today's (yawn) photo...

10. Best bit of my weekend

I know, I know - 

another baby picture?

GROAN!

My life must be sooo lame, right?  But here's the crazy thing: I actually did leave the house and do fun, non-mom stuff this weekend.  Several times!  I got to see at least six friends, which is sadly pretty rare, and B. and I actually went out with some of them last night, sans children, which is, like, unicorn rare.  So I am not [always] as boring as this picture would have you believe.  But the yawny, hum-drum truth about mommyhood is... this photo still shows the best part of my weekend: Sunday afternoon, Estie's fat, sleeping head on my lap, both of us still in our pj's.  Honestly, it doesn't get any better than this.  (Unless maybe Annie could be teleported home to take a nap with us - but let's not get greedy.)

    

How does the expression go - a day late and a dollar short?  I am both those things today.  The hubs and I went out (what's that?!) for dinner and drinkies last night with friends and didn't get home til... well, it was too late to make the day's post, let's just leave it at that!  But a jolly good time was had by all, we got to love on some much-missed old friends, and it was, I think, only the second date we have had since Estie was born.  So really, what's a missed deadline compared to all that? 

9. My view today:

Yup, we hit up the ol' 415 again, and it did not disappoint. 

Love that place!

I'll be back later with today's pic.  Thanks for being so darn cool about it.

  

yes, i am okay :)

Today's pic:

8. Six o'clock

This one was for Annie.

4 pm here was 6 pm in Georgia,

and this is what we were doing here at that time -

watching Estie scoot around Grandma's house in pink polka dot leg warmers.

Friends and family keep asking if I'm doing okay, now that Annie is with her dad for the summer.  And the answer is yes.  And no.  The truth is, it's a mixed bag.  Of COURSE I miss my little monster.  I miss her funny comments and irrelevant anecdotes - she has my sense of humor in kid form, and I appreciate the way she looks at things.  But I have also always "shared" her with her dad, which has usually equated to spending periods of time without her, so it's just normal for us.  When we lived in Florida, it meant every other Saturday and Sunday; for the last three years since we moved to Colorado, it means almost three months during the summer.  And yes, that's been a huge adjustment for everyone - on both ends of the parental team.  It's hard on her dad, step mom and [Annie's other] baby sister to be without her for most of the year, and it's a big deal for her to be away from us for the summer.  But something most parents might not understand is that it can be very healthy to miss your child for a while.  (I also think most parents, if they're honest with themselves, would probably sign up to ship their pre-adolescent spawn off for a few weeks too, if given the chance!)  I think it would be different if Annie was at a boarding school or summer camp for this long, without family.  But I know she's with her other awesome mom and dad, her little sister, scores of cousins and friends; she gets to see my family and spend time with my mama, live at the beach and lake on weekends, and she is having an absolute ball.  That peace of mind is what makes the whole thing doable.  I'm excited for her to have those experiences.  Plus, the hubs and I cheat the system by going to visit for a week midsummer, which cuts the time in half and makes it seem way less scary.  It all works out.  Hey, nobody purposely sets out to create a situation where they wind up time-sharing their kid... but in the end what matters is making life as normal and healthy as possible for your child, and in that regard we have succeeded.  I feel so blessed to have the amicable, supportive and caring co-parenting team that I do, and given the circumstances I couldn't ask for anything better for Annie.  I always tell her she's so lucky: she has four parents who love her, mountains AND ocean, and enough frequent flyer miles to take all her friends first class to Cancun for their senior trip.

Haha, yeah like we'd ever let her do that.  I love lying to children.

today's pic

As promised:

7. Drink

B. and I drank these delicious beverages just so I could get this shot. 

It's a hard life.

Nighty night my loves.

i'm in a muumuu or something, apparently

Sorry I missed posting yesterday kiddos.  Had a busy day away from home, and then was happy to relinquish my usual 10 pm blogging time slot to a surprise phone call from my fabulous, glamorous, dream-chasing cousin in NYC.  Yes, he called me at midnight Eastern Standard Time.  From work.  At his media/publishing house.  He's pretty much the shit.  (I realize "fabulous" and "glamorous" kind of make it sound like he's gay, which would be super fun - HELLO, Manhattan shopping sprees! - but I feel I owe it to him to clarify that while he IS both fab and glam, he is also decidedly heterosexual.)  ANYWAY, after catching up on new stuff, reminiscing about old stuff, and generally getting current on each other's vastly different lives, I knew my evening needed to end right after I hung up the phone.  If I had tried to write it just would have been gibberish - such is the mush my brain becomes when I am immersed in his high-speed life for a few minutes, even just over the phone.  My mind is blown apart by how insane and surreal his daily grind is, how psyched I am that he's living the dream, and how utterly relieved I am it's not me!  It all sounds fucking fantastic, don't get me wrong - wining and dining NY royalty, working with up-and-coming literary giants, only sleeping on Sundays - I just don't have the stamina for all that awesomeness!  I mean, I also have two kids, so I'm in a super different mindset altogether, but still.  Hearing about HIM doing all of it, though, is always a joy and a novelty.  I'm like the neighborhood cat lady, posted at my window in a muumuu, watching people come and go but content with life in my own little house.  Metaphorically, of course.  Or at least that's how I feel when I talk to my cousin: in awe of his badassness, but really happy in my quiet little world too, light years away from his.  Which I meant to make sound like a good thing... not a sad cat lady thing... I'm allergic to cats, actually...

See?  Still rambling. 

Anyway, I did not forget daily photo #6.  I posted it on Facebook yesterday with this caption:

6. HAT

  This is Buck and Forrest.

They live in my family room.

They are not technically hats, but they did used to be worn on someone's head,

until that someone was shot, skinned, eaten, and their hat was taxidermied.

I will not forget to post today's pic, either - as soon as I take it :)  Until then, my little house cats...

leila meets a REAL writer!

(And June's Photo-a-Day #5: SIGN)

So, it's pretty insane how today's photo op just sort of fell right into my lap.  You could even call it serendipitous, if you say things like that (which I do).  Here's what happened:

By chance, I met a sweet little old couple today.  Mid-seventies probably.  Have I mentioned before that I love old people?  They're just so damn cute.  Especially old men, so long as they're not the kind of crusty curmudgeon that uses his advanced age as a free pass to stare at my boobs like a creeper.  Anyway, back to today's old people:  The husband asks me if I enjoy poetry.  You look like a writer, he says.  (Crazy, right?  And maybe he says this to everyone he meets, but still.)  I tell him I love poetry.  He asks if he can give me a gift - a book of his poems.  How cute, I think.  Of course he can.  I'd be honored.  So he goes out to his car and comes back with this:

Hmm, actually looks pretty legit.  And as he's SIGN-ing it for me (my #5! And I didn't even ask, I swear!) his wife discreetly tells me that her husband was the 2010 Poet Laureate of the state of Colorado.  Say what?!  Holy crap!  This dude's for real, and he's just giving me one of his books!  So I very humbly thank him for the gift, saying I can't wait to start reading it.  He tells me that sometimes he meets people he feels would appreciate his writing, and I seemed like one of them.  Now I really am honored!

Tom told me his hand shakes a bit from medication,
but it only affects his handwriting - not his writing. So cute!

As it turns out, he had me pegged.  I can't put the book down - it is so, so lovely.  His words are simple and honest and beautiful, and as I thumb through the book I find myself tearing up every few pages.  The poems about his wife are the most touching.  This is one of my favorites:

EMERALD EYES

Are you etching makeup

Outlining emerald eyes

Pulling sleek fabric over skin

Skin that clothes my soul

Leaves me trembling

And your heart

Lovely center of your sanctuary

Does it beat in hurried rhythm

Rise and fall like a dove's breast

Be easy with yourself

Now is all you have

You are beautiful as

You will ever be - now 

You stun me

Paint life with pastels

God sent you to my vase

Your flower beautifies my soil

I hold your wonder

On the in breath

Holiness

On the out breath

Gardenias  

Sigh!  I don't know when this particular one was written - maybe fifty years ago, maybe two - but it was obvious to me today that this passion and tenderness still burns brightly in both of them.  I honestly believe that B. and I will still be this bat-shit crazy about each other when we're old and gray... I just hope I can write something as lovely as Tom's poems along way.

june p-a-d #4

4. Close-up

This is my left eyeball. 

Like my right one, it is green. 

Unlike my right one, it also has a weird, rust-colored speck in it.

I call it my birthmark, but really it's just the way the iris turned out in this eye.  I've met other people with similar spots, but it's pretty rare.  A friend once charmingly expressed that it seems as though someone threw shit at me through a screen door.  I mean, I guess I could see that... I guess.

I should probaby have saved this pic for #18, "something we don't know about you," since people I've known my entire life still stop midsentence to say Whoa, did you know you have a red spot in your eye?!  A)Thanks for noticing - what part of my face have you been looking at during every other conversation we've ever had?  B) Nope, never seen it.

PS: The four eyes (haha, four eyes!) were all the same scene - I was standing in the doorway of my house, facing the sun - just put through different filters in Camera+ on my iPhone.  I couldn't decide which one I liked best, so I used all four =)  If you have an iPhone, you need the Camera+ app.  It's like Instagram on crack, and as we all know, everything's better on crack.  Sorry, Whitney.

so long for the summer, annie boo

Well... we knew it was coming, but it still seemed to sneak up on us.  Today was the day we put Annie on a plane to visit her dad/stepmom/other baby sister for the summer in Georgia.  It's always bittersweet.  We're super excited for her - she gets to spend time with her family, play with old friends and do super fun stuff like ride quads and camp out lakeside.  But of course it's not easy saying goodbye for a few months, especially now that Miss Estie is in the picture.  But thus is our yearly cycle.  And it's healthy, I think, in a way.  Most parents don't ever experience really missing their kids for long periods of time when they're this age.  It's kind of revitalizing in a way.  To miss her more and more every day and then finally get to see her at the end of the summer - it rejuvenates us all.  And I know her dad and stepmom experience the same thing.  It's like a big, modern circle of love, man... ain't that what it's all about?

Leaving for the airport

My little jet-setter, with her earphones

You can see Estie's blanket peeking out of her backpack!
She wanted to take it to snuggle with :(

Huge, bright rainbow on the drive home.
It was actually a "double rainbow," but the second one is super faint,
over to the left.

Sigh.  Time to go drown my sorrows in the hubs and a cupcake.

Oh! I almost forgot today's June Photo-a-Day:

3. On My Plate

Super cute and yummy baby bell peppers
that B.'s mom brought me today from the farmers' market. 


I should probably have one of those instead of a cupcake... eh, fuck it.

empty

Well hello, Saturday. So the June Photo-a-Day challenge I posted has developed kind of a following among my friends on Ze Book of Faces.  There are ten or so of us weirdos playing along now - see yesterday's post for the list so you can be a weirdo with us!

Today's theme, "empty," happened to coincide with my urge to bake cupcakes.  Conveniently.

Actually, pretty much every day coincides with my urge to bake cupcakes. It's kind of a problem. Usually, though, I don't actually act on this urge;  I just find some other awful confection to satisfy my sugar monster. But today, I found myself WANTING to bake the damn things.   This unnerving spike in my estrogen levels is becoming something of a trend lately, and to be honest I am not okay with it.  And neither are my skinny jeans.  This is how sick it's gotten:  I didn't have frosting at my house today, so I MADE MY OWN.  Vanilla buttercream bitches, and it was DELICIOUS.  Stop it!  As my sassy southern belles would say, I need to have a talk with myself.   

june photo-a-day, numero uno

Happy Friday!  So... there's a lot going on around here at the moment.  I'm dying to dish about last night's dance recital for reasons which will be evident when I do, but I'm too scatterbrained right now.  Today was Annie's last day of school, and she leaves on Sunday to go visit her dad/stepmom/other adorable baby sister (one year older than Estie) for the WHOLE SUMMER.  There is much to be done to prepare, much of it being just spending good old-fashioned quality time together.  She always gets a little emotional at the annual comings and goings, understandably.

Anyway, you can imagine my delight when I came across this on Facebook this morning:

Hah, are you kidding?!  A cheat-sheet excuse for just posting a pic and getting on with my life?!  I'll take it!

June 1st:  MORNING

9:12 AM, to be exact.

Well, there you have it.  My cop-out for today.  Should be an interesting weekend from here out - relatively speaking anyway, for couple of old married people and their kids. You know I'll keep you posted.  Enjoy your Friday night, you crazies.