Mike's Swearing-In

A proud day for my son.

Multi-tasking and not so well

I have a paper due tomorrow and I can't seem to get my thoughts together. Maybe it's because I know I'm working in San Francisco next weekend and I have so much to do before I fly out on Friday morning before the sun comes up. There are only so many directions this brain of mine can travel in one evening. I know I used to rock one baby in one arm, be changing the diaper of his brother, be stirring the morning oatmeal with a free hand and simultaneously letting the dog out for his morning poop. All this I swear to you I did and still managed to remain......well....haggard, worn, stressed and more than a little sensitive to comments like, "so what do you stay-at-home moms DO all day??"

So I'm sitting here a lifetime later, haggard, worn and stressed and there is not a baby or a pooping dog in sight. I'm Nair'ing my upper lip because the goofy little chick who works at my nail place said to me "You want wax? We do lips? You look like boy!" and god help me, I don't want to "look like boy!!!" not with the demand for haggard, worn, stressed divorced chicks with wrinkles and itsy bitsy bank accounts such as it is. And I'm trying to figurer out this paper. And I'm also paying some bills online.

How tough should it be? Outline the paper, fill in around the points and wrap it all up with a nice conclusion? Log on to the power company website, enter my username and password, enter the amount...click and a click and a credit card and double click...............all the while, making a list on a yellow legal pad of all the things I need to take with me to San Fran.

Well. You want to know what happened? Ok I'll tell you what happened. I burnt my lip. It's all red and puffy and swollen. Now I "look like boy who got hit with baseball on upper lip". And simultaneously I can't seem to even get points A and B to make one bit of sense for this research paper, thus there IS no research paper. And for the reasonable service charge of $4.75 I just paid the power company a total of 80 cents. That's right. I paid them EIGHTY CENTS and they charged me FOUR DOLLARS AND SEVENTY FIVE CENTS for the privilege of paying on line. Intending to pay them the full $80 bucks I owed them, I entered 8 and I entered 0 and didn't think to check for decimal points and stuff.

DID I see the disclaimer at the last moment that said something along the lines of "Warning, please be aware once you click "Approve" your payment can NOT be changed......"

Well yes. Fleetingly, yes I did see it. I saw it and I totally ignored it because I was wiping Nair off my damn lip at the time and I was watching Shawn Johnson kick ass on Dancing with the Stars and my cat was throwing up a leftover chocolate cupcake into one of my suede clogs and I just sort of spontaneously clicked which is what haggard, worn and stressed women do when they are multitasking and watching recycled cupcake fill their favorite shoes. Thus, I paid the power company 80 cents.

Yes, of course I can log back on and pay the $79.20 balance now due.
For another service charge???? Helllllllllllllllll no and can I get an AMEN from anyone to that???

I'm tired. Shawn did a nice job. Well heck of course she did a nice job...easy for her, she's young and adorable and has leg muscles that could squeeze open a coconut. Might as well face it, this paper just is NOT going to happen tonight and they're gonna shut my power off anyway, might as well go to bed...at least it'll be dark.

Tomorrow will be brand new day full of lovely possibilities.

Whew.......!!!!!

I'm sitting here mindlessly watching Poltergeist II just because it's on. This is a very dumb movie. I know it's old but it's the first time I've ever seen it. Ok, maybe on the big screen it would be horrifying. Not so much this afternoon. I keep thinking, what a mean way to treat a nice little girl in cute red jammies. She should be having a nice bowl of ice cream and heading off to a bedtime story. Harry Potter is on later. Love that movie and it's just nice to be snuggled into my couch tonight doing not a thing.

My April roared in like a lion. First week Mike flew in with my little Victoria on Wednesday, Sar flew home from Portland on Thursday and my cousin Margie flew in from California on Friday. After a great girlie night we all got dressed up for Mike and Nikki's engagement party on Saturday night. Victoria was frilly and beautiful in her little black velvet and red satin dress and was prancing aorund my place like a princess. Grandma Debbie tried real hard to get that beautifully wispy reddish Welsh hair of hers knotted up top her head in a proper do but there are good reasons why we pay hair chicks to do that sort of thing. And her mommy is a fabulous hair chick! She's used to the best, no way I could match her magic. After a couple of false starts, we ended up with a very nice little pony tail with special-evening curls. Her little black velvet shoes and tights ("they're my PANTYHOSE, Grandma") were the finishing touch. It was pouring down rain when we left for the party. Watched the Princess dodge puddles as she ran with Aunt Margie into the party and made a mental note to email my best buddy John and thank him again for my favorite artsy-fartsy umbrella.

Mid-party the kids got on the DJ's microphone and made an announcement..........we have a surprise for you, we're getting married here tonight!.............and they rolled back a big, movable wall in the party lodge behind which was a nifty candlelit chapel set up. Nikki and Mike ducked out of the party for 10 minutes, changed into "Here comes the bride..." duds and right then and there, we had a wedding. Without the advantage of a proper wedding rehearsal all of the surprise attendants did a great job, including Victoria who accepted the official duties of Flower Girl with the royal finesse to which she was clearly born.

And lahh tee dahh and yada yada yada....I do, I do too.....smooch, smooch.....and we danced the night awayyyyyyyyyyyyy.
Victoria was right there on the floor, shakin' it with all of the other pretty girls. Click on the arrow below the video screen:

It was a fun night. An exhausting, perfect, fun, fun night. The next couple of days we spent just hanging out and having fun. Auntie Sara and Victoria spent some quality time together which included a 3-D movie that required wicked cool glasses.

Wednesday morning Victoria and I got in the car, drove to Omaha and we flew her home to Virginia where mom and Josh and Nana were waiting. I make this trip with her 3-5 times a year. Friends ask me if it isn't exhausting and wonder how she likes flying. Victoria is a seasoned traveler. She could give the pre-flight safety talk herself if the flight attendants would let her. And we just make a real fun Grandma Debbie and Victoria day out of it.

We laugh and draw pictures in the airports and we have fun on the plane.

This particular flight was not without incident. Earlier in the week, Princess Victoria discovered her first loose tooth.

She was so excited. She called Mom. She called Dad.

We watched it for 3 days and it got looser and looser............you guessed it. Somewhere over Michigan at about 30,000 feet the tooth came out. She kept trying to pull it and it was hanging by a thread so finally Grandma helped. And there it was.

I'd forgotten how tiny baby teeth are as I carefully wrapped it up in the corner of an envelope and tucked it into my purse so she could put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy. She told me that she thought the tooth fairy would probably leave her some jewelry. And cash. She was grinning and freshly toothless when the plane touched down in Norfolk.

I was sitting on the bed eating take-out Chinese in my airport hotel by 8, on a plane for home again at 6 the next morning, back to work Friday, helped clean at my moms house Saturday morning and babysat for some friends on Saturday night. (Are you still with me??)

Babysitting has certainly changed. When I got there little Aidan was already asleep upstairs and there was a little tv screen thingie in the living room where I could watch her and hear her all evening. As I sat on the couch and played with the dogs, I watched her stretch and dream and wiggle all over the crib, but she never woke up. It was the coolest thing!!! Watching a baby sleep on a little tv screen. AHHHHH-MAZING. (I'm showing my age, aren't I??) I was a little bummed. Never even got to hold the baby. But it was fun watching her wiggle and sleep on that little screen, kind of like a mini-movie next to the one I was watching on the bigger screen.

Sunday morning my David and his girlfriend invited me and the other kids over for brunch. Love it when the kids cook for me!!!! The two of them are a perfect match. They are both computer gamers. Although their dining table was cleared and nicely set for brunch, they tell me it's usually set with back-to-back computers and........as his sister tried to describe to me later this week........enough controllers and gaming props that it sort of looks like the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise in there. Over brunch he told us his job as a manager had been eliminated. He was offered a lateral position or a nice severance package. He took the package, he's got a plan, he's diving off into a brand new direction. Man but I DO love it that my kids are fearless. This mama was grinning allllllllllll the way home with her lovely Easter lily next to her in the front seat.

I spent the rest of Easter Sunday squeezing my cerebral cortex to it's maximum pressure all afternoon, trying to do my homework. I've got a B+ in this class right now and it's driving this A-lovin' girl crazy. Tuesday night was class. This bears yet another mention of advancing technology and my efforts to keep up with it. We don't hand in homework. We upload it. I know this will come as no surprise to anyone under the age of 40 I suppose, but it's a freakin' MIRACLE to me. No hard copies. No "my dog ate it" excuses. Nope. I just log on to the university website and UPLOAD MY HOMEWORK. If you don't know what that means..........well, if you don't know what that means you must be my age. I can't explain it. Somehow one minute it's HERE. And then after a few clicks and stuff....it's THERE. Honest, it gives me the willies just to say it. Like Big Brother is living in my living room...

Mid-week after Easter Sar drove in from Portland (having flown back after the wedding festivities and turned right around to bring her car back) after nine months living there, house sitting for a dear friend. She's in town for a couple of weeks and will be heading off to Tennessee where she'll be working as a counselor in an "outward bound" kind of program for at-risk kids. It's fun having her home even though she's got lots of places to be and we won't be seeing her much this visit. (That's one thing about raising really great kids who have lots of friends. When they grow up you have to be understanding and share them with the world. But I'll tell you what, the phone calls home and the postcards are great!)

Anyway, Monday I left work early, picked up Sara and drove North to a suburb to watch my son get sworn in as a police officer. Big week for him after getting married a few days earlier. Officer Mike is badge #101 and reports to the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy in a couple of weeks for training. He has assured me, should I speed in his town he will be obligated to give me a ticket. I have assured him if that ever happens I'll be so tickled to think he's my son standing there all handsome in his uniform that I will probably record the entire thing on my cell phone, ask him to wave hi into the camera and I'll get out of the car, flag down a motorist and ask them to take our picture together to remember the moment for posterity. And of course I will post it on my blog. So make sure that badge is polished at all times, Mister, yer gonna be in the movies.

This morning I got up at 5:30 to make my 6:30 AM Weight Watchers meeting. Had my new friend and classmate Janell not told me she'd be there and expect to see me, honest, I would have stayed in bed. It was a drippy, soggy kind of morning. The window was open. I could hear robins. The cat was snoring. It would have been so easy to just roll over and snuggle into that pillow. But I did not!!! Thank you for the peer pressure Janell!!!! Once I pried my eyes open and got going, it was a great morning. Got my hair cut and I feel cute as a button.

Now we rest. Seriously. I'm barefoot. Nothing going on tonight. Promised myself I won't even LOOK at my homework until 7 tomorrow morning. Feels kind of anti-climactic to tell you the truth, but next weekend I'm working in San Francisco so I suppose it's a good idea to just kick back. I can do that.

Just not for long, it seems. You'll remember I mentioned my buddy John earlier. One of his favorite phrases: I'll rest when I'm dead. I'm not going to wait that long, but I know what he means. It seems there is always just so much to do.

Gotta Start Takin' the Train.....

This sort of thing hardly ever happens to me in airports...........

Takes me back......

How many of us ran out and bought another Moody Blues disk after watching this commercial for the first time??

Mama's got some brand new boots.

Suhhhweeeet!

When the gym can be hazardous to your health....

Chicken Parmesan

It's my favorite kind of phone call.
"Ma? You home? Make some coffee, I'm comin' over."
"Mom, want to meet us out for some pizza tomorrow?"
Or like this week.........."Mom, have you had dinner yet? Do you like Chicken Parmesan? We're on our way over. I'll cook."

A few minutes later they arrived at my door.
Chef Dave brings all his culinary necessities in an orange bait bucket.

Do not be deceived by the bucket....



.....inside is everything he needed to make dinner. Like a nice bottle of Pinot Grigio.

Chicken. Tomatoes. Basil.
Cheese.

Mmmmmm!!

Thanks for a great dinner and good company, you two.
XOXOXOXOXOXO

A favorite quote.

Never think that God's delays are God's denials.

Hold on; hold fast; hold out.

Patience is genius.

Comte de Buffon (Mathematician & Naturalist) 1707 - 1788)

Post Script to My Fabulous Morning Drive.....

Without disparaging any of them, my home town is characterized by several distinct neighborhoods. On of them is the far West side of town. It is new. Brand new. I can barely find my way around over there any more. When I was growing up here it was all cornfields and pastures full of cow pies. In the past decade those wide open spaces have become parking lots, chain restaurants and big, gas-guzzling SUV's driven by ladies in designer sunglasses. The insurance and financial industries are the corporate anchors in our city. Most of them built their massive home offices on this side of town.

The opposite side of this city, on the other side of that big, gold-dome capitol that I showed you earlier this morning, things look much like they did thirty years ago. Small changes happen, mostly in the form of individual neighborhoods updating their faces but up and down the main drags and the side streets it's blue-collar just about everywhere you see. The State Fairgrounds are on this side of town. And if they were honest, lots and lots of people that live West of here wouldn't think of driving this far East. Not for any reason.

This is my side of town. I raised my family in a "bedroom community" not far from here. It feels like home. The people feel more like family to me.

I crossed paths with two of them this morning:


I'm in line at Walgreens.
Shampoo. Laundry soap. Cat food.
All the items have been scanned and tucked into bags.
I'm swiping my ATM card when the clerk reaches over and touches my hand lightly to get my attention.

"Did you happen to notice the free samples over there on that table?"
She points to a display halfway down a nearby aisle.
"Oh. No...I don't think I noticed those." I smiled, waiting for my receipt.
"You might want to walk down there and take a few," she said. "They're free. I think you might want to try some. They're wrinkle cream. They say it really works." She touches my hand again briefly. "Especially around the eyes....."



Ok, so I smiled and thanked her, walked down and grabbed a bunch of them.



And yes, I spent the next hour sneaking peaks into the rear view mirror, trying to get a good look at just how bad the wrinkles are getting.





Seriously??? SERIOUSLY???!!!!!! Maybe it was the way the light was shining in the windows of Walgreen's.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A few minutes later I'm driving down a main street on my side of town. Sun roof open. Window rolled down. Coming to a stop at a red light, I'm listening to Lenny Kravitz and enjoying the way the sun was heating up the top of my head when I hear someone yell.

"Hey there!"
I ignore it. Probably kids yelling at eachother.
"HEY. HEY LADY!!"
I look over to my left. There is an old clunker of a car and a big guy in a black t-shirt and a NASCAR ball cap sitting behind the wheel, looking my way through his open window.
Is he talking to me???
"Hey Lady. Do you know where there are any junk yards on this side of town?"
Cross traffic light turns yellow. Yeahhh, as a matter of fact I do......I thought to myself, laughing.
"Turn around, go back to the Fairgrounds and drive South. You can't miss 'em."
The light turned. He smiled and waved thanks. We both went on our merry Saturday morning way.

Trust me.
Great stuff like that just doesn't happen to me on the other side of town.
And that's why I love it over here.
These are my people.

Everything Becomes Ordinary

I work in an extraordinarily creative and interesting environment. Even so, in the the day-in and day-out routine of my daily presence in the place, it becomes ordinary. I thought about that sort of thing this morning. It's picture-perfect pre-Spring gorgeous outside. I was driving along with the sun roof open, taking the same route that I take to work every morning.

Sitting at a traffic light I looked up and for some reason...........maybe it was the way the light hit the dome, maybe it's just the rich, blue backdrop of a sky....all of a sudden I was aware of a beautiful place I pass every single day on my way to work.

This is our state capitol building.
After half a century of living here, I've seen it plenty of times. I can tell you all about the inside and point out when it's not the weekend, that parking lot is full even when the state legislature isn not in session. Most days I drive by and don't give it a passing thought. It's just another freckle on the morning-drive landscape.

Today I remembered how pretty it is.

Yup. That's real gold on the dome. They applied it the old-artisan way, in thin sheets, one square at a time.

Gold trim on the mini-domes too. They're my favorites. Sort of Vatican-looking.

The curtains in those windows are longer than my entire house.
And you can't see them in these pictures but this morning there were several people up there leaning over the very top balcony, the one wayyyyyyyyyyyy up there sitting on top of the big gold dome. I've been up there several times, but not since I was a kid. First of all, the climb would probably kill me now. And second, last I knew, access was limited to everyone but certain dignitaries for security reasons. Non-dignitary and bad knees. Good bet that my balcony days are but a memory.

Just down the hill from the that building with a splendid daily view of the gold dome, is the local retail location for the product line that my company creates. I thought you might like to take a little tour inside the place. It's always colorful but seems even more so to those of us extricating ourselves from the clutches of winter.......

Take a peek inside the doors of Sticks Gallery / East Village:

These are 7 x 7' wall plaques our artists create. Lots of people collect them. Each one of them is made by hand in our studio here in Des Moines.

Love the color palette on this set of nesting tables our artists designed. While it is Sticks that brings most people into our stores, we also carry the work of many other artists. I think I took a dozen photos of these fabulous flowers.

Don't they just feel like spring??
Can't WAIT to get out my patio umbrella.

The Perfect Little Baby Gift

Ohhhhh man, did I ever have fun shopping for a little bit of a baby gift this weekend. If you haven't seen these you're going to want to get out to your friendly neighborhood foo-foo baby store and buy some, even if you don't know anyone with a new baby. They are just sooooooooo darn cute!!!

Yup. It's the PeePee TeePee!!
They come in a little soft flannel bag in the sweetest of baby blues (of course!)
and inside..............

Little teensy tiny teepees!!!

For little teensy, tiny............well.......you know!!

Washable! And soft as a baby's behind.
Tell me they're not the cutest little things you've ever seen. (The teepees!)
And in case you're not getting the idea, I've enlisted the assistance of
my favorite bear to help me demonstrate:

Yeahhhhhhhhh, we all get it now, don't we.
With a properly placed teepee you can change a little feller's nappy without getting sprayed.
All sorts of cute, poetic thoughts come to mind...but I will spare you the rhyming sentiments relating to happily teepee'd peepee's.

I think they're wayyyy cool and I'm sending this first little bag of
them off to a new mama in California tomorrow.

And thank you for enduring the momentary indignity in the name of eductation, Mr. Bear.

Cut It.

Short!

Thanks, Allison!!
I love it.

Who Knew???

In the absence of willing neighbors or a parade of flannel-shirt guys that know their way around a tool belt, I went out and bought a drill. Well, y'know, because I needed to drill something. Not five minutes home from the hardware store I made an amazing discovery.

For some very odd reason drills do not come with drill bits. Huh??? Does that make one bit of sense? Is a drill good for anything without drill bits? Would an electric mixer come without the metal beaters? No way. Women of the kitchen would not accept such a thing. Why men of the toolshed have been accepting such a thing is beyond me.

Back to the hardware store we go.
We (in the royal sense of Home Improvement Princesses and Duchesses everywhere) purchase a set of drill bits. The little box has a bunch of different sizes. Surely something will work.

Surely.

But how.

And where do these little guys work into the grand scheme of drilling things??

Hmmm. What is wrong with this picture......

I'm not sure I got it right but my friends and family will be amazed to know that I really did drill something without A) losing a finger, B) starting a fire and C) piercing another hole in my ear. I did it. I drilled a couple of holes which allowed me to hang a light fixture....which you'll never see so I wouldn't even have to tell you, but I will............it hangs kind of crooked.

Nevertheless, hang it does and nicely lights my kitchen counter from beneath the cupboards. (Picture it. Me lying on the counter with my head under the cupboard, power drill over my head making little holes in pieces of wood. I will admit to you, it is a miracle of the highest order that I did not lose an eye.)

And we celebrate!!!

Early Morning Call

When the alarm goes off at 3 AM, I wonder why I always book myself on the earliest flight possible. All the way to the airport I wonder.

And then we take off and I look out the window.



Yeahhhhh.
That's why.

Homework Challenges

This is why I usually study and do my homework at Barnes & Noble. Even with everyone milling around, flipping the pages of books, chatting over coffee and picking story books with their kids in the children's section, it's still easier than studying at home.

It's too easly to get distracted at home. The kitchen says "come get a snack", the computer says "come check your email", my books say, "put down that textbook and read us!!" There are just so many, many distractions.

But that isn't the MAIN reason why I study at Barnes and Noble on Sunday's. It's easier to show you than explain it........ this is me trying to read and study at the desk in my kitchen.

As you can see, I get lots of help.

My cat. Needy. Oh my lord, sooo sooooooooooooo needy.

"I win."