more self revelation

The real truth of the matter does not actually lie in the fact that I am not a fun person. I guess I have to moderate that observation and say that I am not very fun. Mylissa should still come visit. Jenny should still come, too.

I have been pondering more and have concluded that possibly the main reason guests can be a stress for me is that I am not a good housekeeper. I accumulate clutter. I fight back. Sometimes quite successfully. Now is not one of those times. I am not consistent in cleaning (although the kitchen and the bathroom get the most attention, I promise you are never going to sit on a dirty toilet. Everything else may be dirty, but your food and your body will be clean.). Although I vacuum quite a lot nowadays and you can be thankful for that!

The other issue is that when one has company (let me transition into third person for a moment please), one does not care to waste valuable visiting time with frivolous matters such as cleaning or paying bills.

Which is why I have a significant backlog of both to address. So if you have been feeling guilty for your visit (past, pending, or future), feel guilt no more. The fault lies entirely with me.

a courtesy reminder

Last July, on our old blog, I asked you if you had given blood recently. There's been a good bit of water under my personal bridge since then; I'm sure the same is true for you. I mentioned my aunt in that entry. She passed away in August, which I mentioned at the time, but thought I would make note again if you missed it then. I just had a wonderful visit with my cousin (her daughter) and we naturally spent quite a bit of time talking about our mothers. It's funny, her loss is so recent and mine is not (comparatively), but our feelings are still very much the same. Does anyone ever have enough time with her mother? I am thankful to have the gift of letting mine go without regrets, but boy, do I miss her. Very thankful to have a reunion to anticipate.

Yet I digress. I would like to take this moment to issue a public service announcement: Please Give Blood. Someone's mother needs it. Most of us can donate with little or no inconvenience. Those of you who pass out from donating or are anemic or have issues, I am not talking to you. This is not a guilt trip for those with real issues (like my poor husband), but for those without. I'm not asking for martyrdom. If you have not given blood because you have better things to do with your time or you have just forgotten about it and don't actually have a good reason for not donating, I am talking to you. It is not that much time and you always get a free snack out of the deal. You may also get a free shirt (see my father's wardrobe). I know your time is valuable, but your blood is more valuable to someone whose life may depend on it.

So drop off a pint today. You will make a difference in someone's life!

one thing i have learned about myself

I am not sure how exactly this happened, but it is a curious item: we moved 3000 miles away from most of the people we know and suddenly have had a real stream of visitors. Do you like us better from a distance and just want to come out for a quick "fix" for a few days? We really thought we couldn't get much farther away from people than we did when we moved to Florida, but we've done it now. And you didn't come visit us there (some of you did, no, I'm not ignoring you). Of course, some of you actually live there so a visit was pointless, and now it's not.

Seriously, we love having the company. The kids love it because they get extra attention (my favorite person in the house is not the computer, but the kids sure need to be careful about interrupting me while I'm using it) and get to play with a different person every time they turn around. We also get to eat out more and do more fun things, like go hiking or spend an afternoon at the beach.

Which brings me to this self revelation. I am not a fun person. Really, I am not. Many of you are probably wondering why it took me this long to figure that out, since you've known it as long as you've known me, and actually it was not a huge surprise to me. It is just different to have finally verbalized it to myself. What brings it out is this: company expects me to be more fun than my kids do. Don't get me wrong, I love going to the beach, spending a day hiking, riding things at Disney, rooting for the winning team at the Rose Bowl, and all of the other things we have done in the past month. It has been a lot of fun and we are certainly doing well on our goal to enjoy California as much as possible in the short time we are here.

However. I am actually more introverted than otherwise and really enjoy time by myself. With kids, that is really hard to come by. With kids and company.... well, just kiss it goodbye. My laptop misses me. Andy and my father think that I don't use it much anymore, but it's kind of a combination of factors. I miss my laptop. I'm thinking about selling my laptop but have a real anxiety about living without one for an extended period of time because I want to be using it. I really do! And I want to be using it for more enjoyable things than paying bills and balancing the checkbook. I know those days will return. Probably not when the company leaves, more like when the kids leave. Ouch.

Gotta go finish cleaning the bathroom for the next guest. Reservations are requested at least 48 hours in advance. We'll leave the light on for you!

sprinkles

Question of the day: Where does the bow go when you untie it?

When I was in junior high, crimping your hair was a cool thing to do. I did it to myself. I let Jenny do it to me. Now, I cannot tell you why. And at this point in my life, there is nothing in my bathroom that requires electricity: no blow dryer, no curling iron, and certainly no crimper.

Rebekka came to cut everyone's hair today (except for mine--I will let her trim it next time, I think, just to keep it healthy, but I just realized that I can live for a year without Annette and let the time serve a purpose! I think that by July, my hair will be long enough to donate and then I can go back to my beloved short do.). She treated the girls to a little bit of crimping in the front, which they loved. Caroline got the name close to right by calling it crinkles. Elanor swapped that and called it sprinkles instead. Everyone's hair looks fantastic, too.

Then we hit bathtime.

"Mommy, will you take the sprinkles out?"

"No, they will come out in the bath."

"Do you have to cut them out?"

"No, they will come out when I wash your hair."

"Where will they go?"

"Nowhere, honey, it's your hair that is crinkled. When your hair is washed, the crinkles won't be there anymore."

Water running. "Mommy, where are the sprinkles? I don't see them in the water!"

I think part of their confusion is that they have never seen a curling iron in action and don't understand that hair can be styled at all. It is true, I have no style. True confessions time. None at all. Rather than try to go down that road, then, Caroline and I talked about tying bows on her pants (because, of course, her Keen sneakers cinch, they don't tie, and her other sneakers don't have laces) and where the bow goes when you untie it.

I'm still not sure she understands.

And where does that bow go, anyway?

one way to pray

About two minutes before dinner last night, Andy had to speak sharply to Elanor because she was sitting at the table eating her chicken before the rest of us sat down. She immediately burst into tears (I think we ate too late) and wailed incessantly for the next ten minutes. For those of you who struggle with math, that means that the first several minutes of dinner were rather noisy as she attempted to bring herself under control. What had us biting our lips and trying desperately not to laugh (OK, we failed miserably) was that she insisted on being the one to offer up our blessing. Listen to her words: "Dear God, thank you for Jesus; thank you for our food; thank you for Michael and Caroline and me; amen."

Cute prayer. But the kicker is that she wailed every single word. Wailed. Wailed.

once in a lifetime

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope yours was wonderful. Once again, I failed to stay up to see the new year in; this seems to be a habit now that I have kids.

We had a great New Year's Day. Andy came home very late the night before (or very early that morning) since the shuttle had apparently overbooked itself. Yes, I am the unkind wife who wanted to stay home on New Year's Eve and not drive to LAX to pick up my husband. He did make it home, though, just in time for a busy day of a little parade and babysitting.

Yes, we made it to the parade! (pictures on flickr alert) Thanks entirely to the kindness of friends (thanks Guthries and Greens and Bowdens) who sat out all night on Colorado Avenue, we showed up just in time for the beginning of the parade and settled in right up front for a fun morning watching some really cool floats and lots of high school marching bands. I wonder how they are selected? They came from Wisconsin, Minnestota, Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Fayetteville, Georgia (hello, Brezinas!). Oh yeah, plus one from Mexico and one from Australia. My only disappointment was that it seemed like a lot of the floats looked alike. Apparently there is a good reason for that: one local company created about 2/3 of the entries in the parade. Still, it was tons of fun.

Then Uncle John and I headed off for the 93rd Rose Bowl game. We both wore Michigan hats, but he cheated and wore a USC shirt under his jacket. We live within walking distance of the stadium, which I did not know--I have driven there and wouldn't have called it walking distance, at least not for the kids. We caught the shuttle from Old Towne to get there, along with thousands of others. Our seats were great, actually--surprisingly so, considering the tickets were bought sight unseen. We were at the end zone, right at tunnel level--maybe 1/3 of the way up the stadium? No one immediately in front of us. Important note: we were surrounded by USC fans. Uncle John's shirt was a great choice. My hat, not so great, considering that was next to two very large, passionate USC fans (John changed hats on me, too). We had a fantastic time at the game. Decided not to wait for the shuttle (the line was longer than you can imagine) and walked home instead, which was another great choice.

Get this: the Rose Bowl was the first sporting event I have ever been to which provided plenty of bathrooms for us women. Amazing. I never had to wait in a line to use it. How did they do it?

It was a really fun day--the highlight of a great visit with Uncle John. He will be pleased to know that my kids have been singing "The Cow Kicked Nelly in the Belly in the Barn" with great gusto all day yesterday, last night, and this morning.

one of those days

It happened due to a combination of circumstances... the primary one being that apparently we are a more attractive destination now that we are in California instead of Florida. Well, not so much that, but we had Andy's immediate family visiting for Christmas (since for the first time in forever two members of said family live within half an hour of each other, even accounting for LA traffic) and, as I mentioned before, my uncle is coming out for a New Year's visit. Both of which are fantastic things!

Andy left with his family (more or less) and the kids and I were left with about 36 hours to transition from one visit to the next. Things went south about an hour after he walked out the door. Yes, one hour. We made it through bath time and Bible story time; as I was finishing up our prayer, I heard a sniff, another sniff, followed by a wail, from Michael. "I miss Daddy!" One hour. Caroline and Elanor happily launched right in. One hour. Wailing. Everyone. One hour!

We made it through the first crisis and everyone went to bed more or less peacefully. I thought we were doing well yesterday morning when we got up and had a leisurely breakfast of cereal with a minimal amount of milk (hey, we needed to go run some errands and replenish the depleted stores from visit #1!). My goal was to run quickly through Target and then head to Vons in order to be back in time to feed everyone a real lunch. Target went fine until we hit the toy department. Yes, three days after Christmas, we are in the toy department. This is thanks to a kind grandparent who thought the kids would enjoy some Christmas cash--true, but it was burning a hole in their pockets. This is actually not a great time to shop for toys. The shelves were actually bare--almost completely bare. Apparently they are taking advantage of a lull to revamp the department. I couldn't talk anyone out of spending their Christmas bonus, so we embarked on a truly tedious search of every shelf to examine every toy in order to spend every last cent. I do not even know how long we spent there but it was one of those experiences where every minute drags out to a seeming eternity.

We picked up a loaf of bread and had PB&J at home. Groceries later.

When Michael and Caroline came out from their quiet time, we had a peaceful interlude of Mousetrap, which I picked up during one of those eternal moments. Fond memories of playing that game as a child. They had a blast; me, not so much. The game seemed to need a little too much help going through its paces--the "helping hand" never actually bumped the ball into the bathtub for reasons unknown, but always needed an extra boost. They want to play again with Uncle John. Good sign.

Elanor woke up and we headed for the grocery store. Ouch. We used one of the family carts, which is nice for stowing children, but drives like a semi. Michael took a book into the store (Famous Men of Rome) and therefore needed to sit in the cart itself, making me pile the groceries around him. That was actually the nicest part of the trip. The girls were all over the map and there were just a lot of people there. It really made me reconsider trying their home delivery. There is a reason I shop in the morning. Plus I forgot a bunch of stuff, mainly meatball ingredients for children who specifically requested spaghetti and meatballs.

Thankfully we had leftover Indonesian Ginger Chicken for dinner (thanks, honey!). I know the day doesn't sound all that crazy, but I haven't yet mentioned that I was also cleaning two bathrooms, mopping up a serious bathroom accident, tidying up the apartment (which somehow looked like a tornado hit), and processing five loads of laundry (how can three kids go through so many clothes in six days?). Oh, and I needed to head over to our friend Matt's place to put clean sheets back on his bed since he had graciously loaned us his apartment so Andy's sister and her husband wouldn't have to sleep on our floor! The bright spot was that I did get to use the new vacuum (actually I get to use it every day), but I am starting to have my suspicions about the dirt sensor. However, it is still sucking up an incredible amount of dust, source still unknown.

Thankfully everyone went to bed peacefully and let me collapse with a couple of episodes of Firefly, which I am really enjoying quite a lot. I was actually laughing out loud last night at the Hero of Canton. I also took the time to try some spot remover on the carpet and trim raggedy ends off of the upstairs bath mats. The things I do only because someone is visiting--I just should have done the trimming before my mother in law visited, since she bought them for me. Better luck next time, Mom.