Live Blogging my Betty Crocker Self.

7:45 pm

Tonight is devoted to cookie baking. I have a work meeting tomorrow and we’re all supposed to bring a couple dozen cookies to share. I’m usually lucky to just get my daughters fed much less spend more time than that in the kitchen but for the Holiday’s I will put a little Betty Crocker in my step.

One problem tonight.

I intended to double the batch of gingerbread cookies that I’m making. I doubled the egg, the water, the butter. Everything but the dry ingredients. Rolling out the batter was disastrous to say the least. Luckily I figured out the problem soon enough to ditch the messed up batch and throw together a batch with all of the correct dry and wet ingredients. The first dozen or so are out of the oven and they’ve already passed the kid taste test. Except for my 3 year old who after getting mad me for not letting her change her pants so that she could be a “rock star” informed me that my cookies were “no good”. After eating two of them of course.

Update 8:00 pm

Every time I turn around my 3 year old is eating a cookie!!!!!  I’m going to be baking all night to get enough cookies.

Snippets Of My Life with Little Lady Gaga

Little Lady Gaga is the name that I have affectionately given to my 3 year old; her older sister calls her The Alien.   Here are a few recent examples of my adventures with the funniest three year old in our house.  Okay so she’s the ONLY three year old in our house!

Me:   Time to brush your teeth.
LLG:  I brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack.
Me:  We’re all out.  Come on let’s brush your teeth.

LLG (following opening a Christmas present while I’m in the bathroom.  Jubilantly)
Me:  Can we leave the presents under the tree and you leave them alone or should I put them up?
LLG:  You better put them up.

LLG (to a guy she just met.)  “You can sleep with my Mom.”
Leaving said guy speechless.   (Being pimped out by my 3 year old is disturbing.   I wonder how many other guys she’s offered that to without my knowledge)

The stories and laughs that she has given me are endless and when I think of how this is just the start of a lifetime I can only imagine the laughs and challenges that I have in front of me.   I’m so thankful for her and her big sister (the one with her head on straight) and for how much these two amazing little girls have enriched my life.   I just want to be a good Mom.   I want to be that person that they grow up and look back on and know that I was always there for them and I always cheered them on and always have and always will love them.

Flurries with a Chance of Harry Potter

I woke up to more snow falling.  Today was supposed to be a day filled with driving to a meeting and then driving to an event for work that I helped organize but since the snow decided to fall once again I’ve decided to cut out the 45+ minute drive to one office and hour drive to the other from there and that means some reading time may have opened up for me today.   Plus the girls go with their Dad this weekend so more reading time YAY!

Last night I discovered that this week that Michelle at Galleysmith has organized Seriespalooza which coincided wonderfully with my digging out the 3rd Harry Potter book from my basement boxes of books.  I felt the need to read something a little lighter around the Holidays  (Under the Dome, while not hard reading is definitely not light fare).    So I’m IN.

Friday Favorites

So I’m getting ready to read my little heart out tomorrow and decided that today I’m going to share a few of my current favorite things.

1.  Glue -  A fun social networking site that I’ve found myself addicted to recently.  It’s easy.  It’s not time consuming and it’s fun.   It follows you around the web which makes it even better.    Through Glue you can find your favorite things online, see what others think and tons of other stuff.   You can also find people that share your interests and get recommendations for your next favorite thing by things that they like.   Books.  Movies.  Music.  Restaurants.  Wines.  Etc.  it’s really fun and the team there is always innovative and interactive with the users.

2.  The Party Don’t Start Til I Walk In!  ….. My favorite line in this song!

3.  I’m currently reading Under the Dome by Stephen King and I’m pretty caught up with the story inside the MASSIVE book.  I’m serious about the massiveness of this book.  It’s overwhelming to hold in my hands.  It’s  SO big.  It’s definitely a page turner.  Although I’m only about 250 pages into it and that’s not even close to halfway through.  I’m hopefully going to be able to get a lot of reading done this weekend during the Read. Read. Read-a-thon!  So we’ll see what I can knock out from this MAMMOTH book.

4.  Hot chocolate with LOTS and LOTS of marshmallows that I share with my 3 year old!

Cyber Monday Quickie

I just signed up for this Saturday’s Read. Read. Read-a-thon that’s taking place on Saturday and that’s hosted by Bethany over at Dreadlock Girl.  Back in October when the fall Dewey’s Read-a-thon was taking place I was in the midst of moving to my new place and I was bummed to not be able to participate and so I was excited when Bethany mentioned hosting one for those of us who were unable to in October.  Since it’s the season to give I’ve decided to somehow make this a personal fundraiser of sorts.  I haven’t figured out exactly how I’m going to do it but I plan to donate something for the time spent reading.    Once I iron out the details I’ll blog about it.  (cough, cough…. sure I always say that)

PS…

I have read one book for the Women Unbound Reading Challenge.  I just haven’t gotten around to writing about it yet.  Another thing to put on my TO DO list!

Woe is the life of the single, working, reading mom!

 

 

Women Unbound Reading Challenge

Hello blog!

I haven’t seen you for awhile and I couldn’t  remember your password when I showed up this morning to see how you have been. It’s a good thing that I take care of my daughters better than I have taken care of you over the past year or so. You’re always here though. Waiting for me to stroke you with my tap tapping fingers and fill you with my ramblings.

So you’re probably asking what brings me to you today.   Don’t worry I’m not here asking for money.  Seriously. Although if you have some spare change under a few of those old posts I’d gladly cash it in at the bank. Christmas is right around the bend.

My reading/writing has been HORRIBLE lately but I’ve been drawn to this reading challenge and I keep visiting the website and  seeing posts about it showing up in my Google Reader.

I finally decided that I’m going to do it.

Here are the specifics for the Women Unbound Reading Challenge.

Women Unbound Reading Challenge

Pick a level of commitment (which includes both fiction and nonfiction) and read books related to women’s issues. The definition is broad enough that everyone should be able to participate and read between November 1, 2009, and November 30, 2010  .

  • Philogynist: read at least two books, including at least one nonfiction one.
  • Bluestocking: read at least five books, including at least two nonfiction ones.
  • Suffragette: read at least eight books, including at least three nonfiction ones.

I’m going to shoot for the Suffragette level.  Pretty ambitious for me!

My plan is to use this to weed down through my massive To Be Read Pile which consists of plenty of nonfiction books and quit a few fiction pieces that I’ve been wanting to get to for sometime.

More to come….

Maybe….

Love,
B’Mom

Harry, I’m late.

While most of my reading compatriots were enjoying the excitement over each new Harry Potter release I sat back and watched.  At the time I was in my full on reading snob mode and didn’t feel the need to lower my literary standards for the likes of a young adult book about magic and wizards, since I prided myself in reading Cormac McCarthy, Umberto Eco and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Boy what a difference a year or two makes.  First, I have wholeheartedly joined the ranks of the “I love YA fiction” club.  Second,  while I still love good literature, I have found the joy  that fun and escapist literature brings.  I have recently jumped on the roller coaster for the most recent reading crazes and it’s renewed my excitement to read.    I  still  love good literature that challenges me but sometimes it’s a good story that captivates and engages and that doesn’t need a whole lot of my intellectual capital to get through that’s just what I want and need.

Now I can say without embarassment “I’m reading Harry Potter and LOVING it!”  What’s kind of neat is that the impetus to read it came in the form of my brilliant and wise beyond my years 9 year old.   She brought it home from school and was already 5 chapters into it when she told me she was reading it.  I found  my copy of the book that I had in a pile in the house and we settled in to read it together .    This is even better than the book itself!   Each day she asks me how far I am and because up until this point I’ve been trailing her she would give me her thoughts on the chapter I was on and give me little teasers about chapters to come.  I joked with her over the weekend that I was going to have to ground her from reading if she kept this mad reading pace up and she just laughed at me.  Our plan is to have a pizza date when we finish the book and then watch the movie again.  Our own mother daughter/book club.

I’m glad that I’m late in reading Harry Potter and that it is allowing me this opportunity to read with my daughter.  That we’re sharing this and  hopefully it’s the first of many books that we read with each other.

This morning as my daughter was packing her backpack for school she asked me how far I am.   When I told her chapter 12 she said, “MOM, your ahead of me.    Don’t read any of it today so I can get back ahead of you. I’m going to do a lot of reading today”

Who am I to complain about that?

“The Alien” Strikes Again

My 3 year old, lovingly referred to as “The Alien” by her big sister  (for good reason) just keeps getting stranger and stranger.   I love her uniqueness but on occasion she does something that is almost disturbing.   For instance her new love of deodorant.    Particularly deodorant that I have on.   I guess that the new deodorant smells “gooood” and so she sniffs my arm pits or she sticks her hands in my arm pits and sniffs them and then says, “mmmm that’s good”.    At first, it was strange and a bit funny and well I guess that it’s still damn funny and horrifically strange at the same time.

One lesson I learned recently from my 3 year old is that when a 3 year old comes up to you and asks you to smell her hand it’s probably a good thing to say,  “Le’t wash your hand first and then I’ll smell it”.    You’d think that after all of these years of working with preschoolers and being a mom  I would have learned this lesson but for some reason it eluded me entirely.

I love that my daughter is unique.  I’m pretty uninteresting in the big scheme of things and my oldest daughter is talented and smart and sweet but I’d never call her strange.

My youngest is definitely an island in the sea of our family and we’re so lucky that she is since we don’t have cable.

Strength is not a Virtue I Possess.

I just deleted a post, on purpose,  that I put a lot of time and emotional energy into.     So instead of not posting I’ll take the easy way out and post a song that’s been on heavy rotation in my ears lately.

Leave the Dishes…

Leave the dishes.

For the past few weeks I’ve been emotionally unsettled, off balance and vulnerable.    I have blamed it to the post vacation funk that I used to finding myself muddling through when I return to work after time off.  I’ve also blamed it on the added stress that I’ve been encountering in my professional life the past few months and the reality that a new program year is about to begin and with it many questions of what it will bring.   Then toss in the subject of my two previous posts it’s no wonder that I’m feeling a little off kilter.    Many questions are haunting me and I don’t feel like I’m standing on solid ground right now.

On Sunday while cleaning my bedroom and I came across a poem by Lois Erdrich, Advice to Myself.   I sat down on my bed and read the poem slowly then  set it  on the floor next to my bed.  The next morning I read it again and carried it out to my van and brought it to the office with me.  I started reciting bits of it in my head throughout the day and during the course of yesterday.    The poem wasn’t letting me go and I needed to solve the mystery of why in order to let the poem rest in peace.

Don’t keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll’s tiny shoes in pairs, don’t worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.

Last night as I crawled into the safe, dark serenity of my bed  a loud memory came rushing to the front of my mind.  JULY 29.  “Yes,”  I told myself, “tomorrow is the 29th.”   Then softly whispered I heard  this line from the Lois Erdrich poem…

Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don’t even think of cleaning out.

I flipped through the calendar in my mind.   August 2, 2005, that was a date I remembered on that day  I received the call from my Dad that I had been expecting.   Mom died.

So where did July 29th fit into this and why was my mind screaming it out to me last night?  Digging a little deeper I realized on July 29th I spoke to my Mom for the last time.

My Mom had deteriorated to a point that recovery was not possible. She needed dialysis and a level of care that my Dad and I were no longer able to provide her at home and so a month earlier she left the hospital for a nursing home. The nursing home was 45 minutes from where I lived and so I didn’t get to see her every day. I had a 4 year old and an uncooperative husband. I had been losing my Mom slowly and painfully for over a year and honestly I was numb to it all. I was living in a hell that I can’t even begin to describe. My marriage was in the middle of a death spiral.

July 29th.

I remember the sun shining so bright that day. My Mom, once a strong and powerful figure in my life, lay crumpled and invisible within the folds of the the blankets. I sat in the chair telling her of the weekend trip that I had planned to visit family and how I would give them all love from her. I sat there for awhile listening to her breath and watching her sleep. Her body was working so hard just to lay there. I walked over to the bed leaned down close to her and kissed her cheek.

“I’m going to go now Mom”.

There wasn’t a stirring.

“I love you,” I whispered into her ear.

Your heart, that place
you don’t even think of cleaning out.

I’m not sure if what came next was what really happened or if it’s what I wanted to have happen.   She whispered,  “I love you too”.

I remember the vastness of  room and how it contrasted her small and fragile childlike frame.

July 29th was the last time that I saw my Mom alive.

Recycle the mail, don’t read it, don’t read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.