Bah Humbugger

What I’ve done already today because I’m insane:

-Started packing for a trip tomorrow
-4 loads of laundry
-Painted a huge spot repaired two years ago in the breakfast nook
-Hung 3 new framed pics, one of the Hubs xmas gifts
-Vacuumed living room
-Showered and finally shaved leg forest
-Baked a loaf of bread
-Loaded the dishwasher and ran

Left to do:
-Prep food for tonight
-Bathe and flea dog
-Bathe W
-Figure out what to wear tonight and tomorrow
-Finish packing
-Oil change car

You know what I’d like to be doing? Nothing. No wait, I’d rather be hanging with friends, drinking holiday cocktails, stuffing myself stupid with foodstuffs, kissing under the mistletoe, playing board games or charades, etc. Sigh.

W is so stoked about Santa coming tonight and we’ve used the bearded fable as a way to discipline him by saying he doesn’t want to be on Santa’s bad boys and girls list, get coal in his stocking (“What’s coal, mommy?), etc. After the holiday passes I’m wondering how I’m going to get the great results I’ve been getting for the last few months? I don’t think the threat of a baby new year, a cupid or the Easter bunny will have any affect on him. Guess I’ll go back to the flyswatter.

Happy holidays y’all.

La Vie en Chaos

Why did I ever stop blogging? How am I going to remember all of the details of W's last three months? Remember all of the ugly and beautiful minutiae of life leading up to now? I felt uninspired after Christmas, overwhelmed by my job, bored by the monotony of the week’s routine. But wonderful things happened and sad things happened and the hardest part of my job happened and here we are now.

The holidays. I have to look at my calendar to remember. Family came together for the celebration in my hometown. My granny surprised me with a visit from West Virginia, my father surprised me as well and I got to spend some time with my grandmother in her majestic home not knowing it would be the last time I’d see her.

New Years. The Hubs played a gig in Arkansas, outside, in 20-degree weather. I, very smartly, chose to stay home and watched the fireworks at midnight from my bedroom window.

January. Worked hard and prepared for the events that happened in March.

February. New York for Fashion Week with my sister-in-law. Backstage at the Diane Von Furstenberg show, front row for the Angel Sanchez show, gazed dreamily at the jaw-dropping collection designed by, crap, I can’t remember his name, and stood across from Tyra Banks and Nigel Barker (who is stunning in person, ladies, edible) at the Jill Stuart show. The month ended with hour-long conference calls and a workload from hell. And there was also a totally fun Oscar party, a Pillow Fight Club match at the Beauty Bar and Friday evenings at Salvation Pizza with the foxy collective of parents and tots from W’s school.

March. 98 parties in 9 days, high profile clients, low profile me, keeping my nose to the grindstone and my poor crippled feet under the faucet in the tub. Hotel living is for the birds, especially when you have to do it in the city you live in but it’s a necessary evil. Life gets in the way of work during this time. My deepest regards to all the family and friends that helped me, the Hubs, and W get through it all.

My dear grandmother passed away last Thursday morning. It was good I was the first warm body to the convention center office so I could grieve alone. She was an amazing, caring woman with a heart of gold. My fondest childhood memories are of her and the home she opened up to us and the neighborhood rugrats we brought to her door. Her last words were, “Where in the hell’s that orange juice?” Grandmother, you are truly missed.

So this weekend I am off with the fam to the beach. I need some serious RnR but I promise to keep blogging, to keep up with the details of W’s milestones and happenings in our little world because lord knows I can’t remember it all. Afterall, this is for him.

Holiday Spirited

Well hello there! Are you ready for Christmas? Got all your gifts bought, wrapped and stuffed under the tree or shipped off to family and friends? You do? Really? Yeah, well I’m screwed. I thought I had budgeted enough time the last few weeks to get everything done before heading off to see family but I’m just too pooped lately to take advantage of every minute not spent at work, doing an event or wrestling the tot to get this holiday thing under way. In those free moments, I just want to crawl under the covers and disappear. Now I’m taking my lunch breaks at Best Buy and Massage Envy and Toy Joy. Hooray for me.

The hubs and I had a crappy date night earlier in the week. We went to one of our favorite places to eat where we know the owner and like to kibbutz back and forth with him during a delicious feast but we ended up making total asses out of ourselves as we proceeded to drink too much hooch and argue. One minute I’m feeding him dessert and the next we’ve basically cleared the bar area where we were dining. Was totally easy after I yelled “DIVORCE!” in the middle of a sentence I was spatting at the Hubs. He was up for the challenge, too, I guess. He didn’t back off either. We’re so classy. I ended up storming out and the Hubs followed after paying the bill and asking the hostess, “Which way did she go (insert giant hiccup here)?” Nice. The owner didn’t charge us for any of the wine. Not sure why. I would’ve charged us double. Don’t think we’ll be going back there for a while. FYI - we were totally laughing about it all the next morning.

Over the holidays, I’ll try and get some posts up. Always much to tell during this time of the year.

Adios.

Here We Are!

Well, here we are again and darn it, it’s good to be back. I had seriously considered abandoning this blog once and for all but me mind has changed. I thought about how great it is to read someone else’s blog and relate to what they are saying or realize that I’m not the worst parent on the planet at times and decided, I, too, must continue to air out the dirty laundry of childrearing on my end of the street. Besides, W needs to understand why he’s in therapy for life.

It is with boastful parenting pride that I can report that we, as a family of three, traveled for 7 straight weeks together this summer without one maimed limb or the filing of divorce papers. There were several bruised egos but that’s about it. I should also mention that 5 of those weeks were spent traveling in a car the size of a go cart…with a nearly 2-year-old…because it had a GPS and good gas mileage but I would’ve given my last glass of wine on earth to have had a bit more room to sleep/eat/read/stretch out while cruising down the endless highway. We had fun though. W is now qualified to work either at Sea World or an airport. All of the beach and airline time has made him employable. As I play catch up here on this site, I’ll highlight the hilarious and the horrible details of our summer.

W and I flew home on the 5th of this month. Several days later while in the throes of decompression and jet lag, W started back to school, in the bigger kids class, the one where he is required to bring his own lunch box and can’t have his binkie (as a result of so much travel, W became very attached to his paci and blankie so much so that the Hubs said if he went missing, the photo we’d submit to the police would have to include one), the one where the bigger boys say things like, “I’m not a baby’s friend, I’m a big kid’s friend.” They tower over him like giants. His small frame is swallowed by the plastic chairs in his classroom. My little shrimp is growing up and, as usual, I have mixed feelings about all of this.

Here are some shots of the trip out west.

Chaos Unleashed

Since I am the queen of chaos, I seem to subconsciously enjoy making things way more chaotic than they need to be. I don’t mean that I’m an over-reacting, control-freak sort of martyr type (that’s only part of the time). I mean that when I am in the midst of intense, brain pureeing details of my job times 1,000, I seem to find at least one more mammoth project with numerous details to add to the mix. Last year is was a complete house remodel and birth of a new baby. This year it's 90 events that are to happen within a 9-day period in March and a complete overhaul done of our front and back yards. Months ago I spent some time inartistically drawing out my dream yard, something suitable to our budget and neighborhood. After a bit of searching and some outrageous bids from landscaping companies that took my ideas to a whole new level (“How about a floating deck, one that seems to hover over the surface of the yard?”), we settled on a company whose owner is a friend of the family, does good work, and we’d get the “Friends & Family” deal. This deal, however, is still a major wallop to the pocketbook and we’re currently looking for a job for W. After a couple of weeks had passed, the crew showed up on the scene and, armed with an orange can of spray paint, marked up the lot. I came home at the end of the day and it looked like our yard had been tagged by a handful of artistically challenged gang members. I found a few of the markings to be incorrect and used the can of spray paint to make some adjustments. This included accidentally spraying the wall of the studio out back. Nice.

And so it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and then it froze and all of the landscaping demarcations washed away and had to be done again. One sunny day the crew arrived (one of them is in touch with his inner pirate complete with bandana, goatee with long mustache and a dangling gold loop earring the size of a silver dollar…he totally rules!) and began unloading chunks of stark white limestone. I had to go to work and wasn’t able to witness what was about to occur but later in the day I received a frantic phone call from the Hubs. “Did you tell them they could do what they just did to the yard? I mean, it looks awful. You gotta talk to them. I hate what they’ve done!” I came home later that day to see my two trees barricaded by a short wall of limestone in the shape of an “o” and a wall of the same stuff outlining the front of our house framing the beds of the yard. I realized we could go to battle with the neighborhood and be safe in our own personal version of the Alamo. Egads! I immediately got on the horn and told our family friend/landscape company owner that this was not going to work and all of the rock had to come out. Our tiny yard couldn’t support such weight, such bulk and besides, we live in a purple and orange house with straight lines and squares. What does stark white limestone in the circlular shapes got to do with it? So, confused and befuddled, the crew dismantled their beautiful work and quietly laughed at the Gringa who wants only metal edging around the beds. I do have to admit that this talented bunch has replaced our front sidewalk with same said stark white limestone and their craftsmanship is incredible. We are now the proud owners of one of the sexiest sidewalks in the ‘hood. Now if people would just keep their muddy feet off of it.

The nightmare before...
















And the nightmare during...
































The crew. The pirate is the clown in the yellow shirt.