rainy, random, ramble

I could write this day like the intro to The Cat in the Hat.

It was a cold cruddy day, and the children stayed in to play.

The little one bellowed and bawled, demanded and snapped, refused to eat, refused to NAP.

The big one was cranky, belligerent and gruff.

Mama felt that a rainy Saturday without daddy certainly was rough.

There was no tv to soften the blow,
as the creeps in Washington forced digital conversion, the weather interfered with the box, and the screen remained white as snow.

"Damn you to hell", the mama was heard shouting.

"don't use potty words mama", the son said, outing, his mother's terrible temper.

"bring me more coffee!" she said, as she collapsed with a whimper.

I am cold, I am tired, I brought out playdough.

If you know me at all, you know that messy toys is not how I usually go.

So it goes, three days with no TV.

The digital thing is a mystery to me.

Unhook it! Unhook it!

The poor husband said on the phone.

You know I am a technical idiot,

I screamed!

just leave me alone!

Let me tell you a story

this is the story Freyja told me in the car this morning.

Once upon a time there was a big mean GIANT.

He never brushed his teeth.

He never blew his nose.

He had boogers coming out of his nose, and he wiped them on his wife.

His wife got so mad at him, that she called the police and they took the Giant away to JAIL.

Then the wife found a lion.

She loved the lion, not the dad of her kids (she said dad of her kids, not husband) So she decided to become a lion too.

The mom lion, the lion and the girl lion and the brother lion, and the dog lion and cat lion all moved away and never saw the mean Giant again.

The End

blahhumblog, clutterbug

I am really freaking tired today.
Scary tired.

I have two meetings to attend and all I want to do is roll up into a ball
and
sleep.

You can sort of judge the my state of mind, by the level of clutter in my house, and I think we are reaching
code red
that print?

That was a holiday gift, one I REQUESTED, specifically.
I may have even nagged a teeny bit.

There it sits unframed. Though not unloved. I had visions of something ornate an vintage, gilt, perhaps but so far I haven't found anything that strikes my fancy, and to tell you the truth- I haven't looked very hard.
Those Ikea candles, truly are non-drip- so I guess that is something. I love them. and I am not a big Ikea fan. Not like most people.


here is Moonshadow hanging out on the diningroom chair, along with
a PAINTING!
Like it is totally normal, she is getting all haughty, thinking her hair doesn't stick or something.

I am blaming my tiredness on all the grinding at the dentist yesterday, to "prepare" the tooth for the crown.
I was up half the damn night with jaw pain, and weird dreams.
I think it is absurd that I should pay $522.79
only to have to WAIT for 16 days to have the crown "seated".
GRRRRRR.

I will never tire of ranting about this.
I think temp crowns are one of the most irritating things invented.

My mouth hurts, I am tired, my husband is gone for five days, and things feel all unhinged.
Can I say it again?
Hell, yes!
it is my blog and I whine if I want to.
I have no obligation to be nice here.
HA!

My son is taking advantage of my
mood, and my desire to blog,
by quietly eating "Onkel bread" with butter
and drinking cherry juice in the living room.
Strictly verboten under normal circumstances- too crumby, too much stain potential.
Clever boy.
His sister needs to get up from nap, or she will never go to bed tonight.

Off I go.



This is manna from heaven, for my children. Onkel bread, is white bread, which their evil, whole-grain pusher mother rations to them, but their wonderful and fabulous
Onkie, buys with great abandon, all the damn time.
The only thing better is "old Onkie bread", the tooth shattering result of forgetting the bread for several days. You would think they were starving peasants, the way the swoon over the stuff.

happiness runs in a circular motion

here we are,
we are back to Sunday.

Today was one of those groggy mornings,
where mommy puts a coat over her nightgown
and
goes out for pastry,
at the
frou frou faux French
place down the street.

My children think this is one of the funniest things in the whole world,
getting take out in one's pajamas is a laugh riot around here.

I wish there was an exciting story behind my fogginess this morning, but it is simply a matter of staying up too damn late watching

No Reservations,

(you know how I love me some Anthony Bourdain-
he was in Beruit and the Pacific NW, so naturally I had to watch the whole DVD, and become outraged by his restaurant choices in Portland,
come on man,
Voodoo donuts is not all there is to the Portland food scene, by a very long shot.)

and then not sleeping well on our cruddy lumpy futon, and of course having Freyja wake me up at 6:00am.

So after much coffee, some vacuuming I dragged myself out onto the deck and planted some nasturtium seeds, in one pot. that is it. The extent of my morning labor.


I hope the seeds take off.

I count on nasturtiums and johnny jump ups for garnishes and tiny micro bouquets through Thanksgiving.

I love the way they look on salads and cupcakes.

I will plant the pansy seeds next week, when I feel the threat of frost is really gone.

La di da.
Remember that scene in Annie Hall, where Woody Allen tells Annie, that he never imagines himself with someone who says "la di da"?
I never imagined myself quite this frowzy, yet here I am.

I need to do something besides post, unflattering photos...

I have strayed pretty far, both here and in real life journaling, which degenerates pretty quickly into a junior high angst fest if I don't watch my step.

I am prone to melancholy, no doubt, and melodrama and perhaps even high drama, given half a chance.

I got through my open house with flying colors.

I was pleased with the general outcome, but also happy for a tiny bit of personal moxie.

This parenting gig has drained a lot of my former confidence, and like many a former beauty before me, I still have the arrogance, but little of the self confidence to push myself in social or professional circumstances.

I am constantly struggling for self definition, outside of being just a housewife, while at the same time asking myself why being just a housewife is not good enough?

There is nothing new here.

Not my story, not my quandry.

How many times has this old saw been played out, in the movies, on the page.

I have no big revelation,
nothing to add.

Some women can do it all.
Some women have to do it all.
Some women like to do it all.
I can barely do some of it, with grace.

I remember reading Norma Jean the termite queen, years ago, and being sympathetic, but not really able to get it.

I cannot tell you how many time I have thought about the scene, where her youngest child demands "daffodil" yogurt, since having my second child.

So, I stood in a roomful of my peers, today, with my colleague at my side, and gave some meaningful chat, information and speeches in my field of expertise. People said they loved our place. They took photos and asks serious questions. My colleague and I beamed at one another, because we pulled it off- we were awesome.

I then drove home in my Cheerios littered station wagon, was greeted by my relieved husband, removed my skirt & jacket, and served up some daffodil yogurt to my four year, who

" hates meetings, a lot".

this girl likes to party all the time

Man,
lately it feels like I am busy all the time.

Each day is jam packed with STUFF that has to get done.

I am going in for that raincheck, fasting blood test today.

I got a lot done this morning, after slacking on the housework for several weeks, I went through the whole routine.

Sadly, that means I also saw the giant list of stuff that needs to be repaired & painted.

I had another board meeting last night, and this Saturday we host a big open house, which will require me to arrive early and help spiff things up a bit. I am popping into the office this afternoon for a short meeting, but I swear, I am keeping it SHORT.

I feel guilty about leaving the kids so much this week, with Mark leaving on another trip Wednesday, and me having two more

meetings evenings next week, and dental work.

It is going to interesting to say the least.

I see a lot of fast food in the future.


Here are some shots of our bedrooms

this is Maxwells collection corner, with his Usagi poster and vintage StarWars comic (thanks Joyce!).
His room is painted in that Waldorf watercolor style.

And- the little sitting area in my bedroom.

I slip covered that chair (without a pattern, thank you very much!) for Maxwell's nursery when he was an infant and it totally doesn't match my room, but Mark likes to sit in it to read stories for bedtime... so there you go.
I don't know when I will be inspired enough to make a matching slipcover again.and this is a beautiful bedcover a friend brought me back from India recently. I love the tailored pillow slips. And you can see my favorite comics, framed on the wall- a Crumb "dirty laundry" and one of Aline Kominsky Crumb's covers from Weirdo, where she calls herself "the aluminum siding sales person of comics"

Brilliant!

and the Freyja's pink room, chock full of crap. Thank you Ikea for a place to house the 10,000 dresses. Those are Mme (is that the french abbreviation? Alexander dolls, that I secretly want for myself.

reading, reading, reading

I just finished "Devil's Peak" a so-so "thriller" set in South Africa (one of the only things to really make it interesting) written by Deon Meyers. A decent quick ready, but nothing literary, if you know what I mean? Entertainment for a dreary Sunday afternoon, nothing more. Very TV movie of the week.

Also finishing up "Confinement", by Carrie Brown. This one really was a bigger turkey, than the thriller, in the sense that I actually had some expectations for it to be good. I was bored and unmoved by the characters, even though the plot had a lot of potential (holocaust survivors, teen pregnancy, alcoholic mother, secrecy).

B O R I N G

Still working on Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson. I am trying HARD to like it and it does show some promise, but I am not hooked.

I finished "Funhome" by Alison Bedchel a while back and it was really good. A graphic novel with a great heartfelt story about the author's closeted dad.

I am hoping to get something into my hands soon, that really knocks my socks off.

ass kicking tuesday

A day like to today makes me feel "like a one legged man in an asskicking contest" as my father likes to say.

Whew.

Too overwhelmed to even articulate the things that are mowing me over.

To the super nasty creep outside Safeway, no one wants to see your weenie, keep it to yourself. YUCK.

what a day.

I draw the line at bathing with cats

We live in a collective household.

We live with a housemate, of eighteen years.

We live this way intentionally, with the belief that the nuclear family is a outdated middle class construct that brings society down, and besides, we need extra help with childcare.

Originally there were more of us, but they faded away over the years, until it was just Rolf and me, and we sort of dribbled along, living in a sort of smug self satisfied haze, thinking that mortgages were for suckers.

We loved our big, beautiful, shabby NW apartment, with it's box beam ceilings, bay windows, and that empty extra bedroom was perfect for goofing around on the new thing the Internet.

Who needed more housemates?

Who needed a house?

We had a giant three bedroom apartment that we adored, right in the heart of the city.

Then it happened.

Our beloved home went condo, and suddenly we were out on our asses, looking for a place to rent that would accept our geriatric pets.

Buying a place started to seem like a really good idea.

Then I met my partner, who would become the father of my children, and eventually my husband.

He signed on for the long haul with me, and that meant accepting my wacky socialist ideals and my housemate.

The hunt was on for an ideal place, where three cranky privacy freaks and one impending baby could all live together in relative peace.

We chose the biggest thing we could find for our meager dough.

Thank goodness, because while I am deeply devoted to sharing resources, I am not a big fan of close quarters (sorry Hallie), or small spaces.We picked a big old rambling house with lots of rambling rooms and space for people and animals to stretch out in. I sometimes think I picked the house simply for this light-filled room, but could I have been that silly?

When we added children to the mix, the notion of privacy for me, like most mothers, went right out the window.

My husband still gets 45 uninterrupted minutes in the bathroom each morning, because that time is essential to his mental well being.

Me?

I get five minutes to brush, shower and shine, and lately, I have to kick the cat out of the tub.

sigh.

Sunday, sunday I kinda hate this day

I am not a big fan of Sunday.

We usually try to have a special family dinner each Sunday. Rolf and I often go to coffee with the kids, at the Pearl Bakery downtown, and pretend we are in Europe.

It gives Mark a break and it also lets me feel a little bit grown up and elegant, although I don't know how keen the Pearl folks are on having me in my jammies (well not quite, but in my Sunday clothes, nearly jammies) and my children, who since birth have been chowing down on pistoles and hot chocolate. Today there was a single dad with a 1 year old and a three year old, and that took some of the heat off of F.

Sunday dinner- That part is nice, but there is a big long stretch of day that often feels overwhelming.

I have been sickly with a cold for a since Wednesday night.

I am not good at being sick.

I am cranky and I don't like to be idle.

Today, in addition to having a stuffed up nose, my neck went all wacky.

For a moment I thought I was having a stroke- there was this shooting pain, from between my shoulder blades, right up out of the top of my head.
Then I felt all floaty, only for an instant, then back to feeling all shitty- since then, my neck has been stiff, and I have a splitting headache, I am dizzy and I feel like I cannot turn my head properly .

I am also bored as hell, and tired of being so low energy.
so I went out to spread my germiness on all the unsuspecting yuppies at the Pearl, that part felt kind of good.

Later in the afternoon, Maxwell and I walked about a quarter of a mile, to a nursery to purchase nasturtium & pansy seeds, to plant on the deck in my kitchen garden pots, since it was bright and sunny, and I was feeling so house bound.

By the time I got inside the house, I was ready to fall down on the sofa and not get up.

Thankfully, I had done the dinner prep early in the morning and Rolf, finished up with minor instructions, from the whiner in the next room.

We had mushroom goulash, (cooked all day to perfection!) boiled potatoes, asparagus, sweet & sour red cabbage, and some baguette from the Pearl.

It would put any Austrian gasthaus to shame, if I do say so myself.

Not very witty or inspired, but I have my commitment to write everyday, so there you are.

Here are some photos of Sunday evening at the finchaus
the kids and Mark goofing around with "homework", freyja being a camera hog, and the kitchen looking like a mess.

taking a short cut

I finally cut off a good deal of hair,
after kvetching about it for weeks.

I have no idea whether it
looks
better or worse, but it feels better.

Which is worth something.

the stupid lighting is so awful,

and the camera so awful,

and lets face it the subject so awful,

that you can't tell anyway,
but there, next to the shockingly yellow wall, in the black pullover is me, last week, with unkempt longish hair, and the others
are me today with a very puffy face, eyes and snuffed up nose, with shorter unkempt hair.

I have no idea why my hair always looks so flat in pictures?

In real life I think my hair is quite fluffy, but I may be deceiving myself, it certainly would not be the first time!

HA!

too much coffee spoils another morning

I am on a new crusade to be healthy and take better care of myself (what better time to start, then when I have a raging cold?).

So I finally scheduled an appointment to have a crown put on a tooth that has a big crack in it (don't worry it is wayyyyy in the back, where no one can see) and has been hurting like hell for nearly a YEAR.
It took an act of congress, to coordinate all of the childcare providers, dentist and my husband, for me to get over to the dentist, so he could look at the tooth and say,

"yep, it still has that big crack, and still needs a crown"

Next week I will jump over more tall buildings to have the tooth drilled down to a nub and a temporary cap put on, then two weeks of HELL will past with all manner of food sticking under and ripping the temp off, until the final crown is installed.

That all went down on Tuesday.

On Wednesday I went in to see my GYN for an "annual", except it had been three years!
She is a very nice doctor, a bit of a chatty patty, even, and she wound up giving me lab slips and mammogram orders galore, as well as hooking me up with her acupuncturist.

So like a responsible person, I headed out this morning to the lab at the nearest hospital.
The traffic was brutal,

the parking as a hassle,

finding the bloody (haha) lab entailed running a marathon, in and out of corridors, and mezzanines.

I stood in line with the great unwashed and ailing of Portland for 15 minutes (a lifetime to a germ-phobic neurotic like me), was greeted sweetly by a nice woman named Shirley, and informed that I was supposed to fast, and that means no cream in your coffee.

She explained that I could have some of the labs run, but the cholesterol test only works when one fasts, and that my insurance may or may not pay for a second test.

And alas, Shirley is right, my insurance most likely would not accept over consumption of dairy products as a valid excuse to run two sets of labs.

So I drove home defeated, and brewed up a fresh pot for consolation.

Whew, I made it

Dang!

the cook was ill today, which meant that I had to do the cooking and washing up and let me tell you, that job is not for sissies!
I did get me out of a potentially dry administrative meeting, so I guess I can be happy about that.

Small gifts from the universe.

I managed to whip out the lunch & morning snack, and leave the kitchen in good shape, for the gal that was taking over, but I am feeling it right now.

I have a dentist appointment across town ( I love my dentist, and would drive to the ends of the earth, or at least to North West Portland for him) in an hour and a half.

Mark came home at midnight, and will have to hit the ground running, by picking up F from preschool, then taking M to karate, and feeding them both some where in between, as I expect that this tooth is going to require a crown, which will take T I M E.

I bit down on some rice today, and nearly jumped out of my skin, so I suspect the old filling is cracked.

I tried to start a new book last night at bedtime tree of smoke, or smoke of fire or something like that, about Vietnam era CIA agents or brothers, it got rave reviews, noted as life changing, but so far, it was hard to get into.

Mark brought me a Nico CD, back from New York. Very cool.
I am S L O W L Y
switching over to CD, mostly so I can listen to music in the car.
I adore the song These Days.

He is a really talented gift finder, not me,

I totally suck.

He must have like fifteen black sweaters, the default gift.

Last year I did come up for something cool for his birthday.

I got him an hour float in a sensory deprivation tank. Perfect for the man that craves silence and darkness.

I did it once in high school with my zen boyfriend.

It totally freaked me out.

I hated it.

I jumped out after only a few minutes.

I am just not cut out for higher levels of consciousness, I guess.

On the mend

Maxwell is feeling better.
His fever is gone, and after sleeping for most of two days, he seems to be fine, except for some giant rats in his hair.

egg custard

I was gifted two dozen (HOLY CHICKEN) farm fresh eggs...

what the hell am I going to do with all those lovely eggs?

So I am baking a custard, from memory, which I hope will resemble the ones my grandmother used to make, and awaken an appetite in my son.

4 farm eggs (smallish if you are using store bought)
3 cups milk or cream
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt

whisk everything but the milk together well

warm the milk, but don't boil it

then whisk it into the egg mixture S L O W L Y

sprinkle with nutmeg


bake in a bain marie at 300 for 1 hour.

here is a link to a very cute little old woman, making step by step egg custard. I love how she is using coffee mugs.

I personally used a mishmash of white french ramekins, red fiestaware custard cups and some cobalt blue Meyer custard cups from Germany.

when life is quite absurd!

There are those times when someone quite by accident pokes something, say, a stick horse right through the window.

And those are the times when you are happy to live in a communal living situation.

One where there are PEOPLE, ready and willing to fix the second story window, throwing personal safety to the wind.

Saintly Son

the headache did not get better.

The vomiting didn't go away.

My son is sick he has a temp of 102.5

He has not eaten all day.

I am trying to normalize this sick.

This is a flu.

This is what people go through with their children.

It is always scary when a child is sick.

This child, has been sick a lot.

At six months he could not swallow. The part of the brain that makes you swallow, stopped making him swallow.

It was a very big problem.
A feeding tube was put in.

we were told by a particularly callous doctor, when he was a baby, that he wouldn't live beyond his first birthday.

We were told he had a seizure disorder, that would wreck his brain.

We have spent nine years waiting for the other shoe to drop, but so far he is fine, his brain not wrecked, his brain is
Brilliant. Magnificent. Delightful.

like the rest of him.

I used to take him to alternative care providers often.

I racked up a lot of debt.

Our family doctor, a sweet man, with sparse red hair and a gentle touch, told us he would be fine.
He never believed the callous specialist.
We retain the family doctor, he came to the hospital when our second child was born and needed NICICU.
He is full of kindness.
We make mean comments about the specialist.
We still hate him. We talk about how awful he is and we hate him openly, my mother and me. It bonds us. one of the few things.

Maxwell is fine enough.
He vomits & chokes frequently, he reads at a high school level, he flaps his arms when bored, he rocks when he is distracted, he is nearly perfect and we adore him.

We waited nearly six years to have a second child, because we wanted to be fair to him. We were old and tired, we had cared for our most beloved, dear child for so long, by then, that we lost a bit of focus... was it fair to have another? was it fair to leave him on his own, in the event that his old parents were gone?

How the hell, does one know? We chose romance over prudence.

He has a loud, healthy sister, that puzzles all of us, even the dog.

So today he is ill, and his sister is well, and when I went to check on him I smelled vomit.

alarmed!!

"did you throw up again? Why didn't you call me"

"I didn't want to worry you, mommy, I cleaned it all up, brushed my teeth and washed out the sink. I knew you were busy with Freyfrey"

He is my child to the very core.

when your child is sick

it is just now 11:00am, but it feels fair enough to take a little break.

Time for Mary Poppins to take over for a few minutes.

My children are sickish.

Frey is just unable to "sniff"- this inability to sniff has created a lot of drama over the past two days, along with demands that I fix it.

I cannot fix the sniffer, so I allow her to sleep with me in her signature L style, with her little toes digging into my side all night long.

Maxwell got up at 5:00 am with a stiff neck and "a knife going through my head", headache.

He also threw up,

but throwing up is very normal for him, so we had to go through a long conversation about the origin of the vomit.

"is your stomach upset?"

no

" are you dizzy?"

a little

"are your really hungry and feeling shaky?"

a little

so the vomiting is most likely a result of the headache and not a true stomach thing.

I hope.

My husband returns tomorrow, most likely just in time for everyone to be well again.

cheers.

Zoli

I am just finishing up another good book.

Zoli, by Colum McCann

and I just love it, because it is such a departure from what I have been hung up on lately.

It is about a young Roma girl's life, her poetry and struggles and exile from her community in WWII Slovakia.

The writing is so nice and not at all sentimental or melodramatic.

I have had a fascination with Roma culture for a long time, but you just don't find that many resources to learn more.

I picked up this book totally randomly, in the library (I mean literally picked up, as my four year old pulled it off the shelf.)

goofing around

this lovely, is from this fun name site, still fun, even when you are old and no longer in the market for naming anyone.

I wonder how my relative came up with these names with no snazzy device to guide them?

Love is a mix tape, by rob Sheffield

I am reading another memoir by someone my age, writing about angst with a big dash of pop culture.

I cried.

Right in the parent seating area of the Bootiful Princess's ballet class.

I sat and sniffled and cried, while reading about mixed tapes and their social significance.

My friend left this book behind as a little second hand birthday gift (my favorite kind) and of course I am loving it.

The writing is not knock out.

It is not great literature,

who cares?

it connects with me on an emotional level, the level I like, so what else really matters?

It is also timely, as next week is a rough time for me, it marks the 24th anniversary of the death of my first boyfriend.

I have had him on my mind a lot the last few days.

I have had that time on my mind.

Mix Tape,

what a very lovely and timely theme.

I can rewind in my head, and almost hear the Pretenders first record, for the first time- shocked by the content of the song Precious.

Now I just play it in my mind every time I feel like telling someone to F*&K OFF.

does it get better than that?

not really, not for a really long time, at least.

When I met Leo, in '82, I was in a transition between big hair Jr. High, rocker chick (with Led Zep posters and Fleetwood Mac records) to just cutting enough to create the slightest hint of a new wave bi-level, (which would lead to me bleaching the shit out of my hair over the summer between 9th and 10th grade, but that all came much later in the story.) and getting turned onto Patti Smith and The Clash.

He opened up the world of MOD, which sent me spinning, spending hours embroidering a multi arrow chaos sign onto the ass of my Levi 501's , and purchasing an army surplus raincoat, which I would never be brave enough to wear to my conservative high school, and sneaking out to watch a double feature of Rude Boy & Quadrophenia at Cinema 21.

We would meet up at Goodwill surplus on Saturday mornings, with other "punk" friends, from the downtown alternative school, and comb the bins for tough records from the 70's (funkadelic for instance) and vintage clothing.

You can purchase a lot of cool, for .75 a pound.

Later we drank coffee at the Galleria downtown and smoked a lot (me, not him) of Camel unfiltered cigs.

This was the time of all kinds of exciting political stuff, one could rock very hard against Reagan, for instance, by tagging graffiti all over downtown denouncing RAYGUN.

Then there was the whole Latin American thing going on, to stoke the fires of political activism.
Me? I was mostly trying to look cute, and make out with my cute politically aware boyfriend.

I remember going on a walk against cruise missals with Leo and his parents, and thinking, does my hair look ok?

I can see myself walking into Rock 'N Roll Fashions and using a week's lunch money to by a "LONDON CALLING" t-shirt- pulling it over the top of a hot pink Izod.

I can feel those slouchy suede roll down boots, and envision myself at the sewing machine, pegging the legs of a pair of Levi 501 jeans.

Years later, I am a much more thoughtful person, having spent time with a, well, thoughtful person. I like to think I live a meaningful life, full of meaningful and well thought out choices, and much of that consideration comes from knowing such an awesome person.

I have a very beaten up mix tape sitting at the bottom on my cedar chest, and I know each song by heart.
It starts with The girlfriend song then, HOSPITAL, by the Modern Lovers and ends with Please, please do not go, by the Violent Femmes.
It felt a little funky seeing those songs mentioned in that book, but hey, there are no original ideas, right?

WTF?

It feels comforting to know that there are people all over with the same connection, and love for that feeling, and those songs and that connection.

Tell you man I'm stuck on this lovely girl
of course to me u'know she mean all the world

I promised I'd write, right?

and I am trying. It has been an ok finish to an ok week.
Lots of action around here today, ballet, then off to the doc, for the little one to get shots.

We delayed vaccines for her, so now we are playing catch up.

I feel right and righteous about our choices and pacing, but damn, it is hard to watch a four year old get 3 shots all at once. (wince)
Babies cry often enough that it isn't quite as jarring.

This child never cries, so it felt really harsh to listen to her cry out.

She knew what was coming, we talked about it first, but who can be prepared for such a thing?

The next big thing is to take brother to his friend's house for some play.

I hope they invite him to spend the night, because it would be nice to not have to be entertaining tonight.

I am feeling a little old and worn around the edges today.

I made a photo of myself for Facebook, no makeup, no hairdo, and good god, was it ever ugly. I try not to get too hung up about the aging thing, but some days it hits me literally in the face.

Swedish Cream

cooking

It's what's for dessert around here pretty often.

We are working on perfecting the recipe, but it goes something like this;

• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons brandy-orange liqueur (Grand Marnier)
• 2 cups whipping cream
• 2 cups fresh strawberries, cleaned, hulled (we use frozen raspberries in winter and sauce them, press them through a strainer)

1. Combine the sour cream, sugar, yogurt, vanilla extract, and orange liqueur in a large bowl.
2. Pour the whipping cream into a saucepan, and heat over medium-high heat just below the boiling point. Slowly stir the heated cream into the sour cream mixture. To serve, pour the cream mixture into 1/2 cup ramekins to 1 inch below the rim. Top each glass with sliced strawberries or sauce
3. allow your child to eat this in the livingroom, only while wrapped in a giant blanket with a sun motif.
   

Whirl Wind Visit

My friend finally made it,
after all, and we had a lovely
two day visit!

Maxwell stayed home from school and the day was a beautiful 50+ degrees.

Good enough for them to go hiking in Mt Tabor Park.

She then took Miss F to the park near our house in the evening and played dress up until bedtime.

We watched American Idol together and chatted by candlelight.

DELIGHTFUL

Mark made it to NY, and is slaving away for the next few days (note to self, figure out when husband is coming home)

Today Karen and I went to Goodwill, out to Ethiopian food for lunch, folded a ton of laundry AND put it away!!!

Then I dropped her off at the train.

I was sad to see her go.

It can be awfully lonely around her sometimes.
Having someone that has known you for 35 years around feels good.

I miss her already.

Goodwill goodness

here are the little highchair & the dollbed,

I have scored over the past two months from our favorite store.

the PLAYROOM used to be the diningroom, but we now use the sunroom as the diningroom- we like to switch it up around here!

Popovers & soup with a side of sickness

I am tired,

my family is sick.

I feel vaguely sick myself.

Monday was a bit of a loss...

I wasted four hours, yesterday (not all in a row, thank god) messing with tech difficulties on the computer.

Nothing new here.

Just the same old crud.

I am the same inept idiot who cannot operate a camera.

I tried to go swimming, only to leave after 30 minutes, with my sciatica acting up something fierce.

a true pain in the ass.

It got more exciting from there...

MIL called at 1:20am to get Mark to take her to the ER, she has pneumonia!

AGAIN!

There is nothing like being up at 1:30 in the morning and worrying about your partner to make you feel like crap.

Good thing I had work at 7:30, to keep me busy!

I know it scared him, to have his mom hospitalworthy sick in the night, for the second time in six months.

To makes matters worse, he has a 6:00am flight to NY, in the morning.

Didn't we say something last week about not being owned by stress?

Man, it feels relentless lately.

I did make a really good mushroom soup (lots of zinc, ya know) last night for all us sickies, and potential sickies...

saute a couple pounds of mushroom slices, with an onion, in EVVO.
add veg broth to the desired consistency, and some fresh spinach, red peppers, and garlic. very lovely.

You may serve with some really tall popovers, if you feel daring. Otherwise good old fashioned toast will work.

All my hopes of posting pictures, on a regular basis, have gone right out the window, as both the camera and the computer are FUBAR and make me want to rip what is left of my hair out, each time I attempt to post.

ARRGH.

Pie & Fairies

here are some
projects...
the pie from

Sunday dinner

heart shaped

apple pielets

and one of my fairy embroidery pillowcases.

I am in
LOVE
with the embroidery patterns from here.

I want everyone I know to start embroidering RIGHT NOW!!

the pies are made of my super simple foolproof pie crust, pressed into heart shaped individual ramekins (well a bit larger than a ramekin) with some sliced apple, topped with sugar, Cinnamon, a teeny bit of lemon juice.
I took them out of the ramekins, and arranged them on a cute cake stand, but my son ate two, before I could make the photo, so there you are... garnish with thyme.

this old (cruddy) house

Home ownership is wearing us out.
I feel like moving into an empty studio apartment.

How cruddy is that?

I should be delighted that we have what we have, but buying a giant old house, when you are not "handy" is not such a hot idea.