Still Here!

I'm back to beginning every blog post with "I know it's been a while....." I'm just going to accept that. Life around the holidays is crazy, crazy, busy and I am exhausted. I liked them better when other people did the work and all I had to do was wake up and find out what Santa brought me. I'm actually looking forward to Monday because I think things will settle down a little and Garion will be back in school. But! Today I'm going to take 5 minutes for a little 2009 reflection. I like listing all the great things that happened the previous year, especially the things that I did for the first time. I don't think I've ever dumped that into a blog post before, but it seems appropriate--another first for 2009.

This year I:
-Smote the olive green walls in my bedroom and now have a lovely buttery cream color that doesn't make me feel sea sick every morning.
-Smote the 80's-awful wallpaper in my entry-way and the pepto pink wall in my living room and painted the whole thing a nice caramel-y color...mmmmm......caramel......
-Painted the living room WITHOUT TAPING. Yes, I did it free hand. And it looks GREAT! It's like I've had this super power locked up inside me all these years and I never knew.
-Went to Australia! By far, the highlight of 2009. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the thought that I actually made it to the other side of the world. In Australia I also tried meat pies for the first time, saw weird (to me) animals, smacked into people while walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk, stairs, escalator, etc. and saw so many beautiful things I'd never seen before that I can't possibly list them all. And also, they have Minties there, which I just adore, but I think I've mentioned that before.
-Managed to go camping...twice. Hmm. Not as many times as I would have liked but both times were with close friends and were great weekends.
-Bought a canoe! So much fun. Except that now it's so cold outside that I'm having trouble remembering what it feels like to be warm enough to think that taking a canoe out on the water is a good idea.
-Fully recovered from a stupid back injury. I am so grateful for this--I don't seem to have any lingering problems and I am just so glad that I can still do all the things I love to do. Also, I found out that my husband is good at housekeeping and just wasn't letting on.
-Did lots of fantastic hiking and trail running and I DID NOT FALL!
-Enjoyed my job security--I know a lot of people who didn't have this last year and it makes me even more grateful for mine.
-Marveled at Garion's leaps in bounds (the boy is 7 and reads chapter books--freak of nature that one).
-Thoroughly enjoyed Garion's first appearance in a Christmas pageant--he was a detective shepherd and was brilliant.
-Made my first peach pie--an unmitigated disaster.

This year, I did not:
-Make to the top of Mt. Humphrey's, again. sigh.
-Complete any of the runs I signed up for. At least the money from the entry fees goes to charity, right?
-See the Great Barrier Reef when it was actually within shooting range. Huge mistake. If you go to Australia, go to the Great Barrier Reef, for crying out loud.
-Cry on Garion's last day of kindergarten (but it was close), or cry on the first day of first day of first grade. I did get a little teary when, a couple of weeks ago, he left a note on my pillow that said, "I love you mom."

Plans for 2010:*
-Grow out my hair. I AM doing it this time. Really. It's time for a change and I just need to muscle through the the year of grow-out. This year is the year. It IS!
-Eat real food, as in only eat things with ingredients I can pronounce. No more fake creamer in my coffee
-Learn how to make pie. I love pie. Why do I not know how to make one?
-Smite more ugly wallpaper.
-Make it to the top of Mt. Humphrey's, damn it.

* Bonus material:
Moses's Plans for 2010:
-Install the woodstove.
-Take his wife somewhere nice and warm for their 10th anniversary.

Thankful

I've just about made it through the completely crazy chaos that is November in this family: four birthdays followed in quick succession by Thanksgiving. The run up started with my brother's birthday on the 11th (sushi dinner); followed by my Grandpa Jack's 80th for which I (unintentionally) made him probably the worst peach pie ever; Garion's birthday with my family, my sister-in-law, father-in-law, and new baby niece; followed by my birthday the next day (sushi dinner again). On to Thanksgiving which has meant three separate groups of company at our house for various time periods starting last week up through last night. My brother and sister in-law from Seattle came down with their two girls and another sister and brother-in-law came in from North Dakota. We also had Moses's parents (who live in the middle of nowhere about 45 minutes away) and our college-aged niece who lives in town. *Side Note: I swear I should not be old enough to have a college-aged niece. Actually, the really scary thing is that Moses's siblings are so spread out in age that I actually have a nephew who will turn 30 this year, but I just don't think about that because it's too weird. *
I could not have asked for a better Thanksgiving. We had a fantastic feast, the turkey came out perfect, Moses and I were organized AND! did not bite each other's heads off. There were no major arguments or, even more unbelievably, any kid melt-downs (baby excluded). We totally won the Thanksgiving lottery.
Tomorrow, we'll have breakfast with my dad and on Saturday we'll visit my mom's brother.
Whew. I feel like there ought to be some kind of finisher's medal for making it to the end of this year's November. But....I'm grateful for all of it. For my brother, who makes me laugh. For my Grandpa who is smart and meticulous and who taught me how to drive a stick and be careful with my money. For my baby boy who I cannot believe is already 7 and who has so many ideas firing through his head he can barely talk fast enough to tell me all of them. And for the 34 years I've been given so far on this earth and everything those 34 years have brought me. And for my husband and his family who are so different from the family I grew up with but whom I wouldn't trade for anything. And for my family, that I did grow up with, who shaped who I am and how I walk in this world. And finally, I'm grateful for this little bit of quiet time that I have before the the last few crazy days of November.

Derailed

I was rolling along really well today--in the groove, gettin' junk done, and just generally chugging away and being an all around productive employee. Then I popped over to "Whatever" for a minute where I encountered this (takes a little time to load):



I was completely derailed for the rest of the day. Does that ever happen to you? You hear a new song and there's just something about it that sucks you in and implants itself directly onto your neural synapses and you're bopping up and down and kind of wishing that you were out running with the ipod because at least you'd be moving? This song will be replaying itself on in my mental jukebox over and over for a least a week. I don't even really know what it's about-- chickadees, archery, and if I'm not mistaken, something about a lifeguard all in the same verse or so. This afternoon I'm a little bit in love with Weezer. Track suits not withstanding. And hey, it's not country, so, you know, progress.

**11/04/09 update: as suspected, an excellent running song

khooooohhhh, khoooohhhh

That there is the Darth Vader breathing sound, in case it's not obvious. I'm happy to report that this household successfully survived the flu and is pretty much on the mend. I'm fairly certain Garion and I had H1N1 since everybody I've talked to says if you got the flu in October you had H1N1. And also, I was sicker than I have been in many, many years; I had a fever for 4 days. That is pretty much unheard of in history of me and my kick-ass immune system. And Garion missed an entire week of school. So, I'm willing to grudgingly admit we caught a new virus. And really, I feel so trendy. Clearly H1N1 is the thing to have this fall. I'm just grateful that in the grand scheme of things, we had relatively minor cases.

Oh, yeah Darth Vader. Garion's going to be Darth Vader for Halloween. He tried his costume on yesterday and the first thing he he did was come up to me and hold out his hand in the force/choke hold thing Darth Vader does to keep his minions in line. I'm not kidding, that was FIRST THING. As in, "hmmmm, I am now dressed like a preeminent agent of evil....I think I will try using the force of my mind to strangle my mother." I played along and pretended to suffocate (I don't know-is that good parenting?) and Garion laughed hysterically. On the one hand, I love watching him play dress-up and he is clearly excited about his costume. On the other...he tried to strangle me! We might have to have a post-Halloween debrief just to make sure that the lines of morality are once again clearly delineated after the holiday.

Reinforcements!

My friend Anne came over this morning bearing popsicles, a Jeff Corwin video, and pictures for Garion that her son drew. Saved! The wrapper theory proved correct--Garion immediately sucked down a strawberry popsicle and I am feeling much better about the state of his stomach. I think there is some DNA-level evolutionary impulse in every mother that starts beating out "child must eat . . . child must eat. . . child must eat" every time they go for more than about three hours without measurable caloric intake. Garion said the popsicle made his throat feel better so he'll probably be living off popsicles for the rest of the day and I am just fine with that.
Garion is sorting through the pictures from his friend right now and giggling. There is one in there titled "President Peanut" that looks like a cross between a cat and the Incredible Hulk--I have no idea what it is but apparently Garion gets the joke. My favorite is the one titled "P.J. Elkdorf" --again I'm a little murky on the visual but the title cracks me up.
Garion's doing better this morning, his fever is a little lower (although still hanging out around 100) and he's perkier than yesterday (thus the giggling). I'm guessing we'll have one more day at home tomorrow and Garion will be back at school on Wednesday. Garion's school requires a kid to be fever-free for 24 hours before sending them back...I strongly suspect that not all parents follow this, but I am nothing if not a rule-follower. I am so grateful to Anne and also to everybody else who offered assistance: my parents (who live in Camp Verde-that would have been a long drive for popsicles) and Moses's boss who offered to pick-up medicine or whatever else we might need. How great is that?

The Ick

My friend Stacy frequently posts that whenever her husband leaves town, bad stuff happens. Ditto that. Must be part of Murphey's law. But only for moms. Moses is presently at a conference of geologists in Portland and will be off conferencing with other people who care about rocks until Thursday. At Garion's suggestion, we headed to the Grand Canyon yesterday and had a great time futzing around and looking at....rocks. Anyway, Garion crashed in the car on the way back. I assumed this was a typical bad wake-up from a middle of the day nap but he went to bed insisting that he was sick. He woke-up this morning with a sore throat and temperature and had been wilting in various places around the house (couch, floor, back porch couch) for the rest of today. The only thing I've managed to get him to eat was an english muffin this morning. I am therefore finding that most frustrating part about this is whole situation that we cannot go to the grocery store and I therefore cannot buy popsicles, which I think is probably the only thing I could convince him to eat. I could try making popsicles with juice, but nothing is so enticing to a kid as food you normally don't let him have that comes in a wrapper. I suspect he would take one look at the homemade popsicle and promptly return to disinterested wilting. The wrapper is critical. I'm hoping that tomorrow ice-y orange juice will appeal to him.
On a lesser note, all my favorite technology chose to kick the bucket today: my laptop battery has died (I am therefore rendered less mobile, although my desktop works just fine) and for some mysterious reason my cell phone will not call out, everything else works on it, but not the part where can, you know, CALL PEOPLE. We have a land line, so it's not like I'm cut off from the world but seriously, what gives?

Friday Photo

I was feeling a little bad about not sharing the toothless grin, so thought I'd better toss that up here today. That's our friend Chris in the background on the left and Chris's brother, Peter, on the right. The photo was taken on our killer Saturday morning hike while camping last week. (We walked about a 1/2 mile up hill and started losing children left and right. We hauled them up another 1/2 mile and then turned around). Hey, look! A lost teeth and camping photo, all in one!