The Older One

Finally it's the 30th. The days between the 21st and 30th of November tend to be filled with recognition by daddy that he and mommy, if only for those brief 9 days, are the same age. But thank the shining stars that the 30th is finally here and mommy is once again the young one. Not that I'm obsessed with age at all, it's just that I like being the younger one. Makes me feel, younger.

Back to the point, it's the older one's birthday today. Ash spent the morning serenading daddy with Happy Birthday, asking when we're going to go get the fishies for the toilet (Daddy's present this year was a Fish N Flush which turns the tank of your toilet into half-tank / half-fish tank. It's installed but the fish haven't been added yet.) and me reminding him that we would be going to get the fishies after school. Then we dropped the tot off at school a titch earlier than usual so that we could enjoy a birthday breakfast out. Hey, one must take full advantage of any and all methods of babysitting to facilitate lovers moments out.

So. Happy birthday to the one who will always (aside from those 9 pesky days in Nov) be one year older. You don't look a day over a year more than me.

Sunday Styles

It's the last Sunday in November and we spent most of the day raking leaves, riding bikes, playing on the swing set, and rolling down hills. All without a coat on. Ash had his bike helmet on which kind of counts as a hat, but aside from that it must've looked like a typical family fun day circa end of September/beginning of October but certainly not nearly December. I suppose we were pretty much robbed of a summer this year (the only sunny weekends we got were the ones when we traveled elsewhere) so we do kind of deserve a longer than usual fall, but I'll admit that my eyes did look on a bit longingly while passing the holiday aisles at Lowes today wondering if we're ever going to be able to break the sleds out. And then I quickly ate my words and dashed back outside, without a coat on, and hurried my way home to play outside some more.

'Tis The Season, Minus The Butter

Two weeks ago Grandma was in town, and she spent at least one of the days baking cookies with Ash. Then last week Gamma and Papa were in town, and they spent at least one of the days baking cookies with Ash. These days were sandwiched around a massive Thanksgiving feast and officially kicked off the holiday season and "OMG did I really gain a dress size overnight?" kind of realizations.
We plan on sharing a good portion of grandparent-love-in-the-form-of-cookies with Ash's preschool class (if there are any left by the time Monday rolls around that is...) and just today tossed out every bit of leftovers that we knew were prepared with at least a stick of butter (you'd be surprised how many that accounted for). We're quite intent on making sure this holiday season wraps with a new kind of realization of the "OMG I lost 2 swimsuit sizes" kind.

See, we're abandoning the cold of the North for the warmth of the South for Christmas this year. The WAY South. The Costa Rica kind of South. And for those not yet aware: It's a lot freaking easier to cover up a few extra pounds behind an XL wool sweater than even the most tummy-tucking bikini on the beach. And don't get me wrong, it's not like we're going to completely avoid any and all holiday savories and treats. We're just going to try and avoid the recipes that require multiple trips to the Stop and Shop to restock the butter in the fridge. 'Tis the season, minus the butter.

Christmas Tree 2009

OK I promise some actual words here eventually, but default yet again to a photo for the day's post. We've been putting up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving since our first Thanksgiving in NY 8 years ago, and this year was no different. We cut down a concolor again this year - if you break the needles in half it smells like citrus and just makes the whole house smell yummy. Tomorrow = words. Promise.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wordless Wednesday

We Should've Waited

This was the expression on Ash's face when I revealed to him that in a mere 48 hours he's going to be front and center with 75 foot tall Clifford the Big Red Dog and Buzz Lightyear. We took him to the Macy's parade last year and he loved it then, but at that point he hadn't learned about any of the characters yet so to him they were all just a bunch of really cool really big balloons. Not this year, this year they're his favorite story book characters, cartoon superstars, and music he dances to daily! Honestly, when I started telling him about the parade and everything we are going to see I had a slight moment of "OMG his head is going to start spinning 360 and pop off" and quickly regretted telling him with a whole 48 hours of advance notice. I should've waited until we were on the subway, on our way, Thursday morning. Now I have a super-stoked 2 1/2 year old bouncing off the walls singing "me see Clifford me see Buzz me see Clifford me see Buzz!" repeat repeat repeat, jump jump jump, repeat repeat repeat. We definitely should've waited. Lesson learned.

When Your Tattoo Artist Moves To Texas

You go to Texas for your tattoos. Which is exactly what happened last weekend to mark an (if you ask me) unremarkable date. Grandma flew from MN to NY to care for the tot so that mom and dad could fly from NY to TX to get inked. Mom was turning 29 with 12 months experience and dad thought it appropriate to mark the occasion by officially inking the design we'd been skipping about for months via a weekend trip to Austin, TX. Where, the most talented tattoo artist on the planet (who abandoned us by moving from NY to TX last year...) had blocked off an entire Saturday afternoon. For us. So grandma flew, we high-fived and tagged off in passing, and then we flew.

To anyone un-inked this may seem a bit frivolous, but to the inked in the crowd it makes complete sense. After all, once you've had someone use your body as a permanent canvas, well, you're kind of leery about having anyone else step in. So there ya go. That's the whole story, A-Z, about why mom and dad had to fly to the live music capital of the world and not listen to any live music at all because we spent the whole damn weekend in transit just because the only person on Earth who could ink the way we wanted lives there. In Texas.

GO LONGHORNS.

And guess what. The tot and the grandma, and the mom and the dad, and the inker and the inked, well, we all made it to Monday. In a "my back is just a wee bit sexier than it was on Friday" kind of way. Not at all in a "30" kind of way, but in a completely kickin 29 + gaining experience every day kind of love.

Go Mom.

Style details:
Mom: Ash leaves (from the Ash tree) circling Wondemu in Amharic script
Dad: Wondemu in Amharic script through the star shown on Ethiopian flags and passports
Womdemu = Ash's given name at birth.

Sunday Styles

Details to come, but this definitely counts as fixerup #6...

Fixerup #5

And this one is a sure-fire winner. Breakfast in bed. But not just any 'ol breakfast in bed, the kind that takes place in a separate time zone than the one you usually wake up in. This is sure to guarantee an extra shine in your aura and kick in your step. Of course you may need to fly in grandma for the weekend to care for the tot and accommodate the whole mommy and daddy being in a different time zone thing, but we never said this whole fixerup project was going to be simple did we? Oh, and this step is also in complete compliance with fixerup #4, the maintenance step, seeing as I now have two entire mornings of my own private hotel bathroom (well I have to share with daddy, but whatever) to apply all of those extra tubes of guk purchased earlier in the week. But that can wait until after they deliver our warm homemade cinnamon rolls and extra large pot of coffee to the room...

So About That #4...

For those still interested, I am now the proud owner of both mascara and lipstick. Well ok, maybe not lipstick but tinted lip gloss (hey, at least it's not chapstick), and maybe I haven't broken the seals on either of them yet, but there might just be a Friday (ok let's be real, Saturday) night unveiling of painted mommy. Maybe. Hey, I shaved my legs and had my toes done and allowed the chainsaw to have it's way with my hair so I may as well jump completely overboard and paint the remaining pieces. Operation fixerup #4 = maintain enough sanity to survive continuation of #1-3.

And in the meantime have a whole lotta fun...I'd break into a raucous tune of "I feel pretty" but I'm not quite there yet.

Yet.

Nearby Enough

Some readers of this blog may occasionally wonder to themselves, "jeez, for a family who doesn't have any family nearby they're sure nearby family pretty often." And I would happily respond, "yup". It's amazing how watching airfare like a hawk can result in semi-affordable quick trips here and there, and how just being willing to pick up and go makes it completely possible to raise a child in NY who knows just as much about his MN grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins as anyone else in their class who's family lives right next door. And then there's the magic of having family within driving distance. Sure there's an hour and a half between us, but that's a heck of a lot shorter than the distance between us and any other member of our family. And when the end result is hanging out with family on a random Saturday and watching Ash revel in the love that is Jess, well, that hour and a half pretty much disappears.

So that's the deal. We're lucky enough to have some family just nearby enough to be able to hang out on random weekends. And we're lucky enough that airplanes exist to connect the rest of our family, who, thanks to those airplanes are also just nearby enough. Nearby enough that Ash's grandma is taking over Ash duty in NY this weekend, and nearby enough that Ash will be spending a NY Thanksgiving with gamma and papa and aunt and uncle and cousin Jess. Nearby enough that more auntie fun will be had over New Years. Nearby enough.

Of course we still share those "holy crap if I just had a grandma to drop him off with for a moment" kind of moments, which we share with every other family out here it seems. But they're just moments, and life is working, and conveniently enough when family is just not quite so nearby enough we have friends who are. And life is working. But just to make myself clear, anyone out there with multiple sets of grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and extended family who even dare so much as to squeak about not having adequate moments to yourself, well, to you I share my most prized electronic muzzle.

Nearby enough? 'Nough said.

Fixerup #3

Between moisturizer and paint and getting my toes did and my hair done I'm a bit lost... Do I really need to do all this stuff to be "fixed up" every day? Operation fixerup may go well but operation keep-her-fixed-up is going to be the challenge. I'm sure there's a matrix out there somewhere that can help a mama devote adequate time to fixerup activities, but if not I definitely know of a matrix that helps a mama savor vino style activities. So in either case I stand to benefit. Though right now I'm leaning towards the vino...

A Hit And A Miss And A Slam Dunk

So maybe I didn't make it to the store to purchase lipstick or mascara (that's right, I have neither in my cabinets, not even 10 year old versions stored away for a rainy day). But here's what I did do which in my humble little opinion takes me right through operation fixerup #3, 4, and 5:

I sat in a salon while someone transformed my feet from workin'girl blisters to sparkly painted DEAR LORD I WANT A NEW PAIR OF SHOES TO SHOW THESE PUPPIES OFF kind of tosies and then went on to schnazzle my hair into something slightly more acceptable than the scraggles my locks have resembled as of late. That's right - I got my hair done and my toes did. Take that operation fixerup.

But tomorrow, tomorrow I WILL find paint. And maybe even the eye AND lip kind. After all, now that my moisturized self is all let me sport those peep toes even though its 45 degrees outside I may as well build on the momentum. Hell, I may even smile for the camera in a way that doesn't shout dear Lord please make this end.

Maybe.

Mike and Ash swung by the salon while the transformation was in process, and Ash couldn't take his eyes off of mommy's hair falling to the floor. Perhaps this was also step #1 in the process of readying Ash for his first haircut, set to happen sometime in 2010, but somehow I doubt it...

Wordless Wednesday & Fixerup #2

Fixerup #2: I'm happy to report that this morning I moisturized, and today I plan to purchase either mascara or lipstick. I haven't decided which yet, but one will find it's way onto my face before sunset. Moisturized and painted? Watch out Heidi. On to Wordless Wednesday...

Fixerup #1

Warning, serious vanity is about to follow. I've decided that instead of growling at every daddy who walks by for being "put together" I'm going to attempt putting myself, the mommy, together. Dads have it so easy, pre-child they shower, shave (maybe, and when they don't it's considered "sexy rustic"), grab any pair of pants and any 'ol shirt and they're done. And guess what, post-child they still shower, shave, and dress. I wont attempt to speak for all mommy's out there since apparently there are some who manage to be put together both pre and post child without missing a beat but I, for one, have failed miserably at being one of those women. It's now taking a national act of NaBloPoMo (whoo hoo, something to write about!) to get my act together. To "fixerup".

I'm not going to go crazy over this and do something silly like attempt to integrate more than one additional activity into my routine each day. One a day is just fine with me, and two weeks from now when NaBloPoMo is finally over I'll have made 14 ginormous strides towards looking and feeling like Heidi Klum. Ha. And for those of you who read the posts that are about to follow today and think "she actually needs to commit thought and set reminders to succeed at the most basic steps of morning routine?" To you I say, yes.

Fixerup #1: Moisturizer
I'm starting easy. Thanks to my bonus mom I now have one of those jars of moisturizer that someone put lots of thought into whipping together. The trick is to actually open said jar and use the contents daily. The sad funny thing about this is that I have zippy problem finding time to thoroughly rubdown my son twice a day with coconut oil and absolutely adore his soft buttery skin, so it's not like I don't get the benefits of moisturizer. I do. It's just that I also really suck at listening to myself so extending any sort of daily health/beautification activities from my son to my self is going to take a super special act, hopefully NaBloPoMo can handle it. I'm off to moisturize.

Half Way There

I made it through the first half of NaBloPoMo so it's all downhill from here, right? Thought so.

This past weekend held the kind of schedule I wish could be repeated every single weekend, the kind that leaves you wondering how on Earth it could ever be beat.

The 3 of us went to a Saturday night photo show opening in Woodstock where Ash devoured the grapes and cheese plate while we caught up with friends and saw great art. He fell asleep on the ride home, so we picked up some sushi for a late dinner and SNL after tucking him in for the night. And then Sunday happened.


Sunday:
8:30 Ash wakes up
9:30 Bacon & egg breakfast in bed
10:00 NYT & Dora the Explorer (in bed)
12:00 Finally get ready for the day, spend most of it running around down on Main St popping in and out of the little village shops
7:00 Mommy manages to fumble together an amazing chicken curry meal where Ash once again unleashes his devouring skills
8:00 Train time
9:00 Night night

One pretty kickin' way to spend a weekend if you ask me.

Sunday Styles

Frequent Flyer Miles

It's no secret that our family journey is one that prioritizes (among other things of course) food and travel. Many of the furniture, art, and appliance items in our home came from used, swapped, or refurbished histories and we don't really collect anything that requires high cash output (unless you count Ash's current matchbox car fetish, but at $0.99 a pop that hardly counts). We enjoy maintaining the necessities, but reserve discretionary income for our "let's screw the necessities and have dinner at Nobu then fly to MN for the weekend to see family and book a Spring trip to Thailand" kind of moments.

And with that naturally comes frequent flyer miles, which of course translate into more travel, which obviously creates a thirst for the next trip, and so on and so forth and yet again. Long story short, Ash has more frequent flyer miles stored up at the ripe age of 2 1/2 then I had by the time I reached my University years. He knows that the flight attendants are the men and women on the plane he should smile at and charm the most - often done by boarding the plane and promptly high fiving the greeter. He knows he has a choice between pretzels or ginger cookies, and he no longer complains when we have to turn off daddy's iphone (and corresponding kids apps) in time for landing. He waves and yells "Bye bye Minnesota!" or wherever we happened to have travelled, and walks the airport concourses (blue Diego rolling carry-on in tow) with a certain style that warms my heart, as if to say "hello airport, good to see you again!"

Today we taught him the word "arrivederci". Unfortunately our check book (due to aforementioned food/travel habits) is in a bit of it's own state of "arrivederci" so I have a feeling the fling to Italy may have to wait. Not to say it's been put on hold or anything crazy like that, just not needing to be booked this very instant. How uncharacteristically non-impulsive of me...

Behave

I just may have been a child who was asked to bite her tongue a time or two, maybe even persuasively requested to behave when the hopes of me doing so voluntarily weren't exactly stellar. But never, ever ever ever, were my thoughts or my individualism or my desires to search and learn nailed into a wooden chest and sealed forever. Rather the opposite was true. I don't remember a time when I wasn't encouraged to search. Or a day when I was told no "just because". There were rules and I got those rules and from everything I can gather, they led me to be a somewhat not freakishly unadjusted individual. Maybe even a good parent.

So as we search to find the "right" parenting strategies for ourselves, of course we look back on our own upbringings. And let's be real folks, they were D to the I to the F to the...well, they were just different. And neither involved anything anywhere close to the rhyming symbolics of hip hop lyrics. But the one commonality, without doubt, is the one that woke us up each morning knowing it was OK to question and consider and reflect and then act. Not just listen and follow, but actually be a real person. And I'm very certain that this single life strategy may just be the single bit of useful parental advice that we'll pass on to our child. Question, prepare, think. BE real people.

Obviously a post like this doesn't come from nowhere. Obviously we encountered folks who (in our humble opinion) might just not be questioning or preparing or thinking. And maybe just then we found our own little version of requesting ourselves to bite our own tongues because, well, sometimes you just have to behave.

Two Years Back

I've made quite a few comparisons in the past months between "this time 2009" and "this time 2008", just reveling in how much our family has grown and how much fun has been had and how different things are this year versus last. Look how much he's grown! Listen to all of the new words he can shout! Remember when he couldn't climb anything and everything? But what I haven't done is think back to years prior to 2008, specifically the year spent chasing after the baby who is now our very big-kid 2 1/2 year old son. Like two years ago during November 2007 when we were stalking the mailbox for our I-171H, scrambling between 3 State agencies and 5 NY Counties to properly notarize and certify one hundred million documents that would soon be sent to yet another agency, this time Federal, and then off to Ethiopia to wait. How I felt like the wait would be endless, at the time averaging 3-5 months. Oh how times do change.

These days almost every agency is posting at least 12 month, and sometimes as much as 24-36 month average wait times. We flew to Ethiopia a mere 7 weeks after we saw his picture the first time, a time period that has increased to 4 months today. To think how different our version of two-years-back is from families who started the process just a year after we did is quite amazing. Two years back we were nearing the end of our paperchase and had about 6 months to go before traveling, whereas families today nearing the end of their paperchase are frequently waiting upwards of 2 years, sometimes more before they can finally create a post on their blog with a picture of an airplane titled "We're off!"

And yet, things have changed and times have increased for a reason. Good reasons. International adoption is a constantly changing life of it's own process with zero room for inflexibility or impatience. And before every waiting family throws a virtual spoiled egg at my head, please know that I understand and sympathize. It's so hard to convince a heart that's ready now to embrace the fact that it needs to be later. But it's done, and no matter whether later is 6 weeks or 6 months or 6 years, there will be a time when you can sit down and think about what it was like 2 years back when 1 of those years was spent waiting, and the other parenting.

Between me and you, it's a pretty cool thing.

Wordless Wednesday

Wing Boy

I'm a wing girl, a super spicy wing girl who has a near inappropriate love affair with Monday night wing nights. Because we're legally bonded my husband obliges this one habit (as clearly this is my only one...) and during football season going out for wing night actually constitutes as dinnertime. Even once Ash came along, when you'd think providing a healthy well balanced meal for our son would take priority, wing night still occasionally wins out and we head to the local establishment for our $0.35 indulgence. Thankfully the kids menu is a titch better than most and serves apple sauce and milk alongside the entree of your choice in an adorable little cardboard boat.

But until now the wings were all mommy and daddy and the pasta filled boat was all Ashton (well, aside from that one time a few weeks ago when Ash shoveled spoonful after spoonful of mommy's REALLY spicy wing sauce into his mouth and just kept smiling saying "nummy spicy soup"). Then the day came when we decided (following the wing sauce soup incident) that just maybe he was ready to join in, for real, in wing night bliss. We ordered him his own cardboard boat full of wings, and when the waitress politely looked at me and said "and those will be plain wings for the boy?" I politely looked at her and said "nope, make'em saucy and slightly spicy please". And they did. And he ate them. Every single one, lipsmacking and bonesucking his way through all 5 spicy chicken wings. My wing boy.

So, not only has Ash been witness to a playfully unhealthy semi-weekly habit of mommy and daddy (mommy) but now he's officially joined the team. Unfortunately there is no photographic proof of his induction into wing night, as after all, we did order a two year old a boat full of saucy spicy wings which pretty much explains on it's own why the camera phone was off limits and tucked safely away from potential splattering.

The next habit we plan to share may as well train him to celebrate Christmas in July and book flights impulsively. Oh wait...

Ooh La La Sunday

60's and sunny in November after having close to zero sunny Sundays over the summer will most certainly net you this: Every freakin person and their grandma out walking the streets and raking the leaves and chatting it up with the local wildlife and finding any and every excuse to just BE OUTSIDE. So we did be outside. All day.

Ooh La La Sunday

Sure my cat may have eaten my yogurt, but he did it while I was soaking up some much needed Vitamin D and just enjoying watching my son picking the frozen vegetables from our pathetically neglected garden. We actually found ourselves playing bowling with the semi-frozen green tomatoes down our front hill for a while. Now if that's not a solid tribute to the land I don't know what is...

Ooh La La Sunday.

Slowly But Surely

We're figuring it out. Wait, let me rephrase that. Slowly but surely we're making accommodations so that waking up in the morning remains bearable. Yeah that's right I said it - mornings don't always rock in this household, in fact most of them prompt Internet searches titled "I want my mornings back". Yes, he's almost 3 (2 years 6 months to be exact) and yes, we have a whole lifetime of various nighttime interruptions ahead of us. But honestly, it may take us till he's 20 to really truly appreciate being needed at 3:54AM. And even then I'm not so sure...

Ash has introduced us to some amazing imaginary friends over the last couple of months, and unfortunately these imaginary friends seem to be creeping their way into his night times. The tiger, dragon, and bunny who all during the day provide much excitement seem to now be providing a bit of duress during the night time. We hear lots of "mommy no close door" and "daddy no me dark" and "SKREEEEEECHMOMMYDADDY" these days. He wants nothing to do with closing his bedroom door at night nor is it even remotely an option to turn the hallway light off after night time stories.

We've chatted about how tigers and dragons only live in castles and caves and the zoo, which seems to be helping, but he's definitely growing into a whole new kind of boy. The kind of boy who is aware and knows and gets things. Slowly but surely he's getting things, and slowly but surely I'm coming to grips with the fact that my little baby has a real life functioning mind that gets things. May the Gods be with us and we all "get" it right.

When Things Kinda Suck...

The little things make life kinda better. Like being granted the golden ticket of "sleeping in" while the dad and the tot rake leaves in the early morning. FYI: He has his helmet on because apparently there was some switching between raking and biking.

The rules: Daddy fills up the wheelbarrow then Ash fills up his wagon. All the while mommy is sleeping soundly upstairs. Now THOSE are rules to live by.

And then you dump. Which in Ash and Daddy's case means dumping leaves, and in Mommy's case means having a double tall nonfat pumpkin spice latte dumped on the bedside table just in time to start the work day.

Sometimes when things kinda suck they also kinda rock. And right now, they're kinda rockin.

Trouble

As if it wasn't already painfully obvious to anyone who's read more than a sentence on this blog, I tend to the the type who once in a mood stays in a mood till something has been done to either change or move said mood forward. These moods are what we have to blame for somewhat last minute impulsive purchases of international airplane tickets, complete overhauls of life (Hey I have a great idea! Let's move upstate and find a city apartment and just call BOTH home!), and even the somewhat small in comparison flux in dietary habits (Let's be vegetarian! Let's only eat organic! Screw vegetarian let's eat MEAT - NOW! No really let's try being macropriobiootical...). And as a result Ash's passport at the ripe age of 2 is already filling up, we manage two households, and our local grocer loves us because we're the only ones in the village they can rely on to purchase whatever crazy new fad food claims to be the healthiest way to eat.

What this all means to us and our life is that an antsy mommy is a trouble mommy. Any ounce of ants in my pants is likely to result in some sort of massive booking or redesign of some critical part of life. Which, as an aside, is why both the mommy and the daddy will continue to work bazillion hour weeks in order to subsidize mommy's antsy antics...they don't come cheap.

Why put this all out there now? Well, reason #1 is that I committed to NaBloPoMo which requires me to post 30 posts in 30 days. But more importantly, reason #2 is that this time I'm trying to be smart about it. Possibly even wave off the temptation that is scratching at my back to book a trip to the snowy Rockies in Feb. What, a trip to the Rockies in Feb doesn't sound so bad? Of course not. IF it wasn't on the heels of a holiday trip to Costa Rica (already booked) and a Spring trip to Thailand (already booked) then I suppose a winter trip out west would be ok...but given the current state of the calendar I might just duct tape my fingers together tonight in an effort to prevent me from pressing the "confirm" button on the keyboard.

I used to have a shoe habit, but once Ash came along it became hard to justify it so naturally I moved on to a travel habit because clearly I can blame every booking on the need to show my son the world... I really should go back to shoes.

So About That Night...

I succeeded in turning my laptop off (but was even more successful at turning it back on later in the evening....)
I succeeded in preparing a delicious meal (as long as you consider introducing Ash to the frozen lasagna section of the grocery store "preparing a meal", and no, he still has no clue what a garlic press is)
I did not succeed in the burning candles arena, but we did manage to change the cat litter and take out all of the trash and recycling which is kind of the same thing...

So there. The night may not have taken the exact course as planned, but it did take a course and it ran with it and BY GOLLY I'm OK with that. So about that night? It was pretty good. Not fabulous, but good. In fact I'm IM'ing my husband about it right now from the other end of the couch.

Not Tonight

I'm in one of those "oh my gosh this and that and that and this all needs to be planned and done right now" kind of moments. So much so that I've made the executive decision to put everything on hold for an evening and just reap the consequences when due dates come and go without being able to check anything off the list. Just a night, but it will be one good night.

I know the house could use a good mopping and the laundry is piling up. I'll do it later, not tonight.
I know the bank accounts and expense reports and bill paying could use an hour or so of analysis. I'll do it later, not tonight.
I know we're scheduled to be in a zillion different places over the next couple months and should probably start to think about the zillion preparations that need to be made, but we'll do it later. Not tonight.

Not tonight, not tonight, not tonight.

Tonight, I will press the only key on my laptop that hasn't been touched in months. The OFF switch.
Tonight, I will light cinnamon and apple scented candles all around the house and pump music into every room. Maybe even holiday music.
Tonight, I'm going to bake something delicious and Ash is going to learn how to press garlic.

We should do this every Wednesday...

Wordless Wednesday

Life's Just Like A Squishy Cinnamon Bun

First you dig in and can't wait to get your hands dirty, eagerly anticipating all of the wonderfulness that's sure to be waiting for you just around that corner right over there.

And then the bite, that first scrumptious bite into all things delicious and right.

But it leaves some bits behind, some leftovers that surely weren't meant to be and need to be cleaned off immediately!

Or not. Maybe the leftovers were really just meant to be stuffed right back in until every square cm has been thoroughly enjoyed and smacked clean from your lips.

Yup, that's it. The second one. The one where there aren't any leftovers because you just ate them all and can walk on, belly full of squishy cinnamon bun and anxious for the next morsel that dare challenge you with it's presence. Cause you'll eat those too.

Cheers to the daily challenges that should really just be treated like squishy cinnamon buns.

Bring On The Turkey

Fall raking 2008

Fall raking 2009

And with the flick of a rake we're officially launched into Holiday Season 2009. I can hardly believe the boy in the 2008 pictures is the same on in the 2009's, I mean really, last year he fit comfortably into the wheelbarrow and this year he was loading it and pushing it down the hill all by himself. If I had to guess this means that last year's "I'll nap comfortably" attitude towards Turkey Day is going to be replaced with more of a "give me more turkey now mommy daddy please more candy corn please what's that? turkey? mommy more turkey now please", or something like that. And yes, we're going to the Macy's parade again. And we're going to take him to Radio City to see the Rockettes. And he's going to sit on Santa's lap an LIKE IT this time. Because clearly the fact that he's now helping us rake the leaves (kinda sorta) means that he's ready to enter the insanity that is New York during the holidays and hang the red stockings and start jiving to ho-ho-ho carols on the subway platform. He has no idea how much fun the next 2 months are going to be...