If you haven’t read the Prydain series by Loyd Alexander, get thee to a library and check them out.     They are among the grandparents of modern children’s fantasy.   If you like Harry Potter, then they are at least worth a second look.  If you don’t like Harry Potter, but you do like the Chronicles of Narnia…then again, check these out.   If you think all of the above are evil and/or boring (including but not limited to Lord of the Rings), then run far far away because you won’t like these books.
   Although, wasted advice as I’m pretty sure I’m the last person on the human trod world to read the Prydain Chronicles, everyone else I’ve talked to was required to read them in school.  A very dastardly offense because it seems required books instantly accomplish the very opposite.  Don’t believe them!  It’s all a lie. 

I tried my hand at paper making.  In a very annoyingly Martha Stewart sort of way, I thought it would be a cool idea to make Charlie’s birthday party invitations from recycled paper.  What better way to use trash around the house?   Six hours of failed attempts later, a kitchen covered in paper sloop, and two kids who had eaten their way through the better part of a bag of raw potatoes, I heard Jim pull in the driveway and I gave up in defeat.  It was 7pm when Jim came in and surveyed the wreckage (and I do mean wreckage).   We ate noodles and soy sauce for dinner. 

Normally I would be a wailing, discouraged mess, but instead I’m encouraged.  The day wasn’t a complete failure, I learned lots of things, like you really do need the top to the blender…a plate wont work.   And wind and papermaking do not mix.     Really, I made a lot of progress if you think about it.

And that ^ is what I learned from the Assistant Pig-Keeper. 

Sometimes I feel like I spend all of my time thinking up ways to eat more food, better food…and sometimes healthier food.    Italian food is one of those deceptive things.  What could be easier than pasta and tomato sauce? But no, while both are good (because truly… who can resist noodly goodness in any form?), one is like me on a night I try to dress up.  Only satisfied as long as I’m looking in your own mirror, but the moment I stand next to a truly beautiful girl in a truly stunning ensemble, the realization of awkwardness and wrongness is oh so painfully obvious.   
Jim and I went on a date tonight to this little Italian wine and coffee bar where all the locals go to swing dance and learn the lindy hop.  It’s been on our list for awhile, but we only finally got a chance to go tonight.  So amazing.  I prefer to support local venues and this one has the added attraction of having truly scrumptious food that would make Olive Garden blush so hard it would disappear in a cloud of embarassed smoke.   Seriously.

I was drooling looking through the lastest Anthroprologie catalog when I was reminded of a Friends episode where Rachel tricks Phoebe into thinking the stuff she bought from pottery barn was original one of a kind pieces.   Phoebe is apalled when she finds out her authentic apocathary table is just your standard, factory made table, mass produced by starving children in China.  And yeah, I guess I kinda had the same wonderings.  As much as I love the gorgeous eye candy at anthro, I thought I’d try my hand at making some truly original, one of a kind stuff (in my own sweatshop filled with very authentic crying babies). 

In other news:   Jamie is on a hunger strike. 

There are gross things, there are really gross things, and there are things that shouldn’t even be talked about they hit such an epic level of nastiness.  You have been warned. 

I had been lulled into a false sense of security.  After hours and weeks of backbreaking labor, the back yard was finally beginning to resemble a place you’d want to relax in instead of the inner-city junk yard meets tumbleweed manor it had become.  We got the jacuzzi up and running (although we need to fix some of the paneling we broke), the pool was up, filled and lustrously refreshing.  The garden weeded, tilled and planted.  The lawn green and revived.   I came home from work today, and stood in my perfect backyard, breathing perfect air, with perfect weather, and thanking God for my life.   The kids were swimming in the pool and jacuzzi, and Charlie was babbling and blowing bubbles in the water like the little sprite baby he is.   Jamie was showing off his swimming skills and Julia was splashing more water out of the jacuzzi than there was in the jacuzzi.   All was well until I heard the four words that changed my afternoon.  “…poop in the pool!”  and that wasn’t even the tip of the iceburg.   In retrospect I should have got down on my knees this morning and prayed for floaters in the pool, but no, the jacuzzi had turned into full on diahhrea soup.   My life seems to be filled with moments where I don’t think it is humanly possible to press on as mother of my children.   I mean who crowned me as the adult in this situation?  I had absolutely no desire nor know how to pick out poop soaked children to clean them, disinfect them and then somehow do the same to the hot tub.  Seriously.     No amount of gagging and retching on my part was making it go away either.   Sadly.

 I got the kids cleaned up, put Jamie on his bed (he was the culprit) changed into old clothes and “we” (because I envoked my rights as eldest and made my siblings help me) emptied the hot tub bucketful by bucketful in the nastiest assembly line I ever have and ever hope to partake in.  Scrubbed the hot tub down, disinfected it, filled it, emptied it again, scrubbed it again, and refilled it.   There has never been a more clean and germ free hot tub in the history of mankind.   Really.

“I want to be pop-a-u-laaar.” 

Wicked is now on my list of must have Broadway soundtracks thanks to Kevin and Bethany.   I’d like to say I’m um…too popular  mainstream… to listen to broadway music, but truth is I’m addicted.   I’m sure any true Broadway fan would be snootily offended if they knew it is the music I clean house to.
Techno is for working out, heavy metal for driving, ccm for cooking and hanging out, pop for grocery shopping and broadway for getting the house cleaned and scrubbed top to bottom in less time than it takes Mary Poppins to snap her fingers.  Actually it’s kinda rather Disney princess of me.

We roadtripped this weekend up our intolerably long state to visit Kevin &  Bethany, stopping in LA along the way for coffee at Lauryls where I got to meet Bekah in real life after picturing her as a very pretty cyborg for the last 4 years I’ve known her online.  

After that it was straight shot to San Jose where we pulled up to a very pink house and I found myself face to face with a license plate that read “Lst Ryts”, hanging off a very old and very burtonesque hearse.  I’m pretty sure it has multiple purposes, and someone, somewhere doesn’t know that muggles find it rather disconcerting.   Bethany says you can actually see it on the street view of google maps.   

We pretty much spent the whole weekend relaxing, hanging out and watching movies. There were a few picnics in the rose garden thrown in for good measure, and a playground made entirely out of climbing ropes.  It. was. bliss.   After weeks of pure insanity it was exactly what we needed.   Bethany is an amazing cook, especially for someone doesn’t brag about it much.

The hardest part was saying goodbye to baby Jack this morning; knowing he’ll be so much bigger the next time I see him, and he wont have a clue who I am.  Alas.

We stopped at Joel and Veronicas on the way home.  Jamie and Benjamen share the illustrious heritage of having had the same due date, and although Jamie was born prematurely, they still act like long lost twins.   Before Jamie was even out of the car, Bejamen came tearing out of the house, and down the pathway where they met in the middle with arms outstretched for a bear hug like long lost friends.    The only thing that can match Jamie’s three year old, dramatized emotionalism is a fellow dramatic three year old.   Seriously, I repeat, the terrible two’s are nothing to compared to the daunting emotional verbosity of the three’s.

It took us forever to get home, mostly thanks for Jim stopping at every walmart along the way in search of ammunition.  I honestly have no idea what for.    It’s good to be home, but we miss baby Jack already…and yeah, I guess we miss Kevin and Bethany a little bit too.