Interesting Life Anecdotes: The Revolving Tupperware

Now that I've had a BabyGirl, I have read a lot of information on the topic of sleep that i never would have read otherwise.  One fact i remember reading is that we each have our own biorhythm that we are born with (i know what you're thinking: wow! rocket science! never would have guessed that one!).  Duh, it's true, we all know some people are early birds and some are night owls.

Well, I'm a night owl.  I always get a burst of energy at night.  I am at my top performance when i can stay up til about midnight and sleep til 9am.  I really don't even settle into a good sleep until after 6am.  Anyway, i got home from the day's activities and had a hankering to write.  Except i couldn't think of a single topic.  I thought and thought; no success.  I was washing dishes for about 30 minutes, and promptly at 9:30pm my mind was filled with about 4 different topics.  I find myself in this position frequently.  I want to write so bad right at bedtime.

So here's the story already.  After the BabyGirl was born and i had so many problems, my friend Laura, who is an amazing cook, made me some lentil soup (which i love).  Some of it i ate and some i put in the freezer for later.  Once later came, i ate it, and then the tupperware sat on my kitchen counter for (no lie) 2 months.  I kept meaning to bring it to church to give it back to her, or take it with me to her house.  I mean, i see her frequently so it was pretty pathetic that i couldn't return her tupperware. 

Then finally i remembered it on Craft Day when we made the adorable penguin.  After such a long time i was embarrassed that i still had it, so i filled it up with trail mix as a decoy.  On that day we were crafting away and needed an afternoon snack, so i said triumphantly, "I brought trail mix!"  I got it out of my bag and set it out on the table and we munched happily while we crafted.  I conveniently left out the part about "I brought trail mix IN YOUR TUPPERWARE."  My plan was to "forget" to take it home with me.  I hoped that it would blend in with all her other tupperwares, since it looks exactly like her other tupperwares, since it is her tupperware.  And she would just put in in her tupperware cabinet without even paying attention.  Or, if she did think it was my tupperware, she would be like me and forget to return it for 2 months.

Well, my plan failed.  Turns out she's way better than me at returning tupperwares.  Less than two weeks later she returned it to me FILLED WITH DELICIOUS HOMEMADE COOKIES.  Oh the shame.  Not only did she return it in a timely manner, she made cookies.  Fabulous cookies, with oatmeal and almonds.  And now, here i am again with the same stinkin' tupperware i could barely return in the first place!  I was so happy to finally get that sucker off my kitchen counter, and now it's back.  Each time it changes hands, the stakes get higher.  Lentil soup, then store-bought trail mix, then yummy cookies.  I'm pretty much going to have to fill it with champagne when i give it back to her.
 

Just a few quick things about Christmas

There are a few things that have become Christmas regulars at our house.  You know those items that you haul up from the storage locker every year that really mean a lot to you?  Here are a few of ours.

Bubble lights!  Most people have a string of bubble lights that you put on the tree.  We only have this one.  I forget who gave it to us.  I love bubble lights because it reminds me of my Grandmother.  She had them on her Christmas tree when i was little, and i thought they were so cool.  My Grandmother has a polished vintage style about her, and these lights are a part of that.  The Professor had bubble lights at his house growing up, so he likes them too.

 Christmas penguin.  Oh what a story here.  A few years ago i was working night shift in the ICU on Christmas Eve.  We had all brought in food for a Christmas potluck.  It sucks working on the holidays, but because everyone is in the same boat, we make it special.  Alyssa had brought caramel dip for apples, but hadn't had time to get any apples.  Once all the patients were tucked in, she and i went to the cafeteria to buy a bunch of apples.  We swung by Starbucks afterwards to pick up drinks for all the nurses.  The guy working at Starbucks admired our apples.  Alyssa offered one to him but he refused, saying, "I love apples SO MUCH that i can't accept one from you because it's just too generous of a gift."  We persisted, "Dude we have 6 apples, you can have one."  He was so greatful that he gave us each a Christmas penguin for free!  (shh, don't tell Starbucks). 

Nativity Scene.  It's from Israel and it's made out of ______.  How embarrassing, i can't remember which wood it's made out of!  It says on the box, but the box is down in the storage locker.  Hmm.  Oh, olive!  It's made out of olive!

Christmas card from cousins Lare and Amy.  Depicted here are a bunch of Christmas cards.  The one i am referring to is the bottom right.  Lare and Amy live in Georgia and have the cutest kids on the planet.  They are our heroes, and we hope to be them when we grow up.  Every year we get so excited about their Christmas card.  This year it didn't arrive until December 23.  We had gotten so worried that we wouldn't get one!  We thought, "Did we offend them?"  or, "Did they fall upon financial hardship and had to cut the Christmas budget?"  But at last it came.


 

I have some mad skills

. . . when it comes to cutting out snowflakes.

I'm sorry i haven't written anything recently.  It's very weird - over the Christmas holiday i actually had some free time (a rare treat), and i couldn't think of anything to write about.  But now that it's 2 hrs past my bedtime, I have at least 6 stories in my head that i'm dying to get out.

Back to the snowflakes.  I'm nowhere near as talented as my sister Kitty, but i do consider myself pretty accomplished.  It's one of my most favorite things to do at Christmas.  I HATE putting up the Christmas tree, but it would make me perfectly happy to cut out snowflakes for hours and hours.  I got a late start this year, so i don't have very many.  I need a few more to even it out.

 Here are last year's:

Currently Playing With

With all kinds of social media now, you can publicize what you are currently doing.  Facebook tells me that Joe and Peggy were at Name That Restaurant together.  Or that Mary is currently picking up her kids from The Private School They Attend. 

The poor little BabyGirl is too little for Facebook.  Also, she doesn't know English.  And, her typing skills need a lot of work.  So she can't post what music she's currently listening to or what foods she's eating or where she's hanging out with her friends. 

So I'll post it for her!  The BabyGirl is currently playing with these toys:

Yes, you are correct when you tell me that precious few of those items are "toys".  We have the adorable handmade penguin, Tic Tacs, a cheap plastic bracelet from the dollar store, and her cousin Cecelia's Christmas card.  She loves these toys.  The Tic Tacs in particular are her favorite right now.  Oh man she loves them, and i can't say i blame her.  Also, they are a result of my sister's wedding in Georgia back in June, so they are kind of nostalgic (in a hoarder sort of way).   She also likes to "play" with Cecelia, which The Professor and i get a kick out of.

Christmas is now 5 days away (eek!), and the quantity\quality of her toys is about to increase substantially.  Imagine how exciting a shape sorter will be compared to a plastic bracelet!  It might be overwhelming.
 

Two Cute Things

Yesterday was a very ugly day at work.  At some point during the exhausting misery, i was ready to sign up for the Mexican thugs.  Anything sounded better than what i was doing.  I was so angry that it sounded satisfying to show those Mexican drug dealers a thing or two about violence.

Instead, I came home to two very cute things.  I'll show them to you.  I made both of these things myself. 

Here is thing #1.  So cute!  Thing #1 took 10 months to make, and gave me lots of heartburn.

Here is thing #2.  Thing #2 was a lot easier to make than Thing #1.  It is the product of Craft Day with Laura and David.  I'm really very proud of it.  Can you believe i made ANOTHER thing after i only just made the Cinnamon Ornaments???  That's two crafts in one month!  I think i just beat my record for all of 2009.  I really couldn't have done it without Laura's patient tutoring.  She let me use her sewing machine, even though i had no idea how to do it.  I made a mistake every 45 seconds or so, and as a result we stayed at their house much longer than we should have.  I was stubbornly determined to finish this project in one day.  I've known myself for a long time, and one thing is certain: if i lay a project aside, i will never come back to it.

Recently I've been outsourcing all my crafting needs to my sister.  If i need something made, i tell her to make it.  I'm the oldest so she has to do what i say.  But making this craft was kind of a turning point for me.  I think i could really get the hang of this sewing thing.  And, if you are especially nice to me, i might just make something for you!

  

Snow Day Narrative

We had a very fun impromptu snow day on Sunday.

It wasn't the snow that was imprompu, it was what we did with the day.  It came as no surprise that it snowed.  It snows a lot here.  What was a surprise was that it was practically a blizzard.  I woke up that morning at 7am (thank you BabyGirl) and checked the weather online.  It predicted 30 degrees with light snow.  No big deal.  I looked out the window and it wasn't snowing.  Appeared to be a regular day.  I didn't bundle up, and i wore cute shoes.

The minute i stepped out the front door, it became clear that this was NOT "light snow".  My cute shoes were not appropriate for the conditions.  We already had 2 inches of snow on the ground.  The Professor and I had divided the labor, so my job was to go out and warm up the car while he put the BabyGirl into her fuzzy suit and strapped her in the 50 pound carseat.  As soon as i got outside i was attacked by the massive wind.  Our car was only 30 feet away, and i could barely walk to it for being blown so hard.  I couldn't breathe in the wind.  The task of "warming up the car" now included scraping the snow off.  Of course the snow that i swiped off got blown right into my face.  Ugh, it was so miserable.  No born-and-bred Southerner should experience conditions like this.  I laughed out loud at how ludicrous it was.  I tried to open the car door, but it was frozen shut.  Fortunately i yanked harder and it opened a little, but the wind was blowing against it so i had a hard time getting it out far enough to get in.

We managed to get all of us in the car and sped off to church.  I'm always running a few minutes late anyway, and we hadn't budgeted the extra time for wind and snow.  Also, the roads hadn't been cleared because it's Sunday, so driving was treacherous and we had to go slow.  We made it to church and had to do the whole routine in reverse.  The Professor dropped me off with the BabyGirl and then went to find somewhere to park.  On the drive i had told him, "you know what, we'll just pay to park at a meter today.  I think the blizzard justifies paying to park."  And then when we arrived we remembered that you can't park on that street when the snow is over 2 inches.  BOO. 

I walked into church and saw Peter and Hana!  Yes, she did email me a few weeks ago to say they would be in town, but i completely forgot until that moment.  After church we tried to figure out lunch plans with them plus Tripp and Laura.  It was pretty funny.  There were a lot of limitations to balance.  3 hungry babies, tons of snow, each of us in our own car with a carseat, Tripp had to count, and nobody delivers north of Howard.  Finally we got it to work out.  We ordered Shabuka take-out and went to Tripp\Laura's place.

The snow and wind had continued all during church, so it was truly nasty out.  Peter and Hana had planned to drive back home that afternoon, but the weather was even worse in their town, so they had to stay another night and go back the next day.  Once The Professor and I got inside Tripp\Laura's, we kinda wanted to stay until the next day too!

We ate Shabuka, which was dee-licious!  Oh so yummy.  Tripp forgot about his naan until he had finished all his food, and had nothing to dip it in.  The Professor had lots of leftover sauce that he'd eaten the chicken out of, so he offered it to Tripp, which made him so happy.  Now that we were dry, inside, and had full tummies, we were cozy and content.  The Professor and I had originally planned to get a lot of housework done that afternoon, but the chance to spend a snow day hanging out with friends was much more alluring.

The guys watched the Bears game while the women played Settlers of Catan.  You see, we used to be really big Settlers of Catan people.  We played it all the time.  Now that each of us have babies, we haven't played in forever.  It was nice to pick it up again after a long absence, but it definitely wasn't competitive like the old days.  We had to stop midway through to feed all the babies.  When we came back to it, Laura won!!!  It was her first ever Catan victory.  Congratulations Laura!

I'll have to say, this snow day was very nice.  It isn't often that life slows down for snow.  The way i was raised, the least little bit of snow brought all of civilization to a halt.  You dropped what you were doing, no matter what it was, and went sledding.  Yes you could still see the green grass thru the light dusting of snow, but you went sledding anyway.  It's not like that here.  Here you get 4 feet of snow and you still go to work.  You put on your boots and go about your business.  But today, The Professor and I threw our plans to the wind.  We stayed inside to play games and watch football.  We put relationships first.

I made something!

I'm so proud of myself:  I made something!!  Ha ha ha!!!  I can't believe it!

You see, i really like crafts.  But i have the attention span of a 5 year old.  If a project takes longer than one of the BabyGirl's naps, then i loose interest.  (and she's a very short napper.)  I possess the kind of personality that is all about the big picture, the overarching theme, the burst of inspiration.  I have no capacity for detail or follow-thru. 

Also, I just don't have time for crafts.  Number one, December is the single busiest month of the year at work and i consistently work 14 hour shifts, getting home at 11pm.  Number two, I feel like my every moment is consumed with The Meal Cycle.  It's like The Nitrogen Cycle but with your daily meals.  You go grocery shopping, you wash\chop\prep, you cook the meal, you eat the meal, you wash all the dishes you used, and you start over at the beginning.  Somewhere in between you also try to do some laundry so you have clean underwear.  No time for crafts.

There's an unspoken rule in the Mom Club.  You must follow the rule or you get excommunicated.  The rule is that you have to make awesome, creative home projects and then blog about it.  Lots of pictures of the step-by-step process as well as the final product.  There are approximately eleventy million blogs about "look what i made".  Incidentally, these crafty moms are very skilled at The Meal Cycle. 

My mom and both my sisters are kick-butt at creative projects.  We're talking real pros here.  I knew i had the genetic oomph to make this happen, so i selected a craft that met my specifications.  Minimal supplies, minimal time.  And it worked!  I did it!!  I made Cinnamon Ornaments.  I had to laugh at myself, because i didn't prepare for it at all.  Wouldn't you know, i didn't have enough cinnamon.  The instructions specifically said how much cinnamon you would need, and i thought, "surely that is the quantity of your basic little spice jar of cinnamon."  No, my friends, it is the quantity of 4 little jars of cinnamon.  Nonetheless, i plowed through.  Do we postpone or reschedule our craft simply because we don't have the necessary materials?  No way.  The mood had struck me in that particular moment, and that was the moment for crafting. 

And here it is.  My ability to photograph my accomplishments for public display clearly needs some work.  Remember, the skills of a 5 year old.

Ultimately I will tie some snazzy Christmas ribbon on them to hang them up.

My hopes and dreams would be to make Emily's wine cork board, but it's going to take me a long time to save up that many corks.
 

Making a Difference: The Bravest Woman in Mexico

My sister told me about Marisol Valles Garcia, a 20 year old girl who has been named "The Bravest Woman in Mexico."  I'm going to give you a link to a news article about her, but here's the nutshell.  In a small Mexican town on the Texas border, gangs and drug lords have taken over.  There is rampant violence.  The drug groups are known for killing mayors, police officers, anyone who stands in their way.  They killed the chief of police and left his head outside the police station.

After his death, the position was vacant for a long time (understandably so).  Until this woman stepped up. 

 

She is 20 years old, mother of one child, is in school for criminology.  Not exactly who you would expect to lead the fight against serious bad guys.  Her reason for taking the job?  "I'm doing this for my people," she said, "I'm tired of all the drug violence."  This woman is my hero.  It's a situation that looks hopeless.  That looks like evil will win.  Not a single man in the whole town had the cajones to step up and fight.  And now Marisol, barely old enough to vote, is taking a stand.

All that stuff i said a few posts ago about making sacrifices for my BabyGirl?  Now i'm embarrassed by it.  That i could consider my job to be a "sacrifice", and here is this woman who goes to work every day knowing she might get killed.  The fact that she also has a baby makes it so much more meaningful for me.  On the one hand, she has the courage and determination to make the world a better place for her child.  But on the other hand, the process of making the world a better place might just turn her child into an orphan. 

I pray frequently for Marisol.  I pray that God would keep her safe, and bless her efforts.  I pray that He would protect her baby.  I pray that He would stop all the drug activity in her town.  I pray that He will use Marisol to make a difference.

There's a scene in the movie "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" that comes to my mind.  During the final battle, the big super-scary King of the Ring-Wraiths is kicking butt.  He's huge, and he has a big ole mace that takes out multiple people in one swing.  He's sort of like a ghost, so it's difficult to kill him because he's not really alive to begin with.  Anyway, Eowyn is disguised as a man, and finds herself in a one-on-one fight with the Nazgul King.  He says to her mockingly, "No man can kill me."  She dramatically rips of her helmet, shakes out her long blond hair, and replies, "I am no man."

I can imagine those rough, tough, hateful thugs in Mexico laughing when they heard about little Marisol becoming police chief.  And i can imagine what Marisol's family probably said when she told them she'd decided to take the job.  Her abuela probably said, "But Marisol, no man in Mexico wants that position."  And then Marisol could say, "I am no man." 

It gives me goosebumps.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about Marisol's situation.  For some reason it has affected me profoundly.  You will likely see several more posts about this, because i have more to say than i can fit in one day.  It brought back a memory of something i experienced in Mexico many years ago.  I was in high school, on a church mission trip to a few little towns in Mexico.  Our church sponsored two orphanages, so we went to help out and encourage the children there.  There was a married couple who ran the orphanage, and they had a daughter named Carolina who was about 18 years old.  She also worked at the orphanage.  She told a story about a time when she felt very helpless.  She saw the poverty and crime and illness in her village and cried out to God, "Senor, donde esta Su mano? [Lord, where is Your hand?]"  She heard Him say to her, "Carolina, tu eres mis manos [you are my hands]."

That has really stuck with me.  My life is a breeze compared to Carolina and Marisol, but we all go through times when things are bad and we say, God where are you?  When will you intervene? Do you see what's going on here?  Do you care?

The answer is that He does see; He does care.  He will intervene, but He needs to use our hands to do it.  He uses our hands to hug an orphan.  He uses our hands to care for the sick.  He uses our hands to feed the hungry.  He uses our hands to fight injustice.

Take my life and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days,
Let them flow in endless praise.

Take my hands and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee.

For further reading, here is the news article:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/mexico-police-chief-murdered/story?id=12294819.
 
  

Thanksgiving Narrative

Here is the account of what we did for Thanksgiving.  Much less because you want to know, rather more of a time-capsule record so that in 20 years when The Professor and I ask each other, "what did we do for Thanksgiving in 2010?" we can come here and find out.

Will life as we know it still exist in 20 years?  Will Blogspot still exist?  Who knows.

This year's Thanksgiving was great.  The Professor and I had talked about going up north to see his uncle\cousins\grandpa.  But as the time drew near, we each individually began to get disillusioned with the idea.  I was going to have to work at 6:45am the next day, so we weren't going to be able to stay very late.  And the thing with that crowd is that everything runs at least an hour behind schedule.  So if they say they will eat at 3pm, it's really 4.  So we started picturing the vast load of BabyGirl gear required for a daytrip, and then realized we'd have to bolt right out of there after wiping the last morsel from the corner of our mouths, and the plan lost its appeal.  We LOVE the people up there.  But the hassle was going to outweigh the quality time, you know?  The Professor and i both have been feeling very run-down for the past, oh, 7 months since the BabyGirl blessed our lives, and we weren't in the mood for a whole lot of fanfare.

Coincidentally, as we had these thoughts but had yet to verbalize them to each other, Sue happened to ask me at church what our Thankgiving plans were.  Then she told me the plan that she and Molly had hatched for a completely no-pressure, non-stress Thanksgiving.  It sounded like a dream come true.  I was immediately on board.  I told her that i would double-check with The Professor.

Of course he loved it.  We started calling it "Thanksgiving in Your Jammies" (and yes we really did wear our jammies).  The plan was for everyone to cook their food several days in advance so that there was not a single thing to be done the day of.  It was like a true Jewish Sabbath; no work was allowed.  And since no one was cooking on Thursday, there were no time limitations.  The food was already ready, so you could just show up whenever.  I made the Bourbon-Cranberry Sauce on Tuesday and Chocolate Delight on Wednesday when i got home from work.

Thursday morning, we woke up promptly at 7am, thanks to the BabyGirl's internal clock.  No sleeping in for us for the next 15ish years!  We all had a nice leisurely morning complete with pancake breakfast.  I put some cranberry sauce on my pancakes and it was delicious.  The Professor and i both took nice long showers, a rare treat.  He skyped with his side of the family and I called mine.  Except i only spoke to my dad.  Then, when the BabyGirl woke up from her nap, we loaded up the Green Warrior and hit the road!

We drove, now pay attention here because the following information is so beautiful, 0.6 miles to our destination.  Oh the delight.  Last year we drove EIGHT HUNDRED MILES.  Allow me to tell you about it.  This year, i got off work at about 3pm on Wednesday.  It was grey, raining, with traffic everywhere.  I drove home on Lakeshore Drive, and opposite me on the south-bound side it was bumper to bumper in the nasty rain.  It caused me to remember that on exactly this day, and exactly this time last year, Mark picked me up from work and we began the drive in the gray rain with traffic, traffic, traffic.  We drove until our favorite Comfort Suites a few exits south of Indianapolis, and it rained the entire way, bumper-to-bumper.  And as i headed home from work, i thanked the dear Lord that i wasn't going through that again.  I love my family dearly and i miss them every day, but some hardships just aren't worth it.

So yes, we drove 0.6 miles.  We unloaded all our stuff: the Bourbon Cranberry Sauce, the Chocolate Delight, the BabyGirl in her 50 pound carseat, the Pack-n-Play, the Bag 'O Games\Movies, the Pinot Noir, the diaper bag, and The Professor's bag of personal Thanksgiving snacks.  You see, The Professor has certain idiosyncracies when it comes to food.  See example below.  This is his idea of a holiday meal. 

Yes, that would be Oreos, Coke, Jack Daniels, Milk Duds, and potato chips.  Despite the fact that we had a full Thanksgiving meal, The Professor wanted his junk food.

We got inside and Anne was there!  She stayed for only a few minutes and then she left.  The BabyGirl was due to eat as soon as we got there, so we fed her while the food was set up.  After that, we ate!  Yummy! There was turkey and gravy by Sue, mashed potato heaven by Molly, green beans by Audrey, my cranberry sauce, am i missing anything?  Also there were carrots\onions by Sue.  We enjoyed the food and also had great conversation.  I like small groups.  Normally at Thanksgiving meals, there are about 15 people at the table, which makes conversation difficult.  The worst is when you are on the border between two different discussions.  The people to your left are talking about one thing and the people on your right are talking about something else.  And you are positioned so that you can't participate in either conversation.

Once we finished eating and clearing away the plates, Sue set up a big fancy projector and we watched the movie "The Family Man" with Nicolas Cage.  The BabyGirl had such a great time.  She had all the room in the world to crawl around.  We made a designated area for her by putting up a wall of pillows.  Mark and i laid on the floor to watch the movie and the BabyGirl played to her heart's content.  We ate dessert during the movie, and the Chocolate Delight was a huge success.

After the movie, we sat around to chat.  Then Sue drove Audrey home because she had to work the next day.  Now we felt hungry, so we got all the food back out and had another round.  We sat in the single's lounge and talked some more, until the BabyGirl woke up crying around 10pm.  I think she woke up and didn't know where she was and got scared.  Man was she crying.  Sue held her while we packed all our stuff up.  I couldn't help but laugh at her because she made the most tragic facial expressions.  She began by curling up her bottom lip and then the sadness slowly spread across her whole face.  When the face was 100% engaged, then the crying ensued.  Oh it was adorable. 

We drove home.  The problem with only driving 0.6 miles is that your car doesn't have time to warm up before you have to get back out in the cold again.  We planned to pull up to the front door to unload everything, and then The Professor would go park the car.  But we saw a parking spot that was pseudo-close and we had to carpe diem.  It would probably be gone by the time we unloaded.  The Professor carried the BabyGirl and sprinted (yes, sprinted) to our building.  Why?  Because it was 17 degrees.  It was such an act of love.  It's very difficult to sprint while carrying a BabyGirl.  He did it because he didn't want her to get cold.  One day when she's older I'll tell her about it.  "Do you know how much your Daddy loves you?"

It looked kind of like he was stealing her.  Some crazy dude running with a baby at 10pm.

And thus concludes the account of Thanksgiving 2010.



Interesting Life Anecdotes: Bourbon

What this blog needs is some funny stories!  The other mom's blogs consist almost exclusively of little tidbits and anecdotes of family life.  Cute stories about the kids.  And we're always trying to be like everyone else, right?  Therefore i will attempt to give you an Interesting Life Anecdote.  And what better topic to begin with than hard liquor.

There are two things you need to know as background info to this story.  Number one, I have very strong views about grocery shopping with a baby.  I did it once, and promptly swore i would never do it again.  Ironically, i had a conversation with my sister-in-law about this topic just last night.  Never again, i told her.  The baby behaves beautifully at the grocery, so it's not because of her I detest it so much.  It's because of street parking and 3 flights of stairs.  Unloading a very heavy baby carrier plus endless bags of groceries out of the car, walking 100 yards to the front door, getting everything thru two doors and up 3 flights of stairs - it's a Herculean task.  Never again.

Number two, recently I'm obsessed with cranberries.  They are so stinkin good for you!  Might I also mention, delicious!  I buy at least two bags every time i'm at the market.  You can understand why i volunteered to make the cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving.  I saw a recipe for Bourbon-Cranberry Compote in Real Simple, and had been dying to make it.

Well, Thanksgiving is close at hand, so it was time to get cracking.  I was pitifully sick all weekend, and wasn't able to run the errands i needed to.  So here it is Tuesday, and i haven't purchased the Bourbon for the Bourbon-Cranberry Compote.  My scheduling options for when i could go buy it were very limited.  Either, this very minute with the BabyGirl, or by myself at like 11 o'clock on Thanksgiving Eve.  I gritted my teeth and decided to go right now.  She and i threw on some clothes and hit the road.

There we were: two girls in the alcohol section.  The BabyGirl sitting pleasantly in her carrier, happily crumpling my grocery list.  As i stood there staring at the liquor shelves, I realized that i didn't know as much about bourbon as i thought i did.  Turns out, i don't know a dang thing about bourbon.  I've never purchased\drank it before, but i thought it would be self-explanatory.  You walk down the liquor aisle til you come to a glass bottle with "BOURBON" in big block letters.  Let me tell ya, it wasn't so easy.  We passed the tequilas.  We passed the rums.  We passed the gins.  We passed the vodkas (a whole lotta vodkas).  We passed the whiskeys.  I thought to myself, "I'm not going to spend any time looking at all those whiskeys since it certainly won't be there."

And that was the end of the aisle.  No bottles labelled BOURBON.  Hmm.  The BabyGirl was no longer content to merely crumple the shopping list; now she is eating it.  I snatch the remnants away from her, and we go down the next aisle.  Here we go, i thought, this one has promise.  This aisle has sherry and port, so i felt like we were on the right track.  I don't know why i thought bourbon was in the dessert wine category.  Sherry and port immediately gave way to tons of champaign.  No luck on that aisle either.

Oh dear!  Is the bourbon in the <gulp> locked cabinet?  Cause i'm not the kind of girl who buys the kind of liquor from the locked cabinet.  Meanwhile the BabyGirl, who now has no entertainment since i took the list away, has occupied herself by taking off one of her adorable pink kitty shoes and throwing it on the floor.  I bent over to retrieve it just as she threw the second one over the edge also, landing on my head.  Since her feet are now bare i was compelled to nibble her toes a little bit, which made her giggle.

Back to business.  Just to be sure, i looked at the locked cabinet, no bourbon there.  Great, now what?  We started over at the beginning: tequila, rum, gin, vodka, whiskey.  This time i looked at them all with intense scrutiny.  In the midst of my concentration i sorta forgot about the BabyGirl, until out of the corner of my eye i noticed that the whole grocery cart was shaking.  She was slamming her legs up and down in the carrier.  I finally took the hint that she was bored with this bourbon hunt, and gave her a toy.

And finally, after looking at almost every bottle, i found it!  Guess where?  In the whiskeys.  There you have it, folks, bourbon is a whiskey.  Yes, i am an airhead.  I think it took me a good 15 minutes.

Now i just hope that this is some dang good cranberry sauce!

Where is my telephone booth?

I had a horrible day at work.

This is our busy season, so it's really hectic.  Additionally, we are 2 staff members short.  Plus it's flu\cold season so someone is always out sick.

The first half of my day went really well.  I was in a good rhythm, i was working quickly, everyone i took care of was nice, it was a pleasure to serve them, and i was pleased with myself for doing a good job.  And then i was assigned The Guy Who Ruined My Day.  We'll call him Marty.  Marty was really, really, weird.  He was a talker, so everything you had to do took 5 times as long.  I said, "Marty, do you need a pain pill?"  And 10 minutes later after a non-stop stream of words that had nothing to do with pain or pills, I just walked out of the room.  Marty sucked up so much of my time that my other patients thought i had quit.  In a nutshell, he threw off my groove.

In the late afternoon, i was just plan exhausted.  Hours and hours of running my butt off without time to sit down or eat or even use the bathroom were starting to wear on me.  My patients were whiny and clingy and needy, needy, needy.  Obviously i get it, they are in the hospital so naturally they are needy.  My tolerance for neediness is pretty low when i myself am not able to meet my own physical needs.  I just wanted a  minute or two to sit down in peace and quiet without everyone demanding 8 things, simultaneously, RIGHT NOW. 

I'm telling you this tale like it's something new or unusual.  It's not.  We all know that.  It's not unique to my profession, everyone has days like this if they work in a field that requires them to interact with other human beings.  I've had these days before, and i'll have them again.  However, there is a new element to my life that made this experience at work new and confusing to me.

First I'll tell you how it used to be.  Used to be, I'd have a chaotic, crazy day at work filled with people demanding things from me.  They had to come first and i had to come last.  I'd bide my time until 12.5 hours was up and then bada-bing! I'm free.  I can go unwind however i want.  I could say to my husband, "people have been yelling at me all day long, and i need a break.  I'm going to have some quiet me-time now.  Please give me some time to chill, and most importantly, don't ask me for a bedpan\pain meds\barf bag\etc."  When my shift was over, I could be free of responsibility.

Now there is a development: I have a baby.  When i come home, she doesn't comprehend the fact that people have been sucking the life out of me all day long.  She doesn't care that I've already wiped 100 butts today.  I've already been thrown up on today.  I've already witnessed crying today.  When i come home, she's pooping and spitting and crying.  Now there is no chance of sitting perfectly still in a dark room and relishing the sound of silence.  I come home, and the neediness continues.  The demands continue.  The responsibility is still there.

I haven't adjusted to this yet.  I know that we all lead double lives.  We have work and we have family.  We wear multiple hats, and we have multiple selves.  Maybe it would be a little easier if my work life and my home life didn't involve the exact same tasks?  You know, like if i was a bank teller.  I handle papers and numbers all day long, and then i go home to feeding\spitting\pooping. 

Clark Kent had a creative solution to the issue of multiplicity.  When a situation required him to change from one role to another, he quickly ducked into a telephone booth and changed his clothes.  Presto chango!  Easy as that.  So really, what my situation needs, is a telephone booth.  After a full day of blood and guts, I simply swing by a telephone booth on my way home from work, change into my red cape, and then i'm ready to save the domestic world.

Naturally, i want to give all my time and energy to my precious BabyGirl.  I want to put her needs first and my needs last.  But what do i do when the entire world gets to me first?  When the healthcare industry uses and abuses me until i crawl home with nothing left to give to the people who mean the whole world to me?  Given the choice of that big drooly smile, or Marty the Rambler, I'll choose my bundle-of-joy every time.  Unfortunately, it's Marty who ultimately pays the mortgage and provides health insurance, so I have to keep going back for more. 

Before you have kids, you hear about all the sacrifices that parenthood entails.  In my mind, those sacrifices included things like sleepless nights, stains on your clothes, baby paraphenalia all over your house.  I only considered the types of sacrifices you make while you are physically with the baby.  Such as, "i've been holding you for an hour trying to get you to sleep, and i have to pee SO BAD, but I'll pee on this rocking chair before i wake you up again."  Now i see that there are sacrifices that drive us away from our beautiful babies.  Going to work to face the ever-needy horde is a sacrifice i make for her well-being.   And for as long as i have to make this sacrifice, Lord give me grace to do it.

We'll consider this a soft opening

I don't consider my blog to have officially launched yet.  I have a special thing in mind that i want to write for the launch.  But I'm not ready yet. 

However, I have something to talk about in the meantime, and I don't feel like waiting on myself.  So we'll go ahead with this topic of discussion and then do the official launch when i get around to it. 

I've been hunting down a specific quote in order to perform the Official Launch.  I was reading through the book that contains this quote, and i found something really interesting that i hadn't paid attention to before.  I will not be able to do it literal justice, but here's the gist of it:  a high school boy who is cool and popular randomly becomes friends with a girl who is not cool and not popular.  He is over at her house for dinner and says to her, "You're so lucky."  She basically says, "Umm, what??  I have no friends, am completely unsuccessful in school, and everybody makes fun of me."  He says the reason she is lucky is that her family all loves each other. 

As i read it i thought, oh that's nice.  Then later in the day i had an experience that allowed me to see it illustrated in real life.  I was hanging out with a 2-yr old boy who is the youngest of 6 kids.  I imagine that he doesn't get a whole lot of individualized time with his parents.  His parents most certainly love him, i know that to be true.  But he just doesn't get one-on-one time very much.  I was playing with him and giving him some attention, and he started opening up and being himself.  It was so adorable.  He transformed from just-another-kid-in-the-bunch into a unique individual.  I was able to observe his personality and discover that for all his rambunctiousness (I mean, he is a 2 year old boy), he is very sweet.

It caused me to daydream about the kind of mother i want to be, and the kind of family i want to have.  Of course i want to be the loving family that other people are jealous of.  Of course I want my little baby girl, plus any siblings that may follow, to know that i love her\them.  And i want to be the kind of family that draws others in.  The kind of family that when a kid's friend is over for dinner, the friend can sense our love.

I'm really worried though.  My mother, who loves me very much, is not an emotional or affectionate person.  So I don't have an example to follow for overt lovingness.  And I myself, being very cosmic, am the type that would be all stressed out about cooking dinner or a messy house or trying to get everybody to bed or something else equally as temporal, and would forget what's really important and would forget to show love.  Even now, I do it to my husband all the time.  I put tasks before love.  How much worse is it going to be as our family gets bigger and the tasks increase?

All i can hope for is that these types of little reminders will keep popping up.  It was pretty random that i came across that paragraph in the book.  Maybe i should just set up a monthly e-mail alert for the next 25 years.  I could use a quote from my dad: "Life is precious, and love is all we have."

Please listen to the music while your party is reached

There is an unexpected delay in getting this blog off the ground because the whole project hinges on a particular quote from a Madeleine L'Engle book.  I thought i would be able to find the quote quickly, but now it seems that i have to read the whole book.