Those summer temps have fast forwarded a lazy spring into full flying fashion. I went from, yea the buds of bulbs are poking through to, wow, time to mow the grass.
I have seen a bald eagle, and often more than one, nearly every day for the past week. I never see eagles. I feel that they are a good omen, and in Native American medicine they mean Spirit which translates into freedom, perspective above the mundane parts of life in order to see the bigger spiritual picture, the power to recognize strife as a test for the soul and to gather the courage and insight to broaden one's self.
I'll take some of that, thank you very much.
It feels ridiculous, even to me, to write this, but I just ran 11 miles. And I loved it. When it would get hard I would smile and remind myself that there was no where else I would rather be than in the sunshine pushing my body to the max. I figure if my body can work this hard, then surely my heart can too.
And since Ella was at school there was no one to criticize my sweatiness when I returned...
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
On women...
If you feel like a reminder about why women are so lucky to be women (or for men to remember why they love the women in their lives) or if you just need a good cry, please watch this 5 minute video on an essay written by Kelly Corrigan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_4qwVLqt9Q
I swear they aren't paying me.
Oh, and by the way... I can do a headstand now. Without the wall.
And I had whoppie pie ice cream for the first time today. Oh, and I am wearing a skirt that I have saved in the bottom of my summer clothes tote very optimistically for fourteen years...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_4qwVLqt9Q
I swear they aren't paying me.
Oh, and by the way... I can do a headstand now. Without the wall.
And I had whoppie pie ice cream for the first time today. Oh, and I am wearing a skirt that I have saved in the bottom of my summer clothes tote very optimistically for fourteen years...
tidbits
- Yea, we had our first picnic today! Hello it is 85 degrees out! (The picnic went well until Maya crawled across the food rivaling a whole pack of the most intrusive ants you've ever seen.)
-Ella officially disdains sweat. When I come back from a run, she wrinkles up her nose and says, "Momma when are you going to shower?" Now it is to the point where she won't let me near her and won't even let me fix her lunch until I've bathed.
-Ella was frustrated and said to Brady, "Oh, I give up!" He trailed after her, deploring, "Oh, Ella, please don't give up!"
- Maya was crying after I put her to bed the other night and when I went up to check on her, she had one arm pulled inside her pjs and was flapping the other one around wildly. It won't be long before we have to put them on backwards because she takes them off.
- Sandi took the girls to Petco last week and let Maya walk Mochy around on the leash so that when she wanted Maya to come to her, she just called Mochy and Maya was forced to follow. When they went to checkout, Ella of course, stood contentedly by Sandi in line while Maya took off, running, around a corner, giggling and throwing items off the shelf in her wake. Contrast anyone?
-Ella's hamster, Snowball, passed away. (unfortunately unwitnessed so we aren't exactly sure how long before anyone realized he had made his transition...) Ella asked me if he was a white angel. Um, sure...
-Ella was perseverating on something that had long since been resolved and I told her that it was enough. She sighs in exasperation, "I just can't stop talking about it!"
- If you haven't seen the movie Seven Pounds, please go out and rent it right now. And don't read the blurb on the back. It is way better if you don't know what is going on.
Okay, I am going to make some sort of open ended commitment to learn about the camera and downloading photos because blogs are just better with photos. So, if I fail, someone please call me on it.
-Ella officially disdains sweat. When I come back from a run, she wrinkles up her nose and says, "Momma when are you going to shower?" Now it is to the point where she won't let me near her and won't even let me fix her lunch until I've bathed.
-Ella was frustrated and said to Brady, "Oh, I give up!" He trailed after her, deploring, "Oh, Ella, please don't give up!"
- Maya was crying after I put her to bed the other night and when I went up to check on her, she had one arm pulled inside her pjs and was flapping the other one around wildly. It won't be long before we have to put them on backwards because she takes them off.
- Sandi took the girls to Petco last week and let Maya walk Mochy around on the leash so that when she wanted Maya to come to her, she just called Mochy and Maya was forced to follow. When they went to checkout, Ella of course, stood contentedly by Sandi in line while Maya took off, running, around a corner, giggling and throwing items off the shelf in her wake. Contrast anyone?
-Ella's hamster, Snowball, passed away. (unfortunately unwitnessed so we aren't exactly sure how long before anyone realized he had made his transition...) Ella asked me if he was a white angel. Um, sure...
-Ella was perseverating on something that had long since been resolved and I told her that it was enough. She sighs in exasperation, "I just can't stop talking about it!"
- If you haven't seen the movie Seven Pounds, please go out and rent it right now. And don't read the blurb on the back. It is way better if you don't know what is going on.
Okay, I am going to make some sort of open ended commitment to learn about the camera and downloading photos because blogs are just better with photos. So, if I fail, someone please call me on it.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Yard work, fashion and big deals
If anyone has been missing any pine cones, I can bet you money they snuck over to our front yard in the middle of the night. This was the winter the pine cone took control and made a valiant attempt to overthrow our house. Angela said she didn't think she had ever seen so many pine cones in one place before. My mother was scheming up ways for us to sell them for money (hmmm...) or have a competition for kids that involved a prize for the child laborer who gathered the most.
Turns out the old fashioned rake did the trick and they are mostly gone now. It was a wistful moment to see the grass again.
We've been outside every available minute lately, working in the yard, playing with sidewalk chalk and bubbles and Ella actually riding her bike around the block. My heart beat still. We have to do some serious conniving to get her out a skirt and into some jeans and mud boots but, wow, when she does it, she gets filthy. She came home from school with actual grass stains on her pants the other day. Angela said, "Wow, Mommy would be proud."
Emerson celebrated his 3rd birthday today in style this morning. Ella began getting ready, picking out her pink, fluffy, tulle fairy dress last night. It took more convincing that she might need something more, well practical, for playing outside. She decided on a denim skirt - "a rugged skirt" as she said - an oxymoron I would have thought until watching her in motion.
When she was getting said outfit on this morning, Maya was trying to rip the crown (yes, a crown) off her head and pulling on her tights when Ella got up in a huff, exclaiming, as though she was fourteen instead of four, "I'm going to get ready in MY room!" And she did.
It defies all logic, but I ran 8.5 miles this morning. I truly can't tell you how that is possible. I came home to a somewhat mediocre celebration of my accomplishment. Ella told me, with a wrinkled nose, "Momma, you're sweat smells stinky."
Turns out the old fashioned rake did the trick and they are mostly gone now. It was a wistful moment to see the grass again.
We've been outside every available minute lately, working in the yard, playing with sidewalk chalk and bubbles and Ella actually riding her bike around the block. My heart beat still. We have to do some serious conniving to get her out a skirt and into some jeans and mud boots but, wow, when she does it, she gets filthy. She came home from school with actual grass stains on her pants the other day. Angela said, "Wow, Mommy would be proud."
Emerson celebrated his 3rd birthday today in style this morning. Ella began getting ready, picking out her pink, fluffy, tulle fairy dress last night. It took more convincing that she might need something more, well practical, for playing outside. She decided on a denim skirt - "a rugged skirt" as she said - an oxymoron I would have thought until watching her in motion.
When she was getting said outfit on this morning, Maya was trying to rip the crown (yes, a crown) off her head and pulling on her tights when Ella got up in a huff, exclaiming, as though she was fourteen instead of four, "I'm going to get ready in MY room!" And she did.
It defies all logic, but I ran 8.5 miles this morning. I truly can't tell you how that is possible. I came home to a somewhat mediocre celebration of my accomplishment. Ella told me, with a wrinkled nose, "Momma, you're sweat smells stinky."
Thursday, April 16, 2009
bumper sticker
I saw this on a bumper sticker yesterday and it was just so...fitting:
"I'm not suffering from insanity. I'm enjoying every minute of it."
"I'm not suffering from insanity. I'm enjoying every minute of it."
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
give it a rest Murphy...
Murphy's law... something about if anything can go wrong it will. Well, that seems to sum up my last few days in a nice neat package with a bow.
I discovered last night that I had overdrawn our business checking account at our new bank by erroneously recording a deposit for double the amount. I also found out, when I went to set up the new checkbook with the lovely, new, made-from-recycled-paper checks that I had put the business checking number on the personal checks. Went back and forth all day with the bank and found the deposit/overdrawn error to be mine (remember in Monopoly bank error in your favor? never happens to me) and had to bite the money for the fees, the new checks and the lost deposit amount that was never deposited and the two weeks it will take to get new, properly encoded, checks,. This set my day off right...
The girls and I waited for 45 minutes with a sick, clingy, lethargic, feverish and by the end crying, Maya at the doctor's office- a never-before-seen-occurrence at Husson Pediatrics. Turns out the third time is a charm- she has a sinus infection and fluid on her ear drums. Sounds painful? She thinks so too.
HAD to go to the store because we ran out of toilet paper YESTERDAY and were using tissues. Also had to get Ibuprofen and $100 worth of other essential items (despite having spent $120 at Hannaford a mere 4 days ago) and then make ANOTHER stop (at Hannaford again) to get non-chlorinated diapers because Maya's bum is fire engine red again. Was told antibiotic might make it worse. Great.
Next stop the pharmacy where we wait an eternity for the woman ahead of us to resolve her prescription issues. Now a very crappy feeling, but up until now, very tolerant Maya, begins to unwind. The crying starts. It is 4 p.m. I have fed the kids lunch and snacks in the car, dragged them all over town, let them play in the van in the grocery store parking lot so I could confer with the bank, and at least felt I had balanced the scales by taking them to the park before the whole escapade began at 11:30 after preschool pick-up. Ella left the house at 8:30 this morning and didn't come home until 4.
In addition to all of this, I got a ticket- an actual written TICKET- on Easter Sunday at the Togus VA hospital for walking my dog illegally (and ignorantly as it turns out), Ella asked me tonight if I was going to apologize to her in the morning for being grumpy (when I told her, quite sternly, that I had had enough of her talking back to me AND had held it together REALLY well despite the stress of the afternoon), Maya had a 102.4 fever when we got home, and I never got a much needed re-caffination this afternoon.
But all it takes is just a drop of perspective to turn it all around. And here are several:
It was 55 degrees out today!! After all our craziness the kids and I came home and played for the first time on the recently snow-uncovered playset in the backyard.
An elderly woman with orange lipstick was admiring our girls last week at the pharmacy and said to me, "Oh, they grow so fast. My babies are 55 and 61 now." And then, wistfully, "I swear I had more fun than they did."
But, most poignantly...I met a woman of at least 50 years today while we waited at the doctor's. She was rocking a sleeping boy in a stroller and told me she hadn't had much sleep since she had been at the ER until 3 a.m. and gathered I hadn't either given the sick state of my child. (I truly appreciate when people can see this and acknowledge this.) She then told me the story of 19 month-old Joshua who was born into this world perfect and was so severely abused by his parents that he now has extensive brain damage. His spine was snapped so he had the motor control of a 6 week old and always will. He has a feeding tube, will never walk or talk and will likely only live to be 4 or 5. She is in the process of adopting him. She had 3 kids of her own, an adopted girl who is an adult now, another special needs child she adopted who died last year and now this little angel of a boy who, when he woke and began to cry, she scooped his little body up and placed him on her chest and rocked and soothed him back to sleep. She told me when she got him he cried when he was touched because it was so unfamiliar to him. She spoke of him with such tenderness and love, I was in tears. Tears for her beautiful heart, for a world where parents could do that to their child, for the shame I felt at begrudging so many hours of much needed sleep to my sick and hurting, but otherwise perfect, little girl.
I discovered last night that I had overdrawn our business checking account at our new bank by erroneously recording a deposit for double the amount. I also found out, when I went to set up the new checkbook with the lovely, new, made-from-recycled-paper checks that I had put the business checking number on the personal checks. Went back and forth all day with the bank and found the deposit/overdrawn error to be mine (remember in Monopoly bank error in your favor? never happens to me) and had to bite the money for the fees, the new checks and the lost deposit amount that was never deposited and the two weeks it will take to get new, properly encoded, checks,. This set my day off right...
The girls and I waited for 45 minutes with a sick, clingy, lethargic, feverish and by the end crying, Maya at the doctor's office- a never-before-seen-occurrence at Husson Pediatrics. Turns out the third time is a charm- she has a sinus infection and fluid on her ear drums. Sounds painful? She thinks so too.
HAD to go to the store because we ran out of toilet paper YESTERDAY and were using tissues. Also had to get Ibuprofen and $100 worth of other essential items (despite having spent $120 at Hannaford a mere 4 days ago) and then make ANOTHER stop (at Hannaford again) to get non-chlorinated diapers because Maya's bum is fire engine red again. Was told antibiotic might make it worse. Great.
Next stop the pharmacy where we wait an eternity for the woman ahead of us to resolve her prescription issues. Now a very crappy feeling, but up until now, very tolerant Maya, begins to unwind. The crying starts. It is 4 p.m. I have fed the kids lunch and snacks in the car, dragged them all over town, let them play in the van in the grocery store parking lot so I could confer with the bank, and at least felt I had balanced the scales by taking them to the park before the whole escapade began at 11:30 after preschool pick-up. Ella left the house at 8:30 this morning and didn't come home until 4.
In addition to all of this, I got a ticket- an actual written TICKET- on Easter Sunday at the Togus VA hospital for walking my dog illegally (and ignorantly as it turns out), Ella asked me tonight if I was going to apologize to her in the morning for being grumpy (when I told her, quite sternly, that I had had enough of her talking back to me AND had held it together REALLY well despite the stress of the afternoon), Maya had a 102.4 fever when we got home, and I never got a much needed re-caffination this afternoon.
But all it takes is just a drop of perspective to turn it all around. And here are several:
It was 55 degrees out today!! After all our craziness the kids and I came home and played for the first time on the recently snow-uncovered playset in the backyard.
An elderly woman with orange lipstick was admiring our girls last week at the pharmacy and said to me, "Oh, they grow so fast. My babies are 55 and 61 now." And then, wistfully, "I swear I had more fun than they did."
But, most poignantly...I met a woman of at least 50 years today while we waited at the doctor's. She was rocking a sleeping boy in a stroller and told me she hadn't had much sleep since she had been at the ER until 3 a.m. and gathered I hadn't either given the sick state of my child. (I truly appreciate when people can see this and acknowledge this.) She then told me the story of 19 month-old Joshua who was born into this world perfect and was so severely abused by his parents that he now has extensive brain damage. His spine was snapped so he had the motor control of a 6 week old and always will. He has a feeding tube, will never walk or talk and will likely only live to be 4 or 5. She is in the process of adopting him. She had 3 kids of her own, an adopted girl who is an adult now, another special needs child she adopted who died last year and now this little angel of a boy who, when he woke and began to cry, she scooped his little body up and placed him on her chest and rocked and soothed him back to sleep. She told me when she got him he cried when he was touched because it was so unfamiliar to him. She spoke of him with such tenderness and love, I was in tears. Tears for her beautiful heart, for a world where parents could do that to their child, for the shame I felt at begrudging so many hours of much needed sleep to my sick and hurting, but otherwise perfect, little girl.
Not even coffee can help this...
Some of you may know that I have never been a coffee drinker. It is a bit of an ongoing opportunity for others to poke fun at me. Charissa once said to me, "I don't understand. How is it again that you don't drink coffee? That is just weird." I got coffee for two years in a row in my Christmas stocking at the Carvers and made such a big deal out of my lack of interest in the java that this year I got my favorite tea stuffed into a Folger's bag.
Well, if necessity is the mother of invention then my need for wakefulness has indeed prompted a full out commitment on my part to acquire a taste for coffee. (For anyone out there who needs such a regimen I will tell you my secret: hot chocolate. Just put a few teaspoons in the bottom of the mug, pour your coffee and then add a generous amount of milk.) This has worked wonders and now I am able to decrease the taste crutches so I can actually taste the coffee and like it. Sandi made some seriously weak coffee yesterday morning and I caught myself saying, "This coffee is too weak, even for me..."
But now I realize, somewhat belatedly and certainly grudgingly, that coffee can only take me so far... This is a hard fall that others have surely already experienced but please sympathize with me briefly.
Maya hasn't really slept for the past week- from coughing all night, to teething pain, to other nebulous problems that cause nocturnal upset, to fever and delirium last night- I have been averaging about 5 hours of sleep a night. Luckily (?) for me I got Bronchitis at the end of last week and got one heavenly, albeit through a haze of sickness, twelve hour uninterupted nights sleep. That is probably augmenting the coffee to keep me going. My eyes look like they are in danger of falling into the deep dark caverns below the sockets and my skin has that dull hue of the sleepless. But worst of all today, after such a crappy night, I feel as though my mind can't cope. Luckily it is a beautiful day and I get some much needed Vitamin D outside after I get Maya to the doctor for the THIRD time in a week to find out what is freaking wrong with her...
Well, if necessity is the mother of invention then my need for wakefulness has indeed prompted a full out commitment on my part to acquire a taste for coffee. (For anyone out there who needs such a regimen I will tell you my secret: hot chocolate. Just put a few teaspoons in the bottom of the mug, pour your coffee and then add a generous amount of milk.) This has worked wonders and now I am able to decrease the taste crutches so I can actually taste the coffee and like it. Sandi made some seriously weak coffee yesterday morning and I caught myself saying, "This coffee is too weak, even for me..."
But now I realize, somewhat belatedly and certainly grudgingly, that coffee can only take me so far... This is a hard fall that others have surely already experienced but please sympathize with me briefly.
Maya hasn't really slept for the past week- from coughing all night, to teething pain, to other nebulous problems that cause nocturnal upset, to fever and delirium last night- I have been averaging about 5 hours of sleep a night. Luckily (?) for me I got Bronchitis at the end of last week and got one heavenly, albeit through a haze of sickness, twelve hour uninterupted nights sleep. That is probably augmenting the coffee to keep me going. My eyes look like they are in danger of falling into the deep dark caverns below the sockets and my skin has that dull hue of the sleepless. But worst of all today, after such a crappy night, I feel as though my mind can't cope. Luckily it is a beautiful day and I get some much needed Vitamin D outside after I get Maya to the doctor for the THIRD time in a week to find out what is freaking wrong with her...
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Want to smile?
I won't pass up anything that will make me smile these days. Between my own state of affairs and this dull, gray state of weather badly in need of a Little Ms. Sunshine, I will get a laugh where I can. My friend Elaine sent this to me and I managed to finally take the 4 minutes to watch it.
It was worth a smile and several laughs out loud.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UE3CNu_rtY
C'mon. Just do it. You need to use those mouth muscles for smiling so that you don't forget how...
It was worth a smile and several laughs out loud.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UE3CNu_rtY
C'mon. Just do it. You need to use those mouth muscles for smiling so that you don't forget how...
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Dinner fun
Hey, whatever works as a vehicle to consume the sweet potato...
Ella's First Night Out
Ella and I went out on a date last night. Just the two of us. I took her to the Hampden Academy Showchoir performance which allowed her to dress up and model for someone other than Maya, AND stay up late. All afternoon she was excited, telling Sandi she had to "get ready for the concert." She wore the new dress Gramma brought her from Florida, had a pink sequined purse (filled to overflowing with various yummy smelling lip glosses), black patent leather shoes and a lovely pink coat.
Waiting patiently for Momma to come home from work
Very Proud of Her Dress. I was utterly afraid I was not worthy to attend with her, in my jeans and long sleeve shirt...
Posing Perfectly for the camera....
She blabbed on in manic chatter the entire way there and then sat completely stone-faced through the concert, uttering not a word to the friends we sat with, looking tired and forlorn. Any bystander would wonder what mother would dress her daughter to the nines, make her be out past her bedtime and drag her to a concert, she looked that miserable. Then the whole way home, the manic chatter resumed and she came through the door as if on speed, recounting every detail for Sandi with great enthusiasm.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
No joke
FYI- I ran 6 miles again today. Not an Emilie-induced running fluke. I think I am a bonafide runner now. This is no April Fool's people. Maybe I will become Forest Gump- grow my hair long and run barefoot across the country. Oh, there I go... always the immoderate one...
Catch up on the comedy
Luckily there are still funny things happening at our house. Here is an overview:
Ella was sitting on the floor rummaging through the multiple bags of hand me down shoes. Finally, she sighs in exasperation, "I don't know what to do! All the fancy shoes are Maya's size and she doesn't even care about fancy things. She likes things like," and as though it is utter despicable, "pants."
We dropped of a bag of clothes and stuff at Manna, a place Ella has become ever more familiar with since I have been cleaning out closets. Each time we go, she tries to capture a bit more information about the place. I explained that Manna helps people who need clothes and food and help finding a place to live. "But if they need food, they could just go and buy some," she offers. Wow, harder than you think to tell your four-year-old that some people don't have this capability. Insert explanation about working to earn money and paying to live- attempt to be objective and non-judgemental. "So Manna is like a restaurant except that you don't have to pay?" She asks. I'm waiting for her to inquire about why we don't eat there instead of Bugaboo Creek or Pizza Hut.
This morning Ella looked at the window, the snow receding like the hairline of a middle-aged man, and commented, "You can't tell the snow what to do. It doesn't have ears or a face or a nose. Because it doesn't have ears, it can't hear what you are saying. When Grandma talks to the weather, I think she is just kidding."
And this from my niece, Michaela as her mom was hurrying her along so she wouldn't be late for gymnastics: "Mom, don't rush a little kid."
Maya has started helping out around the house. She put 3 plastic blocks and a plastic banana in the dishwasher for me last night as well as a piece of mail in the top rack. She has begun picking up every piece of scrap paper, dirt, and minuscule object off the floor and bringing it to me. She furrows her eyebrows at me and babbles as she places said item in my hand. I want to think she is in spirit of helping, but really I think she is commenting on my housekeeping...Last night I swept just to stop the judgement.
Ella was sitting on the floor rummaging through the multiple bags of hand me down shoes. Finally, she sighs in exasperation, "I don't know what to do! All the fancy shoes are Maya's size and she doesn't even care about fancy things. She likes things like," and as though it is utter despicable, "pants."
We dropped of a bag of clothes and stuff at Manna, a place Ella has become ever more familiar with since I have been cleaning out closets. Each time we go, she tries to capture a bit more information about the place. I explained that Manna helps people who need clothes and food and help finding a place to live. "But if they need food, they could just go and buy some," she offers. Wow, harder than you think to tell your four-year-old that some people don't have this capability. Insert explanation about working to earn money and paying to live- attempt to be objective and non-judgemental. "So Manna is like a restaurant except that you don't have to pay?" She asks. I'm waiting for her to inquire about why we don't eat there instead of Bugaboo Creek or Pizza Hut.
This morning Ella looked at the window, the snow receding like the hairline of a middle-aged man, and commented, "You can't tell the snow what to do. It doesn't have ears or a face or a nose. Because it doesn't have ears, it can't hear what you are saying. When Grandma talks to the weather, I think she is just kidding."
And this from my niece, Michaela as her mom was hurrying her along so she wouldn't be late for gymnastics: "Mom, don't rush a little kid."
Maya has started helping out around the house. She put 3 plastic blocks and a plastic banana in the dishwasher for me last night as well as a piece of mail in the top rack. She has begun picking up every piece of scrap paper, dirt, and minuscule object off the floor and bringing it to me. She furrows her eyebrows at me and babbles as she places said item in my hand. I want to think she is in spirit of helping, but really I think she is commenting on my housekeeping...Last night I swept just to stop the judgement.
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