birthday

My birthday is next month. Approximately nineteen shopping days left til I turn the big 3-4. As much as this number is kinda freaking me out, I am really looking forward to the day itself. Jonathan's parents will be here (they arrive on Valentine's Day and are staying for two weeks) so we may be able to sneak off for dinner and a movie. And I am just craving alone-time with my Boy.

I am going to make my own birthday cake this year. I want to try a Tres Leches cake. I have never had one, but I keep finding myself reading recipes for them online and drooling all over the keyboard. Here are some pictures:


Anyway. I need to make it a couple of days in advance and let it soak in the fridge. God, how delicious does that sound? I'm drooling again...

I am missing my friends very badly. Last year, Olivia and Katherine arranged an awesome surprise day for me. They showed up and blindfolded me and brought me to an adorable, pink teahouse downtown where the DWAFS were waiting, en masse, to sup with us. Did I blog about this last year? And about the outrageous hats we all wore? Well, here are some pictures of that as well:

I have the best friends ever!

chinese new year!

Blue got to be the Special Helper at school. They are celebrating Chinese New Year this week.


They had a parade and made paper lanterns and dragons. But the funniest bit? They pretended to run a Chinese restaurant! She came home all excited about it. It was very hard for me not to laugh. Last week they played Dinosaur Dig and the week before that, they ran a laundromat. She is really loving her new school. And the more she gushes to the Lion about school, the more interested he is getting. So he may be ready this fall. We'll see.

slip sliding away

I am fighting off a cold, I think. Drinking lots of Emergen-C and trying to sleep a lot. And watching lots of Rod Blagojevich on the news. Oh, how I wish that man would just go quietly into the dark night. Go away, Governor Bladdy-Blah. Just. Go. Away. I am so tired of your droning voice and your big fluffy eighties hair.

I fell down the stairs again. That's twice in three weeks. Possibly two of maybe three times in my life of falling down the stairs. So my back and my forearms have big ugly bruises on them and I am afraid people will think my husband (my husband who won't even kill a spider, who will instead round it up and carry it outside) is abusing me. Because I am so black and blue. And because who falls down the stairs twice in one month, for God's sake?

I was actually looking up symptoms of MS the other night. Jonathan, although much used to my imagining myself to be fatally ill, was laughing at me. I know it's silly. But seriously, people, why do I keep falling down? And why do symptoms of such serious diseases like MS have to be so vague? I think I have every symptom.

The next morning, I slipped and fell in the shower. I wish I were making this up. So now I have a bruise across my butt, too. Lovely.





Jonathan wonders if it is from all this working out. Although I didn't go this week since I think I have a cold and just want to curl up in a ball and pull the covers over my head. But he wonders if I am a bit sore and therefore moving differently. Which is most likely it. That and the new pergo flooring on our stairs. And the fact that showers can be slippery places. sigh

But I haven't felt like blogging lately. I am mostly reading everyone else's blogs and thinking how much more interesting their lives are than mine.

Bust magazine

My latest issue arrived today. My lovely husband is flipping angrily through it on the other couch while I surf my favorite blogs. He is pissed. But he makes a good point.

There is an article on one of the first pages about the horrible, sexist superbowl commercials full of scantily-clad women and how you can judge the commercials for yourself during the game next month and whom you can file a complaint with if you are offended... "I am flipping through this magazine, and it is just full of scantily clad women!" he complained. "I mean, what's the difference?"

"If women show pictures of other scantily clad women, it's okay," I told him, "but when men do it, it is objectifying women. Or something."

"Oh, please!" he snapped. "That doesn't make any sense... It's okay for women to do it..." Then he muttered, still flipping through the pages, "If I have to look at one more vagina..."

doors and entries

No, I have not been too busy playing pool to sit down and blog. I have been too busy painting the kids' bathroom. I know, I know. Post pictures. And I will, I will. Once a room is actually finished. Which may never happen, but that is part of the incentive for me to finish a room. Because everywhere I look, I see projects (mostly involving a paintbrush) that need to be finished.

I am almost finished with the bathroom. But the door and doortrim need several coats of white paint to cover the dark brown wood. Which is such boring work and will go completely unnoticed by anyone in the bathroom, I am sure. I mean, when is the last time someone complimented someone on their nicely painted white trim or white doors?

This house has a billion doors. And they are all dark brown. Except for two or three of them that are various shades of white, from various coats of primer that I have been laboriously applying. sigh

Good news on the homefront. Blue has been accepted to the elementary school of our choice. So next week I take her to officially register her and she will begin kindergarten there in the fall. I cannot believe she will be starting elementary school next year. I cannot believe we got her into the school. In Virginia, you go to school where you are told. Right? But in Colorado, you can choose to send your child wherever you want, if they have space. So this school we chose is about 10 blocks away but somehow in a different school district. But, whatever, she's in. And I am so excited!

And sort-of blue. I miss my family and friends so much. And as if buying Glenbogle house were not permanent enough, I am enrolling Blue in a school here. My children will go to school here. We really are here to stay.

I'm a player

Jonathan and I bought a pooltable today! It was a really good deal and we have always wanted one. We have talked about getting one and putting it in every basement we've had. I think no one believed us anymore.

So we saw one for a really great deal on craigslist and we have this big empty space off our family room so... Perfect solution. Now we have a gorgeous pooltable behind our couch in the big empty space and Jonny and I played pool all day. And night. And I am really bad at it, but it is so much fun! And I think that Boston may be the best pool-playing music ever.

making friends

Jonathan picked Blue up from preschool on her first day. He said that when the teacher said, "Blue, your Daddy's here!" a little girl called out, "Blue! Will you be my friend?!"

She also had her first ballet class in our new town the other night. There were only two other girls in the class. On the way home Blue said to me, "You know who my best friend is?" "Who is your best friend?" I asked. "Um, the girl in the purple," she told me. "I don't know her name." Which made me wonder what was wrong with the poor little girl wearing pink.

So Blue is going to be alright. She will make friends. And hopefully she will stop mentioning her best friend from last year, Adrianna:


And I am possibly making friends, too. I have been talking to the other ladies in my bodypump class, who all seem very nice, and one of them even loves period English movies! (Not a prerequisite for my friends, but it sure is a common denominator.) And my new frind, Shannon, has invited me to join a knitting group she is starting. So I am keeping my fingers crossed.

There was a quote by A. A. Milne in Blue's preschool newsletter and it keeps running through my mind:

You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.

good mommy

I finally enrolled Blue in a preschool in Colorado. She was wait-listed back in Aurora, and of course just after we gave our notice at the apartment we received the call that Blue was next on the list to be enrolled. Um, yeah, thanks but no thanks. We're blowing this popsicle stand.

So my new neighbor recommended the preschool where she just enrolled her little boy and the kids and I went today to check it out. And I was like can she start tomorrow? It was that amazing. It's a little far, about a half hour away, but so, soooooo adorable. It has been run by the same family for almost 50 years and they have all these farm animals out back. Blue was very polite, answering the director when questioned and quietly checking everything out. She was thrilled to hear the kids say the Pledge of Allegiance. She cannot wait to bust out her ladybug backpack tomorrow.

The Lion was a bit clingy and did not answer anyone when questioned. The receptionist, trying to be friendly, asked him his name. He buried his face in my crotch. She tried again, asking (since he was holding Thomas the Train and wearing a Thomas the Train t-shirt) "Is your name Thomas?" and he said, "No. Nothing." Nice. I know he is still very young but I can't help wondering if we will have some separation issues with him when he enters preschool next year...

Blue also starts ballet this afternoon.

And I am looking into getting them both into swim lessons. Blue really enjoyed her swim lessons in Aurora and I don't want to wait too long and have her forget all the little skills she had learned. Even though she still practices them all in the bathtub. But finding swim lessons in Colorado in the winter has not been easy. So I am thinking of just re-enrolling her in the swim school she went to in Aurora and just driving the half hour to get there.

I've fallen and I can't get up

I went to the bodypump class. And it was pretty neat. It's not the same as the bodypump class I went to back home, more like circuit training. Alternating weightlifting and cardio. Whatever. I appreciate the fact that I left class and was still able to walk. I felt broken after the traditional bodypump class in Virginia.

That was Wednesday. Friday I went back for a second class and the instructor likes to shake things up a bit, I was told. We spent the entire class doing like a cardio/weightlifting bootcamp type situation. It was grueling. But I made it! And I was very proud of myself. I did have to modify some of the harder exercizes because of my weak knees. But I completed the class and thought, I can do this. And I will get in shape.

Fast forward to Saturday evening. Saturday evening I slipped walking down the stairs into the family room. And fell down the stairs in a most ungraceful fashion. And hurt my right knee. I mean, it sounds like popping bubblewrap every time I bend or straighten it. So not only do I feel like a complete klutz falling down the stairs, but now I missed class today and I am not sure how to proceed from here. And I feel like the instructor will think, Ohhhh, you hurt your knee ... what was it ... falling down the stairs? I mean, this guy has probably heard every excuse in the book. So I'm feeling very stupid and uncoordinated. And wondering how badly I have hurt my knee and how long it will take til I can work out again.

Idiot!

I don't know if you've noticed this but I am feeling my age right now. I mean, I am turning 34 next month -- I know, I know, 34 is not old, but in my head I am now officially, officially not a pert young thing anymore. That era, if I was ever even in it, is over. Over. So I am trying to finally get into shape and use moisturizer and take better care of my teeth. And now this happens. I am only surprized I didn't break a hip. Oh don't mind me, people. It's probably just premenopause.