I want Emma Thompson to write my life.

I was late to the Pride and Prejudice party, I’m the first one to admit. I didn’t read it until shortly before (or maybe just after?) I had Gracie, so I was older. I remember reading the book and thinking it was okay, but not really all that…until the first proposal scene. Or maybe it was later at Pemberley? Okay, so I don’t remember the details. I just remember it was love not at first sight, but later in the plot. Then I was all, “Ohhhhh!” and I thought I got it. Until I watched the “real” version of the movie (the Colin Firth version, naturally). Then I got it.

I became a bit of a Jane Austen fan after that. I studied the book, analyzed the book, devoured the movies – any and all versions I could find – and repeated over and over again. When I wore myself out, I thought I had maybe better check out some of Ms. Austen’s other books. I turned next to Sense and Sensibility. And hated it.

Oh, it was awful! The characters were silly and the few characters who might have become quite interesting – Elinor, for example – were underdeveloped and dangled hopelessly in plot that sort of ambled around as if the scenes were scattered accidentally about the pages. It was a mess – and not even a hot one. So I gave it up.

I ran through Emma (which I adored), and Mansfield Park (which I can’t remember) and Persuasion (which I have dubbed “the best of the rest”). My sister and I watched “Becoming Jane” and bawled our eyes out because we will be Jane and her sister – alone together until we die. Oh, shoosh. We are not dramatic. Much.

And then, finally, accidentally, I watched the “Sense and Sensibility” movie that has been out forever with Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman (hurrah!), and Hugh Grant. It had been so long since I read the book that I couldn’t remember what happened – only that one sister was silly and one was sensible and both end up romantically entangled, natch. I thought it was good, but not nearly Colin-Firth-in-”Pride and Prejudice” good.

Still, when I saw the movie on sale for $3.99, I might have picked it up for Christmas. And then I might have watched it twice this weekend, back to back, while I was wrapping presents. Really, I don’t know how it fell into my DVD player and started itself! I was all amazement. In any case, I decided I really, really liked the movie and decided to give the book another whirl.

Oh. my. god. I honestly have no idea what happened, but the book and the movie are two entirely different stories! Okay, they’re sort of similar and most of the plot structure is there, and I still have about half of it to read, but…the book’s a bloody mess! No wonder I didn’t like it! Things are happening out of order and some things happen that haven’t really and there are different characters and oh! Not good!

No wonder Emma Thompson won an Oscar for the screenplay adaptation – she added structure and created a beautiful story out of so much raw material! If she could create that from that – imagine what she could do if she scripted my day-to-day life!

I don’t wanna.

It’s back to the grind stone. Ugh. So many things to get back to in the real world, so very little energy I want to expend on them.

• Getting up early. Okay, really? I only got to sleep in late twice in the 11 days I had off. I had the girls most of the time, so I got to luxuriate in bed until all of – what, 7 a.m.? – before being rudely yanked out of bed. Then there was Black Friday and then two days of heavily sedated bliss. Ahhh, night time cold pills and blackout shades, I love you both.
• School lunches. The Friday before Thanksgiving break Gracie was home sick from school and all last week her school district was off. It’s been a nice break from the monotony of packing lunch after lunch after lunch. Did I ever really think packing school lunches was charming and a fun bonding experience? Again: ugh.
• Never ending conferences. Go ahead and guess what I’m preparing for next week? No, don’t guess. I can’t talk about it anyway.
• Kidney stones that won’t go away. I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon to see what’s going on with my rather persistent kidney stone. It won’t go away and it won’t let me exercise. I’m starting to think we might need to blast this sucker into smithereens.
• My running regime. I had to temporarily stop the running thing because of aforementioned kidney stone. For some reason, my urologist seems to think that taking a vicodin every time I run is a little bit unnecessary. But he wasn’t caught performing a ballerina’s plie to get his jeans on after Thanksgiving dinner, so back to running it is. I’ll just have to live with the pain.
• Normalcy in the bedroom. Hey now! Get your minds out of the gutter! I had my bedroom all disheveled and mishmashed and pulled apart while I painted. (Hey, maybe that’s why my kidney stone tried to chew its way out of my insides this weekend!) I have almost everything put straight again, I just need help moving my Very! Heavy! bed back against the wall. My neighbor is supposed to come help me put it back tonight. I don’t know what I’m more excited about, my pretty pretty walls, or the fact that I will no longer bang my shin against my footboard because it’s about two feet further out from where it’s supposed to be.

Yeah, so there very many things I do not want to face this week but there is one good thing: we’re a little bit closer to Christmas. I just need to make it through two more weeks of grinding through the regular schedule and I can have a whole ‘nother week off.

I do believe in happy thoughts. I do, I do, I do!

Strange – but I’ll take it.

Huh. I’m…done with the pies. I’ve actually been done for awhile now, but I had to feed the children and ingest some more caffeine and then clean the kitchen. Details.

Two apples, one lemon (with a roof), one mincemeat, one pecan, and one chocolate pudding pie (okay, technically that one isn’t done because I have to get the chocolate pudding from the store, but it doesn’t involve baking, so meh). Five, five finished, tasty looking pies. Ah, ah, ah. Know what’s strange about that? I didn’t have any issues. Well, other than realizing I didn’t have the chocolate pudding. The pie crusts all came out beautifully. None of them stuck to the magical pastry cloth. They all rolled out quickly, easily, and perfectly. The lemon pie didn’t turn into a lemon volcano. I didn’t even have to muffle my cursing in front of the girls.  How are they going to learn to fear the Pie Gods if they don’t hear me cursing?!? Nothing even exploded this year. The sink gurgled ominously once, but that was it.

So, yes – strange. But good, I guess. Hmm….if things keep up like this, we might just have a pie or two at Christmas, too.

<shudders>

Then again, maybe not.

Oh god. Send prayers. No, sanity. No, liquor.

Deep breaths. It’s time to make pies. I can’t put it off any more. I’ve had my morning coffee. The girls have been fed. The kitchen is clean and the dishwasher emptied, ready for the first of many loads of dishes, I’m sure. Christmas music is playing. I’ve changed into my lucky t-shirt from home (since I don’t have my mom’s lucky apron.) All that’s left is the requisite pre-pie call to my Mom so she can bless the pies-t0-be.

I don’t know how or why it works, I just know it’s all necessary pie juju.

Deeeeeep breaths. Wish me luck!

I would blame the paint fumes, but I haven’t inhaled them yet.

It took eight years. I can’t pinpoint exactly when it happened, but after eight years the blank, white walls of my bedroom drove me to the brink of madness. It must be madness because why else would I decide to paint my bedroom in the three days I’m kidless this week? And that’s after I spend a day baking 7 pies. With the kids home. For the first time ever. And then the day after that cook (and clean up after) Thanksgiving dinner. And take the girls to our neighbors for an afternoon of (more) eating and a whole lotta fun. Then I’m going to trek to Home Depot and buy the paint I tested out and paint my bedroom. By myself.

Clearly, I’ve gone mental.

I don’t know what else to say except I have to do this. If I have to look at my bleak, blank walls of whiteness for even one more week, I’ll drift straight past mental into despair. And we don’t want that! And, if I’m being honest, I don’t mind painting. Yes, my arms will be sore and I’ll be complainy, but hey! You’re used to that! And then I will have very pretty walls and my house will feel just a leetle bit more homey. Homey is good. Homey is great!Plus, painting and creating hominess (homeyness?) will keep me out of the stores and away from the sales.

Now, if anyone is in the area and wants to help me eat leftovers from a 22 lb turkey and entertain me while I paint, just say the word. Misery Mental loves company! I have it on good authority that I am hilarious when I am mental – my sisters will provide references. Also, there will be free paint fumes and a giant vat of homemade chicken turkey soup. How can you resist? I can’t. Bring your spoons and words of validation that my colors are super purty because I AM NOT CHANGING MY MIND AGAIN. I can’t. I need to paint. Ahem.

There. Now that I’ve rather thoroughly convinced you that I’m mental, I am going to go tuck the children into bed and start panicking over the pie situation. No wonder my color choice is Paxil blue.

 

The color is really called Bon Voyage. (To my sanity, perhaps.) And it's not really as uneven as it looks - it's just drying. (Right??!)

 

 

Oh my god, what have I done?

Don’t worry – I’m still alive! Yeah, you were really worried, weren’t you. I can tell. It’s just that I’ve been on vacation (by which I mean hanging out at the house with sick kiddos) on Friday and this weekend. And temporarily (if you can call days on end “temporarily”) without internet. But other than that I’m just fine. Only I think maybe I shouldn’t do that any more because I start doing crazy, life changing things. Like chopping all of my daughter’s hair off.

Only, it was sort of purpose. At first I was growing out Bee’s hair because I am lazy and because she sometimes said she wanted it longer. Okay, fine by me. Then, when her hair crept past her shoulders and further and further down her back, I started thinking that maybe I should let it grow really long so Bee could donate her hair to Locks of Love. Once that Grand Plan hit, I couldn’t back down, not even when Bee’s hair grew so long that it started looking freakish. I mean, how many 4-year-olds do you know who have hair down to their butts? But Bee kept insisting that she wanted long hair, despite all the tear-filled mornings as I combed out the tangles, so longer and longer and longer it grew.

This weekend, I couldn’t take it anymore. Her bangs were so long she was starting to look like Cousin It. Usually, Grandma Sue takes care of her bangs because she is nice like that and also because I refuse to pay Fantastic Sams $13 to get a kid’s bangs trimmed. And even though Grandma Sue is doing much better in rehab and even got to see the girls two weeks ago, she still isn’t anywhere near ready to be handing out haircuts. So we were going to need haircuts from a “booty shop” as Bee would say, and I wanted to get my money’s worth.

It was a great plan – until the stylist showed me how short Bee’s hair was going to be. Chin-length. You know, an idea is all great and wonderful until it comes time to chop off all your baby’s hair right before Christmas pictures. I hemmed and hawed and asked Bee if she wanted to wait one more month before The Big Trim. Nope, she was locked and loaded – she wanted it off. The stylist wasn’t the friendliest person – I imagine she wanted to just get the cut over with so she could move on to another client and make some more money – but she did work with me enough to at least make Bee’s hair seem longer: she gave her a “swinging” bob so that her hair was started at the nape of her neck in the back and got longer toward the front, so it was an inch or two below her chin. Bee has super-fine hair, so the layering and the bob gave her hair some actual body, too. Crap – my 4-year-old has better hair than I do.

Oh well. It’s for a great cause. Maybe a little girl with cancer can get a wig for Christmas now. Bee doesn’t quite get the concept, but she knows she’s helping little kids AND she feels like a rock star. Those two things are pretty much all that matters to me.

So Merry Christmas a little early, Locks of Love. I promise I got (most of) the mashed potatoes, syrup, and tangles out of her hair before I mailed it off. (I think.)

 

The "Before" shot - and this was a month ago.

I admit - I panicked a little when the stylist hacked it off in one fell swoop.

Do we take great self-portraits or what?

Look how short the back is! Panic! Panic!

 

 

You can always find a little love if you look for it.

Okay, on one hand, it’s an empty coffee cup. Boooo empty coffee cups! On the other hand, the heart (that is a heart, right?) at the bottom is a sign that today might not be so bad after all. Hooray hope!

You just gotta know how to look at things. Happy Love Thursday everyone!

Where I’ve been.

Know what I haven’t done in awhile? Told you a hypothetical story. So let’s say – hypothetically, of course – that I had a job of some sort at a type of place. And that type of place didn’t require a lot, but when it did you sort of had to deliver. And let’s say this place had some interesting characters that often changed roles or left the group entirely for a period of time, but then would come back later again, so you always had to be nice. Hypothetically.

Okay, so in HypotheticalLand, in this nice building of Hypothetical People at the Hypothetical Place, there was a deadline. Except it was  VERY, VERY REAL deadline. One that’s been in place for, oh let’s say…two months. And the deadline was last night at 11:59 p.m.

Let’s also say that in this hypothetical situation, no one mentioned that I would have to stay late. But that was okay because the girls were having dinner with their dad, so I could stay until 6 or 6:30, even though I was having a football party at my house (for which I hadn’t yet cleaned, because I wasn’t planning on staying late). And let’s say my co-worker called in a mental health day even though there was this VERY, VERY REAL deadline. And then I found out that I might have to work on the document from home after I left late. But I couldn’t do that, so I would have to bring the girls back to work. Except then my friends offered to host the party at my house and watch the girls. Which is good because I didn’t leave the Hypothetical Building where the Hypothetical People finished the document with three minutes to spare before the VERY, VERY REAL deadline until 11:10 p.m. our time.

But the fun wasn’t over then, oh no, because on the way home there was a wicked thunderstorm and downpour and I couldn’t see the road or a foot in front of the car even with my high beams on. And I had to drive through a stretch of road with no streetlights, no drainage system, and where – I am not kidding – flash floods wreck cars and once left an alligator in the middle of the road. I thought I was going to die or get washed off the road.

Thankfully, I made it home. I got to bed at half-past midnight. I told myself not to worry about getting up until Gracie had to go to school. And then I ended up at work all of four minutes late. I am such a rebel. But then I enjoyed the status of a minor celebrity at work the next day before my boss sent me home after lunch.

I am a rock star. Um…hypothetically.

Time is running away from me.

[Author's note: Whoops! I wrote this last night. But for some reason it didn't post. That's what happens when you write things in the middle of the night. Heh.]

Sometimes I feel like time is running away from me. And like I’m stuck in the middle of a beautiful green (and maize! and brown!) cornfield. And no matter how which path I stumble (bumble mumble) down, I am going the wrong darn way.

Then I remember that I am getting paid a bajillion dollars to wander around in the maze and I decide to just go with it. Because whether or not I meet deadline, the maze is still paying for Christmas. (And a crate full of wine.) The end.

Slippin’ just a little further down the yellow brick road.

It’s funny the things you use to measure the passage of time when you have babies toddlers pre-schoolers little people running around your house. I’m not one to get all verklempt over the little things – except that yes, yes I am. I was totally that person this weekend when I had to alter the Tivo scheduling yet again and strikethrough yet one more program my girls have outgrown. See? I told you it was funny, sometimes.

I sat there, telling the Tivo that yes, I was sure I wanted to cancel any and all recordings of Disney’s Little Einsteins (sniffle). And yes, I knew I was insane (thanks for asking, Tivo), but I did want to record Fresh Beat Band in its place. Yes, the show makes me twitch, and no it won’t teach the girls to say cute (and slightly skewed) things like, “Mom, we’re driving fortisimo!” But it’s slightly more age appropriate and does center around music – something we’re very big on in this house. Still, it made me a little sad.

It’s one more slap in the face that my babies are growing up. Taking one giant step down the yellow brick road. Today it’s Fresh Beat Band, tomorrow it’s the loss of the tooth fairy (we had a close encounter last night) and Santa Claus, and then one day they’ll reach the Emerald City and realize it’s just a man behind the curtain after all. Behind all of the curtains. (Really, if it had’ve been a woman running things I think the ruse would have lasted quite a bit longer. So hey! Maybe there’s hope for me!)

I know it’s a natural progression. I know losing Clifford, Doodlebops (thank. god.), Sesame Street, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and now Little Einsteins means that my girls are moving evvvvver so slowly towards things like Anne of Green Gables, Beezus and Ramona, and The Secret Garden. The stretch of yellow brick road they’re moving towards is one that I can run along with them and participate without gritting my teeth too much. But gosh, darn it, I need a moment to mourn their babiness…at least all the sweet moments that I’ve used to wallpaper over the rather icky moments.

Yep, that giant shudder you felt this weekend was one giant step towards Middle Childhood taken at Casa de Katie. I won’t say I was entirely happy that the girls woke up sick, sniffly and needing their mama this morning – but I will say I can’t imagine how maudlin I’d be right now if I didn’t feel at least a little bit necessary!