Springy

My favorite things about spring, in a list:

1. Blossoms.
2. Tulips.
3. Green.
4. Opening the doors to air out the house.
5. Switching my winter and summer clothes out. It’s like a whole new wardrobe!
6. Longer days, shorter nights.
7. Easter.
8. Grilling.
9. Not craving hot thick creamy fattening food all of the time. Look out salads, here I come!
10. Sitting outside to have a drink with friends on a patio.
11. Grilled fish. This combines the three previous bullet points, but it bears repeating - nothing is better than a glass of white wine and a plate of grilled fish and asparagus on a spring afternoon.
12. Free golf lessons from my boss. Particular to this spring, but still. It means I get to play hooky from work on nice afternoons, along with all of the male managers who have been doing it all along! Finally! Inclusion!
13. Blue sky.
14. Azaleas.
15. Flowers.
16. Birdsong.
17. Naps with the windows open.
18. Packing up the family's winter coats - added bonus of additional closet space.
19. The birthdays of 5 of our siblings - my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law, my sister, my brother, my sister, all in rapid succession.
20. My baby's birthday, now thrown into that mix.


My least favorite things about spring, also in list form:

1. My baby’s birthday. Can a year seriously have passed already???
2. Not knowing what to wear in the morning. It goes from short skirts and loose fluttery blouses to Nanook of the North and back to fluttery again – and that’s just from morning til afternoon!
3. Lots of rain.
4. Um, that’s it.

what do i love about spring? EVERYTHING!

the older i grow, the more i loathe winter. but oh, oh how i love spring! i have always enjoyed spring, but i think i'm beginning to treasure it even more.

perhaps my favorite part of spring is the warm (yet not stifling hot) weather along with the abundance of flowers. there was a huge field near my childhood home. each spring, right around easter, the entire field would spring forth with gorgeous daffodils. i can't even begin to describe it; it was just breathtaking really. i remember walking through the field, picking daffodils and displaying them in various vases around our home. i haven't been back to that field in years...i wonder if it still boasts this amazing display of white and yellow. it truly is a sight to behold!

another reason why i love spring is that it holds my favorite holiday - easter! i love, love, love easter! i love purchasing new easter dresses. i love waking up on easter sunday with a new feeling of hope. i love hunting easter eggs. i love eating reece's peanut butter eggs. i love the message that i hear each year on easter sunday. i LOVE the hymns that we sing.

oh, how i love spring! and i am filled with a renewed spirit just knowing that it is nearly in full force!

Spring: Time of Exploding Renewal

This winter has felt so, so long and it is always about this time of year when I find that I want to burn my winter coat, that I hate the dark mornings and I begin begging for winter mercy. Now as the days are getting longer and there is a chance that the temperatures might hike above fifty degrees, I turn my face to the sun and see that the trees are beginning to bloom. Ah, spring is making its mark on the frosty face of winter.

My favorite thing about this time of year has always been that it is a time of renewal and hope. The brown grass begins to turn green, the flowers start to bloom, and the trees burst into gorgeous plumes of color. Where I live on the east coast, Washington, D.C., is famous for the cherry blossoms that explode into full bloom during this time of year. There are few things more breathtaking than approaching the Tidal Basin and finding it surrounded by hundreds of fully blooming cherry blossom trees. It always makes me want to stop, take a deep breath, and imagine that anything is possible.

I also love that spring ushers in the warm sun again. Of course, during winter the sun shines and it is always a welcome change from the gray days of snow and slush. However, once spring begins, the sun once again becomes that bright orange ball of fire that warms your skin when you turn your face toward it. How I love closing my eyes and feeling that warmth on my forehead, cheeks, nose.

My absolute favorite part of spring, though, is the fact that it means summer is on its way!

Better Late Than Never!

A day late and a dollar short, but here ya go.

If I had only one television show to ever watch, I do believe that show would be . . .

DRUMROLL, PLEASE!!

. . . Deadwood. Or Firefly. Or Deadwood. Or Sopranos. Maybe Firefly.

The language in Deadwood is so dense, and the delivery so natural (read: swift,) that I can watch it fifty times and pick up things I've missed. The visuals, also dense. Plots. Dense. Moral conundrums. You guessed it - dense. You can pick a thread and follow it down a rabbit hole, and the next time you watch you can follow another one. This would be a series I could watch a hundred times. But there aren't enough episodes! And it doesn't end!

Firefly has characters that I love spending time with. And it is so optimistic and upbeat, even when it gets serious. Its backstory is as dense as Deadwood's (I'm sensing a theme in my tastes here,) though Joss Whedon did not get a chance to explore the winding paths he laid out, as the thing was also cancelled well before its time. The "tapestry" of script, set, story, etc. is nowhere near as rich as Deadwood, but its humor, lack of pretense, and general good cheer would make it a good lifelong tv companion.

And then we have The Sopranos. I love the delicious feeling of knowing we still have 3 1/2 seasons of unwatched Sopranos chillin' in our Netflix queue. I don't know that on an even playing field I would pick this one necessarily - it has less to recommend it, re-viewing wise. However, it wins the prize for being the new series to which we still look forward each weekend. That alone - the fact that I haven't already watched it fifty times, as I have the previous two - keeps it in the running.

Don't make me choose. Don't. You're too cruel. Don't!

All right. Deadwood it is.

(Firefly.)

Mad For My Mad Men

Growing up I was never really interested in television. Sure, there were love affairs with Mike Seaver on Growing Pains and I enjoyed Sesame Street every once in a while, but my parents made sure that I found other ways to entertain myself as a kid. Sure, as an adult it is nice to have interests outside of television -- reading, running, photography -- but I am definitely making up for lost time in the land of television these days! My husband travels often for work and we moved to a new city a few years ago. Couple a new city with not really knowing anyone with a husband who is gone all the time and you get me watching A LOT of television.

I have a few shows that I watch purely for entertainment purposes (America's Next Top Model), a few shows that I watch to make me feel better about myself (Rock of Love Bus, anyone?), and a few shows that I watch for educational purposes (Jeopardy). There are a few shows, though, that I absolutely never miss.

If I had to choose just one television show to watch, well, it would be a tough decision. I think I may have narrowed it down to at two: The Amazing Race and Mad Men. I know this will shock some people, but I think if pressed, I would choose Mad Men as my sole television show to watch. The Amazing Race has long been a favorite of mine and I do hold it near and dear to my heart, but Mad Men currently has me under its spell.

Mad Men is also probably my current favorite because it is pretty much the only show that my husband and I both enjoy. We find ourselves mesmerized by the characters and plot twists. The wardrobes for these characters are spot on and every little detail is attended to. The music is perfection. The characters are well-developed and yet have just enough mystery to keep you guessing. The juxtaposition of light and dark is intriguing. The female characters are fantastic. And Don Draper? Do not even get me started! He is a bad man who is also a very good man. The perfect lead character. To me, this show is perfect in every way. So, there is just no way that I could ever give up my Mad Men (and women!)!

I Wonder What Was the Best Part About My Weekend?

Well, hands down the best part was that I wasn’t here at work.

Sorry. This has been One Of Those Days, and it won’t be over soon. The roofers pounding just above my head aren’t helping much. So, in order to lower my blood pressure and focus on good times, good times, let’s discuss last weekend, shall we? Because last weekend? Was awesome.

My parents and middle sister came to visit. We see them 3 or 4 times a year, which is not enough, but it’s tough to make that 8 hour drive for just a weekend. The middlesis has signed the lease on her first apartment – whee!! – and we are donating some much-loved items to her household. It’s amazing how much stuff it takes to clean your bathroom or cook a spaghetti dinner, and I like to think that we’ve made it a little more possible for her to perform these tasks.

In any case, these boxed items in our shed + ever-aging baby boy = parental trip, and boy did the weather just suckity suck suck for their visit. It rained and drooped and drizzled and fizzled all weekend. Friday night while we waited for them to arrive, Darlin and I splurged on getting takeout. We ordered fried egg burgers and tater tots from a local bar, and Frog Baby garnered lots of attention in there while we waited. (It’s family friendly til a certain hour of the night – there were lots of kids, but Frog was the cutest!) We gorged ourselves, watched a Sopranos episode, and fell asleep waiting for my family to arrive. They got there around 11pm, peeked in on the baby, and then we all headed to bed.

Saturday morning dawned dreary as ever, but we rallied and sallied ho and took ourselves on up to the Natural Science Museum anyhow. We sloshed through the puddles to the front entrance, and then enjoyed a leisurely two hour (dry and warm!) exploration of the four floors of dinosaurs, whales, trees, snakes, spiders, and so forth. It was lots of fun. Dad bought Frog Baby a soft pillow with a wolf on it. He sleeps with it at night.

That evening we were all treated to a delicious PF Chang’s dinner, on Dad. We did call ahead seating, which is a parent’s savior by the way. The only way we were getting through a nice meal at a nice (slow) restaurant was if the experience was as short as possible. There was no reason to worry, though - Frog was a dream. He sat in his high chair, played with chopsticks, and ate the finger foods I’d packed. He didn’t fuss for a second. Eating out is really different with a kid. I can’t imagine when we have multiple children! That night, my mother and sister saw me perform with my band at a local bar. My mom rocked out until past midnight, drinking a rum and coke and cheering for me. What a mama.

Next day, we casually mentioned that I had praised my mother’s lasagna in a post here, and she gave us all a knowing cockeyed look and then graciously offered to make it. Oh yes. YESSSSSSS. We did a Wal Mart run for the ingredients, and approximately seven zillion hours later it was assembled and boiling hot on our plates. In the meantime, we hung around the house, enjoying each other’s company, and all in all spending too much time with the baby as the center of attention.

Monday morning dawned snowy and bright, and I decided to work from home (much to my Northern boss’s consternation, but tough cookies. It’s not worth my life!) I wished my family farewell, and then alternated working and teaching Jack about snow. It was the best day I’ve had in a long time.

It all feels a million miles away right now, as I wait to fire some people and discipline some other people. But I know that this week can't, in fact, last forever. And that another Friday is waiting for me just around the corner.

it's no wonder.

it's no wonder that i loved every last second of my weekend. on friday, super jas and i treated the girls (and one of their friends) to pizza hut and a movie. we saw a movie we had seen before ('bolt'), but we enjoyed it so much the first time that we didn't mind seeing it again. it was just as cute the second time around and i would see it again and again...such a cute movie! i highly recommend it.

saturday was fairly lazy. all 4 of us piled into the car to go grocery shopping. such excitement, no?

after church on sunday, super jas and his dad headed to the annual boat, sport, and travel show at the fairgrounds. i used to attend the event with them, but after a few years, i had had enough. now, i totally and completely despise the boat, sport, and travel show. and it's such a chore hauling the girls through each of the buildings, trying to keep them happy and out of trouble. plus, how boring is it to look at fishing gear and boats all day? sooo not my idea of a good time. i decided to skip the event for the 3rd year in a row and take the girls to the children's museum. i didn't know if my mother-in-law had plans, so i called her up and invited her to tag along with us. she agreed and we had a wonderful, fun filled day together. we even ran into a couple of friends from my college days in line at the carousel. they are married now and have 2 kids and it was fun to catch up with them and their lives.

after the museum closed, we met super jas and his dad at steak-n-shake for dinner. we gorged ourselves on burgers and milkshakes and called it a day. the girls collapsed into bed and super jas and i snuggled on the couch. ah, pure bliss!

it was such a nice, relaxing weekend that i can't pick just one moment that i loved the best. i wish every weekend could be as fun!

I Wonder What I Loved Most About My Weekend?

Well, it was not the migraine. Definitely not that. Maybe I loved the meds that put me to sleep so that I could be blissfully unaware of said migraine? Hmm. I did enjoy slipping away on a drug-induced haze and not feeling my head throb anymore. I also loved scrubbing my entire apartment down so that it now sparkles when I walk into a room. I may have heard angels singing when I cleaned our microwave out, people.

I loved sitting on our couch all day Saturday watching movies and bad DVR'ed television (Millionaire Matchmaker, anyone?). I loved that I got to sit next to Superman all weekend and that we got to spend some quality time together. I loved that Wondercat, who is still heavily medicated, sat quietly and caused not one problem while we rested and relaxed.

But what I loved best about my weekend? Was that it got longer by one day due to a surprise snowstorm! A unexpected three day weekend is always welcome! I took full advantage by snuggling under a warm blankie in my warm pajama pants and watched bad daytime television. I got laundry done that would have otherwise gone undone for another few days. I got to see my husband in the middle of the day on a Monday and that always feels luxurious. I love the feeling of playing hooky even when it is boss-approved and on the up and up. Ah, my three day weekend was just lovely!

That's Amore

Ahhhh, my mama. She’s the oldest child of a pair of good Catholics who birthed seven children they couldn’t afford and would have had more if cancer hadn’t claimed my maternal grandmother’s reproductive organs. Mama is also the mother of five children, because after escaping her childhood household she decided she hadn’t had enough clamor and destruction. For a long time, she was also caretaker to two crotchety old in-laws, whose dietary no-nos fit on a list that ran for a mile. My mom’s cooked for a lot of people in her life, with not a lot of money in the grocery budget, and under some pretty tight dietary restrictions.

It is probably fortunate, in a way, that she hates to cook.

Were she a budding gourmand, I think she would have been frustrated by having to serve spaghetti with ketchup on it instead of pasta sauce, as she did for her siblings. I think the usual of frozen fish sticks, frozen peas, and boxed macaroni fare of my youth would have hurt her soul as she dreamed of serving frissons of fillintheblank topped with finely whipped crème fraiche and a fresh herb garnish. But she didn’t. In that arena, at least, my mother was well-served by being underfunded. A small budget reduces the pressure to perform in the kitchen arena.

I’m not telling you anything she wouldn’t tell you herself, here. In that game where you get to pretend you’re rich and pick either a chef, masseuse, chauffeur, or maid, my mother has never hesitated in her answer. She has often told me that if she never had to cook again, she would die happy. She raised a couple of cookin' daughters, because as soon ever as she could get us on our feet and chopping in the kitchen, we took over.

That being said, then, I remember that my mother always made her own spaghetti sauce. I grew up never knowing about the convenience and ease of bottled marinara. When I discovered it in college, I found it shocking that people took such short cuts. Could these be genuinely caring mothers buying the Prego and Ragu? How could people eat that disgusting stuff? Some mornings I would get up for school and see the dozen or so jars of tomato products on the counter. The big pot would be on the stove. Bay leaves, oregano, basil, sage would have been plucked from the oft-neglected spice cupboard. And on the really extra special days, next to all of these cans and bottles and jars would be resting a box of lasagna. And I would know that this was a day to skip lunch in anticipation of the best food ever known to humankind.

My mama’s lasagna is kind of like a Supreme Pizza – it has everything. She includes your standards: the noodles, the homemade sauce that bubbled and cooked all day, the ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan. She includes tasty fresh vegetables, like sliced mushrooms, diced green peppers, chopped whole tomatoes. She throws in the meats: ground beef mixed in the sauce, pepperoni slices, hot Italian sausage chunks. She layers this in a way that I have never been able to duplicate, perfecting the distribution so that every bite you take has some special chunk of delicious in it. And she slices it up into enormous squares that are melted, crispy-on-top and surface-of-the-sun hot inside. This is always complemented with a bowl of fresh salad of lettuce, raw mushrooms, carrot slices, pepper rings, and celery. She serves up a covered basket of steaming garlic bread, for mopping every morsel of her delicious cooked sauce, and then puts on her football pads and helmet before battling her way through the slathering, viciously hungry children and to the table.

I have never, not once, been able to wait and avoid burning the roof of my mouth. And, let me tell you, it tastes even better heated up the next day.

my mama's main dish.

my mom never really cooked fancy, dancy dishes. her dishes were simple, but oh so delicious! there was one dish, however, that my mom spent quite a bit of time making. ah, yes. i loved walking in the door after school and finding every square inch of our kitchen counter tops covered with tea towels. this meant only one thing. we were having homemade chicken and noodles for dinner.

i would always lift the tea towels and sneak a few of the noodles my mom had made. each noodle was irregular in shape. some were small while others were quite long. most times, i would eat the little ones because i knew she wouldn't notice that they were gone. i don't ever recall watching her actually make the noodles and boil the chicken, but i definitely remember snitching the work in progress!

my mouth waters just thinking about sitting down at our tiny, blue table. she'd dip me a bowl of the soup and i'd sprinkle just the right amount of seasoned salt on it. deee-licious. i savored each and every bite. and while eating the soup, my dad would always pester my mom about having mashed potatoes with it. this idea my mother despised. 'too much starch,' was her answer. we never did eat mashed potatoes with the chicken and noodles, but it didn't keep my dad from asking each time we dined on it.

to this day, i love my mom's homemade chicken and noodles. i bet my mom has the best in the whole world. no contest!

I Wonder What Mama Makes Best?

My family was the type that ate dinner together every single night. My brother and I would come home from school or athletic practice, do our homework and wait for Dad to get home from work. Mama would be slaving away in the kitchen to make something for dinner that would refuel us, would sustain us for the night, and would taste good. I am a very picky eater and I am allergic to some random things, but there were very few meals that my mother ever made that were not delicious. The things I usually did not like were the things my brother loved best (tuna casserole, anyone? ::gag::). I got lucky, I guess. I grew up with happily married parents who loved their kids more than anything and my mother can cook with the best of them. She grew up on a farm and as second oldest with lots of siblings, so she was honing her kitchen skills from early on.

Mama will tell you that what she cooks is nothing special and that none of her recipes require any fancy ingredients. Mama will also tell you that her favorite "spice" is a little bit of salt, she loves to use butter and that "anyone can make her recipes". And Mama would be dead wrong. I have spent years trying to perfect her recipes and re-create them in my own kitchen. While I may get close, nothing tastes as good as my Mama's home cooking. I think her secret ingredient is really love.

My Mama makes this dish that we call Hamburgers in Gravy. It is freaking unbelievable. The name of the dish describes it perfectly as it really is just hamburgers in gravy. However, pair this with some homemade noodles, some Indiana corn on the cob -- sorry, I have become distracted. Let me just say that this meal is amazing. I request it every time my parents come to visit me or every time I go back home to visit them. Every. single. time. I also always request salmon patties, fried potatoes, and brownies. Oh! And...okay, I could go on and on forever with this list of things my Mama makes best.

So I will just end by saying, DANG. My Mama can cook.

Maturity, in Purses

Back in the heady days of my youth, back when it was me and only me that a handbag was designed to serve, I was a purse miminalist. The smaller, the better in my book – in fact, my favorite “handbag” of all time was the tiny card wallet with keychain attached that I used to carry around with me in college. ID, check. Credit and debit cards, check. Keys, check. The end. Maybe a chapstick in my front pocket, and I’d be done.

Later, the little red hobo was able to do the job that my pockets couldn’t quite manage – that is, carry my brick of a cell phone. Life abhors a vacuum, or in this case empty space in a purse, and so my needs multiplied to fill up the bag I carried. Tiny comb. Wee perfume. Gum.

And then I got pregnant, and I decided that it was necessary for me to graduate from Tiny Cute Hobo to The Gigantic Poppins Bag, or as I self deprecatingly like to call it, the Mom Purse. The weekend after my husband left the country for Brazil for 3 months, I cheered myself up by strolling to T.J. Maxx and dithering over a selection of 10 mom purses. After over an hour of collecting options, I whittled them down to 2: a gorgeous buttery brown over the shoulder bag, and a red Liz Claiborne with white stitch detail and polka dot lining. In order to never have to switch out black/brown purses again, I went with the red. And now I have embraced my space with gusto.

The Poppins bag currently holds:

In the sunglasses pocket
A pair of sunglasses
A pacifier
Receipts

In the cell phone pocket
My new work cell
My personal cell
A paper clip

In the first big pocket
Matches from the Outback Steakhouse
2 AA batteries of questionable charge
An old broken carabiner keychain
2 Chico bags (for groceries – yeah Sunni!)
My “inspiration/shopping list/used gum disposal sheets” notebook (yeah Amanda!)
A pen and checkbook
The instruction manual for my new work cell phone
A sample pack of the wipes we make at work, with the work logo printed on the pack
A disposable diaper
A pack of baby wipes
2 teethers

In the second big pocket
My wallet, reasonably stuffed
A receipt for a benefit I declined at work 2 months ago
The list of 401k investment options recommended by our broker 1 month ago which I still haven’t acted on
More work wet wipe sample packs
A nail file
Another pen
Another net bag for groceries

In the middle big pocket
All the stuff a woman shouldn’t leave home without – i.e., 2 chapsticks, gum, comb, perfume, lotion, hand mirror, tweezers, keys, Visine, lip gloss, and ancient Kleenex

In the side zip pocket
Grocery discount cards, coupons, 2 more pens, 4 patches (like, sew on patches – WTF? Where did they come from??), more grodacious Kleenex, phone numbers for baby’s pediatrician and insurance co. if the car breaks down

There you have it, baby! Everything but the kitchen sink!

my "luggage"

super jas refers to my purse as my 'luggage.' true, it is a large bag. true, it weighs a bit. true, that i carry nearly everything in there that one could want. but, to call it a piece of 'luggage' is a bit of an exaggeration in my book. boys... what do they know? and where would they be without our purses and their contents? seriously.

like i said, my bag is fairly big. currently, it holds the following items:
*wallet
*gps
*a canvas bag that little mama decorated for me that i use to carry groceries (i'm trying to be green, g love!)
*paid bills
*checkbook
*candy wrappers
*a pack of gum
*two toothbrushes (my girls went to the dentist today)
*my black bag that holds such things as loose change, eye drops, chapstick, hand sanitizer, moisturizer. i guess you could say it's like my purse within a purse.
*bottle of advil
*band aids
*an assortment of mcdonald's happy meal toys

i love my bag and i love that it's big and can hold damn near anything that i need it to. and even though it may be heavy, at least i give my arms a workout each day. just another added bonus!

I Wonder What Is In My Purse?

I'm thrilled to be Monday's hostess once again! Forgive me for the lightness of this topic, but I am lucky enough to be off of work today. So, I have given my brain a vacation. This topic, however, intrigues me. I hope it intrigues you as well.

So, my purse usually weighs about ten pounds. The purse I currently carry is a gorgeous black Coach bag that my husband generously gave me for Christmas. This gift was quite a surprise and I love carrying it. It has a ton of pockets so that I can stash all of my stuff!

In the first pocket you will find my wallet, pictures of family and friends, and a pen. I always have to have the pen with me otherwise I forget to write down my purchases. That makes balancing my check book a nightmare. So, for everyone's sanity, I carry the pen.

In the center pocket of my purse you will find a Vera Bradley makeup bag that I adore. It was a gift from my mother and it is in the cutest pattern -- Java Blue. This makeup bag is stuffed full of lipsticks, lip glosses, a mirror and my absolute beauty must-have of Bonne Bell Lip Smacker in Strawberry. The center pocket of my purse also holds my keys, my Blackberry for work and my personal Blackberry. There are also bills to be paid and my camera that I always have with me.

The last pocket of my purse holds Kleenex (hello, Old Lady!!) and a memo pad for notes, thoughts, and information. This pocket also carries my migraine meds. The migraine meds are a necessary evil, unfortunately. No matter what purse I am carrying, you will find those migraine meds. I have learned that lesson the hard way.

I guess you could call me well-prepared. Also, if you meet me in a dark alley and try to steal my shoes? I will beat you with my very heavy purse!

I Wonder What We'll Remember Most?

Happy Inauguration Day!

I wonder which part of President Obama's speech will be the most heavily sound-bit?

I can't wait to watch it all over again tonight ... what an historic morning for our country. I'm glowing!

Would you believe she's only 18? It's true!

Happy birthday to you, super jane! :)

Wondering about the Not-Quite-So-New-Anymore Year

Yes, I still work here. Hi again after months of radio silence!

2009, you are an enigma to me. There you sit, all new and shiny, a mysterious, wrapped package that may turn out to be Pandora’s box or that may turn out to be the loveliest gift I’ve ever gotten. What will I find if I just slit some of the tape and take a quick peek?

Ooh, I see some change! Change of addresses for some of those very near and dear to me, change in the national mood as we embrace hope and the hard work we should all be prepared to do to get to those new places BHO wants to take us, and even change for my piggy bank! Oh wait. Never mind. That change is earmarked for credit-card companies and the US Dept. of Edu. But over there in the corner, do I see a haircut? Hmm. Maybe I’d better retape that corner.

I’m just going to give you a little shake, 2009, and then hold my ear up to you. Ah, lovely. I hear new music from U2 and lots and lots of laughter. I hear my cell phone ringing about a million times (and that’s just for January) and final boarding calls and at least one Wedding March and my nephew’s newest bon mot as repeated by his super-proud FarFar. I hear the clickety-clack of my keyboard as I renew my commitment to Wondering. (This last noise also sounds like my only New Year’s Resolution. Let me listen again. Yup. That’s what it is.)

Do you smell good? Mmm, 2009, you smell great—like M&Ms and new culinary adventures and the gym and organic lavender lotion.

Well, there you have it. I think, after having sized you up, that you’re going to be a pretty surprising surprise, 2009.

Here’s hopin’.

Wondering About 2009

There are two scenarios for 2009, I suppose. On the whole, 2009 could either be a colossal success or a giant failure. Obviously, I am hoping for success.

My dream for 2009 is that it will be bringing me wealth, health, and happiness in infinite measure. A lottery win, my seventeen year old body back, and constant belly laughs would fit the bill quite nicely. However, I am not delusional. So, I have a feeling that 2009 will bring that ever-popular mix of good and bad. ("You take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both and there you have, THE FACTS OF LIFE! THE FACTS OF LIFE!") Sorry, I could not resist.

So, reality time. I hope that 2009 brings me clarity about some very large looming decisions in my life. Should I have a kid (ever)? If yes, when? Should Superman and I stay on the east coast, should we move back to the midwest or should we explore living in an entirely new location? Should I set out on a new career path? What kind of car should we buy when our lease runs out this Spring? Just how many pairs of shoes can I fit in our closet?

I also hope that 2009 brings me a lot of fun travel, a lot more time with my husband, and a chance to spend more quality time with far-flung friends. I am hoping 2009 continues to bring me as much happiness as 2008 did. I sincerely hope that 2009 teaches me to enjoy every day, that it continues to show me the beauty in the little things, and that it further teaches me to appreciate everything (and everyone) that I have in my life.

I Wonder What 2009 Will Bring?

Next week our next Wonder Woman will start her rotation, but I failed to notify her in time and so I am doing one last week, to kick off the new year.

First, a look back. 2008 brought many things to Chez G Love. A child - my first. My first birthday with a 3 in front of it. My second anniversary. An academic success, a bout of financial whining. A niece. 3 months without my husband, which was by turns a precious time and a lonely, difficult time. I went to childbirth classes, baby care classes, a horse race, three baby showers, the hospital. I had a month and a half off of work, and stitches aside I ate this time up, loved every minute. I saw Yellowstone National Park. I raised money for cancer. I went to 2 weddings, 1 camping trip, and countless band performances. I spent less of this year sleeping than I ever have in my life. I whined about not sleeping frequently.

What could 2009 bring me? Chances are that we will remain a family of 3, or 5 - no more children or animals will be gracing our door post this year, at least not planned (we all know how this can go, though.) Darlin and I could switch roles. By 2009's end I may be in law school, or I may be in theatre management, or I may be in graduate school, or I may be teaching, or in a very unlikely and not-hoped-for scenario, I could still be doing what I'm now doing. We may be moving to a new place. It could be somewhere we've never been before, or somewhere we know. Somewhere close, or far from here - close, or far from either or both of or parents. We may be living in our children's hometown by next year, or we may be living in the place where the next few will be born and move from before they are even aware of what is going on. Darlin may have a wonderful job or a job that is a stepping stone to a wonderful job, or if the economy continues to mess around, he may have a job that is totally unrelated to his career and education. We cross our fingers for one of the first two.

2009 is a swirl of unknown factors and worries and exhilaration and gut wrenching uncertainty. It will be fine. But it will also be interesting.