or what, but if they are, they need the information and if they aren't, they're going to need it someday, right? the boychik was cool about the whole thing, aside from some serious blushing he actually said out loud to me, "i know you just want what's best for me." which is what it all boils down to. i told him about the laws in WA about plan B, i told him that not having a baby is so much cheaper than having a baby, i told him that as excited as i will be when he has a kid and i get to be a grandma/nana/gangy, i'm hoping that doesn't happen for a while. we both agreed that babies are awesome, but not right now.

then i asked my husband to take me out to dinner, and he hugged me and told me i was his hero. i don't think this is the last talk about s-e-x we'll have, but i think it sets a good precedent. i also think i grew three new grey hairs last night.

thinking about spring

2012-01-29T23:40:00.000-07:00

today D and i got to spend some time goofing off and wandering around town together, going to hardware stores and grocery stores, making plans for home improvements and gardening in the spring. earlier this year we got this beautiful catalog from baker creek seeds, and we've been looking through it and reading books about backyard gardens. well, to be honest, i've been reading the books, D already knows how to garden. he grew up on a working farm, so in some ways gardening is a lot less romantic for him than it is for me. our plan, lofty as it is, is to start kind of small this year; a simple square foot garden, basic veggies, figuring out how good or terrible our soil is and whether or not i have a black thumb. eventually, we'd like to be able to turn much of our front and back yard into edible landscape. we've been making an effort this year to eat greener, more locally, and incorporate way more veggies into our diet. being able to grow our own food is kind of a natural extension of that, i think. that isn't to say that i'm going to go full-time hippie mama, i just think it makes sense to use the land we are fortunate enough to have to do something other than grow grass. gardens used to be an important part of home life, and now many people can't even tell you when fruits and veggies are in season. we eat bananas that have giant carbon footprints and tomatoes that have no taste. i'm not saying that i'm never going to eat another tropical fruit or enjoy the occasional hamburger, but i think those should be special occasion things.

in any case, i'm excited about trying my hand at growing stuff, we have a million ideas for the back and side yard (we're going to encroach on the front yard slowly to acclimate the neighbors), and i think so far i've actually been pragmatic about all this. i bought very few veggie seeds; i don't know how good i'll be at starting plants from seeds, and am more than okay with building the beds and then using starts for most everything. i haven't bought anything too crazy yet (although i did splurge on chinese long beans and tiny, thai eggplant), and i understand that there's a good chance i won't grow a lot of things well, if at all. i'm excited about trying, though. i love that i have a house that give me the opportunity to try this. i love that my husband is as gung-ho about it as i am. hanging out with him today, making lists and plans and schematics was a blast. even if i end up growing some sad lettuce and sickly beans, i know i'll have fun, and will learn enough to make next year's garden better.

how can you not love this face?

2012-01-13T13:01:00.000-07:00

moreover, how could not love this voice? meet my latest secret jewish boyfriend, eugene mirman. in the immortal words of troy mcClure, you may know him from his work on bob's burgers (he's the voice of gene), delocated, or from his stand up. if you know him from any of that, you know he's funny, and for your friend amanda, that's usually all it takes to become my secret jewish boyfriend. (well, that and you have to be one of the chosen people.) check out the video below, and tell me you don't find him both adorable and hilarious.

Jokes.com

Eugene Mirman - Accept Me as Your God

comedians.comedycentral.com

Eugene Mirman

Comedians

Stand-Up

hee hee heee!

being poor the day before payday

2012-01-12T22:55:00.000-07:00

is always the worst, isn't it? you think about stuff you need to do, look over the grocery list (toilet paper, ramen, eggs, rice, hot sauce) and realize you can't go buy RAMEN and feel like a total jackass. all of this is hopefully changing though, since a) i have a new job with new and improved paychecks and b) the husband and i are working on a budget and saving some money. i've always been kind of carefree (read: moronic) with money, so this will be new. i sparked my ING savings account back up, set it up for automatic deposits, and have been actively watching my money. the reason i'm so poor right this second is that i went out with a friend the other night, which i always forget is soooo expensive, even in the not-too-exciting town i live in, and i owed D for the computer we bought the boychik for xmas. i'm not neglecting-the-children poor, but definitely not-doing-anything-fun poor.

i'm also sick, which is annoying. i took the day off work because i was so phlemy and my throat hurt, which is lame when you spend all day on the phone. i slept, read, slept some more, and watched some stand up comedy on netflix, and then slept. i'm awake now which means i'll be up all night. oh, the horror. maybe i'll take my laptop to bed and see what i can do about that. (that sounded dirty but i didn't mean it dirty!) the nice thing about being sick is that the cat spends all day with me when i do nothing but lounge supreme. i kept waking up to her licking me and kneading my blankets. nothing makes a girl feel better than some serious cat time. oh, and ramen with an egg poached in it. man, that always hits the spot.

ask a mortician

2012-01-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

have you see this lady? i love her little videos! i was always a morbid kid, grew into a morose teenager, grew further into a weirdo grown-up and did things like take classes called "death and dying" and became fascinated with stuff like victorian mourning jewelry, real bone china, and cemetery laws. so yes, i love this.

watching these videos, reading her blog, makes me want to write a few of my own stories. i think in general americans don't speak of death enough, we try to avoid talking about it, mentioning it, thinking about it, and end up totally unprepared for it and devastated when it happens to us. which is ironic, seeing as it happens to all of us. it's the only thing we all have in common, besides birth. why not consider it on occasion?

things we call the cat

2012-01-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

by no means an exhaustive list:

LuLu
lulu-bean
lu-bot
lulu kitten
kitten face
baby cat
we like to sing this in the style of crazy train, "lulu, lulu, lulu, lulu, ai-ai-aieeee."
kitten pants
lu-pants
oh my lulu, oh my lulu, oh my luuu-lu, lulu pants.

rocking out with youtube

2012-01-09T21:48:00.000-07:00

sometimes my little family and i poke around on youtube watching random videos, talking about songs we like, and rocking out in general. on tonight's playlist so far,

of course, we like to find versions of the song we danced to first at our wedding, and so far this is our favorite,

tonight we were digging on things kind of psychedelic as well, like donovan,

and last, but not least, grace slick looking amazing and kicking ass at woodstock.

god, i want a perm so bad now.

not such a lazy sunday

2012-01-08T14:21:00.002-07:00

things i have already gotten done today; took out the trash, took out the recycling, took out the compost (and mixed in some nice dirt and worms and turned the whole she-bang), mopped the kitchen, vacuumed the stairs, did a load of laundry and ate a slice of pizza. whew. to be honest, i'm taking a wee break from all the cleaning and organizing, and if there is a better procrastination tool than blogging, i don't know what it is. (oh wait, it might be watching cartoons.)

the last two weeks i've done some overtime at work. nothing too major, adding on about half an hour to forty-five minutes each day, but this week when they offered it i declined it. i might change my mind half way through the week, we'll see, but my brain feels overloaded lately and i think a regular work week will get me back to feeling normal. it's not that the job suddenly got harder, it's just that there is so much to learn. seriously. i don't think anyone ever gets to the point where they can just quote benefits and deductibles and stoploss like no big deal. plus, the beginning of the year sees a lot of folks with new plans calling for information, and we have been swamped. you sit down, log into your phone, and you talk for eight hours straight. one day i actually talked so much my throat hurt, and had to get a cup of hot tea, like some fancy-pants diva. i think dialing down the amount of time i'm at work right now is okay, even though i feel a bit guilty not taking the extra money. i suppose it all evens out, and in the end what i want more than a giant paycheck is to come home and not feel fried.

D and i are tackling the household chores today like gang busters, so i have a feeling tonight after dinner it will be super easy for us to fall asleep. he hasn't been sleeping too well lately, and i've been trying a new mouth guard for my bruxism, which to be honest, i don't know is working that well. i'm trying a smaller piece, in the hopes that it won't make me drool as much and feel so uncomfortable around my lips, but the flip side to that is the piece feels smaller, and i think i clench my jaw all night trying to keep it in place. yeah, i'm not grinding my teeth, but i'm waking up with a sore jaw every day. i think with our new insurance i'm going to go ahead and have a real mouth guard made at the dentist. i know they cost an arm and a leg, but hopefully it will feel better.

technically, NOT resolutions

2012-01-02T10:53:00.000-07:00

at the risk of turning this into a house-blog, here is a list of things i would like to do to my home this year!

paint my bedroom. i bought a really lovely, icy shade of pale blue for the walls but have yet to actually paint them. currently the shade down there is a green like cheap chocolate chip mint ice cream, and while it's not the worst, it's not the best.
either buy or create a new duvet cover. i'm not too girly, but one of the things i've always loved is matching bed clothes. i like a nicely put together bed, and when i was single, that was easy to achieve because i only bought red or pink stuff for the bed. D has never once complained (or spent much time thinking about) about sheets not matching duvet covers, but i've done my best to get rid of all the pink and move into neutral colors. plus, pink is grand, but i'm also growing up a little and am digging on a soothing palate in the bedroom. long story short: we need a new duvet cover and some sheets.
paint the living room. the walls turned out to be very barely pink, which we not have noticed had i not used a very cool shade of yellow in the kitchen. i know that the color "warms" a space up, but i hate it. it's such a trivial thing, really, and we're living with it and i'm not going crazy, but i don't like it and want to change it. i also want to paint the trim in here and cover up the wood on the sills and fireplace mantle with a bright white. i want clean, modern backgrounds with which to populate with my crazy colorful stuff.
rugs! i want some area rugs. to delineate space as well as protect our carpets.
that downstairs family room is amazing, but needs to be cleaned, organized, and made livable. there's so much to do down there that i'm going to leave it at that.
i'm also going to ask my husband very nicely to make me some built-in bookshelves. there's some space in the upstairs hallway that's begging to be used!
outside, i'm looking forward to doing a little gardening. nothing too big or ambitious this year; a nice small bed of veggie will do just fine. i want to get started though, and see how well the soil does here.

it will be interesting to see if anything on this list gets done this year, and what things not on my list do get done. overall, as long as the roof doesn't sprout a leak and a giant sinkhole doesn't eat the house, i'll be happy. (i'll just be happier once the living room walls don't look so geriatric and boring.)

happy new year!

2012-01-01T10:08:00.000-07:00

my resolution this year is to not make any resolutions, except for the following: hang around the house more. 2011 was BUSY, you know? we got married, we moved, i got a new job, one of the kids is in their last year of high school and one is making the transition into teen-dom, and all i want for the next year is to relax and spend more time with them. i want to work on the house a bit, do some painting, get the rest of the boxes either unpacked or set on fire. this sounds ridiculous and hokey, but i want to make the house more comfortable and cozy, and more "us." it's already awesome, don't get me wrong, but the family room we never use because it's not very inviting looking, my nook is overwhelmed with stuff, i have a whole lot of clothes i never wear taking up space, etc. isn't there always a laundry list of things you'd like to do in the house? i would like to work on saving money this year too, but i'm afraid of saying that out loud. i'm thinking i'll go ahead and get an account at a bank i'll never use, and start socking money away in there. or something. i have a coffee can that might work as well...

regardless of resolutions, i had a wonderful 2011, i'm looking forward to a quieter 2012, and am wishing you and yours the very best. the new year always feel so good, so hopeful, like the first sheet of blank paper in a journal or sketch pad, you know? i'm going to just enjoy the possibilities, and try to make the most of it.

the stockings are actually not hung by the chimney with care

2011-12-24T10:47:00.000-07:00

but not because i'm a grinch! i'm not sure how to hang them up there without them falling down once full. i think they'll end up being stockings laid before the chimney with care, if that's okay with you.

the shopping is all done (aside from maybe an eyeliner or two i should buy the girlchild), cookies and festive breads have been baked, all our plans for the next few days have been made and confirmed, and now it's just all about trying to show up on time and vacuuming the living room. i got a four day weekend, which is exciting, and i spent yesterday napping and goofing off, which felt amazing. for whatever reason i got a lot of medicare calls this week, and medicare is kind of confusing to everybody. it's a subject that definitely taxes my brain.

work is going well, though. i feel like i'm getting to a point now where i'm not so overwhelmed that i come home and go to bed early. i feel more confident about what i'm doing, and have gotten some positive feedback from my bosses. i had a QC call last week (where they listen to a recording of a call a few times and take notes to give you) that went very well, and the monitor actually told me that she liked how comfortable i sounded on the phone. "you sound like you've been doing this for a lot longer than you have been." i always want to reply like jon lovitz on snl, "acting!" honestly, i figure it can't hurt to at least sound like i know what i'm doing, and no one needs to know how new i am. i feel good at this job; it feels like a place where you're always learning new things, like there are all sorts of opportunities, and like they honestly give a shit about their employees. it's so refreshing.

i feel like things are going well, both at work and at home. i love my little house, my little family, and am looking forward to the next few days. i hope you all have a great holiday, whatever you celebrate, and if i don't get back to you before january, happy new year!

cubey love

2011-12-15T23:05:00.000-07:00

i love my cubicle. i love that it's mine, a little space for me and my phone and my computer, and i love that the company i work for outfits us all with two computer monitors. you have no idea how much easier that makes my job. one one screen i have the main program we use to look up information on, and on the other i have all the research tools loaded. i can go back and forth like no one's business and it's amazing. the tech geek in me surges with joy when i see those two screens waiting for me in the morning.

not to sound like i'm already drinking company kool-aid, i also love that my cubicle is surrounded by people with more experience than i have. i actually had a co-worker come over today to show me something that i missed, and she wasn't a dick about it. she just overheard me and knew that she could show me a shortcut, and so she came over and did. when i'm working i can hear what other people are saying, i can look stuff up that i didn't already know, i get a better idea how of how to do things. the atmosphere at this particular cube farm is seriously friendly, and i wasn't expecting that. it's just nice. i know that makes me sound like pollyanna, but it's true.

i do have one teensy, tiny, barely there beef, though. you didn't expect all ponies and sunshine, did you? you know that trainer i had that was kind of eye-rolly and jerky? the one i was excited about not having to see anymore? yeah. they assigned her to my team. she doesn't work where i have to see or hear her, but still! i was free, but only for one day. dammit.

this bed is too soft

2011-12-13T23:31:00.000-07:00

man, it's only a little after ten at night and my whole family is asleep. which is lame because i'm finally adjusted to my new schedule, just had two glasses of wine and want to rock out while baking cookies. i have to be quiet so they can all sleep, though. shoot.

the new job means i don't have to get up crazy early, and this winter i've actually seen some honest-to-goodness real sunlight in the morning and afternoons as a result. none of the going-to-bed in the dark and waking-up in the dark for me this season; and to be perfectly honest, i have noticed a difference. i'm clenching my jaw less, moping around less, going out and doing stuff more. oh sunlight and vitamin D, i suppose this proves i am your slave. i'm okay with that, as long as you both stick around. in any case, i like not getting up at zero-dark-thirty, and don't mind working five days a week because a) i don't have to get up crazy early and b) big girl paychecks. also, we are busy at work; the day flies by and when i leave it, i do honestly leave it behind. i might take a few moments to be quiet, because i talk to people all day, but that's all.

a friend at work bought me this adorable zen garden for my desk, along with a mug full of treats. some sour patch kids, chopsticks, a nail file and this crazy orange polish. it sounds crazy, but i think i'm too old for neon nail polish (because 34 is like old, man) so i only put it on one nail. i think that will probably end up looking stranger than just using the polish on all my nails, but it makes me happy. i like the contrast too, even if it is a bit silly. one orange, nine grey. seems reasonable to me.

counting down!

2011-12-12T23:47:00.000-07:00

one more shift in the classroom, then it's upstairs to my very own cubicle. not only will i have my own little space, but this past week i've spent a chunk of my days scooting in and out of my desk to let people in and out to answer questions and OMG i'm tired of moving out of everyone's way. sitting on the aisle seat in a classroom is balls. plus, did i mention this classroom has no windows? because it doesn't and that can create a weird time-disconnect.

one of the girls i work with brought me a cute little desktop zen garden today, too, which i can't wait to set up. i've been looking at mouse pads and wrist rests and bought a new travel mug that can go in the dishwasher. there are just too many of us all on the phone at once in the classroom to be comfortable for anyone. i know we're all a bit antsy to get out of there and stretch out a bit. one more 8 hour shift, then i'm free!

how may i help you?

2011-12-08T22:48:00.000-07:00

today was my first whole day on the phones, answering calls and hunting down information. yesterday we did half a day, which was enough to fry my brain and leave me slightly retarded and seriously tired. i have to say, even though i most definitely had a moment (or two) today of sheer frustration, i actually felt pretty chipper when i came home. i don't know as much as i need to, but i am learning stuff, and only one person today got fussy with me because i didn't know what they wanted me to know. she got huffy and said, "um, are you new or something?" i said, in my most happy and excited voice, "yes! i am!" which i think kind of took the wind out of her angry sails.

i feel like i'm doing okay, but of course i don't really know. the feedback we're getting at this point is nominal at best, and every time i ask my teacher a question she seems annoyed that i exist. at some point i rubbed her the wrong way, and now she kind of hates me. she only hates me a little, so i'm okay with that. to be fair, i don't much care for her either, so i guess we're even. i feel like she didn't do the best job preparing us, and we had hours and hours of down time that she could have been going over scenarios with us, instead of suggesting we poke around on websites looking for things we didn't actually know to look for. it's like telling someone you're going to teach them how to cook, sending them to the store for food, and then when they get back, they have all the ingredients for baking a cake but she wants us to cook a chicken. dude, i did not buy a bird, and i looked up a lot of stuff i do not need now. weird example, but true. then again, there is a massive amount of information to learn in order to do this job with any sense of competency, so maybe this is just how it goes. what i do know for sure is this; i can't wait to be out of that classroom, i can't wait to decorate my little cubicle, and i just spent way too much time looking at mouse pads for my computer. dorkbot.

how to make a good sandwich

2011-12-04T17:24:00.000-07:00

i had a dream last night that i got call from the deli used to work at. they left me a message saying they had no one else to open the deli that morning at 4 a.m., and they really needed me to work. i knew i didn't work there anymore, but i went in anyway because i knew there wasn't anyone else to take that shift. i got there early (honestly, going to work at 4 at the morning sounds lame, but is quite nice. it's quiet, you have your list of things you need to do, you get into a certain rhythm and before you know it, the sun is up and it's time for you to go home.), and started work. slowly, the other deli workers came trickling in as their shifts started, and they were all surprised to see me. "oh! you're the manager that never works here!" they kept saying. i told them they never saw me because i didn't actually work there anymore, and when they asked why i was there, i explained that there was really just no one else. then we started getting customers, and i was amazed at how i knew what ingredients went on which sandwich, and how easy it was for me to put them together. then, because this was a dream, i forgot to price the sandwiches and all the cashiers got mad at me. i left work early, because i had to go to my other job, and woke up feeling weird. proud that i still know how to make a kick-ass sandwich, chumpy because they got me to go into work, at a job i didn't even have anymore. then i woke up all the way, and reminded myself it was a dream.

dearest

2011-12-03T01:32:00.001-07:00

i know, i'm too old to indulge in adolescent musical interludes but this song reminds me of a boy i was smitten with at 20, and still miss today. not because we would have ever grown up and gotten married or had kids or been anything but childhood sweethearts; but because he was a nice boy. not my boy, but a sweet, kind boy who knew that i wasn't the marrying-kid-having type. we actually argued about that sort of thing, and i recall being annoyed he thought that i wasn't ready to settle down. he was right, and i was wrong about what i wanted and when i wanted it, which in the end was exactly what i needed.

i wasn't supposed to get married at 22 and have kids. my kids were already around, waiting for me to show up. i couldn't love them more if i had made them with my own body. i hear albums like this one, and remember what i though my life was going to be, and am happy i was wrong.

*what makes me think of him is that my parents really loved him; they were his parents in a way. i have moments where i remember we all went out, hand in hand, and they loved him, knowing we wouldn't grow up and get married. it's a testament to how great my parents were that they loved him regardless, and how i learned about love with all of them. is that weird? knowing even then that what i wanted wasn't the best for me, wasn't what was in store, and still playing along. he remains a good man, someone's happy partner, just not mine.

what makes me think about all of this is knowing if my dad had known D at all, in any way, he would have been happy. he would have liked him, they would have gotten along, and they both would have rolled their eyes at my more insane tendencies. my dad loved the boy i grew up with, but he would have loved D more. i wish they had known each other. it feels unfair that he knew the boy i wouldn't grow up to marry, and not the man i love so much.

cheese bits

2011-11-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

you might remember that at one point in time, i was a highly trained cheese person. i guess i still am, although not on the cusp of cheese trends or anything like that, but DAMN i still love cheese. fancy cheese, not fancy cheese, any everything in between. which is why i always put together the cheese tray at family holidays. of course, i tend to pick out too many cheeses, and some of them aren't as well-received as others (for whatever reason, i am the only person in my family who likes an aged goat gouda), so what do you do with all those leftover bits? especially if you are a dork and forget to put them away before they start to get hard and weird around the edges? why, you make the delicious fromage fort. i like to call it "cheese in a pot," because it most closely resembles those "potted" cheeses you sometimes get in holiday baskets; flavored like port or pimento. want to make some of your own? here's what you do;

gather all your leftover cheese bits. ALL of them. got weird things with herbs? blues? soft, runny cheeses? some tillamook? it will all be delicious in this, i promise. if you think that sounds weird, it's because it does, but trust me. in the last batch i made, i put in feta, herbed goat cheese, aged gouda, smoked cheese, sharp cheddars, and some mystery "sheep" cheese that i'm not really sure was sheep. guess what? it rocked. cheeses you think would taste terrible together taste great in this.
some wine, broth, water or milk/cream. i prefer to make mine with white wine, that's classic. not a sweet white either; a house white, a chardonnay, something dry and delicious. if you don't like wine, use some sort of brothy goodness to give it some more flavor. if you don't have broth, add some water, maybe mixed with some milk or cream. use what you have. have some nice sherry? that would be good too.
garlic. one or two cloves, depending on how much you like garlic or how much cheese you have. today i used two cloves, and had a whole food processor full of cheese. remember: you won't be able to taste the garlic at first, and it will get stronger. so if you think you didn't add enough, wait a day, and taste it again.
pepper. you can grind it, or you can sprinkle it out of the shaker, i'm not going to judge you.
you may need some salt, but personally, i never use it, and haven't needed it. cheese is pretty salty.

cut your cheeses into pieces about the same size. roughly, you're going to blend the hell out of them, so don't fuss over it too much. put your garlic in the food processor, then pulse it a bit to start chopping it. add the cheese, in batches if you have a lot (adding softer cheeses nearer to the end), pulsing and mushing and mixing. add the wine (or broth, or whatever) a bit at a time, getting the cheese mix damp, but not swimming. you will probably have some chunks, and that is okay. you can blend it smoother or rougher depending on how you like it, but i enjoy some fat bits of cheese mixed in there. add as much liquid as will make it smooth-ish without being creamy (because if you mix it too much, it will start to separate and be weird). when it's done, pack it into jars or pot! you can eat it right away, but it gets better the longer it sits. spread it on crackers, toast, or pipe bits into endive spears to be all fancy. dip crudite in it, use it on a sandwich, or eat it on a spoon. feed it to your friends, make sure you say "fromage" like you mean it, and watch them swoon.

delicious!

thankful

2011-11-24T20:29:00.000-07:00

we had thanksgiving in our new house today! it was supposed to be a small event, with just the four of us and my mom and aunt. then my cousin came, and my sister and her boyfriend, and the in-laws! it was a fun day, to be honest, and i'm glad everyone got to come over. our little house was full of people we love, wine, food, and the living room had been vacuumed. success!

anyone married to a cook knows this; even if you are not a doof in the kitchen, they will take over and have some prima donna moments, and you will get to cook one, maybe two things if you are lucky. me, i made the cranberry relish, a few radish roses, and a kick ass cheese tray. everything else was all D. he made tiny cornish game hens, stuffed with dressing, a brussels sprout gratin with smoked gouda, mashed potatoes, two kinds of gravy (one plain, one with fancy chanterelle mushrooms, wine and cream), green beans almandine, sweet potatoes with pecans, a giant fruit salad, a ham, and a grape pie. imagine how tired you are of reading all those words, then eat them, and go take a nap. whew. i got fat just thinking about dinner. needless to say, it was delicious and i loved every bite. we had champagne with dinner, spiked with a little cherry juice, and afterward ate pumpkin pie my mom brought over.

i have to say, i have a lot to be grateful for this year. a happy, healthy little family; a new house; a cat that likes to nap with me; kids who get my stupid jokes and make their own; a job that pays me like a grown up, and all my friends and family. speaking of, we're going to get a little bigger next year; my sister is having another baby! i just found out yesterday, and i will admit, i have a bit of a baby high going on right now. (and maybe a buzz from all the good food and love and knowing i have another three days off to knit and lounge!) i hope everyone had an equally boss day (boss is my new favorite word, which i guess means i'm a boy from 1972), and thanks for stopping by! maybe next year you can come over and help us eat some of this food...

while catching up on blogs

2011-11-13T00:42:00.002-07:00

i came upon a shout-on over at sarah's blog! she very kindly called me a versatile blogger, which is awesome, and came at just the right time because honestly, i feel super boring lately. a blog is primarily a "hey this is what's going on in my head" kind of endeavor, but none of us would blog if we didn't enjoy having readers, right? essentially it boils down to this; yes, a lot of what i write is just ho-hum, i did this today and blah blah blah, not a big deal, but i like having readers. what makes this blog different from a regular paper journal/diary is that i get feedback from people. some of them i know in real life, some i don't. either way, it feels enormously good to hear, "yeah, i feel that way too," or "i get it." in one way or another, isn't almost every comment a "yeah, me too" sort of comment? the satisfaction that comes from writing something, explaining an emotion/day/scenario in a way that makes someone else recognize the same in their own life is one of my favorite things. which is a long-winded way of saying, oh sarah! thank you. and now on to five little known facts about me,

until earlier this week, i honestly thought my cat just had one hole to do all her business out of. which, for someone who studied animals in college, has had a cat for more than a few years, and is normally not a retard, is pretty embarrassing to admit. i think part of me did not want to think about my cat having lady parts, and part of me just only ever saw kitten butthole. after i said that out loud, as in, "what? doesn't lulu only have the one hole?" i immediately knew i was wrong. and now the boychik and D call everything they think is a dumb a "one hole." for a smart girl, sometimes i am really dense.
i stayed out way past my curfew once with a boyfriend in high school, and when i got home, my dad was furious and accused me of "losing my cherry." OUT LOUD. i was 15, and had no idea what "cherry" meant, but was humiliated and freaked out nonetheless. for one thing, i had never had a curfew before he stopped going out to sea, and whenever i'd been super late before, mom always waited until the next morning to yell at me, and so the whole situation was seriously bizarre. what makes this worse is that sometimes when i miss my dad so much i feel like my ribs are going to cave in and suffocate me, i think about that, and it makes me feel better. secretly (or not so secretly now) this makes me feel like a bad daughter, but as much as i loved my pop, it helps to remember the times when he was kind of a dick.
i feel uncomfortable around "real" indians because i'm just a half-breed (even less than that!) and not indian enough. as much as i enjoy going to the rez and hanging out with my cousins, i don't mention being native out loud to a lot of people because i don't feel nearly indian enough. i have a weird relationship with my ethnicity, and vacillate between being proud and/or indignant, and afraid to say it out loud because i look like a nice italian girl. you know, even though i'm not even remotely italian.
until i met D, i was super embarrassed about my feet. i was convinced they were the ugliest feet on earth, and no amount of googling photos of "hammertoe" made me feel better. but D thought they were adorable and in some way he made me feel better. i can't tell you exactly how he did it, but one day i was in the shower and i thought, "he might be right, they might not be hideously deformed." what a nice thing he did, without even trying.
i have very, very mild eczema in a few places, but every patch i get i worry and pick at until it's the grossest thing on earth. to whit; my belly button has been weirdly dry and crusty for over a year, because the moment it almost heals all the way, i get back in there and pick some more. i'm like sarah with scabs, only a million times worse. my belly button is so gross! no one would drink champagne out of it. D even said that once, and while it made me sad, i understood. me and my dry skin are not good friends.

i don't think all of my "little known" facts needed to be so gross and shameful, but there you go! i'm supposed to pass this on to other bloggers, but truth be told, being so honest made me sleepy, so i'll get to that part later. go to bed! what are you doing up so late? are you busy losing your cherry?! i'll kick that boy's ass if i find him....

these pretzels are making me thirsty

2011-11-08T22:52:00.001-07:00

oh wait, no; this job training is making me thirsty. for beer. so much information, coming at me from all directions, in all forms, in one small, window-less room that vacillates between sahara hot and icebox cold.

in a lot of ways day two was better; less nerves, more doing stuff, but in other ways it was just as frustrating. still lots of computer problems, one person who never ever ever shuts their mouth, weird downtime followed by briefs spurts of remember-this-OMG-this-is-important-stuff.

what made me feel a million times better was our trainer saying to us today, "my third day i just went home and cried, and was convinced that i would never get all of this, feeling like the stupidest person on earth, and now i've been here for 7 years." yeah. i know it's going to get better and all the technical snafu's will get worked out and soon i'll be pining for the times i spent these past two days getting to know my classmates/co-workers, but right now i just need a beer and to go to bed early.

only six more weeks of training

2011-11-07T21:46:00.001-07:00

first day of work under my belt and the verdict (so far) is good. it's a very nice office, with super nice people working in it, and there are coffee pots every three feet; what more can you ask for in a work place? i already like not dealing with patients who have three teeth, smell like wet dog and cigarettes and spend most of their time with me trying to get me to write them a script for xanax. i like wearing grown up clothes. getting up this morning and spending five minutes more on my face didn't feel like a waste of time. i wore a dress and i looked cute. moreover, i felt cute. it was nice.

in every class i've ever taken, every school, every training, there's always one person who just cannot shut up, and today that person sat in front of me all day long. every question was prefaced with an "i don't mean to interrupt..." which just drove me more crazy because OMG you totally do mean to interrupt and when butt kissing becomes distracting, i think it loses its charm. at the end of the day, i just really wanted this person to shut up, but i think that's normal for any (and every) first day doing anything, be it work, class, volunteering, etc.

i'm excited about actually getting to train; today was the sort of day when nice people from HR tell you a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense right away, you fill out more paperwork, try to figure out your computer and find the bathrooms. good, but ultimately boring and when it's not boring, frustrating. there's something that feels so good about getting that first day out of the way, though, am i right? it's a hurdle, a test you pass and the rest of the week is just easier because it's not that first day. whew.

first day jitters

2011-11-06T17:10:00.000-07:00

it's a good thing i didn't make a list, because honestly, this week i got very little done. i finished the boychik's bedroom curtains, unpacked a few boxes, bought some new work clothes, and did some laundry. that is about the sum total of stuff i did over this week. well, that and knit some tiny mushrooms and take naps. the xmas gifts i was going to work on, the needle felting i was going to try, the bedroom i was going to paint...all of that most definitely did not happen. ah well, it's not often you get a whole seven days to just blow. i did make it out once to see a friend for a beer, and made a few good dinners, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

tonight my plan is to try to not worry too much, pick out my outfit, get breakfast ready to go, and paint my nails some ridiculous, you-can't-see-it-but-i-know-it's-there color. i like a very neutral nail color, is that weird? for a girl who is drawn to bright orange and red and sparkly, it surprises even me. i suppose i should also figure out what to make for dinner, and get on that. i love love love that today was the day we "fell back," because it means i got up "early" and got more done today than ever! hee hee...

this week is flying by

2011-11-02T11:23:00.000-06:00

i am really glad i took some time off in between jobs, but somehow it's already wednesday, and i feel like i'm not getting enough done. although i did get two more boxes all the way unpacked, and for someone who will gladly live with random boxes for as long as i can, that was kind of a big deal. still throwing stuff away, wondering why i move so much crap every time i move, trying to figure out which weirdo toys to keep. that is the one thing that i think my husband and i don't see eye to eye on; i like being surrounded by oddball toys and knick knacks and tchotchkes, and he would rather not be. i know living with someone means a certain amount of compromise, but for him that means giving me a room and letting me do what i want with it. that's a nice idea, but i don't just live in one room. i've toned it down quite a bit since moving in with him, but i can't help if i think an army of plastic squirrels on the mantle in the living room is the best idea ever. remember, i'm part bowerbird.

that being said, this week i'm going to do my hardest to organize the kitchen, make the downstairs a bit more livable, and clean out my closet. there are lots of other things i want to do as well, but those three are on the top of my list.

a whole week off!

2011-10-30T23:57:00.001-06:00

today was a really nice day. not only was it my birthday (i guess technically speaking, it still is) and i got to go out to a nice restaurant with my husband, but today kind of officially starts my week long vacation. i had 41 vacation hours accrued, so i decided to take some time off in between gigs. partly to give me a chance to shift gears, partly to give me some time to get some stuff done, and partly because why not? a week off to myself sounds awesome. plus, at the end of the week i'll be ready to go back to work, and so am hoping i'll also be less nervous about starting something new. ha!

my mom, aunt and niece came into town today to help me celebrate too. i'm telling you, that maggie is getting smarter every single second. she kills me. she also drew me a ton of amazing pictures in my birthday card, and i know i'm biased, but the kid has some skills. they came armed with salami, artichoke dip, and presents, so i was more than pleased to see them. my mom bought me this beautiful yarn bowl, with squirrels and acorn on it, my aunt found the only three anthony bourdain books i didn't have, and maggie gave me a couple of kinder buenos, which are one of my favorite candy bars. yay! it was an all girl afternoon; D was at work, and the boychik was out with his friends. it was nice to see everyone and catch up.

i have a list of things i want to get done this week, i'll post the major points tomorrow and then we can see what i actually get done. i'm excited about buying some new clothes this week too, even if i am a bit chubbier than i would like to be. i helped the boychik take his senior photo tonight, because it's due tomorrow and OMG we are good at procrastination, but i think this one is the winner.

what? not enough boy? too much cat? can there even be such a thing?!

two weeks

2011-10-17T00:42:00.000-06:00

i know i mentioned a few weeks ago that i had a job interview. it went well, but because i had gotten my interview so early in their process, they told me up front that i would be waiting two whole weeks to find out if i got it or not. two weeks is a long time. i know for a fact that D thought the past two weeks were actually four, because i was kind of antsy and spastic and distracted and sometimes not too nice. being nervous makes me snippy. i finally got a call this week and guess what? i got the new job.

such a happy sigh of relief. i'll still be in health care, albeit not in a physical way. i'll be a customer service rep for an insurance company. answering calls from customers about their plans, helping people get authorizations for procedures, dealing with doctor's offices and other insurance companies, that sort of thing. no more scrubs, no more getting up at zero-dark-thirty, no more giant magnets and patients who can potentially poop/pee/puke in them. no more dentures. (which is so exciting to me. body fluids are disgusting, don't get me wrong, but watching anyone take out their teeth gives me the heebie jeebies.) the new job starts at a higher hourly rate as well, and because i'll be working for an insurance company, we'll all have coverage and benefits from day one. score!

my co-workers so far have all been honestly happy for me and pleased. going into this, the thought of leaving them behind has been one of those things i tried not to think too hard about. i truly enjoy them. they're smart and funny and interesting, they care about patients and making people feel better. they're genuinely nice folks. i'm going to miss them terribly.

overall, though, i am excited. looking at buying some new business casual wear (i have nothing appropriate, and what i do have doesn't fit). anxious about fitting in at the new place, of course, but looking forward to learning something new and making a little more money. it's time for a change. in fact, it's pretty overdue. i was so busy moving and getting married and getting settled that i put this off a lot longer than i should have. change isn't usually my favorite thing, but i'll make an exception in this case.

ribs!

2011-10-10T15:13:00.001-06:00

yesterday we all went to a birthday bbq for D's niece and nephew, where we ate too many ribs, giant slabs of chocolate cake, and lots of delicious nibbles in between. i have to admit though, i felt kind of young and out of place. my sister-in-law is D's age, but she's the youngest of her siblings, and one of her nephews is my age. meaning everyone was a lot more grown-up than me, and wanted to talk about church and their grandkids. not going to church or having grandkids, i was kind of out of the loop. i will also admit that this no-drinking-until-the-end-of-the-month thing i have going on kind of killed my ability to make small talk. i suppose it didn't kill the ability so much as it thoroughly quashed any desire to chit chat about shit i don't have or care about. that makes me sound like an irritated wife, doesn't it? (i'm not!) i know this new in-law stuff isn't going to be all sunshine and puppies, since all families are annoying in their own ways, and while i kind of understood i was marrying into a family of people who have the capital F kind of Faith that i'm not used to, i did not realize how much they would all want to talk about it. where i come from church-y stuff is mentioned only AT church and never discussed the rest of the week. it seems weird to talk about it in public. as weird as peeing with the door open in bunch of a front of a strangers. yesterday D had a full-on conversation about the End Times with a man i though looked kind of mild-mannered. while eating a piece of cake. evidently i underestimated this man, who is freaked out about future financial and global ruin, and is able to quote all kinds of scripture. ha!

the moral of this story is this: i'm glad i always bring some knitting with me, and it's a good thing i like talking to little kids. it is also kind of pleasant to think of 34 as being "young."

smoosh

2011-10-08T16:29:00.000-06:00

i could eat squash every day. butternut, acron, blue kuri, kabocha, you name it. i will begrudgingly add zucchini to that list, only because we got way too much of it this year from my in-laws and i am kind of sick of it. although the one thing you can say about zucchini is that you can add it to just about anything, and very few people notice. tonight i'm goofing off with the crockpot, like i did last saturday. white beans, butternut squash, some rosemary and chicken stock, and in a few hours we'll see if it's any good.

i've also been really into quinoa lately, because of the way it pops and crunches when you eat it. it's the weirdest grain. i haven't yet been able to make it mushy either, which is a plus.

overall, now that we've lived at the house for this long i feel like i should be making more healthy dinners, and have been working at that. using the crockpot more, making more veggie dinners, less eating out, that sort of thing. i'm also not drinking this month, not for any good reason except i'm not. well, until my birthday. i want to be able to have a drinky on my big day! i will admit i'm curious to see if not drinking will do anything to my weight. i think the last time i stopped, i lost seven pounds in a month while doing literally nothing different. eep. i know i love beer, but i had no idea i loved it SEVEN pounds worth. hee hee...

i accidentally made a vegan dinner

2011-10-06T23:18:00.003-06:00

it wasn't anything extravagantly vegan; a simple squash curry with a mixed rice blend. my in-laws keep giving us zucchini and while it's good, at this point i'm done trying "new" things with it and going back to what i do best, quick curries and various starchy sides. i mix it up sometimes, with quinoa (ooh! exotic!), or brown basmati rice, but honestly, i just really like curry. indian curry, thai curry, pidgin curry, it's all comforting to me. i apologized to the kids for being so hippie tonight, but they didn't care. i forget sometimes that the will just eat what i cook, with very little complaints.

a few weeks ago i bought D a book for the kindle, trying to get him interested in using it. both he and the boychik are sometimes reticent to try new things (even though technically the kindle IS the boy's), so i thought if i bought a book i knew he wanted, he might try it out and see what he thought. (he liked it. go figure.) the book i bought was wild fermentation, all about making various pickled things, breads, and beverages. ooh, and cheese. we're familiar with the concept because D grew up making kraut the old-fashioned way as a kid, and we've made many batches of kimchi. this book is pretty fun, though, and has recipes for making kombucha, ethiopian honey wine, tempeh and other weirdo things. the author is, as one would imagine, VERY into fermentation. sometimes his writing made me giggle because he's just so darn earnest; he truly believes in all kinds of fermentation. he's fervent about fermentation! my tastes do run toward the sour, though, so of course after reading about krauts all day, i had to come home and make some.

above are two simple krauts. one made with cabbage, tart apples, and caraway seeds, and one made with only brussels sprouts. making your own lactic acid pickles is seriously fun, and the juice the veggies produce is kind of fizzy on your tongue. i love that so much. it's hard to explain, but there's something about things that "pop" that do it for me. i do think that fermented veggies are good for you, so it's fun to make and try them. (and relatively guilt free; you can't make a greasy pickle, after all. unless you fry it.) i like the experimentation aspect to it too, and seeing how a food can go from one flavor, to another, in a very radical way, with one or two added ingredients and some time. i promise not to go too crazy and show you every pickle i make, but tonight i was a Super Hippie StepMom!

cheese freaks

2011-10-04T08:09:00.002-06:00

sometimes i miss being the cheese girls at the grocery store. i do really love cheese, and it was fun to work with a food so versatile and lovable. i mean honestly, the people who dug cheese and came in for fancy varieties were super fun to work with.

this weekend during the festival of family farms we hit up a wonderful local diary that makes some spectacular cheeses, the golden glen creamery. while we were there looking at baby cows and seeing the cheesemaker at work i bought a few containers of fresh curds. some of you may know them as "squeaky cheese" because when you bit into them, they make a squeak against your teeth. they are delicious right out of the package, thrown in a salad, deep fried, or used to make poutine.

if you have never heard of poutine, much less tasted it, i'd like to offer my deepest condolences. not to put too fine a point on it, poutine is fucking amazing. it's rich and creamy and involves gravy and potatoes, with a hefty dose of curds sprinkled on top. it's stick-to-your-ribs, this-really-does-make-my-ass-look-fat, food. certainly not an everyday indulgence, but if you can't splurge on occasion, then i see no reason for living. poutine was invented in french canada, but there are a million different varieties and ways to make it and eat it. my favorite is beef gravy, fries and curds. simple, and to the point.

lucky for me i have a husband who excels at both making gravy and home-made french fries. we made a platter of poutine for dinner and all sat around it with forks. i can think of no better way to eat it, surrounded by people i love, with a big old couch to settle into when we're done.

also on the way this week: cheese making supplies so we can make our own curds. i got to make some cheese while i was working as a cheese girl, but it's been too long. plus, D has been into wild fermentation lately, and he wants to make not just pickles and krauts, but also cheeses. yay!

where do you see yourself in five years?

2011-10-03T10:57:00.001-06:00

i had two job interviews last week, and then promptly took a few days off work. the job interviews were at the same place; one was a series of placement tests to see if i even qualified for the interview, and the other was the actual interview. i know the testing went okay because i got the interview, and because not to toot my own horn, but i am a great typist. i know, i slack at using proper punctuation in my blog life, but in real life, i own that shift key. the proper interview went well, i think. you can never really tell unless you get the job, as far as i'm concerned, but the ladies i talked to seemed reasonable, down to earth, and nice. they actually did not ask me where i saw myself in five years, much to my delight. i explained that i just needed a change of pace, in a job that hopefully let me do the parts of my job that i currently love (which is, grossly enough, helping people freaked out by health care to be less freaked out), with less body fluids and more opportunities for advancement.

the act of going to interview and putting on clothes that weren't my ratty old scrubs was exhilarating. i love scrubs because they incorporate my favorite aspect uniforms (not having to think about what to wear) with the ease and comfort of pajamas. coincidentally, i also enjoy being monochromatic. however, putting on clothes that did not make me think of work, that could be worn with something other than crocs or tennis shoes, that looked good with mascara and that i could wear bobby pins* with, was amazing. i think it was at that moment that i realized what having a new job could mean for me (and for my family). i'm not guaranteed the job, by any means, and i still have two weeks to wait and see what happens, but driving out there, taking tests and answering questions made me feel like i was actually doing something about my situation instead of just lamenting it. talk is cheap, as we all know. making an effort, trying for something new, feels good.

everyone at work is already acting like i already have the job, but i'm wary about getting too excited. i'll miss my co-workers, and feel like for the first time in a long time, i've actually made real, honest-to-goodness friends there. people i'll still get to see if i leave. people i do honestly care about and want to keep around. i can only hope that if i do get another job, it will be with a similar group of people.

*you can't wear bobby pins around and MRI machine, unless you want to lose some hair.

family farms!

2011-10-02T22:55:00.000-06:00

this weekend was JAM PACKED with action and adventure, via the annual skagit valley festival of family farms. we went about two years ago and had an awesome time, so this year i took my stepdaughter and a friend of hers out for not one, but TWO days of farm madness. we had a great time; we saw a million different animals, saw how different farms work, ate elephant ears and apples right off the tree (what, you've never seen an elephant ear tree? sucks to be you.), took a million photos and used a lot of hand sanitizer. good times.

the best part for me, beside seeing cute, baby animals, was listening to the girls in the backseat as i drove them around. pre-teen girls are funny and sweet and completely wacko. they come up with games that make no sense, they giggle at everything, they clam up if they know you're listening, but if you keep quiet and let them sit together in the back seat while you chauffeur them around you get to hear a lot. what i came away with was the certain knowledge that both kids had a fun time, and that this is something they'll remember fondly when they get older.

to add to my pot of good-mom-points, i also made them pumpkin, chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast this morning. ahem. you can send my medal right to the house, i don't need a fancy ceremony. photos, as usual, are over here.

the secret to my success

2011-09-25T10:17:00.000-06:00

is taking one benadryl at a time. if you take two, you will be retarded, but one will help quiet down your runny nose and still let you be understandable to others.

you can see the trees spewing junk into the air, so my sneezing and running nose is not a big surprise. it is still, though, annoying. seasonal allergies are for suckers. meaning, me.

lounge-o-rama

2011-09-17T13:30:00.000-06:00

today the kids and i rented not one or two movies, we rented four. i bought some flavored coffee creamer, which i never do (i like my coffee black) but today i was feeling like settling in for some serious film watching and knitting. sweet coffee seemed appropriate. i also bought a giant bag of chocolate chips, so tonight i can make cookies. we had giant hamburgers for lunch at five guys, and at this very moment, both of the kids are sitting quietly with me in the living room, playing games and waiting for our lounging afternoon to begin.

last night D and i went out and had drinks and saw friends, and we were talking about all the cool things the kids do, and how we think they'll have happy memories of us when they get older. we don't know for sure, of course, but how can a memory of us all singing the same song and making up new verses in the kitchen be anything but a happy memory?

working blues

2011-09-11T23:36:00.000-06:00

i don't talk a lot about my job for a few reasons, one of them being HIPAA. some of the most interesting cases i get are interesting because they're specific, and i live in a small enough area that if you were an interesting case and i wrote about it (and you somehow read this little blog), you'd know it. which is a shame, because even though i'm not a trained medical professional, i've learned a lot at my job at and seen some cool stuff.   it's exciting to see how the body works around supposed limitations and how inventive people can be when faced with a body part that doesn't want to work in the right way. i tend to meet a lot of different people with a lot of different and remarkable stories, and for whatever time i get to spend with them, i get to hear those stories. that part of my job is the best, and i've been fortunate enough to meet some really amazing people.

this week wasn't one of those weeks, though. every patient was, i'm sorry to say, a downer. most weeks i do okay with my job; i see a fair amount of oncology patients on a regular basis and while i never feel like, "yay! cancer!" i can do my job and then come home and be fine. it is an unfortunate thing to say (and feel) but cancer exists. people get it. people i love have died because of it. what's important about my job is to not focus on the illness(es), but the patients. making someone comfortable and explaining the test is the best i can do in the short time i spend with them.   so i do my job, i do the best i can, then i come home and try to leave that at work. i'd say more than 80% of time that works for me.

another aspect of working with MRI and not say, CT, i don't see a lot of emergency patients. an MRI takes at the very least fifteen minutes, and usually over a half hour, so you wouldn't test someone for something where time is of the essence in treatment. an MRI also isn't the test of choice when it comes to cardiac anything (thanks to the movement of the heart beating; makes a blurry picture unless you have a real fancy machine that can work around that), so we don't get patients having heart attacks, ever. most of the time i see people who have thrown their backs out at work, or tripped and bonked their knee into something and maybe tore their meniscus. i deal with a lot of worker's comp cases, as well as drug seekers who tend to have the most beautiful spines you have ever seen. i would say 75% of my job involves ordinary people with joint issues, with some of them being whinier than others, but for the most part i just get them into position, my coworker takes some pictures, i get them out and that's the last i see or think about them.

i can't tell if i'm getting soft, just need a vacation, or if this last week was particular brutal. i don't normally feel so bummed out about my job. i guess what made this week different were a lot more inpatients than usual, and a lot of young people with serious illnesses. there was the cutest elderly couple ever, who i actually saw kind of make-out before taking one of them back for their test. then of course, one of them got shipped off to a bigger hospital because it turns out they were way sicker than we could deal with. there was a patient three years younger than me, who came in with a very simple, easy to treat illness, and then we found something that was neither "simple" or "easy." i got a call from one of the employee health care workers too, to tell me i may have been exposed to meningitis and to watch to make sure i didn't get a neck ache that didn't go away. i cleaned up vomit and had to run all over to retrieve patients who were less than excited to see me. nurses were extra surly and grumpy because of the heat, and finding someone (anyone!) who was helpful was kind of a task.

part of me knows that i shouldn't complain, that i should be happy to have a job in such a shitty economy, but honestly? i kind of hate my job right now. i kind of hate that my boss doesn't take my very valid, honest complaints with a co-worker seriously. i kind of hate that after two and half years, i make only .50 cents more an hour than when i started. i feel like i'm wasting my time, wasting what talent i might have, working for jerks. if i'm going to be in health care, i feel like i should get a degree and actually make some money if i'm going to have to deal with all the shit that comes along with not just working for the public, but working for the sick public. (sick people are like hungry people! waitresses and nurses should make way more than they do.) i'm tired of feeling emotionally drained when i come home. i question what i'm doing and if it is actually the best i can do, or if i should be doing something else. that's a normal conundrum, i know, and that's the only fact that makes me feel better about all of this. i'm checking out help wanted ads on a daily basis, and thinking even going back into something mindless like retail might be a good idea for me. if i'm going to make shit for money, at least i shouldn't have to clean up barf.

baby booties

2011-09-09T15:06:00.008-06:00

in one way or another, i've started this blog post a million times. i never publish it for fear of sounding even more whiny or neurotic, but if you read my blog at all, you know that i am, indeed, both a bit high-strung and admit it often. i feel like before i say or write something like this i need to preface it with a whole lot of talk about how i love the kids, i love my husband, i feel happy and secure in this family of mine, and that overall i do understand how fortunate i am. i have a home i'm happy to come to every night after work, i live with people i love and moreover, genuinely like, the kids are old enough that D and i get to spend a fair amount of alone time together, and all that jazz. while that's all well and true, that's not what i'm going to talk about.
three of my friends are currently pregnant. not just three girls i know, but three people i love and have known for a long time. three women who are awesome, and who are happy to be pregnant, have partners they love, and families who are all so excited to meet these new babies. i'm tremendously happy for them, knitting like crazy, planning and plotting my projects because of course they're all due around the same time.

at the same time, i also feel kind of left out. sad that i never got to have my "own" baby, feeling guilty for being sad about that because i'm fortunate enough to get to parent two amazing kids. not wanting D to think i feel like i'm missing out or resenting him for his vasectomy. knowing that i love the kids and i wouldn't trade them for anything, and knowing that in so many ways i don't actually want a baby of my own, but having that gut reaction anyway; that tiny tug deep down when i hear someone i know and care about gets to have a child. i don't know if it's biological, if in a few years when the last of my own eggs dry up and float off that i won't wake up one morning feeling completely different. i read about women who go through struggles to get pregnant, round after round of IVF and looking for egg or sperm donors, and they talk about feeling "desperate" for a child, about how empty they feel in their own bodies, and i don't quite understand that either. i fall somewhere in between; having a very real, emotional and physical desire to have a child, to grow it and feel it inside me, but not feeling as though my life is unlivable or somehow "less than" without that. i don't want to D to reverse his vasectomy. i don't want the kids i have to feel like they aren't enough for me. i don't want that huge gap between their ages, or for either of them to have to be a caretaker to their younger sibling. i don't want to be much older than i am now and be a first-time parent. when i think of my life in a few years, i think about being happy to watch the kids grow up, and about how D and i have marriage in reverse; the kids first, the solo honeymoon later. even if D didn't shoot blanks, i don't know that a child would be in our plan anyway. things are very good right now; we're in a new house, we're healthy and while we may not be the most traditional of families, i know that we are a happy one.

if i could have what i want, what i would want is this: to have met D earlier in both of our lives. to have known the children while they were younger. to have had a chance to have a child the two of us could have made together. to not just be someone's "stepmom," but to be a mom without qualification.

(and honestly, hand-to-god; if you are one of my lucky friends who is currently pregnant, i'm not trying to say i'm anything but happy for you. i'm thrilled, i love you, but i do wish you'd staggered these kids so i would have three deadlines instead of one!)

back to school time

2011-09-08T22:54:00.003-06:00

the kids started the new school year yesterday! they both had good days, which was nice to hear. neither one of them was whiny when they got up either, and i think even if no one would ever admit it, they were glad to go back. this is the boychik's last year, meaning in a month or so we can look forward to getting fleeced by josten's. i'm not sure why it because de riguer to buy a graduation gown; you wear them once for a few hours and then feel guilty throwing them away a few years later. what happened to renting? did too many high school seniors get crabs? i'm going to try buying one on ebay. does that make me a cheap stepmother? probably.

the girlchild is in the 7th grade now, and i admit being more than nervous about the upcoming year. last year her grades were terrible, her attitude was even worse, and we spent many miserable hours and months trying to figure out what was going on and what we could do about it. this year she's enrolled in a program that is supposed to help her study skills and organization, as well as provide a little extra math and reading help. when it comes to the girl and her grades, i admit that D and i approach it from very different points of view. i think that's part of the reason i'm not looking forward to this year. she's a bright kid, but if things are hard, she just gives up. she is also under the assumption that she's already "good" at math, and doesn't need to try anymore, and to be honest, she's not that good at math. she doesn't consistently fail it, but she never aces it either. she has a hard time finishing what she starts, keeping track of assignments, and on more than one occasion she's just flat-out lied to us about what she had to do/when she had to do it/what was going on. i'm definitely more of the disciplinarian, which is a shitty role, but considering one kid does well and never needs much in the way of supervision when it comes to school, i guess it evens out. my plan this year is to make things kind of hard to start with. instead of taking away stuff like tv and computer time and going outside when things go bad, from the very start she's going to have to prove that she can do her schoolwork first. meaning, no computer time until after 7:30, and if she wants half an hour of facebook and shit, she's got to give me half an hour of reading. if she wants to be allowed to watch any tv (for us, netflix) or a movie, she's going to have to have all her homework done as well as her chores. she has to tell us what is due and when every day, via her assignment log. i know it sounds harsh, and it is, but last year she brought home a report card with three D's and 2 F's and didn't see anything wrong with it. the way i see it, if things start out kind of gulag-y, then they can only get better, right? i don't necessarily want to punish her for last years grades, but i don't want her thinking she can skate until she gets caught again, either.

just thinking about all of this makes my blood pressure go up. i'm going to try to be optimistic, i swear, but if this year is like last year, i don't know what i'm going to do. i'm not a very good tutor for her while sober, and this sort of thing makes me want a big old glass of boxed wine, and guess what? i'm worse at explaining fractions then.

good morning hair

2011-09-04T10:15:00.000-06:00

when i woke up this morning and went to the bathroom to pee, i didn't bother putting my glasses on. if i'm getting right back into bed, it seems silly. when i went to wash my hands afterward though, i saw that my hair looked awesome this morning. or at least, it did in a very blurry, there's-not-enough-light-in-here to really see, sort of way. i said to D, "i know i don't have my glasses on, but i have a feeling that i have some amazing morning hair going on." he agreed. then i put on my glasses, and you know what? it really did look good. in fact, it looks great. unfortunately, that will only last about five more minutes, and then it will revert to it's greasy morning look. dammit.

lemon jelly

2011-09-03T10:00:00.000-06:00

D likes dub, techno, whatever it is they call all those blippy poppy songs that kids high on E adore. which isn't to say he wanders around the house in giant pants and blows a whistle when he gets excited, but he does like music that's a bit ambient and groovy. the other night while looking at boat videos on youtube he stumbled upon a band that's new to all of us, lemon jelly. specifically, he ran into this song, and was pretty excited to show it to us. the past week has found us all singing it and goofing on it, changing the lyrics, looking up new songs and playing those too.

the past two weeks have been like real summer break. halcyon and warm, everyone in a good mood, playful and energetic. it's a shame summer break ends always ends at this point; you spend a month getting things done, a month getting into a groove, and then right as you're actually having a fun time, it ends. part of me is ready for the kids to go back to school, part of me is going to miss the fist bumps and singing in the kitchen while making dinner.

we're brewing up our winter plans. we'd like to build a canoe, which i know sounds crazy, but all of us are into it. i want to build the hazelnut, the boys are into the prospector, and i think the girlchild thinks there is no way we'll get it done. she does think building it will be fun, but doesn't think we've got the stamina to get it finished! so far we've just looked at a lot of plans and talked about what to name the boat. personally, i want to name it bollo, after the ape from the mighty boosh. we're also unsure if we'll paint it red or blue. or green. these things are important!

shhhh...

2011-08-29T10:29:00.000-06:00

it's a nice, quiet morning at home. everyone is still asleep (except for one of the neighbor's dogs who is never asleep or has learned to bark while sleeping), it's cool and damp outside, i have a great big cup of coffee and my podcasts updated on my ipod. i do believe now i'll go hide out in the nook and do some tiny drawings.

neurotic families 'r us

2011-08-28T20:58:00.022-06:00

i know D loves me, but i think he does not like it when i spend the afternoon with my mother. it's not that he doesn't like my mom, it's not that he doesn't like me for that matter, but something about our relationship lately turns me into a seriously insecure teenage girl, and then he has to hear about it. oops! here is a short list of other things that my husband evidently does not like, but is always so cool about them that i rarely realize how much i'm annoying him;

all the painting supplies in the bathroom. i like to paint things. specifically, i like make retarded little watercolors, and lately i've taken to slapping acrylic paints on a variety of surfaces (wood and fabric and mailboxes), and all this means is that i use our downstairs bathroom to clean my brushes and tools. D does not enjoy finding paintbrushes in with his toothbrush, and doesn't understand why i leave the sink spotted blue and red. does he complain? no. he likes to ask me what i'm doing though, and then say helpful things like, "don't you think you should do that in the kitchen?" followed with "could you wipe out the sink?"
all of the wall painting supplies in the kitchen. it's not enough to get watercolors and acrylics all over! no, sometimes i need to paint walls and then do annoying things like leave my rollers on the kitchen counter. i suck!
he's kind about it, but i know for a fact that having a knitting project going on in the living room, an embroidery project in the family room, and a stack of books taking up part of our bed isn't his idea of a good time. because of that, i am working on making sure that i finish more projects than i start, and at the very least corralling them into a basket when i'm done and putting them out of the way.

he's never a jerk about this sort of thing, though. and i hate to say it, but i think he has some good points and thanks to him, i'm trying to be more conscientious about the space i take up in the house. i was a single, crafty lady for a long time, it's hard for me to keep all my stuff in once place! i'm getting better, though. honest!

it's a no camping summer for us

2011-08-27T10:49:00.000-06:00

getting married and moving took a lot out of us, both financially and emotionally. i'm not complaining! for the most part, we're having a good time this summer and honestly just getting into the swing of home-owning and renovating. my oregon family, though, is out on the big summer camping trip this weekend, and we are not. sigh.

instead of being in tents and being with our people, we are sticking close to home. for the most part! the girlchild and i are headed to the island to hit up a birthday party the park, and do some back-to-school shopping with my mom. the boychik is going to apply for a job today, or else i'm going to strangle him. i'm hoping today to also have something made with ice cream, and maybe see the beach. my ratty old summer shorts are clean for a change, so i suppose i should take a shower and get ready for the day. at the moment it's me and the cat on the couch, listening to some john doe and drinking coffee. it's not a tent, and there aren't cousins scrambling around and shouting, and i haven't missed a camping trip for YEARS but we'll survive. dear oregon, we miss you! we'll be thinking about you this weekend.

home owners, in a way

2011-08-23T11:02:00.000-06:00

everyone knows we just moved a few months ago, right after getting married. what you might not realize is that my in-laws technically bought the house and are now our mortgage holders. this month we finally sat down and figured out what we need to do to become honest to goodness home owners. well, my in-laws have been figuring this stuff out, and tomorrow they finalize the paperwork with their attorney.

we thought we were pretty on the ball; while we have not been saving every penny coming in, we also haven't been throwing any huge parties or spending money on tattoos or hot rods. talking to our folks tonight we were hit with kind of a big expense right out the door that we were not aware of. i don't think anyone was, to be honest, and while D and i wanted to hyperventilate (OMG they want how much? when?!), the in-laws were calm and collected and assured us that they could and would wait another month for rent money. we wanted to show them what our budget was and where our money is going every month, but you know what they said? "don't worry, we trust you. and we know where you live."

have i mentioned lately how much i love my in-laws? being in this house means rent is a bit cheaper, the house is ours, our credit ratings are improving, and next year when the boychik graduates from high school, we should be in a position to be helpful parents. that feels good. it's terrifying, but ultimately for the best. there's no way a bank would help us out at this point in our life, and this just puts us forward a year or two (or ten).

living room curtains

2011-08-22T16:55:00.000-06:00

part of our "home renovation" planning has been based on two things; trying to temper my love of all things color, and trying to keep the cost down. truth be told, i really like making stuff, so keeping things somewhat inexpensive isn't too hard. the yellow wall cost us $15, and guess what? my husband loved it.

one of the things about D that is so frustrating, is that if you ask him hypothetical questions, like, "how would you feel about the color yellow in the kitchen?" he will not give you an answer. he will simply insist, over and over, that he doesn't know, that he would have to see it to give you an opinion. if you ask, "would yellow walls make you want to kill your wife?" he still won't cop to a yes or no. he claims he simply cannot "see" something before he can actually SEE it. he will sometimes say, "i might like that," but that's as close to an answer as you can get with him.

i had what i thought was an awesome idea for curtains for our living room the other day. i did a few drawings, showed him where things would go, and showed him some photos i was using for inspiration. what did he say? you guessed it, he said he thought it sounded like my idea would work, but he would have to see it before giving deciding if he liked it or not. i feel like we've been together long enough that him saying that is my green light. in any case, that's how i use it! so today i started making our living room curtains. (more after the jump)
i knew right away that i wanted to use painter's drop cloth for the fabric. i know that sounds weird, but if you go to flickr and check out the tag "drop cloth" you will find a lot of crafty things people do with them. i like it because it's pretty neutral as far as backgrounds go, but the fabric itself is nubby and interesting in a textural way.

here i am, using my good friends freezer paper stencil and blue tape! i used my handy dandy paper cutter to make 5 inch squares that i cut into two triangles.

i did not use fancy fabric paint! i used the cheapest michael's stocks; the craft smart line. the colors are great, it's good quality, and guess what? i already had a bunch.

the prep work was the most tedious, and because this is the first panel i made, it did take more than a few hours. i'm going to estimate four for this one. the others may go faster because i know what i'm doing and have a plan!

as for my husband, regardless of all the photos i showed him and drawings i did, he was still fairly wary. when all was said and done, though, and i held it up to show him how it will look, he said "yeah! that looks great!" you know why? because it does. i'll keep you posted when i finish the other panels and hang them. i'm going to go cut out a whole lot of freezer paper and prepare right now!

i might not be the best wife

2011-08-20T18:17:00.000-06:00

today on a whim i totally painted one of the walls in the kitchen a bright, sunshine-y yellow. without asking or consulting with my husband at all. the girlchild agreed with me that the color was awesome, so i bought it and now it's up there, no take-backs!

unfortunately for D, he married a woman who loves color. if i had my way, i'd buy a bright orange futon cover for the upstairs, to co-ordinate with all my random stripey pillows and the technicolor afghan. the upstairs part of our house is just so...neutral. which is okay, because it means it's super easy to liven up with a coat of paint, or a bright orange couch! if D had his way, our house would be outfitted in woodland colors, lots of soft greens and browns and varying shades of "shrub." personally, i just can't live like that.

i don't think he'll divorce me for today's color shenanigans, mainly because i bought a really soft blue for the bedroom. he won't be able to argue with that! (i hope.)

daydreaming

2011-08-13T08:26:00.001-06:00

the decemberists are doing a series of posters for every town they visit for their current tour. every one of them i've seen has been lovely; whenever i get a little facebook message about a new one, i start daydreaming about buying some to frame and hang up in the house.

these are just a few of the ones i'd love to get my hands on! putting them up here i realize that they all have similar colors. i've really been enjoying warm, orangey-yellow tones lately. as if you couldn't tell.

before i go rushing out to buy any posters, though, i need to frame a lovely nikki mcClure print D and i got as a wedding present. it's this pretty one. again, more orange! it was D's favorite wedding present. he loved that the couple were kissing in the kitchen, with the jars of fruit in the foreground. our first kiss was in the kitchen, and so he's romantic about that. who are we kidding, i am too.

things i want to do as far as the house goes

2011-08-12T09:44:00.000-06:00

the theory behind this post is that once i make a list, and make that list public, i'll work harder to get stuff done.

paint our bedroom.
make curtains for our bedroom.
make curtains for the girlchild's room.
the boychik needs some too.
how about some for the living room as well? that way we can wander around like slobs and the neighbors won't know!
get a futon cover for the futon.
buy a roku box or something so we can watch netflix on the tv.
we need a coffee table! or a tv stand so we can use what we're using for that now as a coffee table.
we also need a couch. in a serious way.
the girlchild needs a new bed. this is kind of D's job; he'll be the one building it.
both kids need new paint in their rooms.
i'd like a new futon cover for our room.

this is a good start, yes?

the joys of starting stuff!

2011-08-11T21:43:00.001-06:00

i am making a concerted effort to finish the crafty projects i have going before starting new ones. which means i have to finish the pillowcase i'm embroidering before i can start playing with blackwork. so far, so good. there is just something so delightful about a new project! ugh. it's killing me! i have a million awesome ideas, all of which i want to try right this second.

also killing me is the fact that we are still living surrounded by boxes. i know part of that is my fault, but i also know i shouldn't be the only one working on putting stuff away. i am such a stubborn jackass at times. i admit i can also be seriously passive-aggressive; i don't want to do all the unpacking, but do i tell my husband that i want him to do some too? that would be no. i'm going to go upstairs right now and set a timer for twenty minutes and see what i can get done.

wish me luck! or come over and help. i'll take either right now!

random list of things i am loving

2011-08-10T19:25:00.002-06:00

making the baba ganoush, while D does the hard work of actually making the pitas. okay, it's not that difficult, but i like it when he makes the pitas.
bjork! we watched sucker punch the other night and one of the things i noticed was a) the soundtrack kicked ass, and b) it was all covers except for bjork. because, really, how on earth could anyone cover bjork?! that's right, you can't. i had to go pick up some old bjork albums to scratch that odd icelandic itch, and now of course i think i should go all the way back to the sugarcube days.
jeremiah weed "spiked cola." yes, it is indeed a malt beverage, which i know means that i am one classy broad. it's just seriously delicious, and sometimes i want a rum/whiskey and coke and don't feel like buying a whole bottle of either and/or going out. my problem is solved! thank you, kind folks at jeremiah weed.
the smell of the coals heating to cook dinner over. dear diary, i love any kind of grilled goodness.
i recently discovered blackwork embroidery. i'm not sure why it took so long, but now that i've found it, i'm fairly smitten. i've been doing more cross-stitch in general lately, but i think blackwork is next on my list of things to try.

needle-y goodness

2011-08-07T22:01:00.001-06:00

we all know that for the past few years, knitting has been my craft of choice. there's something about the click of the needles as you work, the feel of the yarn, the feeling of making something BIG (or small), and the fact that i'm not really that good at it that has kept me entranced for longer than most hobbies i start. i really love knitting. i think it's helped make me more patient, and also increased my crafty self-esteem. i'm mostly self-taught, so every new thing i learn is kind of a big deal to me, even though there are a LOT of things i haven't mastered yet. with knitting i'm coming to a point where i finally feel confident enough about my abilities to make stuff up, to just wing it on occasion. there are also so many things to learn with knitting; it's kind of an inexhaustible craft. there will literally always be something new to try.

remember when my needles of choice used to be embroidery? yeah, me too. the past few days i've done some embroidering and am remembering what i love about that craft. it's quieter and requires more attention, which i forgot. i like the way the stitches feel under my fingers. i like making something that started as a simple, plain thing (like a dishcloth or pillowcase) and making it more than that. i like the old fashioned-ness of it. (wait, i like that about knitting, too.) knowing that i'm doing it, my mom did it, my grandmothers did it, etc, is such a nice thought to me. i like being part of that line of crafty ladies, making my house a home, expressing myself through needles and string. a quiet afternoon spent working on something, listening to the radio or some music, is quite possibly the nicest afternoon i think of.

the terror that is unpacking

2011-07-31T12:07:00.001-06:00

i'm not sure why unpacking is always such a chore for me. you would think i would be so excited to move into a new place, to make it my own, that i would just yank everything out of boxes and throw it all any and everywhere. instead, i'm ridiculously slow at it. i think too hard about where things should go, about what the ramifications of putting baking items in that cupboard as opposed to this cupboard will be, forgetting all the time that if i don't like the first place i put it, i can move it! this time i'm also faced with my passive-aggressive mom-ness. i'm hating that for whatever reason, no one feels like they need to do anything unless i ask. for some reason, the task of unpacking and making house decisions is all mine, and that feels bogus to me. i'm not a dictator in an apron, i promise.

instead of unpacking i'm looking at boxes and making plans, and doing some knitting. there is nothing more fun that starting a new project and watching it grow. it's especially fun to work on something that's going to be a present. i'm not terribly superstitious (i like to think) but i do subscribe to the idea that thinking good thoughts while working on something translates into the finished project. that's why a lot of things i was working on when my dad was going through radiation got scrapped in the end. doing the actual knitting and embroidering while waiting for him at the clinic was good for me in that it kept my hands busy and gave me something else to fuss over, but whenever i finished something i had to get rid of it because all i could think of what them poking and prodding him, his discomfort, the nasty radiation burn across his cheek and neck. it felt like it would be bad juju to give those items to anyone else, too, so i threw most of them away.

i've been thinking about my dad a lot lately. the other night while unpacking i ran across a xmas gift list he'd sent me, and it reduced me to tears. i miss those little lists, how detailed they were, how he'd tell you not just what he'd like to get, but about how much it would cost and where you could find it. D thought that was a bit fussy, but i explained that for my pop that just made sense. he bought the things he wanted for himself, but knew we wanted to buy him things for xmas, so he made it easy on us. he didn't want us to feel like we had no idea what we were doing, and he was open to getting things that weren't on the list. he also wasn't a dictator in an apron. it's funny the things that make me think of him, the things i miss. the sound of his boots on linoleum, the smell of his aftershave, the way he would always announce "bump!" in the car when he saw a sign warning you of the same thing. the pain of losing him isn't as overwhelming now as it was in the beginning, but it does kind of hide out and wait for me some afternoons. grief is a strange monster.

sewing!

2011-07-24T20:43:00.000-06:00

after finishing the painting in the nook, i broke it in this afternoon by sewing some curtain panels for the big window in there. overall, i like the way they turned out, but more than anything, it just felt good to turn on my ipod and sew away. it went from being dour and rainy and cool to being ridiculously hot and humid out here in the pacific northwest, so sitting in front of an oscillating fan in the downstairs was nice. it's the coolest spot in the house!

here is a tiny after and before shot (because i got them backwards!). look at what a difference a coat of paint makes! the carpet is the same, because a) it's weird and b) i kind of like it and c) it's not really financially feasible to get rid of it or replace it at this time. i dig that this is the original carpet as well. says a lot about my little house!

over and under-whelmed

2011-07-21T21:23:00.000-06:00

the process of going through your belongings is the coolest and worst thing you can go through. weeding out stuff you don't need to keep feels good, at the same time i've been spending a lot of time wondering why i kept any of that old junk. i'm also traipsing down memory lane every five minutes, which makes for slow going. i wish i could say i was less attached to "things," that i had a more buddhist relationship to physical objects, but i am most certainly not that enlightened. holding something from a specific time in my life feels good. notes written from friends past and present are nice to read. knowing that i was thought of, cared about, that someone put a stamp on a letter from far away, just for me, is an ego boost. which isn't to say my self esteem is so bad i need that kind of thing (i can't quit any time i like! get off my back!), but i think more people can relate to that feeling than not.

in any case, it's too humid to paint the nook, so i'm trying to pare down the things that will eventually live in there. it's not exciting, and when i look at all the boxes i have to go through, i want to weep (i am a packrat, although i am a packrat who is getting better). i'm not bad enough to be a tv show yet, so let's just keep it that way, shall we?

home again, home again!

2011-07-18T18:04:00.000-06:00

went to portland for a long weekend with the kids. for a minute there, i thought about not taking them because they were making me so freaking crazy, but that felt like a dick move, even to me. we ended up having an awesome time; we did a lot of lazing about, reading, playing video games, and eating delicious things. then, surprise surprise, when anne and aaron brought up the idea of the kids staying a bit longer, they went for it. so i came home alone! i thought the kids would want to come home, see their friends, all that jazz, but they really (really) like anne and aaron and the boys, and were having too much fun to leave. D and i would use this as a little honeymoon, but we both have to work this week. so we'll be using this week kid-free to have some date nights and (cross your fingers) get some stuff around the house done. i picked up some awesome things from Ikea, so i want to finish painting my nook and then get my stuff settled in there.

right now, though, i want to take a nice shower. the weather got hot and muggy all at once, and i feel like i'm coated in a thin layer of gross.

look...

2011-07-14T18:50:00.000-06:00

i know it's not a completely original complaint, but goddamn i hate working for ten hours, dealing with people with shitty pants and weirdo tumors that i have to touch, only to come home and find that no one has done a fucking thing to clean up after themselves. dishes all over the kitchen, empty cans of beer on the counters, books and papers all over the living room, you get the idea. i don't know about you, but i find it just as exhausting to have to leave lists of things for the kids to do as clean it up myself. because seriously?! you can't see what needs to be put up away? you really like the shrill tone my voice takes when i'm irritated?

i hate hate hate being the nagging mom-person. i hate that i feel like this. i hate that the house is trashed and no one gives a fuck. i hate that i have to bug my husband to do anything, and now that we're married his favorite thing to do is point out how little i "contribute" financially, meaning, "i know you work all day but you don't make as much as i do, so maybe you can shut up about the dishes." or maybe that's just what i think it means. i know he works hard, and i know his schedule is weird and he comes home at odd hours of the day, but if it doesn't kill me to take twenty minutes to tidy things up, why should it kill him?

tonight i am going to hide in my room with the netflix and a cocktail, and everyone can fend for themselves. the end.

weird things about my family, part one million and three

2011-07-11T10:03:00.000-06:00

did you know my husband really only eats late late late at night, and that the bulk of his diet is comprised of mayonnaise and blue cheese dressing? i exaggerate a little, but only that: a little. the man is never hungry until 11 at night, and often has his first meal then, followed by a "snack" at 3 a.m. i think part of that has to do with his late night work schedule, and part of it has to do with his deep and abiding love of mayo.

sunday morning

2011-07-10T10:23:00.000-06:00

for some ungodly reason, i woke up at 7 this morning. i rarely wake up that early, even when i'm supposed to be at work at 7. i've already had two cups of coffee, finished reading a book, and folded some clothes. WTF. of course, everyone else is still asleep so i'm trying to be quiet and not wake them up. everyone is on a night-owl schedule, since the kids don't have school and D's been working late night bar shifts. i admit i like staying up late as well, but lately i'm stuck in a weird awake in the morning and therefore sleepy when everyone else wants to hang out mode.

i think i'll watch some breaking bad now, fold some more clothes, and drink some more coffee. then when everyone else wakes up, i'll go take a nap. ha! i'm also excited about doing some more painting in the nook. it's coming along nicely.

paint!

2011-07-09T23:44:00.000-06:00


behr ultra paint and primer, "moonlit pool"

my first painting project in the new house is the tiny room off the master room, known as the nook. it's a weird little space, i think it was used mainly for storage. it's big enough for a good sized table and bookshelf, has a great big window that gets a good amount of light, and so i snagged it for myself. it will be my little hidey-spot, for crafty things and hanging up/enjoying the art i love that D isn't necessarily as charmed by. the trim is going to be a bright white (the name of it is "frost," doesn't that just sound amazing?), and i'm looking forward to making my own space.

had a nice afternoon being lazy, visiting yet another hardware store (since moving into a house of our own, we love to wander around thinking about stuff we can do!), and trying out a new chinese buffet with the boychik. as usual the food was so-so, but i cannot and will not pass up an opportunity to smother everything with sweet and sour sauce. it's like crack to me.

one of my favorite people in the whole wide world, my nephew tiernan, had a pretty serious surgery last week. no one wants to hear about a kid getting poked and prodded and opened up like a can of sardines, and this was no exception to that rule. the good news is that not only was the kid a rockstar about the whole thing (no complaining, no whining, no freaking out about the IVs), but he got to go home early and is now hanging out, playing his DSi, and trying not to itch his incision. i got to talk to him this morning, and it made me feel seriously good. he sounds just like himself, and i can't wait to see him and his brother next week and spoil them rotten with ice cream and cartoons. i felt so anxious the day of the surgery, even though the prognosis was excellent (very few kids react badly to the surgery, most get sicker from the anesthesia), and hearing his chipper little voice today went a long way in making me feel like he's on the mend. we also had a cute conversation about how patting his chest to help with the itch is a lot like patting a scabbing tattoo when it itches. such a sweet boy! i'm taking at least one of the kids down there next week to hang out and watch cartoons and play scribblenauts, and maybe get some sun. i can hardly wait!

house-work

2011-07-06T21:04:00.000-06:00

i don't know if it's the good weather or we're just feeling motivated, but we've gotten a lot done around the house lately. seriously. rooms have been adjusted, boxes unpacked, beds set up, plants planted. i also got D's computer up and running, and have finally been able to properly pore through all 856 photos from the wedding. yes, 856. give or take three. needless to say, i've spent big chunks of yesterday and today uploading and organizing and ordering photos. to see more than you ever needed to see of me in a big white dress, go over here.

i would also like to say our plan of winnowing down possessions and simplifying things around the house is actually going pretty well. it's slowing down the unpacking (the same way it slowed down the packing!) but it's worth it. it feels so good to get rid of stuff!

sunday night awesome

2011-07-03T23:56:00.001-06:00

have you seen party down? i just discovered it on netflix, and am IN LOVE. i used to work as a caterer for my mother's small company back in college, and while our crew was a lot smaller, it does make me a little nostalgic for the old job. oh, and it's funny as all shit. i just got to the jennifer coolidge episodes, and the one where she is on shrooms and joking about her green merkin being too small made me full on guffaw out loud. MERKIN. always funny. i also watched a patton oswalt special the other day that made me laugh so hard the kids came down to check in on me. i think they think i'm mildly retarded. ha!

we also made ice cream yesterday with one of our THREE ice cream makers. my mom bought D one for xmas, which he has used once. we got two for our wedding, when we had zero on our registry. one of them makes a lot of ice cream and uses ice, the other one is an awesome cuisinart stand-alone. normally i could give two shits about ice cream, but we bought ingredients the other day because it was hot and i thought the girlchild and her friends would dig making it. we used pineapple, toasted coconut and mini chocolate chips. it was epic! so tonight we made coffee ice cream. also amazing. we ate it right out of the maker before freezing some for tomorrow. i went from not really caring about ice cream, to being totally sold on making it at home and glad we have so many options for making it.

the neighbors are all doing fireworks, so the cat is hiding out in our room under the dresser. she doesn't seem too irritated, she keeps rolling over for belly pets and meowing for attention. she just isn't coming out from under there any time soon.

it's a mental health friday!

2011-07-01T11:53:00.000-06:00

i only had two patients today, and one incredible jackass for a tech, so i called out. i know, that's terrible, isn't it? only i don't feel bad. at all. instead, i'm excited about having an extra day to get stuff done! here is a list of things i hope to do this weekend:

unpack more boxes.
specifically, make the kitchen a lot more livable. it's the room we use the most, so it kind of needs to be organized.
make a bird feeder. i saw this neat one and thought it would look cool in our yard. my main tech and co-worker was a bird biologist before he got into MRI. i have always loved birds, but not really known much about them. since working with him the past few years, i've learned a lot. he doesn't use a feeder; he prefers to sprinkle seed on the ground and watch from his deck, but i think i would also like to have a feeder. the bird watching site linked above has a tremendous amount of information.
my mom bought me a beautiful red maple that i want to find a place for as well. it's still in its pot, but it needs to find a home in our yard!

the only other things going on over here are lots of masters of horror on the netflix, some bran muffin making (i know it sounds crazy, but the bob's red mill recipe is so good! i add coconut, flax seeds and dried cranberries, and they get gobbled up.), and some comic book reading. that's one of the awesome things about no tv, we're all reading a lot more. the move also uncovered some calvin and hobbes books, which we are all enjoying. now i'm going to go drink some coffee, eat a muffin, and read up on the birds in my area. i am already loving this friday!

sans TV

2011-06-29T19:24:00.000-06:00

we've been without the tv for a little over a week. dropping cable in the summer is kind of cheating; nothing new is on anyway, and it's (supposedly) nice enough to spend time outside doing other things. however, we are all acclimating pretty quickly, and it wasn't until this afternoon that i actually though, "man, i'd like to go home and plop down on the couch." FYI, we also are sans couch right now. the old couch, it was gross. it was free. it was ugly. it got taken to the dump, where the boys were lucky enough to see it smashed into a billion pieces with a very large tractor/trash mover.

so yeah, no place to flop, nothing to watch tv on, what the hell are we doing?

making friends with netflix. doing summer homework (that would be the girlchild). watching insane amounts of kung fu and samurai films (boychik). playing with the neighbor girls (girlchild!). painting swatches of paint on the walls (me!). going through boxes of old art and craft supplies and weeding out old/unused stuff (also me). making lists of things we want to do in the new house, including,

build a storage couch. this is D's newest idea and i'm open to it. i figure the hardest part will be the upholstery, but worse case scenario, we can start with a slipcover and go from there!
do more embroidery.
work on knit xmas gifts.
read more (all of us!)
grow a small garden.
take more shorter/weekend family trips.
go outside more.
watch less tv. hah! fooled you with that one.

i think we're well on our way. tonight i actually made a somewhat healthy, home-cooked meal, and am getting ready to go lounge and knit and correct someone's summer homework. is it wrong how much i LOVE pulling out my red pen? putting stickers on good work and making what i think are helpful suggestions for the future? because if it is, then i am oh so very wrong. man, that's one thing i miss about being a T.A. in college: correcting papers. i miss that and my tiny, stinky office and drinking shitty coffee late at night while fixing spelling errors and reading essays. sometimes i think i missed my calling...

psst...

2011-06-28T00:49:00.000-06:00

over here! want to know a secret? last week i took a second vicoden too soon after the first, and ended up needing a ride home from work and then i barfed. since then i've been afraid to take them, and have only taken half of one at a time. that wasn't working, so i bit the bullet and took a whole one tonight. guess what? i feel awesome and wish i'd done this earlier today so i could have gotten more done. dammit.

i will never go back to the other house again

2011-06-27T22:22:00.000-06:00

neither will LuLu. man, this cat loves the new carpet at this place. it's soft, it's thick, it's cozy, and she has taken to flopping everywhere. she especially loves to plop down in places where you might trip over her (like doorways!), and she's also discovered that darting between your feet while you're walking up or down stairs is seriously fun. the cat might be the death of us.

it took what felt like forever, but we are finally, once and for all, done with the old house. we still have a lot of unpacking and organizing to do at this house, but at least we can focus all our energy to here and not there. i admit i've been feeling kind of tense, which makes me suzy sunshine, but i can't help it! i just feel like there is so much to do and i want it all done yesterday. my back is still royally fucked up, my sinuses have decided to jump in on the pain wagon, i'm sick to death of taking any kind of pain medication. i'm set up to start some physical therapy soon for my back, which i think will help. i might also see a chiropractor. i also need to maybe take a deep breath and realize that stuff will get unpacked when it does, and as long as i can find towels for taking showers and my scrubs, we're doing okay. the rest can wait.

i've been going through fabrics too, getting rid of ones i've held on to for far to long. anyone doing any serious quilting or sewing and want some fabric? drop me a line and i'll let you know what i have.

i also put some new plants out front, and bought some catnip for guess who. she took a bite of the fresh stuff today and i think it blew her kitten mind. i have to say, watching her acclimate to the house and neighborhood has been the one bright spot in all the moving shenanigans. i'm endlessly amused at how amazing she finds it all, and watching her discover new nooks to hide, and new spots to perch, and seeing her happy tail and fluffy tummy all the time is pretty rad. the kids are also beyond cheerful; the girlchild made friends already with the little girls across the street and the boychik loves his new room. he's made it a cozy little man nest already. we're all settling in, and that feels pretty good. i love planning what i'm going to paint the walls and where i want to move things. i just wish i felt better and could get more done!

FLOP

2011-06-20T22:42:00.000-06:00

i just spent three of the longest days of my life trying to move out of one house and into another. OMG i hate moving so much. i hate that we have a million books, and that a quarter of them are insanely huge and heavy cook books. i have a love/hate relationship to the weather; one day it rained and i hated it, and the next two it was hot and muggy and i hated that too. oh wait, i guess that makes it a hate/hate relationship. i hate that we busted ass for three days, but glad that we did because we got more done than i thought we could. i hate that the kids keep asking me where things are. um, your guess is as good as mine. i especially hate being asked if i've seen this or that book. DUDES, really? do you see it in the piles?

i do love the icy cold beer i have in my hands right now, knowing i get to take a shower in my rocking new bathroom tomorrow morning, folding clean clothes, and the feeling of washing your face after a long, dusty, sweaty day. i'm kind of sad we couldn't convince LuLu to come over with us, but i bet a night alone will change her mind.

my body and brain are jello. i do believe i will finish my beer, watch an old movie, and put more books away.

up too late

2011-06-17T00:21:00.000-06:00

pretty much every night this week. then i'm late to work the next morning, confused when my alarm goes off, and generally useless that first hour. fun times for my co-worker. if he weren't such a laid back dude, i would be able to raise his blood pressure with my consistent disregard for clocks.

since getting married, i've seen my husband about three times, and he's taken to sleeping in the living room. that sounds shitty when i write it down, but it's the truth. our schedules are complete and total opposites right now, even with all my staying up late. he works until at least 1 or 2 in the morning, and i get up at 6. on a good night he comes home as i'm heading to bed and i get a quick kiss before lying down. this is new for both of us; things at the restaurant he works at have changed (the place itself got a make-over, people are going on and off vacations, and D made himself imminently available, which they've taken full advantage of), we need the money for the move and stuff, and while the wedding was awesome and i'm still glad we're married, this past month has kind of sucked. in as much as i married a man i don't get to see a lot of, and you know, i kind of like him so that bums me out. we spend most of our time talking about the move, what's going on with the kids and school (guess what! both decided to have shitty last quarters!), and things we'd do to each other if we had either the time or energy.

while this makes my life sound both boring and shitty, it really isn't. it's just having a boring, shitty spell right now. once we are moved, get settled, and start having barbeques in the backyard, i think everything will be a-okay.

technology i am loving

2011-06-12T12:09:00.001-06:00

podcasts! how did i ever live before podcasts? i love NPR, i love the radio, i love listening to people to talk, but with a podcast i can do it anywhere, at any time. that is awesome.
wireless internet. i was trying to explain to the girlchild the other day why we used to have "telephone tables," a place where you had the phone and a notepad and often someplace to sit. i was telling her about how phones used to have cords, and you had to just sit there to talk. she was aghast. i kind of feel that way about using the internet now. weird.
my keurig coffee maker. my co-worker made a wise statement the other day about how coffee makers are costing more money to make smaller amounts of coffee. while he's right about that, i love that i can pop in that little cup, push a button, and thirty seconds later have a cup of coffee. i know it's fresh, hasn't been sitting around for a while getting burnt, and i don't make four cups i don't need. plus, the coffee maker itself is fun to use.
my kindle. or rather, the boychik's kindle that i like to think i acquired through eminent domain. (oh really, we all know i started using it and got hooked!) being that we are in the process of moving about five thousand books from one to another, i appreciate my kindle even more. there are about forty-five books on there already, and it still weighs the same.

ack

2011-06-06T22:05:00.000-06:00

i did not get as much done today as i wanted to, but we do have gas and internet/phone over at the new house. i spent some time there today washing dishes (in the dishwasher!) and putting them away, unpacking boxes, doing laundry (we got a lot of new towels for the wedding, which is awesome) and waiting. my mother-in-law came over and helped me line shelves, which was super nice because a) i'm not really very detail oriented sometimes and so b) they looked a lot neater and nicer because she was in charge.

the difference between the two houses is amazing. coming back to the rental is a downer; not just because there's still so much left to pack (and there is!), but because it's darker and not as spacious. i wish my back would also get better. since messing it up before the wedding, it is not the same, and i've had continuous pain for a little over two weeks now. my lower back hurts pretty much all the time, and lifting anything that weighs more than five pounds is no fun. my left shoulder and elbow are also kind of wonky and achey right now too. i feel like i have crabby old lady joints! i think i might have done too much knitting and strained that left side. i can't tell if that makes me a bad-ass crafter or a retard. ugh. in any case, my body is not cooperating with my mind, and the menthol back patches aren't really working. i might need to go ahead and get the heated ones, take a ton of ibuprofen, and just power through.

i did warn both kids that this weekend i'm getting them hopped on caffeine and exploiting their labor. they can have ice cream when we're done. i also really really really want to buy paint for our bedroom and get started on that. i think in my nook i'll use this color (or something similar), but i want a warm-ish grey for the bedroom. initially i wanted a creamy yellow, but the paint already in there is kind of dark, and the more i see grey tones, the more i love them. it's neutral without being tan, and will dress up or down nicely. have any of you painted inside recently? would you recommend a brand? the glidden was easy to pick up samples for, but i hear behr covers nicer and wears well.

some pictures for you

2011-06-06T09:27:00.001-06:00

the new family room! while the living room upstairs is lovely, and i'm sure we'll use it often, this is the room we're planning on putting the tv and stuff. it's got a supremely mellow vibe, and in the summer it's nice and cool since it's sort of underground, and in the winter, it's cozy because it's got a fireplace.

yesterday while waiting for the new washer and drier to be installed, i made the first cup of coffee in our fancy new coffee maker! needless to say, it was delicious.

look at our cute new washer and drier! i'm excited about breaking them in. i can't tell if that is pathetic or awesome. in any case, they are quiet and eco-friendly and blue, and i'm a happy girl.

after doing some house things yesterday, D and i took a long drive to nowhere. i had a great time. i think D had fun too, but was also busy thinking about all the stuff we still need to do at the new and old houses, and so he might not have had as much fun as i did. we stopped for a beer at the north fork brewery, drove up a curvy, scary logging road to watch paragliders, and we saw all three forks of the nooksack river. it was nice to just be out in the sun, people and scenery watching.

today we get to wait around for various people to come set things up at the new house, which is kind of lame. i hate the whole, "we'll be there between 8 and 5." really? you can't narrow it down to a morning or afternoon time? i guess i should take a shower and pack up the car with another load and go relieve D.

ohmygod moving sucks so much

2011-06-01T19:26:00.000-06:00

but the new house is so freaking awesome that i know it's going to be worth it. KNOW IT.

the kids are busy making me crazy and in turn, i think i'm adding new grey hairs to my streak. when i get enough of them, i'm going to start dying them hot pink. i might be close.

black cherry juice concentrate can also be added to any drink every made and make it better. i'm so glad anne left half a bottle in my fridge!

i also bought a new home phone today, and that was sort of exciting. i also had to buy those stick on heating pads for my back, and that was not as exciting.

i might still have a few more wedding blogs posts in store

2011-05-31T00:04:00.001-06:00

i can't help it! man, you work so hard at throwing a massive, hopefully kick-ass party, and then you have things to say about it afterward. i know i set up a whole different blog for this sort of thing, but OH WELL you are just going to have to deal.

things about my wedding that i still think were awesome ideas:

the blue shoes. seriously. it was kind of a lark; i spent most of my time looking at red ones, or glittery ones, but then the girlchild picked out her dress and it all fell into place.
wearing my dad's turquoise bracelet. for me it was a nice way to be close to him on such an important day. that it matched the dress the girlchild picked out, and D's tie, was kind of a happy coincidence. or sign from god. or kismet. pick one and run with it!
hiring the awesome genevieve to do the photos. seriously. we got a CD of images last night, and i spent most of today looking at them with D and being amazed. she did such a great job of catching all sorts of little moments, and all of the photos just look so happy. i mean, i know we were having an awesome time, but i wasn't sure that would be apparent in photos. she let us be relaxed and have fun, and while she did give us some direction, she also went with the flow. i've never had so much fun having my picture taken!
near the end of our wedding planning (the last month before the wedding) i had to really come to terms with how i wanted things to look. i had been getting a lot of advice from family members, and while all of it was genuine and well-meaning, some of it missed the point. at one point i said to D, "this is just isn't how i wanted it to look," and he listened to me and said, "yeah, so let's do it your way." it was hard to say, "no, we've got it covered!" but i'm glad we did. our wedding wasn't a white trash celebration, but it also wasn't overly fussy. i think the end result was personal, pretty, and relaxed, and made people feel at home. i might be wrong (i wasn't a real guest, you know), but it seemed like people were having fun and that made me feel good.

the only thing i would do differently would be to get my flowers two days before the wedding. i bought mine wholesale from costco, and while they were both lovely and cost-effective, the day after the wedding they really opened up and looked amazing. which isn't to say they looked like poop at the service, but man! the day after they were open and gorgeous. i might also spend more time breaking in my shoes. i don't wear heels enough to have left that for the last minute! other than that, i wouldn't change a thing, and really? those things did not detract from my day. we had a good time, we saw the people we love, we ate crazy amounts of pie, and got to go home together. sweet.

(also! i updated the flickr set of our wedding photos with a ton more stuff. if you are into that sort of thing, go check them out!)

walking down the aisle music

2011-05-29T15:00:00.002-06:00

D and i walked down the aisle to a mark mothersbaugh song from the royal tenenbaums. we used the song that etheline was supposed to use when she first tried to marry henry sherman, called mothersbaugh canon. seriously. i liked that it was pretty without being overly flowerly, how it was kind of like pachabel's canon, and how it came from one of my very favorite movies. plus, the guy from DEVO wrote it, and you can't buy that kind of indie cred.

mr. mothersbaugh, we salute you!

after the ceremony, we used mutato musizka's (mothersbaugh!) version of hey jude, along with other instrumental mothersbaugh pieces. it was awesome. of course, i'm biased, so you may take that with a grain of salt.

dear anne,

2011-05-29T10:53:00.000-06:00

today i promise to move some boxes into the new house. my plan is to move all my big knitting boxes (yarn aweigh!), all my sewing and fabric boxes, and whatever else i have that is conveniently in storage boxes. honest.

xoxo amanda

new hair!

2011-05-28T12:39:00.000-06:00

not the greatest photo, but you can see i took a whole four to five inches off. you should have seen the pile of hair! it looked like a small dog. the cool thing about it is i can straighten it (like it is in this photo) and it looks great, but if i leave it alone, it gets wavy and also looks good. it feels a million pounds lighter and that will be useful if we ever get sun again.

one week!

2011-05-28T11:43:00.001-06:00

i've been married now for seven whole days. i got asked a lot this week, "so do you feel different?" the answer is, "yes." it's hard to explain, but i don't feel like everything is just the same old, same old. part of it is afterglow from all the lovey-dovey days leading up to and including the wedding, part of it is a generalized feeling of "wow." i keep thinking to myself, "i got married!" in getting married, that means everyone knows how much i love him, how much he loves me, and our intentions to be together for a long ass time. so it's not like i love him more, but more a sense that our families and friends are on board. in a very general, overwhelming way, it feels really good to be married. it's a subtle difference, but different anyway. it's awesome. i always felt like we were a good team before, but now i'm ready to buy us uniforms with our names embroidered on them.

people were surprised to see me back at work this week, everyone thought i'd take some time off for moving but guess what? i'm retarded and want to save that vacation time for the summer. i have three day weekends and strong kids, so no taking time off for moving! plus, i think next week i'll just rent a truck for a day and we can do it all at once. whatever it costs will be worth it to not have to make a million trips.

i also cut off all my hair this week, downloaded and printed the million and two forms it takes to change your name, and sent out a billion thank you cards (i still have some left to do, of course). overall, i think my first week of wedded bliss went well. it's too early to tell, but i think i might be a kick-ass wife.

also, here is the song we picked for our first dance. okay, our only dance. it's hard to dance when everyone wants to talk to you!

now it's house time!

2011-05-23T23:48:00.000-06:00

we got the keys to our new house yesterday, and i was so tired that i didn't even go over there. can you believe that? i can, because i honestly felt like someone had beat me with a sock full of oranges. tonight i'm actually starting to feel human again, so i headed over this evening with D and the kids to drop off a bunch of wedding presents. we figured they were still all nicely packed, they should go over first! walking in was awesome. it's completely empty, a blank slate for us to play and goof off in. we were fortunate enough to receive some lovely gifts, and while opening them the other night one of the things they girlchild said was, "man, our new house is going to look so cool." she's right, it is. going from the wedding to the house is a lot of work, i won't lie, but i think it's more than worth it. we get to start our new life together in a new place, and that is pretty damn cool. i see all sorts of fun projects in our future! my first was to knit my new house key a cozy little sweater, because i am a dork. i saw a few patterns for key cozies online, then watched some law & order while i winged it. it wasn't terribly hard to make, and now i kind of want to build a bunch of cozies for everything. keys, ipods, kindles, lamps, vacuums....okay, maybe not the vacuum. maybe a nice mug cozy, though.

also, since we had a good friend officiate our wedding (and didn't want to make him have to get ordained as something), we needed to make our marriage legal so we hit the courthouse today and once again said "i do." it was a super low-key affair, and we have decided that from now on we'll just have a three day wedding anniversary. going to the courthouse didn't make me feel any more married (i truly feel that i married D on saturday!), but it does make our union kosher, and now i can start with all the name-changing shenanigans. that sounds decidedly less fun that knitting key cozies, but it will be fun to have a new name. now i just need to get used to signing it...

sneak peak

2011-05-23T09:25:00.001-06:00

our amazing photographer sent over a few shots to tide us over, and here are two! in this one, i'm dipping D because my hoop skirts made it hard for him to try to dip me. :-) ha! i kind of look like i'm going to eat him, which is honestly kind of how i felt at that moment.

and here you can see my blue shoes, my curled hair, and D wondering what to do with his hands. isn't he handsome? can't you see why i want to eat him alive?

i am now a mrs.

2011-05-22T13:48:00.001-06:00

whew. weddings are exhausting. i thought i was tired the other night, but i had no idea. the day went great! there were a few hiccups early on, and i had an honest-to-goodness annoyed bride moment (although i don't think i was too much of a jackass), and then i thought i was going to have a panic attack when i got my wedding dress on, but suddenly we were all walking upstairs and then boom! married. it does all go by quickly, and afterward it seems like a happy blur, but here are a few things i remember clearly.

telling the boychik to walk slowly, i wasn't too good with heels.
our friend and officiant got one of those books that seems to spontaneously burst into flames when you open it, which is how he started the wedding. we're not sure everyone got the rapture joke, but we thought it was funny.
both D and i winged our part of the vows, and i was struck by how beautiful D's were. really. i'm not just saying that because he's my husband.
we were late getting upstairs because i run on indian time, the end. it's the only native thing i do, and i can't help it, i just get there when i do.
we lucked out and hired an amazing photographer, who took care of us all day long. honestly, i only met her that day, and she was crazy helpful and wonderful and took a million and two photos. all of which i can't wait to see!
we had a whole lot of guests! that was a little overwhelming for me. looking out at all those happy faces made me feel so fortunate.
all of the pies my friends and family made were amaze-balls. OMG so much pie! at one point, i just wandered down the table with a fork, taking bites. you know, because i could.
i met a lot of D's friends that were delightful.
my friend Anne really went above and beyond in both the days leading up to the wedding and on the wedding day. she let me vent and never told me to "breathe," she just listened and said, "yeah, that sucks." she gave a touching toast (it was one of the times i teared up) and i don't think i could have made it through the day with any shred of sanity if she hadn't been there. yay!

today i feel like i got hit by a truck. i am just finally waking up, getting ready for a shower, and then taking the girlchild out for coffee and a nibble. she's my girl now! almost 24 hours into being married and i can tell you, it's pretty fucking awesome.

2011-05-21T01:32:00.001-06:00

I AM GETTING MARRIED LATER TODAY.

i am exhausted, excited, kind of grubby and will likely lie in bed tossing for a bit before finally conking out. i hurt my back, started my period, and also figured out an awesome way to curl my hair. i was both astonished by the kindness of my people and annoyed with them at different times of the day. i can see now why people throw weddings: you cram a lot of problem solving, interpersonal relationship stuff, stress and emotions all in a short period of time and it's like a crash course in "are you ready to spend forever with this person?" it's awesome and overwhelming and has made me weepy more times than i care to admit. i'm thrilled to finally be here, at the day all this work was for, and kind of sad that soon it will be over.

in the end, i get to go home with the man i love, and so no matter what happens later today, it will be worth it. schmoop.

beeramid

2011-05-18T12:23:00.000-06:00

if you aren't coming to my wedding, this is what you're missing. a mighty stash of beer!

i need to clean the house today, because we are having guests. D needs to cut his hair, i need to figure out how to curl a metric ton of my own hair (i'm thinking overnight soft rollers and hair wax? ideas?). most everything else is done and accounted for, and if it isn't at this point, then i don't care.

no one else will either, once we start cracking open cases of beer and bottles of wine!

diet shakes

2011-05-16T16:36:00.000-06:00

and salads, with a side of sugar free red bull, are a girl's best friend this week. i wouldn't really be a bride if i didn't crash diet, would i? god, the feminist part of me is irritated, the other part of me just wants it to look like i only have one chin in my wedding photos.

we also had our first wedding kerfuffle today. discovered the PA system we rented wasn't a PA "system" so much as it was a podium with a built in speaker. boo! that means it won't work with our iPod dj. after a quick internet search, i discovered a place that will rent us the equipment for not much more, they'll come out and set it up, and then we'll take it down and bring it back. hooray! the kid that just called me from there was amazing; just really on top of things and relaxed and helpful. i didn't really even have time to get my panties in a bunch, i just made some phone calls and voila! everything was fine.

i am awesome at being a bride. true story.

the countdown

2011-05-14T12:31:00.000-06:00

begins NOW. well, it officially begins now. i've been counting down for a while now, as anyone i work with can attest to.

7 days! on the list today,

go through our cd's and find those with songs we want to use at the reception.
hit up Dick's, and get serving utensils.
either price or buy booze outright.
work on super-secret-reception craft. wait, telling you about it takes away some of the secret, but it's still pretty mysterious.

my shoes showed up yesterday, and i wore them around the house. i remembered why i don't normally wear high heels: i walk like a person who just discovered her feet in them. it's not pretty. needless to say, i need some practice. i also started breaking in my corset, which wasn't as terrible as it sounds. although i can see why fainting couches were so popular back in the day.

ten days left!

2011-05-09T19:51:00.000-06:00

then i am marrying this man, even though he wears those sunglasses on a regular basis. i can forgive him of that because OMG do you see my chins? shit man, i've been trying to diet in order to look crazy hot in my wedding photos, but i'll be honest: stress makes me want to eat or drink beers, and both of those things involve calories i probably don't need. i have a corset for my midsection (hell yeah!) but unfortunately, you can't get corsets for your face. what the fuck? oh well, this guy still thinks i'm foxy, and since he's the guy i make out with, that's good enough for me.

we got our marriage license today, which made me all kinds of giddy and schmoopy. (hence the photo.) it didn't help that every lady we saw today was all "oooh, so cute! congratulations!" while i'm anxious and busy and feel like i have a million things to do in the next ten days (um, because i DO), i can honestly say i'm happy to be going through this with D. we also picked up all the paper and utensils and stuff for the reception, i made some more goddamn pom poms (i hate those fuckers now) and this weekend i wrote our vows and ceremony. okay, to be honest, i only wrote the beginning part of the ceremony from scratch, the rest of it was stuff i found out there on the internet and altered. still, i think writing the first part is commendable. i think the fact that i'm getting so much done means that a) i'm on a roll and b) i need those beers that are making my chins looks ridiculous.

this means i'm going to have to finish wedding decorations

2011-05-09T02:52:00.001-06:00

my giant, procrastination aiding project, the missoni style afghan, is done! well, the ends still need to be woven in, and i think it might benefit from blocking, but the knitting is DONE. this took five months to complete, two or three of those months spent just looking at it and dreading the miles of stockinette stitch that were to come. taking a break from it was the right thing to do; i think i made some more courageous color choices near the end because i'd had some time to think. i really didn't want it to follow a pattern or the colors to be too "matchy." in the end, this was totally worth the time, effort and cost. (although i used knit picks wool of the andes that i bought during a sale; making all the yarn for this cost about $50!) the blog post that started this whole thing can be found here, and my photos over on flickr can be found here.

showered

2011-05-01T23:13:00.000-06:00

i had a bridal shower this weekend! admittedly, i was kind of nervous beforehand. wearing one of those girdle-type undershirts didn't help, either, but i haven't been to a party thrown for me in oh, about ten years. i'm always nervous that it will be a weird, awkward event where no one talks and we all sit around making terrible small talk. in fact, it's safe to say that i worry about that 75% of the time in general. in any case, i shouldn't have spazzed out, it was awesome. i was (am) overwhelmed with the kindness of my friends and family. i didn't just get a lot of awesome presents (although I DID), i had a great day with people i love, and ate too much cake. can a girl ask for more? i think not.

also, i'd like for everyone to know that my favorite sandwich EVER is as follows: ham, brie and fig jam on baguette. it's been my favorite sandwich for years now, but i want you to know about it because it's the greatest thing on earth. sweet and salty and creamy, crammed between two slices of chewy bread. delightful!

names

2011-04-25T02:07:00.000-06:00

yesterday, at D's family easter celebration, i announced that i would be taking D's last name. for a while i toyed with the idea of still having a hyphen; keeping my father's last name and adding D's to it. the more i'm with d and the kids, though, the more i think i'd like it if we all had the same last name. we have a joke where whenever someone does something awesome, we say " Go, Team R!" like the venture brothers, which is kind of how this all started. yesterday, when i said, "oh, i'm just going to be a r----," D's dad actually put his hand on mine, sighed and said, "thank you." i told him after he bought me a house, i kind of thought that's the least i could do, and he said, "oh! you didn't have to do that!" and we had a good laugh and i realized i'm doing the right thing. it makes him happy, it makes the kids happy, and i'll always be a bentley, regardless of what my last name is.

plus, only having one last name sounds kind of nice. you spend 33 years explaining your hyphen and tell me how you feel about it.

country roads

2011-04-23T23:47:00.000-06:00

this will come as no surprise to anyone, but i've been kind of stressed out lately. excited and happy too, but also anxious and busy. the wedding is less than a month away, and it feels like we still have a lot to do. the week after that we have to move four people out of a house we've lived in for years, and the thought of that is so daunting to me. i hate moving all by myself, i can hardly bring myself to pack things in any kind of neat or orderly way, i always wait until the last minute and throw things in trash bags and boxes, then procrastinate for MONTHS with the unpacking. you've seen me move enough times to know that's true! only this time, i'm kind of a grown-up, suddenly have kids, and kind of need to set a better example. it's also a lot more important to get set up easily and comfortably in the new house, because kids need stability and their toothbrushes. on occasion the thought of all my responsibilities kind of strikes me dumb.

in addition to all the fun stresses of getting married and having a home of our very own, the kid's mom has come back on the scene. it's been about 8 years since anyone has heard from her, and guess what brought her back this time? facebook. (dear facebook, i hate you even more now. congratulations!) it's a weird and touchy situation all around; with one kid trying to make contact, and one kid not wanting to have anything to do with her. D isn't thrilled to have to talk about it either, and we're worried that the kids will end up disappointed or hurt. to be honest, so far the contact that's been made between her and the kids hasn't looked too promising. i hope i'm wrong.

today was a crazy beautiful day, though. spring in the pacific northwest has taken forever to show up, and this is the first sunny, warm day we've had in forever. the kids were out with their friends, D was at work, so i took a nice long drive. i forgot my MP3 player, but found some tapes in the car, and spent hours driving around listening to jane's addiction. by the time i got home, i felt considerably more cheerful. the sun, the sights, the aimless wandering all did me good. since coming home i've gotten some wedding stuff done, made plans to do more wedding stuff with my mother-in-law on monday, and tidied up the house. it's amazing what a long stretch of road does for my mood.

the evils of facebook

2011-04-18T00:49:00.000-06:00

i broke up facebook months ago; at least i thought i did. turns out, they never really remove your account, they just "deactivate" it, and you're still there, just looking like that asshole who never posts. which i guess in my case, was kind of true. it's kind of a long story why facebook became kind of an issue again, but there are things i kind of feel like i need to be paying attention to. being a quiet and benign presence there can't hurt my parenting skills, let's put it that way. it's not really the most terrible thing to happen to me; logging in tonight i changed my last name for the first of what i hear is going to be many times, and i got to see what kids i haven't talked to in forever are doing, and i did a little spring cleaning. i got rid of some friends that had been only work friends (and a long time ago, at that), i pared things down to close friends and family. my list is much smaller, and the people on there now are people who post things that are actually fun to read. yay for that. still, being on there makes me feel strange, and i can't tell if this will be a lasting thing, or if i'll just deactivate again.

also, i think D and i figured out what we song we want to use for our first dance today. honestly, it came on the radio and we started talking about how awesome it was, and then i said, "hey, we could use this for our first dance." we came home and listened to it a few more times, and i think we're decided! we're keeping it a secret though, at D's request. i will say this: it's not anything either of us would have thought we'd pick. which is kind of what makes it so rad.

my newest crush

2011-04-16T11:35:00.000-06:00


dreamy! handy!

this guy, antonio ballatore. he has a show on HGTV, called the antonio treatment, which i have quickly become obsessed with. i guess he's been on tv for a while, but i only recently discovered him. i tried to find a photo of him with his awesome glasses, but this will do. isn't he handsome? his decorating is also totally fucking insane, and i mean that in the best way possible. his rooms look bizarre and beautiful, and he's got what i think of as a coney island aesthetic. plus, he's tall, he can obviously grow a beard, and he's got a super cool dog. swoon alert!

just check out some of these awesome rooms for yourself, and try to tell me they aren't ridiculously wonderful. i can only hope some of my house looks so good someday!

a few home declarations

2011-04-11T17:05:00.000-06:00

the knowledge that we are soon moving into our own home, a real house, has slowly been sinking in over the past week. it all happened so FAST. barring anything crazy happening in the next week, we'll be closing within a month!

of course this means i've been thinking a lot about how i want the house to look, what i want to do to it and in it, scanning blogs and paying more attention to home and garden magazines. in my head i'm making a list of things i do and don't want to do, and i have a feeling this is going to turn into some kind of home-owning manifesto for amanda. after the jump is a short list of things i'm going to try to adhere to.

no buying stuff just to fill space. if we can't find a couch we love, in the price/size/style we want, then we wait to buy one. no buying "placeholder" furniture, or stuff just to take up space. i'm okay with things being a bit sparse at first, if it means we pick out pieces that we honestly love and will be able to live with for years to come.
i'm going to do my very best to re-use items, re-finish items we have, and buy used furniture when possible. vintage pieces have a lot of charm, and an old table from the thrift store can be re-worked to look amazing, and i think an eclectic mix of styles looks awesome. i love ikea, but i don't want to live in an ikea showroom, you know? being a grown-up shouldn't mean buying a lot of stuff we can't afford to make a point about how grown-up we are!
when possible, i want to build custom made items that fit the space. lucky for me i have a very crafty partner with a lot of tools. even luckier: we have our own garage now! D made our bed, and did a great job. i'm sad we'll have to stop sleeping in the loft he created, but happy that he can take that wood we used and make something new with it. with his technical skills and my crafty bent, we should be able to make stuff that works for us. it might not always work, and i'm sure we'll have a failure or two, but i'm okay with that. this is actually something D said right off the bat; he's excited about making pieces that fit the space perfectly, and looking forward to getting to use all his woodworking tools!
i'm going to try really hard to not try to force a "look" or theme, and to let things progress naturally. it's tempting to dive in and paint every wall a different color all at once, but i'm going to limit myself to projects done one at a time, done thoughtfully and done well. we're going to get to live in this house for a long time (knock on wood) and doing it all at once it like getting your whole body tattooed in a year. where's the fun in that? i space out my tattoos, so i'm going to try to do the same with home improvement projects. :-)

grumpy pants

2011-04-11T10:13:00.001-06:00

we should leave this in the boychik's room just for spite

man, i have been seriously super grumpy lately. i think that's what being stressed out does to me, and we're all kind of in a heightened state of "oh my god there's so much to do" and also antsy to get the hell out of this house and into the new one. i think the only one of us that isn't a grouch right now is the girlchild, and she has been a refreshing change of pace. if i could have two days alone in the house, i think i could get a lot done and feel a lot less fussy, but the problem about having a family is that you can't kick them out for a few days because you want to. you need a good reason, and i don't really have one. also, i need to get over my thing where i only work on house stuff when they're gone. after all, we're about to get married and they're not going anywhere any time soon. i am actually going to have to adapt, i can put it off no longer. at least the kids are back in school today and D works; i feel a great big productive streak coming on already.

lately i'm all about reading home and design blogs and am having five million ideas for things i want to do to the house. we had the inspection this weekend, so this morning i meet with the realtor to go over the findings and maybe re-negotiate the price. the report really didn't find much though; there are a few things that will need to be repaired and/or replaced in a few years, so we'll need to set up a fund for that sort of thing, but overall, there aren't any glaring defects. yay!

you know what i am really excited about?

2011-04-07T20:53:00.000-06:00

having my own tiny space to make a studio in. i know i don't do a lot of drawing or painting or doodling, but when i do, i am very happy. that little weird "closet" behind the master bedroom closet calls to me at night, and i've spent days now daydreaming about how i want to paint it and where i want to mount the cork. right now i have a very steve zissou theme in mind, meaning i need to pick out exactly the right shade of blue for the walls, and obviously paint my desk red. who's excited? THIS GIRL.

guess who isn't really working on anything wedding related at all?

2011-04-06T20:17:00.000-06:00

that would be me. shit, all i can think about are things i want to do to the new house, as in painting, and things i want to do at the new house, like barbequeing.

in reality, i don't have a ton of stuff left to do. the invitations took FOREVER because i'm a tard and making them all by hand was not my smartest idea. at the same time, they turned out cute, so i shouldn't bitch. there's still plenty of stuff that needs to be bought, though. the kids need outfits, the tables need tablecloths, the centerpieces need centers, yadda yadda. we should also probably get a marriage license, assign the pies to our loved ones, and make a menu.

honestly, i'm overwhelmed. sometimes happily so, sometimes in a spazzed out kind of way. this is a lot to do in a short amount of time, and while it's all very excited, it's also a lot of work. a month and a half left, i should probably be doing something other than blogging!

when it rains it pours

2011-04-04T15:14:00.000-06:00

that saying also applies to good things, thank goodness. in about two months i'll be married, have a new-ish last name (i'm still trying to decide if i'll hyphenate or not!), and guess what? i'll also be a homeowner. well, mostly a homeowner. my amazing in-laws are helping us buy our very first home! we've been talking about it with them for a while now, but had decided last week that we should really just focus on the wedding stuff, and look at houses after that was all over. then, we all (independent of each other) saw this house come on the market that we thought looked great. one thing led to another, we saw the house, fell more in love with it, made and offer, and TA-DAAH! as it stands right now we move in the monday after the wedding. isn't that crazy?

it's a great house, just big enough for the four of us, with both a sitting room and a living room, a nice big backyard, a deck, a garage with a shop built into it, and this weird "storage" room off the master bedroom that is so becoming my little craft cave. it was a great price, we discovered that we actually know the owners, and our experience with the realtors and inspectors and all that has been good.

to be honest, my brain is going a thousand different ways at once. i wonder how we're going to take down the wallpaper in the kid's rooms (it's kind of dated and too young for the kids), what i'm going to paint the bedroom, how much it will cost us to buy a refurbished or used washer/drier set, what will come with us and what we'll get rid of, what other sorts of things i should put on the bridal registry that we'll need a new place, etc. i literally couldn't sleep last night i was so excited. i've been in rentals now for 14 years; being able to make a place really, truly my own is just totally fucking thrilling. it's blowing my mind!

and here, my dears, is our lovely new place,

i'll let you know when the house-warming party is!

creepy crawlies

2011-04-01T22:58:00.000-06:00

the boychik and i rented some scary movies tonight, because that's what we do when we have the house to ourselves, and we both agreed that paranormal activity looked interesting. you know, we wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

we watched almost the entire movie with blankets up near our noses so we could hide if we needed to. it was creepy in it's everyday-ness, kind of like the blair witch project, but you know, IN YOUR HOUSE. *shiver* we tried to put something else in afterward, and the dvd player made a very wrong noise, and we had to shut that shit off, and then we giggled nervously in the living room at our ridiculousness.

he'll kill me for telling you this, but i can't help it! we are feeling creeped out. scary movie night just bit us in the ass!

hey! how have you been?

2011-03-31T17:45:00.000-06:00

things around here have been quiet. i still have a lot of wedding stuff to work on, most of which i'm ignoring. i'm a jackass procrastinator at heart. most of what i have left to do is decoration stuff, and i find that just like baking, i only like to do it after 8 at night. today i was talking to another girl at work about her upcoming wedding, and she kind of made me feel shitty about my wedding, but then i realized i just tend to feel kind of shitty when i talk to that girl anyway. she's an eye-roller. so, i stopped feeling shitty because i realized i was being dumb, and ate a BLT with my boy at lunch. i'm always amazed at the power a good sandwich wields; you just can't be in a bad mood with a belly full of bacon and homemade garlic mayo. TRY IT, i dare you.

oh, and look! i totally got a ring,

is it gauche to post photos of your engagement ring on a blog?! if so, sorry. for a while i was wearing my great-grandmother's engagement ring, which i loved, but D thought it was important for me to have my own ring. it took a while to get this one, but now that i have it, i am a happy, happy girl. this has the vintage look i love, but is clean and streamlined as well. it's not terribly fussy, but oh my, it is sparkly. i understand now why ladies love diamonds. the magpie in me can't stop looking at my hand!

the RSVP cards are coming in fast and furious (yay!). i read somewhere in my wedding planning about making sure that you put some sort of identification on your rsvp cards; a number that corresponds to a guest, just in case they forget to write their name on the card. that was great advice, but i got one yesterday that not only didn't have the respondents name on it, but i also forgot to add the numerical code on the front, so i really have no idea who sent it! whoever it is is totally coming to my wedding, though. who will the mystery guest be?! i guess we'll have to wait and see.

hmmmm

2011-03-29T01:33:00.000-06:00

guess what happens when you fall asleep on the couch at 7? you wake up at midnight, and then wonder if you can go back to sleep! i always do this the night before work. dork.

i made quite possibly the most amazing lima bean dish tonight, which i know for some of you might sound like cooking the impossible, but honestly; lima beans have to be my favorite bean to cook. if done right they are creamy little pockets of yum. i kind of made up the recipe as i went along, so i need to write it all down because it was so good. i cooked a whole pound of dried beans, and we had a little less than a serving left after dinner. the kids especially loved it, and that totally made me feel like a rockstar. they are such good eaters! completely open to trying anything once, and they tend to love stuff you'd have a hard time selling other kids. they can probably name more veggies than your average grocery store checkout clerk, and know the difference between a parsnip and a rutabaga. in short, they are pretty much the perfect people to cook for.

i'm going to try to go back to sleep. wish me luck!

menstruation nation

2011-03-28T02:41:00.001-06:00

tonight we were watching bob's burgers (quickly becoming my new favorite cartoon) and at one point, the youngest daughter is saying she doesn't want to hang out with her older sister and mother because they are the "menstruation nation." if i'd had milk in my mouth, it would have come out my nose at that point, i laughed so hard. the truth is, as much as the girlchild loves me and my mother, i can tell she feels the same way sometimes, and just wants to hang out with her brother and pop because with them the subject of periods and cramps and annoying things like bloating never come up. i am, indeed, part of the menstruation nation. i can totally remember feeling the same way about my mom and aunts, and it's ridiculous and hilarious to be on the other side of that. you'll be happy to know she found it funny as well, and not just because i cackled when the kid said it.

yeah, i cackle. just like my mother!

a small treatise on the subject of motherhood

2011-03-26T23:45:00.000-06:00

i think part of makes me want to talk about mothering and motherhood and being a step-parent is that for me it's so new. three years ago, this was not what i thought i'd be doing. at the most, by now i thought i'd be knocked up or with an infant; not with a 12 year old and a 16 year old. i don't think i was specifically against that, it just wasn't something i thought of as a possibility. i've been doing some parenting now for about two years, and while i understand that being a step-parent is different from being a bio-parent, i find myself at times balking against the distinctions. this week i worked with a tech who i hate, and i remembered why when he kept asking about the kids, and only referred to them as "D's kids." he kept pointing out that we haven't been together that long (personally, i think two years of 24 hours a day, 7 days a week isn't anything to sneeze at), and when i said something about "my" kids, he actually corrected me. which i guess is his right, but honestly? if these aren't my kids, then shit. i've been investing way too much time, energy and love.

what makes all of this extra poignant to me is that my pop didn't get to meet them, or see me parent. they only know him through stories, and while those are pretty good, they aren't as awesome as he was as a grandparent. it's the anniversary of his death today (i always want to call it a "deathiversary" but you know, even i understand that's in poor taste), and while every day without him is hard, today always makes me think of him a bit more. instead of getting all maudlin, i had a drink in his honor (or four), watched a zombie movie with the kids, and made a nice dinner. i think he would have liked my little family, and i think he would approve of me spending time with them and thinking of him today.

and this part is embarrassing, but he showed up in a dream of mine this week where we just hung out and talked. we were in class together, and making fun of the teacher, and just chit chatting about every day stuff. honestly? while i don't believe in an afterlife, those dreams always make me feel great. like maybe he's visiting in his own way, from wherever you go after you become worm food. it might just be my brain's way of dealing with shit, but i don't care. i'm glad to see him.

ugh

2011-03-20T08:49:00.000-06:00