I think my brain is broken.

OR.. (and I like this one better, so I’ll use IT INSTEAD) my purse contains a magical portal into NARNIA or MAYBE the BERMUDA TRIANGLE!

Tuesday, we took Jocelyn to the urgent care doctor (oh yeah, she was sick Monday) to check her out for any infections. I remember SPECIFICALLY taking my keys and putting them in my pocket, even though I didn’t really need them because we were all going and James was driving. I took them anyway. Later, I remember slipping them into the outside pocket of my purse, which is where I always put them if they’re not on the hook by the garage door, or in my pocket.

Later, they were NOT in the outside pocket of my purse. They were not in my purse at all. They were not ANYWHERE TO BE FOUND. And did I find this out at an opportune moment? A moment where I could have snagged James’ copy of my car key off of his keys? Of course not.

No, I discovered this at the worst possible moment. Wednesday morning, which is also known as splash day, (or in our house, it’s known as, “SPLASH DAY IT’S SPLASH DAY YAY TODAY IS SPLASH DAY!”) because the kids wear their swimming suits to school for, you guessed it, splashing and water fun.

It wasn’t just any splash day. It was also the day that James went to the hospital for a simple procedure. Simple, because it’s in and out, wham bam, he’s done, and he even stays semi conscious for it (conscious enough to follow orders, not conscious enough to remember it afterward) but not so simple that he can drive home or work that day.

So it is up to me to be at the hospital to drive him home. It is also up to me to drive the kids to school (SPLASH DAY IT’S SPLASH DAY!), because James has to be at the hospital earlier than is possible to get the kids ready to go. So James has left (WITH HIS SET OF KEYS AND THE ONLY SPARE TO MY TRUCK) and I have finally managed to get swimming suits on, swimming shoes on, spare clothes packed into bags, don’t forget the shoes and socks, oh yes, they will need towels, and what’s that? what’s that you say? breakfast? you mean I have to FEED THESE CHILDREN? oh, and drinks – let’s not let them dehydrate, I REMEMBERED EVERYTHING, PEOPLE. So I finally had it together and was ready to haul all the crap out to the car, when I remembered.

Oh shit. I don’t know where my keys are.

I thought they must be in a pocket somewhere. Whenever my keys go missing, they turn up in a pocket of something I wore previously. So I ran upstairs, heart pounding, trying not to think about what happens if I can’t find them, searching for ANYTHING I wore in the past 2 days, checking the pockets. I looked on the bed, on the ironing board that is set up in a semi-permanent state near our closet, I looked in the bathroom, I looked in the kids bathroom, I even checked the dryer in case that banging I heard wasn’t actually the rocks Ethan likes to put in his pockets and were in actuality, my keys – nope, they were rocks. Note to self: talk to Ethan about putting rocks in his pocket. Second note to self: check pockets before tossing Ethan’s clothes in the wash. Note to self: FOCUS YOU’VE GOT TO FIND YOUR FUCKING KEYS!

I went out to my truck to check out there. I looked on the floor, the middle compartment, I checked under the seats, I looked everywhere, in case they had fallen out of my purse somehow.

Finally it was full on panic. I went back inside. I got the phone. I stared at it, trying to figure out WHO I was going to call. I am not on super good terms with my neighbors with kids. Sure, good enough to borrow a cup of sugar, but “Hi, I’ve lost my keys and I need to borrow your car so I can take my kids to school and pick up my sedated husband from the hospital” — what kind of terms did you have to be on for THAT phone call? I WOULD GUESS PRETTY GOOD TERMS. Honestly, it’s sad, as I realized that all the folks that I was on THAT good of terms with live too far away for that sort of phone call.

So now I am panicked AND feeling like a friendless loser. I’m going to go have a heart attack AND EAT WORMS.
As a last resort, I took my purse and determined to dump it out and really make sure they weren’t in there. Perhaps Tumnus the Faun had grown bored with them by then and had tossed them back through the “Pocket Portal to and from Narnia” because after I turned the purse upside down and shook REALLY hard, out they came.

I have never been so happy in my life. I didn’t have to be better friends with my neighbors! I could continue to be a friendless loser! I HAD FOUND MY CAR KEYS!

But my malicious purse had not done it’s last deed.

Later that night, after the kids were in bed, I wanted to update my iPod with some tv shows, so I went to get it from the car. My ipod is always either in the car, or in my purse. I checked my purse and didn’t find it, so then I proceeded to rip my car about in the search. My heart was beating fast, my palms were getting all cold and sweaty, I was going to have to go inside and tell James I had lost or had stolen, my $400 ipod and he was going to chew me out something proper – I have a bit of a reputation for losing my wallet. I usually REALLY lose it (read: Leave it someplace very inconvenient, like the bathroom of Costco, and can’t find it for over 12 hours) about once a year, and of course then I casually lose it (read: leave it somewhere in the car, house or office and can’t find it for a few hours) so often that my wallet losing abilities have staggered scientists and theologians alike. James is always pretty pissed off when I do my i’ve-lost-my-wallet bit, so I knew the feedback from the i’ve-lost-my-ipod bit would NOT be pretty. Seriously, my stomach was churning when I came back inside, determined to SEARCH my purse thoroughly because dammit the damn thing has to be SOMEWHERE and it SHOULD be in my purse.

And sure enough. The stranded pilot trapped in the Bermuda Triangle must have listened to it until the battery ran out and tossed it back through the MAGICAL PORTAL OF THE PURSE OF AMY’S DEMISE VIA HEART ATTACK, since it reappeared in my purse on my second, very careful search of the Purse Of Destiny.

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH! Or as my dad would say, “Scrud.”

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go buy a new purse and make a copy of my car keys so that I can just sit in my house listening to my iPod and not have to talk to anyone in my neighborhood ever again.

I stumbled onto a local blog which I’ve quite been enjoying lately – Cartwheels at Midnight. The community of friends over there have burst into an idea of a traveling journal – The journal will travel from blogger to blogger, where the recipient will take a page and add her contribution, and then mail it on to the next in line. I fell in love with the idea and emailed begging to be allowed to join in, and yay! I am now in the Ultimate Mailing Matrix. I’ve already started wondering what the hell I’m going to put on my page of the journal.

The project is still forming, but even after it has LAUNCHED, you can still jump in and join. I beleive the journal will just continue to get mailed, and new people will be added into the Ultimate Mailing Matrix until the journal is filled up. So head on over and join up now – it will be a ton of fun.

I did have a few suggestions to the project, and a LOT of the ideas for it are (were) discussed in the comments, so be sure to read those too:

Traveling Blogger Journal:
The Genesis (read COMMENTS)
The Escalation
The Plan
The Rules

If you want to sign up, email your snail mail address to cartwheels at mac dot com.

-amy shimmy shimmy shimmies.

You may or may not have noticed, that since my big “THIS IS IT!” post and then the following week update, I havne’t really posted any project skinny updates.

That’s because I wasn’t being very good.

But this week, I have really buckled down, and have surprised myself with how well I have been doing.

IT IS HARD! But I have been having a pretty good week!

I had a little bit of a touch and go moment Thursday when I was really jonesin’ for some Pad Thai, but Ann, bless her heart, came through for me with some IM perspective:

raine: ann!
raine: i want to go get thai so bad!
raine: but it’s like a zillion points!
raine: ahhhhhhh!
miniann: how badly do you want thai?? bad enough that you’re willing to not lose weight or even gain weight this week over it?
raine: NO!
raine: i’m trying to see if there’s something “good” i could get instead
miniann: lol
miniann: yeah, thai makes that very hard.

She really hit the nail on the head, and honestly, that is what has been keeping me together and helping me make good choices all week – I want to see a loss. That is it, plain and simple, this is it, this is my life, and it’s time to pony up with some changes!

So now that you’re all, “you go girl!” and “You can do it” and “woo to the hoo!” Let me tell you that I totally blew it today.

Today was a good friend’s last day at work, so we all went out for a farewell lunch.

At a chinese restaurant.

And it was buffet.

GAH!

Yes, there were many things consumed that were NOT good for me. I can try to placate myself with the fact that there were some changes in the way I would have done it before, like only a teeny bit of General Tso’s, my favorite, and also a bajillion points and more of the brocoli beef, but honestly, it was still not a stellar meal.

However, I know that this is not it, I still have, not only the REST of the day, but the rest of teh week! It is going to be hard, because I tend to eat when I’m at home, and that makes weekends the worst, but I can do this 🙂 I want to see a loss this week SO BADLY, so I am just going to keep holding on to that all weekend.

And possibly go stock up on the 3 for 1 pt no sugar added popsicles. Great for when you get hit with that nervous eating urge.

So, not only have I been doing good with the eating, but I have been making a few other minor changes

Every morning my alarm goes off early so that I COULD actually get up, go downstairs and work out before hitting the shower and heading off to work. Every morning, that never happens. But one morning, as I was laying there thinking about how I really didn’t want to groove it to an exercise tape, it did occur to me that I could maybe go for a short little bike ride.

I didn’t hop up and go. I saw you thinking that is where this was going, so HAHAHAHA, oh that’s funny, no, I rolled back over and slept until the alarm went off again. BUT, I did hop on my bike that evening and had a pretty good, fairly strenuous little ride on a beautiful little trail by the creek. It was about 30 minutes, nothing stellar, but I felt great, and it was great to be out in the fresh air. (Not great to inhale gnats though, I learned how to avoid those pretty early on.)

Another little change – started just climbing the stairs instead of taking the elevator when I get to work. I’m on the 3rd floor, and they count the ground floor as floor 1, so it’s not a huge amount of stairs, which is good, or I wouldn’t do it. But it’s a step in the right direction, and I’m feeling pretty good about it.

So! Just gotta stay really strict with myself this weekend, and no matter what I see on the scale monday, keep hold of this will power that seems to have strayed into my head.

– amy was a fool, she was petrified, she never thought that she could live without you by her side

Just finished watching Good Night, and Good Luck.

Liked it just fine.

But the thing that really got to me was the music. If you’ve seen the movie, I KNOW you remember the few scenes of the woman singing the beautiful jazz standards. At first, just sat back, enjoyed, and thought “Gotta find out who that is.”

Then I thought… “Could it be her?”

After a few milliseconds more, I KNEW it was her, KNEW it was my beloved Dianne Reeves – wasn’t sure who that lady in the movie was, but that voice was Dianne Reeves, a voice like a slow drink of whiskey, a voice, that one person stated in an Amazon review, that “has the power to turn any room in your house into a smoky jazz club.”

Oh, I could just sink into that voice forever.

If you enjoy jazz, I highly recommend picking up Dianne Reeves “I Remember” – not a huge fan of the first track, but god, the whole CD is awesome. I swear she has an orgasm on a couple tracks (a musical orgasm, if you will). I’ll play it for you next time you’re over. I’ll even try not to sing along (that’s a very tall order and I make NO PROMISES). However, I predict that the “Good Night, and Good Luck” cd will rival it for first place in my affections.

I was introduced to her when I was in High School. I sang in jazz choir in school, and in the northwest, vocal jazz was IT. We went to festivals all over the state (WA) as well as neighboring states (ID, OR) and provinces (Vancouver & Victoria BC). I still remember when one of the guys in choir mentioned how he had gone to see her downtown one weekend the BURNING jealousy I had for him, and even anger that he did not INFORM ME so that I could go. She was an adjudicator at one of the festivals we attended, and performed in an evening concert, but more importantly, held a Q&A session with only about 20 people. I can’t remember any of it, however.

I just remember she was amazing.

The woman has won four consecutive Grammy’s.? Seriously, I can’t stop wigging out here. She HAS A CHRISTMAS ALBUM! HOW did I NOT KNOW THAT?? (yup, won a grammy.)
My major in college was music, Voice with an emphasis in Jazz. However, I went to college at BYU, in Provo, which is in Utah, where any mention of jazz was met with basketball talk. Not a big jazz sort of place. I didn’t graduate, and while I am entirely to blame, I wonder if I would have stayed interested and hard working if I was in a school that could really take me down the path I wanted to go. Jazz emphasis or not, BYU didn’t have the path. (It didn’t have a lot of other paths for me too, but this post is about jazz, mmmkay?)
I just loaded up a ton of 80s music on my ipod and was on a total 80s kick today, but I think that kick ended … oh… about an hour and a half ago 🙂 Time to start loading up the jazz.

And making an amazon purchase!

Do you like jazz?

I bet you do. Norah Jones? She’s luscious, isn’t she? How about Harry Connick Jr? Or even Squirrel Nut Zippers? Royal Crown Revue? I would even stick Brian Setzer and his fabulous orchestra in there, and guess what, that’s all jazz, baby. All that great music on your Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack – jazz baby! Give Dianne a listen, and I bet you won’t regret it – and this soundtrack is a great place to start.

– amy sings, be still my heart!

Seriously, I am not a fancy person. I wear makeup at weddings, and sometimes I get on a make-up kick for everyday life, but it generally doesn’t last long. I wear nice clothes to work because they have rules about it, otherwise I’d be in jeans all the time. I have enough nice clothesthough, that generally getting ready is usually accomplished with minimal fuss and bother, and on the whole, I don’t mind wearing them. It’s fun. Today however, it was an a exercise in futility that made me want to shove the nozzle of the hair mousse into my eye socket and spray away in hopes that the chemicals would knock some sense into my brain, or at least save me from this clothes-fashion-indecisiveness that is decidedly NOT ME.

I changed my clothes THREE TIMES. I never do that. I put on what I choose, and if it doesn’t quite look the way I thought it would, tough, that’s what I’m wearing anyway.

THREE TIMES PEOPLE!

THIS IS NOT LIKE ME!

-amy

Today was Ethan and Jocelyn’s end of year program at school. It was very cute. Pictures to come, I’m sure. That was how the morning was spent.

I took the entire day off. James went to work after the picnic at the school. I took the kids home. After naptime, I took Jocelyn to get her hair cut at the same place I get mine cut. When I’ve taken her to the kids hair cut place where I take Ethan, they seem to think she is a boy and cut off ALL her hair. She’ll never get her hair cut there again. Butchers.

However, with this new haircut, I can’t really tell a difference – Not from this place, and the old place. I can’t tell if her hair now is any different than it was before the haircut. In a way, that’s good, because I didn’t want them to cut it all off.

Jocelyn looks super cute in pig tails. However, she pulls them out after 2 minutes, EVERY TIME. Very frustrating.

We went to Target after the cutting of hair, and I let the kids get a toy each, as long as it wasn’t too expensive. I picked out Strawberry Shortcake for Jocelyn (with kitty, and a scooter!) and I kind of had my eye on a hot wheels race track I thought Ethan would like. He was into it, until he saw a Tonka box that had a whole slew of construction trucks. He decided he wanted that one instead. When we got home, he was totally absorbed with his new stuff. Jocelyn got her stroller and took her old doll out, threw it on the floor, put Strawberry in it, and pushed her around. Half hour later, she was done with Strawberry, and kept bugging Ethan by coming close to where he was playing, and looking at his stuff cross eyed. Just kidding, although I’m sure that would have bugged him too. She’d keep picking up stuff he wasn’t playing with and handing it to him and he’d get all mad whenever she touched anything that was his.

Ahhhhhh siblings.

This evening, I went to my friend Selena’s Sprintini party and drank a bit. I came home a little plastered. I broke one of her glasses. I don’t think I broke it in a drunken grand hand gesture, but one can never rely on drunk memory, can one.

So I’ve been home, with the nice buzz going, and therefore I’ve just spent the last hour brushing Strawberry Shortcake’s hair and doing it up in different ‘dos. I should have taken pictures, because Strawberry and I went through many many hairdos. Honestly, with beautiful fluffy pink hair like that, there really isn’t any way you can do it and have it look bad. Except when you do pigtails, because that exposes the slight bald spots she has in the back of her head, near the bottom. The Strawberry Shortcake makers put loooooots of hair along the front, but are pretty chintsy in the back. We’ve had a consultation about Rogaine, but we’ve decided that drugs are not the way to go. We will just work with her ASSETS to diminish her not-so-much-assets faults.* Better to do an UP do.

Just so you know, next time you have a Strawberry Shortcake Hair Emergency. Up ‘do’s = Gor-JEST!

The End.

UPDATE: I just read this over this morning and damn, so many errors. I’ve corrected a bunch of them.

* Last night writing this sentence, I COULD NOT remember the word “faults” and so I said, “not-so-much-assets”. The mind boggles. The drunken mind however, just makes shit up.

I no longer have a PKR. Today I dropped him off at the Honda dealership in Manassas, and he called this evening to inform me he’s the proud new owner of an small Isuzu SUV.

It has been nice to drive in the HOV lane, but overall, I’ll be glad to have my unfettered commute back. I had to leave by 6:50am every morning in order to get to his place at 7:15. I think I made it there by 7:15… maybe one time. I was always closer to 7:20 or 7:30, and it bugged me every time that I was late, even though he never seemed to care. Yesterday (Tuesday) he took the day off from work for personal business and so I commuted alone. I left a little later than I usually do – about 7:10am – and still arrived at work about the time I would have w/ my PKR, 8am.

He has always been the perfect passenger, never touching the radio or even commenting on my choice of listening material, but I have always been kind of self conscious about whatever I play and am constantly flipping around.

Also, I am always very self conscious listening to my favorite music that I MUST sing along to. I didn’t let my PKR stop me, but it will be nice to belt away without being conscious of every note.

So.. while I won’t miss him on my commute so much, I will miss him. He is a nice man and our morning and afternoon chats have always been nice.

– amy told him about the “PKR” business, and he laughed and laughed.

It has really been a wonderful weekend.

We didn’t go anywhere, and didn’t have any grand plans, but it felt like a little mini vacation all the same. Definitely apart from the usual weekend grind where I feel like I have so much to do and not enough time to do it and the whole 2 days is just too busy to be very restful.

It started out Friday night with me celebrating World of Warcraft night with a night out with Ann. We went to an Indian restaurant and she de-virginized me, as I’d never had Indian food before. I had lamb vindaloo (and thought of Lister the entire time) with long grained basmati rice that was like eating lace in edible form. I oohed and aahed over it and Ann informed me that Trader Joe’s carries it in the BROWN variety! I am so there. After dinner, we headed over to the theatre and caught the Da Vinci code. I liked it, though I’m not raving or anything. I thought that I might have liked the book better because the puzzles and history were intriguing, but it seemed they barely presented it, said a few words that would lead them to the solution, and then solved it while you were still trying to really wrap your head around the puzzle itself. A friend informed me that the book doesn’t actually have too much of the puzzle type things in it, so maybe not. Ann is going to lend me Dan Brown’s first book, which she thinks was better anyway – I think I’ll like it.

Friday night WoW nights/Amy’s nights are turning out to be good for the book recommendations, as Tamara lent me a book last week that I read into the night last Friday, and then finished up Saturday. It is a young adult book (my favorite kind, I’m a bit ashamed when strangers see my bookshelves filled up with L. M. Montgomery, C. S Lewis, Noel Streatfield and Frances Hodgeson Burnett – maybe all the Heinlein make it OK) called “Flipped” and it was beautifully written and had great characterizations. Loved it, loved it. Thanks Tamara – I’ll take any more recommendations you might have.

Saturday started out kind of blah. Maybe the night out, away from the every day run of the house made me want to continue it, but I just wasn’t feeling the cuteness of the squeals of children running through the house and pretty much tried to sleep as long as I could. I kept wishing James would get up with them and let me sleep until noon, but he is much better at ignoring children and staying in bed than I am 🙂 He got up and brought Jocelyn into our room and Ethan climbed in and the snuggle bed party soon turned into a wiggly squirmy this-bed-is-much-too-small-for-this annoying party and James got up to take everyone out and get going on the getting up process. I listened in bed for about 30 seconds before I knew I needed to get over myself and get up too and just happy-up about it, so I did. James showered and I went down with the kids and made waffles. When I stayed home with the kids, waffles were a pretty common staple in our house, if not fresh then frozen and toasted up later. The kids loved them, James was done getting ready in time for the second batch coming out, and so we all sat down for a family breakfast – something that hasn’t happened in way too long.

Project Big Girl Bed was accomplished Saturday morning as well!

So far so good, I still love it and think it is beautiful. I’m a little concerned about the overall sturdyness, as there are only 4 slats that go across, and then some sheets of plywood rest on them to support the mattress, and the wood that the slats are resting on are getting a bit of a gap. I put one screw in where it was gaping a bit much, but we may want to take a closer look at securing it better next week. For general little kid purposes, it is fine, but I do worry when Jocelyn stands up on it and does that jump-flopping into bed sort of thing.

So with the bed put together, the actual sleeping was the next phase. Saturday at naptime, she didn’t really sleep, and I caught her up and out of bed (“I hopped down Mommy!” and so she got to go in her crib for the duration, which she wasn’t happy about. She finally did sleep, very late, and Ethan did as well, and so we let them both sleep since we were on “vacation” and they could stay up later that night if necessary. After naptime we went to Cracker Barrel for dinner, a place my folks took them while we were out of town, and they LOOOOOVE. After dinner, we went to Barnes and Noble for some train table action and reading book after book about trains, race cars, tractors, and construction vehicles. It is interesting to see the differences in Ethan and Jocelyn in any given situation, but the book store really hits it home. Jocelyn will sometimes play at the train table, but this time she went straight for the stuffed animals and kept showing them to me, petting them, sitting down with them, lining them up, all the while turning to me and saying, “Kitties mommy! My kitties!” while Ethan was consumed by the train table.

But even the train table doesn’t hold the draw for him as it used to, he’s good for about 5 minutes (usually of me hounding him to not hog ALL the train cars/engines and share with the other kids) before he abandons it to go in search of interesting books. It is good, obviously, that he loves books, but bad for mommy, because train table = mommy can read the book SHE picked out, and ethan getting books = mommy reading ethan’s books to ethan. Ah well. I need to get to the library this week.

We got home very late and got the kids into bed. We are really very anal about the kids’ bedtime, if for no other reason (good sleep = happier kids, etc) than it gives us back our night of just us time. Or, computer, tv, WoW time, whichever. Non-kids time. So it was interesting to wrinkle my forehead and try to remember the last time we let them stay up late because.. I don’t think there has been, really. We were looking forward to them maybe sleeping in the next morning to make up for it, but James tells me they didn’t. (I don’t know if they did, I was asleep.)

Jocelyn did great her first night in her new bed. When we moved Ethan to his bed, he had several months when we would check on him and he would be RIGHT next to the wall, or head down by the footboard, or just laying any which way, much like he did in his crib. Jocelyn however, always has her head on her little pillow and is generally in the middle of the bed. Kind of interesting. Once when Ethan was about 18 months old, I set up the movie camera in his room at naptime to see how he went to sleep. It was pretty cute, he played in his crib for a while, singing and talking to himself, and then slowly one by one, he dropped each of his toys over the side of his crib before he curled up and fell asleep. I need to do that for Jocelyn – we know she sings to herself all the time, but it would be interesting to watch the process for her.

Speaking of Jocelyn – ALL weekend, she has just been a people magnet. We went out to eat several times and she had admirers everywhere we went. At Cracker Barrel, I took her into the bathroom to wash her hands before we were seated, and the lady that was finishing up when we came in told me how adorable she was. When we were seated, she was making the flirty eyes with THREE other tables, and one of the ladies at one of them came over as she left and commented on how beautiful she is, how well she eats, how her nephew doesn’t eat nearly as well, how beautiful her eyes were, how cute her dress…

It went like that all weekend, where ever we went. She was definitely the belle of the ball. While I know this is pretty normal, because hello, she is just the most gorgeous girl ever (not that I’m biased) I do worry about Ethan feeling left out or vying for attention possibly by bad behavior. Sometimes I feel so bad for Jocelyn because Ethan got so much of our attention before she was born, and then after. But the flip side is Ethan was always hearing, “She’s littler than you,” and “She doesn’t know any better.” That has changed now, because she has really learned how to work it, and that she can get away with a lot so we’ve been cracking down on it. All in all, it is a hard line to walk, the older / younger child thing – I should really find some stuff and read up on it and how we are supposed to balance it all.

Anyway, where was I?

Sunday was another nice day. James took Jocelyn to Whole Foods to donate our old cell phones to a women’s charity (and of course bought some beer and organic beef while he was at it) so I took the opportunity to take Ethan and go get James Anniversary / Father’s Day present: a new grill with an off-set firebox for smoking. Sunday afternoon was lazily spent me and the kids: washing Daddy’s car, James: putting together the new grill. We broke it in that evening with some hamburgers (definitely not on the diet), and they were WONDERFUL. Something about food cooked over actual fire just makes it GOOD. Monday night was our anniversary, and we cooked up the Whole Foods steaks – delicious.

We spent Monday morning folding laundry – I don’t think I mentioned how the clean laundry has been piling up on our bed all week, so that we started to just sleep in the guest room bed. It started out as, “Ugh, too much stuff to move, too late to put it away, let’s just sleep in the other room.” The guest room houses a queen sized bed with the Sealy Fenway mattress from costco (it’s oh so soft). Our room has a king sized bed with the Sealy Guilmont mattress from Costco (it’s bordering-on-too-hard firm). So halfway through the week, it turned into, “oh DARN! Too much stuff! Have to go sleep on the super comfy soft it’s-like-sleeping-on-a-cloud bed!” and we weren’t really too interested in clearing off the laundry to get back into our own bed. Alas, yesterday was the final straw of digging through all the clean laundry to find clothes for ourselves and the kids, so we put some NOGGIN on the telly to entertain the little-uns and put it all away. Made up the bed with clean sheets, and last night we actually slept in our own bed. (siiiiiiiiigh oh how i miss you comfy bed.)

New mattresses will be obtained this summer. Oh yes. Now to just sell some stuff we don’t need to help pay for them. Craigslist here I come!

So yeah, yesterday was ‘clean up the house’ day, especially since our cleaning ladies were scheduled for the next day (today! hooray!) and I made a stab at cleaning up the garage, which looks like an explosion went off in there and potting soil, gardening gloves, seedling trays, plastic sand toys, diggers, shovels, bikes, helmets, bubble toys, plastic wagons, laminate flooring, weed whackers were scattered willy nilly everywhere. Can you guess that we haven’t been parking in our garage for months? Well, we haven’t. The stuff didn’t get to me as much as the DIRT everywhere, and it has been tracking right into the house. There are still needles everywhere in the garage from when we drug our Christmas tree out.

So I just read through that paragraph and am somewhat ashamed to see that the mess is really all mine and the kids. Nothing from James. I’m racking my brain to think of something, ANYTHING of James that was going on in the garage, and really… nothing. Bike. That’s about it. I guess I only have myself to blame. Myself, and the kids. Ahh well.

Anyway, so Monday was spent cleaning and then we all piled into the car to go off in search of a produce stand (fresh sweet corn, how we long to grill thee). We headed out to the back roads and cruised around hoping to see something, but didn’t, so then we decided to go out to dinner at Ruby Tuesday’s. More oogling and cooing at The Cutest Girl Ever, who obliged by fluttering her super long eyelashes and using her Cuteness Powers to coerce her hair to form little ringlets right over her forehead which compels people to stop and go, “awwwww, she’s so adorable!” Thank goodness that so far she has not used her powers for evil.

Evening came and fire was made (I! HAVE MADE! FIRE!!!!!) steak grilled and consumed and all in all I wasn’t dreading going back to work today like I usually do the night before the weekend is over. It’s been a good weekend. I’ve been happy. James and I have been married now for 7 years, and as we discussed yesterday, have probably loved each other for 10 years. Probably, because we were trying to remember the first time we said we loved each other. We remember the event, but not the actual date, thus, the “probably” ten years 🙂 If not ten, then pretty close.

Boy, I am getting old. Old in that, “Gee, we’re not in our early twenties, just out of college and partying and irresponsible and yet somehow mature enough to be labeled ‘adults’ anymore, we really ARE living our lives and ARE responsible for whole other human beings and have a mortgage and stable jobs and haven’t been to a loud rock concert in YEARS'” sort of old. I’m sure that when we hit 15, and 20 years of loving each other (knock on wood) there will be brand new definitions of “old” to go by.

So how was your memorial day weekend? I hope it was nice and relaxing.

-amy will learn how to keep this short and sweet someday

Hi.

How are you?

Good? Good, good.

Me? Oh, I’ve been better.

—–

Why is it I always seem to answer these sorts of things like this? My friend Selena was walking her dog while I was out watering my wee newly planted flowers, and that is pretty much how the pleasantries went, and she kind of eyed me and then I realized that I ALWAYS seem to answer this way.

Something for the therapist couch I guess. Oh wait. I don’t have a therapists couch. That means it’s something for the blog, which is HERE! Hee hee!

Project skinny took a dive the last two days. Partly due to time, but mostly because I got all cocky. Monday was a disaster of an eating day that I really am embarassed to even tell you about. I kept thinking, “It’ll be ok because I’ll have a salad for dinner.” But then when dinner time rolled around, I was driving to get a bed for my daughter, and so it became fast food. And did I choose the grilled chicken sandwich w/ no mayo that virtually every fast food place has and is actually not too bad for you? No, I got the gordita combo at taco bell, 2 gorditas and a taco. Plus, more diet coke.? My blood was running with caffeine on Monday.

Tuesday was no better. Stayed at home because a handyman was coming to fix our bird-in-the-dryer problem, and when I’m at home, I never eat good. It’s just all too accessible!

Wednesday wasn’t actually too bad. Went to California Tortilla for lunch, and while I love them with every fiber of my being, eating a burrito there is basically a zillion points, but breakfast was good, and I was still pretty full at dinner time so only had a wee bit, so I think it was ok.

BTW, yesterday was FREE POP TART DAY! at California Tortilla. I hope you got yours! I got mine! And had a taste before James confiscated it. Sniff. Please click on that link. And scroll down for the cartoon at the bottom. It is funny.
Back to project skinny. Do you sense what I’m not telling you? Yes, I haven’t been keeping track, except in my head. Big no no.

So today, it’s down to business. I’m happy to say that yesterday I at least drank (what felt like) my own body weight in water, so I had that going for me. I think the stress of last week caught up to me, because my body is sending me that taunting “you’re going to get siiiiii-iiiiiiick!” feeling and it doesn’t feel like the kind I can head off at the pass with lots of water and turning in early tonight.
The week was shaping up fairly stress free until Tuesday afternoon came and with it, a call from Ethan’s school. A call about his unacceptable behaviour, and how he was sent to the office. A call where I could hear him in the? background, grunting loudly, shouting, “LEAVE ME ALONE!” and “I HATE YOU!” and other non acceptable things.

Nothing can turn a good mood into a crappy mood and fairly stressed out mood like that sort of phone call.

Wednesday was much better, but James and I both were edgy and worried all day long. And now, I have got that scratchy throat feeling and my ears feel weird when I pull on them (don’t ask why I was pulling on them, I can’t remember).

OK, that’s enough. My goal for next month (i’m starting early) is to not: Not write for days at a time, and then write enough words to blind someone trying to read it in one sitting. Not good, Amy, not fun. We want our readers to keep their sight.

So on that note, before this gets obscenely long (blink),

GOOD BYE!

While my folks and my brother were in town, we managed to go into DC and see some sights. My favorite, which I’ve seen many many times, and always see again when I go into DC for siteseeing, is James McNeil Whistler’s The Peacock Room.

I think the history of the room is why I like it so much.

Whistler’s patron, Leyland, was redecorating his dining room, mainly he wanted more shelving on which to display his porcelain collection. Whistler’s painting, “The Princess from the Land of Porcelain” was hung over the fireplace, and the designer consulted the painter about whether a certain color on the walls would clash with the painting. Whistler asked permissiong to retouch the walls, which Leyland agreed to.

Then Leyland went out of town, and in his absense, the creative spirit overtook Whistler, and he really went to town on the room, making all sorts of changes and embellishments, like putting gold leaf on the ceiling and painting the shutters over the windows with beautiful plumed peacocks.

Well, he told Leyland about the changes and added that it wasn’t done yet, and not to come back home until it was finished – all the while he brought his friends and even the press through the room to show it off. Leyland was kind of miffed, because he had only agreed on the minor changes and wasn’t prepared for the additional cost of these embellishments, which he hadn’t even signed off on. When it came time to pay for the painter’s work, Leyland voiced his displeasure, and finally agreed to pay for HALF the total Whistler wanted for payment, and then to add insult to injury, he paid him in pounds, instead of guineas. A pound is worth 20 shillings, and is considered the a tradesman’s currency, while payment to artists is usually made in guineas, which is worth 21 shillings.

Obviously, Whistler was upset and insulted by the quibbling over money for his fabulous work of art, and so he took the liberty of adding even more embellishments to the room. A large mural was painted on the wall opposite The Princess, and he depicted two peacocks in a fighting stance. One of the peacocks had feathers sticking out along it’s neck, which points him out as representing Leyland, and the ruffled shirts he always wore. He is in a position of dominance over the other peacock, and has coins scattered at his feet, showing the money that Leyland did not want to pay. The other peacock had a feather sticking up from his head, which was similar to a lock of Whistler’s hair (cowlick maybe?).

(The only photo that actually looks in focus! Wowee!)

He also made other changes to the room, taking the valuable leather hangings and painting them a brillian prussian blue, which I suppose could be considered ruining them. The sad part is that the painter never saw his room again, after he finished.

The room was bought and passed through several hands before it came to Charles Lang Freer, who left it to the Smithsonian upon his death. I beleive it had to go through some major rennovation at this point, as it had been taken apart and put together so many times.

It makes me happy to go sit in the Peacock room and look around, it is so beautiful. But it also makes me sad. Obviously, it is good that it is in a museum so that so many can look at it and enjoy it, but it still saddens me. I wonder about the parties that Leyland must have thrown in the room when it was in his house, and the comments that must have been made about it’s ornate embellishments. I wish I could see it back then, with the shutters thrown open and sunlight flooding in, the door to the kitchen opening and closing with servants bustling food and plates in and out. What would the colors look like with the daylight shining in? In the musuem, it is very dark, obviously the low light protects the room, but I just wish I could see how it would be, functioning as a normal room, with people sitting down to dinner, or milling around with a cocktail in one hand. Leyland telling the story about the room, and what his guests must have thought of it all. I can’t help thinking that Leyland probably got a good deal of enjoyment out of telling the story, since he kept it just as it was for twelve years (until he died). I wonder if years later, after the sting had left the situation, if he was sorry he hadn’t paid Whistler the full price asked. I bet he got his money’s worth out of the story alone.

Now that I’ve told you the story as I remember it, I found a link that has the official story – be sure to read it, as I have omitted some of the details (glad to see I got a good bit of it right, though 🙂 ) Also, their pictures are much better than my fuzzy-low-light ones. And I hope next time you’re in DC, stop by the Freer Gallery and have a peek into the Peacock room. I always do 🙂