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“YOU CAN DANCE! YOU CAN (sic) TRY! HAVING THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE! OOOOOOOOH!! SEE THAT GIRL! WATCH THAT SCENE! DIG IT, THE DANCING QUEEN!”

—Preschooler2 / Gradeschooler1 / ABBA

One of the most ordinary, most wonderful weekends, and while it will lack in details, it deserves a recaplet, with the usual meaninglessness of anonymity.

FRIDAY was a day daycare was closed so it was me + Preschooler2. Coffee + reading + then breakfast club with the 6-year-olds at Gradeschooler’s school, then back home for 10-minute workout with Preschooler2 underfoot. After hearing how STRONG and LOUD she loves to sing, we were off to gymnastics open gym for ‘jump-ing, jump-ing, jump-ing’…delightful. Then cauliflower soup and chocolate-covered strawberries at lunch out, then naps for both (shorter for me, followed by chores). Sunny day = walk to retrieve Gradeschooler1 then PUMPKIN patch for scavenger hunt and a giant pumpkin hauled home in the stroller. Off to a friend’s house for delicious pizza and fire and chit chat, lovely, then back home to indulge in wasting of time on the couch next to Jeff as he played Borderlands.

SATURDAY Preschooler2 woke up saying her ‘tummy wanted to eat’ and we goofed off in the bed before getting her tummy something to eat and the grownups some coffee downstairs. “HELLO GUYS!” yelled the newly-awakened Gradeschooler1 from upstairs and the real fun began. Dolls were played with, pretend car seats were set up, books were read by the readers and Jeff worked out, then I did a little yoga/barre while the kids played Mario Kart. Costumes and whisker face paint on and off to Halloween parties! First to Trike’s. Kid cousins were cute and fun and sweet with one another, big cousins were joking and silly and full of weird hypotheticals. Pink lemonade! Good bacon! Then to neighbor’s Halloween party which was delightful. I especially love these people. Preschooler2 seems to have discovered food suddenly and downed a bowl of chili while Jeff and Gradeschooler1 disappeared into Neighbor’s house with separate tour guides (this was an outside party) for a large amount of time. Fun party. More little games and playing and food and mud cake. Back to house for another solid nap for Preschooler2. Jeff and I rake the WHOLE YARD, which is AWESOME, a beautiful sunny day for it and so accomplished, last warm day, etc.!, while Gradeschooler1 entertains herSELF, trying cool tricks on the swingset and doing bubbles and chalk and jumping in leaves. Wake up, off to swim for the first time in weeks…pool looks clean (ew). Preschooler2 wasn’t thrilled. Gradeschooler1 is basically a swimming champ and fiend and all of it. She looks good. Procure window clings from guest, return stuff at Kohl’s where Gradeschooler1 wants faux fur bolero jacket (??? as a parent who buys only practical kids clothing I am flummoxed by this, but I think someone will have to get it for her someday) and receives a compliment on her manners from a worker which we praise, then APPLEBEE’S! We all have a delightfully standard suburban time, watching the Gophers crush it, drinking giant lemonade (pink, natch) and sharing apps and being goofy while Preschooler2 discovers her appetite AND sass. Dairy Queen for treats then home, where kids are silly and fun but then I have to work (lame! lame!), but Gradeschooler1 gets to stay up with Jeff for a ‘sleepover’ and there’s a fire going so it’s not so bad to have to work for awhile I guess.

SUNDAY woke up after solid 11-7 sleep…this is a miracle that happens about 1-2x a year so I like to record it. A GD MIRACLE! Preschooler2 sees light peeking in around her drapes and claims she “doesn’t want to sleep anymore” and we all cuddle in bed as soon as Gradeschooler1 joins us (after too-little sleep). I dash away for maple cold press and reading downstairs before heading to barre3. BARRE3. Elle is teaching 8:30 and I thought she wasn’t my favorite but now she IS. She teaches a great class and I am INTO IT and just dancing away. I am still thinking about it. Got a coldpress refill (will I go back to hot? not sure??? am I cold for LYFE?) then met Diana for brunch at Hola Arepa. We finally left after 2.5 hours because we felt bad for just sitting there but it was GREAT. She really is one of the smartest people I know and has taught me 50% of my business sense (the rest I likely picked up from my Dad). She restored my confidence around a work thing and we ate delicious food and it was just the best. I love Diana. Back home to a family being silly and chasing each other and I did some fun cooking and food prep while listening to podcasts, then got the kids late lunch. Played a little but mostly watched parts of movies, attempting to find a facsimile of Mamma Mia; snacks in front of TV then early bed, then chili/cornbread/finishing Newsroom (almost) with Jeff. Tried to work again but couldn’t take the slowness of my computer so now I wrote this and will go to bed.

A GREAT weekend!

“By the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top
I climbed the tree to see the world
When the gusts came around to blow me down
Held on as tightly as you held on me
Held on as tightly as you held on me……

And I built a home
for you
for me

Until it disappeared
from me
from you

And now, it’s time to leave and turn to dust……..”

—To Build A Home, The Cinematic Orchestra

“I am already being poured out like a libation.

The time of my departure is at hand.

I have fought the good fight,

I have finished the race,

I have kept the faith.

From now on, the crown of righteousness awaits me,

which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day …”

—A reading from the Second Letter to Timothy​(2 Tm 4:6–8)

Marc went out to wipe bugs off his windshield and that was it, for me, started crying while I sat with bad free coffee and the Iowa weather on the lobby TV. He’d mentioned the bugs at least three times, bothered by their sticky mess, in between bouts of examining various smartphone maps of Burlington, zooming in to find his childhood home and everything else.

Who will be the family record keeper now? Will I ever get a chaos of pizza and voices and jokes of all of these people together again?

There was such peace in that church, her body in her favorite place, surrounded by everyone she loves doing a thing she’d have loved for us to do more of. And then the sky rained down as she met up with LeRoy and Lisa and danced again.

“I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith”

“Her true passion in life was loving and raising her family. Being a mother was her lifelong mission.”

—just like Leroy’s

“We’ve only just begun to grieve the space / The space, the space”

—Rose March, Smashing Pumpkins

“You were so good to us” “You were so good to me.”

—4/20/19

7/25/25–5/18/19

Tell is like it is, tell us what you see. See it all. Don’t eat too much, but eat fruit, eat pears. Don’t be foolish. Make sure you have a rosary. “That is NOT how you PLAY a PIANO!” Clean up. Listen up. Don’t be late or you’ll get locked out (there’s a clock tower for that). Talk to strangers, talk to friends, talk talk, talk. Take care of your babies, but don’t baby them all. Love your spouse fiercely. Love your family fiercely. Protect your health. Follow doctor’s orders. Do the work. Do what’s right. Do what you think needs to be done. Commit, commit, commit. Plan on heaven. 

^ We got way too much goodness out of Kathleen, and an extra almost-decade. 9.92 years and 13 more great-grandchildren later, she gets to be with her king. May she rest eternally in peace with her beloved plus-one.

“…immense charm and understated humor, giving Eve an often unearned confidence as a woman who has never done this kind of work before, and yet, is fully assured within herself that she will achieve her goals.”

—Review of Killing Eve

“There is a house built out of stone / Wooden floors, walls and window sills / Tables and chairs worn by all of the dust / This is a place where I don’t feel alone / This is a place where I feel at home”

—Cinematic Orchestra

“I know I tend to make it about me / I know you never get just what you see / But I will never bore you baby”

—Taylor Swift

Lots going on. The yin and yang. The up and down. The family and the Family.

As usual I can’t get into it much. Last weekend I had a couple of long drives bookending a peaceful visit with family, driving by (over…they’ve changed the freeways even) the original House and thinking…we’ll probably never need to go back there, now. The House already sold, of course, and other people live there happily, but there’s something unmooring about that last link loosening. Harder on all the kids than me, so I’ll leave it at that. But I’m so glad I went. “You’ve been so good to us / you’ve been so good to me.”

And yet here in this house we’ve been having the most ordinary and most wonderful weekends and times together. Picking up sticks, riding bikes, blowing bubbles, cuddling and wrestling on the couch, duck-duck-goose card shark games, snacks, practicing math and reading with the cutest gameified exercises, jumping at gymnastics and holding coaches’s hands, “pup-it” shows and egg hunts and wide eyes. And the big weekend in the Dells with the waves and the cousins and grandparents and all. It’s going so fast. They’re growing so fast.

And I’m working on a big project at work and having some pretty high-inducing success and I love it.

Life for the living is good. We only wish we all could stay living.

To conclude this somewhat strange update (which was unintentional, as I came here to write what I am putting below initially), I will provide some lists.

A list of things I made yesterday:
-Blueberry muffins
-Cherry smoothies
-“Lunch” for Kindergartener1 and Toddler2, but really, just a Lunchable plus individual serving sized guacamole cups and piles of chips (after which I got a suggestion from Kindergartener1 to recycle the individual serving sized guacamole cups)
-Pizza dough, on a whim (NOTE: I am getting pretty good at this, after years of practice, the making of bread products, I mean)
-at least five bowls of cereal
-Pizzas (well—not really—I had help, and Kindergartener1 had an absolute ball painting tiny dough circles with tomato sauce and ‘decorating’ with cheese, cheese, and olives) which were according to Kindergartener1 were “the best pizzas EVER!” even though she didn’t eat much of it and probably just because she made it

…I think that’s it. We have leftovers/Larabars/Crisp & Green for all the rest.

A list of exciting things that happened in the world of math and reading for 5-year-olds last week:
-Level G in reading (???)
-Lexia Core 5 level 7—which evidently made it hard to fall asleep because that is so exciting

A (somewhat depressing) list of things we really need to do to our house soon to keep it basically functional outdoors:
-have piles of mulch delivered, for piles of money
-PAINT, possibly in the most fancy way possible since whoever did the previous paint job was lazy
-replace the sagging mini deck off the back
-beware the creature eating our old mini plastic slide at night

A non-depressing list of all the things Jeff (plus family members on occasion, especially Toddler2 who was very proud) did yesterday to make the house even better outdoors:
-clean up alllllllllll the planting beds!!
-pick up alllllllll the sticks!
-water the surprise new tree the city just planted unceremoniously
-a disturbing amount of other things that took a disturbing amount of time and I am so glad he did/does that

A list of things in Toddler2’s bed:
-two rubber duckies, from the bathtub
-four+ ‘gummies’ aka pacifiers aka those will have to go away soon
-a tiny stuffed owl—instrumental to sleep, evidently
-TWO blankets, never just one
-TWO tigeys, never just one
-a stuffed animal ‘won’ by a kind stranger at the Dells (an Ugly Doll)
-a ‘gummy stuffie’
-some other animals I can’t even remember

Friday 5!

I was thinking the other day about my values as I’d identified somehow years ago (looky here, I found them), and how I believe I now need a 5th to add on to it. While in my previous post, I pretend ‘balance’ is an outward looking one, none of them truly are, so here is the NEW VERSION, in a Friday Five:

ONE) Health

TWO) Family

THREE) Safety

FOUR) Balance

!FIVE!*new!*) Compassion

This last one has been sparked by a few things but one is largely a sad situation unfolding at a local business we to which owe a lot of our health/family/safety/balance equation. COMPASSION.

FWIW, the old manifesto still stands:
1) Self care first!
2) Practice no hurry
3) People are people
4) Stay in the moment
5) It is an honor and a privilege

PEACE OUT HOMIES

“I prescribe sleep”

—a friend long ago / some actual doctors

I shouldn’t even be spending time here but I saw that quote/had to relive it, so FRIDAY FIVE!

1. I get that this is winter, but….MAN, this is winter. Wow. Snow upon snow upon snow upon cold with no end in sight. It is March, though, so the end feels a little more in sight. I wore a sparkly gold shirt to celebrate.

2. I’ve been making ‘websites’ for a really damn long time and should capitalize on that fact more. I feel cool being an old nerd like this.

3. I was stopped cold when a colleague’s husband was sick for a couple of months and then that turned into being diagnosed with cancer. Same timeframe, same scenario as four years ago, except a much worse treatment for him. I’m incredibly grateful/lucky that while we’ve had our share of Stuff, awful awful treatment is not one of it (I mean, surgery aside, obviously).

4. I believe I have been told now by several separate educators that our children are ‘strong-willed’. BIG SURPRISE. LOL.

5. Turns out winter is a lot better when you have working heat in your car 🙂

“A bridge splits November’s sky / I’m in two halves inside / This is the past right here / I choose to leave it here”

—The Joy Formidable

Perhaps I should start off 2019 by UPDATING EVERY DAY? HA HA HA HA HA that was a joke, since 2019 started yesterday, and I did not update. Anyway, I thought I would/could briefly update, once I heard that nice little lyric above on my way in to work today. It’s pothole-laden, iceblock-ridden, frigid-rigid January once more, with no end (well, 29 days away) in sight, and everything’s regular gray without Christmassy-ness (at least we left our tree up for a couple more days). And though it was only four years of my life, I can’t help but feel the edge of upcoming competition season, that razor focus, the impending implosions and self-supplied humiliation yet fun attention of showing off skills and being scored for each move. No wonder I am pretty confident, how else would I have gotten through gymnastics? And how I miss it and love it so, still.

Anyway. I have Actual Work to do, but just sayin’, hello January.

ETA: Also for some reason my EOY post never showed in my RSS feed. WTF? In case yours is the same, and you are DYING TO READ my 2018 THOUGHTS, here they are.

“All for freedom and for pleasure / Nothing ever lasts forever / Everybody wants to rule the world”

—Tears for Fears

“Eventually, someone will come and ask you to do it.”

—coworker

“I’m the best you’ve never had / If you think I’m burning out, I’m never am / I’m on fire”

—Pitbull

“Wow! We should watch the National Geographic channel all the time!” -me “Wow, we are really turning into interesting people.” -Jeff

—12/31/18

“There was a girllllll, who didn’t want to go to schoooooool or college or nothinggggg! / She just wanted to stay hooooooooooome! / So she waited for holidaaaaaays, / but she waited and waited…!”

—anonymous1

“A-yeks-ah! Wee-peet it!”

—anonymous2

The end of the day and the end of the year.

I spent today with the people I love, who are healthy and vibrant and amazing, out and about at one of our favorite places and then the evening in our fine home, with a fire and games and snacks and laughter. Jeff played video games with one little girl while I played at gymnastics on the floor with another, after rousing matches of Hungry Hungry Hippos and Go Fish (/matching, if you’re 2) and a strange pretend New Year’s Eve at “Tomato Restaurant”. I have a job that fulfills me, health that sustains me, relationships that fill in all the right places, safety and balance and support. I have everything I ever wanted.

As always, it’s been clearer than ever this year that this is a rarity indeed.

We spent some of Christmas in Madison, and some of that time sitting in the dark, all the adults by a tree, talking about a wall. What struck me most is that no one is right in all of this, though I’d hope we start erring on the side of human decency, and soon. Will basic kindness rule all someday still?

There’s a lot to unpack there, but I’ll leave it, just as a general comment on the state of the world and the direction our country is going in, and how it’s harder than we think to imagine a way forward. Everybody wants to rule the world (even if they don’t).

Do I?

I came to more natural rest, I learned (more but not quite) how to watch and wait, I let time surprise me and before I knew it I had a reader and a walker to parent, a beloved husband with whom to celebrate 10 years of marriage, an open ticket to whatever I want at work with all the right moves, even if I still plan to watch and wait. 2018 was pretty kickass. Kindergarten shifted the rhythms, relationships changed their shape, and life is still so good. So, so good. It’s an honor every day.

My dad, cured / a miracle of miracles (a true miracle!). My mom, not, or at least not yet. The rest still stable but working through some trickery; our kids incredible, smart, able. Friends with their own challenges making their own way.

Water, water, everywhere, swim lessons, pool days, the big lake, the spa baths, a hotel swimfest. Sparkling sun glinting off black eyelashes of water-loving little girls, wide smiles that can’t be tamed. A new 5-year-old finding faux freedom in the water of a big lake with her tightly tied life jacket, endless energy absorbed by the splashing, special especially for the time just Mommy and she. Sisters lounging in a quiet spa beside a Dells lake, the two of us catching up. Sisters yelling across a hotel pool, overly excited, over the moon, the four of us ensconced in our lakeside northern trip, visiting our usual haunts. Learning to swim and happy to learn.

Chalk dust, chalk boards, chalk buckets. Gymnastics with two little girls together, rotating around the events, swinging from bars and hanging from rings and jumping on trampolines, helping the tiny one climb up and watching the big girl hold her own. Kindergarten playground night and Kindergarten open house and finding a frog toy and a desk sign and these new teachers. Getting ready for school and a few days just you two enjoying a world of freedom and fun and museums and MOA before the first day of. The Kindergarten routine and learning to learn and making friends everywhere, adored and energetic still, even as you’re tired, tired, tired. Apple cider making and field trip taking and playing at being funny and scooter skating. A Kindergartener, ready beyond any shadow of a doubt.

Work, work, work it out. Staying in place but kicking ass in place, finding my way back to things that are fun while still working to speak up and listen as appropriate, show potential, but still stay. Coworkers who are still killing it, who give me hours of lunches filled with laughter and wit, jokes and support, Bananagrams and Secret Santas…where would I be without you all? Working it out, finding sweat again, finding fitness again, and working mindfulness into it along the way (barre3, you are the winner). Fitness of the mind and meditating and finding a way to rest.

Sisters, sisters giggling, sisters playing, sisters tussling and relenting and hugging, sisters yelling, “sistah!”, sisters speaking Spanish, sisters wearing dresses and swaddling babies and carrying dolls and playing doctor, playing dollhouse. Sisters on a swingset, running out to it, swinging side by side, sisters fighting in a wading pool and going down a slide over and over. Sisters commanding Alexa and tugging at each other’s toys and screaming with tickled laughter. Sisters pushing buttons (real and figurative), playing videogames, trick-or-treating dressed as princesses. Sisters dancing, one on stage, sisters whispering secrets, growing into humans with their own real potential and hopes and fears.

(And sisters of another kind, my sisters, and our families sharing time together however we can.)

10 years, 15 years, a solid decade of marriage as we wind our way through New York City to celebrate. A tour, two tours, our own tour of a city that’s its own planet, together alone in our own world filled with others; like we do. The hangout life, the best life, the life together with hockey games and cuddles and HANGING OUT!, C&G and G&Ts and nothing to do but be ourselves and be thankful that we have each other. Thankful more than ever that I have my Jeff.

(So many things I did for others in my little life, but so little I actually did for the world at large; that would be one place to start to fix things. I’m not sure where to start, though, and I’m not sure what that means. Watch and wait, and see where it takes you.)

“A-yeks-ah! Wee-peet it!” is what I’d love to say to 2018, but that means none of the wonderful surprises I’ve gotten this year would be new. So as we hurtle into 2019, the last one of this decade(?! how did this happen??), my hope is for more confidence and conviction. Ya know, I’m pretty confident, but confidence is the enemy of anxiety, and if I can harness more confidence in my convictions or solutions or decisions or beliefs; stay in tune with what I know and feel is right, deep down; it can only serve me well. And maybe it will allow me to serve others, too. Happy New Year.

“Hark how the bells! / Sweet silver bells / All seem to say / Throw cares away!”

—Mykola Leontovych & Peter J. Wilhousky

“Silent night, holy night! / Shepherds quake at the sight / Glories stream from heaven afar / Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia / Christ the Savior is born! / Christ the Savior is born”

—Franz Xaver Gruber & Joseph Mohr

“You mean Jesus was born on CHRISTMAS DAY?!”

—anonymous

Healthy, alive, and able. This was the thing I kept reminding myself of while we were an unknown-percentage into our horribly vomit-strewn journey to Madison on Friday. Nothing sadder than a little two-year-old covered in puke despondently looking up at you and saying “I throw up!”, tears glistening in fluorescent, as you both trudge to yet another gas station bathroom for cleanup. No use getting worked up when you’re halfway between nowhere and the only thing left is to push on (thank God for baby wipes), and the sickie is already distraught herself. Wow, that was not fun.

But we’re all healthy, alive, and able. (Even as we arrived in Madison and the sickness ripped through the rest of us, yuck.) That’s no small thing. To watch a 5-year-old read and write and make friends and invent stories and tap dance on a stage; to watch a 2-year-old draw her first recognizable picture, dance and twirl and run across the room without worry; these things aren’t always a given, so what an honor it is to witness. To joke with a healthy husband who should be here for years and years to come is not to take for granted, so what a privilege it is to have. To have family near and far with whom to celebrate, these holidays and these triumphs and everything in between, it’s a gift. Not everyone can throw cares away and delight in the present/these presents (isn’t that ever starker as the years and our country grow crueler), and I am incredibly lucky.

I was going to write something here about how I hope I do what I can to help those who aren’t as lucky, but as I sit in the comforts of my home with the toys from ‘Santa’ around the tree, this sentiment rings incredibly hollow, so I’ll just say good will to humans, and on Earth, peace. Merry Christmas!

I’m back bitches! JK, you thought I meant blogging, but I don’t. I just mean in general……mostly work, but also working out/life….I remember I felt similarly shortly after Kindergartener1 turned 2 as well. KNOCK ON WOOD.

Work has been going surprisingly well, we have a big cool project to get underway in 2019 so there’s that, plus general performance ass-kicking which is the name of the game I guess. In the most positive way! Health is generally good for all which is always a gamble/hugely positive, including some generally good news we just got for my mom, woohoo! Kindergartener1 and Toddler2 are thriving and playing pretend together all over the house and yelling “Ah yeks sah! Weepeat iiiit!” to our newly acquired tech. Jeff is newly 41 and newly richly caffeinated and we had the most wonderful trip to NYC for 10 years of marriage which I’d love to repeat (the trip and the solidly wonderful 10 years, over and over). There’s just enough time for just enough friends and fitness to keep me going, if quickly, and books are always there for me, too. I’m not sure what that means overall except it’s this: I have everything I ever wanted, so what do I want?

Perhaps I will revisit this theme on the Christmas Eve Update (or not).

Someone left three tiny dragons at my desk this morning (“someone” = my ‘secret’ santa, which, so very NOT SECRET that is). Very cool. Along with candy.

My cousin’s Gradeschooler1 is turning out to be a fantastic gymnast. It tickles me pink! Love it.

And today is Stephie’s birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPHIE!

& that’s all. That’s all you get. That’s all she wrote.