Alabaster Mom

The rest of you can stop taking pictures now.  They'll never matter. It's kind of a lazy afternoon at our house today. I went to the farmers' market this morning, then my daughter and I visited a co-worker who has some baby chicks. After lunch, A and I walked around the neighborhood a bit, because our 'hood is having a community rummage sale.  After that, we ran out of steam. There's a garden fair going on, but I can't walk very far in my sexy surgical shoe and I know that you always have to park in Zimbabwe for that event. We looked at the movie guide, but not much is playing.  So, we turned on the AC and now we're just hanging out. The kid is playing games with her cousin in Virginia.  Because Diesel is deaf, he sleeps like the dead. You can pass through with a marching band and he won't wake up. So, I was able to take these shots of him snoozing in my bed with the kid. 

June, as you may be aware, is designated as Pride month for the LGBT community. Last year I coordinated a Pride-themed Sunday service at my church (I serve on the committee that plans our Sunday services). It went well, so I decided to do the same this year.  The service is coming up on June 22nd.  I'm pretty excited about it! The first challenge, of course, was to find speakers. I approached a gentleman who visits our fellowship regularly and asked him if he'd like to speak.  He agreed right away. He is part of a local mindfulness community and also does work with Reiki, essential oils, etc. so I thought he might be able to give us an interesting perspective. And yes, I already knew that he is gay so I didn't have the awkwardness of  "Hey, there's a rumor going around and I just wondered . . . " Next, a fellow member put me in touch with a woman who started a local gay-straight alliance.  She is Catholic and proudly supports her gay son, so I think she has ...

My daughter will be gone for a week in June.  She is flying out to Maryland to visit her grandfather at the beach. I will use that opportunity to clean out her room and throw away about 10,000 prizes from Chuck E Cheese as well as other bits of clutter. I have another plan for that kid-free week, though. I'm going to see if I can go completely vegan for a week.  My hope is that some of my meal plans (and food purchases) for that week will stick with me long-term. I don't think I'm ready to pull the trigger on full-time veganism, but I'd like to move more in that direction. I've already been reducing animal products for some time now. For example, we exclusively drink/use almond milk instead of dairy milk.  I figure the kid's absence will be a good time to try the experiment because I won't really have to cook for anyone that week. My husband can muddle through on his own or eat what I eat. In preparation, I've been making lists of vegan foods.  I have ...

Well, I had my foot surgery on Thursday. It was as fun as expected. I didn't have to be at the hospital until noon, so I worked until 11:30.  I couldn't eat or drink after midnight on Wednesday so of course I became obsessed with food/drink right about midnight on Wednesday. My husband met me at the hospital on Thursday and before long I was wearing a flimsy gown and had an IV in my hand. We sat in a room watching "Pawn Stars" and "Dirty Jobs" until it was time for me to go under the knife.  The anesthesiologist came in and explained that I would be sedated but not fully anesthetized. I had a few questions at that point because I knew the surgeon would be sawing bone and stuff and I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to hear any of that. I was assured that I would not feel or remember anything. Good enough. At 2:00 the anesthesia guy (not the same one, though - this one was much younger and cuter) injected some happy juice into my IV. Then a nurse whee...

I am not a technophobe. I have my share of gadgets and love learning how to use new stuff. I work for a technology company and make my living building websites for clients. I know more than I want to know about DNS and HTML and whatnot. However, there is just no way I can keep up with a third grader when it comes to technology.  Now that she has an iPad, it's gotten even harder. She downloads apps at the speed of light and I have to try to keep track of who is contacting my baby when she plays games like Minecraft.  After she goes to bed, I check her iPad and delete Game Center friend requests and anything else that looks suspicious. Because she is on an Apple device and my phone is an Android device, we struggled a bit to find a mechanism that would allow us to communicate with each other.  We tried a couple of apps and eventually stumbled into Google Hangouts. We don't use it very often. If I'm out of town or something like that, we'll sometimes exchange a few text ...

You know what's weird?  I've been fostering dogs for so many years (over 14) that when I don't have one, I actually miss it. After Kaiser and Mr. Bates both got adopted a couple months ago, I was happy to have a few weeks with my own dogs.  Then, after a while, I started feeling like something was missing. However, the rescue was just entering an unusual quiet period and we didn't have any males on the waiting list.  I can't take any dog with a vagina because, well, Gretchen would order an immediate execution (and then carry it out herself). We were contacted a few days ago by a local Pit Bull rescue that had taken in a nine-month-old male Boxer. I said I would take him. What can I say? I guess I've just been missing being a part of those happy endings. I like helping the non-humans in my own small way, I suppose. Originally, Diesel had been living with a mom and several children and apparently that mom was unprepared for the exuberance of a young Boxer. A vol...

If you've been reading my blog for a while . . . you have my sympathies. Ha! I kid, I kid.  I was going to say that if you've been reading my blog for a few years, you know that Mother's Day always seems to cause me a lot of angst. My husband is a good egg, but he's not what you'd call the thoughtful type. Or the plan-ahead type. I think a lot of it boils down to birth order. No, seriously. Hear me out. I am the oldest in my family and he is the youngest in his. I've had to make decisions all of my life. As the baby, he never really had to make a lot of decisions. Normally, I'm okay with having to manage every single aspect of our lives but sometimes it would be great just to hear, "You just relax. I'm on it."  On Mother's Day, he typically says something more like, "Well, I guess we could go out to brunch. Where do you want to go?"  It leaves me feeling like I've caused some sort of inconvenience just by being a mother on M...

The kid and I spent a lot of quality time together yesterday. I'm about to become a temporary invalid when I have my foot surgery next week, so I have to squeeze in all the stuff I can before that happens.  First up was a sewing class at Jo-Ann Fabrics.  This was a Sewing 101, "How to Use Your Sewing Machine" sort of deal. The class was small, just us and a college student. I'm not sure why she (the other student) was there since she made it pretty clear that she was already God's gift to sewing. We brought the kid's machine to the class and proceeded to set it up for the first time. The first hurdle?  She's too short to reach the foot pedal. Doh!  We had to lower the chair significantly. Once we did that, she could no longer see the instructor so she just peered at her through the middle of her sewing machine.  We learned how to thread the machine and then the kid practiced a few basic stitches. I took notes and asked a few dumb questions, most of which w...

So, as you know all too well by now, my daughter turned nine last weekend. My dad and his girlfriend drove in from Maryland to join us for the festivities. P and I left work early on Friday, picked up the birthday cake, dumped the dogs, and headed out of town.  We invited A's second-cousin (is that what one calls your cousin's kid? She is A's cousin's daughter) to join us for the weekend.  The girls generally get along pretty well and we thought it would be nice if our kid had someone with whom she could swim. I'm good for about one swim a day but my daughter demands more than that. We arrived at the resort on Friday and the girls went swimming shortly thereafter.  We had pizza for dinner and then of course there was more swimming. I joined them this time. On Saturday, the six of us went out to lunch and then stopped at a candy store. I thought my dad was going to buy A's candy but then he snuck outside for a cigarette when it was time to check out. (Dad, you ...

I'll write about the big birthday weekend later, but right now I have to share something much more important.  For some 25 years now, I have been mourning the discontinuation of Apple Slice.  I don't even drink soda anymore, but I still miss Apple Slice. I drank it like crazy when I was in high school. If memory serves, Apple Slice was discontinued in the late 80s. Welcome to adulthood, Claudia. No more good stuff for you.  On Saturday, I visited a store that sells only British stuff. From Paddington Bears to Monty Python memorabilia to weird candy bars - it's all imported from England. My dad is visiting and I thought he might have an interest in some of the Beatles stuff, so that is why we journeyed to this particular store.  My daughter and my great-niece picked out a couple of those weird candy bars ( Nestle Aero Mint bars , to be exact). I spotted an apple soda so I bought it and took it back to the resort.  I poured it over ice and sipped it by the poo...

Hey Goober, Happy birthday! So, you're nine years old. You're halfway to adulthood. Just nine years to go until you leave for college, meet a biker named Pus, and blow your college fund on a drum kit and a VW bus or something. But regardless, you'll be able to vote and that's the most important thing (you told me the other day that you seriously cannot wait to vote). I am kidding about the n'er-do-well boyfriend, of course. Or at least I hope I am. The other day you told me that you expect to be able to date when you are 19 and I suggested that you go ahead and double that number. You are at an interesting age. In some ways, you seem very grown-up. You're old enough to fly on an airplane by yourself.  You're allowed to ride your bike around the neighborhood (within reason). I can have real conversations with you and I don't have to edit my thoughts so that a kid can understand them. Your knowledge of technology seems to be surpassing mine pretty ...