My Date with Death …

Is apparently February 18, 2037 and I’m going to come back as a Lampart. I’ll live to be a young 65 years old. I’ve got 26 years to go.

If you really knew when you were going to die, or to what age you were going to live, would you live your life differently?

I wondered that. Then I wondered what the hell is a Lampart? I looked it up. It’s not in the dictionary. Maybe I’ll come back as part of the Lampart family? Or maybe, lamp art? I always wanted to be more creative.

The reason I even have this information is two fold. 1) I’m curious. 2) I was going through some bookmarks and saw this. Why I even bookmarked this site is beyond me, but there it is.

So back to the question at hand, if you knew when you were going to die would you live your life differently?

I think yes. Without a doubt. There are many things I would like to see, do and accomplish before I’m done here. And 26 years doesn’t seem like a lot of time to get it all in. Hopefully, I’ll have a lot longer than that, but still. If I look at the concept seriously, all of a sudden everything seems to have an urgent undercurrent like, I’ve got to get it in before I kick the bucket.

I think mostly, I’d be more willing to take risks. I know you’re thinking, I’ll be nicer to my kids or my spouse, or I’m going to make a better effort to stay in touch with friends. Not me. Maybe if I was going to die in a couple of years, then yes, I’d be nicer to everyone. I’d like people to come to my funeral after all. But I’m going to be around until I’m 65. I can’t be nice to people for THAT long.

I mean, let’s be honest, do you really think you’re going to get old and die? I’m not. I’ve got all the time in the world.

What would you do if you knew when you were going to die?

Babysitter, mind if I steal you away?

I have one babysitter. She's been with us for over a year. She's reliable, flexible and always available when we need her. I don't doubt her loyalty. She's always rearranged her schedule around ours. And until recently, I was never concerned about someone stealing her away. Then, one afternoon, while waiting for the school bus to arrive, one of my neighbors offered my sitter some random work. Without checking with me first.

I don't know this neighbor except to say hello at the bus stop in the morning, where she shows up sporadically. I'm sure she's very nice.

My sitter, a college student, wants to work. Needs to work. Is looking for more hours. And like I told her, I would never keep her from other babysitting jobs as long as they don't conflict with our schedule. I can imagine the conversation happened innocently enough. My sitter talking about quitting her other job and looking for more work. The neighbor offering to give her some hours. Fine. Then, how about checking with me?

I would never approach someone else's babysitter without first checking with the family. And I'm not the only one who agrees with that courtesy: This article "Stop Babysitter Poaching" from The Boston Globe sums it up nicely.

Now, my dilemma is: do I say something to the neighbor, or let it go?

Friday Follow

It's Friday - so that means it's time to follow some new blogs. Check out the links below and see what you find. If you like what you see, say hi and follow them. I will be!

Time to plan the birthday parties

Yes, it's that time of year again. Time to plan the girls' birthday parties...and deal with these usual dilemmas: Party out, or party in? Invite the whole class, or a select few? Serve lunch, or snacks? Theme? Favors?

You know the drill.

Last year, I was gung-ho about having traditional birthday parties at our home. Just like I had growing up. Remember those? You'd invite a handful of your closest friends to your house. Play games, eat cake, open presents. Voila! Nowadays, it's $300+ party fees with 25+ kids. Lunch is served to kids and the parents that hang out. Plus, they get a gift for coming. It's too much. No wonder when they turn 16 they expect the equivalent of a mini wedding, without the vows. Start small, I say.

What I really want to know - oh, so many things - but what I want to know about birthday parties: do you send invites via mail, create an evite or have your child hand them out at school (which is obviously touchy if you're not inviting all kids - which is obviously crazy - and I'm not crazy (yet)).

I'm slightly obsessesive with Evite. I can check to see if people have responded. And when people have looked at it, but haven't responded. Then, I start wonder why haven't they responded. I mean, let's be honest, when you get an invitation, you pretty much know what your schedule is for that day. You can either make it, or not. It's very simple. Then, the people who haven't looked at it, I start to wonder has their email changed? Then what? Do I send the invites by mail? It starts to seem a little paranoid, don't you think? I much prefer the discrete invitation-hand-out at school. If your child is capable of that, of course.

Little K's birthday is up first. She's turning 6. I told her she could invite 6 friends from school, as are the rules written by some pediatrician or psychologist or sane parent. The number of kids invited to the age of the child. But then you have to consider siblings and twins and best friends who are abnormally inseparable. Do you invite one without the other?

I have a friend who refuses to have these types of parties for her kids. It's family and close family friends and that's it. In the future, she says, she may expand to inviting one or two friends to a movie. I think I like this rule.

What do you do for birthday parties?

Flash Back

I didn't particularly care for high school. After my freshman year when I met my lifelong friends, we moved from Maryland to Pennsylvania. I spent many weekends my sophomore through senior years traveling by train back to MD to be with my friends. So when I was scavanging around looking for I don't know what, buttons I think, I dug up high school. 1989 to be exact. The year I graduated. And this look ...

That would be a PERM! There wasn't much I could do with that hair, except wait for it to grow out. I think it lasted for about 18 months. I showed it to Big E and she said, "Why didn't you brush your hair before school?!" It was meant to look like that. "Why?" Why exactly.

Also, notice if you will, the shirt buttoned all the way to the top. And my name along the corner in embossed gold. Fancy. Plus, I'm just not sure what's going on with the double strand of white beads.

Do you remember having your senior portrait taken? There were so many poses. Look at the camera. Look off to the side. Lean against the fake brick wall. Sit with your knees up. Through your jacket over your shoulder. Put your head on your hands.

Agh! How's the iridescent lipstick? By the way, that's a tin foil background.

Ah, memories. Let's put these back in the bottom of the drawer. And, in case you were wondering, I never found the buttons.

Gloomy Monday Be Gone

I started this Monday gloomy and unmotived because ... well, it's Monday and it's raining and we just came off a gorgeous weekend and it's Monday. But. I had this lovely surprise in my comment box from Lanita at A Mother's Hood, a Beautiful Blog Award. Thank you so much Lanita! While, by no means do I consider my blog beautiful - I've seen some amazingly designed sites out there - it is really nice to get a little something. And most of all, to have more followers!

Now, to continue the thread of spreading the love, I must do the following:
1. Thank the person who nominated me for this award and post a link to my blog. Done. :-D
2. Pass the award onto 7 other bloggers who I believe have a Beautiful Blog! Here they are:

1. A Beautiful Mess: For endless inspiration. I check in every once in a while and find that when I do, I easily lose an hour reading through the posts, drooling over the artwork, daydreaming about having such a carefree, fun-loving life surrounded by so much creativity.
2. Well Read Hostess: Because she is just hilarious. And brutally honest. And she likes to tell it like it is. I totally respect that.
3. My Convertible Life: Somehow I stumbled upon her blog and have been reading for while. We have some things in common and I consider her one of my few "bloggy" friends.
4. Design Your Life: Another blog I mysteriously stumbled across. I've been following only recently but have been enjoying her stories about her new life in Chicago.
5. The Vintage Pearl: Beautiful blog, beautiful photos, beautiful jewelry.
6. On the Front Porch: I've been reading Wendy for a while. She's funny and always good for a chuckle.
7. Flea Market Style: Because I love flea markets and yard sales, and if I could re-decorate my house, it would look like this.

I'm also supposed to:
3. Contact the other bloggers and let them know they have been chosen for this award…in progress.
4. Say 7 things about myself. Let's see if I can come up with 7 new things...

1. I'm incredibly self-conscious about my hair. Like today, when it's wet and humid, and it frizzes and grows in all kinds of directions.
2. I hate overhead lighting.
3. I still feel too young to have children in elementary school.
4. I'm a homebody, until I leave the house.
5. I daydream about moving to a small town in the midwest and opening my own boutique.
6. I love mashed potatoes so much that I could eat them any time of the day, every single day.
7. I really have a low tolerance for people who are fake.

So, there you have it. Happy Monday, everyone!

Photos with my iPhone

It was Girls Dinner last night. Several things happened. 1. We drank entirely too much wine. This is not unusual. 2. We got into a discussion about blogging. Neither of the girlfriends blog, or Tweet, or do Facebook. They simply just don't get it. 3. I pondered my friendships with these strange women who don't do social media. 4. I took a bunch of photos on my iPhone while waiting for the train, and I just found them on my phone. *snicker *snicker

Since I like to share boring and mundane things like photos of the train station taken after having drank to much Chardonnay, here they are for your viewing pleasure.

This was taken so I knew I was there.
This was taken because there should be people in your photos to make them seem more interesting. The photos, that is.
This was taken because it is artsy.

This was taken to let you know how wasted I was. ahahahahaha. I'm funny like that.

Honestly, I have no idea what I was thinking.

Happy Friday!

I thought I would try this Friday Follow to see if I find some new blogs, and some new bloggers find me. So if you're a FF participant, welcome! And if you decide to follow my blog, thanks!

Kettlebells

I tried a new exercise class last night. Have you heard of Kettlebells? Well, let me introduce you.



Not sure I'm loving this workout, but I feel like one 30 minute class isn't enough to pass judgement. I had a hard time getting past the concept of swinging a weighted ball between my legs and snapping my hips forward. I can't help it. However, I would try it again because I've heard it's a great workout, but that it does take some time to get used to the technique.

Shake Weight

I saw this shake weight thing in the store and for a passing second wondered if it really worked, but kept on walking. Because of course it doesn't. Plus, I don't need anymore gadgets promising to tone me in less time than I ever imagined.

Well, I just came across this clip and laughed out loud. Thought I would share a laugh on a gloomy Monday morning.

I would rather have 5 feet of snow

...then 5 inches of rain. The last year has been unusually wet. Until now, we've had no issues with water in our basement. And until today, we've had no leakage. Today, because the ground is saturated from 5 feet of melted snow and it's been raining for 48 hours, we have water in the basement and coming through a ceiling. The paint is actually melting off the wall.

Other than my children, nothing causes me more stress than water coming into my house. I must have been traumatized at a young age by leaking water. Our house in the city leaked every. single. time. it. rained. It would wake me up out of a dead sleep in the middle of the night. That drip. drip. drip. drip. Then, keep me up all night because I would need to find out where it was coming from at that very moment and stop it. Which was impossible because who knows really where the water is coming from. Water travels, or so I've been told.

I was so happy to leave that house. If anything, it was to get away from that leaking roof. And yet here we are. Water flowing through my basement. That's right. FLOWING. There are ripples in the water that is running through my basement. RIPPLES, people. WTF? And the water dripping from the ceiling in my pantry? Well, I suppose it's because our sleeping porch is above it, and maybe the floor is leaking water? Who the hell knows. What I know is that lots of construction and bills are in my future.

So far, the husband has pulled over 45 gallons of water out of our basement and he's not finished.

Didn't have this problem with snow.

I love homeownership. Love it!

Bloggy Boot Camp

I just did something a little geeky.

I registered to attend a conference for mom bloggers in Philly.

I don't really consider myself a blogger just because I have a blog. Mine isn't a niche blog. I don't offer information that people are looking for or need. It's just a personal journal of sorts. So I feel a little silly taking it seriously enough to go to a conference. But, my thinking is that I want to have a niche blog that people come to for information. I'm just not sure what that is yet. And, wouldn't it be fun if it was my fulltime job? Ah, dreams....

Plus, while some of my friends and family read my blog and probably others, not one of them has their own blog (well, except for this guy). So, they don't really get why I do it. It'd be nice to meet some like-minded women.

If you want to know what I hope to get out of it, other than to have the opportunity to meet other women who blog, here's a recap from the Bloggy Boot Camp in that happened in Baltimore.
The only bummer? I have to wait for September to get here.

Wordless Wednesday: Love

For other Wordless Wednesdays, or to participate, go here.

Funny Snippet: Headline News

During circle time in Little K's Kindergarten class, the teacher asks each child to share a "headline news". It can be about anything. Mostly it's "I lost a tooth." "I won at Mario Kart on the Wii." "I have a new fish." Parents have been encouraged by the teacher to help their kids come up with ideas. So we do. At the end of most days, when I or the husband remembers, we ask Little K what was her headline news that day. Usually, she can't remember. So we try again to come up with ideas.

Last night, just before we were headed to sleep (of course), Little K comes out of her room covered in vomit. Why, oh why, is it always at night? Do you know what Little K said?

"I think I know what headline news is tomorrow."

Garden in the mail

Here's a neat way to send some green to a friend...if you live in Europe.

Postcarden, the company that designs the postcard + garden is based in London and because of certain restrictions about exporting seeds they are only available there. But still very cool. Maybe you can design your own.

Finally a response from CHOP

Finally, after two weeks I've spoken to a nurse practitioner at CHOP and got an appointment with a new doctor. She listened to every detail and every thought I've had about little K's symptoms. She seemed to be on the fence about Addison's disease and Hypoglycemia the same way I am. K has some of the symptoms of both, but not textbook. She also said little K could just need to eat regularly because she's little. That wouldn't be uncommon. Most likely, we'll test for Addison's and if that's not what it is, then we'll be doing sporadic glucose tests at home. That'll be fun. Pricking K and drawing blood will send her into a screaming fits. I can picture it now. The husband holding her down, after he catches her, while I stick her finger. Torture.

PhotoFunia

The girls and I had a few laughs playing with an iPhone app called PhotoFunia. There are a couple dozen options in which you can place a face in a different scene. Here are a couple the girls liked...Little K decided she was never going blond after seeing this one. This photo got the most laughs. For many reasons.

My temper tantrum

I have something to confess. I completely lost my temper this morning. An honest-t0-all-that-is-holy full blown temper tantrum complete with screaming and jumping up and down. Even a couple f bombs landed. I do not lie. Horrified at myself? Absolutely. Terrified the children? Without a doubt.

The reason, as if there could ever be one justifiable, Little K (my new bloggy nickname for Kyra) threw a fit because I wouldn't let her play on the Wii before school. That child pushes my buttons like nobody else. She refuses to take no for answer. Even the "no, we don't have time now, but you can play it after school" got a flat out screaming tearful rejection. I don't have time for this shit in the morning. I need her to eat her breakfast, get dressed and brush her teeth so we can make the bus. Is that so much to ask? Normally, I have help from the husband, but he was on his way to Boston. Tag teaming the screaming child was not an option. So I failed miserably.

I apologized. I'm not perfect. I need to work on not screaming. And then made them promise not to talk about their crazy mean mommy at school.

If you tend to lose your temper, here's some good advice. I'll be reading it. And committing it to memory.

Out of Whack

I've noticed a lot ALOT more gray hairs popping up. You know how they do that. By catching the light just right so you glimpse a shimmer. You're not quite sure where it is. You look around and you find it hiding with a few friends. Grab the tweezers and gray be gone. At least that's how it's done in front of my mirror.

This is happening for two possible reasons. 1) I'm way overdue for some color. 2) The ridiculously high stress I'm feeling over Kyra and her potential new symptoms. Anything slightly out of the ordinary sticks out to me. Like the other night, the girls were watching Hotel for Dogs for the bazillionth time (thanks to this movie Ella has found to calling to be a hotelier for dogs) and during a particularly sad part Kyra cried. Real tears! I didn't think it was possible for young children to cry during movies. Really, I was so shocked I'm sure it must have something to do with everything else that's going on.

And last night, I put her to bed with thoughts of fairies and the full moon festival they were sure to be enjoying. 15 minutes later she's crying about the "dream" she had that "the house is burning down and Barney and Bluey got all burned up." (We did have a fire in the fireplace...) So I told her about about the wonderful fairy festival described in elaborate detail and within 5 minutes she was sound asleep. While I was still talking. This never happens.

This morning, she woke up hungry. Normal. She ate her pancakes but didn't finish them because she was full. Or at least whatever her version of full is. She got dressed, brushed her teeth then told me she was hungry. What?! Because of the low blood sugar she's been having lately I'm super paranoid about her not having enough to eat. So, she's walking to the bus stop with a granola bar. The bus shows up and she's telling me she can't have food on it so we're stuffing it into her pocket. I can't wait to see what melted mess that's going to be tonight.

I like that my kids are young, but I want her to be older so she can tell me what's not right. Trying to figure this out is killing me, and it's making a mess of my hair.

Yearning for Yarn

Happy Monday.

Blech.

I'm hoping for another snow storm only because I don't want to work a full week. Fingers and toes are crossed, but chances are slim.

What did you do this weekend?

I knitted. I'm trying to finish Ella's scarf to match her hat, except it's going to be mismatched since I ran out of pink yarn. I'll be adding white to either end of the pink. And the white is acrylic but the pink is cotton. Oh well. Novice mistake. Kyra, of course, decided she too would like a hat with matching scarf. And, oh yeah, a blanket. So we headed out to pick the yarn color. Purple. She would have nothing else. I had to hold myself back from grabbing loads of chunky soft gorgeous colors of yarn yarn yarn. I really need to learn how to make socks! Oh, the yarn! I never would have thought myself to get excited about YARN! Even Ella got sucked in now that she's decided she needs to learn how to knit. I just don't know what's happened to me. And what's worse, I just got a delivery of new knitting and crochet needles in about 20 different sizes - I couldn't wait for them to show up. So many possibilities. A couple pair even look like drum sticks. ! But, I started looking up patterns and realized I really have no idea how to read them. Real patterns with loads of abbreviations and short hand. It's like another language. Why so complicated?

Because I can't walk out of any store empty handed I did pick out 6 skeins of super soft pale pink, ivory and heather brown. I'm not sure what I'm going to make. I just loved the color combination. Maybe a blanket? I'm open to ideas.