Today is our anniversary. Four years ago today Rob and I got married. I started this post by typing "today would've been our four year anniversary." The italics I have just added as an after thought. I deleted that line and rewrote it. It is still is our anniversary.

Not would've been, but is.

It is impossible to really celebrate this day, at least today, but I can honor it. I started by cleaning my engagement ring. I haven't done this for months and months and it had accumulated all kinds of gunk around the area where the stone meets the setting. Months-worth of soap residue, latex glove powder, hand lotion, and whatever else lurks beneath had gathered underneath the diamond and it didn't sparkle as brightly as it should have.

So I got myself some jewelry cleaner and soaked it and scrubbed it. It's much better. I love this ring as much now as the day I got it and maybe even a little bit more. Any ring would've been a lovely choice but he put so much thought into this particular ring that it breaks my heart to look at it again and think of it's story.

The way I was told was this: JH went with him to the diamond district in New York and he was able to hand select the stone which is just a perfectly round cut diamond just a hair over one karat. It was a loose stone among others that he selected for whatever reason, probably a combination of price, size, cut. He decided to have it placed by itself in a simple Tiffany setting on white gold. If you know me, you know that this solitaire arrangement is exactly what I am about.

A few months before that he asked me a few vague questions about what kind of rings I liked and what I pictured an ideal engagement ring to be. He also took me into a jewelry store and had my finger sized. This lead me to believe that something really good was headed down the road, but I maintained my patience and never pressed him for anything. He surely must have known how much I loved him and wanted to be with him forever without me having to nag him for a ring or drag him into jewelry stores pointing out what I liked.

All I ever told him was that as far as rings go, I preferred solitaires with one really good stone. Because of my profession I needed something easy to don and remove gloves and to keep clean. I am also a simple person with very simple wants and needs-the ring really fit me perfectly. I feel like it also fit our relationship perfectly. I see it as a symbol of us. It is one singular, beautiful thing.

Four years ago it was a lovely day for a wedding. Together, we did a fine job of coordinating the event in five month's time. Our determination was to throw the best party that either of us had ever put together. I really think we pulled it off.

There are so many more memories I could pull out regarding August 23, 2003 but I will have to revisit them another time. The baby is finally napping and I have to find something productive to do. Task lists are weighing heavily in mind and deadlines are breathing down my neck. Until I return to this topic, enjoy a picture or two or three...

A scan, not the best quality, but I will never get over the look on his face. So happy.

Getting ready for the big event with JH

Honeymoon in Cozumel

I don't even know where to begin with this post.

Or with life.

I have so much unfinished business to take care of. On the other hand I have rushed through so many vital tasks that I can hardly catch my breath. We are in the middle of major, life-changing shit here people.

For starters, Sadie started high school yesterday. She was worried sick about it the night before. So was I. That morning was a little rough getting organized. Somehow we managed to get there on time.

When she got out of the car I told her I loved her, as is my habit. She told me she loved me too and shut the door behind her. As she rushed off to homeroom I watched her for a few moments and then felt so acutely lonely. This was a moment that someone else would've liked to have been there for too. I let a few tears go, but the baby was in the backseat and she needed breakfast.

Turns out that Sadie had two good days of school in a row. She is taking German and Geography as her electives and the rest of the classes are just the usual required courses. She has made a few friends. She told me today that she "loved" this school. This helps to mend my broken heart just a little bit.

Also, friends help mend my broken heart a little bit too. I have had some good visitors, good email, good conversations, good communication in general. I've had one or two bits of drama but I cannot let things like that overshadow the good will and intentions that have been poured into our lives.

And it reminds me that people are mostly good.

Taking it One Day at a Time

Today was the first quiet day we had in a long time. I took a ride around the neighborhood and it's not so bad. I took a walk around 2 o'clock but it was pretty hot so I cut it short.

I think swamp ass was invented in Florida.

But by the same token I like it hot outside. Everything feels very alive and thriving down here. There's a lot of green wherever I look. Lawns are wide and trees are dripping with Spanish moss. What do they live off of? Tree bark and humidity I guess. Lizards crawl all over the lanai screens and sidewalks during the day. Frogs are abundant at night. Sometimes I spot sand cranes in pairs in the backyard here.

Also, the people are nice. In the drive through and at the stores they call me honey and I think they actually mean it. If a stranger were to call me honey up in Bergen County I'd either be running for my life or in a rage over their sarcasm. But here-I think they actually mean it. And I miss being called honey so I will not only put up with it but cherish it too.

St. Petersburg Times Article

The St. Pete times ran a nice piece on Rob with a beautiful picture that I knew he would've liked. He had commented many times "damn, I look good in this picture." The online article doesn't feature the picture and there will come a time when that online piece either expires or otherwise becomes unavailable so I just wanted to put it all together in one place where it will always be accessible. I'm pretty sure that everyone reading this blog has already read the article, which isn't 100% historically accurate but it's still a really nice tribute and I'm very thankful to the author Andrew Meacham for doing a very nice job.

Human trivia bank embraced computers, '80s songs
By ANDREW MEACHAM, Times Staff Writer-Published August 7, 2007

He might never have moved to Florida.

Rob Shaw liked the house in Wood-Ridge, N.J. It was a place where he and his wife could bring up their two daughters. But at the end of the walkthrough, his Tourette's syndrome kicked in. The sudden tics and utterances took the Realtor by surprise.

"Oh, do you have that strange disease?" she asked.

Rob told the Realtor he would rather die than buy a house from her.

He found a warmer welcome in Spring Hill near his parents.

Shaw and his wife had recently picked out a house. They were set to close on the home soon and planned to celebrate by touring Florida: driving to the Panhandle, then to the Everglades and finally hitting South Beach.

They never got the chance.

Shaw died Thursday at his parents' home in Spring Hill. He was 37. Last year he had heart surgery.

As a student teacher at Jersey City State University, Shaw had briefly managed to get inner-city high school students engaged in Hamlet.

But he passed on a teaching career and found a niche in computers. He had thousands of '80s songs in his iPod. A human trivia bank, Shaw inhaled movies, often lacing his conversation with lines from Tombstone, Die Hard, Porky's or American Pie.

He was a diminutive neatnik at 5-foot-4 who favored khakis and Polo shirts. He took out everyday frustrations with rants that reminded co-workers of George Costanza in Seinfeld. He needled them, too, sometimes hurting feelings, but making up for it later.

"The humor was not to cover his Tourette's," said Robert Lotz, who worked with Shaw at a marketing company. "But the attention was already on him. Instead of people staring at him or feeling sorry for him, he wanted to connect with people."

Shaw liked surprises. He proposed to his wife by hiding a solitaire diamond in a plate of fruit. And when she passed her nursing boards, he gave her a Dalmatian puppy.

"My life was chaotic before I met him," said Elizabeth Shaw, 32. "He brought a safety and peace and the hope that everything would always be okay."

The moving truck with all of their belongings arrives tomorrow.

Andrew Meacham can be reached at 661-2431 or mailto:ameacham@sptimes.com.%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3E%3Cp%3E.biography%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3ERobert

Biography

Robert Alan Shaw III
Born: March 23, 1970
Died: Aug. 2, 2007
Survivors: A wife, Elizabeth; daughters Sadie and Penelope; parents, Robert and Audrey Shaw; a sister, Nicole Shaw; and grandfathers Robert Shaw and Nicholas Lisanti. Donations should go to the Tourette Syndrome Association, accessible online at www.tsa-usa.org/; or the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, www.brainbank.mclean.org/.

A Review

I was re-reading some of this blog just now and going over the last one I wrote in NJ before the teary train ride to FL. In a way the subject matter in the beginning of that entry pains me to read-talking about my old aspiration to be a mortician and then how I wound up caring for the departed later on in life anyway. How cold it might seem to some people. I'm not really here to apologize for that because it is what it is and anyone who knows me knows I am not a cold person. Still, I wanted to make it clear that that sort of work is really an act of love-at least, it was on my part. I know that is a difficult concept to convey, but it is true.

But still, when I wrote that entry, how innocent I was to the heartache that comes from this kind of experience. And I can't help but feel chills regarding the timing. Chills.

I have talked with a few people about the coldness I felt when I found out about Robert's passing. A blast of coldness and my blood literally turned to ice. That is the only way I can describe it. I wish I could erase it from my memory. I wish I could just banish it and make it go away.

Now this is the paragraph where one usually shows the brighter side or the blessing in disguise. I am afraid that that is probably going to elude me for quite some time. However, I will say that everyone's support and good wishes and positive vibes are keeping me afloat. This may be the worst thing I have ever experienced, but I try to remind myself that the children are healthy, I have a roof over my head, and a lot of good guidance from those older and wiser than me.


Robert was my Doc Holliday. He was my Captain Miller. He was my huckleberry.

Now I just have to earn it.

(JH, Thank you in advance for allowing me to blatantly rip off a few very beautiful things you said about Robert in his eulogy. You are a daisy...)

The Best of Times

Ocean City

The Pool in Spring Hill

Better Together

by Jack Johnson

There's no combination of words

I could put on the back of a postcard

No song that I could sing

But I can try for your heart

Our dreams, and they are made out of real things

Like a, shoebox of photographs

With sepiatone loving

Love is the answer,

At least for most of the questions in my heart

Like why are we here? And where do we go?And how come it's so hard?

It's not always easy and

Sometimes life can be deceiving

I'll tell you one thing it's always better when we're together

It's always better when we're together

Yeah, we'll look at the stars when we're together

Well, it's always better when we're together

Yeah, it's always better when we're together

And all of these moments

Just might find their way into my dreams tonight

But I know that they'll be gone

When the morning light sings

And brings new things

For tomorrow night you see

That they'll be gone too

Too many things I have to do

But if all of these dreams might find their way

Into my day to day scene

I'd be under the impression

I was somewhere in between

With only two

Just me and you

Not so many things we got to do

Or places we got to be

We'll sit beneath the mango tree now

It's always better when we're together

We're somewhere in between together

Well, it's always better when we're together

Yeah, it's always better when we're together

I believe in memories

They look so, so pretty when I sleep

Hey now, and when I wake up,

You look so pretty sleeping next to me

But there is not enough time,

And there is no, no song I could sing

And there is no combination of words I could say

But I will still tell you one thing

We're better together

Tagging Myself

Jean posted this on her blog yesterday. I cannot resist things like this. Too bad my other 2 readers aren't bloggers. I know f0r sure that their 8 random facts would be a very good read.

I've been tagged by “You-know-who-you-are-and-you-know-what-you-did!”

Here are the rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Random Facts and Habits about Liz:

1. I seriously contemplated being a mortician when I was too young to even know what goth was. I wasn't even trying to be cool, I actually wanted to do this until my father told me that he couldn't live with the idea of me washing a dead man's penis.

2. I have gone on to wash more dead men's penises than I can remember...for, like, way less money than a mortician.

3. To me, the best smell in the world is the smell of amniotic fluid and newborn baby all mixed together. I wish they made a perfume that smelled exactly like it.

4. Once in nursing school, I had to pick up an obstetrician's yarmulke and put it back on his head when it got knocked off by a forceful jet of amniotic fluid. That was kind of wild.

5. When I was a child, about 8 or 9, there was a good 6-month period of time where I became obsessed with even numbers and symmetry. I would tap one leg and be compelled to tap the other. I would move one hand and have to do the same movement with the other hand. I would think a thought, then think it again to keep everything even. I guess I was stressed out or something.

6. I enjoy cleaning up really big, bad messes-if they don't belong to me. I have often thought about abandoning my career for work in cleaning up really awful messes-the kind where you need to don biohazard suits. I could also see myself successfully running a very nice ice cream parlor.

7. I love every fruit and vegetable known to mankind.

8. Like a true Scorpio, I thrive on change. I enjoy creation and destruction. Beginnings and endings. I get bored in the middle.

Resolutions

We've all hear of New Year's resolutions, and yeah, I made a few this year that I've loosely adhered to. They include:

• Gossip Less-I've kind of failed miserably at this
• Lose Weight-I've done this, thank you very much, but I'm not done yet
• And something else that I can't think of at the moment

How about some relocation resolutions?

• Exercise more
• Reach my goal weight within the next year
• Read more
• Write more
• Get a new tattoo over my old tattoo

Today was a great day. I wasn't nearly as productive at work as I should have been. It's hard to concentrate. I get side-tracked easily. I get wrapped up in conversations that I don't want to bring to an end. I want to cram every bit of friendship and dialogue into each moment that I possibly can. Chances are high that I might not see any of these good people again.

I have a goal for one day next week and I hope to fulfill it. For years now I've been wanting to photograph certain areas of Hackensack that I feel really attached to, places I don't want to forget. They aren't necessarily the most beautiful sights in the world and my camera skills are very much limited to pointing and clicking. Still, these places have a special meaning to me and I should capture a few shots before I go.

More Reminiscence

This week is turning out to be quite manic. Not only in the running around like crazy sense, but in the swinging pendulum of emotion sense. I have been talking too much, but not enough. I have been missing New Jersey as I stand in the middle of it. I have been thrilled with the idea of basking in the warmth of Florida, yet in the back of my mind have been terrified of the hurricanes I am bound to endure.

And I've been using the word "I" way too much.

Explaining to my clients that this will be my last week has been very emotional for me and for some of them too. They're used to staff turnovers, but that's no consolation. Some of them seem genuinely upset to see me go and they've been letting me know. And I can't help but feel a pang of guilt when I explain my situation, that I'm going to go live happily ever after with my beautiful family 1000 miles away so we can all be together. I feel so incredibly fortunate to be able to do so, but it feels kind of awful explaining this to people who, for the most part, have very strained family ties. In many cases this agency is the best family they've ever had and it hurts to leave that.

*******

On a different note, I dug up some goodies from the past that I'd like to share:

From PA with Love

A little too into fire-building, perhaps? Bet you didn't know that I was more than a novice fire-starter.

I will always be very proud of this fire creation. We used a huge cardboard tube to craft this baby. Save all the big cardboard tubes you ever come across and wow your friends with a fire tunnel. Go ahead, take the credit for the idea!

Sisters-in-law gone wild

A cool pic of me and JH

Running at approximately 25% capacity

Recalling and Building Intensity

I've moved around a bit. It all started when I was an infant. We moved to Washington State when I was a baby so that my dad could attend Gonzaga Law School. I don't remember that move because I was so young, but earliest memories start to take shape there. I do remember leaving and a few subsequent visits that followed.

We came back to New Jersey shortly before kindergarten began. Relatives who remembered me and not necessarily vice versa welcomed us back, acted like people who knew me in a past life. I think that might be where my fascination with reincarnation began. Surely I had seen this kind people before, but where? when? Answer: my infancy.


Through various apartments in Central Jersey to our first house in Kendall Park to our last house in Alexandria Township to now, I have had a lot of practice with breaking my life down to it's basic elements, sorting, filing through, discarding, and neatly fitting it all together. I know that books are heavy and they go in small boxes and that you can use your socks to fill in the gaps in between your fragile items. I know how to configure my personal items together like a jigsaw puzzle. I know that it's a really good idea to be liberal with the packing tape and to reinforce the box on the bottom before even loading it up.

After leaving the family home in Alexandria I wandered over to Phillipsburg and back to Alexandria on several occasions. The last residence I had in P'burg was not half bad actually, one of my better apartments. My boyfriend at the time and I had the top 2 floors of a 3 story home with 3 entire bedrooms, 2 whole baths, a cute kitchen, a balcony overlooking our quiet street, an extra loft-type room, lots of closets, and full use of the basement for laundry and hanging clothes. Oh yeah, plus a garage. And the yard was good.

But even all of that space, for $750/month, no less, couldn't save the situation.

I returned home for the last time. We kind of made it work. I enjoyed cooking dinners for my family and being in a very comfortable house with all the trimmings but try living with your parents after years of carrying on your own stupid life and all of your stupid habits and ways and see how well that all fits together. I dare anyone to try it for one day. You'll look for any reason to occupy yourself outside of the house. Anything.

Shortly before 9/11 I met my husband online and then in person. March of 2003 we were engaged. Sadie and I joined him in Lodi in May of that year. We married in August 2003 and spent the next year in that house as I finished nursing school

We moved to this house in Wood-Ridge in September of 2004 and here we are, a baby, a major surgery, and many bouts of laughter and tears later. We have had 2 tenants under our roof. We have hosted many holidays. I have cooked several turkeys, a prime rib, an infinite number of mashed potatoes, and several birthday cakes. Hundreds of presents have been opened under the Christmas tree that magically appears in the corner after my husband wakes up from a nap, a fake tree that I have lugged up and down 2 flights of stairs, even when I was ready to pop with pregnancy. But in his defense his heart was so bad he could barely maintain a healthy pink color, much less lug around a Christmas tree. And I needed the exercise badly.

So very shortly we are going to be leaving New Jersey for good. I can't imagine ever returning. I have spent most of my life here and I feel like I have absolutely made the most of it. I have loved this state like you wouldn't believe, and there have even been times when I thought that I couldn't possibly live anywhere else.

Most of that feeling came from living so close to the Delaware River for so many years. I have loved that river for a long time. I have fished it, swam it, tubed it, thrown countless roaches into it, contemplated it, fallen in love in it, water skied it, driven along it and over its bridges, skipped rocks into it, dipped Sadie's feet in it when she was just a little tiny baby. I will miss it. I hope I can visit it one more time before we go.

What's another word for update?

Gimme a break, titles are hard.



Next week starts my last week of work at my happy little outpatient mental health center. When I gave notice a few weeks back, I completely broke down during the conversation with my boss. I have poured my heart and soul into this job. And I have had the opportunity to treat myself to some of the most amazing lunch breaks of my career.



I have no idea how I could ever capture this experience somewhere else.



Time marches on. I will find something that brings me great joy in the future. I have to tell myself this over and over to avoid feeling swallowed up by the great, black unknown.



One thing I have decided-if it feels like shit, run in the opposite direction. I had a phone interview that made me feel like shit and I'm not pursuing it. It was not in behavioral health care and it wasn't terrible but it wasn't that typical feeling mommydawg gets when it's meant to be. A feeling that maybe only complete and total flakes like myself feel. Something akin to the stars being in perfect alignment, or the sum of the numbers on my social security card adding up to the address of the future job's headquarters, or some other eerily similar detail that I invent.

C'mon, you know you do that shit too. Everyone does. Everyone looks for similarities, things we share in common with the things we really want.

*****

Sidenote: Blogger NOW will autosave your post as you type it. This is genius. Thank you, Blogger. You read my mind.

*****

Carl Hiaasen writes a very sharp column for the Miami Herald. It's really just Florida news, but Florida is blessed to have such a great journalist and author exposing it's sordid details and making art of it all. If you haven't read any of his books yet, not only should you, but you should also just read one or two of his columns to get a flavor for his attitude and his stance on things. He's definitely one of the good guys. And then you should rush out and get one of his books. They are kind of a quick, easy read but incredibly entertaining without being...I don't know...commercial-novel fluff.

*****

So yeah, we're moving. And this takes a lot of figuring out, but we're getting there.

*****

Next time-pics. I am on the wrong laptop and it's not configured to share files with the other laptop. Which husband is playing Boggle on at the moment. He's sitting next to me finishing a bowl of ice cream. I am finishing a glass of Pinot Grigio. The baby is sleeping. Sadie is talking on the phone. Life is good.

3 Months

I've been so bad about keeping up with this blog for the past three months but I've been pretty pre-occupied with Sparkpeople. I am amazed that this website is free. If you are like me and you have absolutely no will-power, very little self-control, and love to lay around and eat cheese and drink wine then you should give it a try.

Can I also just say that we are having some really annoying problems with the connection in our house? It makes it so very hard to log in all of the food I eat and exercise I get, plus anything else fun I might want to do through the internet. One second you're connected the next *poof* the connection is GONE, baby. I was wrongfully accused for many week over doing something "wrong" with the computer. Excuse me? I have been on the internet since, like, 1996 or something. I think I know how to click a damn link by now. Silly me, I didn't know that there was a wrong way to DO that.

My husband now believes that it is the router. Yippee. We are not getting a new router any time soon. We have a house full of everything to pack up and move to Florida.

Let me just say that I wrote a good post yesterday that I was unable to upload due to the problem I just mentioned. It told of my weight loss, dietary changes, exercise, and a few other things with some funny stuff thrown in. Part of the entry was bulleted and, I like to think, mildly amusing.

Sorry. Sorry for taking so long to write and sorry that the network administrator in this house is failing miserably at his job.

Still, we have done SO MUCH in the last 90 days. We have sold a house. We both gave notice at work. We have watched Sadie graduate from eighth grade. We have had a lot of fun and been under a lot of stress. We ate lots of good meals and we did some yoga.

Good times.

illnesses, meltdowns, and dogfights

It seems like forever since I've written in this blog. About a month has passed. You can imagine from my lack of entries that it probably hasn't been the best month on record. We're having big problems with our dogs and trying to sort out what to do. We've all been sick off and on and for a working mom that's always a really rough deal.

Ugh. Forget about that for a second though. What are the good things that have happened?

• I inherited my husband's old iPod since he got a new one. I listen to this in the car during my fairly short commute. I like it well enough but I've found that I actually have too many songs on it. You know me-hate superfluous anything and like everything super-duper organized. So every single morning when I start up the car, with the way things are configured, I hear the opening bars of Blackened by Metallica. This in itself isn't a bad thing, but if I feel lazy for a minute...well, I wind up hearing 50% of this song twice daily. Or if I switch to Playlist mode and get caught up with, say, watching the actual traffic around me, I wind up hearing California by Tupac Shakur at least once daily. Don't ask...I have eclectic tastes...
• Just remember this...California...knows how to party...Cal-i-for-ni-a...knows how to paaaaar-tay-ay...
• Other than that, I only have these playlists created: All songs (blah), Dave Matthews Band (about 5 zillion songs that I just DON'T NEED-do I honestly need a 16 minute version of Dancing Nancies?), Reggae (no complaints, a good mix), Sublime (fine), Tori Amos (way, way, way too many songs), White Stripes (no complaints) and that's it. I need more time to whip this little iPod's ass into shape!
• Organized by artists, we have lots, lots, lots more that are mostly contained in the All Songs playlists, but dammit!-why in the hell did I let my husband convince me to retain all of his old crap that I hate??? Scorpions? Fucking Styx? Hello? I'm NEVER going to listen to that stuff! It's all immediately GONGED as soon as it comes on when randomly shuffled onto my stereo! Barry Manilow? GONG! Gap Band? GONG! Do you know how long it takes me to queue up something I truly want to hear, such as Snow by RHCP? I'm practically in Hackensack by the time I get this song going.
• Buddhism-even reading about it makes me feel more relaxed and optimistic. Cannot commit to not eating animals, but most of the rest makes sense to me. Don't lie or exaggerate, don't be a douchebag to others, avoid promiscuity...I agree!...well, now that I got all of that shit out of my system and realize that it totally sucks in the long run...
• Exercise...been getting my abs on lately. And dieting too. Although today was a total dietary meltdown which I will expound on in a second...For the most part I have been so good about dieting and exercising and have even lost a little weight. Yay!
• Cooking-holy shit, you should've eaten at my house tonight. Baconless Clams Casino? Yeah, we had that tonight. Cod cakes? Yep. Freakin' shrimp cocktail? Check! (I even de-veined those raw buggers myself and poached them in court bouillon-same court bouillon that poached the cod.) Can you say Braised Baby Bok Choy? We can. How about fresh strawberries on the side? Maybe some Gavi di Gavi with that?
• Chuck steak-made this twice. It is extremely cheap which is VERY important in our house right now. Cook it for an hour in some liquid and root vegetables. Sear it first. Delicious.
• McCormick & Smick's-kind of a rip-off but oh so good. Consider this for an annual splurge. Do not expect a large portion when it comes to the seared Ahi tuna. They made a nice dirty Martini though. Very olive-y. For dinner I got 2 crab cakes, broccoli rabe and rice pilaf and it just shouldn't have cost close to $30 for the plate.
• Bonefish Grill-LOTS of bang for your buck. Spaghetti squash? Nice... Lots and lots of seared Ahi tuna with this order. Crusted in black and white sesame seeds too. Very lovely. Dirty Martini just as good as M&S's and the wine list is pretty broad. I got the salmon pan-Asian style (teriyaki marinade, grilled, wasabi cream) with vegetable sides for way less than my crab cakes at the other place, a glass of white, the Martini, shared some sides, and it was all delicious.

Enough about food...but seriously...that's kind of been the best thing going lately between the illnesses, meltdowns, and dogfights.

Turned out to be...

...pneumonia.

But she seems to be a lot better.

Along with the antibiotics she got a lot of hands-on tender loving care. For 3 days straight we pretty much just held her in our laps and coddled her. She wouldn't let us lay her down for a nap for a couple of days, insisting on sleeping in our arms, fitfully tossing herself around periodically. Her breath was hot, heavy, stinky. I did a lot of clapping and cupping on her back to break up the rattling mucous. Clearing your own mucous by way of coughing is a skill that's lost on an infant/toddler.

A day or two ago she sneezed up this huge blob of mucous that I'm still swooning over. It was sort of a huge thing that seemed to have a life of it's own. I couldn't believe it came out of such a little person. It dawned on my that this was the pneumonia, the physical manifestation of the infection, and that she would probably be a lot more chipper having shed it.

And she was! She took a great nap a little while later and woke up with SO much energy. She was all over the place. I couldn't sit still on the couch for 2 minutes without her bolting not only upstairs to the bedrooms, but all the way up to the attic. She did this, like, 5 times that afternoon. She was into everything.

Something about it made me miss working at the hospital. I haven't seen a booger that big in a really long time. It made me remember doing suctioning on my patients, and the satisfaction I felt when I helped someone clear their airway, breathe a little bit better.

So yeah, the biggest booger has been strangely inspiring. Go figure.

Seems like...

...the little one has some kind of illness. For the past two days she's woken up in a fairly decent mood and then slid into big, pile of tired, feverish, crankiness. She was tugging at her ear a few times today so I'm wondering if it's an ear infection. Poor thing.

So it looks like tomorrow is another day off for me, getting her to the pediatrician and probably filling prescriptions for antibiotics or what have you.

Watching a couple of minutes of Edward Scissorhands. The part where they show the montage of weird hairdos he does for all of the neighborhood ladies. Good movie.

Superbowl Sunday

It's about so much more than just football.

It's about gathering together with friends and family.

It's about good snacks.

It's about the entertainment.


It's about cute babies and the dogs who love them.

Meatloaf Muffins!

Wish I had a picture of these cuties, but they're gone already.

Ingredients:

1.25 lbs of ground meat, either beef, turkey, pork, or any combination thereof
1 egg
1 cup of seasoned bread crumbs
2 tbsp of bbq sauce, ketchup, or a combination of both
pepper to taste
seasonings to taste
6 cubes of cheese such as cheddar, mozzarella, gouda, swiss, 3/4" by 3/4"

(Yesterday I used turkey, cheddar cheese, and fresh thyme leaves. Awesome!)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a 6-muffin tin with cooking spray. Mix all of the ingredients in a medium bowl, except for cheese cubes. Add more bread crumbs a little at a time if the mixture seems too moist to hold it's shape.

Divide the mixture into 6 equal pieces and form the pieces are one cheese cube each into ball shapes. Place the meatloaf muffins into muffin tins and bake for about 40 minutes. When the muffins are done they will be sizzling and firm to the touch. The tops of some might break open and a little bit of cheese might ooze out. This is another good sign that they are done.

Allow to cool slightly for a few moments before removing. If they stick, slide the back of a butter knife around the muffin.

Serve with ketchup, mashed potatoes, and a warm vegetable such as stir-fried broccoli.

Enjoy!

Butternut Squash Soup

Soup is good food, especially when it's a fresh, homemade, pureed vegetable soup. Lately I've been experimenting a little bit with leftover vegetables as soup The baby especially enjoys velvety smooth veggie soups. Sadie will reluctantly agree that they are Ok.

Using a handheld immersion blender makes this recipe very easy to make. You can certainly use regular blender or food processor, but you'll wind up with some extra dirty dishesIf you don't have a handheld blender, consider getting one. It's a really fun gadget and you'll find a million reasons to use it.

Without any further ado:

• Bake an unpeeled butternut squash in a 400 degree oven. Prepare the squash by bisecting it lengthwise and chopping the halves into 4 equal pieces. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for about 40 minutes or until pieces are tender.


• Allow squash to cool and then scoop the soft flesh away from the skin.
  
• Place the squash meat in a large saucepan or small pot over low heat or flame. Begin using the immersion blender to break down the squash while slowly adding chicken stock.


• When enough stock has been added to reach the consistency of thin mashed potatoes, it'll be the right time to add the milk. Add enough milk to reach the desired consistency, a thick soup.


• Nice seasonings for this soup are salt, pepper, thyme, and cumin, all to taste. Less is usually more as far as seasonings go.

Some afterthoughts:

• I quartered an onion and added it to the tray of squash. This resulted in the onions getting a little charred and some of them had to be thrown out instead of incorporated into the soup. A tiny amount of charred bits turned up in the soup, but it sort of just looked like coarsely ground pepper. This was fine for my own personal consumption, but it didn't add much to the soup and will be avoided next time.


• Baking time for the squash might vary. Just keep an eye on it.


• It doesn't take long for the squash to cool off enough to comfortably handle. However, premature squash handling could cause burns so do use caution.


• It wouldn't be too hard to adapt this recipe to blender usage. Just put some or all of the squash in the blender, add some chicken stock to thin it out, and blend. Transfer squash puree to a large sauce pan or pot over low heat and continue to add stock, milk, and seasonings as described above.


• Let your imagination and taste buds be your guide when seasoning!


• Enjoy!

Other possible pureed soups:

• Potato-asparagus


• Potato-spinach


• Carrot


• Corn (very good with a small dollop of pesto)


• Fresh artichoke (delicious but EXTREMELY high in fiber-enjoy in small portions on a Saturday or Sunday that you plan on spending at home)

Penny's B'day Bash!

Happy happy, Joy joy!

The Spread

Having a swell time being the birthday girl!

Birthday Gift Radar

There were real live gangsters at our house too, you know, making gang gestures and what not. It was sort of intimidating.

A little help from a very adorable cousin is always appreciated.

Family Shot

Nothing Like It, No Sir-eee

There's nothing quite like being pregnant to remind you that we are, in fact, animals...

And nothing like an emergency C-section to give you the opportunity to get your head on straight in a real hurry...

But there's really nothing quite like the heart-melting warmth, the sweet smell, the softness of a newborn baby.

Happy first birthday day Penelope Lynn!

Posting-Latest, Not Really Greatest, But Here It Is...

So in between doing interesting things like complaining, procrastinating, feeling sorry for myself, getting irritated with everything, bitching, and just being a waste of space I've been doing some reading. Both on and off the internet. And that has been good.

On the internet-is it just me or is McSweeney's website just chock full of good reading? I'm positively addicted to it.

Off the internet-shame on me for never reading any work by William Faulkner earlier in my life. I've just started Light in August and I'm enjoying it a lot. It's much different than the books I usually read, which are, well, easier to read. I do not mean to imply that I am a dolt who reads romance novels every chance I get. I mean to say that the books I read are usually fast-paced, frenetic jaunts through a plot which reveals itself in the first 20, 25 pages (think Tough Guys Don't Dance, Vonnegut, Sedaris). This is not that kind of book. It is slow, deliberate, painstakingly detailed. It's got it's own mood and pace that you must surrender to. And I'm finding that I enjoy that.

Off the internet and through my ears-I am currently enjoying the audio CDs of John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise. ITunes was running a promo or something, offering it for free. It caught my eye and now my ears are hooked! I've been listening to it during my commute to and from work and in between different places I go during the day and it's just the best. He's done work for The Daily Show and McSweeney's. Most recently he has played the personification of the PC on the new Mac commercials.

The Sweet Art of Procrastination

Plan-

-Instead of preparing for work I am going to sit here on the couch and make another very important list. The blog muse is whispering in my ear and I just can't bring myself to enter the real world until I get a few things off of my chest, out of my head, and into my blog-

Small List of Male Vocalists Who I Believe to be Smackalicious*

1. Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Audioslave
2. Mark Wahlberg (was the vocalist for The Funky Bunch)
3. Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day
4. Chester Bennington of Linkin Park

*******************************************************************

Well, thank God I got that off of my chest. I had better get ready for work now.

*Smackalicious=Attractive

Ways to Amuse Babies

• This Little Piggy
• Pretending to Eat Various Body Parts (hands, ears, toes)
• Smelling Their Bare Feet and Saying "Peeeeee-yooooooooh" in a very exaggerated way
• Blowing Raspberries Where the Neck Meets the Shoulder
• Letting Them Grab and Throw Around Two Loads' Worth of Clean Laundry While You Fold Said Laundry (Over and Over Again)
• Facilitating Sock Removal (and Subsequent Sock-Tasting)
• Singing Various Songs with Much Enthusiasm and Clapping (Bingo, Peas Porridge Hot, On Top of Spaghetti, etc.)

Happy New Year to You!

On New Year's Eve...

~The baby had her very first pony tail~

~And~

~I survived my first raw oyster experience with the help of Sadie and JH~

(and they were actually quite good with a martini)

A Merry Christmas Indeed

Some pics from our holiday

Welcome in, 2007

1. What did you do in 2006 that you’d never done before?

Most notably, had a C-section. My first surgery ever!

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I didn't make any resolutions in 2006. Too exhausted I guess. My new year's resolutions this year are simple-be nicer, gossip less, and simplify everything. Sort of vague, but I think I can actually stick with it!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Ah...yes, I gave birth this year, 3 people at work did too. Most notably, Free had a baby 2 days before me and we didn't even know about it until September. Very amazing!


4. Did anyone close to you die?

No family, but a handful of patients.

5. What countries did you visit?

No foreign travel for me in 2006. Boohoo.

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?

Patience. An exercise regimen.

7. What dates from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

It would have to be January 20th, the day Penny was born. Also January 18th, which was my due date. Just sitting around feeling sorry for my big, fat, pregnant self...feeling the lack of contractions or any other unusual activity of the uterus and just knowing that I was going to be pregnant for the rest of my life :-P

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Surviving day to day life as a mother of an infant and teenager.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Sheesh, I don't know. Letting the laundry pile up? Not saving as much money as I would've hoped. Having another bad hair year in my bad hair life...

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Well, I recovered from my C-section. No major illnesses, thank God. I come from a hardy Slavic stock of people, so generally we are resistant to disease until old age :-P

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Best thing I bought? Probably the Medela breast pump.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Let me pick some unsung heroes-social workers.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

George W. Bush.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Mortgage, daycare, car payments and insurance, the usual.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Whenever we took advantage of rare opportunities to get out for the night, just the 2 of us.

16. What song will always remind you of 2006?

Crazy by Gnarls Barkley.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? 
b) thinner or fatter? 
c) richer or poorer?

Happier, Thinner, Poorer (but only because we've both been on disability 3 months a piece during the past year!)

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Chilling out, not being a tightly-wound ball of nervousness.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worrying

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

We had it at our house.

21. Did you fall in love in 2006?

With Penelope.

22. How many one-night stands?

This question is just ridiculous. None. Would anyone even answer this truthfully if their answer was yes?

23. What was your favorite TV program?

The Office leads the pack of favorites, but I also love CSI Las Vegas, House, and every single program on Food Network and HGTV. I can't get enough of those real estate shows. Oh, wait, the ones where they go into total pig-sty houses and make the occupants throw out a bunch of crap, and then rearrange everything so it actually looks like it's not inhabited by bums or squatters? Those are MY kind of shows. I love when they tell the people that their junk isn't doing anything positive for them and it's time to get rid of it, thin it out, let go of the past.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait! Oh ho what I want to know, where does the time go?

25. What was the best book you read?

Unfortunately I didn't read enough new books (re-read a few old favorites, as I am apt to do) but I guess The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan is the first one that comes to mind. It was a gift from JH last Christmas and I read it on my maternity leave.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Rediscovering Metallica. (Sounds like the title to some MTV show 20 years in the future where they resurrect Lars, James, and Kirk, all balding and paunchy, and launch a contest to appoint the "next" bassist, who will probably be a female this time around."

27. What did you want and get?

A healthy baby, teenager, and husband.

28. What did you want and not get?

Horseback riding lessons.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

Well, since I don't usually see any movies until they hit Blockbuster, my favorites weren't from 2006. Most were 2005 or earlier. And the winners are:

Crash, 40 Year-Old Virgin, Batman Begins, Wedding Crashers, Sin City, Everything is Illuminated, V for Vendetta, Jarhead, Brokenflowers, Transamerica, The Jacket, The Matador.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Went to work-it was a Friday-injection day, which is my favorite. Went out to dinner. Had a nice evening. I turned 32.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Less obnoxious traffic.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?

Hide the flub as much as possible.

33. What kept you sane?

Humor.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Fancy as in think was hot as hell? I've already gone over that. Or fancy as in admire? I liked the former acting governor of NJ, Richard Codey. He tried to do a lot for the mentally ill of our state, including his war on stigma. He came to work to speak, but I didn't get to hear any of it because I was stuck in the back doing injections. A lot of the clients got to hear him speak, so it was nice for them.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

The politics of health (i.e. stem cell research, Medicare "reform,"), women's rights, the war.


36. Who did you miss?

Everyone I care about who isn't part of my day to day life.

37. Who was the best new person you met?

Some really interesting clients, but I haven't really "met" anyone new in my personal life in a long time.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.

Less is more, especially when I'm the one who's talking, especially if I've had a couple of glasses of wine and the audience just doesn't get it.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

In another time's forgotten space
your eyes looked through your mother's face
Wildflower seed on the sand and stone
may the four winds blow you safely home
~Robert Hunter

Black Pepper Ice Cream

So I'm here by myself watching/listening to Iron Chef America on the food network. The special ingredient is lobster and it's a French chef against Iron Chef Morimoto, who specializes in Japenese cuisine. It's a good battle.

I wonder if they will make lobster ice cream. Probably. Someone always winds up making a really weird flavor of ice cream that the judges usually hate. They're given an ingredient like sea urchin or jerusalem artichoke and expected to make 5 dishes including a dessert. Actually, I sense an undercurrent in the culinary world to create savory ice creams anyway. I've heard that black pepper ice cream is good, but I haven't tried it.

Hippy music is playing in the background. Words like lobster medallions, tomalley, stock pot, lemon verbena are rising above the music. Phish is going bananas covering Prince's Purple Rain via Lime Wire.

Life is good in our house.

***

Rob and Sadie went to see the Nets this evening. He got a ticket for free and best friend is in AC. So I get a night to myself and everyone is happy.

***

I've been strongly trying to convince Rob to switch our family website over to a blog format, which he has been slowly warming up to. This way, we could both add to it, contribute to it, daily. It would be kind of nice to update it weekly and just let the grandfolks and others know what we've been up to. Also, to receive their feedback and ideas via comments would be really great too.

***

Back to the Iron Chef, the first chef, Morimoto, made vanilla ice cream with lobster sauce. The French chef made lobster ceviche with olive oil ice cream. Talk about yummy! These dishes wouldn't go very far in our house. Too bad...

Oh, and...

...the baby peed on the toilet again yesterday after our shower!

Wrapping up the Year

I have been strangely calm through most of this holiday. I had a small meltdown in mid-November, probably related to my birthday. If I had to blame it on something. Maybe it had more to do with the activity in our household at that time. At any rate, Free sent me an email entitled "Negative Energy Cripples the Human Spirit" or something to that effect. It wasn't the easiest thing for me to read since saw a lot of myself in that essay and realized that I was crippling my own spirit. Anyway, kudos to Free for keeping it mad-real.

Sometimes the things that are hardest to hear are the things we need to hear the most.

So after I got over myself in November I got really into things for the holiday as you can tell some of my last couple of postings. I wouldn't say I went overboard at all, and I'm quite happy with the way the holiday turned out for us. I just tried to simplify and I feel like this method made me succeed at enjoying the season.

Some things that were more low-key this year

• Gift buying-I began slightly earlier than usual, some of it in November, some of it very early in December. I only bought for those closest to me and decided in advance just to give one or two people cash only. I went with a lot of first instinct purchases that were within my budget. I used some coupons.
• Wrapping-As soon as the gifts started coming into the house, I wrapped them all and stored them in the attic. To make this possible I cleared off the dining room table and set it up as a gift wrapping station with the tape, the paper, name tags, etc. It made my life so much easier to do this.
• Cooking-rather than take on the daunting and impossible task of cooking the perfect turkey again, plus cooking a million different side dishes, I focused on 4 really good foods that pleased the gang. For Christmas Eve we had stuffed shells. And bread. And butter. The end. And everyone enjoyed it. And for Christmas we had filet mignon, sea scallops, mashed potates, asparagus, and carrots. Five simple foods that don't need sauces, accoutrements, complicated cooking techniques, just a little bit of attention. The result was delicious.
• (A side note about the filet mignon-we went to BJ's and got a whole 5 1/2 pound tenderloin that I carved at home into about 5 different meals, reserving the best, most uniform steaks for our dinner. So in the end I saved about $5 per pound, which is a lot of money.)
• Cookies-picked a handful of easy recipes and just went to town over the course of a few days. Wouldn't have been possible to enjoy this much time in the kitchen baking if I hadn't taken care of the gifts and everything else the way I did.
• Delegate-I actually shared a little bit of the duties with others this year. I normally don't do it, it's a habit, and I'm trying to reform myself into a person who will actually accept the help and kindness from others. Kinda still makes me feel funny, but...

There you have it. These few changes and improvements helped me enjoy the holiday, Rob, the girls, my family a bit more. Now I'm at the point where I feel like we wrapped the year up really nicely and I feel comfortable with life for a change.

The tree is down and I don't think I took a picture. Hmm, I'll have to see what I have if anything. The tree was nice, same artificial tree we've had for a couple of years now. It's a good enough tree. I actually didn't jam every single ornament on this year, but I think it looked better that way. More tree, less crap.

Lists

I like lists. Been noticing them popping up more and more in the blog world. I think I'll do some lists from time to time. So here's the first, a good girly topic-

Male Celebrities I Could Totally Get Jiggy With:

• Christian Bale
• Orlando Bloom (especially as Legolas Greenleaf)
• Viggo Mortensen
• Tobey Maguire
• Joaquin Phoenix
• Luke Wilson

I was going to link all these names to photos, but hell, you should know what they look like by now. If not go to IMDB. They are all babes, in my opinion.

Pre-Christmas Eve Day

Today started with a bang at 5am with the baby waking up and demanding our attention. We went to BJ's for a gigantic filet of beef that will be lovingly carved into filet mignons for Christmas. We also got a bunch of other crap I won't bore you, the reader, with. Suffice to say about 12 or 13 items ranging from a 12-pack of light bulbs to a 4-pack of Chardonnay glasses. A good store!

I promise to take and post a picture of the filet before I butcher it.

The baby napped through a breakfast at the Meadowlands diner and the trip to BJ's. Stinker...

But the biggest stinker of all today was Sadie, who hung around in her pajamas for the major part of the day playing Xbox. Sheesh. She also played around on the Sims for quite a while working on new characters. I dragged her away from that to make cookies with me. I think in the end she enjoyed it.

My in-laws brought her to see Santa at the Bergen Mall while we did the Stop N' Shop thing. Evidently she screamed her head off as soon as she was placed in his lap and stopped screaming promptly upon returning to arms of her Grandpa. So no Santa picture this year. Eh, that's fine with me. I know there's a lot of pics out there of babies screaming in terror on Santa's lap, and that's cool and all, but we'll survive without one.

I baked 3 batches of cookies today: gingersnaps, chocolate crinkles, and thumbprints (AKA Russian teacakes) cookies. Every one of them is scrumptious. Tomorrow we will make sugar cookies, chocolate chip, and chocolate-pecan tartlets. The tartlets are at Sadie's request.

I plan on TRYING to get a pedicure tomorrow. Wish me luck. I need some festive toes.

Hope everyone's weekend is awesome and may the spirit of the season be with you.

Lately

Catching up on the Christmas thing.

My manic enthusiasm for Christmas has cooled off slightly. I was really ROLLING in the spirit on the 11th, mostly because it was Day One of Two Days Off in a Row. God, I was practically crying tears of joy over those days off.

Today was another day off too, but it wasn't planned and it wasn't really for a joyous reason like preparing for Christmas. The baby has four top teeth coming in all at once and evidently that's not such a great feeling in the middle of the night. She got up around 11 last night, sort of went back to sleep, woke up several times between then and 1, cried, nursed, cried, had a bottle and finally fell back to sleep around 2 and woke up for good around 5 this morning.

My head was splitting. I was just too miserable and decided that I'd rather just have an awful headache in the privacy of my own home than at a job I am beginning to hate. She stayed home with me and had a difficult day. She had some really lovely moments where she was playing, smiling, and adorable, but those moods would change so rapidly into something much less pleasant. At one point she was standing on my belly, pinching the skin on my chest, and spitting on my face. That was sort of a low-point, but I was still glad not to be at work.

She refused to nap until she was somehow physically connected to me. At 3pm I actually woke her up to bathe. We were still in our pajamas, her hair was sweaty against me, we were both starting to smell gross, and I was just disgusted with our condition. We took a nice, long, warm shower which seemed to revive us and finally get us on the right track after a trying day.

The neatest thing happened after the shower though. We took our sweet time drying off and I managed to clip her toenails and a few fingernails, clean out her ears, etc. I thought to myself "this baby is going to have to pee soon, I'm surprised she hasn't peed in her towel yet." I got the idea to sit her little rear-end on the toilet and voila: pee in the toilet. It meant absolutely nothing to her. Nothing. She had no idea why I was praising her or what had happened, but it was just the cutest thing ever. I mean, she's not even a year old...

Well, that headache from this morning is probably on it's way back. I am soooooo tired. The husband is sleeping to a basketball game which I am half-listening to. College ball. Kent State is losing to Duke. He'll be happy when he wakes up since he likes Duke.

Day Off!

Alright, alright, I think I might finally be in the mood for Christmas. Yesterday afternoon while the baby was napping in her crib and the husband was snoozing in front of the TV, I decided to yank out the old Christmas tree. Hit by a rare combination of motivation and Christmas spirit, I finally began getting the house ready for the season.

In order to even get that far, I had to reorganize some of the attic just to reach the tree and decorations. I managed to lug the tree downstairs and assemble it before the baby woke up. Luckily ever single light on the tree was in perfect working order. It all fell together perfectly and now most of the tree is finished. We just have to hang some ornaments, but I've decided to leave most of the glass ornaments off of the tree this year, with the little one and all...

So far the baby hasn't tried to pull the tree down. She reaches out and touches it, but recoils at the pointy fake needles. They aren't sharp or anything, but I guess she's expecting to feel something different than the bristly, bushy appendages. I'm sure she'll grow bolder as she gets better acquainted with the tree.

The tree gets all squished in the box that houses it during it's long off season. We have to go around the tree, tediously straightening out every branch until it looks more like a real tree. I love having a fake tree mostly because I don't like the idea of killing a real one (I am a recycling-fanatic, but that's for another posting).

I put one ring of red garland around the tree, evenly spaced. The top always looks a little awkward for some reason, even with the angel in place at the top. This problem was neatly solved for the first time by placing a small wreath of red plastic berries on a circle of fine woodsy material. It's like a little red tree halo that the angle sits on.

So far that's the tree.

***************************************************************

I think a fun thing to do while the baby is little would be to take pictures of her with over-sized pieces of food at different family functions, outings, and such. We've sort of started doing this I think. The turkey drumstick picture was taken on a whim the day after Thanksgiving when I was busy processing the turkey carcass. Then, just this past weekend we took a picture of her in at a table in a deli in NYC with an enormous meatloaf sandwich in front of her. I think we're on to something.

***************************************************************

This past weekend was wonderful. We saw the tree at Rockefeller Center in the city. Big Tree! It was really cold and we were all bundled up. We walked around and saw some sights and had really big sandwiches for lunch in Times Square. Sadie had hot brisket, I had meatloaf, Rob had most of a 10 oz. cheese burger. It was outrageously expensive at a little under $70 with a tip. Still, the day went great even though Penny peed up her whole outfit and Sadie had to help me change her in the bathroom. The best part is that we were back home around 1pm.

***************************************************************

The best thing about today is that I HAVE THE DAY OFF! Those four words have the power to transform the day into something magical. I have so many plans including: prime the foyer, go shopping, work on cards, enjoy my life!

It doesn't end there though! I have tomorrow off too! I'm planning on buying some sneakers at Modell's. I have a coupon :-)

Tweaking the Holiday Season

I'll just jump right into this-after having one of the worst Thanksgivings of my entire life, I've been heavily contemplating how to make Christmas as enjoyable as possible. Is it all about perfect gifts, cards, hostessing?

If I succumb to the subliminal messages sent out over the airwaves, I will wind up charging thousands of dollars on merchandise that my friends and relatives won't want, don't need, that won't actually bring us any closer together, or prove once and for-all that I am all grown up now and have loads of money at my disposal!

The only bit of Christmas-fueled shopping pressure I have caved in to has to do with work. The eight nurses who work at my agency, myself included, get together for a holiday dinner and exchange a grab bag. It doesn't stop there though. I found out last year that they also break their own rule by giving everyone a little token gift, something small.

But small x 7 = not exactly cheap.

So, to avoid feeling like a jerk tomorrow night at dinner, I got everyone a coffee mug with 2 packets of gourmet hot chocolate that I'll put together with some red or green cellophane and put a little bow around it and shush it out a little bit and voila! Jerk feeling avoided. Then I'll come home and worry that maybe it was a little too much and think about that a hundred times over and over before falling asleep. (Mental note to self-do not drink coffee with dessert tomorrow.)

All in all, it'll come to about $45 with the wrapping stuff. Not too bad I guess, but there are other corners of my life where I could spend $30 here and $40 there. Singularly, it's not a fortune. "Don't be a scrooge, I tell myself." But add it all up and it's some serious coin.

*****

Q: What would be one of the greatest things we could do with Christmas to just improve it beyond our wildest dreams?

A: Rather than buy gifts for others, we could buy gifts for ourselves!

This is a genius idea on so many levels. Just picture it-gathering together with your family and friends, showing off all of the wonderful things that you've purchased, sort of like show-and-tell. You could discuss the price openly, candidly. Hell you could actually brag about just how cheap the stuff you bought was. This is a big no-no in our current Christmas tradition. By God, you could leave the tags ON!

I love the idea of oohing and aaaahing with my family over the wonderful things we've given ourselves. I could give Sadie a chunk of money and let her go to town. The only exception would be the baby, the little ones who can't really buy themselves gifts. We could make exceptions for the very young, the very old, and those who are disabled (provided they have a note from their doctor :-P ).

Some of your family members would spend outrageous amounts of money on themselves and you could just smile to yourself, shake your head, and say "Crazy Aunt Peggy, she doesn't know when to quit!" You wouldn't feel like your gift to her is completely out of proportion to her gift to you. There would be no keeping-up-with the-Aunt-Peggies to drive you crazy and/or into bankruptcy.

Other members of your family who are notoriously chintzy would just suffer with their own lame gifts to themselves. No hard feelings there!

Think of all the wrapping paper (aka TREES) we would spare if we were just giving gifts to ourselves!

*****

My Christmas Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to not spend too much money on presents
Courage to actually get to the mall before Christmas Eve
And the wisdom to never

buy an $80 prime rib roast ever again

The Way My Day Began...

...was by driving to work listening to my absolutely beautiful, new Grateful Dead CD, Steppin' out in England which is a totally awesome 4 disc set of many, many lovely songs in one easy package. Gorgeous. Mellow. Dark and slow. Incredible background music for driving all over southern Bergen county, to and from home, work, client's apartments, delis, ATM's and so on. Makes me feel like I could do visiting nurse work for the rest of my days as long as I have such good tunes in my car to listen to from 9 to 5.

The song Black Peter has been a personal favorite of mine since, like, forever. First of all, this song made itself known to the world on Workingman's Dead which came out in 1970, so it's older than me. My parents have owned that album since before I was born and have been playing it for about that long. Anyway, it's an old, old song for me and I must've heard it about a million or so times. Still, I hadn't listened to it for a really long time too and hearing it again struck up old feelings with a new twist for these times I'm in.

This song is so heavy when you hear it; much more cumbersome on the soul than just reading the lyrics. It absolutely struck me that maybe this was a little bit what my husband felt like when he was laying in his hospital bed during the first couple of days after his open heart surgery when he was on just about a million different drugs, medicinally paralyzed, kidneys barely doing their job, no food or drink, just saline, dopamine, amiodorone, and whatever else keeping his body going, tubes in every opening, lights on constantly, not even being able to scratch his own nose when it itched.

Amazing to me that such an old, old song could have a current application to my life.

If you've never heard the song, please try. I promise it's not bad. Yeah, yeah, it's the Dead, they suck, blah, blah, blah. C'mon. How can they possibly suck if they've drawn such an amazingly loyal crowd over the past 40 years? It's folk music for God's sake! The will go down in history with Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and other similar American folk artists.

So give it a try. It's not all peace, love, and inebriation (which isn't always a bad thing anyway). It's about playing cards, pretty girls, shootin' guns, murder, riding trains, having fun, mourning occasional losses, and strange twists of fate.

More to come on the Dead in the future. Of that you can be sure.

Something Beautiful

Alfonse Mucha is my favorite artist. He made a zillion gorgeous lithographs, paintings, prints and so on. He was something of a national hero in the Czech Republic during the early 20th century, having the honor of designing currency and stamps as well as advertisements, posters, and other works of art. A nice thing about his story is that he was celebrated during his lifetime. To my knowledge he had a pretty nice life. I had the good fortune to visit his museum in Prague in 1999.

One thing I love the most about Mucha is how much he has influenced other artists whose work I appreciate too. A good example is Bob Masse, designer of countless concert posters dating from the 60's to the present. From the Grateful Dead, to Hendrix, to Cream, that familiar visual thread runs through his work.



And much to my surprise, a Masse-made Tori Amos concert poster. This is only one among a few he's done for her.
I enjoyed browsing this site. You might even find something you like. It's refreshing to see someone who does something creative keep at it for so long and do it so well all the while.

http://www.bmasse.com/

The Internet

Sometimes I think a lot about how the Internet has changed my life.

I relied on the Internet quite a bit to get through school.

I met my husband on the Internet.

I have become a more independent traveller by being able to view and print maps, pointing me to exactly where I need to go.

***

Husband, Rob, just said to me "I love football. Don't make me hate football." We are watching some college football news on ESPN. For some reason, in my life, I cannot escape football. It is not my favorite, but at this point I'm getting used to it, almost starting to understand it. From Sunday at 1:00 pm to Monday evening the TV is on, and it's on football. The laptop is keeping a running tally of fantasty football scores.

Rob's team this year is called Oblivion, named after the beloved game he has just finished. He is the commissioner of the league, Creeping Death, which he named after a Metallica song that he is quite fond of. As the commissioner's wife, you'd think I was maybe responsible for some fancy hostessing or something, but alas, it doesn't require much effort on my part.

***

Everyone in our house has been taking turns being sick for the past 2 weeks. The baby seems like she might be getting another ear infection so she'll be going to the doctor tomorrow. Rob will be taking her since he has a cold and won't be going in to work. I stayed home two days last week.