A Wish To Dream

My sister in law is getting married this weekend in Oregon. On the coast. Do I even need to tell you how bummed I am I'm not there? So, instead, to celebrate my favorite place on earth, the Oregon coast, I decided to celebrate my loves of late. In no particular order:

This book. I'm excited to start reading. It sounds exactly what I need right now.

Justin Timberlake. Which should really be a post on its own.

This print. It's just the reminder we all need.

These boots to go with my new skinny jeans. And, uh, skinny jeans. Who knew?

This journal. Doesn't it just scream: An award winning novel was written in me! Or this one. Although, I think it just says: A really witty grocery list was written here...

I need (NEED!) ballet flats. I'm so sorry these are the ones I love the most ($195! Yikes!).

This post. I like knowing I'm not alone.

The thought of staying here on our upcoming tour o' the UK. (And by upcoming, I mean so far off most normal people wouldn't be dreaming or making plans, yet...)

Trying these, this weekend. Right?

This article. Even if it clearly shows I'm aging. Sigh...

A desire to read my way through this list. I have read several and would go on a rant about a few, but this is a love list. So I'll just say that I love people who don't ban books. Book banning is stupid. Especially as my favorite book of all time is listed at number one. SERIOUSLY? I read that at least twice before leaving high school. I don't get the ban. Oh, yeah. Love. I love literature. I love that I'll use this list to give Sammy stuff to read!

This guy. (For the record? I've totally been cow tipping. Though it didn't usually involve cows. Or tipping, oddly...). And his stuff on grammar kills me.(Totally watch THIS one. Hee! Or the one on oxymoron...) Or this one. Romantic comedies. Even funny when you like them.

The Xx:

(the xx, vcr)

I'm Just a Lobot

Before we had Sammy, I had a miscarriage. I was about eight or nine weeks along, at the time. We had found out the week previously that I was pregnant, so it was still very much in the 'new news' category. The day before the miscarriage, I had run to the store for some ice cream. There was a puddle in front of the display and I slipped and fell, landing on my hip. The next day I lost the baby. I have no way to know if it was the fall that caused it, but I suspect it was.

I lost the baby on a Saturday and friends started bringing meals over Sunday after church. I remember one friend coming over and I complained to her that I didn't know what all the fuss was about. I was feeling fine, the tissue had passed, I didn't FEEL anything. No need to make a deal out of something that wasn't. I appreciated her listening and, looking back, I know I must have sounded the idiot. But I really did feel like that. It was a non-issue for me and I just didn't see the big deal surrounding it.

I rarely think about that pregnancy. I remember telling Isaac, after, that that had been our one shot and I wouldn't be trying again, angry that someone who was so anti pregnant had to "deal" with a miscarriage. I remember when another friend gave birth to her daughter the week I would have been due (around this time of year) and thinking, wow. That could be me. I could have a baby right now. But it was neither wistful or sad. Just from a place of...bewilderment, I think. We got pregnant with Sammy about two months after our first due date had come and gone and had a baby of our own when my friend's daughter turned one, so I never really thought about it any more. Until last weekend.

I was sitting in church and a girl mentioned her miscarriage. She was clearly distraught over it (rightly so...I certainly don't begrudge anyone that!) and all I could do was sit there, distract myself and wonder what is wrong with me. It's not that I'm not emotional (plenty of evidence to the contrary!) or unfeeling. Maybe it's that I wasn't really wanting to be pregnant, yet and I assumed it would take longer than Try #1 to get that way. Or the fact that we had just had the positive show up on the little stick and I hadn't had time to wrap my brain around the news. Or that I was SO sick with morning sickness and my body said NO (and listened the next time and kept the morning sickness away!). I don't know. Whatever it was, I am realizing more and more that I had a very abnormal experience with my miscarriage.

I don't think about it. I don't mourn its loss. I don't wish it had been different. I don't...well. Anything. It was a blip and it was over. And as I sat listening to that girl tell of her experience, I wondered why. Why some feel so deeply about it and others (well, me) moved along like it was an every day thing and not a big deal at all. Why I don't wonder and am so unattached.


(insensitive, jann arden)

Post Script The Finale

Just got a call from the district. Tumbling class is canceled for today only. They are still waiting on his paperwork to go through. They will start again next week and run an extra week to make up for it. It will be just him teaching (they can't ask for a second teacher because that would be prejudice against men...I get that). I assumed that meant they aren't anticipating problems with his paperwork, just that it's taking a little while.

We asked for a refund. I can't support it. I still don't feel good about the situation as a whole. Sigh. It is done...


(it's over, lisa loeb)

The One Where I'm SURE I'm Going To Regret Hitting Publish...

*I don't usually talk THIS in depth about politics here because I know my readers don't agree with me. Usually. But this is bursting to get out. So I hope you'll excuse me and overlook it and still love me! Dang. There's that needy again...

I take women reproductive topics seriously. VERY seriously. It ranks fairly high on my list of deal breakers, candidate wise. It's always been fairly important to me, but even more so since I KNOW I will need an abortion should I ever get pregnant again. I know that, am comfortable with that (well, as comfortable as you can be) and while we've taken steps to not get there - it's still in the back of my head.

So it's been with increasing interest that I've been watching this election season and seeing all of these pretty right wing candidates purport illegal abortions - with NO exceptions. I think, at last count, we were up to 5ish. Which isn't a lot, but definitely enough to be concerning. Especially when they are out stumping how they truly believe if a woman is raped or a victim of incest they should be forced to carry that baby to term. Makes my blood boil, that.

So imagine the gut wrenching sickness that hit me this morning when I stumbled on this. We haven't watched Rachel from last night yet (um...Glee got in the way!) but now I'm so interested to sit down and watch and look this up and read the language (the part about "health of the mother abortions" becoming illegal with this KILLS me...well,um...). And be horrified all over again. After getting over my complete shock (which...I don't know why I'm REALLY shocked. It's not the first time this has been tried!), I just got mad. I don't take kindly to ANY movement in this country taking away my right to decide how many kids, spacing, etc. It was one thing to get up and oppose ALL abortions. I get that. I don't agree with it nor support it, but I get that. I really do. But to propose legislation that would OUTLAW contraceptive choices that women depend on? From the link:

According to Leslie Hanks, one of Amendment 62's authors, it would make certain forms of the pill and other contraceptive devices illegal. "Many of the oral contraceptives have an action that makes the womb inhospitable to a developing embryo and, hence, the new living, growing baby is prevented from residing where his or her creator intended until birth."

Outrageous. And I sincerely hope it gets shot down into the fiery depths of hell where it belongs. I hope the voters of Colorado are paying attention. Because if they are not and this somehow slips through? I fear what comes next for all of us. For a future daughter in law. And especially for me. Heaven forbid I find myself pregnant again. I don't exactly live in a state that loves liberal issues...


(sisters of mercy, dominion)

Random Monday Night

I live in a gorgeous, gorgeous place. I tend to forget that and am grateful for the times I'm poked to remember.





I also have a great family. I sometimes forget that, too. I have a son who is so funny and musical and beautiful and just mostly fun to be around.



(so...this was really Sunday, but still. Funny.)







And a husband who (rarely though it could easily be more) isn't SO very annoyed at me. Because, really, I'm pretty annoying. Plus he kills spiders. In a tie. And hangs out with me on the restaurant patio eating crepes. Which MAY have been the best crepes I've ever eaten in my life. Ever. Ever ever ever... And asks me how I'm doing when we find out a friend named their new baby girl Eliza (who will be joining THEIR Sam). (I'm really ok. Just a little wistful last night, but today ok.)



And, um, deals with less than stellar family group shots.





So, then. After such a wonderful summer-like fall evening...why do I look like this?



It MAY or MAY NOT have something to do with duck poop lodged in my flip flop. Maybe.



(depeche mode, it's no good)

Me and The Farmer

I spent this morning elbow deep in crushed tomatoes. I bought a half bushel worth on Saturday and got 20 freezer bags full of crushed yummy goodness. No matter what, every fall, I look around in wonder at my empty freezers and pantry and like some primal call to action, I start the process of filling everything up. We now have two very full freezers of tomatoes and berries and meat and corn and a pantry of sauces and pasta and beans. Only a couple of more weeks for the Farmer's Market and then we'll be counting down until spring.

Last weekend at the Farmer’s Market, my favorite farmer held out his very last Hatch green chili for me. We’d had a conversation about my home and our mutual love of Hatch green chili (especially the smell of them roasting!). He has a crop he grows out of real, honest to goodness, from Hatch NM, green chili seeds and I have been buying several every week. They are mighty tasty in my homemade salsa. But this past weekend, he went out to pick for the market and he had one chili left. And so he put it on the bottom of his basket and kept it to the side for me. At no charge. I was pretty touched that he thought to do this and even more happy that I have this kind of relationship with "my farmer". I cut that chili up yesterday for what is probably my last batch of salsa this season and it filled me with nothing but happiness. A little piece of fall from my "home" in my home. And the thought behind it made it just that much better.


(me and the farmer, the housemartins - used before, will probably use again...)