Today is my 28th birthday, and I realized this morning that while I always do birthday posts for the boys, and even once in a while for Greg, I've never done a real retrospective birthday post for myself. So I dragged up some old photo albums from the basement and scanned in every photo I could find from my past birthdays.
Surprisingly, out of 28 years, I only have photographic evidence of 5 birthdays, and one of those was an especially unphotogenic year, so I'm only posting 4, plus a bonus photo. We'll start with the most recent and work our way backwards (because the cuteness factor increases the further back in time we go).
Here is my ninth birthday, and let me tell you how cool I thought that buttoned bow was. You can't really tell from the photo, but my blouse also had some random colored buttons on it, and I was convinced that the combination of the two was the height of fashion. I believe this was the first year I was allowed to use the big knife to cut my own cake, which might explain why my mom is hovering so closely over me.
This is my sixth birthday. That's my grandmother in the photo with me, my mom's mom -- I was born on her birthday and she was a constant fixture in that corner chair at all of our birthday parties. Other photos from this particular party, by the way, include photos of my presents, a little bunny family and a bunny-sized playground, which I posed and made my mom take pictures of for me.
My third birthday. I have two memories of this day: 1) I adored my cake. When my sisters were little, my mom made creative cakes for them, much like the cakes I make for my boys, but when I was a kid, she must not have loved me enough or something, I'm not quite sure, but this is the last cake I remember her making. 2) I loved my outfit. You can't see it in the photo, I think it's under my arm, but the vest had a little plaid cat on it to match the shirt. I loved that little cat. Clearly my fashion sense was still developing at that age.
My first birthday. Yes, I looked like a boy.
And for a bonus, because I don't have any good photos of myself on my actual birth day or as a wee newborn, here's Baby Heidi:
And that's it for the birthday retrospective. I'm not sure where the other 24 years went, although I think I already mentioned my mom not loving me enough, so that might have had something to do with it. (Kidding, Mom! I love you!) I don't even have any fun birthday stories to share -- in the first place I have a terrible memory, and in the second place, birthdays for most of my life have been pretty low-key. If I remember correctly. Which I may not.
This morning over breakfast James said, "Wow, Mom, in two years you'll be thirty!" I said, "Yep, and in twenty-two years I'll be fifty."
"Yeah," said Evan, "and then you'll be dead."
I replied that I'm planning to live until at least a hundred and forty, but you know, half of that wouldn't be too bad as long as I get to spend all of my birthdays until then with the people I love.
19 November 2009
28
19 October 2009
my life as a chauffeur
It turns out that having both kids in school really hasn't changed much around here. A month into Evan's school year, we've settled into a routine that's working out pretty well for us. The only snag in our scheduling so far is a small one, but rather annoying: my free time during Evan's school time is not nearly as much as I expected it would be.
See, he's in school for two and a half hours. Great, I thought at first, that's seven and a half hours a week! But as it turns out, once I factor in the time I spend driving Evan to school and then Greg to work and then picking Evan up again, I'm left with a little under two hours, which is hardly enough time to do anything.
Examples of ways I've spent my less-than-two-hours on preschool days: grocery shopping and checking email; running and showering. And... that's it. On mornings I grocery shop I have very little time once I've gotten home and put everything away, and on mornings I run I have a little time afterward to stretch and cool down and shower.
I don't mean to complain, though, I really don't. It's so nice having time to run, and being able to go to the grocery store without kids in tow. I guess my problem is just that I saw those free hours as an endless expanse of time which I could fill with any number of productive activities, and I'm quickly finding, to my dismay, that my time is not infinite at all, but still pretty limited. Before Evan started school I told everyone that my fall project during my new-found free time was going to be to make a quilt, but I've hardly had time to think about it, let alone start one!
I'm spending a lot more time in the car these days as well, between driving both Greg and Evan three times a week, plus the driving I need to do for errands. That's partly due to the lousy weather we've been having though -- rain and unusually cold temperatures have been preventing Greg from riding his bike much this fall. Hopefully spring will be a little better for that.
So, to answer everyone who's been asking what I'm doing with all my free time: the same stuff I always do, but also driving other people around a little more. Not a bad way to spend my mornings, though.
17 December 2008
hiatus
Thought I should drop in on the ol' blog to say that I've been way too busy with holiday stuff (and a little bit busy with practicing my laziness) to think about writing any blog posts, and in two days we're leaving for a two-week vacation at Greg's parents' house. I expect that once we're there I'll still be busy with holiday stuff, as well as catching up with the family and playing Rock Band, to do any posting any time soon, so consider the Jungle to be on temporary hiatus.
I don't know whether I've officially mentioned it here, but I'm on Twitter now (see sidebar). I will probably Twitter while I'm away, since that doesn't require much time or effort or thought, so you can still check in here for my Twitter mini-updates, or follow me on the Twitter site if you're eager to know how lazy and/or indulgent I'm being over the holidays.
I hope the next couple of weeks are fun and happy and healthy for everyone, and I'll see you back here in January!
10 September 2008
the tale of the twenty-five dollar zucchini
You may remember that I was attempting to grow zucchini in a container on my back step this summer. Let me tell you the story of my zucchini plant and why my ambition to be a gardener will be a long, hard, uphill battle.
First I should explain that I come from a family of farmers. Well, okay, one farmer, my grandfather, and he had a dairy farm, but I do have many relatives who are good with plants, including my sisters and my mother. When I was young, after my grandfather retired from dairy farming, he kept a small garden in the front yard. I vividly remember eating carrots pulled straight from the ground with dirt still clinging to them, and gobbling garden-fresh green beans.* But the zucchini -- it was my grandfather's zucchinis that were truly spectacular. My sister would collect zucchinis as long as our forearms and twice as thick around, and bake loaves of her famous zucchini bread.
So I've been a big zucchini fan since childhood. For the last several years I've loaded up on the cheap, abundant, enormous zucchinis from the farmer's market and made zucchini bread, zucchini brownies, zucchini cupcakes, zucchini stir-fries, zucchini fritters, zucchini lasagna, and so on and so forth. I have, over the years, collected an impressive number of recipes in which zucchini is the featured ingredient. So imagine my happiness when a friend of mine called early in the summer and offered me some zucchini seedlings.
He brought over three little seedlings for me one night, and I went to the local gardening store a couple of days later to buy a gigantic planter and pounds and pounds of dirt in which to plant my little seedlings.
"Do you think this is going to be worth it?" Greg asked when I came home, my wallet twenty-five dollars lighter.
"Sure!" I said. "Zucchini plants produce ridiculous amounts of zucchini. They're unstoppable!" I had big plans, big hopes and dreams for these little seedlings. No more supporting the local farmers for me -- I was going to be a local farmer!
So I planted my three tiny little seedling, and one died almost instantly. That's okay, I thought, there are two more. That's more than enough. And my two remaining seedlings began to flourish. I was excited, watching the leaves grow bigger and broader, watching the big yellow flowers begin to develop. Then my first little zucchini fruit began to appear, and I took photos and posted about it on my blog, because, look! I'm growing food!
And that first little zucchini, once it got to be about four inches long, inexplicably began to rot and die. I scoured the internet for advice, and then, before I could self-diagnose and treat my plant, it grew another zucchini. This one grew into a beautiful shiny ten-inch vegetable before I plucked it and turned it into soup. Now there was no stopping my zucchini plant.
Perhaps I should stop here for a moment to note that part of the reason I was so excited to grow my own zucchini is because all those green-thumb genes I mentioned above are apparently recessive in me. I like plants, but really only do well with those that tolerate neglect. I might describe my thumb as a sort of sickly yellowish color with accents of brown on the edges -- which, incidentally, is the color the leaves of my zucchini plant began to turn shortly after I harvested that first perfect fruit.
I plucked off the dead leaves, I treated my plant for powdery mildew, I moved it to the front of the house where it could get more sunlight, and my efforts almost worked. The plant produced a few more zucchini, but every one rotted and died on the vine. The leaves recovered and are again a healthy, happy green, and there are still a couple of flowers, cheerful and sunshine-colored, but there are no more little zucchinis beginning to grow, and I suspect there will be no more this season.
So my first food-gardening experiment yielded one zucchini. One twenty-five dollar zucchini. Meanwhile, over the course of the summer when I was too impatient to wait for my own plant to mature, I continued buying zucchini from the market. Four for a dollar, for zucchinis as long as my children's limbs and twice as fat around.
I think next year I'll stick with the farmer's market.
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*Every grandchild was affixed with an identifying label, growing up. My sisters were saddled with animals: one was known to love butterflies, and the other, elephants. Not that they actually loved these animals, but that was my grandmother's pronouncement, and once decided, these preferences were all but carved into stone. Christmas presents were very predictable. Me, I was known for loving green beans. Since green beans don't translate well into Christmas gifts, I ended up with random unpredictable items, such as dolphin figurines. I think I'd have liked the green beans better, personally.
08 September 2008
the problem of memory
A few days ago I bought blackberries at the market. Every time we've had blackberries this summer, Greg and I have lamented the fact that we weren't able to visit his family in Washington this summer because of how badly the blackberries in NY pale in comparison to their west coast counterparts. (There are, of course, a million other [more important] reasons we're sad about not having a summer vacation in WA this year, but we do miss those blackberries.)
"Man," one of us will say, "I wish we were in Washington; then we could have buckets of blackberries for free, instead of $3 a pint, and those would all be ripe!"
"Yeah," the other will say, "these aren't nearly as sweet, and they're so small! You can't even do anything with so few blackberries!"
And so forth.
A couple of days ago, though, Greg chimed in with, "Remember the blackberry french toast we had at Tom's one summer?" When he saw the blank look on my face, he continued, "Remember? We picked a whole bunch of blackberries at my grandparents' house, and brought them to Tom's, and we made french toast and put all the blackberries on top? That was the most amazing french toast!"
I managed something like, "Well, I've had a lot of good french toast in my life."
"Come on," Greg pressed, "remember, we got to Tom's apartment -- not the one he's in now, not the last one, but the one before that -- and no one was home, so I broke in through the bathroom window and landed in the bathtub? Remember that time? We had that blackberry french toast on the same trip."
"Oh, yeah," I said weakly, "I think I remember that."
Readers, I was lying. I didn't remember it, I don't remember it, and doesn't that sound like something one should remember? Blackberry french toast can conceivably be forgotten, but I feel like I ought to remember my boyfriend breaking into someone's house through the bathroom window and landing in the bathtub. But it's a big blank instead.
Ten years ago, I had an amazing memory. I was an excellent student who hardly needed to study because I remembered almost everything from my classes and textbooks. I could have told you the middle names and birthdays and phone numbers and addresses of every single one of my friends, and a bunch of people I wasn't friends with too. My best friend and I had an intricate system of code names for practically everyone we knew and there was no need to write it down because there was endless space in my head for this sort of knowledge.
Today I have no memory to speak of. (I attribute this change directly to parenthood, by the way, and the lack of sleep that comes with it.) I see movies and can barely remember the plots a day later. I have trouble returning phone calls and emails because I forget that people have called or written me. Every single time one of my best friends from high school calls me, I fail to recognize her voice even though I've known her for fifteen years.
So I keep endless lists of everything, from grocery lists and library books to daily to-do lists and lists of upcoming events. I keep a list of possible menu items for dinners and school lunches. I leave myself written reminders to answer emails or schedule appointments or pay bills. If it's not written down, I will forget it.
That's part of the reason I started a blog. To chronicle and to remember all of my experiences in raising two very interesting children. I read back through my blog archives recently and was surprised by how difficult some parts of my life were, and how funny other parts were. Time has dulled my memory to a vague series of highlights, and it's so easy to forget the details. I don't want to forget.
I don't want to forget the hilarious lullaby James composed for Evan, telling him to go to sleep because his shirt was so beautiful. I don't want to forget the time that Evan refused to put on his shorts because they were too distinguished. I don't want to forget the way that James picks up and pockets every interesting rock he comes across, "interesting" being a very subjective term.
I don't want to forget Evan asking me to pick him up this morning. "What for?" I asked. He smiled and said, "For everything! For hugs and kisses!" And then I picked him up and he snuggled into my chest and it instantly became one of those moments I never want to forget.
I can't trust my human memory that much anymore. But I can trust what I write here. So this post is a reminder to myself to write more, to capture these moments, these swiftly fleeting childhood days, and through recording and remembering, to appreciate them more.
08 July 2008
30 June 2008
perspective
One of Greg's aunts passed away last week, after a long struggle with brain cancer. She had cancer as long as I knew her, and I didn't know her very well, but she was always very kind and sweet and welcoming to me, which I especially appreciated in the early years of my relationship with Greg while I was trying to find my place as a new member of his family.
It is a sad loss, and we're sad that we can't be with Greg's family, but it wasn't until I read this post by Greg's sister Karen that the whole things began to resonate with me. I've been slipping again recently -- slipping into laziness, slipping into bad temper, slipping into pettiness and resentfulness and pessimism. And reading Karen's post just made me stop and think about how lucky I am, how very fortunate I am to have my good health and a wonderful family and very little difficulty with anything, in general, and even though Lynn passed away, we are better off for having had her in our lives in the first place.
Yesterday we went to the beach, despite the storm warnings. I sat in the sand at the edge of the water, next to James digging in the sand, watching Greg and Evan play in shallow water as dark clouds inched their way nearer and nearer to us. I let the water wash over my feet and legs and I let the slimy green algae sift through my fingers and for a moment, I was hit with a sense of wonder at how lovely life can be when you just let go of the little things for a while. Sometimes I think I make my life much harder than it needs to be, and it's hard to remember to just slow down and enjoy the moment.
So thank you, Karen, for a much-needed reminder and change of perspective.
19 May 2008
and on and on and on and on
I've been in kind of a funk lately, so I probably won't be posting much this week.
I'm in a rut right now where I'm looking to the future and seeing nothing but miles of monotony. Mostly I'm fine with the way my life is, but the past few days, the past week or so, it's feeling incredibly useless and depressing. My life is a broken record.
I cook and cook and cook, which takes as much mental energy as physical, what with planning menus and making things nutritious and even just trying to have each element of a meal on the table at once, and then we eat all of the food and my hard work has disappeared and I have to do it all over again.
I wash our dishes and wash our clothes over and over, every day, and yet we're always dirtying more dishes, dirtying more clothes, and I have to wash and wash again and again.
I pick up puzzles and blocks and Legos and trains and videos and yo-yos and board games, but the boys always need something to play with, so as soon as one thing is put away, something else comes out and I'm always picking up, putting away, picking up, putting away.
Let's not even get into other people's bodily fluids, because those never stop coming, either, and those things fall squarely into a mama's job description.
It is work that I do, this domestic stuff, this mothering stuff. Yet it's a curious kind of work, in which all of my efforts are continuously negated by other people, and there is never anything to show for all this work that I do. Everyone has housework, everyone has responsibilities, of course, but to take your own burden and multiply it by four (and with children, it often feels like even more than that), it just gets tiring.
No matter what else I do with my time -- taking the kids to the park, going to the grocery store, reading a book, going camping, sewing, playing board games -- those things are just tiny breaks in the never-ending monotony of domestic responsibility, and I am tired. I never envisioned that this was what my life would be. Most of the time it's okay. But once in a while it just makes me very, very sad that this is all there is right now.
02 May 2008
friday photos
A cute photo of me and beardy Greg, just for fun:
Greg and James fishing at the lakehouse a couple of weeks ago:
The boys posing in front of the lakehouse:
Greg and James enjoying the hot tub at the lakehouse:
An example from James' kindergarten April journal, in which every entry involves video games:
Happy weekend, everyone!
01 May 2008
just quiet
I haven't felt like I've had much to say here lately. Things are good; we've been busy. We've been enjoying spring and seeing lots of friends, but none of it seems worth reporting on at the moment. I've been lazy lately, yet am still not getting enough sleep. Go figure. So what have I been doing? In case you're curious:
I've been listening to NPR a lot lately, trying to stay informed, but finding it hard to care about the endless coverage of the Pope's US tour or which presidential candidates wear American flag lapel pins. I thought NPR was supposed to be the good news source. And then, I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear news items like this: "Gas prices have reached an all-time high, with an average price of $3.76 per gallon of regular unleaded gasoline. This is one cent higher than the previous record, which was set... yesterday."
Saw a couple of good movies recently: Velvet Goldmine (about '70s glam rock in the UK) and Kinsey (about the famous sex researcher). Just don't watch them with your mother; that could be a little awkward. Unless you and your mom like seeing full frontal nudity together, and if so, who am I to judge?
I've started reading a book about the Rwandan genocide of the '90s (We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families) and it's helping put my life into perspective a little bit. I may feel bored and useless sometimes, but at least I'm not being hacked to bits with a machete. There's always that.
I've been following news of the worldwide food shortages, while simultaneously trying to pretend that it will not affect us that much. Just when I've gotten good at economizing on food, prices of even the most basic things are going to skyrocket. Oh, while I'm on the subject, let me direct you to this article at Cheap Healthy Good: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding the Food Crisis, which lays out the causes, effects, and potential solutions in handy list form. A good read.
The big news in the world of children is that James has a cavity, which makes me feel like a failure of a parent. Though it's not all my fault: "James, have you been brushing on the back side of you teeth?" "Nah, it's too hard." So we're re-establishing good brushing habits, and stepping up the flossing as well, which is hard, because I would rate flossing my children's teeth as one of the grossest things I've ever done as a parent. This is more a weird thing about me than anything about my kids' mouths, but I would rather change a thousand dirty diapers than floss someone else's teeth.
That's all, I guess. Hopefully I'll wrangle up some photos to post tomorrow.
21 February 2008
*cough cough*
Wouldn't it figure that it's on James' week off from school that I get sick? James is spending his winter break watching a lot of movies and playing a lot of video games, and I'm spending it mostly on the couch, napping, drinking tea or water at all times, coughing, and trying not to let the drugs wear off.
Also, I can barely speak. Fun times!
10 January 2008
confession
I pride myself on being a literary type. I'm a book snob, I'm a book nerd, I want to be a librarian when I grow up because I just like to be in the presence of books so much. I took several college English courses, and thought briefly of being an English major. I read for fun! (A trait that is becoming more and more rare, it seems.) I even read poetry.
Yet, with all those qualifications, I have to confess that I've never read a Jane Austen book. I've not even read a single sentence of a Jane Austen book. I've never even seen a movie made from one of her books, so I can't even pretend I've read her. Everyone I know who has read her has told me I'd love her. I know I would. It's hard to really call myself a book person with this hanging over my head. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
But! I finally have the motivation to start. I found out a while ago that PBS, starting this Sunday, is going to be showing movie adaptations of all of Jane Austen's books on Masterpiece Theater. So I've decided to read all of her books along with seeing the movies. I'm sure I won't be able to keep up with the tv schedule, but darn it, I'm going to try. And hopefully I will succeed, and remove the biggest piece of nagging literary guilt from my brain. Wish me luck.
19 November 2007
happy birthday to me!
The photo doesn't really do it justice, but Greg has got some impressive decorating skills. People thought it was weird that I made my own cake, but that's my birthday present to myself -- once a year I get to take the time to search for the perfect recipe, buy unhealthy ingredients that I wouldn't normally use (such as heavy cream, and high quality chocolate!), and bake and frost a perfect dessert just for myself. Of course I don't eat the whole thing myself, but the creating is half the fun anyway.
All in all, not a bad way to celebrate twenty-six years. Not bad at all.
25 October 2007
these are a few of my favorite things
It's a books and music post!
Hopefully you've noticed my fancy new sidebar. I love talking about books and music, recommending things to people, and getting recommendations, but this isn't a books-and-music-blog* so I don't want to bore you all by constantly gushing about this really cool book on migratory birds which would bore most of you to tears. I'm aware of my eclectic (and sometimes questionable) tastes, so for your sake, I keep that sort of thing to a minimum.
So my new sidebar is a way of letting you know what I'm currently into, and you can feel free to comment on it, or ignore it, or criticize it, or whatever. I'm mostly mentioning it because I feel pretty proud of myself for managing to figure out the HTML to post those pretty little linked pictures.
I don't have anything important to say about the things I'm reading or listening to -- the books are still in progress, but are obviously interesting enough to keep me reading, and the CDs are all my style, which may not be your style, so maybe you'd like them and maybe you wouldn't. I have to say that my favorite of the 3 CDs at right is the Scissor Sisters, who are poppy and funky and fun, though I can recognize that they are certainly not for everyone**. If you think you can handle Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" set to a synthesized, BeeGee-esque beat, then check them out. If that idea abhors you, then maybe you should not listen to my musical recommendations.
Wait, I do have one important thing to say: John Lennon is magic. The CD I'm listening to is a collection of covers of John Lennon songs, made by Amnesty International to raise money for the Darfur crisis. I noticed when looking at the track list that there are two covers of "Imagine" -- one by Jack Johnson and one by Avril Lavigne. Seeing Avril's name made me roll my eyes. Obviously Jack Johnson would do a better "Imagine". I'm not a fan of Avril's music, and I've loathed her on priciple ever since I heard that she mispronounced David Bowie's name at an awards ceremony. DAVID BOWIE, people. Come on! But "Imagine" came on and... I like it. Avril can actually sound good when she has good music to work with. In fact, I prefer her simple piano arrangement to Jack Johnson's version. That, my friends, is the magic of John Lennon.
On to books, in general. A bookworm like me is always looking for good new books, or to talk about books, and now that my once-infrequent book club is officially disbanded, I'm desperate for book talk. But I've found a really cool site that is helping me out in that regard. A few months ago, Dawn invited me to GoodReads, and I've finally gotten around to checking it out. And I immediately joined and then invited some friends who are just as bookish as I am. You can rate books, see what other people are reading and see what your friends think of the books they've read. My profile is here; if you're interested, sign up and add me. We can talk books!
So what are you reading and listening to?
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*So what kind of blog is this then? I'm not sure, but I think I just don't want to give in to having a label.
**Update: I forgot to add that the Scissor Sisters can be kind of dirty, and this is probably not a good disc to play around the kiddos (if you have kiddos). Just so you know.
24 June 2007
99 things
So do you all remember the 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge that I was going to try to complete? Well, I'm nowhere near completing it, but I am proud to announce that I'm almost done writing the list. Yep, yesterday I managed to get up to 99 items. Some of them are kind of lame, some of them are actually going to be a challenge, and a good quarter of the list involves things I want to do before I leave Rochester, which gives me a pretty short window in which to do them. I didn't anticipate what a challenge it would be to just write the list itself, so even getting to 99 feels like an accomplishment, even with all the lame things on it.
But the exciting news is that I've already completed 3 of the things on my list!
- #1: Buy suits for the boys for my sister's wedding. You've all seen the photo evidence. Done! (And that is a good example of one of the lame items on my list.)
- #10: Take my children camping this summer. Done!
- #40: Have a yard sale before moving. Done! (Back in May, but I can't link it because I never wrote about it on the blog for some reason.)
That's two percent! And three more items will be completed soon: clean out all of our old junk before moving, move out of this apartment, and play in a frisbee league in spring and summer. Again, the first two of those are lame items that I was going to have to do anyway, but it is hard to come up with 101 things to do.
Which is where you come in, friends. Anyone want to make some suggestions of something I should do in the next couple of years? Something random, something realistic that I might actually be able to do, something creative, something challenging? Just not something too lame -- I've come up with enough of those on my own. I'm open to pretty much anything. Two more items! That's all I need! And actually, if I get enough interesting suggestions, I might replace something boring that's already on the list.
So, fire away!
04 May 2007
my first meme + friday photos
Me at 17 -- the closest I have on the computer of me at 15.
5 YEARS AGO I
1. was a new mama to Sweet Baby James.
2. was taking a semester off of school to stay home with my baby.
3. was feeling pretty lonely being the only undergraduate mother I knew.
4. was really involved in LiveJournal. That's a little embarrassing to admit, now.
5. was alternately blissful and depressed, due to the whole new mama thing.
Me five years ago
2 YEARS AGO I
1. was 8 months pregnant and hugely, ridiculously enormous.
2. had an active 3-year-old who I was preparing for nursery school and for being a big brother.
3. was over a year into my full-time stay-at-home mama career, after graduating in December 2003.
4. was really, really impatient to have my baby.
5. you know, the pregnancy was really the main thing. I was SO BIG and SO IMPATIENT.
Me, hugely pregnant two years ago
1 YEAR AGO I
1. had recently been hired as a community assistant here in my neighborhood.
2. started playing ultimate frisbee again after a year and a half of laziness and inactivity.
3. had recently resurrected my book club, which is still going strong (if not all that frequently).
4. started a myspace page because I'm SO COOL.
5. was really pretty content with how things were happening in my life.
Me with my mom and Evan a year or so ago
1. sorted a crapload of baby clothes for our yard sale tomorrow.
2. went for a dress fitting and felt more confident that I won't look like a lavender whale at my sister's wedding.
3. made guacamole. YUM.
4. took the boys to a picnic in Greg's new building on campus (well, not his building, but the new building where he'll be working soon.)
5. baked a million mini-muffins for James' class.
TODAY I
1. assisted at James' school.
2. am ridiculously tired because I stayed up too late last night doing yard-sale prep.
3. should probably go for a run. But I might not (see #2).
4. had cereal for lunch.
5. need to do some gardening stuff.
TOMORROW I WILL
1. hold our freaking yard sale, and I will be SO GLAD when it is over.
2. go to a Cinco de Mayo party!
3. see my old friend Sean at said party.
4. hopefully sell all of our junk.
5. take everything that doesn't sell to the Salvation Army drop-boxes.
It was actually a little bit difficult to do this! Maybe because I'm so tired. But I actually had to go back through my blog archives to fill out the one-year and two-year portions of this meme. I have a terrible memory.
I don't know what to do about this tagging thing though. Karen is sick, Jessica just reviewed her last ten years in honor of her tenth wedding anniversary, Samay is lazy, and I don't know if Kim does memes. I guess that leaves Melissa and Emily. Tag! And if those of you who I excused above want to participate too, go for it! Even though I gave you rock-solid excuses not to.
28 March 2007
101 things in 1001 days (part one)
Okay, it's been a whopper of a "My Kids are Driving Me Crazy" day (I made a third child cry today! How evil am I to expect a preschooler to carry his own sweatshirt?!?! Oh, the tragedy!), but I feel like I've been really negative on the blog lately, so I want to switch gears here and write something positive for a change.
From the blog Get Rich Slowly, I found an interesting meme: make a list of 101 things to accomplish in 1001 days (roughly 2.75 years), and try to achieve them. I've been mulling it over in my mind for the last couple of days, trying to decide if I really feel ambitious enough to take on a challenge like this -- it'll be hard enough to even think of 101 goals in the first place, much less actually complete all of them! But then I thought, it's so rare these days that I actually challenge myself (instead of being challenged, in both good and bad ways, by various small children) -- why not give it a try? Worst case scenario: I don't finish everything (though I will surely finish some things. I've got almost three years, after all). Best case scenario: I accomplish 101 things! And I think it would be really exciting if I could do that.
I don't have a whole list worked out yet, but I'll post it in sections as I think of things. They won't all be monumental challenges; some will likely be pretty mundane. Some will be short term, some will be long term, some will be difficult, some will be easy. We'll see what I can do. To begin with, here are my first 10 goals.
1. I will buy suits for the boys for my sister's wedding. (This will be done by the end of May, or I'll be in trouble.)
2. I will toilet train Evan. (Three years should be enough time, no?)
3. I will knit another Christmas stocking, so my boys can each have one. (To be completed before Christmas 2007.)
4. I will bake a cheesecake. (I have never done this, even though I love cheesecake. I've just never had an occasion.)
5. I will clean out the basement (and the rest of the house) and either sell our things at a yard sale, donate things to James' nursery school's garage sale, donate to the Salvation Army, or throw away the worst of it. (Hopefully in the next couple of months.)
6. I will grow tomatoes and eat them. (And hopefully other delicious things, too, once I have the space.)
7. I will move out of our current apartment to go live somewhere else. (Lack of details aside, this will hopefully happen in 2007.)
8. I will register James for kindergarten. (In April, once we find out about extending our lease here.)
9. I will play in a frisbee league this spring and summer (and fall if we still live here then). (I will do this even though it scares me because I am ridiculously out of shape.)
10. I will take my children camping this summer.
Anyone want to try it with me? Anyone have any suggestions for things you think I should try to do?
