Woulda Coulda Shoulda

I am not really sure how to tell this, so I guess I’ll start back at the beginning.

The first thing you need to know is that when my dad and stepmom decided to get married on our trip, they were thinking we would all just go to the Grand Canyon and then we’d find a pretty place and then my stepbrother (who is an experienced Dude Who Can Perform Marriages, Ordained By The Internet) would do a quick ceremony and we’d all continue on our hike or whatever. Apparently the last time they were there, they saw a couple being married there and thought it would be picturesque. Nice idea, yes?

Well, it turns out that if you want to get married at the Canyon, you need to get a PERMIT. And you have to pay for it, and they have all kinds of rules, and so it was decided in the name of Not Being Complicated that we would simply visit the Canyon, but have the wedding here at the rental house (which is plenty picturesque, too). (more…)

I am a great big giant baby when it comes to jetlag. This is, of course, because I am a delicate flower in general, and when you take a delicate flower and plunk her down someplace where time is magically 3 hours different, no amount of “oh, there’s no such thing as jetlag going west!” and “three hours is practically nothing!” staves off the all-encompassing fatigue which I then feel for the next two days, because I’ve woken up at 3:00 in the morning (6:00! time to pack lunches!) and around the time that everyone else is having breakfast, all I want is a 4-hour nap.

So: I was not entirely jazzed when the family vote was that we would arrive and settle in on Saturday, then hit the Grand Canyon first thing on Sunday. Really? By the time we left our rented house here in Flagstaff at 9:30 in the morning, I was wondering how on earth I could possibly last an entire day, much less an entire day in the sun and walking along cliff edges.

I bravely disguised my fear, by the way, by rattling around in the kitchen until I located the coffee grinder, then brewing a pot of coffee so strong that Otto took a swig from the mug I placed in front of him and it singed his eyebrows. Liquid courage! (more…)

Sometimes, having a record of our lives is awesome. Every now and then I will go back and read something in my archives and be AMAZED, because I’d completely forgotten said event until reading about it and reawakening that memory. I’m constantly grateful for that when it comes to the day-to-day marvels of raising small humans.

Other times, I have to go silent for several days in a row, because it’s the kind of weekend that ends with a hysterical child and me Googling “how to remove (ripped,partial) contact lens?” and that, my friends, is the BEST thing that happened in those three days. I am counting on these sorts of memories to shrivel and disappear, much like the agony of labor. (We all know it happens, but our brains are designed to let go of the pain, lest the species die out altogether.) Today is a new day! Thank God.

Here’s a memory that I’ve kept and don’t mind: Have you every been skinny dipping? I have, and I think it’s good for your body image. C’mon over to Off Our Chests to see what I mean.

Once upon a time, on a day when I brought Mario home to our house after school, the boys played and played and played some more, and when Mario’s dad came to pick him up, he said, “Hey, we’re going to Crazy’s for dinner tonight, y’all want to come?” [Crazy's is not really the name of the restaurant. I have changed the name to protect the... crazy.]

Monkey, of course, immediately began begging to go too, so we all went to Crazy’s together and it was there that Mario corrupted my son.

But first, let me back up a minute. We don’t eat out all that often, partly because of cost and partly because we like to cook and also partly because it requires leaving the house, and you KNOW how I hate that. Our food-cooked-by-others preferences tend to run towards take-out (see also: Mexican food, hole-in-the-wall; Chinese food), and while we do take-out once a week, the sit-down-in-a-restaurant thing is much rarer.

So we all went to Crazy’s, which was the first time I’d been there in years. (more…)

I am fresh out of magical solutions to the recent Year Of Continuing Suckage, so I did what any red-blooded American female with a weakness for cute shoes would do: I spent a couple of weeks dressing up to see if it helped me feel better.

Read all about it over at Off Our Chests, if you like. Mostly because I’m pretty sure that two consecutive weeks of me wearing mascara every single day is one of the signs of the Apocalypse.

After eight years of babbling about my innermost feelings online, I’ve learned a lot of things. Mostly I’ve learned that you’d much rather we talk about my hair than my angst. (I’m trying not to take it personally.)

People who know me in real life (a.k.a. Friendship Outside The Shiny Box) generally fell into two camps after I wrote about my hair last month: The first group read that post, called me up to say, “Really? REALLY?” and then forgot about it, while the second group called me up to lobby their specific preference and then came back a time or two (or twelve) over the next few weeks to see what I’d decided. The latter group tickled me endlessly because 1) it’s just hair, 2) it’s not even YOUR hair, and 3) I just can’t get that invested in the process because IT’S JUST HAIR.

And yet, a decision was made, and an appointment was made, but then there was radio silence because I’m a selfish monster. Or because my stylist didn’t have an opening for several weeks. And also because I was sort of tired of talking about it. (See also: JUST. HAIR.) But because I know y’all care deeply, let’s talk about it some more! (more…)