girlysmack

MaMa

2011-10-06T14:41:00.000-04:00

Ben said it just now. Intentionally. Standing in his playroom, calling for me to come pick him up.

I can feel my whole being wrapping itself around his fat little finger right now.

The Poem Returning as an Invisible Wren to the World

2011-09-21T00:00:00.000-04:00

Once, there was a poem. No one read it & the poem
Grew wise. It grew wise & then it grew thin,
No one could see it perched on the woman's
Small shoulders as she went on working beside

The gray conveyer belt with the others.
No one saw the poem take the shape of a wren,
A wren you could look through like a window,
And see all the bitterness of the world

In the long line of shoulders & faces bending
Over the gleaming, machined parts that passed
Before them, the faces transformed by the grace
And ferocity of a wren, a wren you could look

Through, like a lens, to see them working there.
This is not about how she threw herself into the river,
For she didn't, nor is it about the way her breasts
Looked in moonlight, nor about moonlight at all.

This is about the surviving curve of the bridge
Where she listened to the river whispering to her,
When the wren flew off & left her there,
With the knowledge of it singing in her blood.

By which the wind avenges. By which the rain avenges.
By which even the limb of a dead tree leaning
Above the white, swirling mouth of an eddy
In the river that once ran beside the factory window

Where she once worked, shall be remembered
When the dead come back, & take their places
Beside her on the line, & the gray conveyor belt
Starts up with its raspy hum again. Like a heaven's.

Larry Levis

six things

2011-09-20T22:00:00.000-04:00

...about my decision to start blogging again

1. I stopped blogging because, honestly, life got so crazy I didn't feel like I had time to sit down and write!
2. I even stopped reading blogs altogether.
3. I feel very torn about blogging, to tell the truth.
4. I want to maintain a sense of privacy for my children - not just for their physical safety, but because of a moral obligation I have as their mother.
5. That said, I do want to record some of our journey to becoming a family of five and some sweet little anecdotes so that I always remember the details.
6. Ultimately, I decided I need to blog because I miss writing.

coming soon

2011-09-20T08:57:00.001-04:00

first birthday

2011-04-13T08:59:00.002-04:00

Today is your birthday. Wherever you are. I hope you are healthy and happy and being cuddled a lot today.

I stood in the doorway of your room last night. Your crib is set up. Empty. There are half-filled cardboard boxes on the floor and some of Jack's toys scattered around. He likes to play in there.

It is so unreal to me that you are alive. That you are out there somewhere breathing, sleeping, swallowing, crying. I cannot wait to feel the weight of you in my arms.

I know today is not about me. It is your day. But you are not here and all I can think about is how unreal this feels. How angry and upset I am that you are still not here. That I am missing this so important day with you.

You have a life over there. Without any of us in it. We are as remote to you as the moon or the stars. To you we do not exist.

This is a huge concept for me. I struggle with it. You are not mine. Your world does not include me. This reminds me that Sadie and Jack are not technically mine, either. They have thoughts and feelings that exclude me, busy little lives of their own that will one day grow into humongously busy and important lives that will have less and less room for me.

I will be busy today. I have a long to-do list. But I will think about you all day. And I will think about the young woman who made the ultimate sacrifice one year ago today.

We will have some cake tonight after dinner. Make wishes for you and release balloons into the air. We told Sadie and Jack we are sending the balloons to you so you will know we are thinking about you even though you are not here.

Happy birthday, little man.

Japan

2011-03-16T09:02:00.002-04:00

There is nothing I can say about Japan that someone else hasn't already said. Much more eloquently than I could.

I just saw on msnbc that the official death toll is now 11,000. Eleven. Thousand. I cannot wrap my head around it. Eleven thousand people who were here last week are not.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the survivors. And especially to those brave individuals working at the nuclear power plants. God bless you.

my birthday

2011-03-15T02:01:00.000-04:00

So I am a little behind on blogging. My birthday was last month. I turned 36, in case you are wondering. Feeling very old, but I'll get into that some other time. Old, but happy. For now, pictures!

My birthday was the Friday before Jack's birthday, so I brought Spider-Man cupcakes to his preschool. They were red velvet cupcakes. They turned all of the kids' teeth purple.

Since it was my birthday, Miss Heather whipped out their cardboard birthday cake and the kids sang "Happy Birthday" to me. It was very cute. Then we all sang to Jack. And ate Spider-Man cupcakes.

That night we went to dinner at the Wazee Supper Club in Denver and had my favorite pizza. Jonathan's sister, Mary, and his mom were visiting, and I think Susan and I got a little tipsy over a pitcher of beer. She'll deny it, but I was there. I saw her rosy cheeks. I'm just telling it like it was.

Jonathan made me a tres leches cake. Here he is topping it with fresh raspberries:

Here's Jack admiring the raspberries:

And then, possibly my favorite part of the day. Sitting with Jonathan, sipping coffee, painfully full of delicious pizza and cake, feeling utterly happy and loved:

That was my birthday. I had a great day. So far, 36 is feeling pretty good!

visitors

2011-03-14T21:55:00.004-04:00

Jonathan's mom (aka Susan) (aka Grammy) was here for two weeks.

We had a lovely visit with her. She got to volunteer at Jack's preschool several times. She went to Sadie's Valentine's Day party and had lunch with her at school one day.

She was here for my birthday and Jack's birthday and even got to be here when one of Sadie's teeth fell out! It is very hard being so far away from our family. I have lots of guilt over our decision to move here and take the children so far away from everyone. Visits like that help.

My mom comes out next. She'll be here next weekend. I can't wait to see her!

babies

2011-03-13T23:55:00.002-04:00

I have been busy this weekend. Painting and cleaning and organizing. Maybe it is Spring cleaning. Maybe I am nesting. Little dude should be coming home in a few months now. We are getting his room ready and the rest of the house as well.

I went shopping while Susan was here and put together a little package to go over for his birthday. In exactly one month he will be one year old. It kills me that we won't be with him, giving him a taste of birthday cake, singing "Happy Birthday" and taking tons of pictures. I know he is being very well cared for by his foster mother, but it is still hard to wait. We sent him a birthday card, a little toy giraffe and a shirt that says "Little Brother" on it.

We still haven't chosen a name yet. There is one we both like and we are testing it out, saying it out loud, trying to decide if it is the one. We study his picture and try to see if the name suits him.

He is such a serious little guy. But we were watching old videos recently, and Sadie was a very serious baby, too. I had forgotten that. She rarely smiled and only Jonathan could make her laugh out loud. She didn't want to be held much. She would squirm and try to get out of your arms. And she hated having her hands held! I do remember that! Little old ladies would try to touch her little hands and she would pull them away. She has always been so independent! I wonder what his personality will be like...

A friend of ours had her baby this week. A little baby boy named Davis. Davis has a congenital heart defect. He is doing really well, but it is still such a scary situation. I told Jack the baby was born and he said, "Well, I guess we can stop praying now!" like he was sick and tired of praying or something! But I told him the baby still needs lots of prayers. If you are reading this, could you spare a few prayers for Davis and his parents? They started a blog. Here's the link: Davis' Journey.

Grammies!

2011-02-13T22:25:00.005-05:00

I just turned on the Grammys and 2 seconds later, the Avett brothers began performing! Yum.

I decided to watch the Grammys this year. I don't usually care about them at all, being more of an Academy Awards girl really, but I heard on the radio that Michael Buble is up for a Grammy for "Haven't Met You Yet." And that song makes me cry every single time I hear it. Makes me think of our little dude over in Korea. So I am watching on the off chance he performs the song and I can have a good cry.

I picture little dude when he is a teenager rolling his eyes in disgust because Michael Buble is so lame. And I will further embarrass him by telling him I loved him before I even met him...

Valentine's Day Cookies

2011-02-13T15:34:00.004-05:00

I should be cleaning the house. Jonathan's mom is coming to visit for two weeks and she is flying in tonight. So I should be cleaning the house, right?

Instead I have been decorating cookies. I made 24 sugar cookie hearts for Jack's (first!) class Valentine's party tomorrow. His class is going to decorate them during the party. Then I made 24 more sugar cookie hearts for Sadie's class Valentine's party tomorrow. Aren't they cute?

But now the kitchen is a mess.

sopapilla cheesecake

2011-02-05T11:39:00.006-05:00

One of Jonathan's coworkers makes this all the time and it is just so damn delicious. I am going to bring it to the Superbowl party this weekend, because I have been craving some in a big way and that way I get to eat a little bit of it and share the rest and not eat the entire flippin' thing all by myself. Smart, no?

Anyway, go buy some crescent rolls and some cream cheese and whip up a batch for yourself.

You can thank me later.

2 (8 ounce) packages refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup margarine or butter, melted
1/2 cup cinnamon sugar

Unroll one package of crescent rolls and flatten to cover the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch pan.
Mix together the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla and spread over the crescent rolls.
Unroll the other can of crescent rolls and spread over the cream cheese mixture.
Pour melted butter over the top and sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

no, not quite...

2011-02-05T02:00:00.000-05:00

I was getting my hair cut at Floyd's recently and I told the chick cutting my hair about the adoption. "We are adopting a baby boy from South Korea," I told her.

"Ohmygod!" she cried. "How cute! You're going to have a little Chinese baby!"

I just grinned at her and didn't say anything. Hilarious. I mean, what could I say?!

But it makes me wonder if Little Dude will go through life with people assuming he is Chinese. I asked a girl in my Psych class about it this week. She is from Laos and the professor asked her, "Are you Chinese? Korean? Well, do you celebrate Chinese New Year?"

I asked her about that a little later and she said, "Oh, yeah. Your son will definitely get that a lot. People always assume I am Chinese."

Something to think about. I have never had people assume I am anything. Except maybe Canadian. But that is because I talk a little funny, I think...

Settling in

2011-02-04T22:02:00.004-05:00

I know we have lived in Colorado for over two years now, but right now, at this moment in time, I am really feeling settled here. This weekend I am going to a baby shower and then Sunday Jonathan and I got invited to a Super Bowl party! :) So I feel like we are really starting to make friends.

The Spring semester started last week. I am taking two classes again, but one of them is only one credit, and they are both meet only once a week, so I suddenly feel like I have so much time on my hands. Although it is a little difficult to stay focused when so much time goes by between classes... Maybe I will find time to blog again, though.

I am hearing a lot of banging and cackling upstairs so even though it is way past bedtime, I just don't have the heart to put an end to all of the fun!

Jack seems to be settling in, too. He is doing much better at preschool. It really surprised Jonathan and I how shy and reserved Jack is at school. He is such a goofball around us. But he is getting used to the routine more and more, and there is one teacher in particular, Miss Brooke, who he just loves. It is getting easier and easier to drop him off at preschool because I know he is actually enjoying himself.

Sadie told me the other night she has a boyfriend. His name is Carter and they love each other. And then Carter told the whole class, even though Sadie told him not to tell anybody. Then, last night when I was tucking her into bed, she told me that she cannot be Carter's girlfriend anymore.

"Why not?" I asked her, thinking That was fast! "Does he not love you anymore?"

"He still loves me and I still love him, but Shelby loved him first, and if she knew about us she would be mad, so that's why I cannot be Carter's girlfriend anymore."

I have no idea what I said because I was trying so hard not to burst out laughing. Who knew first grade was so much like an episode of Jersey Shore?

cough, cough

2011-01-03T12:36:00.003-05:00

Jack is sick.

I know this blog seems like a major downer since I started blogging again. And I am sorry about that. Because we have definitely had our share of good times and laughter. And I am not depressed. But the truth is, Jack is sick. Just keeping it real.

It has been crazy, unseasonably warm in Colorado this winter. More like one long autumn rather than a true winter. Which has been awesome for Jack. He has asthma that gets aggravated every winter. It is breathing in the cold air that irritates his airway. And then the coughing begins. The coughing, the sleepless nights, the blue lips that scare the shit out of me. All that.

Well, like I said, it has been warm this year. So no cough! And I have been crossing my fingers and holding my breath and feeling so very, very relieved. Until yesterday.

This past week it got cold. Like ridiculously cold. It finally snowed! We got excited and then on New Year's Eve we took the kids sledding in City Park. It was fun, but it was so cold. I worried, like an obnoxious stick-in-the-mud mother. I only went down the hill once myself, because my own cough was finally getting better and I didn't want the trek up the hill, breathing in all that cold air, to bring my cough back. And I worried about Jack. About all that cold air bringing on his cough.

I was proud of my little man, though. He went sledding (really sledding) for the very first time! And he loved it! So that was a big deal, and Jonathan and I were very annoyed with ourselves for not bringing the camera.

But yesterday the coughing began. And Jack lost his voice. He basically camped out on the couch all day, watching Billy the Exterminator and telling me, in his little barely-there voice, that his throat hurt. And that alligators sometimes have up to 60 teeth.

So we gave him some medicine and Jonathan got the humidifier all set up in Jack's room last night. And if he does not drastically improve by tomorrow, it looks like we will be heading to the doctor.

being thankful

2011-01-01T19:27:00.002-05:00

I am looking forward to 2011. If all goes according to plan, we will welcome our little man home this summer! And also, I am supposed to finally start nursing school full time this fall. That will depend on when little man arrives, so we'll see. And then also this spring, Andy and Teresa will make their rescheduled visit to Colorado.

So. I have many things to look forward to. And so many things to be thankful for. Before I make any resolutions, any promises for the future, I want to reflect on the things in my life that are just perfect. Like my husband. My children. My family back home. The weather and scenery of Colorado. Having a warm home and enough food. Being healthy. Knock on wood, right?

We took the kids to the Wazee Supper Club for some pizza last night. It was so bitterly cold. And on the way to the restaurant, as the kids and I raced to get inside the warmth and yummy smells, we passed a homeless man. It breaks your heart. Literally hurts to see a person who has so little he can carry it in a shopping bag. To feel the freezing cold wind on your face and know that you are about to be warm and well-fed while someone right next to you isn't so lucky.

Peaceful, Cozy and Perfect

2010-12-23T10:17:00.004-05:00

I have about a billion things to do. So of course I decided I would rather sit down and try to blog than do any of those things.

I feel woefully out of practice. For example, I forgot how to log in to Blogger. Pathetic, when you consider there is like one step involved, but there you have it.

This is going to be a rather quiet Christmas this year in Glenbogle House. Andy and Teresa were supposed to visit us with their children but had to cancel at the last minute due to the snow in Europe. Ironic. We have gotten about half an inch of snow so far this year. The lowest amount ever recorded in Colorado.

Jonathan is just devastated. I am really blue, too, but also wondering what on earth this Christmas will be like. This will be our first Christmas ever -- since we got together, that is -- with just us. So I want it to be very peaceful and cozy and perfect. Which means I am not feeling well. Of course. Sigh. So much for a "perfect" holiday.

I am trying to soldier on and prepare for the holiday and get the house tidy and take care of the "cozy" part of my list. But I am coughing into my shoulder every two minutes which pretty much negates the whole "peaceful" part of my plan. What is that saying about the best laid plans?

Just typing this makes me feel like I need to get up and go do something. So, peace out. And Merry Christmas!

crescent moon sprint triathlon

2010-09-19T08:06:00.002-04:00

Just a quick shout out to my fierce husband who is competing in his second triathlon sprint today! I am so nervous and proud and excited!

My stomache is in knots. He signed up for this one a few months ago but has really been so insanely busy that his training has been ... Compromised? Sporadic? A few bike rides and some jogging?

Sigh.

The man is determined, people. That's for sure. He says he will cross that finish line no matter what.

I am so proud of him. I think he is insane. But I am so proud of him.

tick tock

2010-09-10T18:16:00.004-04:00

Sigh. So I have not blogged in a long time. A very very long time. I have been busy, yes, but mostly I have been battling an epic case of homesickness. And have just been blue and not in a sharing mood. That is all.

But I am staying busy. This semester I am taking two evening classes, Algebra and Pathophysiology, and I am really enjoying both of them. (Yes, even the Algebra!) But it is rough, being in school four nights a week...

We are still number four on the list to adopt. I hate waiting.

And the kids have grown up practically overnight. Jack is in preschool now. And he told me he likes it "a little bit."

Sadie turned six a few weeks ago and is in first grade.

She is gorgeous, high-spirited, loving school and she told me the other night that I am lame. I feel like I am grasping onto their childhood with both sweaty hands and it is just slipping away from me...

aspen grove

2010-07-06T13:15:00.003-04:00

I was lying in bed reading a good book yesterday when I suddenly got the itch to paint a mural on the wall behind the bed. I went downstairs and asked Jonathan, very sweetly, to help me move our bed.

"Uh-oh," he said, getting up to come help. "What's going on?"

He is such a good sport! He moved the bed and then he took the kids on a long bikeride and then to the park while I listened to The Beach Boys and slapped some paint on the wall.

I love it! It's not terribly original. Many similar murals and decals of birch trees have been featured on design*sponge and Apartment Therapy, but I like it anyway. There are so many aspens out here. It seems very "Colorado" to me to have a grove of them on my wall...

I had planned to do more detail, paint "notches" and such on the trunks using the wall color to represent the bark, but I liked it as it is, more simple and graphic, so I made myself stop.

Jonathan loves it. (Thank goodness!) Now I just need to find some new bedding and lamps. Jonathan says "What's wrong with the lamps?" but I have never liked them. It's just that lamps cost money. At least this mural was free!

star studded blueberry pie

2010-07-06T13:07:00.004-04:00

I made this pie for the fourth of July. I got the recipe from Family Fun magazine. It turned out so delicious! I like that you could really taste the lemon--maybe I went a little overboard with the lemon, but that's because I love lemon! I will definitely make this again. I cheated and bought premade, refrigerated pie crusts. Much easier. Anyway, didn't it turn out cute?

Star Studded Blueberry Pie

6 cups blueberries
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 unbaked piecrust (recipe below) plus extra dough

CRUST:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
4 or 5 tablespoons cold milk
Extra flour, as needed, for rolling the dough

Instructions

For the crust: Place the flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Cut the butter into slices with a dinner knife and scatter the pieces on top of the flour.
Pulse the flour and butter until they are combined and the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Add the milk a tablespoon at a time, pulsing after each addition, until the dough sticks to itself when gently squeezed.
Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface. Use your hands to shape it into two balls, one twice as large as the other. Using extra flour as needed to prevent sticking, roll the larger ball to fit a 9- or 10-inch pie pan. Wrap the smaller piece of dough tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until ready to use. Makes a 9- or 10-inch piecrust, plus extra for a decorative top crust.
Creating the filling and assembling the pie: Heat the oven to 375º F. Place the blueberries in a large bowl, and sprinkle with the lemon zest, lemon juice, flour, and sugar. Toss gently until the berries are evenly coated.
Line a 9- or 10-inch pie pan with the rolled piecrust dough and crimp the edges. Pour the filling into the crust. Let your kids cut the extra dough into shapes with cookie cutters. Lay the shapes, touching one another, on top of the filling. Press any pieces that meet the sides of the crust into the edges.
Place the pie pan on a foil-lined tray (to catch any spills) and bake in the lower third of the oven for 45 minutes or until the filling is bubbly around the edges and the crust is lightly browned. Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature. Serves 8.

Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield

2010-07-02T19:13:00.005-04:00

too darn hot

2010-07-02T19:09:00.003-04:00

It is so hot out -- and in. We have no air-conditioning. It is bearable, but only just bearable. So tonight, rather than heating up our house even more than it already is, I think we'll have a cold dinner. I am going to make up a chopped caprese salad for dinner using some of the basil from our garden. And I bought some gorgeous bread and bruschetta at Target.

I cannot wait until Jonathan gets home from work, so we can all sit out on the patio and eat dinner! I filled the kids' baby pool and it is out on the patio, too, so they can splash around in there after we eat.

The Summer Day

2010-07-01T13:54:00.003-04:00

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

searching for a better way

2010-06-30T14:23:00.004-04:00

I have been reading this blog this morning, Plastic Manners, and it is very inspiring. It's about this girl who is trying to live plastic-free. And it is just insane how much plastic we use on a daily basis when you really sit down and think about it.

I already have been trying, a little, to live a greener life. (I picture Jonathan snickering at that statement!) But we recycle everything we can and try to use less electricity. We are growing some of our own vegetables and herbs and I want to can some of our little harvest. But there is just so much more to do. I want our family to eat better, use less energy, reduce our waste, compost... It is a bit overwhelming. Okay, a lot overwhelming!

But, for now, I have put links to some of the blogs I found under the "lives less ordinary" heading and hopefully these will inspire me to try harder.

father's day camping trip

2010-06-26T15:23:00.009-04:00

For Father's Day we went camping in Rocky Mountain National Park.

our campsite

We went for a hike on Cub Lake Trail. It was gorgeous.

But unfortunately it was dusk and even with bug spray on, the mosquitoes were as bad as back in Virginia so we eventually turned back. We saw a bull elk on the way back, though. It was very close to us and it lifted his huge head and just stared at us. It was a bit eerie...

I have to admit, it was not as perfect as our camping trip last year. Jack was a little moody. That made all of us a little moody...

Wait! Is that a smile?!

And he woke up at around 4 am because he had gotten out of his sleeping bag. I think he said he got out of it because he was hot. But whatever the reason, Jack woke us all up screaming and crying because he was cold. He was sitting in the corner of the tent over by our duffel bags (perhaps planning to grab more clothes?) and wouldn't get back into his sleeping bag. Or let me put him in his sleeping bag. Or touch him. Or look at him. He just screamed and cried. I thought Jonathan was going to implode.

I finally got him to be quiet and get back into his sleeping bag. I fell immediately back asleep, but Jonathan was wide awake so he just stayed up until the rest of us got up. Not a very fun time.

Jack was pretty crabby in the car on the way home, too. And Jonathan and I decided to go a long way home. We wanted to drive Trail Ridge Road, since it is closed most of the year and had just opened up again for the summer.

the view from Trail Ridge Road

It was gorgeous, but Jack was such a pill! There was one point where our car was ridiculously high up on this windy road with no guard rail and Jack wouldn't stop yelling and I just looked at his angry little face and I was feeling extremely carsick and therefore clutching a lukewarm can of Coke in my hand and I just seriously wanted to pour my Coke all over him. Sigh. Not a great Mommy moment for me. I didn't, of course, and I am appalled that I even felt that way, but there you have it.

We saw this camera-shy moose on the way home by the side of the road! He is the first moose I have ever seen outside of a zoo.

Anyway. I hope Jonathan had a decent Father's Day. We all survived. And we are all still speaking to each other! We are camping again in August so we'll see how that goes...

wizard of oz

2010-06-14T00:03:00.002-04:00

I bought The Wizard of Oz today. It was a cold, rainy day so Jonathan and I curled up on the couch with the kids and watched the movie and ate some popcorn. I was afraid they might be scared by the tornado or the witch or the flying monkeys, but they were fine. I guess movies and television shows in general are just much scarier than that.

It was very surreal watching the movie with them. How many times in my life have I seen that movie? And now I have seen it with my children...

garden

2010-06-05T18:05:00.004-04:00

Jonathan and the kids are planting our vegetable garden! Last year we grew tomatoes, squash, zucchini, peppers, pumpkins, cilantro, mint and basil. We would have had strawberries, too, but the damn bunnies ate them all. There is an abundance of bunnies in Colorado. At first I thought they were cute. Now I just think they are pests.

This year the strawberries and the mint grew back. And we bought another pumpkin plant and more tomatoes and cilantro and a loooooot more basil. We eat a lot of tomatoes and basil. My grandfather would approve. Last year the kids would just pick the cherry tomatoes and eat them while they were playing in the back yard.

I would have liked to have gotten some lettuce, too, but, like I said, the damn bunnies...

brave new boy

2010-06-05T02:05:00.000-04:00

We left Colorado in May and headed to Disney World with a little boy. A little boy who hates being off of the ground. Who does not go on carousels or swings or down slides.

We left Disney World with a Jack who has grown up so much!

Here he is going down a slide:

Riding a carousel:

Going down a water slide:

If you look closely, you can see him riding his very first roller coaster:

It was an amazing week, watching him evolve. On the very first day in the Magic Kingdom, we walked into the park and saw a show at Cinderella's castle called "Dreams Come True." The witch from "Sleeping Beauty" appeared on stage and Jack freaked out. He grabbed my hand and dragged me away, crying and just seriously freaking out. I brought him over to some bushes so the witch couldn't see him. He told me later he thought she was going to turn into a dragon (like she does in the movie) and breathe fire on everyone.

That was the first day. And it was a huge reminder to all of us that Jack is only four and that we should not try to talk him into any ride or attraction that might be too scary for him.

But by the end of the week, Jack chose to try so many new things. And he loved them all.

This last picture sums up Jack's adventure in Disney World perfectly. Climbing, exploring on his own. Headed away from Mommy.

Disney World

2010-06-05T00:09:00.005-04:00

The Journey

2010-06-04T22:36:00.001-04:00

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver

number nine

2010-05-12T00:15:00.003-04:00

Jonathan and I drove with the kids up to the adoption agency today to drop off some paperwork. And the lady at the agency told us that we are now number nine on the list to be matched to a child. Nine! As in single digits. I am ... I don't even know what I am ... speechless, I guess.

Jonathan is handling this whole waiting period much more gracefully than I am. Which is funny, since he is usually the one who loves timelines and plans. I am a little more go-with-the-flow, I think. Maybe not. Because this whole up-in-the-air business of waiting is driving me crazy. It is starting to remind me a little of the days before I got pregnant with Sadie. Did I say days? Ha! More like months and months. And I became a crazy woman. I was just like this big, foaming, starving mouth attached to two empty arms over a hollow uterus. That is what I was, and it was not pretty. I am not near that desperate place. But this unknowing reminds me of the journey into that place and it sucks.

Jonathan says it will happen when it happens, it will happen when the time is right, God has a plan and all of the other absolutely right things he said to me then. But I still feel frustrated.

I hate waiting. But I know he will be worth the wait.

Sigh. Which reminds me of that freakin' Michael Buble song. "I Just Haven't Met You Yet." Every time it comes on the radio, I sing along at the top of my lungs and then I get a lump in my throat and I sound like a frog and I tear up. Especially when he sings the second verse, which is:

I might have to wait, I'll never give up
I guess it's half timing and the other half's luck
Wherever you are, whenever it's right
You'll come out of nowhere and into my life

And I know that we can be so amazing
And, baby, your life is gonna change me
And now I can see every possibility

And somehow I know that it'll all turn out
And you'll make me work so we can work to work it out
And I promise you, kid, to give so much more than I get
I just haven't met you yet

Gets me every time.

Mother's Day

2010-05-09T18:58:00.006-04:00

It is Mother's Day and I am having a lovely day. The kids (and Jonathan) made me French toast this morning for breakfast and gave me their cards. Two big events there: this was the first time Jack cracked eggs and he spelled his name all by himself in the card!

We went on a short hike in Golden Gate Canyon State Park with Mabel and tonight we are going to Cinzetti's for some delicious Italian food.

I am having the perfect Mother's Day. But I also cannot help wondering about Mother's Day next year... Will we have three children? Has our son been born already?

If you have been born already, little man, wherever you are, whoever you are, I am thinking of you today.

happy mother's day to me

2010-05-03T22:10:00.001-04:00

I just ordered this little print for myself from etsy:

jury duty

2010-04-26T21:18:00.002-04:00

Today I reported to the courthouse for my first ever jury summons! And I am on the jury. So I have to report to the courthouse every day this week. Which means I will miss some classes and Jonathan may miss a training day on Friday to stay home with the kids. Sorry this is so brief but my head is pounding and I am heading to bed.

dinosaur ridge

2010-04-25T22:33:00.006-04:00

We took the kids to Dinosaur Ridge today.

I have been wanting to go there ever since we moved to Colorado, but for some reason or other we have never gone before today. It is only about half an hour's drive away so it is pretty pathetic that we hadn't been there before. What a fun day!

Dinosaur Ridge is where the very first Stegosaurus fossils were found in 1877.

It was a bit chilly and cloudy and we were supposed to get rained on. So the kids ate their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and we waited to ride a little tour bus up the ridge.

Thank goodness we opted to take the bus! It is a very short walk up the ridge, but the tourguide explained everything to us and I think if we had just trekked up the ridge on our own we would have missed some amazing sights.

These are some Iguanodon footprints. They are from the late Jurassic period.

Here is a gigantic Diplodocus footprint. See how the layers of rock sink down where the ground gave way under the weight of the dinosaur? So incredible.

But I think my favorite part of the tour was learning about the history of the land. We saw ripples in the rock and scratches made by crocodile claws because Colorado used to be underwater.

Jack's favorite part was riding on the bus. And Sadie liked this colorful dinosaur:

home again, home again, jiggity jig

2010-04-22T14:12:00.003-04:00

So technically I've been home since last week, but, hey, it takes me a while to adjust.

I didn't write in my journal about the wedding. That is because we didn't get back into our hotel room until after one am and then we had to get up to catch our taxi to Manchester airport at 5 am, so I had no time to write.

And I have no photos of the wedding day because I had Teresa's camera and was trying (unsuccessfully, I am afraid) to take photos of the day for her.

But it was a gorgeous day. Beautiful wedding. I hung out most of the day with Verity, Ben's wife. Jonathan's best man speech was a hit. We danced and danced and danced... I had a fantastic time! I cannot remember the last time I danced so much.

And we made it home late Monday night, after the kids were in bed. We just managed to get home before the volcanic ash hit the fan, so to speak. I cannot imagine. I would have missed three weeks of school! And I would have missed the children so badly, I cannot -- cannot -- imagine it.

I have been busy trying to get caught up on school. I had a big exam Tuesday and I have a paper due in my Psych class.

And Monday I enrolled Jack in preschool for the fall. I think he is very excited. He will go to the same preschool Sadie went to. In fact, he will have the same teachers Sadie had, which makes me happy. He and I showed up at the school Monday to register him and we had a little impromptu tour of the classrooms and the barn. I was so touched, because Sadie's teachers remembered me and even asked how Sadie is doing! I couldn't believe it because she was only in the class for five months and it was a year ago, but they remembered her...

Jack and I went to Target afterwards and I bought him a Bat-Man backpack. He loves it. He wears it around the house. I cannot believe how big he is getting...

Lincoln - Day 8 - 10 April 2010

2010-04-16T12:07:00.005-04:00

The following is from my journal:

Two more days. Two more days. Two more days. I can barely stand it. I don't ever want to be away from them again. Ever.

I am at Linsey and Ed's house, in their guest room. Jonathan, Andy, Ed and the other groomsman, Ben, are all downstairs with Ben's wife, Verity. We all just got back from a deeeeeelicious dinner with Dustin and his parents at this place called Gino's -- a fantastic Italian restaurant in Lincoln. Why don't more restaurants in the US serve profiteroles? I love them so much. sigh

I got to walk around Lincoln by myself today for about 2 hours. It was wonderful. I was downtown with Jonathan and Andy and they needed to head back home and to run a few more last-last minute wedding errands and Jonathan turned to me and said, "Why don't you stay here and walk around and then meet us up at the restaurant at 6?" I think I just kissed him smack on the mouth and took off!

I did miss him a bit, though. It's weird. At home, I am much more independent and I just crave my alone time, but here -- I am so far away from home and I already miss the children so much that it's as if I don't want to let Jonathan out of my sight.

I am so ready to be home -- with Sadie and Jack. It's as if my long walk around Lincoln today was my chance to say good-bye to the city. Even though the wedding reception is in Lincoln tomorrow night, at Charlotte House, I have already said my good-byes and I am ready to go home. I loved being in England again, don't get me wrong, but I need to be with my children.

Lincoln - Day 7 - 9 April 2010

2010-04-16T11:51:00.009-04:00

The following is from my journal:

Oh, crap. I've just realized I didn't send Andrea a birthday card or even a message on facebook... How does she do it? She travels all the time and always at least emails me on my birthday. I even got a "Happy Anniversary" message from her this week on facebook. I am a rotten friend.

Today Andy and Teresa got a lot of wedding preparations out of the way. She and I went out first thing this morning to run errands, and then when we came home, the boys took the cake up to the hotel. Andy carried the cake downstairs (he looked petrified he would trip) and Jonathan balanced it on his lap while Teresa and I followed with the children in her car.

We drove up to the hotel, Charlotte House, and Teresa went inside before me and then by the time I got to the door, Jonathan met me coming out. He had a nervous look on his face.

"OhmyGoddddd the cake..." I think I said, but he quickly told me the cake was fine, but Teresa was crying. I am sure it was just all of the stress of the wedding catching up with her. I have been so amazed by how cool and collected she has been all week. So Jonathan and I took Gabriella on a walk with us, to get all three of us out of the way for a while so the bride and groom could sort out all of the last minute details with the hotel.

Gabriella looked adorable! She had on purple Mary Jane shoes and the huge white sunglasses Jonathan and I gave her. She and Jonathan walked around inside the cathedral while I went into the giftshop to buy a jar of gooseberry and elderflower jam for Susan. She and Shelton told us not to buy them anything but-- hello -- they are watching the children for us for almost two weeks so we wanted to bring them something, even if it is small. We had already bought some clotted cream fudge for Shelton in a shop in Lincoln. It says "World's Greatest Grandad" on the box.

I caught up with Jonathan and Gabriella and we made our way outside. We walked around Bailgate in the sunshine and it was so funny because we bumped into Andy and Teresa's friend, Chris, the archaeologist! We thanked him for recommending the museum to us and told him how much we enjoyed it. It was just so funny that we know like 7 people in England and managed to bump into one of them!

Anyway. We walked around with Gabriella for a bit. She was looking for "ladybirds and antses" on the ground and then she spied an ice cream shop.

"That shop we passed sells ice cream," she announced.

"Oh?" I said, looking at Jonathan.

"It sells strawberry ice cream," she clarified.

"Well, then, we must get some," Jonathan said and like that we were inside the shop buying Gabriella a strawberry ice cream cone!

We found a little clearing nearby, former site of The Church of St. John Something-or-other, and I took about a million pictures of Gabriella eating her ice cream.

After we all met up again, Teresa and I came back home with Edward while the boys took Gabriella and ran some more wedding errands. Teresa tidied the house a bit and talked on the phone a lot about the wedding while I tried to keep Edward occupied. She made us all a delicious tikka masala for dinner and we had trifle for dessert.

Andy and Jonathan drove to the train station tonight to pick up Dustin's parents, Ron and Shelley. They came here and we all talked and caught up for a while until the yawning got out of control! It is so nice, though, when you like your friend's parents for them selves and not just because they are so-and-so's parents!

I am looking forward to seeing Teresa's family again tomorrow - her parents and Linsey and Ed. I feel so comfortable around them all now and I just like them so much.

Tomorrow will be busy. I need to get to sleep already! Teresa and I are running more errands in the morning and then I need to somehow get J + I all packed so Teresa can clean this room. Jonathan and I are sleeping at Ed and Linsey's tomorrow night and then at the hotel after the wedding so tonight is my last night in this house.

I cannot wait to see Sadie and Jack. I will probably never stop kissing their faces when I see them.

3 more days...

Lincoln - Day 6 - 8 April 2010

2010-04-16T11:01:00.009-04:00

The following is from my journal:

Much, muuuuuch better today, thank God! Today was a gorgeous, sunny day. We drove to Belton House, a National Trust house in Lincolnshire, with Teresa's parents, Linsey, Ed and Olivia. It was a beautiful day. We toured the incredible house, stopping to talk to most of the volunteers along the way.

Then we ate a picnic lunch and explored the extensive grounds. It was so beautiful -- fields of daffodils everywhere you looked and fluffy white sheep and a bridge over a stream.

Whose bum is that in the tree?

Oh, it's Ed!

There was a wonderful playground and we watched the children play and I missed Sadie and Jack terribly. They would have loved it there.

We spent most of the day at Belton House. I think Jonathan got some nice photographs. He even took one inside the house -- and risked expulsion -- for me: there is a desk in one of the bedrooms that was used in the BBC "Pride and Prejudice." Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy sat there and wrote the famous explanatory letter to Elizabeth Bennet. So of course we had to get a picture of that! If there hadn't been a barricade, I might have made Jonathan sit there and pretend to write a letter. Wonder if he would have done it... For me...

We came home and then Andy and Teresa's wedding cake was delivered. It is just gorgeous. But I am very nervous because it is in our room for the night. Jonathan and Andy are driving it up to the hotel tomorrow but for now it is in our care and I am terrified I will somehow manage to fall into it. I think I have seen too many episodes of "America's Funniest Home Videos." For dinner tonight Andy and I went to pick up some fish and chips. So I think I have eaten all of the English culinary staples. Well, except for beans on toast and mushy peas, but I had those last time we were here and can honestly say once was enough for me!

Lincoln - Day 5 - 7 April 2010

2010-04-15T13:02:00.009-04:00

The following is from my journal:

I had a hard time waking up this morning. I was achey all over and couldn't get comfortable and the back of my throat was all hot and scratchy.

Damn.

You just know that feeling when you are coming down with something. The plan for today was: Andy would take Jonathan and me and the children to Sherwood Forest to give Teresa some time to herself to run errands and work on wedding things. I could hear everyone bustling around downstairs so I got up -- slowly, showered, dressed and made my way downstairs.

Jonathan handed me a cup of coffee and a hot cross bun, I finished them both and we were off. I knew I should probably spend the day in bed, resting, but I was also determined not to be a bother. I -- Will -- Not -- Be -- Sick. No one wants a sick houseguest the week of their wedding!

It was so cold. And raining. As I climbed into the car, I thought, This is insane. I am going to make myself sicker. I should be in bed. But everyone was ready and the day was planned. The visit to Sherwood Forest was my idea and it was so sweet of Andy to drive us there. I was determined to be a good sport.

So we drove to Sherwood Forest.

It was so cold and rainy. We went into the Visitor's Center and the gift shop and walked into the woods for about 20 minutes to see the Great Oak.

This picture cracks me up

The Great Oak

We sat on a bench and ate some cheese sandwiches. Then we left. The children were wonderful. I was glad I went. But I was miserable.

I closed my eyes on the way home, which took about half an hour but felt like forever. I just wanted to be in bed. We had planned to go to another park, but Jonathan told Andy he thought I should rest. We came back and I just crawled right into bed. I thought I would never get warm. I had goosebumps all over but Jonathan said I felt very warm.

I slept most of the day and then went downstairs for dinner. I think the fever is gone, although I still ache all over. Teresa made a huge roasted chicken dinner with vegetables and Yorkshire pudding. The boys went out to a pub and she and I talked for a little bit and then I came up to bed.

Please, God, let me feel better tomorrow! Five days until I see Sadie and Jack...

Lincoln - Day 4 - 6 April 2010, part 2

2010-04-15T12:43:00.021-04:00

The following is from my journal:

Jonathan and I had breakfast with Andy and Teresa and then they dropped us off in the City Centre. We spent about 6 1/2 hours in Lincoln today. What an amazing day!

I wore my new blue coat and Jonathan told me, as soon as we started wandering around downtown, that some girl nudged her friend as we walked past and told her, "I love her coat!" So that made me feel very stylish. :)

The first thing we did (even though we had just had crumpets with Andy and Teresa) was try to find the pasty shop we went to three years ago ... only to discover it had closed! Luckily we found another one, the West Cornish Pasty Shop, just one street over. Jonathan had a traditional pasty and I had one with potatoes and bacon and cheese. Perfection. They were so delicious -- but it was very windy and my crumbs kept blowing all over Jonathan's jacket!

After we ate the pasties we walked around the City Centre for awhile and along the canal. We had a lunch reservation for 1:00 at Brown's Pie Shop at the top of the hill so we had plenty of time to explore.

We went in and out of the shops on the way up the hill. Really, Steep Hill is just ridiculously steep! You just cannot imagine. And we took pictures the last time we were here, but you just cannot grasp how slanted it is from the photos. I had forgotten. And it is deceiving, too, because just when you think "this is not so bad -- I'm doing it!" you go round a bend in the road and it is suddenly much steeper. That happens twice along the way up. Near the top there is even a handrail going up the sidewalk!

It was so funny, though, because I was trying to say that to Jonathan, but all I managed was, "Just when you think, 'this is not so bad--'" and then I stepped on a plastic container that was on the sidewalk and it made a loud crackling/smashing sound. Jonathan and I could not stop laughing. He told me I have perfect comedic timing.

We went into this one shop that sold Cath Kidston, Nigella Lawson and Emma Bridgewater. We walked right into heaven, basically! Jonathan bought me a little blue Cath Kidston mug as an anniversary present.

It was so windy all day. I took my dangly earrings out because I felt like they were going to be torn right out of my ears. And my hair was just a gigantic mess all over my head and covered my face most of the day. Just before it was time for our lunch, we sat down outside the castle to get out of the wind for a moment. Some old dude from BBC came up to us with a little recorder and asked us, for a poll or something, who we thought were the most iconic actresses of all time. I honestly can't even remember who we said, but we had to give him three different answers, because he just kept repeating the question and sticking the recorder near our mouths. Maybe he didn't like our answers, or maybe he couldn't understand what we were saying! We felt very stupid after he walked away. We kept seeing him interviewing other poor fools and tried to avoid him, ducking down side streets every time we saw him, all the while thinking of actresses we should have said. Oh, well...

We went to Brown's Pie Shop for lunch. It was amazing. Just amazing. It may well be my new favorite place on earth.

Brown's Restaurant and Pie Shop

As soon as we arrived, I went into the bathroom to wash my hands and try to tidy my tangled hair and when I returned to the table there was an anniversary card on the table for me!

They have a very reasonable lunch menu with options for two or three courses. I was still full from my pasty so I just got two courses -- a starter and a dessert -- while Jonathan also got two courses, but he at least got a starter and a proper main course. I felt a bit silly not ordering a pie in a pie shop, but I knew I wouldn't be able to finish a whole pie. And I was right, because Jonathan's pork pie was humongous!

Instead I ordered soup and bread and then bread and butter pudding with custard for dessert. The soup was pea with ham and I can honestly say it was one of the best soups I've ever tasted. I don't even usually like pea soup but I was in the mood for some soup and it was the soup of the day, so I figured, what the hell. Oh, my goodness. It was so light and creamy and tasted like fresh, buttered baby peas. It was the perfect, perfect lunch on such a cool, blustery day.

After our lunch and after we signed the guest book and raved about the restaurant to the hostess, we went back out into the wind and made our way in and out of the shops on our way back down the hill.

Andy and Teresa's friend, Chris, the archaeologist, had told us to go to The Collection so we did. We spent a god chunk of our day in there. There is just so much history in Lincoln! The Collection has artifacts from early man, from the Roman settlement of Lindum, from the Normans... I think I could have spent all day in there, but Jonathan reached that point where you just cannot look at one more artifact!

Now we know how tall Jonathan is compared to prehistoric beasts

So we made our way down to the City Centre. We had nowhere else we needed to be until 5:00 when Andy was picking us up at the cathedral. So we went into some shops and then walked down by the wharf. It was very windy and there were lots and lots of swans. But there were also a couple of crazies (Andy told us later there are some cheap bars down there) who creeped us out a bit. We left the wharf, feeling their wild eyes on us, holding hands and whispering to each other that we felt like we were in a Stephen King movie. When all of a sudden, this creepy little demonic-looking old man came zipping around the corner on a motorized scooter and nearly ran Jonathan over! We got away from the wharf and then doubled over laughing, vowing never to go down there again!

We wanted to get Teresa some flowers. Because she has been such a wonderful hostess and been cooking us such nice meals all while trying to get her last minute wedding preparations finished. So we thought some flowers would be nice -- and she could carry them down the aisle at the wedding rehearsal later that night.

So we found a florist and a lovely little arrangement and Jonathan carried them all the way back up the hill to the cathedral. They smelled just gorgeous. We held hands all day and since we were holding hands and he was carrying flowers, people kept beaming at him. I think they thought the flowers were for me!

I found it a bit harder going up Steep Hill the second time. I think because we had already been walking all day and because we just went straight up this time, whereas on the first trip up in the morning we stopped and went into all of the shops along the way.

At the top we walked around some more.

Basically we retraced our steps from the Ghost Walk we took on our last visit. We saw a very fancy, very large old house just near the cathedral called Edward King House.

"I remember this from the Ghost Walk," I said. "This was an important house for some reason, wasn't it?"

And Jonathan said, "I think a king and queen slept there."

"That's right," I said. "Henry VIII and one of his wives, I think. Maybe Catherine of Aragon." That's how it is in Lincoln. There is just so much history in one place that even someone as memorable as Henry VIII is kind of lost in the details.

Edward King House

We noticed the house had a gift shop so we went in and asked the girl working there. She told us it had been Henry VIII and Katherine Howard (wife #5) and that Katherine had supposedly cheated on Henry while staying there. Jonathan and I bought a little plastic mug in the shop for the new baby. We had bought two very similar mugs for Sadie and Jack at Westminster Abbey on our last trip to England, so I thought that would be a perfect souvenir for the baby.

We visited the Plague Pit next. Jonathan said he felt a bit silly carrying flowers into the cemetery and then carrying them right back out again!

Then we walked around the outside of the cathedral. It was just so windy! After making our way all the way around the cathedral, we sat down on a wooden bench to watch for Andy's car. I tried to put my hair into some sort of order. Then Andy drove up.

We drove to meet Teresa at Gabriella's nursery school and then we all drove to the church where they are getting married for the rehearsal. We gave Teresa her flowers and she laughed at us and told us we were sweet.

Jonathan held Edward a lot during the rehearsal. He was so squirmy that we all passed him around the church like a hot potato. All of the little flower girls ran around the church, laughing and squealing, and nobody knew where to stand. So it was probably a pretty typical rehearsal!

Edward with Teresa's mother

Ed, Linsey's husband, taking a turn holding Edward

We came back to Andy and Teresa's house, the children went to bed, and Teresa served us all a nice hot Shepherd's pie and gave us an anniversary card. The shepherd's pie was delicious. But Jonathan and I were very tired from our long day and Andy and Teresa were a bit stressed out from wedding plans and so we all went straight up to bed.

Lincoln - Day 4 - 6 April 2010, part 1

2010-04-15T11:56:00.012-04:00

The following is from my journal:

Our anniversary. A most lovely day!

Yesterday was Gabriella's birthday. Teresa took her to another child's birthday party and I babysat Edward. Jonathan and Andy built a playhouse for Gabriella in the backyard.

As for my "babysitting" what I meant was I put Edward down for his nap and then I took a nap, too! Thank you, Edward!

In the afternoon, two couples Andy and Teresa know came over with their children for some barbeque and birthday cake.

Gabriella checks out her new playhouse

my attempt at our self-portrait

Jonny's attempt

Again, I was nervous to be around people I don't know. But they were all very nice. One of the men, Chris, is a real honest-to-God archaeologist. Very cool. He even wore little wire-rimmed glasses and had dark floppy hair. Perfect. He told me that we need to make sure we check out The Collection, the Lincoln museum, tomorrow. And, John, the other man, told us to eat lunch at Brown's Pie Shop. So we are planning to go to both!

Teresa and Edward

Then last night Andy and Jonathan and I walked around Bailgate, the area up at the top of the hill by the castle and cathedral.

Andy booked a table for Jonathan and I at Brown's Pie Shop for tomorrow afternoon. He walked up to the girl at the desk and asked to book a table for two. Jonathan gave her his last name when they asked for a name. And then I popped out from behind the two of them and said, "It's for the two of us" (pointing to Jonny and me) "not for the two of them" (pointing at Jonny and Andy) and the girl laughed. I think she did think they were a couple since they were dressed so nicely and they were standing so close together she hadn't seen me!

We went to two bars. The first one, The White Lion or The White Stag or The White Something-or-other, was very posh. The second one was The Magna Carta, where I got drunk the last time we were here.

So now I suppose it has become something of a tradition. At least this time I didn't start singing REO Speedwagon. Anyway, Andy and Jonathan were very kind to me, even though I'm sure I was acting like a complete idiot.

So today, our anniversary, I am afraid I am beginning the day with a hangover. Not too serious -- just a headache and insatiable thirst and an ubersensitivity to light.

Lincoln - Day 3 - 5 April 2010

2010-04-15T11:52:00.003-04:00

The following is from my journal:

I am very drunk and I wanted to write in my journal but I thought it was in my purse downstairs and I was scared to go get it because J just killed a big spider and I didn't want to leave the room but my purse was here -- J brought it up. I need to brush my teeth.

Lincoln - Day 2 - 4 April 2010

2010-04-15T10:46:00.009-04:00

The following is from my journal:

Today is Easter Sunday. Happy Easter!

I cannot believe I am awake again. But, honestly, I don't feel so much more tired than I do most mornings.

Since it is Easter, I feel I should get downstairs. Not to mention there may be coffee down there!

Andy and Teresa are great hosts. Andy picked us up in Manchester yesterday morning -- our flight was an hour late -- and drove us the 2 hours to Lincoln. A long morning for him, but he couldn't have been more excited. I had to laugh because he and Jonathan had on almost identical Abercrombie & Fitch jackets!

Anyway, so we drove to Lincoln and it was just a gorgeous sunny/cloudy blue/grey sky over endless rolling green hills with rock walls and grazing sheep everywhere. I saw a sign for Nottingham, so if there is time this week we make make a trip to Sherwood Forest.

We got here and saw Teresa and the children. Teresa looks fantastic! She will make a lovely bride. And I cannot believe how big Gabriella and Edward are!

Andy made us some sandwiches (with cucumber) and we talked and talked. The boys went into Lincoln so Jonathan could try on his suit for the wedding while Teresa and I caught up and she put together a lasagna for our dinner.

Jonathan was so relieved his suit fit. He cannot wait for me to see him in it -- it's very formal, Andy called it a "morning suit" -- and Jonathan says he looks very English in it. "Do you look like Mr. Darcy?" I asked him. "You wish," he told me.

This was very funny: in the car on the way to Lincoln, Jonathan said he was thirsty and asked me if he could have a sip of my coffee. I told him I had already finished it. He said, "That's okay. I'll just suck on your pants." (Since, as I mentioned, I had spilled coffee on myself two times during the trip.) Well, in England, "pants" means "underpants" so Andy thought that was a very odd thing for Jonathan to say!

It is so nice to be here. I think I must get downstairs. I desperately need coffee. And the Easter Bunny has probably been by and Gabriella has most likely found all of the eggs already!

(later)
What a lovely Easter... I hope Sadie and Jack had a nice day. I miss them so much -- I think of them all the time and then it is like I have to manually "change the channel" in my brain because I get an instant lump in my throat.

Today we went to St. John's Church in Washingborough where Andy and Teresa are getting married.

It is just gorgeous. I must Google it when we get home. The building is over 800 years old and built on the site of an even older church. Incredible. There was a baby christened there this morning. The baptismal font is from Norman times. Jonathan whispered to me, "Imagine how many babies have been baptised with that cistern," and I said (being a smartass), "God! At least three..."

After church, we went to have lunch at Teresa's sister's house. We met Linsey and her husband, Ed, on our last visit, but now they have a daughter, Olivia. Teresa's parents (who we also met last time) were there and it was so nice to see them all again. They are all a lot of fun.

There was a very pretty lunch that we ate outside before we all gave up and went inside. It was very chilly and windy!

Edward with his grandpa

Jonathan and Gabriella

Olivia

We had some beer and wine inside and then realised the Easter Bunny had been busy outside while we were warming up! So the menfolk took the children on an Easter egg hunt in the backyard. They were much more competitive than the children!

Andy and Edward

This picture makes me laugh

Linsey and baby #2

They really are the nicest family. I was so nervous this morning, because I get so uncomfortable around people I don't know very well, but they are so much fun, I already feel like I've known them forever. Teresa's mom, especially, is very talkative, so she just started chatting away and that put me right at ease.

Afterwards, Jonathan and Andy and I brought Gabriella over to see Andy's mother. I was looking forward to seeing her again. She was very kind to me when we were here for Gabriella's christening and I have such fond memories of her. Her house is in Lincoln, up the hill, past the cathedral. So we had to drive right through Lincoln, and it was the first time I've seen it since we came back. I mean, you can see the cathedral and a bit of the castle from almost anywhere since they are up on top of the hill, but it was the first time I've been in the city and seen them up close again. Jonathan was here yesterday to try his suit on, but this was my first time back. I love Lincoln. I feel like I missed Lincoln almost as much as I missed Andy and Teresa!

I cannot wait to walk around Lincoln! Tomorrow is Gabriella's birthday, but on Tuesday Andy is going to drop Jonathan and I off in the city for the day. We cannot wait to explore some more and to track down that Cornish pasty shop we went to three years ago. It is the perfect day to spend in Lincoln, too, since Tuesday is our anniversary!

After the boys and Gabriella and I came back from visiting Andy's mom, Teresa and Jonathan made us a delicious chicken curry for dinner and we had key lime pie and drank two bottles of wine. We talked and talked, sitting in their kitchen, drinking wine by candlelight... I don't know when I've laughed so hard.

Lincoln - Day 1 - 3 April 2010

2010-04-15T10:30:00.009-04:00

The following is from my journal:

This will be short. We are in Lincoln, at Andy and Teresa's house. J is in the bathroom brushing his teeth. It is my turn next. We have been up for 30 hours. It is lovely here, but we are ready to fall over with exhaustion.

I hope I find lots of time to really write down my impressions of the trip here: mostly tiresome looooong flights, lots of coffee and needing to pee, spilling coffee all over my pants on the way to the airport, reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, spilling a second cup of coffee on my pants while landing in Manchester, finally seeing Andy and Teresa and their very sweet very English-looking children, drinking wine and laughing and smiling until my cheeks hurt, eating crisps by candlelight and just now feeling so exhausted I can barely grip my pen...

I love England. I love Andy and Teresa. I also miss Sadie and Jack so much I could cry.

and we're off!

2010-04-02T00:30:00.002-04:00

I cannot believe tomorrow I will be on my way to England!

I just had no time to blog this week. It was crazy trying to get the house ready for Jonathan's parents, who are here to stay with Sadie and Jack while we are away. And trying to get packed and get the house ready for our appraisal which is tomorrow after we leave, and going to class and trying to finish our taxes... But it is all done. We are packed, Susan and Shel are here, our taxes are done and the house is as ready to be appraised as it is going to get! So, Lincoln, England, here we come!

Cheers!

american girl and anthropologie

2010-03-29T15:21:00.015-04:00

I tried to take Sadie to the new American Girl store in Denver Saturday. What a fiasco! Jonathan and I loaded Sadie and Jack into the car, along with Sadie's Felicity doll that she got for Christmas. We drove the half hour to Park Meadows Mall and took almost as long to find a parking space. That's when we knew there was going to be trouble.

The mall was mobbed. I mean mobbed. There was a line stretching all over the parking lot with little girls clutching their American Girl dolls, shivering and turning blue. It was a bit chilly out. And windy. And the line was in the shade. So we just went past everyone into the mall and told Sadie we didn't think we were going to American Girl after all.

I still had a great time at the mall. There is a nice, very similar mall just two exits up from ours on 36 that I like almost as much, but Park Meadows Mall has an Anthropologie! So I headed straight there. God, I love that store! And it always smells so heavenly in there because they always have their gorgeous candles burning.

Here are some of the items I saw in Anthropologie that I now have a yearning for:

these pretty teacups

these little votive candle holders would look lovely grouped on my table

this little conch shell creamer would probably not go with anything I own, but I still think it is adorable

Jonathan and I currently have a stand-up shower with a glass shower door,
but when we redo our master bathroom (someday) I want a bathtub and I want this shower curtain

I love the idea of this little guy by my kitchen sink, guarding my rings for me while I do the dishes

We saw lots of little girls in the mall carrying their American Girl dolls. I learned from several other moms that they were told the wait to get into the American Girl store was at least five hours and then you only got to spend ten minutes in the store! Ridiculous. I felt bad for Sadie, because she really didn't understand why we weren't going in, but there was no way I was going to stand out in the cold all day to go in some crazy expensive store I wasn't planning on buying anything in anyway!

party, party, party

2010-03-29T13:17:00.006-04:00

So, this weekend was a bit busy. No time to blog. I will recap, just on the off chance that the littlest Young entered the world this weekend -- that way I have a record of what we were up to as he made his entrance...

Friday night we had out first dinner party in Glenbogle house! Jonathan invited two of his coworkers and their spouses to dinner. We served Velvet Shrimp and those crazy-strong trifles I made. The trifles were good, if you happen to like desserts that give you a hangover! At least they were pretty. And I will definitely make them again, but next time I will cut way down on the framboise!

I ran out Friday to buy some Ciabatta bread from Target and I grabbed some little mini brownies and a package of those frozen cream puffs. So while I did serve the trifles, I also set out a plate of little bite-sized desserts sprinkled with powdered sugar for everyone to nibble on while drinking their coffee. I think next time I will skip making a dessert from scratch and just serve the little mini desserts. They looked so pretty on my glass platter and it was so much easier!

I really had a good time. Everyone was very nice and the conversation never stopped. It's funny, though. I had such visions in my head of how hip Jonathan and I would seem, serving wine and maybe playing some swanky music in the background like Dean Martin or Eartha Kitt. Well, we did serve wine although only one person drank any besides Jonathan and I forgot about the music entirely. Actually, that's not exactly true. I was frantically stirring the Velvet Shrimp sauce when the first couple arrived a little early and we were blasting Weezer's blue album on the boombox in the kitchen. So Jonathan switched it off after letting them in, and we just figured there was no way to recover from that and pretend we really do have sophisticated taste in music!

Once everyone had left, I asked Jonathan why we don't have people over more. I really miss having my friends over. One thing I noticed, that was very different from living in Virginia: when everyone was leaving, we had our front door open for a while, talking to everyone, thanking them for coming, etc. In Virginia, we could never have done that! If our light was on, the bugs swarmed around it. We had one particularly humongous moth that Olivia called Mothra that was always flapping around our porch light in Fredericksburg. She and Katherine and Adrienne would have to duck and run out the door whenever they were leaving, and no matter how quickly they ran out, several billion bugs always managed to get inside.

I love living in Colorado where there are virtually no bugs. But I still miss my friends terribly.

new shoes

2010-03-25T23:21:00.004-04:00

I went out tonight to find a pair of shoes. Jonathan and I are going back to Lincoln, England, next weekend to visit his best friend, Andy, and to attend his wedding. I got a great little black dress from Target for the wedding but needed some shoes. (I know, I know, who doesn't have a pair of basic black dress shoes? Me, that's who.)

I hate shopping for shoes. First of all, my feet are terrible. They are wide across the top, at the base of my toes, but my heels are super narrow so I really can't wear wide shoes. And then my arches are really high so I think my feet look weird in high heeled shoes, like there is a big gap under my foot where the arch doesn't touch the shoe. I know this is very dull, but it is a dilemma...

Anyway, so this afternoon when Jonathan came home to work, I took off to run some errands and head to DSW to find some shoes. What a nightmare. I went into that store wearing sunglasses, and by the time I came out it was dark outside! But I did find a cute pair of shoes that are actually somewhat comfortable.

It was fun, though, in a way, because it reminded me of the last time we went to England. I had to buy some shoes for that trip, too, so I went to DSW in Virginia. I know I must have bought shoes since then, but I remember that night so vividly.

I cannot wait to go back to England. It is still so depressing that we didn't move there. I mean, we love Colorado, don't get me wrong, but now that Sadie is in school, we know we will not move to England... So that ship has sailed. But who knows? Maybe if we had moved there, I would not be going back to school. Maybe we would not be adopting a baby. So I am happy where we are. But it will still be so lovely to be there again. Drinking tea. Eating a pasty. Walking along the canal with Jonathan.

Tomorrow night some people from Jonathan's work are coming to dinner. I am excited because I cannot remember the last time we had a dinner party! I bought some wine tonight. I don't know anything about wine, but the girls in my class told me Yellow Tail is good, so I bought two bottles--a Shiraz and a Pinot Grigio.

We are making Velvet Shrimp and for dessert I made trifles in our Irish coffee mugs. I thought, since the dinner is very rich and creamy, I would make something light and lemony for dessert. So I made raspberry lemon trifles. And I think I made a big mistake. Basically, I layered pound cake, raspberries, and homemade whipped cream mixed with lemon curd. And I poured some framboise over the pound cake. Sounds good, right? Wrong! I made two extra trifles for Jonathan and I to sample tonight and they are so strong. The framboise is a bit much. Oops! Oh, well... I'll just make sure to serve the trifles with some strong coffee!

dinner and a movie

2010-03-24T21:11:00.002-04:00

Well, we never made it to City Park to go sledding today. The kids played all day long inside and Jonathan worked and ... what did I do?

Well, don't laugh, but I painted the grout in the kids' bathroom today. And it looks fantastic.

It was pretty tedious and my knees are killing me, but, blech, that grout was disgusting. It's got to be twenty years old and no matter how much I scrubbed it, it just always looked dirty. So I painted it a khaki/gray color. It took forever and Jonathan kept poking his head into the bathroom to tell me he thinks I am crazy, but, man, is he eating his words! It looks like a brand new floor! It really does. He told me I should start a business where I go around helping people make their houses look nicer on a very small budget. Like home stagers, but for people who aren't selling their houses.

Now I just need to paint some clear sealant over it because I used a latex paint and I don't want the paint to wash off when I clean the floor.

So when I was finished, and when Jonathan emerged from his office for good, I said, "Let's go to CiCi's!" And so we did. The kids loved it. I asked them if CiCi's is their favorite restaurant, and Jack said no. His favorite is McDonald's. Surprise, surprise. That boy loves cheeseburgers. I am planning to make him some cute cupcakes that look like hamburgers soon. Although he will probably be sad that they are not real cheeseburgers and then I will get pissed off because those cupcakes look like they are a lot of work!

I don't know if you've ever seen the recipe online, but you cut a yellow cupcake in half (that makes the bun). Then you cut brownies into little circles (those are the burgers) and stick them inside the cupcake halves. Add a slice of yellow fondant for the cheese, some red icing for ketchup and some dyed green coconut for the lettuce. And, voila, you have a cheeseburger cupcake! A friend of mine made them for her family and I have been wanting to make them ever since.

Anyway, after Jack reconciled himself to no hamburgers tonight at CiCi's, he managed to eat quite a lot of pizza. He even ate a slice of spinach pizza. I told him he would like it, and he told me, "There is no way I'm going to eat that pizza!"

I said, "Whatever," and then when I looked back at his plate that slice of pizza was almost gone!

We saw a little girl in her father's arms, just sleeping, with her little head on his shoulder. We told Sadie, "You guys never did that!" And they never did. So then Jonathan said, "Maybe our next one will sleep in public." I laughed and said, "We must be due for a quiet, peaceful baby this time!" We'll see.

In the meantime, I wonder if I can get a big tray of those CiCi's cinnamon rolls to go...

Not right now, of course. Right now I am completely stuffed after having made a complete pig of myself at CiCi's. Right now we are about to watch Terminator: Salvation and cuddle on the couch.

snow day

2010-03-24T11:27:00.003-04:00

We got a good six or seven inches of snow yesterday. Sadie's school was canceled, so we all got to sleep in until 8:00. That is about as late as the kids will stay in bed, but it is still an hour and a half later than I usually get out of bed, so I'll take it!

They are playing with Legos at the kitchen table. Jonathan is working upstairs. He was planning on going in to the office today, but with all of the snow he is working from home. I am still in my jammies, sipping my lukewarm coffee, doing laundry. I may stay in my jammies all day. Keep brewing more coffee. Later we may take the kids sledding in City Park.

snow, again

2010-03-23T18:48:00.004-04:00

It is snowing again. Lovely, fluffy flakes falling in huge clusters. We are supposed to get between seven and fourteen inches by tomorrow evening!

I love it. I mean, warm weather is lovely, too. It was 65 yesterday and sunny. But I also love the snow. It is nothing like the heavy, wet snow we got in Virginia. Once a year. The snow here in Colorado is dry and fluffy and beautiful.

Anyway, yesterday it was 65 degrees. The kids played in the backyard and I made them egg salad sandwiches for lunch and they ate them outside on the patio. I tried to get the house in order because I just realized Jonathan's parents are arriving in a week to stay with the kids while Jonathan and I are in England. So really I just realized that I am going to be in England in a week and a half and I am completely unprepared!

I did get a dress for the wedding. From Target:

But I still need to find a cute little sweater to wear over it and some shoes and a purse. I got the wedding gift, and a gift for the baby, but I still need to get a gift for Gabriella, who is not only Jonathan's goddaughter, but who will be celebrating a birthday while we are there. So she must get a present. And it will be Easter while we are there, so I am wondering if we will go to church and if I need to pack appropriate clothing for that -- as well as some Easter candy from America for the children... And since it will be Easter while we are gone, I am also trying to wrap up Easter preparations for Sadie and Jack as well...

Luckily this week is my Spring Break, so I should be able to get completely prepared for the trip. And I am really not stressed out about it; I just like feeling busy and important for a change. :)

So I cleaned the house a bit yesterday to get ready for Jonathan's parents' arrival. Jonathan made me a delicious Reuben for dinner and after we put the kids to bed we watched Cloverfield and ate ice cream sundaes. We hadn't seen Cloverfield since we saw it in the theatres back in Virginia, so it was fun to watch it again.

I did do some Easter shopping this morning while Sadie was in school. And then I fell in love with a supercute coat and made Jonathan come out to Burlington Coat Factory with me this afternoon just before it began snowing to give me the thumb's up or thumb's down. He gave an emphatic thumb's up, so I now have a supercute coat for the trip! It is sort of a light weight coat/trench coat and it is a pretty Robin's egg blue.

I need to go finish making dinner. But first I am going to check on the snow!

healthcare reform

2010-03-22T00:11:00.000-04:00

I really do not feel like blogging right now. I have been watching msnbc all day today. All. Day. Watching the coverage of the House of Representatives voting on healthcare reform. It passed and I am so happy. But I am tired and tired of staring at a screen...

It was very sunny and warm today. Most of the snow has melted. Except in our front yard, which seems to be the last spot in Colorado to thaw.

We are supposed to get another snowstorm on Tuesday!

daredevil

2010-03-20T22:08:00.001-04:00

Jonathan took Sadie sledding today in City Park. He was very impressed with how brave she is. She went down the hill with Daddy one time and then she said she wanted to go on her own! It is a very big hill, people. It's gotta be 300 - 400 feet.

I wish I could say "That's my girl!" but I have never been that brave...

snow

2010-03-19T14:50:00.005-04:00

It is hard to believe it was in the seventies Wednesday and I was on a hike with Jonathan and the kids! It is snowing today.

It began to get windy yesterday afternoon and the temperature started dropping steadily. When I went to my afternoon class, I was wearing a tshirt and sandals with my jeans. By the time I got out of my second class, at 9 pm, it was freezing outside and I was wearing a hat and scarf and winter coat! So crazy...

It has been snowing all day. School was not canceled, because here in Colorado people know how to deal with a little snow, but we have about three or four inches out there right now. But it is nice and cozy here in the house. It is very clean, because Jonathan was planning to have some coworkers over for dinner. He canceled (because of the snow, because one of the coworkers was coming down from Fort Collins and they are expecting a loooot of snow up there) but at least the house is nice and clean, right? And I have a vanilla candle lit and the kids are watching a movie and I am rereading Winter Solstice by Rosamund Pilcher and I just brewed myself a humongous cup of Earl Grey.

I know some people do not like snow, but I just love it! Even in midMarch and even right after a couple of gorgeous, sunshiney days, I love it. It is just so crisp and white and quiet outside. And so cozy and warm in the house. (Besides, I know that it is supposed to be warm again next week!)

six months minus six months equals ...

2010-03-18T11:18:00.006-04:00

Jonathan got a call the other day from the woman who will be doing our homestudy for the adoption. And something really has been on my mind. The thing is, we are number twelve on the list now to get a referral. For those of you who may not know, a referral is the photo of our child and his basic medical/family history.

Let me back up a bit. What will typically go down is this: somewhere in Korea, a young woman has made the ultimate decision. She has received counseling and care throughout her pregnancy from the organization that handles our child's adoption. She will give birth to the perfect baby boy. After she relinquishes her rights--such a cold, clinical term for such a moment, reminds me of how the doctors called my miscarriage a "spontaneous abortion"--after she relinquishes her rights, the baby will go into a foster home where a foster mother will take care of him until his adoption.

In Korea, they are currently waiting six months before sending pictures to our agency here in Colorado to give the agency in Korea time to possibly place the babies with Korean families. They are trying to encourage domestic adoptions in Korea.

So what that means for us is that our son will be six months old when we see his photograph for the first time. It typically takes six more months for all of the paperwork to be finalized and for him to be flown here to us, so he will be about a year old when I finally have him in my arms. That is the average timeline.

Now, what has been on my mind is basic mathematics. If we are twelfth on the list at our agency to receive a referral, and our agency usually processes two referrals a month, that means we should get a photograph of our son in six months ... are you following this? And he will be about six months old in his photograph ... so ... that means he could be born right about ... now.

I cannot get this out of my head. That my son may be born already. That he may be born today. Or tomorrow. That my son's birth day will pass by and I will have no idea ... no idea that one of the most important days in my future life just slipped by me. A day that I will be cherishing, blowing up balloons, frosting Sesame Street cakes, hanging up pinatas and taking countless photographs of my son...

So my little plan is to try to blog something, anything, every day. Just so that I will have some sort of record of what I was doing on my son's birth day. Maybe. Unless he has already been born. Because I want to know. If I can. I mean, say he was born on March third. I have no idea what I was doing on that day! Was I grumpy? Was I happy? Was it raining or snowing? Did I blog on that day? Probably not; I am not very consistent! (And I just randomly picked that date, March third. What if that is really his birthday?)

So, little star, where ever you are, I am thinking of you all the time.

Happy Erin Day!

2010-03-17T13:17:00.003-04:00

Just a very quick post because I am supposed to be showering and getting dressed--Jonathan is picking Sadie up from school and when they get back we are all going out to spend the day together. The weather is so absolutely gorgeous that Jonathan is taking the rest of the day off! Yay!

Today is St. Patrick's Day! I just made my Great-Aunt Lonnie's Tasty Jell-o Salad so it will be ready tonight. For dinner I am making shepherd's pie and Irish soda bread. I make shepherd's pie instead of corned beef and cabbage because I only like corned beef and cabbage if it is inside a Reuben. And Reubens do not seem very Irish! So, shepherd's pie, it is. Every time we make this shepherd's pie we groan over how yummy it is and wonder why we only make it once a year.

I went out with some of the girls in my Anatomy class last night after we finished our hellish exam on the circulatory system. We went to an Irish pub. They teased me because they all ordered Guinness or Bass and I was drinking a Corona. Whatever. I like Corona! They said, "Who orders a Mexican beer in a pub?" I do, that's who.

Growing up with a name like Erin made for lots of Irish jokes and "Erin Go Bra-less" comments. Seriously. I am only like 1/4 Irish. So I got kind of tired of the whole Irish scene. Shamrocks and all that. I mean, no one ever gave me little German gifts or Italian gifts or Swedish gifts "just because." That sounds crabby. And I don't mean to, because it is a gorgeous day and I am in such a lovely mood and I am wearing green and making an Irish meal for dinner! But when we thought about naming Jack "Violet" (before we knew he was a boy, obviously!) I vowed to Jonathan that her room would not be purple and I would not buy her any little thing that had a violet on it...

Anyway, I have got to go. If I am still sitting at the computer, eating a bagel when Jonathan gets home there will be hell to pay! :)

I heart facebook

2010-03-04T12:02:00.002-05:00

I spend way too much time on there. But sometimes it pays off. I found two old friends who I have been trying to reconnect with forever. And I am just so happy to be reunited with them. :)

So if I am not blogging regularly and claiming it is because I am busy with parenting or studying for school or even cleaning my house (har-de-har har) please know that I am lying to you. Because I am probably just spending too much time on facebook, harvesting my farmville crops or doing some jobs for my mafia. Anyway. Just thought you should know that.

Thank you for listening to me vent about that woman at the doctor's office. Sigh. I appreciate all of your kind words. And please don't think I am angry at her still or losing sleep over it. It is just such new territory for me, this whole adoption process. I have been asking my friend, Shannon, lots of questions (on facebook, of course!) because she adopted her son last year. And it has been very helpful to get her perspective on things.

say what?

2010-03-03T00:40:00.005-05:00

I had a physical yesterday. For the adoption, Jonathan and I need to get some forms signed by our doctor saying we are healthy enough to be parents. So I was sitting there, having blood drawn, and I told the woman taking my blood that we are adopting.

"Oh! From the United States of America?" she asked me.

I just smiled and said, "No, from South Korea. We are getting a baby boy and we are so excited blahblahblah ..." but inside I was thinking, What the hell? Why on earth would you ask me that? So than I asked her is she has any children. She told me she doesn't. I felt like saying, "Then why don't you adopt from the United States of America?"

I am just wondering if I am being too sensitive. Maybe reading all of those books on adoption has put me on the lookout for insensitive comments. But seriously. Seriously. Why would she have felt the need to say the United States of America? Like I wouldn't know which United States she was talking about?

All of the books I've read about international adoption are full of horror stories about people telling total strangers that they should have adopted domestically. That there are "plenty of children in this country who need good homes" or some crap like that. I told myself that people really aren't that awful. No one would actually say that to someone. Right? Not in this day and age... Right?

But maybe they do. Maybe this one strange comment from this woman drawing my blood is like me dipping my toe into the waters of rude people who will feel free to give me their two cents on my life. Maybe she didn't mean anything by it. I know I can be sensitive, but I also don't think I am an idiot, and I think she did mean something by it.

It is certainly a wake up call to me. I am so excited to have another son that I am just bursting to talk about it! I want the world to know. But maybe not everyone will be happy for me. And that is hard for me to wrap my head around.

he is four

2010-02-26T12:43:00.009-05:00

Jack's pirate birthday party was last Sunday. I think all of the kids had a good time. Jack was a little shy. Being the center of attention unnerved him, which is surprising, to say the least. I thought that boy thrived on attention! When it came time to blow out his candle, he made me do it. I did, because everyone was waiting, but I felt a bit silly.

I made little Reeses pirate ship cupcakes instead of a cake.

The dining room, all ready for the party!

a quiet moment with Daddy before the guests arrive

everyone painted little wooden treasure chests and decorated them with stickers

Daddy held the pinata

Mommy and Daddy with the birthday boy

lighting the candle

refusing to blow out his candle

Jack opened his presents at the party, but he opened the gifts from Jonathan and I after dinner that night. We got him a Bat-Cave with Bat-Man and Robin and a Joker. I don't even know how he knows who Bat-Man is, but that is what he circled in the Toys R Us catalog so that is what we got him!

This picture is my favorite picture from the entire day. I took it at the exact moment when he had torn the wrapping paper and realized his present was the Bat-Cave:

He was just starting to say, "Ohhhhhh, my gosh! Are you kidding me?"

Happy birthday, Captain Jack! Thanks for an amazing four years...

it begins!

2010-02-19T22:51:00.002-05:00

I have not had much time to blog this week. My mom is visiting and we have been waaaaay too busy going out to eat and celebrating my birthday and showing each other our farms on farmville for me to sit down and write much.

But.

I had to blog this. Because this is Blog-Worthy.

I turned in our formal application to the adoption agency tonight!

I thought, I'll take Mom up there, it's only about half an hour away, and drop this off and be back in time for dinner. No big deal.

I was wrong. It was a big deal. I am sad that Jonathan was working and couldn't be there to see our name go on the agency's list. But I am so happy my mom was there. And she took some pictures of me. I looked so sloppy and didn't want her to take pictures at the time, but after we got in the car and I got all teary-eyed and shaky and called Jonathan, then --then -- I was so grateful she had taken pictures. Who cares that I was wearing a hoodie and my hair was falling out of my ponytail? I want my son to see those pictures someday.

We drove home through the snow and traffic and when we walked in the door of my house Jonathan was making us a delicious Thai curry dinner. I love my life.

a nursery for a girl

2010-02-13T02:00:00.002-05:00

Okay. So anyone who knows me knows that as soon as Jonathan and I began talking about adoption I began decorating a nursery. In my mind, at least. And I am so excited about it because all of the nursery option are so much better now than they were six years ago! It was very hard to find anything back when I was pregnant with Sadie. We needed something gender-neutral and I liked the idea of yellow and red. And all of the nursery bedding in the stores was so cutesy and traditional... We managed to find a set we both liked that had a barnyard theme and went with the yellow and red we liked.

But now there are so many nursery bedding lines that are very modern or retro or graphic, as well as the usual bedding with ladybugs or trucks or barnyard animals. So I am excitedly poring over baby and nursery websites!

The first scheme I have come up with is for a baby girl. Because that is where our thoughts were lying originally. But now we are thinking about adopting a boy! Because it really doesn't matter to us which gender our next child is. I mean, if I got pregnant again, we would not be able to choose the sex of the baby. So maybe our next child will be a baby boy!

But here is the little girl nursery I came up with. And now I get to design a boy nursery, too! In case that is the direction we wind up going. Can you tell how much fun I am having with this?!

So the jumping off point for the nursery is these bookends from CB2:

Now before you start thinking I am going to go all-out and hang lanterns everywhere and fill the room with fans and panda bears and bamboo and other sterotypical Asian decor, let me explain. We are looking into adopting a baby from Korea. So I am trying to read up on Korean culture since I am woefully ignorant of almost all world geography and culture. I want to make sure he or she knows all about Korean culture and history and food and that it is an integral part of our lives. But I also refuse to foist any and all Asian culture on my child! I will not automatically buy her Mulan dolls (which is a Chinese legend, anyway!) or enroll him in Taekwondo. Maybe he'd rather play soccer. Maybe she won't like Korean food. Am I making sense? I feel like I am not explaining this very well...

Anyway, having said that, I do love the idea of having these fu lions in the baby's room. Because they are guardians. Maybe the baby's birth mother would like to think that there would be these Korean guardians in her child's room in America. If something had happened to me and my Sadie wound up being raised in Korea, I would like to think the mother there tried, in her own way, to salute Sadie's American heritage. Like maybe sticking a little American flag in Sadie's room, or something...

So I like these fu lions. I like the idea of them up on a shelf, watching over the baby.

I would do the walls a soft, creamy yellow (again with the yellow and red nurseries!) and I fell in love with this bedding from Land of Nod:

You can't see it in this picture, but the set has a white eyelet cribskirt.

I would also hang white eyelet curtains in the window. I love quilts and I love white eyelet. So old fashioned and feminine in an Anne of Green Gables kind of way.

Anyway, then one day on Art.com I stumbled across this little print by Ezra Jack Keats, called Feeding the Birds from Jennie's Hat
which I love and which has both the soft yellow wall color in it as well as the orangey red of the fu lions. Perfect.

To continue the bird theme, I found these lovely bird decals from blik. I am really digging the combination of yellow and grey lately, so these would look so pretty on a yellow wall.

Anyway, that is all I have found so far for a baby girl's nursery. And now we are thinking about adopting a son, so I am starting to plan a baby boy's room, too. Stay tuned for those plans!

overheard

2010-02-12T15:30:00.000-05:00

Jack sings his own version of "Winter Wonderland." He sings:

O slaves!
O children!

sometimes he just repeats those two lines over and over, sometimes he segways into

a beautiful night
we're happy tonight
walkin' in a winter wonderland

So today he was singing "o slaves, o children" over and over and Sadie yelled at him. "Jack!" she yelled, with a scowly face. "That's bad to say!"

Jack asked her why. She told him, "Because slaves are bad people!"

I told her, "Sadie! Slaves are not bad people."

She got mad at me. "Yes, they are. Slaves are bad people. They steal babies."

"What?" I might have laughed because then she got really mad.

"They do. Slaves steal babies! In Moses (The Prince of Egypt) they do!"

Which led to a very confused/confusing conversation about slavery and Moses and Pharaoh. I think I missed the mark because as she walked away, Sadie said to Jack, "Egypt is a bad place."

date night

2010-02-12T12:22:00.004-05:00

Tonight Jonathan and Sadie are going out on a date. And Jack and I are going out on a date. The kids are so excited. I went in to get Jack this morning and he sat up and said, "We have a date tonight!"

It's funny because Sadie wants to go to the mall with Daddy. There is a food court where they can have dinner and the kids love going in The Disney Store and Pottery Barn Kids. Jack wants to go to the party store and get a PEZ dispenser. But when they started talking about it at dinner last night, Jack decided he and I need to go the mall too and Sadie wants to go to the party store, so we may be going on separate dates to the same places!

This is the first time we have done this, although Jonathan and I have talked about going on dates with the kids practically since they were born. We want to switch off every month, so one month we will go on little heterosexual dates and the next month we will go on same-sex dates. It will be fun to see where the kids choose to go with us, I think.

When Jack was potty training, one way we rewarded his pooping in the potty was by going to the party store (it's about a mile from our house) and buying him a PEZ dispenser. So when we were talking about our date and maybe going to the party store together, Jack got all excited and said, "I know! How about I can go poop and then we can go to the party store and buy a PEZ?!" I turned to Jonathan and said, "That is a hot date."

my boy

2010-02-11T12:35:00.001-05:00

I cannot believe in one week my little man will turn four years old. What happened to my colicky baby boy? Where has the time gone?

Jack wants a Captain Jack Sparrow party. Why do my kids always fall in love with movies and characters that are so out-dated? Jack graciously has settled for a pirate-themed party, since I couldn't find any Captain Jack Sparrow plates and hats in the party store!

I wanted to have the party at the local gymnastics center. We went to one there last year for a little boy in our neighborhood and it was so much fun! But Jack said, "No, that's not a great idea." He wants his birthday party to be at the house. So I bought some little wooden chests at Hobby Lobby for the party guests to paint and a bunch of party-themed favors and I think we'll also do some kind of Pin-the-Parrot-on-the-Pirate game and a pinata and that should be enough. My mom is so excited because she will be here for the party and she is suggesting all kinds of clever and Martha Stewarty ideas. Like having me carve a watermelon into a pirate ship! Um, no thanks, Mom. I have no intention of spending hours potentially slicing my own finger off trying to carve a pirate ship out of a watermelon to impress a bunch of four-year-olds! Besides as Jonathan helpfully pointed out, where the hell do you find a watermelon in February!

I did find some little pirate flag toothpick cupcake decorations. So Jack will have birthday cupcakes instead of a cake this year. I am planning to frost the cupcakes with blue frosting, put a little Reeses cup "pirate ship" on each one and stick a pirate flag in it. I think that will be pretty cute. I did cupcakes for Jack's Ernie birthday party and they came out great.

Here's a stroll down memory lane.

Jack's birthday last year:

His first birthday in Colorado! He wanted a Finding Nemo party. Jonathan's parents were visiting and we also invited our friends, Shannon and Eric, and their children, Elijah, who is Sadie's age, and Abigail, who was 18 months old, to go to the Museum with us. We toured the museum with the kids and then spent a lot of time in the children's room there. The kids had a blast and tried everything at least once! Then we came back home for a some pizza and a Nemo birthday cake.

The little party favors were colorful beach buckets filled with things like inflatable clownfish, fish bath toys, Goldfish crackers and (of course) Finding Nemo PEZ dispensers.

His main present was a Thomas tricycle.

Jack's Second Birthday:

This is, hands down, my favorite of his birthdays. I had everything planned and finished for an Ernie party (his favorite Sesame Street character), except for making the cake. We invited all of our family and our dear neighbors, the Davenports. And then there was a huge storm predicted for the Friday night of his party. So on the day before, Thursday, I kind of freaked out and called everybody to see if they could come over that evening instead. And our entire family came through and showed up for Jack's party! I was so full of love that night! I am sure most of them had to run out and buy a present on the way over, but they all made it and brought a gift, too!

I cleaned the house all day and whipped up a huge, yummy broccoli/chicken casserole for everyone and threw together the most adorable Ernie cupcakes ever made. Seriously. I rock. Check these suckers out:

The "hair" was made with some licorice I had bought Jonathan. The noses were some Valentines m&ms from our candy dish and I did all the rest with frosting.

The party favors for the Davenports and William I had made earlier in the week. Ernie gift boxes I made from orange favor boxes decorated with construction paper and black gift bows. I am sure my mother was proud of me.

Then, lastly, we have Jack's first birthday:

The theme that year was Curious George. When Jack was a baby, he looked kind of like Curious George to me. And Jonathan had bought the Curious George soundtrack when Jack was born and we had played it all year long to calm him down. He was such a cranky, rotten little guy that one day in Wal-Mart when he was about 6 months old, I saw all of this Curious George party stuff on clearance, and I bought it all. It was my incentive--my reminder that one day Jack would be one year old and hopefully all of the crying and screaming and misery would be behind us! And, finally, suddenly, it was.

I made this jungle cake with little Raisinette coconuts and Runts bananas. The trunk was a Twix bar and the grass was shredded coconut I dyed green.

All of our family came to celebrate Jack's birthday.

He ate his own little birthday cake with his bare hands. Look at that face. I cannot believe it has been almost four years!

I am back!

2010-02-09T23:07:00.002-05:00

Jonathan bought a new computer tonight while I was in class! I cannot believe how addicted I am to the internet. This was an absolutely horrible week. And I could kick myself for saying "it could be worse" in my last post. Idiot. Because Jack got a lot worse. sigh

He has a tendency to develop asthma whenever he gets any kind of respiratory problem. So the cough turned into a horrible, hacking coughing nonsleeping type of situation. We used all kind of over-the-counter stuff and the humidifier and his nebulizer and then finally Thursday night was terrible so I brought him to the pediatrician in the morning. It was terrible. Is there a more helpless feeling in the world than watching your child struggle for breath and not being able to help? So they prescribed a steroid and an antibiotic and checked him to make sure the nebulizer does help, that his oxygen levels do go up after using it. They do. And he was such a little trooper at the doctor's. We were there a while and he got to blow some bubbles for the doctor and suck on a popsicle, and listen to one of his favorite stories, Curious George Makes Pancakes.

So that was that. He is doing much better, coughing a lot less. Thank God.

offline

2010-02-04T18:19:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to let you know our laptop died yesterday. Just as I was getting back into the habit of blogging again, too! So I am typing this at the computer lab at school between classes. And you may not hear from me for a few days as we look for a new computer.

When it rains, it pours. Last week I got a flat tire and needed to get not one but four new tires since we have all-wheel drive. Then our furnace wasn't working and we had to get a new part for it. Then we had a "small" gas leak in the house. Now our computer has died. I hate the feeling of not being able to get ahead.

But enough complaining. We are all doing well. The kids are still coughing and now Jack's ear hurts, too, but I know that things could be so much worse (knock on wood).

I really miss the internet, though. I'm not gonna lie.

virus

2010-02-03T12:41:00.002-05:00

I kept Sadie home from school yesterday and again today. She has been coughing like crazy and because she hasn't had a fever I really didn't think it was a big deal. Gave her some triaminic every now and then and carried on. But then Monday night she was coughing her little head off all night.

And in the morning she said her ear hurt. And Jack began coughing, too. So I kept her out of school and brought them both to the pediatrician. The doctor told me they have a virus so there isn't anything we can do about the cough, other than over-the-counter medication and Jack's trusty nebulizer at night. But Sadie also has an ear infection. So we got a prescription for antibiotics and I am going to wait and see how she progresses before deciding to start the antibiotics. So far, so good. She cried last night so I gave her some Motrin, but she says it doesn't hurt today.

Jack had a fever and coughed through most of the night. He is normally such a goofy little guy; it is very sad to see him lying there so flushed and listless. Every time I heard him cough, my heart just sank.

So we are having a nice quiet day today. We slept in and we are all still in our pajamas. I am doing laundry so the house smells like fabric softener. And I might just brew a second cup of coffee.

Poor Jonathan has been out working since before we work up. I savor days like today with the kids because I know one day I will be in school full-time and then I'll be working and I will miss all of this down time so much...

earrings! take two

2010-01-31T23:32:00.003-05:00

Jonathan, Dustin, Jack and I took Sadie to the mall today to get her ears pierced! Again. The first time was pretty awful; I switched her earrings after a few months and the backs were on too tight. And I guess I stopped turning them every night because it had been so long I assumed her ears had healed. So ... the skin on the backs of her ears grew over the earring backs. It was horrible! Jonathan and I had to pull the backs off the earrings in the bathroom one night. He figured it would be less traumatic if we did it than if we brought her to the doctor. It was one of the most awful parenting moments of my life! I will never forget how calm Jonathan and I tried to be, although our eyes, when we looked at each other over her little tousled head, were full of panic. I will never forget how she screamed.

But Sadie decided she was ready to have them pierced again. This time she chose some little purple earrings. And she was so calm. She sat in the big chair, hugging the teddy bear they provide. She was nervous, I could tell, because she was very quiet, but she just sat very still and didn't even flinch when the lady pierced her ears. She really is so brave. Not at all like me--I think I screamed and cried when I had mine pierced. And I was like nine years old!

This time I will turn those damn earrings every day until Sadie goes to college.

the Walkers

2010-01-31T23:09:00.003-05:00

The information meeting Friday night was amazing. It was basically a question and answer session with a panel of adoptive parents and foster care advocates. So I shed a lot of tears and got to be in the same room as some amazing individuals. I don't know if I really learned anything new, since my heart has already made the decision to adopt. But it was beautiful hearing the different stories of all of the different families. And knowing what a loving support system Jonathan and I will have. I couldn't help picturing myself sitting on the stage in a few years, sharing my story!

Saturday night I helped out in the church nursery in the 12 - 18 months old room. I don't know how much help I really was since there were about 12 little ones in there and I basically held one little weepy girl the entire time, but the room leader assured me that was helpful, since somebody had to comfort her and my doing it freed the the other volunteers to monitor the other, more cheerful children. The little one in my arms was very uncertain about the whole thing. It was pretty amazing, being able to comfort someone like that. But she definitely missed her own Mommy and was very ready to be returned to her. I found out that Saturday night was that little baby girl's first time in the nursery, so I felt pretty special when I realized I was the one who helped reassure her that she would be okay away from Mommy for a little bit.

I just loved all the little kids. Some of them were so tiny--Sadie and Jack were so huge; I had almost forgotten... They all had such big heads and such wispy hair, such fat cheeks and chubby little starfish hands... They call that group the "Walkers" and that's all they did. They toddled around in their soft little walking shoes and every couple minutes they would weave like a drunk and topple onto their padded butts. I kept tearing up. They were so sweet. And I kept wondering how old our new baby will be when we meet her.

listening

2010-01-29T18:18:00.004-05:00

Tonight I am going to attend an information session at our church about adoption. Jonathan isn't coming because Dustin is coming to visit this weekend and will be arriving at the airport while the information session is starting. It's no big deal, really, since we are already 100% sure we are adopting. I am so excited! I am bringing cupcakes so I slaved away this afternoon over the most perfectly gorgeous cupcakes with homemade buttercream frosting. Good vibes, good vibes...

Jonathan called a local adoption agency and we are going to go there on February 11 to meet with them and discuss the adoption process.

Our plan to adopt from China has changed. It turns out that adopting from China is becoming more and more difficult. There are just so many prospective parents and less available infants. Which is a good thing. But which means adopting from China takes much longer now than ever before. Like it takes 40 months from the times your dossier is sent to China to be matched with a child! Forty months is a long time. And means that Jack and Sadie would be at least 7 and 8 years old by the time their little sister arrived. I don't think I want there to be such a gap in their ages. Not to mention, I had hoped to be working in five years.

So, the option we are considering now is adopting a baby from South Korea. The agency we have been looking into and will be meeting with in February handles adoptions from China and Korea. Korean adoption seems like a "safe" plan since Americans have been adopting from Korea for over 50 years; many sources we've read say Korea, as the longest running country for international adoptions has an ideal system in place. That children go into individualized foster care until placement. And we would probably have access to information about the baby's mother and family's medical history, which is usually not an option in a Chinese adoption.

So. That is the current plan. I hope my previous post didn't sound bitchy or defensive or discourage anyone from asking questions or feeling excited for us! This is going to be quite an emotional roller coaster, I am sure, and we just got on. So bear with me!

On a side note, I am already kicking names around inside my head. Jonathan and I asked the kids what names they like for a baby sister. Sadie said Ellison (no idea where that one came from) and Jack said Flower. Then he suggested Poopy and that was the end of any and all discussion because he and Sadie couldn't stop giggling and saying Poopy.

Names Jonathan and I like so far are Cora, Jane, Charlotte, Norah, and Violet. He has already shot down most of my suggestions (I can hear both of our moms saying, Thank God!) including the name Bijou, which I think is so cute and which I am very fond of at the moment.

learning

2010-01-28T14:42:00.004-05:00

Today is my fourth day of class this semester. And I just have to say this semester is going to take considerably more of my time than the last one. I am taking the second half of Anatomy, which is a lot more intricate than the first half. A lot of the first half was memorizing bones and muscles. And, I have to admit, I have been blessed with a freaky strong memory. So all of those terms came pretty easily to me. But so far we are studying the endocrine system and it is a lot harder for me to memorize all of the hormones and their properties and the all of the steps of the second messenger systems the water-based hormones employ... Grrrr...

Also, last semester my second class was an English class which was cake. I mean, all we had to do was crank out five essays. Whether we attended class was pretty much optional.

My second class this semester is a Psychology course. Human Growth and Development. Which I am loving. But which is significantly harder than the English class.

The Psychology course is so fascinating. And I cannot stop applying everything we have been learning so far--about genetic psychology and nature vs. nurture--to the dynamics of adoption. Because it is always on my mind. I will read a paragraph in my book ... and then I am picturing a little baby face ... and then I will shake the image from my head, look back at the book and read another paragraph ... and then I am thinking of baby names ...

So I will discuss the adoption plan. I will blog about it a lot. Just a head's up.

Tomorrow night I am attending an adoption information session at our church. Which seems like very fortuitous timing. I think the focus will be on foster care and subsequent adoption. I want to hear about all of it. There will be families there who have gone through the adoption process and I cannot wait to hear their stories. I think it is fascinating how people arrive at the right decision for their family. Because every family is different. And every adoption situation is different.

So far I catch myself getting defensive when I talk to someone about our plan. Because often they have questions about it. Which is perfectly natural. But which I feel defensive about answering. A part of me feels like if I was pregnant, no one would be asking me about my reasons for becoming pregnant. But announcing we plan to adopt has opened a whole can of worms, such as Why China? Why not Haiti? Why not an American child? Why not foster care? Why not an older child?

When I first told my friend, Shannon, about our plan I felt like I was literally apologizing for the fact that I want to adopt a baby and not an older child. She interrupted me and said, "Erin, it's okay to want things." And it was like a wave crashing over me. What do I want? I want a baby. I do not want to adopt because I want to "save" some orphan from a lonely existence. I want to adopt because I want a baby.

Some people have implied that Jonathan and I are wonderful people because we are going to adopt. Like we are overly generous or something like that. It makes me smile. I mean, yeah, I think Jonathan and I are pretty wonderful, but our reason for adopting is completely selfish. We want another child.

putting it out there

2010-01-24T12:10:00.007-05:00

I am going to do it. I am going to drop a bombshell.

Jonathan is on the phone and he just told his mom all about it and I heard him tell her, "Yeah, you can tell people!" He looked at me and nodded and frowned, like, Right? We are telling people? And I shrugged and nodded back. I already told my mom and once the moms are told, any news is completely allowed out of the bag, right?

Anyway, it is more a whisper than an announcement. Still in its infancy stages. But huge and all-consuming, none the less. And if I am building up some suspense, good. Because this little whisper, this plan, is suspense-worthy. I am full of it right now as I type.

We are planning to expand our family. Yes! It is out there now. Floating around the interwebs. We are planning to adopt a child.

And before you think we are just some kind of overly jacked up goodwill ambassadors wanting to rescue a child from Haiti, please sit back and settle down for a minute. Understand me, I am not mocking the people who have nothing but good intentions and who want to help the people of Haiti. I am not. But I am not convinced that swooping in and adopting a child from the rubble is the right way for our family to help! We have done our small part to help in other ways.

So this decision has nothing to do with the situation in Haiti. It is something Jonathan and I have been discussing for years. How ridiculous that I felt I had to say that when I am bursting with our happy plans!

Anyway. Our plan is still in its infancy stage. We are looking into adopting a baby from China. We know that this is a very long process and plans can change, but whoever our next child we be and wherever he or she may come from, please, just bear with the lack of details and information and just revel in our decision and please please please please pray for us.

Embarrassing Moment Number 8564

2010-01-20T22:14:00.002-05:00

Realizing I misspelled "embarrassing" in my previous post.

Embarassing Moment Number 8563

2010-01-19T19:14:00.002-05:00

School started again today. For me.

Before leaving for class, I emptied out my backpack from last semester and restocked it with pens and lip gloss and tissues and Motrin etc. etc. I think it is a throwback from lugging around a diaper bag for so long and that lovely feeling of being prepared for any situation. There were some pantyliners in the bottom of the backpack and I sat there staring at them debating how necessary they could possibly be since I never wound up desperately needing one last semester! Finally I tossed them back into the backpack, figuring if I ever did wind up desperately needing one while in class that that moment in my kitchen where I took them out of the backpack would come back to haunt me.

Anyway.

I went to class and then had to go to the bookstore for some clicker-thing my Psych professor is requiring us to have to participate in classroom polls. Some $39 clicker-thing that I am sure I will never need again after this class. Anyway, I pull out my wallet to pay and stuck to my wallet is ... you guessed it ... a pantyliner.

Nice.

bucket lists

2010-01-13T18:12:00.004-05:00

I found these lists in an old journal of mine today. Several years ago Jonathan and I wrote down some of our goals in life. I can remember lying in bed beside him, writing as he dictated his list to me, but for the life of me I cannot remember when we did this. I think I remember which apartment we were in, so I am guessing we did this in 2000. Ten years ago. It is interesting which ones we have accomplished in that time and which ones we still have yet to cross off. Maybe now (10 years later) would be a good time to come up with new, revised lists.

Anyway, here is My Bucket List ca. 2000, with the goals I have achieved crossed out:

TO FINISH COLLEGE (I am in school now, so yay, me!)
1. ~~to have children~~
2. to see:

~~England~~
Ireland
~~Italy~~
Greece
France
etc.

3. to learn the clarinet
4. to learn the guitar?
5. to learn to sew
6. to make a quilt
7. to perfect my great-great-grandmother Mariah's lemon sponge pie
8. to find a way to stay in shape that I enjoy
9. to learn about photography
10. ~~to write more~~
11. to be a great cook
12. to call my family & friends more (This one cracks me up--can I have gotten worse in the past ten years? Is that possible?)
13. ~~to see "Les Mis" again~~
14. to write a book
15. to weigh 125
16. ~~to learn to knit~~
17. to learn another language
18. to learn about world geography

Some of them I can tell you right off the bat will not be on my new list, such as to learn the clarinet (no idea where that one came from!) and to weigh 125 pounds. Seriously, I would just rather be healthy than focus on an ideal weight. And 125 sounds a bit on the skinny side and pretty impossible to obtain at this point in my life!

And now for Jonathan's Bucket List ca. 2000:

1. to see:

Greece
Scotland
Norway
~~the Caribbean~~
Hawaii
the Grand Canyon
etc.

(his list of places to visit was a bit different from mine since he had already been to much of Europe before we met)
2. ~~to learn the guitar~~ (he is learning now that he got a shiny new guitar for Christmas!)
3. to go skiing
4. to go scuba diving
5. to own a sailboat
6. ~~to take a cooking class~~
7. to walk more
8. ~~to go snorkeling~~

It is interesting to me how many of Jonathan's goals are more attainable now that we have moved to Colorado. Like going skiing and walking more. And visiting the Grand Canyon, which is so much closer than before. Very cool. I wonder what things will make his new list...

Happy Holidays

2010-01-11T11:08:00.003-05:00

I was in the store this weekend. Walking through displays of pink and red valentine hearts. I suppose I am used to the rapid replacement of all things Christmas with all things Valentine's Day once the holidays are over, but this--this I was unprepared for:

That's right, a display of Easter candy tucked in between all of the hearts and teddy bears.

I am not one of those who complains when I first hear Christmas music, even if it is while I am buying Halloween candy. I don't complain when I see Christmas merchandise in the stores. In fact, I used to get so tired of hearing customers complain when I worked at Borders and would start putting out Christmas books every fall. "Christmas stuff already?!"

I always just ignored them and kept shelving when I really wanted to snap at them: "Yes, Christmas stuff already! What an original observation. And you know what, people will buy it. People will buy it and yet I will also hear 8 billion more grumpy Scrooges just like you say Christmas stuff already?! for the next three months every time they walk past these books that are selling ... so shut up already!"

I never said it. But I wanted to. For three whole months. Every time someone said Christmas stuff already?! But it's only [insert month]!

Some people (like me) enjoy seeing Christmas items filling the stores. Some people (like me) look forward to hearing Christmas music. Some people (like me) enjoy the anticipation.

But I am not ready for it to be over. Jonathan took down our tree yesterday. We are slowly getting the house back to its sterile, non-festive holiday state. But I am not ready for Easter. It feels too soon. I am not ready to get back out there and see other people. I am not over Christmas yet.

What the Dead Know

2010-01-05T22:15:00.008-05:00

From the dust jacket:

Thirty years ago two sisters disappeared from a shopping mall. Their bodies were never found and those familiar with the case have always been tortured by these questions: How do you kidnap two girls? Who—or what—could have lured the two sisters away from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon without leaving behind a single clue or witness?

Now a clearly disoriented woman involved in a rush-hour hit-and-run claims to be the younger of the long-gone Bethany sisters. But her involuntary admission and subsequent attempt to stonewall investigators only deepens the mystery. Where has she been? Why has she waited so long to come forward? Could her abductor truly be a beloved Baltimore cop? There isn't a shred of evidence to support her story, and every lead she gives the police seems to be another dead end—a dying, incoherent man, a razed house, a missing grave, and a family that disintegrated long ago, torn apart not only by the crime but by the fissures the tragedy revealed in what appeared to be the perfect household.

In a story that moves back and forth across the decades, there is only one person who dares to be skeptical of a woman who wants to claim the identity of one Bethany sister without revealing the fate of the other. Will he be able to discover the truth?

This was a really good book! Amazon recommended it to me because I liked In the Woods by Tana French. I highly recommend this if you like mysteries. Also, it is set in Baltimore and there are lots of references to Northern Virginia so you folks back home would probably enjoy it, too.

I liked how the author revealed critical facts late in the plot rather than laying everything out on the table in the very first chapter. And I also liked the fact that even though I thought I had the whole plot figured out, I was wrong! Not to sound cocky, but I can usually figure out these mystery novels (the only bad thing about In the Woods was the fact that I figured out the present-day murder) but this time I didn't get it right.

I am creepily fascinated by the idea of grief. By what keeps a person going after a horrible tragedy. After a horrible, Nancy Grace level tragedy. What happens to a marriage? To a person who loses everything in an instant? So that part of the story, the part dealing with the parents of "the Bethany sisters" in the days, months, years following their daughters' disappearance, that part appealed to me. As a parent, some of it was painful to read, but it was still fascinating.

So I liked it. I am terrible at reviewing books, so I wish Elizabeth or Grumpy Editor would read it and review it for me! Hint, hint.

gratitude

2010-01-05T15:40:00.005-05:00

I put the kids to bed last night. Wait, that's not true. Let me begin again.

Jonathan put the kids to bed last night. He usually does. And then I usually go in a little later to say goodnight to them and give them hugs and kisses and then I usually check on them a few more times before I go to bed.

I went into the kids' rooms last night to say goodnight to them and give them hugs and kisses.

I said goodnight to Sadie first. She burrowed under her covers and when I told her how snug she looked she decided she needed even more covers to look even more snug. So we covered her with her red baby blanket that my friend, Susan, from Borders, made for her before she was even born. And then we covered her with her Winnie-the-Pooh fleece blanket that her cousin, Emily, made for her. Sadie giggled happily when I told her how snug she looked under all of those blankets. Then I checked on Jack.

Jack was a bit overly-tired. When he gets a bit overly-tired he gets a bit overly-clingy. He did a whiny little baby voice, stuck out his bottom lip and told me he didn't want to be all alone in his room. He wanted me to stay with him. I told him I was tired and that I would be right down the hall in my room, reading, if he needed anything. And that our doors would be open so I would be able to hear him. That seemed to comfort him. He finally released me from his clutches and I left.

I peeked in Sadie's room again as I was leaving Jack's. (I can't help myself. I am addicted to their faces.) She was rubbing her eyes with her fists. So I asked her if she wanted her nightlight turned off. This is a fairly new thing with Sadie. Sometimes we turn off her Disney Princess nightlight because it is too bright and we leave the hall light on for her instead. She tries so hard to be a big girl.

She told me to turn it off so I did. I turned the hall light on and then she told me, "You can turn that off, too." I smiled at her and told her I would leave it on, but that I would come turn it off after she fell asleep. She tries so hard to be a big girl, but I know her limits.

I went to my room and curled up with my book. What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman. It was very good and soon I was completely engrossed in the story. I have no idea how much time passed when suddenly Jack came into my room. "Mommy," he announced, climbing up on my bed, "you know why I came in here? Dun dun duuuuuun ..." (Jack is always providing his own soundtrack.) "I came in here to get you a hug. Because I love you and I want to get you a hug. So you will know for ever and ever that I love you." We hugged and I tried not to cry at the unbearable sweetness that is my son. He kissed my shoulder while I had my arms around him. Then he climbed down and went back to his room, blowing me kisses and telling me to catch them and put them in my heart. I did and I felt like my heart would burst into a million pieces, it was so full of his kisses.

I decided if I had to describe my Jack in one word it would be loving. He is so cuddly and kissy and huggy. He is always telling Jonathan and I how much he loves us, how we are his best friends... He has always been this way.

Then I thought, what one word would I use to describe my Sadie? And the first word that popped into my head last night was brave. I pictured her little face, her tousled hair, as she told me to turn off the hall light. She is so brave. She always has been. Much braver than me. My Sadie has always loved going down the tallest slides, swinging on swings as high as she can go, the thrill of playing hide-and-seek with Daddy--her favorite part being the moment when he jumps out of his hiding place and yells "boo!"

blackmail

2010-01-04T20:40:00.002-05:00

resolutions

2009-12-31T22:48:00.003-05:00

I am sitting here, watching some lame ghost hunting show with Jonathan, trying not to eat all of the chocolate-covered goldfish crackers he put in my Christmas stocking. (Does he know me, or what?!) And I am trying to decide what my New Year's Resolutions should be.

Clearly, I am going to make my annual I-am-going-to-get-healthy-this-year-and-this-time-I-mean-it! resolution. So other than that general goal, here are my resolutions:

1. To drink more water. What? It's really dry here in Colorado and I refuse to let my skin get all nasty and flaky.

2. To try really, really hard to love everyone. And by everyone I mean everyone. I mean the rude person in the Wal-Mart, that annoying person in my class at school who asks so many questions that he takes up all of the professor's time, everyone.

Wow. That one is a really big one. So maybe I'll just focus on that one and the annual I-am-going-to-get-healthy resolution and I will try to drink more water whenever I think of it. That should be plenty.

Oh! And one more:

3. To blog more often. And maybe I should try to think of something every post that I am grateful for. Because I have much to be grateful for in my life.

So there you have it--my resolutions for 2010. Happy New Year!

Tonight I am grateful for my husband. Who loves me and put up with my being ridiculously cranky tonight and giving him the silent treatment in the car coming home from Target. Who puts the kids to bed almost every single night and reads them all of the very long books I avoid when it's my turn to tuck them in and who reads them with loud, theatrical voices and outrageous John Cleese accents. Who picked out the sweetest things for my Christmas stocking, even though he complained that I am extremely hard to shop for. Who makes sure my humidifier is full and fully functioning at night so I will get better sooner.

Tell me, Gentle Reader, what are you grateful for tonight?

improving

2009-12-30T19:33:00.003-05:00

I am. I am improving. And I thought I needed to quickly blog something, anything, since my last post was so ... ahem ... bitchy. Sorry about that. At least I strive to keep it real.

So nothing much has changed in my life since yesterday. Jonathan and I went to the movies last night. We wanted to check out Avatar in 3D Imax since we actually have in-house babysitters, but it was sold out so we went to see The Blind Spot instead. Finally.

It was every bit as awesome as I had imagined. And I cried even more than I did during the previews for it on tv. In between sucking on Halls and trying not to cough, I cried. Good times. The topic of adoption has been a popular one in Glenbogle house this holiday season, so it was a relevant movie, too. Sigh. That is a whole other loooooong topic for another day. File it under to-blog.

My in-laws leave tomorrow and I am not looking forward to it. It will be, as Sadie said today, a sad day.

wheezer

2009-12-29T16:28:00.002-05:00

I am sick. I think I get sick every winter. Do I? Maybe. Anyway, I am sick now. Luckily for me, Jonathan's parents are still visiting so they are playing with the kids all day and feeding them and putting them to bed and stuff. Which is awesome, because it allows me to sleep.

I am now past the feverish stage and fully enmeshed in the cranky-as-hell stage. I am just so tired of coughing and wheezing and blowing my nose. Tired. Of. It. I barely saw Jonathan's sister and her husband while they were here. I was lying in bed with a fever. Feeling guilty that I wasn't downstairs hanging out with them. A little bit, but mostly just feeling achy and miserable.

His parents leave soon. Tomorrow, maybe? And then God knows how we will get by. Because although I miss the children terribly and feel like I haven't seen them in months, when I am around them they are just so loud that my ears start ringing and I'm like, Get these noisy crazy monsters away from me!

So that should be fun.

Sorry to be so complainy. Merry freakin' Christmas. (Told you I was in the cranky-as-hell stage. You would be, too, trust me.)

one down

2009-12-11T12:12:00.003-05:00

I finished my first semester yesterday. It was a very bittersweet day. I think I will remember some of the kids in my classes for a long time. My Anatomy class started with around thirty students but by the end of the semester we were down to eleven. And in my English class we all had to do a presentation the last week, of our favorite essays we wrote this year. They were all very intimate papers, and listening to the various experiences really opened my eyes. I have to admit I got teary during most of the essays. And I left the school feeling full of love for every student in the room.

So now I have a month off before the next semester starts. A month to enjoy Jonathan's family visiting, Christmas, and just being with Jonathan and Sadie and Jack.

The kids are growing up so fast! I feel like I have been so busy that I have missed a lot. Sadie is such a big girl. She got mad at me the other night because I called her my skinny girl. "Don't call me that!" she said. And then stalked off to her room and slammed the door.

A week or so ago, the kids were invited to our neighbor's house to watch "Rudolph" and drink cocoa. The mom and dad had won a local contest and Santa was coming to their house in a firetruck to meet the kids and hear their Christmas lists and play them some songs on the guitar. (I never knew Santa was musically inclined!) None of the kids knew Santa was coming.

I had school that night so Jonathan went instead, and the entire class I kept looking at my watch, wondering what was going on at the neighbor's and wishing I could see the kids' faces when Santa arrived. It was strange. I think this was the first thing I have had to miss because I had to be somewhere else. I know it's really not a big deal, because a lot of moms work and/or go to school and they have to pick and choose which events in their children's lives merit missing work or class, but still... It was a first for me. It felt very weird not being there.

Sadie was waiting up for me when I got home, all bright-eyes and rosy-cheeked, to tell me all about meeting Santa. They had a wonderful time. Santa rocked the house and gave them all candy. Ever since, Sadie likes to pretend to play "Jingle Bells" on Jack's toy guitar and serenade us. It's pretty cute.

They are getting so big. Jack, especially, has turned into a little boy practically overnight. He wears his Halloween costume almost every day. So I am forever tripping over Mr. Incredible, who runs around defeating bad guys--shooting spiderwebs out of his hands and chasing off vampires.

But the biggest change in Jack's little life is church. We have started going to church on Saturday nights and the children go off to separate age-appropriate rooms during the service. The first night we went, Jack was fine. He ran into the room and started playing with some toy cars and didn't even notice we had left. But when we picked him up he took one look at my face and burst into tears. I think that was when it hit him he had been away from us! The next week he cried as soon as we walked in the building. That was a rough night. I think I cried a little, too, after I left him in the room for 3-year-olds. Jonathan went back in to try to talk to him, but Jack wouldn't even look at him.

After that awful night Jack has been fine. He loves church and comes out of there armed with pictures he has colored, the first ones he has made for us somewhere other than our kitchen table. It makes me relieved that he will be okay when he starts preschool next fall, but also sad that he is such a big boy now...

Sadie loves church. She sees it mainly as another chance to hang out with her friend, Elijah. But the other night on the way home she told Jonathan and I the entire story of Jesus calming the storm. So she is learning a little bit while playing.

Jonathan and I are loving the church, too. It is very non-denominational and completely unlike the Catholic church I am used to. But I love the pastors. I have been brought to tears every Saturday. It is a beautiful feeling, getting some of my faith back. Last Saturday, in particular, moved me and I have been thinking about the sermon all week. But that is a whole other blog post. One I will write when I am in the mood to shed a few tears. Maybe.

It seems this entire post I have been talking about feeling weepy! I think it is the time of year...

6 things I love about my husband

2009-11-23T02:01:00.000-05:00

(in no particular order)

1. he is so gorgeous
2. he is so passionate
3. he is so silly
4. he is so tall
5. he is a good father
6. he takes such good care of me

Happy birthday, honey!

6 things I do not believe in

2009-11-16T02:01:00.000-05:00

1. ghosts
2. alien abductions
3. angels
4. customer service
5. the doomsday calender
6. politicians

um...

2009-11-16T00:16:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago, NieNie was on Oprah.

NieNie is short for Stephanie Nielson, a blogger from Provo, Utah. She is an extraordinary woman, wife and mother of four adorable kids. Her blog is so inspiring. And one of the reasons it is so inspiring is the crazy turn her life took last summer when the small plane carrying her and her husband crashed.

Stephanie suffered burns over 80% of her body. She was in a coma for months. I followed her recovery through her sister's blog until Stephanie finally began blogging again. And the story of her day-to-day life is so inspiring and humbling. She makes me tear up almost every time I read her blog. She reminds me what is really important.

Anyway, I was uberexcited she was going to be on Oprah. My mom and Olivia both were like, "Did you see NieNie is going to be on Oprah?!" (And I have to give my mom props for totally calling it before the appearance was announced, when she read on Stephanie's blog that she and her husband, Christian had taken a trip to Chicago.)

Anyway, so I taped the episode. (Or DVRed it, whatever...) And watched with tears in my eyes. Stephanie and her husband are so in love! And she looks so beautiful! She still has a lot of scars, but her blue eyes are the same and her little hairdo. Anyway.

So Jack turns to me and he says, "Her lips are big."

And I wipe my tears away and pause the show and say, "Yes, they are big. Do you know why?"

Jack shakes his head. And I take the opportunity to explain to him how badly Stephanie was hurt, and how sometimes people look different and that's normal for them and we should never stare at them or mention how they look different. I really went all out. Like an after-school special or one of those "The More You Know" commercials. Anyway, I summed up beautifully and asked Jack if he understood.

He blinked at me and then asked, "But why are your lips so big?"

mean people suck

2009-11-13T12:43:00.002-05:00

It is supposed to snow this weekend, starting tonight! So Jack and I went to Wal-Mart after dropping Sadie off at school to buy groceries to last all weekend. It is very crisp and grey outside right now and the air smells like snow. I love days like today. Makes me want to curl up with a good book and eat warm banana bread.

It is very soothing to stand outside and breathe the winter air today. A woman was rude to me this morning while I was dropping Sadie off and I cannot get it out of my head. It wasn't anything important, so I'm not even going to bother sounding stupid by typing it out. But I hate being so sensitive, letting things bother me so much. I had hoped that once I became a parent I would magically grow a thicker skin, learn how to let things roll off my back. But I haven't.

I just wish people could be kinder to each other.

I know I am a very judgmental person, but I try not to be. I try to at least save my judgments and tell them to Jonathan while we watch tv and we snicker and feel better about ourselves for a minute or two. Terrible behavior, but there it is!

But when I am out and about, I try to be nice to people. Smile and say hello. Make small talk. Be a courteous driver and let others merge. Things like that. So it really bothers me when someone goes out of their way to be rude. As if, in the great big universe, someone should be keeping score and seeing to it that my kindness is repaid. That others do unto me. Sigh.

And I try to take deep breaths. Imagine that my mind is a dry-erase board and imagine I am using a big eraser to wipe the incident out of my head. I just wish it worked!

A woman I worked with at Borders, Kassie, told me something her minister said one time and I have never forgotten it. She said he told her whenever she felt overwhelmed to picture a huge noisy unhappy crowd of people all around her (which is so easy to picture!), and then to imagine God standing waaaaaay far away, beyond the crowd and He is waving frantically, trying to get your attention. And He has a great big sympathetic smile on his face. I like this image. Right now I am picturing a whole crowd full of that woman who was rude to me today: angry, rude mean women.

Are you there, God? It's me, Erin.

6 reasons I have not been blogging

2009-11-09T02:01:00.000-05:00

this Monday's list of six:

1. We have been busy enjoying our guests: first Olivia and then my mom.
2. School has been kicking my ass.
3. I have a cold and Jonathan has the H1N1 flu.
4. I am addicted to facebook.
5. I am intimidated by all of the wonderfully talented bloggers out there.
6. I am just plain lazy.

I will try to do better.

momentary lapse

2009-09-28T21:25:00.003-04:00

I had to take a little break from blogging.

The problem was I had to write a personal essay for my English class. We had to write about an incident in our lives that changed us. And we had to carry on for 3 to 5 pages about it.

We were supposed to choose an incident that we still had unresolved questions about. So we could use the paper as an avenue to more thoroughly explore our feelings...

And I could not for the life of me come up with a topic! I was all like yeah, I love to write ... would love to be a writer ... blah blah blah ... me me me ... and then when it came time to really wow the professor with my first assigned essay, I drew a complete blank. Give me a topic, and I can write about it. Pick a genre even. No problem.

But I have this blog, see. And I kind of use it to work out my feelings about any and every incident in my life. So I really don't have any issues that are looming in my mind with burning questions attached. I've blogged about e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Seriously. Married to Man I Love. Check. Feelings about Being a Mother. Check. My Miscarriage. Check. Even The Day My Dog Died has been all typed up for the world to read.

So I took a little sabbatical from blogging. I studied for another Anatomy exam. And I did a lot of free-writing, trying to brainstorm. The paper is due tomorrow and I cranked out three pages of something so we'll see... sigh

Newsweek had a very interesting article in the last issue about the ethics of mommy-bloggers. It was very interesting. All about the decision a parent makes (the power they wield) to air all their children's dirty laundry. On the internet. For the whole world to read. Until the end of time.

As a mommy blogger, I kind of heaved a gigantic sigh of relief after reading it. I don't feel I have ever written anything that could be considered a betrayal of my children's trust. Because I write little anecdotes about my kids so I can look back on them later. So I will never forget the silly little things they say and do. And so my mom and my mother-in-law know about all the adorable things the grandkids are up to. But also, and most importantly, I write about my children so they have my words, in my voice, for the rest of their lives. If I get hit by a truck tomorrow, they will always have this blog to read and they will know how deeply I adore them.

Science Girl

2009-09-16T11:15:00.006-04:00

So I found out the score on my first Anatomy exam. I was very nervous about this test because it was supposed to be a review of all of the basic Biology and Chemistry stuff we should have learned in Biology, with some basic Anatomy terms and regions thrown in. And, as you may recall, I haven't taken basic Biology. I crammed some basic Bio into my head this summer with a Biology Cliff Notes book and managed to pass the science placement test. So now I had to go back over all of that information more thoroughly to pass this exam and catch up to my classmates.

It was very overwhelming, because I made like a billion notecards and wasn't really sure if I was studying the right information. And then, of course, the exam was only like 40 questions. So I walked out feeling pretty good, but not sure if it was a false confidence.

My score? I got a 99!

Jonathan, the Wonder Husband, was so proud of me. I came home from class, where I had texted him my grade, and the house was squeaky clean, and he had run out and gotten a pizza for me. There was also a lovely card -- and a delicious lemon shortcake for dessert! How adorable is he? I am so lucky.

You know, it's funny. Somewhere along the way I had gotten the idea that I was bad at math and science. That I am more right-brained than left-brained. I think this is something that many girls, for one reason or another, come to believe. But I was the office supervisor at Borders a few years ago and was in charge of the safe and all of the deposits, payroll, and reconciling the corporate accounts. And I found out that I love math!

And now this exam has proven to me that I can also do science! I feel so confident. I get it! Just don't ask me to explain the Krebs cycle.

Patrick Swayze

2009-09-14T22:51:00.002-04:00

I can't believe he is gone.

I still remember going to see this movie at the Spotsylvania Mall with my mom and Christina. Christina and I were probably about 12 years old. Right after seeing the movie we tried one of those little machines in the mall that measures your sex drive for a quarter. It was called The Love Meter or something like that. Basically it measured your heartrate. Well, Christina and I were so worked up from watching Patrick Swayze in that movie! Our hearts were racing. I still remember that stupid machine told both of us "Whoa! Take a cold shower!"

tomato wild rice soup

2009-09-14T11:00:00.001-04:00

I make this soup about a billion times every fall and winter. It is thick and hearty and just so freakin' delicious! It is starting to get a bit cooler outside and so I made a huge batch last week. The plan was to freeze some so that on nights when I have class, Jonathan could heat some up for dinner, but we both love the soup so much we ate every last drop!

This recipe is from The Complete Book of Soups and Stews by Bernard Clayton. One of the best cookbooks I ever bought.

Tomato and Wild Rice Soup

3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, sliced
1 stalk celery, sliced
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 can chicken broth
1/2 cup wild rice
salt
pepper
pinch of sugar
1/2 teaspoon basil (or 2 tablespoons chopped fresh)
1/2 cup heavy cream

Melt butter with olive oil in a soup pot. Add onion, carrot and celery and cook about 10 minutes, until the onions are translucent.

Add tomatoes, chicken broth and rice and bring to a boil. Add salt and pepper to taste and the basil and a pinch of sugar. Boil gently, covered, for 1 hour until rice opens and fluffs. Stir frequently. Add water if it boils down too much (I don't because I like thick soup).

Add the cream and heat through.

I usually use 2 or 3 carrots and stalks of celery and a lot more rice. Probably three times as much rice as the recipe calls for! But I prefer this almost like a stew instead of a soup. And of course you have to eat it with some crusty, buttery bread from Target!

Go Broncos!

2009-09-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

I am not a football fan. I grew up in a house full of huge football fans. My dad and my brothers are totally obsessed. Sundays and Monday nights the tv was always blaring and the three of them would be grouped around the television. They were very active watchers -- shouting, cheering, groaning, clapping, even jumping up off the couch when there was really intense action.

I could never get into it.

And growing up in Virginia, it's not like we had a team. I mean, there are the Washington Redskins, but no Virginia team. And my family were not Redskins fans. My dad, being from Connecticut, was a Jets fan when I was little. Then he switched to the Bears. George was a Chargers fan and Chris liked the Giants. I think. I am sure they will correct me if I got that wrong!

A lot of the kids at school liked the Redskins. I hated the Redskins. Not that I even could have named a single player. Joe Namath? Was he a Redskin? Anyway, I associated the Redskins with a lot of other Virginia things that I hated: strong Southern accents, Nascar, wrestling, sweet tea, baseball hats and camouflage. So even though I didn't watch football, I was emphatically anti-Redskin.

Now we live in a state with a team! Not only with a team, but with a stadium that is only 20 minutes away. The Broncos practiced a half mile from our apartment when we first moved to Colorado. I even met the Broncos cheerleaders last fall in an awkward Habitat for Humanity volunteer day that I have never gotten around to sharing. I'll tell it eventually. It's pretty funny.

Anyway, I am getting excited about watching football this year. I kind of miss hearing the sounds of the game on tv on Sundays. Jonathan is not a big football fan, either. Although we both put on the Super Bowl every year to watch the commercials. And we do watch the game, too. I even manage to get a little worked up every year. I support whoever is losing. And so I flip flop back and forth as each team takes turns losing. I liked the Super Bowl where the Giants won. Was it last year or the year before? I remember thinking, Hmm, maybe I'll be a Giants fan. That was a great game. And then promptly forgot all about it until just now, typing this.

Jonathan at least understands what is going on. He has tried to explain the game to me every year while we watch the Super Bowl and I invariably ask, "What the hell is a down?" We sit and eat nachos and drink beer and every now and then he cheers, "Go football!" which cracks me up every time. We just feel like such posers.

But maybe we'll be Broncos fans. He has already been to a game. And, like I said, I met the cheerleaders. So, you know, Go football! We're practically fans already.

I bought stuff to make nachos and guacamole and pico de gallo today and (what else?) Coors. I think for me I get more into the football snacks and the sounds of the game than the game itself.

But I am also, in some lame sexist way, determined not to fail Jack in this regard. Somehow, even growing up surrounded by football fanatics, I don't understand the sport. I am determined that my son will. Maybe he'll even like it. Who knows? He already knows that the team is called the Broncos. There is a gigantic creepyass blue Bronco statue by the airport. It has red eyes that light up. He and Sadie call it the Bronto.

We were reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? the other day and when we got to the blue horse in the story, Jack got all excited. "Blue horse! Just like the Bronto is a blue horse!"

Go Brontos! Go football!

Camping

2009-09-12T21:41:00.013-04:00

Last weekend, we took the kids camping for the very first time. We went to Rocky Mountain National Park, which must be one of my favorite places on earth. It is just so beautiful there. And there are lots of elk, lying in the grass, calling to each other in their bizarre, high-pitched voices.

We checked in and it was drizzling outside. So we piled back into the car and checked out the Visitor Center. And drove around the Park a bit to admire the elk.

The rain cleared up so we went and put up the tent. Jonathan felt our tent was a bit ridiculously large for just the four of us, and it is big, but I was grateful for the room that night while we were all stretched out in our sleeping bags!

Our campsite had some gorgeous boulders that the kids climbed on while I helped Jonathan set up our nylon mansion.

When we had it set up, we headed off to Alberta Falls for a hike. Jack was so thrilled to be camping with Daddy. He is in love with Daddy lately. I think they held hands through the entire hike.

It was so beautiful. Still cool, thanks to the rain, and a little overcast so there was no ruthless Colorado sun beating down on us. I think I much prefer to go on a hike in cool weather.

After the hike, we decided we were starving! So we went back to the campsite and Jonathan made us all a big batch of Dinty Moore stew for dinner. Followed by -- what else? -- toasted marshmallows.

We got the kids into their flannel jammies and tucked them into their sleeping bags. They played with their flashlights in the tent for a while while Jonathan and I sat by the fire and finished off the marshmallows. They started to get a little bit rambunctious in the tent, so we put out the fire and climbed into the tent. I was shocked how quickly they fell asleep!

It got pretty cold that night. Not too cold, really -- I had been afraid it would be much worse -- but I still checked on the kids several times in the night, to make sure they were tucked into their sleeping bags, since they move around so much in their sleep. I could hear the elk calling to each other in the night. They sound a little bit like owls. I wish I could better describe the sounds they make. If you haven't ever heard one, you should google it. Or you could come and visit me and I'll take you to hear them in person!

In the morning, it was so cold in the tent and I was so snug in my sleeping bag. It was really hard to get up. But the kids were so hyper and cute, and the air was so crisp and clean-smelling. Jack announced, "I love everybody in this tent and I looooove camping!"

I asked the kids if they heard the elk in the night. They hadn't. But Sadie told me she did hear crickets. And Jack said he heard a cougar roaring just outside our tent. Which would be hilarious, except I was just Googling cougars and discovered that a ten year old boy was killed by a cougar in Rocky Mountain National Park in 1999! However. If there had been a cougar roaring outside our tent in the night I think I would have heard it. And peed all over myself.

Jonathan bravely got dressed first, shivering loudly through his teeth, and went out to make me some coffee. What a lovely man!

Just before we left to go home, Jack wanted Daddy to take him to use the potty one last time. Okay. That's not exactly true. We pleaded with Jack to use the potty. There was a tantrum. There were tears and many threats and bribes. But he finally decided he wanted Daddy to take him to the boys' potty. This is a novelty for him, since he is usually out with me and so winds up using the women's bathroom. And that really pisses him off! He is always asking if he can go into the men's room by himself. The answer to that being a firm no. So he enjoyed going to the potty with Daddy while camping. I couldn't even begin to guess how many times Jonathan walked with Jack up and down the hill to the bathroom. Luckily, Jonathan is a master planner and reserved a campsite next to the bathrooms.

So Jack went potty one last time. And so we were able to go for a drive along Trail Ridge Road (which is the highest continuous motorway in the US) before heading home. On our way out of the campgounds, a coyote ran across the road in front of the car! It wasn't very large, and of course it ran past us at the one time during the entire trip that I didn't have the camera in my hand. So this is the only photo of it we got. Can you find the coyote?

The views along Trail Ridge Road were breathtaking. I looked and looked but I didn't see a single bighorn sheep. Those damn sheep are the state animal of Colorado and I have yet to see one! But I did see the Alpine Tundra, an extremely fragile ecosystem that exists above the treeline. The terrain up there has very shallow roots and only has a 180 day growing season, so there were signs all over the trail we walked on, asking people to please stay off of the grass since it takes decades to grow.

I am a bit sad that we only got to go camping once this summer. But we were waiting for Jack to be completely potty-trained. And we really weren't sure if he and Sadie would sleep in a tent all night long.

Now I can hardly wait for next summer! We want to take them camping a lot!

tomato soup cake

2009-09-04T08:22:00.009-04:00

I found this recipe card years ago while raiding my grandmother's recipe box for tomato soup cake. So of course I snagged it. It just sounded too bizarre, although apparently my grandfather loves it. I never made it.

So this week, feeling the approach of Fall and being in a baking mood, I decided to finally, finally make the cake. So of course I cannot find the recipe card. After looking around a bit (it is here somewhere, I just know it) I found a recipe online. The recipes are probably basically identical. I think the idea was from Campbell's so Grandma probably copied it off of one of their cans or out of a magazine!

Anyway, the idea is that the cake is a frugal, simple dessert choice during the depression (or even today's recession) because it has relatively few ingredients and they are items you usually have on hand. Except, having decided to make this cake at last, I realized, for the first time in my entire life probably, that I had no tomato soup in my pantry.

So I threw the kids in the car and drove to Wal-Mart for a can of tomato soup.

Anyway, the cake. The. Cake. The cake was fantastic. Possibly a new favorite for me. If you like carrot cake or spice cake, or even if you just like cream cheese frosting, then you must throw this beauty together. It is a gorgeous orangey-brown color, just a little more orange than a carrot cake, and you would never know there is tomato soup in it! It made my whole house smell like Autumn.

Warning: this cake is very dense and heavy so I recommend making it when you have company over. Because although it is delicious, I think I have gained five pounds since making it!

Our cake looks very sloppy because I was in such a hurry to eat it! I cut off two big pieces for the kids and gave them each a bowl of frosting so they could frost their own cake before eating it. Then I used my rubber spatula to literally just dump the rest of the frosting on the cake and quickly smear it around. But it was so freakin' delicious I don't care if it looks like a hot mess!

Tomato Soup Cake

3/4 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 (10.75 ounce) can tomato soup
3/4 cup water
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cups raisins
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt or tube pan.

Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar until light and fluffy.

In a separate bowl, combine tomato soup, water and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture alternately with the flour mixture. Stir in the raisins and nuts.

Pour batter into pan. Bake 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Cream Cheese Frosting

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners' sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use.

Hi, my name is Erin, and I'm a geek.

2009-08-27T22:33:00.004-04:00

So I am all fired up about one of my classes! Yay me! The crappy thing is that it is my required English class and not my Anatomy class. Hmmm...

But it doesn't mean anything. It's not significant. I mean, I have always loved writing.

Writing + Reading + Decorating = Me, Blissfully Happy!

Who doesn't get more excited about a creative class than a science class? Right?

So tonight I went to my English class and I was practically skipping. I think I smiled at every person I passed in the halls.

I am such a dork.

I refuse to give in to my inner geek. I refuse to be one of those annoying, usually older, students who talks constantly to the professor. But, um, is it too late? Have I already been talking too much in class? Do I even have an "inner" geek or am I just a full-blown geek?

I am loving the idea of really working on my writing. I think I worry too much about what it is I want to say, about the finished product and not enough about just being creative and enjoying the process of writing.

So I just walked in the door. Jonathan had the light on for me and the kids are in bed and I am already overflowing with ideas for my next assignment. I will get around to memorizing the anatomical regions this weekend. I promise I will.

school girl

2009-08-25T12:26:00.002-04:00

Meaning me, not Sadie. I start classes today. I wonder if Jonathan will take a picture of me on my first day of school.

Today will be a bit crazy. I decided last night to take another of my prerequisites along with Anatomy. I just need to get through the prerequisites as quickly as possible to get on the wait list for nursing school. "Hurry up and wait," right? So today I am meeting with an advisor after picking Sadie up from kindergarten to try to get into an English class. And then racing home to drop the kids off with Jonathan so I can go to my Anatomy class. Then, if I can get into the class, the English class starts tonight! I just hope I can get in to see an advisor in the hour I have this afternoon. We'll see...

I know that does not really sound like a crazy day. But everything tends to take so long with the kids. Just getting everyone buckled into the car takes so long! I guess life at Glenbogle house will be a lot crazier with me in school.

Last night after Jonathan got home from work I ran out to take the English placement test. So I can qualify for the class I need to take. When I got home, Jonathan heated up a big bowl of pasta for me and Sadie asked, "How was school, Mommy? Tell me all about your day!" I felt so loved.

and now for some words from ee cummings

2009-08-24T17:59:00.008-04:00

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings;and of the gay
great happening ilimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any - lifted from the no
of all nothing - human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)