Notorious NPH

It's Oscar night (I think there's supposed to be a "™" or maybe an "®" in there somewhere), and as per usual for the last ten years or so, I am unprepared.

As a former (recovering?) film student, I take the Oscars very seriously. Perhaps too seriously, but what can I do? I love the movies, always have, and -- this is the part that has become the most important to me now, in my "advanced" age -- I also really, really enjoy watching people wearing clothes that cost more than my house.

Also: Neil Patrick Harris. I will watch anything he is in (and I actually HAVE, since I watched every. single. episode. of How I Met Your Mother).

So help me, I am a bonafide red-blooded American woman, despite all my attempts to avoid becoming such a creature for basically my entire life. I'm a stereotype. I make no excuses.

Used to be, back in the days when we were still dating, G and I would go out of our way if necessary to see all the nominated films. It was easier when we were in college and they would show movies on campus for $2. The hardest part about seeing Oscar movies back then was coming up with the $2. Then we got engaged and got jobs and got married and got a mortgage and got a kid ... and now we barely have time to change our underwear, let alone carve out countless hours to spend at the movies. (I won't even mention that $2 no longer buys a soda at the movies any more -- hell, you care barely get a movie theater box of Junior Mints at Target for less than that.)

ANYWAY.

I'll spare you all the long and boring details (TOO LATE, haha sucker!) and just get to the part I think you're waiting for anyway: "So, which Oscar-nominated movies did you actually see this year?" And perhaps as a corollary: "What did you think of them?"

Here you go. This is the entirety of the list of Oscar movies I've seen this year.

• Boyhood. I honestly can't say enough good things about this movie. It's the best movie I've seen in a long time, perhaps ever. Go see it and get back to me. (You can probably still get it at Redbox, which has been a godsend to patient cinephiles with nice TV's at home.) Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke were both beyond fantastic in this movie. I never really gave much thought to Richard Linklater's films (not usually my thing), but I have since reconsidered. I think it would be super if this wins Best Picture, as it is expected to. I usually root against the frontrunner, but I can't in this case.
• Gone Girl. We liked this one well enough. I'd read the book before we saw the movie; my husband didn't. I was not a particular fan of Rosamund Pike in this movie, but I'm not sure it's her fault; could have been the character. Ben Affleck was perfect, which are words I never thought I'd ever say.
• Into the Woods. It was pretty much exactly as I expected it to be. G and I both liked it (me more than him, but that's because he is not always hot to trot on musicals). Chris Pine was a revelation and probably the second-best thing in this movie after James Corden. Maryl Streep absolutely DID NOT deserve a nom for this; they gave her one anyway because she's Meryl, and that's bullshit.
• Big Hero 6. Highly recommended. Will be picking up the Blu-Ray on Tuesday. Okay, Shae? Can we stop with the civil disobedience now? Jesus Mary and Simon Peter. Mommy and Daddy can sometimes bend the laws of physics and space-time, but we just don't have the power to make Big Cinema do what you want it to.
• How to Train Your Dragon 2. Liked it. Basically The Empire Strikes Back, but with, y'know, cartoon dragons. My husband and I very much enjoyed playing our favorite game of "Name That Voice" while watching.
• Maleficent. Yes, this movie got nominated for an Academy Award -- for Costumes, but you know what? An O is an O. It was fine. I like watching Angelina Jolie chew the hell out of some scenery.
• Guardians of the Galaxy. My favorite movie of the year, but I am biased because I love Chris Pratt so hard right now. Not the best movie of the year, but my favorite. Already own the Blu-Ray, and already watched it at least six times. No regrets.
• The Lego Movie. Nominated for Best Original Song for "Everything is Awesome" which you are probably singing right now. I am disappointed that this movie didn't get nominated for Best Animated Feature because I thought it was the best animated movie of the year (and I am absolutely in the bag for Disney).
• X-Men: Days of Future Past. Liked it a lot, but thought Peter Dinklage was criminally underutilized.

That's it. Eleventeen hundred nominated movies, and I've seen nine of them. I suck. I can't make predictions in any categories because I haven't even seen enough to clips to guess what way the Academy might want to go. Although I can say this: I really hope that J.K. Simmons wins for Whiplash -- a movie I haven't seen -- and I hope that Michael Keaton wins for Birdman -- again, a movie I haven't seen -- just because I like those guys a whole lot and want them to have lots of success and stuff.

And if Meryl wins again? I'm flipping a table.

Children of the Candy Corn

Earlier this month, we took a seasonally appropriate trip to the pumpkin patch to go ... pumpkin patching, I guess. Is there a verb for what one does in a pumpkin patch when one is not Courtney Stodden? (Don't run out and Google "Courtney Stodden pumpkin patch," okay? Trust me on this one.)

This is what you wear to the pumpkin patch when you're my kid: a Halloween-themed T-shirt that is maybe but not quite too small, but still big enough to wear in public, generally speaking; pieces of not one, but TWO years' worth of Halloween costumes over capri pants, because hey, why the hell not; an assortment of LiveStrong-style bracelets from only God knows what organizations (I think one of them might say "Got Milk?"); and one leg warmer as an arm cover.

Oh, and let me take this opportunity to point out that it was in the mid-70's that day. So, you know.

The short version of the story is that those tiny little pumpkins were a huge hit. Also the gourds. I am a fan of gourds, and I have to say that the kids all had an excellent eye for nice, nubby, grotty-looking gourds that look positively fantastic in a nice arrangement that my husband made at home in a pretty red bowl. LOOK AT THAT: married almost fifteen years, and I am still learning about his special skills.

Perhaps unexpectedly, my favorite part of this pumpkin patch trip was traipsing "through the corn maze" -- a/k/a looking for Indian corn. The kids found some pretty Indian corn, too, and we let them run around in the cornfields for so long that I'm pretty sure we had them convinced that they were actually in the corn maze that was advertised in great big letters all over the place. (I don't "do" corn mazes, because with my luck I'll get stuck out there forever and they'll need to call out the National Guard to find me and it will be too late because Voldermort will have already ported me away to Little Hangleton and I think it's possible at this point that I might be getting my pop-culture references confused again.)

SPOILER ALERT: There were pony rides. There are ALWAYS pony rides at these things.

Shae did end up finding us a lovely pumpkin that she and G carved up the very next day, and which ended up in the trash already because hey did you know that fresh pumpkins can get all gross and moldy and "smell like the cat's butt"? Trust me on that one, too: we learned that the hard way.

Special thanks to Anthony's mom for letting me us his picture. Thanks, Anthony's mom!

So It Goes

When I started grad school, I expected things to be different. I just didn't expect them to be, you know, THIS different.

I didn't expect to go almost an entire month without updating my blog.

I didn't expect that my kid's first day of kindergarten would pass with barely so much as a mention.

I didn't expect that my poor camera would sit in the bag, barely touched, for days, weeks, practically months at a time.

I didn't expect to miss my kid or my husband or my bed or my DVR or my free time quite so much.

I am not complaining here, or at least, not exactly. I am glad that I finally got my shit together for long enough to develop an "exit strategy" and stick with it. You know me: I have my moments when I'm not entirely sure that I am doing the "right thing" here, but by and large I am glad I made the move before I could talk myself out of it.

I expected to love being back in school, and I really, really do, but I didn't expect that I would have such trouble getting back into the "swing" of being a college student. I know my schedule, but I can't seem to set up a routine. I have class on Wednesday and Thursday nights this semester, plus an online class through the middle of October, and I know what I need to do, but I keep finding myself in the middle of a "crunch," and I'm still not sure how to work it all out, sometimes.

I expect that it will take me another two semesters to get myself all the way together, and by then it will be time to student teach, which is a whole 'nother can of worms.

I didn't expect that I would have so much to want to say, and so little time or authority to actually do it. I'd love to discuss my theories and plans and ideas with all of you, but I'm not sure what I'm actually allowed to talk about. At the end of all this, I would like to get employed, and I imagine that anything I say might be used against me.

I definitely didn't expect to feel so frustrated about so many things now. I want to be done with school and get on with "the rest of my life," but I still have a day job to do. If I rush through my classes I won't do as well as I'd like to, but if I slow down so I don't feel so much angst about it, I might end up convincing myself that I am frustrated because I'm doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.

I expected the sheer panic I felt when I actually got into grad school to settle down some once I got started.

I didn't expect that there would be days when it would be worse.

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Here is a random picture of a BLT, because of reasons:

Right now, the reasons are that bacon is basically the only thing I still understand any more. As long as there is bacon at the end of the tunnel, I WILL BE OKAY. (Right? RIGHT?)

Better Living Through Denial

Shae's graduation is tomorrow. Let's go on pretending that it isn't happening for another 24 hours, shall we?

You might have noticed that bubbles are kind of a thing with my people. Here is Makayla continuing the old family tradition.

Of course Shae got in on the action, but nowadays you have to be REALLY FAST to catch it on camera.

Speaking of action: it's almost time for the Olympics, and it looks like somebody is ready to start training for the 2024 Games.

And speaking of the Olympics, if Competitive Pinwheel Hoarding is introduced as an event, I think we might have our first Gold Medalist right here.

Although she'll have some tough competition.

Including My Anonymously Photobombing Mother back there in the blurry distance. (Hi, Mom! Bring an extra Xanax tomorrow, would you?)

After the Thing Which Shall Launch A Million Used Tissues, we're going out to lunch, and then to the movies (Brave, hooray!), and then very early in the morning on Saturday, we're off to the foreign climes of the upper Midwest for our vacation with Joey and Jacob and the world's first McDonald's restaurant.

Let's see what kind of cuteness shenanigans we can up to while we're away, shall we? (I highly suspect bubbles will be involved.)

I Scream! You Scream! We All Scream For Ice Cream (That I Made Weeks Ago And Which Now Is Gone)!

While we're waiting for my kid to turn into a goddamned grownup even though I am not ready for such a ridiculous thing to happen because COME ON SHE IS ONLY A BABY WAIT WHERE DID MY BABY GO WHO IS THIS EXTREMELY TALL TALKATIVE BOSSY PERSON SLEEPING IN HER BED WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BAAAAAAAAABY YOU FIEND, let's talk about ice cream.

A while back, I got this incredibly inspired idea that I have approximately 80 bajillion dollars worth of Kitchen-Aid appliances and accessories in my kitchen that I haven't used in maybe a hundred years, so let's bust everything out and do something with them. I guess you could say I went on a Wheaton-esque "get excited and make things" kick for about twenty minutes.

I decided to make ice cream because it was very hot at the time. The heat has broken some in the meantime, but at that particular point it was too damned hot to even write about it. Hell, it was almost too hot to EAT it. But we took all our ingredients and spread them out on the stove so I could take a picture of them, and then we got to work.

We could not reach a consensus on what kind of ice cream to make. I've made ice cream before, in those practically prehistoric Days Before Children, but this was my first attempt with a very militant chocoholic in the house. Which could have been dicey, because I don't like chocolate ice cream (I know, it's un-American, WHATEVER, I'm already a socialist so hush). The compromise recipe was for cherry chocolate chip, which we made using 2 cups heavy cream, 2 cups half-and-half, 3/4 cup sugar (divided -- most of it in the ice cream, 2-3 tablespoons for the cherries), 1 tablespoon of my 15-year old Mexican vanilla (not I am not joking, my vanilla is THAT OLD), 2 dashes kosher salt, 3/4 cup fresh sweet cherries, and 1/3 cup mini semisweet chips.

At this point I will tell you what we did wrong. One, we should have used all cream -- either all heavy cream, or a combination of heavy and light cream. The final texture using the half-and-half was a bit too grainy. We might have been okay if we did a custard-style ice cream, but I didn't want to do that much work, and my eggs are always a bit dodgy. Also, we did not cut up the cherries into small enough pieces, nor did we let them "marinate" long enough. Probably we should have prepared the cherries the day before, let them soak up all the sugar, and then mashed the snot out of them.

We left our ice cream bowl in the freezer for 24 hours. We might want to let it go longer than that next time, but it was mostly okay. Our ingredients were not cold enough when we put them in the bowl; if you follow this recipe, I recommend putting everything in the freezer for at least an hour before adding it to the ice cream bowl. Let the mixer do the work for about half an hour or so (according to directions), and add the cherries and the chocolate chips for the last 10-15 minutes.

Also: you will need to freeze your ice cream before you can eat it. We let ours sit overnight before we ate it. So, basically, we started the process on Sunday (bowl in freezer), made the ice cream on Monday, poured it into covered containers and let it "ripen," and then finally ate it on Tuesday. Was it worth the wait?

Mostly. Like I said, our ice cream had an "off" texture, and because the cherries were not cut small enough some of them were basically solid chunks of frozen fruit when we finally ate it, plus since we didn't let them "marinate" long enough we got random bites of cherry that were more tart than others, but overall, the flavor was quite good. I really liked it. I'd definitely make it again, making a few small tweaks to the recipe and process. Although it was not all chocolate, the chocolate chips satisfied the animal urges of the not-so-little one.

T Minus 10

It's not like I've been off doing anything important for the last two weeks, like having a baby or anything like some overachievers I know (hi sis!), but here's the thing: I've been in full High Avoidance Mode lately. Because here's why -- in 10 days, Shae will be graduating from preschool. GRADUATING. She started preschool pretty quietly, without much ado, but her graduation is going to be a Big Damn Deal, complete with cap and gown and grandparents in attendance and the whole nine yards. And then after that, KINDERGARTEN.

MY KID IS GOING TO START KINDERGARTEN IN LESS THAN THREE MONTHS AND I AM STARTING TO FEEL FAINT AGAIN AND I HAVE TO PUT MY HEAD BETWEEN MY LEGS BECAUSE I AM HYPERVENTILATING AGAIN.

Quick: let's distract ourselves, shall we? Because I get all choked up just thinking about it, and I just can't right now.

The waterpark -- excuse me, sprayground --  down the street is open already, but it's been so hot lately that it's been insanely crowded, plus all the big kids are out of school already, and I just can't deal with that mess, so we did what any civilized person would do and got out the hose. (PS THAT LITTLE GIRL IS LESS THAN THREE MONTHS AWAY FROM BEING IN KINDERGARTEN Y'ALL WHAT DID I DO WITH MY INHALER?)

If only we had water pressure. Oh, the things we would do to this house, if only we had $248 million.

Still, we can always manage to have a good time. That's the nice thing about being 5 years old, I suppose: easily entertained.

Hey, how did that picture sneak in there?

And that one?

But -- and here's the good news -- the day after graduation we're going out to visit my sister and brother-in-law and Joey and the new baby and take lots and lots of pictures and I will be able to pretend, just for a little while, that I live in a house full of wee ones who are going to stay little forever and never get old.

This Is Your Brain On Grad School

There is no reason for this picture to be here, but I am including it anyway, as a pre-emptive peace offering / distraction so nobody freaks out when I get all whiny afterwards.

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Getting an education is making me dumb, you guys.

I mean, you know what I mean? I'm not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I'm still one of the smartest people I know, even if it's impolite of me to come right out and say so. I've worked really hard for a really long time to learn as much as I can about the things that interest me, and I am proud of the fact that I can walk into any room and jump right into pretty much any conversation and acquit myself well, provided my neuroses and social anxieties don't get in the way of me walking up to strangers and saying, "Hi!"

(SPOILER ALERT: Booze helps.)

But lately, I just don't know. Here are some actual, real-live stupid things that I have done in the past two weeks that are starting to make me reconsider the level of my own intelligence:

1. Packed a lunch for work that consisted entirely of a bottle of diet green tea and a spoon.
2. Got all the way dressed for work without putting on underpants. (Fortunately discovered before I left the house.)
3. Left the house in two different shoes AND unmatched socks.
4. Spent half an hour trying to remember where I parked before realizing I was looking for a car I hadn't had in seven years.
5. Drained the battery in my car by leaving the headlights on all day.
6. TWICE. In the span of FIVE DAYS.

So I am starting to get a little nervous that maybe I am developing early-onset senility, or perhaps I have a brain tumor, or something. I'd like to think there is a medical explanation for the sudden recurrence of the adolescent flakiness that I thought I had outgrown.

But unfortunately, I think it's stress, and for the time being, there isn't much I can do about it. I'm kind of booked solid for a little while. My classes started in January, and by the end of August I will have finished five grad-level and two undergrad courses. Twenty-one credits. All in the course of only eight months.

I'm tired, you guys. So tired. And I lost my keys again.

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Yeah, sweetheart, I'm a little worried too. But before you know it, this will all be behind us, and it will be worth it. Pinky swear.

Building The Perfect Beast

Do you realize how difficult it can be to get the "perfect" (HAHAHAHA) Easter portrait of your kid? Completely disregarding all the general tomfoolery associated with "staged" photo shoots, like having props and bribes and actual kid at the ready? And never mind the fact that you have to get the kid to even agree to cooperate in the first place, which is as probable as winning the lottery while being struck by lightning at the same time?

First attempt: too squinty. Also, the shadows are falling across her neck weird. Let's try this again.

Second attempt: more weird shadows. And for some reason now her skin looks a different color than it did before. I blame jellybean consumption.

Third attempt: wrong angle, and that POSE. I thought it would be cute, in theory, kind of like a faux-school-picture kind of thing, but obviously something went wrong here in the execution. (Plus, that isn't quite how I wanted her to pose, but it was the best I could do at the time.)

Fourth attempt: almost great, except for the shadows again. And I swear, I had her turning and spinning and moving all over the yard to try to get the right light angle. I think we had trouble because it was right at mid-day in the early spring and the sun was in Aquarius and Mercury was in retrograde. It's kind of obvious, really.

Fifth attempt: Almost perfect, except THERE IS A STICK GROWING OUT OF HER HEAD NOW. How long have we been outside at this point? (No more than 15 minutes.) And it looks like something might be missing, now, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Sixth and final attempt: THERE WE GO. Thanks, kiddo, you're done here. Now why don't you run off and change into your play clothes, but not before stopping in the kitchen for 2½ seconds? That's plenty of time to get hot bacon dressing on your sweater. (That totally happened.)

(Non)Winter (Non)Weather

I never figured myself for one of those crotchety old windbags who spends all her spare time complaining about the weather, and yet here I am, spending all my spare time complaining about the weather. In large part because the winter we've had has been so weird that I'm not even sure what season it is right now. It's 60°F outside right now. I mean, honestly. All the trees are starting to bud. I can see pollen in the air. I've had a sinus situation going on since August, when Hurricane Irene hit, and there is no foreseeable end in sight, because it hasn't been cold enough for long enough to kill whatever winter mold I'm allergic to, and now I'm getting smacked in the face with the spring stuff that sends me into my own personal circle of hay fever hell.

But that's not why I'm really gretzing.

   

We had snow back in October, right before Halloween. We were grossly underprepared, as per usual. Shae didn't have snow boots or a new coat or mittens or any of that stuff. She went out to "play" in the snow in her pajamas and galoshes that were a skosh too small. I was mortified, as you can imagine, especially because I had all my Christmas shopping basically done at that point, but I wasn't prepared for winter. The very next weekend, she got two new coats and a pair of snow pants from my mother-in-law, and two pairs of long johns from my parents, and some nice gloves from LL Bean that remind me a bit of my old Freezy Freakies from back in the '80s, and a nice pair of fuzz-lined boots that I deliberately bought a size too big so she could put on two pairs of socks and thermal underwear and still get her boots to close properly.

   

And then ... it basically stopped being winter. These pictures are from almost a month ago, February 12th, the last time it snowed in these parts. The time before that, it was the end of January. The time before that was ... Halloween. That's it. Three snows in one winter, if you define the winter as "whenever it starts snowing to whenever it stops snowing," as they do in Syracuse. I mean, I freaking HATE winter, but even I am like, "The HELL?" Now it's March, and today it's 60°F, and my Weather Channel iPhone app is calling for high temperatures of 60°F or higher for seven of the next ten days, with an average high of 58°F.

   

So why am I complaining, you ask? Aside from this upper respiratory clusterduck that I have going on? BECAUSE THOSE GOSH DARN BRAND-NEW BOOTS DON'T FIT ANY MORE, and she's only worn them TWICE. That's why. Stupid weather.

Blur

You guys, I DON'T EVEN KNOW.

I'm really sorry about all the weird lapses in posting but I am not myself these days. I knew that grad school was going to be hard, but what I didn't realize what that it wasn't going to be the classes that would kill me, but the scheduling. At least so far -- I have one class at the moment, and I love it, and I think I'm doing well, so I can't really complain there (although check back with me next week, after my exam tonight).

It's the SCHEDULE, you guys. It's killing me. Two days a week, I have 16-hour days (to which my mother is already saying, "Yeah, AND?"). I am not used to 16-hour days, at not least like this. And yes, it's only two days a week, but by the time I get home I'm usually so hopped up on adrenaline and caffeine and this buzz from learning that I can't get to sleep right away, and then I have homework and whatever on the other nights, and I have these really strange fever dreams and whatnot, so I don't really sleep all that well as a general rule, and so by the time 3:00 rolls around on a Friday afternoon, I am lucky if I am not passed out face-down at my desk, drowning in a puddle of my own drool.

You think I am exaggerating, but I assure you, I am not. Sometime after lunch on Fridays, everything is absolutely HYSTERICAL, to the point where reading a cheese wrapper has me in such giggle fits that I start hyperventilating. You guys, I DON'T EVEN KNOW. My entire life is pretty much a blur, right now.

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Because I know what my audience wants, and it isn't a detailed re-telling of my first-world white-girl problems-of-the-week, here are some pictures of other things that have been going on. I'm sorry these are all Instagrammed cell phone photos, but you're lucky I even have time for this. I just want to spend my weekends either in my bed or eating pie -- or, ideally, both at the same time -- so that I even remember to take my phone with me is basically nothing short of a miracle, right now.

 

Swim lessons are still happening. Shae is doing great, although I think you can see in this picture that she is growing out of all her bathing suits right in front of us. STOP THAT, KID.

   

We found a nearly-13-year-old box of Cream of Wheat in the back of the cupboard. Sadly, this is probably not the oldest food item in my house. I'm pretty sure that I still have canned goods that were part of a gift basket from my bridal shower. Hey, you NEVER KNOW when you're going to need a 30-year-old can of clams to feed the zombies during the end times.

    

They did a chick-hatching project at school, and my husband just rolled his eyes at me when I said I wanted to raise chickens in the back yard. I mean, IT'S LIKE HE DOESN'T EVEN TAKE ME SERIOUSLY ANY MORE.

   

Chewbacca got a hair cut. Hipster child is unimpressed.

   

With under two months to go until Shae's big 0-5 birthday (!!!!!) (?????) (who the hell let THAT happen?!), we finally took the siderail off her bed ... the same day that we put these sort of super-smooth, "microfiber," kind of almost satiny sheets on her bed. It's like we WANTED her to slide right onto the floor or something. But so far she's managed to resist the law of gravity and stay put during the night. Tucking her sheets and comforter under the mattress like some kind of deranged ghetto sleeping bag is probably helping.

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So. There you go. BASICALLY NOTHING IS DIFFERENT, except I'm like 482% more tired, and about 926% more likely to start randomly quoting Jack London stories at you with only the slightest provocation. (Or, in other words: it's a Wednesday, isn't it?)

The Changeover

I’ve been kind of absent from this blog lately for lots of reasons, with the holidays actually being among the least of them, if you can possibly imagine. My apologies for that; this, too, shall pass. But as you know (since I told you myself), I’m going back to school –- not in the Rodney-Dangerfield-film sense, but in the “holy-crap-I-am-actually-going-through-with-this-and-becoming-a-broke-ass-graduate-student-just-like-I-always-threatened-to-do” sort of way.

I made the decision in mid-November, when a whole bunch of Stuff That Shall Not Be Named happened (nothing of consequence to anyone but me, don’t worry; I just can’t talk about it in any detail), and since then I’ve been buried under a mountain of all sorts of paperwork: applications, drafts of essays, letters of recommendation, financial aid forms, calendars, textbook order sheets, standardized test prep workbooks, lists of supplies and materials and equipment and paperwork and forms and clearances I will need.

Two weeks from today -- January 18, 2012 -- mark the date on your calendars, people, because it may be important someday, or at least be a day that may live in infamy forever -- I start my first college class in 16 years.

DEAR GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?

The timing of these Voldemortian matters (because they Shall Not Be Named, get it? Haha, I crack myself up with my own genius sometimes) was such that, when everything went down, I quickly made a plan -- “I’m going to get my sorry ass back to school” -- and then I just went ahead and executed. It was around Thanksgiving when I hatched this scheme, and I had deadlines to meet, very tight deadlines that did not allow me a chance to second-guess myself. Applications were due by the first week of December, so I had to get right on it. Go go go! -- shoot first, apologize later.

This is somewhat unlike me -- I am not really the sort of person who wakes up in the morning and says to herself, “Self, let’s DO THIS THANG.” But in truth, looking at it now, I wanted to meet those December deadlines because I did not want to give myself a chance to chicken out. I've been thinking about going back to school to become a teacher for the last 16 years. But the stuff that happened? It scared me. And I dealt with that fear the way I often do: by coming up with an “exit strategy" on the fly, by the seat of my pants.

And what I found myself saying was, “I can change my mind later if I want to, but right now I really need to get this paperwork to Admissions or nothing will happen.”

Which is totally the truth, of course. I often get “analysis paralysis” -- when I stop to think about what I am doing, to consider all the possibilities and all the potential outcomes, come up with a list of pros and cons and maybes, I tend to get myself caught in this internal feedback loop where I keep “and another thing!”-ing myself into being unable to commit. I used to think I was being rational, reasonable, and thorough when I did this, but really, it’s more like playing devil’s advocate with myself over and over again endlessly, until all of the sudden it’s ten minutes before a major project is due and I haven’t started it yet because I haven’t been able to settle on a font.

You think I am exaggerating here, but I assure you: not really.

So this is kind of a HUGE step for me, getting myself involved in something from which I did not allow myself an “out.” I mean, yes, there is always an “out” -- I can just stop taking classes -- but it’s possible that this might be the first time in my adult life that I have turned a Plan-B situation into a Should-Have-Been-Plan-A-All-Along situation. It’s not like I don’t want to get my Master’s in Education and become a high school English teacher; it’s what I’ve wanted to do for basically my whole life. When I picture myself 25 or 30 years down the road, when it’s time to retire and spend my dottering old age doing whatever it is that dottering old retirees to, I picture myself playing bridge and mahjongg and watching “The Price is Right” with other former schoolteachers.

And if I expect to be hanging out with “other former schoolteachers,” then I guess I better get on the stick and become a teacher in the first place, right? So here we are.

DEAR GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?

I’ve starting making my own dreams come true, is what I’ve done.

Grocery Stores And Other Scary Places

Since Thanksgiving is coming up and we're going to just about get familied-out next week, we decided to stay home for the weekend and get some stuff done around the house -- mostly straightening up the living room so that we'll be able to get our tree next weekend, as per our tradition. But also, because we kind of can't justifiably live on Chinese take-out and pizza for the next week because we are civilized, dammit, we also had to go to the grocery store.

Um, have you been to the grocery store on the Saturday before Thanksgiving? It's a horrifying place. I can't believe I am saying this, but it might actually be scarier at the supermarket on the Saturday before Thanksgiving than it is at the mall on Black Friday. Because -- and, again, I can't believe I am saying this, but -- the mall appears to be equipped to actually let you buy things.

I mean, yes, we did manage to buy things. Your standard staples: milk, cereal, bread, peanut butter, stuff to make chicken pot pie in the crock pot, frozen mini chocolate eclairs. I also got a 21-pound turkey which is now taking up half of the bottom shelf of my refrigerator, which is ironic because I'm not even going to be cooking it, but it was free with my shopper's card points, so what do I care? I'll eat squished up bread.

But navigating the grocery store on a busy weekend is pretty rough. Our supermarket tends to be crowded on a normal weekend anyway but MY GOD, between the giant stacks of corn cans and stuffing boxes and fancy displays made up of sweet potatoes as big as my head and enormous bags of marshmallows, it's hard to see around corners. The aisles all seem tight and everybody is in a hurry and there is something in the air that causes multiple nuclear meltdowns near the yogurt bunkers.

Oh and hey, I was also with my kid, who seems to be stuck firmly in "naughty" gear, with no amount of threatening to call Santa helping. AT ALL.

Then again, on the upside: I have that giant free turkey in my fridge.

Thoughts About My TiVo

1. I wish every TV show had Joshua Jackson in it.

2. It looks like Kirk Acevedo is in every TV show.

3. Stephen Root makes an excellent crazy person.

4. The best insane genius anywhere every is John Noble.

5. Seriously, why doesn't every TV show have Joshua Jackson in it?

Serenity Sunday #4

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I present to you the most divalicious calf in the history of livestock.

I think she's a Jersey cow, and she lives at the farm where the pumpkin patch is. She gives excellent side-eye, doesn't she? She wanted absolutely nothing to do with the cups of corn feed that they sold at the petting zoo, but she was eating grass and weeds by the handful. Also, she has attitude to spare. She's probably called "Elsie Borden" or somesuch, but I think she deserves a fawncier name, so I shall call her "Little Miss Lady Elsinor Louise 'Buttercup' Bordenton-Smythe."

Needless to say, she makes me want to have a cow in the backyard. We've got plenty of grass.

PS - Why won't my kid look at the camera like that?

Happy Halloween, Or Whatever

Yeah. We were SUPPOSED to go trick-or-treating at the mall with my sister and the delightful, delicious, de-lovely Miss Makayla over the weekend, but we never made it, because it snowed on Saturday. You might have heard something about it on the news or on the Internet. It was almost as bad as when the earthquake hit.

Fortunately, I had the accidental foresight to get the girls together for a little photo shoot last weekend. You know, "just in case."

I didn't think it was going to be "just in case" of SEVERAL INCHES OF SNOW IN OCTOBER, but, you know. "Just in case."

Turned out to be one of the better examples of "just in case" in recent memory that I can think of. I wish I had applied that thinking to other things, because my kid couldn't really go out to play during the first snow of the season because I didn't buy her snow boots yet. Nobody thinks to buy boots "just in case" in OCTOBER. Nobody in the civilized world needs snow boots in October.

Tonight we're going to attempt some actual trick-or-treating, because now I feel really bad. Last week's trick-or-treat adventure was a bust, what with the rain and all, so I guess we're going to go out and make nice with the neighbors.

Anyway ... Happy Halloween from Hello Kitty and the World's Cutest Ladybug. If you're going out for candy tonight, make sure you pack your snow boots ... "just in case."