25 Thoughts Today

Because a list is all I can manage.

1. I was complaining to my husband tonight that with all my years of yoga, I still somehow ended up with bum knees, a jacked-up shoulder, and -most recently- a bad lower back! WTF?
2. I picked up my 3 year old 2 days after turning 36 and threw my back out. Niiiiiiiice. That will have been 3 weeks ago this Friday. Mother Effer!
3. It's actually almost better, I think, though. Which I owe mostly to yoga. But I still wish it had prevented the injury rather than help heal it!
4. Spring Break: my husband was off a week. I had kids all 5 days. I had a week off; he was back at work. Blah! I like our vacations to align, please, universe! For the next time, then.
5. Today was the first day all 4 kids were back together after the week off.
6. It. Was Seriously. Adorable.
7. It was in the high 70s and we spent all day outside together.
8. I feel as if I'm finally finding the spot where I'm figuring out exactly how to DO this job REALLY well with the kids. And that makes me love it more and more.
9. Maria Montessori: how do I know so little about her when I've been studying early childhood ed for so long? I don't know, but a wonderful old friend of mine has been sending me info, and I love it! I want to know more, more, more!!!
10. That same dear friend might be moving to Austin, TX. My father-in-law lives in San Antonio. I so want to sit with her and talk about Montessori for hours!!!
11. When I first started thinking about homeschooling, I felt it was really what I had to do for my kids. I hated all the other options, more than I loved homeschooling.
12. But I seem to have turned a corner, where now I'm really looking forward to it for myself!
13. I have a goal, for my professional self.
14. I want to master teaching.
15. By teaching, I mean that I want to master the art of facilitating people to be in flow.
16. I haven't figured out yet how to get anyone to pay me for this pursuit, but that will come in time, I guess!
17. Actually, speaking of flow and money, I think I have a blockage somewhere.
18. It's in my mind, and here's what it says: how much is the minimum I need to make to survive and do what I want to do?
19. And so I only ever make the minimum I need to survive and do what I want to do. Because that's the question I ask.
20. I think somewhere inside me, I believe that I am buying my freedom.
21. With all the money I'm not earning, I am buying those hours back to do what I wish with them. The freedom to exist without the structures, demands, the shape of lucrative employment.
22. Do I believe there can be both money and freedom?
23. That's a good question. 
24. I'd like to say yes. To embrace abundance of money the way I embrace abundance of choices, of ideas, of possibilities, of ways to be right, and ways to be beautiful.
25. But I don't know if I'm there yet.

Twenty True Sentences and One Lie

1. I complained about wanting throw pillows on my blog, and my mother-in-law visited and bought us beautiful new throw pillows.
2. Even though she doesn't know I have a blog (I don't think...)
3. She also bought us a carpet for our living room.
4. Speaking of rooms, I rearranged our dining room tonight.
5. And then sat in it and looked at the moon out the window from my grey computer chair w/wheels. I want to make a rule that the kids can't touch that chair; it's not safe (or it's safer not to) (or easier, for me) . But that rule won't fly; I can already tell. A chair with magical wheels (and aren't wheels just inherently magical?) must be touched. I will need a new rule that means: be safe, in the context of the magical wheely chair.
6. It's been raining a lot lately.
7. (Could that be the lie?) (Boring!)
8. The smell of rain is in the air all the time; I love the smell of rain.
9. A 4 year old girl around here died of a mosquito bourne-illness recently.
10. Then they sprayed, locally, to kill all the mosquito larvae.
11. Now my yard has hardly any mosquitoes.
12. It's weird. But kind of awesome, not to have them there.
13. For some reason, looking out my window at the trees makes me want to have sex with my husband right now.
14. He's reading in the boy's room.
15. Sometimes our son needs -or wants- one of us to sit in the armchair and read by the light of his nightlights while he falls asleep.
16. Sometimes one or the other of us doesn't mind doing just that.
17. My daughter is ferociously teething.
18. I'm pretty sure I'm fatter than I've ever been.
19. We skipped the State Fair this year.
20. I have a "music center" in my hallway now, and it's all kinds of awesome.
21. I am super tired lately. (Wouldn't it be nice if that were the lie?)

From My Brain to Your Screen

So I'm a listmaker, and my brain has been brimming with a million ideas for posts that I never quite find the time to make sense of. So I'm just going to spit it all out, bullet-point style (I love bullet points) (yes, I'm totally serious) (bullet points are awesome!), and we'll see what ends up rising from the muddy swamps of my mind.

• I love, love, love being home with my babies. Less than 3 weeks left of maternity leave. I'm not ready to go back to work. At all. But I'm going to, for a couple different reasons: financial/practical (I've wanted to talk for a while about Linda Hirshman and the so-called opt-out revolution; it's playing an ironic role in my own choices right now), the feeling that I'm doing good in the world through my work (is this a spiritual impulse? maybe.), and an overall desire to integrate my family and work life, which I think will mean a lot of hard work for me, but will be so worth it in the end (this is a spiritual impulse).

• And speaking of spiritual impulses, remember when I said I would pray about how to practice spirituality since I'm not particularly religious? Well, I did, and I got an immediate and very clear response. The answer was not particularly surprising; it's something I've thought about for years. And yet, months later, I'm still not doing it. I might need to create some Internet accountability by writing about it here!

• Blogging about blogging: I'm recognizing a certain tendency in my writing to describe things in a vague, stylized manner. It's all well and good, for what it is, but I don't think I know how to write plainly about everyday life, and I want to be better at that. I don't know exactly how, but I'd like to work on it.

• And one reason I want to be better at it is because I want to capture the everyday details of this time with my babies. It's magic; it really is. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever done, and I want to remember every crazy minute of it. So I have to capture some of the stories that describe how we spend our days. This could easily be a series of posts, rather than just one.

• Finally, I might need to mourn the end of my maternity leave, in words. And I might need to give myself a pep talk about returning to work, because I do know it's the decision I'm going to make (I can't say the right decision because there are so many decisions that could be right. This is the best one for where I am right now.). And I do love my job. I could just use a reminder to psyche me up, after I'm done saying goodbye to my (too) short stint as a SAHM.

• And oh yeah, exercise again. I finally made the decision and resigned from my yoga jobby. I'm really committed to figuring out how to give my body what it needs without counting on "going to work" to provide it. It will be a huge challenge for me, but I want to try. I think it would be the very best gift I could give myself.

So these are some of the ideas I've had swimming around in my head. Whaddaya want to hear about? Any requests? Maybe if I know somebody is waiting for a story it will inspire me to sit my sleepy butt down at the keyboard instead of on the couch one of these nights and start writing, sooner rather than later! Any of the above, or something brand new? I'm open to inspiration, universe! Sock it to me!

Cast of Characters, Reprised

LazyBones, CoffeeBuzz, The Mama, The Wife, Teacher/Administrator/Yoga Instructor at Work, Resident CouchPotato and DayDreamer at Home:  Does the Mothering and Wife-ing, major in General Studies: Household Organization, minors in Laundry and Menu-Planning. Works part-time in Education and has a Yoga Jobby (job-hobby). Prefers sitting to standing. Prefers lying down to sitting. Prefers daydreaming to almost anything. Requires coffee to achieve basic, everyday life tasks. Possesses an almost supernatural ability to chill. Moves at the speed of light for the amount of time it takes caffeine to travel throughout bloodstream, achieving monumental tasks such as: tidying living room, and starting the laundry. Resumes chilling immediately upon drug exiting the system.  Waiting wistfully for the day when reading a book results in a clean house and mattress testers are finally paid what they are so clearly worth.

MoodyPants, SuperSpouse, The Dada, The Husband, Teacher/Artist at Work, Overachiever Everywhere, and Grump-or-Goofball Extraordinaire at Home (depending on the day): Does the Fathering and Husband-ing, major in Kitchen Care, minor in Grocery Procurement and Preparation.  Teaches Art all day for pay; makes his own by the light of the moon.  Achieves more before breakfast than most people do in a month. Cooks like a five star chef, cleans like a maid on meth, and works harder than John Henry with a hammer in his hand. But when it's a full moon: watch out. Possesses demon moods that have been known to escape the limits of the body and cast a dark shadow throughout the land. Attempts to harness said moods as weapon of warfare against rogue states currently ongoing. Ability to wither whole rooms with a look. Condition can be mitigated with ingestion of microbrewed beverages, so if you come calling when the moon is full, you'd better come correct.  You've been warned.  Wishing for a handyman, a million dollars, or both along with that beer, so he can take a well-deserved break.

The Boy, The Toddler, Boy Child, Big Brother, Etc.: Bigger of the two children, Toddler, Too-Soon-To-Be-Preschooler.  Communicates primarily through Squealing (with joy), Shouting (goes well with any emotion!) and Repeating (until he gets the response he seeks).  Thus far has demonstrated inheritance of the maternal capacities for both endless chatter and limitless loafing: chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool. Still incapable of shootin' some b-ball outside of the school.  Capacity to surpass father in the following cantankerous skill-sets: bursting into tears for no apparent reason whatsoever (Dada has simply never mastered this rudimentary skill), and winning arguments with a single word (see: MINE! NO! and WHY DADA?) (Okay, that's two words.  But twice as effective.) (Neither parent has this skill.)  (Why use one word when you could use ten?).  Lover of cheese sticks, french toast, and those disgusting mandarin oranges that come in a can.  Generally an easy kid, but he wants what he wants, when he wants it.  And he will tell you about it.  Again and again.  Until you respond.  Correctly. 

The Girl, The Baby, Girl Child, Little Sister, Etc.: Newborn baby.  Communicates primarily through Grunting, Rooting and Attempting to Latch onto the closest available protrusion (Mama's cheek, Dada's nose, why not?).  Not a blank slate, but not prepared to be summed up quite so easily as all that yet, either.  A mystery unfolding; a tale in the telling.  A fat-faced, blue-eyed, breastfeedin' fool.  Conceived on her mama's birthday following a miscarriage and months of waiting.  Born days before Christmas, just on time to receive a tree full of presents and provide a tax break for the calendar year of her birth.  A much wanted, much loved little bambina, just waiting to show us who she is.  Certain only to be full of surprises. 

Thankful

... That there is a holiday dedicated to being thankful.  In a country as rich as ours, it's good to remember to stop and count our blessings.

... For the time I spent standing outside the other day, waiting for my son and his sitter to come downstairs from putting his friend down for nap and answer the door.  The view from the house on the hill where he stays each day is amazing.  I could see layers of fog hovering over the earth in the distant sky.  Rain fell light like mist around me while I hovered under the covered porch.  The world seemed full of mystery and ultimately unknowable.

... For the fire my husband built in the fireplace last night.  The room was warm and the couch piled with more blankets than we could put to use.  The world seemed cozy, safe, and familiar.

... For every morning that we hear the crows call Caw Caw while we ready ourselves for the day.  My son said to me last week:  Mommy, the little birds say tweet-tweet, but the crows say CAW-CAW!  We like to listen to the sound of the crows.

... For the little birds too, who dip and weave through the sky like a symphony is playing, that only they can hear.  Two flocks rose together and danced in front of my car window while I drove to the doctor yesterday morning, and it was like art rising up from the highway, a ballet in black against the grey white of the sky.

... For this morning, when I inexplicably woke at 5am, finally rising from my bed at 6, and still, walking through my house, my thoughts weren't grumpy or bitter.  Instead, I thought:  I love this house.  I'm so happy it's ours.

... For my husband and son, who bring laughter and delight to my world every day.

... For my daughter, dancing in my womb and preparing for her grand entrance into the world.  And for all the work we got done yesterday, preparing to welcome her: the attic is semi-organized (a feat unto itself), and furniture is moved and rearranged, paint is purchased and ready to go on the walls, and we are closer to welcoming her every day.

... For the basics: a roof over our heads, food in the fridge, medical care when we're sick, and then for magic: laughter and delight are magical, and I am most thankful for how much magic I find in the daily details of this ordinary life.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Top Ten...

...Reasons Why My Husband is on the Top of my Awesome List Today:

10.  He laughed and agreed when I told him he was required to be in a good mood for a full week because his school year ended last Friday, and if he failed, I would be permitted to whack him in the head with a rolled up magazine.

9.  Although he failed to make it through days 3 and 4 with good mood intact, he pulled out his best don't-call-it-a-comeback skills and rebounded for days 5 through 7.  I generously withheld the magazine whack, although I may or may not have reminded him of our agreement in a semi-threatening tone.

8.  He promised me that being a summertime SAHD for a turning-two year old would be smoother than being a SAHD for a turning-one year old was.  One week in, and it's clear he wasn't lyin'.  I'm breathing easier already.  Last summer was a lil' tough, y'all.

7.  He accepted a used car, that's really for our entire family, as not only a suitable birthday gift, but with much excitement and gratitude, for his upcoming birthday.

6.  He agreed to negotiate a deal for the car under the terms that the new payment would not, and could not, exceed the payment already in the budget for his old car.  He stayed at the dealership until that happened.

5.  He called me at work today to tell me that the morning had started off just fine, with toddler toe tickling in the bed where I left both of them sleeping to go into my office this morning.

4.  He agreed that cheeseburgers sounded better than pizza tonight, even though it was my turn to cook, and then went to the store, bought them, and grilled them for all of us.

3.  He agreed with my sudden and insistent idea that we needed to buy a new kiddie pool rather than try to fix the hot mess we got from freecycle.  And that the new kiddie pool needed to be purchased tonight.

2.  He cleaned the area we had cleared and spread with sand as a flat space for said pool when we discovered it had been adopted as litter box for neighborhood animals while the hot mess kiddie pool was awaiting repairs.

1.  And very best of all...he took us to three stores seeking the very, exact, perfect kiddie pool that I absolutely knew I needed right now, and definitely not, under any circumstances whatsoever, tomorrow.  And then bought twine (twine!) and affixed it to the top of the new family car/birthday gift in a big box parking lot, while being mildly ridiculed by multiple passersby, threatening -and, in fact, causing- injury to the paint job on the roof of the brand new (slightly used) birthday gift.  AND he allowed us to purchase it at Wal-Mart even though we are, and have been, boycotting Wal-Mart for a great many years now, because Mama needed kiddie pool, and Mama needed kiddie pool NOW, and Mama would be oh, so happy as soon as kiddie pool was purchased, but completely inconsolable up until that point.  It might be said that Mama was a bit of a pregnant, hormonal nut-case on the topic of highly coveted kiddie pool, but Husband handled it well, sacrificed vehicular roof paint, endured ridicule from the fine patrons of our local Wal-Mart, and performed a small miracle with twine and -because we had no scissors- a nail file, which was skillfully employed to cut the twine whenever necessary.  Kiddie pool is currently enjoying its new home in the specially created flat, sandy bed in the backyard, which has the additional benefit of being animal excrement-free.  And Husband is my very, very favorite, which works out quite well, as tomorrow is his birthday.  I shan't make him clean any animal excrement at all, save his own, as an additional gift above and beyond the family car sitting in our driveway.  In fact, I'm feeling so loving and generous, I think I'll invite him for a dip in a perfect little plastic kiddie pool.  I know just the place!

Today must be my lucky day!  Or maybe Monday was my lucky day, but I was just a little late in finding out about it.   No, I prefer to think of today being the day.  Monday was the beginning of a hurried and harried week.  My year-end report had to be written for work.  My husband became a SAHD for the second summer in a row.  There was car shopping to complete, and extra hours to work, and a toddler to transition, and not a lot of time for relaxing and enjoying.

But today?  Today the report was completed, and turned in, and I got out at 1pm.  Today, the toddler and the husband lived in perfect harmony for the first time this week, and there were no tears.  Today I got to drive the new car and take a meandering walk along a canal with my baby boy after my yoga class.  And today I got to catch up on my blog reading, and discovered my name attached to this, over at Txting Mr Darcy:

So today is my lucky day.  But, as with most luck in this lifetime (see lottery, inheritance, etc.) there are rules!  Rules, I tell you!  And though I usually believe rules are made to be broken, I'm going to go ahead and see if I can follow them this time.  Just for the heck of it.

Rule 1:  Thank the person who gave you the award.

Well, that's not a hard one!  It's just good manners, after all.  Thank you Brooke!  If you haven't read Txting Mr Darcy yet, well then, click on over there right now and give it a gander.  You won't regret it.  And that might just be the easiest rule I've ever followed.  Excluding the one about how once you open a family sized bag of Doritos, you really must eat them all, until the bag is well and truly empty.  Although that might be less of a rule and more of a philosophy to live by.  In any case, Brooke, the award made my day, and if you lived close by I would share my family size bag of Doritos with you.  Unless you like Cool Ranch.  Then you'd have to share with my husband.

Rule 2:  List 7 things about yourself your readers do not know.

1.  I started a blog in November of 2005.  I  had never even read a blog at that point.  I wrote 1 entry.  Then I lost the blog in cyberspace, and hadn't the foggiest idea how to even find it again.  When I signed up with Blogger in November of 2009, somehow I ended up finding my old 1 entry blog from '05.  I decided it was better just to begin again than to build upon that shoddy foundation.

2.  I had a girl dream.  With my last pregnancy, I had a boy dream very early on, and knew after that night that I would be having a boy.  Well, simultaneously knew and seriously doubted it all the time.  Same thing now.  I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant with a girl.  Except, seriously, how am I supposed to believe a dream?  But I do, and it's a girl.  Maybe.  (It is.)  (Or not.)

3.  I am a terrible nicknamer.  I call my son things like skootle-dee-bootsie-bootle-dee-boo.  He sometimes refers to himself as Booty-boo now (See, that wasn't a random example.  It's one of his actual names).  I should really stop, but I can't.  Multiple members of my family call me Ned Flanders.  Although I don't know who they think they're kidding.  Where do they think I got it?

4.  I actually cook dinner twice a week now, for the first time in my life.  Taco Tuesdays, and Pizza Fridays.  Yes, we eat the same thing every Tuesday, and every Friday.  This is mostly because they are the only two things I know how to cook (although I had to learn to make tacos, and it took me a good month of Tuesdays to get it downpat), but they have the sly side effect of ensuring my variety-loving husband will not want me to take over more than two nights a week, lest he die of boredom following my menu.

5.  In addition to being obsessed with class issues, I'm also somewhat obsessed with race.  I think this is because I grew up in a neighborhood and city that was diverse, but also had a lot of racial tension.  Then I spent my college and grad school years in all-white small towns.  It left me with the unfortunate impression that racism is rampant, especially in places that aren't diverse.  I'm not quite as obsessed now that I live in a city again, but when I lived in small towns I sometimes felt weird about how often I obsessed about race.

6.  I am an all or nothing person.  So I've had periods in my life where everything I owned was organized, labeled, filed, or put away in its precise place.  Other times I keep all my clothing in large, unfolded piles on my loveseat.  I've been in a disorganized phase since we moved into this house, because we just don't have places for everything yet, and sometimes it drives me crazy.  Other times I can tune it out completely.

7.  I've never had cable television in my life.  We don't watch any TV at all, just DVDs that come through Netflix.  But the funny thing is, I order almost exclusively TV shows through Netflix.  I've been saying we'll order cable soon since 2002.  Somehow, we haven't gotten around to it.

Rule 3:  Award 5 bloggers who you've recently discovered.

Okay, here goes!

1.  Angels in the Architecture:  Besides the awesome blog name, Leel posts examples of her artwork and crafts that are very inspiring.  I've done very little crafting of my own in the last few years, but every time she posts pictures of what she's up to, I spend the afternoon daydreaming about what I'd like to make when I find the time to start creating again.  I'm also very intrigued by the story of her birth, adoption, and her family, of which she has shared a little bit.  I can't wait to hear more whenever she's ready to tell it!

2.  The Dayton Time:  Pamela (I won't use a nickname, because I know she hates nicknames.  And it would end up as Pamelootie-toot-tootie, or something equally reprehensible, anyway, in my hands.) blogs about life with her husband The Mister, and their four children.  She makes it all sound like so much fun, and even the annoyances are amusing in the way she tells them.  She sort of makes me want to cook and raise chickens, even though I shudder when I think about chickens.  And cooking, really.  But I don't shudder at all when I see that she has a new post up.  And I'm usually laughing by the time I get to the end.

3.  By the Seat of our Pants:  Jasie writes about her life and family in Port Townsend where she homeschools her son, Silas, and just bought a brand new house with her fiance, Seth.  She too, is crafty, and has awesome fashion posts about her thrift store finds.  I'm not especially fashionable, but I used to sew and create new things from thrift store finds, so I love to live vicariously through her while I take a hiatus from that side of myself.  She's also very thought provoking and has a lot of posts that leave me thinking for hours or even days later.

4.  When I Grow Up:  Michelle is married to an old friend of mine from high school.  We've never met in real life, but her husband showed her my blog after I posted it on Facebook, she commented, which led me to her blog, and the rest is history!  She's a life coach in the Big Apple, and blogs about her own process in balancing work and life, finding her bliss, and making dreams work in the everyday.  You can tell by reading that she's great at her job, and I love her Tough Question Tuesdays, and all the beautiful images she uses to illustrate her posts.

5. Corn-Bean:  Linlah takes amazing photographs, and always makes me chuckle with her dry wit.  Her posts are short, sweet, and to the point, and her pictures are worth more than a thousand words.  And there's a funny story in my family where my mom, seeing the name Linlah in my comments, thought it was my youngest sister's online alias, because her name is somewhat similar.  Alas, no one in my family can wield a camera and end up with photos as awesome as the ones I like to click through over at corn-bean, though.

So, there you go!  New reads galore, and I followed all the rules!  Look at me: making dinner, following rules.  Next thing you know I'll have my whole attic organized.  Or at least finish a family sized bag of Doritos.  I take my successes where I can find 'em.  And I hope tomorrow is a lucky day for us all!

Right As Rain

I figured since I use this blog as a place to complain when things are not going right (right being--of course--how I want them, when I want them), I should also report when things are going right.  So, the following things are as right as rain:

• Spring came early this year, and I absolutely love it.  I have a love letter to spring saved in my drafts, but each and every time I sit down to finish writing it, I get carried away anew with my love of the season and have to abandon the effort and go outside.  I've even had to do this during a rainstorm, wrapped in an afghan, breathing in the rain smell, standing on my covered porch because we haven't put any porch furniture out for the season yet.  A short winter, and an early spring?  Mother Nature is a Goddess, and not the bitch I thought she was when winter first descended upon us.

• Remember the time change?  Spring ahead?  Well, I sprung ahead alright, and rocked the time change like it was the Casbah!  This was the fourth time change since my son was born (yes, I just had to count that on my fingers), and I was finally prepared for the fact that it would take his carefully calibrated schedule and blow it to bits.  And I was ready.  First off, I pushed his bedtime forward an hour so that it actually remained the same.  Then I let him sleep in as long as humanly possible every morning, waking him up right before I had to put him in the car to go to the babysitter's (she lets me deliver him in pajamas and feeds the kids breakfast and lunch before dressing them so as to cut down on clothing changes due to messy independent toddler eating!).  Then--and this is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that ought to earn me a Nobel Peace Prize in Organizational Thinking (What do you mean they don't give Nobel Peace Prizes for Organizational Thinking!?  Fine, I'll take some sort of commemorative placard, both for my superior organizational skills and for using a tired corporate phrase like out-of-the-box correctly in a sentence.)--I worked an extra hour each day, for four days after the time change.  Then an extra half hour for the next three (okay, two of those were the weekend, but we put him down a half hour late for nap.  It counts).  And after a week, we were seamlessly back on schedule.  My son was none the wiser, my paycheck was slightly fatter, and I hope to be receiving a commemorative placard celebrating my accomplishments in the field of infant/toddler time change any day now.

• A dear, old friend of mine posted a Chinese proverb on facebook as her "zen of the day".  It said: Tension is who you think you should be.  Relaxation is who you are.  These simple sentences have brought me pleasure every time I think of them.  In my ongoing struggle to define God for myself, I keep coming back to certain things: the breath, committing and recommitting to my choices, the act of and the beauty in waiting, the work and transcendence in accepting, and the importance of joy.  This proverb wraps all of it up in a pretty little bow, and sends it right to me via facebook.  Thanks Universe!  And thanks Shelly!

• I sat in a rocking chair today, listening to lullabies, breathing in the sweet, sweaty scent of my toddler's head, waiting for him to fall asleep, watching slivers of silver raindrops through cracks in curtains sewn by my mother-in-law, and feeling blessedly relaxed, in no hurry whatsoever, and at peace.  And I thought: this is heaven.  And while having another baby will be its own heaven, it will necessarily preclude this one.  Why am I in such a hurry to trade this one in?  Why not just enjoy the one I've got?  And for a blessed moment, sitting in the nursery, rocking my boy to bed in the same rocking chair where I used to nurse him to sleep each night (sometimes feeling--or fighting--a mild panic/resentment, at the length of the nighttime commitment, at the uncertain end of what seemed like endless caretaking), it was that simple.  I experienced this extra time with my toddler as a gift, as this golden, shining moment without distraction.  And just then: everything was right.  Right as rain.
  

I Intend to Wake Every Day, and Try

Over a month late, and I'm going with Intentions, rather than resolutions this year.  I like the idea of intending rather than resolving.  Resolving is rigid, and I need to work on real rather than rigid, right now.  Intending leaves room to wander and grow in directions unexpected.  If you resolve to go west, it sounds like you'd better jump on the interstate and drive directly to the coast of California, stat.  If you intend to go west, it's perfectly okay to stop in Kansas and spend a week sleeping in a field of wheat, before renegotiating, ducking down to Mexico for a long weekend of Corona, chips and salsa, then wandering westward via random rivers and valleys, images glimpsed in dreams and meandering paths where footsteps crunch echoes in fallen leaves, sounding patterns like the drumbeat of your own torn, healing, human heart.

I usually make plans like I'm outlining a thesis, a hierarchy of details like white lies on a resume or stitches in a little black dress designed to disguise that belly you earned when your abdomen was sliced open to bare both your organs and the baby that failed to fit through your pelvis for whatever reason on that long-awaited, exhausting day, but never, ever failed to bare, break, and then rebuild your heart into something more whole than it had ever been before.  This year I want to rip my thesis into pieces and declare I have nothing to prove; write a resume of the ugliest truths and then celebrate every sad soul who's been fired in this latest, Great Recession of the American soul, spirit, or fake-Prada pocketbook; bare my cesarean scar in the moonlight and howl like a wolf in heat.  This year I want to work harder than I ever have before, just to sit still.

I intend:

To Be Present

• in the moment; in the choices I've made in all the years leading to this moment; in the scent of my baby's head and the feel of my husband's scratchy, stubbly cheek in the shadows of early evening; in the chores I perform every day as a promise to our home that it can be beautiful as a catalog with thrift store furniture and wildflowers stolen from a stranger's yard; in the eyes of my students, studying the art of parenting in poverty, as they rip open their hearts, lay them bare on conference room tables, wipe away tears and promise to try to do better tomorrow; the promise to try is lived again and again in each moment; to breathe in and breathe out; to be here, wide eyed, marveling at the moment that is now, that is always; to live like a prayer with four words: please and thank you. 

To Listen to my Body

•  when it says sit; and when it says stretch; and when it says I Hate You and I smile, wry and knowing, like the mother of a Terrible Two or a Teen who needs firm limits and flexibility in equal, opposite measures; when it says sleep, and sleep, and sleep; and when it says get up, stand up, and dance like The Dead are still living and you're at the last live show; like Bob Marley has reincarnated in your limbs and you can dance your way out from under the endless white blanket of upstate snow and open your eyes in Jamaica if only you tune in to the drumbeat of your heart, of your feet tapping out the rhythm of ghetto break beats and the open arms of grandmothers raising babies of their babies who have gone missing into the bottom of a bottle, or slipped silently out into dark city streets and who may or may not ever return; when it says eat ice cream until the carton is empty and wear elastic waistbands; when it says take off all your clothes and stare in the mirror at the wrinkles in your skin, open both arms wide, embrace yourself, and smile.

To Consciously Seek to Cultivate Joy

•  in the morning when the clock beeps high and toneless in my tired ears, when my son chants: MommyMommyMommyMommy like a broken record skipping its way into my soul, like a scat sung by Ella Fitzgerald herself; in the dusky morning peanut butter sandwich making moments and the whistle of the tea kettle on the weekday dawn; in the Friday evening exhaustion of piecing together pizza pies, surrounded by dishes, piled high, too tired to wash and dry by the end of a long winter workweek, too easy to slip into the weekend like an old pair of sweats, fresh not from the laundry, but from the dirty pile on the floor; in the sunlight streaming through bay windows on weekends, sitting on couches, coffee mugs in hand, days dusty with possibilities unrealized, and waiting to open, like a flower bud finally blooming in the long awaited springtime of the universal soul.  I intend to wake every day, and try.  Like a poem that almost rhymes.  Like the perfect, elusive word to complete the piece, waiting to be spoken, right on the tip of my tongue.

End of a Decade: Part II

2006:  I turned 30 in March of this year, and managed to keep my cool remarkably well, considering that instead of the baby I had envisioned on my birthday three years ago, I had instead amassed a part-time, hourly job making bupkis, which was my hobby rather than area of professional expertise, a husband subbing because he couldn't find permanent employment, and no health insurance because we were just above the level affording federal assistance, but too damn poor to buy what the hell we wanted for ourselves (which would have been, frankly, any-fucking-thing, if it were available and even remotely affordable).  The husband had high hopes, and felt certain he would find employment as an art teacher this fall.  Alas, he did not.  I looked into subbing, and then finally found a part-time teaching job right at the end of December.  In retrospect, a year of trying and of reaching.

2007:  Truly the year from hell, most of the way through, but then with a lil' twist at the end there: 
January - Hubby has a mild nervous breakdown about us having no real jobs, health insurance, money, kids or any plan other than to keep on keepin' on.  I keep it together though.
March - I turn 31, and then have a mild nervous breakdown about having no kids, health insurance, real jobs, money, or any plan other than to keep on keepin' on.  He keeps it together though.  At least we take turns in this family.
June - Our dog's cancer returns and nothing can be done.  We begin to nurse her toward her death, watching carefully because we will have to decide when her suffering outweighs her ability to enjoy life.  This is a terrible thing to have to decide.
July - Our best friends' marriage spontaneously combusts.  We love them both.  It isn't pretty.
August - My grandmother is diagnosed with cancer.  But then my husband gets a teaching job!  But then we have to have our dog put down, given her final, fatal shot on our kitchen floor, where we cry and hold her in our arms.  Then we inherit a bunch of money from a distant relative of SuperSpouse and we both get new cars, our first solid, dependable cars of the decade.  My husband chooses a station wagon, and when I tell my grandmother she says: Well, that's gotta mean something!
September - We finally get health insurance.  (Hey 2003--just be glad you never knew it would take this long!)
October - My grandmother dies, at home, surrounded by her family.  And then I conceive a baby.  (Thanks Gran!)  (Sorry, just had to throw that in there.)  (I do have my suspicions.)
November - I discover I'm pregnant.  Then my grandfather, Gran's husband, dies seven weeks later, also at home surrounded by family.  (Hey Gramp!  I'm ready for another one now!  Can you get on that?)  (Ask Gran!  She knows how to meddle with things up there!)  We find our house, and put an offer in, which the seller accepts. 
December 31, 2007 - All year long, I had been planning to get wildly, gloriously drunk on New Year's Eve, and pull some Chuck Norris moves out of nowhere to get revenge on 2007, the most hated year of my life so far.  Instead, I wore my first pair of maternity pants out to dinner at a warm, bright Mexican joint with walls covered in wooden Latin American masks and colorfully painted Catholic crosses, and the best spicy fried calamari in the city, and sat glowing and grateful for the son-to-be swimming in my belly.

2008:  This year, we waited, at first.  Then we raced.  We waited to buy our house, through almost a year of paperwork snafus.  We waited for our due date, and then nine days past it for our son to be born.  Then BAM: Baby born. Six weeks later: SuperSpouse back to work.  Two weeks later: Closed on our house.  Two weeks after that: Moved.  A month later: Back to work for me.  Six weeks later: Drove twenty-two hours straight through to Louisiana with a five month old.  The following week: Drove back in two twelve hour days to complete the year by emotionally mind-melding with a delusional drunken elderly fellow.  Looking at it this way, can you blame me?  I guess the whole year was kind of crazy, although I don't remember it that way.  I think I was high on mother-hormones and just sort of sailed through the year.  I felt like I finally had everything I wanted and the fact that it was all a big ball of crazy with a side order of OMFG-we-have-a-lot-of-work-to-do-here was not going to prevent me from enjoying it.

2009:  I got a promotion; the SuperSpouse got a summer stint as a SAHD while I worked fullish-time (thirty hours a week IS like full time to me, you guys.  I went ahead and called myself lazy so you wouldn't have to.  I'm thoughtful like that.); we finished some major home repairs; I started a blog; got fat instead of pregnant; discovered that I now hate traveling (I will be publicly mourning this breakup with my dear old boyfriend, Road Tripp, in a post to come); and finally: enjoyed a week of staycation (I am now a major fan of the staycation) while pondering my New Year's Intentions (oh yeah, I changed them from resolutions to intentions courtesy of Michelle over at When I Grow Up ~ I'll tell you about it later) as the year came to an end.  I'm happy to be where I am as 2010 rolls in.  I also have a lot to do.  I'm ready for you 2010.  And I can't wait to see what the next decade brings!

End of a Decade: Part I

I was inspired by Jasie, over at by the seat of our pants, and her retrospective look at the last decade, and decided to do the same over here.  Here goes:

2000:  Moved from Arizona to my parent's house in Western New York to get married.  Ran out of money after the wedding and remained in WNY (not our original plan!).  I taught preschool for $7 an hour and SuperSpouse was unemployed and did the day-job gig at Labor Ready.  We ate a lot of Ramen.  In fact, I had to quit Ramen that year because I ate so much of it.  I've only recently started eating it again, so--hey!--I guess Ramen noodle soup has bookended this decade for me.  Our lifestyle was perhaps a bit humbling for college grads in a decent economy, but when Jurassic 5 released "What's Golden?" a few years later with the lyrics:  I'm labor ready, Rhode Scholar for the dollar/ Work for mines, pay me by the hour, we felt like we could authentically rock that song because of the experience.  And that has made it all worthwhile.

2001:  Plugged along in my hometown.  Our apartment was gorgeous.  The city we lived in was decidedly not.  Although I will always love my hometown like a little lost child you just can't save, it is depressing as hell to live there.  We applied to grad school, got accepted, and took off in December to spend a month visiting the in-laws in the ever-sunny Deep South before moving to the cold, snowy shores of Lake Ontario.

2002:  Rented our first ever house together with just the two of us (we had lived in houses before, but always with groups of students).  It was small, crooked, and up on top of a very steep hill.  We could hear the wind coming across the lake and then feel it shake our house as we lay in bed at night in multiple layers of clothing, using an illegal-according-to-our-lease space heater to keep warm because the upstairs of the house wasn't heated.  That winter brought us 13 feet of snow.  Why the @#$% wasn't the upstairs of that house heated!?!?

2003:  Hubby finished grad school and got a long term sub position as a middle school art teacher.  I started teaching yoga and pilates and decided I didn't want to teach school full-time when I graduated in December, so that I could ensure some space in my life for this newer calling.  Sure, lots of people work full time and then keep a side gig, but I didn't choose LazyBones as my nom de plume for no reason!  I likes me some time to sit and think.  And poverty has always been less of a dissuading factor than an absolutely normal part of life for me, so...part time, yes!  This is also the year I said to my husband: as soon as we get health insurance, let's have a baby!  He agreed.  Little did we know the giggle the Universe was having over that simple statement!

2004:  Moved 45 minutes down the road from the big, cold lake into the nearest big-ish city (or at least bigger than the tiny town on Lake Ontario that was, after just 2 years, both boring and freezing us into catatonia).  I got lucky with a part-time teaching gig that offered health insurance for the both of us; we found an apartment and began to settle in, ready to start "real life".  We even began a house search, and started discussing baby names.  Then I found out my job was being cut at the end of the year.  But wait!  They had another offer for me.  But it was full-time.  And I would be teaching a self-contained class of students with severe emotional and behavioral problems.  Now, I'm a planner.  And this wasn't in my plan.  But after much reflection, I decided to "let life happen to me".  I took the job.  And life happened to me alright.  Life happened to me like a mugging happens in a dark alley, like a two-by-four happens to the back of your skull, like one drink happens to an alcoholic.  The last half of 2004 found me curled up on a daybed alternately sobbing copiously and obsessively watching Sex and the City so I could forget my problems and immerse myself in fluff.  Meanwhile, the long-term sub gig ended for the Hubby and he was fighting his own no-job blues the best way he knew how: with big cans of cheap beer.  A baby was no longer an option because it would force me to keep this job indefinitely and I was pretty sure babies didn't like mothers who came home from work only to cry and watch SATC and fathers who stared sadly out the window drinking big cans of beer.  Wow, 2004 sucked, yo! 

2005:  2005 started out the same way, but took a turn for the better when I resigned in June and we took all our savings and blew it on a cross-country road trip.  We spent the summer living out of our car and visiting family and friends, and returned home in August ready to start over.  Hubs began subbing in a bazillion different districts so he seldom had to teach anything but art and I picked up as many fitness classes as I could to fill my days.  We were even poorer now, but infinitely happier.  I will say that that the experience convinced me to listen to my intuition from that point on.  I'm a planner for a reason.  It's how I work, and it works for me.  My experiment in "letting life happen to me" was not one I care to repeat.  And perhaps I needed to suffer a bit in order to build up the bravery to forge my own path into the future.  I have a policy never to regret the past if I'm happy in the present, and so I've woven that terrible year into a narrative of freedom:  I was chained to a life I hated with chains I chose for myself.  These chains were tight enough to convince me it was worth walking into the unknown, because the fear of what could be became better than what was.  Is that true?  Who knows.  In the end, whatever we tell ourselves becomes the truth, and that's the story I've chosen to tell.  It makes that terrible year make a kind of sense, and makes it worthwhile in the end.  And in the end, what do we have besides our stories?

It's no news to me that I am overly verbose, but in the interest of keeping my audience awake (are you still out there?  Anyone?  Bueller?  Anyone?), I will end this post here and finish the next 5 years tomorrow.  Have a wonderful New Year's Eve everyone.  Goodbye 2009.  Welcome 2010!

Last Year's Totally Unrealistic and Overzealous Resolutions: Report Card

So my New Year's Resolutions last year were a bit over the top.  But I did rework them over the course of the year to make them more realistic.  Let's see how I did:

Originally:  Start both a business AND a blog!  Maybe a few blogs: mommyblog, business blog, teaching blog, the possibilities are endless!  Post every day!  Sign up an entire roster of clients for my business!  Work with them daily, incorporating my son seamlessly into my business model!  Keep my day job and continue mothering, wife-ing and house-wife-ing (I've got an equal househusband, so this should be cake, right?)!

Later scaled down to:  Start either a small business (one client would suffice) OR a blog (as long as there's a post before 2010, it counts).

And:  Check!  Not the right economic climate for starting a business, and not the right time for me to do it, personally.  Finally got around to the blog in November.  And I have to say, it was definitely the New Year's Resolution that forced me to do it.  I only had two months left and I knew my business was a bust before it began, so I'd better get to writing!

 Originally:  Not only will I get back to my pre-pregnancy weight, I will get below it, and be in the best shape of my life, incorporating cardio, dance, weight-training AND mind-body into my routine.  Also, drop a bunch of the exercise classes I'm teaching so I have more time with my family.  Soooo, maybe breastfeeding will just melt that weight away!  Or I'll pick up a bunch of new fitness hobbies, like skiing and ice skating.  Maybe I'll do fitness DVDs?  One way or another, I'll look and feel better than ever before!  Notice the appealing vague fuzziness and inherent contradiction of this resolution.  Yeah.  Foreshadowing, anyone?

Later Scaled Down To:  Never really got scaled down, or squared with reality.  I dropped a bunch of my exercise classes, and then did nothing in their place.  My son decided he hated his jogging stroller and would prefer to scream without ceasing than to enjoy a nice walk in the neighborhood.  I worked longer hours all summer and then came home to relieve my poor husband from all day baby duty.  Then fall came, the weather cooled and I decided to try to get pregnant again, so I was snuggling in at home for delicious romantic dinners with the hubby and whoever said coitus burns a lot of calories was probably behind that myth about breastfeeding melting the baby weight away as well.  That lying bastard!   

So:  Fail!  And even worse:  In the last few months instead of getting pregnant I've eaten my way back up to the same weight I was when I was released from the hospital.  Right after giving birth.  Almost eighteen months ago.  Ouch.  Epic Fail.  I'll be, um, tweaking this goal for this year.

Originally:  Send a beautiful, personally created photo album to every member of both sides of our extended families each and every month this year, accompanied by a personally crafted letter. 

Later scaled down to:  Send some pictures to our parents and grandparents every month or so.

And still:  Mostly Fail.  I think I did this twice.  This is last year's overzealous resolution that morphed into this year's monthly scrapbook for every extended family member, depicting the various stages of my son's growth complete with coordinating background layouts and adorable labeling.  I do have a few ideas about how to scale this down to something feasible.   Maybe I'll aim for seasonal instead of monthly (yeah, that still won't happen).  Or get a family Facebook page or something (now I've got my thinking cap on!).  But seriously, wouldn't those monthly albums/scrapbooks be so cute?  I do love me some New Year's Resolutions that envision a whole new life revolving around a skill-set I do not even possess, and a commitment level I have never previously demonstrated.  It's the imagination that keeps us young, people!

And Speaking of the Imagination...

...Bonus Totally Unrealistic and Overzealous Resolution for This Year:  I will write a Cookbook.  Yes, it's true I don't cook anything but pizza, and I've only been cooking pizza for the past few weeks of my life, but I have a fabulous idea for a cookbook anyway.  It will incorporate local, organic, seasonal foods, and my husband and sisters will test-cook everything before publication (on me of course!).  I'm seeing bright, colorful photographs by the SuperSpouse and a sales rack at our Farmer's Market.  Needless to say, I'll be raking in the dough.  It's a very popular Cookbook, or will be as soon as it hits the streets.  Yes, I originally said I'd write it in a week, but I'm already backpedaling (It's not even January 1st yet.).  By this time next year I'll have decided that as long as I've planned one recipe for my unwritten Cookbook we'll call it good.

Offroading and Other Possible Topics

Because I am a list maker, and because I am too scatterbrained to focus on a single post this evening:

• Traveling:  Hated It!  (Disclaimer:  Family:  Lovin' them!  Just hate traveling!)    
• Got Fat:  Whoops! 
  
• Owning Things/Anxiety/New Year's Purge/Aarrgghh!/Aaaahhhh!
• Back Home: Snowed in!  Lovin' it!  Snow, You Beautiful Devil, You!
  
• Resolutions: Last Year's Delusional Drunken Elderly Fellow versus This Year's Overly Earnest Spiritual Seeker
• Being In The Body:  Yoga as Spiritual Exercise
• Real Gifts Attempt #1:  Hardware Store
• Real Gifts Attempt #2:  Cable?
• Totally Unrealistic and Overzealous Resolutions:  Scrapbookin' for everyone important in my entire life, monthly.  Doesn't it sound like such a good plan though?  I am always so single-minded and disciplined in my Unrealistic and Overzealous Resolutions.  I like to have at least one each year.  Two this year:  Writing a Recipe Book This Week.  If you know me, you know this is hilarious.  But I am SO excited about my Recipe Book, you guys!  It's going to be awesome.
  

Oh, and about our getting-on-the-road-plan from my last post?  I am pleased to announce that we got on the road at 2:15, making us a scant 15 minutes late for the plan, which I am more than pleased with.  I keep my standards low;  I'm happy more often.  It's win-win.  Happy New Year Everyone!  I'll try to return to the list above for elaboration when my brain has settled back in for a long winter's nap.  Any requests?

Things I Have Been Doing Instead of Blogging

• Digging through 17 months worth of disorganized digital photographs to compile the cutest possible collection of chronologically organized photographs ever to fill a photo album for all sets of Great Grandparents.  Luckily, they live in four different states and will never need to know they received identical gifts.  I'm applying the Henry Ford assembly line approach to Christmas gifting.  Great Grandparents get the basic photo album model, perfect size for pocketbook storage and easy retrieval.  Grandparents will receive the luxury model photo album with an extended cab of extra pages and premium upholstery with full leather trim by way of basic scrap-booking layouts and catchy photo captions. 
  
• Realizing that I have never scrap-booked in my life, and perhaps the time to learn isn't the week of Christmas itself, practicing on the only actual gifts I have planned for my parents and in-laws.  Shrugging about that unfortunate reality.  Continuing to allow time to pass with no new plan.  Imagining how cute my imaginary first scrap-books will be.  Remembering what a mediocre craftsman I really am.  Telling myself to shush, so I can go back to imagining my adorable scrap-books.  Making no moves whatsoever to actually create said scrap-books.  Staring out the window, drinking tea, waiting for scrumptious scrapbooks to create themselves.  Imagining incredulous and grateful expressions of love pouring forth from parents and in-laws when they behold the perfect specimens that are my first and only scrap-books ever.  Blocking all thoughts of actual effort involved in scrap-book creation in favor of wild fantasies about fabulous finished products.  Pouring a new cup of tea.  All this thinking is hard!  Mama needs caffeine!
  
• Refusing to stress about my total lack of preparation for Christmas.  After all, if I got Baby Jesus and Santa on a conference call (which I totally COULD if they saw how perfect my pretend scrap-books are!), I feel certain they would both support a stress free holiday season.  Well, Jesus would anyway.  He was a hippie, and hippies are chill.  On the other hand, Santa's probably stressed as a motherfucker right about now!  But I'm not Santa (well, okay, technically I AM Santa now, but I haven't mentioned Santa yet to my son, so I can keep my big, red suit in the closet for another year.  And eat even more snacks so it will fit better next year!  Yay!  Pass the cookies!), which seems to me another reason to celebrate the season in the de-stressed manner befitting the dignity of a first time scrap-booker suffering from a seasonally induced cookie coma.
• Enjoying a few beers with my sis and her boyfriend who are passing through on their way from Boston to my mom's house.  In our typical family fashion of unpreparedness and last-minute-itis, she called to let me know they were coming.....an hour before they got on the road.  In our typical family fashion of unpreparedness and last-minute-itis, I decided that cleaning the house for guests is an unnecessary contrivance and took a nap while they drove here.  In typical Irish fashion, the four of us split a twelver and ate a giant shepard's pie when they arrived, and no one gave a hoot about the fact that we had to eat sitting on the living room couches because the dining room table is currently acting as repository for any and all mail received in the past however many months, plus some bowls of fruit.  And three small pumpkins from Halloween.  Sorting through all that is on my to do list.  I shall get to it when I get to it, y'all.  These are the holidays and shall be enjoyed with a nice india pale ale and some lentil shepard's pie.  
• Digging?  Realizing?  Refusing?  Enjoying?  It must be the end of one year and the beginning of another; calendar years love to go out in a burst of togetherness, intensity and ritual, like the burning of a pyre, and new baby years love to waltz in on the wreckage and beauty of it all and sweep clean the slate for the start of another cycle.  Today was the solstice, the shortest day of the year.  It's all brighter from here on out, y'all.  Happy Winter.  Happy Holidays. 
  

Schedules, Real and Imagined

My Current, Actual Daily Schedule:

6:30-8:30:  The Morning Routine:  I get ready for work; Sunny either sleeps (Thank You God!) or relentlessly dogs me (Why Me Lord?) while I weave through the house dodging his grip & packing our things.  Hubs leaves at 6:45, so we pass like ships in the way-too-early-morning.  This is the time when we tiredly tell each other tidbits that later we insist:  I'm pretty sure you never mentioned that to me.  Well I don't remember it at all.  Then I drop Sunny at sitter's & head to work.
8:30-12:30: Work.
12:30-4: Pick up Sunny, head home and it's naptime for the kiddo!  Lunch, coffee, blog/read, clean house/do the neverending supply of laundry that we manage to accumulate for me.
4: Hubs home; we chill a bit together & chat, joined by the little one whenever he wakes up.
5:  I feed Sunny dinner & do bath/jammies while Hubs makes our dinner.
6: Sunny plays while we eat & then get ready for the next day.
7/8, depending:  Sunny goes down sometime in here depending on his nap that day.
8-whenever:  Hubs and I spend quality time catching up with each other & discussing important current events (by which I mean watching "The Office" on DVD).
or
5:40-7:20:  I go teach yoga while hubs does bath duty; we eat leftovers (which I just heard referred to as lefties & I totally need to adopt that) when I get home, then move directly to quality time with Jim, Pam & the 'Nard-dog.

My Ideal, Imagined Daily Schedule:

6-9: Wake up, brush teeth, throw on workout gear & teleport immediately to a yoga studio (or perhaps it's next door & I just walk), ready to begin my session by 6:15.  Yes, I want the first three hours of the day for this.  I may not do yoga the whole time.  I might toss in a little Pilates or strength training.  Heck, I could learn some tai chi & ballet too.  So I'll need three hours & at least two instructors.  Plus that studio next door or a teleporter.  Plus, in ideal-land, I actually get up at 6 without pressing snooze or hating the world with a deep, abiding passion, which would be an unfortunate attitude to bring to morning yoga practice.
9-1:  This is ideal-land, so I go to work here, same job, but I get to bring my son.  I work with parents, infants & toddlers, so it's not so far-fetched, but I would need someone to watch him while I do my planning & officework. 
1-4:  The whole nap, lunch, coffee, blog/read setup is pretty sweet, so I'll keep that, but in ideal-land someone else cleans my house.  And they do a far better job than I, introducing such concepts as regular dusting & steam cleaning...um...stuff...that you steam clean.  Also, in ideal-land the Hubs gets home at 1pm too & has a few hours to work on his art.
4-5/6, depending:  We do something outdoors--weather permitting--or something fun that we can't currently afford, as a family.  In ideal-land we can easily afford all of the great ideas we come up with!  Plus we come up with many, many great ideas.  During this time someone else makes us dinner.  Hubs likes to cook, but if someone else did it every day & he could save it for special occasions, I don't think he would complain.
6:  Dinner as a fam, followed by bathtime for the tyke, which I like to do, but again: perhaps not every day.  In ideal-land random household help abounds!
7:  Bedtime for the little one; but he can stay up til 8 if he's really cute.
7/8-whenever:  Par-tay! (by which I mean watching "The Office" on DVD)

Notes From Saturday

5-8:30 am: Living room, snuggling, Sun.

8:30-10: Hubby wakes up, coffee, looking out dining room windows at rain.

10-10:30: Playing outside in rain--magic of children is childhood reborn.

10:30-12:30: Farmer's Market in the rain, I carried the heavy baby frame backpack, biggest pumpkin of them all!=us :D, asian pear=half apple, half pear, yum.

12:30-2:30: Home from market, Hubby to help friend move piano, Sun down for a nap, Me lunch, coffee, read, tidy.

2:30-3:30: Sun up just as I started to get into cleaning. I stop, we chill, we sing, I say: want to hear these songs on CD? Go find CD from Grandma, never listened to, nursery rhymes. Turns out to rock! I give him random nursery rhyme board book and cup of goldfish crackers in hallway by CD player. He sits, mesmerized, for 45 minutes. I clean cheerfully around him, whole house clean!

4:30-6: Hubby home, snack, discuss, go for walk in neighborhood, hard hills for over an hour, we have lived just over a year here in our hilly, tree-lined, upstate NY neighborhood. I like it.

6-8: Hubby makes pizza, Sun wanders and plays between us, I rearrange furniture to put a couch in our dining room. I have a feeling I will love this couch in our dining room. Hubby to buy wine, I put Sun down to bed.

8-10: Glass of syrah, slice of cheese and mushroom, side of conversation with an extra dose of daydreams, please, served sitting on the couch in the dining room.



The couch in the dining room is the resting place between who we are and who we want to be. When I sit on the couch in the dining room, I can see my future unfold in the hallway mirror while "It's Raining, It's Pouring, the Old Man is Snoring" sings from the speakers on either side. I love that song. But it's really just singing from one speaker. The other one is broken. This is who I am. It's also who I want to be. Saturday is a resting place between who we are and who we want to be. Saturdays we are who we want to be, if only because we let ourselves forget about both for a little while.