Everyone wants a derby update, but for some reason, it’s hard to write about it. To you, someone who is not attending derby practices, I am indeed someone who does derby. But to people who do derby, I am NOT someone who does derby. Do you know what I mean? It’s more like just trying not to get smeared all the time, and not draw any attention to myself. We do this one drill where we all skate around the track in a line very fast and when you are at the end of the line you have to weave in and out of everyone, while not crashing and still going forward and someone is chasing you and everyone is shouting and OHMYGOD that is not my favorite part of practice. So yes, I actually made the team. Well, the league, and team drafts are later this month. I’m having a really good time and I’ve managed not to get hurt, but I’m just waiting for someone to notice that a) I still suck and b) I don’t show up often enough, and kick me out. To be on a team you have to attend a minimum of 8 practices a month, but they don’t really mean it. You could go to a different practice or event every night of the week, and since I don’t, I feel guilty, blah blah blah. Anyway, yes I’m doing derby, but no, you can’t come watch any time soon.

Remember back in May when I started my enforced, end of contract, 100 days off? Well, I loved every minute of that time, but now it’s time to find another job, and as everyone knows, that blows. On the plus side, I am still off work! So I’m getting lots of shit done. Pretty much every corner of my house is clean and organized, even parts I never intended to touch. For example, we have a Harry Potter closet that I have never gone more than about 2 feet into because of darkness and dust and spiders and boogey men, but with SB’s help, it is now completely de-creep-ified, and I plan to spend the rest of naptime applying shelf paper and filling organizational bins. HOTT. (I’m serious)

Speaking of the boy, he is SO AWESOME right now. Yes, yes, there is the occasional epic tantrum but otherwise, he is happy, delightful, and dare I say it, POTTY TRAINED. Yeah-ah!

So, that about covers it. What’s up with you?

SAD THING:
I found out this week that a friend of mine died suddenly. I am also friends with his mom. I called her as soon as I heard, and we sobbed together on the phone. It was Awful. I had been nothing more than facebook friends with him for about 5 years, but when he came back to Tacoma to visit his mom we would definitely hang out and stay up too late and laugh. And oh my god, his mom. Even imagining the tiniest part of it makes my eyes fill. All this to say, hug your babies, hug your friends.

When I got that call I was in a STORMY, light stompy kind of mood because Clark had gotten up super early, and I still should have been sleeping. And then I got that news. And jeez, you know? Life is so precious WTF am I doing wasting one minute of it stomping?

PRETTY:
We went to another beachmagic concert. It was LOVELY. So lovely, the loveliness out-weighs the vomit and poo and sand and 3 outfit changes that were unfortunately involved. This is saying a lot, but again with the PNW epicness:

MEXICO:
As you know, my parents watch my child for free and they are excited about it always and never want to give him back once they have him. I REALIZE HOW LUCKY I AM. Anywho, back when we were both working for that brief period earlier this year, we bought my parents (and us) a few days in Mexico at a cushy, wristband resort on the beach to thank them for those thousands and thousands of dollars they save us. There will be entire days spent with Clark in the pool, WARM sand and sea (he’s gonna flip out), and maybe since there are 4 adults to share him, a relaxing beach read here and there. We are off!* See you when I get back with my Something About Mary tan.

*all the usual stuff about armed house-sitters, ferocious dogs, spy cameras, etc.

lots and lots of beautiful coffee

Clark loves baths. He will take three a day if we let him. One of my favorite things is to toss him in there, and then do some sort of lengthy grooming activity I couldn’t do if he weren’t confined. I can go to town on my brows while he happily invents storylines for his boats, and we’re both happy.

Easy and convenient access to laundry facilities. Oh, how I love laundry.

Funny emails from my sweetie

Holding my boy’s little hand. I swear that alone is reason enough to have kids.

And I am! In the past week, I’ve gotten so many piddly little things accomplished that I previously didn’t have time for. Like making the full transition to The Big Boy Bed, which required a screw driver, a bit of rearranging and maybe a half an hour. There are Goodwill piles that have been dropped off, dry cleaning that has been taken in, proper dinners have been made, exercise is happening, and just a general exhale. That was a tough year, you guys.

And there has been this:

And this:

Yes, in true PNW style, one day we are soaking wet at the sprayground and then next clad in wool and turtle necks.

Speaking of the boy, he had another eye surgery. It went well. It was partly more traumatic than last time, and partly less. Less, in that we knew what to expect, and more because he seemed to have a worse reaction to coming out of anesthesia this time. He totally freaked out. Like sobbing, can’t catch your breath freaking out. Which, you know, was NOT FUN. But here we are 2 days later and it’s like it never happened. Let’s hope it all worked this time, because the next step is far more involved, and these surgeries aren’t cheap, as you can imagine.

Anywho, next update will be from New York City! We are SO excited. I think we have finally come to a place where my boy is portable and verbal and pleasant enough that none of it stresses me out, not even that 6 hour flight. He has been talking non stop about the airplane and the subway and taking the ferry to see the statue.

Speaking of, our Mac has been getting a new hard drive installed so I’ve been unable to upload my photos from our little trip. I’ve wanted to write about it, and so I’ve been stuck. But I can’t have the ol’ blog over a week stale, so we’re moving on.

Anyway, how are we all? I’m great, you know why??? I am about to have THREE MONTHS OFF from work! (Pardon me whilst I happy dance.) You may recall that the nature of my contracts with That Giant Software Company is such that after I work for a year, I have to take 100 days off. These just happen to fall over June, July, and August and I am SO. STOKED. I’m going to get so much done! And play with my boy! And not be in the car for 3-4 hours a day! And meet my teacher friends at the sprayground! And collect unemployment! Because of all of these exclamation points, however, I have SERIOUS shorttimers at work. My attitude is poor. I’m infecting my office mates with my apathy, and those sorry bastards have months left on their contracts.

In other REALLY EXCITING news, we’re headed to New York City for a week! An old friend posted on the facebooks that she needed a house and kitty sitter and I jumped on it! I’ve been to NYC, I don’t know, 10ish times? But it’s always been in the winter or the rainy spring. I’m so excited to be there in the summer! And I’m stoked to take my Clarkie on the subway and a doubledecker bus and a ferry and to the Museum of Natural History. Yippee!

Clark just keeps getting more and more rad, I’ve gotta say. Yesterday when we picked him up from my parent’s house he was in a really grouchy, whiny mood. So when we got home, we went directly across the street for a run-around on the playground, and soon he was his regular chipper self. Two things I want to be sure to remember about this accidentally magical afternoon were, firstly, we were looking at the mural of animals painted on the wall of the school. We had already discussed the ducks and the bunnies and I said, “What else do we see?” And he said in exactly this way, “We see a goat, like on the Babies movie.” And sure enough, there was the goat, the same long, floppy-eared kind that drinks out of the Mongolian baby’s bath on the Babies movie. That totally blew my mind. Then, a bit later, he wanted to swing, but he didn’t want to put the train he was holding in his pocket so that he could hold on with both hands. So I put him on my lap and we swung together for a good half an hour. It was a beautiful afternoon, the sun was setting, the water looked gorgeous, and my sweet little boy snuggled into me. We sang all his favorite songs together (Kookabura, Frosty the Snowman, Jingle Bells, I’m Careful With My Baby on the Stairs) and commented on the other kids and families there (who was bigger, who was smaller, who had a ball, etc) and I never wanted it to end. Eventually, though, my butt was falling asleep and it was dinner time, so we went inside. But I did my best to freeze those moments, the feeling of his warm little body on my lap, singing Christmas songs in May.

You guys! I seem to have struck a nerve with my cardigan post! It warms my heart to know I am not alone in my quest and consequent frustration. I lovedlovedloved all of your links and suggestions. It seems the moral of the story is that even pricier models are not guaranteed to hold up, and that we all may need to embrace the cheap cardigan. Many of you also recommended cardys of the swape variety (sweater-cape), which perhaps I should give a try. I actually have a few, but I keep thinking those are on the way out. I’ve obviously spent TOO MUCH time thinking about this. In my recent ruminations, I came to the conclusion that my continual frustration is all due to this cardigan:

No cardy ever stands up to this one. Which of course is thrifted, sans label, and never to be duplicated. I’ve had this cardy for at least 10 years and I still wear it. I replaced the buttons probably 5 years ago with those cool leather ones. I don’t even wash it, if you want to know the truth. In fact, if you look closely you can see a little love note peeking out of the pocket, deposited there by my sweetie years and years ago that has managed to stay put. Man. When this one finally gives up the ghost, it will be a sad sad day.

In other fascinating news, I have to tell you about the SUPER OBVIOUS revelation I had recently. My big, loud, stinky, hard-to-start lawnmower seems to have passed on over the winter. When it came time for the fist mow of the season, I yanked and yanked and fell down and cursed and finally asked for help, damn it, but it still wouldn’t start. But hey! My sister now lives just a few blocks away and borrowing tools is such a neighborly thing to do, so since it was daylight and thus she was sleeping (vampire), SB went over and stole her new old-timey lawn mower.

And oh my goodness, IT RULES! Um, why on earth would anyone want a gas powered mower? I have to say that I love mowing the lawn, but hello? This is such a game changer. No more composure destroying yanking! No stinky loud chugging! No emptying the bag! As I happily trimmed along, my favorite zen activity got EVEN MORE ZEN. Seriously. And it takes up so much less space! The second time I got to use it, I discovered another handy trick and since I’m busy admitting all of these super obv things I’ll tell you about that, too. The one thing that was slightly lame was that after I hosed it off, it would get dirty again when I pushed it back to the shed because it would just keep cutting. But in addition to all these other awesome features, you can just pick it up like this:

This was a very difficult angle for the self photo, but I felt the visual was necessary. So, yes. I am a convert to the old time-y mower and busy collecting extra Green Team points, too.

As I am on a roll with my COMPLETELY uninteresting topics, I’ll throw in one last one. We have our groceries delivered because it only costs $5 more, no one ends up buying extra things like bags of Ghirardelli chips that will never be baked and only eaten in sneaky handfuls, and also because we spend 15 hours a week in the car. But there are indeed drawbacks. Sometimes they substitute your whole milk for 0% (NOT COOL), and sometimes you end up with random extra items like this:

Ah, SlimFast. Of the many things I no longer eat since discovering you shouldn’t consume things made of poison and hammers, perhaps I miss SlimFast the most. Yes, really. The convenience of a chilled, liquid meal cannot be easily replaced. Yes, of course, back then, and now, it would be better to prepare something more satisfying that involves chewing, but when there’s no time or energy for this, a SlimFast used to really hit the spot. Perhaps this is an overshare. I’ll be all done now.

Anywho, we have a house full of guests for the next few days and there should be much eating and imbibing and entertaining ahead. (and uncomfortable sleeping arrangements, as we have given up our bed, and Clark is sleeping with us HOLD ME) We’re even going to Ride The Duck on Saturday, which I have secretly always wanted to do. And now I have the excuse of out-of-towners and a toddler upon whom to blame my presence aboard the most cheesy of Seattle activities. Score!

In other news, friends of the real life persuasion will recall that my dear, sweet, perfect, boy is almost always goopy eyed. Since he was about a week old, his eyes have been producing a non-stop flow of poost and tears. I wipe them constantly, but he is often grimy looking anyway. I almost don’t even see it anymore, until someone comments on it, and then I feel embarrassed for him, and for me, and imagine the judgment in these statements, which may or may not be there. I think most people wonder why we don’t DO SOMETHING about it it. Our hippie pediatrician, who was chosen for her non-interventionist style, has counseled all along that we should be massaging his ducts regularly and that he would most likely grow out of it. She told us early on that if we were not happy with this plan, he could have surgery to correct it. Yeesh. I suppose there are some who would not have any problem with that, but we have been more comfortable just wiping his face and hoping he would indeed grow out of it. Surgery? SURGERY? For my baby? I’m getting all tear-y right now just thinking about it. But the time has come. We took him to an ophthalmologist yesterday and his surgery to unblock his tear ducts is scheduled for the 29th. Again, there are much bigger problems in the world, but putting my baby under, having him cut into, having him awake in pain and confusion, gaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh. I think I’d rather deal with eye schmuck.

In other surgical updates, I just used a thumb tack to dig the last of the slivers out of my hand from last weekend. Ah, workplace surgery. So hygienic.

What did you all do for Valentine’s Day? Ours was ultimately lovely, but I had my doubts at first. I shan’t dwell upon it, but I had just spent 4 straight days trapped beneath a barfing toddler, so by the time Monday rolled around, I was a touch relieved to be escaping to work. That said, I wanted nothing more than my jammies and the couch by Monday evening. But I knew SB had planned something. I called him during the day and asked him what time his mom was coming over to watch the boy, with every intention of rallying. But when he said, “Oh, I canceled it. I knew you didn’t want to go out” I was all THANK GOD. So we ended up watching a rom-com and sharing a box of Fran’s Dark Chocolate Salted Caramels. Yessssssssss….

Speaking of the barfing toddler, you are I’m sure aware of the Egypt situation coming to it’s joyful conclusion on Friday? Well, as you know because of my frequent whingings, I spend 3-4 hours in the car daily, during which I listen to NPR. Over the last three weeks I have eagerly absorbed every detail of the goings on in Egypt. On a side note, do you ever get a word or phrase stuck in your head just like a song? I spent a solid week with HonsiMubarakHonsiMubarakHonsiMubarak as my earworm. ANYWAY, where was I when he finally stepped down? Pinned beneath a sweaty and sad little boy, with Twitter as my main source of info.

I think I’m pretty much done tinkering with this site. I hope its not too disorienting. I know I usually feel slightly uncomfortable when a blog I read has a redesign. I was just tired of the old Zesty. I wanted something white and plain, so I searched for “white and plain” in the basic templates and found this one and it’s exactly what I wanted. I had it all installed then went about my merry way checking in on my favorite blogs, when I realized there may have been a reason I thought this one looked so good. Uh…sorry Shelby. I hope you don’t mind. I think we have only one crossover reader! (Hi Tiana!)

We had some of our typical, weak sauce, PNW snow last week. It started late at night and was really pretty. I made myself take my tripod outside and get some pictures of the neighborhood all snowy.

By morning, it was mostly gone, but my poor, deprived child made the best of it anyway:

Throughout the day, he insisted on monitoring the increasingly melted status of Frosty, till he was just a sad little carrot.

In other Clark News, a couple of nights ago we were eating some Pho and SB was using chopsticks.

Clark: Daddy, whatchoo got? Whatchoo got, Daddy?

SB: These are are called chopsticks.

Clark: I want some chopsticks, please.

So SB gets him some chopsticks, and we go back to our conversation, certain the boy will only use them to splash around in his soup bowl or perhaps poke his eye out, but instead, we look over and see this:

That kid. Astounds me all the time.

In running news, I did a 10k over the weekend. It felt a little rough, but I was 2 minutes faster than my last 10k, so yay me. I look surprisingly cheerful in this photo for someone who is soaking wet and covered in mud:

There is one good thing about the month flying by. It means I will soon get to to change the page on my two calendars at work, which is always a treat. Am I a ray of sunshine or what? I hope YOU are having a good Monday.

Hello friends! Like everyone else, my life is super busy and full right now, just like I like it! So much has been going on! Clark tuned 2! We had a holiday party! Presents were purchased and wrapped! I love this time of year SO MUCH!!

I have various things I’d like to discuss today. Firstly, has anyone received any tape yet? I handed off all of your addresses, but then it was out of my hands. Just wondering.

I thought I would also update you on the neighbor’s smell issue I asked your advice about. Well, I really really appreciated all of your ideas. Y’all are good communicators! I hemmed and hawed and smelled it a few more times, and then… it stopped. We should have known that if WE could smell it, they could as well. One day we noticed that they had added some kind of filter-type attachment to their stove pipe thing and we haven’t smelled it since. I love it when avoiding dealing with a problem makes it go away.

The picture above is from the photo booth we set up in the garage at our Christmas Cocktail Party. It was a hoot! Next time we do it, we’ll have all the kinks worked out, but it went pretty well! I borrowed some lights, bought a remote for my camera, used SB’s blue screen for filming, made some snowflakes and ta-da! Photo booth! Add a few silly props and fun friends and photo magic ensues. My friends are such good sports. I love a good sport! I got to open my Christmas present early, which was an Eye-fi card, so the photos were beamed over the wi-fi and onto the TV in the living room, so people could see the silliness going on in the garage. **virtual high-fives to photo/techie geeks**

Longtime readers or Lutes may recall my post about that time I stole Dr. Becvar . I reference it now because it contains a good profile of the man, a cherished ol’ bird and major character from the college days. Well, because I’m awesome and an excellent correspondent, I have kept in touch with him. And behold how I am rewarded for my efforts:

And yes, those are all double sided. Remember that handwriting, you guys? I try to keep him updated on what everyone he remembers is doing, but if anyone reading is moved to contact him, let me know. He would love it and you won’t be sorry! His letters are very entertaining and of course, honest. I think this is the first one where he didn’t remind me that he didn’t like me at first.

Anywho, I hope to do a proper post about my Clarkie and his big milestone soon, but if I don’t get back here before, merry merry everything to you all! Thanks as always for popping in! XOXOXOXOXOXO