June 18, 2008 | It's not a regret, it's an "experience", Ottomatic For the People

Let me be perfectly clear, as a preface, here, that not only do I love my husband to pieces, I think he’s something of a handyman savant. He has a garage full of tools and he actually knows how to use them (and often does). It’s rare that something needs fixing or tightening or modifying and he can’t take a look at it for a minute, nod, and take it out to his workbench and make it better than new.

Furthermore, unlike some other husbands (perhaps even one I was once married to), he is a patient and helpful instructor and an excellent work companion. Working on projects together is one of my favorite things, because it never ends with arguing and ruination—and I honestly never knew that was POSSIBLE, before marrying him. IT’S LOVELY.

All of this is to say, I couldn’t be blessed with a better partner when it comes to home renovation. I’m very lucky and I know it. Truly. But in spite of that, I have to say: DEAR GOD, PLEASE MAKE IT STOP. (more…)

June 17, 2008 | It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

(You read the title and thought this was going to be about the kids, didn’t you? Nope! They are still off being a pain in their father’s neck!)

So, a few years back I had a car accident, and the technical medical term for what happened as a result of that is that my neck is now utterly borked. Specifically, the left side of my neck. Difficult night’s sleep? Sore neck! Stress? Sore neck! Pull a muscle anywhere in my body? Sore neck! Mercury in retrograde? Sore neck!

My neck is sore a lot of the time, is my point. Whiplash is apparently the gift that keeps on giving. But that’s okay! Because yesterday Otto and I went for MASSAGES like FANCY PEOPLE! (more…)

June 16, 2008 | Health is overrated

My name is Mir, and although I am nearing 37 years of age, I have never really been on a diet before.

Oh, there were a few times when I idly said, “You know? It might be good to lose a few pounds,” and I was GOOD and VIRTUOUS for a day or two, right up until I saw something shiny and tripped and fell face-first into a bag of Oreos. I just never really had the need/motivation to diet—I have always been naturally skinny, and— OW! Stop THROWING THINGS!

Correction: I always HAD been naturally skinny. Past tense. Put down your tomatoes (besides, haven’t you heard? They’re covered in salmonella!); as I approach middle age I can assure you that my body has completely given up. (more…)

June 14, 2008 | Job? Huh?

I want you to know that I feel extremely lame posting these as the follow-up to having spent an evening with Ludacris, but I can’t be rubbing elbows (or grabbing asses) with celebrities ALL the time. I tire easily, y’all. I’m a delicate flower, you know.

Nevertheless, a few links for you if you just cannot get enough of me (I know, I know):

WIN: I’m hosting a really neat Father’s Day contest at Want Not that you may want to check out if you or Dad are sports fans.

READ: Who doesn’t love dairy? Communists (and vegans) (sorry, vegans!), that’s who. I’m going to be writing a series for the Dairy Management folks this summer, and the first installment is up for your reading pleasure.

LISTEN: This one is for fellow bloggers and/or marketers, but I was interviewed last week by Maria Reitan, the brains behind a show called Purse Strings, about marketing to bloggers. The podcast is now available here if you want to have a listen.

This weekend I’m off to battle the dining room walls again. Pray for me.

June 13, 2008 | Friends, Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

I have a great many awesome friends. Some of them take me out of my comfort zone, periodically, which is to say that they make me leave the house and pretend to be an adult. I hear that this is good for me.

So when my buddy Melissa sent me an email that said, “Hey, I often have to go to these media dinner things to check out restaurants, and I get to bring a guest, so do you think you’d like to come with me sometime?” I immediately replied that YES, that sounds like FREE FOOD GREAT FUN and she should count me in.

Silly me. A couple of weeks later she mailed to invite me to a dinner at Straits Restaurant. “You have to come,” she wrote, “because I really like the idea of two suburban moms eating dinner with Ludacris.” (more…)

June 12, 2008 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony, Ottomatic For the People

It’s funny, because when I wrote about our dinner out and subsequent dessert demolition in the last post, several of you commented that you wish you could’ve seen it. And then I realized that I really wished I had given better description to what the kids did; I titled it “dueling spoons” but that was really a misnomer, because in fact, I have rarely seen the kind of cooperation they showed when it came to scarfing down that dessert.

It was rather like watching Jack Sprat and his wife share a plate, actually. There was no squabbling. There was no “SHE GOT MORE!” or “HE’S EATING MINE!” or anything like that. Monkey—my chocolate monster—ate most of the cake. Chickadee—for whom the perfect world would be coated in vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce—ate most of the rest. It was perfect harmony. (more…)

June 11, 2008 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony

So, the night before the kids left this last time, we decided to make it a really special evening for them before they went. We took them to a strip club and got them all liquored up and gave them each a cigar and a fistful of dollar bills.

Oh, wait. Wrong night. That was something else. My bad!

Okay, so, we basically said to them “Whatever you want to do tonight, let’s do that. You two get to pick!” That is—as any parent knows—a recipe for total disaster under the best of circumstances, anyway. But we are very slow learners ’round here.

If you don’t understand why our offer to them was a problem, you clearly either A) don’t have kids or B) have just one kid. You cannot possibly ask TWO children to AGREE on a special activity. It’s sort of like asking the surface of the sun to be just a little icy, please, just this once. (more…)

June 10, 2008 | Health is overrated, It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

So yesterday Otto and I went out to run some errands and go to our first appointment with the specialist Monkey will be seeing, because for the first appointment just the parents get to go. We spent a lot of time sitting in the waiting room, and then a lot of time telling the nice doctor our entire medical history (well, mine and Monkey’s, anyway), until somewhere around the “Has your cousin’s step-sister’s uncle’s father ever had bursitis?” question I became sorely tempted to tell him that I had JUST REMEMBERED that actually, Monkey is adopted and we have no medical history on him whatsoever!

I didn’t do that, by the way. Even though I REALLY REALLY wanted to. I’m such a rule follower.

Anyway, while we were out and about, it was approximately 100 degrees and Otto offered to buy me an ice cream. Because he’s swell that way. (more…)

June 9, 2008 | It's not a regret, it's an "experience", Ottomatic For the People

We tried to pack as much family time into the first half of Saturday as we could, before the kids left (again). We got up early and hit the farmer’s market, we came back home and had pancakes (and bacon! for when you love someone enough to feed them PIG FAT!), and then after we’d finished tidying up and making sure the kids were packed, we were sort of just hanging around.

The way our house is set up, the dining room is between the kitchen and the staircase/family room. That is to say, we walk through it about a billion times a day. At some point on Saturday, I grabbed a corner of the wallpaper in there and gave it a tug. You know, just to see how hard it would be to pull it off. It peeled back pretty easily, so I called to Otto, “Hey, I just figured out what we can do while the kids are gone! We can finally redo the walls in here!”

Otto came into the dining room to discuss this plan with me, and then things get a little fuzzy in my memory, but the next thing I knew, Otto and I were ripping paper off the wall while Monkey stomped it all down in a trash bag. (more…)

June 8, 2008 | It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

Tomorrow I shall tell you all about what I’m doing today (because it will be funnier after I’ve pulled a muscle or twelve, and BELIEVE YOU ME, that’s coming), but in the meantime I thought you might enjoy knowing what’s brought people ’round here lately. I often forget to check my stats and then when I do, I am invariably delighted to discover all of the reasons stranger stumble upon my little corner of the web.

(And by “delighted” I of course mean “alternately amused and horrified.”)

Shall we take a look? Let’s! (more…)