What are you looking at?

39 and feeling fine

Last week I began the audio CD for The Fellowship of the Ring, and as Hobbit fans know, the story opens with Bilbo Baggins' birthday party. The Lord of the Rings series has been on my to-read list for the last 15 years, ever since I saw (and promptly fell in love with) the movies, and so while reading listening to the first disc, I kept flashing to the film; specifically, Bilbo's jubilant announcement to a crowd of boisterous Shire dwellers, "Today is my 111th birthday!"

via GIPHY

While I have no magical rings to stop my body from aging and, thus, help me reach such a milestone, I feel equally joyous to be writing this on the eve of my 39th birthday.

As Zoot put it so well last week, as a Do It Monday Person, I thrive on beginnings, so the one-two punch of the New Year and my birthday makes this time of year especially ripe for reflection.

Over the last few years, as I've worked through floundering emotions with family, friends, and therapists, I've also struggled to mark the New Year. Recap memes felt trite, and particularly at the start of 2018, it was ambitious enough just to unpack what I was discussing in therapy, so when it came to setting New Year's resolutions - an activity that usually brought me great pleasure - I felt unable to commit to anything more than a one-word theme. Here's a glance of my past words to date:

2018: Open
2017: ? (The Frema of 2017 apologizes for the lack of documentation)
2016: ? and also ditto
2015: Brave
2014: Steady
2013: Simple
2012: Leap

This holiday season, I realized that I deeply missed setting concrete goals. So when I learned about YearCompass (thank you, Very Mom!) in mid-December, something inside clicked, and over the days between Christmas and New Year's Eve, I threw myself into reflecting on 2018 and planning for 2019. It felt so good to reclaim that part of myself again.

Here's what stands out from 2018:

• Completing 12 months of consistent therapy. For the first half of the year, this looked like a standing appointment to ugly cry every other week as Amanda and I got to know each other and I worked to articulate where and how I was struggling. By fall, we switched to a monthly cadence - evidence that my baby-steps approach to practicing new, healthier coping skills is making a difference. I am so very grateful for this.
• Dealing with intermittent ear pain and facial tremors at the start of the year, to the point that I had a brain MRI to rule out potential neurological issues. Thankfully, the results were normal, and the cause was deemed to be a combination of low iron, stress and jaw-clenching.
• Teaching an introductory Bible class for my church! We completed 12 weeks of the Old Testament the day before New Year's Eve and started our 12-week study of the New Testament last Sunday. I've always been drawn to teaching, and this experience has brought me so much joy (stress, too, but let's focus on the joy).
• Taking Kara with me to meet Baby-Sitters Club author Ann M. Martin at book signing/meet and greet in January. (!!!!)
• Seeing "Wicked" in April (yes, I have been changed for good), and fawning over Brandi Carlile in September.
• Completing three half-marathons with my good friend Jen and improving my time drastically.
• Making significant progress with Nathan on Harry Potter (we're nearly halfway through book six) and discovering the fantastically inappropriate world of Dav Pilkey (of Captain Underpants and Dog Man fame) with Liam.
• Enjoying regular game nights with my Puma friend Maura and her husband Charley - including an intense encounter with Pandemic: Legacy season 1. Bidding these friends a sad farewell as Maura accepted a new job in Virginia in November.
• Having equally regular and enjoyable game time with Luke and the kids. Some of my favorite memories of this year include Luke, Nathan and I waking up early before school and work to sneak in a game of Small World, or Barenpark, or Photosynthesis, or Machi Koro.
• Volunteering on several school field trips.
• Having regular breakfast meetings with my dear friend from church, Pastor Ken.
• Kara's experimenting with basketball and volleyball.
• Demoting myself from sideline coach to cheerleader for Nathan's spring and fall soccer seasons, with positive results.
• Resurrecting my own (barely there) soccer skills to play a few non-competitive rounds of Adult Soccer over the summer.
• Replacing our roof in May and stove in December.
• Taking a spring break getaway to Pokagon State Park and summer vacation to Shenandoah National Park and Virginia Beach.
• Increasing contributions to the kids' college accounts and my 401(k).

I may not have had as much of a hunger for new experiences as in years past, but 2018 was what it needed to be, and I'm grateful for it.

One of the YearCompass prompts is to choose three words that define the previous year. I chose transitional, vulnerable and playful.

Another prompt is this: "A book was made about your past year. Write down its title." After much thought, I wrote:

Crying in Bathrooms: Here Again, Dammit, but for Shorter Instances Each Time

Which captures it pretty welll, I think.

And now, on with 2019! But that's for another post.

Year in review

In corporate America, first quarter is the time to look back on the last 12 months and project what you hope to achieve in the coming year. Recently, I've not done a great job documenting my personal post-ball-drop reflections, but I want to be more intentional with 2017, and since the business world is still closing out the year, why not me? I'm a grown-up woman, I do what I want.

Note to self: Ship the content. Done is better than perfect. The 10-minute walk you take is better than the three miles you never run. Just do it. Etc. 

See also: Unpublished drafts of "2015 in Review" and "2016 in Review."

Key milestones and insights

Women's March

For most of my life, I've shied away from politics. The landscape is so complex, and the dialogue often so polarizing, that I felt too uneducated and frankly, too intimidated, to join the conversation. To say I've progressed by leaps and bounds would be a gross understatement, but I was compelled to attend the women's rally in Indianapolis last year, and the experience touched my heart. I didn't agree with every sign that I saw or speaker I heard, but I was moved by the demonstrations of unity and vowed to do better in using my voice. For me, this has meant calling legislators for the first time, widening my news sources and simply being open to this uncomfortable process. Others are much further along, but that's OK. Baby steps.

Courage over comfort today! #WomensRallyIndy @StateofKate pic.twitter.com/8cxakBlpim

— Bree Dunscombe (@mrsfrema) January 22, 2017

Saint Joe fundraiser + closing

On Feb. 3, 2017, I along with thousands of other Puma faculty, staff, students and alumni were shocked to learn that our beloved Saint Joseph's College was closing in May due to nearly $30 million in debt. Saint Joe and the city of Rensselaer represent all kinds of home to me. I made lifelong friends there, lured my sister Samantha to attend school with me in the cornfields of northern Indiana, bought Luke, and took my first professional job after graduation. I was on staff when Saint Joe launched the branding campaign that led to our marketing refresh and "Involved for Life" tagline. I couldn't let it go without a fight. So I along with two other Indy-area alumni answered the call to host a fundraiser in March, in conjunction with events throughout the Midwest, in an effort to generate enough dollars that the college could stay open and assemble a long-term viability plan.

The chances of raising enough funds to keep the school going were slim at best, and our alumni association (now a separate entity from the college) returned all donations when we didn't meet our goal, but it felt so good to invest my time and money in a cause that was so important to me. Planning the event, working alongside other alums, soliciting prizes, sharing stories. It would have been easy to turn my eyes from the daunting task of raising so much money. It was an impossible situation, and emotions were running high. But there was so much support, even from friends without an SJC diploma (Jen, Raquel, Alyssa, thank you!). I'm so glad I said yes.

In April, I attended the last Little 500 go-kart race with one of my dearest friends. Here, Maura and I memorialize Saint Joe's signage on I-65:

And here we stand with our beloved English professor, John Groppe, who was quoted in the Indianapolis Monthly story I linked to above. John Groppe is the reason my Frema nickname exists! I left him a voicemail one day my sophomore year, to let him know I wanted to interview for the part-time secretary position he was trying to fill. I left my name, Bree Ma'Ayteh, and walked to his office. In person, John said he would be happy to interview me, but first he had to speak with someone named Frema, who was also interested. It wasn't long before we realized that Frema ("Bree Ma...") was me! I'm holding his latest poetry collection.

Auntie Donna

On July 30, my wonderful Auntie Donna passed away at 52 years old from a years-long battle with cancer -- just hours before her namesake, my youngest sister, gave birth to my sweet nephew Benny. Auntie Donna had a long, hard road for many years, but what a blessing that she wasn't alone. She lived with Samantha and her family for almost two years, and in her last months required constant care. I was so blessed to spend a few long weekends last summer in Chicago, stepping in briefly to help with hospice nurses and medication schedules.

When I was nine years old, my parents bought a two-story apartment; our family took the top floor, and Nana (my mother's mother) and Auntie Donna took the second. She wasn't on the peripherals of my life, but front and center.

She let me tag along on errands in her sweet Cavalier, and when I was 17 let me use it to take my driver's test (no coincidence that my first car purchase was a sweet Cavalier). She shared openly about her path to sobriety, hugged me while I cried over boyfriends, answered my questions frankly, and always had unshakeable faith in me. We were only in touch at family gatherings as I moved away, got married and had kids, so this time with her was truly a gift from God.

I've lost people who I loved with all my heart, but I was far removed from their actual deaths. Phone calls to Indiana when I was either in school or beginning my career, potentially months since my last trip home, with either no chance to say good-bye or a short "last" visit in the hospital. This was my first time sitting in the stillness of someone who was starting to die. To meet her eyes and rub lotion on her hands, have short conversations as she was able, or just poke my head in her room to make sure she was still breathing. It was intimate and horrifying and one of the most sacred things I've ever done.

In no way am I trying to inflate my part in this process. I was half a puzzle piece, substituting for much larger pieces, and Samantha was the frame holding everything together with such strength and grace. But our society isn't good at holding space for grief or sadness, and this was the first time I held it in a such a deep, prolonged way, and I want to express how grateful I am for it, and that it was for my Auntie Donna, who is so very special to me.

"Check the Box Sunday"

I posted the message I delivered at church in September, but what I didn't touch on was the process of writing it. One of our pastors approached me in early June, and for the first two months I didn't write anything, just let myself be excited while the idea of it marinated in my brain. I thought about the Bible stories I would talk about, fun movie clips I could show (the congregation was thisclose to watching a scene from "The Lord of the Rings"), and when I let myself get really carried away, I imagined that everything in my spiritual journey over the last two years had been leading up to this one sermon, and I really needed to knock it out of the park, to the point that everyone would hear me and think, "Wow, why isn't Bree up here talking to us every week?"

Truly the picture of holiness, I know.

And then I actually started writing, and of course none of my ideas were panning out like I wanted them to. At the end of August, I had a respectable draft that was an appropriate length and biblically sound. But it didn't feel like me because, for one thing, I wasn't trying to be like me, or even giving God a chance to work through me. I was imitating my pastors and falling short. Secondly, I was trying to give a message that was "finished" -- a story with a definite ending, like the last chapter in a book, because it felt like I should be far enough along in my faith life that I can tell those kinds of stories. It was hard to admit that I was (and remain) in the messy middle. But once I did, it got easier.

On the big day, I was ready to cry from nervousness (What? Bree never cries), but once it was over I was ready to do it again. How lucky I was, too, to have so many people cheering me on. Luke, my mother- and father-in-law, my sister Samantha, and my dear friend Jen and her family came to see me, and several loved ones watched online. And my church family was so gracious. Thank you, God.

Therapy, take two

I'm grateful for my first stint with counseling because it allowed me to catch a glimpse of its value. But I wasn't comfortable with my therapist and ended our sessions after my free six weeks were up (muchas gracias, Employee Assistance Program). The week after Thanksgiving, I tried a new therapist, and WHOA. Fit makes such a difference! We meet twice a month for an hour, and in between I am Doing The Work. Sometimes I fight The Work, or push it to the bottom of the pile, or feel like I'm above The Work. I feel like I'm missing the mark more than half the time. But this therapist can handle my sense of humor and ugly sobbing without missing a beat. She asks good questions and helps me make connections that I haven't noticed on my own.

I have a long road ahead, but now the right person is on the road with me, and that's something.

Me, practicing positive affirmations:

But also...

There were so many things to be happy about last year:

• Completing my second and third half-marathons, eight years after my first running of the Mini. Thank you, Jo Lynn and Jen, for being my race buddies!
  
• Finally finishing my Brene Brown online course.
• Diving into spring and fall soccer with Nathan for the first time.
• Taking Kara to see "A Christmas Carol" at Indy's local theater.
• Our baby starting kindergarten.
  
• Welcoming an actual baby into our family, my sweet nephew Benny.
• Finishing a "Jesus in the Gospels" study at my church -- definitely one of the bright spots of my year.
• Falling into the PBS British Telly Club rabbit hole. AND I'M NOT GOING BACK.
• Also falling into the gaming rabbit hole. Luke's and my level of intensity isn't so high that we're role-playing D&D, but it's not so low that I wouldn't consider it. It's a slippery slope, is what I'm saying.
• Our summer vacation in southeast Michigan, where we ate ice cream every day.
  
• Seeing Jen Hatmaker and Nichole Nordeman during the Indy leg of their Moxie Matters tour.
• Visiting Boston in the fall with my dear PR and corp comm friends to eat great food, enjoy a haunted bus tour, and oh yes, attend an industry conference.

Thank you, 2017.

2018, I'm coming for you.

Choosing brave in 2015, part two

Two posts in one month? It's a blogging miracle!

Let's keep moving with guideposts for the Year of Brave.

Seize the morning.

At 18, I could stay up all night gorging on Nintendo and Kevin Smith movies, then take an 8 a.m. lit exam with the energy of a spider monkey. (Truth: I don't know anything about spider monkeys, but they sound like a perky bunch, yes?) Today, as a 35-year-old working mom with three children ages seven and under who barrel down the hall before six almost. every. day., I'm apologizing to my tomorrow self if the lights aren't out by eleven. And by eleven I mean ten-thirty, because apparently I've reached the point where flannel nightgowns and teeth in a glass are more accurate depictions of my nocturnal hours than gleefully ignorant college student.

Unfortunately, I relearn this lesson every two or three days because of the stopping problem I mentioned in my last post. (See also: the time stamp on this entry.) Also, the morning is such a wild card because the kids have no respect for the zzzz's. Seriously, the click of my night lamp is the same as yelling COCKLE DOODLE DOO directly into their sleep-intolerant eardrums. I haven't figured out how to address this, but I'm going to do it this year. I do seize the morning with my friend Jen twice a week to hit the gym before work, so at least there's a starting point for making progress.

Plus, if nothing else, there's always the john, right? I may or may not have camped out in "the library" to read respectable portions of the Old Testament for my Bible class this way.

Make the call.

One of my biggest literary finds last year was Daring Greatly by Brene Brown (thank you, Molly!), which got me thinking about weighty concepts like shame, vulnerability and connection. I'm in the middle of The Gifts of Imperfection, and one of Brene's observations on compassion really struck a chord with me:

I don't believe that compassion is our default response. I think our first response to pain - ours or someone else's - is to self-protect. We protect ourselves by looking for someone or something to blame. Or sometimes we shield ourselves by turning to judgment or by immediately going into fix-it mode.

I so identify with this. It's hard for me to sit with pain. When I talked about the pastor transition at my church last week, I kept it light-hearted, but I really did sob quietly in worship for several months, and it was so embarrassing, because the last thing I wanted was to draw attention to myself, but I could not get it together. If ignoring the obvious is an example of self-protection, you are looking at THA MASTA, right here.

But it's not limited to me. When it comes to other people in pain - particularly those who aren't in my daily circle - I can get so paralyzed by the idea of doing the wrong thing or overestimating the comfort I can give that oftentimes I don't do anything at all. Which is bad, obvs. So making the call is about taking that first step to meet someone where they are, even knowing I could eff it up or, yes, overestimate the comfort I can give.

Allow for slack.

I continue to fight the good fight against the busy trap, which continues to involve being selective with our commitments. But I updated the wording this year to place the emphasis on leisure -  on the yes to filling the days with even more reading, creating, praying, and all those other restorative pursuits that get done only when we make the time. There's lots of room for better.

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Last fall, I attended my first canvas painting class at our local UPaint studio to paint what I hoped would be a soothing fall scene, but what materialized into a smattering of dots and series of trees that probably sprouted from Freddy Krueger's nightmares. Don't worry, I'm being all Stuart Smalley about it and have nothing but love for my amatuer artistic abilities, but that big tree on the left was scaring the bejeezus out of me. So over winter break, Luke, the kids and I painted over it with a happy little snowman. It was so much fun.

We created this guy after Christmas, but I covered the canvas in white soon after Thanksgiving. I look at this as a (tiny, First World Problems) example of brave - chasing an idea even if I don't know where it'll take me and embracing the process. I want so many (bigger, more meaningful versions) of these moments in 2015.

Next up: 2014 highlights! Or maybe a reading year in review. Let's not too crazy around here!

Choosing brave in 2015, part one

Hello, internet friends! I have missed you. I feel a little like the prodigal son who came home after squandering his wealth on extravagant activities, if by "extravagant" we mean working, parenting and generally trying to maintain my delicate grip on reality. In this scenario, I will assume you are welcoming me with open arms, and wait, is that a fatted calf? You really shouldn't have. Let's just hug it out and move on.

I thought I would break my blogging hiatus with a recap of 2014, then follow up with my plans for 2015, but right now I'm more inspired to look forward. So I'm running with it.

This flamingo from the zoo is down with my plan.

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For the last few years, I've tried to focus milestones and goals around a key word or theme. Here's a quick recap:

2012: Leap

2013: Simple

2014: Steady

Leap was perfect; it was the same year I ended my seven-year stint with a local toxicology lab to take a new job in healthcare education, and lots of big steps were required of me during the search and transition. But these last two years, my themes have felt less meaningful - mainly because I ended up leaping again with another employer closer to home. Not ideal circumstances for pursuing simple or steady. While writing this post, I couldn't even remember steady; I had to look it up in my blog archives.

It's very possible this one-word business isn't for me, but I'm trying it one more time. Similar to 2012, this year's word is perfectly in sync with where I am at this point and where I want to go.

My word for 2015 is brave.

I want to be brave enough to live all of my values and be consistent in my actions. To quiet the lizard brain and create. To curb my leanings toward the analytical and be less afraid of my emotions. To just say no to anxiety.

Here are the guideposts I'll use to get there.

Get prayed up.

One of the hardest things I went through in 2014 was saying good-bye to the senior pastor at my church, who retired in July to focus on his health. Pastor Ted was the first preacher I ever grew attached to, and I so identified with his sermons. I even used them as a soundtrack sometimes on the weekends I brought work home. So in the months before he left, I had a hard time keeping it together in worship. He would talk and I would sob quietly, praying (no pun intended) that nobody would notice my tears and I could break down in peace, thank you very much, where do you think we are, church?

Anyway. That was January through June. In July we welcomed Pastor Charlie, and he is wonderful. In a recent sermon, Pastor Charlie talked about the concept of being "prayed up" - the state of being so in touch with God and in the habit of talking to Him that you don't have anything left in the vault. This is the state I want to be in. This area in particular is where I want to think less and feel more.

Practice patience.

This has never been a strong suit of mine. Unless I put myself in the best position possible to face the day - gotten enough sleep, prayed, allowed flexibility in my schedule - I get short tempered quickly and slack off on keeping myself in check. I don't want to lean on yelling as a parenting tool. I want to be less concerned with discipline when I don't get my way and focus more on understanding the situation. Even better - I want to think five steps ahead to reduce or even eliminate the stressors that throw us off our game in the first place.

Stop when it's time to stop.

Oh look, an area where I wanted to improve last year but didn't fully commit myself.

"I'll get to that when..."

"In five minutes I'll..."

"As soon as I do X, then I can..."

One of my worst faults is placing conditions on when I can jump into a new task or activity. Unfortunately, most of the time the next task is something like "get home for dinner," "finish my bible class reading" or "play board games with the kids."

My reasons for this make sense in the moment: It's easier to finish what I'm doing than walk away and hope I'll regain my momentum later. But the result is always the same: I spend five minutes basking in the glow of my accomplishment and the next two hours feeling like crap because I prioritized a thing over someone I love.

I became more conscious of this in 2014 but didn't work very hard to make real change. This year I'm facing it head on and holding myself accountable for respecting the needs of my family and my own emotional and spiritual growth. I know, so very Hallmark. Hopefully the prodigal son intro bought me a little leeway with you all.

But seriously, my feast-or-famine way of doing things is no way to build good habits. I need to start things when I'm not inspired and end tasks when I'm not ready. Stop when it's time to stop.

Don't force a finish.

A nice follow-up to the whole stopping bit. So often I push through thinking, I could totally get this done if I just keep at it for five more minutes. Except five minutes turns to fifteen and I'm still finessing that manager email and I just missed my window for getting home on time and WHY CAN'T I LEARN THIS LESSON ALREADY I AM DUMBER THAN A FISH SOMETIMES.

Suffer for fifteen minutes.

If I can keep tasks small, I have a better chance of finishing them. Kara's had her Daisy vest since May, but I'm so intimidated by all the damn patches that I still haven't sewed them on. And yes I know about the double-stick tape, what do you think has been collecting dust on my dresser since November?

I keep putting off the hour I think it'll take to get the patches on, when really I should set aside a little bit of time each night until it's done. Gretchen Rubin is a big fan of suffering for fifteen minutes, and I'm a big fan of Gretchen Rubin, so there's my starting point. And the time to start is now, because cookie season kicks off Friday, and if there's any time your daughter need a functioning Girl Scout vest, it's when peddling Thin Mints.

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A few more guideposts to come. You won't have to wait until 2016, I pinky swear.

2012 in a one-inch picture frame

For me, 2012 was about making big decisions and finding the courage to act on them. My resolution was to leap, and it was a driving force in my life. Luke and I reevaluated our move to Chicago and fought our longing to sell the house, knowing we weren't ready. I left my employer of seven years after an all-consuming job search. I joined a church for the first time in my adult life and found new ways to look at God and my place in the world.

In the middle of all that leaping, my last baby turned one. Kara and Nathan enjoyed vacation bible school, preschool and swim lessons, and Kara took dance. Luke became more serious about running. I spent more time with girlfriends, swapping playdates for lunches and coffee away from our kids. My dad ran for political office. I called a plastic surgeon's office to ask about a tummy tuck, but I never scheduled the consult. I had my first mammogram.

I read thousands of tweets and Facebook updates, but only two hardcovers. Blogging was sporadic, and I never started my book. I was jealous. Money was tight.

A few times I came through for people when I could have looked the other way. Of all the things I did last year, that's what I'm most proud of.

One-inch picture frame prompt courtesy of Anne Lamott

Thirty-two

Yesterday was my birthday. I know this because Kara charged into the bathroom while I was getting dressed and cried out, "Mom, it's your birthday! We got you presents! Come and check it out!" My Facebook wall exploded with posts of happy thoughts, well wishes, and proclamations of "The Year of Bree," and flowers and bagels welcomed me when I came into work. I am blessed to be another year older, surrounded by all this love. I am blessed to be thirty-two.

In a lot of ways, I feel thirty-two. Luke and I will have been together eleven years this year, married six in May, and we have far surpassed the honeymoon stage of our relationship, now challenged with keeping things fresh amidst regurgitated formula, clogged toilets, and stretch marks. I have kids who wear UNDERPANTS and make grand statements about going to KINDERGARTEN next year (hear that, Kara? NEXT YEAR) and who remind me not to talk with food in my mouth. I've spent late nights and long hours combing through finances at the dining room table to make room for insurance premiums, association fees, and preschool - and cried when I couldn't do it. On those nights I think about my own parents with tremendous respect and empathy for the decisions they had to make to raise five children. I never feel more adult than when I'm sitting at that table.

I've walked away from relationships, and I've been dumped. I've feared for my job and my health. I've lost faith in childhood heroes. I've taken the wrong side. I've eaten plenty of crow. 

And yet, at the same time, I'm still a bright-eyed, virgin fifteen, waiting earnestly to come into my own, wondering if I'll ever nail the part of a mature, sophisticated woman. Last month Luke and I took the kids to a Christmas program in town, and we bumped into the mom of one of Kara's friends from preschool. Her perfectly applied make-up and posh handbag put my clearance fleece from Target and ratty Sauconys to shame. How can we possibly have children the same age when clearly I'm late for P.E.?

Mistakes and petty hang-ups aside, my goal for thirty-two is to be more intentional in my thoughts and actions every day, because it's hitting me like a ton of bricks that this one life - this one day, really - is all I have. If I want memories I'm proud of, if I want change, if I want to make a tangible, meaningful impact on this world - it is up to me.

Thirty-two, bring it on.

In the gap between the two trapeze: 2011 recap

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Moved Kara and Nathan into the same room. Watched a royal wedding. Officially closed the door to more biological children. Delivered my third baby. Discontinued our landline service indefinitely. Took the kids to their first movie (Winnie-the-Pooh). Enrolled Kara into preschool and Nathan into Play 'n Share. Published my first sponsored blog entry. Rode in an ambulance, which leads into: Said good-bye to my gallbladder. 

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Inspired by Christina's recap for 2010, this year I replaced my usual list of resolutions with a single key word on which to focus my energy. My word for 2011 was prepare, and I think it worked well. Prepare gave me strength when I felt suffocated by debt, motivation to take care of myself after all my c-section troubles, and offered hope when even the idea of selling this house became unbearable. Prepare can mean big changes or baby steps, tangible results or quiet reflection. It's hard to fail at something when the guidelines for meeting it are so flexible.

That said, I didn't abandon my bullets entirely. Here are the "inevitables" I listed for 2011:

• Pay off credit card balance, which continues to serve as the proverbial/financial thorn in our side - HA HA HA. We had more than cut it in half by the time I returned to work, and I remember saying to Luke with pride, "We made it my whole maternity leave without using the Visa once!" So of course we were slapped with a surprise two grand in car repairs for the Cobalt in October. Because the universe is one crabby bitch.
• Paint the kitchen and the kids' bedrooms and bathroom - Aside from minor touch-ups to each of the kids' rooms, the only paint we opened this year was manufactured by Crayola. So, that would be no. 
• Revamp the backyard and frontyard landscape - Luke pulled some bushes out from alongside the house. I think. And he did a lot of mowing. Half-yes.
• Deliver a healthy baby - I may be a mess physically, but Liam is absolutely perfect. Resounding yes here.
• Enroll Kara into an official preschool class and Nathan into some sort of program this fall - Another check mark, thank goodness.
• Lose the baby weight gained from pregnancy number three - I'm actually underweight at the moment, thanks to my gallbladder drama. Um, thanks, gallbladder?

For my 2012 word, I think I'm going with leap. Welcoming a new baby almost every year for the past three years has led to coasting in certain areas of my life. It is time to shake things up a little.

In addition, here are some milestones I want to hit this year. Most of them are purposefully vague - no quantifiable measurables, more like reminders on how to best spend my time. I will flesh these out over the coming weeks:

• Eliminate our Visa bill once and for all
• Pay off medical bills related to Luke's physical therapy and Liam's delivery
• Put our house on the market
• Train for and complete the Mini
• Make time for hobbies
• Take trips
• Save
• Get involved - Luke, me, and the kids
• Read
• Be there

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Definitely. We're so close, in fact, it's almost like the baby came out of my own body.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

 We weren't close, but I lost my beloved auntie Maureen in late winter.

5. Which countries did you visit?

Uh. None. But I take solace in knowing that if this question were Which COUNTIES did you visit?, I could totally name at least three.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

MONEY, because I am sick of all this debt. Physical strength, because I am tired of feeling worn down. A paid-off mortgage because that will mean we'll have sold our house.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

June 29: Liam's birth

September 23: The final airing of All My Children on network television. I took the afternoon off to watch it at my boss's house. We sat in front of the TV and feasted on Portillo's. It was awesome.

December 1: Gallbladder removal

December 8: ERCP 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

My beautiful baby boy.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Keeping my jealousy in check. There's a reason this is covered in the Ten Commandments; it's one of the ugliest emotions there is. When it feels like you're barely treading water, it's hard to watch others enjoy abundance, even when you know they aren't without troubles, either.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Besides my c-section and gallbladder surgeries, I injured my right knee (same as when I was training for the Mini-Marathon last year) a month into my post-partum couch-to-5K progam. I started physical therapy in October and it's still not completely healed. Again, more on that in another post.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Luke's sterilization. Kara's and Nathan's Christmas gifts - wooden dollhouse and train table set, respectively. We aren't often able to splurge on presents this extravagent, but we made it a priority and I'm so glad we did. They're at the perfect age for these things and should get plenty of mileage out of them. 

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My sister Ryan and brother-in-law Jason, who came back to the U.S. after spending three years with the Army in Germany. They're stationed in North Carolina now, and it's wonderful to be in the same time zone again, even if they're still hundreds of miles away. Just the fact that Jason returned from Afghanistan at all, let alone without injury, is cause for thanksgiving.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

I'd rather not say, but don't worry. Not yours.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Visa. Diapers. Medical bills. Gas. (And now you're jealous of ME!)

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Having Liam. Welcoming a new coworker to our department. Ryan and Jason's move to NC.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

"Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall" by Coldplay because the beat is so trimphant. I needed that kind of kick this year.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) Happier or sadder? Happier.
b) Thinner or fatter? I still weigh less than I did at this time last year, but my belly is still puffier than I'd like, partly because of my diastasis, so let's call it a wash.
c) Richer or poorer? Financially poorer. In love, a million times richer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Sleep. Physical therapy exercises. Keep in contact with family and friends. 

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Same as last year: Worry. Yell.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

Opening presents with Luke and the kids, playing with their new toys, and cleaning every room of the house.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?

Oh, yes. Luckily, Luke is okay with this.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Fringe, hands-down, though New Girl is a close second. Luke and I are ape about this show and Zooey Deschanel. We're also watching Once Upon a Time, but I'm not as enchanted by it (no pun intended) as I was in the beginning. Excited about the return of 30 Rock but was disappointed by the last season, so we're keeping expectations low.

On the kid front, Yo Gabba Gabba. I can't believe I once hated this show. The guest stars alone are comedy gold.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No.

24. What was the best book you read?

I only finished two grown-up books this year, but they were both great, so we'll call it a tie: The Happiness Project and Bossypants. Highly recommend both. 

In the area of children's literature, we as a family have embraced the Knuffle Bunny and How Do Dinosaurs...? series, Ladybug Girl, and Maisy the Mouse, among countless other characters we've grown to love as a result of our local library. Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad books have been a staple in our house for years, but this year we discovered Owl at Home, Mouse Tales, and Mouse Soup. (Nathan: "I don't like the weasel.") Earlier this month I pulled out my big fat Beatrix Potter collection of stories, and while I think the writing is a little over their heads, Kara and Nathan love it. It's so wonderful to relive my childhood favorites with them.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Let's change this to rediscovery so I can say Tori Amos. She went on the road this year to promote Night of Hunters, and every time she travels I get caught up in her old stuff all over again.

If I have to name new music, let's go with Mumford and Sons and Adele.

26. What did you want and get?

A healthy baby.

27. What did you want and not get?

A zero balance on our credit card.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

I only saw one movie at the show - Winnie-the-Pooh, which was adorable. If we're talking rentals, Inception was mind-blowing.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

We did nothing because I was still having crazy bouts of morning sickness. I turned 31.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

An easier delivery. Less debt. Zero car repairs. Intact gallbladder.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

January through June: outdated maternity clothes. July through December: wash-and-wear from The Limited by day, yoga pants by night.

32. What kept you sane?

My husband. Comfort music and coffee on the drive to work.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Tiny Fey and her take on "making it" as a woman and in show business. Those were my favorite sections of Bossypants.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

Pass, mainly because I don't know.

35. Who did you miss?

Everyone. I'm not a big fan of talking on the phone like I was when I was single, and usually I'm too tired after the kids are in bed to make a call, but since most of my support group is up north and Luke and I have needed to stay close to home this year, that's the best way to stay in touch. I did a terrible job of maintaining relationships with friends and family (outside of my own little unit) in 2011. That said, between commuting and special projects, I worked a lot more, and missed that time with Luke and the kids at home.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

I'll give you three guesses.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.

Don't wait for the perfect time to follow your dreams.The path you take will always be riddled with potholes. Screw perfect. NOW is the time.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Courtesy of Coldplay:

I turn the music up, I got my records on
I shut the world outside until the lights come on
Maybe the streets alight, maybe the trees are gone
But I feel my heart start beating to my favorite song

And all the kids they dance, all the kids all night
Until Monday morning feels another life
I turn the music up, I'm on a roll this time
And heaven is in sight

And it is. It's scary, but it's right in front of me.

-------

In case you're interested, quizzes and/or musings from previous years:

2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

* Because of all the new-mom drama I was going through after bringing Kara home, there is no recap for 2007. I know, I'm sad about it, too.

2010 recap; luckily, these never get old, right?

(Please note that I scrambled to publish this during my lunch hour today, so if you check back and notice that some of the answers to these questions have been either changed and/or flushed out since then, you are not hallucinating. Thanks for playing.)

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?

Where to start? As uneventful as 2010 was in a lot of ways - no change in address, job, or the number of people living in my home - I still experienced countless memorable moments. First of all, I turned 30. Watched my baby boy turn one. Locked my daughter in the car. Completed my first half-marathon. Paid for my children's first haircuts. Took said kids to the beach. Witnessed a live birth. Joined a book club. Attended my first same-sex marriage celebration. Enrolled my oldest child into "preschool." Got myself knocked up with baby number three. Watched my not-so-baby girl ditch her crib for a toddler bed, potty train, and turn three (upcoming post on that last one, someday).

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Here are the goals I listed for 2010:

• Complete the Mini-Marathon in May CHECK, THANK YOU VERY MUCH
• Attend 8/10 company racing circuit events CHECK
• Volunteer again (1 hour/week for a elementary school reading program I used to be a part of) CHECK - Though I did decide against signing up again at the start of the new school year
• Build a six-month emergency fund FAIL
• Have regular date nights with Luke FAIL
• Be a more patient mother UP FOR INTERPRETATION, and I'll kindly thank you to keep your nose out of my personal affairs
• Visit family in Chicago every 4 to 5 weeks FAIL
• Take a family vacation HALF CHECK - We did take the kids to the beach up north and did a few other summery activities, but we had to abandon plans to stay at a hotel and bunked with Luke's parents instead
• Take a full week off not related to maternity leave (no babies in 2010!) HALF CHECK - While I did take off the week of Thanksgiving and the week of New Year's, there was a fetus growing in my uterus - not exactly what I had in mind for a baby-free vacay, you know?

As for the "Will I make more for this year?" part, there are certain invevitables that will be accomplished this year, and I'll get to those in a minute, but in regards to goals, I'm taking a new approach for 2011 and choosing instead to focus on a single word that will serve as my theme for the entire year: prepare. As in, prepare my body to give birth and care for a newborn again; prepare our house to be put on the market in 2012; prepare our finances for another addition and for selling our house; etc. I feel like this is a transition year for my family, as we gear up for big and exciting life changes slated for the future.

Now for (some of) the inevitables:

• Pay off credit card balance, which continues to serve as the proverbial/financial thorn in our side
• Paint the kitchen and the kids' bedrooms and bathroom
• Revamp the backyard and frontyard landscape
• Deliver a healthy baby (I sure hope this is inevitable)
• Enroll Kara into an official preschool class and Nathan into some sort of program this fall
• Lose the baby weight gained from pregnancy number three (again, thinking positive here)

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

My sister Samantha gave birth to my lovely niece, Rosemary Lyn.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

 Fortunately, no.

5. Which countries did you visit?

 Unfortunately, none.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?

I want to say money, but that's really shallow, isn't it? Let's go with patience instead. You can't have too much of that.

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

May 8: The Mini
October 11: Baby-Making Day

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Running the Mini.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Managing money. Keeping my temper in check as a mother.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I "caught" a case of patellofemoral pain syndrome resulting from overtraining and poor choice of running shoe. Other than that, just a couple colds.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Kara's tuition for preschool.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My brother Geo's, for taking the sheriff's test.My brother-in-law Jason's, for serving our country. My sister Ryan's, for making it through a horrific experience this spring. Kara's, for her potty-training achievements. Nathan's, for his overall charmingness. Luke's, for continuing to rock the stay-at-home parenting gig.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

I learned about two couples who are divorcing near the end of the year, and the behavior of the husbands in both instances is still appalling to me.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Visa. Diapers. Wedding expenses and car repairs. Yes, we are boring.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Running the Mini and just being a runner in general. Going to the beach. Watching my sister give birth to my niece. Paying off one of our personal loans.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?

"Rocketship Run" by the Laurie Berkner Band, because we listened to it and the rest of that CD so much throughout the second half of the year, among our many travels back home. Also, "I Gotta Feeling" and "Break Your Heart" always remind me of training for the Mini.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Honestly, probably a little sadder.
b) thinner or fatter? I weigh less than I did at this time last year, but my belly has extended beyond my kneecaps thanks to Number Three, not from devouring too many potato chips), so...neither?
c) richer or poorer?  Poorer. Much, much poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Travel. Save.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worry. Yell.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

Opening presents with Luke, Kara, and Nathan, playing with their assortment of new toys, and wasting away on the couch.

21. Did you fall in love in 2010?

Not with anything new.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Fringe and 30 Rock. We still have yet to obtain an antenna for watching basic stations after disconnecting satellite, so we bring my laptop home and watch them online. Makes it hard to watch anything but shows we absolutely cannot miss. Since that fateful August, I can count on one hand how many episodes I've seen of All My Children.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No.

24. What was the best book you read?

How about most enjoyable? Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. I didn't love it as much as Eat Pray Love, but I adore her voice and writing style.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Here comes a loser parent-type answer: Laurie Berkner. We listen to music from our "regular" mix of CDs with the kids, but I like having something that's geared for them, too. And the songs are so much fun. If you don't have Rocketship Run in your collection, I highly recommend it.

26. What did you want and get?

Pregnancy number three!

27. What did you want and not get?

More money. (Again with the shallow. I assume you are sensing a theme here, yes?)

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

From the theatre? Because I saw two movies in an honest-to-goodness movie theatre this year for the first time since 2007: The Lovely Bones in January with work friends and Eat Pray Love in August with my new friend Jen. Both flicks were disappointing compared to their literary counterparts, but HOT DAMN it was fun to be at the show again.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Luke and I held a joint birthday party for Kara and Nathan since it falls nicely between their actual birthdays. I turned 30.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Traveling. Saving. (THEME, people).

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?

Work: Out-of-season New York and Company. Play: Yoga pants, capris, and racing tees.

32. What kept you sane?

My family.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Um, Joshua Jackson? From Fringe? You know, because he's hot?

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

Attitudes in the U.S. regarding length of maternity leave. Three guesses as to why!

35. Who did you miss?

Same folks as last year: my sister Ryan and brother-in-law, Jason. Jason is currently serving his second tour in Afghanistan, while Ryan continues to make a life for herself in Germany. He's due home in June, at which time they will begin the process of relocating to their next assignment - this time in the States!

36. Who was the best new person you met?

My new niece Rosemary. What a cutie.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.

"People first, then money, then things." This is actually a personal finance quote from Suze Orman, but it reminds of how long I was fighting my priorities and the order of their importance. Then, one day this fall I took the time to write a very important list - not a life list, and not a pros and cons list, but an important list just the same - that made it crystal clear what I most value in this life. Luke is in agreement, and we are finally ready to start going after it.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

"Some people aren't lucky like us" - courtesy of LeAnn Rimes, from the song that played during Sarah and Leslie's first dance. Luke and I ran into a lot of obstacles this year, but we came out intact. I wish every couple we knew could say the same. Nevertheless, we are so, so grateful for our children, and our health, and each other.

Six(ish) weeks

When I started drafting this entry last Wednesday, there weren't any signs of morning sickness to be had, so aside from some run-of-the-mill fatigue and uterine cramping, I was feeling well and therefore insanely optimistic. Baby number three = warm fuzzies of completeness! My family can take on anything! Who needs a savings account when you have love?

Then practically overnight I was nodding off during storytime and experiencing constant stomach upset and swearing off pork chops and coffee. Yesterday I couldn't stop worrying over my ability to divide my time among three children, and today I almost cried actual tears because Subway told me they were out of chicken and dumpling soup, so I suppose we have officially entered the Trimester of Sick and Raging Hormones.

And I really was doing so well. From the moment we suspected I might be pregnant, I've been telling Luke how much easier it will be for us this time around. For starters, we'll only have one baby to deal with instead of two, as Kara and Nathan are pretty self-sufficient as far as toddlers go - ability to play independently, (mostly) follow basic directions, operate utensils without assistance, and put themselves to sleep with (mostly) minimal fanfare. Kara is almost potty-trained and should be completely diaper-free come summer. (We recently tried underwear instead of pull-ups for bedtime, with mixed results, so we are going to try again in another month or two.) Luke is going to work on Nathan soon, who is already showing a vague interest, thanks to the example set by his sister.

More positives: I will give birth in the summer, a first for me, which will allow us to be out and about for the bulk of my maternity leave, once I've recovered from my c-section. Summer break means that Luke's parents and Dan and Samantha will have an easier time spending time with us while the baby is new. I have a couple of honest-to-goodness friends in the area to lean on for support, and we have a reliable baby-sitter at our disposal. My newfound commitment to eating less junk food and being more physically active during this pregnancy should hopefully better prepare my body to bounce back from surgery. We won't be house-hunting or planning a move this time, or making any drastic changes to our home, save for some new paint in a few rooms and reorganizing some furniture, so life should be calmer.

And yet, as I review our finances, and lament over still being so far away from family, and remember how hard it was to get back in the swing of things after the arrival of each child and how vulnerable I always feel in those early months, and how unforgiving the world seems, I get nervous and scared and wonder what the hell Luke and I have gotten ourselves into. I wonder if I will ever have free time again, if we will ever have money again, if we will ever move beyond this "coming into our own" phase and achieve the long-term goals we have set for ourselves.

It will be okay. I think we just need a little more time to adjust.

In the meantime, it's not too late to show off Halloween pictures, is it?

 

This was the first year we took the kids trick-or-treating, and to mark the occasion we let them pick out their own costumes at Target. We went two weeks before Halloween, so options in Kara's size were pretty sparse. Luckily, she was able to don something she liked - a firefighter costume, just like Grandpa (my dad).

 

Nathan was a puppy. He kept calling the ears his "puppy hat." Let the squeeing commence.

 

The act of trick-or-treating was somewhat complicated this year, as Luke and I were out of town that Saturday for my cousin's wedding reception, but one of the news websites said our area would be celebrating on Sunday night as it should be, so we thought we were safe, only after coming back on Sunday afternoon to carve pumpkins and deposit eight dollars' worth of chocolate bars into a bowl near the front door and after getting the children good and excited about visiting numerous strangers' houses for candy, we learned that the news website Luke had found was actually from last year, and that all local festivities had taken place the day before, while we were in Chicago. So we scrambled through dinner, threw the costumes on the kids, and drove twenty minutes to a neighboring town to fulfill their toddler fantasies. Ah, parenthood.

It's our birthday, get busy

Well, really it was only my birthday. Kara turned two three weeks ago, and Nathan won't be one until the end of the month, but we did have a joint party for them today, so it counts. Anyway, the celebration started yesterday, when I came upon my office to find pink streamers on the ceiling and a red feather boa taped to my door, courtesy of my coworkers.

 

Luke e-mailed the picture (and more, I'm told!) to my boss at her request two weeks ago. Thanks, honey.

 

Festive yet work-friendly.

The two biggest accomplishments of my twenties.

It was a great day. Luke and I decided to go with a pirate theme for the kids' party, which we loved. For Kara's first birthday, decorations never even crossed our minds, we were so frazzled (and broke) preparing for Nathan's arrival, but this year since we were doing two for the price of one, we figured the expense was worth it. We didn't get everything, mainly a banner, tablecoths, candles, and food and drink stuff, but it was just enough to make the house feel festive.

Luke and I originally wanted to get something to do with monkeys, since Kara and Nathan both love them with the passion of a thousand suns, but Party City didn't have monkeys. They did have Winnie the Pooh, Dora the Explorer, Spongebob Squarepants, Seasame Street, and The Little Mermaid. The kids are still too little to really care much, and we like pirates a whole lot, so there you go.

There was birthday cake:

And the eating of cake:

 

And lots of laughing with family and friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

I couldn't have asked for a better way to jumpstart my thirties. What a wonderful day.

(Up next: reflections on my twenties.)

Not like the ones I used to know

When it comes to celebrating the holidays as a parent to small children, I struggle. Luke and I, we get so bogged down by day-to-day rituals that it's hard to find energy for "extra" things like gingerbread houses and Christmas caroling. It's funny, because growing up my family didn't do those types of things, just did the basics like Santa Claus and stockings, and that was good enough for me, but now as an adult I feel all this pressure to step it up a notch for my own kids. Kara was barely a week old for her first Christmas, so it wasn't an issue then, but I definitely felt guilty last year when pregnancy invaded every fiber of my being and it was all I could do just to get her presents wrapped and under the tree. No cookies in the oven, no wreath on the door, no snowman in the back yard; we didn't even go to church. Not that Kara noticed any of this. But I felt like a failure in terms of maximizing her Christmas experience.

This year, I was easier on myself. Two babies in two years takes a lot of adjusting to, more than I realized, and I figure it's okay to skimp on the extras while we're still getting our sea legs. There's plenty of time for crafts and baking and any other traditions we may want to take on in the future. So until then, Luke and I are keeping things simple. This year we focused on decorating our house early in the season, enjoying the chaos of Black Friday while Luke's parents watched the kids, and introducing Kara to Santa Claus and the story of Jesus's birth.

The actual holiday was also low-key; thanks to all the half days I took in October and November to care for sick babies, I had to work on Christmas Eve, but we still managed to get ourselves to church that night (thankfully there was a service at seven geared towards families with kids) and leave our first snack of milk and cookies for Santa when we got home. We gave the kids baths and dolled them up in festive pajamas and gathered them together for a reading of The Night Before Christmas before putting them to bed. And once they were asleep, Luke and I finished wrapping their presents, made some popcorn, caught up on some TV, and went to bed, visions of a full night's sleep dancing in our heads, instead of sugarplums.

The kids were up by six-thirty the next morning, ready to start the day.

 

Kara observing evidence of Santa's arrival. Santa was a big fan of Mrs. Fields' chocolate chip cookies.

 

Checking out the goods.

 

The kids go ape over snowmen these days, so the wrapping paper alone would have been enough to occupy them for hours. Why even bother with presents?

 

Yessiree Bob, that is some pretty spectacular wrapping paper. We could sit here all day and just hang out with this here wrapping paper. Momma and Daddy aren't in for a long morning at all!

Did you know that stockings could actually be used for their original intended purpose? Here, let Kara model one for you.

Time for the adults to reclaim Christmas. Open your presents already!

What, doesn't everybody pull off three inches of paper at a time?

Finally getting into the spirit and enjoying their puzzles. The Little People house you see in the background was Kara's birthday present.

 

Luke examining Kara's fire truck. She is still all about transportation and it showed in her gifts.

Luke reading one of several new books, Sandra Boynton's Barnyard Dance!, which is freaking awesome.

Nathan checking out his new phone among piles of mega blocks, Kara's feet swinging in the background.

Me and the kids. The picture quality is just meh, but Kara's pucker is priceless.

Mother and son mugging for the camera. To say I felt more myself this Christmas than the past two combined would be a severe understatement, and I think it shows here, how content I am.

The loot. Luke and I had such a fun time picking out gifts this year, working hard to find the right balance of plastic crap with handmade dolls, puzzles, and books. Initially there were two more presents in the mix, a tea set for Kara and trio of Melissa and Doug vehicles for Nathan, but the night before Christmas Eve I had everything grouped together and was overwhelmed with the feeling that it was all too much for children so young. So we put the tea set aside to return to Target and took away Nathan's vehicles, to be included as part of his birthday present. And yet it STILL took us an hour to get through everything, and it was hard to remain patient, but one day when they're school-aged and tearing through their stuff in ten minutes, I will look back on this day and be thankful for the chance to savor it all: the ability to spoil our kids without breaking the bank on trendy clothes and gadgets, their joy in discovering new things, adults finding peace amid chaos. A merry Christmas, indeed, overall.

From '09 to '10

I have a days-old draft post filled with pictures from Christmas morning, but since we just entered a New Year, posting this first seemed more appropriate. Taken from Sundy's blog, who originally found it on Grenworld.com.

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?

Gave birth to a baby boy. Ran my first 5K. Celebrated one-year of homeownership, three years of marriage, and five years of blogging. Bought a double stroller. Freaked out over a Gymboree class. Experienced the joy of DVR recording. Bought Spanx (which fits much better these days, thank you very much). Left my children with a baby-sitter who wasn't a family member. Saw Billy Joel and Elton John in concert for the first time in eight years. Started drinking coffee (and I have totally given in to Starbucks). Was laid off (freelance-wise). Took a baby on an overnight trip all by myself. Joined Twitter and Facebook. Signed up for a half-marathon. Ran a trail race. Received a parent's introduction to Noggin (now Nick Jr.) and the joy that is Max and Ruby. Showered in a gym locker room. Found balance in my role as a working mom with two children. Applauded as my favorite little nephew turned one. Sobbed as my firstborn daughter turned two.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I wrote a lot about long-term goals and short-term resolutions around this time last year, and from those lists, I did make good on a lot of them. I'm more comfortable in my body than I've been in a long time and more conscious of wearing the right hat at the right time in terms of juggling priorities; I'm also gaining more confidence in my parenting and putting sleep ahead of other things like reading or blogging, which always, always pays off. On a tactical level, my little unit also did well: we opened a Roth IRA for Luke and paid off the new used family car we bought last December (both financial items brought to us by the first-time homeowner's tax credit). Luke and I did take a kids-free vacation to celebrate our anniversary, and it was heavenly, even if it was only for one night. I didn't post a blog entry once a week, but I did post more often without compromising other responsibilities, and I feel good about that. Same for the book-a-month thing; that didn't happen, but I did read more, and more importantly, I enjoyed what I read. We found a local church that we like and now attend a couple of times a month. And last but not least, exercise is slowly becoming a part of my everyday life. 2009 was a huge win overall. (Even though we STILL don't have a will or living trust. Personal finance FAIL!)

And 2010 will be moreso. At work, my team got together to discuss our personal and professional goals for the year; here's what I wrote for my personal goals:

• Complete the Mini-Marathon in May
• Attend 8/10 company racing circuit events
• Volunteer again (1 hour/week for a elementary school reading program I used to be a part of)
• Build a six-month emergency fund
• Have regular date nights with Luke
• Be a more patient mother
• Visit family in Chicago every 4 to 5 weeks
• Take a family vacation
• Take a full week off not related to maternity leave (no babies in 2010!)

The Chicago goal is too ambitious, and I'll never be as patient a mother as my children deserve, but in general these goals represent all that's important to me--health, marriage, family, self--and all are attainable with discipline and hard work.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?



Outside of the Internets, no, just me.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No close family or friends, but a woman at work lost her battle with leukemia last fall, and that hit me pretty hard, reminding me to count my blessings and never take my health for granted.

5. What countries did you visit?



None.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

Sleep. Energy. I had them in spurts in 2009, but now that Luke and I are about to experience a year free from the trials and tribulations of first-year parenting (knocks on wood virgorously), I'm hoping we can enjoy more of both in 2010. Focus would be nice, too, so that I'm not always bouncing between the eight million things on my to-do list, and patience, for obvious reasons.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

January 31 - Nathan's birth. December 17 - Kara's birthday. September in general will stay with me because of my 5K.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Having my son. Meeting physical challenges that once seemed impossible.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Selfishness in allowing Luke to actively support my goals without always doing the same for him. In hard times, failing to keep my emotions in check while parenting.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

C-section recovery was a bitch this time around, not helped by a two-story house and a toddler who wanted Momma to pick her up, up, up, all the time.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Our iPod shuffle, to help with running.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Kara's, for coming such a long way verbally. To hear her talk now, you'd never know how worried Luke and I were about her saying anything other than "Go, go!" Luke's, for managing the schedules of two babies while at home.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

A person I can't identify online.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Mortgage, diapers, wipes, formula, baby clothes, and Papa Murphy's pizza.

15. What did you get really excited about?

Nathan's birth. The season premiere of LOST. Getting into reading again. Black Friday Christmas shopping. Doing the Jingle Bell Run. That was even better than my first 5K because I wasn't as nervous and I didn't have to run it alone.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

That "Forever" song by Chris Brown because it was effing everywhere, even showing up on The Office for Jim and Pam's wedding, and "Paparazzi" by Lady Gaga because SHE was effing everywhere; also because it's a really motivating running song, so it's always on my playlist.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:


– happier or sadder? Happier, definitely.
– thinner or fatter? Thinner. Childbirth will do that for you!

– richer or poorer? Richer in regards to investments, poorer in that we're spending more per month on everyday expenses.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Sleep. Make love. Save. Read. Stick to our budget. Spend even more time outdoors as a family.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?



Procrastinate. Yell. Worry. Make excuses. Let things fester. Become overwhelmed by domestic minutiae.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

At home with Luke and the kids playing with new toys, then searching for a restaurant that was open so we didn't have to cook dinner. IHOP advertised on its Web site that it would be open on Christmas Day, and we even double checked to make sure our local chain was on the list, and it was, except when we got there, it was lights out, empty parking lot, nothing. We drove around for almost an hour before ending up at Hardee's, and if that's not the saddest thing you ever heard, eating a fatty, greasy cheeseburger with onion rings on the day of Jesus's birth, I don't know what is.

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?

Yes, with my new little foursome, and with running (though it's a love/hate relationship). There was also a brief affair with Jillian Michaels and the 30 Day Shred, which I will forever be grateful to for helping me lose a good chunk of baby weight.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Luke and I discovered a few new shows this year; my favorites are Two and a Half Men, 30 Rock, and Man vs. Food. Standing faves include LOST and Fringe; I'm becoming less enchanted with The Office every year, to the point that I wonder if I'll even be watching come the season finale.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Not hate, no, but there's one person I like a whole lot less, the same person mentioned in number 13, and I'll leave it at that. If anything, I'm trying to be more forgiving, especially in instances where I can't even put my finger on the original source of conflict.

24. What was the best book you read?

Eat Pray Love ranks first (I cannot WAIT for the sequel to be released this month), with The Lovely Bones second (the movie will be released nationwide on January 15, and so help me, God, I want to be there).

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?


It was actually rediscovering Tori Amos's older music.

26. What did you want and get?

A healthy child. A healthier body. A sense of peace.

27. What did you want and not get?

Sleeeeeeep.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

I haven't been to the show since I was pregnant with Kara, and thanks to the various programming choices on satellite TV, I don't think Luke and I rented a movie together even once.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I visited an out-of-town printer with my boss, who brought in donuts, and came home to a corned beef dinner prepared by Luke. That was about it since I was big as a house with Nathan and hella uncomfortable to boot. I turned 29. (Just like this question!)

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

A better experience with nursing. Fewer episodes of nighttime parenting. Fewer bouts of illness with the kids.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

For much of the year, it was "Dress to camoflauge as much baby weight as possible." That changed some after doing the Shred this summer and even more after I started running. I'm looking forward to happier clothing experiences in 2010.

32. What kept you sane?

Reading. Blogging, when time allowed. Exercising, especially building on my running mileage. Popcorn time with Luke at the end of a long day.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Jillian Michaels. Suze Orman. Elizabeth Gilbert.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?



Healthcare and education.

35. Who did you miss?


My family and friends that I don't see everyday, especially my sister Ryan and brother-in-law Jason, who moved to an army base in Germany at the end of 2008. Luke and the kids when traveling for work.

36. Who was the best new person you met?



Nathan, of course! Also Katy, who will likely prove to be a critical source of motivation in training for the Mini.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.

Easy does it.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

The hardest to learn was the least complicated. "Least Complicated," Indigo Girls

The older I get, the more I find myself relying on tacky cliches to get me through hard times or summarize what I'm thinking or feeling; turns out those cliches became popular for a reason. Who knew?

Happy 2010 from my family to yours. May all your goals come true this year.

(Yes, I've posted this picture before, but what can I say? I really like it.)

Belated thanks

Because it's never out of season to count your blessings, even three days after Thanksgiving.

I am grateful for so many things:

A job that is more than just a job; a job that provides a handsome paycheck, family-friendly work environment, flexible hours, and supportive coworkers (who baby-sit!). An interest-free loan from my employer allowed Luke and me to paint and carpet the house before move-in last fall. Six weeks of paid maternity leave saved me from using all my vacation time to recover from Nathan's birth. If there is a better workplace in Indianapolis, I have yet to find it.

A house with plenty of space, and bedrooms, in close proximity to a kick-ass walking trail/park system, that we can afford on one income. We have a back yard and a garage and more bathrooms than a family of four could possibly need (though we've found a way to use them all).

A husband who is patient and kind and a devoted father to boot. He knows how to leave his ego at the door and rarely ever raises his voice; when he does, it's usually because I've done it first. He doesn't flinch when I return from a shopping spree (in my defense, after two years of maternity clothes, I've earned it, dammit) or when I come home late from work. He manages the kids when I'm away overnight and is already asking what I want to do for my birthday in January (the big 3-0). So lucky, am I.

Happy, healthy children who search for me when I'm not in the room, who reach out for me calling, "Momma, Momma." They clasp their arms around my neck and rest their heads on my shoulder when I go to them in the middle of the night. They lift their faces for kisses and open their arms for hugs. They frustrate me like nobody else can, but just as quickly as they press my buttons, they melt my heart.

A daughter who speaks freely and often, putting my fears of language delays to rest.

A son who finds joy in everything, even when that joy means cleaning squash from his socks, the floor, my pants, and in between his fingers.

My ability to conceive and maintain healthy pregnancies (minus that tiny bout of pre-eclampsia with Nathan, of course). I read stories from women who have lost children, who struggle to get pregnant, and I cry for them. I pray to God that their wish for motherhood be granted.

The closeness in age of my kids. I would never have planned a 13-month gap on purpose, and the first few months bore some of my worst moments as a mother, but to watch them now, playing and laughing together, I am so, so happy it turned out this way.

Running, which I suspect will be key to regaining my figure and maintaining my sanity.

A strong, able body that is up for the challenge.

Friends I can spill my guts to, who know when to speak and when to just listen.

New friends I am just beginning to know.

My siblings, and that I have so many of them.

My parents, and that they are both living.

My parents-in-law, for who they are and their unconditional support.

My new Aveda shampoo and conditioner. After almost a year of resigning myself to drugstore products, I splurged on hair care last week, and it was awesome.

Accepting that I will never be the type of woman who "puts on her face" in the morning but acknowledging that blush and eyeliner are worth the trouble for a night out. Now it's just a matter of replacing my essentials, seeing as all of my products are at least three years old and cracking, which I discovered in dismay yesterday morning after deciding to take inventory.

My new jeans, a beautiful, baggy size 12, a far cry from bulging in my post-partum 14s back in March.

Making time for a dust and vaccuum roughly once a week. I remember when even once a month seemed impossible.

Two and a Half Men, and The New Adventures of Old Christine, and The Soup (edited to add: and 30 Rock! How could I forget 30 Rock? What the what?), for making me laugh.

Fringe and Lost, for taking me to worlds where anything is possible.

Man vs. Food, for inspiring future vacations.

All My Children, for indulging me in stories of babies switched at birth and spouses brought back from the dead.

Our digital video recorder, which allows me to skip between AMC scenes and breeze through commercials more efficiently than I ever could with our VCR.

 

Having two cars at our disposal so I can drive to and from work and Luke can get out with the kids at the same time. Both paid in full, no less!

The financial means to stay current our bills, save for our future, and give to those in need.

The ability to dream and the power to make them come true.

The willingness to learn.

My flannel pajama pants, sheets, and pillow cases. A necessity for winter.

My desire to start reading again. In the last couple of months I finished two books (Eat Pray Love and The Lovely Bones, both excellent reasons to pick up the habit again), and before 2009, I hope to add one more (Dave Sedaris's latest memoir, which I started back in January--good reading but not exactly a page-turner). When I was pregnant and also in the trenches of those early months with Kara and Nathan, this was something that fell to the wayside, save my yearly revisiting of Flowers in the Attic and no-brainer Archie comics. I feel more myself when there are books on my nightstand, and I hope there are even more in 2010.

Social media outlets that reconnect me with old friends and provide an outlet for communicating when a blog entry seems like too much effort.

 

Max and Ruby, which has the power to end temper tantrums.

Swiss Miss hot chocolate mix and hoity-toity coffee drinks from Starbucks. Yes, I'm officially one of them.

The compliment that Kara looks just like me. I never get tired of hearing that, ever.

Living in a city with an affordable cost of living that doesn't compromise culture.

Finally having the gumption to turn my house into a home.

Marathon phone calls that last well beyond bedtime.

Ribeye steak from Harry and Izzy's in downtown Indianapolis. It's a pricey plate of meat, and I've only had it twice during sales dinners for work, but oh, Lord, is it delicious.

Being a wife.

Being a mother.

Laughing in response to my children.

Forming a relationship with God that isn't based on guilt or obligation.

Getting to know myself again.

Having no fear of turning 30.

Being a member of the most amazing family of four. I look at pictures on the walls of our living room and am awestruck to see myself holding babies who came from my physical body, a result of my bond with this incredible man. It is better than I imagined and more than I will ever deserve.

Believing with everything I have that life couldn't get any better, while knowing the best is yet to come.

 

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Laboring, picturing, and a little deep thinking

I'm a huge fan of long car trips. This has less do to with the actual driving and more about the conversations Luke and I have as we pass miles of cornfields with two babies snoozing contentedly in the back seat. Anyway, there's been a lot of talk in our house about our next steps when it comes to housing, working, budgeting, family planning, and so on, so this was a perfect time to jump into those topics a little more in-depth. I don't want to derail from the actual point of this post, which is to share photos from our lovely three-day weekend, but I do want to plant some seeds for myself in terms of future entries. For now, I can tell you that:

• We want to move again before Kara starts kindergarten, if not sooner
• We need to meet our eight-month emergency fund goal first
• We want to take our first family vacation as a reward for meeting that goal
• The idea of moving back to the Chicago area isn't as strong as it once was
• The time to declutter our house (and our lives!) is now, baby
• Speaking of babies, I might be OK (again) with not getting pregnant again
• Adoption or foster parenting is on the table
• In keeping with our overall goal of putting our energies in the right place, we need to make a more concerted effort to spend time with the people we love most

That last bullet point serves as the perfect segue for the rest of this post, as Luke and I made a special trip up north to attend a joint birthday party for our very own Sock family's KJ and Marin. And we had a blast.

 

The birthday supastars, with a little Kara and Nathan profiling for good measure.

 

This picture documents at least two potential Christmas gifts for my kids. Not only were they mesmerized by the shiny red fire truck, which had Kara singing "Woo woo!" the entire afternoon (a throwback to Curious George and the Firefighters), they were also all over the miniature kitchen set. Nathan highly recommends the lettuce and the plates.

 

Meeting of the minds, right here.

 

Because Kara falls right in the middle of Jack and Marin, she has things in common with both of them. This weekend she was especially enamored with Jack, as he was able to run up and down the sidewalk and they could laugh their crazy heads off together.

 

Our babies.

 

Our hostess, who along with her husband was gracious enough to give their bedroom to us for the night.

 

The Three Stooges: Hoosier Edition.

 

One of the best group shots we could manage under the circumstances, with the circumstances being five children under seven and three under two. Bonus points to Marin for being the only one to actually make eye contact with the camera.

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After our overnight, we paid a visit to Luke's parents at their new house.

 

Grandma and Nathan showing off the landscaping.

 

Grandpa and Kara having their own meeting of the minds.

 

Nathan testing out the guest bedroom.

 

Kara receiving her first golf lesson of sorts.

 

Frameworthy. 

 

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And now, some random favorites of the kids from the last week or two.

 

Kara and Nathan love congregating around this end table. Nathan is still just small enough that he can sit straight up right underneath.

 

Luke took this shot of Kara, and she looks so sweet it makes me want to cry.

  

Nathan making his newest trademark expression, the duck face.

 

Kara took to her booster seat quickly; so quickly, in fact, that when she's hungry, she will climb inside and attempt to buckle herself in.

 

Nathan is still catching on to the whole solids thing--sometimes I think he forgets it's food we're giving him, not deadly poison--but he still manages to make a fantastic mess.

 

Doesn't Kara look so very adult here? Like she's taking her senior portrait for high school? Good God, my baby's in high school! Wah wah wah.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Ready for take-off

When you are the parents of a spirited fifteen-month-old and slightly crazed ten-week-old and you can barely keep up on your laundry or the bills or the mountains of dishes mating in your sink or even sleep for longer than four hours at a time, it's easy to let a trifle of a day like Easter slide right under your radar. You know, the day Jesus rose from the dead? Totally a Hallmark holiday anyway, right?

(Just kidding. So sorry, Jesus.)

Even though I do think we're getting better at managing our household and this new family dynamic, it's still way too easy to get so caught up in our day-to-day routine that we forget about the big picture, the issues that make up the fabric of our lives (and you thought it was cotton!). This is the first time in several years that I didn't at least attempt to do something extra during Lent, and we gave little thought to how we would introduce Kara to the concept of Easter. On a smaller scale, we didn't even talk about coloring eggs until yesterday, when Luke asked the question and I shot him down, focused on the mess we would make instead of the joy Kara would take from the activity. We just have so much mess these days that I hesitated to make more. "Next year," I promised him. "We'll do it next year."

We did have the wherewithal to make an Easter basket for the kids, but when you're shopping for items the day before, your choices are somewhat limited. Since we knew the Targets and Wal-Marts would be packed with last-minute shoppers like us and since we planned on boycotting candy this year, anyway, we went to Barnes and Noble to pick up some books and other non-edible goodies for our clan. Kara and Nathan each received a God-themed book and a few other things that we crammed into a bag we already had at home, a fun bag that a girlfriend of mine bought for me to store nursing accessories back when I was pregnant with Kara, a bag I didn't use at all with her and only a few weeks with Nathan, a bag I loved nonetheless for its bright colors and various pockets. The Frog and Toad dolls we found in the children's section fit perfectly right up front. The bunny you see was a token present we bought for Kara at a Cracker Barrel two weeks ago on our way home from Merrillville, but we stuffed that in the bag, too. You know, in honor of the day.

 

Luckily, our hodge podge pseudo basket went over just fine. We've already read My Little Book About God three times to Kara, who adores her Frog and Toad dolls, and well, neither she nor the boy had the slightest clue what today was, anyway, so really we could've done nothing and they would've been none the wiser.

Nathan turned ten weeks old yesterday, and even though I'm trying to cut myself some slack and not sweat the small stuff, I'm ready to move past the minutiae we're currently entrenched in and get on with our lives. I hate that our day is filled with maintaining the status quo in terms of laundry, dishes, and bills. I want to get back to long-term financial planning; home improvement; phone calls with friends; baby books and photo albums; books of my own to read; more time for writing; trips to the zoo; family vacations; hell, even long walks as an after-dinner staple instead of a special occasion when we're not too tired would do for now. I want us to make a place for ourselves in this new community we worked so hard to find. I want get involved with good causes, Luke and I both, so we can meet new people and make friends. I want to lose this effing baby weight and pay closer mind to what we're putting in, on, and around our bodies. And somewhere in the middle, I want to spend one-on-one time with my husband.

(That, actually, is already in the works. For our anniversary next month, Luke and I have booked a night in southwest Michigan and made plans with his parents to watch the kids while we enjoy an adults-only getaway. We won't even be gone a full twenty-four hours--Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning, tops--but I'm already so excited I can't see straight.)

I know that the time and energy I need to accomplish all those things aren't too far off. The older the kids get, the easier it will be to focus on more than one or two things at a time. And this is such a special time in our lives that the last thing I want to do is wish Kara's and Nathan's early years away. I love them so much, just the way they are. But after being in the pregnancy/baby grind for literally two years now, I'm ready to broaden my horizons a bit. I'm ready to see what my awesome little family is capable of--what I'M capable of. And sometimes, I'm tired of waiting.

 

Not that I don't LOVE getting up at 3 a.m. for this sweet litle face.

This is why we stayed in Indy

Because when I returned to work last March, I was lucky enough to score a boss who does stuff like this:

Tomorrow is my 29th birthday. It's also the day she and I are visiting a printer from out of town, so she brought my goodies in today. In addition to the breakfast extravaganza, there were gift cards to Subway, White Castle, and the double-D chain itself. Is there a better way for a woman who's 35 weeks pregnant to celebrate her birthday? I think not.

When Luke and I decided that he would stay home with our children and I would handle the corporate eight-to-five, I was happy we could manage on one income but devastated that I had to make it happen. I know the old saying, "Where there's a will, there's a way," but believe me when I tell you Luke's salary was not appropriate for his experience and qualifications and could not support the two of us in our apartment, let alone a baby and a house. (Thank you, non-profit sector.) At the end of my maternity leave, I cried every day because I was so sad about all the moments I'd be missing with my beautiful baby daughter. I was also very nervous about working with a new boss, someone who was hired days before I left, someone who I was afraid would either replace me or ask me to downplay my role as a mother for "the good of the company."

Instead, I met a person who was kind, caring, secure in her ability to lead our department, and open to my suggestions and ideas. She listens to my stories about Kara and Luke, and she came into my office with tears in her eyes after watching the YouTube montage of Kara's first year. We gab about All My Children and the suckfest that is DISH Network. She never asks me to compromise my family time for work but appreciates when I do. And we are extremely productive and well-respected by all of our colleagues. It's the best of both worlds. It's the reason I'm OK with rushing through breakfast, throwing on my coat, and waving "bye-bye" to Kara, who would much prefer me to stick around for an eighth reading of Numbers or At the Zoo.

I won't lie to you. Sometimes, it's still hard. Kara is so much fun these days--pushing her babydoll stroller around the living room but refusing to chauffeur the actual baby; "hiding" under the end table just waiting for someone to find her. Last night, she enjoyed her first 100-percent big-girl dinner of spaghetti, applesauce, and whole milk. (Can I take a minute to brag that she was off Similac after only three days of half-and-half bottles? Benjamins, welcome back!) And when I'm putting her to bed, she'll pull up my shirt to give my belly a kiss no fewer than three times a night. Absolutely adorable. I wish there were more hours in the day for me to get more of those kisses.

But I don't have the mommy guilt I thought I would. I know now that we can and do make the most of the time we have together. I know Kara thrives in countless ways from spending her days with Luke. I know I make a difference at my company. And hot damn, am I proud of myself for being able to provide for my family.

Happy Birthday to me.

You're mine, '09

A few days ago, while reading through my Holiday archives, I realized that 2007 was the first year in the history of this blog that I didn't write a post in honor of the New Year. Don't believe me? See for yourself:

So Long, Farewell, 2004

The Best of 2005, The Worst of 2005

On the '06

My references in the first two posts are fairly obvious, but in hindsight, I'm hoping at least a handful of readers back then caught the Jennifer Lopez one.

This year, there's no trace of pop culture in my title. Instead, the focus is on me. Because in 2009, the focus will be on me.

Well, as much as it can be when you're a wife and a mother to two small children.

 

Here I am at the end of 2005, posing with Luke for the closest thing I have to an engagement picture. It's one of my all-time favorites, so much so that I recently framed it for viewing in our new house. The issues I was facing seemed so monumental at the time--deciding whether or not to Live in Sin, figuring out how to share myself without losing myself, dealing with the whole religion thing--but now they've been resolved for so long that it's hard to remember how stressed I was about them. However, I can still appreciate that for the first time in my adult life, I was making decisions that forced me to...not take a stand, exactly, but to separate from traditions and values I'd experienced in my family and held dear for a long time, even when they no longer fit with the woman I had become. They are decisions I stand by to this day, and there are no regrets, just a feeling of peace.

Also, can I tell you how much I loved my look here? The hair cut, the color, the oversupply of clothing from New York and Company, The Limited, and Bakers? I don't care if it sounds superficial, I loved my style, and I love that it made me feel good about myself.

 

Less hair but more attitude. I was a married woman with the world at her feet!

 

More hair, less attitude. I was a new mother with the world falling at her feet! (At the same time I was falling in love.)

 

Just...more. More, more, more. More hair, more attitude (though not always the right attitude), more weight, more babies.... Just more. (Random aside: Recovering from one pregnancy and immediately starting another meant that I couldn't fit into my wedding rings for the entirety of 2008. Way to go, Frema!) 

(Also random: I look at the gradual decline of my physical appearance and can't help but think "Going...going...gone." Though I challenge any brand-new mother and/or woman who's 33 weeks pregnant on Christmas morning to take a picture worthy of Glamour Shots.)

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Looking at these images, I feel a wide range of emotions. On one hand, I'm proud and amazed at how far I've come. I went from being a twenty-something woman with a list full of unachieved goals to being a master's-degree-level graduate, Circle City transplant, Suze Orman devotee, wife, mother, working mother, and finally, a homeowner. My secret pre-30 wish list has actually come to fruition.

On the other hand, I still have a long way to go. I'm still learning how to remain a well-rounded person outside all those titles. And it's hard--really hard. My reading is spotty and mostly confined to books I already know inside and out (see: Flowers in the Attic series), mail-subscription magazines, and Archie comics. Eager to delve into something meatier, I started rereading Atlas Shrugged sometime over the summer, but half-hour lunches meant I couldn't get through more than 15 pages per sitting, and soon I was abandoning it altogether to surf the 'Net and chat on Gmail. And my personal blogging has been sporadic for just about the entire year. I'm sadder about that last one more than words can say.

Some bloggers don't pay much attention to their archives, but I'm in mine all the time, trying to remember a detail that long ago disappeared from memory, laughing over my half-hearted obsession with Weight Loss Wednesday, reveling in Tragic Love Friday, heaving a sigh at all that baby talk. I used to rely on this blog not only as a source of entertainment but also as a way to keep me focused, to remind me of my goals and dreams and how they fit into the core of who I am. And in this last year, it took a backseat as I navigated through my first round with motherhood. Suddenly, I couldn't come home from work and hammer out a post because now there was a baby I was away from all day, a baby I loved more than my own life, and I had to make every minute count. Once she went to bed, I was balancing household chores, domestic projects, freelance work, occasional day-job work, phone calls with loved ones, and oh, yeah, time with my husband.

For a while, I thought I could manage everything by just staying up ridiculously late. As it is, I'm rarely in bed before midnight. But when I really, really push it (like right now, writing this draft at one-thirty in the morning), I totally ruin myself for the next day. I'm less productive at work and less present at home, and all the progress I made in whatever venture the night before pales in comparison to what I'm missing right in the moment.

To be fair, a lot of these balancing problems could have been solved if only I were more efficient in how I managed my day. But one big lesson I've learned this year is that being a parent isn't always as big a motivator as you'd like when it comes to correcting your flaws. Before having Kara, I thought I had it all figured out; I came back from maternity leave and arranged for a 7-3:30 work schedule, agreeing to a half an hour for lunch, so that I could put in a full day and still spend oodles of time with my family. I thought that as long as I kept my nose to the grindstone, I'd be home by four o'clock, help with dinner, and enjoy some downtime with Luke and Kara before it was time to put her to bed. I'd get a few things done after she went to sleep, I'd be in bed by ten-thirty, tops, and get up the next morning with enough energy to do the whole thing again.

I don't know what I was smoking.

In the beginning, it was OK. I stuck to my work schedule no matter what time I turned in, and I tried my hardest to stay focused. But eventually my true colors were begging to shine through, and I was catching up on the All My Children message board, reading blogs, and sometimes just sitting there like a deer in headlights when I should have been posting to the Web site, writing a newsletter, and so on and so on. Which sometimes meant I was staying late just to make up for lost time. At night, I'd sit in front of the computer to write a post for Parents and suffer from a complete and total brain fart, sometimes wasting a full hour before committing anything to the screen. By then Luke would long be asleep, I'd be bone tired, but by George, I had to publish my column. Even when it resulted in me being too tired to get to work on time. These days, my actual schedule is closer to 8-4:30. If I'm particularly on the ball, 7:30-4. And again, that's if I'm not running late, which I have been lately, since things have been so busy.

As terrified as I get sometimes over having two children less than a year and a half apart, I truly believe it's a blessing from God, because He knew if left to my own devices, I'd continue to piss away my time until the next one came along and upped the stakes a bit. If Luke and I decide that two is enough for our family (and there's a good chance we will), then come February 2009, this transitional baby-making phase of our life will be over. Then the focus will shift from adding humans to simply maintaining what we have and finding a way to make everyone happy. And after years of constant change, I can't tell you how excited I am just to simply be. No more job searching. No more house-hunting. No more new-additioning (at least for one calendar year, please, Lord have mercy). Just taking the hand we've been dealt and owning it, embracing it, and improving it every day.

For the big picture, this year I pledge to:

• Reclaim my body
• Remember my priorities--to my family, to my work, and to my own mental well-being
• Own Luke's and my parenting decisions with more confidence and drown out all the background noise/unsolicited opinions/general assvice, even when given with the best of intentions
• Sleep more. Seriously, the ability to accomplish all these other goals will be directly affected by how many zzz's I catch

On a more tangible level, I want to:

• Write a will and establish a living trust like I said I would a year ago
• Fully fund a Roth IRA for Luke
• Pay off our new (used) car (Yes, we finally upgraded Luke's dying Lumina! More on that in another post)
• Start a true emergency fund, to be used in emergencies and not when we come up short on the Visa bill
• Take a family vacation
• Take a kids-free vacation
• Establish and stick to a bedtime routine (Turns out they're not just for babies!)
• Post on my personal blog at least once a week
• Read at least one new book a month
• Incorporate exercise into my everyday life
• Find a church in our new community and attend regularly
• Be more strategic about how we spend my quarterly bonus money

How I'm going to make all of this happen, I'm not yet sure. But the desire is there, and wanting it's half the battle. Right? Oh, wait, it's knowing that's half the battle. My apologies, Joe.

My Own Wonderful Life

Ah, Christmas 2008. How I wish we'd gotten better acquainted.

It's not that I wasn't filled with the spirit. I loved our Christmas tree, loved shopping for Luke and Kara, loved all the Dean's eggnog I consumed (for Baby Brother's sake, of course). But between settling into the new house, getting ready for Kara's party, and physically feeling less than my best, it always seemed like there wasn't enough time to celebrate the way I wanted. Our tree went up in the second week of December, about the same time we started our shopping. We didn't pull out our holiday music until three days before Christmas because our CDs are stashed in a Tupperware bin in our closet and we were too lazy to dig them out. (Not that we were without the appropriate tunes, thanks to DISH Network, which dedicated several satellite radio stations to the cause.) Presents were wrapped on Christmas Eve, and a few naked ones still sit in our room, since I don't know when I'll be seeing my family. My enormous belly kept me from wearing or receiving any cute holiday pjs, and even my annual viewing of A Very Brady Christmas got lost in the shuffle. On the up side, we did manage to see It's a Wonderful Life, a tradition that fell through the cracks last year while Luke and I navigated through our first week of parenthood. It's one of my very favorite movies, and there's nothing I enjoy more than watching George Bailey and Mary Hatch dance their way into the high school swimming pool. That there, people, is what you call ROMANCE.

But it was still a great Christmas. A tree filled with ornaments and surrounded by presents is always a heartwarming scene, but there's something even more magical when that tree has ornaments bearing your daughter's face and gifts with her name on it. Some from Mom and Dad, and some from Santa (which, by the way, was something of an issue, as Luke wasn't raised to be a Santa person and I was. In the end, we decided that the books and handmade toys would come from us, and the stocking stuffers and plastic goodies would be credited to the fat guy in the red suit. Anyone's guess as to how it'll play out next year. What do you St. Nickers do in your house?).

 

I really do love seeing colorful packages under the tree.

 

At one year, Kara's still too little to understand Christmas, but she's certainly been impressed by our Christmas tree, and she was even more taken aback to see all the babies it sprouted overnight.

 

The cloth book and CD made up the contents of Kara's stocking, and she would've been perfectly happy just playing with those for the rest of the day. Luke and I had to "gently persuade" her to give the other presents a chance.

Kara wasn't interested in the wrapping paper at all. We had to open each gift until she was able to comprehend that something was inside, and that that something was for HER. Element of Surprise, see you next year.

 

Sizing up one of her new bath toys.

 

Daddy, I don't care what's inside that cool snowman paper, I simply must become well-versed in my colors right this very minute.

 

Such a Mommy turn-on.

 

OK, a slight interest in the wrapping paper (and a sweet kiss from Daddy).

 

When I was a kid, I loved organizing my stash and taking pictures of it under the tree. How could I not do it for my baby? At first glance, it doesn't seem like much, but then I remember that Kara's barely twelve months old and this STILL ran us a hundred smackers and there are plenty of children who would pray to get even half this. Middle-class Americans, we are a spoiled lot, yes?

Anyway, that was our Christmas. A bit rushed in the prep work but relaxing overall, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Kara may not remember it, but Luke and I will always cherish this particular year, where we had the short-lived, amazing opportunity to enjoy being a quaint little family of three.

How was your Christmas? Seriously, I want to know.

No tricks, just treats

Tonight was Kara's first Halloween, not to mention Luke's and my first one as homeowners, so while it was a low-key event of indulging in the wonder that is satellite television and jumping to answer the doorbell, it was special, nonetheless. Kara was wearing her pumpkin costume when Luke came to pick me up at work, and she was admired by numerous trick-or-treaters and their moms when I passed out candy, baby on one hip, the goods in another. Since we only moved in on Tuesday, there wasn't time for creative decorating, but I wanted to make sure people knew we were "Halloween friendly" territory, so Luke ran to the store last night to buy some of those orange pumpkin bags you stuff with leaves and a few spooky window clings for the front door. I was so excited to have kids at our door and so grateful they didn't skip our house for lack of not knowing who we were that oftentimes I actually thanked them for stopping by. We handed out two to three pieces of candy to each kid, thus scoring major brownie points in the Cool Neighbors Department (one boy actually gasped), and Kara's adorableness went over quite well with their parents. A win-win for all, to be sure.

My favorite part of the night occurred while Luke was putting Kara to bed and two boys dressed as the Super Mario brothers came to collect their just desserts.

"Trick or treat!" they exclaimed.

"Wow, look! It's Mario and Luigi!" I said while dropping Reese's cups, Laffy Taffys, and Nerds boxes into their grocery bags.

"Luigi," who couldn't have been older than five, looked me straight in the eye and replied, "We're not real, you know."

"Thanks for clearing that up," I said.

My second and third favorite parts happened when a mini-Dorothy accepted her candy then tried to come into the house and one of the local teenagers welcomed us to the neighboorhood. "Did you just move in? I love the way a new house smells," he said. Was he being genuine or just aiming for more candy? Who cares? That's one smart kid.

Kara had a great time "helping" with the trick-or-treaters and generally melted my heart with her cuddly pumpkin self. Who knew ten-month-olds were so damn fun?

 

Look at me! A baby and a pumpkin! Such the multi-tasker, I know.

  

  Pumpkins don't get any respect.

 

Why does my mom think I look like a pea pod in this picture? The world may never know.

 

My fellow Americans, let me explain why I believe children under the age of one should be allowed to eat Kit-Kats, no matter what our silly parents say.

-------

There is certainly plenty to say about our big move and the process of settling into our new home (not to mention I owe you some seriously amazing after pictures that reflect thousands of dollars in paint and flooring), but that's for another day. In the meantime, Happy Halloween and Happy NaBloPoMo for those of you jumping on the bandwagon tomorrow. This is the first year I won't be participating, and I'm crying on the inside about it, but I can barely post once a week these days. Once every day for a month? Why not go ahead and ask me to stop searching for Baby-sitters Club books at the half-priced bookstore? Both are equally possible.

It's a wonderful life

All is well.

Since my last entry, an incredible sense of calm and well being has covered Luke and me like a blanket, which has made these last couple of days the best ones since Kara's birth. I'll tell you about it soon enough, but for now, all I want to do is revel in how blessed we are and how thankful I am for everything God has given us.

Most of the members of my family have been too sick to make the trip to Indy, so it was extra special that my sister Ryan drove in from Chicago to spend Christmas with us. Newly married and desperately missing her army husband, who's currently in Germany awaiting February deployment to Iraq, a little baby fix was just what she needed to get through the holiday.

As for my own spouse, I can't tell you how mesmerizing it is to watch him with our daughter. He's so gentle with Kara, so enamored with her, and I honestly don't know what I've done to deserve such unconditional love and support. This last week has been the most exhilerating and terrifying one of my life, and he's been right by my side the entire time, holding me when I cry and telling me what a good job I'm doing when he's not washing bottles, refilling my water glass, and reminding me to take my pain meds. I couldn't ask for a better life partner or a more loving father for my baby.

I look at these two people and wonder how I ever lived without them.

Merry Christmas.

The title of my next post will be original, I swear.

Thankful, so thankful

Both for what I have and what's to come.

I think I saw Greg's wife on an episode of Murder, She Wrote when I was wrapping presents last week

Talk about a productive Sunday! Luke and I kicked things off by going to church for the first time since Easter and initiating talks with the pastor about baptising Freka in the Episcopal tradition. Long-time readers will remember that we come from different faith denominations (Luke grew up Methodist and I was raised Catholic), so neither one of us were sure how to go about preparing our baby for life in another religious community. The pastor was very easy to talk to and promised to get in touch with us sometime this week, which is good, because I can't stop obsessing over whether or not we're supposed to designate godparents for our child. Does anybody know how Episcopalians feel about this?

However, we did learn that the church's next scheduled baptism is January 13, so apparently we can get a head start on our invitations. Yikes.

This evening, I finally downloaded Suze Orman's will and trust kit (will share more details when I post my next Project Freka update, presumably this Wednesday), and Luke and I decorated our apartment for Christmas--nothing fancy, just the tree, stockings, and a festive tablecloth, but the place already has a much warmer feel. Holiday CDs have been dusted off, we're already going through half a gallon of eggnog a week, and my VHS copy of A Very Brady Christmas is ready for a spot in our rotation of seasonal movie staples, which currently include It's a Wonderful Life and Elf. Luke is less than eager to witness Mike and Carol spend perfectly good vacation money on plane tickets for the kids, their spouses, and their spawn, not to mention their poor treatment of Alice, who they allow to serve them breakfast in her FREAKING UNIFORM, even though she's no longer pulling in a paycheck.

Valid points, yes, but I still say bah, humbug. He clearly hasn't consumed enough eggnog.

It's beginning to look a lot like...your mom

In an effort to avoid lugging Freka through crowded city malls shortly after her birth, Luke and I have been spending the majority of our free time Christmas shopping. I've always loved buying presents, and even though we've had to downsize our gifts budget, it's still a lot of fun trying to find things our loved ones won't want to exchange after the New Year. Even though all that walking around usually brings on those sonofabitch Braxton Hicks contractions. Hey, it's for a good cause, right?

I'm sure it's because of the baby, but nevertheless, I can't believe how excited I am for Christmas to come. I've already expressed to Luke my wish to decorate our apartment on Thanksgiving, seeing as we won't be able to travel north, and this Saturday, while he's enjoying a Purdue football game with his dad, I will most likely be watching A Very Brady Christmas while wrapping all the presents we've accumulated thus far.

Despite all the new-mom kinks I'll be working through, already I know that the high I'll get from smelling my baby's head, having full-time support from Luke for the first two weeks after my discharge from the hospital, abandoning corporate America for three blessed months, and filling our modest little two-bedroom apartment with family and friends eager to meet the newest member of our household will outweigh the suckage that is sleepless nights, sore boobs, and a halted paycheck.

(One thing making the "halted paycheck" thing easier to handle is the fact that Parents wants me to continue blogging for them after my contract expires at the end of December, at which time my "column"--that's how I think of it, anyway--will have morphed into a journal documenting my trials and tribulations with new motherhood. Luke and I have money stashed away to be used while I'm on leave, but dude, it feels so good to know that we'll have additional reserves coming in just in case we spend more than we anticipate. Which, let's be honest, is most likely going to happen, because hello, NEW BABY HERE.

In other fabulous financial news, this past Saturday I mailed out the last payment for our Chevy Cobalt, which means the budget we planned for our life post-maternity leave is now a feasible reality. Hooray for an extra three hundred and thirty bucks a month!)

Anyway, I'm ready for the Christmas music. I'm ready for the gift wrapping. I'm ready for eggnog. In fact, I've already had my first glass.

It was wonderful.

It's Important to Share Exquisite Pain with the Ones You Love

I don't think I'm cut out for this whole Cringe Book thing.

This morning I ditched the office again so I could continue to sift through journal entries documenting my tortured past and submit the most awkward ones for possible inclusion in a book that'll be publicized on a national level. And when I first pulled those books out, it was fun. I'd shriek with delight over each memory and eagerly shove a diary into Luke's hands so he could read passages aloud in his best little-Frema voice. Oh, the days when life's biggest problems included agonizing over which New Kid to pine for!

However, as I moved on to my pre-teen years and straight into full-blown adolescence, it became harder and harder to laugh.

I've written enough about Nick--The One Who Went For Three Weeks Without Calling, the boy who happily accepted my offer of virginity before I took off for college, the guy I obsessed over for FIVE YEARS--on this Web site that the following entries don't need much backstory. The first one was written on February 6, 1996, almost four months after we broke up for the first time.

See how "grade" I was doing? So what if I was afraid to leave the house in case I missed a potential phone call? Who cares I was creating elaborate schemes to make secret contact with the boy who plainly told me I needed to be with someone else, or that I included phrases like "exquisite pain" in my vocabulary?

We got back together that June, but by August we were fighting again. Break-up number two involved confessions of drug use, theft, and contact with another girl in a nearby suburb, with a big "Fuck you!" from me as he fled the scene as fast as his legs could carry him. By spring of my senior year, we were dancing around each other again. We went to prom. We did the Deed. And in between, there were missed phone calls, week-long absences, and awkward conversations about "where this is going." Just like before.

So when I read the entry below, written just days after admitting to my part in our Horizontal Tango (in such detail that I made myself blush, and I wrote the damn thing), I really do physically cringe.

Page 2:

Stupid, stupid, stupid girl! I can't believe how stupid. I was preparing to spend the rest of my life with someone just to rid myself of religious guilt. Because God would've much preferred me to commit to a man prematurely rather than just call a spade a spade and let him go. Classic flawed logic--like when I was debating sex in the first place and thought we shouldn't use a condom because the Catholic church is against artifical contraception. A+, Frema. Well done.

I read these entries and can't decide which is worse: that I let myself get so wrapped up in a relationship before I was ready to stand behind my beliefs or that one day I might have a daughter who feels the same way and I will have to watch her suffer the same way my parents watched me. I was so angry with them, especially my mother, who I often yelled at for not having enough trust in me to make good decisions, right before I ran to Nick's house and spent four hours on the mattress in his bedroom pretending to watch Die Hard. I was in control! I knew when to stop! And when I finally gave in completely, I still believed I knew what I was doing. It was my body! My choice! Who was she to tell me what to do?

I think about having similar arguments with children of my own when they're that age and I'm petrified. I'm in awe my mother was able to restrain herself from popping me in the mouth.  I wonder how many nights my father had to comfort her to sleep because I was so quick to declare my independence, so cocky as I threw her teenage pregnancy in her face and informed her how much smarter I was, how I was determined to live a different life than the one she'd panned out for herself. I acted like her advice couldn't possibly have value because I didn't want to admit how self-destructive it was for me to insist on staying with Nick, refusing to "give up" even when he wanted me to. As wrong as he was for me, he wasn't a bad person. He gave me plenty of outs, and if I'd told him to stay the hell away from me, he would've done it. It was me who kept going back, enticing him to come back, making excuses for his behavior so I wouldn't have to think about life without him.

I'm glad I gave this Cringe Book a shot. I'm glad that I'm twenty-seven years old with a wonderful husband (who celebrates his thirty-third birthday today, Happy Birthday, sweetie!) and insanely understanding parents. I'm glad I wrote these entries because the act of putting my feelings to paper was sometimes the only way I could get a handle on my emotions. But I'll also be glad to pack these books up and retire them to my closet again. Refusing to share them out of context with a mass of strangers (I refuse to think of you guys as strangers) will be the Valentine's Day present I give to myself.

On the '06

My senior year in college, one of my professors said that with every choice you make, you become a little more free, as all the questions and doubts and fears once associated with that choice are now obsolete. This train of thought has always resonated with me but became even more meaningful the day I married Luke. Gone are the days where I wonder about our future, my ability to love another person both unconditionally and romantically, his ability to take all my idiosyncrasies in stride. This year we made the decision to love and honor and cherish each other for the rest of our lives, and doing so has enabled us to move forward and tackle new questions--harder questions, probably--but ones that acknowledge our past and honor our future. Instead of pestering Luke to move in with me and propose already, I get to nag him about making a baby and prepping ourselves for the responsibilities of home ownership. I'm definitely OK with the trade-off.

But getting married wasn't the only big thing that happened to me this past year. In reviewing the chain of events that occurred in 2006, I realize these last twelve months have shaped me into a different person: someone more independent, more emotionally adventurous, who isn't waiting for a family member or friend or Joe Schmoe on the street to validate her feelings.

I took a good, long look at my religious foundation and answered some hard questions about which aspects enriched my life and which ones I could've done without. I learned that pigeonholing God into limited definitions and avenues of grace doesn't help anyone, and his miracles aren't confined to a single denomination. At the same time, I learned how important the concept of community is in my faith and how deeply Luke and I want to pass that tradition on to our children. Nobody operates in a vaccuum, whether you're talking about religion, family, or society at large, and to live life ignoring your impact on all of those things seems naive. I severed a couple of once-important familial relationships last year, so even I don't measure up to my own standard of maturity, but who's perfect, right? I'm just proud of myself for not abandoning my convictions and refusing to sweep my hurt feelings under the rug. If that means I have to forgive others and myself for the results, so be it.

I finally grew the balls to say my online writing is important enough to take to the next level and I took it to the next level. I cursed and cried and beat my head against the PC monitor when I realized how much work it would take to meet my expectations, but I did it and now it's done and I'm so happy with the end product. I'm no longer disappointed in myself for admitting I don't want to write the next Great American Novel, that fiction isn't my bag, baby, and scribbling my thoughts and feelings on the Internet is the best use of my passion. I'm not ashamed that blogging is an insanely significant part of my creative identity; it forces me to put a name on my emotions and sort out my feelings, and it helps me connect with others without worrying if my new acquaintenance is paying more attention to my ideas or the zit that just started growing above my upper lip. I learned how to feel comfortable in my own Internet skin.

At the tail end of 2006, I also wet my pants in excitement over unique career opportunities. I've already been asked to conduct a one-hour workshop on blogging for a writing conference at Saint Joe this September, and if the stars align properly, I may even teach semester-long course in the fall. Blogging, it has been good to me, and I am so, so grateful.

While there was great joy in 2006, there were sad moments, too. One of my mother's sisters passed away after a long fight with brain cancer, and just when you think the grief can no longer touch you, you receive a Christmas card with three signatures, a Christmas card that once featured four, and you're reminded of the tangible effects of loss. My favorite aunt received a double whammy this spring as she was diagnosed with both breast cancer and brain cancer, a whammy that ushered her into chemotherapy and radiation and a horrible fear that she wouldn't live to see her eight-year-old daughter grow up. Today, she's almost cancer-free, something nobody in my family expected, but it's happened, and I'm grateful for that, too.

There's no way to predict the course of 2007, but there's no harm in working towards the following:

• Paying off our Cobalt three years ahead of schedule
• Finding a church to call our own
• Continuing to take our health and physical wellness more seriously
• Creating a financial situation that allows me to care for a child without the burden of a nine-to-five
• Counting our blessings, every one, every day

Happy New Year.

As Shoe Like It

I'm a little late in sharing, perhaps, but there will be no installment of Weight Loss Wednesday today. There will be no Weight Loss Wednesday because all the greasy KFC, crappy Jewel cheesecake, melt-in-your-mouth-tender steak tacos, Baker's Square pies, and gooey cheese pizza I consumed over the course of the last six days guarantees a significant gain on the scale, the likes of which I have no desire to become more intimately acquainted. Luke's parents, who are both faithful readers of this blog and therefore well aware of my analog-scale woes, were kind enough to present to me a new scale for Christmas, so I'm holding off on a fitness update until the New Year, allowing me to fully utilize a fat-measuring instrument that won't tack on an extra three pounds to my rolly-polly midsection and maybe even show my face at the Y. Plus, Luke was able to get today off, so we spent last night in Merrillville and I totally forgot about hopping onto the scale until the drive back home, at which point I'd already wolfed down a hot dog and small fry from Portillo's and a chocolate-chip cookie dough Blizzard from Dairy Queen. No way was I sharing numbers with you all after THAT.

However, I will share the fact that I received a holiday bonus from work and it was three point five percent of my salary, which may or may not have played a role in the purchase of five pairs of shoes since Thursday, an act that originated from a simple quest to find the perfect brown boot.

On Wednesday Luke and I tackled the mall in search of new clothing for his parents' post-Christmas/fortieth-wedding-anniversary party, and while I found several darling items from Banana Republic, I left the joint still unsure about what to wear. On the way home I reflected on my favorite gray gaucho pants and a khaki-colored, knee-length corduroy skirt that's been collecting dust in my closet since the spring of 2005 because I normally pair it with a chunky brown turtleneck and sassy brown boots, both of which were no longer in my possession. I got to thinking it was high time to reclaim my right to own a kick-ass pair of brown boots, especially since I was finally able to replace the turtleneck during my shopgasm in the Republic. The next day after work I ventured into the JC Penney branch across the street from my apartment complex and discovered all women's boots were thirty percent off. (These babies were fifty. Bucks. Off. How thrifty am I?)

That explains shoe number one.

...And shoe number two, because it was Christmastime, and my boots were members of the Brown family, and how could I keep family apart at Christmas? Also, buckles! Who doesn't like buckles?

Another Penney's find, discovered in the Merrillville mall the day after Christmas, after deciding my black boots needed updating, too, because the ones I had were super cute but also a half-size too small, which didn't pose to be too much of a problem until Luke and I found ourselves wandering downtown Indianapolis in search of our car after his company Christmas party and the boots and I had to walk the equivalent of ten city blocks. I found four pairs of shoes I liked, including two boots, but these were the only ones available in a nine and they were twenty dollars. I would've been a fool to walk away from that deal, I tell you, a fool, a FOOL!

After another two hours in the mall, during which time Yankee candles, Clinique goodies, and a jumbo Cinnabon were added to our list of credit-card purchases, Luke was eager to check out the DSW that just happened to be on the route back to his parents' house, so determined was he to add a new black boot to my shoe collection. How could I say no? What kind of wife would squelch her husband's dreams and walk away empty-handed?

Just to make sure he knew how much his thoughtfulness meant to me, I bought these, too. Nothing says "I love you" like black patent leather Steve Maddens.

These are the Simple shoes I received for Christmas--a nice contrast to all the heels I'll be sporting for the next eight billion years. Thanks, Santa.

That was way more interesting than a little ole Weight Loss Wednesday update, right?

Tragic Love Friday

Only two posts this week? Bah. I totally had plans to update last night, but they were pushed aside in favor of sharing a spaghetti and pumpkin cheesecake feast with our friends and meeting my required annual dose of A Very Brady Christmas, something Luke vehemently despises but still went along with because Jamie and Yancy are cool people and birthed enough witty one-liners to make the viewing more tolerable. Plus, if he said no, he knew he'd just have to watch it with me alone, and I doubt that's how he wanted to spend his last evening at home before Christmas.

Yes, you heard right, our last evening at home. Tomorrow morning we will pack up enough underwear and toiletries to last through Tuesday, as we'll be spending this weekend with my family in Chicago and Monday and Tuesday with his folks in Merrillville. My mother's side of the family is hosting a party that brings us to the area twenty-four hours earlier than usual, and his parents will have one the day after Christmas, extending our stay by one day. Unfortunately, Luke has to report to the office bright and early Wednesday morning, so we'll make the drive back to Indy after the party. I myself will work just one day out of five; I'm leaning towards Thursday so I can enjoy another three-day weekend.

Since the days leading up to New Year's will be so hectic for us, Luke and I decided to open our presents from each other last night. I rejoiced in receiving the first season of Bones (how is it that I just started watching this show? I. LOVE. IT) and a long-desired pair of sneakers, among other things, while he expressed delight over my reserving two seats at a Jerry Seinfeld show in March. Also, duckie paper clips! Isn't life grand?

If you posed that question to Kayla, I'm betting her answer would be, "Not so much."

-------

PART TWO

CHAPTER FOUR - CASSIE

(One month later)

I was stretched out on my bedroom floor doing some yoga exercises when I heard a knock at my door. Knowing it was David, I yelled "Come in!"

My brother burst into my room, grinning from ear to ear. "Guess what? Steiner gave me a promotion! You are now looking at the new assistant manager of McDonald's!" [Who wouldn't rejoice over the loss of a high school diploma?]

"Impressive!" I got up and hugged him. "Congratulations. Jenna must be estatic that her boyfriend will be working harder than ever so she doesn't have to get off her lazy butt," I added. [Damn pregnant women and their unwillingness to earn their keep!]

David pulled away from me. "Don't start, Cassie. The girl's pregnant. She can't exactly be running all over the place when she's going to give birth in 2 months."

I softened. "Sorry, Dave. I didn't mean to start a fight." I flopped on my bed. "So, are you guys making plans to move in together or get married yet?"

He nodded. "Jenna's been looking at the vacant apartment ads in the newspaper, and she thinks that she's found a few places that we can check out."

"When are you two getting hitched?"

David looked unhappy when he answered, "A week or two after the baby's born." [This seemed so logical to me at the time, but now I'm all, "What's the rush? The kid's already a bastard."]

[Nothing against bastards, by the way. My own parents didn't marry until I was old enough to pick up my head.]

"You don't sound as excited as I thought you would," I commented. He shrugged. "It's just happening so fast. Marriage, fatherhood...it's a lot to handle."

"I thought you were so happy about how things were turning out! God, everyone has been so depressing to be with lately! Always complaining, or moping, or something!"

My brother looked amused. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you're always talking about the BAD things of things that are good [hello, Awkward Phrasing], and Michael mopes around because he doesn't have a girlfriend. Jenna's hormones are all I hear about when I decide to talk to her. 'Oh, the baby's making my hormones out of wack.' That's her excuse for acting like she's been having PMS all month! No matter what you say, David," I told him, shaking a finger at him, "not all pregnant women are crabby women. And Kayla's just plain depressed. She's sick, though, so maybe that's why she's acting so weird."

"Weird? Sick? What's wrong with Kayla?" David asked, looking concerned.

'Well, she's been throwing up a lot. She complains about how sore she is all the time, and my God! Now this girl eats like a pig!" [Oh goodness, what ever could be the matter?]

David looked worried, so I added, "Don't worry, she'll be OK! It's probably just the flu."

Looking relieved, he cried, "Oh, that's good!" [Because Mickey D's pays well, but not THAT well, know what I'm sayin'?]

"Yeah." I got up. "Well, I'm going to Kayla's house for a while. See ya."

When I got there, my friend was crying. She'd been doing that a lot, too. "What's wrong?" I cried. She took a deep breath. "Cassie, I'm scared," she whispered.

"Scared? Why?"

Kayla's body started to tremble. Finally she said "Oh God help me, I think I might be pregnant."

For a moment there was silence, then I laughed nervously. "Kayla, in order to get pregnant, you had to have had sex." [Don't you hate having to point out such obvious things to your friends?]

"I did!" she cried, pacing back and forth. "Cassie, help me."

I was in shock. "Who did you...do it with?"

"That's the worst part," she sobbed. "He cant help me if I AM pregnant. There's no way!"

I took her by the shoulders and shook her. [What, babies love that!] "Who, dammit!?" [This is all so very Lifetime I can't stand it.]

She looked at me with shame. "It's David."

I let go of her. "You've got to be joking!" She shook her head. "He's the only one I've ever slept with."

[Cassie's reaction is a little uncalled for, isn't it? I mean, the two did date for almost two years, David has a track record of screwing around, and Kayla was visibly upset over the boy just a month ago. Their tryst isn't really that shocking.]

"Wow, Kayla." My head was spinning. "What can I do?"

"Can you help me choose a pregnancy test?"

"Of course I will." I squeezed her hand. "We'll go now, if you want." She nodded.

I drove us to the nearest drug store and led Kayla to the isle where the at-home pregnancy tests were at. "Have you done this before?" she asked suspiciously. I bit my lip. "Yeah. I helped Jenna when she went for her test." [?]

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"It wasn't a big deal. Forget about Jenna and concentrate on you."

"What kind of test do I need?" I tried to remember what kind Jenna got. "You should get something that gives fast results, is easy to take, and cheap." [Frema, M.D. at your service!]

"That's it?" I nodded. "No matter how reliable the test says it is, there's always the chance that it could be wrong. You'll need to see a doctor." [What am I doing working at a lab? I should REALLY be writing public-service announcements and commercials for First Response.]

We ended up picking the famous EPT test. The cashier looked disgusted with us when Kayla bought the item.

[When I bought my first test, I went to the local Wal-Mart. Afraid the clerk would take a similar attitude with me, I threw in an exra-large purple sweatshirt as a distraction. No, I'm not scared shitless at the idea of having a baby. I buy these all the time! Along with poorly made clothing! Which, in hindsight, probably left a much sluttier impression than the one I was trying to avoid. That sweatshirt was hideous.]

Back at her house, I was reading through the instructions when I thought of something. "Hey, Kay, how many days late is your period?"

"17." That's when I was positive she was pregnant. I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to worry her any further.

The test told her to urinate in a special cup included in the box. Then she was supposed to stick the applicator in the cup and leave it in there for 1 minute. If the stick turned pink, it was positive; Blue meant negative. [I should so patent this. Pink equals positive. Easy!]

A minute later, Kayla threw out the pink applicator. I tried to say something that would help. "It could be wrong," I suggested, but she wasn't listening. She had curled up on the bathroom floor and closed her eyes. "No, I'm pregnant," she whispered. "I can feel it. David's baby is inside me." [You can't tell I was a soap watcher, can you?]

"What are you gonna do?" I asked, kneeling beside her. "You could abort it, or give it up for adoption..."

"No," she stated firmly. "This baby is part of me. I want to keep him."

"How are you gonna tell David?"

"I don't know, Cassie. I really don't know."

-------

In the event my posts continue to be sporadic, have a wonderful holiday weekend. Also, thank your lucky stars you aren't a seventeen-year-old future baby momma with no boyfriend, no job, and no common sense. Unless you are, in which case, my sympathies.

Weight Loss Wednesday

Let's just get this over with.

LAST WEEK'S WEIGHT: 136
CURRENT WEIGHT: 139
POUNDS TO GOAL WEIGHT: 14

No, I never made up for last week's lost gym days. No, I didn't refrain from eating three biscuits during Thanksgiving dinner number two. No, I didn't make it to step class last night. Yes, I still managed to devour a steakburger and Bits 'N Pieces milkshake at my favorite diner. Yes, gaining three pounds in one stinkin' week is downright embarrassing.

Luckily, my Internet Exercise Buddy is too busy wetting her pants with excitement over her new engagement to dole out an appropriate punishment.

I know I shouldn't be too hard on myself; it's not like I boycotted the Y in order to sit in front of the TV with a bowl of spinach dip cushioned between my thighs. It was a HOLIDAY. A holiday centered around FOOD. Food I am expected to EAT, which required placing many miles between my fatty fatness and the building where people go for optimal healthy living. Who am I to deny the power of tradition? But it's still disappointing. Three pounds? Am I padding my @$$ for the winter? If next week brings no signs of improvement, I'll have to take the Loss out of Weight Loss Wednesday and replace it with a carved ham. I mean, Gain.

The Reason For The Season

During this morning's commute to work, the local pop radio station played an interview taped yesterday between the morning show's program director and one Robert Marley who, along with his brother Kevin, is staging a campaign to "save Christmas." His beef? That while retail stores all across the country take advantage of December holidays to peddle their wares, many of them are refusing to acknowlege that people purchase those products to commemorate a religious event, whether it be Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa. "Merry Christmas," "Happy Hanukkah," and "Happy Kwanzaa" have been replaced with a generic "Happy Holidays," substituting a religious sentiment with a secular one to promote an increased level of commercialism. He reports some employers have even threatened their staff with termination if such greetings are uttered in their stores.

Robert Marley believes our country is under the attack of a secular progressive movement, a movement that is slowly eliminating any traces of religion--particularly Christianity--from our everyday lives. No prayer in school; no "Merry Christmas" displays in stores that nonetheless deck their halls with red and green decor, pine trees, and images of a jolly fat man whose original roots can be traced back to a Catholic saint. They don't support Christmas, but they have no problems using Christmas paraphernalia to make a profit. These thoughts and more are posted on his Web site.

However, the program director also posed some tasty food for thought as he argued for the plight of the retailer, pointing out it's not Corporate America's job to promote any religious denomination. In his eyes, attacking a secular money-making powerhouse for not promoting religious ideals is the same as yelling at a dog for not pissing in the litterbox. (Or something a little more eloquent.) He also said those religious groups have allowed their holidays to be taken over by mass consumerism, and if Robert Marley wants to fight for anything, it should be removing the gift-giving component associated with these events altogether.

Though I agree that businesses often exploit religious beliefs for financial gain, I find myself aligning more closely with the program director's stance. Maxing out credit cards and waiting outside Super Target at three o'clock in the morning to get a copy of The Notebook for five dollars doesn't and shouldn't encapsulate what the holiday season is all about, and whether or not an employee says "Merry Christmas" as you exit the premesis with a plasma TV in tow is the least of our worries. The world, our country, our cities and towns have homeless people. Hungry people. Abused and neglected people. Developmentally and educationally challenged people. (And many of them are children.) The idea of adopting a project to save a seasonal salutation when there are clearly a number of more significant issues to take on in Jesus's name is laughable. It's as if Marley believes those words are the only means of expression Christians have at their disposal. He's forgetting that when it comes to religion and morality, actions speak louder than words. They will know we are Christians by our love (by our love!), not the greeting we choose to use one month out of the year.

What do you think?

Yes, We Are Insane

...because while our four-foot tree remains disassembled in a cheap cardboard box in our storage unit, the Frema-Useless Clutter household has completed its Christmas shopping. During a span of seven days, we inhabitated Best Buy, Target, Books A Million!, Babies R Us, Barnes and Noble, Bath and Body Works, Sears, JC Penney, the Hallmark Store, and numerous boutiques where we lost zero dollars but gained splitting headaches, headaches that are bound to resurface the minute we open our credit card statement.

Ho freakin' ho ho ho.

I Am Thankful

So thankful, for a lot of things.

No longer having to wonder when Luke will pop the question.

Luke finding a job in his field with good pay and decent benefits (even if we don't use them, because mine are better. Hooray for companies who offer vision and dental!).

The roof over our heads.

Controlling our spending for the wedding in such a way that allowed us to pay off the debt with meager savings and generous monetary gifts.

Being able to bank the majority of Luke's salary, even if we have to pull from it to replace three flat tires and provide Christmas gifts for family and friends.

Having an employer who allows me to volunteer for a local reading program during work hours.

Strengthened friendships.

Knowing my mother's mammogram indicated she is perfectly healthy. (Aside from the whole smoking thing, but I'll take what I can get.)

Finding peace with God.

Having the financial means to help others.

My parents.

My in-laws.

Blogging.

My new husband, who's been more patient and understanding with me than any other individual in the history of the universe.

Renting an apartment that comes with a washer and a dryer, at no extra charge.

The Office on NBC.

Lowered gas prices.

Siblings.

Your mom.

Gobble Gobble, everyone!

But the very next day, you gave it away.

While driving from Chicago to Merrillville tonight, Luke and I decided to search for the radio station Lost A Sock advertised as already succumbing to the seduction of St. Nick-inspired holiday merriment. Three tracks in, on came Wham!'s "Last Christmas," one of my favorite seasonal songs of all time.

"Maybe I'll add it to my playlist for the "Hello? Is It My Cheesy Love Song CD You're Looking For?" Internet Swap."

"What are you talking about? This isn't a love song."

"Are you kidding me? Anything relating to the loss or celebration of the warm and fuzzies is more than worthy of the coveted ballad label. When I was a kid, I'd keep this song on repeat for hours."

"My condolences to your childhood."

Be Careful What You Wish For

I start out the day with one goal: write a post honoring America's celebration of blood, guts, goblins, and the unknown. After reading Isabel's haunted house story, I'm inspired to share stories about the strange goings-on that've taken place in my own family's apartment building, specifically on the first floor, after its occupant, my grandmother, passed away in 2000. Only the thing is, those goings-on didn't happen to me but to my siblings, so I leave cryptic messages on Ryan's and Samantha's voice mails after work, soliciting their personal experiences for shameless exploitation and cheap thrills for all the Internet to see. I'm able to make contact with my brother Geo, who doesn't have any stories about Nana but is kind enough to remind me that a woman died in one of the first-floor bedrooms and a man killed himself in our garage via carbon monoxide poisoning. "You can blog about that," he says.

By this time it's seven o'clock, and two of our friends have arrived for a private showing of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a find I was quite proud of, a find that confirmed my suspicions that the desire to take in a respectable horror flick on Halloween must be regarded as a top priority not to be delegated to the last minute. (I painfully learned this lesson last year when Luke and I waited until the night of to check out a movie and were forced to succomb to the mediocrity that is The House of Wax.) We watch the movie, during which the phone rings twice, both return calls from each of my sisters wanting to scare the bejeezus out of me with tales of my grandmother running through the hallway of the first-floor apartment she occupied for sixteen years prior to her death at the same time I'm watching a college student gorge holes in the walls with her fingernails and spit out various names of The Devil in foreign tongues. I get ahold of Samantha after the movie and share with her my new fear that I'll wake up at three o'clock in the morning with visions of spiritual torture and reprimand. I tell her I still have one more movie to go and am now debating the intelligence of subjecting myself to Saw II. "Maybe you should, so you can get the nightmares over with all at once," she says.

Thanks, Sissy. Happy Halloween to you, too.

It's moments like this in which I find myself thankful for having What About Bob? in my possession. Much to Luke's chagrin.

Beachy Keen

Instead of working on my company's employee newsletter or the bajillion other things I have on my to-do list, I took the day off to savor a four-day weekend. This morning Luke and I made our way to the Indiana lakeshore where, despite a light drizzle, there was much frolicking in the sand and climbing of a very big dune. We're about to make the trek to Chicago to hang out with family and celebrate Pre-Independence Day. A good night not to be pregnant, to be sure.

 

An Easter First

I didn't go home.

Originally that was the idea, even though Luke and I hadn't figured out how it was going to work, because this was also the first time we've been together for Easter. Before he moved in, our roles in each other's lives during the holidays were constantly being negotiated. The first year we dated, I was a senior in college, and I remember us saying our good-byes as I prepared to leave town for my week-long Thanksgiving break. There he was, holding me, telling me he loved me, and then suddenly wishing me a wonderful gobble gobble with my folks back home. I remember standing with my arms around his shoulders, trying to blink my tears away before he had a chance to see they even existed. I was hurt because I'd assumed we'd be together, even if only for part of the day. Same thing that winter. It was Christmas Eve morning and I was moping at the kitchen table, trudging through the first Harry Potter and not feeling particularly impressed (anyone else agree that one kinda dragged?) when Luke called to talk about his activities for the next couple of days. Only after my shrill "Aren't we going to SEE each other?" was any kind of game plan established. The early days of a relationship are so hard, when you're with someone but have no real claim on his time. You've made a commitment, but it's delicate, one with lots of love but no track record, one that has yet to prove itself worthy of superseding all others.

As we became more serious it became more important to work our relationship in on major calendar boxes, but it was still difficult, as my roots were in Chicago, and his in Merrillville, a good forty-five minutes away. Plus, I worked for a Catholic college that was very generous with its vacation schedule, which included "soft" holidays like the Friday after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, Good Friday AND Easter Monday (and I left why exactly?). Luke was a reporter and thus had to be at work more times than not, so while he could get away for an afternoon with his parents, anything more than that wasn't doable. I often left family functions early to see him in Indiana and then drive back to enjoy the last few hours of the day with him at his apartment.

Once he moved in with me, everything changed. Holidays were no longer about fitting into a greater familial whole; rather, it was about re-evaluating whether or not our individual traditions were conducive to the new life we were making for ourselves. This year, we were all gung-ho about making the drive up north for Easter, even though Luke was tired from working nights and I was tired from going to bed at twelve-thirty because he was working nights. By Thursday night, we were both ready to drop and decided it might be better to simply stay put. It's a big step for any couple, to say what you have in each other is all that's necessary for a successful holiday. I'm proud we were brave enough to make it.

But the weekend wasn't family-free. My sister Ryan and her boyfriend, Jason, stopped in on their way to Chicago and slept over to avoid the rain and hail that seemed to remain about ten miles ahead of them. They also brought along some special guests.

Meet Bunny, Whose Official Name Is Sox But Is Only Referred To As Such. Ryan fell in love with him as he was hopping around her apartment but tried to tell my mother, who was afraid of catching Rabies or other stray-animal diseases, that she rescued him from Bloomington's National Wildlife Society. On Friday night she explained that she attempted to pass him off to a local animal shelter but was informed Bunny had been away from his mother too long to survive on his own. She's taken that as her free ticket to indulge him in carrots, lettuce, and Cheerios.

Spades, our second non-human houseguest, is Jason's dog and was actually adopted three days before he was scheduled to be euthanized. As you can tell from this picture, he's a frisky fella, and fond of the biting, but neither Jason nor his wrist seemed to mind. I also feared he might be fond of Sox, but Spades was content munching on the pepperoni slices from our late-night pizza.

Saturday and today passed by in a sort of peaceful blur. There was breakfast at my favorite pancake house, a trip to the zoo, two mediocre movies (the latter redeemed only slightly by the two glasses of wine), a walk on our favorite Indy trail, and an Easter service at a nearby Episcopal church, which laid the foundation for another first: receiving communion outside the perameters of Catholicism. Standing in line waiting to partake, I felt like a virgin all over again, only it wasn't my sexual innocence I was losing. It was something less tangible, less able to be defined as right or wrong. I knew Protestants invited all baptized Christians to take the Eucharist and Catholicism restricted it to those baptized within its church. But what about "away games"? Were Catholics allowed to participate with other churches? And did these rules even apply to me, a heathen who dared to think salvation could exist for a Catholic in the walls of an Anglican church? Was my soul clean enough to receive the host at all?

The closer we got to the altar, the harder it was to keep my legs from shaking. But I couldn't turn back. I can't explain it any better except to say this was the only way to validate my recent choices and revelations regarding spirituality. How could I say all denominations were equal in the eyes of God but refuse an invitation to his table because I was afraid of being chastized by a religion I didn't fully embrace?

I'm glad I did it. I cried from the minute I left the altar to the moment my knees bent to pray, but I'm still glad. It freed me in a way my Idiots' Guide to Christianity never could. For the first time, I was taking my relationship with God into my own hands.

I may not have gone home, but in that moment, home came to me.

So Worth The Onions

I once broke up with someone the day after Valentine's Day. As a sophomore in high school, I dated Jon for one month and sixteen days, our courtship initiated on New Year's Eve while sitting on the stoop of my front porch. On February 15, we were hanging out in my room, and miracle of miracles, I was even allowed to shut the door. This was huge, as my parents preferred my dates to consist of me and my suitor playing Mortal Kombat on the Sega in the living room with my seven-year-old brother. I think they were just so happy I had attracted a boy who not only had a GPA higher than 1.7 but also intended to pursue medical school that the possibility of grandchildren conceived out of wedlock wasn't such a bad idea. With my track record, it wouldn't have been unreasonable to assume he was my last chance to cinch a connection to any man who dared to finish high school.

When it came to boyfriends, I had a few strengths. I knew how to make out, maintain awkward silences for as long as thirty minutes in order to avoid conflict (both on the phone and in person, how talented was I?), and pretend not to notice that joint sticking out the pocket of your flannel hoodie. Hell, I did it for five years. However, these strengths did not apply to transitional men, because life was too short, I wasn't that good an actress, and besides, Nick, The Boyfriend Who Went For Three Weeks Without Calling, was totally going to come crawling back to me sans hoodie and drug-free.

Anyway, we're in my room, me making small talk, him making a pencil sketch of fall trees in bloom as he was both a doctor-in-training and aspiring artist, and we fall into the topic of some bet we' recently settled. What the bet was about, I have not a clue; maybe we were gambling on whether or not Mel Gibson's scraggly mane in Braveheart was real or if Ross and Rachel were in fact each other's lobster. I only remember that the winner had the power make the loser do whatever he/she wanted, and I was the loser. Jon decides that he wants me to kiss the person of my choice. I decide that Jon has devised a clever way to propose our first kiss; also, that I have no interest in exploring a first of any kind with him.

"Can I pick the dog?" I ask.

Of course, this leads to The Talk, how it's not him, it's me, I'm in a Bad Place, blah blah blah. The poor guy was on the verge of tears, which back then I thought, "Soooo lame." If only he'd been a pot-smoking, comic-book reading, high-school dropout. Then I would've put him on a pedestal.

Stupid girl. Also, bitch.

Ten years later, my actions are much more appropriate for the occasion, only now it's less about Valentine's Day and more about it being Luke's birthday. Not only did I surprise him with some kick-@$$ presents, I also cooked a chicken fajita dinner ALL BY MYSELF, because I'm domestic like that, and bought a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. Note to self: buying food is much, much easier. It's also less likely to smudge your mascara.

However, Luke had a kick-@$$ surprise of his own, which I discovered at work when pulling out the Care Bears fruit snacks from my lunch bag. It was a Charlie Brown Valentine's Day card with an inscription that read, "I love you so much, Frema, and I can't wait until the next Valentine's Day because we'll be married for that one."

I almost cried, which is really saying something, because you know me. I never cry.

The Best of 2005, The Worst of 2005

When I was a teenager, every December 31st I compiled a list of highlights from the last twelve months. The list featured top songs, favorite reads, and significant milestones I'd experienced relating to school, love, friendships, and personal goals. This year's tally won't include Ace of Base, Ann M. Martin, or my first French, but no one said life was fair.

School
I graduated college for the second (and possibly last) time of my life. This is still weird for me, as the Intellectual part of myself still has longings for textbooks, classrooms, and blue-book final exams. But I'm the first family member to hold a master's degree, and I can suffix "MA" after my last name. Some people with fewer diplomas listed on their resume wrongly believe this makes me smarter. It doesn't. I'm just more in debt than they are.

I also have mixed feelings about pursuing my writing degree immediately after wrapping up undergrad. When I first began talks with my current boss about taking a job with the lab, he stressed that his interest in me had less to do with my credentials and more about the job experience I'd gained in my position at Saint Joe. Knowing this three and a half years ago would have saved me forty thousand dollars in loans, a couple of hundred bucks in ink cartridges, and precious VHS tape that can never be recovered. I'd have an extra five hundred smackers each month for paying off my car. Financing my wedding. Purchasing my first house. There are hard compromises to make when taking on such a huge financial commitment.

But I also have a sense of accomplishment for managing my time so efficiently (or at least enough to get by). I have something tangible that helps me to hold my own in the presence of older peers who think they can treat me like a little girl on her first day of kindergarten. And did I mention I can add a suffix after my last name? Total coolness.

Love
I moved away from my boyfriend. I moved in with my boyfriend. I became engaged to my boyfriend. Wee for me!

I also learned it's not the end of the world to make decisions loved ones don't agree with. Living In Sin was not on my original list of things to do this year, nor was it an unfulfilled dream held by Mom and Dad on my behalf, but it turned out to be the best decision Luke and I could have made. That doesn't mean I think every couple and/or Mary Beth in Cincinnati and/or even you should do it. But I do think it's OK that it worked out for me.

Friendships
A tricky subject, as the majority of my relationships are maintained long-distance, and I haven't had an "everyday" gal pal for a long time. I miss that. There are certain things you can only do with a girlfriend. Eat ice cream in your sweatpants while watching Father of the Bride. Crochet blankets you'll never finish. Have your dinner covered by the restaurant's bus boys. You know, real bonding moments that weave together your very souls. In that respect, I truly feel a loss.

However, I've had wonderful, wonderful conversations courtesy of SBC, and I've been introduced to a number of fabulous individuals through the Internet. I've laughed and cried for women I may never meet in person, and I've seen new layers of those I've known for years. Amen for the world of personal publishing!

Personal Goals
On the surface, I've done great things. There was the landing a new job with great pay and even greater potential. Publishing an article about pee in a national magazine. Affording Prada (read: Pra.da.!) glasses, for cripe's sake. And yet, I'm still not passionate about what I do. It's the same problem I had at Saint Joe. I loved elements of my job, but I didn't love my job. I envy people like Samantha and Number Twelve, who make their living in fields perfectly suited for them. I sure as hell don't love sitting through weekly production meetings, filling out requisition forms, and hauling my @$$ out the door at ten to eight every morning. I'm also not crazy about being in a work environment for six months without making one real friend. Surely a change is in order. I just don't know what that change should be.

But I'll figure out. After all, I did survive scary car accidents, several bouts of Baby Fever, and countless incidents of sporting food on my person. That has to count for something.

Anyway, may your 2006 be filled with wine, spinach dip, a great support system, and endless good cheer. And possibly even suffixes.

Recovering

Four Christmases. Three nights spent away from home. Two very excited families. One very tired couple.

The festivities began on Friday night, when Luke and I traveled to Chicago to have Christmas with my mother's side of the family and participate in our new tradition of The Ornament Exchange--cheaper than buying actual gifts but just as much fun. We spent the night by Dan and Samantha's and left for Merrillville the next day, where Luke's parents were waiting for us. It was relatively low-key; a little church-going here, a little gift-giving there, and my much-anticipated viewing of It's a Wonderful Life. The next morning, it was time to pack up and head back to Chicago to see my family. Monday we came back home to see Luke's brother's family. By the end of the night, we were both ready to drop.

Which is why I can't believe that yesterday I actually fulfilled my last shift for the museum's Lord of the Rings exhibit. Most of the night was spent pacing the floor by the green-screen interactive station, although I did get to fold tee-shirts with a man who appeared to be the offspring of Peter Jackson and Kevin Smith, if ever such a thing were possible, and was very proud of his open marriage with his wife.

I had a wonderful holiday, but now I'm ready to move on. This weekend we'll be traveling north again for my mother's birthday and also to get some more details finalized for the wedding. We have appointments with photographers, a bakery, and a tuxedo place, and there might be visits with two DJ services. I'm not freaking out yet, but suddenly everything seems very overwhelming. Luke and I are seriously considering coming back to Indy on New Year's Eve and bringing in 2006 together, just the two of us, in an apartment that desparately needs a dust and vaccuum.

Not that I've regretted our frequent trips home. I love seeing our families and knowing that we're not letting our relationships slide simply because we're a few hundred miles away. And I hate when people complain about their social plans, because if you don't want to go, DON'T FREAKIN' GO. The universe will not explode into a billion pieces if you don't attend that birthday party, and though you might like to think so, the day won't be veiled in a blanket of sadness because of your absence. In our case, people would certainly understand if we didn't make every major event on the calendar; they'd miss us, but they'd get over it. Actually, when I lived in Rensselaer, I attended fewer functions than I do now. There's something about living farther away that instills in you a greater love for those you don't see all the time.

Meanwhile, I have to go to the bank this morning, because I've been charged ISF fees on four separate occasions in the last six months. I've never been one to balance my checkbook against my bank statement, but I've always been very good at recording my receipts, and I went for three years without any problems, so now I'm all like, "WTF? I accounted for that check two weeks ago!" At this point, my plan is to open up a brand-new account and start fresh. I wanted to avoid this since my name will be changing relatively soon, thereby wasting about a half-box's worth of checks, but we can't afford these thirty-three-dollar dings any longer.

I'm going to miss my last name.

My writing sounds just as tired as I am.

'Tis the Season

At one point or another, several of the sites I read have mentioned a lack of excitement for Christmas 2005. Decorating trees, sending out cards, shopping for presents.... It's a lot of work, and not always a lot of fun. However, this year, I find myself enjoying the season more than in years past. Luke and I decorated our little tree right after Thanksgiving. There's been Christmas music and egg nog and mugs of hot chocolate, and for once, a season of gifts paid in full with cash, not because we're rolling in the money but because we were able to achieve a happy medium between extravagent and just plain crappy. We watched A Charlie Brown Christmas. We've been to the zoo to witness the facility aglow with lights, and we've been next door to check out the train exhibit at the gardens. For the most part, I feel that we've thoroughly taken advantage of what the holiday season has to offer. Things feel good. The two of us are good. I'm in a good place.

However, for all of my spirit and cheer, there are some holiday musts I have yet to check off. For example, for the last two years I've watched A Very Brady Christmas while wrapping my presents, because I usually wrap presents alone and nobody will watch the movie with me, so it's an easy way to kill two birds with one stone. This year, Luke and I did this together, and he wanted to watch Pirates of the Carribean. I'm sure many would argue his was the better choice, but really, at what other time is it appropriate to get excited about seeing the Brady clan sing their way through Mike's unfortunate accident at the construction site on 34th Street? It's also fun to watch how the family still treats Alice like a servant, even though the year is 1987 and she's old enough to collect Social Security and Medicaid. Sure, they say she's not their housekeeper anymore, but when she goes to pick up the "kids" at the airport, who carries their luggage? Alice. Who gets hugs and kisses? Not Alice, that's for damn sure!

Maybe it's best I continue to keep this viewing experience private.

Other traditions I've neglected this year:

- My annual It's a Wonderful Life viewing, complete with my own rendition of "Buffalo gal, won't you come out tonight, won't you come out tonight, won't you come out tonight...." (Does anybody know the name to that song?) Up until I was about twelve, this movie was on every cable station and ran every hour and half until Christmas Day. Then NBC bought the rights and became so stingy that now it's only on twice a year on undisclosed days and times.

...OK, maybe that's it. I suppose there are worse things in life then putting off your favorite holiday movies, and because I own both, it's not too late to fill up on the self-imposed required dosage. All in all, I'm counting myself lucky.

And you should, too, for whatever reason. Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Oatmeal in the Hizzouse

Oh, Internet, how I've missed you! I've thought about you daily, reading your updates, tossing around ideas for possible posts. And yet, I have not actually done anything until today. Here's why:

Tuesday: Receive a call from my new doctor's nurse, which initially scared the bejeezus out of me because she said she wouldn't call unless the results were abnormal. Am told the results were abnormal and that I have elevated cholesterol. Am ordered to reduce my intake of fast food, greasy food, bread, cheese, and pasta and load up on fruits, vegetables, oatmeal, and other not-going-to-kill you items. Cry because I suddenly hate my body with all its digusting internal problems that are meant for old lazy couch potatoes like Archie Bunker, not young and vibrant couch potatoes who put a cup and a half of Parmeasan cheese in their spinach dip like me.

Wednesday: Try oatmeal for the first time in my life. Gag reflex is reborn.

Thursday: Visit Annie. Am witness to Kroeger Night, in which workers from the local chain of the national grocery store stop by the facility with a stocking for each resident. Stockings are filled with oranges, electronic Uno, and sample sizes of shampoo, toothpaste, and deodarent. Cry at home when I realize that's all some of these children will get this year.

Friday: After two days of soup and fruit, throw caution to the wind and bust out with a frozen pizza for dinner. Indulge in season-two episodes of Scrubs. Provide shelter for Ryan and her boyfriend, Jason, en route to Chicago from IU in Bloomington. Spend forty-five minutes inflating new queen-sized air mattress with bicycle pump. Never actually finish inflating mattress.

Saturday: Spend the day with Luke's sister-in-law and baby niece, now ten months old. Against my will, order garlic chicken from Chinese place. Spend Saturday night scatching the skin off my thighs, bottom, and stomach, because, they itch! my God they itch! Get out of bed at 2:00 a.m. intending to catch up on soaps "until I fall asleep." Finish soaps. Don't fall asleep until 8:30, after wonderful Luke has purchased Aveeno cream for my skin and Benadryl to finally knock me out.

Sunday: Sleep. Shower (I think). Sleep again. Repeat non-sleep sleep cycle.

Monday: Try to work at home but the itching! my God the itching! won't let up and I'm exhausted and now sick to my stomach. Visit idiot dermatologist, who is an idiot because he dares to talk smack about Proactiv, which I have not personally tried but want to because my siblings and Jessica Simpson and Vanessa Williams are doing it and achieving marvelous results. Same idiot hypothesizes that the itching is caused by an allergic reaction to the meds for my bladder infection, orders blood work, and makes weird lines on my back with a popsicle sick. Submit myself to blood work from rival lab. Think twice about naming my employer on their information forms. Pass the evening in an oatmeal bath, in which I sit for nearly an hour. Surprisingly, no urge to vomit. Instead, sleep peacefully. Hooray!

And now, today: Update with a guilt-filled frenzy that cannot be denied. Will most likely be late for work. Promise the Internet to check for typos at lunchtime.

The Good Life

So. Hi again.

A slew of not-unfortunate-at-all events have happened since Friday night, events I had originally planned to cover in-depth within separate posts: volunteering for the Lord of the Rings exhibit for the third time in two months; breaking my fifteen-year hiatus from Chuck E. Cheese; looking at engagement rings for the first time in my life.

However, all of those topics took a backseat on Monday night, when I had my first mentoring session with "Annie."

Annie lives on the campus of a local rehabilitation facility. She is in the secure unit, where there are bars and locked doors and few windows. When she's not on campus, she lives with a foster family and is one of eight children under her parents' roof. During our initial meeting, her face lit up and she said, "I've been waiting for a mentor for really long time."

On Monday, we spent almost two hours playing Phase 10 and eating Doritoes (her one request). Curious children peeked in the windows of the recreation room, closed off during our session, to see what we were doing. While I shuffled cards, others were screaming obscenities as they were restrained by security; others just cried for their mothers.

Annie complimented my shoes and asked what size I wore in clothes, saying how much she adored hand-me-downs. She caught sight of my hand lotion from Bath and Body Works and wanted to try it out. She asked for my phone number so she could call me in between our visits, which will most likely include more Phase 10, a side of Clue, and the rest of the Doritoes.

When I first considered mentoring, I imagined baking cookies with pretty little girls in pig tails who had two parents and a membership with the local Girl Scout troup and no history of physical abuse. Instead, I was introduced to a girl who needs a friend and role model more than I ever could have imagined; a girl who, in turn, will also prove to be a role model for me.

On that note, here's a list of

What I'm Thankful For

• A boyfriend who lets me slack off on laundering clothes and loading the dishwasher
• That I finally finished the sixth installment of Harry Potter
• Almost seven months of accident-free driving
• Hot chocolate
• Online shopping
• Unlimited long-distance calling
• A boyfriend who acknowledges that spinach dip is a full-course meal in and of itself
• Turning various friends and family onto the blogging bandwagon and watching them display literary talents I never knew they had
• Glow-in-the-dark pajama pants
• All My Children
• Diffusers
• Toilet paper that doesn't flake
• Parents who support me in making decisions they wouldn't have made for me themselves
• A boyfriend who understands that I can't support a wedding date that has three zeros in it
• Designer eyeware
• Making it through two whole months without sporting sauce on my face
• Welcoming my first brother-in-law
• Feeling welcomed by my future parents-in-law
• Learning that some necessities are really wants
• Learning it's OK for the oldest not to do everything first
• My career
• Being old enough to have a career
• Having a career that can financially support the family Luke and I have made in each other
• My brother and sisters
• Ice cream
• That Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey had at least three years of wedded bliss
• My life

Happy Thanksgiving.

All About the Benjamins and Monica from Friends

A week away from Thanksgiving, and I'm proud to say I've already started Christmas shopping. Back in October, I sat down at the table and make a carefully budgeted list of who to shop for, how much to spend per person, and on which pay periods I would allow myself to make the purchases; oddly enough, these strict limitations have put me more at-ease with the whole gift-giving process than simply buying to my heart's content like I did last year, when I was carelessly tossing out comments like "To hell with budgeting" and "How can you put a price on family?" and proceeded to fund hundreds of dollars of holiday cheer courtesy of Mr. Visa, back when I could make such decisions with the knowledge there'd be a three-thousand-dollar tuition refund check waiting in the wings next semester. Now I'm having nightmares about the student loans I'll start paying next month and scouting out which interstate junctions to frequent with my little tin cup and cardboard box. Now I'm thinking, "I can TOTALLY put a price on family."

In the short time we've been living together, Luke and I have managed our money pretty well. We've followed Suze's advice and made it a point to pay our bills together each month, and I even sent in the paperwork for a rebate from my contact lens provider, who shall not be named here because I hate rebates and lose respect for any manufacturer that issues them. If you REALLY wanted to give me a break, Contact Lens Provider, you wouldn't make me pay for the damn lenses in full and then demand I mail in not only my original sales receipt but also the UPC codes from each lens box, just in case I'm a thief with the deplorable habit of stealing NON-CASH PIECES OF PAPER THAT ARE NOT DOLLAR BILLS from my fellow man. Then, once I've proved my worth as a customer and a human being, I have to wait six to eight weeks before you'll reluctantly hand over forty freakin' bucks. For cripe's sake, get over yourselves.

Anyway. During our Christmas shopping on Tuesday, somehow the second season of Scrubs and the tenth (final!) season of Friends found their way onto our conveyor belt, two purchases that were not Christmas purchases at all but in fact superficial material additions to our apartment, because they were each on sale and even though I thought the last season of Friends was sort of *eh* I was suddenly dying to complete my collection that. very. minute because the cover was such a breathtaking shade of magenta and Courteney Cox's hair looked really pretty. Plus, Luke loves Scrubs and I hadn't seen the second season and really, people, we don't even have cable, aren't we allowed ANY earthly pleasures?

Obviously, there's room for improvement.

I think it will be easier to save money when there's a lot less of it going around. Once the loan checks start going out, suddenly a smart celebrity hairstyle won't be sufficient grounds to blow thirty dollars, especially when we could use that dough to upgrade to a better brand of toilet paper or perhaps stock up on Ramen noodle soup.

Note to self: Begin construction of cardboard box. Also, purchase tin cup.

Let The Children Come

Make that "child." Luke and I had one little tyke trick-or-treat us, and only because her aunt lived upstairs. (I shudder to think what would have happened had I not taped a construction-papered pumpkin to the front of our door.) I nearly fell over myself with the candy bowl, stuffing Starburst chews and mini-Snickers into her little purse until her mother told me to stop. Good thing, because I was about to start raiding my purse, I was so happy. Perhaps she would have enjoyed a Visa bank card or half-used bottle of Purell?

It was a low-key Halloween. Luke wasn't feeling well, and I was too busy lamenting the loss of cable on such a significant holiday to properly tend to his needs. I actually had to go to Blockbuster, people. For a girl accustomed to Michael Myers marathons on TBS and back-to-back showings of A Nightmare on Elm Street on USA, this is the equivalent of asking a duchess to pee in an outhouse. To make matters worse, this is the first year in four that we didn't carve a pumpkin, and we barely glanced at our collection of ghost stories. If it weren't for these pictures, I'd forget I ever celebrated October 31st at all.

[Edited on 12/9/06 to add: Some photos were lost during the Blogger/TypePad merge.]

In that last one, I'm a Nurse Dressed As A Pumpkin. Genius!

Last year I posted a list of movies that freak me the @#^$ out. If you're interested, click here.

Anyway, today's Monday, so it's time to post the results of my "Name That Tune" contest.

1) "Feels Like Love," Vince Gill 2) "I Wanna Be The One," Stevie B. 3) "Penny Lover," Lionel Richie 4) "Baby Got Goin'," Liz Phair 5) "I Like The Way (The Kissing Game)," Hi-Five 6) "Giving You The Best That I Got," Anita Baker 7) "Poison," Bell Biv Devoe 8) Growing Pains theme 9) "As I Lay Me Down," Sophie B. Hawkins 10) "Mmmbop," Hanson

Winner: Anonymous

Seriously. I have no idea who you are. But you win! You got all ten right--maybe because you Googled the lyrics; maybe because you're my long-lost twin; maybe because you broke into my apartment and tore through my CDs. No matter. For your prize, I'll answer a question, if you want, or say something nice about you like the folks at Snapple do for their customers. Your call, as long as it's free and I don't mind doing it.

To those who played, gratitude; to all my readers, apologies for exposing you to this list. But really, it could have been worse. Does "Never Gonna Give You Up" mean anything to you?

What Is It About The Green Ones?

While that line has nothing to do with my post for today, I didn't want to join the group of gazillion bloggers going with a "Happy St. Patrick's Day!" headline (no offense, Luke).

This is me and my youngest sister, Donna, stirring up some crazy at the St. Patrick's Day Parade in downtown Chicago last Saturday. Since I've lived in Indiana for the last seven years, and she was five when I left for college, I try really hard to make sure that we have a lot of sister-time weekends. She just turned 12, which makes it even more important that the lines of communication stay open. When she born, I was 12, and I remember begging my mother to let me hold her, and my mother saying, "I'm warning you, once you start helping out I'll want you to do it all the time!" and me not caring, just getting so excited about having the grown-up job of caring for a baby. Donna loved movement, and there were many days where I swayed back and forth, back and forth, all afternoon, in the rocker Mom got as a gift when she was pregnant with me, rubbing her little back, kissing her little cheek.

These memories are doing nothing to reduce my baby fever. On to something else.

Last night I dreamt that I was in charge of a second-grade classroom while the permanent teacher was on a week-long vacation, and at the end of the week, I gave a spelling test featuring words that are a staple in every burger-lovin' American's vocabulary, like, "Ilain" and "relid." Turns out the teacher made me take the same test and I got a big fat "F." I'm going to assume this dream was brought on by the nervous feelings I have about switching careers and not God's way of saying "Don't quit your day job."

On a parting note, I wonder what He says about this. Poor lassie.

A Special New Year's Message

Hang Tough in 2005!

So Long, Farewell, 2004

What a year this has been! I think my most adventurous year yet. There were fake nails, for heaven's sake. I highlighted my hair - a lot. And I cut most of it off before Christmas.

I spent this whole entire year in the same apartment - an apartment that I cleaned and painted and rearranged - a lot. And it really feels like home.

Next year there'll be even more changes. I'll graduate from DePaul with a MASTER'S DEGREE, which means my job opportunities will be very different once I decide to leave Saint Joe. At long last, I can finally shoot for those positions that say "graduate degree required." I'll help my sister plan The Wedding Of Her Dreams (I'm the maid of honor. Whoopee!). I'll be a pseudo-aunt to Luke's new little niece, due in the first part of the year.

And, hopefully, I'll continue to grow and change into a person I can be proud of. In order to do that,

I Won't Waste My Time in 2005...

- Pretending to be smarter than I am. My Poets and Writers subscription's left me with a year's worth of unread issues on my coffee table, hidden under more sophisticated material like Glamour and Soap Opera Digest. So AMC spoilers are more appealing to me than a cover story on some Rip-Van-Winkle-look-alike poet? I will no longer be ashamed!

- Splurging on items I can't afford. While I certainly loved my $100 visits to Victoria's Secret, maybe I didn't need 14 new pairs of underwear. Just this week I had to control an almost uncontrollable urge to head to The Limited for their fifty-percent-off-winter-sweaters sale. Can you blame me, though? Fifty percent! I start to twitch a little just thinking about it. Hopefully it'll still be going next week, when I'll actually have the cash to spend.

- Watching TV. I'm sure the third season of The Apprentice will survive without me. Although 24 may not; back-to-back new episodes the entire season, people!

- Wasting Time. I have a lot of things to do this year: work, study, find a new job, assist with a wedding, babysit, finally read Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.... It's time to get movin'!

Shame on Maury Povich

Here it is, Christmas Eve, and I'm in a wonderful mood. My bathroom is completely done, I'm just about finished wrapping my presents, and A Very Brady Christmas has just reached its usual sugary-satisfying conclusion. While the tape's rewinding, I decide to flip through the channels, see if anything festive is on to celebrate this blessed holiday. I turn to WGN and The Maury Povich Show. Today's topic? "My Fear of Mice and Mustard is Ruining My Life!" - helping individuals overcome irrational phobias. One woman has been afraid of mustard since she was seven years old; even seeing pictures of it slathered on a hot dog sends her into hysterics. So what does generous Maury do to help ease her fears? Brings out a big ole plate o' mustard that sends her screaming into the next room. "I can still smell it!" she screams, sans dignity, as Maury goes to fetch her. Another woman had an unnerving experience when a goldfish touched her leg as a child, and she's not been the same since. What does Maury do? Proceeds to bring in a large bowl of energetic little fishies. It is not a pretty sight on set. Other fears include peaches and frogs.

So caring. So understanding. A true showcase of all the best the world has to offer, on both sides of the microphone.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

And So It Begins...

The day before Thanksgiving - a day of working, driving, cooking, packing, and other various -ings. For me, it means eating, sleeping, and napping, as we're being released from work at noon today and I'm not driving home until early tomorrow morning. I'm gearing up for The Day After Thanksgiving Shopping, which I truly love, even though it wears me out after only a couple of hours. A day off from work and full of shopping. What could be better? NY&C sent me some fab coupons in the mail just for This Day, and you better believe they're gettin' used. I told myself that last month's spree would be It until after the holidays, but really, why waste perfectly good discounts when you're most likely going to buy the stuff anyway?

I love this time of year - all the running around, wrapping presents, catching corny movies on TV (or ordering them on Amazon.com so you can enjoy them all year 'round. I own A Very Brady Christmas for that very reason.) The only thing I don't like is working out family get-togethers. By the time the season is over, I'll have celebrated Christmas five times, and half with people I don't really care for. On top of THAT, my grandparents are flying in from Arizona to spend Christmas in Chicago, and as usual, they've told my parents they're staying with us. This is the same grandmother who, last month, sent my sister a pamphlet highlighting the Church's stance on sexuality for her birthday. I love Grandma, but if there's anything even remotely related to chastity literature waiting for me under the tree this year, there's going to be words.

Merry Halloween!

Here it is, the morning of Hallow's Eve, and I'm already humming "Joy to the World." By this time last year, Christmas presents had already been purchased. I'm a little behind, but ideas are swimming around in my head, sharing space with holiday tunes.

I wasn't always this excited about Christmas. As an undergrad with only a part-time job, it was a hatefully mean time of year, designed to suck the financial life right out of you. I remember my senior year, having about 12 dollars in my pocket to last me through the month of December, with a slew of presents left to purchase. You see, in November I played the role of the responsible college student and cut up my two precious credit cards. A month later I was hating my responsible self. But like I said, I had to get these gifts. So, I carefully examined the two half-cards I still carried in my wallet. I had made the cut horizontally instead of vertically, which meant that the scan bar was missing but the actual credit card number and my name were still intact. Once at the mall, I showed five different IDs and pleaded with the cashier to punch in my number manually so that I could give my loved ones a very Merry Christmas. After 10 minutes, a call to Discover, and poorly disguised tears, I was able to charge what I needed. Despite the nonjudgemental staff, though, I never went there again.

Since I became a member of the full-time work force, things have been better. I start shopping earlier, and I only use my credit cards if I absolutely have to. This allows me to get excited about the whole process - malling, wrapping, card writing, and the like. So, Merry Christmas to you and yours! - I mean, Happy Halloween!

Holding A Grudge

I'm not really holding a grudge; I'm in a much better mood than I was yesterday. No, The Grudge is the latest Japanese-inspired thriller to hit the show, and I'm tickled pink at the idea of seeing it tonight. Rensselaer's new (and sorely needed) movie theatre opened last week, which means no more having to drive 45 minutes out of town in order to catch a flick. As I'm a huge horror fan and Halloween is fast approaching, this is the perfect thing to get me in the mood. We'll see what happens, though; as excited as I am to watch scary movies, I'm not very good at handling the aftermath once the lights turn on and the credits start to roll.

In honor of this very scary season, may I present:

Frema's Favorite Scary Movies

Pet Sematary
Not only did seeing a three-year-old child get hit by a truck traumatize me for life, the images of a guy with brain-guts on his tee-shirt and an invalid with an f'ed-up spine shouting "Never get out of bed again!" gave me nightmares for years. YEARS. Dead is never better.

Child's Play
When I first heard this title, I thought it was a sex movie. (Who knows why? I was 10.) Anyway, he's another guy that caused me to lock my closet door and glue my eyes to the door at bedtime. However, the last two Chucky movies are pretty campy and just make me laugh. I even bought Bride of Chucky dolls for my sister Samantha as a Christmas present a few years ago. I'm patiently awaiting the release of Seed of Chucky this fall.

Children of the Corn
Try watching this movie when you live in a town surrounded by cornfields. Not a good time.

The Ring
"Seven days" my @$$. This movie STILL scares the crap out of me.

Candyman
I grew up in Chicago, so this one implied an extra layer of terror. I've thought "that word" in front of the mirror several times but never had the guts to say it out loud - kind of like the Bloody Mary thing. Has anyone ever really done that?

Rosemary's Baby
I believe in God and angels AND devils, so the idea of this actually happening is enough to do me in.

Halloween
I saw this for the first time at a fifth-grade sleepover; by the end of the movie, I think we'd all wet our pants. It's the way he walks, just like Peppie La Pew. It says, "I could hop on one leg while you run and scream your head off, and you'll still get knifed up but GOOD."

And on that note, Happy Friday!