Time and Pie

I don't know where the time goes. The weeks have just been rushing past me and suddenly it's always Monday again.

I've been at my job for 8 weeks. I'm starting to get the hang of it, although I never feel like I'm learning fast enough. I have yet to feel particularly smart in this job, which is both humbling and exhausting, but everyone I work with has been helpful and supportive and genuinely nice and that makes it easier. Plus, I'm learning stuff, which is always good.

Other things happening in my world lately include Owen going to see his new therapist every week. She is wonderful and Owen likes her a lot and I am hopeful that she will be able to get through to that place in his brain that sends him into a panic every time the unexpected happens. I am also hopeful that it will become clear whether or not public school is a hospitable place for him. Obviously at the moment it feels like it's not, but I know how important it is to try to help him learn to cope in the neurotypical world, so I'm fighting my instinct to pull him out of there and run to an underground bunker where no one will ever make him feel bad again...so yes, I'm trying to stay rational in the face of one of my worst fears (that the public school system will crush his soul). I make no promises as to how long this will last, but we're trying it for now.

Also on my mind: vacations. All I want to do is plan vacations, which I suppose isn't new, but it's more intense lately. I have zero plane tickets booked at the moment, which is actually a little unusual given my travel compulsion. However, we're planning to take an "educational" trip to Mexico in March (so Aidan can practice his Spanish, of course), so I've been obsessively reading hotel reviews and checking airfares, even though I swore I wouldn't book anything until 2012. There's also a Vegas vacation on the horizon...I'm trying to wait it out for pool season, but I can't actually give you a good reason for that since laying in the sun gives you cancer and takes precious time away from the slot machines...although I do think sipping cocktails by the pool is good for the soul.

And finally, Christmas is on my mind, of course. I love Christmas - it's almost the only thing I like about winter. We're spoiling the boys, as always, although I suppose it's all relative: Aidan put 5 VACATIONS on his Christmas list and he's not getting any of those...at least not for Christmas. But hmmmmm...I wonder if every vacation we take for the rest of his life could just be positioned as an early Christmas present...something to think about. (P.S. Why didn't I ever think to ask for vacations for Christmas?)

And with that, I leave you with this quintessential Christmas image. I think it conveys the spirit of the season...

Stuff your face.

(P.P.S. Baker's Square, if you ever want to hire me to preach the virtues of Candy Cane Pie, I am totally available.)

The Sun'll Come Out...in April

It's really cold here in the Twin Cities. I mean, not unusually cold or anything, given that it's January, but still cold. Like, hat-scarf-mittens-boots-long-underwear cold.

Occasionally on cold days, when I need a little pick-me-up, I like to watch this video. It's a reminder of a few things:

1. Hell has not actually frozen over, we just choose to live in the frozen tundra.
2. Someday I will see the sun again.
3. I better go to work so I can take another vacation.

Today, I thought I would share it with you. Enjoy.

Btw, that's Mazatlan circa 2006.

Not Well-Suited

There's a story from my Hawaii trip that I thought deserved its own entry. It's a cautionary tale, ladies.

You may remember my pre-trip swimsuit parade, which began in November. After ordering way too many swimsuits, I found one that I didn't hate. I even liked it a little. And it was a perfect compromise between swimdress and bikini...a skirtini or something. A bikini top with a skirted bottom (but not in a 4-year-old kind of way).

As a back-up, I also decided on a black retro one-piece suit that covered everything up. The rest all got sent back.

So it's day two of our dream vacation. We are sitting on Waikiki Beach. The sun is shining and the boys have joined forces with a Canadian family to build a monster sand castle (I suspect it was because that family had buckets and shovels). Feeling that perhaps I shouldn't dump my kids off on a complete stranger and his kids, I join in on the castle-building and attempt to make small-talk (one of my least favorite activities). Once my hands are entirely caked in sand, I decide it is time to rinse them off.

So up I go, take two steps, bend down to rinse my hands in the tide and "Snap!" My carefully chosen bikini top is suddenly dangling from the string around my neck.

Thankfully I was facing the water, not the beach, so aside from the Canadian dad, who was mere feet from me and likely got a nice side shot (though he graciously pretended not to notice a thing), I mostly only flashed a few children floating in the water before grabbing my straps and sprinting back to my husband, who was blissfully unaware of the situation, so engrossed was he in his book.

"My swimsuit came unhooked!" I whispered, trying not to draw attention, expecting him to simply re-latch it. However, upon examination, it was discovered that the plastic clasp that was supposed to keep me entirely G-rated had snapped in half. Now, to be fair, I had commented probably only an hour earlier that one day of resort-living (think buffets and tropical drinks) was already making me feel fat, but this was uncalled for.

And this is where I'd like to thank my cute little cover-up for saving me from having to walk the half-mile back to our hotel room holding my top closed. (The same cover-up that I accidentally left in the bathroom of our hotel at check-out. Dammit.)

More than being embarrassed, I was pretty pissed off at the shoddy craftsmanship. So what is the moral of this story? Function should trump form? Don't order swimsuits off the internet? Always have a back-up? We should all wear potato sacks to the beach?

Well, the one thing I know for sure is that I will never buy anything from Shape FX again.

The bikini incident would have been enough on its own, but wouldn't you know that after three days of wearing my back-up suit (also from Shape FX), the plastic piece that lets you adjust the straps broke off? (And being short and flat-chested, I needed to adjust my straps.) Perhaps the company was founded as an elaborate scheme to leave women topless? I can't be sure, but they won't be getting any more of my business.

And so, after all of that, I am once again left suitless. (Shape FX has agreed to refund my money for the bikini. The other suit got left in Hawaii alongside my cover-up.) Good thing I have no plans to go anywhere near a pool for at least another few months. This time I will be shopping in real stores...and performing various beach poses in each suit to test its durability. Lesson learned.

A New Year and Another Item Off the List

This is how I greeted 2010. On the beach, with my husband and my boys, watching the sunrise. How can this year be anything but good?

Sure, sure, there's plenty left out of that picturesque scene. I skipped over the 11+ hours of travel time the day before, which made it impossible to stay up past 8 p.m. on New Year's Eve, which (combined with the time difference) caused us (and really, I mean my children) to be up before 5 a.m. on New Year's Day, while everyone else in the world slept off the revelry of the night before. We actually stood outside Starbucks until it opened...at 6 a.m.

But none of that matters. It was a perfect way to start the year. Perfect.

Maybe it was even more perfect because I was able to completely blow off New Year's Eve as an event, since the event was really getting my family to Hawaii. Most years I tell myself that I'm not going to make a big deal about NYE, only to find myself in panic mode after Christmas, thinking that my fate as lamest person alive will be sealed if I don't quickly find something sparkly to do on Dec. 31.

I am now a big fan of traveling on New Year's Eve and making the big event the starting of a new year somewhere fabulous. Who knows if I'll keep up this tradition, but I still recommend it.

So Happy New Year to you. I hope you've been able to greet 2010 with a sense of excitement, hope, gratitude, or something similar. It's going to be a good year.

And for those who are wondering, Hawaii was amazing. It's hard to convey the magic of the trip by simply telling you that when we weren't on the beach, we were either eating or up in our hotel room, where my husband and I refereed a gazillion rounds of bed jumping, a game that involves our boys jumping back and forth between the two beds until one of them either crashes into the wall or misjudges the distance and lands on the floor. Good times.

In addition to all of that action, we did get to take a submarine into the ocean and see 16 kinds of fish and a sea turtle. We also took a road trip to the rainforest, where we not only hiked, but stumbled upon one of the sets for the new season of LOST (awesome!). We also trekked up to the North Shore and watched tiny kids surfing fearlessly, which caused me to realize that I am even more overprotective than I thought. Oh, and we had the legendary Matsumoto shave ice, which was bigger than our heads.

I have lots of commentary I could make on the pros and cons of staying in a luxury hotel, but again, those are pretty minor given how great it felt to spend a week in a tropical paradise with the people I love. (Not to mention that it was below zero here in Minnesota nearly the entire time we were gone.)

Hawaii is amazing. I only wish it were slightly closer and less expensive, but then I suppose that's part of why it's so amazing.

So cross off #4 on my 40 by 40 list! What's next? Well, I'd like to think that I will complete #21 this year, but I suspect that it might be easier to plan a two-week trip to Key West over Christmas, during which I eat key lime pie, read Ulysses and get a tattoo. We shall see.

Hawaii or Bust

Hey, remember when it was Christmastime and everything was all caroly and gingerbready?

Seriously, it's amazing how quickly I got over Christmas this year. No mourning, just a sincere "Thanks for coming!" and a slamming of the proverbial door. (Or maybe a gentle shutting...there was no anger involved.)

I hope your Christmas (or non-Christmas) was lovely. Ours was lovely. Short, sweet and just the right balance of family time, gifts and merriment...all topped off with a showing of "Sherlock Holmes" on Christmas Day (sans children). All I can say is, I ♥ Robert Downey, Jr. Most importantly, the boys enjoyed lots of love and laughter and the excitement of getting what they wished for.

And now that we've got that pesky annual tradition business out of the way, I can give my full attention to what I've been wishing for: Hawaii.

Oh, Hawaii, in 48 hours I will be in your tan, tropical arms...lay me down in a bed of sand and hook me up to a pina colada I.V. I am ready.

Some of you may recall that we've been planning Hawaii since last year. It was somewhere I'd always wanted to visit, but had never actually put on the travel docket because of all the other places I wanted to go (oh, and because it's very far away and expensive). Then the kids expressed excitement too and the plan was hatched.

Now, when it comes to travel, I tend to take the attitude that you can't put a price on experiences. This often allows me to justify planning trips regardless of my current financial status. It runs counter to my otherwise common sense-driven, responsible approach to life and maybe that's one of the things I love about it.

With kids, I've had to be more realistic about not only what we can afford, but where we can go with the boys or how long we can be gone without them. This has resulted in slightly less actual travel, but more obsessive travel planning (I have a loose outline of trips I am planning through 2015.)

Anyway, the point of all this is to say that before this trip, I don't think I've ever spent a full year planning anything other than my wedding. And maybe my kids.

When we started talking about it at the end of last year, we really couldn't afford it. My freelance business had just fallen off a cliff and I wasn't sure what 2009 would hold. But I knew I wanted it and I knew we'd get it, eventually. So I went back to work and I was able to tell myself and the boys that it was worth it because, in addition to being able to pay our bills, it would eventually allow us to take this trip. And it did. And that gives me a sense of accomplishment and sets a good example for the boys. It even suggests that, perhaps, where travel is concerned, I could learn to delay gratification a bit...maybe...on big trips.

So you see, even though planning dream vacations might not be the most fiscally responsible thing to do given the current state of things, it can teach us valuable life lessons, such as: Don't live to work. Work to travel.

And if all else fails, well, you can't really put a price on experiences, right?

The Star Has Been Wished Upon

I have returned from the land of magic and dreams and sunshine. Not that we don't have our own magic and dreams and occasional beams of sunshine here in Minnesota, but given that it's January, they seem a little fewer and far between. 

The trip was fantastic. The real magic of Disney is that they are able to create an entirely commercial environment, charge you to enter it, and simultaneously convince you to suspend your cynicism...to believe, if you will. 

I honestly don't care that they are profiting from children's happiness because the children are so happy. Even the adults are happy. I was happy to be there. It's just fun. 

I'll spare you a play-by-play of our entire vacation, but here are a few highlights:

• Breakfast with Mickey (Contemporary Resort) - Like most adults, I was not thrilled by the idea of having a meal surrounded by people dressed up as cartoon characters. However, my aunt (the Disney expert) insisted it was a must-do and she was right. The awe and joy that my boys experienced when Mickey Mouse himself came to our table to meet them was worth every minute of screaming babies and every bite of mediocre buffet food. 


• Being co-pilots on the monorail - Again, my aunt's expertise made this possible. The drivers ("pilots") of the monorails have seats inside the cockpit and if you ask nicely, they might just let you sit in them. It just so happened that we got to sit in the cockpit on my boys' very first ride on the monorail, taking us to their very first visit to the Magic Kingdom. Imagine a panoramic view of the horizon as you zip along the track. Now imagine seeing Cinderella's castle rise up before you on that horizon. "Magical" might be the best word for that experience.


• The Wishes fireworks (Magic Kingdom) - You know pretty much every commercial for Disney World, where you see the fireworks bursting perfectly over the castle while thousands of children's eye grow wide? That really happens. It's a bit like walking into a postcard. It sounds cheesy (hell, the whole park sounds cheesy) but it's amazing. And the gasps of wonder emanating from every child in the park makes it that much better. 


• Teppanyaki in Japan (Epcot) - I love the entire World Showcase. It's fun to be able to stroll through 10 countries (plus America, for some reason) in a matter of hours. But I'm singling out Japan here because we had dinner at Teppan Edo, the teppanyaki restaurant there, complete with Japanese chefs and servers. By far the best meal of the trip, made even better by the fact that our kids were enthralled by the cooking and therefore inspired to eat everything on their plates. And Owen is still bragging about trying (and liking) the hot mustard sauce.


• Toy Story Midway Mania (Hollywood Studios) - Thanks to the merging of Pixar and Disney, all your favorite Pixar characters are now part of the magic. The Buzz Lightyear ride and Monsters, Inc. show at Magic Kingdom are both great, but this new ride over at Hollywood Studios (which is otherwise not that great for small kids) suggests that the imagineers actually went inside my children's brains and set out to combine their obsession with carnival games and their love for Toy Story. You put on 3D glasses, get in a car and are spun around to various midway games where you must use a toy "gun" to shoot targets, knock over ducks, toss rings, etc. all to earn points. We wanted to ride again and again, but sadly the line was 30 minutes long. 

Those are just a few of the great moments we had. I'm sure my kids would also list the pool, the mini golf and the sugary cereal my aunt stocked in our hotel room as highlights of the trip. 

Here is where I could tell you that I wish we hadn't had to leave and how hard it's been to adjust back to the mundane, but the truth is that I'm kind of in an ideal little pocket of my life at the moment (excluding the self-esteem crushing job search) because I had a wonderful family vacation and just six days from now I get to leave for a long weekend getaway with a couple of my BFFs. More on that in a later post. 

For now, I'm still basking in the magical glow that Disney has cast on my family. I'm hoping not all the pixie dust washes off. 

Look Out, Mickey

The countdown is on. Three days from now, we will be on a plane headed to Disney World. My kids are overjoyed. I share their enthusiasm, though more than being excited about visiting The Happiest Place on Earth, I am excited about having my husband with us for five days straight. (He is currently away on his third business trip of the month.)

Amid all the Disney excitement, my boys have started debating whether the Magic Kingdom is, indeed, magic. Owen is on board with the fantasy, exclaiming "Everything there is magic!" 

Aidan is more skeptical. While peering into the refrigerator yesterday, he suddenly turned to me and said, "I don't really think everything there is magic." And then he began muttering about how, logically, it just wouldn't be possible...sometimes, I'm afraid, he's a little bit too much like me. 

He's right, of course, maybe it isn't all magic. Except at his age, maybe it should be. "Why don't you wait until you get there to decide?" I suggested. "Maybe it really is magic." 

To that, he just shrugged. 

When You Wish Upon a Star...

You might think by looking that we don't really like Halloween. We are that house on the block that turns all its lights out so you will not approach. Except rather than hiding inside and cursing all the loud children begging for candy, we're actually out with our kids trick-or-treating, so I think we have a valid excuse. 

Anyway, since I can only remember one year that we've ever been home long enough to hand out any candy, I stopped buying it, which means all I have to gorge myself on is the boys' loot. Except they counted it, which means I have to gain approval before taking any fun-size Snickers bars. Sneaking would throw their counts off, no doubt setting off a downward spiral that they will be telling their therapists about for years to come. 

I guess this is all to say that I haven't really been eating any candy, which is just as well since I've started my mental quest to lose 10 pounds. I feel confident that the physical quest will begin any day now...as soon as I overcome my disdain for exercise and my love for carbs...and butter...and sugar. Yep, any day now.

In other news, we're going to Disney World!!!!!!!!!!! We've actually known for a little while now, but we just told the boys, so we can finally go public. My beloved and crazy aunt Linda (we all have a crazy aunt, right?) has an obsession with Disney World and therefore visits The Happiest Place on Earth on an annual basis. (For the record, this means I can officially call my Las Vegas obsession genetic.) This year, she wants the boys to experience the magic. Score.

And so, the 12-week countdown has begun. Aidan and I made a list of all the Disney movies we need to watch in preparation for this trip. The boys are already well-versed in all the Pixar flicks, as well as The Little Mermaid and Dumbo (trauma!), but they've never seen Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin or even The Lion King, so we've got some studying to do. You know, because I want them to have a deeper appreciation for the variously-themed mechanisms with which Disney will fly them through the air. 

Fun and planning. Fun and planning. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Reality Wrap-Up and Bon Voyage (to me)

Another Wednesday night has come and gone and our lives have again been enriched by Bravo. 

The Project Runway challenge was to design an outfit for a drag queen...something theatrical, that expresses the queen's persona. And the winner is...

NOT Terri's "geisha on acid." Even though it was by far the most theatrical and dramatic of the bunch. No, the winner was Joe with this bubblegum sailor number:

I like Joe. I think he did a great job. I just don't think he should have won. Terri got robbed and, judging by the daggers being shot from her eyes, she knew it. 

Then there's Keith, who was understandably distraught at learning that he didn't get eliminated since he has clearly exhausted his design repertoire after just six episodes -- that is, if you can call making fringe a repertoire.

I can't really argue that Daniel (Mr. "impeccable taste") didn't deserve to go home, but I just think Keith deserved it more this week. Yes, the flamenco cocktail dress was ugly and missed the entire theatrical aspect of the challenge, but at least it looked like clothing.

Btw, I'm starting to think Korto and Joe might emerge as frontrunners this season, but it's too soon to tell. 

Which brings us to Shear Genius...I thought the twin challenge was pretty fun, but Nicole's ultra obvious decision to make one of the blondes a brunette was lame and the fact that they rewarded it by giving her a place in the final three was really lame. 

As for the elimination challenge...I didn't think anyone did anything very interesting, but I definitely thought Dee deserved to be eliminated based on how much everyone (especially the photographer) hated her model's hair. But we all knew she'd make it to the end, so I wasn't surprised. Still, Charlie is totally gonna take this thing. 

We'll miss you, Daniel. If I'm ever in Dallas and decide to try out the big hair look, you are my man. 

Side note: Mama is taking a vacation! I leave for LA late, late tonight and come back early, early Monday morning. That's what happens when you use a "free" plane ticket. I don't expect to do much (or any) blogging while I'm gone, so I will rejoin you all next week. 

Happy birthday weekends to BFF Rachel and sister-in-law Toni!

Mondays at the Beach

This is what Monday mornings should be like...

In lieu of the grand family vacation I wanted to take this summer, we took a mini-vacation (minication?) to Duluth on Sunday. Yesterday morning, after enjoying our "free" hotel breakfast (Lucky Charms AND waffles? This is living!) we walked down to the beach so the boys could throw another five zillion rocks into Lake Superior before it was time to go home. 

I mentioned to my husband that I'd like to spend every Monday morning on a beach. He offered that perhaps that was just the structure that my crazy "let's live in an RV and see the country" plan was missing. So rather than wander aimlessly around the country, we could set a goal to wake up each Monday next to a body of water -- ideally one with crashing waves. Sounds good to me. 

So now all we need is an RV, someone to pay our mortgage while we're gone, oh, and a well-paying job that provides benefits while allowing us to work from anywhere, whenever we want. We'll be on the road in no time!