Woman on the Verge

Here are some things that I should be embarassed to admit about my bi-polar morning, but it has been awhile since I brought the funny so let's all have a good laugh at me. After a woeful hour of web surfing this morning, I was feeling a little out of it. I stayed up late last night so that I could have a little visit with my hubby who didn't finish up with work until about 9 and so maybe I was sleepy or whatever. I decided that I needed to pull out of the funk after I caught myself sitting and staring at a wall for what appeared to have been more than a few minutes. So here is what I did and you post and tell me whether or not this behavior counts as the precursor to a nervous breakdown.

1) Got up and did yoga stretches with Olivia, pulled muscle in neck. Realized the child has aged me in dog years. For every year that she has been alive I have aged seven.

2) Turned on some great girl rock (remind me to do a post about my weakness for girl-fronted rock bands no matter how poor in quality they are). Went to the DSW and tried on shoes that I absolutely could not afford and would have absolutely no place to wear them to. Looked around to make sure I was not being watched and runway walked in very big heels. This is not so embarassing in itself, I suspect many women love to try on expensive shoes, however most probably don't critique themselves based on tacky advice of transvestite runway coaches. Especially when they are about 60lbd too big and four inches too short to me a model. Purchased new sandals so that I no longer have to wear the ones held together by duct tape.

3) Went to the Lands End which is the only game in town for fat girls and women over forty in the swimwear department. I held up a swimsuit that I have purchased and returned twice in the face of the nearest sales associate and said, "This doesn't fit. I don't know why it doesn't fit, but I have exactly one week until I have to wear it. Please fix it." Then she proceeded to tell me that my breasts were too close to my shoulders and I was always going to have trouble finding a swim suit that fits properly. Seriously? SERIOUSLY? I cannot even begin to wrap my head around the fact that my breasts are too close to my shoulders, what kind of randomness is that? I'll tell you what kind of randomness, the kind that means I have to pay twice as much for a swimsuit.

4) After securing a proper Mommy and me suit, I put on my big sunglasses and used my remaining ten minutes to eat Taco Bell while driving to pick Olivia up from school. It was then that I realized that I was one backwards car seat away from being Britney Spears.

This is what I have been reduced to.

Un-Super Tuesday

It was a sad day for me yesterday because my candidate dropped out of the race. Wisconsin is a post Super-Tuesday state which means we rarely have a wide selection of candidates to choose from, but this year I will do what I did four years ago, vote for John Edwards. I was hoping that he truly would stay in until the convention, but rumor had it that the other candidates were threatening to trot out the old Ralph Nader spoiler argument. Nothing makes me want to punch someone in the face like the spoiler argument. I voted for Ralph Nader in stead of Al Gore and I don't regret it. Do you know why? Because Al Gore wasn't progressive enough; I agreed way more with Ralph Nader's views. That is the beauty of America. The electoral system exists to be a referendum on how a candidate feels about various issues. If Democratic candidates want me to start voting for them, they need to start voicing concern for core Democratic issues, not calling the guy who does a spoiler.

I loved John Edwards because he married the right woman. Some people may think that is a poor reason to choose a candidate, but I don't. I honestly believe that you can tell a lot about a person by who they choose as a life partner. John Edwards could have married a blond Barbie doll of a wife, but he married a law school classmate who even he admits was smarter than he was. Elizabeth Edwards is the only spouse who has openly shown support for gay marriage and when questioned about the fact the her husband disagrees, she simply stated that he had his own journey to make, but that she loved him because she knew that eventually he would get there. Classy. She also managed to call out Ann Coulter without raising her voice.

Most of all I felt like John Edwards spoke to some very important issues in this country. I personally believe that poverty is the root cause of most of not only this country's, but every country's problems. My mom and I grew up with not a lot and I have certainly spent most of my working years in education and my time with Big Brothers Big Sisters as witness to the horrible dichotomy in living conditions, education, nutrition that exist in this country. Anybody who is willing to stand up and say that it is a moral shame that millions of American children only get fed when they show up at school is my candidate. He is the only one talking about the lack of health care for our vets and putting universal healthcare in the context of alleviating poverty in rural areas as well as reducing burden for people struggling to stay in the middle class.

The Kennedys hitched their wagon to the wrong candidate. If they were looking for someone who was talking about Jack and Bobby's issues it was John Edwards.

Skating on thin ice

Yeah, I finally got Blogger video (the key was ditching Internet Explorer)! So here is the kid attempting ice skating with a big grin on her face.

Olivia took these with our camera, I always find what Olivia chooses to take pictures of fascinating.

Pictures as Promised

Olivia playing some unconvential instruments at New Year's, Olivia with one of her Pop Art masterpieces, Olivia and Ellie seeing if they could turn Olivia's new chair into a clown car, and Olivia with one of her new favorite toys.

My TiVo has betrayed me

On top of the fact that my computer and wireless card are at war, my TiVo has betrayed me. I hate it when technology which is designed to be smarter than me does not intuit my every need and want. As a result of the writer's strike, my TiVo is generally empty with the exception of Project Runway and the vast Martha enterprise. Like most people, I have used this opportunity to just not watch as much television. However, I did want to finally watch a few shows that we have missed out on, like Mad Men, and give a few of these new ones, like Breaking Bad, a try. However, my TiVo keeps deleting them off. Despite my resetting of preferences, reconfiguring my Season Pass, apparently my TiVo feels like I am neglecting it and sees fit to punish me by deleting all my new shows before I can watch them. I am starting to suspect that the voices have been right all along and the TiVo is a network ploy to shove Three and Half Men down my throat because I can see no other reason why it keeps showing up on my TiVo and deleting my Law and Orders.

They Say It's Her Birthday

My big girl's big birthday is coming up and it is time to trot out all my childhood baggage about birthdays. There are two areas where I will admit that I strive to do the complete opposite as my mother, the cooking/food thing that we have already covered at length and birthday parties. This is not to say I was never thrown a birthday party, that is just not true. However, I find it suspect that I do not remember having more than two birthday parties in my life. I remember my cousins' birthdays, my friends birthdays, but I actually only remember one of my birthdays. The other I am just willing to admit happened because i have photographs of it. My mom was just never into birthdays, not her own, not mine, not even my siblings. This drives my sister crazy too.

So I do what all adults who are still child-like inside do, I over-compensate. Last year Olivia wanted a fiesta, so I invited three children and their parents over for quesadillas, we did crafts, a ridiculous cake that took forever to make, and whatever else for my three year-old. Now I did not go too crazy, and I still draw the line for renting any kind of facility, but this year someone has clued into what a birthday can be and is pleasantly surprised to find that most things she asks for, her mother actually says yes. Therefore, we are having a pink pajama party with make your own pizzas and cupcakes. So far, I have agreed to homemade pink garland, pink candy, balloons, pink goody boxes filled with only pink items (red for our lone boy invitee whose father would kill me if I sent him home with all pink) and, naturally, a ridiculous selection of pink cupcake decorations. And the list keeps growing. Chad claims that he will eventually put the kibosh on things, but I want to be there when he denies a weeping birthday girl pink party blowers.

Some days I try to reason with myself and then some days I just say, screw it. I stayed home for a reason, so that can hand make a dozen black and white cupcakes with raspberry icing and my only child can have the pink party of her dreams. Because I know a PINK party was never in mine, ugh.

Gooey on the Inside

As I bunker down for another two days of ridiculous weather of the apocalypse (I ask you, what is snow thunder?) my thoughts are trying to stay focused on something positive, like Valentine's Day. Chad and I have never been Valentine's people. This is mostly because i have been a little embarrassed to admit all these years that I am a total softie for V-Day. I know that Hallmark has totally hijacked me and most other women alive, but I have to innately support any holiday that is about showing the people that you love how you really feel about them. It doesn't help that this year Olivia has declared her party theme to be pink, pink, pink (but more about that later).

SO to kick of the V-Day craft extravaganza I am doing a tribute to mobiles. I love them and everything about them. The movement, the structure, the color and someday I will have them in every room of my house. Mostly, I love how they make Chad crazy. He hates Alexander Calder, and hence, all things mobile. This one from Wondertime will definitely be showing up in Olivia's toy room at some point over the next few weeks as soon as I figure out how to work it into the curriculum. I still have all the materials to make this one from the Christmas holidays and if winter extends this crazy much longer I may have to bust it out with snowflakes instead of reindeer. I saw this one on Design Mom today and am deeply disappointed that none of my friends have hired me to design their nursery yet because this one has pattern and contrast galore. Perfect for all my friends' future Einsteins.

Coming Out Of The Deep Freeze

SO my blogging has been lackluster this week because we have hit that point of winter that every Midwesterner dreads-the deep freeze. This is the point in winter where the temps drop so low that everything seems to go haywire. Your doors freeze shut, your garage door no longer opens and closes, the handle for your hot water in your shower falls off, and you are constantly checking on your furnace and hot water heater praying that it does not go the way of some of your neighbors. I have worked hard not to complain, after all, these are the winters I remember from my youth. I have always known that these recent warmer temps were the aberration, but then the wireless network went down and the house descended into chaos.

So as soon as we get this cleared up I'll be back on-line with pictures. Until then, I am not so loyal to my blogging that I will sit in my freezing cold basement where the land line is. My only comfort is that it is supposed to warm up tomorrow and the endless snow will be replaced, by rain.

Bed sores

SO I haven't been immobile like this in quite awhile , and I certainly haven't had the opportunity to see what's on tv at 4 AM in quite awhile. Turns out that the only thing on tv at 4 AM is music videos. At first I was really pumped, music videos were the standard-bearer for everything that was cool. Fashion, cinematography, dance, all came from videos. I don't know when videos no longer became important for branding an artist. When did six hours of Jackass become cooler than music videos? Even MTV2 now only shows "reality" programming.

Even the one hour I watched started out great with a song off of "In Rainbows" then there was a bunch of poser-band filler and it ended with Fatboy Slim. Fatboy Slim? I'm sorry, but music that was popular when I was in college should not still be running on MTV.

The Best Thing My Mom Ever Did

Sorry that I have been down so long, but I have been digging myself out of an amazing backlog of stuff from the holidays and sickness. I actually scheduled 14 appointments yesterday, 14! Anyway, like everywhere in America, today is a little bit of Christmas at the Gendreau household. According to news reports, $1500 is coming my way thanks to the fact that the administration boinked the economy. Here is what I don't get. For months I have been hearing nothing but stories about how America is going to be screwed because we do nothing but spend, take all the equity out of our now worthless homes, and rack up immense amounts of debt. So now that we have stopped doing that the government sends us a check so that we can, spend it? Aren't we supposed to be saving? I listened to a report today that said the whole reason the checks will be coming in June is because if it came with our tax return we would be more likely to save it. That is so backwards, two words, market correction. Oh yeah, I watch MSNBC. Who says a desperate housewife can't understand foriegn markets?

Note to federal government. My check will be used in a way that is totally awesome. The best thing my mom ever did for me was marry a banker. My dad taught me a trick when I was home last in which a strategically placed double mortgage payment can cut your interest rate and decrease the amount of time it takes to pay off your mortgage by a significant amount. I have been plotting ever since about how to scrape up enough for a double mortgage payment. Thank you, Congress. After Chad and I refinance later this Spring, it is home free to cutting down our repayment by at least ten years.

OMG, I am a dork. But, I am a dork who is doing my patriotic duty by not requiring a federal bailout out my mortgage. Don't get me started on those people. Being a Democrat does not require you to feel sorry for stupid people who can't research a mortgage properly.

How an Embryo Became An Olivia

I was reading one of my favorites sites, Bottom Shelf Books, a few weeks ago and I came across this hilarious post and it inspired me to tell one of my favorite stories. Incidentally, if you are not reading Bottom Shelf, you should be, especially if you read books to small children. Let's face it, you are parodying most of those books in your head anyway, you should be able to laugh along with those doing it better.

Anyway, the post is about New Year's resolutions that popular children's book characters have made, and Olivia is included. Not everyone may be aware of the fact that our Olivia is, indeed, named after Ian Falconer's Olivia. The Olivia books follow a pig named Olivia who gets herself into all manner of sassy situations, but that is not why my daughter is her namesake.

When I was about five months pregnant, Chad and I were finally given the opportunity to find out the sex of the baby. I know you may find this shocking, but instant gratification being our thing, we jumped at the chance. I had been not so secretly hoping for a boy, Chad a girl, but since we only had a boy's name down, if this was a girl we were screwed. I know some couples say that they had a really hard time choosing names, but Chad and I were on two different planets with girls' names. I felt compelled to protect my future offspring so no compromising. So, of course, it was a girl. We decided that now that we knew that she was a real whole person and saw her suck her thumb and stuff we needed to actually, you know, purchase something that indicated that we had accepted that in four short months we would be responsible for caring for another human being. So naturally, that was books. So we cruise the B&N and start making the pile of the essential classics and I come across Olivia. Having not done the little kid lit thing in awhile, Olivia was all new to me and I knew at once it was coming home with me.

I will ignore the blatant pandering-to-me story line of a pig that insists she can paint better than Picasso, dreams of being Maria Callas, and sleeps under posters of Eleanor Roosevelt. It was when after spinning a fantastic yarn about joining the circus over summer vacation that she insists when her teacher presses her on the veracity of her story that it is true, "To the best of my recollection." That is when I became resigned to the fact that whether I liked it or not that the daughter of a lawyer and an art historian could only be an Olivia. And she is in every, single way. Though the last two Olivia books have been a little disappointing, the frenetic energy that may one day need to be medicated is all still there.

So someday my own little porcine princess will read this and know that her big, fat, pregnant mother sitting on a very tiny bench in the children's section of the Barnes and Noble put away The Velveteen Rabbit, Pooh Bear and all the gentle classics of my fantasies and purchased the only book we knew would do for our Olivia. Where The Wild Things Are. Which she has already shredded to pieces. Twice.

Date With Disaster

I heard an interview with the author of this book, Kitchen Playdates, on NPR a few weeks ago and wrote the title down in my little notebook that I carry everywhere with a little note to check it out from the library. The premise sounded so in line with what Chad and I have been trying to teach Olivia. Food doesn't come from a box, she will eat it if she sees how it is made and that to to teach Olivia how to eat healthfully she needs to be in the kitchen with us. I will qualify this with the fact that we do try to get her in as much as she appears interested in doing so, and so far she is a really good eater. However, the author of this cookbook did a segment on Martha last week that included her kids helping her and she reminded me why Olivia and I no longer cook dinner together every night.

This segment was a disaster. The kids whined, none of the steps of the recipe were working out, and the kids looked totally bored. But her five year old could crack a perfect egg.

Duh

So Olivia and I are out shovelling snow today, because of course it is snowing, and I see her crawling through the snow and growling. I, being the hip, cool mom say, "Oh my goodness, I have a tiger in my yard!." Olivia looks at me with this totally annoyed face and says, "No, Mommy, I am a snow leopard!!" Like, how could I have missed that?

Thanks for that National Geogrpahic magazine, Annie, I am more of an ignorant buffoon than ever in the eyes of my child.

Yippee for friends who know you best

So a post that got lost in the shuffle was the fact that I got to see my friend Angie and her fabulous husband last week and they are having a baby!!! Thank God because there is so much cute baby stuff out there right now that all needs to be bought by me personally. I also found out that another close friend is with baby too so I am going to be smooching babies like nobody's business come Fall.

Anyway, because she is the best ever, Ang came bearing gifts, Demolition Desserts!! Some of you may recall my post about the super-smart Elizabeth Falkner, now the book is finally mine. I would even try to claim that the ulterior motive was to get cookies, but Angie is not even a sweets fan. However, that baby might be so my thank you not might have to be accompanied by something fabulous. Challenging stuff, but that's what weekends are for. Thanks Ang!

How The Sam's Club Might, One Day, Save Your Life

So this week was one of those perfect storms of crazy. Since Chad was at CES last week, Olivia and I didn't grocery shop or do much cleaning and this weekend I did one of those quick shops just to get me through the weekend since Chad was so sick and needed me at home. Well, Olivia and I woke up Monday morning with the dreaded horrible cold and Chad was MIA because he found out while he was at CES that he was going to get to write a brief for the WI Supreme Court this week. This is very exciting for him and we are cheering him on from the couch, however it sucks for anyone who might ever want to see Chad because to write one of these things you need to live at the office for a week. It is actually kind of funny because Olivia and I have turned it into a game where we try to guess when he has been in the house based on what he has left lying around. Chad has turned our basement into a bachelor pad so he doesn't disturb us with his odd comings and goings. I'm afraid he likes it down there.

Anyway, the perfect storm occurs when you crawl out of bed in a decongestant induced haze and you realize you are living in Mad Max. There are just random piles of things around the house, overflowing garbage and, you guessed it, completely empty cabinets. Olivia and I have been living off of canned pineapple, breakfast cereal and anything that can be made out of spaghetti sauce. Basically, any of my canned non-perishables from the Sam's Club. About once a day Chad would drop off some sort of fast food and Olivia and I would descend on it like hyenas in the wild. So today, though I am positive that I was more dangerous than any drunk driver, we ventured out to the grocery store.

You should have seen this cart. After years of mocking people for buying the pre-cut fruit and salad fixings from grocery store salad bars (I mean, come on, how lazy do you have to be to not boil your own eggs?) I was there shovelling objects in little plastic containers with abandon. I drew the line at grapes, no matter how delirious I am I can still wash my own grapes. The rest of the cart consisted mainly of juices, lunchmeats and anything else Olivia had the savvy to sneak in there. I have never had a better time grocery shopping ever. I have never been so happy to eat a salad, and I really like salad.

Though I do thank the Sam's Club for keeping my child and I from imminent starvation, I think it was actually one ripe mango that saved my life this week.

Lighter Shade of Pale

Olivia and I have been bed-ridden for a few days. We worked so hard to get Chad over his virus so he could go back to work this week, thqt we both caught it. Apparently, my fool-proof anti-viral methods don't work when the virus involves a hacking cough. So we have been spending time looking out the window and watching more and more snow. We developed a hypothesis that I was delighted to find out was true. The colder it is, the smaller the actual snowflakes are and lighter the shade of gray it is outside. After all these year in the Midwest it becomes necessary to pay attention to shades of gray, apparently.

Grating

Okay, I was going to try and keep my politicking to comments on other people's blogs, but a news clip I heard on NPR today just pushed me over the edge and I couldn't take it anymore. I was totally disgusted by Hilary Clinton crying, disgusted. I myself am I crier, I cry at everything, angry, happy, Rice Krispie commercials, whatever. I, however, tried to refrain from crying at work. I have done it three times in my life and all three times I excused myself and finished my cry in the bathroom. Because that's what you do, because it is not professional.

Hilary Clinton would throw a puppy under a train if that is what it took to accomplish her goals. That is what I like about her. Wouldn't vote for her, but that's because I think that she has become a partisan harpie who would spend more time extracting revenge on anyone who has ever done her wrong than making policy. This is beside the point. I will now never vote for her, even if she is my party's chosen candidate. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You are either a tough, mature, experienced presidential candidate or you are a woman who cries when the other candidates attack you at a debate. The campaign trail is tough? Hello? You know that better than anyone, you don't see Elizabeth Edwards out there choking up because Ann Coulter threw out crap about her dead son. And she has freaking cancer to boot! If you are going to be ambitious, take on the world, finally rip down that glass ceiling, please don't insult every woman who follows after you by doing it as a "softer"candidate.

What really topped me off was the NPR interview with a Hilary supporter who told her daughter that she was "ungrateful" because she was not supporting a female candidate. Oh, I'm sorry I thought the whole point of the feminist movement was that I didn't have to take whatever pile of crap was handed to me and be grateful?

Pre School Dropout

So the main reason that I need to keep my husband around is to have someone to yell at me when I try to stay up until, lets say, 2 AM reading. For the second night in a row.

Also, to prevent me from having my annual pre school meltdown. Why does choosing a new pre school have to be such a pain in the ass? Why? Number two in the country, what that gets you is nine million pre schools all charging outrageous amounts just so that your kid can spend time with other kids and not be a social pariah. What does play-based even mean? Seriously, who buys that crap? I know kids can learn through play, but sitting them on a a carpet and letting them play with blocks by themselves for a half hour isn't play-based learning, it is baby sitting. It is not even baby sitting, I am pretty confident my baby sitter actually interacts on a one on one basis with my child, and I pay her a dollar and hour more than I pay pre school. Of course, she is now reading this and demanding a raise.

I love how when you broach the subject of pre-K skills with a prospective school they immediately treat you like you are high maintenance. While I am high maintenance, they don't know that yet. I'm not demanding that Olivia be taught to read by the time she finishes the program, I am simply trying to ascertain whether or not the subject of the alphabet will be, at any time, introduced to the classroom. Which, in some schools, it will not be. Why am I paying you?!? Seriously has the bar become so low that all I should expect from paid child care is that my kid is, relatively, unharmed when she is returned to me at the end of four hours?

God forbid you actually find a school that offers some semblance of a curriculum, accountability to the parents, etc you have to take out a second mortgage on your home to pay the tuition. Those of you out there are chuckling at my exaggeration, my witty hyperbole. Stop laughing, I am dead serious. We are talking private school tuition to send your kid to pre-k three days a week. One of the schools I am looking at right now would charge me $90 more than my already $377 a month, plus $125 registration fee, a $100 activity fee and I would have to put down an entire month's tuition as a deposit. And they would not even feed her lunch, I would have to pack her one. Still laughing? That's roughly $464 dollars a month to have some semblance of a basic curriculum for 48 hours a month. So, that is about what I pay my baby sitter. And she cooks my kid whatever she wants for dinner. That's more than a third of my mortgage for not even enough child care to hold down a part-time job!

So to sum up, I can pay roughly $8 an hour to have my kid thrown into room with a bunch of other kids to play with toys and maybe do an art project for four hours or I can pay $10 to have my kid actually do music, some basic foreign language, etc. Seriously, does she REALLY need this? I would way rather pay myself $400 bucks a month, I could enroll her in every damn class the park district offers for that much.

Why aren't we just keeping her at home? I never went to pre school and I don't consider myself socially stunted, but is it different now? With so many kids in full time care and two working parents, has the social dynamic changed? Is she already out of the loop because she is not used to being in care eight hours a day five days a week? Okay, so having Chad here would not have prevented the meltdown, it would have just prevented you from having to read about it.

one, not so lonely

So if it weren't for the fact that I actually like my husband, i would be thinking twice about inviting him back home. I have never realized how much of a difference one more person in this house makes. My house is spotless, with absolutely no cleaning on my part. I have barely had to cook or grocery shop, our house is quiet and I have not had to see any kind of sporting event for days. Best of all, no competition for the hot water in the morning.

I better not say this too loudly, I am pretty sure Chad doesn't need too much convincing to have an extended stay in Vegas.

Mooning

I found this little treasure in Wondertime today, I think it is a must have for my daughter who sat outside in the cold last night patiently waiting to see if the moon would come out from behind the clouds. What is it about kids and the moon? Olivia seems to have this deep relationship with something that does not talk, or for that matter, even move.

With Chad gone I am catching up on a lot of my reading (yeah!) but sometimes a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So I have a few questions to toss out into the blogosphere.

1) Why are there six million books about teaching your child to love reading, and zero books about teaching your kid to love math? I mean seriously, the last time I checked there were approximately 10 billion English teachers and like four math teachers in the United States. I don't like to toss around a word like retarded, but I am not exaggerating when I say that I might have a problem with numbers. If it involves a number I cannot retain it, understand it or convey it to others. I have problems memorizing my own daughter's birthdate, I was there, yet I often still give out her due date. So I think I am legitamitely concerned that I might pass on this genetic blip to my kid. Why is there no book for this, I only know how read, is it possible that people who teach Math are incapable of writing a book?

2) Is anyone else starting to suspect that all the Democratic candidates actually have the same position on all the issues and all we are voting for is who looks best delivering their stump speech? I mean at least the Republicans have some different views on taxes, religion, etc. Democrats are giving me nothing. If that is the case I am going with Edwards, he looks good and has cute kids. We can't vote for Bill again right?

3)Why is it thunderstorming in the dead winter? I seriously woke up with a start this morning thinking that the world was coming to an end and wasn't I embarassed that I consistently mocked the whole end of days thing. I then had to proceed in getting my daughter completely dressed and ready for school without removing her hands from her ears, again it goes back to thinking outside the box.

Hasta La Vista, Baby

Chad left today for his version of Disneyland, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. I am not sure which is better, Las Vegas or playing with every conceivable electronic play toy imaginable. Unfortunately, his visit started of poorly and he is currently stranded in Chicago after several hours on bus thanks to a thick fog covering all of southern Wisconsin. He is taking it all in stride and watching the football game in a bar somewhere in O'Hare. Which just proves that he is a better person than I am.

Chad used to travel a lot for work when Olivia was an infant and I have some bad memories of those days. Being stranded in an apartment with someone who doesn't sleep through the night in the days before you even had the solace of a playgroup to bitch to, those were dark days. So my knee-jerk reaction to five days with my daughter was not good. I kept it to myself though because i didn't want to ruin my husband's dream trip. As it got closer, though, I really started to look forward to a few days without my husband. Our house is pretty quiet without two tvs on, and let's face it you can get away with doing very little in five days if you use the single-parent excuse.

Also, i kind of thought about the fact that this is Chad's week of vacation, what would he want to think that we are doing? I know when I am away I like to fantasize that my husband is feeding my daughter home cooked meals and cleaning up after them. I am pretty sure that my husband wants the low pressure scenario of Olivia and I ordering pizza and watching the football game. So tonight we compromised and did a low-energy dinner, took a walk and now-movie night! I am hoping the best part of trip will be coming home to a messy house, a relaxed wife, and a kid who was perfectly happy to be left alone with mom for five days.

Dream On

Some day I will be able to pinpoint the beginning of my slow decline into madness as the moment when I first saw the HGTV Dream Home. I first was sucked into the Dream Home madness in 2003 when Chad was in his second year of law school. Now others may dispute this, but I thought the second year of law school was way worse than the first. You expect that first year to constantly have your spouse gone and when you are together you are flat broke and at each other's throats. That second year catches you off guard though. It didn't help that I was working a crappy job in a windowless office surrounded by co-workers who hated their jobs even more than I did. Enter the HGTV Dream Home.

It was big, it was beautiful and I had a new chance to enter every single day for over a month. So I did, every day. Now, the thing with the Dream Home is that it is not like winning the lottery. Most people cannot afford to actually keep Dream Home the taxes alone are exorbitant, not to mention the utilities. Yet, somehow that never entered into the fantasy. I was devastated for weeks when I didn't win and now every winter I enter into the self destructive cycle that is the Dream Home. It is now permanently tied to my depression about below zero temps, no sunlight and the doldrums of winter.

But this year it is in Islamorada, FL on the beach. It would be so sweet.

Because some day he will grow up to have a wife

I think this article hits the nail on the head. My husband is brillant, but it has taken me more than ten years to teach him to make a to do list. Mothers don't let your kids grow up to be a disorganized mess.

Good Night and Good Luck

Just so no one panics, I have taken off Angie's blog and Fancy Simple because they both signed off at the end of the year. I wish the Fancy Simple girls luck in all their new endeavors. I plan to carry on their mantle with my number one resolution for this year, think bigger. Being a a desperate housewife lends itself to thinking inside the metaphorical box a lot. You need to be somewhere and the kid is throwing a fit, you wake up dreading doing the dishes and cooking the same meals. Not me, not this year. This year I want to focus on how to dream big, want more and ask myself why not? So as a final tribute to the Fancy Simple girls here is your quote for the day:

"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe."-Anatole France

So this is New Years. . .

And what have you done? I love New Years, I love everything about it. A few start, clean slate, resolutions to be more organized, to click along like a disciplined, well oiled machine. I love the Tournament of Roses (much to my family's dismay), I love champagne, I love staying up late. Most of all I love NEW. I love the idea that there is a whole holiday dedicated to breaking out of the routine. So today I ate a completely different breakfast, I blogged first, not last, and i will spend the whole day trying to think of a new way to do things.

For instance, I did not check the weather, my new attitude is that it is really cold and there is not much that can be done about it. See, isn't that refreshing?