Allison the Meep

lump

2012-01-31T21:26:00.005-05:00

Good news! I don't have throat cancer.

And you're all, "Wait, wait. Back up. Throat cancer?"

I have this lump in the back of my throat that I noticed over a year ago. I went to my doctor, and he checked it out, and said it didn't seem sinister. This is a very smart and nice man whom I trust. But I was still freaked out about it. So I started asking pretty much every doctor friend I know what the what was up. And they all suggested I see an ENT doctor, because they weren't about to stop eating chips and hummus at a party and stick their fingers down my throat. Which makes perfect sense, because those guys do nothing but looks at throats and gross earwax and booger stuff all day.

So I went in yesterday, and had a doctor put his finger down my throat and feel around, and I gagged a bunch and it was super attractive. His conclusion was that I have a huge styloid process, which is a bone that grows on the skull beneath the ear, and comes out like a rhino horn. Mine happens to be large enough that I can feel it in there with the back of my tongue, and when I turn my head sometimes. It's gross, man. Gross. But not painful or scary in any way.

I had been quietly freaking out about this for some time now, and have not wanted to even say it out loud because I didn't want to give those fears any more ground than they deserved. But you guys, have you ever Googled a medical malady? Of course you have. That shouldn't have even been a question. You know that every single time you Google something, it comes up *CANCER! CANCER! CANCER!*. So this rock hard lump in the back of my throat has been troubling me. And this super sweet doctor whose job it is to look at boogers and earwax all day long calmed my fears by taking his time and explaining exactly what was up, and even showing me a diagram of it. Bedside manner to the max. He said, "It feels rock hard because it is! It's a bone!" And told me that it wasn't some kind of scary throat tumor, or some weird absorbed twin with teeth and hair and a little Voldemort face.

So now that I don't have throat cancer, I am feeling a lot lighter today. And of course, I will not be referring to the lump by its actual name, the styloid process, but rather, my "throat boner."

eight

2012-01-31T20:34:00.002-05:00

Julian turned eight on Friday, and we had his party on Saturday. He got to pick a handful of friends to have over, and decided on a Harry Potter theme. Every single kid came dressed up, and it was so great. Also, Julian asked his friends to bring canned goods this year instead of presents, to be donated to a local food bank. I am so proud of him for this. At eight, I don't think I would have been mature enough to forgo all presents from friends. Of course, we still got him stuff and he wasn't totally hosed.

This is the only picture I really want to post from his party, because most of the others have kids in them, and I don't want to be some weirdo who posts pictures of other people's kids without permission, you know? So here's my own kid:

Julian requested a (gluten-free) chocolate cake with fresh strawberry filling, and a white chocolate buttercream icing. I have to say, it was the most delicious cake I have ever made and Wade and I have decided that it needs to be made at least once a month just because. I need that cake in my facehole.

On top of the cake were Lego Harry Potter characters that I made out of marshmallow fondant. I worked on them all week in the evenings, making a section at a time. Like, one night was dedicated to building torsos with little shirts and ties. It was pretty fun to do, and it seemed to all come together until the very last night, when it was time to piece all the body parts together. And then stuff started falling apart and cracking, along with my sanity. It was so frustrating to see everything I worked so hard on fall apart, and there was much swearing. At one point, I even kicked a folding chair and felt like a pro-wrestler. I eventually resorted to glueing things together because my tears were going to start making the colors run if I didn't stop crying. The glue did the job, although it made the characters inedible.

Some pictures of the cake: (I have mentioned the unacceptable sponge painting from the previous owners in my house before, yes? Well, here it is. Barf.)

Those little bitches made me cry, yo.

Perhaps the coolest Harry Potter element of all is this little banner quilt, made by my super talented friend Crystal from Sonnet of the Moon. I have been ~~crapping my pants~~ freaking out hard over this thing. It's crazy beautiful and was so kind of her to make, and Julian is super excited to hang it on his wall.

meep facts: the contradiction/confession list

2012-01-27T10:37:00.006-05:00

1.a) I don't like diamonds.

They're absurdly expensive pieces of clear rock, and there's way too much importance placed on them. Why does our society want us to think that spending thousands of dollars on a diamond is the thing that you're just supposed to do? The saying "Diamonds are a girl's best friend" makes me cringe. And although I've read recently that diamonds are now ethically sourced, I still wonder if that's true, and if people are losing their lives just so people in the first world can have a sparkly clear rock embedded in their jewelry.

1.b) I wear a 1 carat diamond engagement ring every day. At the time it was purchased, Wade didn't know that I think diamonds are stupid. So I wear it. Meh. And when we were robbed, I was so relieved to see that the burglars had missed it lying on a shelf.

2.a) I think marijuana should be legalized.

This thing that grows in nature without chemical additives can be smoked and ease all sorts of discomforts: nausea, pain, and anxiety, to name a few. I have never once seen anyone get violent or aggressive after smoking weed. Can you say the same for alcohol? Nope. Obviously, either of these in excess has consequences. But I would much prefer to be around someone who is mellow and smoking weed than a sloppy drunk. My tolerance of drunk people is pretty much zero at this point. And really, just think about all the tons of cash the government could make if they legalized pot and could tax it.

2.b) I don't smoke, and have an alcoholic drink maybe once a month.

3.a) As a self-proclaimed hippie, I only use natural beauty products. I also am gluten-free, and make most of my meals vegetarian and organic. All my cleaning products are eco-friendly, and I recycle everything. I make my own deodorant out of kitchen ingredients. All very hippie-ish things.

3.b) I am so guilty of rolling my eyes when I hear people talk about things like giving their kids colloidal silver every day, or getting all angry about vaccines that have kept people from getting polio and other awful diseases. And in my head, I go, Do some research and educate yourself, you fucking hippie. I'm very aware of how judgmental and shitty of me it is to think this way. I also don't cloth diaper my baby, and use disposable diapers, which I know will end up in a landfill and take 500 million years to decompose.

4.a) I think it's really important to be okay with who you are, and embrace your physical flaws as things that are normal, and know that perfect isn't real or possible.

4.b) When my hair turns grey, I am going to dye the shit out of it. I also have been watching old episodes of Nip Tuck on Netflix (new to me) and have realized that I think I would be okay with some corrective surgery on myself if I got older and things started to hang weirdly. Like, if I got the really unfortunate rooster neck that pretty much everyone on both sides of my family has. I know, I know. So fucked up. But true.

5.a) When people are on their cell phones all the time, I get so annoyed. You know, the ones who tweet every single thing they're doing ("Walking my dog - passed 4 mailboxes!"), or random song lyrics all day long and expect others to find meaning or interest in them. I find it excessive and wish people would unplug for a minute, without having to record every single tiny detail of their day in the most narcissistic way for all of the internet to see. Like, just go on a walk and look around, without having to be on your phone. And I get especially annoyed when young teenagers have very expensive gadgety phones.

5.b) Right now, my cell phone is very basic and exists pretty much so I don't get murdered if my car breaks down while I'm driving the kids around, but I really do want an expensive gadgety phone. They're just so cool. Shameface.

Now that I've told you all the things that will make me sound like the world's biggest a-hole, please tell me some of yours, just so I'm not alone in my a-holery.

tuesday

2012-01-24T16:14:00.004-05:00

- Thanks so much to those of you who donated to Jane. So far, you gave $60. I know that it doesn't sound like much, but my blog isn't really that much. I don't have a huge following, (which I'm fine with) and still you guys busted out your wallets and gave to a stranger in need. Thank you for helping!

- One of my besties turned 30, so I made her a giant moustache. I think if you look that up in the etiquette books, a giant moustache is exactly what Emily Post would recommend giving. Julian modeling:

- Both of my kids are downstairs right now watching Wonder Pets or the Backyardigans or something, because I need a freaking minute to myself where I'm not being required to touch anyone. And I don't really feel that guilty about letting the tv babysit for right now.

- My self-imposed coffee limit can suck it. Let it flow freely like the mighty Nile.

- Audrey only wants to hear the Taylor Swift song "Mine" at bedtime, and I am getting so. very. tired. of singing the same song to her every night. I've tried to switch it up, but she looks at me with her super intense stare, eyebrows included, and goes, "No. No, no, no. We-uhd." The girl flat out tells me that my songs are weird. She does like Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" a lot though, and requests that once in a while. Like when I start to leave the room and she feels really desperate to prolong the bedtime routine. She calls it, "Bop bop bop!" Really strange, but Julian used to call it the exact same thing when he was that age.

- I said in a really thick hillbilly accent to Wade a few nights ago, "Ah think yew need ta git the neuterin'." Because I grew and pushed out two entire people from my body, I don't have a huge ton of sympathy for a little snippity pain that men go through with a vasectomy. I mean, I'll give you a bag of peas and some Advil, but don't expect a lot more.

- My parents came to visit this last week, and I am exhausted from it. It was probably the best visit with them yet, but it's still so much work having people stay with you for a week. All the extra cooking and cleaning when I'm already feeling really tugged on really wore me out.

- I really want to say a lot more about their visit, but don't want to open that floodgate. My relationship with my parents is difficult. Of course I love them because they're my parents, but the similarities end there. We have different views on everything, and I have learned that if I want to have a decent-ish relationship with them, I have to keep my mouth shut because the clash just isn't worth it. Not ideal, but better that than estranged. I got only a few pictures while they were in town, and they ended up being of Audrey:

- Julian is turning 8 on Friday and I am still unable to grasp how he got so old. It's freaking me out.

- His birthday party is going to be Harry Potter themed, so I've been creating little Lego Harry Potter characters out of marshmallow fondant at night after the kids go to bed. It's turning out to be a lot more work than I thought, because those little Lego dudes have such detail. Wade and I have been watching "Louie" on Netflix streaming to pass the time while I make them, and it's been really great.

moar bits

2012-01-17T09:06:00.002-05:00

- I know I'm so late to the party, but I've really been loving Louis C.K. lately. We don't have cable, so pretty much everything I watch is way late, because I wait for it to be available on Netflix. Last night, we watched his standup show, "Hilarious" and it really was. I laughed so hard that all the muscles in my throat and neck were hurting. He's got that fine balance of being so funny that you hurt yourself laughing, and being so depressing with his truths that you feel like jumping in front of a bus. He talked about how stupid it is for adults to hit kids, and while it was all very funny, it was so true and awful that it made my stomach hurt a little. I think he might be my favorite comic ever.

- My birthday is next month, and I want to have a party. But here's the dilemma: it's also Wade's birthday. And Audrey's is the day before. Realistically, I will not be having a party because it means that I will have to make Audrey's cake, and then my own. That's just crazy. Also, Wade doesn't want to have a party. I could just be all, "Screw you, Wilson. I want a birthday party." But since it's his birthday too, and he's expressed that he doesn't feel like cooking and cleaning up after a bunch of people on his birthday also, I get screwed in the process. I mean, I know it sounds petty. I do. "Boo hoo, I don't get to have a birthday party." Whatever. I just want to do something fun on my birthday for once. I never get to go out and do anything because I have kids, and really haven't felt that anyone has given a shit about me on my birthday since I was little. I'll stop my whining about my white people problems now. (By the way, that totally wasn't a plea for anyone to make anyone feel guilty or that they have to go and do birthday stuff for me, because that's not what I'm after at all, but I felt that I had to mention this because you guys are so nice that it's crazypants.)

- Audrey just now informed that a Care Bear pooped in her pants.

- My dog's toenails are so long that it looks like she's walking on stilts.

- I have been doing really well lately with limiting myself to only 2 cups of coffee a day, rather than letting the coffee flow freely like some never ending river of delicious bean juice. But I still think about cookies and candy all the time. And the worst time of day is at night, around 9:00, after the kids have gone to bed and I just want to stuff cookies into my facehole. Except that I've made a point of not keeping any of that stuff around, so at 9:00 every night, I get all anxious. But I bought some Chimes Ginger Chews from World Market, and they are a healthy-ish alternative to eating a pile of cookies, and I only need one or two to satiate the need for shoving foods into my facehole at night. Do any of you feel like this at night?

- I haven't washed my face with anything other than olive oil for over a month now, and it's great. It makes so much sense, I don't know why I didn't think of it before. Here's a bit of information about it, if you're curious.

for Jane

2012-01-12T21:25:00.005-05:00

I am about to do something I have never done before, and wouldn't normally do: ask for money on the internet.

There's a woman, we will call her Jane*, who is really struggling right now. She escaped a very abusive relationship, and is now living in a shelter with her toddler son. Taking care of a toddler is hard enough without adding a) single mom b) living in a shelter c) being fearful of the ex - all into the mix. Right now, her life is very difficult.

Jane needs to find a safe place for her and her son to live, and is also saving for a car.

It shouldn't need to be mentioned, because abuse is abuse is abuse - but Jane is a smart, educated woman. I know there can be a stereotype surrounding domestic abuse, that it's only a certain kind of person who gets abused. Abuse can happen to anyone. Age, race, gender, economic status - none of those things matter. And there's this idea that they must be stupid if they've allowed it to happen. Well, she's not stupid. She's a really smart person who loves her son more than anything and is doing whatever it takes to keep him safe. She's the kind of mom who is concerned with what kind of foods she feeds her son, and believes in attachment parenting. Before she was living in this shelter, she was just like any other normal person. Things can go from sugar to shit really fast.

What I'm asking from you all is to help her get back on her feet. I was able to give some, and a few friends have already blown me away by just hearing about Jane's situation and donating money to a stranger who needs help. Thank you so much to those who have already donated. It's helping her get back on her feet.

I'm not asking for huge amounts. Any small donation will help, because if lots of people give even just a little bit, all of that will add up to helping her find a safe place to live. Do you like to buy a latte when you're out? Would you consider not getting the latte just for one day and giving that money instead to help Jane?

You guys know I don't do this, ever. I give to charities I believe in, but I don't like to go around beating a drum and trying to rally people for a cause. I like to let people make their own decisions about what charities they give to. But this is a real person, not a charity. Anything you give to her will get directly to her and not be split up into overhead costs, or paying for some CEO's absurd salary.

I've set up a PayPal link on the right side of my blog, and if you would like to donate, I would really appreciate it - and Jane would really appreciate it. Thanks for all the generosity I've already seen from you all. Greatest bunch of people ever. I'll keep track of everyone's name so she'll be able to know who has helped out. Every single cent of what you give will go directly to her.

* Not her real name, for safety reasons. Getting away from an abuser can be scary, and nobody wants to be tracked down. So I'm not putting her real name on here because discretion is extremely important right now.

bits

2012-01-11T09:29:00.003-05:00

- Last night I dreamed that the elementary school where Julian goes declared all future Thursdays as "Emilio Esteves Thursday." Everyone was genuinely excited about it, and I was the only one who was very confused.

- In a separate dream last night, we went to the beach and stayed in a cute but skank-ish beach motel, and our entire family got lice. I don't even know what lice look like in real life, but in my dream, they were like the fattest fleas you could imagine. And they were all in our hair. I woke up extremely itchy and upset, and my dream abruptly ended at the part where I was freaking out and demanding that we get our money back from the hotel and be compensated for lice treatment. Heh.

- Audrey talks a lot now, about things I didn't even realize she was aware of. This morning, she walked into my bathroom and peeked at the floor where the edge of the cabinet meets the tile, then looked up at me and said, "dirty!" Well.

- Julian is turning 8 at the end of the month, and has asked for a Harry Potter birthday cake. Specifically, Lego Harry Potter. And he wants it to be 3D, so I need to get cracking on making some marshmallow fondant, dyeing it, and molding it into little Lego people so it has time to dry and won't fall apart. Last year, he got totally hosed because we had just gotten robbed and were living with friends until our broken doors and windows could be replaced, and I didn't have access to all my fun baking stuff. So I really want this year to be special for him. Remember the Yellow Submarine cake of his sixth birthday? I want it to be that kind of awesome.

- I'm growing out my pixie hair because I decided that deep down, I really want mermaid hair. This means that I have entered the Bieber phase of hair growth, and must wear a hat pretty much all the time to cover the Bieberness.

- Also, hi. I have a lot of moles.

siblings

2012-01-10T08:11:00.002-05:00

Julian and Audrey were playing together in the kitchen when I made breakfast this morning, and I heard this go down:

Julian: "Ow, Audrey! No hitting!"
Audrey: "Why? WHY?!"
J: "Because it's not nice. Do we hit you?"
A: "Um, no."
J: "Right. We don't hit."
A: "Otay."

And then they hugged.

My mind = blown

resolutely happy

2012-01-04T21:13:00.004-05:00

Happy New Year! (Four days late.)

Pretty much everywhere I look, people are posting New Year's resolutions. Losing weight seems to be the top one. I don't make resolutions. Well, I mean, I guess I make them. Everyone makes them. If you decide to do something, you've made a resolution. But I don't make them for the new year. I think if you're going to do something, just do it. Start now. Why wait for a new calendar year to better yourself? Make yourself kick more ass today.

But I do think the intentions behind most of these resolutions are great. I would like to be more active than I am currently. And I want to stay more organized. Playing guitar more and working on songwriting is always something I want to do. We have lived in our house for a year and a half, but still have only painted the kids rooms. And there is some really nasty sponge painting that needs to be covered up like yesterday (there is never a time when sponge painting is acceptable, you guys). But life is busy. All of my energy right now is devoted to taking care of people, and often there is not much left for even taking care of me. It sucks sometimes and makes me sad, but I know this is temporary, just like everything else in life.

So I think that for now, my new year will start out with feeling grateful that I am healthy, and have an awesome family and group of friends. I am thankful that I have two amazing kids and I get the privilege of knowing them and helping them grow into the adults they'll turn into one day. I am thankful that we have plenty of food in a world where so many people are hungry every day. And I'm thankful for all of the kindness I've gotten from you all. There is some serious ugliness on the internet, but everyone who I interact with on this blog is always so great. Thank you for that.

I hope you all had a beautiful time with your loved ones and stayed safe, and I will leave you with a picture of Audrey's recent obsession - going pantsless. Good times!

meep facts

2011-12-28T22:42:00.005-05:00

1. I can't watch scary movies because I get too scared and then have nightmares for weeks. Even "Shaun of the Dead" scared me, and it wasn't even supposed to be scary. When I worked in L.A. for a sound company, my scream was recorded and is in a scary movie, but I'll never hear it because I'm never, ever going to watch it.

2. Folky guitar songs from the 70s, like ones from America and Bread, are pretty much it for me in terms of music. I wasn't even alive in the 70s, but I feel a huge connection to that singer-songwriter style of music and it's pretty much what I look for now in new music, and what I lean towards when I write my own songs. This song by Bread. I loves it:

3. I say that The Beatles are my favorite band ever, but it was only a few months ago that I got the pun in their name. What! That's embarrassing to admit.

4. Healthy food is awesome and makes me happy and feel great, but I still think about cookies pretty much non-stop. I want to hold a cookie and get all Brokeback Mountain and go, "I can't quit you!!" and then make out with it.

5. It's been over four years now that I've been gluten-free. That's four years of not feeling like crap every day. Booyah!

6. Speaking of - Audrey has started saying "Booyah!" all the time, and it's the greatest thing ever. She flaps her arms up and down and runs around yelling it.

7. At age 30, I am finally starting to get into nail polish. I love it. But Audrey isn't even 2, and she's nuts about it:

8. Don't tell Julian, but I'm pretty sure that he's smarter than me already.

9. If Wade had not had the power of veto, our kids probably would have ended up with crazy-ass hippie names like Willow Juniper and Lavender Sage.

10. I have begun to limit myself to two cups of coffee per day, and it's a huge deal to me because I would like to be drinking two pots of coffee per day. It's not the caffeine I crave, but the taste of coffee is so freaking delicious that it's second in line after cookies in terms of things I think about.

11. Today I asked Wade if he was proud of me for only having two cups of coffee a day, and he thought that was ridiculous. Like, why would that be a big deal to anyone? But seriously. I want the coffees in my face hole now. I'm proud of myself.

12. I tell Audrey all the time that she's pretty, and tonight, she patted me on the shoulder and said, "Mama pretty?" And then I said, "Yes! Mama's pretty!" without even faking it. After spending so much time hating myself, I'm pretty proud of myself for that too.

13. Cussing is my favorite. I mean really, how versatile is "fuck"? It can be a noun, an adjective, a verb, and probably some other awesome parts of the English language that I'm too ignorant to know, like a freaking dangling participle, because I'm too busy calling people "fucknuts" when I'm driving and don't have time for knowledge of proper things.

14. Scoff if you want, but I love Bono forever and ever, amen. I want to have ten thousand of his babies.

15. Audrey and I have matching grey Tom's shoes that are both dirty and sitting in our downstairs shower stall, waiting to be cleaned. Hers are dirty from when she barfed all over herself in the car a few weeks back. Mine are dirty from when I pulled over quickly and ran through the mud to help her while she was barfing all over herself in the car. It has been weeks now, and neither pair has been cleaned. Because I'm squalor-ful like that. And BAM. There's a new word. Squalorful.

16. Seafood is straight up nasty. There, I said it. And I don't even have to feel like I'm being insulting to people anymore now, because last summer I finally got brave and ate shrimp, and it was kind of good. Not awesome, but kind of good. I didn't hate it. And then I woke up in the morning with rashes all over my face. One of them looked like a Hitler moustache, and another looked like a vicious hickey on my neck. And they didn't go away for weeks. So, seafood is nasty.

17. I'm not particularly good at fashion, and I hate going shopping for clothes. It's overwhelming. And I'm also pretty clueless when it comes to hair and makeup. Basically, I would make a great lumberjack.

18. If I were trapped on a desert island (does that even happen to people? I mean, you always hear of the hypothetical situation, but aside from Tom Hanks and those Gilligan's Island people, I don't think it really happens.) and could only have two foods for the rest of my sad, desert island life, I would pick broccoli and quinoa. But you know I'd be thinking about cookies. And coffee.

19. I love to sew and be crafty, but I don't know what I'm doing. Like, I don't know how to read sewing patterns, and I'd really like to learn someday.

20. Going to bed right now would make so much sense, but I always stay up later than I should because the very little bit of time that I am not touching a kid or having someone need me is extremely rare and precious and I don't want to spend it on sleeping.

merry and bright

2011-12-25T15:38:00.002-05:00

Hoping your Christmas has been happy, and spent with the ones you love.

Here are my littles on Christmas Eve

Audrey's reaction when she opened the doll that Julian hand sewed for her

Even Santa cares about dental hygeine

She got a tube of lip balm, and I had to pry it from her tiny hands because she rubbed like a week's worth of it on her lips. She kept walking around with it, saying, "Leeps!"

Love and peace from the Wilsons!

hey girl

2011-12-19T21:27:00.002-05:00

I don't write very much on here about gluten-free stuff anymore. I figure there are enough blogs that are dedicated entirely to GF living, and actually do a good job of it, so nobody gives a hoot about my GF stuff. You know?

However.

I made a tumblr page dedicated to the "Hey Girl" Ryan Gosling meme, but he's a GF Gosling in my version.

Because somebody needed to represent.

HOLLEEERRRRRRRRR.

Here it is, if you care to see it: Hey Girl, GF

(weak)end

2011-12-12T21:09:00.004-05:00

I had big plans for our weekend. We were going to make really adorable gluten-free Christmas cookies and then see the Festival of Lights. But a virus happened. Look! I tweeted (twatted?) about it:

It started with Audrey barfing all over herself in the car Wednesday afternoon on the ride to pick up Julian from school. And then the barfing didn't stop until last night (Sunday). And of course, I got sick too, because I've got that baby ALL up in my grill (can I say "grill"? I'm very, very white. I don't know if I can pull that one off) all the time. So I was sick all weekend too. Which left poor Julian to be neglected and watch a crapton of television, and play an even bigger crapton of Wii games. And Wade had to do all the caring for sick people duties, on top of having to go into work. Eff, man. Eff.

So I've got no awesome pictures to show from my weekend, because who takes pictures of barf? Not me. Which must surprise you, I know, because I'm so gross. But really, I don't like to document the pukes.

However, here is an awesome picture of my kids cheesing it up in a redwood doghouse at Costco:

I don't know why they both wanted to climb in there, but it made me laugh really, really hard. And Julian swears that someone put barbeque sauce on one of the inside walls. I told him it was probably sap, but he says that it was more of a splatter not made by nature. So some other crazies probably let their kids hang out in there too, except that they let them take a bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's up in there, and go to town decorating the walls. Right on!

I hope you all had a beautiful weekend, free from the barfies, and did lots of fun holiday activities. Tell me all about them. Ready? GO!

tis the season for meme-ing

2011-12-05T21:45:00.004-05:00

I did a meme! Because jeez, how Debbie Downer was that last long post? SO MUCH. I copied this from Noelle's blog, and it was fun. What I am bummed about is that I am unable to include so many of the awesome Christmas photos from years past, because all our photos were stolen in the robbery. (We still have the iPod that had the backup of all my pictures, but I still have no idea how to get them off and not have them be super teensy, even a year later. Halp?) So here it is in all its meme-y glory:

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate?
Real egg nog skeeves me the eff out. RIGHT OUT. But Silk nog is like a unicorn bestowed its magic upon the weirdness of soy milk and gave it the beautiful flavor qualities that regular egg nog has, but without the creepy raw egg thing going on. The unicorn probably stirred the vat of Silk nog with its horn too. Does that make it not vegan anymore though? But man. I think hot chocolate always wins for me, because HELLO, chocolate. That you can drink.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
I'm not sure what this question is asking. Do some people just wake up on Christmas morning and find cool stuff under their tree, completely unwrapped? That is some lazy parenting. I also am not a huge fan of seeing a ton of wrapped presents under a tree, because that takes away from the impact of seeing everything at once on Christmas morning.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
I prefer colored lights. White is so pretty and calm looking, but nothing says, "We've got some super excited kids in our house!" like colored lights. Remember about 10 years ago when every house you drove by had the white icicle lights from their houses? It was so pretty, but too homogenized.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
My parents sometimes did. It was never a tradition that we cared much about, but more of an afterthought. "Hey, there's a pile of mistletoe for sale at the store. Let's get one." So we haven't really done it. But I'd like to copy this sweet-ass felt one that Emily made.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
After Thanksgiving, but not rabidly so. I have known people who do it Thanksgiving night, and that's just a little too soon for me. Usually by the first week of December is what we aim for. You guys should see my gleaming Festivus pole!!!

6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
I really, really love holiday food. Specifically, stuffing and gravy. DAY-UM. I could eat that every single day. When I was 20 and lived with my friend Careena, we used to buy boxes of Stove Top stuffing and make it for dinner. Because when you're 20, you can get away with eating disgusting shit like that and thinking that it counts as a meal.

And this year, I'm going to make a yule log that I saw in an issue of Saveur magazine, right before Audrey dumped my entire cup of coffee on it. But I got the general idea. Also, try saying "yule log" without using a Beavis and Butthead voice, and going "heh heh" a couple of times. IMPOSSIBLE.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
They all kind of blend together to form a big happy, glowy memory. I loved decorating the tree with my family while we listened to Christmas music, making cookies together, going to visit all the grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, the way the suffocating Florida humidity and heat let up enough to sometimes allow for a frost, jumping on our trampoline and seeing the tiniest hint of snow flurries come down and exclaim, "IT'S SNOWING YOU GUYS!!", the excitement of Christmas morning and how my mom would never let us just run in and open presents because we had to have a sensible-ish breakfast first, the tradition of all 4 of the kids each getting a jar of pickles in our stockings because our parents knew we were so nuts for pickles. Heh.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I remember it so clearly. It was on the bus ride home from Kindergarten, and an older kid told me with such satisfaction. I was crushed for a few days and just couldn't believe it. Julian learned this year, by the way. He asked me flat out if Santa was real, or if parents gave presents. So I told him the truth. And he was sad. And then within the span of about five minutes, he put together the pieces: "The Easter Bunny? The Tooth Fairy? Leprechauns?" All made up. I think he was most bummed about leprechauns.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
We always did when I was young, and it was the same thing every year: pajamas. Even though we knew what it was, it was always super fun to open it. Why am I not doing that for my kids? I think a trip to Target is in order.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
In the nude. Oh, wait....a different answer, perhaps? We go for simple. I think really fancy trees that look like they were done by professionals are very pretty, but just not for me. I like our tree to have a lot of keepsake ornaments and handmade ones. A tree that looks like the people who decorated it actually live there.

11. Snow! Love it or dread it?
Love it! For like the first week it's on the ground. Then I'm just tired of it, and tired of being cold. It doesn't even snow that much in our part of North Carolina. But I'm from Florida, and then lived in California after that. So snow and I aren't BFF or anything.

12. Can you ice skate?
Yeah, dood. And I love it. But you know who can ice skate like he's motherfreaking Wayne Gretzky? Julian.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
Yes, a guitar. Because it shaped me the most and gave me the most years of happiness.

14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Being with the people I love.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Um, can I use "all of them" as my answer? Because that's what it is.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Greasing a piglet with canola oil and letting it run wild through the house. The first person to catch it wins! No, really, we started a tradition when we moved here to go to see the Festival of Lights every year and bring homemade cookies with us for the ride. We always let Julian sit in Wade's lap and steer the car since it's going about 2 mph. That's probably my most favorite recent tradition.

17. What tops your tree?
Nothing! For shame!! I'm going to make a sweet little star our of yellow felt if I can ever get around to it.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
By far, I prefer giving. A complete flip-flop of how I felt when I was a lot younger. Opening presents was the shniznit!! But now, I love seeing people get excited over something thoughtful that I've given them. Like a greased piglet. Boy, do they get excited!

19. Candy Canes: yuck or yum?
Yum to the max. And go ahead and judge me for this, but I even love them once they've gotten really old and turned soft. I might even love them more than the fresh crunchy ones.

20. Favorite Christmas show?
It's a Wonderful Life is probably my all time favorite. Damned if I don't get all kinds of weepy every single time I watch it. And any movie that inspired the names of two Sesame Street characters has to be alright by me.

21. Saddest Christmas song?
It has to be this song that Patton Oswalt hilariously mocks. Such a sad song, but such a giant wtf.

22. What is your favorite Christmas song?
I really, really love Christmas songs. Even with my cynical bastard heart, I still love Christmas songs. And you may be surprised to learn that O Holy Night is my favorite one. It's just so beautiful.

motherhumper

2011-12-04T22:31:00.002-05:00

Damn it. I just installed Disqus on here so I could actually reply to each comment individually, but it deleted ALL old comments. Douchery and balls. Anyway, I just wrote some super long responses to the awesome and thoughtful comments that you guys wrote on my last post, so I'm going to dig them out of my email's trash and re-post them. But otherwise, all comments got deleted by Disqus. I will try very hard not to make any jokes about how that name sounds.

allison gets super dark, round 2

2011-11-30T20:47:00.004-05:00

A few nights ago, as Wade and I were snuggling Julian in his bed right before we turned out his lights, we started talking about Looney Tunes. How the characters always had crazy things happen, like boulders falling on them, but they'd get up and go back to whatever it is they were doing, that they couldn't be killed. And then Julian said, "I wish we were cartoons, so we'd never have to die." All three of us got really quiet, none of us really knowing what to say after that. It was like his words were the boulder falling on us, flattening us right out. So fucking heavy.

When I lie in bed at night, my mind goes to crazy places. I start thinking of things, and it spirals into such scary unknown that I can feel a panic attack starting in my chest, and the feeling that I'm falling backwards into a black hole. I have to make myself stop before it gets too scary and I'm a sobbing heap under the covers. I think about what it will be like when I die. How old will I be? How will I die? I try to imagine the very moment my heart stops beating. And then nothingness. And that's when the panic attack starts.

I've said before that I don't believe in Heaven or Hell anymore. I almost wish I did, because it made things so much easier. This agnosticism, bordering atheism, that I've found myself in feels really freeing sometimes. But when it comes to death, it's so scary. The idea that once you die, that is the very end of you. I've been reading a book that a good friend loaned to me called "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. And I'm summarizing here, but he said something like, he knows that when his brain ceases to function and there are no electrical impulses going through his body anymore, that is the end. No Heaven. No spirit that gets reincarnated into someone or something else. The end.

When I think about dying, I always imagine it as something that happens to other people, never to me, or to the people I love. I won't die. My mind can't go there. But intellectually, I know I will die one day, along with the people I love. People I love have already died. My Gram is going to turn 96 in a few days. She is the person I know who seems nearest to death. It's so hard for me to acknowledge, even though I am aware of how very old she is and the inevitable. It's still too much for me to try and understand.

So I have been somewhat obsessing about this, despite really not wanting to. Is that all we are, just electrical impulses? Just blood, bones, tissue and electricity all in one package, and nothing else? Do we have souls? I used to say that I knew for sure that we did. Now I don't know. Because really, we don't know. I'm really not coming from a place of being a cynical asshole, even though I have definitely turned into a cynical asshole when it comes to religion. But it's more of a scientific place that these thoughts stem from. What proof do we have that there are souls? I'm not saying that a soul can't exist, because really, I would love for that to be the case. But what do we have that can prove this, besides just blind faith? I am a fan of faith. I think it's really important for all of us to have faith in something that can propel us forward. But believing in something just because people have said to, is something I can't do anymore. I have too many questions. Do we have souls? And if we do, what happens to those souls after we die? Or are we just pure energy, absorbed back into the Universe? What about weird ghosty things that happen? I have definitely had some strange paranormal experiences that I can't explain any other way than to say that something spiritual was happening outside my control.

I think what bothers me so much is that I have such intense love for my family and friends. The thought that we won't exist one day and won't be able to know each other crushes me. I really understand when people say they will find each other after they've died, because I want that. I want to find the people I love, and know them always.

As if this wasn't heavy enough, this song destroys me:

(The link to the actual video was disabled, so this is just the song.)

thankful

2011-11-24T23:44:00.003-05:00

Know what I'm thankful for? That nothing in my life happened the way I planned.

When Julian was born, I was 22 years old. I turned 23 a month later. Wade and I got married when I was 4 months pregnant, and had only known each other a few months before that. The fact that I actually got married to someone I hardly knew, and then had a baby with him shortly after that is crazy. Lots of people told me to just have an abortion. Or that getting married so young would be a huge mistake. There were even people from my old church who found out about what was going on, and took the time to write me letters letting me know how disappointed they were in me, but that they were praying for me. Yeah.

But I didn't do what people told me to do. I got married. I had the baby. No, I didn't want to be a mom or a wife at 22. I had huge plans for myself. I was going to be a successful musician. I was supposed to be free, married to my art. I wasn't going to get married until I was at least 30. And maybe kids, if I had the time. That was the plan.

Deciding to commit to a marriage and to being a mother were the best choices I have ever made. I can't imagine my life without Julian or Wade. And in so many ways, Julian saved us. I have no doubt that we would have broken up if it hadn't been for him. If it weren't for Julian, there would be no Allison and Wade. And there would be no Audrey. Julian saved us and brought us together, and has helped define the person I am now. I am forever thankful to have him as my plan changer.

Broken plans have never been so awesome.

this conversation just happened

2011-11-21T21:58:00.002-05:00

Julian: "If you think about it, I'm kind of married to Dad."
Me: "What? How?"
Julian: "Well, you were pregnant with me when you got married. So in a way, I got married to Dad too."
Me: "You sick bastard. I'm calling the cops. That kind of shit is illegal. And gross."

And then we died laughing.

I love that I can say things like that to him, and he totally gets it. He has the best sense of humor.

she's a lady

2011-11-08T19:45:00.002-05:00

I painted Audrey's nails for the first time ever today. She grabbed my nail polish from the bathroom drawer and gestured to my painted nails, and then to her tiny fingers. So we sat down together in the bathroom and I squeeeeeeeed all over the place at having a girl* and being able to do this super precious thing with her. When we were done, she held her little hands out and said, "pitteh!" which is "pretty" in case you don't speak Audrey-talk.

This picture of her breastfeeding while holding my shirt with her little pink nails is the sweetest contrast to me. Baby and big girl, all in one.

*Not only girls paint their nails! Julian is a black fingernail aficionado.

cast, off

2011-11-07T20:01:00.003-05:00

Julian's cast came off today! Three weeks is the length of time that he had to wear it, and he was so excited to finally have his arm back. No more showers with his arm bagged and taped up in a large plastic shopping bag! No more accidentally cracking his mom in the face with a hard exoskeleton arm when she tries to snuggle him! And no more skank smelling cast (that truthfully was a mix between rotting flesh and pickles). Freedom!

I took this picture of him just before we were called back to the "cast room" because I wanted him to have a picture of all the signatures. When he broke his arm the first time, we thought we would be able to save the cast, but they unwrapped it instead of sawing it off. They use this weird material now that reacts with the air once the package is opened and begins to harden immediately. No more plaster. So I figured we'd end up with an unwound pile of smelly black cast.

Still waiting.

No unwrapping here. These guys used a saw and it was very noisy, hence the ear protection. (I almost called them "ear goggles" because I'm effing exhausted from Audrey waking up at 4:00am for the last few days, that I have no grasp of the English language right now.)

Here he is after the cast came off, waiting to see the doctor. We all had completely forgotten that he had a temporary tattoo on his arm that said "Happy Halloween" and it survived being rubbed around the inside of his cast. His manly arm hair however, did not. It got rubbed completely off. Weird, right? Maybe I should cast my armpits and see what happens.

Also happening, but I am really slow posting about is that for the last two-ish weeks, Audrey has decided to potty train herself. I bought her this little potty thinking that it would be good to have around the house so she can see it and get used to the idea of potty training when she turned two. But right before she turned 20 months, she told me she had to peepee. Except that she calls it, "beepie!" She also calls poop, "boop." (I have laughed myself breathless over "boop" even though it's probably only super funny to me.) Every single day so far since that very first day a couple of weeks ago, she has consistently used the potty. Party on, Audrey! Or rather, potty on!

(Rest assured that her potty is not in the middle of the living room anymore, as this picture would lead you to believe. I'm not trying to raise a tiny Homer Simpson. This was taken the first day we bought the potty. And oh my god, how many times have I said "potty" in this post? Way too many.)

halloween bag

2011-10-20T11:08:00.003-04:00

Behold, a bunch of gratuitous shots of the Halloween bag I just finished for Audrey. Because, holy crap, I actually made something since the birth of The Neversleeper.

close up of the little witchie:

inside of the bag:

m'lady with her bag:

arm broken, spirit intact

2011-10-18T20:41:00.005-04:00

Sunday night, Julian fell from the tree house of his lady love and broke his arm. We were hoping for just a bad sprain, but the x-ray showed that both bones were broken at the very end, right before the wrist. They kind of crumpled like an accordion. So he'll be in this sweet-ass black cast for 3 weeks. He was so brave throughout the whole thing, and was trying hard to stay in good spirits. Luckily no re-setting of the bones this time around, and just straight to cast.

This makes the second time Julian has broken his right arm. You know what's crazy? I looked it up, because I remember that it was around this time of year. The first break was when he was two - October 22nd, 2006. And he was Batman for Halloween. This break was October 16th, 2011. And he's Batman again for Halloween this year. What the what?!

Of course he picked black for his cast. He's my little goth boy, even though he doesn't have a clue what goth is. Julian is my hero. Every single time we go out in public, someone comments on how sweet both of my little girls are. I'm not offended, but have been worried that it might end up hurting Julian's feelings one day. But you know what? He doesn't care. He's a lot like Honey Badger in that regard - he just doesn't give a shit. He walks around with long blonde hair and sometimes black painted fingernails, and loves listening to all music but is not embarrassed to say how much he loves Taylor Swift. When we went to the concert, he was the only little boy in the entire stadium, I swear to you. But he didn't care.

Julian is the most confident person I have ever known. He's so comfortable with himself and loves who he is, and doesn't care if he doesn't fit everyone else's idea of what he should look like or be. He just is. I hope he keeps that confidence throughout his entire life. And I wish I had even a tenth of his self-assuredness. I want to be just like Julian when I grow up.

My other hero, Audrey, at her first gay pride festival:

We went to the Winston-Salem Pride parade this weekend, and this was one of the 3 pictures I got to take before my camera battery died. Balls! Jennifer Knapp played, and I was so excited. I've wanted to see her play since I was 18 and never got the chance, so it was great to be able to stand right next to the stage and experience a live show. And it was seriously the most well behaved crowd I have ever been a part of. People were so kind and polite to each other, and that's not something that seems to be present in most crowds. Stuff like that is what makes me love living here.

Steve Miller business cards

2011-09-30T23:52:00.002-04:00

Wade and I tried watching a dvd from Netflix tonight, but the disc was scratched. I know you know how frustrating that is. It makes me want to rail against the man. So we turned it off, and decided to see if we could watch something on Netflix streaming instead. Except that wouldn't work either.

So I got pissed with the whole television setup and came upstairs to my computer, and made some business cards for Steve Miller. You know, because he might totally need them now that he's not actively rocking like he was in the '70s. Or is he?

Anyway, here are his business cards. You're welcome, Steve.

gratitude list

2011-09-29T21:32:00.004-04:00

Can I tell you about my day?

It began with Audrey waking up at 1:00 am, puking all over herself. I think besides the newborn projectile vomits (and dude. the lady could launch that shit.) this is the first time she's ever thrown up. And it scared her. We cleaned her up and brought her into our bed and I snuggled and breastfed her until morning. Which, aside from the vomit, is not really any different from any other night. We are lovers of co-sleeping. But last night, Audrey was a wiggly uncomfortable little pickle, with a roaring and gurgling belly, and like fourteen arms and legs. I swear to you, babies turn into Ganesha when they sleep.

When we woke up, Audrey was fine. As if the night never happened. And then The Coffee Incident happened. Now, I find this very funny because today is National Coffee Day. I had just told Audrey that we were going to go down to the basement to watch Sesame Street, and was holding her with my left arm. With my right, I had my freshly poured cup of coffee. NOT THE STAIRS, you're thinking. Yes. I do this every single day and so far it has yet to be harmful. I think that even if I fell, I'd do a classy roll like Gene Wilder did in the first Willy Wonka movie. That's how I roll. Heh heh. Besides, it's only a half-flight of stairs since this is one of those 70's split level houses.

So. Going downstairs with baby and coffee. Molly, the neediest dog in the entire world, decided that just following me everywhere wasn't enough, and felt that being directly underneath me as I walked was a better option. Except that dogs have shitty logic, so it didn't pan out. I tripped on Molly and the coffee cup I was holding (my favorite one, by the way) fell down the stairs and shattered into so many pieces that I swore it was more like 5 mugs that broke, not just 1. There were glass shards everywhere, and I still was finding them later this afternoon in places pretty distant from The Coffee Incident. And then there was the coffee. I cleaned coffee off the floors, stairs, and walls for so very long. At the end of it all, I found Molly huddled up on her little dog bed, looking very nervous, and with coffee on half of her body. Poor lady. So she got cleaned up too.

Oh! And I should probably mention that Audrey was not dropped. Or cut. Or burnt with coffee.

Then I went out to a nature trail with my sister and Audrey because I needed to get out of my house before more stuff went crazy wrong. When I came back, I found that Molly had chewed an entire 24 pack of crayons that I just bought.

It seems like a day full of suck. Except that it wasn't, really. Today was a mostly really great day with some crazy stuff peppered in. So I think it's time to write a gratitude list. I used to say things I was grateful for, out loud before bed every night. It's a practice I learned in Al-Anon, and it has a really great way of making terrible situations seem better because there's always something good to be found. I think just being so busy with being a full-time caregiver has made me slack off on the mental gratitude list before bed, and then I saw that Cait wrote one on her blog, The Happy Radish.

Here are 10 things that made me happy today:
1. Hanging out with my sister
2. Changing the words to songs so they're filthy, and then cracking up.
3. Seeing a deer on the nature trail today. She was so close to us!
4. Audrey singing along when I go, "Hello, is it me you're looking for?"
5. Julian being very excited about a screenplay he's writing
6. Thursday is family pizza night. The simple routine of that is so sweet to me.
7. Julian asking me to smell his hair after his shower, because he likes his shampoo.
8. Boiling garbanzo beans and noticing a foam, declaring that the foam is "boiled farts", googling the info and finding out I'm kind of right. Any time you can claim superior fart knowledge is a good thing, I say.
9. Texting with one of my oldest friends about silly high school crushes.
10. M&Ms, and the way Audrey finally says "please" when I bribe her with them. But it's more like, "peace!!"

Nothing gigantic. But all happy. Even in days that are nutty, there's always something good to be extracted.

Now it's your turn. What made you happy today?

how to know you're a grown-up

2011-09-22T08:22:00.003-04:00

Last night I had a dream that I was going about my day and doing usual things like shopping at Target and picking up Julian from school. Except that peppered in with the regular stuff was the part where I was spending large amounts of cash on frivolous things. Just grabbing things off shelves and buying them simply because I wanted them. And then at the register when I was paying, the cashier asked me if I wanted to donate some money to whatever charity they were supporting. So I did. Without even thinking, I said, "Sure! Make it $85!" (That's such a random number, but I remember it. If dream Allison was spending money all willy-nilly, why wouldn't she make it an even $100? Cheapskate. And who in the hell says 'willy-nilly' anyway?)

Then I woke up in a panic because I was spending money I didn't have, and wanted to immediately check my bank account online to make sure it was all just a bad dream.

And this is how you know you're a real grown-up: Your dreams have shifted from ones of being chased by monsters to dreams of fiscal irresponsibility. So much scarier than monsters.

I'm burnin' for you

2011-09-16T13:45:00.001-04:00

I think this would be the best song to play in the background to lighten the mood as you're breaking it to someone that you've given them an STD.

But still, don't expect to walk away without a sound ass-kicking, I'm sure.

accent vlog

2011-09-15T18:12:00.001-04:00

Oh my god. I just did a vlog. Do you know how stupid I felt doing a vlog? Not that vlogging is stupid. But it's basically me documenting how I talk to myself. Sure, I talk to myself all day long because I'm batshit crazy. But documenting it on a webcam? Different story.

So anyway, here it is. I tried to do this earlier, but Audrey was all wiggly and kept trying to expose my bewbs, so I gave her a box of raisins. She's hanging out with me and chowing on her raisins. After I finished the video, she decided to start cramming them down her pants. Babies are the coolest.

You guys. I am a little embarrassed just posting this, because hearing my own voice makes me cringe. Be gentle, please.

The instructions are to say these words:

Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught

And answer these questions:

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

warning: awesome overload

2011-09-15T12:18:00.000-04:00

I think I just broke the internet with all that awesome.

julian, restaurateur

2011-08-30T08:09:00.004-04:00

Julian's thoughts while having lunch at Chipotle a few days ago:

"What if 100 elephants pooped and it filled up this room?" ::::looks around:::: "And what if you hollowed out the middle and left the walls. And then filled it with tables and chairs and served people food...you could call it Shit McGee's."

second grade

2011-08-17T21:42:00.004-04:00

Julian started the second grade today! He keeps seeming older and older to me all the time, and in no way resembles the tiny baby that I first met in 2004. He's such a smart and funny little dude now.

I love seeing these boys start their day together. And as much as I couldn't wait for school to start this year, I found myself missing them all day until they both were home again.

cardinal

2011-08-16T22:21:00.003-04:00

This afternoon while I was playing with Audrey and Julian in our living room, I saw a blur come toward the window and thunk into the glass, then crookedly fly off a few yards away. I was hoping the little bird was okay when I saw my cat, Stevie Wonder, haul ass in the direction of the fallen bird and come back a few seconds later with his prize catch in his mouth.

I ran outside to see if the bird was still alive, and if it was, how badly it had been hurt by the fall and probably now by my cat trying to murder it. So I yelled, "DROP IT!!" And I swear to you, that cat gave me a look of pure hatred, but he dropped it. Then he backed up a few feet and glared at me while I gently picked up the little bird to examine it.

A young cardinal! And when I inspected him (her?) more closely, I saw that he didn't appear to have any major injuries. Just some ruffled feathers and a little blood on his face from where he bumped into the glass. I brought him through the house to the back yard away from the cat and set him down on the deck. He was breathing hard and his little mouth was wide open, so I got him a small cup of water. I don't know....to drink. Or bathe in. Just wanted to be hospitable to my little patio guest.

For size reference, here he is by my hand. (Eeew. Why does my hand look like it's 100 year old?) Also, he must have been so scared because he dropped the grossest adolescent bird deuce on my hand right before I set him down. Hands were immediately washed, and then I grabbed the camera.

I also glanced over and saw a dead cicada nearby on the deck, so I scooted it over to the water bowl area with a leaf. My hospitality knows no bounds, people. Come to my house and I will give you food and drink.

Then I went inside and Audrey and I watched from the kitchen back door. She really wanted to go out and touch the bird, and even brought her little shoes to me, shrieking and pointing outside. The lady really connects with animals.

Julian, on the other hand, told me it was "totally gross" to bring a bird into the house and wanted nothing to do with it, and went right back to watching television because today was the last day of his summer vacation and he was determined to get the absolute most out of television before it vanishes from his life during the school year.

Audrey and I stayed and watched our cardinal for a while, and then went back to playing. When I checked about 10 minutes later, he had gone. I hope he was able to catch his breath for a bit and then take off back to his family. I wonder what kind of story he's telling them tonight...

gone

2011-08-08T21:48:00.003-04:00

I don't know if turning 30 did it, or if it's just something that everyone goes through at some point in their lives, but I've been thinking a lot about death lately. Almost obsessed with it, and it really gets to me sometimes.

So, death. It's a natural part of life, right? We're all born, and we all die. And that's about all we know. Some people believe in Heaven and Hell, some believe in reincarnation, and others believe that there's just nothing. It all ends when you end. Which is maybe the scariest possibility I can think of.

Part of my problem, and why I think so much about death, is that I don't know what I believe. I used to believe in heaven and hell. It's the concept I was taught growing up, and I just believed what I was told. But I don't anymore. There are tons of reasons, which are too long to go into now, but suffice to say I don't believe in any of it at this point. And I wish I still did, in a way. It would make things so much easier to handle. When you die, you get to go to heaven and see all the people you loved and spend forever with them. That's packaged so nicely, isn't it? But it's just too much of a fairy tale for me to buy into anymore.

Here's how I view it now: You spend your life knowing and loving all kinds of people. Some, like a spouse or a parent/child relationship, you're closer with. You live your life and enjoy it - if you're lucky. And one day, you find yourself very old and frail. Old to the point of not being able to do the things you used to do with ease, and having random things keep failing. Eyesight. Hearing. The very bones and muscles that allowed you to do something as simple as standing in earlier years no longer work and you are confined to a wheelchair, or a walker at best. A gradual breakdown of the person you used to be, withering away in a tired old body but with a young spirit. And all that happens if you're lucky. What about the ones who never even get that far? They die of awful things like disease or accidents. Why? Who decides this? Is it random, or is there really some supreme being out there somewhere deciding all this for us? And why would he/she want or need to control these things?

And then, after you live that long life and get old (if you're lucky) you die. That's it. You're done. Everyone you've ever loved - do you ever get to see them again? This is what troubles me, what keeps me awake at night. I found myself looking at Audrey sleeping in her bed so sweetly one night, and the next thing I knew I was sobbing because one day I would have to lose her, and everyone else I've ever cared for. My life will end, and there will be no me.

It's the not knowing that gets me the worst. It's not the actual dying part that I'm scared of. It's what comes , or doesn't - after. People say they know their loved ones are in Heaven, but no one knows. None of us have ever gone there and come back. Nobody has died on an operating table only to wake up and say, "Whoa, that Hell is a really, really bad place. I'm staying outta there." Nobody knows. Nobody knows. Nobody knows.

And I think that really fucking sucks.

back!

2011-08-02T21:27:00.002-04:00

Hello, loves! This is me, officially returning to the blogging world. See how much I've changed?

After a ridiculous hiatus, I am back. I've been meaning to be "back" for a stupidly long amount of time now and just haven't done it yet. So this is my way of pumping myself up by being all, "Allison, you just posted a moustached picture of yourself, promising to blog again. Don't be a liar in addition to being the giver of moustache rides." Eeeww. Too far? Probably. And on my very first post back.

an update

2011-03-06T22:03:00.002-05:00

Thank you all for the kind words and support after the break-in. We've been slowly getting back to routine and trying to feel normal. A few things have changed though.

First, we got a puppy! She's a 6 month old border collie/lab mix and Julian named her Molly, after Molly Weasley. I shot down "Hermione" because 4 syllables is just way too much to say when calling a dog. Except that I have been calling her "Mollygopolis" for no reason at all. Is she Greek? And seriously, 5 syllables. I don't understand it, or why I started doing it, but it's quickly become part of her normal name. Julian sometimes just calls her "Gopolis" or "Gops" and avoids the whole "Molly" thing all together. We always do this with our pets. Their names end up deviating so much from their given names and end up sounding nothing like the intended name. Our cat, Stevie Wonder, for instance. Somehow, he is now simply known as "Neemer". Molly is the coolest dog ever, especially since she has broken her streak of only pooping inside the house. The first few weeks with her made me realize that I don't think I could handle having three children. So two human children will remain, and one dog child. Good deal.

Second, there have been birthdays. Julian turned 7 on January 27th, Audrey turned 1 on February 27th, and Wade and I both celebrated our birthday on February 28th. Did you know that, that we have the same birthday? Isn't that just crazy? And that both of our children are 27s? So weird. Anyway, I am now 30. Thirty. Dirty thirty. Or whatever. I still feel the same. Which means that I still feel like I'm mentally a 12 year old boy. And I got all my hair cut off. It wasn't a "Woohoo, I'm going to kick 30's ass!" kind of move, but rather a, "I will not turn 30 with a terrible haircut" kind of thing. I had an awful haircut. It was the second attempt at fixing a previously bad haircut that was supposed to just be long and flowy layers. No. First, a shaggy mullet. Next, a bad housewifey 'do. So finally, a switch of stylists, and I have a kickass pixie cut. Except that I can't show you pictures of any of this awesomeness (puppy, children, 30 year old me with sweet-ass new haircut) because the assholes who burgled us took the cable that connects my camera to the computer. And I still don't have my own computer yet because the insurance company is taking mother effing decades to pay us, so I wait. And so must you.

It's like Little House on the Prairie around here, with no electric gadgets to entertain me. I'm using Wade's work laptop for now to check emails but honestly, I am kind of enjoying this freedom from being so connected all the time. It was such a total time waster. That isn't to say that I won't be totally enjoying having a television and computer again though.

And oh!! Good news that I almost completely forgot to share: If you ever have important things to hide in your house, keep them in your kitchen. Because asshole burglars don't take kitchen appliances. This also means that they completely missed taking my iPod. At first, I was just really happy to have that, as it contains my entire music library and the rest of my music is now in the hands of asshole burglars*. So my one connection to modern technology and music for weeks has been my iPod. But one day I accidentally clicked on the wrong button, and discovered that there were pictures on there. ALL my pictures. I had been inadvertently uploading them to my iPod every time I synced it. I cried when I realized that it meant I still had photos of my children and their milestones. I got so excited that I called Wade on his cell phone right away. Except that in my excitement, I got all worked up and dialed his Los Angeles cell phone number, which doesn't belong to us anymore. What?! Eventually, I calmed myself down and called his existing cell number and we both got a little weepy for a minute. Now I just have to figure out how to take photos and music OFF an iPod and put them on my new computer, once I get one.

So, things are good. We are healing, and aren't as jumpy anymore. I mean, I'm still kind of jumpy. And I'm still angry if I let myself think about it. It's one thing to take all my stuff. That's just assholey, but I can get over it, as it's only stuff and can be replaced. But to come back to my house while my family is sleeping inside, just to try and take more stuff? I have to assume that had they gotten in, they would have been willing to kill us over a few stupid guitars, and that makes me so angry that I want to personally hunt them down and murder them. You mess with my family and the safety of my family, and you deserve nothing but what Dexter Morgan hands out.

Overall though, things are looking up. All of you family and friends and friends who are so awesome that you are considered family, I love you guys.

*For clarification, the asshole burglars did not burgle assholes, but are in fact burglars who are themselves assholes.

2011-02-13T22:06:00.002-05:00

Our house was broken into a few weeks ago. It's still an open case, so I'm not going to post every small detail of it on here, but here's a quick recap of what happened: I came home from dropping Julian off at school, and all of our stuff was stolen. Doors broken down, stuff all over the floors, stuff gone. We had the doors boarded up and slept at home that night. And they tried to come back for the stuff they didn't have time or room in their van for. They didn't get back in, but in the morning we realized there were crowbar marks on another door, and they broke two windows.

We are thankfully all safe and didn't get hurt, but I'm consumed with this break-in. It's all I can think about. Every small noise has me on edge and I'm constantly looking out my windows and stopping mid-whatever-I'm-doing and saying, "Who's there?" This has shaken me so badly, and has made poor Julian so fearful. He didn't deserve this to happen to him. None of us did.

So this is what I have to say about this to the people who robbed us: FUCK YOU.

Fuck you for taking our stuff.

Fuck you for making my son constantly scared that someone is going to come into our house and hurt us.

Fuck you for making me feel afraid to be alone at home.

Fuck you for taking all of my family photos and videos, and all the backups. I now have no photo history of my children.

Fuck you for thinking it's okay to just smash into my home and take all the stuff we worked years to amass. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of things.

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

I hope the next time you try this to someone that you get shot right in your fucking faces.

eight months

2010-11-23T16:35:00.003-05:00

Audrey's 8 month photo shoot. You guys, this is almost a month old.

Having these two people in my life is the greatest thing I've ever done.

It's also totally kicking my ass.

And they're worth every bit of the ass-kicking that I'm getting.

sick

2010-10-14T21:16:00.002-04:00

This lady has had a fever for the past seven days. It's been brutal. Not a high fever, but enough to make her really uncomfortable and sad. And be awake more than she already is, which is just crazy to think about.

Her thoughtful big brother wrote her this note:

Oh, my heart.

read it and meep

2010-10-11T21:11:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago, Julian and I finished reading the Harry Potter series. Meaning, I read all seven books aloud because he's only six and novels are too big for independent reading for him still. Whew! I've read a lot of books, but never that many aloud before. We did the same thing with all The Borrowers books and I have to admit that I loved every bit of it.

It was so great to have that time with Julian where we both got so immersed in a story that we would end up spending dinner time talking about it. He would sit and listen for sometimes an hour at a time and every once in a while I'd glance up and see the little wheels spinning behind his eyes. Sometimes he would pull out some paper and draw what was happening in the story as we read it, and show me his work after we had finished a chapter. His vocabulary has expanded to include regional (England) words as well as ones from different time periods (the early 1900s).

We both got so obsessed with the Harry Potter books that I would spend time in the evenings after he went to bed and look up interviews with J.K. Rowling, and find out extra things that the books didn't really talk about. For example, that Dumbledore was gay. When I told Julian, he said, "Really? That makes sense." I love that boy. We've both become total dorks and will make comments about how an Invisibility Cloak would come in handy sometimes, and he wants to open a joke shop like Fred & George Weasley.

Tonight, after I put him to bed, I caught him sneaking down the dark hallway in his pajamas, a black ski hat, black gloves, and holding his wand. What was he doing? Prowling around, hoping to cast a spell on someone?

This past week, we started a new series, the Percy Jackson books and Julian's already hooked. I should also mention that Audrey has been present for the reading of all these books, whether in my belly (all of The Borrowers, and a little of Harry Potter) or out here in the world. She's hearing it, and words are sinking their way into her grey matter while she sleeps on my lap.

What books are you reading, even if it's not out loud to a kid, and just for yourself?

seven months

2010-10-06T12:08:00.002-04:00

Look who turned 7 months old already! Truthfully, she was 7 months on the 27th of last month, but I'm slow with the blogging lately. I dressed her in a puffy Seinfeld pirate shirt for this occasion.

Obviously, I don't have awesome photoshop skills, because if I did, there would be no 7 months index card, and no eating of said index card. I think it's kind of adorable though. (Jeez. Do you think I put enough commas into that sentence? I am such a comma abuser.)

Sleep at the Wilson house has been scarce these days and I find that it's a feat just to get a shower on most days. Audrey is already a baby who never sleeps. But yesterday, after a particularly rough night, I was tickling her on the floor under the skylight in our living room. And when I looked inside her mouth, I could see two tiny white nubs of teeth that haven't even pushed through the surface of her gums yet. Poor lady, with her achy gums.

Doesn't it seem really unfair to have to go through that as people? Especially very tiny people? We all have had these sharp little teeth rip through our pristine sealed gum surface. And then all those teeth that you went through so much pain to grow in eventually fall out and you have to grow new ones in. Then that's your last set. You'd better take care of them, even though you get some of your adult teeth when you're only 6. That just seems wonky to me. I want a new set of teeth. A third set, that will be sparkly white and last me through my later years. Sharks have no idea how good they've got it.

neversleeper

2010-09-19T23:02:00.003-04:00

Hello interwebs. You know Audrey, yes? The baby who must be held all day long?

Did you also know that she does not sleep, ever? I'm not kidding. This child is kind of a freak. She never naps. If she does, it's for 15 minutes, tops. Or she'll sleep in the car, and we never really spend enough time in the car to make it worthwhile. So when I say that I hold her all day long, I'm not exaggerating. Remember Tobias from Arrested Development? He's a nevernude. Audrey's kind of like that, but a nerversleeps. But she's only going to be this tiny once, and I won't get that time back. So I hold her as much as she needs, and give her squeezes and kisses all day long.

That kind of caring for a child requires huge amounts of time though. Right now even, she's awake and sitting on my lap, chattering away. It's 11:30 at night. What the deuce, crack baby? The girl never sleeps. So as you can imagine, I never really get anything done. And that extends to the world of gluten-free baking.

I've decided to put the bakery on hold. Meepcakes will return one day I hope, but for now it's just too much. The moms who can do it all? I love them. I've always felt that working moms were great multi-taskers, but I feel it even more now. Being a parent is a full time job and trying to start a business while being in the most chaotic time of raising my children is just nuts. For now the plan is to resume the bakery when Audrey gets a bit older. It just allows me to be a better mom to her.

I haven't forgotten about Julian! He's my number one dude. Like a lot of other people who have blogs and write about their kids, I've decided that Julian should retire. I'll still post pictures of him, and occasionally a few stories of cute things he does, but he's at the age now where he's really aware of himself and his world, and I don't want to post really personal things on here that would embarrass him. He deserves some privacy too. I certainly don't post every detail of my life here. This is my happy blog. There was another one I used to have that I quit because it was full of woe, and I decided that I'd much rather document the good things going on.

My neversleeper finally fell asleep. At 12:15 am. Not even kidding you. So now I need to do the same. Love love love to you.

Uff Da!

2010-09-12T23:04:00.003-04:00

Check out little Audrey with her new hair clips!

The awesome Emily of Last Train to Pooksville made these. Have you seen her precious daughter, Poppy? I love her. She's an authentic Asian baby, while mine is merely a faux Asian. Poppy is Korwegian. Korwegian = Korean/Norwegian = ultra cute.

My Lovely Lady Lumps (I call her that sometimes) was in desperate need of some clips because, well, you've seen her. She's a hairy baby. So I ordered some sweet felt clips from Emily's etsy shop, uff da designs. All of Emily's clips are handmade and sewn (not glued) onto a little girl sized goody hair clip. What I like a lot about these is that they're small enough not to be crazy looking on a baby's head, but big enough that they don't pose a choking hazard. Also, she has a bunch of really great items made from upcycled fabric.

Check out Emily's etsy shop! This wasn't a sponsored post, I just really like the things she makes and think she's a nice girl.

six months

2010-09-07T00:07:00.004-04:00

O, haaaaiiiiiii!! How are you? I'm great! Not quite so blobby anymore. New babies are great but so very weird looking. Also, I eat stuff now! My parents are always grinding up gluten-free oats, and pureeing things like carrots, apples, and bananas for me.

Wait a sec, what? I'm six months old already? And this sitting up thing? I just figured out how to do it. Before that, I would tip over and my mom would catch me and say, "saved your life!" all the time.

Oh, Mom. I know that's not a real rabbit on your finger. Don't be crazy!! Now put that camera down and read some Harry Potter to Julian. Or at least pretend it's for Julian's sake. We all really know you're hardcore obsessed.

i find myself saying "whoa" a lot these days

2010-08-03T23:25:00.006-04:00

Sweet jeebus in hebbun!! It's been a long time since I've posted. Granted, I have had a few things going on:

- I have a small baby who requires that I hold her all motherloving day long, which makes getting things done absolutely impossible. She just turned 5 months old last week. I know, I didn't even post her 4 month picture. The lighting was crappy and most of the ones I took turned out really gimpy looking. So no 4 month picture, straight on to 5 months if I can ever find my camera cable. Why can't I find my cable? Because....

- We moved! We bought a house and moved into it. We are no longer in the ugly and smelly rental house that I feared I was doomed to spend the rest of my days in. If you take the square root of badass and multiply it by awesomesauce plus a kilogram of faerie dust, then you'd have our house. It's so perfect for our family and I'll start to post some pictures just as soon as I find that aforementioned lost (really just packed away) camera cable. I will warn you though, there are some really ridiculous looking things the former owners did to this house that I will eventually remedy, but will take time and money. For example, the master bathroom has been spackled roughly and sponge painted to look like...I don't know. It honestly looks like a mud hut from a very poor village, except done on purpose. It's the very reason the word ridonkulous was created. Still though, I love this place. Love.

- Julian, though I love him to bits, has been driving me effing insane this summer. And I can understand why. He has a new sibling and has moved again (the move from L.A. was really hard for him) and is bored out of is mind because every time he wants to do something I'm all, "Not now, sweetie. I have blabbity bloobity blarga to do. Later, okay?" Poor little dude. The move, although very good, has been very hard for all of us. It's been draining.

Just so I'm not leaving you all with no pictures, here are some I just found that Julian had taken a couple of days ago with PhotoBooth on my computer:

And one of Audrey looking so cute I could eat her up like the Klondike bars (gluten-free!!) that I've been obsessed with lately. What is cuter than a naked, sleeping baby? NOTHING. I challenge you not to physically ache when you look at this picture:

some grace

2010-06-28T22:40:00.003-04:00

So, I've been thinking a lot about a short comment that Maggie made on my last post: "it's so shitty how we hate ourselves when we are teen girls." and it's so true. I hated myself at that age. Actually, I really hated myself until a few years ago. I'm not talking about just feeling insecure. My self worth was so extremely tied to my looks that because I felt ugly, I actually didn't feel like I deserved good things to happen to me. Surely someone so hideous wasn't deserving of good things. What? Really, what in the hell was I thinking?

I don't know what did it, what made it click into place. It just did. One day, I gave myself the greatest gift ever - the gift of not giving a shit. Do you know how freeing that is? I get to live for myself, without having to worry about what other people think of me.

I think about what I would say to younger me if I could go back in time. I would tell the sad self-loathing girl to be more gentle on herself. Grace exists for others, it should for the younger me too. I would tell myself to stop agonizing over how I looked. Looking back on pictures, I was such a cute girl. I wish I could have appreciated that.

When I was young, I heard my mom speak often of how fat she was. She was always talking about going on a diet. I really thought that's just how it was supposed to be. We're just supposed to hate our bodies, even when there's nothing wrong with them. And then I got to middle school and started reading teen fashion magazines, where my thoughts were confirmed. Reading those magazines made me feel like I wasn't pretty enough. Not thin enough. Had the wrong hair. The wrong clothes. Essentially, just not enough. Whatever it was that you were, it wasn't enough. Those magazines were so fucking destructive to me. Today, I refuse to read them. The only women's magazine I subscribe to now is BUST, which is all about empowering women, rather than making them hate themselves.

So I'm breaking this cycle of self-loathing. I don't deserve to feel that way. Nobody does. Audrey will grow up with a mom who has a positive image of herself, which I hope in turn makes her feel confident. We will not talk about who is fat, as if their worth is measured by how tiny their waistbands are. And those stupid fashion magazines are banned from my home.

What are your thoughts on this, ladies? Did you feel this way when you were younger? And how do you feel about yourselves now? What would you say to your younger selves if you had the chance? And fellas, I would like your thoughts on all of this as well.

beach

2010-06-20T17:20:00.003-04:00

When I was growing up in Florida, we went to the beach all the time. Even though I was pasty white (and still am) I would pile on the sunblock and head for the ocean. My parents have a timeshare at a beach, and we spent a lot of time there in the summers. I remember one time as a teenager, reading fashion magazines like they were my religion and as a result, feeling ugly and fat and not good enough. (I don't read those magazines anymore. They fuck with my head.) So anyway, I remember reading one of the swimsuit issues that come out every summer, and seeing the perfect girls with perfect bodies and perfect hair and perfect skin on the pages. And when it was time for me to go out to the beach, I showered, blow dried my hair, and put on what was probably whorish amounts of makeup. I'm guessing it was about a two hour process. All so I could go sit on a beach for a few minutes and suck in my belly as hard as I could before I had to call it quits because of a sunburn. And honestly, I didn't even really like the beach that much back then. The water was nice and warm to swim in, but the Florida humidity made it so uncomfortable, not to mention how ridiculously uncomfortable I was with myself.

And then I moved to L.A. and spent crazy amounts of time at the Pacific. A huge change from Florida, with its icy cold water and rocky beaches. I loved every bit of it. After Julian was born, the three of us would head down to the beach almost every weekend. We would first hit up The Omelette Parlor, and then the farmers market in Santa Monica on Ocean Park and Main St. After that, we'd jump back in the car and go to Zuma beach before it got too crowded.

Since we moved here two years ago, I've only been to the beach once, for my awesome sisterwife/friend Becca's 30th birthday, and Wade and Julian haven't been at all. Until this past week. And man, it was awesome. It was also Audrey's first trip to the ocean. She's almost 4 months, and that's right around the same time Julian had his first trip to the beach in Malibu. Our sweet friends rented a beach house on Sunset beach and let us stay with them for a few days. We really needed that mini-vacation and I hope it becomes a yearly thing for our family.

First time putting her toes in the ocean.

Best boys ever.

thursday

2010-06-03T21:03:00.004-04:00

Today I started what will hopefully become a new routine of yoga. In an effort to get back to MILF status, I exercise pretty regularly. Babies are precious but man, they really trash your body. Anyway, I do cardio, free weights, and a lot of yoga and pilates stuff on my floor. But my yoga moves are kind of inconsistent because my hamstrings are like two inches long and I start to freak out in ridiculous pain every time I attempt downward dog. Okay, I exaggerate. But it really isn't fun. So I need something to encourage a good habit - and that's where Netflix's "Watch Instantly" option helps me out. I put a mega ton of workout videos in my queue, and I stream them right from my Mac to my living room where I perform all these moves on my yoga mat and swear at the woman who is making me do them. Hooray!! I think that deserves a big ass cupcake.

I've been tripping out lately on how different Julian and Audrey look. Here are both of their 3 month pictures. Julian's peaceful little Buddha pose cracks me up. And Audrey's face looks like she's saying, "Heeeeeeyyyyyy there!"

Today, I took both of my babies into the bedroom, put them down on the bed next to me (well, I just asked Julian to lie down) and we had a little photo shoot. It begins with everyone looking at the camera. Julian was all smiles and Audrey was on the edge of freaking out because she was so beyond tired that she refused to nap. Babies are crazy. Why don't they just go to sleep when they're tired? Do you know what I would give for a daily nap? Dang. Also, I have a nice huge spot of baby drool on my boob.

Next, Julian is starting to act like a nut, and Audrey is creeping even closer to the edge of a freak out because of all the noise Julian was making. Please note also that my left eyebrow parts naturally like Vanilla Ice's shaved brow lines. You can't force that kind of awesomeness. It just is.

Next is Audrey post meltdown, and Julian looking exasperated. They're both totally sick of this photo shoot already.

This one makes me laugh because Audrey and I are both looking at Julian make that crazy face.

I hope you all had an enjoyable Thursday. Now I'm going to watch some episodes of "The Sarah Silverman Program", which sadly got canceled. Damn it, why do all the good shows get canceled while "Two and a Half Men" remains on the air? INJUSTICE!!!

three months

2010-05-30T18:59:00.004-04:00

Three months already. My little girl is a quarter of a year old, and I'm just a few years more than a quarter of a century.

I kind of wish I had no obligations that take up my time, because I really could stare at Audrey all day long. She's getting to be so fun with her babbling and laughing. And dude, she can flip herself over already. I have yet to crack a single parenting book this time, but I feel like that's early. She's been pushing herself up into yoga poses on her elbows since early on in the second month, and now she lets out this little pissed off yell and flips herself over when she's had enough time on her belly.

It appears that all the recessive genes have come out to play, because I have no idea how an albino like me could produce a child with such dark skin, hair and eyes. And she looks a little Asian, doesn't she? If I didn't hold her the second she was born and get a good look at her, I would swear that a baby swap happened at the hospital.

Raspberries

Finally some smiles!

I haven't forgotten about them. Here are my favorite boys in the world:

Other stuff: The school year is coming to an end in a couple of weeks for Julian and I'm kind of relieved. Wade is off for the summer too and it's going to be so nice to have him around during the day this summer to help out. I'll be able to work on figuring out more gluten-free recipes and just generally get more stuff done. The bakery is going really well every Tuesday at the farmers market. It seems like every week more people come, and I'm getting a crazy ton of requests for gluten-free vegan stuff. So I guess I'll need to get to work on that, but it requires really expensive ingredients so I'm not sure how soon that will happen. I'll have to get a wholesale distributor first, so I won't end up having to charge $7 per cupcake or something crazy.

We also want to move this summer, whether we buy a home or rent another one. This little rental has been okay for two years, but it's ridiculously small and we feel super cramped in here. Wade's grandparents just moved here from L.A. so we'll probably move to the side of town they're on so we can be within a few minutes of them. And my sister is moving here in September! That is by far the most exciting thing on the horizon for me. I can't wait to have her here. Clearly, Winston-Salem is a badass place to be. You should all move here too. Let's be neighbors and BFF.

Love and cupcakes to all of you. xoxo.

two months

2010-04-29T14:07:00.003-04:00

Audrey is two months old already! I kind of feel like she was just born a minute ago, but in some ways, I feel like I've known her forever. She's definitely an old soul. Every day she's getting to be more fun. She smiles and babbles now, and is a master at holding her head up for a while before flopping wildly around in my arms.

Yesterday Julian went to kiss her, and she turned her head and licked him on the face. It sent him into fits of giggles and he spent the next few minutes intentionally trying to get her to lick him. He kept saying, "She put her baby lick on me!! Eeewww!" and then laughing like crazy.

This picture cracks me up because it totally looks like a mug shot. She is such a happy baby, but you'd never know it by the photos. In every single picture, she looks so serious, like I just explained the Darfur situation to her.

Happy 2 months, little lady. We love you like crazy.

meepcakes!

2010-04-27T22:52:00.003-04:00

So, remember how I mentioned that I was going to start a bakery? I did it! I actually started the bakery. I know, I know. I'm a total crackhead. Only a crackhead would think that having a new baby and starting a new business at the same time was a good idea. But I did it, and it's awesomefunfantastico.

As you can see from the banner, my bakery is called meepcakes. Yes. meepcakes with a lowercase "m". Because it just looks better that way.

I'm at a farmers market right now, and the goal is to be in a real storefront one day. The market has been fun in these 2 weeks that I've been involved though, and I'm really enjoying doing this small step first.

And I'm lucky enough to have a husband who can hang out with me for his lunch hour! Audrey's snoozing pretty hard. Note the Peter Griffin double chin. She works it.

These are some of the brownies I made. They are wicked delicious and I pity the fool who doesn't eat them.

And this is not in any way meepcakes related, but look at this: Julian at around 2 months, and Audrey at 2 months. They look so much alike to me, but in these pictures you can see how very different the Genetics Fairy has made them.

Exhibit A: Pasty ghost white skin like mine. Bright blue eyes. Reddish blonde hair. (Weird that he started out kind of red haired, right? He's such a blondie now.)

Exhibit B: Olive skin from Wade's Italian side. Her eyes are that questionable color of blue/grey and look like they might turn brown. Crazy tons of dark hair. (Cute onesie courtesy of Amber, the Unlikely Mama)

this will save your ass

2010-04-22T16:12:00.005-04:00

Happy Earth Day! In honor of Earth Day, I would like to share with you a hippie cure for diaper rash. Uh oh, I think this just officially became a mommy blog.

Just so this isn't a bunch of mommy blog rambling, here's a mommy blogg-ish photo of my two favorite tiny people:

So here's the deal: Audrey got a diaper rash. Lots of babies do. And then it turned into a rash angrier than a bunch of teabagging Tea Party members with poorly spelled signs. We tried the normal zinc oxide cream, but the rash was just too intense. And then our awesome pediatrician gave us samples of some crazy expensive cream with an anti-fungal in it, that started to heal the rash. But after a couple of days, it became ineffective. And then I turned to teh interwebz with mai research. (Sometimes, one simply must speak like a lolcat.)

What I found after doing several google searches for natural cures and asking facebook friends for help, is a process. But it works. Step by step, here it is:

1. First you cut a hole in that box
2. Then you put your junk in that box

Wait a second! Wrong process!!! Start over.

1. Start with a warm bath with about a cup of vinegar added to the water. I tried both apple cider vinegar and white vinegar, and both seem to help. The idea is that the vinegar neutralizes the acidity of the poops & peeps. In the beginning, we did maybe 3 quick vinegar baths a day. If you're not going to do several baths, it's a good idea to get a little squeeze bottle and fill it with water and a little splash of vinegar. Just use it as a rinse at diaper changes.

2. Set up a hair dryer near the baby's changing table and dry the skin at every diaper change. Moisture (eeew, I hate that word) is an enemy of baby hineys and promotes rashes.

3. Make a mixture of 2 parts olive oil and 1 part pure tea tree oil. You really don't need very much. I kept my mixture in an espresso shot glass. Use a q-tip to dip into the oil mixture and apply it to the rashy areas. I read somewhere not to double dip because of bacterial contamination, so only dip the cotton swab in once and use the other end if you need more.

4. Cover the oil mixture with a zinc oxide cream. I have found that Target's brand of diaper rash cream has 40% zinc oxide and is extremely helpful in speeding up the healing time of a rash. Also, it's crazy cheap. Under $2.

I'd also like to add that rinsing out the wipes is a good idea. Not used ones! Come on, I'm not that much of a hippie. I mean the new wipes. They've got all kinds of chemicals and from what I've read, a high alcohol content which is drying to the skin of very new and tiny people. I pull the wipes out of their container, rinse them very thoroughly in water and put them back.

Best of luck to you on your bum-keeping endeavors.

thoughts that circulate in my head

2010-03-26T10:29:00.002-04:00

Holy crap, I have two kids. Two people who have grown in my body, and are now out here in the world.

And look, the big one is holding the little one:

What??

I seriously have a hard time getting my brain to grasp this. I have two people that I am responsible for, and love more than anything in this entire world. I was in the room when the first breath entered their tiny lungs. How many times in your life do you get to say that you were there for a person's first breath? And they'll possibly be there when I draw my last breath.

They are a part of me; we are a part of each other, forever.

leprechaun trap

2010-03-17T10:48:00.004-04:00

It's St. Patrick's Day! Yes, we are part Irish, but we don't really celebrate. I kind of don't get what there is to celebrate, except for the fact that most people really like to use this day as an excuse to get ridiculously drunk in public. And although there is no significance in the timing of this event with St. Patrick's Day, a year ago today, I got my first tattoo. Anyway, Julian has been learning about leprechauns in school this month, and decided that it would be a good idea to set a trap to catch one.

So we busted out a cardboard box, and he set to work drawing little details inside like pictures on the walls, an area rug, and he even made a little table that has food on it. The food on the table is a plate of cookies, a glass of orange juice, and I think he said there was a piece of fruit in there. Also, tiny silverware because leprechauns need that stuff too. "The food is fake, but he won't know it until he's already in there and I've trapped him" he told me. Julian also informed me that leprechauns like chocolate, so we put a single chocolate chip on the table and left the trap overnight.

When Julian left for school in the morning he told us, "Listen for footsteps!" We ended up leaving the house for a bit while he was in school and when we came back, the chocolate chip was gone, and a tiny green leprechaun slipper was left behind. He must have climbed in the trap to eat the chocolate chip, and in the struggle to get out of the box, lost a shoe. Julian is so completely excited at the idea of a real leprechaun being in his house, eating a chocolate chip.

Another big thing at our house lately has been a Harry Potter obsession. For Christmas, Wade's grandparents got Julian the entire set of H.P. books and we've been tearing through them, a chapter at a time. Julian is absolutely in love with the stories and listens intently and absorbs the tiniest details that sometimes slip by me, and I'm the one reading it aloud. I find myself so caught up in the stories too that I want to pick up a book and read a few chapters ahead on my own, but I never do.

As anyone with kids knows, bringing a new baby home is a huge adjustment time for everyone, especially the older siblings. Julian has actually been pretty cool about all of it, but I know there's been some anxiety building up to Audrey's birth, and once we brought her home it was a slight shock to him how much attention she required. He's even had a little trouble at school lately, and I'm sure it's because of all the changes here. Things will get better though, and life will go back to normal...just with one more person in the mix. Wade's mom got Julian a big brother present because it's important to make him feel special too in all this, and she sent him a sweet Harry Potter costume. Here he is all decked out in it:

Of course, I can't leave out little Audrey in this update! She's now two and a half weeks old, and we are so in love with her. I was so scared that I wouldn't be able to love a second child as much as I love Julian, but I was so wrong.

We're so lucky, but it has nothing to do with being Irish.

Audrey Laine

2010-03-04T12:52:00.003-05:00

~~Nutella Butterfinger~~ Audrey Laine arrived on February 27th, at 12:13 in the afternoon. She weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces and is the most perfect little girl I've ever laid eyes on.

She's such a sweet and mellow baby, and already a total breastfeeding champ. Big brother Julian is super excited and has been so sweet to her, patting her hair and kissing her on the top of the head. He even pulled out a book and started reading to her the other night. He's still a little nervous about holding her, but loves his little sister and has been such a great help in taking care of her.

Wade and I are tag teaming the infant care because I've been pumping (sore bewbs!) and getting enough sleep has actually been pretty easy this time. And I don't know what it is, if it's being gluten-free this pregnancy, but I really do feel great. After Julian was born, I felt like I had been hit by a bus, and the feeling lasted for at least 6 weeks. This time around feels like a breeze.

We are so, so lucky.

xoxo.

countdown to nutella butterfinger

2010-02-20T17:54:00.006-05:00

6. Days. Left.

She's due on the 26th, but there's no telling when she'll actually arrive. I thought for sure last night was THE NIGHT. All day long, I'd been having contractions 5 - 10 minutes apart and was ready to go to the hospital when they became a solid 5 minutes apart. And then nothing. The contractions just stopped. Effffffff.

So here I am today at 39 weeks. Giant huge. If you want to know the truth, I have gained nearly 40 pounds. I was planning on not gaining too much weight this time, but clearly that was thrown out the window due to the availability of gluten-free treats whenever I felt like baking them. I am going to have one wicked front bum to deal with when this is over.

Nutella, we are anxiously awaiting your arrival. Me especially.

six

2010-02-09T09:16:00.002-05:00

Julian turned six on January 27th, and because of all of this crazy snowy weather, we finally had his birthday party after many changes of plans. And since it's been over a month since I last posted, and I'm just now putting this stuff up, it's clear that I'm awesome at maintaining a blog. Heh.

It blows my mind that I have a six year old child. When did that happen, and who let me have a kid? I'm somebody's mom? Whaaa? But it turns out that I love being Julian's mom, and he's the coolest boy I could ever imagine. When I was pregnant with him, I used to wonder what my kid would be like, who this person would be. And as hard as I tried, I couldn't for the life of me imagine what he would be like at six years old. I didn't even know he was a he back then. Fast forward six years to the coolest person I've ever known. Julian.

For his birthday party, we had a screening of "Yellow Submarine" in the theatre of the university where Wade works. It was possibly the most awesome birthday party experience ever. Julian sang quite loudly throughout the entire film.

Here he is with Wade, before the party began:

Cheesing with his cake:

I made the yellow submarine and covered the cake with marshmallow fondant. This was my first time ever working with fondant, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, for having no idea what I was actually doing:

The inside of the cake was a gluten-free yellow cake that was dyed six different colors. How can you have a Yellow Submarine party without having your cake look like a total acid trip?

This last picture cracks me up. Julian's at the table with all his lady friends. There were boys at the party too but for some reason, Julian is way comfortable around girls. I'd like to put him in a time machine with me so we could go back in time together and he could give me lessons on not being awkward.

My gigantic 37 weeks pregnant body is wearing an apron that I made. My grandmother gave me a tablecloth a super long time ago that I never used because a) I'm not a tablecloth kind of person, and b) the fabric was kind of crazy looking. So I turned it into an apron. It made me sad to see this awesome vintage tablecloth from my grandmother on a shelf, unused. So now that it's an apron I get to see and use it all the time and think of her. Sweet.

another year over, a new one just begun

2010-01-05T09:29:00.004-05:00

Wait a minute. Just waaaaaaait a minute. Christmas is over and it's already a new year? What the what? Did that go by crazy fast for anyone else, or was it just me? I hope it was great for all of you. We're lucky enough that all three of us were home at the same time (well, I never go anywhere). Julian's school had a nice long winter break, and luckily, Wade's school breaks are pretty much on the same schedule, so it's awesome that we can all be home together at once. This was our first Christmas in North Carolina, and it was beautiful and snowy and perfect. Last year we made the long drive to Florida to be with my family, but this year we decided to stay put and enjoy it here in our new home. It was a great holiday spent with good friends, and much eating of cookies, cakes, and other gluten-free baked junk food was done.

This is us on Christmas eve at our friends' house. Julian and I are working on perfecting the Uncle Rico pose.

Christmas morning. I love his face in this one, as he realizes he's just opened a sweater. As if he were somehow cheated out of a cool toy. He's like, "Um. A sweater?" *

I made a new purse over the break. My old one was getting very ratty and it was time to retire. So this is the new one, to start a new year. I wanted to bust it out before Nutella Butterfinger arrives, because I'm pretty sure my crafty days will be limited for a while when she's brand new on the scene. So, here's one side of the bag. I freezer paper stenciled a bird on a branch over the pocket. The little pins are from my friend Maggie, and they all have Beatles quotes on them.

The other side, with "let it be" done with a freezer paper stencil also. I definitely did not freehand this. I chose a font I liked, typed it up in a Word document, and printed it right onto the matte side of the freezer paper to make my stencil. Well, I had to cut it out before it became a stencil. But you know that already.

Lastly, here's my belly at 32 weeks. Doooooood. I have 8 more weeks to go until Nutella is born. This is crazy to me. In some ways, I feel like, "Yay! Only 8 weeks left!" And in others, I'm all, "GUHHHHHH 8 weeks feels like 8 years."

*If you're wondering why Wade is never in any of the pictures, it's because he's kind of blog shy. He's in plenty of our family photos, but prefers to not have his face all over the interwebz. So I haz to respect that.

cookies, ornaments, and hillbillies

2009-12-16T14:09:00.004-05:00

Is anyone else kind of freaking out that 2010 is a mere two weeks away? DOOOOOD.

I feel like this month has been so full of ambition for getting Christmas things done, but not really much action. I'm seriously impressed with some of the crafts people are making, and the fact that people have their stuff together enough to send out cards is amazing to me.

Yesterday, Julian and I rolled out the dough for our gluten-free sugar cookies. He used the cutters and cut all the shapes out, and then we baked them. We tried making royal icing, but I was in a hurry to finish before dinner, was working with a 5 year old (which makes baking take 3x as long), and on the phone. Probably not the best combination for successful cookies. Which is why it's no surprise that my batch of royal icing ended up looking disgusting and runny and not working at all. We iced two cookies and then called it a day for baking. The cookies looked like they were made by blind armless people, but they tasted great. No offense to any of you blind armless people, but I'm guessing cookie decorating probably isn't your strong suit.

I made another batch of royal icing a little earlier because Julian is still in school, and decorated the cookies. Seriously, I had no idea how difficult decorating cookies would be. What a huge pain in the butt! And I'm wicked impressed with people who manage to do it well. For my first try, I think they turned out pretty cute. I'm sure with a lot more practice, I could get good at these.

Another fun holiday thing we did was make an ornament. I'd like to start a tradition of making a handmade ornament for our family each year. Since I'm bird obsessed, I chose to do an owl. Julian did al the sewing and gluing, and I think he did a pretty great job. This is the first thing he's ever sewn! I picked felt because it's really easy for a kid to work with. Cutting out the pieces without having edges fray makes it a lot easier.

Oh my gosh, Julian has lost yet another tooth. This makes for a grand total of 3 teeth lost in the span of about a month, and he totally has the toothless hillbilly thing down now.

Also, thanks for all of the input on the Santa issue. It seems that none of you were really traumatized when you learned that Santa is made up, so we're going to stick with our normal Santa routine until he decides he's too big for it.

Santa: Man or Myth?

2009-12-12T20:57:00.003-05:00

Behold, the Wilson family Christmas card of 2009:

Sadly, this is it for a card. I was going to have pictures printed and send out cards this year, but I think I've waited way too long to do it in a timely manner. So I'm going to give it a positive spin and say that we're saving trees by not using all that paper. Yeah.

We've been listening to lots of Christmas music at our house lately because Julian is obsessed with it, and I think tomorrow we'll be making sugar cookies. I bought some Wilton meringue powder today so we could make royal icing without using raw egg whites. We also bought a nutcracker because Julian is hardcore obsessed with those too. And pretty much anything pertaining to Christmas. He's asking lots of questions about Santa lately, like how he knows what everyone wants, and how do moms and dads have Santa's cell phone number? I told him that when he was born, they gave us that information at the hospital before we left. It's just something all new parents get.

The more I think about it though, the more I don't know if I like the whole notion of Santa. It's fun and everything, and the idea of him is definitely exciting (and kind of creepy...he sees you when you're sleeping?!). But I feel like kind of a jerk for lying to my kid. Do you remember when you found out that Santa wasn't real? Were you devastated? Because I was. I was 5 years old and in kindergarten, and an older boy on the school bus broke it to me. And I remember thinking, that's just not possible. Of course Santa is real....right? And I feel like by lying to Julian about these fictitious holiday characters (Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy), I'm setting him up for disappointment. Part of me feels like kids need to know how hard their parents work to get their presents. Daily, Julian will rattle off a list of crazy expensive things that he wants Santa to bring him, because why not? Santa is magic and he brings free toys to all good girls and boys. And saying things like, "Whoa, buddy. That's pretty expensive...I don't know if Santa can afford that one this year." makes me sound like such a debbie downer. Julian's logic always trumps that too, because he says, "Santa doesn't pay for toys. The elves build them. So he can bring me everything on my list!" Which leads me to yet another lie of, "Santa has to pay the elves an hourly wage though, because they work very hard. And overall, that ends up costing Santa a lot of cash." Also, how the heck do you explain poor kids who get basically nothing for Christmas? Is Santa just that much of an a-hole that he overlooks poor kids? No fair.

I mean seriously, what the hell? It feels crazy to me. But the other part of me that loves fun and everything Christmas wants to keep him believing in Santa for as long as possible. For him to keep his sense of wonderment about all things magical.

What do you think? Do you think parents should tell their kids that Santa is just pretend and still enjoy the holidays, or do you think we should just feed them this lie because that's what everyone does? I just don't know.

recap

2009-11-28T23:01:00.003-05:00

You know what's awesome about being an adult? Starting off Thanksgiving morning with a gluten-free butter cookie, and not getting in trouble for it. These cookies make Milanos taste like sawdust.

Julian, a self portrait:

And last night, at the party of some friends, Julian snuggled by the fire with this little dog, Bobo. I can't wait until we own a home instead of renting, and can get a dog for him.

What else? I bought a domain name for my bakery, and am going to make business cards soon now that my friend, Rex, has designed a sweet logo for me! So excited to get this thing rolling!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We have lots to be thankful for, all the time.

gratitude list

2009-11-25T21:02:00.003-05:00

On this eve of Thanksgiving, I feel like rattling off some things I'm thankful for. I like to keep gratitude lists going all the time and remind myself daily just how good I have it, but it seems extra important to voice those things on Thanksgiving. So here is a short list of things I'm thankful for, in no particular order:

my health
finding true love
a beautiful son
this little baby in my belly, who is kicking me extra hard right now
real friends
laughter
music
the right to speak my mind freely, and to believe whatever I want to believe without fear
this wonderful city, Winston-Salem, NC
memories of beautiful days at the ocean
the smell of the cranberry bread baking in my kitchen
a car that gets me from here to there
having a place to sleep at night
strangers who smile as we pass each other
thrift stores
books
growth

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving, and are surrounded by love.

the young and the toothless

2009-11-18T16:58:00.004-05:00

It's official, folks. Julian lost his first tooth today (and has also mastered the art of taking pictures with crazy eyes, apparently):

It's been very loose for a while now, and when he jumped in the car today after school, he was eating a snack and telling me how he couldn't really eat it earlier because his tooth was too loose and he didn't want to hurt it with crunchy food. A couple bites into the snack, and the tooth popped right out. So we drove home with his tooth in the cupholder of the car.

I honestly wasn't expecting him to lose it for at least another few days, so I wasn't prepared with a tooth fairy pouch. When we got home, Julian picked out a little scrap of fabric from my collection, and I whipped together a pouch really quickly. He's in bed right now, and the tooth pouch is under his pillow. I heard the tooth fairy brings a little more cash than normal for the very first tooth. Like five bucks, I've heard. Except for rich people, who I've heard get crazy amounts of cash, like fifty dollar bills. How can I get in touch with the rich peoples tooth fairy?

In crafty endeavors, I made another onesie:

Hilarious, no? If you are Australian and deeply offended by this, then...you clearly have an easy life and need to find other things to do with your time.

new onesies

2009-11-09T10:33:00.002-05:00

In the evening after Julian goes to bed, Wade and I like to sit around and eat snackies and watch television. Most of the awesome shows have been interrupted because of sports though (Glee, Bones, Fringe, the list goes on...damn you, sports). The only thing that seems to still be aired is reality dance television, and I simply cannot handle that crap. So Wade and I have been watching dvds of Arrested Development. And during my tv watching time, I like to be doing something. Just sitting while I watch tv seems like a huge waste of time to me, probably because I'm kind of fidgety anyway.

Here are some new onesies for Nutella Butterfinger that I've made lately:

These were crazy easy to make. I simply pulled images of the band logos from teh internetz into Word and printed them onto freezer paper (the paper side, not the waxy side), then cut them out. Then I ironed them onto the shirts and painted. The same goes for the last one, except I just typed it into Word instead of getting a pre-existing logo. Ridiculously time consuming, but not at all difficult. And hopefully I don't get slapped with some huge lawsuit for ripping off band logos and copyrighted phrases.

Oh my my, oh hell yes

2009-11-08T19:38:00.003-05:00

You got to put on that party dress:

There it is. The Nutella house in all of its 24 week girth.

You know those women who say, "I felt most beautiful when I was pregnant"? Yeah. I don't understand them. I wish I felt that way, but instead I feel rather fat and am only able to focus my eye on how rather large my upper arm has gotten since I've stopped working out and started napping large chunks of the day away. I realize how absurd this sounds. Of course I'm going to gain weight in pregnancy, and I know it's not like I'm obese or anything. But jeez. I feel like my body has been hijacked and I want it back.

Don't get me wrong, I actually do enjoy being pregnant. It's amazing to me and this is the last time I'm ever planning on doing it, so I'm enjoying the changes. Every time Nutella kicks, it blows my mind that there is a person growing in my belly. And I really don't have much to complain about. This pregnancy has been far easier on me than the last one. I'm attributing all the good feelings this time to being gluten-free. I was so sick and fat and achy the entire time with Julian, because I had no idea that everything I was eating was poisoning me. I've said it before, but it really is a miracle that Julian was even born, considering all the damage gluten was doing to me. Even more of a miracle that he ended up being a genius wonderboy.

Julian was kissing my belly here, and half a second later, Nutella kicked him right in the face. He thought it was hilarious. What I found hilarious was his outfit, which he put together on his own. He kind of looks like one of the Blues Brothers, even though he has no idea who they are. You can't really see because that giant puffy coat obscures it, but he's wearing a grey sport coat to complete the look of badassness.

Speaking of Julian, we decided a little over a week ago to make his diet strictly gluten-free. At home, we eat no gluten. It doesn't even enter the house, except for a beer once in a while that Wade has. But I've been kind of lax about letting him get pizza at school, or a donut out with dad. We had him tested for celiac when he was small (a blood test, not endoscopy), but it was negative. I still understood that it was something I would need to keep an eye on though, because I didn't start showing really bad symptoms until adulthood. Lately, he's been getting little rashes around his mouth, just like I used to get when I was eating gluten. And he's always had really bad milia on his nose. Just within this short time of being strictly gluten-free, his rash has cleared up, and the skin on his nose is getting clearer.

This shows me that I really need to be diligent with his diet, and make an extra effort to perfect things like pizza and donuts for him since he has to miss out on all the fun foods that other kids get to eat. He went to a birthday party yesterday, and I made cupcakes so he could bring one and not feel left out. I really think that being gluten-free doesn't mean having to miss out on the good foods - it just means having to make little changes, but still getting to enjoy all the things I liked before. Having to adhere to a strict diet must be extra hard for little kids, and that's one of the biggest reasons I'm starting the bakery. It's enough work as an adult to have to make all your own gluten-free goodies, but so hard for little kids who don't get to enjoy things that other kids do.

onesies and errol

2009-10-28T09:10:00.003-04:00

I've got the fever. The freezer paper stencil fever. And right now, I want to stencil a crazy bunch of onesies because I've determined that my baby will be wearing cool clothes. Have you seen most baby clothes? They're ridiculous. Girls really do have much better clothes choices than boys, but I still tire of the nonstop bombardment of pink. Why do baby clothes have to be so color specific for gender? It's like our culture starts right away with the brainwashing idea that boys wear one color, and girls wear another. Sorry, I will stop this rant right now and move on.

So, my baby will be rocking some cool onesies that I've painted. Have I mentioned on here that we're calling her Nutella? Not her real name of course, but until we decide on a good real name, I think Nutella is a suitable nickname instead of "the baby" don't you? Much more personal. And besides, Nutella is effing delicious.

Here's a onesie I designed just for Nutella, but now that I see it, I really want one for myself. I just might make a shirt with this exact same image. One can never have enough bacon, or stop expressing the love for bacon. I probably don't need to mention it, but I will anyway: I am teh suck when it comes to taking pictures and having them look good. Apologies. The onesies don't look this crappy in real life.

This next onesie is for my nephew, who is due any day now. Again, most baby clothes are really stupid looking. Especially boys clothes. They all have sports, tools, or cars on them. I used to cringe when people would give me little outfits with footballs all over them for Julian. They probably had no idea how intensely I dislike sports. But still, they were free clothes so I was grateful for them, and Julian will have no memory of wearing ugly football stuff. This little outfit is for when the wee nephew is going in for a long day at the office. He needs to look professional, you know?

Finally, I'd like to mention something that has nothing at all to do with stenciled onesies, and is of much greater imoprtance. A sweet 3 year old boy we know, Errol, has a wide range of medical issues and physical challenges. He has a wonderful family, and is surrounded by loving people who take care of him and want to help as much as possible. Errol is the focus of an ad, Seeds of Love For America, and it is a finalist in the Organizing For America Health Reform Video Challenge. His video is here if you'd like to vote by November 3rd: Organizing For America.

Also, if you'd like to check out Errol's blog and see what a cool little dude he is, and how sweet his family is, go here: Errol Milner Clifford

when october goes

2009-10-26T21:01:00.002-04:00

I wish I had a good reason for being so absent on here. Really, it's just that I'm kind of boring and hang out a lot at home because being pregnant makes me tired. I guess that's kind of a good reason - growing a person.

This past weekend we drove up to Pilot Mountain to get a good view of the fall colors while we still have some time. It seems like they come in so bright and vivid, and then they're gone. Already, there are maple trees that I've been admiring for their reddish purple color that have dropped all their leaves. We'll enjoy it while it's here.

Here are Wade and Julian doing their Uncle Rico poses:

And then in this one, I told Julian that I was going to take a picture of him while he was sitting on that little wall, and he suddenly got into this pose that looks like he's the sexy October firefighter for a calendar. What??

In terms of craftiness, I've been slowly doing little bits of projects here and there, but pregnant loafing around truly does take up an enormous amount of my time. But ever since we found out we're having a girl, I decided to go through all of Julian's old clothes we've been saving and get rid of them. Most of them went to some sweet boys we know who are younger, and I saved the super tiny baby clothes for a quilt that I'm going to make Julian. More specifically, My Very First Quilt Ever. I really have no idea what I'm doing, and I've decided to basically just start cutting up the clothes into squares and sew the cutest parts of his outfits together so he has a keepsake quilt from babyhood. Moms who are really on the ball get this sort of thing done right away. I am not that mom. Better late than never though, right? I'll keep you posted with pictures when I start making some progress.

I've also been doing lots of baking and have been doing all kinds of fall goodies: pumpkin bread, cranberry bread, and homemade pot pies. I made a lemon meringue pie from scratch recently, but I'm not much of a lemon meringue fan, so I really don't know if it turned out good or not. And even though it's totally not really the season, key lime pie is next. I always find it hilarious when people act sorry for me when they find out I'm gluten-free. I'm not missing out on anything, and it's forced me to become a much better baker and cook.

Pictures of crafts and baked goods to come! Love to all of you.

love

2009-10-09T08:49:00.003-04:00

I drop him off in the mornings for school and say goodbye, wishing him a good day and telling him I love him. He says, "Thanks, Mom! Love you too!" and off he goes, to spend 6 hours in school having fun and learning. Part of me feels such pride and happiness that he's such a well adjusted kid who actually wants to go to school, and that he comes home every day telling me of new adventures. And then there's the tiny part of me that feels sadness every time I see him go.

Before I became a mom, I always knew I'd love my kids when I had them. Who wouldn't, right? But I had no idea how much love I'd be capable of. When Julian was born, I looked at him and felt all of it at once. This brand new person, this flawless, blameless, beautiful little soul, right in my hands. And I knew that I would do anything to protect him. I was overcome with a love so fierce that I would lie down in front of a train for him. As he got bigger, I realized I could love him all day long, with all the love in me, but still couldn't protect him from it all. When he was two, he fell and broke his arm. I couldn't protect him from the pain. I wanted to take it away and make it my own, but he had to go through it. When he plays with friends and gets his feelings hurt, I can't stop that. I won't be able to protect him when he falls in love and gets his heart broken for the first time.

As much love as I have for him, I can't stop life from happening to him. Sometimes that breaks my heart. And other times, it makes me so proud to see him growing and learning. If I were to protect him from everything, I would be robbing him of experiencing his life. Figuring things out and making decisions. Even though my first instinct is to jump into action and save him from it all.

So I keep loving him, and I let him go out to grow and learn about this world he lives in. He takes it all in and processes all that he receives. Some good, some bad. All experience. All a chance for growth. And he knows that I will always be there for him, with love unconditional.

best weekend ever

2009-10-07T21:01:00.002-04:00

This past weekend has been possibly the greatest weekend in the history of EVER. First off, Friday morning we found out what variety of baby we're having. Are you ready to know?

We're having a GIRL! YEAAAAHHHHHH!!! I have to be honest, I was really hoping for a girl. There's no way to say that without sounding horrible. I would have been completely happy with another boy, since the one I currently have is so awesome. But dang - this place would have been a total sausage fest if that happened. And I really am so curious to see what the girl version of Julian looks like, if that makes any sense. Julian was really happy to find out, and said, "I've been hoping for a sister!" He's going to be the best big brother.

She's been flipping around like crazy and it's so exciting. Look at her little foot! eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! I'm not posting any of the typical crotch shot ultrasound pictures on here, because I feel like it's weird to blog a photo of my fetus's junk. And besides that, you can't really tell what's going on in the picture anyway.

The next thing that made this weekend go down as one of my favorite memories of all time is the U2 concert that we went to with our awesome friends, Becca and Zach. We're all such fantastic geeks that we wore shirts with U2 quotes that I freezer paper stenciled on. No shame. We wore them proudly like the cool kids that we are.

Clearly, I was so excited that I was incapable of doing a normal person smile and just had the weird my-mouth-is-stretched-out-way-too-far-at-the-corners thing.

This post wouldn't have been complete without a picture of my longtime crush, Bono, on the giant screen. I'm pretty sure he felt my love for him all the way from where we were sitting.

I really don't even have the words to describe how incredible this weekend was, so I'm just going to leave it this way. Trying to articulate the feelings right now would be too difficult - so just imagine what scenario would make you pee a full gallon in your own pants, and then you will understand my happiness.

feelin' groovy

2009-09-25T10:11:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am. How great my life is turning out to be. Walking through hell and coming out stronger. Lucky to be alive, to have the wonderful people I have in my life, to live in this great little town, and to be so happy.

And when I look at Julian, I am always blown away that such an amazing person is my child. I get to spend my days with him and Wade.

Julian is a music connoisseur. He loves all kinds of music, and spends hours in his room singing along to his favorite songs while he plays with his Star Wars guys. Lately, he's had a strong affinity for Simon and Garfunkel, particularly the song "59th St. Bride Song" or as most people know it, "Feelin' Groovy." It makes him happy. He told me recently that one of his favorite songs made him cry. I asked him why, and he told me, "Because it's just so beautiful."

We went on a walk this past weekend, and along the path were lamp posts. So Julian had to stop and sing "Feelin' Groovy" to one of them.

This nearly knocks me over. So innocent and sweet, and not at all worried what anyone else thinks. This is how I want to live my life.

firsts

2009-09-13T20:17:00.004-04:00

This is a day of firsts for me. I played tennis for the very first time today, at age 28. I really don't know why I've never tried before. Well, there were a couple of goofing around attempts in high school, but this was for real. Wade was teaching me how to play because the entire time I was sick and lying on the couch for the last few months, he and Julian have been going to the tennis courts and playing. Julian has gotten quite good at hitting the ball, which I witnessed for the first time today. It's so fun to watch him be so coordinated at only 5 years old. And if you have spent any amount of time with me, you will know I am not into sports. I have never played on a team sport in my life, and absolutely refuse to watch sports on television. When the announcers talk, all I hear is, "blabbity bleebity blooooo." So for me to be interested in a sport is kind of a feat in itself. But more than just being interested and watching Julian and Wade play, I actually enjoyed it myself. Not saying that I was any good - but that's part of the fun. Everyone sucks at first, and that's okay.

And my other first? I unclogged the drain in my tub with hippie power. So basically, the tub and I smoked weed, lit some Nag Champa incense, and talked about The Man while we sat in my VW bus and braided each other's hair. Kidding. I'm not hippie enough to actually dig out the huge wad of hair (probably my own) that was causing the clog, that's just crazy and gross. As much of a feminist as I am, this is one instance where I'm happy to leave that job to the menfolk and just say, "eeewwwww!!!!" So instead, I packed the drain full of baking soda and then poured some white vinegar on top. It took a few rounds of vinegar pouring to dissolve all the baking soda, but now the drain empties nicely and I don't have to stand in a gross pool of dirty shampoo and soap water at the end of my shower. Hooray for natural remedies! I should also mention that I clean pretty much my entire house with baking soda and vinegar because it's cheap, earth-friendly, and works really well.

But I'm not washing my hair with baking soda and vinegar anymore because I think it was starting to dry the ends out and they looked kind of trashed. So I switched to Whole Foods' new line of shampoos and conditioners. They just reformulated all their products to be free of gluten, sodium lauryl sulfate, parabens, and other disgusting stuff that we shouldn't be putting on our bodies. Also, they're $2.99 a bottle. Score for thriftiness.

Now I bid you farewell as I go off to enjoy something not new at all, but a rather enjoyable routine of watching "Family Guy" and eating a brownie.

on whiskers and tears

2009-09-10T20:08:00.004-04:00

You want to know what's super cute about pregnancy? Crying for no reason, and chin whiskers! Adorable!!

Seriously, I found myself crying today because John Lennon isn't alive anymore. It's not like I just learned about this. I'm aware of it constantly because of what a huge Beatles fan I am, and I regularly think about what kind of amazing music and political humanist things he could have accomplished if he hadn't been murdered. But today, for no reason at all, tears for this man who died 2 months before I was born.

And it's not just this. Stupid commercials? Now they make me cry. I don't even want to tell you how upset I get watching "Grey's Anatomy" now. Every effing episode of that show is a heart wrencher.

But the chin whiskers. Those are the real beauties. Teenagers, be aware of this. Let this be your birth control. Better yet, go visit a hospital and stand in the hallway of the maternity ward and listen to the women screaming while they give birth. That should be a pretty good deterrent. And if that's not enough, reconsider the chin whiskers. My chin has pubes. You know that's an image that you love to be left with.

the post in which i ramble on about pregnancy stuff

2009-09-08T19:38:00.002-04:00

Oh goodness, I love this boy. Tonight, little Julian is sick with a fever and the sniffles. He'll have to stay home from school tomorrow because he has to be fever-free for 24 hours before he's allowed back. But not really a problem in his mind. Tomorrow will be a day filled with movie watching, which is forbidden during a normal school week. Sick days are an exception though.

I've been finding myself kind of lonely and bored with all this free time that I suddenly have now that Julian is in school. It's not that bad, because I'm free to take naps whenever I want, which is such a blessing since I'm pregnant and tired all the time. But I really do need to get cracking and work on recipes for the bakery. This week, the goal is to have all sorts of muffins perfected. And soon, I really would like to make some dairy-free items, in addition to everything being gluten-free. Those intolerances seem to go hand in hand, so it just makes sense. Especially for little kids. How much does it suck to be the kid who can't have gluten or dairy? A lot. So I want to help that kid out.

What else has been going on? I haven't posted on here in forever and feel like such a huge wanker. But honestly, I haven't been doing much at all and feel like my life is not so interesting right now. I've been doing a small bit of research into cloth diapering because I would really like to give that a go for this baby, and so far the top two brands that I've heard of from people are Fuzzi Bunz and Bum Genius. I know it will save money in the long run, but holy shit (no pun intended. heh.) cloth diapers are SO expensive! I know a lot of people register for this kind of thing, but I won't be doing that. First of all, this is my second baby and that's generally considered pretty tacky. But really, I'm just not the kind of person who registers for things. I didn't have a bridal shower or registry, and I didn't have a baby shower or registry with Julian. I feel like it's rude for me to list things I want and expect people to buy them for me. And I know that's absolutely crazy too, because when my friends get married or have babies, I absolutely want to buy them things and find registries helpful. But for some reason, I feel like for me to do it would be tacky. I just can't explain it. It's one of my mental hangups. So anyway, I won't be registering for things like cloth diapers, so I think I'm going to start buying them slowly over a period of time so it's not such a huge hit to the wallet. If any of you have any cloth diapering tips to chime in on, please please please tell me. I need all the advice I can get on this.

Right now marks 15 weeks in my pregnancy, and I have yet to take one profile belly shot, although I told myself I would do it. So I'm going to start doing that soon. Like next week. I'm not really showing that much yet though, to my surprise. I thought that since this is my second child, the belly would pop a lot sooner. Maybe because it's been almost 6 years since the last time around, my muscles had a chance to go back to normal? I don't know. But right now, I look more like a college girl with a beer baby than anything.

And if you will excuse me, I am going to go fulfill the pregnancy stereotype and eat some ice cream. I probably shouldn't admit it, but there are 5 cartons of ice cream in my freezer right now. It was on sale so I stocked up like crazy. They haven't all been cracked into yet, but I chuckle every time I open the freezer and see my stash.

first day

2009-08-23T20:35:00.002-04:00

Julian's first day of kindergarten went great! He had a fun and busy day, went to a lovely dinner at a friend's house, and ended the evening by waking up at 3:30am and barfing all over himself in our bed. Oh, that last part. That wasn't so great (he was fine as soon as it was over though). But the rest of it was fantastic.

When he walked into his classroom, he signed his name on the sign in sheet and went immediately to a table with several small dry erase boards and markers on it. He's been really into drawing everything he sees and all of his interests lately, so maybe it was his way of easing in. So he set right to work drawing a picture of The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

We stayed for only about 10 minutes, and in that entire time he was solely focused on drawing creature pictures. So Wade and I decided to sneak in a few pictures, and then leave him to enjoy the rest of the day. We said goodbye, and told him that we loved him and hoped he would have a great day. He seemed so chilled out about it all that I didn't feel even a little sad about leaving him. I just wondered what I was going to do with all my time now that he's in school from 8am to 3pm every weekday. Seriously, that's a huge chunk of time. I saw a few teary eyed moms in the hallway, but maybe because I cried so hard when he was 3 and went to preschool, I don't feel so sad about him doing his own thing now. The constant activity of school is going to be so great for him, because he's such a curious person and wants to be learning all the time.
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Once I got back home, I wasted a couple of hours sitting around and feeling barfy. Then I finally made myself get up and bake some gluten-free chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting as a surprise for Julian.

We picked Julian up at 3:00 and brought him home to his cupcake surprise. A very successful first day of school. God, I love that boy.

these days

2009-08-20T20:20:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow morning, Julian begins his school career and goes to kindergarten for the first time. Clearly, by the size of his brain, you can tell that he's the smartest kid ever and totally ready to rock it K-style. Also, really nice how PhotoBooth gave me a John McCain cheek. Adorable.

Here we are practicing our chipmunk faces. Actually, mine was a chipmunk and he said that his was a rabbit. We spent a large amount of time today taking silly pictures of ourselves and using google image search to look up pictures from "The Creature From The Black Lagoon" because he's hardcore obsessed with it right now. I don't really know why.

I'm so excited for him to begin "big kid" school and can't believe that he's actually old enough to go. Wasn't he just a tiny baby? How did he get so huge and smart and funny? We've been talking a lot about school lately, and he's really been anticipating going. In fact, all this week, he's been kind of pissed that school hasn't started already. And just like his mother, he insists on learning how to read the very first day at school. My mom told me that when she picked me up from my first day in kindergarten, she asked how my day was. And I said, "I hated it! They didn't teach me how to read!!"

The last couple of days have been pretty good for me in terms of getting out of bed and not lying around all day, feeling like barfing. I still do feel sick, but at least I'm up and doing things. So my plan for tomorrow is to make some gluten-free chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing and sprinkles for Julian to have when he gets home from his first day at school. We're not huge on sweets at our house, but this is a nice reason to celebrate. I'm planning on posting pictures tomorrow of the day: us dropping him off at his new classroom, me trying to hold it together and not cry, Wade sobbing hysterically in the hallway, and the cupcake finish. All of that will be true except for the sobbing Wade part. Or maybe not. We will see.

In other non-mom related news, I've been wanting to make the look of my blog a little less boring, but don't really have the knowledge needed. Do you all have any recommendations for sites that are helpful in explaining this sort of thing to a web design challenged girl like me?

In true bad segue fashion I will start yet another paragraph now. We watched the documentary "For The Bible Tells Me So" last night, and it broke my heart into a million pieces. It's about how people have used the Bible for centuries to validate their hatred for groups of people - women, black people - and now gay people. And it's just so so sad. Maybe it struck such a chord with me because I was raised in a religion that believed this kind of thing, and I've seen how destructive that mindset is. It's definitely left me scarred, and with a bad taste in my mouth for religion of any kind. As I listened to the stories of these gay people growing up in the church with fear and guilt and shame about who they were, I wanted to shout "THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU!" Because there isn't. Love is love is love is love. And that's all there is to it. I'm sure I'll get some emails about this, disagreeing with me, or even some hate mail. And that's okay. I'm not expecting to change anyone's mind. I just needed to speak mine.

Now if you will excuse me, this is the time of evening where I barf a little in my mouth and eat Tums, which I found out are gluten-free despite what several celiac message boards said. From now on, I check all the sources myself by calling or emailing the company. And now, on to my Tums.

kindness

2009-08-14T20:47:00.005-04:00

A few days ago, I received a package in the mail from Crystal, the author of Sonnet of the Moon. It was a quilt that I had won as a giveaway on her blog, and for days, all of us have been marveling over how gorgeous it is. The colors, the softness of the backing, the fact that something so beautiful was actually made by hand and not in some factory. And the details. I've been staring at the quilting, which is done in squiggly lines (I'm not a quilter, so if there's a real name for this, I'm not aware of it) and I noticed a small heart quilted in. Obviously not a mistake, but rather a hidden surprise. It's truly a beautiful work of art. I actually got dressed today, so Julian and I took some photos with it. This quilt is a permanent piece on my couch, because I am a known blanket snuggler while watching tv.

And then, just as we were finishing our photo shoot for the quilt, today's mail arrived. Among the bills and junk mail was a package from Christine, author of mondeintact. Completely unexpected, and such a happy surprise. I really love getting things in the mail. Christine was so thoughtful and sent me these cloth napkins that she hand made, and matched to the blue colors of my kitchen. Seriously, I am so excited over this. I've been wanting to make some cloth napkins, and even bought some cute fabric, but have just felt too gross to sew anything. And then this lovely treat arrives. Julian did think these were cool, but I definitely instructed him to look "crazy excited." And then he took my picture in the same fashion.

I'm so touched by the generosity of people. I know there are lots of creeps on the internet and it's important to be smart and protect yourself, but the friends I've made on here have been amazing. People who are so great, and who I would have never known if not for the internet. My life is definitely richer because of the connections that have been made just by people inviting me into their lives, by sharing their day to day activities on a blog. Thanks Crystal and Christine.

jabba the hu...hu...huuuurrrrrl

2009-08-12T21:02:00.004-04:00

For a week, I really thought I was over the first trimester nausea. I was feeling good (mostly) and was up and moving around.

And then a few days ago, it hit again. And now I feel like this:

Just lying around on my couch, moaning, and having Princess Leia in a gold bikini be my chained slave. Well, not that last one.

There are so many things I want to do before Julian starts kindergarten next week, but probably won't do. I know, I'm growing a person who is currently the size of a fig and that would make anyone feel crappy, but having an existing kid while being pregnant is new to me. I want to spend time with my little boy. All summer, he's been so sad that I haven't been able to really play with him. Enough of this sickness already! I just need to keep reminding myself that this won't last forever, even though it really feels like it right now. And I'm not even able to have all the good anti-sickness pregnancy remedies like saltines, or even TUMS. Do you know what I had to do last night for heartburn because I can't find any gluten-free antacids on the market? I drank a teaspoon of baking soda in some water and it was one of the grossest things I've ever had. But it worked.

So, enough complaining. Because I'm sure you all just love reading long paragraphs where I bitch about how uncomfortable pregnancy is, even though I willingly put myself in this situation. Right. Shutting up.

Have any of you moms (and dads) used cloth diapers with good results? Do you have any brands you think are better than others? I am very seriously considering using cloth diapers with this baby, and want to arm myself with as much knowledge as possible, since there are so many options. The thought of using disposable diapers again for 3 years, and having them end up in a landfill just makes me so sad. I can't do it. Research on the most awesome cloth diaper in existence begins now.

back in action...maybe?

2009-08-05T21:55:00.003-04:00

Wow. Lying on the couch for almost two straight months, watching bad daytime television, and trying not to puke really takes a lot out of a person. But you know what? For the last two days, I've felt almost normal. And that makes me so happy. I can't tell you how much it sucks to just be lying around all the time, missing out on the fun summer times Wade and Julian are having together, and not being able to do anything. Along with this crazy guilty feeling I've been having about Wade having to do the work of two parents right now. He cooks all our meals, cleans, takes care of Julian every hour of the day, still goes to the office (and brings Julian) to set things up for the new school year, does all our shopping, takes care of the yard, and all the other stuff he does. I seriously don't know how single parents do it. So I've been feeling really guilty about all of this, and lucky for me, Wade realizes that what I'm feeling is crazy, instead of agreeing with me and being sour about things. He'll say, "You're growing a person. Take it easy."

So I have been taking it easy. And now I'm done with that and ready to get back to all the regular stuff I do like going to the park with Julian, baking cookies, and working on little crafty projects while I watch dvds from Netflix.

Speaking of Netflix, I've been watching old episodes of "Wonder Falls" and it was such a cute show. It was cancelled after the first season. I don't know why the cool stuff always gets the boot (Is anyone else still pissed that "Arrested Development" is gone??!!) and the lame shows stay and even make their way into syndication. "Two and a Half Men" is quite possibly the worst show I've ever seen, but it's on all the effing time. I really don't get it. Are people that dumb that they don't get the jokes on the good shows and have to be entertained by this mindless (and humorless, despite being a sitcom) garbage? At least "Gilmore Girls" was on the air for a good long run and I'll always have it to watch over and over again on dvd.

This is completely unrelated to the last paragraph, and I have no desire to make a decent segue right now, but I ate two crappy salads at a local diner yesterday. The point of that being that I ate salad for the first time in two months yesterday. And I have to tell you, those were the most delicious crappy salads I've ever had. Seriously. I'm actually craving one right now because it was SO nice to be eating vegetables again instead of GF toast or bananas. They were just shredded lettuce, some pale pink tomatoes, shredded carrots, and oil and vinegar. But maaaaaaan, the best salads ever. And now on to another topic, with no graceful transition.

Today I was really angry and short tempered with Julian and I feel really horrible about it. We talked at length and I apologized for my behavior, but I still feel awful. We were at Chipotle because some of Wade's family came into town and we were showing them around and needed to stop for lunch. I was feeling kind of sick, exhausted from the heat, and Julian was not listening or following directions. After several times of telling him to stop what he was doing, I just snapped. I grabbed him by the shoulders, got right down in his face and said, "If you don't fucking stop right now I swear I'm going to beat you" in a really scary voice. For the record, I don't hit my child and it really was just a threat, even though it was an awful and inexcusable one. I'm pretty positive that all the people behind me in line heard me (and there were a lot of them), and Julian was crushed and started crying. And I'm sure they all saw my bag that says "All you need is LOVE" right on the side of it, as they listened to me curse at my kid in public. Let that image sink into your head for a minute, and then please vote for me as mom of the year.

mini meep

2009-07-20T21:44:00.003-04:00

Look! It's our new sea monkey! Just kidding - that's our new little meep, at 8 weeks and 3 days according to today's ultrasound. This is why I've been exceptionally lame about updating on here. And basically lame in every other area of life too. I have recently excelled at barfing though, so gold medal in that category for me.

We're so excited about this new little one and can't wait to meet him/her. Mini Meep is due February 26th, 2010. Just two days before Wade and I celebrate our birthdays. Yes. We have the same birthday. Julian is a very excited big brother and exclaimed today after seeing the ultrasound, "Whoa. That's a cool baby!" He keeps wanting to watch the dvd the office gave us over and over, because he loves seeing and hearing the heartbeat.

I'm going to keep this short - because I need to go and lie down, and try not to puke. And later, I'll feel like eating a jar of mustard or drinking a gallon of pickle juice. No joke. For the past few nights, chocolate milkshakes that Wade has made for me have been keeping me well. His milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard. I could teach you, but I'd have to charge.

hardcore stevie

2009-07-15T21:40:00.004-04:00

This is Stevie with a shaved face, puffy eye, and looking hardcore gangsta. About a week after the Cat Lady episode and he was back home and all was fine, he got really lethargic and wouldn't eat or drink anything for an entire day. And then the left side of his face got all swollen and he looked completely crazy. But didn't seem to be in any pain, besides that first day of lethargy.

Knowing that the vet would inevitably charge me a crap ton of money, I googled the hell out of his symptoms, and figured that he either had a bad insect or spider bite, or had an abscessed tooth. There's not much that can be done for a bite, but if it was his tooth I didn't want him to be in pain, so Wade took him to the vet. $300 later, we know that it's not an abscessed tooth, and our vet isn't even sure what could have bitten him. See that black spot on his cheek? It's not supposed to be there. Our vet tested for cancer, which I'm extremely suspicious about. Of course I'm not a medical professional, but if you know anything, or google for half a second, you will find that spider bites can cause necrosis in the surrounding tissue. In other words, his skin is dying off in the bite area. Duh. $100 for a skin cancer test on a cat that is a year old, and has every indication of a bite? I think we got scammed.

Unfortunately, there's not much that can be done about his face right now, and he's on antibiotics as a precaution. And okay, I just turned into one of those crazies who blogs long winded paragraphs about her pet.

Here is the best husband ever, Wade, at a winery that we visited recently. My parents came to town, so we were trying to do some fun local stuff. Wade made all of our lunches for our winery picnic, and was extra careful to make my gluten-free lunch in a separate area because as I just mentioned, he's the best husband ever.

As much as I would have liked to see Big Don and The Nancy tanked on local wine, it didn't happen. We did have a good time though. Julian even came along, although he refused to pose for the picture because he was completely bored of the tour at that point. Whatevs. Everyone is kind of laughing in the picture because right as we were supposed to say cheese, I quietly said, "Shart!" because I enjoy filthy 12 year old boy humor.

Lastly, here is my sweet boy on his backyard rope swing. Every kid should have a rope swing. Good times.

underdecking

2009-07-03T22:55:00.003-04:00

"underdecking:
conspiring against an authority figure to take synchronized shits underneath said authority figure's deck. Usually performed in groups of two to five people. In extreme cases, shit burritos are fashioned with paper towels and left to be found."

Did you read the above definition from urbandictionary.com? My friend Zach, of the Zach and Becca tribe, wrote and submitted that to Urban Dictionary. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because it would be jerky and embarrassing to my child, but I think Zach pretty much summed the entire happening up in this definition.

Our kids are so gross, dude.

drama-free zone

2009-07-03T10:24:00.004-04:00

So, I deleted my last post about the crazy cat experience because I would like this blog to be a happy space, and not some drama filled rant area. And really, when I start posting about hostage cats, then you know my life is pretty boring. Another reason is that I don't want to vilify someone who was trying to do a good deed, but just went about it in a bizarre way. So - on to happier things.

Here's some footage of Julian's first Tae Kwon Do class. The counting to 10 in Korean kills me. His voice sounds so little.

What are you all doing for the 4th of July? (Canadians, sorry you don't get to see stuff explode in your skyline today.) This is our first time celebrating the 4th in North Carolina. Last year, we were at the CBS lot in Studio City. It was crammed so full, and people were being so rude and pushy that it was hard to enjoy the time there. I remember while we were walking in a line like a bunch of cattle, a man behind me (who had small children with him) started pushing my back and yelling at me to move. As if I had anywhere to go. Ohhh, L.A. I don't miss you. This year will be much more peaceful, I'm expecting.

hot

2009-06-26T19:47:00.003-04:00

It's been so hot outside. Too hot for playing And I don't know if I can watch the Spiderman movies any more than I already have, which is approximately eleventy-billion times. So we've had to just resort to doing inside things, like going to the mall and letting Julian get on that crazy bungee thing.

And going to the Children's Museum here in Winston-Salem. Visits to the library are always good too. We're doing lots of pre-kindergarten reading this summer. Trips to Michael's have kept us occupied a bit, because we always get a project to work on. They have some really cheap little wooden kits that kids can put together, and we're into those right now. We just completed the skeleton, and next is the pirate ship.

But all this doesn't seem like enough activity for my crazy boy who doesn't ever stop moving. So we signed him up for Tae Kwon Do classes. His introductory class is tomorrow, and he's very excited. He keeps practicing moves, which are really just poses he's seen from Spiderman, and can't wait to wear the white uniform. I'll have pictures to share soon!

What are you doing to keep busy in this heat?

mela

2009-06-20T23:45:00.004-04:00

A few days ago, we hopped in the car and made the drive West to Asheville. We had never been there before, but have been hearing so much lately from people that we would love it. That it's such a cool hippie town, and it's right up our alley. This is our first year living in North Carolina, so this summer we want to do lots of little day trips to places we've never seen.

This is just a shot of the ride over, and Julian was playing X-Men with his Legos. He was pretty mad that we had to drive through the mountains, because he said it made his ears hurt, like driving through the mountains in L.A.

We arrived in Asheville at lunch time, and we were all starving. One of the first places I noticed was Mela. I mentioned to Wade, "It's been so long since we've had good Indian food.". He agreed, but then reminded me of the times in L.A. that we went to get Indian, and would ask if it was gluten-free, but the people working didn't understand English so they'd just nod and smile. And I'd end up glutened. So we stopped eating Indian.

But because Asheville is such a cool town, and the people there really seem aware, I asked if anything on the menu was gluten-free. I was expecting the usual answer of "huh?" or just a blank stare. But right away, the hostess said, "I just talked to the cooks, and everything but the naan is gluten-free." Then I picked up my jaw from the floor and sat down at a table.

From what I noticed, most of their food was not only gluten-free, but most of the buffet stuff was vegetarian. Score! We had an amazing healthy lunch, and I am officially obsessed with Mela and crave it on a daily basis. Seriously the best Indian food I've ever had.

farmer's market

2009-06-16T20:06:00.004-04:00

Oh, lazy summer days. Since both Wade and Julian are done with school for the summer, we've been kicking back and doing basically nothing. But it's a very good nothing. We recently went to the farmer's market in Greensboro and here are some pictures to document the adventure:

Before we headed out, we stopped at the Cloverdale Kitchen for breakfast. Most diners are pretty safe for breakfast if I just get scrambled eggs and bacon. Once, at Dupar's in L.A., I got glutened by some hash browns that I'm pretty sure shared the same griddle space with pancakes. It was awful and I can remember feeling really drunk and stupid from it. So now I mostly stick to eggs, bacon, fruit, and tomato slices. Anyway, this is Julian doing his Uncle Rico (from Napoleon Dynamite) pose.

Once at the farmer's market, Julian found this awesome booth with local wool yarn. They also had some sheepskins, and after explaining to Julian what it really was, he got all morbid and said, "This is the first dead animal I've ever seen." Except that he devoured a pile of bacon right before that, so, not really.

We bought two trays of marigolds to plant in our garden because I've read that they act as natural bug repellant. I'm all squintalicious because the sun was right in my grill. Grill means face, for those of you who aren't hardcore gangsta like me.

Has blogland ever seen ~~the love child of John Lennon and Paul McCartney~~ Wade? Here he is. He's simply the best husband ever. I'm quite skilled at cutting off the top of his head in photos that I take.

Julian was really captivated by this huge pot of venus fly traps. He was convinced that if he put his finger next to one, it would bite him.

In other news, I made some gluten-free saltines from this recipe and while they weren't awful, they simply weren't saltines. The dough was so gooey and was the texture of goat cheese, so I had a really difficult time rolling them thin enough, and they ended up more like really thin biscuits. The taste was good though, so I think I'm going to roll them into a log next time and slice them really thin, rather than rolling sheets out.

I've had a really crafty itch lately, but I'm just not sure how to scratch it. I do need to make a new purse for myself that has a nice padded camera pocket in it. We have some blank canvases lying around too, and I've been wanting to make some bird and tree art for a while now. There's also the project of cloth napkins, which I really need to tackle. I'll get cracking on something soon, and post it. I swearz.

garden

2009-06-11T16:48:00.002-04:00

A few of you have asked about the progress of the garden, so here it is, in all its glory:

It looks really tiny from the angle of this picture, but it's about 15 feet wide. In this overwhelming blur of green, you will find bibb lettuce, basil, rosemary, scallions, cilantro, cucumber, garlic, tomatoes, arugula, onions, zucchini, yellow squash, and red peppers - all grown from seeds, except the tomato plants that we bought from a grocery store because they were ridiculously cheap.

The arugula was growing like a crazy delicious weed (why do weeds grow so much faster than wanted plants?) until it bolted, and then I guess all the efforts of the plant turned to making flowers instead of giant leaves. I found out the flowers are edible, so I snipped them all off and gave the row of arugula a major haircut. Hopefully this will bring back some of the leafy growth that I love so much. Seriously, arugula is my favorite of the leafy greens. I could eat it for every meal.

Cilantro going all gangbusters on me. I've heard from so many people that cilantro is a fickle herb that's so hard to keep alive, but this stuff is out of control. It still blows my mind that you can just throw seeds into the ground, and they will grow into plants. I know it's so simple, but having my own garden really makes me so much more aware of the coolness of the earth, and how important it is for us to take care of it.

Back porch plants that I hope to plant in the ground when we buy a house. Lavender, rosemary, basil, and hot banana peppers. The banana peppers were a gift from our neighbors and would have gone into the big garden, but we just ran out of room and had to pot them.

summer

2009-06-02T20:16:00.005-04:00

Oh my gosh, look at Julian being all huge and tall! Pictures like this make me stop and go, whoaaaa, where'd my little tiny boy go? Who is this huge big boy who took his place? I can only imagine how weird (and happy) it feels to see your babies as adults.

Right behind Julian, you can kind of see the little garden we're growing that's full of awesome veggies. We made a salad yesterday mostly comprised of food from our garden. Arugula, bibb lettuce, cilantro, and basil. I also picked some onions prematurely because their tops died off. I don't know if they would have grown back or not, so I just picked them, and now we have adorable little baby onions sitting on our counter.

Today the temperature was supposed to reach into the 90's, so we bought a slip n' slide. You know I was all over that thing too, but photo proof does not exist, thankfully.

In other news, my awesome friend, Becca, just turned 30. Her equally awesome husband, Zach, sent her along with a bunch of us girls to the beach for a weekend. It was an amazing trip filled with laughing, junk food, and NO KIDS! Anyway, for Becca's birthday present, I conspired with Zach to make this Ethiopian purse. Their son is adopted from Ethiopia, so it's a special place for their family. I totally stole these pics off Becca's blog, because I forgot to take photos of the bag before I gave it to her. One side has the shape of Africa, in the colors of the Ethiopian flag, and a freezer-paper stenciled heart over where Ethiopia is located.

The other side of the bag has a little pocket stenciled with the word "love" in Amharic, the primary language of Ethiopians. The inside of the bag is lined with the same fabric as outside, but has pockets with the colors of the flag sewn in.

a moment of vanity and panic

2009-05-16T20:56:00.006-04:00

Not a very clear picture, but this is documentation of my very first grey hair, found a few days ago. Which I promptly pulled, and taped to my chalkboard. And I'm sure you can understand my need to write "wtf" next to it.

Just after the pulling and taping happened, I immediately called my sister and left a freaked out message on her machine that included lots of swears.

Seriously???? Grey???? I'm 28. My mom didn't have a single grey hair until she was 40. I thought I had at least another good 10 years of enjoying my natural color. Now I feel like I need to prolificly document the color my hair is now so when Julian is older he can see that I actually did have very pretty hair at one point.

Until it all turned grey and I looked like Big Edie from Grey Gardens.

butter me up

2009-05-15T11:16:00.003-04:00

I mentioned on here a while ago that I bought some mason jars and used one to make vanilla extract. And then I was left with 11 empty jars. What to do with them? Make butter, of course! These pictures are actually several weeks old, but you don't care about that, do you?

To do this, you will need:
- 1 mason jar (we used 2 because I wanted Julian to have his own jar)
- some heavy cream that has been sitting unrefrigerated for 12 hours*
- arms
- a cute helper

*I know you're freaking out about the unrefrigerated cream. Don't. It doesn't get disgusting, and I can promise you that none of our butter recipients died or suffered any intestinal distress. Just make sure to keep it out of the sun. I put mine out at 10 p.m. the night before we did this so there wouldn't be any chance of the cream getting too warm in the sun. Since there's no sunlight at night. Yeah.

Put the cream in your mason jar(s) and shake what your mama gave you. Julian is doing exactly that, since I gave him the jar of cream. Heh. Also, he was instructed to "look crazy for this picture" when he was shaking his jar. He thought this project was cool, but not nearly as much as this photo would lead you to believe.

After a few minutes of shaking, you'll see the cream separate into butter and buttermilk. At that point, you can strain off the buttermilk and save it for cooking. I made a loaf of bread immediately after this with the fresh buttermilk and it was delish.

Doooood, look at all that buttermilk. Almost an entire cup!

The last step after straining is to put the butterlump into a bowl and squish the extra little pockets of buttermilk out, because the whole thing will get rancid quickly if there's any buttermilk left. I just kneaded the butter for a few minutes with a spatula until all the liquids were out and then it was done! If you want, you can add salt, fresh herbs, or honey. And really, this whole project could be done in a food processor in about two minutes. I just wanted to have a cool project that Julian could be involved in.

So easy. And if you've never had super fresh butter, you're missing out (unless you're vegan and you think dairy is just disgusting). This stuff was amazing.

it's all about meme

2009-05-11T10:15:00.004-04:00

I was just tagged for this meme by Noelle from Baby In Broad
and thought, why not? My life consists of talking a lot to myself due to being a stay at home mom, so at this point in my life, I accept any chance at narcissism. And while I'm at the narcissistic behavior, wanna see a chocolate cake I made? Of course you do! Here it is:

Sharing the photo with the cake I made is the child I made, Julian. He's the best kid ever and I'm so lucky to have him. He's actually kind of a miracle, did you know that? I wasn't a diagnosed celiac before he was born, and miscarriage is pretty common in undiagnosed celiac women. I feel so lucky to be his mom, and he made Mother's Day so wonderful for me just by being the cool kid that he is.

I hope you all had a nice Mother's Day, and all the moms in our lives are appreciated. While we're talking about moms, let me take a second to blow your effing mind. So, we know that females are born with all their eggs. This means that while your grandmother was pregnant with your mom, a part of you was inside your grandmother's body at that time. Now pick up the pieces of your exploded head and read this meme:

1. What are your current obsessions?
Opening a gluten-free bakery in my little town, making stencils with freezer paper, and the idea of picking up my guitar after a few years of feeling defeated as a musician and rocking out like I used to. Now that I have the tattoo to remind me that in my soul I'm a songbird, I don't have any excuses. It's constantly staring at me and asking when I'll start writing again.

2. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?
Lucky Brand jeans and some kind of girl tee. I just bought a bunch of skirts though because when I get pregnant again, I want to wear long skirts and wife beaters all day. I prefer saying "wife beater" to the classier "ribbed tank" simply because it makes me laugh.

3. Last dream you had?
It was about Benjamin Button, because I watched that movie last night and it made me so very sad. I woke up feeling kind of heartbroken.

4. Last thing you bought?
Thai food for my Mother's Day lunch yesterday. I don't even know what the dish was really called, but it was a bowl of coconut milk and red curry with a ton of vegetables in it, and a pile of rice on the side. One of the spiciest things I've ever eaten but I seriously couldn't stop.

5. What are you listening to?
The new Indigo Girls album, Poseidon and the Bitter Bug. Their songwriting continues to amaze me, and I'm pretty sure that they invented the concept of harmony because they effing rock it.

6. If you could possess any super power, what would it be?
Probably flying, but invisibility comes in as a close second.

7. Favorite holiday spots?
I have some sweet memories of camping at Jalama Beach in California with Wade and a very tiny Julian. And our other favorites are to be discovered in the future.

8. Reading right now?
Strangely enough, I'm not reading any books now. I'm usually reading about four at a time. But right now, I'm taking a hiatus. There are a few magazines that I've gotten lately though, and they've been addressed to the fake name I give out, Chlamydia Latrine. Seriously. Chlamydia Latrine gets a ton of mail, and I laugh every single time I see it. Everyone should make up a fake name that they use to subscribe to magazines.

9. Four words to describe yourself.
Greatest Mother Trucker Alive

10. Guilty pleasure?
This phrase always bothers me. If I haven't done anything wrong, I have no reason to feel guilty. And the things I find pleasure in cause me no guilt. In fact, I'm striving to live a guilt-free life in general because guilt does me no good at all as a person. And now that I don't subscribe to any religion, I definitely don't have anything to feel guilty about since most religions are guilt and fear based anyway.

I'm sure you wish I had just said "chocolate" for that question and been done with it. Meh.

11. Who or what makes you laugh until you're weak?
My favorite people: Julian, Wade, my sister Tracy, and my handful of best girlfriends. Also, people like Sarah Silverman and Ellen Degeneres. And while I'm at it, I regularly make myself chuckle, which is so nice. Wouldn't it suck if I bored myself?

12. Favorite spring thing to do?
Just being outside with my peeps. I've grown fond of tending to our vegetable garden too, which is full of our prolific arugula.

13. When you die, what would you like people to say about you at your funeral?
I haven't given that any thought, really. I guess because I'd like them to say what they really felt about me, not what I want them to say. I have thought that I'd like people to not spend money on flowers, but instead throw a big party and celebrate life and loving each other.

14. Best thing you ate or drank lately?
I can't stop talking about it and I'm sure it's getting boring to everyone, but this dang Thai restaurant in town is turning me into a crazy person. Late last night, after eating an enormous lunch of the above mentioned red curry coconut stuff, I told Wade that I wanted more of it.

15. When did you last go for a night out?
Oh jeez. I don't even know. Maybe when Maggie visited and we went to the gallery hop? I don't get out much at night.

16. Favorite ever film?
I'm probably going to go with Grey Gardens, but I adore Almost Famous and could watch it a million times and not get sick of it.

17. Care to share some wisdom?
coffee makes you poo.

18. Song you can't get out of your head?
True Romantic by Indigo Girls

19. Something you don't know how to do, but wish you did?
Anything involving math. It intimidates the hell out of me, and I have huge admiration for people who can solve math problems in their heads with Rain Man kinds of skill.

20. Which disease or condition would you most like to see eradicated?
Poverty. It's entirely possible too, but the few who possess the most have to be willing to get over their egos and facade of power so they can help the many who are suffering.

21. Last thing you said to someone?
"Bye, I love you! Have a nice day at work!" to Wade as he left this morning.

22. Have you ever confronted a litterer?
Yes. In L.A. when I would regularly see people let their dogs drop a steamy one on someone's lawn and just walk off, I would get really nasty and yell at them. Probably not the nicest thing to do, but if you're too high maintenance to pick up your dog's poo, you shouldn't be allowed to have a dog.

23. Pet peeves?
Poor grammar, like saying "could of" when it's really "could have". I have little patience for people who don't know how to properly speak their primary language.
Also, rudeness. It's really difficult to raise a polite child in a rude society. I'm also very aware of my yelling at dog poo people and how hypocritical it is for me to say I dislike rudeness.
I sound like such a bitch now.

24. Name 3 words that gross you out, and 3 you love:
gross: moist, quiche, panties
love: troubadour, bungalow, fuck

***
Rules of the game. Respond and rework. Answer the questions on your own blog. Replace one question. Add one question. Tag 6 people.

I tag:
28 Peppermint Grove
Expanding the Albertsons
Momcapades
mondeintact
Sonnet of the Moon
Daughter Of Agnes

thai food so good you'd phuket

2009-05-03T20:18:00.002-04:00

My family doesn't go out to eat very often. Mostly because it's such a gamble every time we do, and hoping I don't end up getting glutened. Another reason is that we love cooking and have gotten pretty good at it. So why bother going out to eat when you can make the same thing at home for way less money? And not get glutened in the process! But there are things that I don't know how to make, and probably will not really ever learn the fine art of. Like making Thai food. I love it, but seriously, I have no idea how to make a tamarind sauce. Maybe one day.

But for now, there's Thai Sawatdee right here in Winston-Salem. In a Harris Teeter grocery store. I first found out about this from Emily's blog, Celiac Underground. To be honest, if she hadn't written such an amazing review of the place, I would have passed it by entirely. I mean, it's in a grocery store. Have you ever had good luck in that situation? Not me. But jeez. I'm so glad Emily raved about this place. It's become one of my new cravings and is one of the best Thai restaurants I've ever been to.

Most of their menu is gluten-free. The noodles are rice, and the owner will tell you which dishes have soy sauce in them, and is happy to leave that out. Spring rolls are not safe for celiac peeps, I've heard, so I don't even bother. But for realz, go and try their Pad Thai. I would kill for some of their Pad Thai right now. And the other day, I stopped a man to ask him what he was eating because it looked so good. I don't know if he was bothered by that or not, but he told me it was some kind of red curry coconut dish. That's probably what I'm getting next time. You were probably dying to know that piece o' minutia.

Here are some pics of us eating the soup while we waited for our main course. Are these posed, or do we really eat our soup like this? I'll never tell. What I will say is that I can't believe I put such an unflattering photo of myself up. You know what though? I don't even care. Pretty much all our pictures are nutty like this, because I think perfect and pretty is boring. Wouldn't you rather look at this crazy shit instead of a nice Sears portrait? I would.

Soup eatin' crazies.

one man's trash

2009-04-29T09:52:00.002-04:00

What a cute little cake display. I found this at a local thrift store for $3. It's in really great condition, with no chips in the glass, and the wood is in good shape. But even being in good shape, it looks horribly 80's and dingy. So I decided to paint the wood to match my bright blue kitchen chairs. You can kind of see a little bit of blue paint on the before picture, because I got ahead of myself and forgot to take pictures before I started painting.

Here's the finished product, with a blue kitchen chair in the background for reference. I just brushed a few coats of acrylic paint to the wood, and added some brown paint to the edges to make it look distressed. After all the paint was dry, I taped off the white base where the food rests and sprayed the whole thing down with a few coats of acrylic sealer. I'm guessing the total cost for this project was around $9, with the can of acrylic sealer being the most expensive item. And even though that was $4, there's still plenty left in the can for other projects, along with a ton of leftover paint.

Oh, thrift stores. My new obsession.

you could build her a cake or something

2009-04-24T22:47:00.003-04:00

We had some guests over for dinner tonight and for the desert, I made a gluten-free chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. This piece of delightful confection would blow your effing mind if you were to have a piece.

But you won't*, and there aren't even any pictures to prove that it existed in the first place. You know why?

Because it's IN MAH BELLEH!!!!

Sorry to rub it in. But really, it was so good that I had to make an impromptu post about its glory.

*Excepting local friends. I'm sorry that the rest of you non-locals are leading a cakeless existence. Come to my house and have some.

onesies

2009-04-23T10:22:00.004-04:00

Some more freezer paper stencils. These little onesies were made for a dear friend who just had a baby, and were top secret until they arrived in the mail. I drew these freehand, but the ideas come from a few things I have around the house, like a stamp from my friend Shannon and a cute coffee mug that I love.

I still don't know how to use my fancy pants camera and just want a small one that's user friendly. Sometimes my pictures come out looking really nice, or they're super dark, even with good lighting. Blar. I've had my eye on this little Canon . My sister-in-law has one and really loves it. And her pictures always come out looking a thousand times better than mine. Also, it would be really nice to be able to pop a little camera into my purse instead of lugging the mammoth of a camera that I have around in a camera case that's the size of a lunch cooler. Possibly a way to spend some of the refund cashies that we're getting back from The Man (which is essentially an interest-free loan to The Man, but I won't go into that right now).

Non stencil or camera related: I'm obsessed with Big Love. We've just started getting it from Netflix, and I am so glad we did. Right now, we're in the first few episodes of season 2, so don't tell me any details of things to come! Wade and I have been so sucked into this show, except I've noticed that after I watch it at night, I always have really crazy dreams. Like the one where I killed the Prophet, Roman, because he's such a rat bastard. And I keep catching myself saying "biiiiiiiiiiitch!" after everything Nicki does. The sister-wife drama is what really keeps me interested. And the prairie clothing. What's up with that?

happy earth day!

2009-04-22T11:10:00.002-04:00

Julian and I picked these gorgeous flowers from our back yard yesterday. I have to stop about a dozen times a day to tell myself, I get to live here!

What are you doing to celebrate Earth Day? I think my overall life is as green as I can get it right now, in things like my pledge not to use chemical cleaners or personal products. The decision to wash my clothes in cold water only. Putting all our green scraps into a compost pile in the back yard. Unplugging things when they're not being used. Walking instead of driving, when possible. Bringing reusable bags instead of using plastic or paper. Buying organic produce and supporting local farmers when I can. Recycling like crazy. These are just things that I've made part of my daily life.

I'd love to know what ways you're staying green. Maybe I could learn something new.

Go hug a tree today. Or if you're Indiana Jones, then whip one. But be gentle, they have feelings too.

cupcakes and vanilla

2009-04-20T09:56:00.003-04:00

Last week I made chocolate cupcakes with orange buttercream frosting. The one above is not exactly what I'd call a model cupcake. It's messy and looks as though it's been tossed around a bit. But it was the only one left, so I guess that's a good sign that they were tasty. I'm really happy with the way the big cupcakes turned out. It had been so long since I'd had a really good gluten-free cake that I was starting to think I had to accept the grainy packaged stuff. But these were so tasty! I also made mini cupcakes of the same thing, but I think I may have baked them too long and they weren't as moist.

Just so you know, that's the last time on here that I say that word. It's on my list of gross unspeakable words. From this day forward, it shall be referred to as "the M word". Let's hope that all my cupcakes in the future are nice and M word.

I just bought a mega ton of mason jars so I could start making my own vanilla extract. Right now, I have more beans than booze, so I need to go buy some Smirnoff red label vodka (because it's gluten-free!) and fill up a few more jars so I always have a good stash on hand. Homemade vanilla extract really does taste so much better than store bought, and turns out to be a lot cheaper.

So now I have one mason jar for vanilla, and Julian is using one as a jail for his bad guys. Lots more jars left....maybe more mason jar projects? I've got a good one I'll be posting about soon.

What do you do with mason jars?

the busiest slacker

2009-04-19T19:34:00.003-04:00

Happy very very very late Easter! This is a picture of Julian after discovering all the eggs the Easter Bunny left in our yard. I'm not exaggerating when I say that for every egg he found, he audibly gasped. It was so hilarious and cute. And later that night, after a great dinner with friends, we saw a bunny sitting in the grass of our front yard. Julian freaked out and said, "THE EASTER BUNNY!!! Why is he still here?" And then he approached the rabbit and tried to talk to it like it was just any other person. This is one of the reasons why the boy is so cute.

I've been a slacker about posting lately. I'm a bad blog mama. But when I'm a bad blog mama, it means that I'm a busy girl in real life, which is very good. Lots of fun crafty times with Julian. And exploring our yard, looking at bugs and trying (in vain) to approach birds and talk to them. The arugula seeds that Christine sent me have been growing prolificly, while the other seedlings I grew and planted were all killed off in the last frost. Bummer. Someone recently told me not to rush my garden (which I'm totally doing and being over ambitious about) and not to plant anything until May first. Too many rogue frosts that kill seedlings off.

This is another freezer paper project. This time, I let Julian in on the action. I gave him a piece of freezer paper that was cut to fit over a canvas bag, and asked him to draw a picture for me. He of course drew an Indiana Jones scene. Let me describe the picture for you. At the top left is a coiled whip. Then, there's a green tree from which Indy is hanging by his whip. Beneath that are roads, and a bad guy is driving his car on them. More roads at the top right. The swirly blob in the middle is the crystal skull. And right beneath Indy is a snake that sort of looks like a lowercase "b".

This wasn't a difficult picture to cut out, but it took flipping forever because of the coiled whip and all the details of the people's faces. The things I will do for love. How cool did it turn out though? After I ironed the paper on, he even painted it himself. I like how he made the tree green, and chose to do his name in purple.

Now on to very important and non-crafty news: Wade and I are going to see U2 in October with our awesome friends Becca and Zach! eeeeeeeeeeee! I cannot type enough eeeee's to show how very excited I am. I am peeing-my-pants levels of excited. And April through October is a very long time to walk around with pee in my pants. Did you know that Bono is going to pull Becca and I up on stage and serenade us? He is. I can feel it.

freezer paper tutorial

2009-04-02T12:29:00.004-04:00

I've finally gotten with the program. The program being the world of freezer paper stenciling. Oh my gosh,this is so fun. And ridiculously easy. I'm planning on doing some freezer paper stencils with Julian today, on this not-so-springy day of spring break. It's rainy outside, and Wade and I both have a disgusting flu, which I previously thought had been severe allergies. Maybe it was both. Either way, we're stuck inside with a very bored 5 year old.

Okay, so here's the deal on freezer paper: One side is shiny, and the other is a matte paper. You have to use freezer paper for this project, NOT wax paper. The matte side is necessary for drawing on and ironing, which comes later.

First, find something that you want to paint on. It could be anything fabric, really. I chose a crappy $3 sweatshirt that I found on a clearance rack.

Next, tear off a piece of freezer paper and draw your design. I drew this tree freehand, but you could trace a design, or print something from your computer. Just make sure you print or draw on the matte paper side, not the waxy side.

Cut our your design using scissors or an X-Acto knife if there are very small details. Cut design on a self-healing mat, or a surface that you don't mind getting all scratched up, like a piece of cardboard.

Position your stencil where you want it on your fabric, and iron it on, waxy side down. I didn't take a picture of this step, but you know how to iron, right? When you iron, you want to make sure that all of the parts of the stencil have adhered to the fabric. Loose stencil bits = paint running under you stencil = yuck.

For the painting part, I just used some fabric paint I found at Michael's, and a small foam brush. Blot the paint on with your foam brush, and that's it. You could also use the negative (or would it be positive?) of the stencil. The same idea applies - iron it on, and blot paint around it.

Wait for the paint to dry, and then carefully peel off the stencil to reveal a previously crappy sweater that now looks like it came from some overpriced store like Urban Outfitters. Wheeee!

**************************
In other news, my sweet friend and former neighbor, Caitlin Crosby just released her first album. She's beautiful, talented, and most importantly, a good person. Check her out - her new album is on iTunes.

a list

2009-03-27T19:52:00.006-04:00

This entry is a list. A list of things that are currently making my life a little better. Or maybe a lot better. I think it's going to be a running theme, because...well, because why not? I like acknowledging the good things in my life, so here are a few that I'm digging on right now:

Right now I'm reading this book as part of a book club on twitter called prosehos, started by Rebecca from Girl's Gone Child. It's kind of funny that she would pick this book to start things out with, because it's been on my to-read list for a very long time, and I had just saved a copy of it at the library. Timing's everything, right? So anyway, I've been immediately sucked in by this beautiful and creepy story, and am making myself take it all in slowly, rather than devouring it in one night because it's so incredible.

Sarah Silverman. I love this girl. She's hilarious and brilliant, and if I ever run into her, I might lick her on the face. For realz. I know a lot of people find her offensive or immature, but I think that they're just not into her kind of tongue-in-cheek comedy. Or maybe they don't like laughing. Because that's all I can do when I watch her show. Do you know how many times I've sung "The Poop Song" (from Season 1, episode Not Without My Daughter) this week? Too many. Even Julian has told me to stop. Yowza.

U2 - No Line On The Horizon. I love this band more than I can even say. And I want to have 10,000 of Bono's babies. This new album is amazing and I seriously have no words. Just listen to it and wonder how you possibly lived your entire life so far without these sound waves bouncing off your eardrums.

Best mineral makeup ever. Not the cheapest though. But for $26 (and free shipping!) this foundation lasts forever, so it kind of balances out. As I've mentioned before, I'm allergic to everything. Not this stuff. My skin is better than it's ever been after using this. I know that totally sounded like an ad, but I swear it's the truth. And it's gluten-free. Along with being everything-else-that's-bad-for-you-free.

Daffodils. They're blooming everywhere right now, and popping up like weeds. Except they're not weeds, they're yellow blooms of gorgeous. They're all over my back yard, and I've been picking some every few days to bring inside the house. I can't think of anything better. Okay, maybe that's not true. It would be pretty awesome if a faerie riding a unicorn stopped by my house for cookies. And then said, "We have a surprise for you!" and pulled Bono out of a backpack. He would fit in a backpack of course, because he's a tiny little Irish man. That would be the best thing. But daffodils are still great.

I couldn't make a list of wonderful things without mentioning Julian! Although, technically, he's not a thing but rather, a person. Or maybe just a heaping pile of gorgeous brilliance with an I.Q. much, much higher than my own, and a heart of gold. Best kid ever.

a little better all the time

2009-03-26T12:37:00.004-04:00

I was reading over one of my other journals a few weeks ago and found a post that I had forgotten had even been written. It was written while we were still living in L.A., and before we had made any solid plans to move anywhere. I was complaining about how living there was such a struggle, and how unhappy I was. And I had listed all the things that I wanted out of life, and how they wouldn't happen while I was living in L.A. These were things like living in an actual house with a yard and not an expensive yet run down apartment, and having dinner parties with nice people, making music and being crafty, a good space to work on my gluten-free baking. Simple things. Not expensive cars and a mansion in Malibu. Just small things that make a person's life better.

And I realized the other day, that all of those things have happened now that we live here in Winston-Salem. We live in the cutest neighborhood, surrounded by wonderful people. People who will look you in the eye and say hello to you as you walk by. People who stop by your house just to see how you're doing. In L.A., that was a rarity. I lived there 7 years and struggled so hard to find friends, real friends, who weren't just working some angle. In 8 months of living here, I already have more friends than I ever had in years of living in L.A. I think that says a lot.

My plans for starting a gluten-free bakery are coming along more every day, and I feel really optimistic about things. I'm more productive here in this environment than I ever was in the old one. We make music and laugh. We watch silly movies. We go to dinner parties with good people. Julian plays in our yard every day. When we first moved here, he seriously thought our back yard was the park (My little city boy had never had a back yard of his own, and really thought that when we stepped out the door that we were in the park). The air is clean. Wade has had really awful asthma his entire life, and used to go through an inhaler a month. Here, he hasn't had to use one at all. When we lived in L.A., I felt fat, surrounded by girls who were a size 0. What the hell is a 0? How is that even physically possible? Here, I feel normal and don't hate my body anymore. I don't feel like I constantly have to battle to be something I'm not.

I really love living here. I'm always catching myself saying "We get to live here!" as I drive through town. And we do. We are. We're actually living, and not just trying to get by.

That's not to say that we don't still have struggles. Of course we do. Money is tight. Not just for us, but for everyone. Our house, though adorable, is very small and we're crowded in here. But it's at least a house, with a yard. There are a lot of things I could complain about, but I have to always be so grateful for this life I have, and how good I have it when there's so much suffering in the world.

And you know what? The Beatles summed it up perfectly: "I've got to admit it's getting better, a little better all the time."

the bird is the word

2009-03-18T00:17:00.002-04:00

Don't you know about the bird? Everybody knows that the bird is the word! The word being my new tattoo. My very first tattoo, to be precise. On the inside of my right wrist.

Such feats of craziness could not be accomplished without the support of my very favorite people: Wade (not pictured, since he's the one taking the picture), Julian, and my awesome sister Tracy.

I had to keep it rock and roll, because tattoos are very rock and roll, baby.

An action shot of the artist, Chuck, at work. And me on the gurney. Heh. And as one of my dear friends pointed out, a picture of boobies on the wall. Tattoos and boobies, man. That's what I'm all about. Badass.

coconut oil

2009-03-11T22:54:00.002-04:00

By now, you must know that coconut oil has some kind of hippie application in my life. Of course it does. Why else would I post a picture of a jar of coconut oil?

This is what I use as lotion. The label has one ingredient. Now read the label of any other kind of lotion you can think of. Most likely, you can't pronounce any of the ingredients. Is that what you want to be coating your body with? This is only part of my motivation for switching over to a completely natural skin moisturizer. As I've said before, I'm totally allergic to everything. I used to dig the lotions from Bath and Body Works, but they always gave me a rash. Along with pretty much everything else I tried. So this was my last hope. And I'm not kidding you, it's so great. My skin isn't greasy, either. It absorbs really quickly and smells....like coconuts, duh. I even use it on my face because that's especially where I can't mess around with regular lotions. I keep telling myself that it's preventing wrinkles. It counteracts the 7 packs of cigarettes I smoke , plus the 3 bottles of gin, and 8 hours of sunbathing I do on a daily basis.

Below you'll find Wade and Julian being super cute on our snow day. I had The World's Grossest Cold and didn't play with them, but did take a few pictures:

It cracks me up that my little L.A. kid is sledding down our neighbor's front yard on a boogie board, when all the other kids in the neighborhood were using sleds. When a snow day this awesome happens, you've just gotta use what's around. And the boogie board wins.