a good life

So I'm just returning home from the last, yes, last trip to the store for Christmas presents this year. You read it right - today is December 5th and I am all done. I did most of it online before Thanksgiving, but still. I'm pretty proud. Christmas cards mailed; family scrapbook pages done, copied, and mailed; parent gifts mailed; kids and Josh presents done. I'm thrilled. No more crowded stores. No more annoyed, angry old people pushing your cart out of their path. No more standing in checkout lines the length of city blocks. No more sifting through the remains of a display rack in the vain hope of finding something worth buying.

So how will I fill my time you ask? Easy - doing things I love to do. Today, for instance, my darling husband called and asked me to lunch. We were, of course, a threesome with baby Hannah in tow, but it made for a lively mix. Sometimes I'm still taken back by our new lifestyle. In days gone by, if he had an extra hour, it would have been spent downtown in his office catching up on some major project, thankful because that was one less hour spent working over the weekend or late at night. He would not have been able to pop home, grab us girls, and head to Via de la Valle - a lovely street with a view to the beach and loads of tasty restaurants. It seems surreal here sometimes, this California lifestyle. A girl could get used to this.

I think though, that not a day will pass where I will take it for granted. Every day this summer that it didn't rain (which was pretty much every day), I said a prayer of thanks in my heart. Every time we made that five-minute ride to the beach (which was, again, pretty much every day), I said thanks. The many nights when my husband made it home in time for dinner with us, I marveled at our good fortune. This place is truly perfection. We are truly blessed. Life, it has been good to us. It's true what they say - you have to have the bad to appreciate the good. We are living proof of that. And right now life is good - very, very good.

I believe in Magic...

Okay, this thing is the best. My son colored all over my white Pottery Barn desk with a sharpie (accidentally, I'm sure). I tried every cleaner known to man from bleach to elbow grease; nothing worked. That is, until I tried my new best friend, the Magic Eraser. A few little scrubs with this baby, and bye-bye sharpie. The desk was left absolutely flawless and beautiful once again. I have now been using the Magic on everything in my house - from bathtubs to fingerprints - it gets it all.

I wish I could sell this thing - I want to shout from the rooftops to every mother out there -Magic will get it off, whatever "it" is! I'm half-tempted to let my kids color the walls on purpose, just to be able to test the power of the Magic. Tempted, but not that crazy. Try it out, you won't be disappointed, I promise.

Top 10 pet peeves

10. Call waiting. If I am on the phone with you, DO NOT put me on hold to answer another call. I will hang up on you and you will have to call me back.

9.Waiting in line. See the recurring theme here? I am probably not as patient as I should be. When you're in the checkout line, please, please, please do not take that opportunity to share photos of your grandchildren with the cashier. She doesn't want to see them, all 20 of us behind you don't want to see them. Pay your bill and move on. (Yes, this happened to me yesterday and I had about three minutes to pay, get to the car, and get my daughter to pre-school. Yes, I was late).

8. Personal Injury Lawyer Commercials. The last thing I want to see on television is slimy lawyers offering to help people sue other people. Thank heavens for TIVO.

7. C-SPAN. My husband loves to fall asleep to the stale, droning sounds emitted by the most boring channel ever invented. I will watch the political talking heads and suffer through them, but this channel is like sitting through actual meetings.

6. Meetings. I detest meetings of any kind (and watching them on t.v., as you can tell). I think all work should be done via email, my favorite way to communicate. Send me a list, and I'll get the job done. Make me sit through three hours of you deciding what should be done and I'll resent you.

5. Those little, tiny cell phones people wear in their ears. I don't know why, but these really just bug me. I mean, come on, do you really have to walk around all day with your phone attached to your ear? Are you truly that important? I think not, my friend, you look ridiculous. It's time someone told you.

4. Seafood. Yuck, just thinking about it makes me feel like gagging. I am allergic to shellfish and have violent abdominal reaction when I eat it - I think it has mentally affected me for all other seafood. The one exception to this is tuna, I love tuna fish (mixed with mayo and pickles on lightly toasted bread? Yum.)

3. Bobble-head dolls. Yes, I know, it's weird. But those things really creep me out - I'm not sure why. It just seems unnatural to have this extra large, free-floating head bobbing around independent of the body. I hate them.

2. Being interrupted. Goes with the territory of three kids, I'm afraid. Still, nothing makes me crazier than being in the middle of a conversation or on the phone and hearing, "Mom, can I...?"

1. Public embarrassment. I loathe being embarrassed in public. I have nightmares about it. The tragic irony is that by having three kids in four years - you are going to be embarrassed. I've never gotten used to it, and I don't think I ever will.

And so it begins...

Ain't he beautiful? That is my boy (or one of them, anyway). He is the real writer in our family - he ought to have his own blog. Every day he comes home from school with a stapled, crooked group of papers he has turned into a book. He's written hundreds of books, actually. They're pretty good, too. Most of them involve his alter ego, Super Frog. Super Frog can do anything, and he's really good with weapons. Super Frog always wins in the end - I like that. He even gave Super Frog a Princess, just for his sister.

The other day, Chase came home from school and said, "I had a blue day today." And he had, too. Everything that could go wrong in a first grader's life did for him that day. He pretty much had the world against him. What did he do? He went right back the next day and faced it. Life lessons can be found in the elementary school. I'm trying to learn from him.

So I am writing this blog to chronicle the things in my life that make me the happiest. It will probably be filled with my kids and husband, but those are my happy spots. Indulge me, as I reveal why I love being a wife and a mom. Trivial to some; but for me it's my life.