February 18, 2006 | What do I do all day?

There is this very adorable thing that my mother does, and it is this: She calls me on the phone and after a few minutes of chit-chat, asks with great anticipation, “So what’s new? What’s going on?” This always leaves me feeling woefully inadequate for not having more to report.

[Note to Mom: I am not poking fun at you; I really do think it’s cute that you’re so convinced my life is exciting. I do wish that one of these days I can answer “Well, I figured out how to turn Kraft Macaroni and Cheese into platinum, but I haven’t had much time for that because I just got married! Also, I had the kids cloned last week. You should SEE all of ‘em!”]

I mean, if she’s calling on Saturday night, and the TV is on in the background and I’m talking through mouthfuls of ice cream, it seems like maybe it ought to be self-explanatory that my life is dull. But that sort of hope is endearing.
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February 17, 2006 | I'm dating the television

Realize that it’s just a precious few years standing between Apolo Anton Ohno being “incredibly hot” and “young enough to be my kid.”

[Also, this just in: Ice dancing is STILL NOT A SPORT. Please take your spackling equipment (used for application of eye make-up) and go home.]

Friends

About a year and a half ago, I found myself unexpectedly and completely smitten.

I fell hard and fast, and soon found myself spending every evening talking for hours with the object of my affections. It was as if we’d known each other our entire lives. We finished each other’s sentences. We laughed until we cried. Sometimes we cried until we laughed.

In a time when I was struggling to center myself, I had support and a cheering section unlike any other I’d had before. Here was someone who understood me; had already been through much of what I was exploring but didn’t judge or lecture. Sometimes I just needed someone to listen… sometimes I needed guidance. And I always got just what I needed. It was… perfect.

I’m still smitten, but my love has long been cheating on me with another.
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February 15, 2006 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony

I feel I’m in a holding pattern, and it goes like this:

Get up. Get kids off to school. Walk. Shower. Work. Run errands. Get kids from school. Do chores and/or make kids do their chores. Supervise kids. Cook. Eat. Do the evening thing. Get kids tucked in. Watch television. Sleep.

Lather, rinse and repeat.

You’ll notice that nowhere on that list is anything like “worry about my boob,” “take a nap,” “misread various commercials in potentially confusing ways” (Aveeno lotion has soothing OAT essence, by the way… I would never recommend a lotion containing soothing CAT essence, but to each her own), or “get multiple Schoolhouse Rock earworms imbedded in my head.” But I’m a multitasker, so I often go above and beyond the approved schedule that way.
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February 14, 2006 | Health is overrated

Hey, thanks so much to everyone who had kind words in response to the last post. (I’m sure that Hucky is currently running himself ragged around two or three hundred wandering sheep. Also I’m guessing that from now on he’ll get to have as many pig ears as he wants.)

Anyway, I had myself a good cry this morning, then headed out to visit my friendly neighborhood surgeon and her crack team of dastardly mammographers. Not really. The mammo people don’t belong to her, and they’re not even all that dastardly. If we’re gonna get technical, she’s not really in my neighborhood, either.

Okay, so that entire statement was a lie except for the part about crying. Moving on! Read all about it… the truth that’s stranger than fiction, that could only happen to ME!
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My name is Grumplestiltskin

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, my husband and I were trying (and failing) to have children, so we did the sensible thing: We got a dog. He was the world’s greatest dog right up until I ended up home on bedrest when I was pregnant, at which time he appointed himself Lord High Grand Defender Of Me and tried to kill anyone who came to the house, and tried to kill HIMSELF when we dared to leave him home alone (after I went back to work). He was… a little neurotic. He chewed through an air conditioner and got himself wedged halfway out one window and had to be rescued by our neighbors’ kids. He ate half a venetian blind. He tore up the kitchen floor. He tangled with a skunk and got sprayed in the MOUTH and had skunkbreath for a month. And once the kids were running around, he regularly “herded” them into walls.
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February 13, 2006 | It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

If you have a Gmail account (and if you don’t, WHY NOT, and also ask me for an invite, because I have about a thousand of them), you may have noticed the new Gmail Chat feature. It’s… odd. But interesting. I of course had to test it out immediately by pestering Jenny with it, whereupon we chatted about many important things, including but not limited to:
1) The fact that you can “pop” the window out of your browser
2) The fact that my saying “Oh, I popped it out and it feels better now” sounds really dirty
3) The fact that the chat window reads “pop-in” or “pop-out” in the bottom corner, accordingly, and the hyphen is incorrect and that ANNOYS THE CRAP OUT OF ME
4) The fact that Jenny was not, in fact, using Gmail Chat, but GoogleTalk, and the two were talking to each other! Somehow! Magically!

Yeah, we’re tackling the important issues. Tune in next week when Jenny and I turn our critical eyes towards the dryer’s lint trap! Does it REALLY trap all the lint it could? What happens when it traps something that isn’t lint? We’re on the case!
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Forget talk; walk the walk!

(Not that I’m not enjoying wallowing in the self-pity of that last post, or anything, but….)

A big shout-out to my homegirl Holly (or Vermont Holly, as those of us down with the uber-hip New England lingo call her) for sacrificing a large portion of her weekend to help me with my latest project while I niggled and nitpicked and generally made myself an annoyance.
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February 12, 2006 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Any veteran mom is used to dodging the slings and arrows of the child who complains that she is the meanest mama ever, or that all the other mamas are better, or that she revels in making her children miserable. Most of my compadres adopt the same attitude I do, when this happens: We feign great glee and comment that our dastardly plans are finally coming together! (Bonus points for a crazed glint in the eyes and fiendish hand-rubbing.) I am accustomed to such rantings from my kids. Such comments truly no longer bother me in the slightest. I expect them and know they’re a good indication that I’m doing my job.

I was completely caught off-guard, yesterday, when a seemingly innocuous comment from my daughter cut me to the quick. We were having a great morning (indeed, the entire day was lovely), and after I consented to perhaps the third in a series of granted requests, Chickadee hugged me and then ran off, calling to her brother.

“Monkey! Come quick! Mama’s being nice today!”
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February 10, 2006 | Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

See how I just run the gamut, like that? It’s a gift! Emotions just run thither and yon, more quickly than you can say, “Hey, where the heck IS ‘yon,’ anyway?”

Hope: You may have read about it elsewhere, and as usual I’m a day late (and probably a dollar short, but here, have this penny I just found in the couch). Swiffer is hosting the Amazing Women of the Year contest and nominations are open through March 6th. I have “met” some incredible women in the blogosphere and I am certainly hoping for one of my favorites to make the finals. I read on another blog where someone was annoyed that the prize is $5000 donated to the charity of the winner’s choice, but personally I find that a really cool prize. I mean, yeah, $5000 worth of ice cream and shoes would be nifty, too; but given the spirit of the contest, I think charity is probably the better choice.
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