A Smeddling Kiss

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Crapitty Crap Crap (151/365)
2007-11-27 14:15:00
Well, shoot. I never posted yesterday, so I blew NaBloPoMo with only 4 days to go. Ah, fuck it. I fell asleep on the floor of Pepper's room after reading to her and didn't wake up until almost midnight, when I stumbled downstairs into my own bed. I blame 12 days of illness.Wah.
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It Was A Very Loooooooong Long Weekend (150/365)
2007-11-25 23:29:00
I'm looking forward to getting back to our regular routine tomorrow. This was a very long vacation, one that felt far longer than 5 days, despite my spending so much of it asleep. I'm really hoping Peanut is feeling well enough for school, because I've got things to do, man! (I guess those steroids are working pretty well, eh?) He's developed either a second cold or a very nasty Stage 2 of the original one he came home with a week and a half ago, but he's acting like he feels better. Sounds like an emphysemic old man, looks crusty around the nasal area, but seems to otherwise be a happy camper.Pepper had a playdate today, and when I dropped her off, her friend's mom was addressing Christmas cards. I was impressed, and since had I promised myself that this year, I would get them out on time and do it on-line, I came home and started entering addresses into my Shutterfly account. My sisters started doing this a few years ago, and rave about the fact that all they have to do now ...
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Time To Myself (149/365)
2007-11-24 19:56:00
I'm having a nice afternoon, alone at home. Maybe because I've been sick all week, I don't feel any pressure to get something done in this precious free time. Instead, I've just sat with my laptop and caught up on the lives of several of my favorite bloggers. I've still got a few more to go, people whose blogs I used to read religiously but now find myself checking out only sporadically. I blame Bloglines, which seemed like a great idea at first. Now, however, I find that my little bit of OCD has reared up and will not allow me to stop reading my blogs alphabetically. And I never have time to make it all the way down the list alphabetically. By the time I get to the "H" blogs, someone is demanding my attention, or the phone rings, or I've got to go somewhere. That's a ridiculous excuse, isn't it? For not staying caught up on blogs that I love, blogs written by interesting people?Anyway, for once, I managed to catch up on a chunk of blogs. It's been nice, even if I forgot to...
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Etsy-riffic! (148/365)
2007-11-24 02:21:00
Finally! I finally had the time and energy to gather all my scarves, a sunny day last week to take photos, and time to re-charge the camera's battery which died half-way through the photo session. Then it took a little time to track down the data card which went missing from the camera while the battery was charging, because it turned out Dr. V. had filched it because he somehow managed to lose yet another one from his phone. Then I found a few minutes here to upload the pictures, a few minutes there to re-size and tweak the pictures, and a chunk o' time to upload the re-tooled pix to Etsy , measure the damn scarves, think of descriptions and calculate prices and tags and keywords and all the other random stuff I've been putting off for months.See over there in my sidebar? Where the pictures of the bracelets are? Where it says "check for my Etsy shop, coming really soon?" Obviously, I'm an amazingly talented procrastinator, but I finally loaded some things up into the shop. Scarv...

History Repeats (147/365)
2007-11-23 02:21:00
Last year, we stayed home from the family Thanksgiving celebration because we were sick. This year, Dr. V. took the kids up to Boston, but I stayed home once again. He very kindly prescribed me some steroids before he left, so hopefully the whole weekend won't be a waste. In fact, if they work like previous doses, I'll probably have painted the house by the end of the weekend. You'd think I would be a little mopey, spending the day by myself, but in fact it was great. I had mistakenly told the kids we could have a "sleep-over" in the family room last night, and as a result, none of us slept particularly well. Peanut is one of the most restless sleepers I've had the misfortune to share a bed with, and even on the floor in his sleeping bag, he managed to keep me away much of the night. Who manages to fall out of their sleeping bag? I don't know how he did it, I just know that I heard a thud and woke up to find the kid 4 feet away from his makeshift bed, butt up in the air, mutter...
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Etsy Gold: "Sexy Turkey Hat" (146/365)
2007-11-22 04:03:00
Y'all know I love me some twisted knitwear!I'd like to know what exactly makes it sexy? The hints of lace peeking out from the back? Or the rack on display above, cleverly distracting from the hat?
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Still Sick, Still Thankful (145/365)
2007-11-20 21:19:00
I've been photo/recipe posting for the last few days because I've been very sick. I caught yet another pre-school cold from Peanut last week, but mine turned into a respiratory infection as well. Previous posts about my reactive airways abound - all you have to do is type in "cough" in the search box down there - but I can't imagine that would interest anyone but me. But hey! Go nuts, if that's what floats your boat. I can actually be kind of amusing when I'm loaded up on narcotic cough syrup.Anyway - back to me. Sick , cranky, and out of it. I've done my usual routine - inhaler, prescription cough syrup - but I think I may squeak by without the steroids this time. In a way, that is a bummer, because I always get so much done whenever I go on them. But I'm glad to be feeling the teeniest bit better after sleeping for 6 hours today. We are going to my in-laws' house for Thanksgiving, so the hardest part of the day will simply be driving up there through all the traffic. Dr. V....

Thankful (144/365)
2007-11-20 01:53:00
Even when they are driving me batshit crazy, I'm so thankful for these two.I'm still sick and miserable, so a photo post will have to do for today. I'm loaded up on the prescription cough syrup, using my inhaler every 4 hours, and my ribs are killing me. Fun!

Old Family Recipes (143/365)
2007-11-19 01:34:00
(Originally posted at New England Mamas)________________________Today was definitely a day to stay home in pjs and bake. My cold has morphed into an upper respiratory irritation, something that happens to me with regularity. The rest of the family is mending, but I'm using my inhaler and taking the heavy-duty codeine cough syrup and keeping everyone awake with my coughing at night. Bleah.I've been baking more now that I have the big ole' stand mixer, and today the kids and I decided to pull out the family cookbook and pick a recipe. A while back, my cousin put together a cookbook of family recipes, and I love the thing. It's more than a cookbook, it's a time capsule and family biography all in one. There are fussy culinary-school recipes from my cousin's ex-husband, who ended up running off with one of his cooking students and abandoning his wife and son. All his recipes call for some obscure ingredient or piece of equipment and sound kind of snotty. Last I heard, the girlfrie...
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Better (142/365)
2007-11-17 15:30:00
Things are getting better inside my head. This week has taught me a lot about keeping my shit together, even when I'm so riddled with anxiety that I'm practically vibrating. I have been able to get off the phone with a few tears leaking out of my eyes, just weighed down with sorrow, take a minute to catch my breath, and then walk into a room filled with people and act normally. This is pretty huge, since in the past, I've dealt with trauma by using my ABCs (alcohol, becoming a hermit, and crying a lot) but have never been able to carry off the "Everything is fine, really!" mask.I've always been the Drama Queen type rather than the Suffer In Silence Martyr type, but I really found myself taking time to think about the situation and give myself a little distance before responding emotionally. When I was younger, I would have been yakking nonstop to every friend and family member I had who was uninvolved in the drama, pouring my heart out and receiving the balm of sympathy in turn...

One Of The Reasons I Love Fall (141/365)
2007-11-17 05:02:00
I go crazy on the scarf knitting! I've knit 2 more this week, and this one is my favorite:
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Why Do I Always Forget This One? (140/365)
2007-11-15 15:35:00
I'm feeling miserable today, because on top of the emotional crap weighing me down, I woke up with Peanut's scratchy throat and gunk-filled head. Plus I spent last night watching too many old "CSI" episodes and drinking more than I should have. I'd really love to get some telemarketing calls right about now because - really - what's more fun than a depressed, emotionally fragile middle aged woman with a hangover AND a cold? Since I'm feeling so craptacular, of course it is a half-day for Pepper, which means no school at all for Peanut, which means no nap to improve my mood. I used to have a lot more bad days when the kids were younger - those mid-winter afternoons when the kids had been sick for days and I was sleep-deprived beyond reason - and I always forget one of the best tricks to getting through one of these days. I probably forget it because it is almost counter intuitive. After all, when you just want to curl up into a ball on the couch and sleep, the last thing you sho...

I'm So Screwed... (139/365)
2007-11-14 23:51:00
I think I just over committed myself.I went to a school meeting about a program Pepper was asked to participate in, and there were all these other moms there who have full time jobs and are studying for their degrees and caring for their demented elderly relatives and I told myself not to be such a wussy about over committing and I volunteered to be the "Team Manager."This is a big step for me, since I have purposefully held back getting heavily involved in any of the kid-type activities up until now. I learned through hard experience that life with Peanut was too erratic to commit to such things. There was one skating episode that nearly did me in, chasing him under the bleachers and putting him in time-out for repeatedly trying to escape out the door into the busy parking lot and trying not to scream my lungs out and not spending a minute watching Pepper perform for me.I've been feeling like my life is more under control the last few months, which I'm sure is what led me to this...
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Score! (138/365)
2007-11-13 16:19:00
Yesterday wasn't a great day. Today isn't so hot, either, but something goofy happened while I was out doing errands that made me smile. I was driving down the road, pondering and such, and although most of my thoughts were occupied with the Scandalous Events I mentioned, I had the usual other little trains of thought bouncing around in my brain. A back-up chorus, if you will, singing the "shoo-bops" of grocery lists and things to do behind the melody.(In my head, I just was about to write "melody of PAIN," but then I made a "da da DUM!" noise, rolled my eyes at myself, and started giggling. No wonder people give me a wide berth in the coffee shop.)ANYWAY - I was driving down the road, pondering. The timing of what happened was exquisite. As I was wondering what on earth I could possibly post about, what on earth I'd have the mental energy to say, this van drove past me and pulled into my lane:Why, yes! That does indeed say "erections," although it is hard to make out. Thanks f...
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A Lame Post About Something Lame (137/365)
2007-11-12 20:05:00
I'm having a really bad day, and I can't post about it. It's too personal, and while I blog anonymously to preserve some global level of privacy, anyone who really tried could find me. I've been okay with that, except every now and then I really, really need to vent about something deeply personal, and I just can't. It would be an invasion of other people's privacy, people I love, and so I'm stuck hashing it all out inside my head.So here I sit, with my juicy situation. Hearts have cracked, there are lascivious details, substance abuse is involved, and yet... nope, sorry - I got nothin' for y'all today.
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A Lame Post About Something Cool (136/365)
2007-11-12 05:53:00
It is still blowing our mind that we know someone up in space RIGHT NOW. We've been space obsessed for the last 3 weeks around here. The kids and I have spent a ton of time on the NASA website this month, just letting the kids dictate where to click and just talking about astronauts and space and all sorts of space-related things. Like, you know, aliens and gravity and (Peanut's particular obsession) vampire aliens. (The timing of the mission coinciding with Halloween has resulted in a LOT of spooky alien talk, but hopefully we are moving past that particular obsession.)Much of the technical science is way too complicated for them, but the fact that we know the guy living on the frick frackin' space station is enough to keep the kids interested. I look at video and photos of the various highlights of the mission and can't really find the words to explain how weird it is to see a familiar face floating around without gravity. Weird, but so flippin' cool.Hey - lookie! My f...
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Quiet Time (135/65)
2007-11-11 05:51:00
Last weekend, we had visitors. We had a tropical storm, power outage, and hurricane-force gusts of wind outside our house. And then we had a party. Is is any wonder that I didn't feel like doing anything today?I was thinking this would be the perfect afternoon to break out the birthday present and experiment with some holiday baking, but somehow it never happened. The laundry never got folded, the dishes are all in the sink, and we spent the day goofing off.May I present, for your mild amusement, the Two-Headed Monster?
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Oh. My. GAWD! OK, WHATEVER! (134/365)
2007-11-09 20:22:00
Just great. Apparently, I'm 17 again. Poof! 25 years, gone, thanks to a simple message. My heart is racing, just like it did when I would walk down the hall in high school and see J.'s head above the crowd.A little back-tracking: I signed up on Facebook a couple weeks ago. A surprising number of my friends and acquaintances were on there, and it's been a handy little way of keeping in touch with people when I don't feel pulled together enough to sit down and write an e-mail. I logged on today to find a cheery little note from my high school/college boyfriend, the one who broke my heart and stomped it into tiny little pieces and shattered my self-esteem and ground those little pieces up as well. Uhm, yeah. No, no, not bitter... right?I haven't had a lot of serious relationships. Two, in fact - this man and my husband. There were other guys I dated in between, but it was pretty much 2 years with J., then a year or so, and then I met Dr. V., and even though he and I broke up a cou...

It's A Cape Thing... (133/365)
2007-11-09 01:28:00
When we first moved to Cape Cod, I marvelled at how insular people here seemed. I'd hear someone talking about how someplace was "over the bridge," and I'd think, "Geez! The bridge is only 20 minutes away! It's not like you're trekking to Antartica, people!" A similar thing would happen when you would chat with people about events and places around Cape Cod. I'd say, "Do you know a good (insert ethnic food choice) restaurant?" and the answer would always include the words "way" and/or "over." "Chinese? There's a good place in Hyannis, if you want to go all theway into town.""There's live music, but you have to go way over to Dennis.""I hear that place in Harwich good, but with traffic it'll take youover 30 minutes to get there."Since we had always lived in cities, a 20 or 30 minute drive somewhere didn't seem especially daunting, and I used to wonder what all the fuss was about. Fast forward 6 years or so, and I've become one of them. We moved to our new house a fe...
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Birthday Boy (132/365)
2007-11-08 03:34:00
THEN ANDNOW
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Hot Fuzz (80/365)
2007-05-08 17:39:00
We went to the movies last Friday night, braving the crowds of teenagers. This movie is frick frackin' hysterical, and you NEED to go see it immediately. But don't blame me if you then feel the urge to rent "Bad Boys 2." I'm not taking responsibility for that, no way.Other things I'm recommending today include Tea Tree Oil for toenail fungus. I decided that I needed my liver for more important things than processing medication to rid my big toenails of a mild fungal infection, so I started using the tea tree oil in February, and it's working great. Now I could have posted before and after pictures, but impressive as they are I decided I'd rather keep y'all coming around. Instead, when you are sitting down to lunch today, know that I have spared your appetite. You're welcome!I'm spending today doing boring errands like getting the car serviced, undergoing a haircut & skunk stripe removal, and grocery shopping. Woo hoo! Par-tay in the 'burbs! The best thing that ha...
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A Birthday Shout-Out (79/365)
2007-05-04 15:12:00
I'd like to give a big birthday shout-out to the soon-to-be-ancient-like-me Mr. Big Dubya.For this virtual party that the fabulous and talented Kara has put together, I'd like to offer up a virtual present for the old man. Happy Birth day , fellow book-clubber! Now that you are ancient and falling apart, put your feet up in this beauty: As long as I'm going hog-wild with the virtual gift-giving, I'll also throw in a couple pints of Guinness, since it's got TWO handy-dandy cupholders. Hope you have a great birthday weekend!
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Utter Randomness - Now With Pictures! (78/365)
2007-05-03 15:22:00
LISTENING: Amy Winehouse. All you fine peoples of the innernets were not wrong. First entry on the obsessive-replay list for summer.READING:Not only did it win the Swedish Crime Academy Award for Best Crime Novel, but the cover photo was apparently shot in my backyard!CLEANING:The laundry situation has undergone a startling transformation, and I owe it all to Target. I saw these bins and had an epiphany right then and there. (Don't worry, no one saw me.) Our existing laundry set-up was a triple sorter in the corner. There wasn't anywhere to fold clothes and organize them before putting them away. Usually they would get stuffed into a laundry basket and brought down to the master bedroom to be sorted on the king-sized bed, but basically we had piles of clean and dirty laundry scattered around the house, 24/7. Anyway, back to my epiphany. Like a lighting bolt shot down into the "Storage and Organization" aisle, it came to me that I needed THESE bins - large bins that would st...
More About: Pictures , Randomness , Ness

Ready For Anything (77/365)
2007-05-02 04:07:00
Friday was kind of rainy around here, and Peanut was pretty darn disappointed that he couldn't go outside and ride his bike. 4 year old kids are not known for their firm grasp on reality, so he spent a good portion of the afternoon buckling his bike helmet on and cheerfully chattering that he was Ready ! To go outside! I'd shoot him down and explain yet again that it was too wet and windy and try to distract him, and he'd have a little meltdown, and then we'd move on.He'd take off the bike helmet for 10 minutes and wander around doing other things, but pretty soon he'd see the bike helmet laying wherever he'd left it, put it back on and the whole cycle would repeat. After a while, it finally - finally- sunk in that I wasn't going to change my mind about letting him go out into the rain, and he had a little bigger meltdown.An hour or so later, after I'd tucked the bike helmet into a closet and figured he'd accepted his non-bicycling-in-the-rain fate, I heard an excited cry f...
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Return of "The Wind In The Willows" (76/365)
2007-05-01 04:23:00
By return, I mean that when I picked up Pepper's backpack one morning soon after I posted this, it was remarkably heavy. She informed me that it was library day and she had to return her library book. Mind you, we routinely keep library books for more than a week if they aren't finished, but she was adamant. I guess my little plan wasn't meant to work out, since it turns out my mellifluous voice was actually "boring her to sleep."Huh. So much for that second-half-of-life career in radio, eh?We are reading "The Secret Garden" now. We've owned the book for a while, but each time I would start to read it, Pepper would decide it was too sad. We never made it past everyone dying and abandoning Mary in India and her arrival on the bleak moors in England where she is a grim little unwanted child. I highly recommend reading this book while the exact same springtime blossoming is happening outside. Each night we read a little more and each day Pepper has some more questions about nature....
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Friday Already? (75/365)
2007-04-27 13:31:00
Holy frijole! This week went by way too fast. I'm freaking out because Pepper informed me that there are only 33 days of school left, and I have nothing planned for either child this summer. We'll probably send Pepper to a few week-long local summer day camps, but there aren't very many options for a developmentally-delayed 4 year old. Can I confess that the idea of a summer spent home alone with my son fills me with dread? What a BAD mommy!Our summer is shaping up to be wickedly busy. Dr. V. turns 40 in early June, and since he is not a throw-me-a-party kind of guy, he will be celebrating the first weekend in June at a Red Sox/Yankees game with 5 of his buddies. 6 tickets to this game cost almost as much as we spent on my birthday dinner at a fancy restaurant for 30 people. Frankly? I think it is retarded to spend that much money on bleacher seats, but since that is what he wants, that is what he is getting.Two weeks after that, we are headed out west without the kids for a wedd...
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Girls & Boys (74/365)
2007-04-26 15:53:00
Oh my goodness gracious, I have a BOY.I always wanted to have a daughter first. I'm the eldest daughter of an eldest daughter, and I guess I figured that while I didn't know anything about being a mom, at least I knew what it was like to be an eldest daughter. Or something - but whatever, I wanted a girl first.Remember "Free To Be You and Me?" As people we knew had their boys and girls, it was fascinating to watch how they treated their children. I watched and learned, and every now and then I'd see a little china doll girl being chastised for getting dirty and I'd think smugly to myself that I would do my best NOT to direct MY future children into traditional gender roles.Eventually, I got my girl, and she is a joy to me each day. Although I dressed her in overalls and bought her every Thomas train her little heart desired, she is a Capital-G-Girl. Not a particularly "girly" one, more of a spazzy tomboy whose hair is always wild, but oh, the drama! The tears! The eye-rolling an...
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I Was All Blogged Out (73/365)
2007-04-23 18:11:00
You may have noticed I took a little break from blogging. It seems to me that quite a few bloggers have been feeling the same Spring Slump I've been struggling with these past few weeks. I mentioned already that I was tweaking my anti-depressants, and I definitely fell into a lull there while they took effect. Plus, all the dental work was just a suck-fest. It hurt, I couldn't chew very well, and those two things reminded me that I'm getting older and made me feel gee-rumpy.Now I'm feeling much more normal. The biggest change I notice when the medication kicks in is how easy it is for me to focus and get things done. The best way I can describe it is that pre-medication, I might look at the clock and think, "15 minutes until I have to leave for the bus stop. Even though I know I have a lot of phone calls to make and some bills to pay, it's too exhausting to even make a mental list of what I have to do...and hey - is that the new USWeekly?" Now, I think, "15 minutes, huh? Let's...
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Random Comment (72/365)
2007-04-23 01:55:00
Pepper's commentary on a television show:"They just passed by the Eiffel Tower, so they must be in Paris...or Vegas!"I'm. So. Proud.
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School Vacation Is Killing Me (71/365)
2007-04-19 15:43:00
Hello out there! I'm back, revved up and ready to blog. Except I'm dead, because all this quality time with my darling children has killed me.First, we had the nor'easter that blew through here over the weekend. THAT was fun. The trees out back really enjoyed it, too:The dry well we had installed last fall paid for itself during this storm, and the basement stayed bone-dry. We loaded up on food, batteries, and water, so we rode out the storm like previous generations of New Englanders: hunkered down in the living room, wrapped in afghans, discussing the Red Sox, eating Tostitos, and watching "How It's Made" on cable.After the worst of the storm blew through, we still had a couple days of nasty rain. We've had a playdate here at the house every day this week, and another friend and her daughter are showing up for a sleepover tomorrow night, so I may try to get the children out into the paltry sun this morning. We will veg out on Sunday and the children will be back to a normal s...
More About: Vacation , School , Kill , Killing