Note about postings

Please page down a bit because I realeased some photos and posts that had been in my "drafts" folder. Apparently, they post at the time when you first wrote them as opposed to when you actually published them.

Everyone's A Cynic

So either I am a dark person in a dark place or the last few days of my existance has been fodder for this post. It will make you feel jaded; here are two things I have experienced in the past two days that make me want to vomit.

1) That CNN debate. Seriously? Who didn't even show up to that debate? I am voting for them. When the number of videos on YouTube of animals doing tricks vastly outnumbers anyone posting anything with a thought behind it you end up with a debate that should have been intercut with America's Funniest Home Videos clips. All the questions should have been, "Is my dog funnier when he does this, or this?" All the millions of crazy questions they could have gotten and they chose the same eight boring questions. Putting a face on it doesn't matter. These candidates don't care. You could be talking to them with a bloody stump and asking why, if you have a graduate degree that cost more than your house, do you still have to pay into your healthcare plan?

2) I overheard a man at lunch yesterday trying his damndest to convince his wife that, for tax purposes, they should place all of their assests into his name only. HE WANTS TO DIVORCE YOU AND TAKE YOUR MONEY! To all my girlfriends everywhere, get a post-nup. They exist, they work, and statistically speaking you are more likely to sacrifice your career and your income for your family, that is, if your husband wasn't making more than you to begin with. So make him pay upfront. Besides, once you have it writing that he will pay you bucketloads of spousal support you'll find out how he really feels about you cutting back to part-time.

i am sure that someone, somewhere can put a positive spin on these situations, but that person in not me.

Hello, I'm Your Mother And I will Be Your Cruise Director Today

So this week is one of those weeks where I have Olivia programmed from the minute she wakes up to the minute she goes to bed. In my defense, the kid has so much energy if I don't channel it constructively I am left with a child jumping up and down continuously screaming the happy birthday song at the top of her lungs. However, by about Wednesday you do start to fell like a cruise director. So I wonder if this is like every bride thinks she can be a wedding planner, every mother thinks she could be an activities director? Note Olivia's flamenco dancing, she even has the skirt hitch down (up?). It was a little unnerving to watch actually. Not only her ridiculously spot-on rhythm, but how far is it from flamenco to stripper, really? i just kept thinking, "Oh my God, i am watching a scene from the director's cut of Showgirls!" She's a dancer, not a stripper!

Detox

So I am finally back from my mom's and I have sufficently rested enough to post about something other than Harry Potter. Why is my mom's so exhausting? I share a double bed with my daughter, my mother has three cats and is a pack a day smoker so my allergies are basically debilitating and just for fun on this trip Olivia did a kamikazee dive from the bed and used my neck to break her fall. Couldn't move that for quite a few days. Oh, and my mom doen't believe that it is good for you unless it comes out of a box and is covered in salt. I love my family sooo much, which is why I continue to visit them frequently, however when my daughter comes home parrotting phrases like "Party like a rock star" and "I am going to come at you like a spider monkey" I need to go into detox so that my head doesn't explode in rage and frustration.

So Olivia and I have been eating all homemade foods, gardening and today we are going to play all day just the two of us. Did i mention how loud my mother's house is? Ugh, so loud. We are looking forward to Chad coming home tonight. We have only seen him for 48 hours in the last ten days so that is exciting and will greatly improve Olivia's mood which has been somewhere between despondant and surly for the past few days.

So after Chad's arrival tonight, preparations for the big 3-0 celebration begin and they will be detailed and extensive. If I am going to accept it, I am going to accept it with gusto. And by gusto I mean booze.

Don't Read This If You Don't Want To Know About Harry

I am exhausted. Olivia was still a baby that slept a lot when the last one came out and my family was less than cooperative in helping me get some peace and quiet so i skimped on sleep and now I want to sleep for a month. And he doesn't even die at the end. I wanted him to die, i thought that would have been an excellent resolution. Way more real than that crappy epilogue. I don't care if it is a children's book, no child is served with a crappy ending like that.

Getting my nerd on

I have my invitation to my midnight Harry Potter party and I have been assured that I will not be the only childless adult there. Not that I would really care. Seriously, if I could dress up I would. My sister offered to put in hair extentions so I could go as Hermione and, sadly, my hesitation was based solely on my sister getting at my hair.

I do love the Harry books, but mostly I love getting a weekend where I have an excuse to say "screw everyone else", until I finish this book I am not doing anything but what I want to do.

If you have not read the book by Monday, I promise that I will make advance warnings of spoilers, but that sucker will be read and I will be posting about it. I can't wait to take Olivia to the theme park. What I am doing posting, I could be a my parent's library making wands!

Pillow Talk Scene Two

Both watching inane Pepsi ad-



Liz: That is such crap, none of the countries or people in this ad have the money for, or access to, a Pepsi. If they did they would probably dump out the Pepsi and use the empty bottle to create a Molotov cocktail that they would launch at the nearest American interest.



Chad: I am way more concerned about that whale, no way would a whale do that in the wild. Maybe as part of a Sea World act? If someone threw him fish? Or is that just dolphins? No, whales are smarter than dolphins.

Liz: Are you crazy? Dolphins are smarter than you! We have like 900 chromosomes in common.

Chad does an eerily convincing dolphin, noise. I respond with something that sounds like an injured seal.

Chad: Screw pod casting we should have our own reality show, we are way funnier than Posh and Becks. Fuck them.

End scene.

Trading Places

Chad and I will be on hiatus for the next week because he is travelling to Rexburg to see his brother graduate from college. Olivia and I will be camping out near the airport at my mother's house. I may be able to post from my parents depending on whether or not my siblings have downloaded some kind of virus on my parents computer, or alternately have begun to wage WWIII with each other over whose turn it is to IM their friends about how much they hate the other. They tell me that this would not be a problem if my parents would stop acting like the Gestapo and let them have unlimited texting on their phones.

if only, if only. I guess this is where I should point out that my siblings are still teenagers and are not, like, 28 and still living with my parents. Though I am not ruling that out as a future possibility for these two.

Roughing it

So we pitched the tent and camped out in the yard for the first time on Saturday. The evening included all the pre-reqs, smores, sleeping bags, Claritin and goat cheese and asparagus pasta. We played cards, read books and I took one for the team and went to bed with Olivia at 8:30. At 5 AM I woke up to Olivia, butt up in the air, laying on the bare plastic all blankets and sleeping bag crumpled in the corner. So the best part for Olivia was sleeping right in the middle of Mommy and Daddy for three glorious hours. It almost made up for the fact that my back may never be the same and the huge bruise I have from being elbowed repeatedly and constantly for three hours.

I just want to dispel the rumors that, despite appearances in this camera angle, I am not not pregnant. Chad is that bald though. OHHH, I can see the comment now.

Olivia's Greatest Hits

Here's some recent shots from cavorting downtown. Olivia at the state capitol whose staff is wonderfully tolerant of Olivia's favorite activity which is staring at the domed ceiling and spinning. Which usually ends up with her on the ground like this. In case you are having trouble making out the tattoo it says READ.

I love to rub it in

We're the best again. Middleton, WI, which is where we lived when Olivia was born, has been named the No. 1 city to live in America. The building in the photo is actually the backside of our old apartment building and the place where I ate breakfast every Sunday and Monday for two years. While they talk about Madison's proximity they do gloss over the fact that housing prices in Middleton are considerbly higher, which is why we ended up buying in Madison. We did love living there, I sometimes even still drive through the old neighborhood, just to see what's new.

Harry Potter DIES

I have always wondered whether the whole Harry potter phenom was real and this article has confirmed my suspicions. Don't get me wrong, I love the books and have even gone to see all the movies. However, I have to believe that there were a LOT of adults out there that fell into the same trap that I did and bought six copies of those books for every kid I knew that I wished read more. None were ever opened by said children. Besides, you had to factor in the fact that tons of adults were reading these books too. I love to read, and did as a kid, however I find it hard to believe that there were kids out there who never read a book and now are reading 700 pages. I read 700 page books, hell, I read Gone With The Wind when I was twelve, but I read several hundred pages a day, every day, long before I read that.

Anyway, I saw the movie today and it was not bad. My mom, God love her, has already bought the new book for since I will be down at her house when it comes out. So don't expect to hear from me next weekend.

PS-What is this bullshit about how kids don't read because they have iPods and Wiis? We had Walkmans and Nintendo, same stuff, we still read. Even it was just comic books.

For The Plebes Without Blackberries

Give it a try. I can't even count how many times I have left myself messages on the answering machine from the car, or the doctor's waiting room, etc. Now they all go to my e-mail. So convenient! Though, I am sure this is cutting into my argument that I NEED an iPhone.

What I'm Loving Right Now

I know that I have been kind of phoning it in lately so I thought that I would show some personality and give you all some links to what I am loving right now.

This is one of my getTrio finds. I have very detailed fantasies about the day that I can have a mod, functional kitchen. For now I have to compromise with my resale-value -minded husband.

Corrine Bailey Rae. I know that she is very adult contemporary and is marketed by Starbucks specifically for me, but if you get past the super-sweet first couple of tracks and get to "Call Me When You Get This" you get a real love song. That head-over-heels first time you figure out that you love somebody love song. She leaves an elaborate declaration of love on her boyfriend's answering machine and finishes the message in true love-sick fashion, "Call me when you get this. . . "

Matt Damon. Thanks to the new Bourne movie, basic cable is re-running all the old Bourne movies. I loves me my thinking-girl action hero.

This dress. I am the laziest shopper EVER. I dread clothes shopping because I never have the time to try on the amount of clothes that you need to try on to find that diamond in the rough that is the item not designed for a flat-chested twelve year-old. So Nordstroms is a girl's dream come true. Generous return and exchange policies are a rare find in on-line shopping. I am being a smart cookie for once and buying all of my Fall/Holiday dresses for Chad's nine-million events now instead of adding to the list of my holiday stressors.

All right, I'll have to end the list there so that I can attend to my World Series of Pop Culture commitments.

If Just For A Moment

So I finally got my mini-break last night. The All-Star game was on which meant all fans big and small disappeared and all that was left of them was distant chants of "I-chi-ro!" So I was able to get 45 minutes in a lounge chair, just me and my book. I actually had to put on a light sweater because it is cooling off!!! it couldn't have been more perfect. I think I might have spent more time staring off into space than reading, but that was okay too.

So now I am on to the next horrible and tragic crisis on par with world hunger. I hate everything in my closet. I am literally bored of wearing my clothes. I usually get a few new things at the beginning of the summer, but somehow we blew past that this year. So now I have to fit that into the schedule somewhere for fear that i will finally give into my life-long fantasy of just never getting out of my pajamas, ever.

The End of An Era

Daimon got married over the weekend, at least that was the plan. The last of the boys has gotten all growed up. Congrats to him and his beautiful bride, you were in our thoughts this weekend and we can't wait to see you in December!

Learning to let go

So I had a terrible revelation yesterday when I was confronted with that friend who boldly and openly admitted that she did not clean her house. It was like the whole revealing your weight thing for me. You never admit that you don't clean!! It is like saying that you put your kid in front of Dora and read a magazine (which I am not admitting to). It is just not done. I fretted about it all day. It was all the stages of grief: 1) She's exaggerating, she has to clean 2) Who the hell does she think she is? 3) Finally, oh my god how many hours have i wasted cleaning my house? What have I done with my life?

So today I devised a new life plan which I revealed to my husband at a totally inappropriate time so my feedback consisted of, "Olivia toilet paper belongs only in the toilet!" Ironically, the new life plan has nothing in it about cutting back on housework. It may be a sickness. Perhaps I have dodged generations of addiction with a well scrubbed tub and too many candy bars.

What's the life plan? I think I still need to build up a little confidence before I go public, but I think that for most people who know me it was an inevitable plan.

Indian Princess

So now that all that is left of the weekend is the fight over bedtime, which is never fun, I can officially say that the most fun I had this weekend was raising my hand to be a volunteer at library story time yesterday. It was one of those generic "I need a volunteer" moments that turned into me getting to learn how to tie and wear a sari. Story hour was conducted by the author of this book and at the end all of the kids (and I) got to try on beautiful saris that the author brought with her. We learned a lot of about the history of saris, their geographic significance and how they are made. Olivia's big highlight, of course, was learning some basic Indian dance moves.

It was one of those things that prompts you to go home and write a check to the library for all the wonderful programs that they offer. My only regret was forgetting the camera at home.

Gone, Daddy, Gone

Where has it gone? I always think of the 4th as the mid-point of the summer and it flew right past. Chad and i came to the crushing realization today that we have three weekends left this summer where we are not committed to being somewhere or are having houseguests. Three lazy weekends left.

Except you know they won't be lazy. We are faced with three weekends left to finish our spring yardwork, stain the deck, go to a waterpark (or even just the pool, we still haven't even done that) celebrate my birthday and any number of crazy summertime things. We still haven't even purchased the hammock for being lazy in that we swore that we would.

The sprinkler came out for the first time today. What are we doing to ourselves? To our kid? Were summers always this busy when we were kids and we just don't remember?

Cursed

So here is a fun little vignette. We are in the car and I hear Olivia in the backseat whispering, "Damn it, damn it, damn." So I do the parent thing and ignore it and hope it goes away. So she speaks up and says, "Mommy I am saying damn it." I respond with the calm and Socratic, "Do you think that's appropriate?" "Yes, Daddy says it all the time."

You would think that it was like a Reader's Digest kids-say-the-darndest-things type story. But true nontheless.

Photo finish

These are some of Jim's best shots from the trip that I am shamelessly stealing. The first is Olivia with her boyfriend next door. He looks really badass in this shot, but he is really a honey of a kid. He tells Olivia that she is a bad driver so she can only ride. She kind of is though so she doesn't get mad when he says it. The next two are at our botanical gardens and the last is at our 4th bbq.

Catch up

I was feeling a little guilty about how long it has been since I posted, but most of my fellow bloggers have taken this week off as well so I don't feel so bad. We have been hosting Chad's dad for the past two weeks for his first solo visit to us, well, ever. We only see him a few times a year so we spent a lot of time getting excited and executing the visit. We all made it about a week and then we all totally crapped out exhausted. I think we ate out the last four days he was here, that was pretty poor showing on my part.

Olivia was pretty sad to see him go. I briefly thought about videoing the sad face and sending it to him in a not so subtle attempt at getting him to visit more. I think about this after every visit out to CA, but then I think, if they saw this I would never be rid of them all.

Magic words

Well we had our first Fourth celebration as a threesome (and guests) last night. Olivia has slept through the last two years so this was her first real foray into a large-scale fireworks show. We were a little nervous because while Olivia shows no fear about most things, jumping into the deep end, riding the bike as fast as possible directly into the street, strangers, she really does not like loud noises. I seriously have to go through a whole rigmarole to use my food processor. So it was agreed among parental units that if there were tears it was straight home, since Olivia is not a crier we felt that would be a clear indication that telling her to buck up would be causing a life-long traumatic memory.

First, the lights go out. Immediate ear-covering and shaking. Then the test fireworks go up. Immediate pleas to go home. Then the music begins, burying head in my armpit. Finally, they begin, and the eyes get wider and wider and wider. That's when the magic happens. She was obviously still a little nervous so she starts reciting a part of her recent Fourth favorite book, Olivia Forms A Band and then she starts singing to herself. As she gets into her own groove, magically, the hands come off the ears and a big smile is produced.

So thanks to Ian Falconer for giving a little girl the words to express how she was feeling when she didn't know how to it all by herself. After all, it was beautiful.