The Queen's Rambles

I’m from the mountains of Oregon where snow is just another thing that happens for a lot of the year. Nothing to get too excited about. There was ONE snow day in 12 years of school. We couldn’t even take advantage of it because the snow was so deep we literally couldn’t open the doors to our house. I think in the end my dad had to climb out an upper story window so he could shovel us out. That doesn’t really seem like something he would do, so maybe I’m remembering it wrong. I guess when you are literally snowed in you might do something out of character.

We’ve had a few snowflakes this year, but today was our BIG! SNOW! DAY! Cancel everything (except it’s Saturday, so what are we going to cancel), bundle up the kids, and go sledding! Wheeeeeeeee!!!!

Even though we don’t get a lot of snow here, we did get two huge snowstorms two years in a row, which was insane. Luckily the first year we were planning a winter trip to Sweden so I had everything we could possibly need for outdoor snow play (except a sled). Snow play is so much more fun when you are warm and snug in water proof clothing. The funniest part? I dragged that crap over the Atlantic and had no need for it in Sweden.

Ever since that year I make sure we are fully prepared for snow, even if we don’t get any. Last year we didn’t get any, but I figure it is worth it to spend a little cash on a cheap Target snowsuit and boots. I am lucky to have that luxury. If we can’t use it I can donate it (of course I save Erik’s and eventually they will fit Elsa).

Which explains why we were able to have a great snow day with a fun sled, warm clothes, and lots of giggles. Minimal crying about cold hands, feet, and legs.

The next time I’m at the store I’m buying a few more cheap disk sleds so we don’t have to share so much. At one point there were over 20 kids at Big Hill and maybe five sleds. There was a lot of sharing going on, but it would have been nice to have a few more sleds. Not that it is my responsibility to provide for the whole neighborhood, but if it means my kids get more turns on the sled I bought for them and it doesn’t hurt our family finances, why not?

Btw, you can click through the pictures to get to the Flickr set. I know you have nothing better to do than look at pictures of my precious snowflakes.

If you want to see something that I find amusing (your mileage my vary), you can click through this one:

and flip through my futile struggle to get a picture of Elsa’s smiling face. She would not cooperate, despite Erik’s best effort to make her laugh. This little series is all you need to see if you want to understand Erik’s hammish nature. I don’t know if he will be a scientist or an actor when he grows up.

We had a super, super bad night last night. Back in July or August we had a glorious two weeks of Elsa sleeping through the night in her own bed. GLORIOUS, I say! I thought she would be like Erik and just. . . . be done. Once he slept through the night once he was sleep trained and all was well.

Nope. She ends up in our bed most nights these days. Sometimes Mike brings her in (she does NOT want to see me in middle of the night. She slams the door in my face, screams like a banshee, throws things at me, etc. Lucky me, I don’t even have to get out of bed) and sometimes she just appears silently and the first you know about it is a foot in the spleen. It’s not good, but it is not the most terrible thing on earth.

Last night though. Yikes. Poor girl had gas (my theory) and was up at 1 am, 2 am and 3 am screaming and writhing in pain. I gave her gas drops; we bicycled her legs; massaged her tummy. Each session lasted about 20 minutes (my theory is it took that long for the gas drops to work), but what a 20 minutes! Every nano-second is a lifetime when your child is writhing in misery and nothing you do seems to help.

I’ve suffered from gas pains since I had my gallbladder out, so I can really empathize. Gas pains are excruciating. I can’t imagine being a little kid and not having a clue what it was or how to manage it. Thankfully my gas attacks are few and far between these days. I’ve had to give up onions and fried food, but it is well worth it to not suffer that kind of pain. And, of course, I always have a Costco pack of Gas-X in my medicine cabinet or suitcase! Don’t ever want to get caught without those.

I sure would like a deep fried burrito covered in enchilada sauce, chili, sour cream, onions and melted cheese. Haven’t had one in years. It would kill me dead.

Despite Elsa’s bad sleep habits, she has one VERY good habit. She’s potty trained! Can I say that now? She hasn’t had an accident in over two weeks. I never thought this kid would get trained because she’s so different from her brother. She can hold her bladder for-freakin’-ever, so I could never catch her to put her on the potty. Then we had several weeks of being naked-trained but refusing to leave the house without a diaper.

We ran out of diapers and I was terrified.

She had two nasty accidents; I told her that was yucky and she had to go in the potty, she said “ok, me go in potty now” and that was that. No more accidents. I have even stopped harassing her about it and she just goes when she needs to go. I still have to harass the seven year old.

I hope posting this doesn’t cause a major backslide. That’s why I haven’t done a dance of glee on here sooner.

Ok, time to get the boy to bed. He should be tired after a day of playing in the snow, I hope!

I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting and WAITNG for LJ to load. Over 24 hours of waiting! I finally decided to try a different browser since FB wasn’t going crazy with anti-LJ protests. Low and behold, LJ is alive and limping along without me. Firefox suddenly hates LJ and Pyramid Solataire, it seems.

So now a post! But what was I going to say?

Elsa is at such a fun stage in her development. She makes motherhood feel like I thought motherhood would feel like, if that makes any sense. She plays lots of pretend games, tries to tell stories “Pon time, fairy-princess-queen, dragon run roar! Da end!” She manipulates her little toys and makes them live out their little fairy queen fantasies. She examines my tongue with her flashlight. She is generally very happy and content. Her vocabulary has exploded and she almost always tells me exactly what she wants, when she wants it.

So, so different from her brother. He was such a fire ball and still doesn’t really like fiction or pretending (though he’ll give it a go if he can shoot, stab or slay someone). And forget about telling a story. Why would you want to LIE about something that’s NOT EVEN REAL? Gah! His only means of entertainment for years and years was running. He wasn’t happy unless he was running, usually away from me, though circles were ok if that was the only option. Just like a puppy chasing its tail.

Of course, the irony of his whole “hates pretend things” is the gusto with which he embraced Santa this year. The kid BELIEVED. I thought this might be the year he figured it out, but he scornfully looked down his nose at all deniers, because he knows it is real. He has evidence! How else would an elf come into our house and write things on our activity count down? And he KNOWS mom and dad never, ever would have gotten him a mini-tablet computer. Only Santa is that nice. I hope he can beleive one more year because it is so much more magical when the children believe. Elsa didn’t really get the whole idea this year. Maybe next year.

In other news, I had the worst two nightmares last night. I won’t recount them detail by detail. I can’t even remember all the details. The first one was so upsetting that I’ve been discombobulated all day and finally had to call Mike at work and have a chat. In the dream he randomly decided to divorce me. To add insult to injury he stole my van! It was awful. I’ve never been so happy to hear the alaram go off at dark o’thirty and break me out of that loop of horror.

I went back to sleep, only to have another nightmare about loss–this time we were homeless and someone had kidnapped the kids.

What’s up with all the crazy thoughts about loss? I don’t know, but I hope I don’t have another night like that. Maybe it was because I had an upset stomach. I don’t know what the deal is, but my belly has been acting crazy since Christmas day. I would have expected it on Christmas since we stuffed ourselves silly, but I was really careful about my food yesterday and my stomach was still rolling. I used an unfamiliar ingredient in the gravy (a spice called savory) and I wonder if I am allergic to it. That’s all I can think of. I have been eating left over gravy every day. Today I am going back to points counting and familiar food, so hopefully I will recover.

And now I have to go pick Erik up from Pump it Up Camp. He has been a video game zombie the last two days, so I was very glad to be able to send him for six hours of jumping. I just hope Elsa is awake. She’s been curling up and falling asleep around this time the past few days. She is recovering from a pretty nasty cold. It’s so weird to look over at her and realize she’s fast asleep with zero help or prompting on my part. Girl loves her sleep.

It’s been quite a ride these past few days. I was all prepped and ready to go to a party. I had an outfit picked out; I was going to bring some fudge and/or divinity. It was going to be fun! I love Christmas gatherings with friends, but am rarely invited (not that I am left out, most people just don’t host them. I think I’ve finally learned that life is not a sitcom). However, Elsa developed high fever and awful cough on Friday. I thought her fever broke today, but it was back this afternoon. I hope the ped’s office is open tomorrow, because I really don’t want to take her to the ER. I don’t think she has anything that can be treated with prescription meds, but it worries me. I know we’ll get in there and they will just tell me it’s a virus and to wait it out. Ugh. But what if she has something that needs treatment? I hate making the call, because I always make the wrong call.

The good news is she’s a happy little patient. She’s lethargic right before her next dose of medicine, but once it kicks in she’s a wild woman, running and jumping and playing.

Mike has been a cleaning machine the past two days. He’s steamed the carpets, shuffled around piles of junk and decorated the dining room. I’m so glad! The piles were getting to me, but I never know where to start so I just ignore the whole problem. It is going to be lovely to set a nice, decorated Christmas table. It will feel like a holiday instead of the same ol’ “find a place to eat around the junk.”

I’ve had a major shift in thinking this year. I no longer think I owe anything to my family of origin. I mean yes, of course I want to help my niece and nephews, but I would want to help any child in their situation. However, I no longer feel like I need to go “home for the holidays.” I no longer feel like we are missing something by staying in our own home and creating our own traditions. We are having exactly the holidays we want to have, with the food we want to eat, the traditions we want to encourage and the people we care about most. We are not going to a place where we must defend ourselves, defend our choices, wait for passive-aggressive comments, deal with rudeness, worry about drug addicts stealing our stuff. It’s nice. Really, really nice. I don’t want to brag, but I’ve got a pretty spectacular little family right here in Maryland. I am absolutely loving making the magic happen for my kids.

We did Christmas cookie cut-outs today and I planned a little too well. I found a great recipe for someone who doesn’t really like cut-outs. They taste like shortbread, are SUPER easy to make, and roll out really smoothly. You can find the recipe HERE. They don’t make a huge lot of cookies, but I figured it would be perfect for our small family. How many sugar cookies does a family of four need?

It would have been perfect if my bonus child wasn’t here. Erik’s little friend loves doing all this decorating and crafty fun stuff with us and I’m thrilled to have her. We still would have been ok, but her brother knocked on the door and wanted to play. Normally I don’t let him in the house because he steals things and has perturbed me in the past, but how am I going to slam the door in the face of a nine year old kid when he can clearly see we are having fun making Christmas cookies?

The kids had fun and I didn’t break my diet, so what’s the problem?

Santa! That’s the problem! What are we going to leave for Santa? Should I whip up some dough and make some more cookies tomorrow?

I’ve already decided I am not making a pie for Christmas. I’m going to make peanut butter blossoms (hmmmmmm. . . guess we could leave those for Santa) and fudge. I tried to make divinity but that was a soupy failure, despite using a recipe that promised it was no fail every time despite the weather. There are worse things in life than spooning up big globs of warm, fluffy, sugary soup.

I hope I have everything ready for the big meal. We actually have two big meals–a Swedish Christmas Eve and a turkey Christmas Day. I was in the store for chips on Friday and realized it was the last non-weekend, non-Christmas Eve day to buy groceries for the big day. I scrambled around to buy everything I thought we might need, which was dumb because I was at the wrong store (Safeway–more expensive than my usual store). I somehow managed to get almost everything we need for a small Christmas dinner. With only four of us, I am not going overboard which helped a lot with menu planning on the fly. I am only making the things I know Mike and I enjoy the most. I’ve asked Erik what he wants and his answer is predictable: bread. Elsa. . . well. . .who knows. She just likes sugar (and I HATE that I have let her get to the point where she eats so much sugar. I always vowed my children wouldn’t know what sugar was until they were at least three, but with an older brother I lost a lot of the control I had when Erik was young).

As soon as I stood in the check-out line I started crying and had a hard time paying for my purchase. They had People magazines all over the place with pictures of all the Sandy Hook victims on the cover. How will those parents and that community ever start to heal? I wasn’t there; I know none of the victims; my heart is still breaking in a million pieces.

I’ve had a couple of people on my FB page make their aggressive “I’ll wish you a Merry Christmas and you’ll god-damned LIKE IT” posts, which set my teeth on edge. In light of this recent tragedy, though, they make me go through the roof. This horrible, horrible thing happened and you are worried about whether or not people say Merry Christmas? I know that is a stupid thing to latch on to, but if I latch on to the bigger details, the bigger problems, my brain will explode and I’ll need to go to a mental institution.

Seriously, though, the only people I know who make this whole “merry Christmas” thing a problem are the aggressive, Fox News Christians who make their wish for a happy holiday sound so spiteful and bitter. I’m an atheist and will wish you a Merry Christmas and be glad of any kind greeting I receive in return. I don’t get people. I really don’t.

I guess it is time to put Erik to bed. He thinks he is going to get to open Christmas presents in the morning despite being told a hundred times that it isn’t happening. I’m just glad I had the foresight to keep all the family presents locked up until last night. We put them out last night after the kids went to bed. I didn’t need Elsa ripping into them before Christmas and I also wanted to keep the begging to a minimum. I can handle two days of begging. The anticipation is part of the fun, right?

I am still holding my kids tighter, very literally, and I’m also trying to embrace life. I’ve got to have more fun and make more memories and enjoy enjoy enjoy! Don’t sweat the small stuff.

My main problem with parenting is my sense of . . . I don’t even know what it would be called. Propriety? But not like “ohhh, don’t wear your skirt too short” type of propriety. Just basically a lack of fun in my brain. I skew toward the legalistic, but have mellowed with age. It’s a personality flaw that probably comes from being the eldest child of an alcoholic. I can’t seem to tell the difference between fun that is pure fun and fun that leads to harm so I just ban all fun. Don’t you wish you were my kid? You’ll poke your eye out!

I have mellowed out considerably these past seven years, but I still have to be mindful of the fact that the answer to any question doesn’t automatically have to be “no.” That was a huge struggle my first few years of motherhood. It took a lot of reading and talking to other parents to realize that it wasn’t my job to deny all fun things. I wasn’t going to turn my kid into some sort of spoiled rotten little brat by saying “yes” when he asked for something that would cause no harm. Anything from, can we go to the park to can I have a cupcake to can I crack an egg. I do limit sweets, but everything else? Why not?

I am still bothered that my knee-jerk reaction is to say “no,” but at least I’m aware and try to temper myself.

Erik was pretty surprised when our elf left the message that we should use balled up socks and have an indoor snowball fight. He thought the elf would be in big trouble and that I’d never let such a thing occur. We spent a wonderful 45 minutes lobbing socks at each other. Happiness and fun can be so simple. And did it cause any harm? Other than a couple of pairs that are now firmly wedged behind the couch, nope. I’m so glad I am loosening up.

Any other ideas for whole family fun? Last night we did a holiday day dance party that the kids loved. I want to spend more time together as a family. Instead of retreating to our computers after dinner, we need to plan at least 30 minutes of active, engaged family time. Very hard, when the whole day has been active, engaged parenting for me and work for Mike.

I’m sure I had more to say, but I started this post hours ago and have no idea what I might have been thinking. Elsa was pretty grumpy today, probably because she ate way too much sugar. We did cookie decorating at MOMS Club, which meant she ate a metric ton of frosting. It could have been much worse, actually. I have learned how to handle toddlers these past few years. When Erik was this age I had visions of everything being perfect (my expectations were insane) and did not really understand the limitations of two year olds. I hosted a cookie decorating party at my house, complete with big bowls of icing in every shade, several big bowls of sprinkles, and an overload of cookies. And somehow I thought seven two-year-olds were going to make world class decorations? See above: Insane expectations.

This year’s party was super simple: two cookies per kid, one scoop of frosting (offered in one color) & one scoop of sprinkles, disposable tablecloths. D-O-N-E. So much more sane and stress free!

Guess I better wrap this up and get back to reading. I finally got smart and searched out “best fantasy novel of 2012” to see if I could find a half-way decent read. I was whisked away to a top ten list of most anticipated books, all of which were later books in a series. I looked through all of them and found a series that sounded promising and now I’m addicted. Lucky me, book 2 came out yesterday. The first book is Merchant of Souls by Anne Lyle. It’s set in an alternate Elizabethan England. Very alternate–Columbus didn’t find Native Americans in the New World; he found non-humans. So far the main characters are intriguing and the writing moves along at a rapid pace. I was a bit worried b/c it seemed to only be available as an e-book, which usually means self-published. I refuse to do self-published, unless it’s my good friend Jolene Dawe. I have no idea if this book is self-published, but the price was right and the reviews were good and it was on that top 10 site. I’m so glad I decided to take the chance! I really need to bookmark the list of books so maybe I can get some more ideas on what to read. I am so out of the loop these days.

I just did what felt like one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I took Erik to the bus stop, let him get on the bus and ride off to school. I seriously considered keeping him home this week, but what good would that do? I can’t put armour plating around my house and never leave home again. I can’t protect my children from random evil in the world. I can only hope that the random evil never touches us.

That’s an awfully big hope.

I can’t really write much more about it. It’s too big, too painful. I know every parent in this country, if not every single person in the entire world is reeling from the pain of the events. I don’t have much to add, except that this country has a serious, serious problem with treating mental illness. The mentally ill have to commit a crime before anyone will do anything, even when parents, teachers, friends and neighbors are BEGGING for help. I don’t know if that was the case with this young man, I just know it’s the case with my sister (my God, you people will not believe what she’s done. She will most likely be going to jail for a long, long time if she is not murdered by the criminal element first [the last I heard her own children are safe with their father. He is filing for custody and talking to children’s services about keeping them in a safe house until my sister is arrested.])

So . . . what to say? Terrible, terrible weekend. I haven’t been able to sleep. Erik is a first grader. That could have been his room, his teacher. I couldn’t stop crying when I heard the news, and then I cried even more when I heard about the heroics of Victoria Soto, the quick thinking teacher who saved her class of students but died in the process. She was so young. That’s the name I want to remember from all this. Not the name of the man who snapped.

I want to keep Erik home on Friday, 12/21, the day of the end of the world. I don’t think the world is going to end, but it seems like a day that people might go crazy. He should be home with me. Except they have a special science day planned and he is completely excited. They are going to have all kinds of big magnets and other special equipment and they are bringing in a special science education program to put on a show. Do I give in to fear and keep him home and hope I’m wrong, or do I refuse to be paranoid and send him off to the unknown?

There were only 8 kids at the bus stop today. There are usually 16. I wonder how many were ill and how many parents decided to just call this week a wash and enjoy the heck out of their kids.

Why do some lessons in life never stick?

Lesson 1: sexy underwear makes you feel sexy.

DUH! It has been so long since I’ve felt like my body was worth clothing in anything remotely sexy. Pregnancy, nursing, fatness. . . it all does me in. My order came in today and I have new underwear that is the right size, looks cute, and isn’t hanging all over the place. My old underwear was at least 2 sizes too big. How did I not notice how uncomfortable that was?

I also tried out some different bra sizes and am thrilled to discover I’m down to a D cup! Maybe even a C cup because the D cup is sagging a little! I’ll go to the brick and mortar store to exchange the bras that don’t fit and I’ll try on a C cup while I’m there. Unless you have big boobs, you have NO IDEA how exciting this is. After I had Elsa I was wearing a GG cup. My boobs were entering the room a full 30 seconds before the rest of my body.

After my little shopping excursion today I’m feeling much better about myself. I also found a black shrug that works perfectly with my sleeveless purple dress, so I’m all ready for tomorrow. I bought some sparkly silver jewelry and some black nylons. I have some fancy shoes from a couple of years ago. I will not be dowdy or frumpy. Whoo-hoo!

You know what I hate? Dress Barn has good quality clothes that are usually cut perfectly for my body. But they are all frumpy! Lane Bryant has the type of clothes I want, but they are all really poor quality and aren’t cut in the most flattering fashion. Bah. Why can’t they trade goals (or whatever it is that causes them to carry those types of clothing).

But we were talking about life lessons.

Life Lesson #2: I can accomplish so much more when I have a list to check off.

I can’t believe how much crap I got done today. I started with a huge 20 item to-do list and got through 14 items. If I wouldn’t have written it all down and had the pleasure of marking it all off, I probably wouldn’t have accomplished anything.

[Three hours later. . . wow! Got even more done. Wrapped a bunch of presents and was really smart this year. I’m still not sure exactly what we have, so I put post its on each present so I’ll know what’s in it and can divvy it up a little better when I have everything. For the past several years we’ve used fabric gift bags, but I can never resist buying clearance wrapping paper. This year I am going to try to use some of it up. I’ll still use the gift bags for awkward gifts. I’m kind of tired of looking at them.]

I think I just destroyed my sensitive, eczema ridden hands. Our elf told us to make cinnamon ornaments today so I was kneading out cinnamon, applesauce and glue. Cinnamon is crazy painful on sensitive hands. I should have known.

I’m doing all the fun little projects and guess who is enjoying them with me? Would that be my children? No, of course not. The neighbor girl loves arts and crafts and adult attention, so she and I are having a fine time doing these projects while my own children wander off. Erik is simply not into any of this stuff that doesn’t involve immediate sanctification with chocolate or math. Elsa is a little young to enjoy all this stuff. I have high hopes for our eventual mother-daughter bonding activities. At this point I’m just letting her enjoy the process, even though it is not really much more than her smooshing stuff around and poking holes in it.

Did I ever mention that she’s almost potty trained. She’s had a dry diaper every time I’ve checked for several days now. We only have two diapers left in the house and when those are done. . . we’re done. I am terrified.

We went to a friend’s house for dinner Saturday night and Elsa had a major, disgusting accident. I need to remember to show her exactly where the facilities are because I think that was the big problem–she just didn’t know what to do.

Did I mention that I’m terrified?

Update to the purple cart problem: I think I’ve solved the tantrums and it was much simpler than sewing a purple shopping cart cover. Whenever we are going shopping Elsa starts telling me she’s going to ride in a purple cart. I’ve been telling her, “sorry honey, but Target only has red carts” (or whatever fits). Crazy idea, but it works! When we get to the store she says “Elsa’s red cart!” and that’s that. She is really making some big cognitive leaps lately and her sentence structure has exploded into real, grown-up sounding sentences.

[Back after a 15 minute homework break]

OMG. I do not understand first grade math. How hard can this be?

Problem: 9+4

You’d think the answer would be a simple 13. Erik thinks the answer is a simple 13. WHY OH WHY is the answer not a simple 13?

Instead the whole thing should look like this:

9+4 = 9+1+3 = 10+3 = 13

I guess this is prepping them for learning how to re-group? I don’t know. All I know is, I’m with Erik. Why do we have to do the middle work when we already know the answer?

I just sent his teacher an e-mail. Maybe she can explain it. Erik had some issues with his report card and this method of doing math was one of them. I can see why he has an issue. Who wants to do two extra steps when you know the answer?

Guess I better wrap this up and do my mommy bedtime duty.

After waiting all morning for the flowers on Friday, guess what happened? I called at 11:59 am to see where the heck they were and got an “oh, things are crazy here, we won’t be able to make it.” I was beyond livid. You don’t make a person wait all morning and not even bother to call. Plus, these are flowers we are talking about, not freakin’ Girl Scout cookies. I’m supposed to deliver dead flowers to my customers who are probably already pissed that they spent triple the regular retail price on their Christmas poinsettia?

Yesterday they called at 10:41 am and said they were leaving. It should take about 45-60 minutes. They didn’t get here until almost 1 pm. Again, I was livid. And hungry. If I’m hungry, I’m always livid. I think I have hypoglycemia.

When they arrived, did they have my whole order? Let’s take some bets.

Nope. No full order. They tried to gaslight me and make it sound like it was my fault that they didn’t bring all three flowers. I stuck to my guns because I know I’m right. Why would I say two when I need three?

Today someone else is supposed to bring the final poinsettia. Has he called yet? Hell no. I am so done with Camp Fire right now. Our local council is completely disorganized and Erik isn’t even into it. Why am I spending so much time and energy on this activity? I seriously doubt we will continue next year.

Let’s think happy thoughts, shall we!

Our invisible elf told us to make pinecone bird feeders the other day. It was pretty hilarious. Elsa sat down with a spoon and the jar of peanut butter and had a grand ol’ time with her “snack.” I didn’t even know she liked peanut butter. Erik spent his time crying about getting his hands yucky from the peanut butter, so he ended up being the official hanger-upper. The only kid around here who never complains is our neighbor girl, Lucy. She ended up doing all the work. She’s a super sweet kid and practically lives over here. I would totally adopt her if I could.

Elsa discovered she could stick her peanut butter spoon in the bird seed and have a crunchy snack. If you look at Lucy’s lips you can see she gave it a whirl, too. Erik hung the all pinecones pretty low, so it was like some kind of inappropriate string apple bobbing with Elsa out there trying to lick the peanut butter and seeds off the pine cones.

The squirrels have slowly made off with all of the pinecones, which I expected. Poor birdies! I now have a jar of peanut butter sprinkled with bird seed, so I guess we can make a few more. I certainly won’t be using it to make Elsa sandwiches (though I don’t think she would mind! Crunchy!) I put it up in the craft cupboard and wrote on the lid, so hopefully no one finds it and decides to make peanut butter cookies or something.

Mike’s work has their holiday party on Thursday so it’s annual party freak out time Those of you who have been around for several years might remember the first time I tried to prep for this party. The new HR lady and I were both told it was a formal event and to dress accordingly. We both went all out. I was FREAKED because I don’t attend formal events. I did end up with a really nice, flattering dress and I did my hair up. I was so nervous, though. Formal event in the DC area! Scary! I’m from rural Oregon. Diamonds with your denim is perfectly appropriate.

Turns out it was not so formal. Most women were in slacks and sweaters. The HR lady and I were waaaaaaaay out of place. Most of the employees were very young men and brought their mothers or sisters.

I went to buy a new dress last night. Being a SAHM doesn’t lead to a big need for dressy clothes, so I thought it was time to treat myself.

I can normally find something, but was having a tough time last night. Everything I liked was sleeveless, and I don’t do sleeveless. I have super flabby, farmer tanned arms. Give me about three more months of twice-a-week BodyPump and I might be willing to do sleeveless. Right now it just makes me feel super vulnerable.

In the end I bought two things, a pair of black slacks and shimmery red and black long sleeved blouse. It makes me look like a middle aged woman trying to dress fancy for a party. I am a middle aged woman trying to look fancy for a party. But still, not the image I want to convey.

I also bought a sleeveless purple dress that I think looks flattering and much more “Hey! It’s a party and I’m enjoying myself!” except for the whole sleeveless thing. I couldn’t find a pashmina or shrug at the store, which was irritating since they were all about the sleeveless. I tried on all manner of other things that would cover my arms, but none of them went with the dress. I’ll go shopping this week and see what I can find.

So what about my legs? What does a middle aged woman wear? I’ve heard nylons are out? But it’s December and it’s cold. Tights? Do grown-ups wear those? My friends swear by tights, but I think they wear them under their pants as long johns. How about fishnet stockings? Where does a fat lady find fishnet stockings?

I should post pictures and get your advice. I hate pictures of myself. I’m glad I’ve lost 20 pounds, but it was 20 pounds I never should have gained in the first place so I’m back down to being super fat instead of “OMG Obese”.

I guess I better get the rest of my Christmas cards out. I was going to write a letter for the older folks on my list who will never join FB or e-mail, but I can’t think of anything I want to say. Sending a pre-printed picture card seems so impersonal. I need to put some more thought into this. Maybe a monthly countdown or something instead of a formal letter? I have Publisher now so I can manipulate my text. Watch out, I’m barely trained and I’m not afraid to litter the page with random fonts!

I hate it when someone says “I’ll be there in the morning” and you have no idea if that means 9 am or 11:59 am, so you don’t take a shower because you don’t want to miss the person, especially when you NEED the flowers the person is bringing. Then it’s suddenly 10:48, you haven’t had a shower, your hair is sticky-uppy, you have things to do and you don’t know when this person is going to arrive and all you want in life is a shower. I must have a shower! Bring me my flowers!

Ugh.

And then, as soon as the person calls me, I have to call someone else to come over and then at noon someone ELSE is coming over (all relating to the flowers) so when will I get my shower? Why didn’t I take a shower as soon as I scuttled Erik out the door? And why is Elsa throwing books down the stairs? Why didn’t her mother raise her better than that (though she did have a dry diaper this morning, so it’s not all bad raising!)

Oh flying spaghetti monster, I just saw the book she is throwing around and it’s a children’s Bible that some well meaning person gifted us with. Now she wants to read a story about the sheep. Bah!

Yay! Let’s read stories about genocide, but they have a happy ending because there’s a rainbow! Hee-haw! Painful, terrifying, destruction of the human race is a-ok as long as you make it pretty.

There is a serious feast of crows going on outside my window. These creatures are so nasty and bold. I hate crow season. Very few people around here use garbage cans so the crows just sit there and pick apart the bags, leaving piles of trash everywhere.

Yo ho ho. Aren’t I chipper?

My neighbor gave some some super cute little dresses for Elsa yesterday. I am hoping she can wear them this spring. They are 3T, her current size, so it will be a gamble. She also
brought over a cute denim jumper (I guess that’s what it’s called?) that she could wear now if I bought an undershirt to go with it, and maybe some tights. I love tights.

Guess I better go do something productive if I’m going to be stuck at home waiting for people to show up. My house is such a disaster right now. I am totally not motivated to clean, especially the bathrooms. My hands are so cracked and sore right now that I can hardly stand it. Getting them wet is torture. Yes, I’m slathering them with all manner of goopy concoctions, but I wash my hands too much during the day. Cracked hands or e. coli? I guess I’ll take cracked hands.

This is why I always take a shower first thing. My shower is my coffee. I’m a total crab when I’m oily and stinky and gross.

Today was killer. Elsa was back in bed with us last night, which is not ideal at all. She needs to sleep in her own bed before I become a zombie again. Suddenly she likes me, so she spent a good portion of the night with her hand patting my face. So sweet. . . for a minute.

I couldn’t go to the gym this morning because of her cough. I’m so sad b/c I was ready to increase my weights in BodyPump. On Tuesday I felt like I was throwing a baton around, so I was excited to lift something a little heavier!

It was 70F a couple of days ago, so we got really spoiled. This morning Erik wore his crocs sans socks and a light sweatshirt. It was FREEZING, but we didn’t have time to fix the problem. I couldn’t stand the thought of my poor little boy with freezing toes, so I took him some more appropriate clothing.

Then it was off on an adventure! We sold poinsettias through Camp Fire and today was pick-up day. I had to drive about 45 minutes away to get them. The whole time I had a plan in my head to check and double check to make sure the order was correct.

I got there. The people running the office had an awful dog that scared the shit out of Elsa. She started screaming her head off and tried to climb onto my face. They promised me that they checked and double checked my order and it was all good. I was so so so so so so stupid and believed them. I KNEW that was wrong. The whole way home I was telling myself “of course they checked, of course it will be write, why are you such a pessimist?”

And of course it was wrong.

My nav system was working, but the sound was somehow turned off and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it back on. I hate listening to Rita when Mike is driving and I’m holding the phone, but when there’s no one to sit there and hold the phone you kind of need that annoying British voice to tell you to turn right in 300 feet. It’s not really safe to try to figure it out when you’re going 80 down the Beltway.

I was starving and couldn’t wait to get home, so of course access to our community was blocked by two police cars. I decided to chuck my diet and go to Baja Fresh. Got there and couldn’t find my wallet. Of course I’d been driving all over the country with no wallet. Of course!

Drove back home and the police were gone, but there was an ambulance and fire truck blocking a lot of the parking spaces. Thankfully my space was open. I hopped out and opened the back of my van. A group of firemen walked by and wanted to carry my boxes for me. Firemen are my favorite. No power trip, just a genuine desire to help.

Then, of course, I had to get on the phone and get the freakin’ flower order straightened out. I was pretty clear that I wasn’t going to drive back down there, so they agreed to have someone bring me the rest of the stuff tomorrow. The least they could do since it was their mistake!

Then the lady e-mails and says the office manager says there is no way the order is wrong and I’m just not counting things correctly. Because I can’t count to 23? UGH.

I called back and left a big ol’ voice mail. We ended up sorting it out through e-mail, though.

A couple of hours ago I got a very nice phone call from a lady who said I’d left a voice mail at the wrong number and she hated to think that I couldn’t get my order right so she wanted me to know I needed to check my number. Wasn’t that the nicest ting ever? Amidst all the things that went wrong today, there were some very good people making life a little easier.

Erik got in trouble at school today (talking too much and not keeping his hands to himself). I don’t know what his problem was, but he was a total pill at home as well. I was ready to send him to bed at 5 pm.

I was sitting out on the porch, freezing my face off, when a strange lady walked up and introduced herself and acted like I should know her. Ummmmm?

Oh yeah. She was my interviewee for a babysitter position. I was completely unprepared and my house was a complete disaster. She was great, though. She instantly engaged both kids
and seems like a responsible adult. She doesn’t like to do weekend babysitting though, so that’s a problem. Thanks to care.com I now have contact info for several sitters, so I’m hoping we can start doing monthly date nights.

I guess I better take Erik up to bed. I need to prepare myself and start fresh. I’m still so angry at his behavior earlier today that he’s sure to set me off. Not good. I need to be the mature one. I’m not the seven year old.