Sleeping into the Sunset

It's been 16 days since my last blog post.

You know what I've been doing? Aside from working, raising three kids, managing Christmas and New Year's, and - oh yeah - dealing with a resurgence of head lice (which, fortunately, struck over the holidays when the risk of contagion was low and the time available to nitpick was high).

I just distracted myself. Wait, what was I doing? Oh, right!

I've been sleeping. S-L-E-E-P-I-N-G. Which deserves every capital letter I can find.

I meant to be on vacation, so the sleeping thing would have maybe made sense. Except for, you know, the raging insomnia. But that vacation didn't work out quite as I planned, and I wound up working. I did my work the easy way, though. Started late. Kept it to the daytime. Didn't bring out the computer at night. And you know what happened? I got tired. I got tired, so I got up off my sofa and I went to bed. I made myself horizontal by midnight every single night. Well, except Christmas Eve. But that's only because I was tracking Santa with NORAD and couldn't go to sleep until he was finished.

I'm well rested. Which means I'm not blogging. And I hope it doesn't offend you if I hope for more of the same in 2011. I'd call it a New Year's resolution, but I'm not so good with those.

Since I'm awake now, though, I proudly present my 2010 Done List.

In the past year, I have ...

• Said good-bye to a beloved friend - our dog, Moose, who passed away in January. We still miss her. 
• Survived the 80+ inches of snow dumped on our area last winter. With help.
• Got my kids eating real food, at a real table, with real manners. They put their napkins in their laps and only talk with their mouths full when they have something really important to say.
• Saw my diva into - and then back out of - vegetarianism. Along the way, she learned there's not a veggie grown that she does not love. Even better - she dragged her brothers kicking and screaming into the veggie madness with her. Now I can serve broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, brussels sprouts, peas, corn, cucumbers or carrots ... and everyone eats them. Last week, I introduced sauteed spinach and lima beans - on different nights, of course - and got nothing but yums from the peanut gallery. Hats off to Veggie Girl, because I'm pretty sure none of that would have happened without her.
• Fixed my plumbing. And my car. And my lights. And my computer. And my microwave. I got jiggy with the home repairs.
• Made new friends - a few who actually live near me (yay!), and one who lives with me. I've had lots of great au pairs, but only a few have become true friends - and the one who's living with me now is among the best of them. 
• Hired a boy. That's right - our next au pair is a fella! And he's got the URL to my blog, so if he's reading this - we're pleased as punch that you're coming, and the kids can't wait to make you play soccer with them. Every. Single. Day.
• Got my oldest into the Right School, with the Right People. Which means he's now attending a school where every single person on staff understands Asperger's Syndrome and not only accepts my son but loves him for exactly who he is. So far he's brought home straight A's and a girlfriend and a few best friends who call him just to chat and sometimes to invite him to the movies. His joy at getting on the school bus every day is palpable. (And, a nod here to the local middle school, because they did everything they could to support him and make sure he got where he needed to go.)
• Left my heart in San Francisco. And brought some yummy chocolate home.
• Saw my redhead off to Kindergarten. And only cried a little. And now he's reading. Kindergarten is magic.
• Knit stuff. This year I finished - yes, I said finished - my knitting Olympics project and a handbag, plus the three hats and a scarf I just gave as Christmas gifts. And I finished those last four on time. Barely. But it counts.
• Picked hundreds of nits from the heads of various of my children. And thanked my au pair for doing the same, for them and for me. (Ew.)
  
• Wrote another 57 blog posts. Which seems to be about all I'm good for in any given year, seeing as that's the exact number I wrote in 2009, too. 

Happy New Year, folks. I walked out of 2010 with a smile and my rose-colored glasses decidedly intact. I hope that you can say the same.

Kissing 2009 Good-Bye

It's a new year. A new me. A whole new name. Well, an old name, but since I haven't used it in 13+ years, it feels new. New "About Me," over there on the right, too. Kinda had to change it now that I've officially left the limboverse between separation and divorce and entered single motherhood.

Felt all that merited a new template, too. Old one was nice and green. This one is not green, but it's far easier to read, and that's considerably more important. I wish I had the time and the talent to make my own beautiful green blog layout. I don't.

And so, a new year. I'm tickled pink to have kissed 2009 good-bye. Much crap in 2009. Much. Crap.

Lots of joy too, though. And since I'm a rose-colored glasses kind of gal, I thought it best to wrap up the year with a Done List of the good stuff.

In the past year, I have ...

• Introduced my kids to 35 members of my immediate and extended family, all of whom love them to pieces just because they were born.
  
• Hugged my dad. In person even.
  
• Successfully baked cakes from scratch. Martha Stewart's Cupcakes is my new kitchen bible, and trust me, the yellow buttermilk cupcakes with fluffy vanilla frosting will put you in a cupcake coma. Pure joy.
• Rediscovered old friends and made some new ones. These friends? They're the kind who, once you've met them, you wonder how you ever thought your life was whole without them.
  
• Found The Best Side Dish ever - Cauliflower Goat Cheese Gratin, at Bobby Flay's Bar Americain in New York. If you go there, order five servings of cauliflower and a Cosmo. It's all you need.
• Saw Wicked. Lately, my diva's been singing "Defying Gravity" ... and she's doing it well.
  
• Saw the most beautiful place on earth: Paradise on Mount Rainier in August.
• Learned several important lessons, one of which I'm currently ignoring (that would be Lesson 3: Get Some Sleep, Stupid)
• Rescued one sorely damaged and dearly treasured cast iron fry pan from kitchen fire. Elbow grease and bacon brought it back. So nice to have an excuse to cook lots and lots of bacon.
• Made 57 blog posts. People actually read them. Awesome.
  
• Got my kids through an insane number of transitions. Separation. Divorce. Middle school. Preschool. New au pairs. Old au pairs. And realized that, after a full year of change, they are happy. Really, truly, genuinely happy.
  
• And, of course, made it through Limbo. That's the big one, really.
  

If I sat here long enough I could think of another dozen or so wonderful things. Because there's never so much crap that it completely obliterates the good. Rose-colored glasses, you know. They make the good stuff that much easier to find.

The Done List: August 22

Another Done List, mostly because I am at this point far too tired to stand up and figured I could just blog instead. I'm hoping a list of accomplishments will go a long way toward improving my irritable disposition.

In the past 24 hours I have:

• Earned a living
• Cleaned a lovely pile of grassy dog vomit off the kitchen floor
  
• Assisted old, tired, wheezy dog in quest for water, ice, and a lift up the stairs
• Cleaned out and emptied minivan and assisted younger sister and her boyfriend in their move to DC (yay!)
• Paid people to clean my house ... dog hair now under control for the next day or two
  
• Enjoyed conversations with not one but two genuine girlfriends
  
• Washed two slipcovers and super-cleaned sofa peed on by redhead during surprise nap
• Visited elementary school to drop off vacation postcards and find out where diva and her friends are placed for school starting Monday
• Organized $167 of school supplies into appropriate piles and placed into backpacks
• Cleaned up playroom in preparation for double sleepover ... a task slightly more Herculean than usual because the playroom was a storehouse for the stuff owned by said little sister (yay!)
  
• Successfully entertained and put to bed two-thirds more children than usual
• Successfully organized more than 100 11- and 12-year-old boys into (I hope) evenly matched soccer teams and only pissed off two coaches in the process
• When I figured out I did not actually have enough coaches for all seven soccer teams, I creatively put all four assistant coach volunteers into one team along with two past coaches and told them to work it out amongst themselves ... lets hope that one doesn't blow up in my face
  
• Squeezed in two and a half hours of sleep - and did not throttle my lovable Aspie when he woke everyone up at 6:00 a.m. (after 10:00 p.m. bedtime) so that he could take best advantage of his sleepover
• Seasoned critically injured cast iron pan and then restored it further with the healing properties of bacon - bad for the arteries, great for the pan
  
• Made massive breakfast of said bacon, scrambled eggs, raisin toast and bananas that was, quite literally, INHALED by the five children in residence
• Managed to sneak a piece of toast away from the ravenous hordes so I could have something to eat, too
• Made and drank life-giving coffee
  

I'm now going to go dress myself - assuming I can remember how - and take all these lovely children home before hitting the grocery store, making a picnic, taking diva and others to the park for brownies meet and greet and then driving to another state to pick up lovely gift of home furnishings from an old friend. Even better, we get to enjoy some social & cooking time afterward. Yay!

Tonight? Melatonin, baby. I'm gettin' me some sleep.

The Done List: June 9

When I finished my business day today, I still had 6 hours worth of work left to do and a houseful of kids terrified that if they let go of me for even a second I'd vanish back to the mystical place known as Paris.

Needless to say, the kids came first.

I got back to work eventually but was distinctly lacking motivation. That's what happens when you feel you've accomplished nothing. So I squeezed in a break (I'm exceptionally good at taking breaks) and wrote this. Quickly - so it's wordy and poorly edited. I'll come back and do a proper and obsessive edit when my brain is working.

So here it is, my Done List. Like a To Do list, only better. A To Do list is all about the things you haven't done yet and get to feel guilty about. A Done List, on the other hand, is the things you actually did.

In the end, writing it down proved to me I had not spent my day in vain and provided the motivating sense of accomplishment I needed to finally finish my work. Therapy by blog. Yay me.
And so ... Today's Done List

• Cuddled 2 terrified kids through the 5:30 a.m. unleashing of unholy hell from the skies.
• Got clothes-hating 3-year-old dressed for the day. Notable because most days he walks to school in his pajamas.
• Managed to get shorts for 10-year-old into dryer in time for him to wear them to school. They were only a bit damp. Gave him hug for ignoring mom's inadequate housekeeping.
• Saw 3 kids out the door to school. Allowed 3-year-old to leave house wearing sandals with socks because it made him happy. Gave him special kissing hand.
• Made and drank life-giving coffee.
• Earned money to pay mortgage by working demanding job.
• Paid mortgage.
• Ate lunch, as proper nutrition is critical in preventing late-night chocolate binges.
• Washed 6 loads of laundry. Since it's all piled, unfolded, on my bed, I am about to go sleep on it.
• Realized I’d scheduled critical meetings in the middle of 10-year-old's graduation from 5th grade. Which is tomorrow. Frantically rearranged calendar to take morning off.
• Cuddled 2 terrified kids through the second unleashing of unholy hell from the skies, then engaged DVD player in hopes of maintaining sufficient physical separation to cook a meal.
• Made spaghetti dinner with only three meatballs and no ground anything in the house. Convinced children to eat every bite, including scary green peas. Rewarded them with duty-free German chocolates and YouTube videos.
• Boogied with 3-year-old to the Hamster Dance and the Chipmunks’ rendition of Cotton-Eyed Joe and tried to teach diva to snap.
• Supervised writing of thank you notes for teachers. Praised Aspie for writing 7 of them. By hand. Without dictation. Yes, I said 7.
• Praised diva for creating letter so touching her teacher will cry, and – more importantly – for proper use of the subjunctive. A grammar prodigy if ever there was one. Or rather, were. See what I mean? It's hard for adults, and my girl's got it nailed.
• Bragged about grammatically talented daughter on Facebook.
• Supervised 3 delightfully cheerful and independent children through bedtime. Helped 3-year-old get redressed after he soaked himself to the skin washing his hands.
• Simultaneously helped diva sound out the long words in Animal Ark chapter book (hard book - it's British), read But Not The Hippopotamus to preschooler who insisted “that’s not a hippopotamus, it’s a hippo,” and ignored 10-year-old playing video games when he was meant to be reading. The kid reads plenty.
• Distributed hugs and kisses, sprayed anti-monster "spray" around room to protect children from bumpy night-time things, addressed bedtime angst in 10-year-old, promised to check on diva "till the sun comes up," and allowed 3-year-old to hold my bellybutton until he fell asleep. Still don’t know why he does that.
• Bonded with amazing au pair who makes my life easier, in hopes she will like me enough to continue doing so.
• Confirmed details of baseball game for 15 au pairs + 3 kids on Sunday, while doing research on possible nature-themed outing for family + guest on Saturday.
• Went back to work. Wrote detailed article on difficult concept I did not fully understand and brazenly sent it off for review at 3:57 a.m.
  
• Posted totally unnecessary blog entry so as to further delay sleep.

Not too shabby for nearly 23 straight hours of awake. Bed now. Must be cheery, showered and dressed for 5th grade graduation in the morning!
Note: getting dressed appears nowhere on this list. I spent the whole day in my pajamas.
[Also, thanks to judicious editing, you are getting only half the list my sleep-deprived brain drafted in the wee hours of this morning. Scary thought.]
PS - Apologies here because I may have stolen the "Done List" concept from the Yarn Harlot - see blog list at right - whom I admire for more than her amazing knitting skills and creative pseudonym. Too fuddle-brained at this hour to remember for sure.