Every Christmas, Otto makes his family's traditional Christmas cake, which is actually a recipe that yields TWO bundt cakes. If we have company or are up north visiting, both cakes are consumed. If we're down here with just us four, one cake gets eaten and the other one gets wrapped and put into the freezer in the garage. I liked the Christmas cake well enough when I was still eating wheat, but I did not... how shall we say... hold it in the same reverent esteem as Otto and his siblings do. And this is sacrilege, you understand, not to feel a deep devotion to the sacred Christmas cake. (It's...
1st Critter Tale: I swear (probably) this will be the last (most likely) thing I have to say this year about my garden and the squirrels, but I feel like this MUST be shared: Every single tomato in my garden is gone. GONE. In the space of about three days, the squirrels blew threw the red ones and got so annoyed about it, they also bit/tore down all of the remaining green ones. I have five giant tomato plants, all completely BARE. My beautiful tomatoes! It was like the scene in A Christmas Story after the Bumpus hounds destroy the turkey, except instead of "No turkey sandwiches... no turkey...
If forced to keep it to a single word, these days, about how life is, or how the kids are, or how I feel in general, there's no question that the most explanatory word I can grasp is WEIRD. Life feels weird. I feel weird. Visiting a bunch of college campuses made it all real, I suppose, except it didn't make it any less weird. Chickadee is a senior. Monkey is a junior. After years of just-get-through-today we are now firmly in plan-for-your-future mode and it should be GREAT, yes? It is. There were times I didn't know if we'd ever make it to this point, so it IS great, and we celebrate...
I would really like to keep discussing my tomatoes (or lack thereof), but it's time for another installment of "Mir pretends to know stuff over at Alpha Mom." Today's column comes from a reader question about getting appropriate mental health care for a teen in need, and I really, REALLY wish I had less experience in this area. Even with years of experience, there is no magic bullet, and that's a bummer. But if you're interested in my tips for navigating our broken mental health system as an advocate for your kid and staying sane while you do it, you can check them out over there. Tomorrow...
Hey, remember when I painted my office? Like, a million years ago? And I was all excited about it but then we decided to order new flooring and we've been living life with my entire professional life (contents of my office; whatever) strewn all over the dining room and kitchen? The new floor is going in RIGHT NOW as I type. Finally. Of course, I'm leaving town tomorrow. So, uh, either I'll reassemble my office tonight before I go or my family can enjoy having my desk in the middle of the kitchen for a few more days. No biggie, right? Right. Normally I would've been terribly impatient about...
We returned from our whirlwind campus touring trip with the realization that yes, Virginia, this college thing is truly right around the corner and Big Decisions need to be made. That is both exciting and unnerving. And every time I try to remind myself that everything will work out just fine, I remember that once we get Chickadee through this process I have to start it all over again with Monkey, like, immediately. Needless to say, we came home and I said "Oh, we don't have any food!" and went to the store and promptly purchased All The Ice Cream. I think that's reasonable, under the...
Have I mentioned that I am slightly... er... underemployed at the moment? And how that's just fine, because I haven't had a slow period in over a decade, and it's summer, and we are doing Fun Things and years and years of being completely mentally ill about money mean that I can slack for a little while and we won't be in financial dire straits or anything? And it's all good, no problems, what a lovely and much needed break, we just have to be a little more careful and it's no problem? Well. I have all this TIME on my hands, now. Time I don't normally have. Wouldn't a lull in work be the...
Life has been uneventful here, of late. Yep. Nothing's happening. Booooring. In the last month: 1) I got laid off. [insert sad trombone here] 2) School ended, and I now have a senior and a junior and SHUT YOUR MOUTH I DO NOT. 3) Chickadee got a job. 4) Monkey continues to insist he does NOT need to learn how to drive, despite a deadline of this week for our trip to the DMV to test for his permit. 5) We sold our camper. 6) We opened the pool and paid the children each a dollar to plunge into the cold water, as is our custom. 7) It rained a bunch and my garden is going berserk. 8) My dad and...
Remember the old saying about how a kid's parents get dumber and dumber until the kid is an adult and then---magically---the parents start getting smart again? We're going through that right now, and I always thought it meant that hahaha, the kids would think I was dumb when really I wasn't, BUT NO, I've come to believe that I am truly losing brain cells as they get older. My poor kids, and their dumb ol' mom who can barely function anymore. For a while there, Monkey was very fond of declaring, "It's okay, I'm a doctor!" in response to any sort of doubting of his ability. This morphed into,...
