What I Want

This next phase in our life is providing me with a new beginning, a chance to think about my life and what changes I'd like to make.  I have so many, it's sort of overwhelming.

"What I Want", presented in bullet points.

-I want to have a positive attitude no matter what my circumstance is.  We are coming up on a whole lot of unknowns. Basically everything is up in the air right now.  This is mentally and emotionally uncomfortable for me.  I can't choose what happens but I can choose how I react to it and in turn, how that reflects on my life.  If I whole-heartedly believe that things aren't that bad, then they won't be.  My attitude will become my reality.

-I want to be truly happy for the good things that happen in the lives of those I love, no matter what's going on in my own life.

-This sort of goes with the statement above, but I want to completely squelch the emotion of envy or jealousy from my whole being.  It's so unbecoming and just gross.  I used to be pretty good about this but in the last little while, I have notice it creep back in and it's time to stomp it out completely.  I believe this can happen by actively seeking ways to exercise more gratitude.

-This goes along with the above, but I want time the time to notice more things to be grateful for and express it.

-I want to build my relationship with God.  I want to feel His presence more in my life and as a result, I believe I will be able to see His hand more clearly, which is something I think is really important.

-I want to get used to having a husband and father around. I don't know if I can explain this one very well, but I've learned to function really well without Go.  On the weekends when he's around, I'm all out of sorts, I have a hard time being productive, I'm out of my routine, it messes with me and I can get cranky.  What a waste of something good.  I would like to figure out how to turn this behavior around.

-I want to focus on health rather than weight loss but without really focusing on it, if that makes sense. Going to the gym now will be completely up to me and for the first time in 9 years, not because I *have* to be there to teach a spin class.  I would like to adopt an active lifestyle and most of all, eat clean.  The other side to this is that I would like to do this without having to talk about it all the time and not let it rule my life.  Just do it and shut up about it like it ain't no thang. I admire people who live their live this way and don't feel the need to constantly talk about it...it just...IS.

-I want more order. I lived the first part of my life being extremely sloppy. I was just born that way; it's my nature to be disorderly and helter skelter. Every year since  I've been married to my OCD neat freak, I've become more orderly and more tidy to keep the peace and out of respect for him and his space.  It's been really hard to literally change the course of my DNA. Today I am in no way on the same level as Go but I'm really proud of the strides I've made in this area.  I'd like to keep continuing down that path.  Living at my in-laws will be good for me and my continuous battle to become more clean and tidy.  I'm going to try very hard to be conscientious about keeping their home in order and not feel like we've completely bulldozed their whole life with our crap.

-I want to be more careful about the way I react to my children.  I want to slow my mind and really think about what I say and how I say it rather than just let the first thing that comes to my mind fly out of my mouth because oftentimes it can be sarcastic, more harsh than is necessary or instead of explaining things, just say whatever is quickest or easiest.  They deserve for me to be more careful with them verbally.

-I want to live more deliberately.  It's something I've been thinking a lot about lately and another blogger, I forget who, mentioned this and it was like "YES!  Exactly!" It's hard to put into words what I mean but the things I do, from the smallest to the largest need to hold greater purpose than they do or have been.  I generally don't think about the reasons I do things or don't do things; I just go and do or don't do. I'd like to spend my time more wisely, slow down, find greater purposes and let them soak in.

-I need to spend less time with things that are electronic and more time with things that are organic.  No longer having a photography business will be a huge part of this.

-I need to give my children more attention and can do this by the sentence above.  I want to incorporate them more in the things I love to do and share that joy; realize that every moment holds the potential to be a memory.  This doesn't necessarily mean that I have orchestrate some big project or activity on a daily basis.  Just being together and smiling is important.

...19 days more and then it's the start of something new.  And now it's time to get off the computer and do something fun with my girls.

Early Birthday Meals

Friday, a couple of friends had a little early-birthday lunch for me that was so fun and super deeeeeeeeelicious. Holy smokes. I totally stole this picture from my friend's blog who hosted. Check out my awesome little cake. Have you ever seen a cuter cake? I haven't. It was so fun and I felt extra special, and not don't-eat-the-paste special and not you-are-great-with-child-special, just plain special and loved, which was so, so nice. And I even got to take some of these gorgeous hydrangeas home with me in a new little vase. Score!

Then, because who knows when Go will be home Monday on my real birthday, we as a family celebrated last night, Saturday night. He took Ruby and May on a bike ride while Olive finished napping (sweet peace and quiet for me!) and on the way home, picked up a dozen freshly steamed and seasoned crabs for dinner that he had ordered earlier, and had totally watched a video beforehand to learn how to break these suckers open for maximum crab meat consumption. Go took the first one out of the bag and Olive FREAKED out. Once she calmed down and we got all of our supplies ready, we went to town on these suckers. I always find a strange satisfaction in working for my food, like extracting pomegranate seeds, peeling off artichoke leaves, cracking open pistachios, etc. I had never had whole crabs before and they were even more delicious than I expected them to be. It was messy and fun and we all loved it. It was an excellent birthday dinner.

Mrs. Charmagne Lewis-Feinstenburger, our first victim.

May was crazy good at disassembling her crabs.

Those nimble little fingers got every piece of meat out of every nook and cranny.

Let us have a moment of silence for the discarded remains of our friends from the sea who provided us with a memorable birthday meal.

Play in the Atlantic. Check.

Go had this week off. We all needed it. Insert some lame joke about being exactly what the doctor ordered (HERE.)

Towards the end of the week, we were lucky enough to be able to go to Bethany Beach, Delaware and stay at a lovely friend's lovely beach house on Fenwick Island. It was awesome. Neither Go nor I had never been to Delaware before, nor did we ever think we would. If you're two kids from the west, vacationing in Delaware is a pretty random and unheard of thing to do, but if you're from the East, it's like "Oh yah. Delaware has great beaches." Huh? I had no idea. (Does anyone else remember that scene from Wayne's World where they're going through all these states, saying little things about each one and they get to Delaware and they're like totally bored and say "Delaware...I'm in...Delaware." So my assumption that Delaware was whack was based off of that.) But Delaware is actually pretty cool. It's very flat and marshy and has a weird back country, beachy, quasi-retro vibe. And Bethany Beach was super fun. You know what else has a weird vibe and when I say weird vibe, I mean something derogatory towards muscle car enthusiasts? Muscle car enthusiast conventions, which was going on while we were there in Ocean City, Maryland, which is just down the road (like, LITERALLY DOWN THE ROAD (the east coast is so weird that way) from Bethany Beach.) Go almost got us into a million car accidents from the constant rubber necking he was doing at all the "sweet" cars driving by while I nodded my head and smiled, like "Yes, that orange car with the thingee on the back and the what-its on the sides is simply amazing. NOW KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD, YOU SILLY MAN!" Conversely, while at the beach, I couldn't stop facing the ocean, then facing the land, facing the ocean, then facing the land, constantly commenting to Go about how weird it was to have the sun set BEHIND me while facing the ocean instead of ON the ocean since we were on the opposite coast and he would nod his head and smile, like "Yah, ok, whatever you say. It's so weird, so weird. NOW KEEP YOUR EYES ON YOUR CHILD WHO'S ABOUT TO INGEST A DEAD SEAGULL, YOU SILLY WOMAN!" I always forget he's a desert rat and he always forgets I don't give a rat's about cars. *exasperated sigh*

We had a great time and I was excited to be able check another thing of my "Must Do's Before We Leave the East Coast For Good, Never to Return, Except to New York City Once We Have the Money to Really Do it Up Right Instead of Slumming It Every Year Because Dang That Place is Pricey" list.

And with that, I give you Bethany Beach Part One or in other words, Half of the Pictures I Decided to Post Because Posting All 48 in One Post Is Over Kill, Thus I Shall Divide Them into Two Posts and Two Still Large Groupings of Photographs so Not to Totally Bore Anyone Viewing These Except For My Mother, Who Never Bores of Pictures of My Children.

Please note Olive's constant shriek in the majority of these pictures.

Girlfriend LOVES the beach.

And because she was even more animated than usual

(which one wouldn't think she could get much more animated)

she is the star of this particular photo grouping.

Note to older versions of Ruby and May reading this years from now:

I love all my children equally.

Your bizarre little sister just stole the show this particular day.

May, who will break into dance without warning, is feeling the groove.

More shrieking by Olive.

Some wildly intense concentration going on here.

Some wildly intense shrieking.

She thought the waves were going to come all the way up, but then they didn't.

The nerve.

More with the shrieking.

Uh huh.

Ruby and the cutest swim suit in the world.

Olive, always with lots of facial expressions and lots of hand gestures.

She is explaining something of great importance here.

Just as May breaks into dance, Olive breaks into song. And always an extremely loud song

with random lyrics that don't make sense.

Take last week at the grocery store, I got to have

"YOU HAVE A SHOW! YOU HAVE A SHOW! YOU HAVE A SHOW!"

happily shouted repeatedly in my face while I shopped.

This here went something like this:

"NAH NAH NAH NAH (a la Michael Jackson's PYT) NAH NAH NAH NAH!"

with a very random chorus of "DIG IT OUT! DIG IT OUT! DIG IT OUT!"

all whilst drumming on her "drum."

And now for a Neil Pert-like drum solo.

The end.

(of part one.)

Joy of Love: Day 16

Assignment: Together

This picture looks better small.

Smaller picture = smaller gum line exposure.

Joy of Love: Day 8

Assignment: Gift from the heart.

Last winter, Go bought me this beautiful black wool coat,

hoping it would help assuage my hatred for the cold and dark winter.

He so gets me.

My favorite part: its upturned collar.

Oh! It's the Never Ending Si-ick-ness!

I hope you sang that title to the tune of The NeverEnding Story theme.

I've been sick for a week with two different illnesses back to back, I'm pretty sure and so have my kids at different times during the past week. Olive's been especially clingy and has planted herself in my lap for three days straight, so I've been pretty much confined to my bed during the past little while. Haven't taught my classes and haven't worked out all week. Watched Gilmore Girls reruns, which I haven't done in a looooong time (I still hate Taylor and I still love Jess) and DVR'd Conans and Jimmys. Watched Juno again--the dialogue slays me. Reading The History of Love and trying to like it. Sorry Nicole Krauss but your husband's books are leaps and bounds better than yours. Trolled around Facebook and have creeped sufficiently. Thoroughly enjoying my Anthology magazine. Listened to the latest This American Life podcast. Completely done with my Christmas shopping, thank you Amazon.com. Haven't worn make up since Thanksgiving. Being sick is kind of nice.

I'd Like to Thank the Academy

for:

1. The wonderful smells coming from my yard right now. Basil, thyme, rosemary, lavender. Would it be weird if I started rubbing a bunch of rosemary in my arm pits instead of using deodorant?

2. And thank you to all fonts in general. Except for Papyrus and a hand full of others that I really don't care for. I could waste a lot of time on this site. And by that, I mean I do waste a lot of time on this site.

3. The writers of Modern Family. That show always, always make me laugh: "If an accident does happen, I hope he kills me, because I don't think I would be a very inspiring disabled person."

4. The week Go has off in a little while. We're driving 7 hours to Toronto and staying for a wee bit! And then we're driving 7 hours back home to wash our clothes and go to the bathroom and shower in our own shower which I would bet money, has even lower water pressure than the humble hotel in which we will have just come from! And then we're driving 12 hours to Nashville! And staying for a wee bit! And then driving 12 hours back home! All within a week! Also, we might be insane!

5. Olive, who is inseparable from her baby lately. It's one of those little ones with the cloth bodies and plastic head and limbs. She keeps it inside a beanie like a little sleeping bag. All day long, she carries it around, kisses it, loves it, cuddles it, feeds it, sings to it and puts it to sleep on anything soft she comes across, giving it a kiss goodnight, says "Ni-ni, bee bee!" gives it a couple of pats for good measure, then picks it back up 10 seconds later. She requires that I give her baby kisses about every 15 minutes. My kids have done lots of cute things in their day but this might take the cake.

6. The constant singing in my house during the day by my two youngest. May's always been prone to wander around in her dreamland singing, making up songs with lyrics consisting with phrases such as "in your heart", "truly believe", "madly in love", and "forever and ever" , which I really don't know where these cheesy lyrics come from since Go certainly doesn't listen to songs with such sap and I'm a total tom-boy when it comes to music (and well, most other things) but I love it. What I love more is that while May is on one end of the room (or often, car) singing her heart out to random melodies, Olive is on the other end crooning away as well, a completely different melody and lyrics with eyes squinted and brow furrowed, giving it her all and often holding out the length of notes for an impressive amount of time. I want to secretly record these two one day so they look back and listen to their weird duets.

7. Chicks with acrylic nails. I like watching them try to things and look normal while doing those things. I am reminded of an SNL skit with Kristen Wiig where she worked up in an air traffic control tower. She had long acrylic nails and was trying to open a bag of Sun Chips. She's so genius.

8. Kristen Wiig and the other funny ladies out there that I have girl-crushes on. This includes but is not limited to: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and my pal Alisa. (Alisa, if this makes you feel uncomfortable reading this, I promise to keep it platonic this weekend.) And though she's not funny, Nigella Lawson. Just because.

9. Again Olive, for being a really fun age. She's becoming extremely verbal, which is a great vehicle for her vibrant personality, always cheerfully saying "Thank you! Your welcome!" as she hands you random stuff she's found around the house. It sounds like "Deek Doo! Wow Cuh!" She has also started saying little sentences. Here are some of her latest words: (and this list, I am aware, only interests my mother and my husband)

-most of her sentences start with this: "I want...": (Uhhh)
-"cookie": (tee-tee)
-"peanut butter": (pee-a-bow)
-any sort of liquid to drink is "juice" (which is odd since she never has it): (joo)
-"May-May": (Mah-May)
-"Ruby"-(Woo-Bee)
-"I want down" (which means go down in the basement): (Uhhh dowww)
-"bath": (bow)
-"toast": (tow)
-"shoes": (shee-yews)
-"Me too!": (Ah do!)
-She has started letting me know when she has a dirty diaper: she walks to where I am, says "poo-poo" and turns right around for me to check her diaper. I think potty training is in our near future, which doesn't mean much since after my experience with Ruby and May (struggled and struggled for months when Ruby was 2, threw in the towel and 6 months later, she trained herself and May just trained herself when she was about 2.5, so I'm a big believer in letting the kid lead the way, although I'm aware it always doesn't go this way, and I don't expect to be as fortunate with this every time, but so far, we're off to a good start.)
-What a kitty says: (eee-ow)
-What a doggy says: (fff-fff)
-What a cow says: (noooooh)
-puppy: (bob-bee)
-yogurt: (yo-gee)

10. Scheduled mail carrier pick ups for packages, which require me to stay away from the post office, otherwise known as My Own Personal Outer Darkness.

This Is What Happens When I Try To Do Stuff

I am now just 2 degrees away from Kevin Bacon. Would you like to know how?

Let me start by making a long story short:

Today, due to two nights of only sleeping for 3 hours, was the first morning I felt alive enough to get up early-early and work on the 1/10 of a novel I have started.

That's the shortened part.

This morning my alarm was set for 5:30 but Olive woke up at 5:15 screaming. I got her settled down and was walking back to my room as my alarm was going off. "Well that wasn't that bad. Let's do this thing." I flip on my bed side lamp, set up my headrest, my two pillows, pull out my lap top and settle in, open up my Word doc and..."WAAAAAAAAH!" Olive again. I attempt to work but a crying baby isn't really conducive to creating compelling characters. So I get up, change her diaper, get her a drink, put socks on her feet, rock her and get her down again. Then back to work. I settle in again, stare at my screen, trying to get into the zone. I take a deep breath and lay my head back on my headrest and what to do I see?

My 2 degrees from Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon was in the movie Tremors with this fellow:



That fellow was up on my ceiling. I jump out of bed because this guy's going to fall on my face any moment, I just know it. I run to the closet, grab one of my husband's size 12 1/2 shoes, thinking "Bigger really is better!" and I jump onto my bed and smash the shoe against the ceiling, hopefully squashing this thing in the process. I twist and smash. There's no way this thing is getting out alive. Since the shoe is so big, I can't really see if he's dead or alive, so cautiously, I take the shoe off the ceiling and inspect the damage. There are no bug guts on the ceiling. I check the bottom of Go's shoe. Clean as a whistle. GAHK! I jump around on the bed, ripping away the layers of head rest, pillows, blankets but no creature is to be found. I feel a slight tickle on my scalp. I bend over my bed hyperventilating and manically rake through my hair. Nothing. I feel something on my back. I arch back and hop around, wiggling all over, scratching on top of my clothes, then underneath my clothes. THIS THING IS ON ME! Nope. False alarm. I look around everywhere, behind the bed, behind my nightstand, under the bed. I have no idea where this guy went. I stand there and listen for the scurrying of a million creepy tiny feet but the silence is deafening. I decide not to let this ruin my potentially productive morning. It's time to get to work. I pile on headrest and pillows again. I nestle down in my bed. Laptop on my lap. I stare at my screen. "WAAAAAAAH!" Hello Olive. Ugh. I let her cry and stare at my screen. She continues crying and I decide to reread what I've written already. I do this for a couple of minutes put she's building in intensity, making it impossible to think at all and putting her sister's slumber at risk. I go in again and rock her until she's just about asleep, something I normally don't do but desperate times, desperate measures, people. I sneak out of her room. Ok, ready to write. Get into bed, laptop at the ready. Cursor blinking. I stare at my screen, conjuring something to come. All of a sudden, there's a tickle on my toe. I fly out of bed, yelping and throwing off the blankets. Again, nothing. This thing's inside my head now and I feel like there are bugs crawling all over me. NO! I will not let a silly bug, that yes, may look like an alien, ruin my productivity. I am up! There's still time! I need to write, dang it! I put back my blankets, get into bed, place my lap top on my lap with determination, look at my screen and type one word. The wrong word. Delete, delete. What word should I use? I look up, deep in thought and hello Tremor Worm. You are on the opposite wall now. And now you must die. How did he get over there so fast? There must be two. Maybe even little baby Tremor Monsters. Fantastic. I jump up again, grabbing one of my smaller shoes this time so I can witness his slow and hopefully agonizing death and right as I'm approaching him, coming in for the kill, he senses my thirst for weird-alien blood and drops from the wall and down behind the dresser where I can't get to him. CURSES!!! I throw the shoe down on the floor in frustration. "WAAAAAAH!" This child is going to be the death of me. And so is this alien bug. I grab Go's sound-eliminating head phones, the ones he wears on the airplane while I wrestle our kids, the ones that make me want to reach over the aisle and strangle him while saying "YOU'RE NOT HELPING ME!", the ones that when I look over at him and give him the look that says "I'm going to strangle you if you don't start helping me," he says really loudly over his music "I CAN DO WHATEVER YOU NEED ME TO DO WHILE I LISTEN TO MUSIC" and I shake my head at him, like "No you can't" and he smiles and nods his head like "Yes, I can" and puts out his hands like "I'll prove it. Give one of them to me," and I shake my head again, then mouth the words: "Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon" and he yells "WHAT?" and I mouth "Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon" again and he looks so confused as he takes out the ear buds and says in a normal register "What?" and I say "Exactly." So I grab those, shove them in my ears, get in my bed, get my lap top, and stare at my screen. I look at the clock. It's almost 7. I write one freaking paragraph and Ruby comes in, hungry for breakfast and of course she does because for some unknown reason she wakes up with a blood sugar in the 400's, which is sky high and not good. Sigh. At this rate, this thing won't get published until they make Tremors 9: The Return of the Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandchild of the Original Tremors Monster. And in the meantime, I will be wiggling and scratching at myself all day long because I swear this thing is still on me.

7 Things on September 7th

1. Last night I fell asleep and stayed asleep until the morning WITHOUT ANY FORM OF SLEEP AID for the first time in a really long time. I'm such a big girl. I got to put a sticker on my chart.

2. Kind of obsessed with Chobani greek peach yogurt and Avarado Street sprouted wheat bread and have been for months.

3. I watched Jersey Shore for 15 minutes for the first time a couple of nights ago. I completely see the appeal. It wasn't as gross as I thought it would be and even though these people are completely ridiculous, there is something about them that makes you sympathetic while simultaneously hating them. It was a strange feeling; fascinating and entertaining to witness. That being said, it will probably be the last 15 minutes I ever watch.

4. Lately, I've been overwhelmed with thoughts of all the things I'd really, really love to do that I'll probably never get to do. Like bike across America. Or write a screen play, direct it, do the soundtrack and then watch it in a real live theatre. Be awesome enough at an instrument to play in a band, and then actually play in a band. Get through a yoga class without the teacher stifling their laughter as they observe my crazy unlimberness. Paint a picture that I actually like. These are things I long to do and I fear will never come to pass. There's something else that's always been on that list, but I'm taking it off and am working toward it: I am attempting to write a novel and hopefully, get it published. This is something I've been working towards on and off for the past 2 years. As of tomorrow morning, I'm back on the wagon. I'm trying to prove the voices in my head wrong - the ones that tell me I'll never be able to do it, it's not worth the energy and the sacrifice of precious sleep. These voices are really hard to ignore because you see, the voices in my head sound something like the lovechild of Fran Drescher and Gilbert Gottfried.

5. We all know it: summer is winding down, fall is upon us. 95% of you just clasped your hands together and took a deep inhale. I really, really wish I could do this with you, to relish autumn and be among you, you who gushes about how much you *LOVE!!!* fall, but I just can't seem to do it. To me, autumn is a precursor to 5 to 6 months of wintery misery. But (as always) I'm going to attempt to enjoy it this time around. Maybe I'll succeed knowing that this is my second to last fall here on the East coast. (UTTER GLEE!) But really, even if I didn't get slammed with the winter-blues every year, I'm not much a cozy, toasty autumny person anyway. I get much more excited about things coming in green, fresh and alive (spring!) than I do about things wilting and dying...which is what fall is. Sorry to burst your apple-cinnamon scented bubble, folks. Fall = death.

6. We've been finding dead butterflies in our front yard lately. This creeps me out. What's that movie where they keep finding dead animals around and then all of a sudden some weird disaster hits?

7. This post is starting to bum me out. Hm. How should I lighten this up? Hmmmm...uh...well...how about you pretend that I uploaded a video of Olive dancing? Picture a very tall, very bald toddler hunkered down, jutting out her chin, sticking out her neck, and pumping her fists horizontally back and forth and then all of a sudden, she tips her head waaaay back with her eyes closed and her mouth open wide, sticks out her tongue and sways her head side to side, in time with her fists. Yah. I'm just going to have to post a video.

Thoughts on This Early Vegas Morning

Something I'm bad at: Sleeping: Going to sleep and staying asleep and falling back to sleep.

Something I'm good at: Knowing your secret. I know when you're wearing knock-offs. I know when you've had plastic surgery. I know when you're newly pregnant. And I applaud you on all accounts.

Something I wish I was better at: Besides going to sleep and staying asleep and falling back to sleep...thinking the grass is pretty green right here rather than over there.

Something I want to be doing right now: Sleeping.

Happy 30th to Moi

Turning 30 used to freak me out. Up until about a year and a half ago, it really bothered me until I realized, "Hey, I'll be in my thirties when we're out of residency," and then 30 didn't seem so bad. What also helped my attitude was setting the goal to "Weigh 130 at 30," which is five pounds lighter than when I started out my pregnancy with Ruby, something I haven't seen on the scale for almost a decade. Yikes.

As of a couple of days ago, I was 131.5. A lot of my spinning folks are aware of my plight, so when I walked in the spin room this morning, they were like "Did you make it?", "Are you 130 yet?" and I said "Nope!" and they all let out a loud groan because they knew this meant that I was going to kill them. "I have 1 and a half pounds to lose, people! And I'm going to leave it on the floor of the spin room. Starting NOW! GET THOSE LEGS MOVING! COME ON!" The groans turned into roars, whoops, yelps and whistles. What a fantastic way to start a birthday. (Technically, my birthday is Sunday, the 11th, but we celebrated today.) I came home, hopped on the scale and lo and behold...130!

The day just got better. I was royally spoiled by my man as usual. I take that back...referring to the "as usual" part of that sentence. When I turned 26 was right after he started his intern year, he was working 110 hours a week and we literally didn't see him for months. My 26th birthday I did NOT get spoiled. But I forgave him because it wasn't his fault...and I digress. So every year before 2006 and after 2006, I did get and have gotten spoiled and this year was no exception. It may or may not have included and was not limited to the following things:

Even still, I can't help but do little things for myself and think "Happy Birthday, self!" during the week leading up to July 11th every year.

Such as the 2 bunches of gorgeous bright pink gladiolus I have sitting in a vase in the middle of my kitchen table. Thirty gladiolus to the thirty year old!

The $4.99 DVD of Raising Arizona I came across in Costco a couple days ago. Don't mind if I do!

A cold bottle of Diet A&W straight out of the grocery store mini-fridge yesterday. How thoughtful of me.

Splurging a little on the best fruit in the world. Why, thank you.








Thirty was good. And I think it's going to continue that way.

Just Blahgging to Blahg

It is 11:35, I just spent the night editing a photo shoot and realized that yes, I am still in my swim suit from some after-school-pool-going earlier today. I remember in the summer as a child, there were times I would sleep in my swim suit since I was just going to wake up and hit the beach/pool/both again the next morning. My mother will most likely deny I ever did this, but it's true. Sadly, I'm tempted to pull this most un-hygienic maneuver tonight because that's how tired I am. Yet here I sit, blogging. In my swim suit. At almost midnight. And I still have a sink full of dishes to do.

I believe most people blog during times they're supposed to be doing something else they don't want to be doing, like doing the dishes or changing out of their swim suits, which is why they should have spelled it "Blahg."

1000th Post: Operation Tidy Kids

For my 1000th post, I thought I'd do something I normally wouldn't do: Air some dirty laundry. Yay! Scandal!

I am not a naturally neat and tidy person. My brain is a chaotic mess, therefore, that is what springs forth out of me--a chaotic mess. Simply put, as a generalization, we know that left-brained people are nice and neat and right-brained people are a hot mess. I blame my natural untidiness on ADD and the fact that the right side of my brain is like Andre the Giant and my left is like Nacho Libre's wimpy sidekick Esquelito (partially because he is a weakling and partially because he believes in science.) My brain really likes wrestling, apparently.

That being said, over the past 10 years, I've made major strides in this area and I'm proud of that. It's been really really hard and something I struggle with on a daily basis. It sounds lame, but it goes against every grain in my body to put something away right after I've used it. Why? Because I'm already using something else and have forgotten about the first thing I was doing. You slow down, you die. So I'm constantly making conscious efforts to look around me and pick up my trail of bread crumbs. At lengths of time, I do a great job. And other times, it's tiring and I'm back to my old ways.

All this wouldn't be an issue if I hadn't married some who teeters on the edge of OCD. I won't go into specifics but Go is uber neat and precise and everything he does is done with surgical precision. Trust me, if you ever need some sort of plastic surgery, you want him to be the one sewing you up.

So, like I said, sometimes I go great stretches of time where everything is kept clean and I keep on top of things and the girls and their messes without a problem. But lately, I've fallen off of the tidy wagon. And because of this, so have my kids. Their room, the basement where they keep all of their toys, their art cabinet, the bathroom after they've spent all of 30 seconds in it, are left looking like ground zero until I go in and have them clean these places. The response I get 95% of the time is the five stages of grief with tears, howling, writhing, flailing, wailing and gnashing of teeth thrown in. It's ridiculous and has only gotten worse and because of this our home lately has spun out of control. This has caused some...friction...even though Go tries to be extra tolerant of me and my messy episodes and does his best to help the girls be neat. I'm pretty sure he believes he deserves a shiny platinum medal for his tolerance. But the tolerance has run out. The girls negative responses to our simple requests to clean their messes and my poor example of cleanliness have gone on long enough, apparently.

It all came to a head last night after our house had been messy for several weeks--the girls messes especially. He had talked with me several times and asked what I was doing during the day to help teach them clean up better or help change their outlook on cleanliness but I didn't have any real answers for him. So in order to have a happier home, he took it upon himself and implemented a plan.

All of the art supplies, all of the toys, save for some paper, a box of crayons each, their books and a selection of 5 toys each will be locked in the basement closet. As they are able to keep these small selection of toys/art supplies cleaned up each day, they will slowly earn back their toys and art supplies.

As he presented this plan to us, I felt side swiped. We hadn't discussed this. I imagined 2 bored, hence, bickering girls on my hands all summer long.

And without an abundance of art supplies. The nerve.

I was livid.

I've cooled off some, but I'm still sort of mad. I've never been mad at him for more than maybe 30 minutes. We're going on about 24 hours now. We're on the downward slope, though.

So today, because I respect and support my husband (said through clenched teeth) and the honest desire to have a happier and cleaner home, I followed his plan: put everything in the closet, threw away a bunch of stuff and had the girls make their selections.

Even though I feel like this isn't my campaign, pairing down and simplifying felt good. And our house is currently totally void of any of the girls' messes. Because of this, I haven't had to deal with any cleanliness melt-downs from anyone.

Um, you know what?

As much as I hate to admit it, I think this might work. The guy might be a freaking genius.

Five Tids and Bits

1. I ran in a 5K this morning. Though my time was laughable and I was embarrassed by the the varieties of the demographics of those who passed me, I never stopped running, which was my ultimate goal. I really should have trained beforehand. Maybe next time.






















2. Does anyone else's kids get increasingly difficult, over-emotional, and even more demanding than usual as the summer winds down? Hm. School starts Monday. Breathe deep.









3. I have a very mysterious rash on my hands. It looks like a chemical burn or maybe I sprayed my hands with something that acted like a sunburn propellant because in a spotty, spray-like pattern, it's darker than the rest of my skin and has started to peel and blisters whenever I work out. It's weird. I asked a derm guy about it and he said "Hm...looks like dermatitis." Gee. Thanks. He apparently forgot I was a resident's wife and I'm fully aware that "dermatitis" is a fancy blanket-term for rashes, all rashes, any rash at all. So even our smart, nice derm friend doesn't know. And YOUR WELCOME for not including a picture of a way nasty rash.

4. Go performed two reconstructive surgeries on a good friend of our's face last week. These were officially his first surgeries done on someone we know, per her request. I don't blame her. If I had to have anyone I know sew me up, it would be Go. Yes, he's mine but he is a detail-oriented, thoughtful, careful, steady-handed artist-genius boy.








5. It's almost September. But still August. Nevertheless, every year since I moved away from CA, it's around this time I start having anxiety about the impending winter season. I really, really wish I didn't do this. I used to think if I could change one thing about myself, it would be my nose. Then I accepted it's girth and focused my dissatisfaction elsewhere: to my ankles, but then I started working out regularly and they slimmed down a bit. Now I'd definitely be eliminating my seasonal depression.

Or maybe chewing my gum in less a horse-like fashion.

It's a toss up.

Twenty-Niner

I am officially in my last year as a twenty-something. Weird, since I still feel 18.

I had a really great birthday yesterday and as usual was showered with love, which I appreciate since I'm often in need of all varieties of showering, whether it be hugs and kisses or soap and water.

My bday got started a early when my buddy Camie made me a delightful birthday lunch on Thursday: Pea and Parsley Soup with Bacon and Chicken Artichoke Crepes. Sooo delicious.

Things calmed down until my actual day of birth, which was yesterday when I received breakfast in bed made and brought to me by Ruby: she handed me some buttered bread and yogurt with a spoon. She thought of it on her own without any coaching from her Daddy. What a sweetie.

I had to teach spin that morning and was very tempted to do a HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEE! mix, featuring all forms of birthday songs and songs with my name in it but decided not to since you can't spin to John Denver. But I did make a new mix and included Sean Kingston's Fire Burning, to which upon hearing I was downloading it, Go hollared from the kitchen "Are you serious? That song is going to give me a rash!" But let me tell you--just like I knew it would be, it's SUPER FUN to spin to. You should have heard all the whooping and hollaring going on in my spin room when it was blaring through the speakers.

After I was showered with soap and water, I was showered with gifts: a new camera bag from Go, an external hard drive from Ruby, a new iphone cover from May. Those gifts did include some coaching from their Dad. Then we all hit the Banana Republic summer sale where I made a killing. Nice.

My buddy Chrissy offered to watch my girls, though Olive stayed with us since she refuses to take a bottle. Little stinker. Go took me Devon, a fancy new sea food grill here in Hershey and it was amazing. Since we had a babysitter, we figured we'd go see a movie as well, which as seldom it is that we get to see one in a theatre, it was really poor timing since there is NOTHING out right now. Basically, I had to decide between The Proposal and Transformers, two movie genres I'm really not into: romantic "comedy" or sci-fi action blockbuster. I went with the action blockbuster because I like to watch Shia Lebeouf act, but ended up playing Word Warp on my phone for the last half.

So aside from getting over the disappointment of Megan Fox not getting blown up at the end of Transformers, it was a fantastic birthday. I think my last year in my twenties is going to be a great one.

All About 2009!

Odd-numbered years have typically been good ones in my life.


Let's start at 1989 because mostly everything before that is a blur:

1989: My family moved to southern California. And we all know how I feel about that.

1991: 6th grade, which I really liked. Outdoor Ed was rad, plus I was a superior handball player.

1993: I was at the height of my Beatles obsession and had no responsibilities whatsoever. Life was good.

1995: Actually, this year I could skip and be ok. What 15 year old actually likes being 15?

1997: The year my parents surprised me with the old red and white VW bus. sniff.

1999: College = Freedom.

-2001: The year I got married. That was good. Kind of. I guess. Oh, come on. I haven't seen Go in over a week now so he's due for some teasing from his wife, because that's how I show affection. That's actually how our children are conceived. I tease him about his facial hair and 9 months later, I birth a baby.

-2003: Ruby was born in 2003.

-2005: May was born in 2005.

-2007: I actually don't remember much about 2007.

-2009: Here are some possibilities of why 2009 will be totally cool: Baby #3 will be born...and that's about all I know right now.

You want to hear my 5 resolutions for 2009? NO? Ok!

1. Stop picking my nose! In public anyway...
2. Blog less!
3. Start a get-rich-quick scheme! Something involving a pyramid scheme.
4. Stop throwing stuff at the elderly Wal-Mart greeters! It isn't their fault I'm there...
5. Read the last Twilight book!

Today's Confessions: a PhotoBooth Journal

1. Most of the time, I have wet hair:

2. This doesn't help hide my trailer-trash roots that I will have for quite awhile, thanks to a number of huge and unforseen bills we have recently received:


3. During a typical week, I only wear makeup on Sundays. So unfortunately, I look like this alot:

4. Fortunately, I think looking like a ragamuffin is funny:

5. These are sugar-free popsicles I buy for Ruby. I give her and May all the so-so red and orange ones and save all the more tasty yellow ones for myself:


6. We went apple picking and this box of apples has been sitting here in my living room for days. I will be attempting to bake my first ever apple pie this evening:

7. The size of my belly has doubled in the past couple of days. Last night, I was laughing at something Go said, when all of a sudden, I felt a stab of electric pain right in my core. Go thought he was so funny that he made me cry. He was a bit let down to realize I had just pulled a muscle in my ever-stretching abs and it hurt like a beast.

8. I got that dress at Wal-Mart.