A Yummy, Painful, Holiday, Decision Story

There are several ways to tell this story, depending on what kind of spin you want to put on it. I've decided to go with the "brutally honest" route. Yes, it's true I can be brutally honest when I put my mind to it. It's just that sometimes in life we contemplate, we make a pros and cons list before we make a decision, and then sometimes we just impulsively make a decision and analyze it later. We sway the pros and cons list in our favor, "Please, in the name of all that is heaven on earth, let this have been the right decision!"
Well, recently I came across just such a decision moment. I would say that my decision fell on the contemplative-impulsive side. Now before you say, "that's cheating," hear me out. It's just that I've been faced with this decision before many times and I've done the hemming and hawing and it always results in the same outcome. So while it would have appeared to the average passer-by-er that I totally did this impulsively, I would argue that I've done the contemplating so many times before, year after year, that I can sort of fast forward through the process in my mind to get to my conclusion. Here, in slow motion, I'll walk you through the many contemplative thoughts that took place in my mind.

Cruising down the dairy aisle at the grocery store, I saw...

And then in my MIND, I heard bells. Jingle bells...

And...

And then I wondered why the Angels I heard singing were black...my subconscious must've known that they had Whitney Houston as their choir director.

That Whitney Houston sure can sing!

Then in my MIND I saw...

The egg nog of my childhood...but then I realized that's pretty old egg nog and I wanted some fresh stuff. So in my MIND I prepared some fresh holiday egg nog and saw...

Mmmmm....and then I remembered that this last year we purchased a...

(Ours isn't red and overly retro like this one is, but I wish it were and since this is all taking place in my MIND...why not?) Which translates into...

And then there were more Whitney Houston-like angels singing. And then, still in my MIND, I thought of how an egg nog latte would be just the thing to take along on those evening sleigh rides...

Then I remembered we don't take sleigh rides around our neighborhood...but we do have children who do this...

For the love! For the children! "I believe that children are our future!"-Stop it Whitney, this is my blog, just because your angel choir gets a shout out doesn't mean you can take over! Cheesh, celebs, you give 'em an inch and they take a mile!

Then reality came back, flooding my MIND with these thoughts and images...


It's still fall...you haven't even carved your pumpkins yet!

And what about Thanksgiving?!

I am not a fan of mixing holidays! I want to be clear on this. I like to fully enjoy and celebrate each holiday before moving onto the next one. I don't like "having Christmas early" and I don't like "having Thanksgiving late" I'm a traditionalist! Don't tell anyone, it will ruin my easy-going-flexible-fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants reputation!
So far these thoughts have been controversial to the egg nog, not contradictory. Until now. Here's where my thoughts get really dark.

Premium Egg Nog Nutrition Facts
Serving Size 1/2 cup (120ml)
Servings Per Container 8
Ingredients: Cream, sugar, corn syrup, whey powder, egg yolks, nonfat milk solids, high fructose corn syrup, rum and other artificial flavors, nutmeg, carrageenan, guar gum, mono-and diglycerides, and annatto-turmeric (for color).
Comments:
Amount Per Serving
Calories 230			Calories from Fat 110
			% Daily Value
Total Fat 12g			18%
Saturated Fat 7g			36%

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Then I saw in my MIND Carrie, my Jazzercise instructor! (Who by the way is going to kill me if she ever sees this picture of herself!)

Double AAAAHHHHHH!

Then I came to my final conclusion, as I always do, which is that I was definitely going to need some egg nog to cope with all the stress these thoughts were producing!

So, in closing I don't regret my decision to start buying egg nog in October, but I would sincerely like to say to my stomach, hips and rear end, "Good luck! I'll be pulling for ya, we'll talk in January!"

(Please see above for the answer to this question.)

Devlyn, Devlyn, Devlyn...33!!!

Devlyn turned 33 yesterday, so in honor of his birthday I am posting-not 33 pictures of him, because I doubt that's what most of you really want to see-but 33 pictures of things he loves! Don't worry, I don't think there's quite 33 pictures (uploading takes awhile and I was getting impatient).

He loves to watch baseball, especially live games like this Mariner's game (I can't remember nor can I tell who they are playing, nor do I recall ever knowing who they were playing though I was there with him).

He loves chickens. I'm serious. I don't know what else to say about this one.

He loves dressing Charley up like an Eskimo baby and taking her sledding.

He loves his friends and his truck. He loves it when his truck brings his friends together.
(Scroll down a few posts to learn more about this incident.)

He loves it when Matt Brein wears his footed, sleeper jammies and rolls around on the ground with babies. Really, it brings him great, disturbing, joy-his favorite kind.

He loves it when he gets salt water in his eyes.

And...when he gets sand in his eyes!

He loves to show off large structures that he's "built"

And even larger structures or bridges, or gates, or damns...all right, you're onto me...I'm not sure what this is!

This is my sister, Boo (with Charley) he loves Boo!
Sidenote: My sister came over to "help" me with my new infant-notice which one is sleeping and which one is red in the face from screaming.

This is my brother Gabe on the left, Devlyn loves Gabe. My "other brother" Jeremiah is the one on the right. I'm not sure why Devlyn doesn't love him, I'll have to ask him.

See, Devlyn loves Gabe so much, here's another picture of him. In this picture, Gabe's saying, "What's not to love?"

He loves dirt biking in the Mohave Desert. He wishes I'd let him get a dirt bike or a motorcycle, but in the meantime he'll just have to rely on my dad who's historically provided all the dangerous things for his kids to do.

Devlyn loves the psychadelic murals that McMenamins has on their walls in their freaky old buildings. This particular one was his screen saver for months.

Speaking of freaky...where there's licorice ice cream, there are gross looking tongues.

Jet skiing (also provided by my dad) makes for great father-son matching hair!

Here Devlyn's playing "king of the mountain" with Ryan Sprunger and Aaron McNelly- the floating, water trampoline version. This particular incident prevented us from having kids for awhile.

Devlyn likes acupuncture and to be weird...here he is doing both.

This is a good one, because it capturers several things Devlyn loves. 1. our puppy, Daisy 2. Daisy's boy, Chase 3. His old Mazda RX7 (He had to sell it, don't bring it up, it's a sore subject)

Dune buggies. Dune buggying? Also provided by my dad.

Home Improvement projects! Devlyn can't get enough of these!

Church!

Coffee. Seriously, here he is hugging a coffee bean plant...bush? tree?...whatever, he's hugging it!

Diet Coke. Notice his grip of death on the can. Diet Coke has also prevented us from having kids for awhile. It's a long story.

Dance baby dance! He won't admit it, but he loves to dance! When he thinks no one is watching, he'll bust a move! Me catching it on camera is like getting a picture of big foot!

He loves his guitar. Need I say more?

Eggs, bacon and grits. Yes, grits. It's a strange phenomenon that he's passed onto our daughter.

Shooting guns. Also provided by my dad. Don't worry, he's teaching Chase gun safety 101 here-I'm sure!

And, drum roll please....ME! He loves me, really. I know you can't tell from this picture, but he especially loves to close his eyes and pretend he doesn't think I'm funny. He strums his guitar strings with all his might and tries desperately to escape to his happy place, but deep down he knows...I'm there too!

OSMI!

I know it's OMSI, calm down! That's just what Chase used to call it when he was little. Anyway, despite all the wit, charm, blood, sweat and tears I put into my posts here...you all seem to want nothing more than pictures of Charley. Seriously I work so hard to get the comments on my "clever" posts to outnumber the comments on my "kid" posts and they never do. NEVER! So I will pretend for today that this blog is not here just to glorify myself and my own selfish ambitions, but about the readers. Really it's about you guys and what you want! REALLY! Here are some picts from our OSMI visit last week to prove it!

This is the water feature. It's sort of like playing in the backyard in the pool except it's raised up to the kids' level so they don't have to risk any back injury from bending over. Scientists think of stuff like that.

Notice the waterproof smock and rubber boots they provide! Scientists think of everything. Charley picked hers out herself. Notice how they match-not a coincidence-that's the kind of stuff Charley thinks of.

She hates it when she's not ready and I take her picture anyway.

An then there was the play dough, I mean "flubber" table. Again something that could probably be recreated at home, but is so much more fun at OSMI with the little pint size tables and chairs and the neat little individual trays.

This is Silas, he's one of the W's we went with. He's the one who informed that the purple substance was not play dough but in fact, flubber.

This is Devon, he's another W. He was making a ball of flubber so he could "bounce" it. He knew all about flubber and it's bouncing properties. He saw it in a movie-I mean documentary-once.
Smile Devon! Smile! SMILE!!!
He's the rebel of the bunch.

Charley's favorite part was the scissors. She's fascinated with our scissors at home, partly because they look cool-we have several pairs in different shapes and colors-and partly because she's not allowed to have them. Here she is looking at me seriously, telling me that "these are my scissors, they are just for Charley's. You can't have them Mommy because they are very, very dangerous!" Being able to give that speech alone may have been her most favorite part.

Here's another pair for her collection. Her less solemn look her is saying something more like, "I'm playing with scissors! I'm playing with scissors!"

And finally she got bored with the scissors and found another tool that looked real-something mom actually has and uses at home-and took to "mashing" and "quashing" and "macking" the flubber. (She doesn't say her S's when they are at the beginning of a word.) Also, notice her crooked part. I did that on purpose. It was an artistic expression meant to raise awareness of how wiggly my daughter is.

Here's "baby Omi" (Naomi) she's the youngest W. I think she's doing a dance routine her mom taught her. Her mom was a cheerleader.

And one more of her face cause she's so darn cute!

That's it. Go ahead and blast me with your comments...you know you want to!

The Brick House

It seems that there is so much about my childhood that I love (loved?) love. There's so much about my childhood that was magical, both at the time and now looking back. Before I became cynical and depressed, before I lost hope in humanity, before I questioned everything on so many levels, I was a child. It was a time that really shaped and formed me. If I dig deep enough, it explains all the inexplainable things about me. Let's take a trip back, shall we? (Don't worry we won't be digging that deep today)!

This is The Brick House Vineyards. Beautiful isn't it? The barn is the building most viewable in this shot. There's an old shop (who am I kidding? The whole place is ancient!) in that first thicket of trees on the left. The house, the brick house is mostly obscured by the trees to the right of the barn.


The old barn has been renovated to a space more conducive to pressing, fermenting, bottling, storing, tasting and whatever else they do to wine. However, the wine is not the point here nor are the vineyards really. Here is a smicket (I know there's a "more correct" word for what I'm trying to say here, but I can't think of it right now, besides even if I could I'm sure smicket is better) of text off of the Brick House Vineyards' website:

"Spring, 1990. The barn was home to a third generation of owls. The eaves of the old house were swarming with honey bees. And in a field to the south, a great yellow earth mover pushed over the last remaining trees of what was once 16 acres of filberts (hazelnuts) to make way for the first planting of Pinot noir at Brick House."
Yes, we'll start about there, actually we'll back up. That is where the vineyard's brick house story starts and approximately where my brick house story ends. But they are right about the owls and the bees (or should I say the birds and the bees? No, sorry, different topic!)

The way I remember the owls and the bees-and remember, the way I remember it is the correct way! I was a child and once those memories are formed no math, scientific evidence or pictures produced claiming things to have been otherwise stand a chance against my stubborn childhood memory! Now...where was I? Let's break it down. Maybe I'll just cover the owls today, this is just a blog post right, not a full on book?

The owls back then were called barn owls-they may have been spotted owls, maybe, I honestly don't know, but it doesn't matter, because the minute they move in and set up camp in a barn, they become barn owls and nothing more. They were a nuisance, I can't remember exactly why. Maybe it was because they pooped all over everything in the barn including hay, tack and the barn floor which was, oh yeah, where we stepped! Us kids hated them, because they were scary looking! Even the babies. I realize that normally baby animals are cute, especially the fluffy kind, but no so with barn owls. Creepy, disgusting little creatures who should only come out on Halloween when such a sight is appropriate. We loved to go up in the loft and make hay forts, a place of refuge from the barn owls. We just had to brave the spooky presence of the barn owls who hung out in the rafters while we made our refuge. I should add an audio clip here of me doing an impression of spooky barn owl coos, cries and hisses-yes hisses, this is my memory, remember!?.
Whatever his reason(s) my dad hated these beasts as well. I'm tempted to stop writing here, because if you know my dad at all, I'm sure you can use your imagination to finish the story. Hahaha, actually yes it thrills me to leave it here. And if you need help using your imagination, here is a picture of my dad, I'm sure I'll do an entire post or two on him sometime.

Curses!!! I can't get my scanner to work! The picture I want to post is not on my computer so I was going to scan it and post it, but due to technical difficulties (there's a redundant phrase!) I'll have to post it later at best. I'm sorry but no other picture can be substituted at this time. Please bear with me as I continue to unplug plugs, blow on them and plug them back in, until my scanner works properly.



SEE...Creepy!

Jazzercise!!!! (This title requires lots of exclamation marks!)

I think it's time for a Jazzercise post. Where to start? I'm sure I have several posts on this topic in me. Like my instructor, Carrie, she's a whole post in and of herself. I know, I find a way to work it into most conversations, but in case you haven't been lucky enough to be present for one of those, I love Jazzercise. I don't go as much as I could, should or wish I did. I lack motivation, especially in the morning, but when I do go...look out, because I am on top of the world for the rest of the day! In fact when Devlyn calls at some point during the day, I'm always sure to mention that I went to Jazzercise that morning! I say this because I feel so proud and accomplished, but also so he'll know that he can expect a little extra dose of crazy from me that day.
I go and I think, why is this only the first time this week that I've gone? For a whole hour, I embody, well many things really. Whatever I want to, that's the beauty of it. I am the dancing queen, only seventeen. (You're welcome for sticking that song in your head for the next 24 hours!) I am a contestant on "So you think you can dance?" and "America's got Talent" as well as some of the lesser known talent search shows. High School Musical (is that just a singing one?), that Grease on Broadway one and heck, sometimes I just make the competitions up.
My class takes place in a gym at an old High School that is now being used for just such community center type events. But since it's in a gym with basketball hoops, giant mascots looming over the score board and Class of '97 "artistically" painted on the wall, I find that my mind wanders so far as to even pretend...I'm a cheerleader doing a half time performance. There I said it.
Besides the incredible exercise and freeing of the mind experience, it also provides great entertainment. There is quite a range of regulars in our class. All are women, but beyond that there are young moms determined to tackle the baby bulge, cute grandmas who are having a blast (I love to watch them dance to Gwen Stafani), middle age fitness freaks-that would be moms of teens or older who look more awesome than me (hard to believe I know). Shape, size and age varies naturally, as does personality. There are the improvers who are having a good time if you know what I mean. No self consciousness there and I say go for it. Hey, they are having fun and I can't help that it can be darn amusing! There are also the lip syncers and the not so in syncers... they just flat out sing along-you know who you are!
The attire is pretty tame, normal stuff for the most part which makes it extra exciting when someone wears a leotard over leggings, with scrunch socks and a sweatband. Oh how I wish I had an invisible camera at times like that. And because it's not enough that they are wearing a leotard, it always has to be some loud print like leopard or a neon color like magenta. Maybe they started Jazzercise twenty years ago and just haven't updated their work out clothes with the times. We'll just give them the benefit of the doubt.
I think these are the basics, but don't worry I'm sure there will be more. Oh so much more for me to share with you! Until next time, keep those jazz hands limber!