Period of Adjustment...

First off, let me start this post by stating that having children is an adventure. That's not opinion, that's just fact. Whether it's a wonderful adventure or a trip through a B-movie horror house can sometimes depend entirely on your own personal perspective.

That being said, everyone who has ever had a child knows that with the adventure comes the adjustment(s). Sometimes it's a small adjustment - one or two little things here and there in your life/household that need to be moved around a tiny little bit to make things work. That's how it was with Maron. She was always so calm and cautious that we hardly had to make any child-proofing adjustments other than putting a gate at the top of the stairs so she didn't accidentally roll down them as she came out of her bedroom door.

Now enter Marida. Marida the Monkey. The Wee Pixie Devil. Two Feet of Terror.
The list of adjusment I have had to make to my home and my habits is long and ongoing...
• I have had to child-proof all under-sink cabinets in the house
• I have had to keep all bathroom doors closed at all times. Additionally, I now have to close all toilet lids after each use so that, in case my youngest does manage to break the bathroom threshold, I will have a few extra seconds to discover her and extract her before her arm goes elbow-deep into the toilet water.
• I had to stretch a bungee cord across all the lower cabinets in my laundry room because Marida will open them all and take out every piece of glassware she can find and play with them.
• I have to keep the laundry room door shut at all times because in addition to the cabinets, Marida is also able to open the junk drawers and reach my spare sunglasses and box knife.
• I had to, this very morning, completely rearrange my silverware drawer and move the steak knives to the middle back slot instead of the far right, because Marida is now able to open the drawer, reach in and extract the silverware from said slot.

I love my children, I really do. I love them from the top of their perfectly-shaped heads to the bottom of their big-for-their-age feet. But as the Universe is my witness, sometimes it would be nice to know that if I forget to move my coffee from the front half of the desk it will still be there when I get back because my 18 month old has not pulled it off and doused herself with a moderately warm beverage.

Home

Yesterday Steve and I brought our children to Spokane for Thanksgiving. A 3:00 am power outage, a 4:55 am ferry, driving rain, a snowy pass and one burnt out headlight made for a long journey, but we got here to my parent's house safely just before 11:00 am. And as much of a pain in the butt that it was to be totally packed and ready to leave by 4:40 in the morning, it was nice to get such a ridiculously early start. Even though the children didn't sleep nearly as long in the car as we had hoped for (30 minutes max?! Really , girls?), the roads were all but devoid of traffic, especially in front of us, making for a less stressful drive (one we were out of the pass, that is). And it allowed us to keep our blinders on for the majority of the drive through darkness.

Now I am sitting on the couch in the livingroom of my father's house. There are pillows behind my back, a blanket on my legs and the coffee percolator is almost done percolating. But better than all of this, even, is the sound of the massive gust of wind that go blustering by every few minutes. I love the wind; it is my all-time favorite force of nature. And yes, there were huge wind gusts at home in Kingston yesterday morning when we were getting ready to leave on our journey, but you know what the difference is? I am sitting here, in the comfort and warmth of my parent's house with the complete and absolute confidence that the power will not be going out. A confidence that I am never able to enjoy in Kingston. The fact is that Kingston looses power more than any place I have ever lived in my life. The power doesn't ususally stay out for too long, but that doesn't make it any less annoying when my coffee maker is programed to turn on at 4:oo and everything goes dark at 3:00.

That is one of the things I miss the most about Spokane - the almost total lack of power outages. Because as pretty and safe as Kingston is, home is where you don't have to race through a shower in a flashlight-lit bathroom because you know the hot water tank is going to run out quickly.

I woke up this morning and looked out the window and saw a thick layer of frost coating the roof of my house. I'm not surprised - not in the least. We're halfway through November now, deep within the clutches of Autumn. Winter is on its way, and with it will come snow for many people. Granted, I live in the Pacific Northwest, which is mostly void of snow each year. But for the first 20 years of my life I lived in Spokane, which gets snow each and every year. Some years it starts early, some years it starts late, but it always shows up there eventually and sticks around until Spring.

I don't hate the snow. I grew up in it and know how to deal with it; I can walk in the snow, drive in the snow and have the time of my life playing in the snow. And shovelling snow from the sidewalks and driveways was always one of my favorite activities on a cold Winter evening.

What I DO hate is all of the bitching about the snow. It annoys me to no end that the first time there is the slightest dusting of white powder in easter Washington the people en mass take to Facebook/Twitter/Whatever to bitch about it. I can't stand all of the "OMG it SNOWED!" or "Snow snow go away!" or my personal favorite "Okay, who ordered the snow? You are in BIG trouble!" Seriously Spokane?! It snows every fucking year. All of the people I know who live there know how to drive in the snow because they do it EVERY YEAR. Spokane isn't like other places that see snow so infrequently that entire cities are forced to shut down. For example, the one day that I saw snow while living in Marietta Georgia I went to Pep Boys to buy chains for my tiny little pickup truck so I could get to work. I was informed that driving with chains on your tires was illegal in Georgia and I would have to go to Louisiana to even buy chains.

Don't get me wrong Spokanites, I'm not just picking on you; I feel just as annoyed when people in Seattle bitch about how much it rains. (Don't even get me started about how the first rain after summer sends the freeway drivers into panic 'drive like an untrained idiot monkey' mode.) And I understand that there are times when the weather is so severe that it starts shutting down towns and affecting lives - like Ice Storm '96. But those things don't happen every year, and when they do happen most of the people that do they cyber bitching aren't able to because their power is out. So get used to it, people. The cold season has come and is bringing with it the frost and the snow and the ice. It happened last year and will happen again next year, so let's everyone accept it and move on.

Every morning when Maron gets up we get her dressed and she comes downstairs and wants to watch her cartoons. We only have the most basic of 'basic cable' (seriously - we have 28 channels and one of them is static and one of them is Spanish), so the only cartoons available for my kids are on PBS. Which is a good thing, because every kid's show on PBS is educational. The usual morning line up for Maron goes like this: Curious George, then The Cat In The Hat Knows A Lot About That, then Super Why. There are other morning cartoons on PBS that Maron watches, but those are the big three. And of those big three shows that Maron loves, the one that annoys me... the one that really chaps my ass... is Curious George.

Now before you judge me as bad mommy of the year, let me just say that I know it's a show designed for little children. I know it's fun for them and easy to understand and is frought with lessons that become evident by the end of every episode. But despite all of that, I find myself annoyed each and every day by ust about everything in the show. Like the Man in the Yellow Hat. Seriously?! That's his name?! Yes, he's a man, and yes he wears a yellow hat, but WTF?!?! Out of every single person the Man in the Yellow Hat deals with, both in the city and the countryside, not one of them calls him by a proper name. Bah!

Then there's George himself. Somehow, week after week, the Man in the Yellow Hat is surprised at the shenanigans his monkey gets into, but everything is always forgiven because somehow every ridiculous situation turns out right. Such as the plumber fixing the low water presssure in the apartment building wouldn't have realized where the leak in the pipe was if George hadn't dug for a well in the four foot patch of dirt in the sidewalk where the tree was planted because he wanted to take a bath. It's ridiculous and insane, but nobody seems to notice or mind. They all just accept George and all of his little monkey foibles because they know his intentions were pure and his heart is always in the right place. So what if the Man in the Yellow Hat is late for all of his
appointments because George turned back all the clocks in the apartment? He was just trying to give the Man more time to get things done. And so what if George caused the Man to get poison ivy while they were at the park? His helping the Man caused a group of scientists to know that another scientist's invention, which the Man was supposed to show off in a video conference for some reason, was so easy to use a monkey could do it. But through all of it, no one seems to realize that the reason things involving George go wrong in the first place is because HE IS A FUCKING MONKEY!!!!!!!! A MONKEY!!!!!

Of COURSE things around him are going to go wrong. You know why? Because he is a FUCKING MONKEY!!! He's not curious, he's an idiot. And the Man in the Yellow Hat is an even bigger idiot because he lives in an apartment in New York City and is shocked - SHOCKED I tell you - when his pet MONKEY does something ridiculous that casues trouble for him and everyone around him. And speaking of everyone around him, who the fuck are these people that they don't realize that all the trouble in their lives is coming from the Man's monkey?! Why is anybody still friends with him?! Because if it were me and I owned an upscale Italian restaurant in the city, as soon as some dipshit in an ugly hat come walking through the door with a monkey I would tell him to take the poo-flinging primate out of my establishment and never come back

Annoyed

We are now a full week plus a day into November, well on the way to Thanksgiving. All around me (okay, all around on Facebook) people are listing one thing every day that they are thankful for. People so far have been thankful for their families, their loves, cars, bubble baths, the weather... It's all very well and good and terribly, terribly sweet. I thought about doing the same thing, because I really do have a lot to be thankful for, but at this juncture I find myself unable to go along with the great thankful masses on this one. Because when I look inside, deep into the depths of my secret heart of hearts, I find that I am annoyed.

I am annoyed at the world. I am annoyed at society at large, and I can't think of anything to do but rant about it here, where my negative energy won't affect the people around me. So here, in the great, vast blogosphere, I will spend my month ranting and raving about what annoys me the most in this world. It won't make a difference in the great scheme of things, but it'll make me feel better by a damn site.

So here it comes... Right now I find that I am really and truly annoyed by Kim Kardashian. All of the Kardashians, really, but as Kim Kardashian and her failed/sham/whatever marriage is what's splashed all over the internet home pages right now, she's the one my annoyance is focused on. Because Kim Kardashian had this big, elaborate and expensive wedding to a basketball player she'd known for less than a year and people are shocked - SHOCKED that she filed for divorce after only 72 days. And now the world is completely abuzz with questions about whether the marriage was real or a publicity stunt, what's going to happen with her uber-gaudy engagement ring, what's going to happen with all of the wedding gifts... And my question to the world is this: WHO THE FUCK CARES?!?!?! What does it matter?! Why are we the world so concerned with the vapid circus that is all things Kardashians? Kim Kardashian spent $2 MILLION dollars on her wedding and made 3 times that much off of the hype and publicity of it, and all the while there are people in this country who can't afford health insurance for their kids. People who are losing their homes because they were laid off from their jobs and can't find work. There are people who are lying awake at night worrying about how they are going to feed their children the next day. Meanwhile Kim Kardashian's family keeps talking to the media in her defense, saying people don't know her and why can't the world respect her privacy and blah, blah, blah.

I am annoyed by Kim Kardashian. I am annoyed by society's obsession with all things Kardashian, and what I want more than anything is for Kim Kardashian to be eaten by a bear.

Hooray for Halloween!

This was the first year since 2004 that I dressed up and went out for Halloween. Bill and Paul, my former West Seattle neighbors, were having their bi-annual Halloween party at their house in South Park. Steve, ever the loving husband, agreed to spend the evening watching the girls so that I could go out and play. (We would have dressed up the kids and taken them, but the party started at 7:00 pm and their bedtime is at 8:00. Plus I think there were a few too many murderous clown decorations at the party for very small children to handle.)

I dressed up in my old rag doll costume. It's something I made for the last Bill & Paul party I went to in '04. I hadn't worn the costume in 7 years and hadn't been able to even pull it over my head in 6 years. So imagine my delight to find that I could once again put it on and make it work! Below are just a few of the awesome pictures that came out of that party night, starting with me doing my creepy rag doll pose...



Barbara came dressed as Tank Girl, while Bill was a zombie and Paul was a vampire.




Georgi came dressed as a very snazzy pirate. I don't remember where she said she got her boots, but if she ever wakes up in a dark alley minus her footwear, it will be because I knocked her out and stole her boots.

I had a hugely awesome time at the party, and was so thankful that I got to go out and play with my old friends. And I have to say that, out of all the Halloween parties that went on last weekend, Bill and Paul's was by far and away the best. But then again, theirs is ALWAYS the best Halloween party!!

Back in the saddle again...

Well after a much abused hiatus from serious exercising and eating well, I am back to getting fit. One grueling day at a time.

Last week was the beginning of my return to exercise. I restarted the Insanity workouts, though I didn't do the full weeks' worth. I supplemented one day with a 2.5mile walk (which, having to push 70+ lbs of kids and stroller up and down hills, made for a really good workout) and one day on the recumbant bike. But I did work out 6 days in a row, which is what the Insanity schedule calls for. And at the end of the week I was VERY proud of myself.

This week is Insanity again, and I'm over the startup hump and plan to do it all 6 days. Also this week I am getting my eating back under control. I was doing really well yesterday until late afternoon, when the banana bread on the counter became too tempting to resist. Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner didn't do me any favors either. But this is a brand new day with a brand new opportunity not to throw away 38 minutes of hardcore, blinded-by-sweat cardio on bad food choices.

All in all I have done an amazing job exercising and losing weight this year, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately a couple months of lazy, devil-may-care attitude have set me back a fair bit, but I am confident that if I keep my head down and pull my shit together I can end out the year at or very near the low-weight point I reached in July, which also translates as very near my goal weight. My holiday resolution this year is that January 2012 will find me in a much better physical state than January 2011 did.

Guess who's husband got two tickets to the Seahawks vs Falcons home game this Sunday? Can you guess? Do you need a hint?

Give up? MINE!!! That's right, this Sunday Steve and I will be dropping the girls off with their Uncle Kasey and Aunt Lisa and will head to Qwest Field in Seattle to watch the Seahawks kick Atlanta's ass up and down the field. I am SOOOOO excited! Seriously, if I was any more excited there would be two of me!

I checked the extended forcast for this weekend, and it's supposed to be cold and rainy in Seattle on Sunday and you know what? I don't care! Because I will be wearing my Seahawks hat, my Seahawks fleece scarf and my super warm Seahawks winter coat with fleece-lined arms and hood. All the rain in creation will not be able to dampen my diehard fan excitement for the game this weekend. BOOYAH!!!!

It is an early Thursday morning here in Kingston, and it looks like it's going to be a nice day today. Yesterday was nice so I loaded the girls into the double stroller after breakfast and went on a 2.5 mile walk through my neighborhood. It's quite an exercise, considering the steepness of the hills around my house and the fact that Maron + Marida + double stroller = about 70 or so pounds of weight to push up and down the place. I should probably do the same thing again this morning, but mother nature has come calling and I'm bloated and crampy and I just don't want to.

So instead I will spend the day at home, trying my best to be productive. My agenda for today (aside from regular laundry and bath tub scrubbing chores) is going to be more junk removal. Tomorrow is garbage day, so I'm going to go outside this afternoon and see if I can rip a few more pieces off the shanty to go into the trash. I'm also going to go through clothes and baby toys and see if I can get together another batch of stuff for Goodwill, since there will probably be a Costco trip this weekend, and Goodwill is right across the street.

It feels good to get rid of stuff. I feel that, with each piece of detritus I am able to clear away from our lives, we are taking a step forward and getting a teeny, tiny bit closer to the future. Something new and better. I feel like we're putting the past away, one little bit at a time, so that we can start living our own lives for our own happiness' sake.

Never Forget

10 years ago today I left home at 7:30 am to go to work. I was low on gas, so I stopped at the gas station a couple of blocks from my apartment on the South Hill of Spokane. There were speakers outside by the pumps, and instead of playing new music from the popular radio station, there were people talking. The first bit of radio conversation I registered was someone saying that the Pentagon had been bombed by terrorists. I was shocked and appalled that something like that could happen. And once I learned what actually happened on September 11, 2001, I wished that a bombing at the Pentagon was what really had happened, because the truth of the matter was just too horrifying.

I remember getting to work and finding every single person in the building functioning in a state of shock. I remember calling my boyfriend of the time, who lived in Seattle. I knew that he had an acupuncture appointment downtown that day, and I begged him not to go because I was afraid that the terrorist attacks weren't over and that a plane was going to crash into the Space Needle. I remember calling a ren faire friend who was a fire fighter and asking him if what had happened was going to affect him in any way, because I was afraid for him. I remember my boss being afraid for her husband (who was in the military and stationed at Fairchild Airforce base just a few miles from us) and her daughter (who went to daycare on said base). I remeber leaving work early that day for an eye doctor appointment, and watching news footage of what had happened on the tv in the waiting room. I remember being alone in my apartment that night and hearing an airplane fly overhead. I called my boyfriend afraid that something bad was happening, because I knew that all flights across the country had been grounded.

And I remember the next day at work when my boss brought me a large picture of the American flag, which had been printed in the newspaper, and telling me to make colored copies of it for anyone at the company who wanted one. I remember the feeling of patriotism and national unity that was so thick in the air that day you could have cut it with a knife. I remember the look in the eyes of every person I encountered in the first week following 9/11. It was the same look; a look of sorrow, anger and defiance. It's a look I haven't seen since (for which I am grateful) but will never, ever forget.

I remember 9/11. I will never forget it. I will never forget the sacrifices that were made on that day, and all the days following it, and I will never stop being grateful for everything I have.

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to meeeeeee, happy birthday to me.

I am 30 years old today. So far is doesn't feel any different than 29, which the exception that I treated myself to teriyaki for lunch today, which I never did when I was 29. But I did today, because it's my 30th birthday. And if you can't treat yourself to teriyaki for lunch on your 30th birthday, when the hell can you?

So far I have received 1 happy birthday wish in person (from Steve, obviously), 1 over the phone, 2 emails, 2 texts and 35 Facebook wall posts. That's a lot of love, for which I am greateful.

The birthday wishes I have not received so far today (by any method)? My mother, my father, one of my brothers, both of my sister-in-laws and a few very dear friends. I know the day's not over yet; it's on 3:08 pm, afterall. But considering we are 13 hours into the 24 hours of my actual birthday... well, let's just say I expected at least half of my family to have acknowledged me by now. And I understand that everyone is busy with lives of their own, but there is 1 day, 1 DAY out of the entire year where I get to be special, ALL DAY LONG. Today is MY day, and busy or not, I really expected better. I call every one of my immediate family members on their birthdays, as early as can possibly be considered appropriate. And I do that so that they will know that they are important to me, and that they were one of the first thoughts that went through my mind that day.

Everyone deserves to feel special on their birthday. Everyone should feel special on their birthday.

How long do you have to keep something before it loses its meaning? How long do you have to hold on to and care for an object before the reason you kept it in the first place stops being important?

For Example: Somewhere in my bedroom closet is a box of trinkets. Little things that meant the world to me at some point that I've always kept. One of these items is a (very) small fake rose. You know the type - the one with a fake leaf attached, wrapped in plastic that you might find at a gas station or a dollar store. It was given to me for Valentine's Day my freshman year of high school by a senior whom I was desperately in love with. I wasn't the only one though... this guy was very sweet and brought little fake roses to give to all of his female friends that day. But even though I wasn't the only one to get a rose from him I felt special. Out of an entire high school of girls I was one of the few he considered a friend, and was special/important enough to be given a rose. So I kept the rose. I've had it stored in the same tin Oreo container since I was 15 years old. It was very special to me when I got it, see, and it remained so for a very long time.

But now, 14 years later, I look in that tin and see the rose and it's just... a rose. It's just a cheap little fake flower that a friend gave me in (what might as well be) a different lifetime, that I've held on to for almost a decade and a half. It doesn't mean anything, not anymore. I remember what it meant to me then, but in a far-off, detached way. The only reason I haven't thrown it out is because there are enought little trinkets in the tin that still do mean something, and the rose isn't taking up any needed space at this time.

The reason I'm thinking about the rose is because my goal for today has been to start going through the vast myriad of items in our house, storing/packing what we want to keep and weeding out (to the best of my ability) the things that aren't really important. But who's to say what's important?

Last night I started going through the secretary desk and found an old Skillsaw belt buckle. I showed it to Steve and asked if it could go into the Goodwill box, since it's something neither of us was ever going to use. He looked at it and said, "That was my dad's." It's obviously something he must have worn in Steve's younger days, because the whole time I ever knew my late father-in-law Virgil he only ever wore standard belts. I didn't want to be insensitive, but I really wanted to ask, "At what point does it stop being yourr dad's belt buckle and start being a plain old Skillsaw belt buckle that you're never, ever going to wear?" What I came up with instead was, "Since you're never going to wear it, do you think that maybe it's time for us to donate it so that it can become someone else's belt buckle?"

So that's what got me thinking about all of this. At what point do objects lose their meaning? How long do you have to hold onto mementos before they just become 'stuff'? Beacause 'stuff' is all it is, in the end. Sometimes one man's trash is another man's treasure, but other times one man's trash is another man's trash. And if there is one thing my father-in-law's death has taught me, it's that all the little things that mean something to you today are the things that your children are going to have to go through tomorrow.

Well, this is it...

That is to say, this is it for my 20's. There are now less than 7 days left before I turn 30. At 8:49 am on Friday, September 9th I will become a 30 Something.

All in all I have to say I have mixed feelings about it. I'm not afraid of age numbers that have a 3 in front of them or anything like that... I just find myself now, looking back at the last 10 years of my life and myself if I did enough with them? I feel like I did, but the reason for that is that, as a child/teenager/young adult I never set any clear life goals for myself. Around about the time I turned 18 I decided that all I wanted in life to be happy. I didn't have any kind of education and/or career and/or marriage/family goals; it didn't matter what I ended up doing in life so long as I was happy doing it. I figured that, as long as I could call myself honestly happy with the overall picture, I was successful.

And you know what? I am happy, so I guess that means I win.
I'm not saying that life doesn't get hard at times or that I don't have dark days every once in a while, but dark days are part of the cycle. And I know that, however bad or hard my life may seem at time, worse things have happened to sheep.
But again, in the general scheme of the things, I am happy. Very happy, in fact. I have a wonderful husband, two beautiful, happy children, a good house and I'm healthy. What more can you ask for out of life, really?

I guess the only sadness I feel right now about turning 30 is that, to me 30 is a big deal. It's a huge milestone that I've been looking forward to for some time, and I always thought in my mind that whatever I did to celebrate turning 30 should/would be epic. I really, really wanted it to be amazing. A huge party or a grand adventure or something along those lines. Unfortunately life and money and economic issues are going to prevent anything of the sort. Instead my 30th birthday is going to find me at home with the kids, just like any other day. Steve will have to work and won't get home until late. Sometime next Friday night I'm going to head to a local bar to have some drinks with a couple of local friends, which will be fun, but that's going to be the extent of recognition and celebration of me surviving 30 years of life.

And that's fine, really. It's not like I need a big flashy show or a parade in my honor to get on with my life. It's just been a sobering thought to realize that I'm really not special at all. I used to feel special, and I've always been a firm believer that everyone deserves to feel special on their birthday. But really, when you get right down to the brass tacks of it, I'm not special at all. And that's fine too. It's just hard to have the last little ego bubble of your youth popped. But in 100 years, who will care about my petty problems anyway?

Workout Diary, Day 2

Dear Diary,
Yesterday I got up at 4:45 am, got dressed, started a pot of coffee and started my workout. It was the Fit Test, the easiest workout in the Insanity program, coming in at only 25 minutes. I did okay, but I've definately done better. I realized it's been too long since my last round of Insanity. Far, far too long. My legs were a little sore, but not too bad.
This morning I woke up and my legs hurt worse than they did when I went to bed. But I still got up at 4:45, got dressed, started the coffee and started my workout. Today is was Plyometric Cardio Circuit. I couldn't even remember the last time I had done that workout. I looked it up, and it was June 4th. Almost 3 damn months!!
I did the workout to the best of my ability, and I think I did okay. At least, I did okay for not having done it in so long. but it was hard!! And the pain I had in my leg muscles this morning is nothing compared to what it is now. My legs feel like they're on fire!! Every step I take is a half-shuffle, half-limp. I'm sure if Steve were here he'd describe it as a teeter-totter-waddle. (Speaking of Steve, I want to tell you, Diary, how proud I am of him. For the last two days in a row he has also gotten up at 4:45 and rode the recumbant bike while I've done Insanity.)
I think the most frustrating part of being as sore as I am right now is the unexpected nature of it. I mean, I knew it would be difficult to get back into Insanity, and I knew it would feel like I hadn't done it in a few months. But right now my legs feel as if I'd never done it at all! Every step up or down the stairs bring a new and horrifying aspect of pain to my muscles. And you know what, Diary? Tomorrow I'm going to have to get up and work out again! And tomorrow's workout is Cardio Power & Resistance. Aaahh!

For anyone following my diet/exercising goals this year, you know that, overall, I have done very well. Since January of this year I have lost over 40 lbs and I have come a long way to getting into shape. When last I blogged about my weight loss I was a mere 5 lbs away from my 'goal' weight.

Enter weeks of debauchery and lackluster effort that began with my anniversary weekend and continued right up to (and let's face it - through) my daughter's 3rd birthday party (and delicious chocolate cake), and I am now 10 lbs away from my goal. Ugh.

I got up at the beginning of this week determined to get everything back on track, but pent up exhaustion and Mother Nature calling set me back again. Because when your tired and sore and cramping like a mofo, the "I just don't wanna" argument wins out every time. So here I am at the end of yet another week where I haven't worked out and I haven't stuck to any sort of diet, and I'm feeling pretty damn crappy about myself. Now, this is the part where self-pity usually begets defeat, but I'm determined not to go there. I am, instead, going to get some (metaphorical) exercise by (metaphorically) digging myself out of the self-pity hole this weekend, and making a promise to myself and the FGIMH that dawn's first light on Monday will find me leaping and squatting and lunging across my living room, breaking a major sweat to Shaun T and Insanity. It's time to dig deeper again and finish this shit out.

Yesterday was Maron's 3rd birthday party. It was Tinker Bell themed, and it was a great success. A lot of Maron's friends were there and between the cake, the toys and the ball pit, everyone had a great time!

My, but the time does fly...

3 years ago today I was holding my very first baby in my arms for the very first time, and the world as I knew it was changing.

2 years ago today I was introducing my daughter to the wonder and amusement that is Riverfront Park in Spokane.

1 year ago today I was in awe of the pretty, pretty princess that I had created, who was growing and changing every day, right before my very eyes.

Today I watched as my eldest daughter spent all evening "being upside down", with wonder and joy in my heart.

At some point the mewling newborn infant turned into a baby. At some point the baby turned into a toddler. Now, as I live and breathe, the toddler is turning into a little kid and I couldn't be happier.

Happiest of birthday wishes go out to my 3 year old daughter Maron Elizabeth Haag today. Tomorrow is her Tinker Bell themed birthday party (because nothing says 'I love you' like letting a gaggle of toddlers run rampant in your house for a few hours). Stay tuned for pictures!

Of Hats...

Hello Dear Friends,
Allow me to introduce you to my hat. This is the Indiana Jones hat I bought at the Australia Store in Leavenworth, WA while on my 5th anniversary romantic getaway weekend. Aside from one (very cool) Leavenworth beer stein magnet, this is my only real souvenir from that weekend. I thought about getting a t-shirt or a hat that actually said Leavenworth on it, but in the end I decided on the Indiana Jones hat. (I'm not kidding - it actually says Indiana Jones on the band inside of the hat.)

You see, I have wanted an Indiana Jones all of my life; at least, all of my life since I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark (back when I was far too young to be watching movies like that). I thought Indiana Jones, as a character, was so damn cool. I mean, archaeology professor by day, treasure hunter by night? Sign me the fuck up!

So when Steve and I were in Leavenworth for our anniversary weekend and I saw THIS hat at the Australia Store, I knew I absolutely HAD to have it. Not only do I think of that wonderful weekend every time I put it on, I also hear the 'Indiana Jones' theme music in my head.

Duh da duh duh, Da duh duh duh...

So I am feeling very sad today. It's my own fault, really. I was reading a blog this morning that I knew would bring me to tears. It was a blog by a mom who's youngest son died 3 months ago of Neuroblastoma (sp?). He was almost 4. She started the blog after he was diagnosed at age 3, and she chronicled the entire devestating journey. Since his death she has written a letter to him in her blog every day. His name was Ronan.

It was very moving, the things she wrote, but I was only able to read an entry or two before my eyes were blurred and overflowing with tears and I couldn't breathe through my nose for all the snot. I wept for a solid 5 minutes, and although hours have passed I feel no better at all.

Ever since I became a mother I haven't had the strength to read stories like that and not weep like a bitch. It's just too hard to imagine someone, even a stranger, losing a child to an illness like that. Because if you accept that it could happen to someone else, you have to accept that it could happen to you. And that, my friends, is my absolute worse nightmare. More than fires, floods, terrorism and the zombie apocalypse put together, I fear losing my children to illness (knock on wood). The other things you could do something about; whether you're successful or not, you at least have a chance at protecting your children against floods and fire... you can fight off the zombies... but you can't fight off cancer. No amount of strength of body or will can protect your loved ones from something like that, and medical science can only do so much. In the end it's up to the individual who has the sickness to fight it off themselves. And if your child is only 2 or 3 or 4 years old... well they haven't learned how to fight yet, have they? They're bodies are still a work in progress. How can you expect organs that haven't even finished developing to fight off a cancer? It makes me gut-wrenchingly, cold-sweat paralyzed with fear to even think about it. Knock on wood.

My solution to this problem is that, for the most part, I don't ready stories like that. I don't watch or read the local, national or world news for the same reason. I have an extremely overactive imagination, and when I read stories about children getting sick with the plague or being murdered by their parents it haunts me to my very core. And not just children, but the world as a whole. Take what happened in Norway a couple of weeks ago: A terrorist blows up the better part of a building with a bomb and then goes to some kind of island summer camp and starts shotting down teenagers en mass. 90+ dead in total. It was awful, absolutely horrifying. And although I know OF it, I don't know any of the specifics. I don't know who did it or why or how many people were injured or what any of the aftermath was/is/will be. I can't bring myself to read about it because it's just too horrible. This is a major point of annoyance for Steve, who feels that my complete unwillingness to enlighten myself of the state of the world is a major failing. But I have enough trouble sleeping at night as it is. I can't add solid horrible reality onto the massive heap of horrible 'what if' fear because I will go insane. There's too much bad and too much sadness in the world. I don't need to add my own paralyzing fears onto any of it. There's nothing I can do about it, and knowing about it will only make me worry and stress. Worry and stress act as a poison when you're helpless to a situation, so I choose not to know. I feel bad that I am willfully ignorant of all the horrors that are out there, afflicting life and the world and we speak. But not bad enough to have nightmares every night and develop an ulcer in the name of social/political/societal enlightenment.

I had the wierdest, most involved dream I've had in a while last night. It was so in-depth it actually had a cast of characters.

The premise of the dream was all about Transformers, and how human scientists had developed the technology to fuse humans and machines together to make living, breathing Transformer-like beings. The end result was a cross between a Transformer and an android. It was very Iron Man-esque. I don't remember every single detail of the dream, but it started with the short, red haired girl from NCIS: Los Angeles...

She was trying to save a bunch of orphaned children from some kind of assylum where undisclosed scientific experiments were being performed, presumedly on the orphans. But I'm not definate about that. She was there on orders from the Secretary of Defense and was part of an elite military team. I never saw any of the other team memebers faces though, so we'll just focus on NCIS: L.A. girl.

Once the military team had located the children and were in the process of extracting them, they were almost to the exit when they encountered a hallway full of snargaluff pods, best known from Herbology class in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

The military team had a horrible time trying to get everyone past the snargaluff pods, and a couple of the children were lost in the process. There was also an explosion of some sort, which was bound to have scientific repercussions on the red haired chick and her team. Once they all made it outside a new person entered the dream. A guy named David who I used to be in band with back in 8th grade. I really have no idea what he was doing there, as we were barely friends back then and I haven't spoken to him in 12 or so years. But he was there and it appeared that the military team had rescued him from the assylum along with all the kids.

At this point the NCIS: L.A. chick was really pissed off and got on her telecom and called the Secretary of Defense to find out what the hell had gone wrong and why her team had not been given all of the information they needed prior to entering the facility. Enter the Secretary of Defense:

Right?! Anyway, the Secretary of Defense told NCIS: L.A. girl that she had been given all the info she needed, and that any information witheld from her (L.A. girl) was in her own best interest. I distinctly remember Angelina Jolie saying something along the lines of, "I'll tell you exactly the kinds of lies I have to, but you'll know everything in the end."

At that point Angeline Jolie left her telecom station and went storming down a hallway looking for someone. It was clear that she herself had been lied to and she was looking for answers. While storming down said hallway she passed a bench that had a couple of scientists on it. One of them had a severe twitch in his right eye and was clearly agitated. Who was the scientist you ask? I'm glad you asked. It was none other than Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House.

Dr. House was trying to tell the Secretary of Defense that the explosion that occured within the facility was epic and that it was going to effect NCIS: L.A. girl's team in a major way.

The dream (now near its end) then cut back to the outside of the undisclosed facility where NCIS: L.A. girl and her team had transformed into Iron Man machine people. It appeared that while I was watching the Secretary of Defense and Dr. House talk that NCIS: L.A. girl and ex-band mate David had fallen in love, and NCIS: L.A. girl was trying to convince David to go through the process to become a Transformer as well, so that they could be together forever. He did, but I don't remember what the process involved, so I can't describe it here. I just remember it was really quick and that David was a yellow Transformer. Then I woke up.

I have no idea why I had that dream or what any of it means, or if it means anything at all. I was just glad that it was both entertaining and action-packed and that it had such a varied cast.

5 years later...

August 5th of this year marked mine and Steve's 5 year wedding anniversary. To celebrate we decided to leave the girls with some friends and head out for a weekend a deux in Leavenworth, where even the gas station signs are Bavarian...

We stayed at a lovely little hotel called the Alpen Rose Inn. It had cozy rooms and served a full breakfast in the morning as well as dessert at night.

We got dressed up in our best on Friday (our actual anniversary) and walked from our hotel to town, where we had some pre-funk beer at Uncle Uli's Pub followed by a wonderful dinner at the Cafe Mozart. Imagine my surprise and joy to discover a giant goat on our way to town! It was a resident at another hotel which had a miniature golf course. The goat was there to keep the weeds on the hillside in check.

Steve and I looking hot-to-trot on our wedding anniversary!

Enjoying out pre-funk beers at Uncle Uli's Pub...

The hotel breafast was simple yet delicious...

During our Saturday wanderings Steve and I found an awesome bar called the Post Office Saloon. It was reasonably priced and run by a guy who was born and raised in Leavenworth. It was so cool hearing him tell us about how he remembered the building back when it was still the post office. :-)

My special souvenir for the trip was an Indiana Jones hat I bought at the Australian Store. I've wanted one of these hats my whole life!!

Happy 5 years to my wonderful husband Steve. I love you always and forever!

Arachnofuckyou spiders!

In a perfect there would be no spiders.

No, no, no... don't sit there and try to tell me about how beneficial spiders are and how they keep down the bug and insect population and all that rot. If I need insect control I'll get a Bug Zapper. And the Bug Zapper won't crawl out of my drains and try to bury itself in the carpet on my stairs.

So fuck you spiders. In a perfect world you simply would not exist.

Today we took a family trip to Port Townsend. Our first stop was the beach at Fort Worden. This was Marida's first ever trip to the beach, and she didn't really know what to make of it all...


Daddy was really excited to show Maron all the wonders of the waterfront.

Maron was really into filling the bucket that Nana & Grandpasan gave her as an early birthday present.

After the beach we went into town to have lunch at the Public House. We have always enjoyed eating there. We had a good lunch this time, although it was marred slightly by the giant piece of glass Steve found in his beer. The upside was we got the beer and a shot of tequila comped to us. :-)