I can’t remember a more active, productive, and social weekend than this past one.

I am so tired, and it’s such a Monday.

It was a good weekend, though, and I still can’t understand where I got so much energy?! Saturday morning was a flurry of house cleaning to ready the house for an appraisal, while I shooed the kids outside to play with three neighbor kids. Somehow we managed to at least make the house seem more like average people live here, instead of say, crack addicted squatters. And, how it was possible for me to go out on Saturday night, get a tad lit, and come home at 3 AM… and then rise and shine at 8 AM the next morning, when I brewed some coffee, made pancakes from scratch for my family plus my friend and her daughter who’d slept over to babysit while I was out (thanks!!!!)… and the pancakes were GOOD! They had a choice of plain, apple, banana, walnut, and chocolate chip, or some combo therein.

Then after my friend and her daughter went home, I raced to the food store, did a quick grocery shopping just in time to get home for me to karmic-ly repay for the babysitting, as Annie’s friend Maggie came over for a 6 hour playdate. And it was hot out. We had fun with water play, I can tell you that for sure.

Plus, somehow, before the weekend was out I managed to clean out all the cat boxes, do about 5 loads of laundry and thoroughly clean the guinea pigs cage.

PLUS, I even managed to squeeze in a phonecall to my mom. PHEW!
I am exhausted just thinking about it. I need another weekend to relax, now, please?

Code red — high likelihood of parental freak out.

Oddly enough, it’s the squeakiness of my left shoe, that seems to be irking me the most. I’m not at all flustered by the play dates, only mildly disturbed by the massive pile of dishes (oh HAI, dishes, you back again?! %^?!@@#!). I’m just a little bugged by the kitty in heat who makes a lot of those little eeping and beeping noises, and who keeps stepping on my hands as I try to write this blog post. The fact that she’s a stinky little cat doesn’t bother me, and it’s rather cute the way she demands physical affection constantly.

But my shoe. UGH. My Damned Left Shoe!

You see, I’m a very weird woman, this much my friends all know (and hopefully love, for the most part). I pretty much wear the same shoes and the same (style, size) jeans every day. (I have about 8 pairs of the same damn jeans). My shoes are Dr. Martens, and I love them dearly. But OH NO!!! I have worn out the bottom of my left shoe, and it has a little hole which leads to the air pocket (Air Wairs! Yay!), and that air pocket goes Squish, Squish every time I step with it.

I hate shoe shopping. (another sign that I am not a normal woman, right?) So I usually shop online for shoes and have them shipped to me. After all, I always buy the same brand, same size, so not a big risk. But you know what??? GRRR! I can’t seem to find the right shoes for me. Even the internet is against me.

And as I walk around trying to get things done around here (and there is MUCH to do), Squish, Step, Squish, Step…. UGH. I am going nuts from this.

Watch out world, the entropy level of the Pann household has hit an all time high, and the sound of doom goes Squish.

… I’ll manage a mixed age group of kids for nine and a half hours straight. This is tomorrow, after such a long day today.

Today I drove a total of 270 miles to visit my mom and return home again the same day. Actually my brother & his family were visiting my mom, too. Because my brother lives about 10 hours away, I don’t see them all that often. It was only logical that we make the drive up to visit with them.

I got to finally meet my nephew. Oh sure, I’ve met him before, but never as a Talking Person. He was always a baby or toddler on previous visits, but now he’s just the cutest little boy I have ever met. He has big blue eyes and blond hair. I complimented his parents on how adorable he is, and how much I liked his haircut. My brother thanked me, as is polite in our culture, but my sister in law mumbled something about how he needs a haircut.

My sister-in-law is a really poorly socially-adjusted misfit who is intentionally rude and dislikes me and my mom intensely. She won’t make eye contact, she won’t talk at all directly to either me or my mother. (Or my dad, when she’s visiting him, by the way.) She either says nothing, or else talks obsessively and endlessly (to my brother, not me or my mom, but in front of us) about things that are not really good conversation with anyone else. (Examples: the technical aspects of what makes a saint a saint; minor differences in various branches of Catholicism; what her brother said about some pizza he once ate; etc.)

For a long time, I just thought she was weird. Later on, I thought she just disliked me. Then I came to think she was a rude bitch. Then I thought maybe she has some kind of psychological disorder. I thought and searched and tried to figure this out. I kind of decided on Asperger’s. Now I’m thinking that really makes it sound like I think people’s with Apsbie’s are unbearable. That’s probably unfair to the people who have Asperger’s.

So here’s my internet bloggie friends question: Anyone know what untreated, unmanaged Asperger’s in adults looks like? Does this sound familiar to you? I really don’t know anyone like my sister-in-law. Frankly, that’s a good thing.

But the real question is WHY does my brother put up with her.

They’re having another baby, which we found out through Facebook (SIL is friends with my mother, apparently because my brother “made” her accept the friend request). This whole visit I could totally tell that SIL is pregnant– she is fat in that round kind of way. But NOT ONCE was this information shared directly with me, so I didn’t say anything. I’m not friends with SIL on Fb, and believe me, I am actually NOT interested in changing that fact. I can’t stand the woman. She can’t stand me either.

She still maintains that Obama was actually born in Kenya. (me: “Oh, I didn’t know Hawai’i was part of Kenya.”) She is a bitter defeated Catholic Republican Palin supporter! She makes my skin crawl for this and many, many other reasons. WHY oh WHY did my brother get involved with this whack job?

Fortunately, they do have some cool kids. I really adore my nephew. AND his adorable hair. My nieces are getting really big. Both of them have been struck by puberty– they are kind of chunky and that is probably driving them more quickly through the maturation process. We had a nice enough visit today; none of the wailing, screaming, biting or scratching kind of fighting was to be seen.

Did I mention how taken I am with my nephew!!!??? OMG what a cute kid. He’s by far the cutest of their kids. I wonder whether they are having a girl or a boy this time. Not like I could ask, since I don’t even know she’s pregnant, since THEY HAVEN’T TOLD ME YET.

Sigh. Well tonight it’s getting late and I’m tired. I have much to do tomorrow. My kids don’t know it but they are staying home in the morning. Cammy will be home, as she was let go from her job not long ago. If they want to join me at school, Cammy will bring them over. I was going to have them come with me for this marathon childcare day, but if they don’t have to, then I think that’s better. I think they deserve a day off, don’t you?

Just got my car back from the shop, where they’d had to replace the brake lines, pads, rotors, etc. Yay for working brakes. And to think that I drove around with leaky brake lines for how long?? Waaaay too long. It took a long time to get the car fixed, since the part that they needed is no longer in stock and is discontinued by Isuzu. Luckily Honda still makes the same part. I didn’t put it together before, but the problems that the auto industry have? Well they affect used car repair too, since the companies can’t afford to keep making parts for old cars. Not so great for me, since old cars is what we’re going to keep having for quite a while.

We’ve spent over $1000 on this old car so far this year– but that’s a lot less than buying a new car. Carla and Annie think we should get a hybrid. They would rather walk than pollute, but it would be even better if we could drive without polluting when we have to. I think it’s great that they have such a good grasp on this: their generation is the one that is going to be most affected by the planet’s status.

Sometimes I just feel guilty, though. I think that this may be the default setting for motherhood. Better to cheerfully grin and bear it, than be hangdog. Guilty? Yup, I sure am! I’m your mom after all! Tell it to your therapist, baby!

I remember sitting in the hospital just hours before going home, when Carla was a wee little babe on my lap. She was tiny and perfect (to my eyes) and I could see that I had my hands full. I started to think… and cry. “I’m sorry that you’ll have to go through middle school someday, baby!” I murmured to her tiny self.

Looking back, I know that was at least partially those wonderful post-partum hormones kicking in, but something larger is at play when you think of your children as they grow. After all, adoptive moms go through just as much worry and stress and guilt as any other mom. It’s the thought that your child will go through some kind of adversity, and the knowledge that though you are protecting your child as much as you can, you still will see the day when SOMETHING goes amiss.

This underarm odor thing is really normal, and I shouldn’t get worked up over it. But like any little thing, it sure is easy to be alarmed. It’s like a Check Engine light. I can tell something is up, but I don’t really know what to do. I don’t want to make a big deal about a little odor — and I don’t want her to feel like her natural body is icky. But on the other hand, I would hate for her to be teased or just uncomfortable with herself.

When she and I talked about the body odor thing, I brought it up as follows:

“I’d like for you to get a bath tonight. Or, maybe, 8 and a half is a good age to start taking short showers in the morning. That way, you’re nice and fresh for school.”

C: “NO SHOWERS! I HATE SHOWERS. They’re like standing in boiling water rain! NO!”

“OK, bath tonight, then, that’s fine. I noticed that your body is starting to grow and change some, and it’s normal for kids your age to have more body odor, so a bath will help.”

C: “Maybe I should start wearing deodorant.”

Since she’s the one who brought it up, I think I should maybe follow her lead. I will want to research this and find something in the natural products range. Just deodorant, and not antiperspirant.

If only getting my car to work right were as easy. Or solving the global climate crisis, for that matter.

Unfortunately, on the way home the Check Engine light came on. Great!

Happiness – Sledding – Snowday = Cuddly Cat
Cuddly Cat + Snowday = Sledding + Happiness

Math is so much fun, isn’t it?

I’m snuggled up in bed with Carla and Annie. We’re watching my favorite Miyazaki film: Spirited Away, with our new kitty, Saffron. Saffron is a big time sweetie, and eccentric as well. She washes her paws– I kid you not!– by sticking them in her water and swishing them around. She especially does this shortly after using her litter box. So tidy! She also loves people food of all kinds. So far, she’s tried and liked pizza, scrambled eggs, ham, turkey sausage, milk, cheerios (both wet and dry), brussel sprouts, and macaroni and cheese. Unfortunately this diet leads to quite a bit of flatulence. We can’t blame her, though, after all, we allowed her to eat that stuff!

D is completely smitten with this cat, and I have to admit I’m quite sweet on her as well. She sits on my lap, something that my other three cats won’t do. She also is quite talkative, which is amusing.

“Annie! Carla! Time to brush teeth!” I say, as the children hustle upstairs.

Annie stops in her tracks and stares up at me with huge sad eyes.

“Ooh! We were about to travel back in time! Mom!” she exclaims. I tell her she has ten more minutes, and I head for refuge in my own room.

Five minutes later — she and Carla bustle into the room.

“We need toilet paper, because we’re in another world,” Carla tells me, matter-of-factly.

—

Apparently the girls are in ancient Egypt tonight, wrapping up some mummies with toilet paper. It’s really adorable when they play like this. I almost hate to interrupt them at all, but it is getting late and there’s school tomorrow. But really, what’s more important, sleep and promptness and being all orderly, or wild and wonderful creative abandon in another world?

5 extra minutes. Just because.

This morning we arrived at school promptly at 8:30 AM sharp, bookbags and lunches at the ready, gym shoes appropriately on the right feet. Great! Now let’s do that again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow!

I am glad to be back into some form of structure. Right now I’m sitting at home alone (just me and the cats and the guinea pigs, that is) and I’m listening to music on Pandora.com. If you don’t know Pandora, and you like listening to music, then you should really check it out. It’s free to listen to music, you don’t download anything, and they have just about everything. .

I feel really good. I am delighted that the holidays are “done” and I feel really satisfied. I do wish D (my husband) were able to get a break like I had. Having two full weeks to reset my brain, focus on home, etc., was really nice. Yes, he was off for some of the time, too. But he seems really stressed out and not at all re-charged. This makes me sad.

I have no New Years Resolutions at this point. I mean, I could think of some things that I could just, well, ignore. I don’t know about lofty goals. I do wish I’d get the hang of being prompt to school and work Every Day. This kind of drudgery isn’t my thing, unfortunately. But I think if I make up new ways to think of it, new rewards, new systems, say every month or so… that might help.

I wish more people visited / read / commented here at This Examined Life. I could make it a goal to publicize my blog more in the new year. It is so lonely writing and not knowing if someone (besides D) is reading it. I wish I knew what creative and fun ways that other people tackle the everyday challenges of work and parenthood — well that is actually one of the reasons I enjoy reading other people’s blogs!

The next time I do a conceptual overhaul on my home/work routines, I’ll try to blog about it and share here what works, what doesn’t.

Happy New Year, Internet Buddies Far and Near!!!

Oh, and, here’s a picture from Christmas morn. Note the presents stacked all around the … guinea pig cage?!? We had the world’s smallest Christmas tree, a live baby tree in a pot, but up on a pedestal and it’s not in the picture!

Just before the holidays, I felt impelled to think about making all the presents for people. Here’s how it actually played out.

Handmade Holiday Gifts:

- Home-made Biscotti — I made chocolate almond with orange zest biscotti, and drizzled them with chocolate. Then I put together little plates of these cookies and gave a plate to my mom, one to my in-laws, and one to my grandmother in law.

- Pictures in frames / books — Not exactly homemade, but personal at least. I gave some photos of the kiddos to all of the above.

- Pumpkin Butter – I gave a jar of my homemade pumpkin butter to my mother in law.

- A handmade knit hat – It wasn’t knit by me, but it was really nice. Gave to my mom.

Re-gifted… I gave a crystal water pitcher to my mom. I think it will go better in her china cabinet than mine.

I did not write my children’s book to give to my kids (should really get around to that. Maybe for next year?!)

I did not sew anything this year. (Too bad, I love sewing!)

I did make a really nice big dinner on Christmas — that was fun and tasty too.

It was a good year for handmade stuff, in general. I will try to do more throughout the year, in hopes that next year I can do Handmade Holidays again.

Baby steps, right?

So, you know how Christmas is NOT supposed to be all about getting things? Well, it’s not. At least I don’t feel that it is for me and my family. My kids certainly do love getting gifts and they might like that just a tad more than anything else. Meanwhile, since I am not religious, at all, it’s not really about God or Christ, either. I also celebrate Hanukkah with my family, though we aren’t Jewish (though some relatives on my husband’s side of the family are actually Jewish.) I do light the candles on the menorah and think about miracles of oil lasting, but I don’t really connect with that on any kind of LITERAL level.

So one may find it at first a little odd, if they were to peek in our window (but not in a creepy way, thanks) to see what traditions we have around here. I like to make HAM for Christmas. Christmas and Hanukkah overlap, often enough, so there are times when we have a nice big HAM on the same table as a MENORAH. Is this sacrilegious? Ham is made from the noble creature, the pig. Pork is a big NO-NO of course, never being kosher no matter how much one may pray over it. Our Christmas tree was itty bitty, and some of my houseplants were about equally adorned.

We do hang stockings by the fire with care. And I love singing Christmas carols – and even am guilty of going to Pandora.com and playing Christmas music for hours on end.

Not everyone likes this sort of thing, this casual adaptation of religious holidays. I know the cynical folks out there are likely to scoff at us, thinking we are wrong to celebrate holidays when we are not religious.

But my point is that there are a series of traditions we follow. They don’t exactly go together, this mixed bag of delights. Lighting the menorah and eating ham, or singing Christmas carols but also reciting a prayer in Hebrew — a language I don’t speak at all other than to know this ONE prayer for lighting of candles on Hanukkah.

And what is the purpose of celebrating a holiday that is associated with a religion that you don’t even participate in??

The purpose is simple. It’s family. It’s being home with people you love. It’s taking time and effort to make traditions that are fun and real and loving. This isn’t about some external commandment to be a certain way. This is about finding the love and the home and the family.

So I had a great Hannumas/Chrismakkah, and it wasn’t all about What I Got for Christmas.

However, that said, I got some GREAT STUFF. I asked for– and received– a Rice Cooker and a cotton duvet for my silk comforter. Tonight I made my first rice dinner in the rice cooker, and it was really easy, and fun. My thoughtful inlaws also got me a big cookbook to go with the rice cooker– it has a zillion recipes of things that you can make in a rice cooker. (Rice! Brown Rice! Basmati Rice! Sticky Rice! Fluffy Rice!) Seriously, though, you can also use this appliance for steaming veggies, and you can make all-in-one meals by dicing other ingredients and mixing with the rice.

Tonight I used leftovers plus rice to make a really savory dish. I diced leftover Christmas ham (naturally raised, no anti-biotics, humanely treated, local pig: what we around here call “Happy Pig”) and artichoke heart, tossed in some sweet corn that I’d put up in the freezer this summer, and about a half cup of diced leek. Together with basmati rice, this was a really nice little dinner. Carla and Annie even said it was good!

The duvet is nice, too. I took a nap under it today, while my children systematically destroyed the house played nicely together downstairs.

I am so much enjoying my time off. The kids are, too. We went to NYC yesterday and had a really fun time. We did a bunch of walking, and also managed to spend some time in taxi cabs as well. It was a beautiful day, and we successfully navigated the city, taking in Rockerfeller Center and its enormous Christmas tree, as well as visiting the American Girl store. My kids got to each bring home a little pet from there– a cat named Licorice and a dog named Sugar.

Licorice was especially exciting because Annie has been wanting Licorice for over a year. We went to the store, figuring we could simply get a Licorice cat. When we asked one associate about it, we were told that Licorice had been discontinued– in fact pulled from the shelves to make way for their new inventory. Oh No! But then one other person working there suddenly said, “oh wait! Looks like there’s JUST ONE LEFT!”

So there it was… THE LAST LICORICE CAT LEFT IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, or so says Annie. She was so sad for the rest of the world, that nobody else would ever be able to get a Licorice, but she was pretty delighted to have snatched up the VERY LAST ONE, anyway.

After we successfully rescued Licorice and Sugar from the store, we hopped into a cab on Madison Avenue –

[Me: Mom, if we walk over to Madison, we can get a cab from there, it goes in the right direction. Mom: Oh, OK. (starts walking in wrong direction) Me: Mom, Madison Avenue is THIS way. (Thinking: Who's the one who isn't WITH IT?)]

– and off we went to Central Park West, where we snacked on hotdogs from a vendor (ew…. I know…. but it is kind of a NYC tradition… yuck) and a variety of kid-friendly foods that I’d packed. After that, we braved the ultra crowded American Museum of Natural History. I think we closely examined every single mineral, precious stone, and gem in the large and incredible gem room. We marveled at the dinosaur bones. We oogled the meteorites. We dashed through quickly but admiringly observing the many different skulls of mankind. It really brings to the forefront the fact that humans are just one species of many– Evolution is real! Wow, neato!

Then via taxi we headed back to Penn station, and a train ride back home. A very full day. I really enjoyed that last taxi ride, because we went down Broadway and I got to see Times Square.

I like NYC. It’s all crowded and bustle-y. But I am glad to be home. I spent today in my pajamas. Yay for winter breaks.

I hope all of you out there got what you wanted for Christmas– and I wish you all a very Happy New Year.

I am back home. I just met my word goal for the day, 34k. It is starting to look like I might actually write 50k before the end of the month, as long as I can keep up the pace.

It’s after one in the morning and I think I will go to bed. Tomorrow we are having a large family get together with Drob’s extended family, and I don’t want to be too tired to enjoy it. The more annoying elements of his family are not going to be there, or so I’m told, and so I am really looking forward to the event.

My mom sort of gave me a non-apology apology for having criticized the kids making a ‘mess’. It was not really all that messy, but mom’s used to having everything spotless. She made comments to me about the mess, which annoyed me, but I blew her off saying, “News flash! Children create mess using small toys! Film at eleven!” I chuckled and told her not to worry, that we would clean up before we left.

We brought home the remains of the turkey, and I cut away the meat from the carcass, then placed the bones in the crock pot to make soup. Soup and writing and writing and soup. The house is already starting to smell delicious.

Tomorrow, we feast again! No wonder we are a culture with lots of extra pounds around our waists… our culture is food obsessed. Or, at least I know that I am. Maybe I can work this into my novel somehow.

I know I’m deep into thinking about these characters because for the last couple of nights, they visited me in my dreams. Hmmm… dreams are a fun thing to put in a novel.

There is a lot of thinking going on in my novel, but not much action. Hmmmm…. action is something that is fun to put into a novel.

Anyway, I’m at 34,178 words if you want to know and now I am off to bed. Goodnight!