This ship has sailed

I would like to state here and now that it is my personal theory that being raised Catholic has made me superstitious. I think it is because Catholicism in general is based on a lot of fishy stories about signs from God, but you have to take them seriously otherwise God will make you sacrifice your firstborn child or something. So, you know, when you see a burning bush it is not just a strange anomaly that needs to be photographed with your crappy camera phone, that is God telling you that you need to give away all your worldly possessions. Or in my case, that you are never going to see Tibet. Let me explain.

In case you haven't noticed I have been feeling a little fraught lately. I am not sleeping, I have drugging myself willy-nilly (who knew that Advil PM could be so wonderful-Thanks J) and I pretty sure that most of my family thinks I have one foot in the bin. All of these things tend to make me susceptible to retail therapy. So I went and got my nails done, and I will admit that my favorite part of anything spa related is trashy magazines. Five minutes in I found that schlocky self help article that informed that my whole problem in this life is that I want it all and as a result am doing nothing. Normally I would have shrugged it off, but literally hours earlier my sage husband had informed me of the same exact thing while I was attempting to convince him that Olivia could TOTALLY handle Mandarin and Spanish lessons in the Fall. His exact words were, "There are only so many hours in the day and the sheer fact that you two want to learn everything on this Earth by Christmas doesn't change that fact." I promptly dismissed him and got put on the Chinese school's e-mail list. But the article, people that was the burning bush.

The article encouraged me to fill out some obnoxious worksheet about my life goals and then rank them in order of priority and then be honest with yourself about why you are not achieving them. Then start taking small steps to achieve them all. Remember our life lists from last year? When I looked closely at it I realized that I had to chop off the whole bottom half of the list. This was really hard for me because I had to be realistic about what was fantasy and what was reality. It is was also really hard for me to accept that I cannot accomplish everything given enough time and work ethic. I blame this on the feminist movement that raised us to believe that girls can and should do everything they want. Goddamn Barbie, she didn't give me unrealistic body image problems ( it was pretty obvious pretty quickly that I was not blond) but she totally gave me unrealistic career aspirations, I cannot be a mommy, an astronaut, a ballet dancer and do it all in pink heels. So I gave up Tibet, I hate to fly and totally have no interest in travelling to a country where I cannot identify any of the main protein sources. it feels like an expression of defeat to say that given enough time and kicking myself in the ass that I cannot become this person. I consoled myself with a totally cute sweater from Anthropolgie, maybe kicking the habit of retail therapy should go on the list.

So the above photo is step one. Took Olivia sailing and introduced myself the the kite sailing instructor. He promptly informed me that kite sailing is the most dangerous water sport in the world right now and steered me toward snow kiting. Equally kick ass, much safer. I'm on the wait list.

Game On

It has been a busy week at our house, but the biggest day by far has been opening day of the Madison Mallards. The Mallards are basically a bunch of college kids from around the Midwest who just want to play ball all summer so local families here feed and house them, and we love 'em. Well, Chad and I like them and Olivia LOVES them. I bought Chad a bunch of tickets for Father's Day last year and the whole thing has blown up to be a tradition for the two of them, Chad's friends, even Chad's dad has been looking forward to going to another game. The reason; Olivia's rabid fandom. She has favorite players, a rapport with the mascot, and even does her own impersonation of the announcer. On opening day I had to call Chad at work and say, "For the love of God please come home because she has been dressed and ready to go for three hours and if she asks me how much longer even one more time I am driving her to the ball field and leaving her there." The best part for me is I get a complete, wholesale pass on blaming Chad for this. He made his bed, and now it is smothering him to death. But her game face (see right) is pretty cute. I think I must call it cute because otherwise blood lust is deeply disturbing in a four year-old.

Madison rocks and so does my kid

So here are some shots from the weekend. For those of you who are not believers of processed meats do not read on, in fact, get the hell off my web site we don't want your kind here. Anyway, the summers in Madison begin and end with an event called Brat Fest. Basically, the entire city gets together and tries to eat as many $1.50 brats as possible to raise money for various local charities. The Oscar Mayer (an industry headquartered in Madison) Wienermobile shows up and a great time is had by all. Over the past couple of years the Brat Fest has had to move to bigger venues to accommodate the record-setting crowds and so it has taken on a more carnival-like aspect, hence the photos of my daughter climbing the rock wall. That's right she killed that thing. I was so proud; as my terrified friends looked on and were speed-dialing children's' services.

Weekends like this are why Madison has been named in the Today's show's America's Friendliest Cities (thanks for the tip Mike!). Madisonions love to be outside, mostly with each other. There are a million festivals, farmer's markets (literally we have one every day of the week), fun runs, and block parties. The quote Mike sent me from the show was something like in the winter everyone shovels each other's snow and feeds the elderly, which if they were talking about somewhere else I would treat with snide derision because it sounds so Pleasantville, but here it is totally true. My neighbor snow blew my sidewalk for weeks this year and all of the neighbors take turns cooking for our elderly neighbors.


So, greetings from the friendliest place in America, it is because we do not deny ourselves pressed meats.

Shout Out To My Homies

So I have to give some shout outs to my friends who are doing funny things right now. If you don't hit the links of my friends on a regular basis now is the time to do so. Brad has video up right now that literally caused me to pull a muscle I was laughing so hard. Pulled a muscle, and I do yoga so that crap is not supposed to happen to me. Daimon has a link to a funny blog that I had not yet seen but I have a feeling is going to blow up soon. I personally don't have an issue with John McCain's age, but it is interesting to think about.

One Two Three Four I Declare A Thumb War

I am using this video to disprove my father-in-law's theory that I am not picking my battles. Anyone who lets their child go out in public wearing this outfit has clearly given up fighting many differently types of battles. In fact, i was worried that everyone would think I had lost a battle with the bottle.

Actually, the only battle I am fighting with Olivia these days is over a very controversial issue, her thumb. I was a deeply committed thumb sucker as a child and was secretly thrilled when we had ultrasound pictures of Olivia sucking her as well. I also had really messed up teeth. So I was deeply dismayed when my dentist and my pediatrician told her that it was time to stop. I rebelled, then I researched and I found out that nobody really knows whether it causes long-term damage. An argument I tried to use on my husband who pointed out that the fact that Olivia was no longer removing her thumb to talk was problem in and of it self. So after much soul searching it was decided that we would paint Olivia's thumb with cayenne pepper and break her of the habit.

It has been excrutiating. At least she is getting a lot of sympathy from Mommy.

Once You Get Over The Wood Tones, The Tax Deduction is Quite Nice

So today was a great day. Why you ask? Because today we chose all of our pieces of the kitchen. That's right, countertops, cabinets, floor, all chosen. They may be products of compromise, but I no longer care. The reason is that I have become a cheap bastard. Two thirds of my kitchen remodel will be tax deductable because they are recycled goods. I am getting solid surface countertops for the price of laminate through tax deduction. Oooooh nothing makes me happier than tax deductions!!!! I am doing little handclaps while I write this.

Can you also tell that I got a full night's sleep? To celebrate, the whole kitchen thing i made out with my hubby who is wearing jeans to work tomorrow and may actually not be working this weekend. Then we analyzed Robert Frost Poetry and watched the Colbert Report. We are nerds, but nerds in love.

Tomorrow will be photos of Olivia and I and our new obsession, vintage aprons. I am passing on the time-honored tradtion of vintage thrift, nothing could make me happier.

Saying yes

We don't talk to Chad's dad too terribly much, which is why when we do he is generally able to give us an insight-adjustment. Chad must have intimated at one point during the conversation that Olivia's energy level has reached the point where I think I am going to stop putting gas in my car and just harness the child and have her pull it. To which Chad's dad just charmingly replied, "She's just curious!" She is also climbing the counters.

Typically after we talk to Chad's dad we marvel at his inability to grasp just how terrible it is to have to be parents to a child that never stops, moving, talking, and worst of all, thinking. We usually repeat, "She's just curious!" in varying degrees of sarcasm and disdain and then threaten to put her on the next flight to San Fransisco to show him just how curious she is. Not this week. Somehow in all tumult of not sleeping, of both Chad and I working maximum overtime and Olivia being Olivia, for five minutes I looked at her as her Papa does. A sweet, smarty pants who worked hard rehearsing her Ni-hao, Yeeyah to please him. He is proud of her and of us for not killing her. I can't wait until he gets here and mischief turns to inventiveness, hyper-active turns to enthusiastic, and the Papa who hides his medications because he NEVER underestimates her ability to break into anything is here to really enjoy her. So I took her to the lake today to do nothing but be curious and say yes. Though, I drew the line at pulling the dead fish out of the water with her bare hands, it was SO much better to do it with a stick, yeck.

Now I have to stop her from being "curious" about what she can put into the oven. I love when i yell from the next room how the response is always, "NOTHING!!!!" and then she suddenly appears with a big smile and I can just hear her brain thinking, "Smile big, she'll never know-blind her with cuteness." Yeah, I think Papa needs to experience this Olivia, preferably at 8 AM, his favorite hour to chit chat.

Spring Fever?

For the past couple of weeks I have not slept a full night's sleep. I am used to having shorted myself sleep because it usually takes me forever to fall asleep, but now I am waking up in the middle of the night and lying awake for hours and it is killing me. I have virtually no short term memory, zero creativity and zero patience and the last few days I have been breaking down and napping in the afternoons which means i also have no free time to get anything done.

The good news that everyone else seems to be having the same problem. Most of my mom blogs have been complaining of out-of-town husbands, grating children, and no sleep. Is anyone else not sleeping? I know some people have problems with the increased amount of daylight, but I just seem to be stuck in a bad rut that even over-the-counter medications have not been able to alter.

What Mamma Wants

So Sunday was the make-up date for my Mother's Day and what a day it was. Instead of gifts and spa I chose to use it as a way to exploit work from my loved ones. I know that this might seem strange, but remember that this is coming from the woman who asked for a stove for her birthday. So yesterday my family did yard work, housework, extra childcare chores and they had to eat things like extra servings of fruit. With Chad headed out of town again this week, I was much more grateful to start the week with a semi-clean house and a head start on all my spring plantings than any pedicure.

I still have a long way to go on my to do list, but I think that I opened my family's eyes to how much work we can get done when we all work together. Or maybe they are just counting their blessings that my day is only once a year. It would be nice to refinish the deck for birthday though...

Whoa baby!

So Friday night I made the hop, skip and jump up to Green Bay to Angie's baby shower and what fun. I don't often get to participate in truly girlie rites of passage so I felt a little bit like a stranger in a strange land and was totally shown up by the mamma to be. That girl is seven months pregnant and still managed to squeeze her round self into an adorable cocktail dress and heels while I was sitting in the corner bitching about the fact that I couldn't wear flip flops.

I find many things about showers odd, like favors that no one ever takes home, but mostly the whole unwrapping gifts in front of others thing. I had to do this when I got married and I found it strange. I mean, I find it hard to keep up the level of enthusiasm for the twentieth gift that I had for the first, it is weird to be stared at for so long and I always feel the pressure to be entertaining since everyone else is stuck there for like an hour watching you open gifts.

However, when you help throw a party for Angie Oh you get an awesome thank you gift. Mine is a frilly vintage hostess apron that is right out of Leave It To Beaver. All I need now is pearls and kitten heels, look out Martha.

Cold medicine talking

So yesterday Chad had just finished mowing the lawn and we were enjoying the late daylight hours; it was a picture of Americana. I was doing some light gardening Chad and Olivia were working on Chad's back-up plan for Olivia's future (Plan A is for her to become the first female left-handed Major League pitcher. It has already been partially spoiled by the fact that she is right-handed) which is for her to become the next Michelle Wie. I couldn't help think that we were living the American Dream, to be fulfilled, happy homeowners waving to neighbors and soaking up the last of the moderate weather.

Then I woke up this morning to a head cold and a sink full of dirty dishes because I was too busy pulling the endless weeds in our yard to wash them. I asked Chad if he couldn't possibly help me out tomorrow, which is a very busy day for me, but alas, he has a golf tournament that was far more important. That is when I thought, American Dream, my ass. Chad should be grateful for the American Justice system that would send me to jail for punching him in the face right now. How unfair is that, by the way? Punch a complete stranger, you pay $168 bucks in court costs and are on your way. Punch your spouse and it is like three months in jail plus fines. This is where having a friend in the city attorney's office is dangerous. I ask you, if you knew that all that was going to happen to you is you were going to pay $168 to punch that guy who is dividing his groceries into three separate orders and paying three separate ways in the express lane at the grocery store, tell me you wouldn't think twice. Yeah, thought so.

Golf tournament. . .

Love Lorn

Chad and I had to retire a big part of our dating life today with the passing of Robert Rauschenberg. When Chad and i first started dating he thought it was really hot that I was an Art History major. I knew that he was the one for me because it thought it was hot and not totally ridiculous and nerdy. However, it could not be totally determined if he was the one for me until we toured a few museums and his taste was up to snuff. Chad was not totally ignorant about the visual arts, but my emphasis was contemporary sculpture, not area that your average art enthusiast has much exposure to. So after many tours I knew that I was head over heels when Chad finally committed to Robert Rauschenberg and Francis Bacon.

My first collage with Olivia was modeled after Rauschenberg. It is the end of the era. I am looking forward to the retrospectives so that Olivia can see how her parents fell in love.

From the High To The Low

So Chad and I had an event-full weekend which included our ninth wedding anniversary and the Pizza Hut lunch buffet. I consider it very important to spend at least one meal at a trashy restaurant as an homage to the fact that we were engaged in an Olive Garden (don't ask, it is truly is a sad, sad story). Yesterday, of course, was Mother's Day; Chad celebrated by going to Indianapolis to bust up a truck driving union. I tried to get really pissy about it, but I could only be sad that he had to go to Indianapolis, the only city in America where i feared being stabbed to death in my sleep in a Motel 6 on our move to Madison from DC. Seriously, it was the scariest night of my life.

I celebrated by not choking my daughter who was returned to me sleep-deprived, with a cold, and reeking of cigarette smoke from four days at my mother's.

So today I am again spouseless, coming down with a cold in a filthy house and an unmowed yard because I foolishly chose to "relax" on my vacation. A mistake to never again be repeated. How the mighty have fallen.

Lazy Lazy Lazy Jane

Wondering where I've been? Well, Olivia left for Grandma's on Wednesday so you know I have been busy, doing what, I am not totally sure. More relaxing than usual, maybe that Celexa is kicking in after all. Yesterday I got to hog Rachel's baby all to myself, a total treat, tried out a new fab restaurant, ate truffles and did a crossword with my main squeeze, which was the most fun thing i have done in months. Chad has been working a lot lately so even just a whole conversation with him is like a vacation in itself. We used the whole conversation to start planning our vacation, yippee Minneapolis here we come!

Today's kidless adventure? Doing stuff for the kid. I have concocted an elaborate plan to build a small stage for Olivia's performances after discovering her complete and utter excitement at building a puppet theatre out of a shoe box. Seriously, I am thinking about patenting the thing, it has stadium seating, an orchestra pit, drop downs for multiple backdrops and it folds up to the size of a shoe box! If ever a kid had a flair for the dramatic, it's Olivia, a theatre will be a great way to reclaim under-utilized space.

Oh, also I have been taking snapshots like the one above and reading reading and more reading. I swear, I need to convince my mom to do this more often; i feel like an almost sane person.

The Most Exciting Thing Since, Well Never

Johnny Depp's new movie is filming here in Madison, and while Edward Scissorhands himself will not be here, the equally hot Christan Bale is here!! Here is our local paper's link to some exterior shots. Chad got to go down and watch today and he thought it was pretty fun to see how a movie is made. I stayed home with my child who refused to get out of her Halloween costume from two years ago, and also refused to leave the house for any reason. She has officially holed herself up in the living and is insisting on staying there until she completes a 250 piece puzzle.

Only a day and a half until she is with Grandma.

I Have Seen Evil

and it's name is Polly Pockets. Olivia had a play date yesterday with her very lovely, girly, calm and delicate best friend who owns the most evil toys in the whole world. Ellie own things like porcelain tea sets and doll house with million of small pieces that give me small heart attacks every time my daughter goes anywhere near them. However, nothing compares to these ridiculous Polly Pockets. There are literally miniature dolls the size of your index finger and they have little clothes and little accessories that are impossible to take on and off. Now, Ellie's mother may be fine with this because her daughter can dress a doll once and be happy. Not my kid. In Olivia's mind the whole point of having six outfits is to put them all on, preferably all at once. Anyone who has ever seen Olivia dress herself has seen this in action, layers of everything from tights to a shirt over a pajama top, skirt over jeans. Luckily, we live in a place where hippies go to die so I can pass this absurdity off as boho-chic.

So here I am, struggling to put on these little tiny clothes that require the fine motor skills of a watchmaker and are just about as delicate. Needless to say, at the silent auction last night where my choices were a basket full of My Little Ponies and Polly Pockets and a kid sized chair and a giant floor puzzle, Olivia is now the proud owner of a giant world map puzzle. Part of me knows that by denying her the Polly Pockets that I am only digging myself a miniature grave made of plastic shoes the size of a pin head, yet that does not stop me from shoving equally absurd things like giant world map puzzles down her throat. I will happily clear my entire living room of furniture so assemble a puzzle larger than my child as long as i never again have to exhaust myself thinking about how in the world I am going to get a hideous pink, plastic glitter dress on something so small I could flush it down the toilet.