Sept. 30: Month in review

Tis the last day of September. That fact does not suck.

special days i celebrated this month and how:

Goodness, and also gracious. There were lots of good days worth celebrating this month.

• It made me ever-so-happy to write “Ladies Liquor Luncheon” on my calendar for Sept. 2. Theresa hosted a first day of school party; after we all shoved our kids out the door, we crazy-relieved moms gathered for good fun. While there’s a rumor that the best parties are the ones no one can remember afterward, this one was an exception—I remember all of it. I remember spending several hours with many of my dearest friends, and I remember thinking I AM SO LUCKY to know these women. I also remember stuffing my face with Cassie’s breakfast frittata and and Jenn K’s delicious salad-y goodness while across the room a bunch of people blathered on about Cross Fit and YES, I felt like a rhinoceros but YES, the bloody Marys and mimosas made it better and NO, I don’t have a problem.
• (I might have a problem.)
• September 6 is always a big birthday day on my calendar—my fave cousin Deanna, Kim F’n-W, Dan K, and Trevor L all got older that day. I celebrated by going to Jack’s first football game and seeing exactly zero of those birthday peoples.
• Our niece and nephew, Julianne and Jacob, each celebrated milestone birthdays this month. Before we ate cake with them, we went to Jack’s football game. Seems going to Jack’s football games is the new way to celebrate birthdays. To me, this is not ideal.
• My own birthday celebration went on for many days, as all the best ones do. Mother Mary was here and treated us to a lovely dinner… Vic worked his magic on the grill another night… Apple released a new iOS (I consider this my personal gift every September)… Val shoved a yummy lit cupcake in my face… and surprise, surprise, we went to a football game. While there was nothing exceptional about the age I turned this year, I appreciate that I did indeed have another birthday.

I’ll bet you a gazillion $$ that Dina
doesn’t remember writing this on our calendar :)

• Mack, April, Lafe, Tina, Margaret, and Hawaii Laura had birthdays this month too. September is a good month for a birthday. Pretty sure.
• Somebody planned a farewell dinner for a few of the important people in Jenn K’s life, and we begrudgingly went:

There are so many things I love about this picture that I don’t know where to begin!
But the good-bye part of it super-sucked.

i saw things with my eyes:

Movies:

• Kinky Boots (Amazon Instant Video). I loved this so much more than I expected to. It reminded me of other wonderfully acted but underrated British films like The Full Monty, Waking Ned Devine, and Saving Grace.  
• Say Anything… (Netflix). As a proud child of the 80s, I’m embarrassed to say I had never seen Say Anything start-to-finish until last week.
• A Single Man.  I was slightly disappointed in this one, possibly because I’d heard such raves and my expectations were high. The look of the movie was incredible; the story bummed me out. Colin Firth was all kinds of fab, but Julianne Moore’s portrayal of her character reminded me of Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest—it seemed like it was all a big, over-the-top, pathetic attempt at an Oscar nomination. I don’t especially love or hate her, but her performance here was ridic.
• We watched Iron Man 3 approximately 12 times this past week. I’m not exaggerating.
• Bad Words. Slightly sad, but laugh-out-loud funny.

Television:

• I’m all caught up with Veep (HBO) and can’t wait for season four. I adore this show. Julia Louis-Dreyfus has earned her three Emmys for this show, for sure. The truly unlikeable yet insanely hilarious characters on Veep make Seinfeld’s horrendous four seem like BFF material.
• Transparent. This is a new original series on Amazon and its cast is definitely worth watching. I’m not too far into the series yet, but they just posted the entire season. Here’s how Slate describes the premise of Transparent: “The title is a pun: As the show begins, the patriarch of the Pfeffermans, a close-knit, affluent, Jewish clan of Los Angelinos, begins to come out as transgender to her children.”
• New seasons of lots of good shows are finally starting! Yay!

Books:

I’m getting better about putting books down if I’m not enjoying them. This used to make me feel like a failure or that I didn’t give the book a chance, but I also hate wasting my time reading trash. Although I felt like I was reading a LOT more than usual this month, it turns out that many of the books I read went unfinished.

• Looking for Alaska, by John Green. I read this in honor of Banned Books Week, as lots of concerned parents have tried to get this out of kids’ hands. I loved the book, but I can see why there have been attempts to ban it. I will refrain from going into a long rant about censorship and the (lack of) logic behind banning books, but I will say this: MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS, FOLKS. Geez.
• Girl Walks into a Bar...: Comedy Calamities, Dating Disasters, and a Midlife Miracle, by Rachel Dratch. This was a fun read. 
• The Group, by Mary McCarthy. Do you ever read the synopsis of a book and feel positive that you’ve read it before but then you start reading just in case and suddenly nothing seems familiar? And then just when you think you were wrong, that the book is new to you, it starts sounding familiar again? That. That’s where I am with this book.

Other stuff:

• So. Much. Football. Our team is 3-1 with four games to go, which is the best record we’ve ever had, but this past weekend’s loss hurt bad. I’m enjoying watching the games more this season than I have in previous years, but my anxiety levels are still sky-high. Jack thinks it’s funny when I say that every injury makes me want to pull him out of the sport. I’m dead serious. It’s hard to see that stuff.
  
  It’s not just Jack’s team that’s playing all the football, though… it’s the high school games both kids want to go to at least once a week, plus all the games on TV, and every bit of it makes me want to throw things and curse loudly.
• Although I don’t mind the weather of this season, I really hate seeing leaves falling off trees. This is partly because I hate raking, partly because our yard is designed for spring and will be ugly for the next six months, and partly because, as mentioned above and in every post I’ve ever written this time of year, fall means there’s football on every single channel every single day. But will I use the cooler temps as a good excuse to prepare crock pot meals and wear boots and cozy sweaters? Of course I will.

this month’s good and bad:

• The kids went back to school. This is a very good thing. I’m still having a hard time believing that Katie is in high school, though—but she absolutely loves it. Jack, on the other hand, acts like every bit of the 12-year-old that he is, and I’m thankful to have a break from his eye-rolling for a few hours every day.
• Jenn K moved to Alaska. Pffftt.
• My orthopedist gave me permission to take off my walking cast! I’m wearing a transition brace for now, but it’s too bulky for most of my shoes, so truthfully, I’m playing risky and going ankle-nekkid most the time. So far, so good. Later this week I start physical therapy.

i likes to share pics I’ve found on the ‘net:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was real, September. Smell ya later.

Aug. 8: Big ol’ milestone

My husband celebrated his 50th birthday a couple weeks ago. Fifty! Fiiiiiifteeeeeeee! I am married to a very old man.

I had planned on throwing a monster-huge party for him, but then came The Summer of The Broken Ankle; I feel absolutely useless in this cast. For a while I thought we’d still have a party, just a couple months late. Victor kept reminding me it was no big deal, but I say that’s just ridiculous—you can’t let a 50th birthday go by unpartied for! The subject came up again two weeks ago and we both kinda decided to just plan a last-minute thing and hope our nearest and dearest could make it.

And most of them did. Yay! We got together last Sunday in honor of the elderly guy who lives in my house.

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Sonya and Victor

Dina, Vic, and Val = The Trio of Pure Spectacularness™

Theresa, Tina, Dina, and me

Blaine can almost do a pushup with Val sitting on him!
I love the crowd of kids around them, in complete awe of Blaine’s strength.
(That’s what he thinks, anyway.)

Two of my neighbor-friends, Cristina and Trudy. Ring pops!

Randy, Jim, and Jeremy.
I have no idea what they’re doing, but I see the tequila is still sealed...

Cassie’s got her hands in the air like she just don’t care.
Is Tina sleeping?

 
The kids lined up chairs all across the street and waited for a car
to come so they could blow horns at it.
Good thing our street’s not busy; they got tired of waiting and gave up.
<cough> Idiots! <cough>

My BFF April couldn’t join the festivities, but her mom did!
Pat and Darlene are friends from college. (I love that.)
I think they’re talking about how they can’t possibly have children 50 years old.

Theresa, Dina, Val
(I love these girls so much)

Some o’ the kids.

More kids.
Randy’s still barely taller than Blaine (who sooo looks like Dina in this pic, BTW).
Jack is a dork.
Mack is blurry.

 
Happy recent 20th anniversary to Randy and Dina!
She got a gorgeous rock, sure, but Cassie’s got the real ‘spensive bling.

 
I asked guests to write out an answer to this question, and
the slips of paper are saved in a jar that we’ll treasure forever.
Or at least until Victor goes senile and forgets his name.

The cupcake picks were colorful and sarcastic and fun.
We also had big jars of candy with pun-ny signs and DIY goodie bags:
“thirty sucks” (lollipops)
“forty blows” (gumballs)
“fifty rocks” (chocolate rock candy)
“kiss middle age goodbye” (Hershey’s Kisses)
“treasure your youth” (candy necklaces, ring pops, gold chocolate coins, etc.)
I hate puns, but I do love cute birthday party décor and excuses to have candy.

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I was thrilled to have a great turnout of our family and friends in honor of Vic’s big birthday. The kids were a surprisingly lot of help in getting things ready, and so were several other cool peeps. Extra-special thanks to:

• Kristen and Matt, who helped with the last few prep duties and, most importantly, figured out how to use the automatic corkscrew. The people who were happy about that were REALLY happy about that.
• Sonya, Chris, Julianne, and Jacob, who made the trip from Issaquah. It wouldn’t have been the same to celebrate Vic without them.
• Darlene, who brought homemade goodies. She always makes such good stuff—it’s, like, almost too pretty to eat.
• Dawn, who said she’d bring delicious treats as long as I didn’t give her credit but guess what? I’m totally doing it anyway. Thanks, Dawn! I’m so appreciative of your bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers that I’m not posting the pic of you and the potato salad.
• Alec (our nephew), who gave up a chunk of his weekend to attend and represent his part of the family. It was nice to have him with us.
• Mother Mary. She couldn’t actually be at the party, but she happily shared purchases from across the state line.
• Cristina, who let us borrow important party supplies.
• All the people who brought refreshing bottled beverages. We have a few parties’ worth in leftovers—there’s an FYI that ought to get us on a guest list or two.
• Val, who took most of these photos.
• Nikki, Mack, Lauren, and Phoebe, who helped Katie and Jack decorate and do last-minute setup.
• Everyone who was super-sweet to Maya. This was her first big group, and we were pleased to see her do so well.

Party guests whose true identity I shall protect to the grave until someone asks me who it was:

• The person who lost track of her kid. Like, it was midnight and we were yelling up and down the street. Because I lost my kid too.
• The person who stood in front of the open freezer for five minutes looking for ice. She couldn’t quite focus on the tiny 20-pound bags at eye level until her son pointed them out to her. And then she looked at him lovingly and said, “Thank you. I love ice.”
• The person who forgot her shoes at our house. How does a person leave a party barefoot? Maybe after you’ve stared at 40 pounds of ice for five minutes…
• Friends and family who wanted to be at the party but couldn’t make it, as well as the friends and family who didn’t want to be at the party but came anyway.

 

Here’s what the kitchen floor looked like the next morning.
It was so, so disgusting.
I blame the kids, their soda, and whoever opened the tequila.

 

As I’ve cleaned up and put away party supplies this week, I’ve taken extra care not to destroy any of the age-specific stuff—we’ll need it again in four short years when it’s time to celebrate me turning the big 5-0. Yikes. Really, that is all I have to say about being so close to 50: YIKES.

But congrats to YOU on making it to 50, Victor! And thanks for giving us a reason to party.

Feb. 22: For realsies, even more + other stuff

My oncologist called this past week and said she and the radiologist decided to biopsy that thing in my throat after all. They’ll be doing an ultrasound-guided biopsy, and I have no idea how that’s different from the one I had in ‘09, which was done with CT, but I’m pretty sure it will hurt and I will not have fun.

The biopsy is scheduled for the afternoon of Wednesday, February 26. I was supposed to meet with the oncologist that day to decide on treatment, but we moved that appointment to Monday, March 3.

I’m thankful that everything suspicious is being checked thoroughly, and I understand that that takes time… but it doesn’t mean I can’t be frustrated that this whole thing is being drawn out even further. Sooo… I hoped to have some news to share on Wednesday, but it’ll be a week from Monday instead. Grrr. Also: pfffftt.

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On the side of the bright, Victor and I are away from home for the weekend. Don’t try to steal crap from our house though—my mom is there with the kids. Tomorrow is our anniversary (17 years!) and we’re celebrating with a little shopping, a movie in a real theater, restaurants, and probably a lot of falling asleep in front of the hotel room TV. In fact, if none of the rest happens, I’d be OK with that. We’re old and tired.

This is the first year that our anniversary happening the same weekend as the elementary school carnival is no big deal, which is all kinds of awesome. The awesome part is that we actually get to celebrate our anniversary ON our anniversary. It actually isn’t awesome (to me) to miss the carnival. I kinda love that carnival. It’s always a butt-load of work for PTO (but not me this year!! YAY!), but is such a fun event. Vic is not even a little bit sad to miss the carnival—as a PTO husband, he was given a lot of grunt work. In fact, I don’t think he misses much about PTO at all.

I’m suddenly kinda mad at him.

But not so mad I’ll go help at the school. Sorry, Wendy.  :)

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Sales at Dear Girl ~ Jewelry with Intention are going really well. I’ve sold quite a bit on etsy, but I’ve had people come to my house and poke around in the warehouse (my hall closet) and buy that way, too. I’m having a lot of fun with the whole thing, and I’m grateful for friends who have pinned my stuff on Pinterest because I’m starting to get sales from people who found me that way. Thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you who have purchased, and for the rest, I hope you’ll take a look at the store. I can do custom orders, too, so let me know if you don’t see something that’s perfect because I will totally make you a perfect thing. I will. I can.

I suggested that part of our anniversary celebration could be a tour of all the bead stores in town and Vic didn’t go for that AT ALL. My next husband will enjoy beads more. And he won’t snore. Or be a mean drunk. Or beat me with sacks of oranges. Or stomp on my dreams.

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Yesterday Mother Mary got to meet Max, her great-grandson. I love to say that she’s a great-grandmother. It makes her sound ancient and that’s fun!

He is just the sweetest little cuddle-bug. I loves ‘im.

Also, look in the background—do you see the liquor cart? I’m sure Erin & Kevin will have to put theirs away when Max starts crawling toward the shot glasses, but our kids are past that age so we’re safe—our kids can just walk right up and drink straight from the bottles. (BEST. PARENTS. EVER.) I am so gonna add this Leave It To Beaver-esque feature to our living room, pronto. Maybe that’ll be our shopping quest for the weekend.

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Pics I’ve been saving to share with you because I loooooove you:

 

Scary how much Google can figure out from what you type in the search box, huh?

 

I think I want this friend:
 

 

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I usually do these little-bit-of-everything posts on Fridays so I can use my shirtless Ponch pic, but this is Saturday, so here’s non-Friday-lovin’ Ponch because I couldn’t bear to upset Fancy Lori™. She likes her Ponch.

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That’s all for now. Laterz.

Nov. 30: Month in review

My summary of November 2013 is a teensy bit late (it’s already December), but I’m dating it as though I posted it on time. Or let’s just say it’s November 31st. Yes, let’s.

Special days I celebrated this month and how:

• Jack’s football team had their end-of-season party. The coaches praised each boy for their strengths and contributions to the team, and left all of us parents grateful and kinda teary. I’m not gonna lie; I’m glad football is done, but I also love that Jack had the opportunity to be part of a great group like this one.
• Our boy turned 12 on Nov. 13. He invited a couple friends to a Blazer game, and the next weekend he had them over again for a sleepover party. In anticipation of that night (better known as FartFest2013), Katie and I made our escape to a hotel in Portland. Fun was had by all.

• Victor and I went up to Long Beach, Washington for a belated birthday vacation from Mother Mary. We stayed at Adrift Hotel, an odd little place just steps away from the beach. Lucy had never stayed in a hotel before, and was really agitated at first—pacing and looking for the other rooms and more people. Then she realized that she’d get several walks each day for potty breaks, and she decided she loooooves hotels. It was a nice little break for all of us. Long Beach is way underrated.
• Thanksgiving! This year we spent our favorite holiday with friends. We had a delicious dinner, followed by an epic poker game. There was also an assortment of Christmas movies, music, hide-and-seek games, and these pear-rosemary cocktails. ‘Twas a lovely day.
• Dear friends Ed and Sheila celebrated birthdays this month. I didn’t celebrate with them, though because neither of them invited me to their parties. Never mind they were in Oklahoma and a Dakota at the time. Happy birthday anyway!

I was in the audience:

• Mom, Dina, and I went to an advance showing of The Book Thief. I loved the book and wasn’t thrilled when I heard it was being made into a movie, but we all thought it was really well done. The cast was amazing—every single character was impressive. I highly recommend it—the book and the movie.
• We upgraded our Christmas movie collection with this purchase. I’m embarrassed—just slightly—to say we watched all four movies in one evening. At this rate, I’ll be Christmas-ed out long before Dec. 25. That ain’t good.

Books and things:

• I started reading Amy Tan’s newest book, The Valley of Amazement. I’m planning to go to her reading at Powell’s on Wednesday.
• My stack of “to be read” books is getting precariously high. I could get through it if I could stay awake for five minutes. Lately reading makes me sleepy. Pffft.

This month’s disappointments:

• Our kitty was sick. At first her teeny-tiny sneezes were really cute, but then she started doing it on my face and that was enough of that. Poor Millie. Getting her to and from the vet was insanely difficult for me and stressful for her. Thankfully, after a round of antibiotics, she’s all better.
• Although Victor had most of the week off, he had to work the day after Thanksgiving. He always does, and I hate it. What’s worse, though, is this year he has to work on Christmas Day. Actually, maybe this whole Christmas-ed out thing will work out well for me. I can spend Christmas Day undecorating the house.

newsy bits from in and around our family:

• These are the people with whom I closed out November 2013—Tina, Theresa, and Val. Lucky me!

• So, I attempted another blog challenge in November and failed in a very successful way. I’m trying something similar in December and predict I’ll do about as well.
• Mother Mary has now joined the rest of us in the 21st century: she finally upgraded from a 1990s-era flip phone to an iPhone. If you get a text from her, you’ll have to add your own punctuation, though. She hasn’t figured that part out yet. Baby steps.

I likes to share the silly stuff:

 

Happy December, friends! Smell ya later.