Fifteen

Dear McKay,

Fifteen years ago today, you took two young, dumb, baby-faced kids in love:

And you made them parents.

We had no idea what we were doing, and we have undoubtedly made many mistakes.  Still are making them, I'm sure.

But oh, it's been a fun ride.

You made being a parent far easier than it actually was (as we learned when your colicky brother joined the family).  You were the easiest newborn I've ever known, and the happiest toddler.  You have always had a smile on your face and joy in your heart.  You sought to obey and still continue to do so.  Life has definitely been more sweet with you around.

Today was a pretty big day for you.  I have been a ball of nerves all day long, and worried and fretted for you and your big appointment at the DMV.  I think my blood pressure definitely hit unsafe levels during the 10-minute written test, as I sat on a cold, metal folding chair in the next room and wrung my hands sore.  I knew how badly you wanted to pass, and for that reason I wanted you to.

Desperately. 

And while I am absolutely terrified of handing you the keys to my car, I have no doubt that you'll probably do better than I did.

I don't see any joyrides at midnight in cars driven by unlicensed friends in your future.

Right?  RIGHT?

You are so unlike what I was at this age.  It astonishes me and fills me with awe to see your happy confidence.  You are ever the social butterfly, but never too busy to hang with your brother.  Your sister doesn't quite speak the same love language, and your early morning happiness is definitely wasted on the likes of her.  But your persistence pays off, and even she can't resist your happy banter.

Mack, you make me so proud.

I am proud of the young man you are becoming.  I am proud of the example you are to your younger siblings, and even to your friends.  Your heart is a good one.   Your standards are high, and you expect a lot from those in your life.  I so admire that about you.

I have been so impressed with your smooth transition to high school this year.  I won't lie, getting up to drive you to early morning seminary is kind of killing little bits of my soul.  But it is all worth it when I see what it means to you.  Your dedication inspires me to be better.  To try harder.  To do what I know I should.

Thank you for being such an important part of our family.  Your sense of humor, your quick wit, and your keen observations make you so unique and such a big part of our lives.

Thank you for your patience, as I've tried and made lots of mistakes on you.  You, my first baby.  The one who has to endure the twists and turns of the learning curve with me.  You, who've had to suffer most through my inadequacies.  You've made it easy on me, kid.

And you've made it exceptionally fun.

Happy fifteenth, Mack.

I love you.  I couldn't be more proud of you.

Love,

Mama

Glass half-full (even if it's dirty, chipped, and cutting my lips)

In an effort to not become totally suicidal slightly forlorn, I have decided to focus on the good things about living in an apartment.

All three of them.  Because there are many.  Many, many good things.

For instance, I have firmly cemented the positive habit of making my bed every day.  Mostly because, if I don't, you physically cannot walk through my bedroom with one or two pillows on the floor.  There's just not room for the bed, the pillows, and me in this tiny space.  Gone are the luxuriously lazy days of not making the bed at all until the Husband came home at night.

(You know we only make it half the time because they're going to see it and think we're lazy bums if we don't, right?)

Another positive lifestyle change is the increase in efficiency in the kitchen.  I can literally stand in one spot, not have to lift my feet at all, and I can load the dishwasher, put away all the clean dishes, make dinner, and clean the kitchen.  Think about this.  From one spot, I can reach everything in my cupboards, drawers, and stove.  With all the free time this has afforded me (no more walking, hooray!), it is a wonder that I have not found the time to cure cancer.

Cancer cure:  Coming soon.

(Note to self:  Learn how to cure cancer.)

A special treat that we've also recently discovered is the burst of freezing-cold water in the shower that comes if anyone so much as thinks about touching a faucet anywhere else in the apartment.  It's like a wake-up call.  Hey, you!  You in the shower, enjoying yourself and relaxing.  Wake up!  You've got things to do!  No time for conditioning rinses!  Hurry up!

Loving that part.

Also of note are the new cultures my kids are being exposed to on a daily basis.  Like the next door neighbors, who seem to be home all day, every day, out on their back porch smoking weed hopefully just cigarettes.  Teaching us, once again, that age-old lesson:  Love thy neighbor anyway.  (Or at least ignore them and keep your windows and doors shut tight.)

My favorite thing (legitimately) is that we can clean the place, top-to-bottom in about 13 minutes.  That includes toilets, vacuuming, sweeping, dusting, and pick-up.  Sure, it still looks pretty crappy, what with all the piles of stuff we have no place for, but it's clean.  And I like that.

Also amazing is calling someone to come fix things and not having to pay a dime.  The drawer in the bathroom broke because I filled it too full of hair and make-up products?  Not my problem!  Come fix it for me now!  I love it.  (Though I do wish the maintenance man had teeth.)

But the one thing that gets me through it all is the multi-thousand dollar difference every month between what our mortgage was and our rent is now.  Seriously.  We are saving $2,000 every month by living here.  Multiply that by twelve months, and five-and-a-half years of living here.   (Insert me pulling out a calculator...)  By my calculations, we could have had $132,000 more in our pocket had we rented instead of bought a home.

I can promise you, we did not get that handed to us when we sold our house.

Maybe renting isn't so bad...

No, it is.  It really is.  And thank heavens it will end in four more months.

Adaptation

When I last left you, I was:

-Selling a house
-Moving out of a house
-Moving into an apartment
-Buying a house
-Having Christmas
and
-Taking a vacation

All in the same seven-day period.

I would not recommend it.

At one point a few weeks ago, I sat down to have lunch with some friends.  One of them very sweetly looked me in the eye and said, "So, how are you?"

I immediately burst into tears and realized that I was NOT doing as well as I thought I was.  It was an epiphany for me because I am great at pretending life is perfect when it's not.

Later, on the phone with the ever-traveling Husband, I shared this epiphany with him and he hit the nail right on the tip of its pointy, stupid head.

What he said in much-nicer words than this was essentially that I am like a three-year-old thrown out of my routine.  And I really, really like my routine.  I need my routine.

I've felt a bit lost.  Like the ground underneath me is unsteady, with sharp, craggy rocks under my bare feet.  I've had to readjust everything.  How I lived.  How I cooked.  How I grocery shopped.  I was not sure what my new day-to-day schedule would be.  How I would manage a household with two-thirds less of a house to live in.  How I would get my kids to and from school, especially given the fact that two of the three had massive anxiety about riding a new bus.  Where would I, quite honestly, put all of the stuff I deemed necessity, even though it doesn't fit anywhere here in the apartment?  I tossed and turned with worry at night, and blinked back tears during the day.  

And slowly, oh, so very slowly, the hours have ticked by and I've found my tentative footing.  I've made trip after trip to the Container Store, finding ways to organize our life here that is manageable for me.  I've rearranged kitchen cupboards and made peace with the appliances that will sit on the counter for a few months.  I've worked out the school logistics, and helped my kids manage their stress.  I've even been able to fall asleep at night.

I feel safely sure that when someone asks me now how I am doing, the answer will not end in tears.

And that, my friends, is a pretty great place to be in.

12.21.12. Otherwise known as: The end of our world as we know it

My heart is full, my limbs exhausted, and my gratitude overflows into salty tears.

This morning, we said goodbye, officially, and on paper, to our home for the last five-and-a-half years.

The Husband's company had approached him in early November and asked if he wanted to open another office for them.  While this would be a HUGE opportunity for him professionally, they were unsure at the time of asking as to where they wanted this office opened.  We knew it would be either Dallas or Nashville, and we said yes to either one.

We spoke with a realtor, who advised us to hurry and get the house ready to sell, as there were buyers out there and not a whole lot to choose from.  Thinking our house would not sell before Christmas anyway, and that we'd have another chance to put it on the market in the spring, we gave it a try.

Three days later, we had an offer in hand, and still no word on where we would be moving.

THAT was an anxious few weeks.  One filled with diet cokes and self-medication (read:  lots and lots of chocolate).

Finally, the word came down from the higher ups that Dallas was to be our destiny, and we began to get excited.

What was not exciting, however, was going to be closing, moving, and having Christmas all in the same week.

Also not exciting was saying goodbye the brand-new, beautifully remodeled basement we finished this summer.

[Why?  Why do things like this happen JUST when you get your house how you want it?  Is it because God has a great sense or humor?   Or because the universe hates me?

Probably both.]

In any event, I bring you a plethora of photos from the basement now being enjoyed by someone else.

Beautiful, no?  Did you notice the wonderfully organized nooks and crannies in my office shelves?  How perfectly everything lines up and fits in its spot?  I have LOVED that office.  LOVED.

Like almost more than anyone else in the family, LOVED.

(Calm down, Hannah.  I still love you more.)

I think I'd probably die of misery were it not for the excitement of the new home we have decided to build in Dallas.  We JUST got word from the builder that they have accepted our offer and we are slated to have it completed in April.  We will finish school here, and move down there at the end of May.

So, today, on this apocalyptic end-of-the-world Mayan calendar day of doom, life has worked out pretty even-steven for us.  Sell a house, buy a house.  All on the same day.

Which should tell you all that, indeed, the world WILL be ending tonight.

Eh.  At least we'll go out with a smile on our face.

Wigwam Brownies: A lesson in historical accuracy

Brace yourself.

I have come up with a new Thanksgiving invention that is sure to turn the world on its politically incorrect head.

You see, when I, ever so insensitively, posted my Tee Pee Cupcakes four years ago, I did not take into account the inaccuracy of my racially-controversial table decoration.

I imagined that homemakers all over America would delight in creating something for their Thanksgiving holiday that would, not only please the eye, but taste good, too.

Oh, how foolish and wrong I was.

I was not creating a simple holiday treat.  I was promoting racism.

Did you know that the Indians First Americans who helped our clueless Pilgrim friends did not live in tee pees?  Did you?

I didn't.  And my prolonged promotion of incorrect stereotypes has probably set back the Indian First American movement at least another 600 years.

Those poor First Americans.  Stereotyped into tee pees at Thanksgiving all these years.

The horror.

Thanks to the dozens of people who have found the time in their no doubt uber-busy lives to send me lengthy emails correcting my mistake from four years ago, I have decided to correct all of you, as well.  Because it's the right thing to do.

Listen up, racists:  The First Americans that helped the Pilgrims lived in Wigwams.  Like these:

NOT tee pees, like these:

So, with my historically accurate Wigwam photo and a plan, I set out this morning to create a culturally sensitive Thanksgiving decoration for you.

I mixed up a pan of brownies according to the package directions and let them cool. Once they were cool enough to handle, I scooped a large blob of brownies out of the pan and shaped them into a dome shape like this with my hands:

It took about half the pan of brownies, as the brownies got very compressed when I squished and molded them. This means that you only get two Wigwams per box of brownies. And if you're eating at a Thanksgiving table of 28 like I am, this means you need roughly 14 boxes of brownies, three dozen eggs, and a pint of oil.

Totally worth it. We MUST get this right, people.

Once shaped and molded into the proper, accurate Wigwam shape, melt a cup of chocolate chips and pour over the Wigwam.

Crush up several oreos and sprinkle them over the melted chocolate. While the chocolate is cooling, start in on making some decorative accessories to go along with your Wigwams.

I created an entire forest of Eastern Woodland pine trees, on the assumption that these trees actually existed at the time of the First Americans. Though I did not research this facet of my Thanksgiving table thoroughly, I am sure my dear, educated readers will write and correct me if I'm wrong.

I also took some tootsie rolls and starbursts to create a fake fire. It would have been more historically accurate to have a REAL fire, but I was worried about small things like, you know, the house burning down. Or my children suffering third degree burns.

Trying to be true to history can be quite dangerous. But it is SO. WORTH. IT.  I definitely recommend real fires on your table if you can manage.

When your Wigwam chocolate has cooled, pipe some realistic looking sticks and a door onto the Wigwam. This is harder than it sounds, as the dome shape is a tricky angle to work with, and the oreos make the chocolate crumble right off.

Once everything is assembled, it is ready to be the centerpiece of your politically correct, racially-sensitive, historically-accurate, non-offensive Thanksgiving table.

And, you know what? It looks SO MUCH BETTER than my silly, inaccurate, dumb, little tee pees.

Yeah, you're welcome.

P.S.  Check out this month's Parenting magazine, page 65.  But be warned, they have inadvertently featured my inaccurate, controversial tee pee cupcakes instead of my newly accurate Wigwam brownies.

A winner...

Um, yeah.  Sorry about that.

Didn't mean to completely ignore my own contest or anything.

Been a little bit busy around here feeling overwhelmed, stressed, excited, and manic.

Life has thrown a curve ball our way and it's completely tossed everything we know upside down.

I'm not ready to talk about it yet, as things are still unsettled, but I can promise you this:

We are not getting divorced.
No one is sick.
I am definitely not pregnant.  (But I'm pretty excited about someone I know who is.)

Once things are figured out around here, a post will be forthcoming, I promise.

In the meantime, the winner of my new favorite book is:

 Sara said...
My favorite is Unbreakable...excellent read.
You had me at It's a Wonderful Life! That's my favorite movie.
October 22, 2012 4:43:00 PM CDT

Shoot me your address and the book will be on its way to your hot little hands.