Put Up Your Dukes

layla's quilt!

2012-02-14T11:25:00.001-05:00

how about the finished product of a project i started last april and finished in november and then never posted about? i figure if anyone is first in line for an overdue post, it's this guy.

in november, you may have noticed that the background of layla's birthday picture was her quilt. the one i started ages ago, butchered on my first attempt at quilting it, and finally set aside for a good 6 months.

well, i finished it! yup, that background was more than just the quilt top (which i had used as a photo prop before); its a full-fledged blanket extraordinaire. my first ever quilt! it is far from perfect, but i we are so in love with it.

after i finally seam-ripped all the awful original quilting lines (an entire night's work) it was much easier to get motivated and make some forward progress. i wrapped it up a few days before layla's birthday and we have been loving it ever since.

sometimes, i snuggle with it if she isnt using it.

in the dawn's early light: there she is.

i basted it correctly this time with actual safety pins which made a huge difference, though my choice of quilting pattern was just as stupid this time (drunken digital spirals!), it looked better and didnt have much of the nasty bunching that my first attempt was soiled with.

drunken spiral quilting pattern-do not attempt

i made the binding myself and hand-stitched it on. i had made fun of raechel in the past for saying how much she loved hand-binding quilts, but i swiftly ate my words when i first sat down to do mine and found myself falling in love with the rhythmic, exact, inching progress of this method. lesson one: never doubt the rae-rae; she will make you a believer.

i mitered that corner like a playa!

i backed the quilt with one of my favorite fabrics from this collection.

it has a slight swelling protuberance going on over at 3 oclock, but we love it still

and i used printable fabric and added a built-in security precaution in case we ever get separated from this treasured item. it might not stop it from getting picked up by someone else (swiper, no swiping!), but hopefully it would unleash enough guilt to impel them to turn it in or contact us.

security blanket, indeed. (i didnt think of doing this until after the blanket was done, so i had to hand sew it on so the stitches wouldnt show on the front, and i went a little overboard with my embroidery floss. too flossy flossy.)

and lest you forget, here are the cool details of where this project started for me:

raechel was the source of my original inspiration for the quilt. she made her sweet daughter, hazel, one first after she was inspired by the designer of this fabric, ann maria horner, who made one for her son. shwew. that's a hefty amount of inspirational trickle down.

but that means there are at least 3 of these log-cabin style baby quilts out there making little toddlers and their sewing-mamas very happy.

this fabric collection is called "good folks." it is out of print and of the 24 fabrics that comprise the set, over half of them are really REALLY hard to find. raechel was key and SO sweetly gave me 3 or 4 of the really rare ones that she had left over from hazel's quilt. "greater love have no woman than would lay down her out of print designer scraps for her sister" -the bible of sewing.

a few of the rarest ones i actually tracked down by searching etsy for products that were made from these fabrics and then begging scraps form their makers. so many ladies just GAVE me their leftover pieces of these amazing fabrics for no charge or for so cheap. i heart the sewing community. (one lady actually said, "oh yeah, i was using that for serging practice, you can have it!" i about fainted over the prospect of using this awesome fabric as scrap fabric for serging! ack! yes, i burn twenty dollar bills for fire readiness drills sometimes too).

2 fabrics came from england, several from canada and one fabric i actually got by buying pillow covers made from the fabric i needed and then deconstructing them into yardage myself. girl's gotta do...

so now the quilt is finished and i actually have lots of leftover fabric from this collection since i had to buy many of the prints in full yard quantities. so i have declared this "layla's official fabric collection. what, your baby doesnt have an official fabric line? i might not have a clue what he birthstone is, but i guarantee this fabric is prettier.

pretty pretties before their first washing (which is what gives it that nice stippling effect that quilts are known for)

after the first wash

and the reason for the whole thing:

to see miss stinkerbell wrapped up in her ~~coat~~ quilt of many colors.

a little nervous about the general public possibly swiping her beloved.

reassured that they shant ever be parted thanks to my security measures.

the satisfaction we have gotten from the finished product of this project has been so much more gratifying than i expected. i have made really pretty, useful things before, but something about a cozy blanket (that will hopefully be around for a really long time) made by hand for your babes is really extra special.

high on the accomplishment of this first quilt, i am now in the middle of 2 more. expect recaps about their completion sometime in 2014.

valentimes

2012-02-12T22:23:00.005-05:00

the moment i saw this pin, i knew i would be doing it for judah's class valentines this year. so easy, so unique, so cheap, so cute. awesome fun with perspective that creates a cool visual effect.

after about 8 minutes worth of total effort (all fun), this is what all of judah's classmates and teachers will be receiving this year for valentine's day:

i love how he has on a kissy face as he proffers the goods.

i probably could have picked a better background than our desolate, unraked, front yard with its bald patches and 6 years of decomposing leaves, but i can only think of so much at a time, and there just isnt that much to chose from in our yard. plus, you can only keep pants on the child for about 4 minutes at a time if we are on our property, so we went with valentine's in the deciduous forest as our theme.

here's how we did ours (publishing this on the 12th so theres still time!):

we took a roll of christmas wrapping paper from the closet and wrapped it in the white craft paper from the big roll on the kids' ikea easel (the chalkboard side of which is what we wrote the "love, judah xoxo" on in the background). white computer paper would have been just as good, but required a tad more tape.

we wanted to get him holding the stick sort of towards the camera so it was like he was offering the lollipop to the recipients, but he is 2, so we mostly just went with whatever he felt like and told him to pretend the stick was a slime gun and he was shooting us.

i added the word graphics in picasa like a boss, poked a hole at tip of where the wrapping paper ended (could have used a hole-punch if it had been closer to the edge), stuck the lollies through and taped the stick down on the back. wham, bam, thank you, ham.

20 copies of the photo: $3.80 at snapfish. picked up at our local walmart in 30 minutes.

box of tootsie pops: $2.95

i love these babies about fifty skrillionty times more than the store-bought perforated cartoon nightmares that i am sure he will want every year henceforth. and they cant have cost much more, even with the candy. so yeah, pinterest has made me uppity about 2 year olds' valentines. maybe thats a red flag that i should step away.

gag reel:

happy valentines to the girl who spurned his advances. maybe i will add a crack line through the heart.

happy valentine's day, to my favorite golfing buddy!

HIYO! happy valentines to ME

and this one ALMOST was the official picture, but just got edged out:

i LOVE how belligerent he looks. but when you added the lollipop, it totally looked like he was stealing it maliciously rather than giving it in the name of friendship and love and pink and red (as is the point).

sassafrass

2012-02-11T15:20:00.002-05:00

full of sugar, but oh so spicy, this one is.

it will probably be more hurtful, but way less intimidating when she shoots us this look in about 14 years.

she is fiery!

black (and white) mail

2012-02-10T11:37:00.005-05:00

i put this on facebook and twitter, but it belongs on the blog as well.

last night judah pooped on the real toilet in our bathroom during his bath. he is totally potty trained and not sick at all. we had a great bathtime and i put layla to bed and got judah in his jammies (undies and a long t-shirt)

about 45 minutes later i was working and judah was playing monster trucks. he told me he needed to go potty. now that he has been trained for several months, we are trying to get him to actually do the rest on his own...like pulling his pants down for himself and just sitting without our help. so i told him to go for it.

since he had already pooped, this was low-risk. if we think a poop is on horizon, we are more likely to help get him in position swiftly.

he did everything just right and then said, "mai awl dun!" i asked him if he had gone poop or pee (he sometimes gets them mixed up so we like to go over it when possible) and he said "poo-poo," but when i looked in the potty, there was only pee. so i said, "no, you just went pee-pee. see?"

he stood up, with his several-sizes-too-big t-shirt hanging down to his knees and started to pull up his underwear. i am still not paying full attention and all of a sudden he sticks his hand out and says, "mai got poo poo on mai hand. wipe it off, mommy."

and i see two of his fingertips have produced poop from somewhere. i am freaking out! where did the poop come from?!?! it's nowhere in the potty, his underpants are pristine, not on the floor, nowhere!

i life up his shirt tail and i see it:

oh man, this got so bad so fast that it was funny and not even stressful.

i would have just cut the shirt off of him, but my parents had bought it for him in the grand canyon, so i had to go over his head. this is what caused everything above the waist. it was all over his front too.

jesse wasnt home, so i snapped this pic on my phone once i had judah in quarantine because, HELLO, this needed to be documented. and i went with black and white to keep it classy (poop visuals can only be in color if your child is talented enough to produce woodland creatures).

as i washed him the poor guy seemed so confused about what had happened (you and me both, kid).

i got him sparkly clean and then starting wondering how HAD the poop gotten ONLY on him and only on the right outer side of his booty and not where you would expect it to be (right down main street)? it made no sense.

when i was telling jesse about it after he got home i started to think that maybe he had left the room and pooped in something somewhere else and somehow rolled in it, but after a thorough, yet tense, search, we turned up nothing.

i FINALLY figured it out this morning.

it was the long t-shirt.

he had sat down on the kiddie potty with his undies down, but the bottom of his shirt had gotten caught up under him, he was sitting ON his shirt tail. it was in between his bum and the potty. so thats why that potty was spotless: the shirt tail caught everything.

and then i think when he stood up, the shirt swung over to the right side and pancaked there on his little flank. the stars must have aligned for this magic BM because none fell out or soaked through enough for me to spot it from the outside. it wasnt until he felt it and reached back with his hand that he produced the evidence.

now that i know how it happened i feel so bad for him. poor guy did everything right and still somehow made the biggest poop mess of his life. and he even TOLD me he had pooped but i didnt believe him. it's my fault for not seeing the shirt caught under him and assuming he could only have one huge dump per hour. never underestimate the power of a boy.

a second shower and a few dry heaves are totally fair prices to pay to be able to show this to his girlfriends one day.

song and dance and layla chants

2012-02-07T12:31:00.004-05:00

i shall watch these on repeat for ever and ever.

jesse caught this at bedtime (there is no video, just the audio...but its golden).

i caught this snippet of layla beat-boxing slash dropping it like it's hot. in case we were confused: she is definitely white. the moves prove it.

and here is the extent of our mother daughter discourse these days. hopefully we will be adding more as the years go by (yes she is IN judah's potty. BFD, it's clean and its her favorite place, yall:

minivans and superplans

2012-02-04T21:36:00.004-05:00

we are up to our earballs in minivans. i could tell you pretty much every difference between every late model odyssey, from interior, to features to gas mileage. did i mention i HATE this? its so overwhelming and stressful and there is the constant, "am i getting scammed" thread through it all because, you know, used cars.

i hope to next week have an awesome tale of conquest, ample seating, and fiscal responsibility for you. complete with pictures of us having a dance party in OUR new van. but for now we are still on the hunt and comparing and test driving. actually jesse is doing most of this. i am specializing in being overwhelmed and taking naps throughout the process. hate it.

i have two more nights of menu planning to recap for yall...two VERY successful nights and yummy recipes to pass on.

my separated boards (sides and entrees) are super useful for when i am putting together a menu and deciding what to make, but i have found them annoying when i need to go back to pull them up for cooking. so i made a new board JUST for the recipes i have ahead of me for the night/week/event/whatever. this board will get edited lots and all of the pins will have more permanent homes on the other boards (unless they are yucky) but this will help me have everything i need in one place. (i tried to make this board private so it wont annoy followers with seeing my same pins again and again, but pinterest discontinued the private board feature as far as i can tell)

right now, i have our superbowl yum yums on the board for tomorrow. we are kind of boring (or perhaps you call it unpopular) we love to watch the game at home, by ourselves, and pig out on adventurous new foods. nutrition optional.

we've got avocado fries, almond parm dip, and buffalo chicken sammies on the agenda.

if my heart tells me anything, its that these are going to make it less functional, but it will be worth it. won't you join me?

to calories, athletic men in tight pants and built-in DVD players!

vanaticism

2012-02-02T13:56:00.001-05:00

the problem:

look at the legroom situation

this is occurring in our current, "big family car," our saturn vue crossover (whose legal name is "shorty fire burnin' weasley):

before driving it off the lot in july 2009

we got the red car when our faithful, beloved old 1999 explorer, gandalf the gray died in the line of duty. luckily cash for clunkers was going on so we got $4500 from the government for it rather than the $0 it was worth at the time.

for me, jesse, and the 6-week old judah, this was the perfect car. safe, fuel efficient and lots of space for a growing family. t was our first ever NEW car. thanks to cash for clunkers and the sale, we got about $12,000 off the price of the car and were blessed enough to be able to pay it off in full within a year.

fast forward 2 years, and here is what this family looks like as keight, jesse, 2 year old judah and 7 month old layla attempting taking the "big" family car on vacation:

i am wedged in the back seat next to layla's backward facing baby seat and judahs car seat. and there is all of our stuff (2 of our bigger items had to be taken down by our friends in their cars).

i kind of hate the salesman for telling us that we would "never need a roof rack," and even though we knew better, we had not a lot of choice since the explorer was undriveable and some huge saturn sale was ending that very day. but the luggage capacity is clear not the only issue anymore.

in the past few months this car has been driving me nuts. cramming poor judah's legs in the back is a daily reminder that this is not an ideal situation (note: this IS a first world problem...but the first world is where i live, after all). if i scoot the passenger seat up any farther, then the passenger is going to get their lights knocked out if the airbag deploys AND have no legroom up until that point.

so i've made the mental switch. the final transition the many moms make:

i started lusting after a minivan.

visions of the kids running up and down the center aisle, of bucket seats and legroom for all have danced in my head for nigh on 6 months now.

for years i denied that this would ever be my chosen fate. and i know almost all the moms say they never thought they'd want one either, but i swore i was different. i thought if i ever had lots of kids i would just get a big SUV.

but now i'm there, and my mother in law's words are coming to life: nothing beats a minivan when you have kids.

and it's true, in terms of gas mileage, vertical space, layout and design, no SUV can compete. maybe when the kids are older and are without their individual required plastic space pods of safety, that will be an option, but to be honest, the only PRO in the SUV column is that it's not a minivan or that it's somehow "cooler."

hey world, i picked up actual human excrement off of my sweater yesterday and wore my pajama t-shirt to work the day before because it was just easier: the race to coolness is over. i have withdrawn on account of i dont give a shit and because i have won that race before and still never received any prize money.

instead i am now competing in what i will call the "master's division" of the cool race. all you have to do to win this one is not go insane. doesnt that sound COOL!?!

during that scene last summer (pictured above), hurtling 70 mph down the highway towards our florida vacation, i had to get into the back to access layla and help her not scream her head off and make me stab my cochleas with our tire pressure gauge. her rear-facing carseat was in the middle (the only place it fit in that car) and judah was behind jesse at the time. so i ever-so-nimbly turned around in my seat, got into a squatting position and proceed to squeeze my ample self through 11 inches of airspace above the headrest. i think at one point i was IN layla's carseat with her while simultaneously kicking jesse in the head, rubbing my butt on judah and getting rug burns on my face from the ceiling.

if there had been a blood pressure monitor handy at the time (there was no room in the car for it) i'm sure i would have been off the charts. this right here is how you LOSE the master's division cool race.

so now i envision heading to the main cabin of a van like a glamorous air hostess of the 1960's, drink cart and all. the room! the luxury! the sanity of it all!

i posted on facebook that we were thinking about trading in the saturn for a minivan, particularly an odyssey (yes, EVERYONE has one, but people arent stupid, they are popular because they work, evidently) and within a few hours i had 37 comments! every one of them (except for two of my childless friends who shall remain nameless, but judged) was touting the awesomeness of upgrading to a minivan. i have never seen passion like that on my facebook wall.

the funny thing is, up until i actually became interested in vans myself, i just assumed that they were super cheap; simply because they were so uncool. i thought, obviously honda would be thrilled to even get $10,000 for their newest vans due to their nonexistent degree of desirability or coolness. hahaha, stupid, stupid girl. these vans are pimpwagons and are priced as such.

so we are going tomorrow to look at a few used ones (2007 or 2008 models with 50K+ miles on them). the saturn is still worth quite a bit as a trade in, so we are hoping to be left with a very small amount to finance that we can pay off early at a super low interest rate. i will etsy my little heart out to make this dream a financial reality.

the solution?

picture me rollin'.

there will be goldfish dust coating everything and at least one spoiled sippy cup inside, but no legs will be touching seatbacks, no luggage will be touching the ceiling and my mental grip on reality will be safe and sound. i will keep all of my master's division cool-contest trophies in one of my 27 cup holders.

say it with me: there's no room for insanity when you're in-van-wit-me. (puns like that also get you trophies in my division).

sound off: where do you stand on the great van debate. if youre anti-van, are there more compelling reasons besides not wanting to be a van-mom? edukeight me!

menu planning recap: night two KABOBERY!

2012-02-01T14:52:00.002-05:00

last night was a mother-smashing success, as i knew it would be. on the docket were chicken bacon kabobs and jasmine rice. the kabobs have a pineapple bbq glaze whose easy-to-delicious quotient is so small its an imaginary number (8i+449 to be exact...yes, it's negative easy).

would you too like to go down in a glaze of glory? read on.

we were first introduced to this meal while visiting ryan and raechel last may. it was so good that when we got home from the trip, i made it again 2 days later. and then promptly forgot about it until last week, while menu planning and saying to myself, "what the crap can i do with all my frozen breasts?" my first response to that question was obviously, "make out with jesse dukes in an igloo." and then i remembered the existence of these gems and i literally started giggling at my desk in glee because of all the delicious in our near future.

if you read raechel's blog too, you will see she just posted the recipe. i am 43% sure this was brought on by me writing her asking a question about it last week, and her realizing it didnt exist online yet so she said she would swiftly remedy that. and then i tweeted my meal plan picture and ryan saw it and demanded it for their famliy this week as well. i think that's how the story went. just telling you that so you know i dont actually copy her meal-for-meal like a nut, but instead we both remembered these together and revived them from the annals.

but all of the credit goes to raechel for this beast. i have seen the magazine version of this recipe and it's just okay. raechel made it 213% more delicious and classy (she has this effect on most things she encounters...including me) and took the 3 microwave steps out of it (i dont even get why you would do that to meat).

after a total of 10 minutes of prep and then playing outside while the grill grilled and the rice steamed, and then this is what we were dealing with:

these havent even been fully digested by my stomach and i am already dreaming of when i can eat them again. that. good.

here is how we made ours (just a few variations from rae's) which served 2.5 humans, with a few leftover bobs to snack on cold later (serious).

chicken bacon kabobs with pineapple BBQ glaze of glory.

-2-3 medium size chicken breasts, cut in half vertically, and then horizontally a few times to make cubes

-8 slices of bacon, cut in half

-jar of pineapple preserves

-bottle of hickory bbq sauce

-metal skewers or presoaked bamboo ones

-kabob supporting actors (sweet onion, bell pepper, pineapple, mushrooms)

1. wrap each chicken cube in a bacon half and then spear it (its okay if the bacon doesnt make a full circle). intersperse each kabob with your supporting cast (we didnt add anything else to the meat-in-meat combo last night...whoops).

2. transfer those puppies to a hot grill.

3. dump half the jar of preserves and half the bbq in to a small saucepan and heat on med-low until its simmering a tad. our about a third of this into a little bowl and brush it on the skewers as they gril.

4. when the bacon is nicely done and has a little carbon scoring (aka char), pull them off. you cant really overcook chicken to "too dry" when it is wrapped in delicious bacon and coated with this sauce, so dont be afraid to leave them on until the bacon is good and done.

5. serve with/over rice (our choice for rice ALWAYS is jasmine with butter and salt and pepper) and the remaining glaze as dipping sauce. there is no such thing as "too much" of this sauce:

his nostril looks weird because i retouched it because he had a bat in the cave, and this is a food post, after all. just looking out for you.

the kid ate SO MANY OF THESE. i have never seen him carnivorate anything like he did these. we are such a great, traditional family, that we feed little zombie man ourselves while he watches TV standing up. not really, usually he feeds himself as he sprints around between bites and jumps off of things...you know, like they did in the olden days. but last night, dinner was way close to bedtime so we gave in to avoid a meltdown ruining our dinners. #tradeoff.

if you dont make these or at least want to make these or at least want to be fed these by jesse while you watch dora...then we cant be friends. let's just break it off before the heartache starts.

collage degrees

2012-02-01T11:32:00.002-05:00

dont worry, i still dont know how to use a camera. but i do love to look at my kids, so i plunge forward, clicking wildly.

he's cute and he knows it; one in the bush, none in the hand; full speed ahead

baby glyphs; flight risk; chalksicle

awesome X4. she has never pooped in the tub while judah is in there. i look forward to that day and his reaction.

menu planning recap: night one

2012-01-31T12:51:00.004-05:00

yalls comments on the last post about cooking and menu planning were awesome and mega helpful/consoling. i should have mentioned that i do love my crockpot but cant do it more than once a week or it makes me want to barf. dont know why. i love meat juices ~~as much~~ more than the next girl, but something about all the mingling and seeing and smelling it for 8 hours straight just starts to weigh on my brain and make me feel extra hunger-strike-ish.

so last night was 2 sides and an entree from my pinterest boards.

first up, cauliflower tater tots. a cheesy, creamy way to trick your mouth into eating nature's styrofoam. i was all about it. here's the pin and the original pic:

recipe

i figured, sure, the recipe includes heavy cream and cheese, but thats okay because there will be so much cauli happening. i read the recipe (she says you can just bake them or bake and then fry them for extra crunch) and decided to stop at baking mine, since frying them in oil would have been ridiculous (for that much caloric and heart attack factor i might as well just eat real fries from fast food and cut out the hassle and the cost).

you guys, it did NOT go well.

i guess i can blame myself for mixing it all up beforehand. perhaps the mixture sitting in the fridge let the beaten egg whites settle too much so that when i piped them out i had this (yes, a recipe that involving a piping bag, aka ziploc w/tip cut off, is NOT a great one for a weeknight meal):

the phrase you're looking for is, "albino turds."

and then i baked them:

flat little soggy piles.

i was so pissed. but i wasnt ready to call it quits. i wanted to make it at least edible, so i decided to fry them.

about half of them disintegrated upon impact with the oil

of the half that stayed together, some of them did turn out crispy and light and golden brown. with a little salt these werent too bad. but after 30 minutes of work and like $4 of ingredients, i wanted more than "not too bad."

i will not be attempting these again. way too much work for way too little nutritional payoff. sadtimes. and i was sweating and cussing while cooking, which is never a good sign.

i was full-on despair when i turned to my other side of a brussel sprout salad.

recipe

we never ate brussel sprouts growing up, but i knew they were gross because so many kids' shows used them as the yuckiest of things in joke references.

but as it turns out, you can shred up anything, cook it in bacon grease, top it with ACTUAL bacon, and have deliciousness pouring out of your ears. this stuff was AWESOME. very easy, very yummy and very cheap.

this is ours.

so so so good. i will be making this again and often.

and for our entree was slow-cooker balsamic glazed pork tendie. i got ours on big sale at publix and was stoked to let the crock do all the work.

recipe

the picture is divine....and as it turned out for me, totally unrealistic. theirs looks like it has an awesome char on the meat, but mine did NOT. this was where my crock pot aversion came in. avert your eyes vegetarians and the weak-stomached.

ok so that is the meat, the sage rub and the 1/2 cup water i put in 8 hours earlier plus the piggy juices.

after seeing this every time i went to brush on the glaze, i just had a hard time getting excited after i fished the meat out to actually eat it. i just cant get it up for meatwater.

it was totally tender and perfectly cooked and the glaze was awesome and crucial and everyone else in the fam loved it, (judah: "more fork peez mommy!"), but i passed last night and think i will revisit this as leftovers in a few nights. this is my problem with the crockpot.

not bad. but it was more like BBQ than the delicious roasted pork tenderloin i have made in the past.

and put it all together:

hmmm. i give it a 6 out of 10. the salad saved the day. and my jury is still out on the pork.

luckily the rest of the week is things i have had before and know i will love. monday was my adventurous day so i am a-okay with it not being a rockstar epic meal of perfection. everything was eaten and enjoyed, so, job well done, keight.

one day down, 3 to go.

extreme cooking

2012-01-27T12:29:00.003-05:00

one of my spiritual gifts is NOT discipline. for a complete list of "not my spiritual gifts" see...a book about positive traits in highly functional people.

i do have a few spiritual gifts. my favorites are photo captioning and the ability to pick the awesomest thing off of any restaurant menu. go ahead and order that burrito, but i'm telling you, you WILL want my short rib tacos when the food arrives (you know who you are).

but i digress (oh! digression. another gift! i am putting all KINDS of positive-thinking lipstick on the pig that is my scattered brain).

so like i was saying 10 minutes ago, i am bad at discipline. particularly when it comes to food. i actually really enjoy cooking, but since i am not disciplined enough to plan ahead, buy the groceries and store them (in a manner that does NOT involve me finding unopened old yogurt in the trunk of my car 2 months after i brought it home and forgot to unload it), we often are left to scrounge.

this means that most nights jesse and i sit around in denial that we are actually hungry. we make the kids their meals as we get progressively hungrier. it's like, if we wait long enough and dont consciously address the issue, surely one of our parents will show up with a hot, well balanced dinner for us.

whatever you do, dont acknowledge the hunger. it will only lead to shame and frustration that all you have on hand is uncrustables (which i would gladly eat 5 of daily if not for that damned 1 hour thawing time), goldfish and delicious-looking hamburger helper boxes (which we cant make because WE DONT OWN HAMBURGER).

so we ignore it. and then, all of a sudden, the hunger is on my back, clawing at me like a feral lynx in heat. it usually manifests with a barely-suppressible urge to punch jesse dukes in the face for something as trivial as: wearing a flaccid-necked t-shirt, letting the bottom of his shoes touch ANY fiber of upholstery or bed linen in our home, or, god forbid, throwing an enclosed container into the sink (where it will sit for 3 days until i finally do the dishes, wherein, in a fit of domestic hubris, i will be flying through my chore and will endeavor to forcefully and ever so efficiently take the top of a sippy cup off, and will instead end up splashing curdled milk or mystery leftovers into my face, and most likely, my open mouth. cataclysm will ensue).

i deny the boiling hot punch-instinct and cast it away into its happy place: a veritable pandora's box where all of my unpunched punches, unhurled invective, and unrammed idiot drivers are kept. in a inaccessible and forgotten corner of my brain, this pulsing cube of repressed animal instinct pulses and waits; deactivated, but hungry. if science could harness the kilo-joules of potential energy contained in this nugget of pure rage-energy, we would have clean-burning fuel for all of mankind. i was a little afraid that when the castaways on LOST were poking around at the hatch that they had found the secret backdoor to this cache of destruction. dont worry, world, you are totally safe from my primal urges. as long as desmond keeps entering that code.

but we still need to eat. and it's no longer ignorable. we have now reached the event horizon where i know that, "if i dont have a zaxby's chicken finger in my mouth in 40 seconds, i am actually going to die." so this idyll of family life often concludes with a mad dash to some fast food place nearby.

case in point, this week week our dinner menu looked like this:

monday-roly poly picked up by jesse on his way home after my SOS text.

tuesday-chinese take-out, picked up by jesse after his guitar lessons went long and i was losing it at home.

wednesday- chinese take-out AGAIN because they messed up our order the night before and i wanted them to MAKE IT RIGHT. except the language barrier prevented this lesson in customer service, so we just paid them again.

thursday-mcdonald's on the way home because, shit, i NEED this.

so in an effort to NOT die of a diabetic heart-a-stroke at age 30, i decided enough was enough. so i sat down and menu planned for all of next week.

i got out my coupons, my publix flyer and my pinterest. i recently divided my food board up into several different boards for main dishes, sides, dessert and breakfast. so i just went on there and picked out some good-looking candidates and old favorites. it took all of 5 drooly minutes to select all 4 dinners for next week (friday night the kids are with my folks and its a giftcard date night!) and the leftovers will constitute many lunches for us as well since these recipes are for 4 adults.

i made up my shopping list and tweeted and instagrammed the mess out of that pic. hello, world! i am getting my life together!

if you want a better life, you need to be writing with these pens all the time. and 15 bonus stars to me for lining up my post-it lines with my legal pad lines unintentionally.

i know what you're thinking, the lady who cant pull it together enough to unscrew a sippy cup without baptizing herself in the unholy fount of spoiled chocolate milk and anger-lava is going to try to cook real food nightly? without the aid of a sidearm or a bottle of vodka?

yes, i am. i realize that this isnt anything to most humans. from what i hear, most moms cook dinner most nights of the week, even if they work outside of the home. if that is you, kudos. now please put down my thunder and step away from me. we dont even have a dinner table, so let's lower the ol' bar for keighty, eh?

i also realize that going from eating out every night of the week to cooking every night might be a tad extreme. hi, have you met me? i'm keight and i live in the extremes. i am working on improving that. but until then, i'd rather live in the extreme that has me ingesting green food and having regular bowel movements than the one where the doctor tries to draw my blood and all that comes out is MSG, processed cheese food and regret. can i get an amen?

so i will do this next week. i menu planned and shopped on the same day, so all the prep is done. now it's just opening the fridge, putting up the baby gate and getting to work BEFORE the starving hunger lynx crawls up my spine to take over the world. i picked easy but really delicious recipes that either jesse or i can do and which called for a lot of ingredients that i already had on hand (because mama is NOT paying $5 for a "pinch" of saffron, ina).

i hope this goes well. our habit is to go on kicks and then fall off the wagon, but maybe somehow one or two nights a week will hang on and become routine. otherwise, i fully expect bob harper to come rappelling through my sunroof during my next routine visit to the krystal drive through.

does anyone else SUCK at this planning ahead stuff? am i like a 67 inch tall human baby for making this little thing a "goal?" is anyone else a slave to takeout? anybody want to do this with me?

i will try to post reviews and pics of each of the recipes. but i know that even the new ones are going to be good. because, hello? i picked them, and i am spiritually equipped to pick food that i will love.

escape from witch(ing) mountain hour

2012-01-24T13:45:00.005-05:00

was that title a stretch? i dont care.

last week we had to escape from the hours of indoor living room mania that comprise most of our pre-bedtime evenings these days, so we bustled ourselves off to the park and the library. since it was supposed to rain and close to nightfall, we had the place to ourselves.

the little tube speaker set tripped judah out big time. though i was 6 feet away from him and visible, he kept needing to tell me, "maaaah-me! mai at paygound!"

sassy pants wasnt too interested in going down slides. but she was all about walking up them and falling on her face repeatedly just to show us who was boss (answer: physics)

a few notes: 1. look at layla's badonk! 2. for the weather, i was overdressed and sweating and the kids were just right. 3. is this the first time i have posted a pic of the mai tei carrier that i made for layla when i was pregnant with her? i LOVE this thing and it is one of my greatest sewing achievements, 4. the ducks got a little aggressive at one point, and i lost my head completely and took off, yelling, "run, judah, RUN!!!!" with 90% serious panic.

put her on a spoon and just let me gulp her down.

hahaha. a kid + loud dora piped in his ear via headphones + a quiet library = HILARITY.

freaking little spazz goobers. they are PERFECTION!

OMG and last chance

2012-01-20T14:10:00.002-05:00

i feel like i am in way too deep.

right now jesse and i are preparing and writing for our talks this weekend at our college ministry's retreat where we are the speakers.

the retreat used to be held before christmas, but now it is always in january, so it is called "the retreat formerly known as the christmas retreat," or TRFKATCR for not-so-short.

but because this retreat focuses on relationships, dating, intimacy and marriage, it is usually referred to by the students as "the sex retreat." awesome. that title doesnt go a long way towards convincing people that this isnt some freaky cult.

anyway, i am really, really nervous about this. not about public speaking, but just about getting in the way of what jesus wants to say. we have been working on and praying about this all week. i am sleep deprived and emotionally gassed. i know that jesus uses idiots like me all the time to work his magic, so i am trying to just remember that and trust in it.

i dont know anything or have this junk figured out. i am JUST NOW realizing some of my mistakes and the lies that i have believed that have jacked up my trust in jesse and in jesus. that have ransacked intimacy in all of my relationships. all i have to offer is my story, which is mine and i cant mess up, but it's still a scary thing to offer up.

anyway, if you are the praying type, could you throw up some love for me and jesse. that we will say what god wants those kids to hear, that we will shut up when we need to and that the holy spirit will show up in a big way to work in these awesome students' lives?

thanks.

----------------------------------------------

and in way more lighthearted news:

hear me now!

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judahpdate

2012-01-19T12:34:00.001-05:00

our camera is back from being repaired (for free, thanks to my threats).

so you know what that means...more poorly-composed, ineptly edited photos that are super high-res! i know we can all breathe a sigh of relief now that we're back to that standard.

i wanted to get a picture of the still-groggy layla. i opened the door because our house gets NO LIGHT and because i like the door. i ended up with a bunch of cute shots of lady blue eyes, but this one gave the unintended bonus of some judah hijinks.

he is prancing in glee and his jugular is bulging with a dose of testosterone because he spotted, driving by the house just then, a "BIG DUM TRUHCK!"

this kid has become SO. MUCH. FUN. i can pinpoint almost the exact moment that the switch flipped between needy, boundary-testing, baby boy and awesome, fun kid. it was right at his half birthday. evidently 2.5 is his magic number.

at 2.5 he became fully potty trained. i should note for posterity's sake: we stopped putting him in a pullup at night because he woke up with them dry so many times. in a month of this, he has peed in the bed only twice, waking us up to tell us, "mai have peepee be ewry way-urh."

at 2.5 he stopped the egregious daddy-preferring and started seeing the awesomeness that is mommy. this has been HUGE and only with the grace of god (like, literally and blindly begging for it in the moments of brutal rejection) was i able to get through that period with a smile and some creative distractions that didnt give him REAL reasons to like me less.

after jesse reads him a story, prays with him and sings a song (she'll be coming round the mountain is his new favorite. it has supplanted the song that jesse wrote especially for him before he was born. great taste, judah. sheesh), he demands, "mommy come sing me superman song." if it takes me longer than 5 seconds to get back to his room, he comes to the door and calls down the hall, "mommy, come snuggle me!" obviously, i wait longer every time just so i can hear this. i come running down the hall saying, "you better get in that bed!" and he goes wild and capers off, throwing himself back in bed (i assume he has perfect baby night-vision, because i cant see squat when i enter the room, yet he has never once missed the opening on the side of his bed where the rail isnt).

i say, "what should we do now?" as we burrow under the blanket.

judah: "seeng superman song"

me: "oh, how does that one start?"

judah: "draaaaagon tay-uhls"

me: "then what?"

judah: " water be WIIIIIIDE"

me: "and then?"

judah: "pie-ruhts say-uhl"

me: "and then?"

judah: "loss boys FIIIIIE!"

and then i proceed to butcher that amazing song. judah doesnt mind. he sometimes sings along, catching the last syllable of each verse or so. sometimes he will be totally silent and then just pop in for one word in the last verse or something. these lyrical ambushes are amazing.

after the song is over, i say, "what should we do now?" and he usually says "snuggle me," or sometimes, "mommy pray." if i ask what we should pray for he ALWAYS says "junky moes," first. he means monkey joes, the bounce house play place. this is first among his many blessings.

then i tell him that i am going bye bye. for awhile this was hard and he would cry or beg me to stay and snuggle more. this was like water in the desert for me and i ended up staying for LONG times and he would still cry and cry when i left and it was not fun.

now i ask him the same thing that i ask when i get ready to leave him at church or with a babysitter:

me: "are you going to cry?"

judah: "NOOOOO"

me: "why not?"

judah: "mai braveheart."

this started because as i saw him starting to get scared about being left for church i would tell him that he didnt have to spend time crying because he was going to have fun and that i would always come back and get him. i told him that he was braveheart and that he didnt have anything to fear because jesus would protect his heart. (obviously we never suppress his tears or discourage crying when he is sad, our little routine just turned into this series of back and forth questions and answers over time).

hearing him say "mai braveheart," is awesome on many levels. 1: because it is the toddler version of one of my favorite michael scott quotes. 2: because its adorable hearing a two year old, who is on the verge of crying for his mommy declare that he is braveheart. 3: because it sounds like he is saying "my big fart."

then i tuck him in "snug as a little red judah-bug in a rug," which cracks him up every time, and i say, "i love you judah," and he says, "lobe you mommy," and i walk out of there floating on a glowing hovercraft of uterus because, damn, being a mom is good at times like this.

also at 2.5 he started wanting to help with little tasks, like loading the washing machine (though you have to watch him as he doesnt differentiate between the washer and dryer and sometimes i have found his little skid-marked undies stuffed in with a load of clean clothes in the dryer), throwing things away, cleaning up his toys, putting his lunchbox and book bag on their hooks every day when we get home.

the best was the other night. we were eating dinner in the living room (like you do) and i needed some ketchup. for my own meal. i was feeling so lazy and not wanting to get up, so on a lark, i asked judah to go open the fridge and look in the door for the ketchup and bring it to me. the little sprite was back 10 seconds later, ketchup in hand. embarrassingly, the first thing i thought was, "YES! my own little butler robot! like R2D2 was enlisted to be on jabba's sail barge!" i realize i am jabba the hutt in this scenario, but who cares, yall? i have a free condiment concierge to do my bidding! ...until he foments rebellion and deploys a lightsaber to arm my jedi captive.

dont get me wrong, he still pitches fits and tests boundaries like every two year old, but the fun, hilarious, rewarding stuff is really starting to outweigh the cruddy soul-sucking parts of bringing up a human cub.

a few more fun judah-isms that wont last forever but that i want to remember forever:

-he calls band-aids, "bandaddies." we are pretty sure this is in reference to grandaddy, jesse's dad. it pretty cute that when he gets a boo-boo he asks for bandaddies.

-he just started saying NOPE instead of no. it's way cuter because he doesnt use it with the same situational finesse that an adult would, so it gives an air of aw-shucks ness to his responses. "judah, do you need to go potty?" "nope!" "judah, can i have a kiss?" "nope!" or while playing sardines at his cousins house, every time i took him into a new room to search (all the lights off, per the rules) for the hiding sophie and jesse, i would say, "are they in the closet?" and before i could take a step towards the door he'd pipe, "nope!" every time. i think the dark was making him uneasy in a new house, but the insta-nopes were so funny. he was so sure of where they weren't.

-in the middle of playing or watching TV he will just say, "snuggle me daddy," or "hug me mommy," in the cutest little love bug voice. these guerrilla love assaults are fantastic.

-the kid HATES wearing pants (see above photo). within 20 minutes of going in someone's house (i have only witnessed this at family member's houses, they say it doesnt happen at school) he starts pulling his jeans off or telling us that he wants to take his pants off (he barely makes it through the door at home before they come off). when he did it at home, i thought it was just because i hardly ever wear pants either and he was modelling my awesome habit. but lately, he doesnt care if he's the only semi-denuded person in the house and everyone else is happily pants-ed, his pants must come off. when we're with family, we always let him do it because, who cares, really? and seriously, the little bum and legs in the big boy underpants is the cutest thing ever.

-he knows what red lights and green lights mean. he is my traffic enforcer. if i am coming to a stop at a red light behind other cars, he will say, "stop, mommy, stop," to make sure i know that i dont need to be moving at ALL if there is a red light in sight. if you ask him what a yellow light means he says, "evybody BE careful!"

-chickfila = "chicken a lay"

-he likes to pick up one of layla's paci's and tell me he is a baby. he has never been a paci kid, so this is pretty cute to me. he will climb up in my lap and declare himself a "paci baby," and ask for "a ba-ba of milk." its weird and adorable.

-if he's cold, he will ask for dragon breath. this is where we blow hot air on his neck which tickles him wildly. is we are walking outside and it's cold and i am carrying him he will demand, "mommy, snuggle me warm" and we squeeze each other so tight.

-i cant remember if i have mentioned this before but he calls carbonated drinks, "sugar bubbles." i dont know where he got that or if he made it up himself, but it's kind of right on.

-for some reason, this memory has always stuck with me. when i was about 9, i overheard my older cousins listening to the radio. tom cochran's "life is a highway," was playing. one of my cousins told the other about how her boyfriend's little 2 year old sister loved that song and could sing all of the words and how hilarious and cool that was. i remember deciding, "that will now be my favorite song,." right then and there (was i jealous of the little kid that my cousins thought were cool? i dont know).

a few weeks later i won some contest at a skating party (fastest lap? best umbros?) and the prize was a giftcard to a CD store (if youre from atlanta, it was actually a coin worth $20 at the record store, turtle's...blast from the PAST), and i bought the tom cochran CD: the first ever CD that i bought for myself (i had been given amy grant's white christmas inside of my boom box from santa that year and had scored my beloved "free willy" soundtrack for my birthday (hold me, like the river jordan! so i had those two already). anyway, this became my all-time favorite song. i always requested it at school dances, barmitzvah's and weddings, despite it being an awful song for dancing to. that being said, when cars came out, rascal flatt's did a remake of the song for the movie. since judah loves that movie with a burning passion, i wondered if he would like any of the songs in it. yes he does and the ONLY one he even notices or likes is life is a highway. whenever we are in the car he says, "play lighten song!" (lightning is "lighten a-queen" to judah). or he will bust out singing it while he is playing at home. it's so cool to have him love the same song that i always have AND to have become the 2 year old from my cousin's story who knows all the words to that song.

-he is such a great big brother to layla. he gets so excited when he hears her crying as she wakes up from a nap, "dat cootie pah be wake. mai wanna go and get her." if she is crying in the car he first informs us, "layla be loooooowd," and then says, "dat-dat's okay layla. be happy, layla." of course he also steals toys from her, body slams her and tells her that certain things are "jus for big kids!" but by and large, he seems really tuned into her feelings and wants her to be included in everything we do.

-he is getting such a great imagination and starting to lead creative playtime. he will radio in to me as buzz lightyear saying, "come in star command!" and i radio back as star command, deploying him to some far off sector to search for the evil emperor zurg. he will go, "zurg be in tree. zurg be up dat one? nope! zurg be up dat one? yeah!" he always finds zurg in the second tree. sometimes with jumpy squirrel from curious george.

okay, that turned long. but i am just overflowing with awe at the explosion of development and learning that is happening in this stage. at least 5 times a week i am overcome with how cool and fun and sweet and weird this little kid is and how i am so happy that the sperm that made him was the one that won the race, and that i get to be his mom. i have never been tempted to want to freeze time and keep my kids at any age so far (except for when i was postpartum nutso and said i wanted a newborn forever), but this period is approaching that level of awesome with judah. one day the armpits that i tickle now will be hairy and smelly and he will have a deep voice that pronounces all the words correctly, and snuggling me under the covers wont be so kosher. so the knowledge that those days are coming and there IS an expiration date on all of these little moments and scenes makes me want to linger here as long as possible.

where's the pause button?

weekly pinspiration: rack it like BEKVÄM

2012-01-18T09:36:00.000-05:00

according to my pinterest butler robot, i pinned this idea 24 weeks ago to my "organization" board.

some genius (and geniuses abound on pinterest) figured out that a $4 BEKVAM wooden spice rack from IKEA (aka the promised land) would make an excellent way to store all of those kids' books that we love to read but loathe to keep on a shelf where the kids cant read the spines, and therefore solve that issue by ransacking every book onto the floor, where the covers are much more visible.

source

we were so bouty-bout this solution. we return unto our swedish mothership's bosom about once a month, so the next time we were there we went to buy a few. alas, some other intrepid pinner had bought them all, despite my sprinting, UPSTREAM, through IKEA on a saturday to make them my own (re: an athletic and spiritual endeavor or olympic heights).

so a few weeks later, we were back in the city and finally got our hands on 4 of these.

they sat in our garage for a good, long while, taunting me with their incompleteness. then, castaway on the doldrums of the holidays (no childcare! nothing open! nowhere to go!) jesse and i finally snapped and went on a reorganization frenzy in our living room (which is also dining room, play room, and certified rumpus room--wanna see my certificate of rumpification?).

while jesse excuted my brilliant idea of turning our IKEA expedit 2X4 bookshelf on its end to reclaim to precious floor space, i headed outside to spray paint the spice racks.

a few drywall anchors and some geometry later and we had quite the library in a previously unused corner of the room, a freed up shelf where they used to reside, and happy kids who could judge many books by their covers, like we have tried so hard to teach them to do. ah, life lessons.

i was surprised by how many books could fit on each shelf while still being a really low-profile setup.

the whole she-bang hides behind the front door.

aside: i realize this is ridiculous if you live in a world where you have enough rooms and space for all of your living. we dont. so as long as we are in this tiny house that we feel like we are outgrowing daily, we have decided to make the best of it. we arent entering any design contests or even trying to sell our house (right now) to normal humans who prefer to eat at a table or NOT store their cardamom behind the front door. as such, we are customizing this bee-yatch for our needs so that we don't all lose our minds and go on a nerf-shooting spree through the neighborhood. amen.

the view from the opposite corner.

i love it. and i have gone ahead and invested in a kiddie pool full of spackle for all of the holes in the walls that we are going to need to fill in if we ever do unload this tiny house of ours.

pin on , mes amies!!

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giveaway winners

2012-01-13T10:57:00.008-05:00

thanks to everyone who entered the sponsor giveaways. and thanks to the wonderful ashley and beth for making and be willing to give away some of their shops' delicious wonders.

dont forget to use your discounts all week for great savings in these shops (details at the bottom)

on to the winners!

first up was a $15 store credit to 19elephants:

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the winner of any item from the poppy chain boutique:

comment #20:

congrats to a. leo and raechel. yall shoot me an email and will get you in touch with your prizemakers!

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restoring my heart

2012-01-12T13:34:00.002-05:00

last night i went to the first meeting of a group i swore i would never set foot in. the first of 17 meetings.

jesus is quite the practical joker. if i ever swear i wont do something, it's pretty much guaranteed that in the next few years, he will take a bulldozer straight through that promise, with me chained to the front scooper gizmo, screaming all the way. and then it will turn out to have been a heaping spoonful of blessing-pants.

2003: "i will NEVER set foot in that campus ministry. they are a cult." a few weeks later, i step in because the athletic association cafeteria is closed and CCF has free chili and i am hungry and lazy. a few months later, i am going every week. a few weeks later i meet my husband inside that building. a few more months and i am baptized by the campus minister. the following year i am working full time and living in the house. as alumni, we now give a large amount of money every month to keep this "cult" running, pray daily that our kids will find a community like it when they get older, and next weekend jesse and i are going to one of their retreats to be the speakers.

good one, emmanuel.

2004: "i am glad he's my friend but i will NEVER date jesse dukes. he's so hairy and i think i saw a neck zit." yall know how that one turned out. homie is the hottest thing inside and out that i have ever set eyes on, and i do ~~bad~~ awesome things to him on the regular.

LOL, jehova.

so i should have known that when i said to my in-laws, "ew, i will NEVER take a restoring your heart group. i'm a hippie jesus chick and dont like binders and programs and i would NEVER spill my guts to a bunch of lady-strangers," that i was essentially saying, "giving me my name tag and my spiral-bound study guide, i'm IN!"

my father in law has worked for over 30 years building his ministry, alongside a few other men, from the ground up. today, they have lots of branches and programs and employees (who raise their own salaries through donations like missionaries) that do a lot of different things (jesse is on staff with them), but their singular goal is building disciples for jesus. hooray, i am all about that. but when he started dropping acronyms and saying "that's a phase 3 principle", he lost me: mental boner deflation.

you should know that i love my father in law (bob) DEARLY, admire most everything about him and respect him more than i can convey. i have probably learned more about jesus from him and my mother in law, linda, than i have from any other 2 people. back when i was doing my failed "top 10 of the oh-oh's countdown," the top ten things/moments of the decade, (here are #10 and #9, the only ones i ever did), the family i married into was slated for #4, behind only jesus, jesse and judah.

because i love him and being around him so much, i was like, "bob, you dont need a binder and boring chapters and abbreviations for how to be more like jesus! just teach people to live like you." and i was all high and mighty because the delivery system wasn't my style that i was willing to miss the entire message. classic keight and totally immature. i'm sure i hurt him by sort of writing off his life's work, but i wasnt against it, i just thought it wasn't right for me.

so a few years back, when they introduced a new program in their ministry, called "restoring your heart," i, of course, heard about it. it was developed using biblical principals, by a licensed counselor, with the aim of discovering where you have been wounded, how those wounds have affected, and still affect you and then grieving those wounds, and beginning to heal from them.

i thought, that sounds great, i'm sure lots of people who had shitty childhoods will really benefit from that. but again, not for me. i dont have any huge, glaring baggage that i felt like i was still carrying around. i have never been abused, havent dealt with addiction, never dealt with death or abandonment...none of the big headliner issues. i figured, nothing that bad ever really happened to me, so any issues i have are of my own doing.

both of the dukes went through a group and talked about how amazing it was for them. i believed them. they never forced anything on me or tried to talk me into doing a group. but it came up a lot because i would inevitably ask them for advice on marriage or relationships or parenting and how they had learned hings, and they would come back again and again to, "i never realized it about myself until i did the restoring your heart group but...."

a few other couples we know have been through the groups (boys and girls are in separate but parallel groups) and have raved about the results. like: every, single one goes on and on about how much it has changed their lives. how much it sucks at first, but then what freedom and wisdom comes from it.

i started to think more about it. but i always came back to, "no, i really dont have any wounds that i havent already healed from."

all this has been playing out over the past 4 years. we have dealt with marriage issues, becoming parents, having conflict with friends and family and trying to think about how we want to raise our kids. lots of these issues seem to repeat themselves: jesse and i having the same types of fights again and again, me losing my cool at judah over the same stupid triggers, getting into misunderstanding with friends because i feel devalued. these sorts of patterns made me start wondering.

one night last month we called the dukes over for an SOS emergency marriage counseling session. after a few hours of talking through things and them asking questions, it finally hit me that i do a lot of the things that cause me and jesse and my kids pain (and will continue to) because i am wounded. not in any lifetime original movie kind of way, but just in a way that screams, "oh hey, this is a fallen world and sin and lies are everywhere and they are all over you. didnt you know?"

i came to the conclusion that while growing up i interpreted and received what i thought was truth the only ways i knew how. in the process i was told, perceived, believed and reacted to many lies. lies about who i am. lies about who jesus is. lies about how god loves me. lies about shame and worth and safety.

it is really important to note here that there isnt a human bad guy in this story. it's not like my parents or a bully or a teacher ever outright lied to me on purpose to hurt me. and even though, sadly, that can sometimes be the case that people lie to and hurt us intentionally, we have to remember that they are victims of a broken world too. the only person whose entire identity is that of a liar is satan. he is where all of this shit comes from and it gives him amazing amounts of joy when he can convince us to swallow them.

every single one of us is a limping, burned, disfigured product of these lies. in the process we bang around hurting each other, even if we want only the best for and to love one another.

so in the process of growing up, and with the mind of a child, i interpreted false messages that wounded me. that taught me unhealthy patterns and unwise reactions. as kids we are constantly being passively programmed: taking what we see and hear and experience and feel and instantly interpreting it, with no conscious thought--with our tiny minds--into the worldview from which we will operate for the rest of our lives.

so, yes, a 3 year old programmed the brain from which 80% of my thoughts, assumptions and decision originate. awesome! that really explains so much.

satan is a crafty asswipe and he hurts us the most subtly as children, when we are too immature and unlearned to put words to the hurtful things and feelings that we come across. these unnamed things get cemented into our heads as "just the way things are" or "normal," or, "truth," and by the time we are old enough to "know better" (no, my dad didnt love me less because he worked all the time, or no, my mom didnt think i was stupid because she encouraged me to do better in school, or no i am not worthless because some bully kid singled me out), it doesnt matter because the fallout from those unspoken lies has already tangled itself around so much of our operating system that it has become our truth, even if we "know better" in our conscious minds.

i would say the easiest people to hate in this life are those that target and harm children. well, the devil is the king of child predators and he started working on us from infancy. he has planted sneaky and evil lies in the hearts and minds of the smallest souls that never even knew they were in a war or had an enemy. it is disgusting and evil to the core. satan's lies seek to harm us in the only lasting way that we can be hurt: by tearing us away from the truth of how much jesus loves us. it's his only weapon and he wields it with impunity and skill.

it's hard to imagine any damage being worse than what we read about in the papers or see on the news about the horrible and rare things that can happen to children, but i am realizing that every single one of us has been the victim of an even worse abuse: trying to have our hearts and minds stolen away from and twisted against our most perfect heavenly father.

and the sneakiest part is that these acts committed against us leave no outward signs, and the victims and eyewitnesses to them don't even know they have even occurred. let me say it very clearly: satan is a disgusting, malicious piece of garbage and is the only one who hurts us with full knowledge of what he is doing to us and why he is doing it. he isnt acting out of his own woundedness; he is acting purely out of his identity as a predator who wants to destroy us.

i was always afraid to talk about my "stuff" because mine "isnt that bad." i was afraid of looking like a pampered little complainer next to others who have suffered in more external or obvious ways. but you know what? i am just realizing that that's a lie too. everybody has their own stuff and by saying someone else's is better or worse than mine, i am attempting to judge whats good and what's evil based on some scale that my brain came up with. i seem to remember that doing that exact same thing didnt work out so well for all of us when adam and eve first tried it out in the garden. and you know who was right there telling them to do it? plot twist! it was the devil there too.

i now hate the little saying, "if we all put out troubles in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd want to grab ours right back out again." we are ALL living in a broken world and have been poisoned by it. every single one of us lost. no one wins this contest of "who's got it roughest/easiest?" because they have the "least" or "smallest" mess. it's not an objective scale. we are all walking around with the same score: me-0, satan-1.

just like you cant compare your physical pain to someone else's because you CANT FEEL THEIRS, we can't do that with emotional pain either. what wounded me is what wounded me and that's all i have any control over or firsthand knowledge of. end of story.

so i am done keeping my junk in the darkness. that's what satan wants anyway. for me to feel like i am a freak or that i am alone in feeling this way, or that i am lucky and didnt really get hurt. that's not truth and that's not jesus. there is no shame in christ. he would never turn me away and say, "shut up, that memory of being humiliated in 8th grade was nothing; try having nails through your hands." he is ever-comforting, always gentle, and wants to be with me FOREVER. there is nothing in my heart that he would ever dismiss or write off.

so i will be going through this class for 17 weeks with 6 other women, all strangers, led by another woman who has been trained by the people who wrote the program. i am have committed to a serious covenant of confidentiality about the things i hear during our group about the other women's stories, but i do want to share my own personal walk through this process in a public way a little bit in case any one else has ever thought there stuff was too big, too small, too ugly, too messed up or too anything to not address.

my goals: to stop some of the cycles of unhealthy behavior and recurring wounds that i exhibit, receive and inflict by discovering the lies and hurt that i developed these behaviors in response to. that sounded fancy. here's what i really mean: to figure my junk out before i pass it on to anyone else or make it worse for myself. to walk more like christ.

the thing that finally won me over was hearing my inlaws get emotional saying how much they would give to have gone back and done this before they had kids. they would pay thousands of dollars to have known what their owns wounds were so they could catch themselves in the moment of acting out of those wounds and hurting their kids as they were raising them. their gown children are already benefiting greatly from having more healthy and self aware parents, but stopping the cycle for the next generation BEFORE the many of the wounds and lies are cemented in childhood is an invaluable opportunity that i couldnt spit in the face of.

dear jesus, i already know what it feels like to have wounded my kids due to my own issues. i refuse to do that anymore out of my ignorance. will i still wound them? inevitably and tragically, yes. but i will have this stuff in the light, before my eyes and turned over to jesus, so its insidious power is lost. i might not ever get the cure on this side of heaven, but just knowing my diagnosis and what the symptoms of my wounds are will go a huge way toward breaking the cycle of their power to cause even more hurt.

i am so ready to start the painstaking process of asking the questions that lead me back down the tangled paths of emotional unhealthiness and identify where the stupid, backward messages started. to call out the lie and deny the liar. to claim the freedom that we have all been promised by the one who is truth. to trade in my scorecard of k8-0, devil-1, and redeem the inheritance that i was ransomed to: jesus-a billionty googzillion for ever eternity, satan-jack shit.

bring on my sprial-bound binder of class materials! i dont expect this to be easy. i dont expect it to be fun or solve all of my problems. i do fully expect jesus to show up and hold my hand and start turning the pixels of my heart one by one over to the truth side. it's what he does, when we let go and let him, and he's kind of undefeated at it.

here we go.

january sponsor & giveaway: poppy chain boutique

2012-01-11T11:07:00.003-05:00

i am thrilled to be showing off my first ever sponsors today and giving away some goodies from them. be sure to check out both sponsor posts and enter both giveaways!

the poppy chain boutique on etsy

the poppy chain boutique is jam packed with colorful, handmade, vintage inspired accessories. the brains and hands behind the operation is my friend (and running teammate) ashley, and girl can turn out some drool-worthy jewelry at great prices.

i have a pair of her mum earrings in red and a large carnation pendant in emerald. i wear them all the time and constantly get compliments.

things i am lusting over now from her include and are not limited to:

summer evening bouquet bobby set which i am aware that i could never pull off, but i girl can dream.

clementine baby rose earrings. hello spring and summer, peeping out of my earlobes!

midnight full rose necklace. arg! i want this so bad!

ashley loves custom orders, an is always willing to try to whip up a color or style that you might not see listed. she also ROCKS on presentation. when i got my necklace from her, it was like christmas at rivendell because only an immortal an beautiful elf could have made such a lovely parcel (yes, that was a raging LOTR reference).

THE GIVEAWAY: any item of your choice from the poppy chain boutique etsy shop

to enter (required): leave a comment on this post saying which item you'd pick if you won

additional entries (separate comment saying you did so for each):

-be/become a follower here

-favorite the poppy chain boutique etsy shop

-be a follower of ashley's blog

so that's a total of 4 possible comment for 4 entries. i will announce the winner on friday morning.

DISCOUNT: from now until NEXT friday, the 20th, everyone who enters KEIGHT20 at checkout will receive 20% off their entire order at the poppy chain boutique.

is it tacky if i use the code too? i dont care! you know opium comes from poppies, so i am blaming them for my addiction.

go, shop, enter, favorite, follow, win, prosper!

january sponsor & giveaway: 19elephants

2012-01-11T11:06:00.005-05:00

i am thrilled to be showing off my first ever sponsors today and giving away some goodies from them. be sure to check out both sponsor posts and enter both giveaways!

19elephants on etsy

19elephants is a shop full of handmade deliciocity. it is run by beth, and sister is a jack of all trades. she is rocking the sewing, crocheting, hairbows and more. all at really great prices.

there is SO much variety in the things beth can make--and make WELL--, from scarves for me to lunchbags for the kids to a beanie hat that i am pretty sure jesse would look mega-fine in.

here are just a few of the things i would go bananas for (for reals, the variety of things in there is amazing) if i had my very own 19elephants shopping spree:

the crochet cowl with flower pin. seriously. i must have this. comes in lots of colors, but i love this oatmeal shade already.

no fancy lady tying of the scarf to make it look cool: it just sits there and is awesome all by itself. and i would use the removable flower pin (in my choice of color...i choose gray!) like a red light green light scenario. if i have the flower on, i'm feeling friendly and want to make new buddies, but then when i take it off i am cool and unapproachable. that's totally how it works, guys.

a set of 10 no-slip hairbows.

so help me, layla *almost* has enough "business in the front," to necessitate a bow and balance out her "party in the back" baby mullet. one of these adorable litte accents would make her terminator assaults even more darling. plus, people would know she's a girl when we dress he in judah's old sneakers and shirts. bonus!

crocodile hand puppet

this thing would give judah so much joy, running around, roaring (do crocodiles roar?) and taking big chomps out of everyone. i love his big googlie eyes and shiny white grill (the puppets that is...and judah's too). the fact that this is a hand made and not mass-produced toy would satisfy the hippie mother in me that would come out if only i fed her some quinoa.

GIVEAWAY: $15 store credit to the 19elephants etsy shop

to enter (required): leave a comment on this post saying which item(s) you'd use your winnings on

additional entries (separate comment saying you did so for each):

-be/become a follower here

-favorite 19elephants etsy shop

so that's a total of 3 possible comment for 3 entries. i will announce the winner on friday morning.

DISCOUNT: from now until next friday, january 20th, everyone who enters DUKES15 at checkout, will receive 15% off their entire order at 19elephants.

good luck! and you'd better hustle if you want to beat me to that cowl!

lemolay'ed

2012-01-10T13:14:00.004-05:00

i love layla. she make my heart fuzzy and cockles warm. but this kid is a smart little punk.

while she is just starting to sometimes drink the same watered-down juice that we let judah have, layla mostly gets milk only. i am pretty certain she has never been given full strength juice.

so you'd better believe i dont let her have full strength lemonade from chickfila. that mess is high octane. i used to work at the chick, and i know that the lemonade is real and full of straight up lemons. that mess is strong and acidic. if i was on juicing detail, my hangnails would be singing for hours afterward as the corrosive lemon molecules found their way past my outermost armor of epidermis.

while it is highly delicious and we let judah drink it on special occaisions, (holidays, birthdays, tuesdays, bribes) i havent let layla have any because its pH is so low that i am afraid of torching her still-new, pampered, litte baby GI tract. we gave judah juice too strong, too fast and it gave him bad diarrhea and diaper rash.

she knows she can't have it and therefore she comes after it with an unholy vengeance. this is the same way she feels about jesse's thermos of scalding hot coffee and any beer bottle within 2 miles of her.

she is the terminator. and is you dont move that junk about 3 feet further away from her than you *seem* to need to, she will destroy you.

so naturally the mastermind that she is, layla finally got ahold of some lemonade the other night when the perfect moment to hatch her nefarious scheme presented itself.

judah, jesse and layla were in the play area. judah had his kids cup of lemonade but jesse was in there with him preventing underaged drinking by layla. when jesse had to take judah to go to the potty, and the cup got left behind, she pounced. she knew i was all the way on the other side of the glass and couldnt stop her in time.

so i had a choice, go in and snatch it from her grasp or document her heist.

"ohhhh, what now, mama? it's just me and the cup right here, and you're all the way over there!"

she toddled over to the steps and set it down so she could put her back into enjoying it right in front of me. i am just thinking of the diaper scorch that this is going to cause her

"just want to make sure you could see my face here...drinking the lemonade"

and then an unsportsmanlike victory run at the glass to try to intimidate me into buying her some starbucks and corona. it didnt work...but only because i knew the glass would keep me safe.

she is a terminator, yall, and will eat your face off with slobber kisses and roars.

a must-pin

2012-01-05T16:17:00.002-05:00

i think this was my first ever food pin:

ham and cheese melt sliders

source

i got it from my friend raechel because i thought it was what she had served at a party we attended at her house. it turns out that she had used another, delicious recipe, so my fervor to make these was lessened because they werent exactly what i had chowed down on at the party. but they still looked yum, so they stayed pinned, untried, and lonely.

but over the holidays i found myself at the store, in need of a special, easy, yummy lunch one day. so i pulled up this pin and made it our meal destiny.

best. move. ever.

these freaking things were SO SO SO SO good. the dressing/topping/sauce stuff that goes over the top is something i could (and did) lick off a plate. and my finger. and off of judah when some dripped on his bare shoulder.

the chick's recipe is fabulous, but i made a few changes over the course of making these THREE TIMES IN ONE WEEK:

1-only make a dozen at a time. these are best when fresh, and you really shouldnt need 24 unless youre making for a party or big group. (so youre going to halve her recipe for 12). with all 4 of us chowing on these, we still had a a few left over each time.

2- use king's hawaiian sweet rolls, in the orange bags. i have always scoffed at these, but they were on sale in the deli and i am SO glad i used them instead of plain white rolls. the sweetness was crucial and worked perfectly, and the way they are packaged made things easier.

3- dont do each roll at a time. dont even pull apart the rolls. take them out of the package still stuck together. take a bread knife and saw horizontally through all of the rolls (i am awful at this and always end up going too low or too high, but it matters not, just try to keep the knife in the vertical center of the bread bunch).

now you have two big bread slabs: topsies and bottomsies, made up of 12 roll-parts each.

it is a millionty times easier to assemble the sandwiches as one huge one like this instead of doing the same tiny steps 12 times over.

you spread your mayo (i skipped the miracle whip and just eye-balled a thin layer of mayo on both sides), and then lay down a layer of about 4 swiss cheese slices. no need to make tiny ones, just make sure every bread section is covered. i did use exactly 12 thin slices of sweet deli ham, folding and draping the meat like a subway commercial stylist.

then you pull a william wallace and UNITE THE ~~CLANS~~ HALVES!!

one big sammie conglomerate

but since you blindly trust me, you know you are going to want to eat these as soon as they emerge from the oven and reach a temperature a few degrees below flesh-melting. and youre not going to want to mess with cutting them when its time to devour.

so grab a big knife and cut along all the bread seams to make individual rolls. just push straight down at each seam to keep your ham and cheese from sliding (like they would if you sawed).

12 very happy little guys. photo credit: one VERY drooly lady.

then you whip up the topping/liquid manna sauce. she says you can halve the amount (which would be quartering if youre making just 12) but DONT DO IT! make it all. this stuff is where it's at, yall, and you cant go wrong with the full amount.

we actually accidentally made the full amount of dressing indicated for 24 sandwiches and poured it over just 12. we were bordering on "too much of a good thing," but not actually occupying that space.

i also use more onions than the recipe called for because i like them and a tablespoon of chopped onion is practically nothing.

a 9x9 pyrex was perfect for 12 sandwiches. you do have to get aggressive forcing them in, but it's okay, let them get cozy and melty and smushy. then you pour the manna over them and pop in the oven as you attempt to wait for the cheese to melt before you dive in after them.

it really is hard to wait. they smell SO good while they are cooking, but you NEED melty cheese. it is crucial.

as you can see, this was our double sauce batch.

as i am writing this, my stomach is rising up in rebellion against my brain for making it look at these pictures and relive these memories of deliciousness.

glurg. the crappy phone picture does not do these justice. just trust me, and go eat 7 of these.

wardrobe malfunction

2012-01-04T12:12:00.013-05:00

i have an internet friend whom i really like a lot.

okay, so i love her. there, i said it. i actually ~~met~~ found (like a collector!) her through another of my hardcore lady-blogger crushes whom i found through a link on CNN!

if you're keeping score at home, this makes me a 3rd degree black belt in interwebbius freakstalkitude (one degree for making a friend through CNN, one more for poaching a friend off of her and then the final one for considering becoming a missionary, not because i felt called, but just to hang out with them in haiti. aaaaaand, scene).

she introduced me to chuy's creamy jalepeno dip and penned the most beautiful sentence i have ever read (about her hands' reaction to jalepeno oils leftover from cooking): "it felt like i dipped my hand in lava...like i had fondled the sun."

and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you make me love you.

it also doesnt hurt that she writes about jesus in a way that makes my prose look like something i fished out of layla's diaper. she is farking hilarious, authentic, inspiring, and passionate. and even though she is a mother of 4, she rocks one of those neon pink chicken head feather things (which i am so far from understanding that i just know it means she is cool).

anyhooooo, heather has just had some crazy changes go down in her family's life. while jesus is all up in this part of their story, it's still hard and sucky at times. she jokingly requested that i make her laugh daily for the next month. i intend to try.

so while i was thinking up a good laugh-inducer to start her month off with, i realized that this was a good story to share with the world because it makes me look completely stupid and awesome. here we go.

the year: 1997. the scene: my private high school. me: freshly turned 14 years old, in 9th grade and still violently prepubescent.

we wore uniforms at my school. all day every day: plaid or gray skirts and oxford shirts.

but 2 or 3 magical times a year we had OUT OF UNIFORM DAYS. these were a big deal. there was maybe one scheduled annually for no reason, but usually you had to donate a certain amount of money to some club or to the planet earth to be able to wear normal human clothes for a day. it was bald extortion, but we didnt care. we would have sold our own mothers to be able to wear jeans with our peers for 8 precious daylight weekday hours!

looking back, i can see why they were so rare. it was barely controlled pandemonium on out of uniform days. something about those uniforms must have kept us in a hive-mind trance of blind obedience, and when we got out of them (untucked shirttails! white socks! undershirts with writing!) we had semesters of wild defiance and rule-breaking to make up for. nothing got done on out of uniform days.

for a teenage girl, you had to be prepared. you'd better believe that my out of uniform day outfits were planned ahead of time and laid out in a perfect paper-doll like arrangement on my floor the night before. it seriously looked like i had gotten dressed, laid down spread-eagle on my back and then gotten raptured straight on to glory right out of my clothing, leaving my outfit in the exact formation that it would be in on a human, albeit deflated.

now i went to this private school only because my parents both worked there. they met while teaching there and got married at in the school chapel and both still work there. because of that, my brother and i got free admission from PK through graduation. one year of tuition to my high school costs more than an entire in-state college education plus room and board would cost for all 4 years.

i say this to emphasize that lots of my female peers were probably more financially equipped to really impress the masses on out of uniform days. they owned tons of clothes and all in the really cool brands.

me, not so much. i just didnt have a lot of street clothes. when i wasnt in uniform at school, i was in play clothes, sports attire or pj's. i really couldnt have cared less about fashion. but on out of uniform days, something changed in me. it was my red carpet and i needed to bring the populace to its knees in awe.

i would envision for myself a transformation akin to every teen movie where the "ugly" girl takes off her glasses, lets her ponytail down and is suddenly smoking hot. somehow, if i just got out of my navy uniform socks and shoes and into the right "makeover" outfit, the stars would align for me.

i kid you not: i would try on my out of uniform day outfits and practice slow-motion walking around the corner of my bathroom while shaking my hair as if it were blowing in the wind, just to get a picture of what it would be like the day all the boys jaws dropped. my own personal movie montage.

never mind that i was flat as a board, 5 foot nothing, and still looked like a 7 year old at this point.

i never had a chance: i started school a year early, so i was already behind physically, and then it turned out that i was a late bloomer AND being insanely active year-round probably staved off puberty for a few extra years as well.

i had learned this hard lesson 2 years prior, back in 7th grade. while under complete dominion of the testosterone tsunami that is so charming during the male formative years, the boys were all suddenly losing their minds over any girl with a b-cup or higher, and i had NOTHING, not even zits to herald the onset of womanhood. i was more likely to get diaper rash than my period.

while moxie, spunk and a precocious vocabulary may be timelessly charming to eunuchs, they dont hold much water for an adolescent boy when compared to a developed girl bouncing by in a skirt that was certainly not handbook-regulation length.

me as a teenager, in 8th grade, just a few months before high school. that gap in my teeth was from a baby tooth recently falling out. it is understandable why the guys wouldnt be drooling over me as a buxom hottie. it almost looks as if i have achieved negative boob space. ladies, and gentlemen, i have discovered antimatter.

by the time i finally flowered (please tell me you are cringing over that usage) and got my boobs (and 7 extra inches of height), it was 11th grade, and the mammary-craze was over (or at least dwindled...these are boys we're talking about). the fact that i missed the boat on that trend actually worked out well from a purity standpoint, but try telling that to teen-angst keight who just wanted to inspire one measly erection.

so in 9th grade, a few months prior to this fateful out of uniform day, i found the perfect shoes in a catalog. these were going to show what a super hot, cool, badass babe i was. i begged my mom to order them for me. i probably traded in my birthday and christmas gifts to ransom these boots for myself.

my first indication that i was on the wrong track should have been that this was an L.L. Bean catalog that i was shopping in. i think the only people turned on by chicks in L.L. Bean gear are hippies, Coloradoans and lesbians. all well and good, but not precisely my target demographic.

but i was blissfully ignorant at this point. while i waited for the mail to deliver my payload of teenage social domination, i meticulously crafted the rest of my outfit.

since my boots were sporty and outdoorsy, i kept with that theme. i found some olive green colored cargo pants in the back of my closet that my poor mother must have bought me at some point, and paired with them an AWESOME simple black fleece vest that was trimmed with white reflective material, like safety equipment, or road signs. it was a few sizes too small for me, and i told myself that it would give me some cleavage because of this. underneath the vest, i went with the classic sex symbol: the plain white turtleneck, which, incidentally, was approved as part of the school uniform in the colder months. score!

now, this post is about how stupid i am, but i will stand by the clothes of the outfit, come hell or high water.

the cargoes were close-fitting and not baggy. even the pockets didnt stick out--they were for fashion NOT for freight. the vest had a permanently popped collar which gave me a confident air and its reflective accents made sure that i was noticed, even in the foggiest of conditions. the white turtleneck is neither here nor there, but trust me, it worked. i opted for a high ponytail to complete the styling. (makeup and accessories were not "things i knew about" at this stage in my life).

finally the boots arrived. the box was HUGE and much heavier than i had expected. no matter. i tore right in. they were perfect! from their huge rounded, chunky toes, to their badass laces and ratchet clasps (that should have been my second hint that i was barking up the wrong fashion tree).

i tried them on. they were kind of hard to walk in, but i figured it was like i had always heard about high heels: you have to get used to walking in them, and once you do, you are totally hot. same idea.

the sensation of wearing shoes like this was somehow familiar but i couldnt place where i had felt it before.

i had to re-choreograph my bombshell strut due to the new gait that my boots forced me into. instead of shimmy, saunter, sway and knock the boys dead, it was now, more of clunk, stutter, boom. but i was nothing if not confident that these were my magic sex boots of destiny, and after the fit i had pitched to possess these treasures, i couldnt even contemplate that something might be amiss.

i lay in bed the night before the big day and listened to my matthew sweet CD. i had chosen one of his deep tracks as the theme music for my victory, the song was super baby. it was perfect, and in my head i was all the shimmery teenage perfection of a nubile young noxema model.

as i listened, the scene of myself at school the next day unfolded in my mind. i was walking down the hall to this song (somehow it would be broadcast over the intercom system at just the right moment, i knew) and the boys were losing their minds. some passed out, some stared blankly, knowing they would never be the same, and some embarrassingly used their textbooks to hide the involuntary, unstoppable pants-situations that just the sight of me was causing.

the long-awaited day arrived. i got dressed and headed to the bus. i vaguely remember someone on the bus asking me where i had gotten my boots and if i went snowboarding a lot. i fleeting stab of panic hit me and momentarily furrowed my brow, but i just figured it was because i looked so sporty and outdoorsy hot that they assumed i must be a cool snowboarder chick.

i got to school (for some reason, walking down the stairs off of the bus was really difficult for me) and readied myself for a whole new chapter of my life. keight vincent: commence hottie phase.

it wasnt until after 4th period when i went into the student lounge that i knew it was working. a few upperclassmen guys were obviously checking me out as i walked by. these were the hot guys who werent into team sports but were all about camping and rock climbing and extreme sports stuff. not bad for my first conquests, and naturally they would be the first to fall under the spell of my snow-bunny outfit.

the red flags finally caught up to me and sucker punched me right in the reflective zipper when the hottest of these guys came up to me (me thinking: "here he comes! it's finally happening!!!") and asked..... if i snowboarded.

i was thinking, "what the hell!?! why do people keep asking me that?" i told him that, no, i had been skiing out west 4 or 5 times, but never snowboarding. i was eager to move the conversation forward into more logical topics such as our first date and subsequent marriage.

then he goes, "ok, well, just so you know, those are totally snowboarding boots." and i was like, "well yeah, they are like what you put on after you get done snowboarding and are hanging around the lodge, looking all rosy-cheeked and awesome." he goes, "can you point your toe?" i gave it a whirl, and no, in fact, i could not point my toe. i couldnt move my ankle at all. it was locked in place. and he says, "yeah those are the boots you actually wear and strap into a snowboard with."

then it hits me where i had felt this sensation before: when i was skiing.

the stupid, robotic walk that those plastic-shelled ski boots force you into so that you dont break your ankle while skiing was the exact same way i had been walking around all day: heel-toe, heel-toe, clackity clack.

i saw my boots with new eyes. no wonder they were made by airwalk (the skateboarding/snowboarding gear company). no wonder they weighed about 5 lbs each. no wonder i could stand flat-footed on the ground and lean myself forward, straight as an arrow, to a 45-degree angle without tipping over. no wonder they felt like rollerblades with the wheels removed.

this the the exact model of the shoes i wore that day.

i was walking around my high school, in HOTlanta, georgia, rocking actual snowboarding boots as if i had just finished shredding powder (or, whatever) on the slopes. he couldnt have shocked me more if he had informed me that i was wearing actual skiis.

game over. shut it down. dream sequence ended.

luckily, i wasn't too mortified beyond that first face to face with the guy who told me what i actually had on my feet. though physically under-developed at this point, i was fairly socially agile and confident in my position as the funny chick who was friends with everyone. i knew i wouldnt be ostracized for this gaffe, but it still sucked a bit.

i got through the rest of the day by making fun of myself before anyone else could beat me to the punch, but i boiled with embarrassment on the inside every time i remembered how cool and hot i had thought i would be.

my coup had failed, my dreams of becoming a hottie icon had come crashing down all around me (luckily my feet were uninjured thanks to their armor). i regretted buying those boots for a long time after that and every time i saw them in my closet, my face burned with the stupidity of thinking i could ever be that girl in the teen movies.

but, like it always does--even if teenagers cant see it-- the passing of time changed my perspective on this little tale and on myself. for one, i went snowboarding twice after this and got to proudly and loudly tell the ski shop worker, "no boot rental for me! i brought my own."

and for two, i am so thankful that i was a late bloomer; awkward and largely unnoticed in any sexual way by boys when i was a teenager. i had not a clue at that point what i stood for or what my views on sex or dating or marriage were, and i inevitably would have gotten in way over my head for lack of a plan. as it were, i still ended up on the unfortunate side of that timeline in college, when i discovered non-sports bras, mascara and fake ID's, but had still yet to think about what i wanted my story to say and look like.

mostly, i just look back at that out of uniform day and laugh hard at myself. for how dumb i must have looked doing my robot walk from class to class and for the mental picture i simultaneously had about how hard i was rocking at life. ugh, you couldn't pay me to be a teenager again.

super baby, indeed.

97 cents, genders, flowers & winners

2012-01-03T14:05:00.007-05:00

my christmas present from jesse was installing a better organizational system for the sewing area. i cant wait to show you the before and afters. just a few more touches and decisions to make before i'm ready to stamp it fully after-ized.

with an empty etsy plate for the first time since september and a new year's holiday from work, i got to take my new area out for a spin with a quick project.

on a recent date night, jesse and i were trolling the clearance sections of old navy and i found this dress in just the right size for layla for this spring.

the pretty and bold print caught my eye, but then i was turned off by their random choices of long sleeves and a chunky bow--both in a blah pale yellow striped print--with the fun and bright dress design. they didnt seem to do anything for the overall look and were just boring and clunky to me.

but for that price, i can make this work.

now, i know you should NEVER buy something on sale that you wouldnt buy at full price, but that rule is for people who cant or wont take initiative and remodel clothes (or who dont think that's extra fun). i was willing to buy this dress ONLY because it was 97 cents because i knew that with some work, i could make it into something that i actually would pay more for. and enjoy myself in the process.

the long sleeves got a simple chop and then resew (to reinforce the seam that came loose when the sleeves came out). and then i seam-ripped the bow off and replaced it with a hand-made jersey flower to cover up the holes the bow had left and to add more fun and bold color. lucky me that i had the exact shade of deep magenta that was already in the print.

yes, our real camera is still being repaired. how could you tell?

the flower was tricky. i found two tutorials online and promptly pinned them. but after looking at one and finding it impossible to follow or replicate, and just not being completely in love with the other one, i made my own way and ended up with a happy flower of my own design that i am very pleased with, and which combined the best of both pins.

after practicing on a scrap of royal blue fabric, i made the red one for laylas dress and then attached that bad boy.

and when we as a planet get a little farther around the sun, this dress will be perfect for springtime sunshine frolicking. layla can hardly believe the transformation. i might even make the thing completely sleeveless for summertime.

and then judah got jealous. he wanted a flower on his shirt too.

now, i like to consider myself pretty progressive when it comes to parenting and gender roles. i LOVE the rare occasion when judah wants to feed layla's baby doll its bottle or when he asks to help me cook. if he likes something pink, we let him get it. we want the kids to know that there is nothing intrinsically masculine or feminine about any color or toy or interest. i know that--outside of our house, right or wrong--the world they grow up in will teach them that there are some cultural assumptions about girly or boyish things.

but 99% of the time, judah is an all-boy stereotype. stereotypes originate for a reason. the kid knew car and tractor noises before he knew english and has only ever had eyes for trains and superheroes when we are at the store. so i havent gotten to test my progressive parenting too much.

i will admit, recently we were at his grandparents' house and judah needed a pull-up to wear to bed. i was too lazy to go to the car and get his, so i put him in one of his cousin bella's old princess ones that was on their shelf. like, full color, all the disney princesses' pictures all over this thing. i told myself, it doesnt matter, it doesnt mean jack crap, it wont make him more feminine, or change anything about his preferences-- it will just catch his night pee. case closed.

but after about 10 minutes of watching him play in this pink travesty (and actually having to override his complaints about putting it on to begin with...which we have never gotten about diego or lightning mcqueen pullups) i couldnt do it anymore. i took it off and went and got the blue one from the car. so maybe i am just a filthy hypocrite.

so when he asked for a flower for his shirt, i was ready to try again and prove that i actually am open-minded and secure in my son's gender identity...whatever that may even be at this point. that flowers are cool no matter if you're a dude or a chick.

i just took the blue one i had been testing my method with and pinned it on his t-shirt.

he was thrilled.

and i was a little proud of myself when i took him out to run errands that night and he said he wanted to keep his "flower shirt" on. i let him rock that thing loud and proud. nobody said anything or looked at him weird that i could tell (but i wondered if the flower had been pink if they would have, or if i even would have let him wear it....this is stuff is tricky!).

i was secretly glad that he had a coat on at the playground because if anyone was going to say something, it would probably be a kid, and i would hate for judah to have been picked on or made to feel self-conscious.

i'm sure that this, the desire to spare your kids from pain, and not being simply closed-minded or controlling, is where the majority of parental bans on clothes or activities or colors or toys comes from. i guess it's just about finding the balance between letting the kids be who they are and not wanting them to become targets.

crap, this parenting stuff is complex.

to take our minds off of it, let's see who the winner of the caption contest was.

i got a kick out of all of your great submissions (layla as a flamenco dancer, as vanna white, and doing the robot, cha-cha slide or as a member of the happy hands club in particular all made me smile), but the TWO big winners i picked were these:

Tracy said..."Its a lesson in the importance of Unagi"

and

gldampier said..."Our next item up for grabs is a vintage tub as shown by the lovely Layla". "One dollar, Bob"!

tracy's won because it was reading my mind. i was totally on the karate wavelength when i looked at this picture, and then, she couldnt have known, but i have been watching friends reruns like crazy over the holidays, so this reference to the episode where ross tries to teach rachel and phoebe the self-defense mentality of "unagi" just slayed me.

and then gldampier's had to be another winner because it was totally an aspect of the pose that i hadnt thought of at all AND she managed to incorporate the huge antique tub in the background too. a perfect hilarious fit.

yall email me with what you want and what colors you'd like.

onward 2012!

pixelated gems..and a giveaway.

2011-12-30T12:50:00.003-05:00

while i was going through our most recent professional pics looking for good shots for the sidebar, i found so many that i had forgotten about and are amazing, hilarious or sweet and deserve some love too.

we took these back in october. it was about 90 degrees and we got annihilated by mosquitoes. thanks, georgia, love ya!

but thanks to brenna's sick talent, you would never know that we were sweaty, itchy, miserable and dealing with 2 screamy, sleepy, renegade munchkins, 90% of the time. she's good.

so glad we have this one. for a few weeks, she was doing this with her tongue ALL the time. but she never does it anymore.

um, are you kidding me? have no idea how we bribed him to do that.

i promise jesse is judahs dad, despite the opposite hair color, hair texture, and eye color.

they. love. him.

this one *almost* made the sidebar pic instead of the more composed one, just because it is SO us.

i think these are all actually grimaces

pause. forever.

judah is adorable. jesse is hot. it is known.

this looks like a movie poster to me!

so love this. even though the kids kind of look drugged/asleep.

oh, hello frame models. thanks for living in my house and being real people.

this child slays me

seriously? she is the best. prancing around doing some sort of touchdown dance and squealing all the while.

something about her face doesnt look like layle to me, but i know it is and the body language is SO her.

indignant and surprised.

lucky girl.

he's feeling great about himself and cant even stand it.

the chubby legs, the happy feet, the sprouty hair and the little prissy wave. she is everything.

and now, the giveaway.

a free custom key fob or burp cloth from my etsy shop to the best captioner of this, my favorite, photo of layla:

this wasnt even supposed to be a giveaway post when i started, but then i got to this pic, and so many ideas for funny captions came to me that i really wanted to hear all the hilarious possibilities that everyone else might have. so i am trying to bribe you for my own entertainment.

just leave a comment here with your best caption. feel free to leave a few if you want; it's quality, not quantity that makes a winner this time around.

we'll pick our favorite and announce the winner next week on monday or tuesday.

p.s. despite unbiased judging, i think i have picked my dad as the winner every time i have done one of these types of contests. he never takes/wants the prize, and i pick my next favorite, but dont let him have the satisfaction this time!

FAQ you!

2011-12-29T14:31:00.004-05:00

i am doing a little tidying up around here. i am working on new pictures, a new "about" section (because, breaking news!!! layla isnt a fetus anymore!) and i just wrote a page for frequently asked question.

i tried to think of the things i have been repeatedly asked about in the comments section or in email and answered them all there in case others were/will wonder the same. some of the topics might deserve their own posts, but for now, this is where they'll live.

if there's something else you want to know, just leave a comment and i will probably be happy to answer.

and because it's been too long without them, pictures of the stars of the show:

layla girl with her 2 favorite christmas morning items: her purple baby and the leftover stump of the carrots we put out for santa's reindeer.

judah man riding a horsey (aka lulu's leg). he now just comes up to you, straddles your leg and starts his horse riding motion. it would be a little alarming if he wasnt repeatedly yelling, "ride um cah boy!"

fess up, ladies.

2011-12-22T09:00:00.003-05:00

my friend, natalie, sent me a link to what have to be the most awesome little youtube videos i have seen in a looooooong time.

nat is a responsible emailer and NEVER sends chain crap, lame forwards or unsubstantiated garbage (snopes.com people. verify before you forward baloney). she also crawls under beds to be jesus and rescue me from pregnant marriage hell, so i just knew this would be good.

but i had NO idea that i would be shaking with mirth at my desk and restraining tears. this crap is SO RIGHT ON. i didnt know it was possible to simultaneously mock a group of people while also being completely embarrassed and guilty of being in that demographic.

i give you (merry christmas!), "shit girls say" (these videos are totally clean, despite that somewhat salty title):

the actor's delivery SLAYS me. he is so so so so so right on. it's hard to be offended by being stereotyped when the stereotype fits me snugger than the very clothes that i hate trying on.

i went back and watched these again (and again and again) and kept a rough tally of how many i am guilty of saying in JUST the same tone and i've gotta say it's at least 85%. and here i thought i was an original kind of gal.

my favorites: "that's NOT okay," "can you do me a huge favor?," "are you near a computer?" "that poor dog needs water," "TWINSIES!"

so fess up, what percentage of these are you guilty of and which ones are right on for you?

a hearty, hearty, touché to the makers of these videos. i'm burnt.

last minute gifts

2011-12-21T20:21:00.005-05:00

shalomha amigos.

just wanted a share a few of the handmade things i am gifting this christmas.

it hasnt been a huge handmade christmas for me personally this year since i was so busy being paid to make christmas presents for others to give their loved ones. this year's dukes family christmas gift bounty and our electric bill: sponsored by etsy. thank you, jesus. amen.

first off: the most thoroughly underwhelming understatement of a gift for judah and layla's preschool teachers. these chicks are AMAZING and if i had the money to buy them what they deserve, then i would be able to afford a nanny, not to mention all of the expensive cheeses i am forced to live without daily. hardship.

because nothing says, "thank you for working yourself silly being an answer to our prayers and a solution to our insane scheduling/budgeting needs," like...

a dishtowel!

yes.

that sensation youre experiencing right now? the mouth slightly agape, lower jaw stuck out and brow furrowed? it's judgement and shocked disapproval. yes i know this isnt the most glamorous gift but i am hoping it's super useful and helpful to these wonderful ladies.

the kicker: it was supposed to come with a punny little note to each that said, "thanks for getting your hands dirty while taking care of our kiddos!" except for the part where we forgot to write the notes, so they just got these random dishtowels with no labels. luckily, my mom decided to write each teacher a card and give them a gift card, so the towels were at least identifiable as belonging to judah and layla's people, even if it was in the cold, lonely shadow of my mom's more suitable gifts.

anyway here they are:

to my credit, they are AWESOME. they are from a pin i have wanted to make for myself FOREVER. (ed: not intended to be used 6 at a time.)

the dishcloths button around your oven handle to keep little creatures from INCESSANTLY pulling them off and strewing them all over your house; bringing you to the brink of emotional meltdown when you have wet hands and turn to dry them, only to find NOTHING there. cue psycho theme music.

anyway, i have now made six of these, but didnt make any for myself. i WILL be doing so ASAP. and here's hoping the kids' fantastic teachers are finding these useful long after they spend their much-deserved target monies.

the other project i've tackled so far is a pair of kiddie cooking accessories: chef's hats and aprons for my nieces. i used these tutorials cause they were AWESOME to the max and added some personalization for kicks.

for sophia and airabella. who love rainbows.

pockets, waist ties and adjustable neck strap. hopefully they get years of use out of these.

sophie and bella are 4 and 6, so this SHOULD look a little big on a 2 year old.

holy myspace stank face.

i really, really hope they like these. they are getting to the age that they can legitimately cook with my sister in law and enjoy doing it so hopefully they'll get excited about these. if not i also bought a loud, plastic, electronic toy to go along with them. because the charm and effort of handmade is sometimes lost on those born post-katrina.

if you're the sewing type, i heartily recommend either of these two projects if you still need christmas gifts. if not, godspeed out there in retail land, my friends.

frankenz and mirrd

2011-12-16T14:33:00.004-05:00

continuing this precious phase of adding a "D" onto the end of words that simply dont need one, i give you a video of judah chatting about the christmas story. plus bonus footage of me trying to make him show off his new (mercurial) counting-of-objects skills, forcing him to confess his new feelings for me (though he accidentally goes back to the "mommy go bye bye" party line), a discussion of where jesse is and a sweet farewell. and lots of my most creepy/endearing mommy diction (designed to make him feel comfortable sharing, but not to turn him off with my enthusiasm).

did i mention i LOVE this phase with him? he is so chatty and bright yet still such a speech-impeded baby with an amazingly fresh perspective of the world around him.

we take night time walks a few times a week all around our town to visit the nativities, christmas lights, santas and animatronic deer (he does NOT like the "robot reinBeer"). i was tickled when i realized that he already knew a lot about the christmas story based on what he was learning at preschool. hooray for retention!

weekly pinspiration

2011-12-14T10:55:00.001-05:00

and now a feature film starring tom cruise, demi moore and jack nicholson. i give you, a few good pins:

from ye olde organization board (the playground from my right brain which dreams of iron-fisted control over every aspect of my insane environment):

i've been spinnin' on lazy susans like paulie D behind the decks (i died a little just then) since i realized their amazing potential for maximizing shelf depth. wicky-wicky (that's my turntable record scratch noise...make a note of it).

i have been using a lazy susan to hold all the spices that didnt have a pre-made place in our "official" spice rack that lives on the countertop, but all those teensy bottles and containers were impossible to find easily behind the barricade of their bigger spice brothers. and these little nuggets of flavor are not big or tall enough to merit a place on the shelf floor.

enter the tension rod idea:

it was just a few bucks on amazon, has total versatility and could fit any length cabinet thanks to the little adjustable screw.

i just wedged it above and behind the lazy susan, about an inch from the back of the cabinet, and the little fellas just sit right up there and lean back against the wall until they are called into active duty in a casserole.

"you want them on that wall, you NEED them on that wall" (keeping with the a few good pins theme)

-------------------------------------------------------------

the next pin we tried was from the same organization board. the idea was using those clear vinyl shoe holders as organization for your cleaning junk in the laundry room (or anywhere else, really, these guys are mad useful).

before, we had a wire rack over on the left side of our laundry closet/nook. it was insufficient and had things stacked and smushed just to fit so that when we had a code red cleaning emergency and grabbed one thing, ten others exploded off of the shelf and came tumbling out thanks to the jenga-like setup.

no more!:

every one gets a pocket to himself. full visibility and maximum grab-ability.

i mounted it with screws and had to cut a few rows off because it was too long (they will be used elsewhere). i also cut out a square so i could access the light switch. perfect! i love this setup SO much more.

on friday, when jesse was letting our massive, wild, exclusively OUTDOOR dogs out of their garage kennels (where they bunk in cold weather). he was taking chopper (the smaller of the two) back to the back yard and clifford was running amok in the garage. judah heard the commotion and decided to open the interior door in our kitchen that leads to said garage. clifford, sensing his once-in-a-blue moon opportunity, blew past judah like one of the bumpus' turkey-marauding hound dogs from a christmas story. it must have been quite an adventure for judah and layla, alone in the house, to see the 100 lb black piggy that is cliff, come storming inside.

he of course made straight for our bedroom and took a massive dump right by our bed. when clifford "bunnies" it's no chocolate mallow peep, but more of a life-sized easter bunny on steroids.

so when i got home and saw the carpet cleaner on the counter and out of its vinyl love pocket (not to be confused with a latex love pocket, which is something else entirely) i asked jesse what had happened. he explained that a code red cleaning emergency had presented itself thanks to judah and clifford.

keight: "judah, sweetie did you order the code red?"

judah: "YOURE DAMN RIGHT I DID!!!!"

(really hoping youve seen a few good men, at this point)

---------------------------------------------------------

now a holiday pin and one from the upcycling board. as soon as i saw this pin for a preppy christmas wreath, i knew i would be making it for our door this year. just some yarn and a few ornaments and blammo, an adorable, just-my-style wreath.

and this was also the perfect change to try out this pin for making your own super cheap wreath forms. the idea makes perfect sense, $1.75 for 6 ft of foam pipe insulation from home depot, and some duct tape, and you have 3 wreath forms ready to be cutesified into something lovely.

i usually get the straw wreaths at joann that come wrapped in plastic (which i leave one b/c i dont need to access the crazy straw). they are $3 and i always use at least a 40% off coupon. so $1.80 for one wreath isnt bad, but $1.75 for enough foam to make 2 or 3 would be even better.

i bought my big noodle and headed home to make the christmas wreath.

cue ~~record~~ lazy susan scratching to a halt:

hmmmm, not as traditional of a shape.

so yeah, this was a massive fail. i checked the comments section of the post that the original pin came from, and lots of people had this same problem. the author suggested it was something to do with the diameter of the insulation. i had noticed at home depot that there were several options, but i just picked the one that looked the most like the one in the picture. so i thought.

i might give this another try, making sure to grab the right kind of insulation, but i dont know. the straw ones are so sturdy and dependable, not to mention really cheap already, and i might be a little scarred from the disappointment of this endeavor.

so, a few days deterred, i went for it with my straw wreath form, 2 cheapo bundles of yarn and a tube full of assorted red ornaments from joann.

i stupidly bought the long oval-shaped yarn instead of a nice little sphere that could easily go around and around without a lot of effort on my hands' part. but even still, this was a fast and easy project on the couch while watching 30 rock. i just taped down the first end and then at every color change, tied the ends of the two colors together on the back side of the wreath.

then i figured out an arrangement for my ornaments (i didnt spring for the red jingle bells like the original did, so my bunch is less awesome) and hot glued them in place. i didnt bother to take off the little gold ornament tops, i just pointed them in the most out of sight direction when i glued them down. you can see them if you look hard, but i think it's extra festive that they are real ornaments.

i love it! love the chunky hunter green and cream stripes and the glittery red ornaments. we wont discus if it actually matches or clashes with the front door. bright yellow is a neutral, right?

if i see the red jingle bells on mega sale any time soon, i might buy them to make my cluster more random and varied looking. i like this okay, but wish it wasnt as uniform. i plan to use this wreath every year, whether inside or on the door, so a few more bucks to make it perfect seems worthwhile. plus, think of the happy jingling every time we open the door!

you want the truth? you cant handle the truth! (yes, i am getting a little tired of myself at this point).

okay, maybe you can handle it. as i was making this, i realized that the original pin actually linked to an etsy shop where these were sold, and not a DIY tutorial. i kind of hate feeling like i am ripping off someone else's idea that was meant to make them money. but then again, i wouldnt and don't begrudge anyone who can make the things that i sell in my etsy shop for themselves.

but for those who dont want to or cant do it themselves, i definitely wanted to plug the original shop and say that for only $28, you could just buy the fully fabulous version, jingle bells and all. doing it myself without the bells took approximately an hour and $11...so just pick your poison, i guess. this shop also has a happy grey ornament wreath that i really want to make/buy too!

i might be becoming a wreath junkie.

go forth and PIN, my friends.

random thoughts from a camera-less female

2011-12-13T14:07:00.000-05:00

our camera is broken and in the shop again. it's always been the same problem that they cant ever seem to fix this is its 3rd trip to the doctor in new york. this time there's the bonus that they are charging us $150 because the 1-year warranty is up. thanks, nikon, for failing to fix the problem when it was free and now "discovering" what the real issue is and, whoopsie daisy, your warranty's up, so please pay us. i think not.

i have spoken to a supervisor and an investigation is being launched. thinking of jumping ship, selling this bad boy, and joining team canon.

i've got no pictures to share, but i have a bunch of thoughts on my mind-grapes (tracy jordan, anyone?).

-we caved in to ourselves and did get a christmas tree this year, despite my vow to not have one while the terminator, layla, who is freakishly strong, mobile in three dimensions, and speaks NO english, continues her dominion of terror over our living room. our solution was duct taping the snot out of the tree stand to the top of our little coffee table. we always get a smaller tree and put it on our ikea coffee table to make it normal height. so far it has worked, and i am quite pleased with us for not letting toddzilla cow me into grinchdom.

-i bless the day two years ago that i up and decided to learn how to sew AND the day in his freshman year at college, that jesse decided to teach himself to play the guitar. these 2 skills have provided over a third of our income this year, and have gotten us through a very lean time as jesse's pay has transitioned to support-based. having a hobby that you love that can also put food on the table is a good idea. my kids will be attending carpentry camp.

-judah has been declared 100% potty trained. it's been a month since we first sent him to school in big boy underpants and he has only had 3 accidents, all of which happened en route to the potty. hooray! he still gets a pullup at night because i dont know how you deal with that, but the rest of the time it's just a thin layer of cotton and a 30 month old's bladder and sphincter control keeping things in their place. nothing is cuter than his little booty in those underpants and his little toothpick legs sticking out of them.

-after a reeeeeallly rough period of anti-mommytism by judah, we are coming out on the other side better than ever. it's in large part thanks to his 2 year old stall and manipulation tactics that i get called in after jesse puts him to bed, but i dont care. i was once called in as the way to get him to go to sleep, because rather than rock with me, he would just give up and say, "my get in bed. mommy go bye bye." now, jesse comes out and judah demands "mommy snuggle me." its the greatest moment of life. this kids is the ANTI snuggler, and would always pick jesse over me, so the fact that he demands that i get under the covers with him every night, sing our song (dixie chicks "godspeed") and hug and smooch him to my heart's content is euphoria.

-it also took/takes a heap of "fake it til you make it" self-esteem and bucket of grace from god to plow through the times when we was/is so mean and hurtful to me. i realized that acting hurt or offended with a two year old wont work if the goal is getting him to act like he likes me. he doesnt have the empathy receptors necessary for this kind of emotional manipulation (which is exactly what is was). all i was doing was making myself truly less likable in his eyes. he was mean to me for dumb unwarranted reasons, but by getting prickly and wounded, i was actually giving him a legit reason to like me less by becoming bitter mommy.

so against every emotional instinct, when he is rude out of the blue to me, i gird up my loins, remember the relationship i WANT to have with him, and constructively distract him, act silly, or ignore it. it is unspeakably difficult. it's like i am being boo'd off stage and have to put on a smile and deliver a brand new solo. my mom self-esteem is shot and i have to jump right back up and act like i am untouchable to provide him a positive outlet. yuck. vulnerability to the max. it is SO unlike me to not hold people immediately accountable for hurting me, but it is actually working. and when we get to a place where he is ready to listen he is SO much more receptive to hearing how his unkind behavior hurt me. lesson learned. nobody out-pouts a 2 year old. not even me.

-layla is getting SASS-y. she is starting to exert her will to an alarming degree. when we take something away from her she now charges us like a rabid rhino cub and has even hit us a few times. it is simultaneously hilarious and horrifying. i know she's not really trying to hit or to hurt us, because she has never seen that behavior modeled, and she is just acting out her frustration the only way she knows, but man it is intense and bizarre to see your "baby" snap and go all jack bauer on your ass. she is slightly intimidating with that big belly hanging loose and that warrior mullet flying in the wind.

-jesse is a sick freak and is thinking of training for a full marathon in the spring. i continue to enjoy a running-free existence and see no reason why i should go back to the dark days of running for any reason besides a predator being hot on my heels.

-if you didnt see the new tab or sidebar announcement, i am going to offer ad space starting next year. i few people wrote and asked about it and i figured it was time to stop being a fraidy cat and just go for it. the worst that can happen is nobody being interested, and that hasnt bothered me these past 3 years anyway. if you or anyone you know would like to advertise here, just email me for more info and pricing at putapuredukes (at) gmail (dot) com.

-i have about 8 words with friends games that i am about to lose due taking too long to play my turn. this is sad, but also good because it means and i am really busy AND going straight to bed at night rather than laying submerged in increasingly cold bathwater and trying to craft wicked triple word scores like a motionless fleshy submarine who slowly prunes herself silly.

-we were hanging out with an awesome new church couple last night when i happened to ask them when they graduated high school. this is my brain's way of sorting out age through ye old, "i was a senior when you were a freshman" trick. they arent married so i was thinking they were on a different life schedule than us and were just finding each other later in life. um, no. they arent married yet because they are 22 and 23. the graduated high school in 2007. they were freshmen when my BABY BROTHER was a senior. they were 5th graders when i was a senior. lucky for them they are super cool and easy on the eyes or i would have stormed out then and there. fetuses! i was hanging out with undercover fetuses!!! is this what the rest of my life is going to be like? is this what is means to be old?!? am i too old to even be using the "what grade were you in when i was a senior" method of mental sorting? these are the things i need to ponder tonight as i am cleaning my dentures.

-sewing christmas gifts for the kids' awesome teachers tonight. they are so lame and un-wowing compared to the heaps of tiaras i would like to shower upon these wonderful women who parent my kids for 4 hours every day.

that's all for now. i'll let you know if we need to stage a protest at nikon HQ.

dukes out.

last call

2011-12-10T12:49:00.004-05:00

i am a sewing bandit today and will be for the rest of the week getting people their orders in time for christmas.

my etsy shop has become a sweatshop with even jesse being enlisted to help.

because i am insane like that, i just added two new items to my shop along with the old favorites of scarves, jewelry rolls, boppy covers and baby gifts:

custom ruffle camera strap covers with padding and lens cap pocket

custom kid's ruffle half-aprons with pocket and waist ties

ordering for custom items (where you pick your own fabric) ends on december 15th so that i have enough time to make and ship it to you for christmas, so if you want something from me, visit the shop and get on it!

secret surprise celebrating the 12 days of christmas: from now through dec 15th, enter code BLOGBUDDYXMAS and receive 12% off your entire order.

half [marathon] of my heart

2011-12-08T14:11:00.002-05:00

i ran a half marathon, you guys.

actually, WE ran a half marathon:

team finding my feet.

i want to tell you every single detail of our amazing weekend, but it's just too much. so i am just going to focus on the race. (raechel's account is already up)

rest assured that our team rocks. meeting internet friends in real life is surreal and a tad scary. you never know when you're going to run into an organ harvester instead of just a pal. but this bunch was 100% pals and we all had way much fun getting to know each other, hanging out and bonding over this shared trial/accomplishment.

the running of the miles was really just a small part of the weekend of bonding and laughing and hijinks, and all that stuff will stick with me and with our group for a long time.

we spent the summer training together in our home towns and only communicating over email and nike plus, so getting everyone in the same room was a lot like finally giving birth and getting to meet your baby face to face after growing along with it, sight unseen, for months. this team is my baby. and bonus: it includes my baby daddy.

this half-marathon-as-having-a-baby metaphor was rampant the entire time.

team FMF: i heart yall. i will run many minutes behind you all any day of the week.

after carbing up with the team on friday night, our hotel room had lights out (except for my headlamp because i have to read before sleep) at about 9 pm to be ready for our 5:45 am wake up time. it was me, jesse, ryan and raechel sharing a room. ryan is a gold medalist in snoring so he nobly took the couch in the adjoining living room to let the runners get some sleep.

ryan completed the chicago FULL marathon in october so he was just there to support raechel and the team this time. it was great to have his experience, and as an added bonus pretend like he was a running snob every time he would say, "well for the full..." or "in chicago..." i actually did get a lot of helpful tips from him all the while still rolling my eyes and saying, "yeah, you ran a full, we get it. come down off your high horse, richy."

despite the worst night of sleep EVER thanks to some soccer tournament that was also in town (i think it was the juvenile delinquent loud and disruptive cup 2011), we heard the alarm and were not tempted to sleep more. funy how 13.1 miles looming over you makes your heart pump.

we got dressed in our running stuff, complete with cheap accessories we could just throw down on the course and not miss once it warmed up and our hearts got pumping (god bless the target dollar section).

we choked down smoothies, clif bars and bananas as we rode through the dark streets of memphis towards the starting line. we were all predicting how emotional we would be by the time we finished.

we parked and walked to the starting line. we met up with everyone, posed for some pictures from official race photographers, ryan and our own cell phones (all the pics in this post come from one of those sources...the official photos are just screen shots of the proofs that i grabbed until i decide which to buy), pinned on race bibs, found where our starting corrals would be (based on desired pace/finish times), and got our gear situated and ready.

making an uproariously hilarious joke to katie vick when she asked me to pin on her bib. i said, "now you know, i am kind of a professional sew-er, so dont be surprised if i pin this on really awesomely." i also showed her how to look your most intelligent in a photo. youre welcome, and youre welcome!

let the record show that i jumped ON three and he took the picture on, like, five. i was on my way down. i've still got hops, dont you worry. also, jesse is amazing a million

like adorable happy criminals showing our numbers off

oh, i like her lots and lots. even though we kind of hate how adorable and tiny she is, we mostly just need to love her because of awesome.

ok, my mom specifically requested this post so that she could, as she put it: "put it on the refrigerator in the kitchen next to where judah eats when he is at my house so that he can see how wholesome foods will make him big and strong and lean and mean." my question: is this picture the motivational carrot or the stick? is the caption on her fridge beneath it, "reach for the stars!" or "chickfila: a cautionary tale?"

also: not pregnant. trick of the light.

jesse and i had to check our bags for the the race and saying goodbye to my georgia tech sweatpants was HARD. not only because it exposed my ample, ultrawhite thighs amdist a sea of runners' legs and mostly long-pants, but also because it was eerily familiar to when i had to take them off when i checked into the hospital to have layla. just like then, i knew i wouldn't be reunited with my friendly, beloved pants until i had gone through the fire and was on the other side again.

my special christmas burglar elf bandit

jesse and i took one last potty break and the great wall of port-a-potties (ashley kirnan texted me to see where i was since we thought we'd be in the same starting corral since i am slow and she has a a million almost-stress fractures and had strep that day, and i texted her back, "i'm bunnying." thank you judah for years of poop humor).

we took one last pic, said goodbye-- him heading to his 9 minute mile pace group and me heading to my 13 minute mile one.

we arent equally yoked in the running department. i'm at peace with it.

farewell, hottie, see you on the other side!

i headed way, way way, back in the throng of people to my corral. i spotted my pace team leader hold his sign. i had looked him up online a few days prior by putting in my desired finish time (under 3 hours) and was pleased to find a group for we the turtles.

his bio listed him at 63 (whatEVER!!!) and when asked why someone should run in his pace group, his answer was, "to experience the fun of racewalking!"

what in the HAY-UHL!?!?!? my pace leader is a geriatric walker!!! and i am going the same speed at my fastest run. i dropped a few pounds in ego weight at that point which i figured would make me more aerodynamic.

since we were so so so far back from the actual starting line, i had a long time to wait by myself. this is where my emotions got the better of me.

when i signed up for this race, i must admit that it was more because it was near-ish and convenient and to do it with rae and friends, and not because i was crazy passionate about the cause. OBVIOUSLY i detest childhood cancer, but it isnt super, extra-personal to me.

i do happily know two amazing survivors: my sister in law elena who kicked leukemia's ass over 20 years ago and audrey, the daughter of our mentors, who was the flower girl in our wedding, who finished treatment almost a year ago and is cancer free right now. i knew i wanted to take them along with me during the run so jesse and i both wrote their names on our arms in sharpie to honor their battles in our own teensy way.

repping those chicas!

me and audrey at some event...cant quite place it (please remember that i looked like this once in my life...it will help you get through the rest of the pics)

just getting a taste of what a shit-bomb cancer was for these familes--hearing about it from jesse and his parents, and visiting and talking with audrey and her family in 2010 and this year as she went through her battle-- was enough to really make me believe that childhood cancer is one of the yuckiest visible stains that the brokenness and carnage of sin and the fall have left on this earth. but even still, audrey and elena's stories have happy endings.

they got hit with the bomb, but the nuclear payload didnt detonate.

i have never seen or experienced firsthand the very worst of what this disease can do to happy healthy children who werent born "cancer kids" but whose lives end that way.

my place in the corral. the starting line if left down that intersection

in the corral, all alone as i looked ahead and saw the backs of thousands, i started to see and read the shirts that everyone was wearing. lots of them were funny, "dear god, please let there be someone behind me to read this, " and "if found, please drag across the finish line."

but the first one that grabbed me was a full color picture of a little boy with the dates October 11, 2008-March 13, 2011 underneath.

it was like getting punched in the stomach. this gorgeous two and half year old boy had died, had been snatched from his parents arms because of this disgusting disease. he was judah's age.

i looked at the pavement as the tears built.

it got real at that point. i knew st. jude already had my money and that my actual running of the race didnt really do anything for the families affected by cancer, but the two became linked at that point.

i looked around some more, praying every time as i saw a birthdate listed that it wouldn't be bracketed by deathdate; praying for an open hyphen but not finding lots of them:

"running for my 6 year old son elijah: 11 surgeries, 7 brain surgeries, wheelchair bound, completely blind due to tumors"

"team lucy"

"missing our angel" with a picture of an infant girl about layla's age, looking miserable in a hospital bed.

i was a mess. even the st. jude logo on people's shirts was getting me: a little child with his hands together and head bowed in prayer.

around 8:15 (the start for the #1 corral of elite racers was at 8) we starting moving forward. i could hear music playing and the announcer talking up ahead.

we turned left onto the actual street that the starting line was on--yes i was so far back that i was on a different street to begin with--and i could finally make out the starting line way up ahead.

see the start waaaaaaaaay off in the distance?

they were releasing the corrals a few minutes apart to spread out the crowd. so we fell into a nervous shuffle rhythm of walk. wait. walk. wait.

as i heard #8 and #9 released, i knew jesse was on his way. godspeed, my man!

i looked up and could finally make out that the starting line said "get ready to run for THEIR lives." more tears.

10, 11, 12, and finally 13 (there were actually 16 total corrals). we came up and waited for our countdown.

i checked my ipod and my laces one last time and savored my final moments of no exertion or movement. for the next 3-ish hours i would be running or walking or limping or crawling.

blammo. we were off.

where's wald-eight?

i knew that ryan would be taking pictures at .5 miles and again at 3 miles and he would also be available to grab any clothes we didnt need anymore as we warmed up. my peasant hat and gloves i didnt care about and bought them cheap to be disposable, but so help me, i wasnt going to lose my long sleeved 15k shirt. i worked hard for that mess and if i had to wear it as a sassy belt for 13 miles, i would, but i would prefer to leave it with a friend (who would hopefully not sniff it).

at maybe a quarter or a mile, i was rounding the basketball arena where the grizzlies play (or dont play, as it were, thanks NBA players, you are heroes fighting for the little guy!). there were parking decks and garages nearby to support the arena. hilariously, as i am just getting my rhythm sorted out and finally getting some space, i see a blinking red sign flashing, "SLOW SLOW SLOW."

it was calling me out! i thought it was a practical joke, then realized that is was for cars entering the garage so they didnt scrape their bottoms on the incline. ha. in my head it had been green and said "FAST" for the first corrals of runners and then gradually faded to red and SLOW for the rest of us.

at .5 miles i was still pretty chilly so i still had on my hat and gloves and was obviously feeling fine. i spotted ryan and broke stride momentarily to flash an adorable julia roberts-esque smile and cute little jumping wave to the camera. or so i thought:

what i actually gave was: drunken feudal serf/mime doing a star jump and deranged albino performing a breast self-exam and enjoying it a little too much.

clearly there is some disparity between what i actually look like versus how i picture myself in my head. going to need to work on merging those.

just after i passed ryan and ryan (ashley k's husband who was also amazing support staff) i started to have a stomach cramp- like a stitch. i have never had one of these ever. ruh-roh. i hadnt even gone a mile yet! i tried to lean to the opposite side and stretch it out but it was still pretty uncomfy.

i felt my palms break out in panic sweat, picturing my result: "Reight Dullees-DNF withdrawn after .75 miles due to tummy ouchie." that's what it would say, yall! oh the shame.

luckily, just as i passed the 1 mile marker, a fit of horrified laughter blasted the stitch away. this middle aged man was running with a female companion in the most inappropriate shorts. they were SO SO SO short and also breezy and slit up the sides. i was getting an eyeful of rear man-thigh. hairy, pale, in-motion man thigh.

he was talking really loud and was kind of a goober to me. his friend coughed and he turns around to her and says in a horrified voice, "oh that's a WET cough!" something about that was so yuck and intimate (paired with his man thighs) that i just bust out laughing. awesome. stitch gone.

mile 2 was GORGEOUS! we wended our way down a hairpin turn and all of a sudden there was the mighty mississip' sprawled out before us with bridges and barges and boats. it was really freaking huge and surprisingly gorgeous. on the other side was a steep hill, at the top of which were really pretty riverfront houses.

i ditched my gloves and hat at this point and started to resemble a female again.

mile 2 highlight: the spectator holding a sign that said, "run fast: i farted." i laughed, because, joke's on you, i did too!

mile 3 and i was feeling good. i was warming up and doing a great pace. 9 minutes running, 1 minute walking. i wont lie, even at this tiny distance, i was looking forward to those walk intervals every time.

i took off my long sleeves, made my sassy belt and started to look out for the ryans. we headed into the famed beale street area and there were TONS of people and bands and signs and photographers. it was awesome.

warning: if you flash a peace sign behind me to a camera man, i will make fun of you a little bit on my blog. consider yourself warned

my pony was having a BLAST! after it was set free from it's feudal serf cap of bald-dom

swear i wasnt walking here. also i dont remember ever being this friendly looking in my life, much less at the race.

"ahahahaha, we're having so much fun!"

ryan was supposed to be at the turn, but i didnt see him. then at the last moment, the other ryan sees me and pops out offering to take my shirt. glory!

no more special accessories. just me like i had been on all of my runs through the evil heat of georgia summer and fall: shirt, shorts, shoes, socks and ipod. oh yeah, plus some energy chews i had in my bra.

i'm the thoughtful-est

nope, still not walking. seriously

running full out.

just before mile 4 i had another emotional whomp. in one intersection there was a group of about twenty kids doing a choreographed dance in matching shirts. the tears came when i realized that they all had down syndrome, just like our sister elena.

i am in love with them

elena LOVES to dance and perform, so seeing these gorgeous, beaming faces dancing their hearts out totally reminded me of elena, and made me think of how i am SO blessed to have her in my life and that cancer didnt steal a single one of her dances.

i cheered and clapped (and cried happy love tears) with the rest of the runners who had instantly become the cheerleaders rather than the cheered on for this group of kids with a magical 47th chromosome.

at mile 4 the fanfare of the really touristy district of memphis was behind us and at some weird glass pyramid that i assume is not the tennessee branch of the louvre, we were making the turn to put the river behind us.

running past the luxor (?)

still not a walk

i had been seeing full color signs inserted in ground beside the course every now and then that said "run for jake" and had a picture of a really cute 2 or 3 year old little boy who had lost his hair from chemo on them. it was a total motivator. during this mile i saw another one, in the same purple and yellow colors, with his picture on it, a picture of him with all of his hair, clearly from before his diagnosis, that said, "run to remember jake." tears. fuck cancer.

at that point we entered the actual st. jude campus. there were people everywhere cheering like mad. i happened to be listening to coldplay's "paradise" at that point and it was like a slow motion montage.

the juxtaposition of the words of that song and chris martin's falsetto, playing in my ears and the sights of the happy, encouraging crowd, glittering pom poms against the visuals of why this place exists started to rock me.

this could be para, para, paradise

signs being held with names, birth- and death- dates of children who went from childhood to heaven because of cancer, of the huge buildings containing children going through disgusting, horrific pain, of the scenes that must unfold inside pretty regularly: parents watching their child take a final breath, holding them for the last time, knowing their beloved child's life, but also their pain, is over. sobbing and praying them into the arms of jesus.

this could be para, para, paradise

i honestly didnt see a lot of what was going on here because my eyes were flooded. i just ran on, looking down at the pavement. i wanted to hold my kids so hard right then. i wanted to hold those parents through the unimaginable. to say, screw cancer, screw the devil, it WILL be paradise one day, jesus has overcome even this.

and thinking that, this lyric hits me:

And so lying underneath those stormy skiesShe'd say, "oh, ohohohoh I know the sun must set to rise"this could be para, para, paradise
at this point, i am going to be honest, i hit my emotional high point. with 8 miles still to go, i was fried.
i had been going through the emotional journey of realizing, it's not about me running a race, that's nothing. it's about these kids and their families and this awful disease. but then i get the lightning bolt of, it's not even about that, really. this whole life and all of the gross suffering and pain is just because the sun has to set so it can rise. that's the story we humans have written for ourselves. jesus himself had to die so he could rise. 
it's kind of a big thought to wrap your head around while trying to remember how to oxygenate your blood (answer: breathe).
on the way out of the st. jude campus i saw a twenty-something woman holding a sign that said, "because you run, i'm a SURVIVOR." that was awesome. it might not be 100% true in a causal or time-space sense, or according to her doctors, but i got the point and the encouragement enough to bring me back to operational.
at the water station of mile 5, i rewarded myself with 4 of my gummie chomps energy chews. the package was nice and humidly breasty from being in my bra all along.  stuffing the half full pack back in was not fun. "stay out of the MAARRRSH!" it was swampy in there.
all of mile 5, 6, and 7 we were on a big straightaway into a residential area. i knew i had a steady pace because i could see that damned old race walker just ahead of me the whole time, looking like he was doing nothing more strenuous than heading to claim his bingo prize or water his azaleas.
between mile 6 and 7, just before the blessed halfway point, i saw a police motorcycle headed towards us on the other side of the divided street. i then realized that he was the front of the entire race, with the lead runner right behind him. 
the course was set up so that the half marathoners and the full marathoners ran together from the start until after the 12th mile. the halfsters would then split off to their finished and those poor insane marathon bastards would go for 14 more miles on the extra part of the route. 
since i knew our half route didnt include coming back to this area, like this runner was, i knew he had to AT LEAST be beyond his 12th mile and into marathoner-only territory. if he was with the #1 corral group, he had a 22 minute head start on me just due to the time it took me to get up to the line. and at this point in my run (6.5 miles in) i had been going for just under an hour and a half. so i was trying to guess what mile he was at. 
with him being at least twice as fast as me and then with the extra 22 minutes, i guessed he was maybe on mile 16 or 17. this was mind boggling to me that he could get so far ahead in such short amount of time.
well, after the race, i checked out out the map and it turns out he was on MILE 23!!! i was on mile 6.5. with just a 22 minute head start, he had gotten almost 17 miles in front of me. 
think about how long it takes to get that far in front of another driver IN A CAR. he was on foot!
so yeah, i clapped pretty loud for him and tried not to think about what that said about my speed.
it was at this portion of the race that i spotted another notable pair of racers. these two 30 ish women were dressed identically, in orange long sleeved tops and black running pants. they were the same height and i think they were running together to set some sort of guinness record for the most dissimilar body types. the brunette was the most apple shaped woman i have ever seen with toothpick legs and a very barrell-ish torso (not fat, just so stout through there) and her friend had a teeeeeny waist and then kardshian-esque curves leading to the most accommodating pair of birthing hips i have ever seen (i've i seen plenty...in my mirror). they looked like they had been in a magician's saw-the-lady-in-half trick and then he had mixed up the boxes and put the back together backwards. i marveled at how funny and different we humans can be from each other and still be beautiful. 
mile 7's deep thoughts on the human form brought to you by asics. and delirium.
at mile 8 i started to feel yuck. we headed into overton park where the zoo is. when i saw the sign pointing our way that said, "zoo service entrance," i started to suspect that i would not be cavorting the miles away with happy penguins. this turned out to be the case. it was a hilly, twisty mile with a view of just the backsides of all the zoo buildings. color me bummed. at least i never smelled the zoo smell like some of my teammates said they did. that would have be insult to injury.
i was struggling here. walking more than a minute at a time, and even falling farther behind my pace guy, who had ceased to be some old dude in my head and had become a steely athlete to be admired. i should be so lucky as to touch his nylon fanny pack or white knee-high socks.
i slammed my remaining 4 energy chews as i passed a mean sign that said, "run, walkers, run!" it wasnt even being held by anyone...it was just sitting on a table. some people CANT run, ya big jackass sign! leave us alone, bully!
mile 9 hits and at the water station are a bunch of youths. they were playing booty rap and it was kind of funny. they sort of came out of nowhere and were so funny and alarming (remember i was still gun shy from the truants who had been running amok slamming doors in the hotel the night before) that i grabbed my delicious cup of gatorade and promptly dropped it right on my shoe.
lemon-lime toes. and no drink. curses.
right at mile 9.5 was when i entered the darkness of my run and the flagging of my determination. it featured a 2 mile straightaway through some of memphis's seedier areas and was almost entirely uphill. 
it strangely started off by receiving a text from jesse saying he had finished and had hit his amazing goal of under 2 hours (he made it by 15 seconds!). i was so proud of him, but knowing for sure that we werent suffering through this simultaneously made me feel kind of lonely even though i was never with him. 
fievel says, "it helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky," and that was how i had felt during the whole race about jesse and me doing this endeavor together, it helped to know we were sweating ourselves swampy on the same course at the same time, and when that was done it was like he had had his baby and was cuddling it, and i still had an hour on contractions left.
here is a montage of all of jesse's photos from the race. he is a stud.
bad ass adonis
cleft chin blowing in the wind
the finish is in sightdown the pipe. notice how he passed that twiggy chick
final pushi think he  got rabies right before this

you'd foam at the mouth too if you were that awesome
realizing he hit his goal with 15 second to spare. what a monster!!!
my husband, hotter than elvis. i cant even imagine what the shoulders of that costume must have smelled like after everyone's photos
so i am all alone on the course, representing the dukes family.
it started to really hurt. not so much my joints, since i have the joints of a mountain ox, but just my upper leg skin. all of a sudden i realized it was my cellulite aching.  that mess does not take kindly to extended jostling and it was crying out for relief. but since the only thing that makes it happy is a block of sharp cheddar and me on a couch, i couldnt placate it at that time. 
i started settling for 4 minutes running/ 2 minutes walking. even that seemed like torture.
at mile 10 i realized we were passing the target house: a place that families can stay while their child is receiving treatment. i really thought that the most stark reminders of that sort of thing were behind me, but as we are passing this sprawling estate facility i hear a band playing and realize what this place is. 
there werent a lot of people there, less than 10 total cheering us on. but the only ones i saw were a mom with a six or seven year old daughter sitting in her lap on the sidewalk against the main gate. they were quietly encouraging us and clapping us on. i looked at the little girl a little closer and saw that she had on a head scarf and a face mask to keep germs out. 
she was a current patient.
this was too much. i had figured if any patients were going to be out at the race they would be at the st, jude campus, so this totally tackled me by surprise. i dont think i even completed my smile and wave to her before i had to look down at the ground to keep from falling apart. 
i had been deep in my own hole of pain and fatigue and "this is oh-so-hard"-ing to myself and here was this little girl in the midst of fighting for her life, risking infection out in the world with her suppressed immune system cheering me on.
i started to think of how far i would be willing to run to take away my kids' pain. their diseases. their deaths. once again, my 13 mile road race shrank back down to its appropriate place in the world rankings of human suffering.
i made myself run from here. i was going so slow and grimacing like a freak the whole time. my hips actually started to hurt as i hit mile 11. we were now in new territory since an 11 mile run was the longest my training ever required.
at this point i saw my favorite sign of the day: "this is still a good idea." i laughed out loud quite a bit. it had read my mind. 
you know you arent going to quit at this point, but it's just a matter of living through the really hard wanting-to-quit part where your body hurts so bad and you just want it to stop until you get to the other side where you can say, "that was a good idea," that is so daunting. just like childbirth.
i sent jesse a text from the glympse app of my phone so he could track my location to be sure to be there for my finish.  i would prance joyfully into his arms and we would embrace and kiss and be awarded "race king and queen." note: this was clearly before i saw my star jump pictures and realized i have an overly optimistic imagination. 
on mile 12 we made our final turn back towards the stadium and finish line. with just a mile to go, i knew i could gut it out and go faster. i kept hitting my powersongs to give me more health units. powersongs come across a little diluted after 12 miles.
at mile 12.1 my time according to nike+ was 2:42. i had 18 minutes to run one mile. i knew that i could and should totally be able to do that no problem, but my understanding of speed and time at that point were so out of whack that i wasnt sure and really started trying to move faster just to be sure.
i saw the sign up ahead directing marathoners one way and half marathoners the other way. it was like the fork in the road for heaven and hell. i looked at those poor souls who had 14 miles still to go and whispered, "youre all heroes!"
according to my tracking, i have less than a half mile to go, but i see no signs of the finish line. i knew we were finishing on the warning track of the minor league baseball stadium, and baseball stadiums tend to be pretty visible from far off, so this was unsettling. 
i ran and ran and ran. someone decided that cooking fresh smelly pizza right along that street was a great idea and i wanted to hurl. 
i just keep stumbling onward through the deserted street that looks nothing like a finish line. 
and then like the wall of jericho before joshua, there rises up before me the stadium. i can make out the seats. all i have to do it run to there and it will all be over.
i started sprinting. i am passing dozens of people. i am flying. i am sort of looking like a punk who sandbagged the whole time just to turn on the afterburners at the end. but i am a sprinter, not a distance runner, and with the end in sight, my speed returned to me. 
i fly past the 13 mile sign. just one tenth to go! 
down the hill and over a sensor that would bring up our names in the stadium as we crossed. here come the barricades to keep spectators off the course. 
down and around and into the stadium. i am churning up the dirt of the warning track, passing hoes like whoa. i am thinking to myself, "oh jesse is going to be so turned on to see me sprinting like mother flipping hussein bolt here at the end! i am a warrior princess made of fire and wind! a supermodel dolphin made of lightning! my strength and beauty at this triumph will launch a thousand ships!" 
here is what that looked like:
thinking i might throw up but executing perfect form
thinking, "why the hell is someone who is done walking around smiling in her blanky, with her medal on the final 100 feet! i shouldnt have to waste my sweet dodge moves on someone who's already done!!!" my pony is sympathetically frenzied
thinking i can track down one more person before the finish. pony is in attack formation.
oh. my. gosh. was i going so fast that i gave myself loose armskin? or am i secretly that baggy. this is upsetting.  really just so proud of this pic.
i wasnt going to look around for jesse, i was just going to let him appear before me, dazzled by my amazingness.
i crossed the finish line. ceasing to move forward was a strange sensation. i immediately needed to be horizontal. but, dammit, i had to keep walking, shunted along by the barricades away from the finish line, around the stadium to collect my insulated blanket (really, guys? it was 61 degrees out? i know cooling down to quick is dangerous, but come on!) and finishers medal. 
i could do it. i just leaned up against the wall of the field. some officials came to make sure i was okay and not going into the light. i said, "oh no, i am totally fine," while my brain screamed, "LIAR LIAR LIAR!!!"
there was a gap in the fences and i busted onto the grass of the outfield before collecting water, though my medal was forced upon me (it weighed a good 50 lbs, i swear). there were other finished racers all out there in clumps. i collapsed in the grass.

i this point i am wondering where the heck jesse was for my big finish. what vantage point had he chosen to capture the most priceless pictures of me from? 
i have been finished for a good ten minutes when i get this text from him: "go k8 go! you've got this!"
aaaaaand cue murderous rage. i didnt care that he had run the exact same race 55 minutes faster than me, i didnt care that it wasnt really about me, i was so PISSED that he didnt know i was finished and definitely didnt see me do it! 
i threw my phone down and just kept laying there. the internet was not working since it was so overloaded by all the people on their phones so i couldnt even tweet about finishing. and when i finally tried to text jesse back, it wouldnt go through.
then i spot him. i am right behind third base and he is up in the stands waving in his big red elf shirt. like a true proverbs 31 wife, before thousands of onlookers i go ahead and flick him off.
not the most appropriate gesture for this moment.
i see him start working his way down the stairs and he is just so pitiful, limping and lurching that i have to laugh at myself for being so petulant and ridiculous (though i do shoot him a few more glares). 
they had it set up so that you couldnt come back down once you had gone into the stands, and as a finisher, there wasnt really a good place to go watch others finish. and even if there was, his tracking of me wasnt working due to the overloaded cell service, so he wouldnt have known when to be there.
i finally got up to him (making people who have run 13 miles walk up stairs to get to their loved ones, checked baggage, and food, is unkind. just a thought) and fell on him. he was so wonderful and so sorry for having missed it. i said i was sorry for flicking him off and that it was 78% jokesy.
he tried to take me to the rest of the team, but i was in lone wolf mode and just wanted to be in pain and pretend to be special little hero who was the only one who had done something hard just in my head for a little while.
i kept waiting for the tears to come. that i had really done it. that i had run a half marathon after spending my entire life DETESTING running and choosing a life path that would avoid it at all costs. those tears never came. i had used up all the tears on bigger things earlier in my race. 
all that came was mutterings of, "never, ever again."
i finished in 2:55:21. a hilariously slow time for anyone claiming to be an athlete, but there you go. there are different sorts of athletes, and the distance running type, i am not. i do wish there had been a volleyball digging obstacle at the very end, because i totally would have won that.
i got my free post-race food (soup, beer, donuts, awful pizza) and wandered back to our group.  we had all done it.
i dont recall smiling for at least 48 hours afterwards.
and just like that, it was all over. we hobbled back to the car, our sweat dried to crystallized salt (this actually caused some eipc chafing for jesse), our legs humming with relief.
i drew the winning straw and got the first shower at the hotel. it was amazing. i had achieved new benchmarks for smelliest in the "keight" category. 
a few hours later we were ravenous and looking to spend our calorie deficit. my heart was set on BBQ nachos, but when we got to the BBQ place, it was clear that they were traditionalists. 
i was looking at the menu and jesse goes, "oh look, they do have nachos." i started out fake crying with happiness to be funny, but then it turned into real tears. real tears of happiness over cheese and sugar-sauce covered pig meat on top of fried flour triangles. i wanted to nachos something fierce. and i had my way with them.
saying goodbye to our teammates and new friends the next day was like leaving grownup camp. these are fun, awesome people.
i am so glad i accomplished a goal i never thought i would dare to even set for myself. the feeling of achievement is amazing. the endorphins of running are addictive. they all say after your first big race you catch "the bug," and before the pain even subsides, you are planning the next one.
i'm gonna be honest, i'm still living large on, "never, ever again."

girl meets cupcake

2011-12-06T14:55:00.003-05:00

needed to pop in with a post to let you know we didnt die during the half-marathon. it was touch-and-go, but jesse and i both survived and finished our 13.1 miles.

here's some adorability of miss big lady encountering a cupcake for the first time ever at her birthday party.

y'all, she took the whole thing down in 3 minutes flat.

rocking her literal and figurative birthday suit. her face here makes me so happy

hello, eyes. and she looks a little nervous that we're going to confiscate the cupcake

look at that killer grip

still a lady. ankles crossed the entire time under the table. at one point some icing fell down from the cupcake and i went to check and see if it was on the carpet. it never even made it below the plane of the table thanks to layla's belly sealing off the entire pathway to the floor.

she makes me smile big

your little cupcake may be yummy, layla, but ours is sweeter! p.s. it's hard to hold a kissy face.