I haven't had the time or desire to blog here much as you may have noticed . . . or not, since I wasn't that prolific anyway. But I got this fancy new phone with a fun camera app (vignette, for any Android users) and was inspired to start something new. Come see one great thing from every one of my days at onegreatthing.tumblr.com.

I'm the only one awake. Maybe I should write a blog post!

Yesterday we went to the State Fair. We bundled up (it was only 50 degrees out in the morning!), walked over to Ginkgo for coffees, and then walked the 1.9 miles up to the fairgrounds. We started our day off with breakfast at the Peg -- the Fair's "only full-service restaurant" -- where Steve got a meat and eggs and carbs platter and Sam and I split absolutely delicious pancakes.

Then we headed to the Miracle of Birth center, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like -- a bunch of animals in labor. But we petted a new lamb! And saw some hatching chicks! And luckily avoided seeing any afterbirth or actual birthing. (As I said to a friend the other day, I've been in labor. It's not miraculous except for the people involved in it. Other than that it's a lot of pain and bodily fluids.) I couldn't believe how many people were standing mere inches from the exit of a cow in labor. Petting its tail! (I bet that cow was so annoyed.)

Having seen that, it was time for Steve to spend three bucks for some bacon on a stick.

I wanted to ride on the carousel, and since you can't do that with a straight face as a grown-up, I used Sam as my pawn. The problem was, he was terrified the second I set him on the horse. Which was made slightly embarrassing by the fact that we were right in front of some of our friends from ECFE--which I only noticed when I turned around to try to make a quick exit from the carousel. So then I had to stay on, holding Sam the whole time. Not the most fun I've ever had. Steve, meanwhile, drank a huge cup of lemonade.

We checked out my uncle's painting in the Fine Arts building, where we also ran into two of my sisters and their friend Sarah. Sarah tipped us off to the Little Hands exhibit. This seemed awesome at first. The kids get an apron and a bucket, and go through various little tasks. Like at the first task they get a little baggie full of corn. Then they ride a little tractor to "move haybales." Then they feed chickens (fake, to my dismay) with the corn, and get an egg for their troubles. They plant a seed and get a potato. They feed a sheep and get some wool. They feed a cow and milk it (it's fake) and get a carton of milk. They pick apples. Then--and this was definitely the weirdest part--they turn in all of these things in barrels in the "market" and get a fake dollar, which they trade for any item of their choosing. Okay, first of all, this is obviously a thinly-veiled shrine to Big Agriculture. No talk about caring for animals or anything like that. Secondly, we didn't find out till the end that the dollars--and thus, prizes--were limited to those ages 3-10. And the prizes were like little boxes of cheerios, a stuffed lamb, etc. No reason a tiny toddler couldn't have them. And there were TONS of one- and two-year-olds in that line. Steve was pissed! I was pissed too, but mostly didn't want Sam to know we were pissed, because he didn't really care. He was so tired at that point I think he was hallucinating. So I left an angry note in the comment box, as is the Minnesotan way.

After that travesty we decided it was time for lunch. We went to the food building in search of cheese curds from the Mouth Trap, butted in line pretending like we didn't know what we were doing, and then got the hell out of there. The cheese curds were great--super salty though. Sam didn't eat them. He ate cheerios Steve had in his backpack. Since Big Agro wouldn't give him any.

My only goals that day were to see the crop art and eat the fried pickles, so it was time to make some of that happen. We made our way through the super thick crowd to the pickle booth, where I got the sampler--three slices each of plain, cream cheese, and "cajun" fried pickles, with a side of ranch dressing. Delicious! My favorites were the cajun.

Steve needed sometihng sweet after all that salt, so he got some frozen custard. I wanted to see the knitting. We headed over, and it wasn't as crowded in there, but I was really getting tired. So after a little spin through the creative activities building, we decided it was time to get going.

But you can't go to the Minnesota State Fair without a stop at the Crop Art in the Agriculture/Horticulture building. Artisans use seeds to create absolute amazing works of art. I didn't take any pictures, so check out the website: www.cropart.com. Seriously!

Then we headed home. The 1.9 miles that seemed so fun and energizing on the way there were definitely not on the way home. Must've been the cheese curds.

I wish I had a crystal ball, or better yet, a personal psychic--someone who would tell me at all times what the right decision is to make.

There was an open house in our neighborhood today so after Sam's nap we walked over. Just for something to do. By the time we got home we had seen three houses and were talking about selling our house and either renting for a while or buying a new house.

See, the thing is, two things went wrong when we bought our current home. The first was that we were morons. We bought this house largely because how it felt when we walked in; it smelled right, it had vintage light fixtures; it had pretty french doors and a creaking staircase and a rhubarb plant and heirloom peonies and wood floors. I still love our house. But we neglected to notice some key things about it that wouldn't end up working for us. The second thing that went wrong was that we bought on May 25, 2007, and the real estate bubble burst on May 26. I'm exaggerating, of course, but that's what it felt like. Our house is worth about --well, I don't want to get into financial details, but let's just say we lost a lot of money. I know everyone did. I know that in the long run we were lucky--nobody lost jobs; in fact, my income has only gone up--but I can't stop thinking that it's just terribly unfair.

So the agent we met today, a man who specializes in our neighborhood and has sold houses here for 10 years and lived here with his partner until they inherited a house in a better neighborhood, told us that contrary to what we sort of thought, the market is not going to be better by next year. In fact, he said that it's going to be worse and every day that goes by, our house loses value. Now, in a way, that doesn't matter--the house we would end up buying will lose value as well. In a way it's a wash.

Ah, I don't need to spell out all these details to you, faithful blog reader. You don't care. Long story short, I'm feeling really anxious and worried right now. We saw a house today that was basically perfect--three bedrooms, gorgeous woodwork, nice backyard with trees, in exactly the part of our neighborhood that we want to live in--where Sam could go to the kindergarten we've had our eye on, it's close to our favorite park, etc. I loved it. I want a house that works for us. I love our house. I feel attached to weird things here, like the kitchen window and the paint colors. I've lived here for three years, which is a long time for me--counting dorm rooms, I've lived in 10 places in the last ten years. I like our house. It smells right. I don't want to stay but I don't want to move, either.

And the bottom line thing is the finances. If we sell, we will not make any money on this house. We will end up not getting anything that we can put toward a down payment on the next house. So what do we do? I have no idea.

Other events of the weekend included amazing homemade fish tacos, a great bike ride, getting sunburned within an inch of my life, and watching like ten more episodes of Buffy.

Until the next exciting installment--

Things that you should do when it's 90 degrees outside and you are locked in a battle of wills with the air conditioner: A List For Future Reference

1. Go to Target (they have air conditioning)
2. Drink a Dr. Brown's Diet Cream Soda
3. Sprinkle water on your face (repeat as needed)
4. Change into a dress (better air circulation)
5. Hook a Waterpillar up to the hose and run through it with the happiest almost-two-year-old on earth


Things that you should not do when it's 90 degrees outside and you are locked in a battle of wills with the air conditioner: A List For Future Reference

1. Feed the dog egg yolks
2. Sleep

Wow, so much has happened since I posted last! For example, we went to New York. And then we came back.

Here's where I was going to say that I wasn't going to recap the trip, but you know what? The rhubarb bread's in the oven, the toddler is asleep, the husband is supine on the couch, reading, and I'm sitting on the back porch enjoying the evening air. So why the heck not.

Things didn't start well. The night before we flew out it was approximately 135 degrees outside. We didn't want to install the AC before leaving for ten days, so we didn't. I escaped the broiling house for a couple of hours to watch the Lost finale, but our flight was at 7, I didn't get home till 11, and it was so hot that I didn't fall asleep till 1. And had to get up at 5. So that was awesome. Then we had that typical craptastic experience at the airport where you think you have plenty of time, but you park in the wrong ramp and have to take a tram and no one helps you in the line and your toddler is trying to escape and your husband forgot to renew his drivers license and you wore dumb shoes so you have a blister. And your husband's editor is on the same flight.

Here is a tip for parents of toddlers between the age of 1 and 2, by the way: Splurge on the extra seat so you can strap your kid into his/her carseat. Yeah, it sucked having to buy another ticket. But being able to actually read on the flight? Amazing.

So we made it to Newark. Grandma Geri picked us up, and we all drove into Manhattan to drop Steve off at his hotel. Then Grandma, Sam, and I sped aggressively to Long Island. We had soup, took naps, and woke up just barely in time for dinner with Aunt Judy.

The next day, Steve met me at Penn Station around noon and we walked down to Chelsea. We had lunch with our friend Samantha at Elmo, and then shopped and walked around some more. Then I went back to Long Island and had chinese food with Sam and his entourage. He impressed various other people in the restaurant with his excellent utensil skills, and ate a scallion pancake.

Wednesday was my day at BEA, so I got up early and Geri dropped me off at the train. Kay and I met up and walked to the Javits center. I think I walked about a total of seventeen miles that day. I got a ton of ARCs, checked out all the competition, saw some old friends, and had lunch with my boss. The highlight, of course, was Steve's signing. I was afraid that no one would go, so I rounded up a few of my coworkers (and plugged the signing extensively while in line for other signings). But I needn't have feared! The line grew even as we waited and he signed more than 100 books. I was so proud. After I met his agent and we gathered our heavy belongings and got the hell out of there, we headed back to Long Island. Sam was happy to see his dad.

After that we kind of chilled out in Roslyn for a while. We took some walks, laid around at Geri's house, ate a bunch of food, as is our wont. On Friday afternoon Steve and I headed back into Manhattan. Steve met up with his cousin and a couple of friends for a pizza tour of lower Manhattan. After I walked around for a few hours, I met up with CJ near Union Square, had two glasses of wine that must have been triple the alcohol of normal wine, because yikes, had a falafel on St. Marks, and went home.

Saturday was GLEE! Geri and Judy and I had brunch at Blue Fin at the W, which was amazing, and then walked over to Radio City. I'd never been there before, and my knowledge of it is pretty much just the outside from working near there in my old life, and the inside from Annie. So it was quite thrilling to see it. Also I think I was one of the oldest people there. Not really, but it was PACKED with teenage girls. You should've heard the squeals when Puck came onstage. The show was great, if super loud, and a little exhausting. Once we made it back to Long Island, Steve and I went out for an amazing dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Port Washington. Yum.

On Sunday, we got up early and drove to Brooklyn, where we met Steve's cousin's baby, Rohan, for the first time. I loved holding him! He fell asleep in my arms--what a sweetie. We walked around in Bay Ridge for a while. Then we went to Fort Greene to Brooklyn Flea, and met up with two of my BFFs and their baby (who is almost a toddler now). We ate much ice cream and Uncle Louie G's. And mexican food.

This was basically the peak of the trip for me, because beginning that night, Sam began to show evidence of what was to come: a horrendous stomach bug that laid waste to both Steve and Sam. We got back to Long Island that afternoon and some more family members came over, and Sam began trying to clear the room the same way his fur brother did at the Thanksgiving brunch back in '04 when he ate a bunch of bagels and cream cheese and his digestive system couldn't quite handle it. Poor kid! It didn't get really bad until Tuesday, though, when he was really clearly sick. (In the meantime, we did some shopping and hung out at home.)

Having a sick kid is such a mixed thing. First of all, of course you NEVER want your kid to be sick, especially something like a tummy bug, which just sucks so hard. But on the other hand, Sam is an independent toddler now, and when he's sick is pretty much the only time I can guarantee he'll want to be held and cuddled. He wouldn't leave my sight while he was sick. He even wanted me to take a nap with him, which was so sweet--he rubbed my back as he fell asleep--but then quickly became awful when he woke up, sat up, and threw up. At one point later that afternoon he was napping, but he started crying, so I went up to get him. Then he fell asleep on my chest on teh couch, decided he didn't want to be lying down, and slept standing up with his head in my lap. It was awful seeing him feel so terrible, but I do love cuddling with him.

Anyway, Steve got it too, and so the flight home was dicey, but they both made it. And we picked up Harry and came home and it felt so good to be back.

So there you have it.

10 days of parking at MSP airport: $180.
10 days of doggy boarding at Downtown Dogs Minneapolis: $460.
10 days of time off spent with your family: priceless! (But it'll be at least 6 months before we do it again.)

Today has been a totally maddening day.

---

Happy Birthday tomorrow to my darling husband! And today is the 7-year anniversary of our second date. (That night, we went to Sutton Place for drinks, saw A Mighty Wind, and then kissed on the platform at Grand Central...) We went for a walk tonight, and I looked down at our scrappy puppy and pajama'd son and said--Who would have thought, seven years ago, that this is how we'd end up? And if you had told me, would I have been able to predict how much I would love him--them--and how our home would feel like a small oasis where joy lives?

---

Sam and I gave him a VCR/DVD player (lolz a gift from 2002) and some gift cards. I was buying him a Warcraft card at Target--had to ask where they were. The salesguy, who was probably in his early 20s, was like "Is this for you?" in a sort of shocked/impressed tone. He probably wasn't thrilled when I was like "Good lord no."

---

Jury duty? Probably some of the best days I've had in a while. Besides the part where I ate pork. I loved taking myself out for lunch, though, so it was completely worth it.

---

Really ready for the weekend.

---

My big thought today (commuting is a good time for thinking) was how I keep having these realizations that I'm different from what I always thought I was. FOR EXAMPLE I am considered super organized at work. And then I was thinking, well, but that's based on when I was a kid! This isn't coming out clearly. Because I'm watching House Hunters and have six tabs open at the same time. (Hulu: Cougar Town; 10-Day Weather Forecast; Gmail - Expedia travel confirmation; edinarealty.com; Blogger; Curry Quinoa Cakes). Anyway, what I'm getting at is, I'm going to try to think more about not just the person I've been since birth (chaotic, sensitive, impatient, quick-tempered) and more about the person I've chosen to be (organized, thoughtful, purposeful, ethical).

---

It's pretty embarrassing that I've been listening to 107.1 on my commute home, and the tagline for the station is something like "A little gossip -- a lot of laughs!"

---

Sam isn't sick anymore. It was about a month of nonstop coughing, two trips to the ER, lots of Tylenol, and many cups of "tea" (lukewarm water with a bit of lemon juice and a lot of honey). Then I was sick for a couple of days, and so was Steve, but we're mostly better now.

---

In Minnesota you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop when it comes to weather. March and April were beautiful. Beautiful. Best spring I remember. Then it was cold and rainy and snow threatened and my peonies look bedraggled (but the rhubarb thrives). And it was like the whole state just let out its breath in a big sigh of resignation--it's returned. You're always either recovering from it or preparing for it, the cold. And I'll admit to a few weeks each October of looking forward to it. But right now, with a gorgeous forecast for the weekend, I feel confident in saying it will return--but not for a while. And this weekend we'll take walks, build a sandbox, buy flowers.

---

Happy birthday, Steve. Home is wherever I'm with you.

Sam's newest words/word attempts:

lunch
banana
nuk
bubbles
cat
dog
quack
dad
Beth

What a wonderful day.

It started off with a big deal (to us): Sam learned how to use words to get something he wanted. This has been a major struggle for us lately. He knows how to point like a maestro, but the fact that you could use a word to get something didn't quite click for him. He still doesn't get that he could say the name of something to ask for it, but, baby steps. He wanted his cup of water at breakfast; I said "Say please!", he said "Pease!", I gave it to him, and for the rest of the day, whenever he wanted something, he'd say, "Pease!" in this sweet little voice. I would have emptied out our savings account if he'd pointed at it and said "Pease!".



Grocery shopping, our Sunday tradition, was pretty much run of the mill (although the little deli samples at Target were especially good). While Sam napped, I went for a short run outside, and found myself totally overdressed. I was dripping with sweat after like a quarter mile.

While Sam finished his nap, I broke down the eight thousand boxes that had been languishing on our back porch. He woke up when I was almost done, and helped me sweep.



Then we went for a nice walk, during which we removed all of our outerwear. It was SO nice out. 64 degrees, sunny, just a slight breeze. And we ended up at the park.



The awesomeness of the park was tempered slightly by the angry dad yelling at his kids (actual quote: "You can see that I'm wearing a belt, right?") and the grandma who asked, "How old is your baby? Six months?", but not enough to ruin our day.

Back at home, we made dinner. One of our very favorite meals, nearly every bit of it homemade: tomato/cuke/pepper/lemon juice salad, peas, tzaziki, whole wheat flatbreads, couscous, feta, falafels. Lately Sam hasn't had much of an appetite for dinner, but tonight he was super into it. And the best part? We got to eat on the porch for the first time since last summer. LOVED it.



Oh, and I got a haircut yesterday, and I think I really like it.

A few random things on this very random Monday:

1. I've been meaning to write for a while about my weighing problem. No, not my weight problem. I don't have one of those. My weighing problem, though, is probably more annoying for the people who live with me. Ever since I moved out of Rothschild E-2 in 2003, and away from Amanda's scale, and bought one of my own, I've weighed myself every day. Seriously, I could tell you how much I weighed--to the pound--almost any day since then. It has always been part of my morning routine. If I'm being honest, an unhealthy part--one pound up, and I'd agonize; one pound down, and I'd feel great about myself all day. Stupid. I told myself it was keeping me in check, but really, it wasn't--it was just making me feel like crap four days out of five. So then I stepped on it about a month ago and it told me I weighed 195. Which I felt quite sure I didn't. You can't blame 80+ pounds on eating too much salt. Anyway, so I replaced the battery, but it didn't help--now when you step on the scale, the numbers just kind of spin, until it finally gives up. And I am here to tell you, my friends, if you too are in the habit of weighing yourself every day even though you're a perfectly acceptable weight--get rid of your scale. I feel better than I ever have. Part of that is due to fairly healthy eating and a suddenly much more active lifestyle (see point 2). But I guarantee a lot of it is because I don't have to stand in front of (or on, as the case may be) a jury every morning. I just feel how I feel, which is a lot better than how I used to feel.

2. I've been running for a couple of months now, recently hitting my own personal milestone of 20 minutes without holding on to the treadmill or stopping to walk. I've been averaging about 8 miles a week. Not bad for the girl who had never run in her life before mid-December. Yesterday it was a balmy 38 degrees here in St. Paul, and I decided to give running outdoors a try. I loved it! I only ran a mile, and my legs totally ache today, but it was great. I have always thought of myself as someone who was not athletic, or active, or could possibly be good at anything that required being physical, so it was so great to run and feel great afterward. How many times can I use the word great in one paragraph? Many. The only downside was I didn't plan a good playlist beforehand so I had to run to some embarrassing techno from college that recently made it onto my ipod, but whatevs. It was still fun. A mile outdoors, in full view of neighbors! Amazing! Even when we had to run the mile in gym class I never ran it. Erin Lovaas and I walked. Yeah.

3. I have some good professional news but am lacking details, so I'll save that for another time.

4. My baby sisters turn 23 on Friday. Can you even believe?

5. Sam hit me yesterday. A dubious milestone indeed. He had missed his nap and was very tired and was very frustrated that we weren't just giving in to his every desire, and he slapped my face. After I sternly told him he couldn't do that, he burst into tears, and so did I. He has been a wonderful helper lately, bitchslapping aside. He's made bread, hummus, and eggs with me. He helps with laundry--folding and putting away--and always gets his own bib for meals. I love the age he is right now. It's hard, because he's not a baby and not a big kid, and one of the hardest parts is that it's hard for me to see it be hard for him, but it's fun and he's wonderful.

6. First sentence: "Mmmm, bread good!"

7. Mmmm, life good.

Sam is asleep, all the laundry is in the washer and dryer, the bread is shaped into loaves and rising, and Steve is somewhere over Ohio or thereabouts on his way home from New York. Usually, on a Sunday night, I'd be in bed right now: watching TV and knitting. But I have to pick him up from the airport in two hours, so I'm busying myself so I stay awake.

Sam and I spent the weekend at my mom and dad's, which was fun. It was great for me to spend time with my family and get a little break from child-caring. I watched Lost with my sisters and did a little cooking and screwed up some crossword puzzles.

Then we came home. One of the major signs I've become an adult is that I worked really hard on Friday to get the house clean before I left, so that I'd come home to a nice clean house. Not spotless, of course, but I made the bed and did all the dishes and picked up and everything. And it did make a huge difference.

We went grocery shopping, and then Sam helped me put away everything. He loves having a job to do. One by one, taking each item out of the grocery bags and handing it to me. He got a little fixated on the milk carton, wanted to carry it across the house, and was perturbed when it was a little too heavy for him.

By then it was time to walk Harry, so we bundled up and set off into the neighborhood. I carried Sam about halfway around the block, but he's getting big, and my arm started to hurt. So I put him down. If you've never walked with both a terrier and a toddler, you haven't lived. One of them is snorting and pulling and chasing and running; the other one is trying very hard to not hold your hand, slipping all over the ice, and carefully placing his sneaker-clad foot deep into a snowbank. Finally the sidewalk was too icy for Sam, so I picked him up again. Cue instant meltdown. The neighbors must have thought I'd been beating him. We say he is "noodling" when he tantrums; his whole body gets limp and struggling at the same time, he throws his entire weight into being not wherever you want him to be. So walking over a layer of ice, with Harry on the leash and Sam in my arms, was probably the least fun I'd had all day.

He calmed down after a while. It took some ignoring. Then I needed to get some bread made (or, wanted to anyway, had been looking forward to it) so I set Sam up with a tupperware and some rice, which previously had just thrilled him. Today it thrilled him again, but what he found REALLY thrilling, while his mom was elbow-deep in sticky bread dough, was pouring all the rice into a colander and dragging it into the dining room. I finally had to take it away, which caused meltdown number 2, which didn't end until I put him in his crib with a pacifier and turned the lights off.

There was another little meltdown while I was cooking dinner, when I wouldn't let him open the oven.

Suffice to say it was a long, stressful--in a good way--weekend. I'd have thrown a tantrum myself if there was anyone around to comfort me!


***
LINGER: 4.5 stars

***

Edited to add: And then there was this--After dinner, Sam helped me knead the bread before its second rise, which was one of the sweetest moments of the last month. We sat on the floor with the bread in a bowl and took turns shoving our fists into it.

Just now I was cooking my lunches for the week and was trying to read at the same time but couldn't really concentrate on sauteeing the zucchini while turning pages--and so instead of reading I was kind of thinking about blogging and thinking about what I might write if I did blog. Oh, I am so witty and wise in my head, and then I sit down and--not so much. It all disappears.

The Brezenoffs had a nice weekend, if you're wondering. Sam and I visited his great-grandparents yesterday, followed by bread-baking, followed by dinner at Chiang Mai Thai with my sisters and parents. After Sam was in bed, Steve and I watched Julie and Julia, which I liked--at least the Julia parts. I do love Amy Adams but gosh, Julie is annoying, which is funny because when I read the book, I felt the opposite. Thought What do I care about this old woman cooking in Paris? But then again when I read the book I was 24, 25, having my own quarterlife crisis, working in Manhattan and living practically in Queens and just wishing for something bigger. (NB: It turned out to be something smaller. Or maybe more important.)

Today we did our normal grocery shopping trip, and I baked a cake for the ECFE potluck. I wish I'd taken a picture. Not of the cake, but of Steve's face when he saw the frosting (which is made of a stick of butter, 3/4 cup cocoa, 1/3 cup of milk, 1 tsp of vanilla, and 3 cups of powdered sugar). And of Sam's face when I let him lick the spoon--his first taste of chocolate. He loved it. Of course. Who wouldn't?

Sam had fun at the potluck, which was held at this big indoor playground in New Brighton. Apparently not many of the other people were vegetarians, and all of them were Minnesotans. By which I mean everything was meat in a crockpot. I found one dish that was made of pasta shells and lots of cheese, which was good, and there was a salad. And some yummy cake. Steve enjoyed the food a lot more than I did. My chocolate almond cake, apparently, was a big hit. Or at least disappeared faster than the other things did.

And then it was 7 and Sam was getting a little crazy/tired so we came home and put him to bed and I made my lunches for the week and made a haircut appointment and you're now all caught up on my life.


First book reviews of 2010:
GONE 3 stars (my least favorite of the three, unfortunately)
HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY 5 stars (I liked it better than TTTW)

The last of my 2009 book reviews....

Marcelo in the Real World - 4 stars
Last Summer of the Death Warriors - 4 stars
Middlesex (reread) - 5 stars
The Best of Everything - 5 stars
This Girl Isn't Shy She's Spectacular - 2 stars
The Robber Bride - 5 stars
Little Women - 5 stars
Little Men - 3.5 stars
Year of the Flood - 5 stars
Stitches - 4 stars
Alphas - 2.5 stars
Firefly Lane - GAH! 1 star
Scarlett Fever - 4 stars
8th Grade Super Zero - 4 stars
Once Was Lost - 3.5 stars
Under the Dome - GAH
Love, Aubrey - 5 stars
Dreaming of Amelia/Ghosts of Ashbury High - 6 stars


That makes 92 books read and listed on this blog. I started listing them after the year started, though, so I'm guessing the actual total is over a hundred in 2009. Not bad! 2010 will not be as good. I'll shoot for 50.

Happy New Year!

First things first: I nursed Sam for 16 months and 9 days. That's it. I'm calling it. It's over. It's been three nights, so I think that's it. Remembering those hard first days (weeks) I can't believe I even made it to my initial goal, which was 6 months. So.

All right! Well, I read a lot of books in 2009, and I was going to count them up and tell my faithful reader (hi Steve!) how many I read, but I never got around to including the list of books I have at work, so let's just say, I read a lot of books in 2009. I think around 75. In 2010, I resolve to continue to read, but (BUT!) to start being better about using the library, and to not let on that I actually paid cash money for that awful new Stephen King book.

I definitely didn't blog as much as I resolved to, but whatever--what seems easy when you have a 4-month-old is decidedly more difficult when you have a 16-month-old. So in 2010 I resolve to blog once in a while.

I'd also like to GET ORGANIZED in 2010. By which I mean, clean and fix up the basement and attic, and keep the rest of my estate in reasonably good shape. I'd like to say I'll organize my old papers and photos but let's be realistic here.

I wrote a few poems in 2009--perhaps even the 4 I resolved to write. Actually, if you include my novel-in-verse-in-progress and the cinquains I email to Blake, I'm way over that quota. In 2010: more!

I furthermore resolve to run 3x/week, with a very loose definition of "run"--for example tonight I did 24 minutes (1 mile), 8 of which minutes were spent running, no more than 3 minutes at a time. But hey! That's already a vast improvement over two weeks ago when one minute of running made me almost pass out.

I also have some knitting projects I'd like to be held accountable for in 2010:

1) Sweater for Sam
2) Super secret present for [redacted]'s [redacted]

And as always, in 2010 I resolve to try to be a kind person, to try to do the right thing even when it's hard or unpopular, to take my vitamins and floss and drink more water, to work hard at my job, to not eat meat or too many cookies, to bake bread, to be a good friend, to not spend too much money, to coo over pictures of friends' babies, to snuggle and play with and hug and cherish my son, to support and love and laugh with Steve, to walk Harry sometimes but scratch behind his ears every day, to take more pictures, and to donate some money to Planned Parenthood.

And I'd like to sell my house. But let's not get carried away. (Darling 1 1/2 story 2 bedroom bungalow in great, walkable, diverse neighborhood, perfect for newlyweds or empty-nesters, original 1917 woodwork & built-ins, fabulous neighbors, pretty flowers, 2 3-season porches, vintage details, whirlpool tub...anyone?)

Big firsts today:

I baked a loaf of bread, and
Sam went to sleep having not nursed once.

Remember: I thought having a baby would last longer.
I'm okay with it, really I am.
Only--so soon? Wasn't it just yesterday?

Big day today!

Sam and I hit the mall bright and early (around 8). He suffered through an hour of me dithering around Macy's, and then we went to the play area, which was surprisingly nice and fun for both of us. Sam was the star of the place: he kept climbing up to the top of this little bridge thing and smiling at everyone, and all the moms and grandmas told me how advanced and brave he was. Haha!

Then we had a CaribouFAIL which resulted in crumbs of pumpkin bread all over both of us, a half-drunk latte, and $1.90 wasted on a cup of milk. (An aside: I keep being all proud of myself for ordering Sam his own milk at coffee places, and then shocked when he doesn't drink it.)

Anyway, then we headed to Target. It was about 10, and Sam was due for his nap, but I wanted to plow through. One hour and two hundred dollars later, we left the checkout line at Target, and Sam was really fading, so we had a little lunch there--he had a pb&j and milk, and I had some kind of vegetable smoothie thing. It was so fun to have lunch with him, even though the conversation wasn't the best. He fell asleep in the car, but managed to recommence napping when we got home.

Then naps were had by all. Okay, honestly, the more I type this, the less of a big day it seems, but it was a big day for ME, I guess!

I drove up to White Bear after my nap to meet Jes for an early dinner. She was running a bit late so I did some window shopping in downtown WBL, and then we went to the Washington Square Bar & Grill for dinner. I really liked the atmosphere, and it kind of made me want to move to White Bear! But my salad was a bit bland, so I changed my mind.

Then I came home and put the kiddo to bed, and that's it. Okay, I guess there's no reason for me to feel like this was a big day, but YOU shop with a 15-month-old for four hours and tell me you don't feel like it was a big day.

Why hello!

So much has happened since I posted last.

First of all I turned 29. Woo. My best present was being hugged by my kid for the first time. Steve and Sam took me out to lunch, since I had to work. We also did some commemorative photo booth shots. After work, Emily came over to watch Hamster and Steve and I went to Tanpopo, where I indulged in half a glass of wine. So basically, 29 was off to a good start.

Also in November, Sam had his fifteen-month shots plus the h1n1 vaccine and the flu booster. That was thrilling. It was especially thrilling when he woke up the next morning with a 102.9 degree fever. We assumed it was from the shots; when it didn't go away when dosed with tylenol, we started to feel suspicious. Thus began one of the longer nights of my life. His fever went up to over 104 degrees. At one point he was lying in his crib, eyes open, staring glassily at nothing. Finally, after an emergency run to Target for some ibuprofen and two or three calls to the doctor, the fever broke, only to go back to 103 the next day, whereupon I took him to the doctor, convinced it was h1n1. It was not: it was an ear infection. Still, it was freaking scary.

Another big event of November was meeting the baby of two of my best friends of all time. Cooper did not disappoint. And Shaun and Rachel never disappoint. I love living in Minnesota, but one of my biggest regrets in life is not living near them. Especially now, with the babies and everything.

Thanksgiving was spent in New York with the Brezenoffs. Highlights:
1) The air mattress we were sleeping on deflating three times in one night
2) Our nephew, who in July was barely sitting up, walking and talking and dancing and being hugged by Sam
3) Knitting with my sister-in-law
4) Tofurkey gravy and Aunt Judy's mashed potatoes
5) Sam
6) Finding out another two of my best friends in the whole world are expecting a baby in June (here's to happy, healthy babies in 2010 for all the pregnant and hoping-to-be-pregnant women I know right now!)
7) Flying home with a teething, tired, grumpy toddler
8) Sam learning the moves to "Open, shut them"

If you're wondering about book reviews, I've been keeping a list--I'm not pumping anymore, so I've lost a lot of reading time, and I've been knitting again so lost some time at night. I did just waste $20 on the new Stephen King book, however. I give it 2 stars. The first 900 pages, I give 1 star. The last 100 pages, I give 5 stars. Dude needs to learn to edit. And honestly, is necrophilia ever really necessary?

See you in January, probably.

So I know I won't feel like this in a month, but I always like the first night after Daylight Savings ends. We went for a long walk this afternoon (walking off the incredible brunch we had at the St. Paul Grill, to celebrate our third anniversary) and by the time we were heading home, it was dusk, but it was only 5. And I very much enjoyed making dinner as it got dark out. It's a feeling that makes me think of tightening a coat around myself, driving past a lit store full of holiday shoppers, walking inside to a warm, bright house after being out in the cold dark. I'm Minnesotan! We hunker down. We are burrowers.

But it only lasts so long. Winter sets in soon, with its seasonal affective disorder and its boring weekends and its staggering lack of physical activity. Luckily for us, we have malls and Steve dragged in a treadmill he found on the neighbors' curb the other day. So there's hope.

What gets me through this first part of the dark season is the holidays (our anniversary, my birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, all in a two-month span). I've always wished that the holiday season could be moved to February--it would be so much better there, and more necessary. A brighter spot in a bleaker midwinter. But that's not really an option, obviously. Once New Year's is over, we just have to trudge through. But it's not so bad, right? This year: another Scrabble tournament, a toddler who keeps us on our toes, and many, many visits to the mall. And, as I said to Steve earlier this evening as he was bemoaning the onset of the dark times, after December 21, the days start getting longer again--and if the first day of the return to Central Standard Time is sweet, that first day of Central Daylight Time is ten times sweeter.

last year, this year.
this year is way more fun.

Let me just tell you about a few of the things I've been eating of late. The squash theme, incidentally, is because our CSA has been delivering them, so I've been eating them. Shockingly, I decided I like them!!!

1. Pumpkin bread (made with acorn squash) based on this recipe. Big hit at Grandma's. I sprinkle turbinado sugar on top and do all the healthy mods (less sugar, 3/4s of oil replaced with unsweetened applesauce, 1/2 whole wheat flour) except I leave all the eggs, yolks and all.

2. Acorn squash chili

3. These pumpkin seeds (um, made with acorn squash seeds)

4. Some kind of incredible pumpkin-cheesecake muffin Krista made and brought to work for me

5. Butternut squash soup made with this incredible stuff (I used 4 cups of stock instead of 6). Honestly, that better-than-bouillon stuff deserves that five-star rating.

6. Take-and-bake rolls from New French Bakery, purchased at the St. Paul Farmer's Market

7. Amazing Greek hummus from Holy Land (purchased at Cub)

So why am I currently eating a freaking lean cuisine that's been in the freezer for six months?

So, Mercury is in retrograde! And is it ever. My computer at work has been a pain, I hit myself in the face with the car door the other day, traffic has been awful, and many more instances that just PROVE IT.

I just wrote the worst sonnet ever, too, which I can't really blame on Mercury.

Here's the thing. I have always resisted form, thinking it was too restrictive. I'm sure I made my first year studies poetry professor insane, with my inanity. I loved free verse, no capital letters, formatting all over the place, ridiculous things

l
i
k
e

t
h
i
s

like I was freaking e. e. cummings or something. Good lord! That was freshman year and I think I can be forgiven. And in following years I did cool it a bit with that crap. In fact, in college I wrote a few poems I'm actually really proud of. In free verse.

Anyway, long story short, I am digging form these days. It might have started when I read a poem by a friend that was a ghazal or villainelle or something (can't remember) and I was so impressed by it. And then I remembered another friend's crown of sonnets from freshman year (SOME of us weren't writing crap). And then I wrote a ghazal. And I freaking loved it!

So then I decided I wanted to write a crown of sonnets myself. I even came up with the perfect first and last line! But I couldn't get anywhere with it. So tonight, on my Writing Night, I decided that my task should be to simply write one sonnet, to hell with it. It would suck, undoubtedly, but at least I'd do it.

So, here it is, in all its glory. It does not, btw, count as one of the five poems I'm supposed to write this year.

Don't make fun!


CRAP SONNET

Trying to write a sonnet, I compose
lines about tomatoes, babies, hearts
none of which are right. Even when I pose,
trying to look a poet, fill the part,
apparently even my best rhymes fall flat.
It’s like walking fast through mud or water.
In other words, spinning deep into fat
silence: nothing comes out. Soldiers, daughters,
Paris, cobblestones, nighttime—all of my
best topics, empty, my keyboard ringing.
I’d pay good money for fingers to fly.
I’d trade sleep, go without food, if bringing
my slick laptop to Dunn Brothers Coffee
would breathe life in poems where it ought to be.



LOLZ, right? Ah well. It's a start, and that's the point. A little exercise. And now, having written that sonnet, a crappy free verse poem, and added four poems to my novel in verse (I KNOW!), I shall pack up my belongings and head home. Luckily, they gave me a to-go cup this time, so I don't have to worry about embarrassing myself in front of half of Minneapolis tonight.

Well, hello!

Guess what I'm doing? I'm at Dunn Bros. on Lake Street all by myself! Listening to music and drinking a latte the size of my head.

This was my first writing night. I decided that in order to appreciate my time with Sam more fully, I should have a bit of time away from him that isn't either spent in traffic or at my desk. So. Here I am.

I had this grand plan of course, to write a prize-winning poem. Didn't happen. I reorganized my itunes, spent some time on facebook, and dug through my old emails for poems I wrote in 2005-2007. Not a lot there, and almost nothing worth even glancing at twice.

Anyway. So that was my night, and then I remembered I had a blog.

So much has happened since I last updated, it's kind of overwhelming. Suffice to say we're doing just fine. Sam is cute as ever, Steve is wonderful as ever, work is as busy as ever, and I'm short as ever. LOLZ! Just kidding. I mean, I am, but--oh, never mind. I'm fine, is what I'm saying.

My recent obsessions have included Little Women, The Rural Alberta Advantage, "The Queen and the Soldier," and thinking about quilt-making. Oh, and baking muffins. And eggplant.

In case you were wondering.

(Okay, i guess I never posted this last night, which allows me to add that as I was leaving Dunn Bros., feeling young and creative and interesting, my huge bag hit the dirty-dishes tray, knocking it over and breaking the contents, and I blushed my way out the door. Great.)

A year of Sam

Sam, one day old.

Sam, six months old.

Sam, one year old.

The apple of our eye.

I thought it would begin with water breaking. I prepared for it like the books said to: Take walks. Rest. Pack a bag with a robe, lollipops, shampoo. Arrange for the dog to be fed. Read about nursing holds. Stock the nursery with diapers, wash the tiny clothes and fold them into drawers. Stack blankets. Bring the carseat to be inspected—wait in the parking lot as the woman stuffs foam under the plastic to make the levels match up. Nest. Knit. Wait. Then eat eggplant, spicy food, do lunges to bring the baby down. I was ready. The bag and a yellow-cased pillow waited. We waited. I breathlessly timed Braxton-Hicks contractions—one night they were regular, every ten minutes, and I thought Maybe this is it. But it wasn’t. The tightened tummy, the squeeze—that was just a shadow. In the middle of the night on August 19th, I woke up. My stomach hurt—bad. I thought about dinner. I’d had a chicken salad sandwich, eaten in the car on the way to childbirth class. A decaf coffee with cream and Equal, during class. Then I’d had my gestational diabetes-necessitated snack before bed: An english muffin, spread with peanut butter; a glass of milk. Had the milk spoiled? Had the chicken salad turned? A few minutes later, another burst of pain, a tightened tummy, and I knew.

The books tell you to walk around, drink water—if the contractions continue, it’s real. It was 3:30. I got up and went into the kitchen. In the dark, I poured myself a glass of water, and drank it in a few gulps. I stood, looking out the back door. The lights in the friary turned on and off. I timed contractions. I swayed back and forth. I drank more water. After an hour, I decided to wake up Steve.

For the uninitiated, it’s not like you see in the movies. You don’t wake in the night, whisper “It’s time!” to your sleeping husband, who then goes into a panic and puts the hospital bag in the front seat and tries to load you into the trunk and drive in his pajamas, and finally, meet your doctor at the door to the hospital. No. Instead, you labor at home, heading to the hospital only when you’ve been cleared to, wondering the whole time if it’s real or if it’ll stop. Balancing the pain of contractions and the distance to the hospital against the chances you’ll be sent home, told to lie down, eyes rolling behind you as you close the door to the labor ward. Sitting on the birth ball, watching TV, pacing the house, hugging the dog—I don’t have much memory of what we did that morning. I know we went for a walk, which took forever because I had to keep stopping to have contractions, which Steve would note on a small piece of paper he was carrying around. I think I must have eaten something, but I can’t imagine what. I know I called my boss and left a message saying I was having contractions and would be working from home—though I quickly realized I wouldn’t actually be doing any work. I called my carpool buddy and told her she was on her own for the day. I emailed my sister and told her the situation so that she could take care of Harry if need be. Steve played Warcraft with one hand and timed my contractions with the other. I took a couple of showers. As the contractions got more painful and longer and closer together, I decided I should call the doctor. My doctor wasn’t on call, so the one who was told me that I could take my time, come in when I was ready. Steve wanted to leave immediately, but my contractions were only 45 seconds long or so and 4 or 5 minutes apart. I wanted to wait. After an hour or so, I could wait no more, so we loaded up the car, walked the dog, and headed off. I had a contraction as the car drove away, and then—nothing. It stopped. It was over. Halfway to the hospital, faced by the thought of the L&D nurses laughing at my obvious lack of labor, I begged Steve to turn the car around and take us home.

At home again, I took a short nap, and I think I had one or two little contractions. I had a doctor’s appointment at 1—my usual weekly appointment, with the gestational diabetes extra of an ultrasound and nonstress test to make sure the baby was behaving properly. He was, of course. During the nonstress test I started having a few contractions again, and for the first time was able to watch the line go up and down on the monitor. And then it was time to meet with my doctor. I told her about the contractions, she told me about prodromal labor—which makes me think of an elephant—and said it could go on for days. A week. For weeks, I hadn’t been showing any signs of progression. Each week, she would tell me the baby was as far up and in as he’d ever be. I spent 32 weeks of my pregnancy praying the baby would stay in, and it seemed my prayers had worked. We’d even had to book a labor induction for my due date, because of the gestational diabetes. I had resigned myself to machines and drugs and probably a C-section. Instead, on the table, she told me I was dilated to one--”no, three!”--centimeters. Then she deftly performed this strange little technique known as membrane stripping, meant to speed the onset of labor. “Things will ramp up now,” she said. “I bet I’ll see you back here soon.” And in the bathroom on the way out, I saw the first small drops of blood.

We talked about dinner. We went to Target, thinking walking would help get things going, and it was too hot to walk outside. We ordered decaf iced Americanos and walked around, but suddenly the contractions did ramp up, and I didn’t want to be seen. Aren’t there some animals who hide when it comes time to birth their young? I felt like that while we walked out into the blazing hot sun.

This is where I stop remembering what happened. More of what we’d done that morning, I suppose. More timing of contractions. I tried to eat but couldn’t. I tried to knit but couldn’t. I called the doctor, and had a mini panic attack that made me miss a contraction. But she said I could head in when I was ready. I think, left to my own devices, I wouldn’t have ever decided I was ready. But finally, Steve said, “Honey, I think we should go.”

Steve says he knew it was time to take me to the hospital because something changed. I went deep into myself during contractions. I breathed in through the nose and pushed the air through my mouth, controlled, hard. We left the house around 8 p.m. I remember the drive, or parts of it—I remember being at a stoplight, Steve trying to write down the time of the contraction on his scrap of paper, trying to time it before the light changed, and I laughed and told him to stop worrying about it, just drive—as if they would turn us away without proper documentation. I remember being on the bridge over the Mississippi, looking up through the hazy August evening at the sun, haloed in the sky, thinking My son will be born tonight. I remember pressing hard against the door handle as I blew air through my mouth. I remember, inexplicably, exactly how everything looked as we turned not right into the ramp where we’d parked for our classes, but left into the ramp near the emergency room.

I was sort of embarrassed to walk into the hospital. People would know I was in labor—how could they not, a very pregnant young woman stopping every fifteen feet and clenching together, her husband glowing nervously and holding her hands. In the hallway, I pulled Steve into an empty doorway and put my hands on his shoulders, to hang down and contract. A doctor walked by and, I found out later, winked at Steve. We headed up to the room where they evaluate you, decide if you’re actually in labor. They strapped a monitor to my stomach, and Steve saw on the screen that it was flashing ADMIT! ADMIT! So we decided that was a good sign. I had also dilated more, to 4 or 5 centimeters. One of the things I remember most clearly about this part was feeling happy, excited. Steve holding my hand. Not being scared, at least yet, or in so much pain that I couldn’t handle it. I remember trying to make the nurse laugh. I remember working hard to not feel embarrassed about my body as these strangers worked around it. And then my nurse was there, introducing herself--her name was Diane and she smoked and had long fingernails and I loved her--and I was wearing a hospital gown and robe, and the nurse was leading us to our delivery room.

While Steve went outside to get our bag and call our parents, I had an IV put in my arm. I had tested positive for Group B Strep a few weeks earlier, which apparently a ton of women have and can be passed to the baby during delivery. So I had to have a continual drip of antibiotics during labor. I was glad Steve missed the insertion of the IV, because it was gory. The nurse and I discussed what I wanted to do about pain medication. I'd thought about it quite a bit, of course, and had basically decided that while I wanted a med-free birth, I wasn't opposed to pain relief if I needed it. She told me I had amazing control over my contractions, which was about the nicest thing I'd heard all day.

My memory gets fuzzy. Steve came back to the room, having called our parents (my dad said "Steve who?") and Ellen, who was going to take care of Harry. We walked around; I didn't want to go out into the hall because I didn't like people seeing me having contractions (this would change). So we paced around in the room, dragging the monitors along with us. Steve had to come into the bathroom with me when I peed, which was marginally embarrassing (we're not that kind of couple). We watched TV--the fried turkey episode of Good Eats, and then I insisted we turn off the TV when a really annoying show came on.

Then I don't know what happened. Time gets so loose. There was a clock near the bed, and I watched it. I had terrible back labor, so the nurse helped me position myself in a way that might help the baby rotate. We waited. She asked how I was doing, pain-wise, and when I said I was thinking I might want something, she said she'd measure me at 11 and see how I was doing. At 11 I was dilated to 7 centimeters. Diane told me that the hardest part was over, that getting from 4 to 7 was the toughest part, that I could make it through. So I decided to try. She also told me that she could feel that there was hair on the baby's head.

My contractions were coming closer and closer together. They were incredibly painful. I don't remember the pain at all, just like they say. I remember dilating further and further, shaking, being cold, Steve helping me to the bathroom, the nurse coming in and out, realizing at one point that the shift must have changed but she stayed on. At around midnight she called Dr. Baker (my doctor wasn't on call). She said she'd break my water, but then the doctor told her to wait until she got there. I remember asking exactly how long it would take for Dr. Baker to get to Southdale, and when she said half an hour, focusing very closely on the clock. It was midnight. Dr. Baker would be there at 12:30. I could do it.

Thank God, she did show up at 12:30. She broke my water--the second-most amazing feeling I'd ever felt. I didn't realize how much pressure there had been. But I had been almost to 10 centimeters, and once the pressure was gone, I went back down to 8 or something. I had never been so upset. I was so disappointed, so sad. We kept at it, contracting, watching. At some point during a horrible contraction Steve told me I was almost at the peak--he could tell from watching the monitor--and I almost killed him, I couldn't believe there was still a peak, that the pain could be worse. It was without a doubt the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. There were pauses in it, but they were tense, transitory.

Finally something happened. I could feel my body wanting to push. I tried so hard to not push, even as we told Diane that I needed to. I didn't have a choice--my whole body was squeezing downward, pushing, holding. Some other people--who? how many? I don't know--filed in, readied the bed, set everything up. Steve was on my left, Diane was on my right, and I let my body push.

I'm sure it must have been painful, but it was wonderful, too. Finally I could do something worth doing. It took me a contraction or two to get the timing right--the breath-holding, the body, working together. I pushed so hard I broke the blood vessels in my face and shoulders, making it look like I'd been freckled. A nurse told Steve that if he looked, he could see the head, and he says I made an amazed face--we were so close, the baby was touchable, I was doing it.

Then the doctor must have come in, but I don't remember it. I know they were all a little surprised at how fast he was coming.

I pushed and pushed.

My memory of Sam's head escaping my body puts me at least five or six feet away, which obviously isn't right. When his head came out, there was a flurry of activity: the cord was wrapped around his neck. They told Steve he wouldn't be able to cut the cord. Someone handed Dr. Baker something sharp--this, I can see, the passing of the implement--and she cut the cord. I don't remember if he cried. I kept pushing and suddenly, at 1:43 a.m. on August 20, 2008, in a burst of warmth and emptiness and water, Sam's tiny body left my body and they placed him on my stomach, and everything is holy now.

When You Reach Me: 4.5 stars
Oryx and Crake: 5 stars (reread, because her new book is a sequel)
Suite Scarlett: 4 stars
Dangerous Angels: 4.5 stars
Shiver: 5 stars

My reading time is tapering down as Sam is being introduced to cow's milk. Sad!!! Luckily, I'm not bothering with crappy books.

Fade: 4 stars
Clementine: 6 stars (yes!)
Along for the Ride (actually read this a while ago but forgot): 4 stars
Honey, baby, sweetheart: 4.5 stars
Bermudez Triangle: 3.75 stars (that score is for you, Emily, but I mean it)
Peace Like a River (re-read): 4 stars (downgraded!)

I've been on a roll of good ones!

Am now reading SHIVER. Did you know the author was discovered by Steve's editor? True story. And now she's a NYTimes bestseller (will debut at number 9 this week). Mmmhmm!

And I'm also reading DANGEROUS ANGELS. Which I bought when I was seventeen, didn't get into, and abandoned, but am now loving. See, it pays to never weed your book collection.

Hey, I wrote a poem! Yep. I believe that's two this year, and what's my goal? Four? Five? I can maybe do that.

Let's see. What else? Today we went to Ikea. Twice. The first time was an IkeaFAIL (or...maybe a BethFAIL or a WifeFAIL) of epic proportions. The do-over, after home/Sam bath, was much much better. We bought: a high chair, some dishes, swedish meatballs, kids mixed veggies, chicken fingers, almond cake, chocolate overload cake, coffees. That's on both trips, if you're curious.

Sam is teething so bad. I feel terrible for him. In the car he kept throwing his various chew toys into a place where I couldn't reach them (that sounds like a euphemism but isn't) so finally in a fit of desperation I let him knaw on my finger. Okay, okay, I kind of liked it--it reminded me of when he was a baby and he'd suck on our fingers. Wow, I just noticed (knoticed) that I spelled "gnaw" with a k. Wow. Anyway, the poor little guy. Hopefully teeth in the morning, though we're not holding our breath.

I meant to get into bed two hours ago to read, but I got sucked into the internet. Whoops!

I think I'm missing a few here--kind of lost track of what I was reading for a while.

City of Ashes - 3 stars
City of Glass - 2.5 stars
Beloved - 6 stars, obviously (really, almost TOO good)
Song of Solomon - 6 stars, obviously
Dying to Meet You - 3 stars
Also Known as Harper - 3.5 stars
Operation Yes - 4 stars
Crashed - 3 stars

I could use some recommendations, if you have any. I specifically would like a long, contemporary-ish, incredibly well-written book by an author who has written many other books so that I have a lot of backlist to read. Go. :)

Hello!

Yes, it's 11:30 and I'm still awake! Well. Let me tell you why. Last night, we went to a potluck hosted by my coworker Krista for the editorial department. It was fun--lots of babies and awesome food. And Steve got to see a kid actually in the process of reading one of his books. (I brought the delicious Smitten Kitchen buttermilk raspberry/blueberry cake, if you're interested.) Anyway, when we got home, I got into bed to read and fell asleep at like 8:45. Mmhmm. Slept right through what was apparently the best thunderstorm of the season. Depressing! But then at like 3 a.m. I woke up and Could. Not. Sleep. It sucked! I guess I'm just so used to only getting six hours of sleep a night, or something? So I tossed and turned for a while, then sucked it up and got out of bed. I have a major organizational project going on (currently mostly still in the spreadsheet stage) so I did some "research" (read: online shopping) for that for a while, read a bunch of blogs, etc. Then finally around 5, Sam woke up to eat, so once I fed him I got back into bed and finally slept for a while. Steve was kind enough to get up and deal with breakfast and all that, and I slept till 9-ish.

Anyway, then I took a killer nap around 2-5, so that's why I'm still awake!

We went to Ikea tonight. It was fun, and also very successful in terms of feeding Sam off a restaurant menu (such as it is). We've ordered off menus for him before, but the portions either didn't work, or the product was just too grown-up (spicy, or messy, or whatever). So oftentimes he just ends up eating our fries, which is cute but not exactly building healthy nutritional habits. Anyway, he had two or three of my meatballs, plus a bunch of steamed vegetables. Yay for Ikea for providing good options for kids, by the way--for 99 cents each or 2.49 for three, you get applesauce, milk, veggies, meatballs, chicken fingers, yogurt, juice, mac and cheese, etc. Plus they have bottle warmers, disposable bibs, tons of high chairs, and a little kids area once they're big enough. Plus they have swedish meatballs, obvs, so it's perfect for mom and dad too.

We bought: a toybox, a nightstand, a garbage can, some dish towels, some storage containers. And at Target earlier today, we bought under-bed storage totes. My plan is working! (cue evil laugh).

I guess we've both been down in the dumps of late about our house--now don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my house. And if we were still a family of two-plus-dog, it would be just perfect. In fact, when we were, there were areas that were under-used. Now, though, it seems we have to cram way too much living into such a small space. The location of Sam's room at the base of the attic stairs means that the attic is largely unusable (though that might change once the temperature gets better up there this fall). So we're kind of packed onto the bottom floor. Because of the economy, and our unwillingness to take on the huge project of trying to sell our house, we know we'll be here for at least another year. Rather than be miserable, I'm trying hard to figure out ways to minimize our current pain points and make the house feel more comfortable. I've been reading a lot of uncluttering/simple living blogs, and trying to take note of what areas in the house stress me out. I'm very affected by my environment, I guess. Maybe everybody is. But I care--a lot--how the house looks and feels, and when it looks and feels crowded and cluttered, I feel like crap. Which is kind of weird if you ever dared to enter my teenage/early-twenties bedrooms. No wonder those years were so difficult for me!

So that's the huge organization project. I have a big old spreadsheet, breaking down the tasks. There are about 40 parts of the project, ranging from weeding our bookshelves to adding some childproofing to hemming some curtains. I think projects become much easier to do once you've broken them down. Or maybe I just really like using Excel...

I guess the thing is, I think I have too much stuff. Man, I am really turning into my dad. But seriously. I look around the living room, where I am right now, and I could probably list 20 things in here that I really don't need or haven't used in a year. The basement is positively stuffed wtih knickknacks/memorabilia/crap. My sewing nook spills into the hallway in the attic, and I haven't sewn a thing in a year. It's so hard to get rid of anything, because I think "Oh, but what if we NEED a green toss pillow in a future house?" So I either have to accept that, and figure out a way to live with it (an immense system of storage tubs and shelving in the basement!) or get over it (garage sale!) or ignore it (status quo--and go insane!). I've chosen to work with the first two options. We'll see how it goes.

In Sam news, he is perfect and precious and adorable. I am working on a long post for his birthday, so there's something to get you through the nights. I leave you with this video, which I'm sure you've seen if you're my Facebook friend, but if not: Sam, Harry, and meatballs.

Okay, let's face it, I'm a bad blogger.

Really I've just been kind of avoiding it because life has been so routine lately--get up, feed Sam, work, play with Sam, feed Sam, go for a walk, put Sam to bed, hang out with Steve, go to sleep. Repeat until the weekend, and then replace "work" with "go to the farmer's market."

I'm starting to feel like I'm drifting, which isn't entirely pleasant or unpleasant and says more about me than anything else--I think I need to take a class, or something. I was lookign at the St. Paul community ed classes--considering sewing, pottery, stained-glass. Thinking about a poetry class at the Loft. A quilting class at Treadle.

Sam is in an odd phase, which adds to the strange feeling I've had of late. He's teething, as usual, and seems really frustrated a lot of the time. Which makes sense; if I couldn't walk or talk I'd feel frustrated too. He has actual wants now, which sometimes conflict with what his mother is doing (changing a diaper, taking him out of the tub) and instead of being able to say "I want to play in the tub more" he just screams. Which makes me feel like he hates me (and yes I know that's ridiculous; he's a baby, he loves me, etc.).

Anyway.

A milestone last night: Sam was put to bed by someone other than one of his parents. We went to Chino Latino for Val's birthday dinner, and Aunt Ellen babysat, and when we got home, he'd been sleeping for almost an hour. Perhaps not coincidentally, this morning he woke up to eat at 5:30 and then slept later than he has in months--past 8.

I just read Steve's latest novel. Or the part of it that's written, anyway. He kept looking at me nervously while I was reading. I'm a book editor, and my learning style is by writing things down, so I had to make a bunch of comments in the margins. Which made him a little freaked out. But I thought it was beautiful. And it REALLY made me miss living in Greenpoint (the book takes place there).

We've been loving the CSA lately (or at least I have). This week we got onions, zucchini, yellow squash, crookneck squash, and three kinds of potatoes. Tonight, much of it was formed into a zucchini-onion-summer squash-potato gratin, with a delicious cheddar-and-swiss sauce made by Steve. We had it with salad, and it was sooo good.

Today is my mom's birthday. It was a seriously intense birthday week--two coworkers had birthdays and there was cake, D'Amico, brownies, and the Indian Buffet. And Val's birthday.

I'm obviously off my blogging game so will leave you with that. More later, maybe.

oh and YAMS1 - 5 stars (and famous authors agree with me!)

before I forget:

SKINNED: 3.5 stars
CITY OF BONES: 3 stars
WAKE: 4.5 stars
RATS SAW GOD: 3.75 stars (this system is very precise, as you can see)

I'm only blogging now because it seems like the kind of thing that once you start doing it, everyone wakes up from their naps and you don't have time to blog anymore.

We're back from New York, obviously. It was good. I HAVE A CUTE NEPHEW. I did some shopping, we indulged in way too much eating, and I was able to see Mike, Tawni, Rachel, Shaun, and Jordan, as well as multiple family members. Sam and Jaden enjoyed playing with all the toys Grandma Geri borrowed from friends.


Then we came home, and it was so good to touch down at the airport and come home to our slightly doggish house. Harry had a great time at Downtown Dogs--he's still sleeping it off.

The best part of my eleven days off was spending so much time with Sam and Steve. Steve and I even went out for dinner sans baby while we were in New York. And we had a blast getting lost various ways as we traveled to and from New Jersey to see S&R.

What else. Well! I got a new computer, which I am using as we speak! It's a HP Pavilion something or other. I wanted a mac, but they're too expensive, and for less than the price of a refurbished macbook with very little of anything, I got a pretty good laptop with lots of cool features. So that was fun.

I knew it would work. Sam's stirring. More later. Oh, and by the way, Steve woke me up this morning screaming because there was a moth stuck in his ear. Can you even imagine?

So today is day 2 of my 11-day vacation. So far, I've taken two naps, had my favorite meal twice, made three ice cube trays worth of baby food, and walked a total of about 6 miles. Pretty sweet.

We're off to New York on Tuesday. I'm really nervous about the flight; we've flown with Sam before, but never when he was so...aware of things. Hopefully he'll sleep, or at least be content to be held for two hours. Cross your fingers for me.

We already have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday pretty much booked. And on Friday, Danny and Raana and Jaden arrive so really, the whole trip is practically planned. I'm excited to see Rach and Shaun and Kristin and meet my first nephew for the first time. And also, to shop. Sorry, but it's true. We're looking forward to pastrami, to Eddie's pizza, to Aunt Judy's smorgasbord. Sam is looking forward to seeing his grandma and trying pizza for the first time.

This trip is going to be one of the most difficult, I think, because Sam is still taking 2 naps a day and eating every 3 hours or so. Plus he refuses to be nursed in public--the world is far too interesting. So we'll be taking short trips into the city and mostly hanging out on the island. Maybe by the next trip he'll be down to one nap a day and it'll be easier to do things. (Of course, by then he might be walking.)


Book reviews:
Catching Fire - 3.5 stars
13 Reasons Why - 2 stars
Alias Grace - 4.5 stars
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian: 4 stars
Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat - 4.5 stars

Abandoned:
Soulless
Tombstone Tea

Oh, hello there!

Yeah, it's been a while. Sorry.

Today we went to the children's museum! Sam played in the Habitot and only cried once or twice. He and a little girl fought over some eggs. He went up some steps. A boy named Jaden threw some blocks at him. GOOD TIMES! No, but it was. Plus, it was free today! Yay!

It's Father's Day! Right now, the father in question is taking a nap, since the baby in question has been getting up at five freaking o'clock every. single. morning. I was able to get him to take a little nap with me today (does it count as a nap if it begins before 7 a.m.?) but Steve couldn't sleep. I don't know what's up with the awful sleep of late (and I know I shouldn't complain since he's slept through the night every night since he was 7 weeks old with maybe three exceptions). Teething? Compulsion to stand? The heat? I don't know; whatever it is, I wish it'd stop.

Yesterday, since we were up at 5, we went for a long walk in the morning before it got too hot out. It was so nice. The neighborhood was very quiet and we got coffees and walked all over and Sam got to go on the swings at the park. Then Sam and I went out to get Steve's father's day presents and Steve went out to work. We were going to go to the children's museum yesterday, but when we arrived at 4:20 we learned that it closed at 5. So we went to the grocery store instead. FUN! Then I made lentil soup (it's one of Sam's favorite meals) and we had salad with our CSA lettuce and I passed out while Steve and I were watching an episode of MST3k.

I just looked at the clock and was SHOCKED that it's only 11:42. I used to have to set an alarm for a 3:30 class. PM. Oh well; I like being a morning person. (Maybe not quite as enthusiastically as I did when Sam was waking up at 6.)

Now I will drink a gallon of water and wait for my guys to wake up so we can have lunch.

I am lucky to have wonderful grandfathers, an amazing dad, and the best husband in the entire world. Yay for fathers.


ASH - 3.5 stars
CRASH INTO ME - 3 stars
THE GRAVEYARD BOOK - 4.5 stars
BEAUTIFUL CREATURES - 2 stars
EYES LIKE STARS - 5 stars
SPEAK - 4 stars
THE HUNGER GAMES - 5 stars
FEELING SORRY FOR CELIA - 5 stars

LIAR (forthcoming this fall): 4.5 stars. The unreliable narrator in this book really got to me. I couldn't stop thinking about the book when I put it down. (Also, bonus points: I emailed the author with a question and she totally wrote back this long, not condescending response.)

KARMA FOR BEGINNERS (forthcoming this summer?): 3 stars. I'm kind of over this whole living-in-a-cult thing. But I did enjoy this book; just not enough to want to reread it. And maybe it's because I work for a school/library publisher but man, there is a lot of drugs and sex in this book (purportedly for 13-yr-olds and up).

KING DORK: 4.5 stars. Really funny; I loved the voice. Too much music stuff for my taste and the plot fell apart a bit at the end (though that might have been because I was rushing to finish it before bed).


While we're talking about books, are you people reading my work blog? I'm trying to drum up more hits, so if you don't mind, please mosey over once in a while if you think of it.

Do you think everyone carries inside them the secret belief-hope that they'll one day be a kid again?

I was just hit with this wave of that feeling, reading my dad's report of his recent trip to the boundary waters (here). In one of the posts he says they had chicken for supper, and I heard the word supper in my dad's voice, was pulled back to a memory of the way my house smelled growing up when it was almost time for supper.

I have spent a lot of my life feeling bad about who I was when I was a kid, and not enough time cherishing the memories of my child-self and my child-self's life. The good parts outweigh the bad (and always have, if you're careful to look). For example the way the loon call sounded from Lake Onamia on a hot summer night over the whirr of the fan. The fan is whirring now, here, in my grown-up house, where we're starting to build little memories for Sam.

I think childhood must be the point of life (besides the whole continuing-the-species thing). Sam sits in front of the French doors onto our bedroom and swings the curtain back and forth, wide-eyed. He crawls from one rug to another and lifts up the corners in awe. He squeals with delight when a cat walks onto the lawn. Being pushed on a swing is the most wonderful experience there is. Watching Sam experience childhood (I know he's still a baby, but he hardly seems so anymore) is the biggest blessing I have ever experienced, in a life that has been nearly candy-coated, it's so sweet.

Say you had a friend. Well, not a friend exactly. An acquaintance. A distant relative. Yes. Say that distant relative visited you on a fairly regular basis beginning when you were twelve or so. Not a particularly pleasant visit; certainly not the kind of visit you looked forward to or anticipated happily. The visitor came into your house. Glanced around haughtily. Made you feel plump in your clothes, almost like your skin had grown a bit too tight. Said things—quietly, always under her breath—that made you feel crabby and angry and more likely to cry. Punched you right in the gut sometimes and kept you up at night by hurting you. Say there was nothing you could do about these visits, not really—you could try to make them a little easier, by not eating as much salt (which wouldn’t make the visit go away, but might help with that tight-skin problem). You could take Advil. Say the visits went on for fifteen years. Or so. Approximately. And then say the visits just stopped. No visits. Other discomforts, visits from other acquaintances and distant relatives and actual friends and actual enemies, but no more visits from this particular crotchety relative. After a while, you’d forget about her; think she’d forgotten you. Other people—because many people have a very similar distant relative—might tell you that when the visits resumed, they wouldn’t be as bad. You might prefer to think the visits would never resume. Surely that must happen sometimes—the relative just forgets to ever come back. Right? Well. When that visitor does return, would you be glad? Would you say, “Oh, finally, old friend! You’re back where you belong! The world tilts just right on its axis!” No. You would not. You would whine about it to your husband and feel quite pissed off that your respite had been so brief. “Eighteen months?” you would grumble. “That’s it? I bring a life into the world and that’s the only break I get?”

The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie: 4 stars. I devoured it in one night but it didn't GRAB me like Jaclyn Moriarty's other books have. That's okay.

The Year of Secret Assignments: 5 stars. Oh! I was so glad when Emily found this one on deep discount at Half-Price Books. And it was so, so good! I can't wait to find J.M.'s last book (and apparently she has another one coming out soonish...yay!)

The Blind Assassin: 5 stars. This has been sitting on my shelf for like five years and I finally cracked it open because I didn't have anything else to read. And I loved it! For a while I was like, "Um, what is the point of this?" but then it got REALLY GOOD.

I feel like I'm forgetting one or two...hmm.

red lentil soup

for posterity, so i can make it again. based on this one and this one.

10 cups chicken broth (1 big can, two small cans) (could use vegetable broth--maybe would need more salt)
2 1/2 cups split red lentils
1-2 T. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 T. cumin
1/2 T. coriander
juice from 1/2 lemon
oregano, salt, pepper, to taste

wash and drain lentils, add to broth, bring to boil then lower to simmer, half-covered
cook until pretty thick (30 mins?), stirring sometimes
meanwhile: in small saute pan heat olive oil. add mixture of garlic, cumin, coriander, cook at fairly high heat for about 30 seconds, stirring constantly. add to soup.
add a bit of salt, fresh ground pepper, dried oregano
continue to cook while feeding baby, doing dishes, sitting around
just before serving, add juice from 1/2 lemon
serve with warm whole wheat pita

I am so bored right now. Steve's sleeping. Sam's sleeping. Harry's sleeping. I already read everything on the internet and ate lunch. I can't go anywhere, because I want Steve to be able to sleep if Sam wakes up. The TV is in the room where Steve's sleeping. The other one is upstairs, and to get there you have to go through Sam's room. I don't feel like knitting. Maybe I'll just go eat worms. GRUMP!