What's that? What's that?

Oh hells yeah. Somehow, in the sadness, bitterness, occasional bit of crazy, and rare moment of parental insight, I wrote 99 posts!! NINETY NINE posts in this little blog. So guess what? We're turning over our 100th with a teensy bit of happy. 100 things that I love (absolutely NOT in order of importance, no offense Joss)!

1. Joss Whedon
2. Any dialogue written by Joss Whedon, including but not limited to the occasional Roseanne episode and, most fabulously, Commentary! The Musical.
3. Cupcakes. And cakes. And cakeballs. Anything cake-themed, really, I'll be honest.
4. Late summer Texas thunderstorms.
5. Skinny jeans. . . on ME!
6. Boots. . . boots. . . and more boots.
7. My husband. I mean, there's really no point in saying more.
8. My flute -- which I use once or twice a year - just enough to remind myself that my embouchure sucks.
9. My church. It's full of awesome people, awesome ministers, and awesome service. Their focus on being the church is inspiring. I really ought to spend more time with them.
10. Reading. Nearly anything. Given the opportunity if, say, I'm stuck in the bathroom for awhile, I'll read whatever I can get my hands on.
11. An ice-cold Pacifico with a wedge of lime.
12. Not cutting my hand while slicing said lime.
13. Monkeymoo. She's the best life-changing event a girl could ask for. She's like a mini-me. She's like some sort of social experiment wherein she will train me to appreciate my mother.
14. My mother. See above. But I appreciated her before that. Honestly though, I'm not sure I realized what an astounding woman she was until the past few years. Her strength continues to amaze me.
15. Making my friends smile.
16. Participating in Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society every year.
17. Teaching. No matter how you slice it, I LOVE LOVE LOVE to teach.
18. Reading people's blogs.
19. Pickles. And dried beef. And cream cheese. All together.
20. Cooking.
21. Belonging to a CSA.
22. Growing my own vegetables. It feels so good. The Budge and I check the seeds every morning, noon, and night and there's always change.
23. My colleagues at the college. They're fantastic.
24. The BUDGE. I can't forget my sleep ninja snuggle buddy. I adore that guy.
25. Coffee.
26. Knitting.
27. Giving to good charities.
28. Knitting for good charities while drinking coffee (hey, it's true).
29. Tea -- not just any tea. Earl Gray. Hot.
30. Captain Picard.
31. Bad reality television.
32. Nathan Fillion. Like so so much. In an interview once his local paper asked him how it felt to see himself on screen and he said his first thought was that you could park a Cadillac in his nostrils. I have no clue why that made me love him so, but it still makes me swoon. Plus did you see his pants in Firefly?
33. Long lists.
34. Lists of lists.
35. Sharpies.
36. Speaking of Sharpies - I love school supplies of all shape and form.
37. One form: Notebooks. I love spiral notebooks. I own dozens of them spread all over this house like potpourri. They make my home smell of smart.
38. My sisters from another mister. My stepsisters are the best sisters a girl could ask for - really - they are amazing and I love them deeply. Moreso than I ever understood was possible.
39. My brother from another mother. He rocks. I don't know him as well as I should, but that will come with time, I know.
40. Sugar. In all forms.
41. Half and Half. In my coffee.
42. Making yogurt. Somehow, in some small way, it makes me feel. . . powerful. I'm not. "Oh look, you brought milk just above room temperature for 12 hours. Go you." But still. I feel it.
43. The Sookie Stackhouse Novels. I really do. No shame. Not a bit.
44. The TV show Hoarders. I'm not sure I like it so much as need it as an inoculation against the Hoarding gene that seems to have seeped into my pool.
45. Yarn. Yummy scrunchy yarn. Wool. Silk. Lots of it.
46. My friends. They are just the best. They're probably the only ones still reading this list!
47. Did I mention blogging? I do like it.
48. Writing poetry, although I do not do it often enough.
49. Keeping a journal. Although see above. Not often enough. I need to keep better track of my life -- in order to repeat in excruciating detail my son's hilarious stories when he's on his first dates.
50. The things my kids say. They are hilarious -- they are at once super smart and super dumb and super insightful.
51. The word super, apparently.
52. The word apparently, when said by the Budge or Monkeymoo.
53. My blended family.
54. My extended family.
55. My IN LAWS. That's right. I love my in-laws.
56. Back to Joss Whedon for a moment: I love his musicals.
57. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
58. Angel the Series
59. Firefly
60. And Serenity
61. And the Jayne hat my buddy Amy made me.
62. I love the internet for its chat message boards and the friends I've made on them over the years.
63. Back to Joss: I even love Dollhouse. For real. Except for Tamoh. I still don't know about him.
64. comic books. For real.
65. comic book characters.
66. The Big Bang Theory and the friends who told me I needed to see it.
67. Back to Joss's musicals: Dr. Horrible. So so much.
68. I love music. Lucky for me, I married a musician.
69. My old apartment I lived in back in Omaha in '99 with Carlie and Stacy. It was nearly the same size as my current house. I have so many happy memories of that place!
70. Des Moines and Jan and Natalie who live there (or close to it). Okay, really I just love Jan and Nat. I don't have any strong feelings for Des Moines.
71. The coffee pot at Omaha and the big balloon at York and the Maranatha cross by Ogalalla, and the last place to stop for food (though we never do - I did once with Matt Mason in the way back days) before Colorado meets Nebraska.
72. Denver. The city. The outlying areas. The climate. The climate. The climate. Did I mention the climate?
73. Shoes. Just all of them. I said boots but I mean all shoes.
74. Peanut butter. I could eat it on ANYTHING.
75. All Quiet on the Western Front
76. A teddy bear I bought for myself when I was 14 at a bag overstock sale for Horizon Designs. It lives in the basement now but I still love it.
77. Sewing.
78. Cleaning our floors on my hands and knees.
79. Folding laundry. I both love and loathe it.
80. My cat. But don't tell him.
81. Babies.
82. Baby stuff.
83. That sweet kissable spot on the back of a baby's head.
84. Beets. Really. Strange, I know. Totally new for me.
85. That I could develop a taste for beets in the 34th year of my life!
86. Old friends. And new friends.
87. Living in the United States.
88. Big fuzzy socks.
89. Yoga.
90. Being funny. Or trying to be funny.
91. That humor can take the sting out of nearly everything in the universe.
92. That on the way home from our last depressing ultrasound, my husband told a wildly inappropriate joke and made me laugh through my tears.
93. Singing in church. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, moves me more than a beloved hymn in a church full of other people lifting their voices. I can honestly say, hard as it was, David's funeral was one of my favorite moments of my life as well - with 600+ voices lifted in song, how could you not be moved?
94. My wedding day. It was awesome. Rain. Tornado sirens. Morning sickness. Who could ask for more?
95. Being pregnant. Or, rather, staying pregnant. Hugely, ginormously, going to have a big fat 10lb baby pregnant.
96. Stretching first thing in the morning.
97. Bratwurst in July. With beer. And TONS of sauerkraut.
98. Grilling. (See above). Especially when grilling includes a good steak.
99. Wow, I feel so much pressure on these last two. Not that anyone's reading. Right now I love the person who makes it to 99.
100. Did I mention Joss Whedon? Man, wouldn't it be cool if he stopped by just to say "Dude, you are so silly."
101. Oh. And Sherman Alexie. I know, I know, I promised 100 but delivered 101. Deal.
     

I know no other way to say this,

but David, I miss you. I remember an afternoon in Clifton when we three girls got stuck in the front office of a photography studio because the everything's-bigger-in-Texas storms blew in and we were but ten to thirteen or nine to twelve, I'm not sure, our blond hair stuck to our necks, legs wet with warm rain, as we shivered in that lobby. You picked us up and we dried off and I walked into grandma's kitchen to steal a few peanut M&Ms from the small glass bowl she kept perpetually filled for us. You were standing in the doorway and you were singing Doing the garden, digging the weeds, who could ask for more? Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64 and it seemed so far away then, so many years down the road.

But it wasn't. Here we are and yesterday would have been sixty-six if you'd have made it. But you didn't make it. You didn't make it to sixty-four even -- when you died on October 1st, you were sixty three and that afternoon, I stayed for a few minutes in your room after everyone else had left. I kissed you on your too-cool forehead. We did. Still. We do. Still.

I can say that with certainty. I miss you in ways now that I only saw glimpses of then. And every time that sweet lilting tune, so bright, so cheery, comes across my radio - I see you in grandma's kitchen, singing, and the eleven or twelve year old me giggling at you, razzing you for everything I miss so desperately now.

Shirt-Monster

Something is eating my shirts.

I know, I know, we have a cheap washer and dryer and you're thinking that the *something* is likely time, the washer, the dryer, or some bad laundry detergent. But listen: this little bastard Shirt Monster is eating my shirts and MrSomething's shirts but not the kids' shirts. And the Shirt Monster isn't just eating any part of my shirts. It's noshing the same spot: 3" up from the bottom, center or center left.

At first, I thought I'd developed such a drinking problem that my popping open a Rolling Rock at the end of the day was affecting the lifespan of my knits, as every one of the Shirt Monster's holes seem to appear at the bottom front of our t-shirts. But MrSomething is a whiskey guy and whiskey doesn't require the ridiculously sexy bunching of the shirt over the screwtop cap. Besides, Mr. Something pointed out to me that I generally drink Pacifico, which requires a bottle opener or , in classier homes, teeth.

We decided then it must be our belt buckles. After all, the children don't wear belts (God help us all were they ever armed with a 3 foot piece of leather capped off with a piece of metal, especially The Budge with his penchant for swinging). But, let me be honest and fashion-backward here: I do not often wear belts. Typically speaking, the time it takes to run a belt through 4-6 loops is just more time than I have when getting dressed in the morning, so unless I had a lot of extra time or I'm wearing jeans from another day when I had a lot of extra time, I'm beltless, and it's MY SHIRTS that suffer the brunt of this shirt-chomping behavior.

I'm at a loss, friends. If you have any ideas, please let me know, because Fashion is suffering. And Fashion's a catty bitch who's about to put on her over-sized sunglasses and leave me with Target 75% off rack clothing (which even the Shirt Monster seems to avoid).

A year later and

I am making Red Beans and Rice after a nice long day with my son where we planted a half-dozen varieties of seeds (hot peppers and tomatoes and corn and basil and three different flowers and cucumbers and I know it's early but I don't care) and talked about making things grow (all of our plans for the garden this summer - they are grand plans and I don't care because we WILL sprout sunflowers next to the house in that patch on the hill that never grows even grass) and I barely thought about *it* until he said, and remember, he is three, but when he said I hope one day you can make a baby grow and survive (in what world should "survive" hold residence in a three year old's vocabulary?) a grief washed over me and I remembered the poems about black holes I've left unfinished in these past few weeks, afraid to put into words what I have felt this year, but it was repelled, in a way, water off a duck's back or a waxed apple or something with a smile that refused to fade on this gray day because dammit these seeds will sprout and this house will grow things and things will survive and we will move forward, but not on.

Work, work, and more work.

Thinking of some new projects. Lots of stash yarn burning a hole in my knitting bag. . . must get to work on something.

I will update when I can.

Tuesday's gray and Wednesday too (NOT!)

It's Wednesday and it's BEAUTIFUL and my mother is getting on a plane soon to fly here to Denver. That's fantastic. It's about time we had sweet shiny days filled with joy and expectation!

Oh, and cleaning.

I came to realize, oh, about an hour or so ago, that our house is TRASHED. I cannot have my mom here like this, so it's time. Additionally, I've decided to surprise her with a little late birthday party (we're only 2 weeks or so behind the times. That's NOTHING).

So to put off cleaning (so that I can do it frantically with only 40 minutes to spare while simultaneously watching Big Bang Theory AND cooking dinner, DUH), I decided to make a gigantic Bake and Fill cake with my son. What boy doesn't love sliding on a too-big apron, rolling up his sleeves, and digging in to two cake mixes, 6 eggs, and *fantastically* messy stuff?

But here's the racket: The Bake and Fill takes One-and-a-HALF cake mixes to make the cake we needed, so Betty Crocker shamelessly said "Oh, just make a dozen cupcakes with the leftovers." Which is great, right, because who doesn't love 12 Cherry Chip cupcakes hanging out on their counter top. Unfrosted.

The absence of frosting is important, of course, because when you walk by said cupcakes and one JUMPS into your mouth, on its way it will scream Don't worry, I'm not covered in *frosting* or anything, as if cupcakes somehow shed their calories when unadorned.

So about an hour ago, there I was, on my hands and knees scrubbing the bathroom floor by the toilet with a cherry chip cupcake hanging out of my mouth thinking This is rock bottom for sugar addicts.

What a way to kiss my wheat-free low-sugar week goodbye. I can tell you though, without a doubt, my mother is worth it.

(Spellcheck tells me "unfrosted" is not a word. And while I agree, dear spellcheck, that it shouldn't be, unfortunately it is.)

So today, after science club,

I was standing around in my beautiful Blowfish booties

Which I love. Look at the curve on those heels! It's just the best. Anyway, I was feeling a little schlumpy in my tight brown sweater, red shirt, and boot cut jeans, but I had the cute boots on. The boots that make up for almost any outfit.

So anyhow, I'm standing there in my fantastic Blowfish booties (the color's different than the ones pictured. Mine are . . . more brownish/greyish colored). . . and I realize that while I'm in my cute Blowfish booties (did I mention I love them?) every other woman there is wearing the dreaded but common Colorado footwear: CLOGS.

And seeing so many ladies in clogs reminded me I really needed to give a shout-out to this blog which has swiftly taken up residence in my heart. I wish that these ladies lived close. I have a bottle of wine with their name on it: http://www.rantsfrommommyland.com/

Check them out. They rock. :)

Edited to add: These are the boots I got. These. And while, for a brief moment, I thought "Gee, those look a little like clogs" they totally aren't clog-like. Though, shout-out to my Colorado peeps, I personally am inclined to wear clogs. It's my deep anti-fashion nature. I fight it every day.