Mommy blogger requirement

Yesterday I finished Claire's Halloween costume.  At one point I, after trying to sew one section of it 3 times having to unpick it each time I did what any red-blooded American would do and pulled out the glue gun.  

It looks awesome.  

Last night we went to the pumpkin patch with some neighbors.  The wife is an incredible seamstress and we  laughed about my glue-gunned costume and I mentioned that her kids will never have to deal with that.  

Of course, the resulting pumpkins should have provided an indicator.  One of these was made by a family that glue-guns Halloween costumes and the other was made by a family who makes their own incredibly stylish clothes......

Life moves pretty fast.....

This weekend we went on our neighborhood campout.  We had a wonderful time.  Claire fell down the cement stairs and bit a glow bracelet hard enough to break it in her mouth.  Turns out the glowy stuff doesn't taste very good.

Killing the Blues

Do you ever have one of those days?  Maybe you're bloated or maybe you ate 1 (or 5) too many candy bars yesterday but all of the sudden you just kind of hate your body?  And maybe there's nothing in particular that sets it off.  Maybe you didn't feel great about your body yesterday but it's more than that today--the critic in you seems just seems to be extra ruthless today.

Ok, for me it was the candy bars.

Even though you may think that staying in bed and eating your own weight in jellybeans is going to be the best fix, it's not.  That's only going to make it worse.  Trust me.  Really.

The good news is after 32 years on this earth I have come up with a couple of no-fail fixes.

Take Care of Your Eyebrows--I'm not really an organized enough person to have a regular eyebrow maintenance schedule.  But it  makes such a difference. There is nothing that opens up your face and makes you look polished like waxing your eyebrows.  If you're not a waxer, that's fine.  Use a pencil, define those bad boys. Take five minutes--you won't be sorry.  Don't know how to do eyebrows?  This site is a must. And here are some printable stencils.

Floss--There is noting like that super clean feeling you get from flossing to help cure the blues.  It also helps me feel like I'm doing my part--the dentist asks me to floss and I may not do it every day but when I do it I feel like I've done my part.

Wear cute shoes--I don't do 4-inch heels and pointy toes very often and I certainly don't do them when I'm depressed.  Ballet flats.  Something shiny and frilly (with a wide-leg jean).

Count your blessing--I mean, Monday could have started out with this being the view out your window (have we ever talked about my fear of bed bugs?  Lets just say it's on a heightened state of alert)

and Thursday the view to your window could have been this little nudist practicing her gymnastics after a shower.

**Today Claire and I went to Walmart to fill a prescription.  Half-way through our trip Claire had a poopy eruption which prompted a crying eruption.  A loud one.  And there's something about the design of Walmart--it echos.  Lots.  As we were running to the bathroom (garnering stares) we passed one of our neighbors who is several months pregnant.  I waved (of course, she looked our way because we were being so noisy everyone did) and remembered that even though pregnancy is yucky going to the store with a baby inside is 100x better than going with one outside.

Daddy's Girl

I've mentioned a couple of times that Claire likes her dad better than she likes me.  Some of you are skeptical.  Some of you try to make me feel better by saying that she is only that way because she feels SO confident in my love (thank you.  Keep saying it...that thought helps banish the one that says that staying home with someone who merely tolerates my presence is a waste of everybody's time).

I finally have proof.  Last week the hubbs came home, had dinner and left right before bedtime so he could go get a haircut.  This was Claire's reaction.



And don't think this is just a one-time thing. I hear that same cry at least once a day.


**On an unrelated note you should all follow my friend Susan's tumblr account.  I love it and I think you will too.  It will leave you missing the West (even if you've never lived there) and loving the outdoors and gardens and people.

Utah Revisited

Our trip to Utah was wonderful and so fun.  The bad news is that I didn't really take any pictures--at all.  We got to eat at Crown Burger, go on a fall leaf drive up Cottonwood Canyon, eat lots of chocolate from France, sign up Aunt Abbey for internet dating and generally have a great time.

Thank you family for having us.  We'll see you at Christmas.

What's a decade?

This past weekend was my ten-year college reunion.  I was very sad to not make it.  I loved college.  I loved the people I met, the things I learned, the person I became.  I credit Knox College with making me the person that I am today.

But this weekend, instead of visiting the glory that is Galesburg IL (Uncle Billy's Bakery--you were missed) I was in Salt Lake visiting my family.  I have a brother who lives abroad and he was in town so we headed to Salt Lake to see him (which was so fun and so worth it).

The 10 years out of college marker seems like a big one and even though I didn't attend the reunion I spent  lots of time this weekend thinking about how my life is different than it was 10 years ago.  And it's funny, in lots of ways it's better but there are some very specific ways that it is not.

Ways that being 32 is 100x better than being 22 
(some of these are hard to explain so bear with me)

• I am in an amazing, grown-up, committed relationship with someone I love.
• I have the most adorable baby on the whole planet.
• I am financially secure.
• I have retirement savings.
• I have learned to take care of my body.
• I am more patient.
• I am so much smarter, well-read and informed.
• I don't get riled up about things.  I remember road-rage being a real problem when I was young (as was driving too quickly) and these days I don't get too frustrated if people cut me off and I'm not normally in a big enough hurry to speed
• I make better, more thought-out decisions.
• I have lost some of what I am calling "the arrogance of youth." I used to be a little...overly confident.  It made me less aware of other people and what they were thinking.  It made it so that when I looked at situations I only looked at what was in it for me.  Losing that has made me more aware of other people.  It has made me kinder, less selfish and more able to connect with other people.
• I don't sweat as much of the small stuff

Ways that being 32 is harder than being 22

• Knees. I don't know if it's carrying a 25 lb baby up a flight of stairs multiple times every day or just age but my knees are not what they once were.  Being able to run on pavement seems like a dream of years past.
• Even though my body is 1/2 the size it was in college I am more self-conscious of my body.  I remember knowing that I was chubby and disliking that, and thinking life would be easier if I was thin but I don't remember being able to make a list a mile long of individual body-faults
• I have lost some of what I am calling "the arrogance of youth." This is on both lists. It's true that the loss of arrogance has made me a kinder and better person but it also has had a few bad side effects.  Sometimes when I am talking to other people I find myself thinking, "do I sound like a complete idiot?  Do I even make sense?"  That didn't used to happen.  

So what about you?  How is your life better than it was 10 years ago?  Or at 22? and how is it worse?

Mr Anderson Cooper

The other day, while reading OK Weekly (yes, we subscribe--the greatest birthday present a girl could ask for.  It's also my favorite gift to give to newly weds.  I like to say that if there's a celebrity gossip magazine in the house the newly weds will never lack for conversation) I passed by an ad for the new Anderson Cooper talk show.  I turned to the hubbs and said, "Did you know he's a Vanderbilt?" (I should enter here and say that the hubbs had no idea who Anderson Cooper is).  The hubbs said, "This generation of Vanderbilts are all self-made.  We used it as a case-study once.  They dispersed their money to the point that none of them were worth anything." 

I looked straight at the hubbs and said, "with a name like Vanderbilt you can never be self-made.  Gloria may have been born penniless (which she was not) and she is a gifted person in her own right but having the last name Vanderbilt paved the way for her to get the things that she wanted."

The hubbs could see where I was coming from but still thought that we could use the Vanderbilts as people who didn't invest well.

The whole conversation reminded me of this quote.

Vanderbilt or no, I say we're all pretty lucky to have the opportunities that we do.