If I had some magical blog-glue I could probably cobble all of this together into a cohesive post, but I don’t. Oh well!
I came home from my travels and waited for the inevitable I-spent-hours-on-an-airborne-metal-tube-filled-with-other-people’s-germs illness to settle in, but then spent a couple of days patting myself on the back for remembering to take my Vitamin C, because I had FINALLY escaped that particular fate. Only, now there’s some weird bug going through Monkey’s school that Monkey clearly has and I spent a day going, “Do I have it? Am I just making myself sick psychosomatically? I’m fine. I’m sure I’m fine. Oh, wait. I’m not fine.” Said bug is a very mild stomach thing, hence the confusion. (Also: Not complaining. I would rather have an intermittent stomachache than, say, projectile spewage that is in no way ambiguous.) I should probably stop kissing my kids, huh?
In related news: Monkey actually NOTICED and SHARED that he wasn’t feeling well, so it’s been a carnival of “You say your stomach hurts? WOO HOO!” all up in here and at school. (That’s what happens when your kid usually just lays on the floor with a fever of 105 and insists he feels fine.)
Meanwhile, life insists on continuing onward whether I feel like dealing with it or not. WAH.
Thing 1: So we’re back in construction mode, which means it looks like a bomb went off at the back of the house, and ALSO means that even though we’ve been in drought conditions for months, it’s suddenly raining all the time. And for some weird reason our contractor doesn’t work in the rain. SO ODD. So I’m thinking the reconstruction of our deck shouldn’t take more than… two months, tops. In the meantime, the dog is MUCH AGGRIEVED because she can’t go hang out in the fenced area and eat grass, which is her new favorite thing to do. She has taken to hurling herself at the door in my office that leads to the no-longer-quite-a-deck and glaring at me. Good times.
Thing 2: I was all “Oh but a deck project cannot possibly expand and drive me insane” before this started. HAHAHAHA. Um. Apparently we are also getting new siding. Something about the old siding disintegrating? I don’t know. Actually, I did know about the siding, and I was okay with that, but then the contractor asked us for a paint color and I was all, “Uh, the same color it is now?” And he said we could do that but we could also change it now, if we wanted, so I made the mistake of mentioning that to Otto, who then spent some quality time on the Sherwin Williams site designing his dream house, which is, apparently, a different color. Well, okay. I don’t care. We conveyed the new paint color and then the contractor asked if we wanted the trim repainted, too, and we said sure, and THAT’s when suddenly it turned into “Oh did you notice that the previous homeowners in their ridiculousness had painted the siding and the trim the same color, which obviously you don’t want anymore, and so now we need many more buckets of dollars so that the painter can cut in all of the trim in a trim color for you?” BAM. They got me, and they’d barely begun. (There was a brief discussion of staying with the original color, yes. But the house really did need complete repainting, regardless. ARGH.) Because I am completely mentally ill when it comes to money (see also: money, the spending of and die in an inferno, we are all going to) this unexpected extra FILLS ME WITH JOY.
Thing 3: My entire shaggy-haired family had haircuts on Sunday, and for some reason the whole thing filled me with more than the usual measure of ZOMG MAH BAYBEES ARE GROWING UP. Monkey is mid-growth-spurt, anyway, and suddenly his face is changing and he’s getting taller and seriously, HOW DARE HE go not being a baby anymore? Compound this with the fact that his new requested ‘do requires some spiking in the front with some MANLY HAIR PASTE… but he lacks the dexterity (not to mention that the texture of the paste freaks him out) so every morning my manchild is now coming to me and demanding I… fix his hair. This is both sad and hilarious. I asked him if I was going to have to come to college with him to do his hair, and he said, “Don’t be silly, Mom. I’m not moving away for college.” Ha. Haha. SOB.
Chickadee, on the other hand, decided that the appropriate way to end the agonizing nearly-two-years she’s been spending growing her hair out from her pixie was to bring me a photo of a rock-n-roll chick with a fabulous asymmetrical, wavy-layered angled bob and demand that I do THAT. I’ll confess, I was worried… both because it’s a more complicated cut than I usually do and because sometimes “radically different” translates into “OMG MOM I HATE YOU FOR DOING EXACTLY WHAT I ASKED FOR.” But we soldiered forward and she now has a haircut almost as fabulous as she is. HOWEVER she now looks about 17 and looking at her makes me want to weep and stop time.
Thing 4: Said fancy-teenage-haired child then went to the orthodontist this morning and got her braces taken off. STOP BEING SO DAMN PRETTY AND GROWN-UP, KID.
Thing 5: Because it’s cold and rainy and I feel crappy, I’m making soup. But it’s one of those things where I had a recipe but only half of the items it called for, and I couldn’t be bothered to go to the store, so I’m substituting like crazy as well as doing a lot of “Well, this would probably be good in here.” So dinner will be moong dal. Ala Mir. Kind of. Or maybe not. It’s hard to tell. Related: Anyone else feel fancier calling it moong dal instead of lentil soup? Because I totally do.
And that’s all I have. Stay tuned for RIVETING follow-up soup news.
Where are the pictures of C’s new hair?
We recently had to have some beams under our eaves replaced, which somehow led to repainting all the trim on the house and now we are considering a whole new main color for the house. It happens.
There is no way to say this without sounding like a creeper/scary internet stalker but man sometimes I really want to see the gorgeousness of your kids.
Sorry, and to make up for it, I won’t have the guts to comment for at least a month. :)
See, I must be sick, a picture didn’t even occur to me until after I wrote this. Let’s see if this works… portrait of a semi-anonymous teenager who refuses to stop eating pizza while I take her picture:
My daughter (almost 22) has had about four hair cuts, in her life, that I did not do myself. Of the rest, her favorite “do” was the one that first resulted in her screaming “OMG, MOOOOOM! What did you do?” and bursting into tears. Yes, I had done exactly what she asked. Yes, it did look just like Jennifer Aniston’s “Rachel” hair. But the shock almost killed her. The next day she loved it and wore it that way for a couple of years. I almost refused to ever cut her hair again. I love that your daughter loves to go radical and you help her achieve it. Can we get a blurred face photo of the style??
To be fair to Monkey, the local University is quite a nice place to go to school. And to visit to come eat good food…
Her cut is darling – and I’l kill for either her color or texture. And what wonderful news that Monkey is sick, er, NOTICED that he is sick!
As a new condo owner, I’m sincerely hoping to avoid ever-expanding contractor projects. Fortunately, I have a friend who I trust, who is in business with his son doing home repairs that fall between get-me-a-book-and-a-screwdriver DIY things and ZOMG! I’m-building-my-contractor-a-Bahamas-vacation-home! projects.
Hope you all feel better soon! I thought I was the only one who gets “sympathy nausea” when my kids are sick. I hate not knowing if I am really sick or just nuts. It does get to a point where it is almost a releif to actaully be sick and stop wondering or anticipating it.
That is very cute… Can you come to England and do my hair too?
Can’t wait for adapted soup recipe news. I have taken to improvising way too often in the kitchen lately. It needs to stop.
Ha! at Brenda b/c I’m curious too…but not always as much as today. I’m only sometimes creepy/scary/interweb stalky. The description of Chickadee’s hair is what got me. Mir, can you have her put opaque fabric around her face so we can just see the hair? Oh, and she should wear gloves so we can’t identify her by her nails or rings or those skull tattoos you let her get. See? That’s not creepy at all.
Sheesh! I should actually hit submit after I’m done typing, then it wouldn’t seem all goofy that I’m asking for a pic when it’s already been posted. Still, HOW CUTE IS THAT CUT?!
Sooooo Cute!
I am impressed with your hairstyling skills. Is this something you taught yourself over the years, or did you take a class in it? I’ll probably keep going to my local Vietnamese place for the forseeable future here – they do a fast job and only charge me $4.
Okay, it has been established in my house that I do one cut, one cut only and there is (amazingly) very little demand for it. This cut is: BALD. I mean, BALD-BALD. Like, not a sprig, not a wisp, not nuffin’ at all BALD. So my poor son who has, previously, been happy to come up to me, say, four times a year and demand his quarterly shearing, gently informed me that he wanted a (hushed tones) hair cut. Me? Totally did the happy dance.
So I live in awe of your awesome and amazing haircutting skilz. And that very pretty Chickadee? Better totally give you props, ’cause that hair cut is gorgeous.
My Aspie says he is never leaving my house either. He says he will live with me forever. I bet there’s a club for women who’s kids live with them forever.
moong dal tastes much better than lentil soup. With a name like that, it must.
I go to an east European dance group and a lot of the dances have wonderful exotic names … that turn out to mean “circle dance from village x”
I sure hope there’s a club for parents whose kids live with them forever. Last week my little Aspie informed me that he’s not going to college so he can live with us forever. There’s plenty of room in my hole if anyone wants to join me in putting and keeping my head in the sand.
Mmmm lentils. Also, your commas and parentheticals give me joy.
“(see also: money, the spending of and die in an inferno, we are all going to)”
Great hairstyle! What a professional job!
I had that same haircut when I was in 10th grade (approx 1983). It morphed into an even more asymmetrical shorter version, then shaved nape-of-neck, then purple with a rat tail! Hers is really pretty. You know, you can write about soup and haircuts and decks and trim-paint, and I’ll still be excited to see a new post for me to read. I like your blog.
My Aspie son says he’s living with me forever too. I always say just answer, “That’s fine, honey.” When his older NT sister says she is too, I respond, “Oh no, I’m kicking you out for college.” She doesn’t think that’s fair at all, but meh, she’ll get over it. And by 18, she’ll be ready go. Heck, she’s almost 12 and I swear some days she’s about ready to hit the road.
Chickadee has beautiful hair!
Just last night, I lopped off a large quantity of my daughter’s hair so it’s sort of a Bob . . ish . . luckily, she loves it. It makes me and DH sad at how grown-up she looks, though.
I can’t wait for your & Otto’s reaction to Chickie’s dating (Yes, I did just say that). Thankfully no exterior painting to worry about, but our house is about 1-3 years away from needing new carpet and it is giving me serious heart palpitations. Our friends just re-carpeted their similarly sized house to the tune of $14,000!!!!!! GULP
What a pretty haircut! Can you share a pic of Monkey’s spikes, too, or are they only visible from the front?
And yes, moong dal is VERY MUCH FANCIER than lentil soup.
I wish I could cut my kids hair like that! You are simply amazing! And I worry about you and Otto taking on this whole siding/deck matter. Didn’t the fence teach y’all anything? :o)
Didn’t your kids inherit your curly hair?
Apparently I like moong dal. Next time I make my lentil soup I’ll see if the new name will prove acceptable.
I can’t believe no one asked this yet. It’s so obvious and groan-inducing.
Did you have…lentils?