LOST A SOCK

Celebrate Something--- Everything.

These sunny, warm days... they have been so good to me.

To us.

Kevin blew out thirty-five candles a few weeks back using no fewer than seven aging breaths, and we celebrated with a night of Rock and Roll Bowling.  It was a random suggestion from KJ for something fun to do with Dad on his day,

and now it comes highly recommended from our troop.  We'd not taken the kids bowling since I was pregnant with Marin, and this was such a great night for our five-- laughing, dancing, slurping slushies and occasionally watching Marin's ball make it from her little hands to the pins in less than three hours.

On another evening we stayed outside well into darkness so that I could teach the kids to catch fireflies (Life List Number 63) with the promise, of course, that they would take good care and release them from jarred captivity before bed. It was incredible fun.

Last weekend we celebrated our country's freedom as we chased down and stuffed pockets full of candy at our town's parade, and we watched fireworks in the park, and grilled and partied, swam and partied some more.

And we have all been celebrating our best buddies this summer.  We count ourselves so blessed.

A couple weeks ago the girls and I got together to attend Chicago's Gay Pride Parade, which boasts a colorful, joyful, celebratory-- electrifying atmosphere that I have rarely experienced elsewhere.  Beautiful, and fun.

There were seas of people to wade through, an event that I was just happy to be part of.  Experiencing the rapture of being alive, as the great Joseph Campbell would say.

A celebration of being who you are and loving who you love.

A moment on a sunshine-filled, colorful day to freely breathe in and out, and celebrate happiness and hope in the face of discrimination-too-often and felt hardship. Celebration, because you are good, whoever you are, and you are created by God and you are part of me, and I you.  So in celebrating you I celebrate me, and I pray that your highest potential as a citizen and a human being will be realized.

Celebration and Hope.

I have spent the better part of five months now, digging into the deepest parts of myself and my past, and shaping my best self for now and the future.  Last winter was one of the more difficult ones I have navigated, as I cycled through a pretty fair depression and began learning how to lean into my vulnerabilities and heartaches, drawing from the abundance of compassion and validation that abides within.  It was something so intense for me that never could have played out here on my blog, and so many times as I posted one quiet set of pictures after the next I wondered what I could do with this writing space anymore.  And it became an occasionally-visited holding place, for this segment of its lifespan.

Over the months I read one book after the next-- usually two and three at the same time, and meditated, painted and photographed, balanced my chakras and worked with acupressure and sound therapies and made all sorts of adjustments to my diet.  And I have sat in many deep, joyful, tear-filled conversations with a trusted few this year.  Letting go of the perfect and opening myself up to the amazing, abundant and true.

Kevin and I explored domestic and Ugandan adoption again, and closed the door (permanently) to the idea of a fourth infant-- even though the thought was a sweet one when it did not include concepts such as weekly trips to the grocery store with four in tow, or homeschool or field trips or sleep, glorious sleep.  We tossed around thoughts of relocation to the East Coast and poked through Master's Programs as I ran with hypothetical When's and Why's and How's. 

Where do we belong, and who do we need to serve?  A shifting of heart, so to speak, and lots of fresh perspective, elation and gratitude.  The whole world in a brand new way.

I remain committed to homeschool and being home for now, and staying for want rather than for the unquestioned and unexplored.  Committed to something new.  And then the valid answer to a few remaining questions, I don't know yet.

We are celebrating-- oh, are we ever.  Here, Kevin with our little nephew who is sweet as sugar.

(A moment for me to scrape my melted heart from the patio, if you would.)

And last night a once-in-a-lifetime experience with the ever-inspiring Bono, and his little known band, U2.  

A double-coffee kind of summer, if there ever was one.

And celebration, at this moment, much like calling out the color blue and looking around the room to suddenly notice the abundance of that particular hue.  Here, so much to be grateful for and excited about.

Life List #97

The fun thing about having a life list is that one day you sit down and ask yourself which very large and ridiculously small experiences you would like to have.  And then without worrying that Pet an Elephant and Donate Ten Thousand Dollars don't seem to make sense beside each other on any list, you smash them together and open yourself up to the possibility of both.  Yippee!  

Furthermore, if you are me, you have things to cross off.  So get busy!

Number 97 was Eat a fancy cupcake in a charming cupcake shop.  (Such expectations I place upon myself, I tell you.)  Now technically we have a cake lady we use.  She was the creator of Sant & Leslie's wedding cake, and also makes the most enormous, delectable cupcakes you can imagine-- banana, pistachio, pink champagne, pumpkin...amazing.  And we are known to order from her.  You know, sometimes.  But what I was going for in number ninety-seven was a cupcake shop-- open for the solitary purpose of selling and enjoying cupcakes.  Cute and lively.

So we'll get to the actual cupcake part, but first, I decided to make a day out of this one...

Last month when the kids and I visited the Chicago Art Institute I walked into this exact hall filled with thousands-year old Buddhas and Shivas and Ganesha sculptures, my whole brain sighed Kevvvvvvinnnnn.  This is exactly the kind of thing that he and I could spend days walking through together, reading each card about each exhibit.  And so then it was meant to be.

And so it was!  We left the kids with Kevin's mom for an entire Sunday and took a date day for ourselves.  My recent acquisition of an Educator Pass to this place isn't a bad gig either, tempting me to return as many times as possible.

I had all the time I needed to examine my favorite staircases, which turned out to be a commentary on religious tolerance, a talk given by Swami Vivekananda on September 11th-- 1893, at the Art Institute.  This text now revisited to encourage everyone, especially in light of September 11, 2001, to reflect on the implications of religious intolerance across the board.

This is Judith, a personal favorite of mine.  And that in the background is Holofernes-- well, his head anyway.  Holofernes and his army showed up somewhere in the sixth century B.C.E. to conquer her peaceful town, and after having their water supply cut off for several days, Judith's people were thirsty and desperate.  So, long story short, she took matters into her own hands-- put on something suggestive & showed up at his tent with a little cheese and wine. Once Holofernes was drunk and passed out in his tent, she used his own sword to behead him.  His army then retreated and Judith's town was again safe.  Go Judith.  

But what I really love about the painting, beyond the story, is the way artist Jan Sanders Van Hemessen (year 1540) painted her body to appear so strong and almost masculine from far away, but when you approach the painting and look into her eyes and at her face you realize how soft and feminine, and very innocent she is.  Beautiful.

And then there was this, in Post-1950 American Art.  I had never seen it before, but if you click the image here it should pop out in a larger window and the words will become easier to see.  The little boy is the artist.

On a lighter note, century-old art museums are filled with perfectly spaced rows of things to photograph, that are always an intense draw to my OCD eye.

I was in love with this very tall, very light room with the winding staircase.  And two boulders.

It's perfect, right?

So from there we took to the busy Chicago streets and stopped at one of my favorite restaurants for dinner.  It is very rare that I get to introduce Kevin to any new-to-us restaurant downtown, because he's worked there for fifteen years and tries all sorts of places.  But on this day, I suggested Flat Top Grill, which is a super fun stir fry bar with every fresh ingredient and sauce imaginable, that you put together and they grill up for you.  Bowls unlimited. Yessssss.

And from there we make our way back around to the cupcake.  

Not just any cupcake shop, but Molly's Cupcakes up on the North Side of the city.  

And the inside of the shop?  Decorated like a 1960's classroom, complete with wooden desk chairs and alphabet characters holding tiny pink cupcakes.  And swings, suspended from the ceiling.  

I had a giant Molly Size cupcake with buttercream frosting and chocolate chips on top...filled with cookie dough.  It was a sugar addict cookie dough lover's dream come true, friends.

(And it actually gave me a bit of a headache when I was finished, having spent seventeen weeks now on my Weight Watchers program.)

But fantastic, and quite buttery and moist.

You know we had to be good parents and bring a variety dozen home.  For the children, of course.  Everybody benefited from Life List #97.

Long Weekend Happy

1. The smell of a bookstore

2. Long weekends with Kevin home, and enough free time to take it in

3. Asparagus, broccoli or cauliflower tossed with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and a little parmesan cheese, charred on the grill

4. Writing with smooth ink gel pens

5. Longevity (and hilarity) (and safety) (and perfection) of sisters

6. Snuggling up with my kids, reading together

7. Hiking with my amazing people

8. Laying in my bed in the middle of the afternoon, on fresh, cool sheets

9. The way warm summer sunshine feels on my skin

10.  Songs with good messages

11.  Knowing when to clean up toys and when the mess is only play put on hold

12.  The colors and light throughout the movie “Something’s Gotta Give”

13.  Rocking my baby (toddler!) as many times a day as she wants

14.  Sunrises and sunsets

15.  The way my skin feels tight after an afternoon swim

16.  Twenty-two pounds and counting

17.  Realizing shared interests, and talking them to death

18.  A really good, can’t-put-it-down book

19.  Bright red, sweet baby tomatoes right out of the back yard

20.  Noticing tiny pictures on my vision boards come to life

21.  Spending quiet evenings with my girlfriends, no matter what we do together

22.  A clean swept kitchen floor

23.  Elephants

24.  The way I don’t want to slow down to meditate, but then when I do, I never want to leave that place

25.  Taking walks in late fall afternoons when the sun gives that orange glow, just newly returning to sweaters, brown shoes and socks and hearing the wind blowing the leaves in the trees and crunching as we walk through

26.  Crushed up crackers in broccoli cheddar soup

27.  The quiet peace and sheer excitement that coexist perfectly late at night on Christmas Eve

28.  Starbucks coffee.  Black with a little ice.

29.  Wild flowers

30.  Finding the strength to do what I once believed myself incapable of

31.  Driving with all of the car windows open, great music playing on the radio

32.  Encounters with strangers where you realize a deep, momentary connection, and wondering what that was all about

33.  The softness of my children’s skin and the smell of their wet hair at night, after a bath

34.  That moment of gratitude after realizing I reacted to something in precisely the way I would have wanted, had I time to plan

35.  The feeling of such freedom that is driving across the country

36.  Sleeping at night with a fan blowing cool air into our bedroom window, while laying snug beneath several layers of blankets

37.  The moments just before the moment you’ve been waiting for

38.  Sliced bananas and cool whip

39.  The quick sound of my camera’s shutter

40.  Waking up to realize I’ve been dreaming about loved ones who have passed away

41.  Stopping my day to tell one of my kids that I love them.  That I really, really love them.

42.  Black-eyed Susans

43.  Perfect lines of trees

44.  Taking the kids apple picking

45.  Noticing elderly couples together, and hoping for the gift that is growing old with the person you love

46.  Soft green grass, blue skies.

47.  Hearing my kids crack each other up

48.  Jackson’s gifts of backyard flowers

49.  Opening ourselves up to the possibility...

50. A nice big glass of afternoon chocolate milk

Overhaul

It started back at our massive adoption decision and my winter blues a couple months ago.  And then a decision to be okay.  New books, new music, a larger commitment to meditation, new motivation, new diet.  I have succeeded at losing fourteen pounds now, still holding strong with Weight Watchers and my big goals for 2011.  I've torn apart every closet and cabinet in the house and piled donations atop donations into the middle of our garage.  Then I cleaned out our garage.  And called the giant Salvation Army truck for a pick-up.  And then Amvets for round two.

This, of course, symptomatic for the organizing that is taking place within.  I love feeling motivated.  I love that I am a ridiculously driven person and then the moments I get to pick up and run with the whole deal.  

We're running!

I went for a haircut and a highlight, which happens about every fourteenth new moon, because it felt appropriate.  Easy on the color, I remember telling my girl, and then she crept up behind me Tom and Jerry Style and clobbered me in the head with something large, knocking me out cold.  I woke up to a bumpin' headache and the hair color of a thousand caramel ice cream sundaes.  You know, if caramel sundaes had hair, which they don't because that would be gross.  Anyway, she got color happy, and it's a good thing I am up for all things new.  My hair continues to work at lifetime longness, now halfway down my back, and colorful.  

(Wherein picture of brushed bronze closet hardware stands in for segue.)

In keeping with the theme that we are slowly changing things in this house, like floors and faucets and fixtures (oh my!) and that most of our home renovation ideas had been placed on the back burner in order to save for our adoption, which is now again many years off, I had been looking at two enormous eye sores for three and a half years now: closet knobs and kitchen/living room flooring.

So last week I decided we could finally rid ourselves of the nasty, cheap golden knobs on closet doors throughout the house, and sixty dollars later I was both contentedly smiling and scratching my head wondering why I had waited three and a half years to spend sixty measly bucks.  Next to go will be our awful green mailbox with the broken red arm, which is actually leaning into the road on an angle now thanks to winter snow plows.  Another sixty, or maybe quick one hundred dollar fix. Three point five years later.

On the not so inexpensive but large in my mind list, flooring.  We traded beat up, faded linoleum in our bathrooms last winter for beautiful tile that I still love, and from the moment we first toured this house I knew that the kitchen and living room floors would need some serious attention.  Thankfully, this year after losing our souls our asses Oprah's life savings enormous amounts of money on the old house we are seeing a pretty good tax refund.  (About one tenth of our losses, so let me go ahead now, as your personal financial planner, and recommend that you avoid the whole home selling disaster altogether. You're welcome.)

So now I am learning terms like, floating, locking, nail-down and the difference between laminates, vinyls and true hardwood.  Who knew this was so complicated?

Also complicating matters are the light colored baseboards in our house, of which I have truthfully never been a fan (and have often fantasized about painting white, including window frames, closet doors and baseboards throughout, you know, all nine freaking rooms of the house).  So the sheen, the texture and the color has to at least kind of match what we have.  I am loving the wide planks and the darker brown the better, but alas the matchy thing again...  So I find myself texting sample pictures to my like-minded home decor girlfriend and she sends me running through my house with samples to hold up to kitchen cabinets and couches as I cradle the phone on my shoulder.

I will save you the suspense and share that sample number three, above, is looking like the winner now forty twenty-six three minutes before the kids and I are slated to meet Kevin at the flooring store, to put our money where our mouth is.

Now if I could only get us out the door...

Crazy Train

A few mornings ago as we drove home from our Saturday morning Weight Watchers meeting I swerved into the McDonalds parking lot for my morning caffeine jolt, and ordered my Diet Coke.  After I paid my dollar and seven cents and pulled away, Leslie cracked up at the irony of my running through a fast food drive through still wearing my Weight Watchers sticky name tag.

At least it was only a Diet Coke, yes?

So I had this fantastic idea for a newer, quicker weight loss plan:

It could totally work, yes?  I could apply my sticker late at night when I crave things like well buttered french bread or Culver's Cookie Dough Concrete Mixers, add cashews.  Yeahhhhh.

Now three and a half weeks on Weight Watchers again, I am feeling so much better already.  Their recent program restructure has not only made for something interesting to learn but has also gotten me into more proteins and fiber, and forcing me to step away from the carbohydrates.  

Have I ever told you that I have a thing for carbohydrates?  No?  I didn't think so.

So fruits and most fresh vegetables are points-free, and I've been bonding with meals like chicken breast, brussels sprouts and baked sweet potatoes.  And also, Lean Cuisine's Garlic Spring Rolls.  For special days, I found that Panera's Broccoli Cheese Soup is only seven points for a twelve ounce bowl and just four more for fresh baked bread.  You're welcome.

Help me out.  What kind of food kicks are you on?  Do you get on food kicks?  I tend to eat the same things every day until I grow tired of them and we break up and never speak again.  You?

Of Eggs and Babies

I keep going back and forth with what to say next, here.  Things are mostly normal at home, what with three noisy kids and our usual busy schedule.  I spend part of my thinking hours each day keeping my brain quiet and to enjoy where we are, and the other part allowing myself to ease into our new, post-adoption normal.  

I spent weeks with a very heavy secret sitting on my shoulders-- that we might have to tear down the plans we've spent the better part of two years creating for our family, and when I was finally able to explain it to family and friends and the Internet I felt a sense of relief.  A decision had been made upon solid reasoning and I wasn't going to spend my time arguing with reality.  We will not support child trafficking or unnecessary family disruptions in any way, shape or form is about as clear cut a decision as one can make. 

So I've been kicking some serious ass on Weight Watchers in the last three weeks- down eleven pounds so far!  I have a great support system in place with my sister-in-law and my friend meeting up for Saturday morning meetings, and big positive talk with these wonderful people.  I feel great.

Clearly I am no longer kicking ass with my goal to swear less.  Ahem.

I have again cleaned out every closet and every kitchen cabinet, and said goodbye to all of the baby items we had been hanging on to.  Except for a special few.

And we have chicks again!  Well, eggs.  But eggs with baby chicks in them, who I can't help but give sweet little encouraging words to as I check the incubator temperature every five minutes few hours and turn them several times a day. Hi Babies! I tell them, as well as other random little tidbits from my day- Oh Shit, babies, I just found out my awesome double fiber bread is three points per slice, not one!  These babies are going to hatch telling my children that their mother is one crazy broad.  And who can blame them?

Also on a side note, at our house we eat brown organic eggs from cage-free hens and they look exactly like our little baby eggs here.  I haven't been able to hard boil an egg for breakfast since these guys arrived.  (See also: Oh Shit, my double fiber toast is six points, not two.)  

So I am going along with my days, then, relishing our apparently small enough and large enough sized family of five, reminding myself that I will soon be able to take the kids to places like The Movies and The Waterpark-- places I have long resisted because who brings unpredictable toddlers there alone? This is good, then.  I love my husband and children.  We're okay.

And then the confirmation shows up in my Inbox, notifying me that our final document was received and we are officially out of our adoption.  And that the phase where I rock my own beautiful babies to sleep at night?  Is over.  And then my heart breaks all over again.

This one is already as tall as a snowman, and I swore there would be a little guy behind her.

So I honestly do not know where we go from here.  I do know that we absolutely went in the right direction when we began our adoption journey.  I felt it with every fiber of my being.  I love and care for children, especially those who have no one to speak for them, and so I put my money and my heart and soul where my mouth was.  And I don't think you can ever go wrong by pursuing what matters to you deep down, you know?  I have to believe that we ended up exactly where we were always meant to be.  How can I argue with what is?  The experiences we have had in the last twenty months could never have happened in any other way.

But I have to stop talking about it, at least here, for a little while.  What happens in the future will come to pass whether or not I spend the next five years methodically typing my worries out on the Internet or not.  I am at least confident that whatever is supposed to happen always does.  

I thought seriously about taking a break from blogging for a while.  But then, Spring that I have been waiting for, and Summer, are just begging to be documented.  I feel so vulnerable having just come through such an intense situation, but then also, hopeful.  

This was the year I was leaping and allowing the net to appear, remember? We are about to find out.

They say you want a (resolution)

I always begin each new year with lofty goals and great excitement.  Truthfully, I begin most days with a list of goals in mind, but that's a discussion for another time.  I don't consider myself to have New Year's Resolutions, per se, because declaring one's life suddenly and dramatically overhauled is always the very first step in creating the perfect storm of failure.  I sort of plan, in a big picture way, when the slate is wiped clean of all the Christmas decorations which I can't leave up a minute past January 1st and my house feels empty and zen, again. Then I take things one little step, one little day at a time, and celebrate my small successes.

One small success I can celebrate today being my ability to communicate without the presence of a handful of four-letter words joining up with my sentences.  The red rubber band at the top of my wrist to help me remember. So far there has been no snapping today, though I easily remember my speaking goal each time the damn darn thing rolls up my arm hair.

So after all of the initial goal setting, it is inevitable that the Universe will ask, in its funny little way, exactly how much we want our planned accomplishments. And then everything will fall apart.

What I mean is, on as little as the second day of the New Year's week I woke up to a long, circular trail of bright orange liquid cat poop covering a six foot radius of our tan family room carpeting.  I cleaned it without cursing in the first room, and later on without cursing grumbling in the second and third rooms. Carpeted rooms.  These, although not an ounce of fun, were my small successes.

Marin succeeded too, at eating the tips off of one blue and one grey Crayola marker while I worked.  So I cleaned the girl and gated her to the upper level of the house, where No Markers Live, so that I could finish the carpet steaming. And then opening the dishwasher door to use as her personal step ladder, she climbed to the kitchen counter and ate one Cherry Chap Stick and a half of a vanilla tea light.  Ate them.   

On Wednesday when we were slated with a list, a country mile long, of errands to run, I took them one at a time, half-succeeding at things like sign up at the gym (yeah!!) in time to work out before the kids' room closes (booo!) and grab homeschool books on China and Simple Machines from the library, a stop where I wished no fewer than ninety-four times that I had brought the stroller in with us, both for the porting of one speedy toddler and thirty-two heavy story books.

In the car on the way home I gave the boys a hurried but positive play-by-play for the rest of the afternoon so that we could all have a plan in mind.  I explained that we would have a quick (late) lunch, get Marin down for her (late) nap, conquer homeschool and eat a quick (early) dinner before we were (late) to Lego Club that evening.  

I should mention that this particular day's homeschool Science lesson was the beginning of our Simple Machines unit (you know, levers, pulleys, inclined planes) and easily in my top five reasons for Why We Should Not Homeschool.  I despised all lessons on mechanics as a kid in school myself, and I had no idea how I would ever teach them to my children, with a smile on my face, to boot.

So I ran Marin upstairs to quickly prepare for nap, and you can guess what I found there, covering her tan bedroom carpeting.  

Yeah.

The cat had effectively hit, like, seven rooms by this point and the only place there was not a trail was leading straight out the back door, where one needs to be, is all I am saying.

I did not call Kevin at work and freak out, or I did-- choose your own adventure here, and then after some scrubbing the carpet cleaner boycotted All That Cat Poop and stopped with the suction. Meanwhile, not on my second call to Kevin which absolutely did not involve the words AT THE END OF MY ROPE, I declared Lego Club a bust for the night, and possibly every other family activity planned for this family, ever.  KJ went downstairs to practice cursive.  On his own, if that tells you anything.

Though three hours late, I managed to get Marin down for her nap.  We managed to make homeschool and Simple Machines happen, if by nothing more than my sheer determination to raise an educated bunch.  Who are smart enough to not be guilted into keeping badly behaved pets.  Use a pulley, a lever, an inclined plane-- whatever you must to get them out of your house.

It turns out that my boys love simple machines, which I should have known from the pulley system they recently created over our kitchen railings.  A handful of interesting library books this week, and a kit on the kitchen table had their interest all afternoon.

I went through my whole life unaware that a doorknob was categorized as a simple machine, as explains our kit.  NOW who was this Science unit for?

No part of life is worth living, to eight and five year old boys, without the inclusion of light saber wielding lego men.  At least he's wearing a hard hat in his dangerous predicament, yes?

So just like every other year, this first week of January closes with a few successes and small failures both, and lots and lots of hope.  We've hit the ground running, friends!

2010 in review. This time with words!

In the eleventh hour I am borrowing this Q & A format from Amanda, for reflecting on the year past.  I have read so many of these question and answer posts this week, and have always wanted to try one out.

1. What did you do that you have never done before?  Assembled a dossier to adopt a child from the other side of the planet.  Sold a house.  Owned my writing and my photography, by slapping my name across the top of my blog.  It only took me five years.  Also, I embraced the unknown.

2. Did you keep your 2010 New Year's Resolutions?  Is weight loss always going to show up on them?  Other than that, mostly.  Yes.  Will you make more?  Does the pope wear a funny hat?

3. Did anyone near you give birth?  Kevin's brother's wife had their first baby just a couple days ago.

4. Did anyone close to you die?  Papa Tipping, Granny Ray and my old friend Tina, who I was once very close to.  

5. What countries did you visit?  No countries, but we've made it up to thirty-seven states now!

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you didn't have in 2010?  Feet that move quicker than my mouth.  Better endurance.

7. What dates in 2010 will remain in your memory?  September 24th, as Sant & Leslie's beautiful wedding.

8. What was your biggest achievement in 2010?  I cannot figure out any other way to convey this, without sounding like a total lame-ass, but my biggest achievement in 2010 was without a doubt the peace I've found through so much meditation.

9. What was your biggest failure?  My inability to better structure our days at home, for the sake of the kids and I and school.  I am far too lax in sticking to any sort of regimented schedule, even though I know we would all be better for it.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?  Ha!  I broke my foot just as we started painting the old house!  I still can't believe that.

11. What was the best thing you bought?  My laptop.  Welcome to the millenium, right?

12. Who's behavior merited celebration?  Elizabeth Edwards, who lived and died a beacon of strength and repose.

13. Who's behavior made you appalled?  Those who rejected us after we shared the news of our adoption.  Not for the sake of us, but for the sake of orphaned children in need of love and family, all over the world.

14. Where did most of your money go?  Dare I say that we dumped more money into that house than we did into our notoriously expensive international adoption?  Yes, the house.  Then the new baby.  

15. What did you get really, really excited about?  Our baby.  Girls' weekend in Michigan.  Seeing our East Coast trip become a reality.  Seeing the East Coast.  Closing on the old house.  Making a new friend.  The Christmas donation that was made in our name to the school and orphanage in Ethiopia, run by our adoption agency.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?  Awake My Soul by Mumford and Sons

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

Happier or Sadder?  Happier.

Thinner or Larger?  Larger, baby.

Richer or Poorer?  Richer, on so many levels.

18. What do you wish you had done more of?  Exercise.  Sleep.  Play board games with my kids.

19. What do you wish you had done less of?  Speaking to fill space.

20. How did you spend Christmas?  Surrounded by family, at our house.  Fantastic.

21. Did you fall in love in 2010?  Wow.  Yes I did.

22. What was your favorite TV program?  Listing Oprah as my favorite tv show is like listing "swimming" as a hobby for fish.  So let's go one beyond and say Modern Family.  Love it!

23.  Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate last year?  I do not hate a single soul.  I am so blessed for that.

24. What was the best book you read?  There is No Me Without You by Melissa Fay Greene

25. What was your best musical discovery?  Mumford and Sons.  I have a bit of an obsession.  Also, Ryan Adams.

26. What did you want and get?  Our completed dossier to Ethiopia.  When I re-read my goals for 2010, written at this time last year, I was at that time on pins and needles about our adoption.  We didn't have an agency, a homestudy, a support group, enough money...  I wasn't sure how fast we would take it or if we could even dive in one hundred percent.  And here we are awaiting our referral, one hundred fifty percent.  Smiling.

27. What did you want and not get?  A profit upon selling the old house. Though not to say I am not most grateful for the sale, because that is what I wanted more than anything.  I had to answer the question, though.  

28. What was your favorite film of this year?  I thought for sure it would be Eat Pray Love since I adored the book, and the experience of going to see it with some of my best girlfriends was certainly wonderful, but the film itself left much to be desired.  My favorite movie this year, I think, was the HBO Miniseries John Adams.  (What?  It's on DVD.)

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?  I was thirty-two, and Kevin and I and the kids spent the day at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.

30. What one thing would have made the year immeasurably more satisfying?  A babysitter.  I mean that.  The kids and I never, ever get a break from each other and I think we all suffer because of it, in our own ways.  I think I could be a better mom if I could find a babysitter for just an hour or two or three.  

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?  How would you describe solid color t-shirts, jeans and Converse gym shoes?  Sorry, toss in a few of my hand-made bracelets and a spritz on the neck of Ralph Lauren Romance.  Trade up the jeans for black yoga capris, if I am home. That's my style, whatever it is.

32. What kept you sane?  Meditation.  An empathetic husband.  Going on dates with my girlfriends.

33. Which public figure/celebrity did you fancy the most?  Oprah Winfrey wins this one, hands down.  I also love George Clooney for his work in Darfur, Sudan.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?  Gay Marriage.  I felt it to my core this year.

35. Who do you miss?  My closest friends when I cannot be with them. Especially those who live farthest away.  I have found an entirely new adoration this year for the amazing women in my life.  

36. Who was the best new person you met?  Does seeing someone in an entirely new light count?

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.  Follow your heart, as fearlessly as you can muster, in love.  If following your heart pisses people off, the world will not end.  

38.  Quote a song lyric that sums up 2010.

So tie me to a post and block my ears

I can see widows and orphans through my tears

I know my call despite my faults

And despite my growing fears.

But I will hold on hope

And I won't let you choke

On the noose around your neck.

And I'll find strength in pain

And I will change my ways

I'll know my name as it's called again...

(Mumford and Sons, The Cave)

39. Quote a line from a book that sums up 2010.  Be responsible for the energy you bring to people.  --Jill Bolte Taylor, A Stroke of Insight

40. Favorite shot of the year?

I was so humbled to be here. 

***

Happy New Year, friends.

Is snow. Is cold. Is Midwest. Is not manageable.

I remember being a kid and hearing grown-ups complain about the snow.  I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, where up and down city blocks people dug out their parking spaces and marked them like historic warriors might mark castles they had taken, jabbing large symbolic flags atop the highest tower with a grunt and a fist pump, only in Chicago it's done beside a concrete curb...with old kitchen chairs.  (You heard me.)  Aah the city, what a pretty time of year. Also there, snow was white for about five minutes, and you had to enjoy the untouched freshness of it then because in no time it became a dirty charcoal-colored slush along every street.  I still loved it all as a kid.

Of course now I am a mother to three children of my own, and I fully understand what the grown-ups were complaining about.  Every time the kids and I so much as make a quick run to the post office, or worse, Christmas shop, bulky sweatshirts, coats, hats, mittens and boots are involved. Then at least one child must shed all of those layers because he has to pee.  And you can forget the idea that even one of three children might make it to the car (which has now been warming up in the driveway for twenty-seven minutes while you bundled said children) without throwing snow, falling in snow, losing a glove or boot in snow, or being blasted by snowballs.  And we've not even gotten in the car yet, or tried to get buckles done over bulky coats.  Also, we've not driven anywhere, yet...sliding in the snow. 

We've hardly left the house in three days now, which is an insane concept for my family.  We are always on the go, somewhere.  (But oh the effort involved here.)  Ironically, my boys can't get enough outside time, despite the wind and fresh flakes and twelve degree temperatures.

Fine.  We will agree to your ridiculous layering ideas if only you will open the door for us.  

Why, look.  A snow drift.  What ever shall I do with it?

Common sense: Face Plant.

And joy!

This guy is actually the bigger outdoor enthusiast of the two.  

I tried, I really did try, to keep them inside where it was warm when all of this frigid snow business began.  Truthfully, it takes almost as long to double up on socks, snowpants and locate matching snowball-thick gloves as it does to play outside, and then once they come back in, everyone strips down and runs upstairs for new clothing, leaving me a heaping, sopping pile to contend with.  

They are pretty happy to come back in when I call them, though, when I observe that their noses and cheeks have reached an adequate shade of red and their play has slowed, because they know there will be hot chocolate.

It's an agreement I once made with myself, that I will give them certain norms that they can one day look back on favorably.  And coming in from the snowy yard always means mugs of hot chocolate on the table, with marshmallows heaped ceiling-high, and a spoon to eat them with, of course.  A dollop of Cool Whip stirred in, if we have any on hand.

Our mother was forever nagging us about clearing our dishes from the table and picking up the endless array of oww my foot, dammit tiny lego pieces from every square inch of the house, they will say, but at least the hot chocolate was well-marshmallowed.  

And then I will have served my purpose on this Earth.

This one (a fashionista, indeed, this one) knows all about the hot chocolate deal as well.  Just as soon as she finishes eating up all of the snow that has fallen in the door (don't judge) she too begins begging for marshmallows and choc-yet juju.

I believe the unspoken portion of the winter deal I made with myself is that no child shall play out in the snow until he or she can trudge through it on his or her own.  Toddler snow play?  Daddy's terrain.

(Have I ever told you how physically cold I am, all the time, ever since I lost almost a hundred pounds a few years ago?  The same is true for my sister Sant, who lost her weight at that same time.  We are cold, constantly.)

We are going to take these grey-white days one little hour at a time. Thankfully after the quiet that was the last three days, which had me climbing the walls and wrapping Christmas gifts a full week early, we have a flurry of activity to look forward to in the next week, including the Museum of Science & Industry's Christmas Trees from around the world, our annual Christmas Lights night in the car with Sant & Leslie, cookies with Gramma and gingerbread houses with Honey, our annual holiday movie day and finally, hosting our first Christmas.  I hope for the sake of my kids that everything remains white.  They are really pulling for a white Christmas, and it's looking pretty favorable.

Then it can all melt away until next December, yes?  A Midwestern girl can dream.

On Small and Beautiful and So Much Gratitude

The last of the yellows, reds and oranges hanging on for just the right late-November moment

I have been trying to find myself a spot on the couch and a small window of time, for about a week now, for re-entry into The Internets.  But given homeschooling and child raising, combined with preparing for my very first Thanksgiving to be hosted at my house, my moments have been pretty occupied.

{Thanksgiving dinner in twenty hours and I am blogging.  Of course I am.}

I can hardly believe this holiday is here, let alone Christmas and New Year's and Adios 2010!  Where did the year go?  I lost it somewhere, just about early August when things got crazy.  I didn't even see it coming, all of these big wonderful and trying days that would suck up so much energy, and yet still in November I am placing one foot in front of the other trying to keep myself in the present moment and deal with whatever lands on my proverbial plate.  

There is so much happening and I still desire more.  

Show more kindness, be more mindful, extend myself.  Hurry, please God, hurry our adoption. Volunteer.  Write.  Give.  Remain silent, speak up.  Start a class. Start a diet.  

I make a giant vision board each December for the year ahead-- magazine clippings of pictures and phrases that I would like to bring to life in each coming year, and it hangs on my bedroom wall so that I can fall asleep looking at it every night.  A couple years back I actually mustered the courage to post a picture of one (though I have no idea where that courage came from or when it might return again) and so now that we are approaching the year's end I keep thinking about everything that came to be this year, and what might come in 2011.  And to what end.

We need to be in Ethiopia next year.  We need to rebuild our savings, post house.  We need to close on the house.  I need to lose the thirty pounds I've slowly accumulated this year.  I'd like to meditate more.  And maybe travel a little more, if the stars would align. 

Do you ask yourself what you're doing, very often?  Like, what is the point of every tiny, trivial act I repeat each day?  What am I doing and who is it affecting?  Sometimes, being a fairly private person, I am happy in my smallness and other days I would really like to do something good for the world, on a large scale.  Surely if I can love and read stories to and feed three children I can raise...a hundred?  Or if I can experience God in the crackling leaves beneath my feet and sun in the sky, easily I can show someone else that contentment, no?  

Gosh this is getting personal, and here I'm supposed to be chopping pecans.  

I was reading one of my favorite authors, Leo Buscaglia, the other day and then it dawned on me.  "We live in a small world," he said.  "Not a leaf falls that doesn't affect a myriad of things.  When we reach out to someone in love and the effect is made-- everyone, everything who comes in contact with the person we've effected is better for it."  

One foot in front of the other and one quiet, meaningful extension after the next.  

Kevin handed out our McDonalds gift cards to homeless men and women today as he walked from the train to his office building and then back.  It was cold and raining in Chicago today, and I have never had to sit on the sidewalk in the ice cold, blowing rain on the day before Thanksgiving because I had no home or family to go to.  I hope this small something was a hot meal and a warm heart to a few someones.  

And as KJ, Jack and I carried bags of groceries into a Salvation Army church yesterday, I reminded them of the first Thanksgiving when the Pilgrims were hungry and the Indians helped feed them.  This, I told them, even more than the meal we will eat together, is what Thanksgiving is about.

I took a breath today and spoke quietly when I wanted to yell at my kid. 

One foot in front of the other and one quiet, meaningful extension after the next.  It's all moving us somewhere though we have yet to really know where. What I do know is that we have so much to be thankful for.

(Thank you to Alissa, who has been posting her Pay It Forwards for a few weeks now.  How uplifting, and what a great reminder is that?)

During which I prove to you that Excitement is my middle name

When I thought about posting an entry today, I thought to myself, Hmm, loss for words.  (Still.) (You know, because you totally couldn't figure that out from my last entry on a toddler tearing flower petals to smithereens, oh the dramz.)  So I quickly popped through my most recent picture uploads, and, eh, homeschool, homeschool, homeschool, painted bathroom, growing toddler, toddler drinking water, toddler spilling water, toddler standing unsupervised on kitchen chair.  And proof that I should keep the markers out of reach.  Fourth child is doomed. 

Out of curiosity I jumped back to late last winter to see what the excitement was all about, and whaddya know, I was at a loss for words then, too.  And trying to figure out how to feed the baby (who never stops eating nowadays) and what to do about our school situation (hooooomeschool!)  Also, I had just painted something else, because that is apparently what I do with my Januaries. 

The year before, in the early part of 2008, I was eating my way through winter and spring and summer because I was newly pregnant, and also I was falling apart.  Side note: would someone please grant me permission to Explore All Caloric Possibilities this year as well?  Addition to the family and all?  Yes?  I didn't paint anything in the winter of 2008, just having spent all of the fall previous doing so.  Whew.  (Holy crap, some of those rooms have already been painted twice since then.)

In the winter of 2007, I painted...the old house!  Also, I had a toddler back then and was trying to lose weight.  Surprise, surprise, sur-freaking-prise.

In 2006 I was a different girl altogether, just getting my blogging flippers wet.  I didn't paint anything.  I wasn't losing weight (yet.)  I did have a teeny tiny baby.

February 2010:

OMG, I are so predictable.  I painted mah bathroomz.

 

Finally has pretty tilez.

And in the interest of a nice rhythm to life, I am not pregnant and do not have a brand new baby this winter, though we are waiting for one.  I am forever dieting and oh so tired of writing about it, and we solved the Great Public School Debacle in the most fun way possible:

Figure out what makes you come alive, and do that. 

In this case, painting solar system murals as often as possible.

 
I've recently torn closets apart because it is very much the quiet February thing to do, and I have a new little buddy to pack those little boy hand-me-downs away for. (Pink containers yet to be purchased.  We are equal opportunity adopters and hand-me-downers.)

 
Hi, I am growing up at break-neck speed.

And one year ago we were talking, lots, about surgery.  And next week, another MAG-3 on another kidney, hoping that the procedural outcome can be different this time.

 
Another day, another story.  Another room to paint, twelve more calories to count.  Waiting for babies.  Waiting for warm, sunny walk-the-trails weather.

 
Doing what we must to get through the long, grey winter.  

(Don't judge a sister.)

Twenty Oh-Nine

First, our Christmas celebrations were good and I hope yours were, too.  We completed all but one item on my list of holiday fun (damn popcorn garland) plus took an unplanned trip to Florida this month.  The day after Christmas KJ came down with the stomach flu, and it then shot through every member of our house like a speeding rocket through some home-made pumpkin pie.  Or is that just what my laundry room looked like in its aftermath?  (Yes.)

I can hardly believe we're already a handful of days into the year 2010 (remember how crazy it was to reach Y2K with the projection of computers spontaneously combusting and scribbling out the 19 on every last page of your checkbook?  That was really ten years ago already?)  Last year, at the end of 2008, I wrote a review post, and going back to read it this morning I was surprised to remember what a difficult road we tread that year.  I had high hopes for 2009 at the time, and shared some of my goals here.  And now on the other side, I am so thankful to call 2009 one of the good ones.

With health a fair worry at the beginning of 2009, I am relieved to say that we made it through pretty smoothly.  Marin had surgery on one of her kidneys, and the other continues to be watched by our trusted specialist.  I was given the thumbs up by my own new doctor as well, to leave all return-tumor worries at her office door.  And while I didn't hit my final weight loss goal this year, I came forty-ish pounds closer, which is nothing to scoff at.  There's always the year ahead for celebrating the finish line, right? 

I gave running a try this year, and made frenemies with Jillian Michaels and her Eighteen Thirty Day Shred.  I also participated in two 5K walks for charity and pushed both a lawn mower and a double stroller a whole lot this year.  I loosened up my former strict relationship with the Weight Watchers points program for a balance with plain old healthy, natural eating, and wonder of wonders, found that consuming fruits and vegetables, and exercising, can help one shed pounds, also.  I accidentally dyed my hair black, and brown and had it short and long(ish.)  I lived in jeans and solid color t-shirts, and oversized hooded sweatshirts.   

This year we kept our noses clean financially, steering clear of credit card debt and paying off the lesser of our vehicles.  We were very honest with what we had to save, spend and give away each month, and though I know where I could have done better in certain situations, I am quite pleased in the end.  I learned a good deal about the stock market this year (as opposed to the Absolute Zero that I comprehended in years previous) and managed good returns as the market made its rebound.  I am forever thankful that we came away from the year with Kevin's job in-tact, unlike so many with different stories of 2009.

 
I fell head over heels in love with my simple laundry line this year, and spent more time than ever outdoors with the kids.  We visited our zoo through all seasons, discovered the walking trail near our home, and took full advantage of many free days for our local Chicago museums.  We also had a blast with Little League and basketball, took swim lessons and gave karate the old college try (read: fail!)  We practically lived at the library this year, heh, when we weren't at the zoo.  Many of those outings were done in the name of our new way of life as a homeschooling family, which I am both proud of myself for taking on this year, and proud of my children for embracing so readily.

 
This year was particularly difficult as we carried my Aunt Kathy to the end of her life, which is still hard to believe, and we participated in the Susan G. Komen walk in her name, to find a cure for a terrible disease.  I have remained overly-critical of myself through the year, still deeply longing to conquer my own fears and awkwardness to say the right thing a given moment instead of blurting out a jumbled mess of not quite what I meant to say as I back out of the room, sheepishly.  And still around and around with a sugar addiction, and eating in the name of comfort and celebration and worry, except for the moments when I managed to overcome it this year.  And there were a few. 

 
In response to 2008's Year of No Travel, we made our way from coast to coast in 09.  Kevin and I took a spring trip to California, just the two of us, and left a little piece of our heart at Big Sur.  We made a 3600 mile road trip as a family early this fall, visiting Mount Rushmore and the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the Texas panhandle and many of the plains states.  I will love and remember that trip forever.  Late in the year we took the kids on their first flight, down to Florida where we spent time with Kevin's Granny on the news of her late-stage cancer.  Marin paid her very first visit to Mickey Mouse, also.

 
KJ learned to ride a bike this year!  Kevin and my dad constructed our backyard swing set!  Sant and Leslie bought a house!  And got engaged!  My major purchase was my Canon Rebel and its lenses, which I love with my whole heart, and we landscaped the front of our house, and carpeted our family room.  We successfully rented out our old house for a second year, and our baby daughter learned to crawl, walk, talk and climb. 

 
This year a new baby began making his/her way into our family, growing in our hearts, rather than in my womb.

This year I learned that personal growth, and change, often do not happen overnight.  Or even in short months or years, sometimes.  I learned the value of solid friends willing to accept you for who you are, forgive you for who you were not but should have been, hold you up when you could barely stand and sincerely pat your back as you giddily make your way down the fast track to happiness.  I learned that making yourself vulnerable has its down-side, but is full of lessons when ridden out to a situation's end.  I saw that there is perfection in life's good and bad, and that opening oneself up to truest sincerity and God's abundance can bring nothing but joy, and even a few surprises. 

2009 was good.

Totally appropriate, the day before Thanksgiving. Completely.

Hey, remember that time a year and thirteen days ago I started a diet? 

(You love diet talk the day before Thanksgiving, don't you, friends?)

Anyway, a year ago.  Plus thirteen days. 

I had given birth to Marin just a couple months before, and felt ready to hit the hard trail again.  I started Weight Loss Wednesday here, mostly because it worked before, and then a month later I quieted myself about the whole ordeal.  I decided to lose weight without broadcasting my weekly successes and failures to the entire internet this time.  It felt right.

So it took me longer than I thought it would, but I finally hit my pre-pregnancy number again, just this morning!  In the last year and thirteen days, slowly slowly, I lost forty-two pounds, and am now ready again to attack the remaining twenty that I'd never lost the first time around.

Whew!

I've got a very long-standing relationship with food and dieting-- thankfully one that has grown into something more positive than life-threatening over the last four years, but long, long, long-standing nonetheless.

Let us take a quick walk down memory lane, shall we? 

Here are Sant and I, in 2005.  Just about a month before I became pregnant with Jackson.  My loves included giant oatmeal cream pies, flipping channels on television, gossip, complaining and fast food three times a week. 

I don't mean to sound so irreverent about it, but gosh, guys, I don't even know who that person was.

This was my tipping point, not quite one year later and about forty pounds heavier than the picture before.  I was so happy to finally have my baby, but physically and emotionally I was a trainwreck.  I remember being in the hospital after having Jack, talking to my sister about dieting.  I felt, at that time, that if I didn't do something I was going to die.  Not necessarily in a physical way, where I'd up and keel over, but the urge to find myself and pull things together was so strong it was almost tangible for me.  I think back to this time often.

Same mom, same baby.  Eighteen months later.  I did what I had to do, losing ninety-two pounds.  I tackled many of my bad eating habits, dealt with underlying emotions from the past, worked on my self esteem, found myself.  And God I felt better. 

After I reached this point, in the summer of 2007, I let myself coast for six months.  I still had weight to lose, but I desperately needed a break from counting every calorie.  In that time I gained eight pounds--- eight that have haunted me until this day, because just after gaining them I found myself pregnant with Little Missy.

Need to gain a quick fifty pounds?  Crave fruit.  In the most ferocious, maniacal way you can imagine, daily, for nine months. 

After all was said and done last fall, and I had a perfect baby girl, I felt a little defeated.  Who works that hard for that long to lose that much weight, only to do it all over again?

I had two choices, though, to lose it again or stay where I was.  And I didn't want to be where I was.

So here are Sant and I, about a month ago.  Stronger.  On a beach together again, much thinner than our 2005 picture.  Sant had lost her weight forever ago and has successfully kept it off.  I was making my way back.  

This time, my loves are photography, reading, meditating, teaching first grade and preschool in my family room, and most recently, treadmill running.  I enjoy raw vegetables and whole wheat bread, and a Hershey's Kiss every day after lunch.  I embrace my sugar addiction and my ability to lose weight slowly, for as long as it takes until I am not only back to my pre-pregnancy weight (today!) but to twenty pounds down from here, for good.

I also (apparently) enjoy kicking Sant's ass hip,

though I always say I'm sorry and wipe the shoe dirt from her pretty white jacket.

May I not gain forty-two pounds at our (two) Thanksgiving dinners tomorrow, so I can live to see the other side of this denim size.

I think I will.

Damn, that was fun.

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends.  Among so many things in my life, I am so thankful for you. 

Wherein Jillian Michaels drives me to try crazy things

Hi friends.

I know my blogging has been spotty lately, and don't you worry, I surely have hang-ups about it.  But I think we all need to walk away from the finger pointing for now, and hop back to it.  It is time to discuss evil.  Or, the Diet Coke of evil.  (Just one calorie.)

(Doctor Evil, Austin Powers, yes?)

(No-no Mini Me, we don't gnaw on our kitty.)

Onward.

So! I am still shredding.  

Level Two, Day Thirteen.

Okay, if you do the math that's like six days missing in there or something from my very first shred.  One time I was passed out on the couch when Kevin finally made it home from work to join me, therefore being forced to decide between Evil Sergeant Ponytail Kicking My Ass, or Sleeeeep.  (Duh.)  Several days later I pulled a muscle in my lower leg and gave it time to heal, on Saturday I walked a 5K and I took a pass on double duty exercise, and tonight I write. 

Wait, did I say a 5K?

These are the things that yuppie hippie somebody-or-others do with their Saturday mornings, and Kevin once, three years ago, but not me.  (Ok and Breain.)

Not me, that is, until we signed up for the race the walk to raise money for Make A Wish Foundation, which happened to wind through our favorite zoo in the world. 

Apparently even my lacksidasical commitment to the Shred is beginning to pay off, with a dive down into a lesser size of khaki shorts (thankyouverymuch) and the return for my willingness to try new things once again.  Apparantly I need nine full months to gestate and nine full months to embrace recovery from all the gestating.  Who knew?

 

So we woke our kids at six a.m. on Saturday morning and whisked them off to the zoo.  We figured KJ would never make the entire race walk without whining, crying, dragging, falling, hating and certain death, especially on an eighty-eight degree day, so he happily took the stroller option when we offered.  (No shame, that boy.)

We missed the official start by a few seconds as we spent too much time pilfering free peanut bars from the radio station table, and that sort of set the standard for our personal time.

Following the path of orange cones, we passed a volunteer every now and again who would cheer for us and holler something about a great job stopping to visit with the animals every twelve feet.  I never got over feeling goofy about that, all of the forced cheering while we hauled our offspring around the course, daring them to eat the peanut bars and just chill for a while.

We knew to stay to the left so that the real runners (who actually jog with their jogging strollers and not just occupy too-large boys) could pass as needed, and after a while of our brisk walking, then stopping, and more walking, we began to wonder how it was that all of these sweaty runners and their jogging strollers were coming from behind us.  Because, people, for sure we cleared off the peanut bar table so what could be left to delay their start times? 

Oh right, the panting fools were the supahstahs on their second lap. 

(Yeah, well wait until you're finished.  And starving.  Because my kids have eaten all the protein so now look where your sweat and speed has gotten you.  Hungry, that's where.)

Finally we made it around the first time, and then we started in for part two just as our boys were sooooo hottttttt and our baby was ready for a nap and a bottle.  Jackson made sure twelve times that we would be stopping at the playground this time around, and KJ vehemently hated the sun, the heat, the bumps, the path that failed miserably at passing through the reptile house and the entire idea of lap two. 

We, too, had worked up quite a sweat pushing strollers, though enjoying our morning exercise for a great cause. 

More thirsty now, smelly and definitely hot, I sort of lost my parental shit reached a breaking point a little ways into the final lap.  We were off to the side of the road again, mixing up a bottle for our fussy, overtired baby and trying to convince Jack that he needed not visit every bathroom that day, when KJ began objecting to seeing The Same Animals Againnnnnnnnnnnn, as if this were the new worst thing in the world just next to whole wheat bread and crust, when one's blackened hearted parents drag children from their early morning slumbers to have fun! exercise! charitable family time! glean vitamin D from the sunshine! 

Awful indeed, and all at once I became every mother that ever lived because I was TURNING THESE DAMN STROLLERS AROUND, totally finished with the grumbling, complaining and child misery.  Not until, however, I snapped at my husband right in front of three zoo staffers whizzing by in a golf cart, because couldn't he at least offer to help?!  Help me shake up this bottle that I've done ten thousand times?!  Couldn't he hold my hand or offer some sort of support or something?  Are you the one causing this boy to complain?  Your offspring?  Surely you have fault here, man! 

How pretty of me. 

Kevin convinced our crew to calm down and carry forward until we finally reached the playground, where we would then dump our children from their respective chariots to just run it off already as we cooled down.  Then we called it a day on the 5K 4K and quietly wished for the deodarant left back at the car.  We made peace with each other, and visited the reptile house. 

As we headed towards the gate my eye caught a family of five, just like ours, with two boys the ages of our boys, and a baby girl.  I smiled immediately because I so love seeing families like mine, and I always wonder what their daily lives are like and how they handle the highs and the lows.  And just as I turned to alert Kevin to our selves in another life, I clearly overheard the father say to his oldest son, "You know, why don't you think of something FUN about this day instead of constantly complaining?!"  

And in that moment I wanted to run up and shake that man's hand.  Or kiss him, even, if not for being so smelly and tired and married and whatnot.  (Oh how misery does love company.)

Our next walk, which surely we will attempt again, shall involve a babysitter.  And a crisp fall afternoon.  And ear buds.

***

Miracle of miracles, I caught up on uploading recent pictures today.  They live here.

And all at once there was much ado about the universe, longevity and the damn treadmill

My website, it needed a little tweaking.  And I am still working on it, FYI, should you find the place a mess.  (Don't tell me you're looking at my half-finished mess, eh?)

So last week was...well...just what you would expect when this sort of thing happens.  I hope she was satisfied with everything, and that she is happy and free from suffering now.  I will never again hear Nat King Cole's "Smile" without thinking of my Aunt.  She chose the song herself to be played, and we did, several times.  And several times since.  So fitting a last message from her, it was.

And also as things go when this sort of thing happens, or for me when it is an average Tuesday afternoon with blue or even grey skies and I'm washing dishes, it leads to the sudden overwhelming realization that, Damn, We Don't Get Very Long Here.  Just like that, we are here and then we are gone. 

Then of course I proceed to over-analyze all that falls in the middle of Here and Gone, and pinpoint the places where I know I fail to push myself to my greatest potential and how I plan to accomplish all of those quiet little enormous goals I find so appropriate for Some Day.  Next thing you know I've got myself fifty-six years old publishing my third book, having raised seven children, three or four of whom we adopted from far-away Africa and oh wait, reality returns as I suddenly notice three-year-old Jackson sauntering around the kitchen with khaki shorts around his ankles, waiting for his mother to snap out of it and pull his damn pants up already.  He needs a green popsicle, too.

All of my tumor tests came back fine and well in the middle of everything last week, so we carry on cheerfully for another three months.  In the wake of it all I also decided it was high time I increase my own life insurance, having not done so since KJ's birth almost seven years ago.  And knowing full well that we've been unneccesarily paying terribly inflated premiums all these years for the sake of convenience, I gave our Insurance Everything Agent a jingle for a quote. 

Now, all those years ago when I initiated the policy I was, as you may remember, quite a bit more overweight than I am presently.  And because Joe Insurance worries mostly about whether his clients help themselves to heaping bowls of cookie dough ice cream in hard times, and not so much whether they drive drunk, whore around on weekends or smoke heroin, I was rated higher than average in terms of my premium.  I lost almost a hundred pounds a few years after that, of course, mostly by pushing our double stroller up and down the main streets of town right past Joe Insurance's office window, but I don't think I quite got over the humiliation of having the man call my twenty-three year old self out onto the stage carpet about my obesity back then, because even when I lost the weight I still lacked the gumption required to march in and drop a digital scale square in the middle of the office's red carpet, demanding my effing premium back. 

So I'm on the phone with the man this afternoon, racing through the house to find the nearest quiet room with locking doorknob as he's explaining to me that I am doomed to shell out more cash because of my super-deathy-risky weight problem - of course having not seen me in years he is now sure that I am terribly fat and thirty (and have probably panicked and dyed my hair black at least once) (not) and suddenly I am reliving the awful conversation all over again.  Heh, I lost a whole ton of weight after I had my second child, I explain, but then quickly offer that I (JUST!) had another baby, though, and decide in my mind that I am in no way prepared to wade through this discount-no-discount bullshit again, I really could have been the Biggest God-Blessed Loser a couple years ago IF I ONLY WOULD HAVE JUST ADJUSTED THE RATES THEN. 

I had no idea if I would have been categorized as Just Fine this afternoon or Practically Crossing Over in his book, but I didn't want to know.  What I did want to know, however is why my premium for the exact same coverage as Kevin should cost more than double what his does.  Never might one refer to my husband The Little Guy, either.  I asked, and he referenced the weight factor again (hey man, do you have a wife?) and I kindly instructed him to go fly a kite as I combed the internet for a new company for the both of us.  I found more than one, thankfully, who did indeed ask my weight and it turned out to be not a big deal, even though I continue to carry more baby poundage than I'd prefer at this point. 

But I stewed (you bet your next bowl of ice cream I stewed) for quite a long time after that, deeply feeling the injustices of being obese whether I am or not or somewhere in between.  I was so mad about the whole thing- about that disconcerting conversation all those years ago; about the fact that food was, and still is so many days, my crutch and my comfort, and about not having the courage to correct things when I should have.  I was so angry and frustrated and sad today, that I worked so hard for so long to finally lose so much weight only to put half of it right back on during pregnancy and to now struggle again to get it back off.  I was terribly mad this afternoon for all of the overweight people who are mocked and stared at and looked past simply because their bodies become physical evidence of their coping with whatever life has thrown their way, when there are so many other addictions and problems that are simply not obvious at first glance. 

I was so damn mad this afternoon that I eventually marched down the stairs and turned on my treadmill.  I ran, allowing my feet to proudly pound the belt, over and over as hard and as fast as they could, daring myself to keep quiet the emotions I thought might cause my chest to burst- that I do deserve decent life insurance, and I will get this baby weight off.  And this time I'll march right in to Joe Insurance's office, slap my Other Company's life insurance papers on his desk and do ten - no - fifty - push-ups with one hand behind my back and one leg in the air, however that works.  And then I'll tell him...to pay for my rental house, and also the one I live in, should either of them ever burn to the ground.  Because I can imagine it a real pain in the ass to completely change insurance companies with that kind of stuff.

Hallelujah.  Holy Shit.