Winter, winter; wherefore art thou, winter? As we've enjoyed our unseasonably warm and spring-like days I have said to anyone who will listen (and several who would not) that I feared winter's arrival, because I've lived in the frozen north a long time, and I happen to know that winter WILL arrive. With a vengeance. Of course, I was picturing something more along the lines of a couple of feet of snow. That'll come later, I suppose. Today was something. Hello, ice! The kids are off school and hanging out with their dad, so I slept late, puttered around, and thought about starting on painting...
I can't decide: 1) Deciding to paint just that one piece of dinged trim before showing the house tomorrow and finding myself painting trim, doors, the entire staircase, and huh, whaddaya know, I've been painting for SIX HOURS. or 2) Having a prolonged discussion about school districts, looking up statistics online, realizing I have lived a life of white privilege and that while I certainly COULD provide that for my kids in the south, it would be twenty different kinds of wrong to do so; and realize further that I am not just moving to another state, but possibly a different universe. I was...
Would you like to come to my cocktail party? It is only virtual, which is why you should totally come. An ACTUAL party at my actual HOUSE would involve me being so stressed out that I would need to be serving ativan canapes in order to enjoy myself at all, and I hear that drugging yourself discreetly is okay but that drugging your guests is somewhat uncouth. So. See, Liz tagged me for this party meme thing, and I've been cooped up all day with TWO sick children (now with twice the mind-numbing boredom!), so it seemed like a good time to acquiesce. The alternative is an entire entry along the...
You're welcome. On the heels of the cold-turned-sinus-infection---right after I finished my antibiotics, actually---I caught ANOTHER COLD. Because I apparently have no immune system to speak of, at all. Today was one of those days where I had to stop and wipe or blow my nose roughly every 3.7 seconds, so as I'm sure you might imagine, it was a really productive day. (Please kill me now.) The best was trying to frost and decorate Monkey's birthday cake, tonight. Two seconds of spreading frosting at a time between nose-wiping and hand-washing means you can easily finish a 9" x 12" sheet cake...
She's hot-blooded dunno if we'll come she's got a fever of 101.... And there you have the conversation I had with my father this afternoon, albeit with fewer guitar riffs. Merry Christmas! Here's a child burning up with fever for you. As a consolation, she is quite amusing when sick. For example, she was staring at my earrings earlier and asked if they were edible. (I was wearing my tiny gingerbread men earrings, because I am fancy.) I said no, but they're fun anyway. And then she insisted she wasn't talking about my earrings, but my FRECKLES. Well, those aren't edible either, I told her....
We're having a jolly old Yuletide here at Casa Mir. It's going exactly as you might expect, only moreso. After one week of constant togetherness and endless projects and mess, I am pleased to report that Otto and I still like each other. (Though we naturally assume that other people would be unable to maintain this level of conviviality, mostly because we do not want to imagine anyone else taking a break from caulking to have sex.) (Not that we would ever do that.) In fact, we have Flip That House on right now and when the announcer said, "Doug and Cindy are on week 2---" Otto followed with,...
Two things for today … Okay, maybe three. One: I’m not Mir, this is Otto writing. Two: Mir IS the bargain queen, but there are consequences. As you know, she’s been renovating this and repairing that around the house. This morning, we hopped into my old truck and headed to the local Everything You Ever Need For Your Home store to pick up more stuff. On the list: Five feet of counter top Bathroom sink and faucet Metal dryer venting Hangers for metal dryer venting Screws to attach hangers for metal dryer venting Not officially on the list but tucked into the back of our minds was a new...
Otto called me over to the couch, a little while ago, and I sat down next to him for a moment or two. Then I went a little slanty and finally figured, what the hell, and lay down with my head on his leg. I'm tired, and his leg is a pretty good pillow. "Thanks for dinner," he said, running his fingers through my hair and making me sleepy. "No problem," I replied. And then we both burst out laughing. Yesterday we had take-out Chinese for dinner, and the night before that we ate leftover pizza. Tonight I wanted to make a nice home-cooked meal. Somehow I'd gotten it into my head last week that I...
I don't take the kids to the grocery store with me all the time; in fact, most of the time I'm organized enough to go without them, because it's vastly preferable. When I go alone it's much quicker and there's less whining. But this week I am completely off my game and swamped, to boot, and so I looked up from my work about ten minutes before the kids got home and realized that I would have to take them with me and go get some food. [Aside: Joshilyn was describing something unpleasant to me on the phone today and said that she'd "rather eat a bug." There was a pause as we considered the...
