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The We’re-so-much-better!-Now-I-can-tell-you-what-I-did-last-weekend! post
The sun came out today. It was so nice. Still chilly, but just seeing the bright sky with dynamic clouds lit up with real honest-to-goodness sunshine was like waking up from a three day long shiver-fest. Which actually I was suffering from. I’ve never had that happen before when I’ve gotten sick. Shivering? Freezing cold for three days straight? It was really terrible and weird.
Bug and I are sooooooo much better. We’re still stuck with the snoctopusses living in our sinuses and we cough every other word but at least we can think clear thoughts again. For a while there I thought I was going to take up residence on the couch. I didn’t even check my email. You know it’s bad when I go missing off the internet. I usually eat colds for breakfast. They hardly ever slow me down but this one…it was a mean mother-buster. Mean, green and you just better hope you’re not around me while I’m still contagious.
Bla bla bla…I don’t need to complain about the common cold. You guys have all had it before and heard this a thousand times. Cold schmold. What you really want to hear about is my sister-in-law’s thirtieth birthday party right?
Wooo Hoooo! You only turn thirty once. My family has been talking about this birthday all year but poor CC, just like every year when her birthday finally came around we were all strapped for cash, out of time and feeling like big clods of dirt for not planning something really extravagant. It sucks having your birthday so near Christmas.
When I was trying to pull some kind of plan out thin air, I asked CC if she’d ever really had a big birthday party growing up and how her parents pulled it off. She thought about it for a little while and then said she didn’t think she’d ever had a big birthday bash. Here she is related to me, the party-planning queen, and she’s never had a birthday bash?!! That is just sad sad sad. I should go dunk my head in a bucket of pig slop.
So we thought and we thought and we thought and nothing really happened. Being the super-capable person that CC is, she said she could have a party at her house and we could all cook Chinese food. It was a good idea but I was thinking that’s not really how a birthday party is supposed to go down. It’s bad enough she cooked and cleaned for her own ten-year wedding anniversary. We needed to do something really fun and different and it couldn’t be at CC’s house. But where? None of us wanted to drag the kids out to a fancy dinner. But we didn’t want to leave them behind either. She’s their mom after all. My house was out. My mom’s house was out…
Then I got a wicked idea. How about we have a party at Bethany‘s house! You all know how much I love the Actuallys’ house. That place is made for having parties. If I lived there I would have had forty of them by now. But you know how it is. Some people aren’t really the party-throwing types. I perfectly understand that. Now how could I break this news to Bethany?
Um, hi. Can I have a party at your house?
Hahahahahahhahahhahaahhaaaaa. I’m such a dork. Thankfully, Bethany is a dork too because after she laughed at me for about twenty minutes, she said, “Sure! Why not?”
And that is how we came to have CC’s 30th birthday party at Bethany’s house. It was great.
We had Chinese food at a restaurant that was not very expensive.
Bethany made the cake (of course). It was delish. She killed us with chocolate.
We painted pottery at a local pottery-painting store and then we crashed in one of their many guest rooms. Technically they have one guest room but that’s one more than any of us have so it was quite a luxury.
Then the next morning we opened presents and lived happily ever after…
Well until Bug and I came down with the killer cold from hell. But before that it was all fun.
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Land and Labor
So here we are at my mom’s again. I try to stay home but my silly family constantly has ways of involving me in their lives—which I love of course. It doesn’t take much more than a phone call to get me in the car and driving off to the sticks. Poor Toby though. He doesn’t see much of us.
I didn’t mean to stay more than a day after Rapunzel’s holiday concert but the thing about visiting my family is that there is alway so much to do here! They don’t call it Camp Chaos for nothing. I constantly get sucked into projects. Which I totally and completely love. I am weird that way.
I cannot just sit around and watch television or read a book. If I see something challenging to do like say: some boxes that need organizing on the carport or a giant juniper bush that looks like a marshmallow just calling out to be trimmed into a beautiful Japanese bonsai tree… I can’t help myself! So I call up Toby, ask him if he can eat top ramen for another night, and throw myself into the latest project.
Even though I love love love living at the beach, I love the country too. My mom’s new house sits on a pretty big lot and there are trees and grass to play in here! It’s so pretty and over-grown. The yard just calls out to be taken care of. There is space to garden here! I want to plant a really big garden and come out every week to keep it up. Of course that’s not very practical, considering my schedule is pretty busy as it is but it is fun to dream when we are out here.
With the on-coming depression (That’s what we call the “economic downturn” in our house.) I’m thinking crazy thoughts about planting vegetables and making do with less and less. Someday there might come a time when we go to the grocery store and the shelves aren’t lined with every convenient food you can think of. Already, I leave the store half the time without the cut of meat I wanted when I first walked in. Cookie brands are going out of business… what next? Maybe I’m being an alarmist but I like to think about these things. Not in a negative way but more as a challenge. What new thing can I do? How can I ride this out and make it work to my advantage?
So anyway, when I show up at my mom’s and I see her fruit trees so heavy with fruit that the lemons are breaking their own branches and rotting on the stem, I can’t help but think about this. Her yard is full of rich soil that is waiting to be tilled. There is so much space out here. Why don’t we take advantage of this? Of course the answer is complicated.
My dad is a trucker. He’s gone most of the time. My mom is getting older and has trouble gardening like she used to. Her hands ache with arthritis. My brother is gone trucking too and my sister-in-law has her own half acre to take care of. There just aren’t enough bodies to do the work there is to do. And this isn’t even a farm!
I guess that leaves me. But you know how it is. I have a life home at the beach too. I have freelance work to do and household chores to keep up. I have a husband who likes to see his family once in a while. I have friends at the beach who wonder where I am. I’ve thought about putting Bug in preschool but I’m gone so much it would be a waste of money. What about ballet or gymnastics? I haven’t even thought about signing her up for anything like that.
I guess it’s just a lot to think about.
We’ll just try to get here whenever we can.
