My favorite things. Ever.

These are my favorite things of all time:

That's it...just a blank pad of paper and a smooth-writing pen.  Oh man, you have no idea how happy these two things can make me.  I love to write lists:  shopping lists, to-do lists, blog topic lists.  Lists, lists, sweet lists.  And the pleasure I receive from crossing the items off of those lists is almost embarrassing.  I will even write down something that I did but forgot to put on the list, just so I can cross it off.  I know, I know...OCD much?

My husband thinks it's silly and doesn't understand why I don't use the apps on our phones but it's just not the same.  Although I have found a new one that I really like called Wunderlist but even it does not match up to just a plain old paper and pen.

If I had to draw a picture of my brain, it would be a pad of paper.  And I would draw it on my pad of paper.  With my pen.  Very low tech.  But then I would post it on my blog and link it to my Twitter feed and maybe take a picture of it on my smartphone to put on Instagram.

Don't think about it, just run.

I went for a run today!  Not a long one...just to the end of our road and back, so about 1.5 miles...but it's a big flippin' deal to me.  I haven't even attempted to run in, oh, about a year.  See, I have this ganglion cyst in one of the joints in my left foot, if you read the "My Foot, a Bible, and curse words" post then you're already familiar with this little issue, and it can get really painful so I quit running.  I've missed it since it's really the simplest form of exercise, next to walking, and it always provided a good time for me to clear my always cluttered mind.

And this morning is an exceptionally beautiful morning.  Perhaps it's because it's been raining for the last two weeks straight.  No shit...I planted my garden, as you saw in one of the last few posts, and all that work got washed away with the rain.  I have to replant half the beans and peas and replace most of the watermelon, cucumbers and tomatoes.  Mother nature is a bitch.  But I digress...

I got all the kids off to their respective schools on time (Yeah me!) and as I turned back on to our road from the last trip to school, I thought "I'm going to go for a run this morning".  Immediately on the heels of that thought were a slew of low self esteem voices shouting things like "Are you kidding, you haven't run in forever", "You won't be able to make it half a mile, let alone a mile and a half" and "Your butt will be jiggling the whole way".  I guess my mind is kind of a bitch too.  Even when I was seriously running, like 12 miles routes, there was always a little bit of nervous trepidation before a run.  Why?  I don't really know how to explain it.  The best I can put it is a fear of failing or a fear of looking silly...not that those even make the best sense.  I don't know who I was worried about failing, other than my own standards, but as for looking silly, well that one is probably closer to the core of it.  I'm not built like a runner.  I don't have long limbs and nice calves and I'd never be caught dead running in just a sports bra.  I'm more like a pear trotting down the road being cheered on by my thighs clapping together.  And that mental image is always in the back of my head, quietly telling me to calm the f'ck down if ever I start feeling too good about myself.  So...in order to get myself out on the road and not listen to all this crap, I had to not let myself think about it for too long,  I knew that even if I went inside and looked for the arm band for my phone, I would give in and that would be that.  So as soon as I got out of the car, I headed straight down the driveway.  No more thinking...just go.

I felt pretty rusty as I started into a slow jog but I let my body take it's time to adjust.  I always sound like a bowl of Rice Krispies during the first few minutes...my ankles, knees, even hips have to voice their concern.  So, I shuffled along, hoping no cars came along to see my less-than-stellar running form.  But, after a few minutes I settled into a nice rhythm with my breathing and my body seemed to remember my old running stride.  By half a mile in, I was feeling pretty damn good!  I looked around a bit and saw a good sized bird above me.  Thinking it's one of the many hawks that we have around here (they are my favorite bird and I have nicknamed them all Ethan which my husband thinks is just ridiculous but I think is absolutely hil-arious!) and I was all "Awesome, I'm inspired by that beautiful bird to keep running".  Just as the thought formed in my head, the bird changed angles and I could see that it wasn't a hawk after all but a buzzard.   Hhhmm...a different kind of inspiration to keep running.  I kept looking back to make sure it wasn't following me.

I got to the turn around point at the end of the road and realized I was still feeling pretty good.  It felt like I was keeping a pretty even stride and I didn't feel like I had to quit so I was mildly amazed.  I hadn't brought my phone so I couldn't tell for sure about pace but I was running and not dying so that was all that mattered.

When I made it back to the house I actually felt like I could go further but the next bit of road is a nice little hill so I decided this had been a good little outing for now.  When I got back to the car I pulled out my phone and checked how long I'd been gone.  Only 16 or 17 minutes...which works out to about an 11 minute/mile pace.  Not stellar but not too bad for a very rusty runner.  And the best part was that my foot felt fine!  The whole thing left me feeling pretty damn excited about running again and that, my friends, is pretty damn awesome!

2 f'cking 30 a.m.

Ever wonder who goes out on a Monday night, gets drunk, and then wrecks their car?  Me neither.  But the answer to that question presented itself on my doorstep at 2:30 this morning.  2 f'cking 30 a.m.

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret:  the worst person to wake up in the middle of the night is the wife who's husband is gone to work and has three kids in the house and knows that we live so far out of town that the cops won't be there for a very long time.  That woman is on edge.

And here's the best part:  they asked to borrow a truck or my tractor to pull their car out of the ditch that they had dropped themselves into.  Really?  It's 2:30 am and you think I'm going to a.) come outside in my bathrobe, start up the tractor and pull your sorry asses out of the ditch or b.) hand you, random intoxicated teenager, the keys to said tractor?  Because obviously you are a stellar driver.

I left them outside and called their mother, who sounded just as pleased as I did to hear the news that her 17 year old was stranded out in the boonies and had wrecked a car that I got the impression didn't belong to him.  Then I sat up all night because I was strung out on adrenaline and running through the movie "The Strangers" in my head.  I'm going to need so much coffee today.

Universal Studios > Disneyland

A few posts ago I talked about our trip to Disneyland and my general intolerance for the whole thing.  If you haven't read that post, it's aptly titled "I'm going to throat punch a princess"... gives you a little idea of what I thought about Disneyland.  I suggest you read it since it'll give you an idea of what I'm comparing Universal Studios to, but you don't have to.  It's OK, I can handle rejection.

Anyway, the saving grace of our California vacation was, most definitely, the day we went to Universal Studios.  All five of us agreed that it was the best day of the trip, hands down.  And to get all of us to agree on anything is saying something.

The only downside was that the drive over there because it sucked.  It was about a 30 mile drive from where we were staying which is nothing back where we come from.  We live 30 miles from the 'big city' (that's a relative term, just so you know) and we drive there in about 30 minutes, no biggie.  But not here.  No, this was our introduction to LA traffic.  It took us an hour and a half to get over there....an hour and a half and a lot of the husband cussing under his breath.  Oh, and here's an interesting side note:  the motorcyclists in California can split the lanes so it's not unusual to have what appears to be a guided missile fly by your window when your stuck in traffic.  Don't stick your hand out the window without checking your mirror...just sayin.

So, with the help of the car's navigation system, which we have nicknamed Edna because she sounds like Edna Mode from the Incredibles, we found our way to Universal.  We took the obligatory pictures in front the Universal globe and then into the park we went.

Let me tell you how I knew this was going to be an awesome day:  Lucille Ball and Dracula met us right inside the gate.  Oh yeah...this was my kind of place.  Not only were the characters right there, no stalking them ala Disneyland, they were awesome!  Over the course of the day we had our picture taken with Lucy, Dracula, Marilyn Monroe, the Scooby Doo gang, Spongebob, Curious George, Jaws, the Despicable Me Minions, Woody Woodpecker and Frankenstein.  No waiting in line for 45 minutes...they were just there, hanging out.  It was awesome!

We are total movie nerds anyway, so Universal is right up our alley.  We couldn't wait to take the kids on the tram ride so they could see all the backstage stuff.  They loved it!  They recognized the downtown area from several movies and we even got to see people auditioning for America's Got Talent.  The psycho house and Bates motel, complete with Norman Bates actor, the old west town and flash flood were all neat things to see.  And the King Kong v. T-Rex thing is just too cool.  The only bummer is that the Jaws area was being repaired...that was the one that I was really looking forward to.  Also, our tram operator was hilarious and made the ride even that much better.

Once we were done there we went to the Waterworld show.  Waterworld was not one of my favorite movies but I have to say that the show is pretty cool. The stuntmen do some amazing water stunts, not to mention the guy that lights himself on fire and then falls 45' into the water.  Plus we got to stay around after the show and meet some of the stuntmen.

We filled the afternoon with more rides and more shows.  Kate won a giant stuffed ninja penguin by shooting basketballs in their midway area.  The guy gave her extra shots because he totally didn't think she could do it and then she sank back to back baskets to win it.  She was super proud of it even though we had to lug it around with us for the rest of the day.

The last thing we did before we left the park was the Haunted House maze.  We had all lined up to go in and then the girls had second thoughts about it so Mike & I ended up taking them out and Wyatt went through by himself.  This was the one thing I really wanted to do so when Wyatt came out, he waited with the girls while Mike & I got to go in.  I love scary movies but I was a little nervous to go through it.  It was a good thing we didn't take the girls through because it was wonderfully freakingly awesome and scary!  I screamed and giggled uncontrollably throughout the whole thing.

When you first go in, it's totally dark and you can hear the people ahead of you screaming so you know something is coming.  We turned a corner and a strobe light came on in a sudden burst.  There's a Nosferatu lookin' guy in the corner staring at you and then it goes dark.  The next second it comes on again and he's right beside you.  Right there.  Leaning in like, I'm-going-to-eat-your-eyeballs close.  I screamed.  Loudly.

There's lots of wonderful scares and the actors are really awesome because even though you know they aren't going to touch you, they get really, really close to it.  The best part was when we went into the room were the werewolf and Van Helsing are...you walk through it on this little bridge-like walkway that has solid wooden sides up to about your waist.  There's a werewolf statue on one side with a woman in it's arms and on the other side is a statue of Van Helsing.  I was absolutely sure that one of these was going to move so I was completely focused on them.  I'm starring at Van Helsing, waiting for him to move and I finally decide he's not going to so I start to look back over at the werewolf, because that must be where the scare is going to come from, when this guy launches himself over the side of the bridge right next to me.  I freaked out.  No...I really freaked out.  I screamed and started backpedalling away from this thing, completely running over Mike in the process.  I was shoving him backward as I was backing up but I had stepped on his foot so he couldn't move.  That didn't stop me from practically climbing over the top of him in my very best imitation of Shaggy & Scooby when they see a ghost.  I ended up knocking him into the poor guy behind us and, in general, causing a huge scene.  Like I said, I freaked out just a bit.  And the crazy thing is that I can't even tell you if the guy was dressed like a werewolf.  I didn't even see him that well, just a dark shape launching over the railing in my peripheral vision.  From there on I was a mess and all I could do was giggle ridiculously through the rest of the maze.  It was so awesome!

And the awesomeness didn't stop there.  We decided to go through the CityWalk area right outside the gates and see if we could find a good place to eat.  We took a picture under King Kong and while we were looking for restaurants, Wyatt saw a sign for iFly indoor skydiving.  We walked down to check it out and after watching for a few minutes Mike decided we had to do it.  Me, I'm not much of a heights/falling-to-my-death type of person, so I was skeptical.  But since I won't ever actually skydive, I figured this was a good alternative.

The whole family, suited up and ready to fly.  We look like airborne smurfs.

Me, acting like a dork, as per usual.

Our instructor explained what we would be doing and the instructions he would be giving us and then we were led to the giant wind tunnel.   Abby went first and it was fun to watch her following the instructions to keep herself flying.  Then the instructor took ahold of her arm and leg and flew her all the way up to the top of the tunnel and back down several times.  That freaked me out a bit.

When it was my turn I wasn't sure what to expect when I jumped off of the doorway and into the wind, but it I know I wasn't expecting how it felt.  I didn't feel like I was falling at all...it really was like flying.  And it was amazing!  We each got to go in two times and the instructor taught us how to move our legs to make us go forward and back and how to make 360' turns.  The kids were completely hooked.  Wyatt wanted to go again and again but it was kinda spendy so we just did the one session.  They were already planning a trip to Seattle to visit the nearest iFly location to our home.

We finished out the night with a great dinner at the HardRock Cafe and coffee at Starbucks.  It was the perfect end to the best day of our vacation.  Even the 2 hour return trip through evening traffic didn't bother us.  In fact, on the last day of our vacation we got done with our last few rides at Disneyland by noon and decided to make the drive to Universal Studios again, just to let the kids have more time in the iFly wind tunnel.

So, would I go back to Disneyland again?  Mhe.  Probably not.  But I would go to Universal Studios and the CityWalk again and again.

I think I need a Greenhouse

If my family wants to eat dinner at our table during the months of March, April & May then they need to get going and build me a greenhouse.  For the last 2 years I've started all my own seeds for my garden and they take over all the space available.  This is what I'm talking about:

What you are looking at are:  84 tomatoes, 51 peppers, 12 broccoli, 12 cabbage, 12 cauliflower, 12 zucchini, 46 cucumbers, 21 watermelons and 19 pumpkins.  All crammed into a teeny-tiny eating nook.  It's my 'seasonal greenhouse'.  Oh, and by the way, it smells like a greenhouse too.

See that cute little curtain made out of vintage fabric on the right?  Behind that is my awesome canning shelf that my hubby built me last year.  Here's a pic of that, just because I love it:

Having that many seedling in my kitchen area is a pain but I don't have to buy any plant starts so it saves us quite a bit of money and that's the whole point, right?  That and I know exactly how the food we harvest from our garden has been raised, from start to finish.  The only other step to conquer now is to start saving our own seeds.  That's my plan for this year since I've bought all open-pollinated seeds.  I'm sure that little adventure will be recorded on here over the next few months and, as with everything that goes on around here, I'm sure it'll be good for a laugh or two.

All of those seedlings are finally outside where they belong.  It took me 9 hours to get the garden put in...here's the progression of work:

First, I had to spread out the unit of compost we added to the garden plot.  I took this pic to send to my hubby at work with the caption "Look at me, I'm driving a tractor and I don't even have a penis.  What am I thinking?!" It's an inside joke and it's freakin' funny...just trust me on this one.  That's our lovely overgrown hog pen in the background behind the blueberries.  

All the compost is spread out here.  I have already made 3 rows of it in the back of the garden and planted 2 rows of beans and a row of peas.  Now to rototill all the rest of the it into the front half of the garden....

And done.  That was easy.  I've finished with the compost and planted a double row of tomatoes.  I trench plant my tomatoes to give them a stronger root system.  This means that I dig a trench about 6-8 inches deep and plant the tomatoes horizontally so that only the top 2 sets of leaves are above ground.  The plants will produce roots all along that long stem that is left above ground when planting normally. Did you catch that part about digging a trench?  3' wide by 50' long and 8 inches deep....yeah, that sucked.

And here is the final result....cue angels singing.  All the seedlings are in the ground and have soaker hoses already laid out for them.  Our well gets really dry in the summer so we have to be stingy with our water.  That's why we use soaker hoses for everything and I have to plan out the garden around that watering system.  But right now we have the other problem since it's been raining almost everyday since I planted.  Literally, today is the first day of no rain in over a week....damn you, mother nature.

So now my kitchen & eating nook are back to normal until next March.  Maybe I'll have a greenhouse by then but I'm not holding my breath...it's pretty low on the list of improvements to do around here.  There's always a huge list of things to do and a not very huge amount of money to do them with so we'll probably have another grow operation in the kitchen next spring.  But hey, on the grand scale of things, it's really not that terrible.

ESPN, you complete me.

I have watched an enormous amount of ESPN today.  It rained so that totally changed the location of my work from outside in the garden to inside in the kitchen.  So, since I was there and the TV is right near by, I decided it was a good idea to watch it while I was baking.  But there was nothing good on...funny how that happens.  A gajillion channels and nothing on but reality shows that make me want to throat punch a toddler in a tiara.  Thank God for ESPN.  I know some you ladies are groaning at me but, really, I can watch it all day.  It doesn't matter what's on.  Well, I take that back....I still can't watch golf.  I think that's more of a talent than a sport.  But I really cannot fathom how someone can watch the most fake, scripted, and just plain stupid shows like Housewives or Dance Moms and then roll their eyes at sports.

So while I baked my family biscotti and scones, I also watched recaps on all the latest goings-on in sports:  baseball, hockey, basketball, hockey, softball, hockey.  Did I mention hockey?  It's the Stanley Cup playoffs, people!  Watch some f'cking hockey!

See how that works?  I balance my nurturing-mothering-homemaker side with my scream-at-the-tv-wish-I-played-professional-sports-will-watch-practically-any-sport-and-hates-refs side.  Ya, it's still a little lopsided but it's at least weighted a bit.  It keeps me from going all June-Cleaver-with-a-cleaver on people.

By the way, my girls and I just finished watching a documentary on Abby Wambach.  Now that is some quality television.  That woman is f'cking amazeballs!  I want to be her when I grow up.  But I'll probably just go make some more scones...

I'm going to throat punch a princess. (Our trip to Disneyland.)

We finally bit the bullet and took our kids to Disneyland last month.  We've been trying to save up for it for the last few years but you know how things happen just when you get some money saved up? Like repair work on the car or medical bills or any number of things?  Yeah, that's what happened with us too.  Just when we would start to think we were getting somewhere, life would come along and remind us that we weren't.

Anyway, we booked the hotel room and bought the tickets and budgeted for the gas money.  Yup, we drove.  1000 miles there and 1000 miles back.  30 hours in the car.  And normally a person would say that it was horrible but, in all honesty, it wasn't.  I like to drive.  Mostly because I don't like to fly.  And our kids are also remarkably good travelers so that makes it really easy.  And my husband drives fast so we made pretty good time as well.  So yeah, driving beats flying in my book.

We bought 3-day park hopper tickets and bright and early the next morning there we were...standing in line with a horde of people eager to have our money sucked out of our pockets, all in the name of the Mickey, the Minnie and the holy Goofy.  Mike was the pack mule for the day, burdened with the backpack full of PB&J sandwiches, snacks, sunscreen and water bottles.  We were clearly packing in our own supplies in an attempt to keep some of the afore mentioned moola securely in our possession.  The kids were all hopped up on the free hotel waffles and the kind of expectation only a child can muster. About 10 minutes into the wait, the youngest, who was dancing from foot to foot, accidentally stepped on her sister's foot.  The 'injured' child then pushed her back which caused her to fall into the oldest (who, at 15, was way too cool to be hanging around us anyway) and basically set off a chain reaction of snide comments, shoves and general feuding.  We tried to contain the chaos to the approximately 3' x 3' area we were occupying in line but that was pretty much futile.  In an attempt to save our family fun time, it was after all only 9:20 on the first day, Mike gathered the children to him in a fatherly 'bear hug' that resembled a football huddle.  Keeping his voice low enough that only the kids could hear him, he said, through gritted teeth "Listen, we just drove 1000 miles to get here and spent...well, way too much money on the tickets.  We did it because we love you and we want to make memories.  And, it's the happiest place on earth so you're going to be freakin' happy!  Got it?"  Oh, I love that man.  And it worked.  Attitudes greatly improved from that point on.  Also, they opened the gates at 9:30 so that might have helped.

Once through the gates, and after we took the obligatory picture in front of the train station, we bought each of the girls an autograph book.  That was the only souvenir they wanted and we thought we were getting off easy until the cashier told us it would be $35 bucks for 2 books, 2 pens and tax.  Damn.  But, if that was all they wanted, great.  They could fill it with free signatures and we would be golden.  And as soon as we walked into the main street area, there was Goofy!  This was going to work out great!  This was not the first time I've been wrong.

On the first day at Disney we saw Goofy and the Fairy Godmother and waited in line for 40 minutes to see Tinkerbell.  40 f'cking minutes for a fairy.  We didn't even wait that long for the rides.  And that was it...we saw other characters but they were either going on break or you had to go to their 'show' to see them.  Seriously?  Are they union?  For the amount of money we just paid to get in, there should be a Mickey Mouse in every 'land' of the park.  And princesses should be pimping themselves out on the street corners.

When we bought the tickets I wasn't sure three days would be enough to see all that the two parks had in store for us.  It was.  Honestly, by the end of the first day, I was done.  When we went to California Adventure it was more of the same.  We had to stalk Mickey Mouse to get that little rodent to sign their books.  Literally, I'm not even joking here.  We got one of the park employees to tell us when & where he was going to pop up next (we won't go into detail about that conversation) and then we staked out the joint until he came strolling in with his oversized shoes.

By the end of the third day, I was ready to throat punch a princess.  We got in to the park early that morning so after a few quick rides we headed to the place where Merida, from Brave, was supposed to be at 10:00.  The girls were second in line...score!  And I have to say that, despite being a little late, Merida was a very awesome princess.  Not at all uppity like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.  Those dames are stuck up.  Want to know how I know that?  Because after seeing Merida, we stood in line for 50 minutes to see the big three:  Cindy, Ariel and Snoozy.  That's five-zero.  50.  And with the exception of Ariel, who was also quite awesome, they were just like mean girls in big dresses.  Ugh.

I know, I know... I'm caustic.  I'm a cynical person by nature (or nurture, but that's another story) but I was willing to overcome all that and try to get into the spirit of the place.  I really wanted to be washed in the magic of Disney.  But it didn't happen.  I enjoyed the essence of the place but I just couldn't get there.  And it wasn't until the last day that I was able to figure out why.  You see, Walt Disney did a great job in creating all the different areas of his park to be specific in every way.  For example, you don't hear the music from Frontierland when your next door in Adventureland and so on.  Even the smells are different.  And that's awesome.  Until all that immersion just starts to feel manipulative.  It starts to feel like a cover for just plain old commercialism.  When your shelling out $40 for 5 ice creams it really doesn't matter if you're standing in ToonTown or Tomorrowland.  And after standing in line with hundreds of other families, all with that resigned look on their faces, the princesses' gowns look a bit more threadbare.  And when your kid just wants to see Minnie Mouse or Snow White and you can't find them unless you stand in endless lines, the magic starts to wane.

So yeah, that's my take on Disneyland.  Kind of a downer, aren't I?  Don't get me wrong, we still made some very awesome memories on our trip.  But it was because we were together, not because of where we went.  It wasn't Disneyland that made the trip for us.  We made the trip, Disney was just one of the stops along the way.

Universal Studios...now that was an awesome day...and one that I will put down in text soon.