So. That went well!

Yes, I lasted exactly 1 day before I achieved Epic Fail on NaBloPoMo. What can I say? I am an highly imperfect person. You should know that about me before this relationship progresses any further. Also, I have been told I hog the covers and occasionally snore. (Thanks for the honesty, Honey! You fart constantly in your sleep, by the way! Love you!)

The only clear solution here is to do what I always usually often do when I fall flat on my face. It's time to get back up, dust myself off, glance around furtively to make sure nobody was looking and keep marching onward.

So! Last night, we went out to our favorite local Sushi place to celebrate the End of an Era. Allow me to explain -- A few weeks back we attended Trip's college graduation, and we celebrated that day with an awesome meal at Mussels in Bethesda, MD. (I highly recommend it, especially the Belgian beer selection. Hello, Triples!) That was a great day.

Sadly for Trip, he still had a few weeks left in his final class before officially completing his BS degree. Yesterday, he pushed "submit" on his final paper/project for his final week of his final class... and officially finished up with being a student. That's right, y'all, my husband is officially edge-a-ma-cated! Which, obviously, requires celebratory sushi and saki. Thank goodness the boys are as much whores for sushi as we are -- the little buggars ate 2 entire California rolls and were STILL picking at our cooked rolls. I managed to be magnanimous and not bite off any of their tiny fingers as they reached for my favorite "Good Time Roll". (What?! Tempura fried sushi roll in cherry brandy sauce! You'd totally threaten to cannibalize your children for it, too. Trust me.)

Wait, what?

Oh! Yeah, we were talking about school. Trip is officially done with school! This, according to the 5-year plan, means that it is my turn to go back to school. At the moment, I'm not exactly sure how I feel about that. I'm still working part-time from home 5 days a week, plus attempting to move forward with that whole Cake thing. Oh! And I've been sewing and crocheting and jewelry-making for a friend's shop over at Tiny Toes Bowtique.

And, you know, doing that whole Raising 3 small humans thing. Yes, I remember I have children. Don't worry, I manage to keep them fed, clothed, and appropriately tickled. In return, they manage to tell me at least once a day that I am a "stinky poopy head! A MEAN one! Who won't let us run around in our underwear or eat Halloween candy for breakfast because you are STINKY!" So that's, you know, completely awesome.

So at the moment I am generally standing on the precipice of the future and clinging desperately to the crumbling vines of my self-identity while I try to figure out what the heck I want to BE when I grow up. Heavy thoughts for a Wednesday, no? I'll try to make Thursday more light-hearted. Honest.

What?

Oh, you thought I'd be less full of angst and ennui after the long break from this chronicle?

You are so cute when you're optimistic!

No I am Not Really This Granola

Oh, internets.  It has been a while, hasn't it?  My black thumb and I have been busy.  Busy being sleepy, not keeping up with chores, pretty much killing the container garden, and boring my children with my lack of motherly awesome.  (But! We went to the Cool Pool! The one with the Frog Slide! And there was ice cream! And apparently lots of exclamation points!) 

That trip to the pool, by the way, cost me 2 days of recuperation.  Because while my thyroid appears to be fine, the Chronic Fatigue continues. (Which, by the way, is most likely exactly that.  Apparently I had mono at some indistinct point in the past and it is probably dragging me down like a lead balloon. So yay for that.)

But lest you think it all be doom and gloom around the Casa, allow me to relieve your brain.  There are games afoot, and after adding magnesium and B12 to my vitamin regimen, I am beginning to feel a bit of energy come back.  Enough that I went for a walk/jog last night with Gizmo the WonderDog.  We did 2 miles.  (You're appropriately impressed, aren't you.  You should be!  Please?) Hmm that sounds a bit needy.  Okay, FINE then. Don't be impressed.  But when me and my pasty-legs-of-iron bust into the not-so-skinny-but-still-smaller-than-the-maternity-pants jeans, who will look silly THEN, huh?! I ASK YOU.

*cough*

I'm sorry, where were we?  OH!  So, yeah. After pretty much killing all of my carefully tended food plants (and decidedly killing the peach tree sapling purchased on a whim at Walmart for fifteen bucks. Oh, I killed it dead, y'all) I have discovered the glory of the local CSA.  I am now waiting to hear back from our local farm to see if they allow buy-ins mid-season.  Otherwise we will buy in for next year, and I'll spend the rest of this year attempting to not feed the kids a steady diet of grilled cheese and chicken nuggets.

So there's that.

Pretend I have a clever segue here as we move on to talk Vacation.

Finances being what they are, we knew we would be driving somewhere for vacation this year.  We talked about several possibilities -- Philadelphia and the Please Touch Museum (I'd link to it, but I'm lazy.  Google it.  Also, don't make the mistake we kept making and call it the "Touch This" museum if you are describing it to other people, as it sounds oddly pornographic and will likely garner the same looks of confused horror.)  We looked at the Deleware Beaches, but that was cost prohibitive.  Also, we waited too long and everything was booked. But mostly the cost. (ahem.)

Finally, Big Daddy had a lightning strike of brilliance.  The Family Aum will be heading to CANADIA!  Lock up your mounties - Mama is headed for the border.  Well, not immediately; we're going in August.  The trip will take us through the wilds of Upstate NY, into the (assumably) bustling metropolis of Montreal and, finally, up to the French-Canadian Frenchness of Quebec City.  (Hey, Monsiour Fisher! I'll finally have an excuse to use my High School French! You know, for something besides swearing in front of my kids!)

So the summer is shaping up to be a little bit of crazy (Oh, yeah, I did 3 cakes in 2 weeks! Because I am a masochist!) and a lot of awesome. (Energy returning. Sun Shining.  Bonjour, Canada! and such like.)

And if this post has come off as a rambling stream-of-consciousness bit, you'll have to be forgiving.  I haven't slept in 3 days, courtesy of Milo.  I'd work up the energy to cry, but when I realized he cut his first tooth all was well.  Funny how a little tooth (or a reason to finally get my passport) can change the perspective, isn't it?

Now just pretend there's a witty closing here that wraps this all up into some sort of neat thesis, and we'll call it a day.  

What Have I Been Doing?

There is a list of things that have kept me away from the internets recently.  

Ready for story time, boys and girls? Good. Then settle in and get comfy, because this could take a while.

1) Cake.  Holy Hanna Montana, CAKE.  What started with a single friend asking to hire me to do her daughter's birthday cake has sprung up into a much bigger venture than I would ever have imagined.  It rules, it really does. It's also exhausting and involves hours at a time bent over the kitchen counter with a piping bag in my hand.  That's not nearly as dirty as it sounds.

2) Soccer.  Did I mention that I'm a full-blooded soccer mom now?  Yeah, when I first realized it I actually felt myself die, just a little, on the inside.  But then I was faced with this:

and, really, how could that possibly make a person feel anything but glee?  Wookit my wittle MAN-man, all dressed up in his uniform!  GAH! The cuteness! IT BURNS! (And entirely justifies the excessive use of capital letters and exclamation points right there.)

3) Sushi!  We've started rolling our own, and now it's addicting.  Sushi is the one food that everyone in the house can agree on -- even Tobin, aka "He who has been known to refuse bananas, bread, and basically every other food or food-like product".  So I've been perfecting my craft (which is to say I have been eating lots of sushi recently because, um, research?)

4) Garden.  Okay, so I haven't actually started a garden yet, but I have had every intention of doing so.  I bought seeds and I picked out a spot in the yard with perfect sun. I even looked up how to build raised bed boxes for the perfect backyard vegetable patch.  By next year I might even get some veggies planted.  For now, though, its a lovely little kitchen garden in my mind.

5) Lists!  Lists gets an exclamation mark because I am incredibly good at making lists.  If they gave out trophies for list-making I would have a mantle full of them. (If I had a mantle.)  I am basically Queen Of Listing.  (As in writing lists, not the art of drunkenly walking at an angle. Though I have done that once or twice, but I'm not very good at it.)  When it comes to making lists, however, I totally "make them my companion".  Bonus points if you watch enough news network television to get the reference. (Also, Hi! Pardon the ADD, it's entirely genetic and totally not my fault.)

So, Lists. I have been making a lot of them.  Most notable is the list I am compiling for Things I Shall Do This Year as part of my Year Without Fear.  I'm contemplating a trapeze lesson this summer.  Not even my idea!  But I it fell across my path and I might just have to do it because it seems to fit right in with the whole "grab life by the cojones" spirit of the project.  Did I mention I'm terrified of heights? And falling?  This should be fun.

Also on "The" List for this year are things like "get dirty playing with the kids" and "make a Baked Alaska".   Yeah, I'm hoping the ideas will get better as the year comes along.

Do you have any great ideas for things I could reasonably do this year that would be awesome and fun and not incredibly expensive (and also not incredibly dangerous because - hi! - 3 little boys expect me to be alive to tuck them in at night)?  Leave suggestions in the comments below!  (If it's something like "Dye your hair purple" you'll have to come up with a very good cause I could support by doing so.  This is about doing Good Things, people.)

So there's the sordid, somewhat partial tale of what I've been doing.  I'll maybe get around to telling you more later, but for the moment there is a cake waiting for fondant details to be constructed.

So allow me to leave you with this:

I'm telling you... the cutness! IT BURNS!

Or "Why I Obviously Need More Therapy".

See, I've developed an obsession with Facebook.  Which goes well with my addiction to Bloglines and Twitter, especially since the internet is the only thing that induces me to actually talk to other humans on many a day. 

And if you didn't already know I tend towards the reclusive, HELLO and welcome late to the party.

So the ADS on Facebook.  They have, so far, been wickedly in tune to my brain.  I think they're using some sort of advertisement brain ray to suck keywords from my brain.  Remind me to start wearing a tinfoil hat when sitting in front of the computer.

Today I was minding my own business, absently perusing the status updates while I waited for my cnn.com video to load, when I started seeing ads for birth announcements.

Well Crap.

This is the part where I confess that I have not once, not even for second, given any proper thought to what I am going to do about birth announcements.  

With the first two babies I was ambitious and creative and made my own.  I am, after all, supposed to be a photographer.  Linen paper and a good printer was all it took to come up with something I could distribute with abandon.

That was then, y'all.  

Now? Now I am desperately trying to live up to the expectation I set that I would not be one of those moms who lets the third kid get lost in the shuffle.  And the internet is making it so very easy to create fabulous birth announcements in a range of lovely designs, and at the cost of only about half the kid's college education.

So you see, Uncle Sam... before you go giving a huge check to these silly failing banks, PLEASE understand that the $2200 cost per citizen?  I already have that earmarked for printed paper products.  Because I am a good consumer, and also because I am high on estrogen and popsicles... and spending unholy amounts of money on something pretty trivial seems like a preferable alternative to actually, you know, making something myself.

Thank you for your attention to this vitally important PSA.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.  At our house, this means Noggin.

Cup of Cake

For the "Summer Birthdays" celebration at Jack's preschool today I made the purported recipe for Magnolia's Very Vanilla Cupcakes, from Magnolia's bakery in NYC. Google it if you are so inclined; I suggest doubling the vanilla.

If the sight of these does not cheer you - YOU HAVE NO SOUL.

For the frosting, I was feeling lazy and also wanted something a little more robust, so I used a can of Betty Crocker's cream cheese frosting, half a small container of real cream cheese, a half cup of powered sugar, and yellow gel food coloring. Whip it all together and you get a slightly firmer, more tart cream cheese frosting. Piped on with a zip-top bag with the corner cut off.

And that, my friends, is about as Martha as I get up in here. Fear my mad skillz.

Suburban Serenity.

I woke briefly this morning as T climbed into the shower. Snuggled on either side of me were the boys. Two warm little bodies, quiet and still, wrapped around me from both sides. It lasted about a minute and a half before the maniacs arose and the day began.

Fed the dog our leftover scrambled eggs. Because I was feeling generous.

Decided to leave the Christmas tree up... just one more day. It cheers up the living room. I need to hang more pictures in there or something.

No appointments, commitments, or catastrophes to handle today. Just have to get Jack to preschool, grab a few things at the grocery store, and get Toby home for a nap while I settle in to catch up on the new (unscripted!) episodes of The Daily Show and Colbert Report on the TiVO and fold a little laundry.

Every day should begin this way.

Rest, Relaxation, and Return to Reality

The Inn was everything we hoped and more. Today, I actually feel almost human. Also, I am no longer experiencing one giant anxiety attack in regard to Christmas and everything that still needs to be finished before Tuesday morning.

Here are a few of the high points of the evening and morning at our B&B retreat. WARNING: I may wax romantic and poetic and whatnot. Old houses and unbridled pampering will do that to a girl.

The Inn opens with a tavern, complete with incredible antique furniture, paneled walls and a grand piano beckoning for a passer-by to make themselves at home and coax the music from its aging ivories.

The passageways in the main house are impossibly tiny, built to suit smaller bodies of a bygone era. Exposed beams along the high ceilings had the delicious, velvety patina that comes with the aging of hard wood under rich lacquer.

Dinner in front of the fireplace served on antique tableware. Seven courses of pure bliss. A filet mignon so tender, she wasn't kidding when she handed me the butter knife and said "you really won't need this."

The "Winter Cottage" welcomed us with a giant, antique bed perched on Tuscan-tile floors. The jacuzzi tub was deep enough for the swirling bubbles to reach my chin. The gas fireplace cast dancing lights on the hand-painted walls and vaulted ceiling. The crisp, embroidered linens felt clean and cool on the skin.

Morning brought a cascade of heavenly, scalding water in the giant, tiled shower. Coffee and muffins by the fire, Pellegrino and fresh fruit. A view of the Manor house and the stream, emerging like spectres from the fog as the hazy clouds lifted in the warmth of the morning sun.

Returning home was surreal. Waving goodbye to T as he drove off, alone, into the rest of the day. Wandering from the cold and the quiet into the bustling warmth of our chaotic life. My taste of luxury was traded back in for our modest home, with its messy kitchen, the piles of dirty laundry waiting to be washed and clean laundry to be folded.

Then two tiny pairs of arms grabbed hold of my legs, sticky kisses were planted on my cheeks, and I found that - though I enjoyed every minute of our brief getaway- when it comes to my messy, chaotic life... I am already spoiled beyond what I deserve. The rest is just icing.

Jingle with Joy for Jesus

You know, Mormons in general are pretty sedate about religion. What I mean is, they generally speak about all things religious in relatively hushed, reverent tones. I didn't get a lot of exposure to the "Jesus Rocks!" brand of religion that's so popular these days with Evangelicals. Now that Jack attends a Methodist preschool, though, I'm finally getting a first-hand look at exuberant religion.

The school does have the best curriculum in town. For the time being we don't address the religion issue and simply let him enjoy being part of the class and belting out "My God Is So Big" with the other kids.

There are times, though, when the sedate nature of our own household's non-religious-ness (unless you count the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Jack's getting a "Pastafarian" t-shirt in his stocking.) gets a little shaken up by this situation. I was reminded of this today, when the above title was pasted in 2-foot lettering on the message board in the hallway today.

Jingle With Joy For Jesus, indeed.

Then there's Jack's habit of praying before bed each night. It started as a desire to tell me about his school closing prayer one night at bedtime, and turned into a nightly ritual. After a few nights, I realized that - while I don't actually pray myself anymore - the prayer itself could just as easily be considered a humanist mantra of sorts.

"Dear God. Help us to do the things we should: To always be kind and good. To do and work and play. To grow more loving every day. Amen"

Given that these are all noble aspirations that we are trying to teach him, it seems good enough to let him be self-directed in this little ritual for as long as he chooses. T and I were both taken aback at first, but we are both determined to allow him to just learn as he goes for now and, as the questions start to come, answer them as best we can. For now, it's just fun for him to be part of the class.

As a kid who never quite felt like I belonged, myself, I have to admit that it does my heart good to see how easily Jack navigates his way through the class. Everyone is his friend, and he is friends with everyone. I hope that stays at least mostly true his whole life -- I want him to be able to appreciate and get along with all kinds of people. Evangelicals are everywhere, so I guess it's as good a place as any to start.

Plus, once they got past the tattoo and the nose piercing, the other parents have been pretty cool to me, too. So maybe Jack's not the only one learning to play well with others....

As Promised, On the Lighter Side

Things I Am Loving About Today:

* The smell of fresh-cut potatoes on my hands

I love making my mom's pot roast recipe - with baby carrots and cut potatoes. It cooks all day, and the house smells like Sunday afternoons when I was growing up. I love the way my hands smell after I get it prepared. All day long, no matter how many times I wash them, they carry that faint, starchy scent from the potatoes. It smells fresh and earthy. This might be weird? But it makes me feel normal. Plus, this is one of Big Daddy T's favorite dinners.

* Fresh flowers

The bouquet my neighbor brought over last night is full of white daisies and red carnations. I love daisies - the most easy-going of all flowers. Lovely in their casual beauty. That's a phrase I would love to hear applied to me.

* Being a Girl

My friend, Molly, and her husband have offered to watch the boys on Saturday night while Big Daddy T takes me to his office Christmas party in Reston. This means we have secured an actual Night. Out. We will go to a nice Steakhouse. I will be in a red party dress and fab black heels. I will get to carry a tiny purse, with absolutely no diapers, wipes, toy cars, crayons, tylenol, or emergency candy. I can wear dangly earrings, put sparkly things in my hair, and wear lipstick with abandon. I will get to talk to grown-ups for a whole evening. I am giddy with anticipation.

* Sunshine

'Tis a beautiful day outside, my friends. There's a crisp wind, but the sun is shining and the air is fresh. After preschool pick-up, the boys and I will be hanging the exterior decorations. Mine will be the house with the groovy light-up snowflakes that cycle through blinky patterns, and the kitschy candy cane poles framing the porch. It's total cheese, yes... but it's Christmas. What can ya do?

* Spitting Distance To The Finish Line

After I press "Publish Post" there will officially only be 2 more posts required of me to complete NaBloPoMo. It went by so much faster than I expected - and with so much less pain than I remember last year. I'm sure there's a lot of filler and crap in what I've put out this month, but maybe there's a gem or two in there, as well. You never can be sure, and since I have not yet gone back to re-read any of the posts, I'll have to reserve judgment until it's over.

And last, but not least,

* YOU, dear internets.

Thank you from the bottom of my weepy, bleeding heart for all the kind thoughts. The emails and comments of support about my Gram were incredibly sweet, and made it just a little easier to put that photo up on the shelf last night. I keep thinking of Oh The Joys, and how funny it is that ended up - so quickly - in the position of being the one who wants to think that maybe, just maybe, those people really are looking out at me from that photo. Telling me that they love me, and that everything is just as it should be.