It doesn’t seem fair somehow that it should be Friday.  I mean, it feels like the week only just started.  Which, you know, it DID.  But I’m definitely not complaining.  

This morning finds my mind full of all sorts of stupid things so I need to empty it out here on the blog so I can move on with my day. 

• We’re FINALLY getting some inclement weather.  Sure, it’s rain and not snow but at this point I’ll take whatever I can get.  I love love love looking outside and seeing the dark skies and foggy mountains.  It makes me feel so much more… mellow. 
• It’s looking like maybe, just MAYBE, I’ll finish my knitting project on time.  But I made some stupid mistakes last night because I was in such a hurry.  The good news is that I know what I did wrong and can make sure not to do it again next time.  But it still ruffles my feathers that there are flaws.  That’s what I get for being in such a hurry. 
• I’m selling off some old diapers that weren’t really working for us anymore and used the money from that to buy some new diapers that will (*cough*goodmama*cough*).  I’m excited for new diapers and just love that I can sell diapers in order to buy more.   And I also love having an excuse to stalk the mailbox next week.  Nothing beats getting some mail! 
• After eight years, I am just SO TIRED of political arguments.  If there’s anything the Bush years taught me, it’s that arguing with “the other side” does absolutely no good.  There’s no changing their minds and they can’t change mine so why even bother?  Still, hearing the same old rhetoric makes me want to bash my head into a wall.  I’m sorry, but no matter how hard you try, you jus’t can’t change history.  Sheesh. 
• Evie slept good for a couple nights there.  She didn’t come in with us during the night and slept through!  Last night, however, was a different story.  I know she doesn’t need to eat, I just think she gets lonely.  She’s a snuggler, that one.  And (it tickles me to say), she’s quite the mama’s girl.  
• Have I mentioned her rolling?  Because it’s downright adorable.  Crawling?  No.  Pulling oneself up and cruising?  No.  Rolling?  Oh heck yeah.  She can outroll the best of them.  She does seem rather adverse to being on her feet though.  She still tries to turn one ankle inward and if I try to help her take steps while holding onto her hands, she just locks up her legs.  Poor dear just isn’t at all interested with being very mobile. 
• But she is a hungry lass!  She loves the veggie and the cheese puffs from Gerber.  You know, those things that look like puffy cheetos?  ZOMG.  She thinks those are the second coming.  She’d cram ten of them at a time in her mouth if we let her.  It’s nice to have a good eater after having a picky one. 
• Speaking of Liam, he’s a wooly child.  Does it cause him physical pain to just BE STILL for five minutes?  Because I’m starting to think it does.  He’s trying desperately to throw off his last remaining nap but I’m not ready to give it up yet.  And depending on his mood that particular day, he can be rather awful to Evie.  I have to watch him like a hawk.  The popular refrain “Liam!  No!” is heard often around these parts.  
• I can has my new MacBook?  I’m so tired of using this tarnated Google Chrome.  It’s refresh capabilities leave something to be desired.  

Okay, back to my knitting.  Take it easy, folks and enjoy your Friday.  Weekend time!  Wee!

Real life starts again tomorrow and I’m not entirely sure that I want it to.

I’ve gotten kind of used to the quasi-life we’ve had going on around here for the last two weeks.  It’s been kinda nice.  Kile and Harry have been home (or mostly so, as Kile did have to work a few days  before Christmas).  There’s been that whole festive/holiday thing going on.  There’s been a lot of Rock Band getting played.  There’s been a fair amount of shopping.  There’s even been a fair amount of crafting.  It’s been pretty awesome.

Tomorrow, Harry goes back to school.  Kile goes back to work.  Liam and Evie get shuffled back onto the daily routine that they have assuredly forgotten all about in the last two weeks.  So, you know, it should be fun trying to whip them both back into shape. (Actual whipping of babies might not actually be actual.)

We’ve been leading a charmed (if false) existance for the last two weeks and while it will be nice in a way to get back into the daily routine, it’ll also be back to being lonely and isolated all damned day too.  BOO on that, I say.  BOO.

Ah well.  At least I’ll have the project of getting this blog and my pathetic posting habits of late back up to speed to keep me occupied.  Because, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but lately I’ve kinda sucked rather hard at this whole blogging thing.  So there’s that.

Am I the last person to have to return to average life?  Didn’t everyone else have to do that like DAYS ago?

I barely made it to midnight last night.  BARELY.  I swear, ya’ll, I almost fell asleep while singing in the band (Rock Band, to be precise).  I couldn’t even finish my champagne.   In fact, I didn’t finish ANY of my drinks last night.  The gin and tonic, the margarita… I didn’t even try to drink any Hornsby’s and that’s just about unheard of.

What the heck, yo?

Suffice it to say, I think I’m way out of shape.  Shoot, in years past we would have been whooping and hollering with the best of them when midnight rolled around.  I’m too young to feel this old.  I need to take my resolutions seriously this year.  Because I really don’t think I took them seriously last year.  Let’s take a look at what I said, shall we?

• I want to be better about handling conflicts.  I need to realize when I can’t “fix” it and learn when to step aside and ask for help.  It’s natural to want to do anything and everything to make it better but the problem is losing myself in the struggle.  I want to keep myself and my dignity.

  Uhm… NOPE.  But then, I haven’t had much opportunity for conflict as I have pretty much closeted myself way from the rest of humanity this last year.  I blame the bad experiences I had in 2007 for making me gun shy.  But more than that, I blame me for letting a couple bad experiences scare me so bad.

• I hope to rise to the challenge of having two small children.  That will be an entirely new experience for me and frankly, it’s something I haven’t considered much this far.  I’m hoping that our laid-back natures will rub off some on the kids but I’m sure it will be a challenge regardless.

  Hmm.  Well… I sorta had no choice but to do this one.  I mean, two kids was my destiny whether I tried or not.  And I think I’ve done a pretty decent job.  Sometimes, you have to rise to the challenge because there isn’t really any other option.

• I want to get some parts of my house cleaned out and cleaned up.  My room is a big one.  This would be essential should we end up getting the king sized bed that we’d like to have.  Other areas: the garage, Harry’s room.

  Riiiiight.  Yeah, a big fat NO here too.  Though, we did get the king sized bed in our room.  And portions of the garage were cleaned out.  And I have gone through my closet several times, tossing out old clothes.  But I don’t think I’m anywhere near finished.  There is a LOT more decluttering that needs to be done and the dent I was hoping for this last year didn’t really ever happen.

• We need to at least lay the groundwork for landscaping the backyard already.  This means putting in a sprinkler system.  Should our financial plan hold, we should be able to manage it this summer for sure.  It would be great to get a patio of sorts in.  If we could do the whole thing?  PERFECT.

  YEAH RIGHT.  If that backyard ever gets landscaped (you know, before the end of time), I’ll eat my hat.  So yeah… NO.  No sprinkler system.  No grass.  No patio.  NOTHING.  Not a damned thing.  Shoot, we even lost more chunks of fence that have remained “lost”.  OY.

• I’d like to get myself into shape after the baby is born.  Since I don’t plan on being pregnant again, it’s time to get serious about getting myself into shape.  This needs to be a big priority.

  I think it’s safe to say that this one was a big FAIL too.  No shape to be had over here.  Less shape, if that’s even possible, was achieved.  I let myself go really bad this year.

So we need some new resolutions, don’t you think?  And this year, I REALLY need to keep them.  I think it’s of the utmost importance that I keep some of these resolutions, if not all of them.

• Get myself into shape.  I don’t care if that means losing weight or whatever, but I want to be healthy.  This means keeping on top of my thyroid medication and bloodwork, getting up off the recliner now and then and perhaps even starting a walking program.  Perhaps, even start paying attention to what I’m eating more.  Though I think if I get more active, that will fall into place.  I need to take pride in myself and my body again.  Lately I just haven’t cared the way I should.
• Let go of the past and just move on with my life.  Don’t let crap that happened to me before get in the way of what I want to do and need to do from here on out.  I shouldn’t let a couple of bad experiences change and define me.  If I do, I’m letting the terrorists win.
• Live life simpler.  Get rid of junk that we don’t need.  Further embrace recycling, including “repurposing” things around the house such as toys and clothes and such.  I have a sewing machine now, that should help.  Make more things, buy less things.  Find joy in simpler things.
• Accomplish some minor goals with this house.  Maybe not the landscaping (though that would be nice), but at the very least take care of the fence and the busted windows and the fuxed up light fixture in the kitchen.  These are not ginormous tasks.  We need to get them taken care of.

There.  Those are reasonable resolutions, don’t you think?  I would have added on that I’d like to have a Macbook but a) that’s a little materialistic for such a reflective post as this and b) I’m totally getting one and there’s no point in setting a resolution for something that’s all but a done deal, right?  Right.

Do any of you have resolutions this year?  Did you keep the ones you made last year (if you made any, that is)?  Time to share with the class!

It was quite a year.  There were ups and downs.  Today?  I’m going to cover the downs.  Because I’d like to finish on a high note.  I’ll either do the “ups” tomorrow or tonight or whatever.  I’m still on vacation.  Time is relative.

• The economy.  Ooooooohhhhhhh boy.  Yeah.  It sucks.  It is The Bad.  I don’t like to expect that we’re all going to spiral down into the abyss so… I try to focus on the positive.  But yeah, it doesn’t look good.  The economy definitely took a dump this year.
• The many depressing celebrity deaths.  There were many.  And they were hard to bear.  Some harder than others.  I mean, no more Heath Ledger!  Bernie Mac!  George Carlin!  This is very sad.  Shoot, even Eartha Kitt died this year.  Who’s next?  (Don’t answer that.  I don’t want to know.)
• My health.  Oy.  This is pretty much all my fault, I know.  But the fact of the matter is my health, like the economy, took a dump this year.  I’d really like to turn that around in 2009.  I’d like to feel better, physically and mentally.  I’m not sure I could feel a whole lot worse (you know, without something catastrophic happening).
• Weather.  Yeah, I’m not terribly happy with the weather we’ve had this year.  Maybe this has to do with global warming or something.  Less rain, less snow.  Sure, the summer was fairly mild but mild temperatures aren’t exactly a good thing.  We need moisture, ya’ll.  It’s sorta important.
• All those stupid earthquakes we had last spring.  What was up with THAT??  Talk about nerve wracking.  Let’s hope we don’t see a repeat of that in 2009, mmkay?
• The Van Registration Fiasco of 2008.  Cuz that whole thing has sucked rather hardcore, I gotta say.  Another moment from 2008 that I’d rather not see replayed in 2009.
• All the crap that went wrong with our house this year.  Our back fence, the busted windows… shoot even the balast that went out of our flourescent overhead light in the kitchen.   What the heck, yo?
• Bad TV.  BAAAAD TV!!  There was a lot of bad television shows this year.  That stupid show “Momma’s Boys” or whatever it’s called takes the cake.  That is the worst of the worst.  And there was a lot of “worst”, believe you me.  Even shows that used to be awesome sucked this year.  Like “Heroes”.
• Anything related to “High School Musical” or Hannah Montana.  HATE HATE HATE.  I’m so tired of seeing this licensed crap all over the stores and the television and everywhere else.
• Basically any news story or current event that made my eyes roll back into my head.  There were a lot of them.  Far too many to mention here.  Rest assured, if it was someone victimizing children or being a stupid ass, then it made My List.

There’s my list.  But you know what?  “Worst” lists aren’t any fun to put together.  Nope.  I’m far more looking forward to the “Best” list that I’ve been cooking for the last couple of weeks.  There was an awful lot of awesome in 2008, if you knew where to look.

So what tops your “Worst of 2008″ list?  Lets get it all of our chests now, shall we?

I’ve been thinking, the last couple of days, about the last five years. It has been a wild and crazy ride.

Five years ago was October of 2003. I was knee-deep in my pregnancy with Jackson. It had taken a lot of work to get pregnant and I was soaking up every moment of it. I had enjoyed being pregnant so much with Harrison and was very glad to have the chance to experience it again. In fact, I can remember quite a bit from that time. Harry was dressing up as a pirate for Halloween and we had found the cutest costume at Target. That actually started our love affair with Target Halloween costumes. My parents were in town over Halloween and I remember sitting and chatting with my mom while handing out candy. My dad and Kile had taken Harry out trick-or-treating and it was cold, cold, cold! It had snowed that morning, in fact. It was also around this time that I had found out that my older sister was expecting her second child and I was so excited to be pregnant at the same time as her. It seemed like everything was on it’s way up.

Four years ago, we were still getting used to living in our new house and I was nursing a very tender wound on my soul from losing Jackson. That fall was a rough one and I actually don’t remember a lot of it. I do remember that we weren’t at home for many holidays and that hurt more than I expected it would. It was our first year in our new house and we weren’t here for Halloween or Christmas. Looking back, I’m not sure if we were here for Thanksgiving or not. Like I said, there are a lot of holes from 2004. I do especially remember Halloween though. We were in Elko, taking a portrait of the grandkids on that side of the family for Kile’s parents for Christmas. All the kids dressed in white t-shirts and jeans. The picture turned out so cute, but that visit was a hard one. The election was within days of that trip and Elko is mighty red. We were startled and frustrated by the number of advertisements and robo calls from the Bush campaign. And there was no talking politics with any of his family as their political views were so different than ours. We felt like the odd ones out, to be sure. Harry dressed up as Spider-man (complete with quilted “muscles”) and it was another cold night. In fact, it snowed that evening and the sidewalks were slick. Kile drove around in the van with the side door open so Harry and his cousins could hop out and run up to the doors and then hurry back to the van to get warm. All in all, I look back on that time through gray-tinted glasses. It was not a happy time.

Three years ago was a different story. We were recovering from our miscarriage, but I didn’t feel near the level of depression that I had felt the year before. We had done a bunch of tests to rule out issues and I was on my first month of Clomid. In fact, unbeknownst to us, I would get pregnant the week following Halloween that year. We were in our house that year for Halloween and Harry dressed up as Darth Vader (complete with super-awesome voice-changing mask). I stayed home, as is often my duty, to pass out candy (and blog) while Kile set out with Harry and our neighbors to do a little trick or treating. He brought back a ton of candy which we ate for weeks and weeks afterward. I don’t remember a whole lot from this time, but mostly for good reasons this time. Because it was essentially a good time for us. Our lives were changing and for the better. At long last.

Two years ago, we had a baby in our house once more. Liam had us all charmed and wrapped around his tiny little finger. 2006 had been very good to us and I just plain felt GOOD. That year after Liam was born was pretty danged good, to be honest. I felt good and was taking care of myself and getting exercise and I had friends… what more could I ask for? Harry dressed up as “the boogeyman” from “Scream” that year and we had the cutest velour vampire bunting for Liam to wear. We all hit the streets that year, along with our neighbors, to get the goods. I remember we foolishly did the trick-or-treating before having dinner so that by the time we finished, we were starving. We headed to McDonald’s for a quick fix, Liam still wearing his super-cute costume (come to think of it, I’m not sure how I got him in the carseat in that getup, but I’m sure I figured it out).

One year ago, I was pregnant. I wasn’t expecting to be pregnant, but pregnant I was. Despite issues with hormones, I still felt like things were going great. Even though, unfortunately, my friendships had taken a large hit. It was one year ago that there was a mixup with a Halloween party that we were supposed to be invited to but no one remembered to tell us when it was and so we didn’t go and Harry was BITTERLY disappointed. And I felt awful about it. That incident tainted the holiday, as far as I was concerned. Luckily, Harry rebounded quickly as kids often do and went trick-or-treating dressed as Black Spider-man. Liam even got in on the gig in his plush skunk costume (he was SO FREAKING ADORABLE in that thing). Liam came back home after a trip around the cul-de-sac while Harry and Kile set out to conquer the rest of the neighborhood. We did very well and had more candy afterward than is probably healthy. But, like I said, I was pregnant and happy for the sugar.

And that brings us to today. Three kids. Two costumes (still don’t have one for Evie, nor do I think we will have one. She can probably get away with the skunk getup). Harry as a bloody-skull-faced grim reaper and Liam as a monkey. I imagine we’ll all cruise the cul-de-sac before I come back home with the little ones and hand out candy. Any big life changes on the horizon this year? I doubt it. It’s another election year this year, but the difference between now and 2004 is so stark that it’s almost laughable. Some people might feel differently, but the tone of this election is so much better than it was four years ago. Four years ago I felt so DESPERATE. This year, I feel more confident and less like I’m sitting on the razor’s edge. Which is actually kind of ironic considering the state our nation is in right now. Perhaps I (wrongly) feel insulated from it.

I can’t help but wonder what next year will bring. What costumes will we be seeing on our kids? Liam will be a lot more aware of the holiday. Evie will be old enough to at least cruise the cul-de-sac (and get her own costume, for pity’s sake!). We’ll have a different president. Will we be thinking of moving to a new house? Harry will be in the fourth grade and going on TEN YEARS OLD.

*shudder*

Yeah, I don’t want to play this game anymore.