Matters of record, unrelated to what will follow: The house is not yet sold. I did mop the entire first floor this morning (with a fever, thankyouverymuch), so of course it appears that this afternoon's showing no-showed. The reason I did not volunteer the muffin recipe in the previous entry is because it involved a boxed mix. Hence my guilt resulting in from-scratch pizza later on. Now you know. Today was interesting. I took the kids to a movie, so that we wouldn't be loitering around during the showing that wasn't, and I see maybe two movies at the cinema every year. This is not something...
Happy St. Patrick's Day! I hope you're spending the day... ummm... drinking green beer? Shamrock hunting? Getting some girl named Erin to take off her bra? I have no idea. See, I'm not Irish. (Plus, I believe beer should be red.) St. Patrick's Day has never been much more than a blip on the radar for me, but I do vaguely recall the kids coming home from daycare or school saying that a leprechaun had come to their classroom and left treats. Isn't that cute? I think that's really cute. At least, I thought that was really cute as long as St. Patrick's Day fell on a school day. "We need to build...
In the last year and a half, I've managed to transform my hobby-and-occasional-gig into a sustainable career. Which, frankly, still amazes me. When we were down in Georgia a couple of weeks ago, someone asked me what I did and I answered, "I'm a writer" without batting an eyelash. I had only a short period of time to bask in this accomplishment before the logical follow-on to triumph took over: Exhaustion. Freelancing is not for wimps. There are no paid vacations, no sick days, and it's very easy to fall into a pattern of working all hours, every day of the week. And then? What initially...
Today was one of those days where I spent the entire day really just wanting to sit down in the middle of the room and weep for a few hours. No particular reason. Well, a hundred particular reasons, but none any different than any other day. Today just happened to be the day that I'd had enough, and yet, ODDLY ENOUGH, the world did not halt so that I could have a break, a snack, and a tantrum. Go figure. My fabulous shoes that I bought for a song to go with my wedding dress arrived today, and they are even more gorgeous in person than the online picture revealed. I unwrapped them and thought...
I have had about 1,001 things that need doing before summer, and this weekend, I knocked that list right down to around 995. Hooboy. We are rockin', now. Look out, world! Many of you have asked to see for a picture of my wedding dress and I am not trying to be coy, I am just... ummmm... I don't know what I am. Superstitious? I don't think we can call me superstitious when I'm getting married in a multicolored (including orange and fuchsia) cocktail dress, really. So that's not it. Weird? Well, THAT's hardly a debate; obviously I am weird. But that's not the issue, I don't think. I think it's...
I ran out for some groceries while the kids were having dinner with their dad tonight. While perusing the produce I spotted a prodigious head of garlic practically crying out for a good roasting, and so I brought it home and did just that. Dinner was much of the resultant goodness smeared on slices of wheat baguette, and while I enjoyed it very much, you probably don't want me to breathe on you. Or near you. The kids came home and Chickadee cocked her head to the side as soon as she entered the kitchen. She sniffed her way over to the stove, and beheld the leftover roasted garlic as well as...
With all of the recent events and stressors swirling around in my head, I did the only two things that made clear sense. First: I informed Chickadee that her ass is MINE this week. Slavery is BACK, baybee. She came home from school and did all of her homework for the week and then scrubbed toilets until it was time to go with Daddy. A good start, says I. My house shall gleam by Friday. And she went willingly, and then (unprompted) came and snuggled up with me tonight with her book about divorce and asked me to read with her for a bit. (She may not know why she did what she did, but she is...
We are home, and it was almost a really lovely trip. Tomorrow we will get up early and resume our normal routine; the children will lag and I will attempt to hustle them through breakfast and then we will walk to the bus stop and they will go to school and I will spend the day working and hoping that I do not get a phone call from school to tell me something that I do not want to hear. As for me, I am exhausted. I am glad to be home because next to Otto, I love my bed most of all, and I am so tired I want to sink down into the mattress and sleep for a week. The school visits (as I previously...
After spending most of the day a the aquarium, when we returned home it seemed like we needed a little Outdoor Time. Unlike yesterday, today was sunny and mild and gorgeous. First we all played bocce for a while. What is bocce, you ask? I have no idea. I think Otto made it up. But he had this big bag of colored balls and insisted this was a real game, throwing them at a small white ball and screaming loudly. Oh, wait. I think the kids may have added the screaming loudly part. When bocce wore thin, the kids insisted they wanted to play tag. This consisted mostly of them clinging to me like...
