ba hum bug!

ok, so you've all heard this before. everyone feels this way... yeah, yeah, yeah. but it's my blog and i can abuse it if i want to.

the thanksgiving turkey is still warm in it's grave... and already the lights are out and i've seen like 20 cars with trees tied to the roof. why is everyone so ready for christmas this year?? i see that sh** and i start to panic.

now this could be because a couple years ago my family decided to do "handmade christmas" where everyone makes the presents and it takes WAAAY more time to make cool stuff than it does to order it off amazon.

or maybe it's because with the little ones, and work, and life time has sped up to twice it's normal speed while i have consequently slowed down by at least half. you do that math ... it all equals "i suck"

and yes today, at work, i was thrown no less than three new proposals all due before Dec 21st. so yippie...

but that said, i am looking forward to snow...

ps: do you think hanging a xmas tree upside down is the christmas equivalent to hanging a cross upside down?

Hope your giving of thanks is good...

So much to be thankful for. glad we've evolved to just you know, saying thanks rather than throwing virgins into a volcano.

I will be stuffing myself stupid. hope you will all be doing the same.



And as a treat i have a quote for you. My cousin's husband, or cousin-in-law if you will had this to say:

"...I am making the sides and prepping our turkey. Trying a secret turkey reanimation recipe. It enters the oven dead but exits as a fresh zombie turkey. Still pondering how one would kill a zombie turkey that's already headless."
(thanks CJ)

one day at a time...

you're not an alcoholic until you find your drink. mine: gin and ginger. yes i am an old lady. a very old lady with a smoker's voice, tin-roof helmet hair, clackety shoes, and watery eyes. I will wallop you with my purse the size of a crown vic. and i will drink my gin and gingers. so there!

Blog Hopping

I like to blog hop while nursing Asa to sleep in the computer chair (which is actually an exercise ball - he likes to bounce... maybe this post should be called Blog Bouncing??)

Anyhow. I found a couple i think i'll add to my reader.

http://owltattoos.blogspot.com/
and
http://uglyoverload.blogspot.com/

Happy Belated Veteran's Day

Turns out the traditional gift for the 6 year anniversary is ketchup

Turns out the traditional gift for the 6^th wedding anniversary is ketchup.

I carefully, and very enthusiastically, planned our long-awaited 6^th anniversary date. Ben’s sister, Jes, set up a babysitting tag team between herself and eric, and j&i. (Jes, thank you SOOOOOOO much for having this idea and thank you and Eric and j&i for all the hard work watching our crazy-ass children. I promise to repay the favor when you guys produce tiny people hell-bent on being insane).

I carefully planned the time of day so the kids would be at their almost best. I planned the places we would go so there wouldn’t be too much driving or logistical issues to overcome.

Our oh-so carefully planned out date schedule:

2:00pm – jes, eric, and j&i arrive

2:00-2:30 – we give them the run down and do our quick how are you’s

2:30 – ben and I head down to the city

3:00 – arrive in Charles Village and look for parking

3:10 – enjoy some hot beverages and crepes at Sophi’s Crepes

4:00 – saunter the 30feet down the block to the Charles Theater

4:10 – “A Serious Man” begins

6:10 – leave the theater and go next door to Tapas Teatro

6:20 – order, drink, eat

6:45 – pay

6:50 – head home

7:20 – home and put the babes to bed.

Jes and Eric, and j&i showed up right on time. We arrived at our first destination with 15 minutes to spare. Parking was easy peasy.

We went to Sofi’s Crepes and ate a Crepe Suzette and a Banana and Nutella. Got hot chocolate (on which we totally burned our tongues) and Hot Cider (so chemically different as to have such a significantly lower boiling point???). We sat out on the sidewalk and watched people walk by. My new friend (see older post) was supposed to swing by for bit but didn’t (long story for which she totally feels awful about and is not, I repeat, is NOT a flake). Sitting on the sidewalk watching people walk by made me feel so very voyeuristic. We didn’t have too much to talk about which was weird… the quiet was weird. The fact that both of us had empty arms and no little people attached to our legs was weird. Truth be told, it made me a little antsy… I didn’t know what to do with myself. Luckily there were crepes. Crepes make it all ok.

We sauntered over to the theater. Bought tickets. Debated popcorn… decided against it… went and watched “A Serious Man” laughed and cuddled and laughed.

Left the theater right on time. Went to Tapas and found it very, very crowded. Was a bit intimidated by the people in there. Decided to walk back to the car and come up with a contingency plan. Drove to the roof of the parking garage. Walked to the edge and stood on the little wall looking down on the city. Called j&i to check on A. He was sad and cranky… so we decided to just go home.

After smooching on the roof ledge a little, we got back in the car and drove. Decided that we’d be hungry and should at least pick up food to take home. Went to the Charles Village Pub. Ordered carry-out, drank beer while waiting. Got a text from j&i that they managed to coerce A into sleeping. So we decided to drive home slowly and eat along the way. For this endeavor Ben stole the brand-spankin'-new bottle of ketchup off our table. i fed Ben curly fries slathered in ketchup and we shared a GINORMOUS burger, aptly named the "big daddy." my car still smells like fried food.

We came home to this:

beautiful, no?

Lessons learned:
1. next big date night out, we're going to Fraiser's or other pub like place
2. the kids will be FINE!!! ("stop worrying Jones, you weirdo!!" -- this is how i talk to myself in my head, yes i address myself as "Jones")
3. get drunk early and stop feeling so self conscious
4. always wear the garter belt and stockings

ps: don't congratulate us yet. our actual anniversary isn't until this saturday. we have to make it 5 whole more days before it's official... not sure if we'll make it...

Shameless plug for my brother...

My brother.
bicyclist. artist. photographer. ex-rock climber. inventor. seamster (the male equivalent to a seamstress). baby magnet. babe magnet.

he's a freakin' genius.

he has invented these things that go on your pedals to hold your feet.
they're primarily for fixed gear riding and i'm not sure, but i guess for trick stuff in particular. (don't ask me. i'm a complete idiot when it comes to bicycles. the phrase "like riding a bicycle" was not said with me in mind).

anyway. check him out!!!

Friend Crushes

I have a new friend.

Can i just say, i love new friends.

Have i told you about Terri? I met Terri during what i like to think of as a "desert" since my move home. I worked for AAI for three very awful, very scary, very eye-opening months. During this awful time (where i would cry all the way home from work) I met Terri. She was one of my more senior team-mates on the proposal team. She rock climbs, and drinks more tea than i do (i know, right!!??), and probably pees more often than me too (double "i know, right!!??"). Well, i developed a HUGE friend crush on her and was all "ok, jones, don't f---- this up. you know you come on way too strong. just play it cool. don't let her know what a dork you are" meanwhile, i'm all "wanna be my friend? you're so freakin' awesome. let's go get some tea... oh and some cookies... and bread... and more pastries... oh and that gelato place is kickin (actually i think she said that)"

anyhow, long story short, i did not (by some miracle) frighten her off with my super enthusiastic need to be her friend. And now she has a baby too. and a blog. go visit her. now.

ok, so Terri has a friend. i think i've only met her like twice in person. no wait. three times i think. and i think she's pretty cool so i stalk her blog. and she (apparently) stalks mine. because check this out. ok, so like weird degrees of separation and ta-da i'm obsessed with being her new friend. i slack off and gchat with her on a very regular basis (well at least this week). and the cool thing? she's totally not turned off by my lapdog yapping and "be my friend. be my friend. be my friend. you're so cool. oh man. you're just soooooo cool."

so i have two GIRL friends. no really. girls. that's awesome. most of my friends throughout life have been guys. i have a select group of women that i really adore. many of them live far away (rae-rae, becks, kit, heidi, west...) and up here... well i know no one. and i'm lame. and we live kinda far out of the city where most of the people we do know live... ok, so my two new friends live in the city too... and both are probably moving far away in the not so distant future (boo! hiss!) but hey. i made new friends. i'm not a scary old shut-in with 80 cats who doesn't take care of their front yard properly.

oh and have i mentioned this? my brother and his fiance have moved back to this area!! so i know them. they're awesome. and if you happen to be in ny for any reason this month you must go see Ceci's circus act. comment for more info.

Window shopping on Etsy again.

I have a problem. i think a lot of americans have this same problem. when i feel crappy i like to have new things... i think they call it retail therapy, and you know you do it too.

Well, since we have no money, and while the general idea of having things is nice, we live in a teeny tiny house and i don't want a lot of stuff - the ideal me is a minimalist. So, as a compromise, i internet window shop. My faves are anthropologie.com , urbanoutfitters.com (i know i'm a dork), modcloth.com, amazon.com, and etsy.com

anyhow, sometime ago while window shopping, i found this:

and i LOVE it. i mean LOOOOOOOVE it. I'm going to marry it. I'm going to have it's babies and wear an apron and cook it big giant roasted pheasant dinners.

now here's why. Since becoming pregnant with Esther it absolutely amazed me how wet motherhood actually is. starts out with the incessant need to pee, the clumsiness (always dribbling tea on myself). then well, you know labor just speaks for itself. then infancy and nursing and baby-hood, potty training, sickness, it's all about being wet. soggy. damp. moist (i threw that in there cause i know that word gets under at least two of my readers' skins. hehehehe)

so here i am. awaiting drier times.

*sigh*

oh-so-very-freakin' tired.

i'm tired.
i'm tired of the kids being sick. i'm tired of not EVER getting enough sleep. i'm tired of trying not to dry heave every time i get my student loan bills. i'm tired of yelling. i'm tired of fighting. i'm tired of feeling like i'm ruining everyone's life. i'm tired of aching. i'm tired of wishing. i'm tired of feeling guilty about every-freakin'-thing-in-existence. i'm tired of owing people something. i'm tired of being nice to strangers. i'm tired of juggling my schedule CONSTANTLY. i'm tired of waiting around for it to get better. i'm tired of cringing every time i catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror. i'm tired of the screaming, crying, whining, and teeth gnashing. i'm tired of being puked on, spit on, coughed on, sneezed on, and kicked in the face.


i hate everything.
now if you'll excuse me, i'm going to dig myself a small, muddy pit out back and feel sorry for myself until i die.

For Stephen... and his elf fetish...

This post is especially for my blogging friend, Stephen... ok, so i'm not an elf but i have pointy ears (they're dark brown and furry so you might not be able to tell). And let's go ahead and throw this out there now, this is EMBARRASSING in oh-so very many ways. But, who doesn't go through that phase of wanting to be a young sex-pot in weird costumes? - this was from the days when i would go to festivals and help my aunt sell human-sized fairy wings (she makes them, they're awesome). I am about 21 here i think...
i'm not sure festivals will ever be the same though...

Why DID i have kids?

I stumbled across this blog and this particular entry
and it's making think about the whole kid thing. Especially since we're also trying to strategize how to keep our adult social lives (and sanity) going. And since the majority of you don't have kids, i feel i might be giving you false impressions about what it's like to be a parent.

So here's the skinny. and keep in mind this is just my own personal take on it. i KNOW it's vastly different for everyone. Oh, also i'm giving you fair warning: this post most likely contains explicit info and more about me than you probably wanted to know, but tough sheet.

1) Does having kids ruin your life?
I would not say "ruin". I would say "change". It changes everything, you, your life, your priorities, your everyday functioning, your body, your mind, your chemical reactions. It's kind of like puberty. I am very different from who i was before i had kids. But then again, if i hadn't had kids how much different would i be from who i was 4 years ago? not sure.

And i know i give the impression that it has ruined a lot of things for me. But i'm a whiner. and really, let's face it. the entire blog world is based on the fact that this is a PERFECT way to whine and foist our opinions on the internet population.

Parenthood has taken it's toll on a lot of things in my life. We chose to live in the country specifically because we got pregnant. I just couldn't see raising my kids in the city. But because of this choice we have isolated ourselves a bit more than i expected. This isolation and distance from all our friends who live in the city is a big deal to me right now.
With regard to the whole "kids ruin your sex life thing". It's not exactly true. They definitely reduce the opportunities you have. But on the other hand you're forced to be more creative which is definitely fun. And it makes the times when it does happen that much more exciting and seemingly special. I'm not saying i don't constantly damn our night waking babes... but I don't think it's a reason for not having kids.

i miss a lot of who i was before kids and i regret not having gone to graduate school sometimes... but there's always later. But who the kids have made me isn't all bad. i feel more at ease with myself (mostly because i don't have the time or energy to waste on being self conscious). i feel like i have this constant view of how vast and small the universe is at any given time. i feel like my influence on my children is the greatest change i will ever make in the world AND they inspire me to advocate for a better future for their sake. plus they're hilarious. i mean... seriously (Esther says this morning: Mom, if dad closes your fingers in the door then you'll die, and i won't have a mommy. - ok so it doesn't sound hilarious here it sounds sort of sad. but the moment was really quite funny.)


2) Why did you have kids?
Well, i mainly have kids because we got pregnant by accident. twice. yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, i'm an idiot. but i did always plan on having kids. I love kids. Admittedly though, since having my own kids i'm not as interested in other people's kids. I'm not entirely sure why i always envisioned having kids. It might be because i grew up with lots of cousins and aunts and uncles and that's just what i figured people do. Or it's biological programming. I dunno. It honestly never crossed my mind, NOT to breed.

3) Isn't pregnancy and birth disgusting and HORRIFYING?
yes and no. quite frankly i think it's one of the most biologically cool things EVER! but then again, i'm not easily disgusted. ben and i have a joke that, if it didn't result in having another kid we'd totally get pregnant again. That's also not entirely true. Pregnancy is hard and uncomfortable. i never got that "glow" thing that people talk about. i never felt like some divine vessel or anything. but there were moments, very small, unique moments when i was alone and i felt the fetus moving around that i truly felt connected... grounded...fulfilled.
and birth. WHOA. not a picnic. but also VERY cool. Esther's labor was hard and scary. Asa's labor was (particularly in retrospect) FREAKIN' AWESOME!!! it was empowering and energizing and exhausting and surreal and very wet. so yes. but i loved it.

4) With regard to the adolescent years...
I am actually looking forward to my kids being teenagers. not that i loved my own adolescence but i feel like i'll be a pretty good parent to a teen. go ahead laugh all you like. and remind me of this when i come to you ten years from now a complete and utter wreck. (and maybe i'm just giddy at the prospect of getting to sleep in again...) BUT i think that it's a wonderful opportunity to influence how this eventual adult will look at the world and see their own impact as a chance for positive change. (what can i say, i'm a pathological optimist...sometimes)

the short of it is: being a parent has been ridiculously hard since conception and having two was like a nail in the coffin (i advise waiting at least 10 years before having a second). and right now, while they're still so young, the rewards are so um... seemingly inadequate (not sure if that's really what i mean here). but, i love esther and asa. i mean FREAKIN' LOOOOOOOOOVE them. and maybe it's a "can't see the forest for the trees" kinda thing or maybe it's just a chemical reaction to ensure the procreation and survival of the species, but i cannot imagine myself without them. (though sometimes i fantasize about all the freedom i'd have if i hadn't had them... living abroad, graduate school, lots of extra cash, going out on dates regularly... stuff like that)

i'll let you now how the reward part changes the older that they get. i keep telling ben that i have a sneaking suspicion that in another two or three years things are going to be a lot of fun as a family. just gotta get past the baby phase... still though. they're really cute, eh?

F you time change.

I would just like to say "F YOU TIME CHANGE!!!" Arizona has it right, they don't believe in the time change.

So now with the clocks turned back the kids go to bed around 7 and 7:30 (unless Esther has miraculously decided to take a nap - a 1 in a million chance). Now this is not a bad thing in that i can get a bit done and go to bed at a reasonable time (they still get up multiple times in the night and official wake-up call is now 6am-fun!). HOWEVER, it has, for the time being, completely killed any chance Ben and I have at an adult social life.

We used to have dinner with j&i once a week. Remember "Tastie Tuesdays" or "Wicked Wednesdays" and then what was it, "Thrombotic Thursdays"? It got moved around depending on what peoples' schedules were doing. We worked hard to keep it going alternating who'd cook and we'd eat at our house one week and theirs the next. And then when Asa was born they decided to go the extra mile (or 30 miles) and come here every week so we could keep it going since two kids is like a gazillion times harder than having just one (keep that in mind all of you with one kid - when/if you decide to go for a second IT MIGHT JUST KILL YOU!!!!!). Then schedules got changed and budgets got tight and we decided to cut back to every other week with the possibility of Saturday breakfasts once in a while to make up for it. But so far the breakfasts haven't happened and now that little 'uns are doing the bedtime routine right about the time that j&i get here, it seems like this little oasis of mommy and daddy reprieve is going to go the way of the dinosaurs.

so here we are. an island. again.

Owl Obsession...

Who? me? no. these are fun things i found on Etsy and felt like sharing. If you click the pic it'll take you to the site.

i dunno what's with this, but i'm obsessed with owls recently. They're just so freakin' awesome!

Ways in which i am a complete tool and halloween babies

I am the only mother at Esther's preschool who made her costume.
It's too bad you can't see how poorly i sewed it
His horns dug into his head a little bit...
and we took them trick-or-treating but it rained and i only had one small umbrella... and now they are sick with colds.

EEEEKKKKKK!!

crap on a cracker!! in an attempt to make my blog better i have completely destroyed it. So bear with me.. i'm trying to figure all this out...

Oh Yeah!

Now that's much better. Thanks everyone. i feel much more loved now. And Jes - i agree, rss feed is ruining the comment option... they should look into that.

no comments in the last 8 posts?

What gives guys?

Good Essay

Go Here. Read this.

My New Favorite Song!!!! (to sing that is)

Lunatics Lullaby
Oh, I was born one night one morn
When the whistle went "toot, toot."
You can bake a steak or fry a cake

When the mud pies are in bloom.
Does six and six make nine?
Does ice grow on a vine?
Is Old Black Joe an Eskimo
In The Good Old Summertime?

Oh, you loop-de-loop in your noodle soup
Just to give your socks a shine.
I'm guilty, judge. I ate the fudge.
Three cheers for Old Lang Syne!

I cannot tell a lie.
I hocked an apple pie.
It's on a tree beneath the sea
Above the bright blue sky.

Oh if Easter eggs don't wash their legs,
Their children will have ducks. (Quack, quack!)
I'd rather buy a lemon pie
For forty-seven bucks.
Way down in Barcelonia
They jumped into the foamia

But that is all balonia.
Paderewski blow your horn. (Toot, toot!)


(as soon as ben teaches me to play it on the piano we'll flip it and post it here so you can all laugh at me.)