Category: mumbling

Skiing, scenery, and sightseeing

January 22, 2011

Today yielded the following knowledge:

1. I now know that I am a skier that is dependent on short, beginner skis. The longer skis I somehow received turned into a disaster on the slopes.

2. The photos do not do the scenery justice. It is simply magnificent.

3. An afternoon devoted to my very own projects is priceless.

4. Chris and I finally found good food in Salt Lake City. Thank you Himalayan Kitchen.

5. I’m becoming a fan of period pieces. On the heels of last year’s The Young Victoria, I thoroughly enjoyed The King’s Speech.

6. I adore everything about The Children’s Theatre in downtown Salt Lake City—the posters, the storefront, and the enthusiastic kids in class just beyond the windows.

7. Five days away from my husband and kids is plenty. Time to go home.
Tomorrow we ski!

January 21, 2011

The conference wrapped up today, and I’m walking away having learned a lot.

We chose this conference as it was some solid time away, offered the opportunity to ski on some gorgeous mountains, and hear from some really interesting people who I wanted to see speak. Sadly, some of the speakers I really wanted to hear disappeared from the panel after we registered. (Gayla and Davin, we’re sad to have missed you.)

That said, I probably shouldn’t attend conferences. I’m not a schmoozer. I don’t like it and I don’t do it well. This is my fault entirely, and I freely admit I do better one-on-one. I just like to get to know people. I like to talk about the things that make me smile, and I like to know what invigorates you. I don’t want to sell you something, and I don’t want you to sell me anything in return. I don’t want to compete for my share of the conversation.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to meet new people, but conferences just feel a bit like speed-dating.

So I spent a lot of time at the conference with my mouth closed. Listening. Watching. (Except for that night out with Chris and Tina, where I likely made up for my silence—my favorite time here by far!)

As I close in on 40, I feel like my wrinkles have earned me the right to offer some unsolicited advice. So after these few days, this is the nugget I’m putting out in the universe.

There are well-known people I greatly admire. People that do what they do remarkably well. But what I know is that they are busy. Crazy, silly, stupidly busy. Although they would love to meet and help everyone who admires them, they really don’t have time. Because in all likelihood, they’re barely juggling the balls they have in the air.

Feel free to cue up to meet that famous person. Tell them how much you appreciate their work, because I’m certain they appreciate your kind words. But it is unlikely this person will be your connection to success.

Go ahead, look for the not-necessarily famous, but very well-known people in the crowd. If you admire them, introduce yourself. Ask them to have a cup of coffee. They might accept, and it’s possible they might be a connection.

But the person you should really talk to is the person sitting next to you, whom you’ve never met in your life. Who you know nothing about, and with whom you think you have nothing in common. That person could inspire you. Or hold the answers to your unanswered questions. Or be your next investor. Do not discount someone just because you don’t know their name—yet.
We are clearly hibernating

January 17, 2011

I can’t get the kids to leave the house. All they want to do is stay in their pajamas and hang out at home. I suppose this is what happens now that they’re all in school for at least part of the week—they value their time at home. Although their pajamas are getting a bit stinky (we try to change them at least every 24 hours), I’m thrilled they want to be here. I can’t imagine having children who want to be anywhere but home.

Yesterday they built this massive fort in the basement. (Which I really need to document.) Today I set up a whole table of pouring and transferring activities, splooshing water from one container to another. With all that water out, suddenly Neko had the critter container where Leaper the toad spent a good deal of time this summer. With spring on the horizon, she decided she need to clean to cage.

Soon she and Ellery were scrubbing and cleaning. (As promised, they washed and dried all the dishes they used to accomplish this, which was, um, a lot.) Then Neko turned the whole thing into a jellyfish aquarium, drawing on Ziploc bags with Sharpies and filling them full of water. It was eerily lifelike, bobbing around.

By afternoon, Mary Beth and Nancy came to visit, bearing cake pops, which lasted about 4.6 minutes after they walked in the door. (Delicious.)

And that’s not even half of what went down. Someday I’m going to take one day and record every weird thing we do from dawn to dusk. And you will all die from either boredom or exhaustion. But I feel compelled to do it just so my children know why I yawned my way through their childhood.
365 Things

January 16, 2011

I want to declutter, but it’s so overwhelming. I pull everything out of a closet, and just as I begin to rearrange, someone needs me. Fast forward three months, and I’m still tripping over the innards of my closet.

Big projects are clearly not going to happen in the near future.

So I have new plan. I will get rid of 365 things this year. One for each day. But I don’t have to do it every day. Say I clean out my closet, and get rid of 15 things—I can be done for two weeks! If I fall behind, I can pull a bag of stuff together.

I’m contemplating the caveat that if I buy something for myself, I need to get rid of one thing as well, which would be in addition to the 365 things. This may be too complicated for my tired brain, so I’m still mulling it over.

I’m going to keep track of my things here. I know. Yawning can commence…NOW.

365 Things
1. A big blue ceramic bowl that matches nothing we own.
2. A shall-remain-nameless children’s book that causes nothing but trouble every time we read it
3–5. Three books I have read which were mediocre at best.
6–14. Nine kitchen utensils I hate that make our containers overcrowded and unusable.
15. One bag of chewy pencil tips I ordered when Neko wouldn’t stop chewing on everything (but promptly lost).
There’s an ostrich in our bathroom

January 13, 2011

No, that’s not a euphemism. And it’s not like an elephant in the room.

There really is an ostrich in our bathroom. It’s been there since we built the house. About a month after we moved in I noticed it. I looked up one day, and there she was. I think she looks a bit gouchy, but I suppose if you spent your whole day just inches from a toilet, you might be grouchy, too.
Late night friend

January 10, 2011

Once the kids are in bed and I’ve tackled the most fiery parts of my TeuxDeux list, it’s late.

I should go to bed.

Most nights I do.

But other nights I stay up too late. I check in on friends. Popular culture. Write long overdue emails. Watch dumb television.

Tonight I watched Dan in Real Life (unexpectedly pleasing despite commercials) and contemplated what breeds of chickens to add to the flock this spring (my current picks are one of each: Australorp, Delaware, and Easter Egger). Moving myself one step closer to becoming that crazy chicken lady.

Tom is trying to catch up on his sleep, and wisely went to bed early. As a couch-warming replacement, Daisy hung with me all evening.

Good dog.
Rainbow magic, indeed!

January 8, 2011

Neko has been excruciatingly slow in learning to read.

(Excruciating for me. It hasn’t bothered her one bit.)

While the rest of the world was busy sounding out words, she would put in a few half-hearted attempts and then scurry off. When many of her peers were happily reading their first books, Neko could barely pick out basic words.

I told myself not to worry. My mother told me not to worry. Neko’s teachers told me not to worry. I mostly didn’t worry, but then I would run into some kid her age with a 200 page book tucked under his arm, and I would fall into an unexpected landmine of worry.

The thing is, I suspected she was perfectly capable. It’s just that, reading, so I hear, requires you to sit still. You can’t run and read. You can’t hang from the monkey bars and read (well, not efficiently). You can’t scamper from couch to trampoline to coffee table to trampoline to couch to trampoline run check on the chickens and then hit trampoline on your way back and read. I also think she lacks confidence in her abilities. She’s one of those kids who likes to be perfect at something from the get-go.

So we’ve been biting our tongues and gently encouraging. We’ve been reading books aloud that challenge her cognitively. But we didn’t want to force the issue. More than anything, I want her to love to read, which is certainly not accomplished by flashcards and required reading.

Around the New Year, I suggested she could stay up fifteen minutes later if she was reading. If not, off to bed at her ususal time. She decided if she could have a Rainbow Magic Fairy book from the library, she’d take us up on our deal.

The Rainbow Magic Fairies make me roll my eyes a bit. A literary work of genius, they are not. There are about a zillion books in the series, so clearly quantity is outweighing quality. But a few days later I brought a few home.

Day one she read about a page. Day two yielded maybe a bit more. But tonight something clicked. She started reading, and suddenly we realized she had made it through a whole chapter. So delighted with herself, she read another. By the end of that chapter, she could barely stay awake. But she was giddy with excitement, refusing to let me help her sound out words. She would have kept going, but bedtime had long since passed and neither of us could stop yawning.

I’m trying to remind myself this enthusiasm will come and go. We might be back to one page tomorrow. But for tonight? We experienced some Rainbow Magic in these here parts.
Someone is enjoying the snow.

January 7, 2011

The chickens, however, are not impressed.
It will be 76° in Perth today

January 6, 2011

Just something to think about as a fresh blanket of snow hits the ground. How funny to imagine our Australian friends are likely frolicking in bathing suits today.
Press it seal it

January 5, 2011

It starts innocently enough. You have a baby. Baby is cute. She learns to crawl and then walk. She goes to baby music class and then off to preschool. You might even think, “Maybe we should have another!”

And then you find yourself with a child (or two) in elementary school, and suddenly you’re orchestrating a complicated schedule of skating lessons, playdates, school events and soccer games.

Or you might find yourself up, say, in the middle of the night, completing a seemingly endless mailing for your school’s fundraiser. Envelope after envelope after envelope. Press it. Seal it. Repeat.

I don’t begrudge any of these activities, it’s just that no one told me that there’s this whole part of parenting that’s so much like an office job.