Well here I am back in business and already thinking of New Years Resolutions with 3 full days left in 2010. I am going to ease back into blogging because I already have a full plate consisting of organizing my entire life, doing something a little different at work, starting a new exercise program, training my dog to be absolutely perfect, crafting, becoming an expert baker and cook, finding a religion, making more time for my family, keeping track of my camera, phone, glasses, ipod and wallet for an entire year straight.
Subscribers, did you notice that you didn't get an email from me for weeks and months? Well, someone mentioned that to me, and I tried to fix it, but I made it worse. Then I tried to fix that problem, and I accidentally deleted everything. Now I am down from 1000 (ok, 13) email subscribers to 0. And I was going to do a big post about it, and how you can now resubscribe, but guess what? You won't know that because you aren't getting the emails!
Then I got sad, boo hoo hoo. For two and a half years, I have slaved away, a few days a month, building my readership to almost 20 people a day and now this. It's back to just me. I googled, "feedburner sucks" and that didn't solve my problem. I just found a blog that lost 1000 subscribers for real and then she gave away diamonds to get her readership back. I mean, it is comment month, but everyone knows the winner is just going to get a shot glass or something.
So, I think you can now resubscribe, or re-follow or whatevs. Let me know if you don't see this post. Ha haha haha haha sob.
** Wondering about the subtitle, "Kids, Puppy, Food, Bikes, Work"? I threw that in there because I thought maybe having that section blank was causing my feedburner woes. I don't think it was, but I haven't tried taking it out. Or making it better. I don't really like it because, well, where's the Dave? But Kids, Puppy, Food, Bikes, Work, Dave? Or Dave, Kids, Puppy, Food, Bikes, Work? Kids, Dave, Puppy, Food, Bikes, Work? Argh. I need a new subtitle. Version 2.0, Coming Soon! Or something.
I've never had a list of things I want to accomplish without one of them having something to do with "getting in better shape", so I am sure you won't be surprised that MetaMegan 2.0 comes with an exercise plan. Or, the idea that an exercise plan should be developed at some point in time.
(Long boring section about how/why I never have time to exercise edited out. )
Today, I decided my best bet was to shower, get dressed for work (jeans/camisole/blouse) but throw on tennis shoes instead of heels and then take the puppy for a walk.
Where is this formerly long boring story going? It's going on a 3.48 mile walk/jog. I've been contemplating walking around a big trail near our house, but I never felt like I had time to do it because I didn't know how long it would take. Today I decided, what the hail? How long could it possibly take? Well, I knew it would take longer than I had time for, so I just decided to jog. In jeans and a blouse. No big deal, I just pretended it was the 80's and I was Ally Sheedy jogging over to Matthew Broderick's house in War Games. (Except I just googled "Ally Sheedy War Games" and it turns out she was wearing SWEATPANTS in the scene I was remembering. People jogged in jeans and kangaroos in the 80's right? Or was that the 70's?) Then I saw someone else and I thought it was my friend Jen. How embarrassing! Jen is going to make fun of me! What a relief when I figured out it wasn't her. Except whoever it was still gave me quite a disparaging look! How dare you jog in jeans and a blouse in Boulder, CO! Haven't you heard of Title 9, Prana, REI, Athleta, or Patagonia? What is wrong with you?!
But I did get exercise today! And a shower, and that is a rare combo. (Yeah the shower was before the exercise, but not daaaays before.)
In the end it was totally worth it because today Lucy looks like this: Instead of this:
A miracle happened today: my camera, memory card, battery and laptop where all in the same place at the same time. Also, I felt like blogging. This has been a crazy year, and it's been difficult for me to be hilarious. I do, however, have a lot of material for my tragic memoir, which by the time I write it, will be tragically hilarious. But MetaMegan has been suffering, as I am sure dedicated readers have noticed.
Enter MetaMegan 2.0. I have a lot of exciting things planned for the rest of the year. I am sure many of them will turn out to disastrously, which will make for some good blogging.
Take our impromptu Saturday night dinner party! The pizza was in the oven when lightening struck and the power went out. It came back on right away and I said to our guests, "I hope we don't have a crazy hail storm like we did that other time you guys were here. Ha ha ha ha ha."
After I watched the hail for a really long time, I said, "THE PIZZA!"
The pizza wasn't burned because when the power went out the oven turned off. Sigh. I turned the oven back on and thought, "I'll just switch the bottom pizza with the top pizza while the oven heats back up. Except the bottom pizza (barbecue chicken) had sort of expanded beyond the pan, and grew around the oven rack. So when I pulled it out, half the pizza stayed in the oven. AAAHH! Pizza Disaster! I threw the pan on the counter to try to get the rest of the pizza out and in the process knocked over my wine glass, spilling wine across the counter and down the other side. My guest took off running, I assumed to laugh in the other room so as not to be rude, but actually it was to start cleaning wine off the wall across the room.
Since the oven was so cool by now, it was easy to get the rest of the pizza out and reassemble everything with delicious results. I'm on the come back trail here!
I am about 5 dozen cookies into my contribution for the bake sale. Because I didn't start until after 10:00 P.M. Because I was working and watching The Wire.
But we might draw eyes on their necks and take silly pictures.
Yes, this could happen to your kids if you go out of town and your kids spend the night at Casa de MetaMegan.
But I promise to scrub your kid's neck with a brillo pad, if that's what it takes, so they don't show up at school with lipstick and marker everywhere. Because I take my job as a surrogate parent very seriously.
I took this video at some point during the 10 day stretch that included Dave's 8 day business trip, 2 sick days for me, Luke's two sick days for potential swine flu that turned out to be a bad cold, and 2 snow days. I was never so happy to go back to work after 8 days at home. As you can see, we put that time to good use.
We had dinner at Murphy's last Thursday because they have a TV and the Buff''s were on. Luke ordered the grilled cheese, for the last time. He didn't like it because of the "bread" and the "cheese". I have forbidden him from ordering it again, but I should really just be proud of him for ordering the fruit as a side dish instead of the french fries. Fully 25% of his fruit cup, though, was taken up by one grape. It was a really big grape. We were all marveling at it's magnificence when it slipped out of Luke's hands and onto the floor. The 5 second rule does not apply in bars though, so it didn't get eaten. I did, however, agree that if he wanted to, he could bring the grape home and we could continue to think about how it's the biggest grape we've ever seen. I told him to put it with the pumpkins, and he said, "If it gets exposed to the light! It is going to turn into a PRUNE!" I started to remind him that grapes actually turn into raisins, but it seemed silly, since this one would probably, actually, turn into a prune. Except now that I have taken 2 pictures of a grape, and written 214 words about it, I think I should probably just put it in the compost now and forget this whole thing ever happened. But first, the grape with a penny for perspective:
Note the time. I had already been up for 2 hours when I took this picture. I started to shut down databases and applications, and I watched the scripts run on part of my screen, while on the other part, I watched Weeds while I pedaled my exercise bike. I had the pancake mix almost totally ready to go on the griddle before the boys woke up at 6:45. I was feeling pretty good about things until my big stack of pancakes fell over and I realized it was going to be a really long day.
Dave was not yet awake when I took this picture, but I can't complain because he did some serious yard work today.
No, that isn't the intro to my swine flu post. Not yet, it's too soon.
Dave has been out of town for, a month? I don't know I lost track. But Jack was talking to him on the phone last night, and I heard Jack say, "I love you." It sounds like, "I nuv you" henceforth referred to as INU. Then he starting saying stuff like, "Dwandma?" and I think he was confused because he couldn't tell whether to talk to Dave or to the navigational system in Dave's rental car. I had to get to the bottom of the INU because it's just so sweet and I am tracking unprompted INUs. Sure, he'll say it in response but it's the random INUs that are the best. I mean, when he says them to ME they are the best. I assume. It's only happened once.
So when I got back on the phone...
Me: I heard Jack say he loves you. Dave: That's because I said it to him first. Me: Oh, because today Jack held up the Little People Farmer and the Little People Pig and then said, "I nuv you" and then he said, "tiss" and he had them kiss. Dave: Aww, cute. We must be modeling loving behavior for him. Me: Who's the pig? Dave: What? Me: Who's the pig? Dave: What? Me: I said the FARMER was kissing a P I G! Dave: I thought you said the farmer was kissing his wife. Me: We don't have a farmer's wife little people person. Dave: What? Sorry... I? Can't hear...You're breaking up... I love you!
Thinking backwards in chronological order, the signs I missed are thus:
1.) We had so much time to get to the bus that Jack and Luke and I all walked. Jack has never walked to the bus, there is no time for his meandering style. I only walk occasionally. Usually it's a jog, sometimes a sprint. We left the house 2 minutes early today. Two. Whole. Minutes.
2.) Luke was watching a little TV with his hat, and coat and backpack on before we left. Usually, our race to the bus involves a sort of relay where the baton is in the form of Luke's backpack and half of his outerwear, that I try to assemble on him as we are running.
3.) I flipped through a magazine for a bit once everyone was ready. Really.
And what did these three signs not tell me? Then did not tell me that I had forgotten something.
Dave is halfway through his 8 day business trip, and this morning I was about 44 hours into what I thought was a 24 hour illness. I did manage to eat something for breakfast, and I was as excited about that as someone who has had 5 crackers and a banana in 2 days can be. At lunch I decided to attempt some peanut butter on a cracker.
But the peanut butter was mysteriously not on the counter. It was... in the cabinet? That doesn't sound right. That must mean I... I... OMG What did I pack for Luke's lunch? Think! Think! OK, Milk. A cupcake. Half an apple. Ok, that's all I've got.
And then our morning frantic freakout happened at 11:30 instead of 7:25. OMGIneedtomakea sandwichthebreadisn'tdefrostedpopitinthetoasterandgetpantsonJack. JackhaspantsneedsshoesthebreadisupmakethesandwhichwearealmostoutofhoneyOMG. Pause. Would it occur to Luke to get the hot lunch? Nohe'llcomehomestarvingandangryandcrabbyandmissinghisdadfinishthesandwhich. ThrowshoesandajacketonJackgrabthekeysandcellphonerunoutthedoor.
I didn't know when lunchtime really is, so we ended up getting to school 10 minutes ahead of time. Jack and I sat on a bench and smiled at people for 9 minutes after I finished tying his shoes and buttoning his jacket. Then we met the first graders as they came in, and we sat with Luke while he ate some of his lunch.
I spent a good part of Friday complaining to various people that Jack was suddenly afraid of Mr. Noodle and how this was a huge problem because I count on an hour of Sesame Street on Fridays to get through my work from home day. Probably, if I had spent that time working, instead of complaining, I wouldn't be procrastinating working right now on this sunny end of summer holiday weekend. But then I wouldn't be blogging as a way of procrastinating, and not everyone would get to hear/read about Mr. Noodle.
Did I just blow your mind?
So it used to be that as soon as Mr. Noodle came on, during Elmo's world, in the last 15 minutes of Sesame Street, I had to turn off the TV. No big deal. But Friday, I turned on the TV at the very beginning of Sesame Street, and as soon as the first non muppet appeared on screen, Jack said, "No! No Noonle. T.B. OFF!" Sigh. I turned off the T.V. and started complaining.
I was still complaining 9 hours later when we sat down to dinner and had this conversation.
Me: Luke, Jack is afraid of Mr. Noodle. Jack: No Noonle! Luke: Who's Mr. Noodle? Me: You know Mr. Noodle, he's sort of a vaudeville type of old fashioned clown? He's on Elmo's world. Luke: Never heard of him. Jack, do you like Mr. Noodle? Jack: Yesh. Me: Argh! I know you know who he is! Luke: Nope. Jack: T.B. Off. No Noonle. Dave: Luke, you know Mr. Noodle. He's the one who has the brother, Mr. Noodle Luke: (Lightbulb!) Oh yeaaaaaah.
At some point last week, I was instant messaging Dave, and I said, "Do you really think we'll be able to get up, find Easter baskets, have an Easter egg hunt, make it to church by 9:00 am, then head straight to Eldora for the last day of the season, and still make it to dinner at our friends by 5:00?" He said, "Sounds great!"
And that was before the impromptu egg dying, card playing, movie watching marathon that resulted in Dave having to stay up until midnight making cauliflower pie on Holy Saturday.
I can't even remember which night we were up with Jack between 4 and 5:30 and which night Luke's alarm woke me up at 3:30 am, after it had been going off for an hour. Long story short, everyone was tired on Sunday morning, and I let Dave stay in bed while the boys looked for their baskets. With the combination of staying up too late and having candy for breakfast it came as no surprise that we went from Easter morning joy, to finding the baskets, eating breakfast, playing, and finally, sobbing in less than 50 minutes. Right on schedule.
Luke found Jack's basket right away but couldn't find his own basket. Jack found my basket right away and had no desire to look for his own. Why bother looking for your own basket, when you can just climb on top of the table and eat Mama's candy? (The Easter Bunny does not hide my basket.)
In this video, I learn that Jack can say chocolate. (Dave told the daycare that Jack likes jelly beans, which gave all the other parents the chance to say that their children have never had jelly beans. Bad Dave!)
In this video I regret letting Luke get involved in the army. Or watch Star Wars. Or whatever it is that causes him to march around like this.
Once Jack finally found his basket, he wasted no time stuffing his little chipmonk cheeks with candy:
It was hard, believe me, to come up with the perfect outfit that would transition from Easter Sunday mass to skiing to dinner with friends. Dave did well with long underwear under his nice jeans. Exchange the jeans for snow pants and voila!
I planned to pull on my fleece pants under my skirt and exchange my sweater for a fleece top. But I forgot my clothes and had to just go with just tights under my ski pants and my Easter sweater. No photos, but brrr.
Dinner was delicious. Dessert... well that's a story for another day.
Last Saturday, Luke had an 8:00 am basketball game. I had gotten up with Jack at 5am, and when I heard Luke's alarm go off at 5:55, I was able to murkily figure out that his clock had been set an hour ahead. Luke ran upstairs already dressed and there was no way he'd be going back to sleep, so I just went for it. By 8:45, all the laundry had been folded, breakfasts made, eaten, and cleaned up, and Luke and I were 3 quarters into a basketball game. That's when one of the parents said to me, "Meeeeeeegan. I'm outta coooooooooffeeeeee." I said, "Me too. And mine was decaf." And then it occurred to me that I don't need to suffer from caffeine deprivation anymore just because 25 months later I have gotten pregnant, given birth and am nursing a toddler.
Fast forward to Sunday morning at the Southside Walnut Cafe, where I ordered a cappuccino. Fast forward again to 10 minutes later when I was saying to Dave, "Right now, I feel like everything in my life is totally perfect. I am so happy. I am almost worried that later I'll feel just the opposite. This bliss seems so extreme." Dave said, "What you are feeling right now, are the effects of caffeine. And yes, you will crash later."
You may have gotten a combined Christmas-Birthday-thank-you-Valentine-package-of-Luke's-art. That was the first thing that Luke and I did. Then we melted down crayons and made 12 heart shaped crayon necklaces. Then I did about 17 other things, and then I was looking at something on the bottom shelf at the grocery store and when I stood up the shelves got all wonky. It was a loooong bike ride home.
It seems like caffeine and I do better meeting occasionally. On Sundays. Let's just say I organized a lot of closets today, and leave it at that.
"If You Feel Yourself Starting to Blow Away, Grab Onto One of Your Friends." Those were the wise words in the announcement that was made at Luke's school before lunch recess. I think lunch recess may have been around the time of the peak gust recorded by NREL for the last 24 hours. That would be 77.9 mph at 11:08 am.
I was holding onto a Target shopping cart around that time and hoping not to careen into a parked car. Dave's building had a power outage and was running on the generator. I'm not a big fan of wind, so I was pretty glad I didn't ride my bike to work today.
I may be about to jinx myself into writers block, but events transpired today to assure me that I will not soon run out of material for this blog. Earlier today, my friend said, "i just picked up a piece of garbage flying around the yard that says our block party is saturday." And I said, "Can I pretend it happened to me? I don't have a blog post for tomorrow yet. " But then an exciting thing happened. Wine was delivered to me at work! I drunkenly joined a wine club in Napa 2 years ago to get 20% off all my purchases that day. The plan was to quit when I got home. Woo hoo, 20% off! Then I thought, why not just get one shipment and then cancel? So four times a year I get wine shipped to me at work (can't be shipped at home because an adult has to sign for it.) I always think, "Yea! wine! I'll plan a special meal and drink delicious wine with it! Then I make my usual weekly menu of pizza, spaghetti, tofu stir fry, chicken something, leftovers, burritos, and The Southern Sun. I did recently make risotto and had to use some good wine and it was soooo good. But mostly, I am accidentally building up a collection of wine by not canceling my wine club membership, not drinking the good wine because I never plan a good meal, and then buying Red Truck whenever it's on sale and drinking it with pizza.
ANYWAY, my wine arrived today, and I picked it up on the way back from the lactation room. I always mean to bring some sort of milk satchel, with which to conceal the expressed breast milk, but it's not that hard to conceal 3 ounces in the palm of your hand. Unless you are carrying a box of wine. So I picked up the wine, and laid the ziplock bag of milk across the top of the box and went on my merry way across the parking lot back to my office, contemplating the blood of life, and mothers milk. It was sunny, and I was smiling. I smiled at the VP in the suit when I walked in, and he even seemed about to smile back at me when I tripped and the bag of milk went flying and landed at his feet.
"Ahhhh!"
"Aaaah!"
That was the conversation we had instead. Very professional. I snatched up the milk and ran away. Stopped at my bosses office and had this conversation:
"I just tripped right in front of [VP] while carrying milk and a box of wine." "I hope you saved the wine." "I did save the wine, but the milk is more valuable!" "Is it? You can always make more milk."
Fortunately the milk survived too. My dignity on the other hand? Not so much.
(Photo Credit to either Melanie or Jill who took this picture after we were bullied into a tour at Gundlach Bundschu)
We took a lot of pictures this weekend and posed for a lot of pictures this weekend. I can't wait to see how they all turned out. We gardened and painted at the daycare work day and then gardened all weekend at home too. The school Luke will attend in the fall has a community garden, and I came just short of volunteering to help out. But I thought, "Ugh I have to work in the daycare garden. I'll just wait until next year to work in the kindergarten garden. But then I remembered that Jack will be at the daycare for another 5 years so I might as well volunteer now and figure out how to manage.
Segue to big news! Luke had kindergarten orientation on Friday. I think I was more nervous than he was. I had to describe Luke and I tried to describe him in an accurate, non-bragging manner. I said, "He likes to be outside; biking, hiking, and skiing. He also likes to build things and read books. But he doesn't know how to read, but you know what I mean." I felt very proud of myself when other parents were naming each individual word that their child can spell, but also sort of dishonest when one of the parents said their child was into "all things that fight, like knights, pirates and star wars." Oops, I forgot about that sort of thing. But we both liked the teachers and the school so I think it is going to be great. The photo of Luke and I was from our big day.
Dave spent a night in Arizona last week, so I took the kids out for dinner. We had sushi because we are a good yuppy family. We were seated in a tiny booth and the wall next to us was one giant mirror, and when Luke turned to say something to me he got distracted. "I thought there was a boy at a table next to us that looked just like me!" Luke likes to look at himself in the mirror. I give him the option of taking his time outs in his room or mine and he always picks mine. Recently, he was crying quite dramatically and Dave gave me the "What the heck?" look. I said, "Five bucks says he is standing in front of the mirror." Oh yeah, Dave, you owe me 5 bucks. But back to dinner. Soon he noticed there was a mirror on the other wall too. "I can see myself over there! And I can see six Lukes!" (Reflection of a reflection and so on.)
I didn't plan on the meal taking quite so long, but what with the mirrors and the chopsticks, and the looking at yourself in the mirror using chopsticks, it was quite the leisurely affair. And this meant that Jack wanted to eat, and yeah, I didn't bring his/my privacy blanket. No worry, the linen napkins were on the large side. So I was trying to feed Jack, and I had us covered with a linen napkin, and I looked in the mirror to my right and we were clear, and I looked in the mirror to my left and we were clear. I looked back to the right, and back to the left. Clear. I made eye contact with the waiter, and if he's able to make eye contact, then good, he's not seeing anything else. And I look down and make eye contact with Jack, who has stopped eating and casually tossed off the linen napkin. And I don't need to look in the mirror at the 6 copies of myself to see that I am exposing myself to the entire room. I covered Jack up and started over and the entire process was repeated about 3 times.
I am not the most modest person in the world, but I think all the mirrors did me in. Because the next day I was pumping in the lactation room and I heard someone talking really loudly, so loudly it seemed like they were in the room with me and I thought, "Oh. My. God. I forgot to shut the door. I am in the lactation room, pumping, and the door isn't even CLOSED!" But the door was closed. I think I was just delirious because it was late afternoon and all I had packed for lunch was Luke's leftover kid's meal, which was a tiny square of tofu and about 7 edamame, and I had eaten it at about 10:30. And someone was talking really loudly right outside the door.
