A REAL, LIVE, GROWN-UP DATE!

Believe it or not, my husband and I were able to enjoy a wonderful night out on Saturday! We got to dress up, drink wine, eat good food, and support a great cause all at the same time, while our little ones were in the loving hands of Grandma.

After many months of near destitution, we were saved by the graces of Uncle Sam’s lovely little tax return; able to catch up on bills, pay off some debt, and treat ourselves to a date. You know you badly need some time alone together when your four year old daughter furrows her brow, sweetly looks into your eyes and tells you, “Mom….you and Daddy need to go on a date!” Well, okay, sweetie, we certainly will!

We recently performed some calculations, and after careful considerations, discovered we average a date every six months. When your numbers are this desperate, you need to make good use of that date night time frame, squeezing in as much relationship-building, couple bonding as you can; as if that doesn’t put the pressure on. So this time we wanted to do something really fun and indulge ourselves a bit. Several years ago, my mom had given us tickets to a wine-tasting fundraiser event for a local organization that houses adults with disabilities. It was so much fun, that we decided we would go again this year, except this time we bought tickets for the formal reserve wines night.

Though of course that formal word caused a little bit of outfit panic on my part; I became determined to find the perfect dress to wear, resulting in many late-night online searches that only left me knowing what I did NOT want to wear. The date finally loomed very near (that night!), and I found myself desperately scouring the clothing section at Target on the family run to the store for odds and ends. I ended up buying a dress and a little black sweater to wear over it.

Flash forward to later that evening; I’m getting ready, curling my hair, trying to occupy the kids, when I realize my new dress is not only not formal enough, but it doesn’t even look good on me! So I pull out a dress from a summer wedding a couple of years ago and put my new sweater over it, and surprise-surprise, it looks pretty dang good. Except…..for shoes. I have a gorgeous pair of peep-toe shoes for summer, but it is February, and I have to wear nylons with my winter-white skin and the cold air outside. So I try cutting out the toes on one pair of nylons, but the stark contrast between my nylon-clad “tan” legs and my un-pedicured, uber-white toes makes for a bad combination. My churchy closed-toed shoes are hardly the answer to my outfit, so we have to hurry out the door when my mom shows up so I can run to the shoe store and find something appropriate to wear.

We walk into Famous Footwear, where the saleslady looks down at my terribly mismatched flats, and points us in the direction of the dress-shoes. Amazingly, my husband picks out the perfect pair, and they even have my size. We pay for them (29.99 on SALE…what luck!) and are back on our way when I realize I didn’t print off the tickets for the event! We retrace our route back home, print the tickets, and finally make our way to the wine tasting. It is moments like these when I remember why we only go out twice a year…..it is exhausting!

Despite the rocky preparations for the evening, we had such a great time. I’m pretty sure we were one of the youngest couples in the room, and certainly the poorest, as we were surrounded by doctors and other various moneybags, but I dare say that we enjoyed ourselves more than anyone else there that night. My very own Mr. Romantic was on a mission to taste as much of the food, and try as many of the wines as possible, so our evening involved a lot of beelines to the buffet tables, and weaving in and out between the sampling stations. Good food, great wine, and lots of laughter….it was an incredible night!

COOKIES!!

I am one of the leaders of my second grader's Girl Scout troop, and by default I am once again the "cookie mom" this year; a title given much prominence in the scouting world in an attempt to cover up the less glamorous side of the position. They even make cookie mom badges for the daughters to proudly display on their vests for everyone to see; but surely it is the moms buying these for their daughters, and not the daughters begging to have one.

So this afternoon we (I dragged my husband into this mess with me) contemplated on whether to take the van or his truck to pick up the cookies; you need two adults for this duty, one to drive and one to count the cases as they're loaded in. We had 50 cases to pack in (in case you're wondering, that's 600 boxes total!) and five of us, so with lack of a babysitter we chose to crowd into the truck, leaving the back open for the cookies. Of course this meant we needed to clean all the crap out of the truck first.

An hour later, we were finally on our way to the warehouse. We pulled into this truck lot where we gave them our troop number and verified how many cases we were picking up; we were then told to follow the cones which led to eight different loading stations, one for each type of cookie. At each station we had to approve that we had the right amount of cases, they’d load them in, and we’d drive on to the next one. In a matter of minutes we had all our cookies, and after verifying once again, and signing over my life to claim responsibility for said cookies, we were on our way back home.

            Upon arriving, we decided the cookies would be safe in the locked topper until I could get them distributed to all the girls during the week. But after careful consideration; realizing how popular those cookies are and that they just might melt on this unusually warm February day, I decided we probably better bring them in the house. So, all the able bodies of the family (everyone except the baby) spent about fifteen minutes marching in and out, stacking all the boxes along the kitchen wall.
            So here I sit, gazing at the atrocity across the room, dreading the work I got myself into. I have two months of this yet to go, and it’s only just begun.

Fine Art

Stretch marks - shallow grooves upon my flesh;
body image - different version of myself;
strong, capable, complete.

Balancing worlds - lives dependent;
obscure art form - moulding, shaping, soothing, caressing;
all lies at my feet.

Not mere duties to fulfill- uplifted to privileges
that I get to meet.

Dreams, wishes, hopes - every day realized.

Bathroom Habits

            I’m so used to wearing maternity pants that when I went to the bathroom and tried to pull them down, I forgot that real jeans have a button and a zipper that must first be undone. I’m glad I didn’t have to go any more than I did or there would have been a puddle on the floor.

            Amazingly, this incident didn’t occur until about 2 in the afternoon; nearly six hours after I put those (non-maternity!) jeans on, and it was the first moment I had a chance to “go”. Crazy how I can be home all day, in such close proximity to a toilet, yet somehow I can’t find the time to get in there until it becomes an absolute necessity (emergency?).

            Due to the demands of my three beautiful children and household crap to finish, my toileting habits have begun to resemble those of a potty-training toddler; waiting and waiting until the urge becomes so intense that everything must be dropped immediately in order to make it just in time.

Thankful

 Thankful…….

For the wind through the trees

Feet crunching through the leaves

For crisp nights and bright days

Brilliant autumn stars and porch lights

For morning frost and cold cheeks

Fuzzy scarves and flannel sheets

For candles’ flicker and long shadows

Scents of soup and family’s laughter

Thankful for these basic things

All the joys that life can bring

Cravings

I love food. I love it to the extent that every time Matt and I decide we are going to cut back on eating out to save on costs, I start to crave any and all food that is prepared in any other kitchen but my own. At times I wish I could go back before we went down the road to discovering food. Back before countless episodes of Iron Chef America and Top Chef, back before the experimentation in our kitchen with new ingredients and new flavors, back before our date nights at far-too expensive restaurants with food that should have remained out of our reach. All these things have only accomplished in turning the two of us into what I can only dub as food snobs. Although I am still happy eating the usual home fare, I would much rather be dining on gourmet cheese plates, risotto, and steak au poivre.

But at this time, on our constricted budget, I will have to make do with the occasional late night snack of bread and cheese (read: baguette, garlic-infused olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and parmesan cheese), and dream of the day when I can sit down to an exciting dinner that will satiate the food nerd waiting within.

An Unhealthy Adoration of a Product

My original intention was to sing the praises of dry shampoo; an amazing product that must have been developed with new mothers in mind. It sure cuts down on the bad “mom ponytails” I’m so often guilty of sporting. I can take my dirty head of hair, spray in some dry shampoo, and look put-together in mere minutes without the hassle of getting baby into a deep sleep or getting older children distracted enough so they let said baby sleep.

Dry shampoo really is a remarkable life-saver I only wish I would have discovered when my other two munchkins were babies. However, with time, a downfall has surfaced alongside its many wonders. It works great on day-old hair. I’ve even had success with days two and three; yet, after this it seems that dry shampoo can no longer disguise the fact that my head nor the rest of my body has felt a shower of anything besides bodily fluids for an extended period of time. In fact, I think dry shampoo, along with my already fatigued memory, is causing me to lose track of just how long I’ve actually gone without a shower.

It’s hard enough to find time to bathe, let alone find the energy to do so. The last thing I want to do when time suddenly opens up is exert the effort it takes to wash myself; I’d much rather crawl into bed and dream about the day when showering will be easy again, then wake up, spray down my hair and be on my way.

Because of this, dear dry shampoo; it is with sadness that I must put you away. You have been a wonderful help, but it seems that you have become an enabler. I must set you aside now because you are only helping me deceive myself. It is time for me to shed my denial and go back to proper hair-washing techniques. Someday when I can exert more self-control, I will take you out again; but until then, I need to step out from under this fog of powder and once again embrace real shampoo.