I've never wanted a glass of ice water so badly in my life

I have not had a drink with ice in it for over a week.

I have not had a room temperature drink for over a week.*

If I do... the pain. It makes me want to curse (mother f*cker being the curse of choice), hit someone, or cry. Or all three.

The braces came off 2 1/2 weeks ago (hooray!) and my teeth were a little sensitive. Made sense. I used the special toothpaste I had always used before, and figured it would go away in a few days, like usual. Except it didn't. 6 days after my release from the brackets I took a drink atbreakfast and nearly keeled over from the pain. By the next day (Halloween, and I was room mom for The May Queen's class party) I had figured out that cold things are what REALLY set it off. The pain is, hand down, worse than labor. And I was in labor for 48 house. But this... this has been 13 days.

I've been to the dentist. And the orthodontist. There's no cavity. No decay. My bite seems to be OK (darn well should be!) We are trying some things to make it better.

In the meantime I heat up every liquid I drink. I have to have a mug of warm water to brush my teeth. If it's cold outside I keep my mouth closed, because the cold air on the tooth sends me reeling. I chew everything on one side.

But it is NOT getting better. And it looks like a root canal may be in my future. As much as I dread that, it has to be better than this pain.

The silver lining, I've decided, is that it has also forced me to kick my diet soda habit. In an act of true desperation I did, one day, microwave a mug full of Diet Pepsi. I've stuck to tea and lukewarm water since then.

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* Except red wine. For some reason room temperature red wine does not bother the tooth at all. It's like a gift from God.

I am the 99%

1% of the population can walk successfully in 6 inch platform heels. The other 99% look clumsy/ scared /ridiculous. If you are in the 1%, and can ROCK those heels, more power to you. But if you cannot walk with confidence and attitude in those shoes, then please, stick to more reasonable shoes. Perhaps with lots of practice and the thumbs up from a trusted friend, you can move up to the elite 1%. But until then just accept that…WE ARE THE 99%

Inspired by a wedding I attended this weekend, where I watched a girl look completely ridiculous trying to walk in her shoes. Not sexy, not classy, not pretty, just RIDICULOUS. Why do people do that to themselves? And why don't their friend speak up?

Hunca Munca in my basement

In Beatrice Potter's The Tale of Two Bad Mice, she tells of rodents wrecking havoc in a dollhouse: smashing plaster food, tearing the bolster, stealing things.

These mice seem to have moved to our basement, and are doing something in the dollhouse that Potter never mentions in her book:
My grandfather made this dollhouse for me, and now the mice seem to be using it for a toilet. Hunca Munca is definitely not sweeping out THIS house.

Another thing Potter doesn't mention is what happens when the household cat gets ahold of the mischievious mice. Hunca Munca was found dead at the bottom of the basement stairs.

(no picture, sorry)

Unfortunately, I'm fairly certain her criminal partner, Tom Thumb, is still on the loose.

9

Yesterday you turned 9. It's amazing how time flies. This weekend you sat in my lap, and I thought of how I used to hold you, a newborn, in one arm. With the way you're growing you'll be taller than me in no time. And that's no small feat, as I'm 5'10". You used to say you wanted to be as tall as daddy (6'5"). Do you still want that?

I'm grateful you still sit in my lap. Occasionally you'll hold my hand walking home from the bus stop or crossing a street. Briefly, so briefly, and I remember how much I've always loved the feel of your soft hand in mine.

You're a Daddy's girl through and through. He's clearly your favorite person in the world, and you miss him when he's gone and rejoice in his returning. He tickles you and calls you his weasel and you squeal in protest, loving every minute of it.

You lost your grandfather this year, and handled his last days with so much love and grace. You spent endless hours over several months at his bedside, and it's no secret you were his favorite visitor. On his last night you shared a meal of macaroni and cheese and ice cream. The next morning you sat in the the living room with his lifeless body before the funeral home came to take him away. In the weeks that followed we talked about life and death and God and heaven and your late Uncle Greg. I explained cremation and tried to talk with you about soul.

It's been a hard year for me, and I wonder how much that has effected you. I know my patience and creativity and energy have been lagging, and I'm sorry for the times that I snapped at you and wasn't up to playing.

You're on the edge of childhood and the tween years. You still play with Barbies and Zoobles and Littlest Pet Shop. You're starting to take some flack for that. A girl in your class made fun of you for taking home the empty tissue box to make a home for your LPS. You were hurt by that, but I was proud to see you bring home another empty box a few days later. Stuffed animals trail behind you wherever you go, and you rotate your favorites. You love real animals, too, of all ilk. Foxes are your latest favorite. I'm not quite sure yet how I'll help you be a fox for Halloween.

As you get older I feel more pressure to pass on the things I want you to learn, most importantly to be KIND first. I'm also trying to figure out how to help you see things from a different point of view and to not take everything so personally. As an only child there are experiences you've lacked that might have helped you learn these things. I'm trying to help you navigate the waters of interacting with others.

You have some great friends, friends who love to play and laugh and be silly. I hope these friends become lifelong rocks for you.

9 years. Thank you for sharing your life with us for 9 years. You're halfway to adulthood. Halfway to college. I wish sometimes I could make time stand still, or reverse it. But we are here, now. Let's enjoy every minute.

Cookbook Winner

The winner of Emily's cookbook, Cooking on the Edge of Insanity, is Chrissy, who writes over at Tales From the Carpool Lane. Like me, Chrissy has recently moved, and she arrived just in time for a terrible tornado. If you want to read about the work she was a part of in the wake of the Joplin tornado go here. Have your hankies on hand.

Chrissy feeds her husband and three gorgeous kids.

But all of you, please, go buy Emily's book, either in print or in digital version.

And thanks, Emily, for letting me do a giveaway of your book. I'm honored.

Making Real Food Real Fun

The Most Fabulous Emily Rosenbaum graciously sent me a signed copy of her cookbook, Cooking on the Edge of Insanity.

Emily is passionate about feeding her family REAL food. As in food you would recognize as actual food (vegetables and fruit that are fresh, real hunks of meat, no chemicals you can't pronounce, etc) I have to admit I was a bit nervous about reading the book, because while I really like the idea of real food, and truly believe in the importance of family meals, sometimes (OK, at least a few times a week) my family dinners consist of things like frozen lasagna (I do heat it up in the oven, but you get the idea). I shop at the grocery store, not the farmer's market, and am positive the bananas on my kitchen counter were not grown anywhere near within 100 miles of my home. I was worried that the book would fill me with guilt for all the things I'm NOT doing.

Fortunately, Emily writes with such humor and grace, and an acknowledgement that being a true Real Foodie takes passion and commitment, that I finished the book laughing and thinking about what small steps I could take to incorporate more Real Food into my family meal planning. (Plus, she makes a True Confession that will quickly let all her readers know that she's not perfect. Which is good. Because if I start striving for perfection I'm toast. Toast made from Wonderbread. White Wonderbread. Full of unpronounceable stuff)

More than just a collection of recipes, Emily has filled the book with stories about how and why she developed the recipes. The stories give ideas of how to plan ahead, how to include your children in the process, how cook beans one day to use in several recipes over the coming week. The stories help to show the big picture... beyond the creation of the food to eat, the WHY of the way it's prepared. The WHY of the ingredients. The reasons WHY Emily is teetering on the edge of insanity, and the good things it has led her to create.

The first recipe I plan to try is her Bakeless Peanut Butter Cookies. First, because they have my absolute favorite food in them. Peanut butter. Yum.... Also, because Emily thinks they are healthy enough for breakfast. And if I can get my child to eat them for breakfast, I think our whole lives would be so much easier. And how hard can it be to get my child to eat COOKIES for breakfast? (Please, don't answer that)

I'm also going to try to use more fresh fruits and vegetables. To soak my beans instead of opening a can. To plan ahead so I'm not stuck pulling out the frozen pizza at the last minute.To cut down on the amount of chemicals in my kitchen (I suppose I should start in the most obvious place, by kicking - once again - my diet soda habit. Shhh... don't tell Emily)

Emily has agreed to give away a copy of her book to one of my readers. So PLEASE, leave me a comment about your thoughts on eating more Real Food, and I'll pick a winner at random on August 1st (and if you already have Emily's book, feel free to leave a comment... IF you promise to give your winning copy away as a gift. Or just tell me to leave you out of the drawing). I plan to purchase a book to give to a friend of mine, a single mom feeding her own voracious little boy as much real food as she can find and afford in NYC.

signs

So we have all these old cans of paints that the previous homeowners left in the basement... many of them colors that weren't even on the walls when WE bought the house (Like that yellow, for instance. That pink, unfortunately was. I'll have to post a picture of the pink room sometime. Even the closet door and ceiling and the CEILING FAN BLADES). We've opened the cans up to dry them out to dispose of them.

Then I thought... Hmm... we have all these random boards they left lying around the backyard, what if I used some of these old paints to slather them in bold colors, then painted fun signs to hang from the fence around our pool/yard/garden.

So I did. Paint them bold colors.

And now I'm trying to decide what fun sayings/pictures to paint ON them. Ideas?