May 16, 2008 | What do I do all day?, Woohoo!

I’m pretty sure that the most obnoxious thing ever said to me about my blog was not a criticism of my parenting or some sort of personal indictment (though—let’s be clear—I’ve gotten plenty of those, too), but a dismissive, “Well, blogging’s just a fad, and it’ll pass, so enjoy it while it lasts.”

This was said to me by someone who’s always regarded my writing as a useless little hobby.

Well, I’ve been enjoying the spoils of this silly little fad for over four years, now, and I’d be hard-pressed to tell you the greatest part about it. Because, clearly, the greatest part is getting to do what I love every day. And clearly the greatest part is having a chronicle of my kids’ lives that they’ll be able to refer back to when I’m old and senile and need them to change my diapers. And obviously the greatest part is that I took a hobby started at one of the lowest points of my life and leveraged it into a career that now helps support my family. (more…)

January 7, 2008 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony, I'm dating the television, Woohoo!

So yesterday I told you all about the last round of presents with the kids—the rest of their Christmas presents, and Monkey’s birthday presents, which should be enough presentage (totally a word) to hold us for many months. That, combined with having the kids back home again, should’ve rendered Saturday the perfect day.

But none of that was what I was REALLY looking forward to. No. I mean, it was good to finally have the kids home, and all, but the part I was excited about was not that first night home and the cake and the presents.

Sunday morning we had pancakes. No, that’s not the exciting part. Pancakes is normally a Saturday morning thing, but had to make up for missing it for a few weeks, you know. So yesterday we were rebels and had a big pancake breakfast.

I have to back up for a minute. (more…)

November 9, 2007 | Woohoo!

I am going to tell you this whole sordid tale from beginning to end (just see if I don’t, my pretties), but first things first.

In a heroic act of LIGHTNING SPEED AWESOMENESS, the fine folks at Fusix—allow me to state this in southern terms, so great is my gratitude—done grabbed up the whole mess and fixed it right proper. If you are seeing this, I am fully migrated and functional and now running on servers powered by unicorns and fairies and pixie dust. If you need not just hosting but possibly migration support and hand-holding and someone who will get the job done right, please please please go visit my new favorite human, David, over at Fusix.

And do stay tuned to hear what I have to say about my old hosting provider, too. Especially about how they followed a 3-day outage with the COMPLETELY UNFORESEEABLE PROBLEM of 3 days of back email breaking their server a second time. I’m sure there’s no way they could’ve predicted THAT. Fucktards.

July 31, 2007 | Woohoo!, The Year of Living Changerously

Today the kids went to an all-day program judiciously selected by us because it only cost $10 for the entire day. But, you know, it was church-affiliated and that means it has to be good. I mean, it was really cheap, but it was approved by Jesus himself. Especially the pottery part. Monkey presented me with something that may be either a clay donut or a pencil holder, and Chickadee showed off a gigantic blue whale with a comically tiny Mr.-Bill-like Jonah who fits in said whale’s blowhole. (Don’t ask me, I DON’T KNOW.)

While they were gone, I taped myself to my desk chair and completed about a dozen assignments so that we can leave tomorrow (to go here) on a mini camping trip without me spending the entire time trying to find some WiFi. And Otto went and ran some errands and sold his house. (more…)

June 28, 2007 | Woohoo!, Ottomatic For the People, The Year of Living Changerously

As of around 5:00 this afternoon, Otto and I are now the proud owners of three houses. We think it’s good to have a couple of spares around, just in case, you know.

He did carry me over the threshold, though he didn’t throw me in the pool… probably because the pool was still looking a little scary. (The pool people are coming tomorrow to finish readying it, which I hope means they will be vacuuming up the fuzzy stuff floating all over the bottom, because EWW.)

I didn’t accidentally sign my old name even once on the mortgage paperwork! A good way to learn your new name is to sign it eleventy billion times on pieces of paper that say things like “I agree to repay the bank a million trillion dollars in interest or I authorize them to pull off my fingernails and feed them to me while Bette Midler sings.” (more…)

June 19, 2007 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony, Woohoo!, Ottomatic For the People

We had no idea what time Otto was coming today, due to a confluence of events wherein he had to make several unplanned-for detours. (One of them was due to Audrey—the name Otto has decided to give the new GPS unit—failing to predict that there is traffic in New York City. GO FIGURE.) As of our last check-in call, we figured he wouldn’t arrive until after the kids were in bed.

So when he pulled up while the kids were still hanging up their towels and getting into their jammies and screeching and dancing and generally being spazzy, they didn’t even notice. (more…)

June 5, 2007 | Woohoo!, The Year of Living Changerously

Let’s review, shall we? Last week we made an offer on our first choice house and were turned down, and then made an offer on a second house. (Second Choice House is conveniently located next door to First Choice House.) And after a bit of kerfuffle—not to mention the entire weekend—we were also turned down for Second Choice House.

At this point, Otto and I hit the real estate listings and we hit them hard. We found ONE more house that we thought might meet our needs. Otto called his realtor and arranged to see it on Monday afternoon (that’s yesterday).

My phone rang yesterday afternoon. I saw Otto’s number on the caller ID and picked up, full of hope. (more…)

May 13, 2007 | Woohoo!, Ottomatic For the People, The Year of Living Changerously

I know I’m not southern yet… heck, once I’m down there, I know that folks will only be too happy to remind me that I am just a YANKEE in their midst, but I feel a Y’ALL comin’ on and it needs to be allowed.

Y’all, words cannot do this whole wedding thing justice. Cannot.

That doesn’t mean I won’t TRY, but I’m just SAYING. I will not be able to capture even a tenth of it all, not even if I allow myself to be as cheesy as possible. It can’t be done. Because on the one hand it was enormous and huge and now things are DIFFERENT and on the other hand it was so much just what was happening in the space between the two of us and so logical and natural and everything is just the way it was, only moreso.

So. You can see the problem with trying to describe it. Also, when I’m not busy marveling at the superfantastical wonderfulness of it all, I’m busy dying of tuberculosis. (more…)

May 11, 2007 | Woohoo!, Ottomatic For the People, The Year of Living Changerously

(I wrote this ahead of time and set it to post at midnight, lest you have the urge to come yell at me for posting on my wedding day.)

I’m ready to do this thing.

I’ve got something old.
And something new.
Something borrowed.
And something blue.

And I also have this.

(I’ll be back Monday as Mrs. Otto. Maybe even with pictures.)

May 10, 2007 | Woohoo!, Ottomatic For the People

Almost eighteen years ago I sat down in an auditorium next to a fellow eighteen- year-old who had dark hair, bright blue eyes, an earring (oh, a bad boy!) and an attitude almost as big as my own. I immediately set out to make him fall in love with me, but he was willful, you see. He found me amusing. He liked me. But he would not bend.

(Okay, he was dating someone else. Details.)

I told him we would end up together. He would laugh. Regardless, that was the beginning of a friendship that survived through our other relationships and our various moves around the country, and he still loves to tell people that he was at my wedding. And my baby shower.

I used to wish we’d figured it out sooner, that we’d skipped some of the detours and found our way to each other right from the start. But now I know that this was exactly the way it was supposed to happen.

All week I’ve kept sneaking peeks into this box, and tomorrow when we take them out and put them on, it will finally be the moment when I can look deeply into his eyes and say: “I told you so.”

Happy Love Thursday, everyone!