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I sorted and labeled about 500 digital pictures last night, as Corey sat next to me on the couch and schizophrenically flipped between "Grendel" on Sci-Fi and "Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior" on Disney. (Wendy Wu got my vote. I know it's terribly uncool for me to say that, but Disney movies -- even the silly ones made for the tween set -- always make me smile. They are corny but they know they are corny. They celebrate their wacky sappiness. And unlike movies on Sci-Fi, they don't give me nightmares.)
I hadn't gone through my pictures since early March. I don't take many pictures in the spring, so I knew I could put it off for a while and not get buried.
But summer is upon us, and I know the camera will be snapping pictures almost daily for the next few months -- "Oh look! It's the sun! Quick, kids, go stand next to the lake so I can remember this moment!" -- so I figured I'd better wade through the swaths of snapshots already in My Pictures folder before the deluge overtakes me.
As usual, looking through pictures from the last few months made me nostalgic and a little weepy.
I mean, the kids are growing so fast. It's alarming, really. It's true what the sage said: "The days are long, but the years are short." I see that so clearly when I look back at pictures, even pictures that were taken fairly recently, in the grand scheme of time.
But overall, I was struck by the simple joy that is our life right now. The kids are young and happy and they want to be next to us all the time (!!) and hold our hands. We laugh constantly, like it's our family's theme song, and we tease and make jokes and enjoy each other.
Life is good. It's not perfect, it's not necessarily easy. But it's good. It's achingly beautiful, every minute.
I can't drink deeply enough of this sweetness. My heart overflows with gratitude.
------ 1 ------
A good friend of mine wrote on my Facebook wall yesterday, "No updates for a while. The weather must be nice there in MN!"She knows me well.Sunshine + warm temperatures + open beaches = no blogging. Or Twittering. Or Facebooking. Or commenting.Sorry. I feel vaguely guilty. At this point in the blog game, y'all are my friends; when I'm not online, I feel like I'm ignoring your phone calls or something. But such is life, and I know you understand.If only we could all meet up for an iced coffee. That would solve everything, wouldn't it?------ 2 ------
The nice weather has also lead to a rash of after-school stops at the neighborhood A&W. It's an honest-to-the-1950s drive-in, and it sells icy cold draft root beer, which is the only soda worth drinking, in my opinion.
Problem is, both times I've stopped this week I've spilled my drink as I've been driving -- as in, the cup drops out of my hand in slow motion, the root beer sloshes under the center console and runs toward the gas petal, I gasp and reach for the cup even as I steer in traffic.
It's getting annoying. And sticky.
I think I need a sippy cup.
------ 3 ------
My mailbox has been catalog central, lately. Most of them go straight into the recycling. They don't catch my eye in the least.
And then yesterday, I got a catalog called Athleta.
Apparently, it's a catalog for women who are athletically inclined, so how I got on this list I have no idea. I have an athletic build, according to most magazine quizzes, but that's the only time the word "athlete" has been attached to my name. I have never, in all my life, played a sport. I like to be active and I love to be outdoors, mind you, but I have never been on a team.
But this catalog! Oh my. They have the cutest swimsuits and cover-ups.
I love their casual dresses.
And this pants and t-shirt combo? This is how I dress every day of my life. (Except for the day of my wedding. But otherwise? I live casual.)
So while I have no money to buy anything right now, I'm keeping this catalog on my desk just so I can smile at it. It makes me happy.
(Note to the people at Athleta: If you need a blogger to promote you, I'm your girl. Also? If I could order the abs of this model...
... and the arms and legs of this model ...
... I'd be yours for life.)
------ 4 ------
A few weeks ago, I inquired on Twitter about water and sand tables. Since we're sans yard right now, the only place Teyla can play semi-safely (this is Teyla, after all) is our tiny little deck, and a water table seemed like a better way to keep her occupied than my newly planted pots of flowers.
I did tons of research online. (Story of my life, y'all. Story of my life. Corey should be glad Google wasn't around when we started dating.) I ended up with the Sand and Water Transportation Station (which I got at Target, naturally, and on sale, bonus).
I'm completely delighted with it. It's got two compartments, so we could theoretically put sand in one and water in the other. (It's all water for now. I don't need the mess.) The water pours down those funnels and splashes through do-dads and is carried around by the trains. The boats can also be scoops and the table has a cover and the compartments have plugs to the water can be drained when it gets too murky. (Also, in Minnesota, standing water is like a seedy motel to mosquitoes. I'm not allowing that kind of behavior on my deck.)
Awesome buy. Teyla is using it right now.
------ 5 and 6 ------
Can we pretend this is point five and six? Because Natalie just got home from school, and wow, the last four points took me an hour to write. Guess those blogging muscles get lax quickly when you don't use them.
Sort of like my ab muscles. (See point #3 above.)
------ 7 ------
Quote of the week, courtesy a devotional from Chuck Swindoll:
C. S. Lewis once likened his role as a Christian writer to an adjective humbly striving to point others to the Noun of truth. For people to believe that Noun, we Christian writers must improve our adjectives.
Amen.
Holy cow. How is it Sunday already?The beautiful weather is playing tricks with my mind. It's a little like the way the long daylight at this time of the year fools with dinner. One minute, you're standing in your driveway, watching your kids play tag, wondering if you should maybe go inside and think about starting dinner. The next minute, you're doing all sorts of gymnastics because you looked at your watch and saw that it's technically 7:30 PM already.Never trust the sunlight this time of year; just enjoy it. That's my wise lesson for the day.So the reason I'm stunned that it's Sunday already is that I had intended to post the winner for Mary Byer's book "Making Work at Home Work" Friday evening. But apparently, I got sucked in by "Shanghai Noon" (and I'm so honest and/or carefree that I'll admit that publicly, which says a lot, now that I think about it) and my brain was left so addled, I went straight to bed.And yesterday was a blur of sunshine and a baby who acted tired but refused to sleep. As a result, I was held hostage most of the day, waiting for the nap that never came.Which is all a long, lame, rambling excuse, really. But what's a blog for, right, except to ramble when you feel like it AND give away cool swag to your readers?So, Sarah at themommylogues, commenter #4 on the book post, Random.org declares YOU ARE THE WINNER of the "Making Work at Home Work" book. In case you missed Sarah's original comment, here's what she had to say:I've been doing freelance graphic design from home since my 4 year old was born. And I totally identify with Mylestones -- I've had more than one work phone call that's had to end because I hear "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM, I pooped!" in the background. Good times.
Yes. And I'm writing this with Teyla doing a pole dance on my right leg, whining and crying and wiping strings of snot all over my formerly clean pajamas.We are a glamorous bunch, are we not? So happy Sunday, Sarah, and to the rest of you, I've got EVEN MORE swag to giveaway in the coming days. I'll leave this as a teaser: CFA. And now I've got to go change a stinky diaper. Why should Sunday be different than any other day?
When I was a little girl, I watched "Little House on the Prairie" every afternoon when I got home from school. Between the books and the TV show, I literally grew up on the adventures of Laura, Mary and Carrie. (And Nellie. And later, Almanzo. And much, much later, Albert. Remember him? That might have been when "Little House" jumped the shark, to reference another 1970s TV show.)
Anyway. In an ironic twist of fate, Natalie spent her after-school hours with "Little House" yesterday. Only this was a homework project.
You can read about it at 5 Minutes for Parenting today.
And if you want, leave me your favorite "Little House" memory in the comments here. Because I think a whole generation of kids grew up watching Pa cry at every halfway sentimental moment.
Here's some trivia to get you started: Did you know the Carrie falling in the opening sequence was an accident? It wasn't supposed to happen, but they were filming, she tumbled down the hill and refused to run again after that, so the fall ended up making history.
When Natalie finished her dinner last night -- Ina Garten's chicken pot pie, which is to die for, by the way, and includes enough butter and cream to make that a pleasant reality -- she asked if she'd eaten enough to have a treat. We negotiated a bit; she had to eat some melon to round out her meal. But in the end, I pronounced her treat-worthy. I climbed onto the step-stool and got down The Candy Bag, which is a familial collection of treats. And lo, I realized some of those treats had been in the bag since last Halloween. And in the back of the cupboard, behind the candy bag, I found two boxes of Hershey's bars, leftover from the cousins' reunion we hosted in June 2007. Apparently, our candy cabinet is where candy goes to die.It sounds noble, doesn't it? Candy doesn't get eaten at our house. We're simply too busy munching on carrots and hummus (which is true) and apples and soy nuts (also true) to mess with it.But that's not the whole story. The truth is, candy isn't my thing. A bag of M&Ms holds no allure for me. (Unless they are peanut butter M&Ms. I can handle a few of those.) Candy bars are too big and too sweet. Even grown-up candy like squares of dark-chocolate Ghiradelli don't do much for me. But these? 
Donuts?
Oh baby.They SCREAM my name. Especially homemade old-fashioneds. They pull me in, like little circles of seduction -- crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, freckled with nutmeg and cinnamon and dusted with powdered sugar. The perfect match to a cup of dark Sumatra with toffee nut cream.
In fact, if you take my donuts away, I might feel a little like Teyla when I was taking these pictures.
"What do you mean I can't have another one?"
"Bbbbut. But. I .... like them. And they like me! You can't take them away!"
"You're so mean! Waaaaa!"
I guess the good news is, I know my weakness. So I don't make or buy donuts all that often. (And, strangely enough, the Twin Cities have no donut stores -- no Dunkins, no Tim Horton's, no Krispy Kremes.) I don't trust myself to stay strong in the face of fried dough. Better to avoid the enticement and be the weaker brother than to pretend I'm strong enough to handle the allure and end up eating six donuts a day.
So how about you? What's your temptation?
Five years ago, when Connor was just a baby, I got a job working outside the home -- with an actual salary and everything -- using the oldest trick in the book.
I was sleeping with my boss.Of course, the fact that my boss was also my husband made it less shameful. And to hear him tell it, my writing experience was the biggest factor in his hiring decision.
Either way, I got the job, and for a time, I went into the office every Thursday and played like I was a grown-up. (I even wore real clothes! Cute clothes! Without spit-up or PB&J on them! And I went out to lunch with my boss without a diaper bag. It was like a date. Only we were working!) The rest of the time, I worked from home.
Ideally, that meant I worked while the kids napped. In reality, that meant I occasionally locked screaming, crying children out of my office and hid in the closet so I could finish a conference call.
It was tough. Much tougher than I thought it would be. Working from home meant I could continue being a (mostly) stay-at-home mom while simultaneously earning an income. But it was like trying to balance a bucket of sloshing water on a tightrope.
Enter Mary Byers' new book "Making Work at Home Work." It's stuffed with all sorts of extremely practical ideas to make that balancing act work out. Plus, it profiles scores of real moms who have run the maze of having a successful home-based business and a happy family. Their hold-nothing-back stories are refreshingly honest. (My favorite part of every profile was the question "What's the most mortifying 'mom moment' you've had in running your at-home business?" Talk about blog-worthy stories.)
But Mary's book isn't just about balancing the family-work continuum. Being a successful entrepreneur herself, she covers important topics such as developing a successful business philosophy, setting realistic goals, dealing with demanding clients and maximizing your profits.
To be honest, I signed up to read Mary's book because blogging feels like an at-home job to me. (Only I do it without getting paid! I'm that dedicated!) I wondered how many of her balancing principles would apply to a person like me, who tries her darndest to balance the roles of "Mommy" and "writer."
The answer? There's a lot of crossover. Balance is balance, whether you're working for a boss or for your own satisfaction.
But I found this book has so much more to offer; it's really designed for someone who wants to make money with their at-home career, whether it's someone with a home-based business (like Creative Memories or Pampered Chef) or someone with flex benefits at their corporate job that allows them to work from home instead of their cubicle.
To that end, I have a copy of "Making Work at Home Work" to give away. My only request is that the book ultimately goes to someone who works from home. So in your comment, tell me about the person who needs this book -- be it yourself (because you run a home-based business) or a friend who works from home. It will be interesting to see what kind of at-home businesses are represented.
I'll leave comments open until next Thursday, May 21. The winner will be announced the following day.
(You can also win a copy of this book -- or one of Mary's other books -- AND a $25 Amazon gift card at her book tour site.)
And now I'm off to deal my new boss. She's about 22 pounds with a curly mop of hair, and right now, she's needs to be fast-tracked to a clean diaper. That's one of the best practices of a stay-at-home mom.
I got the biggest kick out of your comments on the post about the missing shoes, especially the variance within them. There are clearly two groups of people in the world: those who fear poop and those who are so far beyond the fear, they are numb to it.
I belong to the second group of people.
When faced with errant Polly shoes in a diaper of doo, I did what I never thought I'd do.
(Do. Doo. Doo-doo. Sorry. That's a lot of doo. I mean, do. I mean ... oh, never mind.)
I shut down my brain -- so I wouldn't have to acknowledge what was about to happen -- and turned off my texture receptors. Then I grabbed some extra diaper wipes, held my nose and grabbed those shoes out of the Pit of Poo-Poo.
I had to wait a few minutes, to quell the gags coming from the tips of my toes. Then I took the wipes to a sink and used LIBERAL amounts of soap and water -- like, Markos Moulitsas liberal -- to cleanse the shoes. I do believe they are the thickness of one layer of molecules now.
To answer your question, yes, Natalie knew where the missing shoes might reappear, and with her usual aplomb, merely shrugged at the information. Her only comment was that she really likes those purple cowboy boots.
But you better believe the Polly Pockets are nowhere NEAR the edge of Polly-land anymore. For now, we are keeping shoes on the feet and the diaper diving to a minimum.
Would this be a good time to tell you Teyla had corn for dinner?
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If you're looking for more of Teyla's antics, be sure to read my 5 Minutes of Parenting post today. It involves Teyla dumping game pieces down the air vent in the kitchen, even as I'm trying desperately not to lose it. Lucky for her, she's both the saboteur and the savior in this story. Lucky for me, too.
Also? I didn't make the connection until now, but the title of the post is Do Over. Apparently, I have "do" on the brain. I can't imagine why.
