Reason #672

Why I love my husband.

The rain was pouring down in a cold, miserable torrent when I dragged myself out of bed this morning, and started in on my third day of becoming the Queen of Grouch. Between the nasty mood that has hovered around me like a cloak lately, and the lack of sleep due to Mr. Serious' sincere desire to awaken screaming every two or three hours, I was not feeling very optimistic about how my day would turn out.

Super-Hubby had the day off today, so he came by my office just to bring me some Oreos, hoping to lighten my mood. (This man knows me well. Chocolate fixes almost anything.) When that didn't help, he tried making me laugh, but that didn't stick either.

So, when I came home from a mad dash to the grocery store, I found a vase full of beautiful yellow roses waiting for me on the hall table. My favorite flower.

Can't beat that with a stick.

Pack your lunches ...

It's a Wishful Thinking field trip! I know, you are just too excited. For a change of scenery, I decided to post today's entry over here.

It's called Mom Against the Machines. Go read it. It will only take a second.

While you're over there, check out the new issue of Cruchable. Super-Hubby has some good writing up this week. You can read about making movies about rubber rats and pretending to be in prison.

When you get back from your field trip, if it's not too much to ask, leave me a comment to let me know your thoughts.

Thanks!

That's right, I'm tagging myself

I have so much going on in my head right now, events and thoughts I'd love to write in a lengthy, touching, funny post, like the ones that can be found at Wonder Woman Meets Grizzly Adams. I would love to, but I can't. I can't because this is my third sleepless night, and I am too tired to think. (When I say sleepless, I mean I had maybe 3 hours of non-consecutive sleep last night.) Something is up with my sweet boy, who seems otherwise fine, just completely uninterested in sleep. Of any kind. Including naps.

So, instead, I am tagging myself with the 4 things meme.

Four Jobs You've Had:
1. Florist's assistant
2. Receptionist for a computer security firm.
3. Full-time nanny.
4. Reporter.

Four Places You've Lived:
1. Yellowstone National Park
2. Oxford, England
3. West Central Boondocks, Maryland
4. Christmas City, USA

Four Vacations You've Taken:
1. European tour, including England, Scotland, France, Italy, Austria and Spain
2. Grenada, on my honeymoon.
3. Arizona and New Mexico, at Christmas.
4. Ireland.

Four Vehicles You've Owned:
(Perfect, I am currently on my fourth vehicle)
1. A faded, mustard-yellow 1984 Subaru Station Wagon, stick shift, no power ANYTHING. How I loved that car. Her name was Molly.
2. A big, white, 1991 Chevy Lumnia, lovingly called "The Boat." It did 0 to 60 in about 6 minutes.
3. A blue 1999 Nissan Altima. I loved this car. It bit it when my sweet husband crashed it into an ambulance.
4. A red 2005 Toyota Sienna. That's right, I drive a minivan. A red one. Ha.

If you do this meme, leave me a note in the comments, and I'll come visit!

Sleep Tight

He's sleeping now, sort of, snuggled under a blanket next to his bunny. He rubs the backs of his hands across his eyes, his chubby fingers splayed like starfish.

Getting comfortable is always the most difficult part of falling to sleep, so he tosses and turns, searching for the perfect spot on the mattress. He smacks his lips, searching for me, but settles for sucking his lower lip instead.

And then he rests, his breathing deep and even. I don't know what he dreams of, but I see a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and I am content.

The Practical Rut

I have friends who think deep thoughts. They wrestle with weighty issues about society and politics and religion and the nature of humanity on a regular basis. They write poetry, and music, and creative non-fiction. Some of them write fiction, too.

My husband is one of these people. And once upon a time, so was I.

Last week I stopped over at my friend J-tron's blog and saw this post, and decided that I am entirely too stupid to continue reading his blog. Seriously, I cannot wrap my mind around half of what he writes about. This disturbs me.

I used to more or less hold my own with him, when we used to stay out late at coffee houses discussing this or that, or even better, when we would stay up all night talking on the phone. I believe I actually fell asleep on the phone with him at least once.

We had so much to talk about, so much to think about, so many ideas to explore.

Those ideas are still out there, but I have begun letting them whiz right by without stopping to take a turn in my brain. My brain is full of boring details like menus and grocery lists and feeding/sleeping/playing schedules and trying to figure out when I last watered my houseplants. (Answer: Not recently enough, since the one on top of the bookshelf is wilted and turning brown.)

But this is not a new phenomenon. [Completely off-topic side note: Phenomenon was the last movie I saw in the theater with my very first boyfriend. He loved movies. We went to see this one, and the theater was full of teenage girls who all ohh'ed and ahh'ed when John Travolta came on the screen, like he was some kind of heart throb. I myself was a teenage girl, at the time. It repulsed me. Travolta is old enough to have fathered most of those girls.]

I would love to chalk the decline of my brain cells to my new status as mother, but in truth it began long before that. It began back in college, where suddenly I felt ridiculous spending hours discussing philosophical theories or the lives and motivations of literary characters. I mean really. Who cares about Lilly Bart or why she can't get her act together and get a man? She's a fictional character. Discussion her motivations won't change anything. I promise. Edith Wharton will not rewrite the novel from the great beyond just because I think Lilly is an idiot.

Such was the choice I made. Practical over philosophical. The only problem is that now, I can't seem to go back. And I'm stuck in a very practical rut.

January Update

It is just as I had suspected it would be. The pajama-clad crazy snow dance made no difference at all, except that my dog looked at me like I had gone insane. Which is entirely possible.

Instead of five fluffy, sparkly inches of powder, we have half an inch of snow, covered by half and inch of sleet, and it is currently raining. A cold, nasty rain. The kind that settles into your bones and leaves you chilled no matter how many cups of hot tea you down. Except for the snow, it reminds me of England, actually.

Sigh. At least I'm tucked in my cozy office today. Pastor keeps the church very warm, and for once, I'm thankful.

January

It is supposed to snow tonight, and I can already feel the chill seeping into our home. This morning it was sunny and clear, and nearly 60, but we are supposed to wake up under a blanket of fluffy white snow. (More likely, because we are in a valley, we will wake up sodden, coated with cold, wet, icy rain, little gravel slushies in the streets and on the sidewalks.)

I remember when I was a child, my music teacher, Ms. Eyler, used to tell us all to go home and put our pjs on and dance and sing "Let it Snow" the night before a big snowstorm was supposed to hit the area. I wonder if children still do that?

Where I grew up, it seldom snowed a measurable amount. My best friend, Jen, and I would dance and dance, but it never made any difference. We were always disappointed to see just an inch or two of snow on the ground the next morning, barely enough to scrape into a snowman. We might get one or two 3 inch snowstorms a year, but that is really not much, compared to what we have gotten since we moved here. In the beginning of December we had about a foot on the ground at one time, and it lasted most of the month. January, though, has been warm and mild up to this point.

It's about time for a cold snap, and a visit from the north wind, who bites your cheeks and knocks the wind out of you.

I'll keep you posted.

Thirteen Things You Should Know Before Injuring Yourself

Thirteen Things you should know before you smash your right hand in a door 1. Even left-handed people use their right hand a lot. 2. I figured this out only after I had smashed it and it became unusable. 3. Brushing your teeth with the opposite hand you are used to using is very, very difficult. 4. Brushing your hair is also very difficult. See #3. 5. Picking up an 18-pound baby with a bum hand is nearly impossible. 6. Buckling said squirmy baby into a car seat one-handed would make a good Fear Factor challenge. (Your mission: Using only one hand, place infant in carrier, adjust and buckle straps, raise carrying handle and install in car. You must also carry the carrier, with the infant inside, through two doors, including a spring-loaded glass door. Make sure to lock all doors securly behind you. Do not, at any time, allow the infant to squrim out of your grip or out of the car seat and knock his head on a hard surface. You have two minutes.) 7. You can only ice your hand for so long before it starts to lose circulation from the cold. 8. Lumps on your hand can hurt like you wouldn't believe, but look so unimpressive that you are embarassed to tell anyone about it. 9. Walking dogs while pushing a stroller and nursing a bum hand is not recommended. 10. Hunt-and-peck typing is no fun. 11. It is very frustrating to have an injury that doesn't look like any injury. You become embarassed to tell people why you aren't using your hand. 12. If you do decide to injure yourself, make sure it looks really bad. If it does not look bad (ie black and blue) then wrap it in an ace bandage to garner sympathy. 13. Don't bother busting up your hand. I already did it for you.

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More, Peas

Today, we introduced a new veggie to Tom, a vegetable he loves like no other: peas. I swear he would have eaten the entire jar if I'd let him. Who knew? With carrots he makes a face. Squash adn sweet potatoes he likes, but peas ... it was chomp chomp chomp and a screaming fit if I took to long to reload the spoon. Crazy kid.

Wonder what he'll think of spinach?

Vacuum Wars

As I attempted to suck up a man devouring-sized ball of fur yesterday, I realized that my vacuum wasn't working quite the way it should be. By that I mean it was coughing and wheezing and spitting dust at me, instead of sucking it up. So I bundled the vacuum in the car and took it to the repair shop. The nice man there was happy to take it off my hands, but said he couldn't get it back to me for 10 days. 10 days?!?!

Now, normally, 10 days without a vacuum wouldn't bother me so much. I hate to vacuum. I hate the noise. I hate the smell of the dust getting stirred up. When was a child, my mom used to clean when she got really mad, so the sound of a vacuum still puts knots in my stomach.

But we have a medium-sized black dog who sheds like he thinks he's a Great Dane. My kitchen constantly has cat-sized balls of black fur tumbling through on the way to the living room. To add to that, we are dog sitting for Copper, Cole's best buddy. (See fig. 1) She is a gorgeous Golden Retriever, but man, can she shed. Together they make the Hairballs of Doom (HOD).

Fig. 1

These suckers are like nothing I've ever seen. I think the other day, one of the HOD tried to eat Tommy. It's that bad. And they come back every day, even when I whisk them away or suck them up.

So 10 days without a vacuum is almost a death sentance. At least we'd be warm under all that fur.

But wait - what's that I hear? It's a Christmas Present Miracle!

That's right. My mother-in-law, also known as The Best Gift Giver Ever, has struck again. This year she gave me a Dustbuster, a high powered one with two speeds and some sort of fancy tornado suction thingy. The important point is that it works. And it obliterates the HOD with a mere flick of the switch.

Poof, they're gone.

We may just make it through, after all.

The First Date

Eight years ago today, Super-Hubby and I were out on our first date. I had been pursuing him for nearly a year, and finally convinced him to go to the movies with me "as friends." He was skittish around girls, the result of a gorgeous red head breaking his heart the year before.

We decided to go to see Good Will Hunting, which had just been released. Unfortunately, the 7 pm show was sold out, so we hung around in a Borders and drank lattes and discussed philosophy until the 9:30 show started. But that was sold out, too. We ended up seeing As Good As It Gets, a movie that neither of us knew much about.

Just before the movie, I went to the snack counter and purchased a large (a very large) Coke. These were the days before stadium seating; the theater we were in had only one aisle and it was all the way to the left of the theater. We were seated up against the right wall, with about 20 seat in between us and the aisle. And all the seats were full of people.

Like I said, I knew nothing about this movie, least of all that it was really, really long. So I polished off my 128 oz. soda about an hour into the show. And realized I really needed to go to the bathroom. But I didn't want to interrupt all those people's viewing in order to get to the aisle. So, I could hold it, I thought.

Then came the scene where Jack Nicholson uses about 20 bars of soap to wash his hands, and leaves the water running the whole time. I thought I was going to die.

To take my mind off my bladder, I had been trying to get Super-Hubby to hold my hand throughout the movie. I would lean in just a little towards him, and he would lean away. Every time.

Finally, about 10 minutes before the movie was over, we ended up holding hands. That was nice, but ohmygodi'vegottopee.

As the credits were rolling I shot out of the theater, barely even speaking to Super-Hubby in my quest for a ladies' room. I stood in line and did the potty dance until I could get to a stall.

It's amazing we had a second date, come to think of it.

The Christmas of Crazy Hats

We are not hat people. The only time I wear a hat is if it is really, really cold or if I am gardening in the hot sun. Super-Hubby is slightly more likely to wear a hat than I am, due to his fair and easily sunburned skin, but even then, hats are rare. But somehow, this Christmas hats were everywhere.

Christmas Eve day dawned clear and very cold, and we all piled into my sister's Surburban and headed for Bisbee, to take a tour of the defunct copper mine. They suited us up in real live miner gear, including hard hats (as illustrated by myself and my youngest nephew, Jeremy) and heavy duty battery packs strapped to our waists to power our miner's lights.







Tom was too little for his own miner's hat, so he's wearing his cool ear-covering fleece cap from Old Navy. It's actually borrowed from the little girl across the street, but we won't tell Tom that. (We also won't tell him that he sleeps in her pink fleece sleeper bags.)
The mine was really interesting, but I have absolutely no need to ever go half a mile underground ever again. Once was enough. And cold. I can't imagine what it must have been like working there 10 hours a day. The tour guide said they used to keep mules in the mine to pull the cars, and the mules would be underground for 10 or 12 years, until they died. Most of the mules went blind because of the constant darkness.


Look, Daddy and baby Santas! My mom found a Santa hat just Tom's size, but the Santa booties (which were supposed to fit up to 18 mos) were way too small for his feet. We stuck them on anyway, for the picture.














Here is Super-Hubby in my sister's super hiking hat. Tom is staring off at the gorgeous view from an Arizona mountaintop. Tom spends a lot of time staring off into space, come to think of it.







And finally, me and Tom with a saguaro at Saguaro National Park. Those suckers are some big cacti. It takes a saguaro about 75 years to start growing arms; they can live over 200 years. Notice the hat: it is one of my father's. Since moving to the Southwest, he and mom have gone cowboy. It's kind of cute actually. They have boots and white cowboy hats and everything. Guess they're the good guys.

Baby Musings

It makes no sense, this pull in my belly. The empty hollowness of my abdomen. My ache for another life to feel pulsing and kicking and fluttering behind my navel.

Tom is just barely five months old, and my breasts are still heavy and full with milk for him. His little fingers are beginning to reach out to touch and grab, his little tongue constantly exposed as he tastes everything. There is still so much he needs from me; how can I want another baby so soon?

My house is in shambles, my garden full of dead plants I never dug up in the fall after having Tom. I cannot keep up between the house, the dog, the baby and work. I barely sleep.

So why do I wake up at night dreaming of a baby that doesn't exist?

Thirteen Things that Drive Me Crazy

Thirteen Things that Drive Me Crazy 1. Blemishes, on myself and other people. Poor Tom has baby acne, and it drives me nuts. I have a friend who has a blackhead in her ear (I doubt she knows it's there) but it's been there for at least 8 years, and it drives me insane. 2. The paper that always seems to pile up on any flat surface in my house. 3. People who tailgate and flash their lights, telling you to get out of their way. (Where's the fire, buddy?) 4. People who drive WAY below the speed limit on a major road. 5. People who tell detailed stories about their lives without giving any context. "So then Jenny came into the office and said that Suzie had complained about me to Mary ..." Wait, who's Jenny? Suzie? Mary? Why do I care? 6. People who set dishes in the sink when the dishwasher is empty and just waiting to be filled up with nasty dirty dishes that should never be in my sink. 7. Drawing a nice hot bath, getting in and comfy, and having the water go cold five minutes later. 8. Running out of HOT water during my shower. 9. Squirrels and birds eating the plants in my garden. 10. Coltrane "watering" my garden. Grr. 11. Strangers who give parenting advice. Advice from family and friends, great. But the lady in the supermarket? Please. 12. Running out of chocolate in the house. 13. My inability to just get up with my alarm. I need an alarm that does not turn off until I put my feet on the floor.

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Confessions of a former female chauvinist

I used to be one of those women who laughed at jokes about men and how stupid, dirty, and lazy they are. You know, like the Mr. New Dad T-shirts that show a man diapering the dog and allowing the baby to eat dog food while dad is trying to catch the game out of the corner of his eye? Or jokes like these, which pretty much sum up my point.

Jokes like that used to make me chuckle. I would agree with other women that men, as a rule, just can't focus on more than one task at once. The point of the jokes, when told by women, is to make ourselves feel better. To make ourselves feel like the smarter, harder-working, better gender.

But now, every time I hear a joke like that, I think about someone saying it ABOUT MY SON. And I don't want anyone to ever, even jokingly, tell him that he is lazy or stupid or helpless just because he has a penis. Nor do I want someone implying that he should act these ways just because he's a boy.

Being a mom has made me such a stick in the mud. Oh well.

Hail Mary

I'm no theologian, not by a long shot, but I got to thinking about Mary last night. Some branches of the church believe that Jesus was an only child.

I know for some people it messes up the theology, but for Mary's sake, I hope this only child thing simply is not true.

Only one baby to feel kicking and swimming and thriving under her heart? Only one time to feel the power of life inside of her?

Only one pair eyes to follow her every move as she did the cooking and the wash? Only one pair of tiny hands to grab at her hair and only one pair of tiny feet to tickle and kiss?

Somehow, after all that God asked of her, to only have one child to love seems awfully cruel.

Think about it. Mary was young, unmarried, pregnant in the midst of a culture not exactly forward thinking on women's rights. To top it all off, she's going around telling everyone that the father of her baby is - get this - God. You think the other ladies of the town weren't whispering about her as they drew water and baked bread?

"Oy, did you hear about that Mary? G-d is the father of her baby? Poor Joseph. It's bad enough that she's expecting, worse that she's lying about it. He'd be mishsuggana to marry a girl like that."

What about her family? I don't recall much about them in the Christmas story. Someone tell me if I'm missing a big chunk of it here. Like I said, I'm not an expert.

Did her mom and dad disown her? What mother would let her hugely pregnant daughter be dragged across the country on the back of a donkey or on foot?

When she gave birth, she was in a strange town, and not one single door was open to her. Not any of Joseph's relatives, not a hotel or inn. No, she was stuck laboring in a barn like an animal. How humiliating is that? Was there even a woman present to be with her when the time came to give birth? With no midwife, was she pretty much on her own? No one to hold her hand or tell her what to do. I can't even imagine.

Then, not two years after her son is born, she's told to pick up everything she owns and leave the country. On foot. With a toddler.

The least God could have done for this poor girl is give her many children to cuddle and to bless her home.

Still Waters

Sometimes still waters are just still.

I am sitting here, very still, trying to think of something deep and interesting to write about. I've got nothing.

The baby has been asleep all morning, which has allowed me to actually get work done. Hallelujah. He's now playing with a teething book called "Quack" says the Duck; I think it's too funny. Mostly because Tom looks like he's reading, which he's not, but also because Tommy does not say "Quack." He says many other things, mostly during the very, very, quiet part at church when they are preparing communion, but he does not ever say "Quack."

I am also trying to figure out how to buy a week's worth of groceries for less than $25, (ha ha), how to keep Super-Hubby from obsessing too much over his Web-magazine/baby, and still dealing with the fact that there is no Santa Claus.

Don't ask.

How are you doing this Monday morning?

A Picture of my Sister

This is a picture of my sister and my dog, Cole. I couldn't get it to post in the Thursday Thirteen, but I thought it would be nice to have her pic up here.

(By the way, she's the pretty one in the family. Although she's a redhead now. It looks nice.)

Thirteen Things about my Sister

Thirteen Things about my Sister I had a wonderful visit with my sister over the Christmas holiday. It's amazing how much closer we've become as we've gotten older. Or maybe it's just me who is getting closer - maybe Sher has been there waiting for me all the time. I'm terribly self-centered, and sometimes I miss out on people and relationships because I simply don't realize they are there. In any case, it's a good thing that we're getting to be friends as well as sisters. On that note, I thought I'd tell you a few things about my big sis ... 1. The way my mom tells it, all my sister wanted for her 10th birthday was a little sister and a 10-speed bike. She got both, but spent a couple of years trying to send the little sister back. 2. When I was a little girl, I had very, very long hair, and my sister would curl it and style it for me. I remember once, when we were going over to her boyfriend's house for dinner, she spent hours carefully curling my hair into sprials with a curling iron becuase I wanted "locks" like a princess in a storybook. I was maybe five or six, and I thought "locks" were long curls, not just long pieces of hair. The curl didn't last long enough for us to get out the door, (my hair won't curl for anything. Not even perms. Really.)but I felt like the most beautiful little girl in the world. 3. Right around that same time, she also gave me an adorable little china clown that sat on an orange satin crescent moon and hung from the ceiling. I kept it in my room for years, even when it didn't match anymore, just because it was from her. 4. Growing up, we had an inground pool in our backyard. When my sister was a teenager, she used to take her little pink portable radio/tapedeck out to the pool and lay out in the sun for hours. She would listen to Madonna but mom would make me come inside because she didn't want me listening to Madonna. Sometimes I would go out anyway and stay out until I got too hot, just to be like her. 5. I was always the one who had to go to the basement for popsicles, cause I was her slave baby sister. 6. As we got a little older, I started knowing most things about her life through the family grapevine, instead of from her. She moved out of the house and went to Florida when I was 8. That put our relationship on hold for quite a while. 7. When I was 13, my sister met a wonderful man and married him. They were engaged just three short weeks before the wedding, which threw my mom into a planning frenzy. My sister was a beautiful bride, but I looked clunky and awkward in my bridesmaid's dress. (I got my first strapless bra, though. Black, from Victoria's Secret. That was cool.) Right after the wedding, she got pregnant and had a baby. I was so jealous of all the attention she got that year, mostly because I was 13 and that's what being 13 is all about. But I wish I had been more interested in her, instead of being jealous. 8. When I graduated college Phi Betta Kappa, Sher tried to get me to go to law school. I think she really believed I had the brains to do it, and she would have been proud to be able to say she had a lawyer for a sister. I hope she's not disappointed that I'm more or less a stay-at-home mom. 9. When we're apart, I always forget how funny she is. I never thought she was funny when I was a kid - mostly because I had no sense of humor and her jokes were often directed at me - but now, man, she can make me roll on the floor. Someday I'm gonna be just like her. 10. Sometimes I'll say something, and Super-Hubby will turn to me with this quizzical look on his face and say "Sheryl?" Apparently, even though we live 2,000 miles apart, I still copy her mannerisims. 11. When we were together over the holidays, we talked about starting a "family homestead" and living on a big plot of land with two houses and a barn and a big garden and a stream for swimming in. That sounds really lovely, and I wish it could happen. 12. I forget how much my sister likes the outdoors. We hiked the Chiricahua National Monument, and it was amazing. She was going full steam ahead, too. At 9,000 feet above sea level. 13. This year, I got the biggest stocking of all, and in it was a box of Cookie Crisp. 'Nuf said.

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Oy Vey

He looks so sweet, doesn't he? Smiling, playing. Don't be fooled. Tommy is an eating machine. He ate a quarter of a cup of rice cereal last night before bed, and still got up four times in the middle of the night to eat. I am very, very tired.

I got up early for the fantastic trip to the girly doctor for my annual exam. Always a pleasure to be poked and prodded "down there" at 8 am. But I made the best of it. I showered. I shaved. Then I put clean socks on my nice clean feet - only to find the left one filled with sand. That's right, sand. What the? So now I'm walking around with sand between my toes. I'm trying to write it off as microdermabrasion for my feet.

So I'm running a little late, and I go to change Tommy really quickly so we can dash off to the doctor's ... and as soon as I get his diaper off, I feel a wet warmpth soaking my leg. And yes, my adorable son has peed all over me, all over the changing table, and all over himself. He even hit his own chin. And he's just grinning at me like it's the funniest thing ever. Yeah. Funny.

So, that was how my day started. How 'bout yours?

A New Year's Meme

I’m back from my hiatus (also known as a crazy Christmas vacation) and ready to blog again. I have so many wonderful memories to share; I also have lots of thoughts for the New Year. I have so much to say, in fact, that I was having trouble getting organized. (Not to mention having trouble finding the computer under all the laundry we managed to generate during our trip.)

So, instead of thinking of something wonderfully creative, I decided to tag myself from a meme that Mopsy has on her site. You know what they say: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Thanks, Mopsy.

1. What did you do in 2005 that you had never done before?
Traveled to Ireland, danced the Irish broom dance in a pub, collided with an ambulance, bought a brand-spanking-new car, traveled to New Mexico, toured a defunct silver mine, and oh yeah, had a baby. (Not necessarily in that order).

2.Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I have no idea what my resolutions were last year, so there’s a good chance I didn’t keep them. I have decided that making formal resolutions is a waste of time. “Eating less chocolate” and “Spending more time with God” are laudable goals, but I never, ever keep it going.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yep. Me. And my next-door neighbor. And her sister. And a dear childhood friend.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Nope, praise God.

5. What countries did you visit?
I visited Ireland to attend a friend’s wedding. Other than that I mostly stayed on the east coast, except for our Christmas getaway to Arizona and New Mexico. And Texas.

6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005?
A closer walk with God. The gift of enjoying each day, instead of constantly living in the future. Fewer days spent at our very fine St. Luke’s Hospital.

7. What dates will remain etched in your memory and why?
June 19th, August 13th, September 2nd. These are all days I went to the hospital. The first, in an ambulance after Super-Hubby ran a red light and hit an ambulance. I was seven months pregnant, but he’s the one who got hurt. The second, because that’s the day I FINALLY gave birth. The third is the day Super-Hubby was readmitted to the hospital with a hugemongous blood clot in his leg that the docs think might be a souvenir of the accident.

8. What’s your biggest achievement of the year?
Oh geez. I dunno. Becoming a mother? That seems lame.

9. What was your biggest failure?
My lack of ability to stay even remotely organized once Tommy entered my life. I hate the slob I have become.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Yes, but not too badly. My legs were a little banged up in the crash, and I have a fantastic scar on the front of my left shin, just below the knee, that is from the fabric of my pants melting into my leg when the airbag deployed. The baby, thankfully, was fine.

11.What was the best thing you bought?
My beautiful new minivan. It’s red. It’s still a minivan, but at least it’s sort of sexy. (Hey, don’t disillusion me.)

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Super-Hubby has been incredible, loving, supportive and amazing. My folks and his folks have also been fantastic, especially surrounding Tom’s birth.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and disgusted?
Many national figures have appalled and/or disgusted me this year. Seems every time I turn on the TV I see something new and frightening. But I was most disgusted by Super-Hubby’s bosses this year. They jerked him around and were downright terrible to him.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Wow. Hospital bills, doctor bills, new car bills, bills for baby stuff. That’s most of it, I guess. Oh, and a mortgage. And now our ever-increasing gas bill to heat our house. Ugh.

15. What did you get really, really excited about?
Ireland, the baby, the baby, the baby …

16. What song will always remind you of 2005?
Pass.

17. Compared to this time last year are you?
a) Happier or sadder? Mostly happier. When I’m not wondering what happened to my life.
b) Fatter or thinner? I’m about the same I guess. Maybe a little heavier since I lost weight in the early part of my pregnancy.
c) Richer or poorer? Poorer in money, richer in love.

18. What do you wish you had done more of?
Romping. (I’m leaving Mopsy’s answer. I like it.)

19. What do you wish you had done less of?
Waiting. Waiting for whatever the next fun thing I thought was going to happen to happen.

20. How will you be spending New Year’s Eve?
I spent New Year’s Eve in baggage claim.

21. Did you fall in love in 2005?
Yes, with my son.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
“Medium”

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No. I don’t hate anyone.

24. What was the best book you read?
I don’t know. Probably something embarrassingly entertaining with the literary value of a bag of potato chips.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
That I can still play my saxophone. Maybe Super-Hubby and I will start that band after all.

26. What did you want and get?
A baby. A new car.

27. What did you want and not get?
Nothing.

28. What was your favorite film this year?
“Batman Begins”

29. What did you do on your birthday and how old were you?
I turned 25. Super-Hubby set up our living room like a beach and we had a picnic of fried chicken. It was wonderful, especially since we didn’t get to go to the actual beach this year.

30. What one thing would have made your year measurably more satisfying?
Less time in hospitals. A trip to the real beach.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion in 2005?
Fashion? What’s that? You mean this old t-shirt and these ratty jeans don’t count?

32. What kept you sane?
Super-Hubby. My mom. Friends. Wish I could say God, but my relationship with Him has been … cursory at best. I miss it.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Nobody.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Iraq. The prisoner abuse scandal.

35. Who did you miss?
I miss a lot of my friends. I miss having a closer relationship with Jen. I miss having family close by.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
My son.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005.
That epidurals are the most wonderful creations ever. Period.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
I’m skipping this one too, cause I’m horrible at remembering lyrics. Just ask Super-Hubby. He knows every word that’s ever been put to music, and I have trouble remembering the words to “Happy Birthday.”