ISO: Something.

This afternoon I am feeling F L A T. I'm not terribly excited about anything or looking forward to much. Our weekend has a zero agenda feeling and we are in that awkward February craving for Spring but it remains too cold for a lot of outside action.

My first reaction: eat chocolate. My second reaction: buy something. My third reaction: look for something inspiring. But after scouring the cabinets it seems that we have no chocolate, I just took way too much stuff to the consignment sale so I'm anti-stuff right now, and the crafty mama blogs are making me feel wistful.

So maybe I will just go with the B O R I N G feeling. I can be grateful that our drama is small right now and that soon our weekends will fill up with Spring activities.

How do you cure the February blues?

Thursday Tidbits

1. I mailed my passport renewal forms in today. I have tropical dreams that require a valid passport and mine expires 4/21/2010.

2. I checked out "Start where you are: A guide to compassionate living" by Pema Chodron at the library today. I also spent twenty minutes flipping through dreamy magazines about sewing, journal writing and yoga.

3. I went to 2 consignment sales and didn't buy anything!!!

4. My Christmas present from mom arrived in the mail today. I cannot wait to wear it.

5. We had the easiest yummiest tacos ever tonight via Make it Fast, Cook it Slow. It's kind of like this recipe here, but I went with the book version altered a bit. Throw 2 chicken breasts, 1 can of rinsed black beans, 1 cup of frozen corn, 1 can of Rotel, and 1/2 cup of water into the crock pot. Flip it on high and cook for 4-5 hours. Shred chicken with forks and stuff inside tortillas. Top with avocado slices, sour cream, diced tomatoes, lettuce and jalapenos. Good stuff.

6. I made 1 batch of brownies and 2 banana breads.

7. Mario is working tonight so I am having an early pajama night with a novel.

8. Wesley now wants me to 'hold him to the sky' before bed each night. I'm not exactly sure what that means or what it is, but I am enjoying our standing and holding on snuggles at bed time.

Bethel Consignment Sale

It must be consignment season around here because I keep seeing signs and getting emails about local sales.

If you are in the mood to do a little shopping the Bethel UMC Preschool Spring Consignment Sale 2010 starts tomorrow morning.

Friday, February 26, 2010 9am-2pm
Saturday, February 27, 2010 9am-2pm (1/2 price!)

The sale is located off of Forest Drive behind Cardinal Newman High School and Brugger's Bagels. 4600 Daniel Drive, Columbia, SC 29206.

Happy Shopping.

Margaritaville

Last night Mario and I attended the Jimmy Buffett Summerzcool concert at Colonial Life Arena. We were treated to a full blown RV tailgate party complete with mini cheeseburger sliders, boiled peanuts, and a margarita machine a la Wet Willies.

Truth be told Mario is the real Jimmy Buffett fan between us. I'm mostly drawn to the people watching and I love the catchy nature of the concert the energy and fun. After a few margaritas and a few songs I forgot that it was Tuesday night, that we had babysitter at home and that it was past 10 PM.

I almost puked at Burger King.

Friday night I finished reading The Help while baking cookies. The book remained on my mind while I slept and through the Bridge Run. After running errands we stopped at Burger King to toss some princess chicken at the kids. While they ate Mario and I browsed the local newspaper that we found in the booth next to us.

And then I read this Georgia Times Union headline:

And then I wanted to puke. I think I checked the date of the article about 10 times and despite each glance it remained 2/19/2010. As much as I wished that the book look backwards into time I can't help but wonder how much of it is alive and well today. Or maybe the focus is shifting towards another group. You can read more about the rally and what happened here.

Sunday morning at the beach.

Beverages.

Birds.
Hugs.

Sand.

(It's hard to believe we were playing in the snow last weekend.)

Lanier Bridge Run 2010

Saturday morning I joined 1,500 other people to run in the 8th Annual Sidney Lanier Bridge Run to benefit cancer programs at Southeast Georgia Health System. I am not a race person and I debated whether the entry fee was worth a t-shirt, a crowd, and the time. I am so glad that I decided to go ahead and run.

From the top of the span I could see St. Simons Island, Jekyll Island, Brunswick, and the Brunswick River. At the very top of a the bridge a band played and below in the water I could see dolphins jumping. It turned out to be a lot of fun just to be part of a community event.
I also enjoyed giving my kids a chance to see Mama doing something healthy and strong. I loved finding them in the finish line crowd and sharing my post-race icee pops. Someday I hope they will join me in the bridge run. In the meantime I am looking for more bridge runs...running where you usually can't makes it that much more interesting.

Cookie Hazard

At least I made Mario cookies to show him I loved him Friday night because I know I wasn't much in the way of company or companionship. I spent a lot of Friday engrossed in The Help which decreased my parenting ability and my baking capacity.

In order to produce perfect chocolate chip cookies with the ingredients Grampin' kindly provided in our pantry, I set up camp in the kitchen. Me, cookie dough, a Miller Lite, my novel, 2 chairs, and the oven spent a bit of time bonding. I thought this would be a fool proof way to keep from burning the cookies but I got carried away in the book. Next time I will have to use the timer rather than my baking intuition because apparently that sense is deactivated while reading.

Friday at the Beach

I love winter at the beach. It's too cold to go in the water so I don't have to get wet, the kids can still play in the sand, the sun feels warm on our faces, and there are no crowds.

Instead of feeding the birds the stale popcorn Wesley opted to eat most of it.

Wesley also did a little bit of beach art on the blanket. Both kids are into drawing lately so we are dragging blank paper, markers, and colored pencils everywhere we go.

Clare and Mario played a bit of soccer together.

And Mr. "I want red nail polish like Mommy and Clare" did NOT want to leave the beach to go have dinner.

Until Easter Sundae

I tore the plastic wrapper off of a spoon with my teeth less than 300 feet from the drive thru window. My purchase: a Mc Donald's hot fudge sundae. (Apparently they don't make caramel sundaes anymore, but the drive thru attendant told me I could always order a plain sundae and then ask for apple dipper caramel packets on the side.)

My mission: to eat and destroy the evidence of my hot fudge sundae by the time I made it home from Winn Dixie. I'm 33 years old and I know that I don't need to hide the evidence of my weaker moments all of the time but you never would have guessed that if you observed the spoon wrapper incident. If you add that to the crazy minivan driving around the island roundabout with my knees while eating the sundae that definitely gave it away.

As I ate and drove through the village I pondered the pattern and frequency of my car snacking. Turns out that I eat a LOT in the car. Sometimes I eat healthier things like fruit and nuts. Other times I turn to the road to meet my needs for ice cream, hash browns, and coffee. I don't have a lengthy commute, I am usually no more than 25 minutes from my home, and I am not starving. Despite all of these things I am always eating.

Three quarters of the way through the sundae I decided: no more eating in the car. 1. It's not safe. 2. It's not healthy. 3. I rarely enjoy the food I do eat. 4. It is teaching my kids that the car = snack time all of the time. 5. My car is a pit.

What a great belated New Year's Resolution! But a whole year seemed like a long time and I would like to be able to actually accomplish this goal. Last February I went on a No Spend Month Challenge. We didn't spend anything outside of our necessary expenses. So maybe this February is the No Eating In The Car month!

Or because today is Ash Wednesday and this may be a bigger challenge than giving up chocolate for 40 days: my new Lenten goal from tonight until Easter Sunday (with no Sunday rule exceptions!) is to refrain from eating or drinking anything other than coffee and water in a moving vehicle.

If I can do this then maybe I can tackle another month. I plan on cutting back the kid snacks too but sometimes they really do need to eat and I really do need to be able to talk on the phone.

An open letter of grattitude.

Dear Wesley and Clare:

Thank you for enduring 5.5 hours in the car to and from Beaufort on Monday so that I could visit my friend. Thank you for not whining miserably when I missed the exit because I was busy talking on the phone and thereby added another 25 minutes to our journey.

Thank you for expertly and purposefully walking into the Econolodge to use their indoor heated swimming pool without question. Thank you for behaving, not drowning while I talked, and for ignoring the condition of the facility (and the fact that we were not registered guests).

Thank you for playing sweetly with my friend's one year old daughter. You both made her smile and giggle with your antics and attention.

Thank you for enjoying a lunch at the bagel shop without incident. Your behavior allowed us to visit longer than I'd anticipated over lunch. Oh...and thank you for eating which I know also helped to procure better behavior later in the day.

Finally, thank you for plugging into your DVD players for an additional hour in the car so that I could enjoy even more time talking to my friend. We enjoyed our coffee and rainy drive out to Hunting Island at least as much as you enjoyed watching the Magic School Bus.

I know that being toted along on a trip to Beaufort for my whim probably was not at the top of your list of ways to spend your day off from school, but y'all handled it like experts. Thank you! I promise we will do something more to you liking on our next day off.

Love, Me

Happy Valentine's Day!

Inside

A little bit of rock painting.

A little bit of hot chocolate.

A little bit of indoor snow play before dinner.

And one very pissed off two year old who had to share with Bailey.

Outside

Better than babysitting night.

So last night we gave up on watching the snow and went out to play. We built two snowmen, went for a mini walk, and enjoyed some snow kisses. Good stuff.

I like it. Let's move North.

It started to snow around 4:00 PM. The kids and I bundled up and stood outside like goofballs trying to catch snow in our mouths, watching it melt on the sidewalk, and waving to neighbors that we usually don't see. Super fun.

When Mario got home we had a family dinner and movie night. Though I'm not a huge fan of TV I do like the idea of a family centered special movie event every so often. All four of us curled up together to eat popcorn and we watched some bug movie together. After the movie the most logical thing to do was to head outside in our pajamas. Mother of the year, I know. But stomped around a bit, I tried to build a snowman which was working until the kids stomped on that too, and we got really cold.

The last time it snowed this much in Columbia we went sledding with our neighbors. So fellow sledless Columbians looking for some evening fun, here's a tip: REAL ESTATE FOR SALE SIGNS make awesome sleds. You can just hook them back on the hooks when you are done.

And then we scooped up some fresh snow in our red bowls, drizzled honey on top, and enjoyed our dessert together. It is so much fun to make a big deal about something when you know that it really is a big deal. Snow here is a total treat. We promised them more snow fun tomorrow morning.

In the meantime I think we have 4.5 inches and the snow continues to fall. Mario just got back from a scouting run for a movie and a cupcake. He came back without either one claiming that 1. the Redbox was broken and 2. Starbucks was closed.

I guess we'll sit on the couch together with the lights off to sip wine and watch the snow fall. What a wonderful date night this turned out to be after all.

Just as I thought.

I'd bet $50.

Snow is in the air. Well, not yet. And not like the crazy snow in the DC Suburbs, but still, there's a tiny snowflake on the forecast for Friday right here in the central Midlands of South Carolina. See:Plus the WIS-TV website forecast for Friday reads:
Snow Possible Late Friday/Overnight
A fast moving winter storm moving across the northern Gulf will provide a chance of light rain Friday afternoon, changing to light snow after 6pm. Snow should end after midnight. We can expect a dusting to 1/2 inch for the central Midlands and perhaps as much as an inch over the southern Midlands.

Did you catch that??? A dusting to a 1/2 inch which means that we are 99% certain that our babysitting tomorrow night (provided by Wesley's school as a fundraiser for some worthy cause) will be cancelled. I'll be surprised if schools are even open around here tomorrow!

But that's all okay because we didn't really have plans to start with and the pressure to come up with something to do was clearly eating away at my heart. So this winter storm gives us the perfect excuse to put the kids to bed, to buy firewood for the fireplace, to make waffles, to sip wine and to stare at each other with gaga eyes on the couch. And if we decide to get a little crazy we could always drive out in the snow to pick up carry out or to rent a movie.

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

(But my heart does go out to my dear friend who is travelling to South Carolina to escape mid-western snow this week just to be greeted by a freaky Southern winter storm.)

Dating

Somehow dating our children is easier than dating each other. Not that we don't love one another, but faced with the idea of a date night our plans seem to be limited to the traditional dinner, drinks, maybe a movie, or the occasional special event.

Planning a date with the kids is easier. Simple things rank high on the list of possibilities and the list of possibilities is much larger. Going swimming together at the gym, out for cupcakes, bike riding at the park, riding the merry-go-round at the zoo, doing an art project together, or going to get red and pink sprinkled donuts at Krispy Kreme. There are so many fun things to do with the kids right now. Everything is fun for them (except maybe shopping) and they are easy to please.

Why is it so much harder to please each other? Why do we demand more from our dates together than we do with the dates we have with our children? Friday night we have a chance to spend three hours together...alone. I don't have any idea of what we could do outside of the usual dinner sans chicken nuggets. Maybe that is enough but I can't shake the feeling that we should do more or be more or achieve more in those precious hours.

Last night Clare and I went swimming together at the gym. It was easy. We changed when we got there, swam in the indoor pool for 40 minutes, changed back into our clothes and went to dinner together. She had a blast and I enjoyed just spending those two hours with her. I'm looking forward to our next date together and I hope I can learn to apply the 'dating children' principles to 'dating Mario' soon. In the meantime I'm open to date suggestions!

Overheard.

Overheard from the backseat yesterday afternoon.

Clare: Wesley! Did you know that alligator means goodbye in Spanish?

Umm...maybe it is time to find one of those toddler language programs while she is interested in learning. One of their favorite games now is to point to things and to ask me how to say it in Spanish. I'll work on my Hola and Adios with them because clearly Dora, Diego and I have not made much of an impression.

Love Notes

IF I could find my flash card reader I would post pictures of the Valentine's we made today with our friends. What a hoot. Glue, little scraps of paper, scissors flying, stickers, and stamping all going at the same time among four wee ones. I am happy to report that nobody got hurt (or cut with scissors) and nothing was destroyed in the creative process.

The kids abandoned their efforts after a bit and the mamas swooped in to finish up the project (and to make a few of their own cards too!) while they played in the next room. At that point the real fun began because we got to play together, talk together, and sip coffee together! The ease of our gatherings continues to amaze us when we think back to the chaos of this time last year.

As for actual Valentine's Day plans, Mario and I are looking forward to a date night next weekend with a little babysitting help from a local church youth group. I'm thinking Indian food followed by dessert somewhere fun.

Do you have any shiny romantic plans for V-day?

Birthday Wishes

Yesterday a very special member of our family celebrated his 11th birthday. To celebrate Bailey's big day we gave him lots of extra love an attention, went birthday present shopping for him to select gifts, sang him a birthday song, and let him open his treats. The kids loved picking out his toy and new blankie at the store yesterday afternoon. Last night Bailey put on quite a show opening the gifts wrapped with care in tissue paper by himself. Seeing him paw and nose his way to unwrap them delighted both kids so much so that they were jumping up and down and squealing.

Bailey joined our family pre-kids, pre-marriage when Mario worked in Georgia. He's a medical nightmare but he's our medical nightmare who loves to sleep with his entire body and head covered in blankets. At times (namely with infants) I grew frustrated with the whole dog thing. Watching Wesley and Clare tell Bailey that they love him and seeing the pictures Clare made for him during her rest time made up for a lot of naps lost to dog barking in years past.

Happy 11th Birthday Bailey. We love you.

You Know...

On the way home from school yesterday Clare said, "You know, that was a very nice trip, you know?"

I couldn't agree more. A very nice trip for all of us.

We had new ear warmers from Grampin to test out in the hotel parking lot snow fun.

We got to drink tea and eat noodles together at Doc Chey's.

We played in the pool each day for fun and giggles. (And to get extra tired for sleep at bed time.)

Wesley got to test out the goggles he packed in his bag especially for the anticipated pool trip.

All of us enjoyed warming up in the hot tub and watching the snow outside. We brought cookies and more cookies to the pool to eat as snacks on lounge chairs while covered up with towels

And we took some amazing drives through the mountains to explore and absorb the snowy scenery. Good simple stuff for all of us.