October 29, 2009 @ 20:07

For the Halloween Party at work.  I gotta say it gave me the willies.  More than one person couldn’t eat it . . .  even though it was pumpkin spice cake with pumpkin cheesecake filling.  Wish I’d gotten a better shot of the awesome table set up.  One of my very cool co-workers set up a mad scientist lab for us to use for the food tables.  It was fantastic.  It’s so much fun working with creative types.  :) 

October 20, 2009 @ 06:44

For River, who is now four, and maybe two or three days after his party, will no longer have blue teeth from his birthday cake.  :) 

October 19, 2009 @ 06:49

Gluten free, peanut butter cake for Darbi’s 30th. 

October 13, 2009 @ 06:36

Last night I attended the first night of a run clinic.  There’s this terrific runner’s store downtown that holds a Spring and Fall clinic, for free, for walkers and runners, beginners to intermediates, every year.  It finally got scheduled where I could go.  And it was good.  A nice pep talk to start.  Then a proper warm up.  And then a good run at a pace that was controlled by something other than my whiney butt.  Or worse, the nasty little doubter that lives in my head.  But the best part of all?  The woman leading the clinic.  She’s the owner of the runner’s store.  I’ve been a customer for a few years now and already knew what a nice woman she is.  But tonight as we were waiting for the clinic to begin she was talking to a few of us that had arrived early.  She told us she was a bit sore from biking the day before.  She and her husband had biked 100k.  That is 62 miles.  Impressive.  Very much so because this lady is older.  She’s got silver hair and I’d have guessed her to be right at 60.  That’s an impressive woman, right?  Damn skippy.  But . . .  wait for it . . .  About halfway through the run, I’ve settled into my spot in the middle of the herd of beginner runners and just to my left are the two women leading our group.  The impressive silver haired 100k biking store owner and a lady that was one of last year’s beginners.  They are super nice and in between running when we are in the walk periods, they talk.  Turns out that at the end of her 62 miles of biking, she and her husband tacked on an extra 8 miles in honor of her birthday. 

Did you catch that?  Yeah.  Her. Birthday.  She is seventy years old.  Seventy.  And she just biked seventy miles and then popped on over to the park the next day to teach us how to run instead of sitting on our booties.  Un-freakin’-believable. 

I love this woman.  I am in awe.  I am inspired.  And she’s nice, too?  We should all hit seventy with that much grace.  Here’s to trying. 

October 12, 2009 @ 06:06

This weekend Puppy made me laugh a thousand times.  He dressed up in his costume drawer contents all at once and ran around the house as Fireman Batman Knight.  Bear made me cry.  In the best possible way.  He’s so grown and sweet and funny and perfect.  Even if his bathroom is a swamp . . . 

I spent the weekend cleaning, shuttling Bear back and forth between orchestra practices and concerts, embroidering and baking.  Pumpkin pies and cupcakes and dilly bread and roasted chicken with cornbread dressing.  Saturday night I retrieved two of my friends from the airport.  They were returning from a week on a cruise ship.  They were tanned and hair braided and exhausted and happy.  We ate lunch together and listened to an 80, if he was a day, year old man play the piano in a little local restaurant.  Then they headed out for home.  Home held some unpleasant surprises for one of them.  But she is strong and will emerge on the other side even stronger.  The weather has turned cold and Bear and I have begun digging out some of the holiday decorations from the attic.  I hung a retro tin soda sign shaped like a bottle cap in the center of a fall garland wreath and hung it on the front door.  We lit the jack-o-lanterns every night at dusk.  I wish this was still the world where we could make popcorn balls and candied apples and hand them out to trick-or-treaters on Halloween night. 

I’ve started thinking about our holiday plans.  Big Thanksgiving for us.  Small Christmas.  The boys will be at their dad’s for Christmas day this year and New Year’s, too.  We will do most of our holiday activities early then.  I think this year we are going to be homespun.  Stringing popcorn and cranberries even for the tree.  We’ll be buying the tree a bit early.  So that we can fit in some extra time on Thanksgiving.  This year you’ll see us driving through town with an enormous tree strapped to the bike rack on the little Honda the Saturday before Thanksgiving instead of the day after.  Once Christmas Eve has come and gone, it’ll just be little ole me in the house until after the New Year. 

I’ve been thinking about the last year I spent Christmas alone and how I chopped off all my hair.  Think I’ll make some more careful plans this time around.  To better avoid wine soaked spur of the moment ideas.  Maybe I’ll take myself on a trek out Route 66 and take pictures and eat diner food and have a week of me time.  Or maybe I’ll find a cabin in the woods somewhere and spend a whole week beside a fire with embroidery projects and good books and a case of red wine.  Maybe drive through the Smokey Mountains and stop in Asheville and visit the Biltmore while it’s dolled up for Christmas.  Or find an off season beach house down on the Gulf and spend a week with salt air and dove gray skies and sand and surf.  What’s your vote?  If you had a week to spend anyway you wanted, what would you do? 

October 08, 2009 @ 05:25

The boys will be spending Halloween away this year, it’s a daddy weekend.  So we did our Halloween fun last night.  Pumpkins all carved, they may collapse before the big night arrives, but so be it.  We’ll carve some more if the weather is uncooperative to our enthusiam.  So have you picked your costume yet?  I’ll be Cleopatra.  Soon as I find the right shoes.  Sounds like a Trixie project . . . 

October 06, 2009 @ 06:57

A few weeks ago, Trixie and I were talking about being somebody’s ATM.  You can find yourself being all kinds of drive thru services for the people in your life.  Emotional, sexual, financial, too I suppose, being literal for a moment.  Depending on the relationship you have with them, maybe they do only call you when they want something.  Or maybe only drop by when they are depressed.  Or maybe they are that girl who only exists in your life between boyfriends.  But now in retrospect and with a few days of deep breathing and waking up and making coffee and going to work and chasing Puppy down to brush his teeth and all the rest . . .  well, I think I’ve changed my mind.  I think maybe . . .  just maybe . . .  that I’m okay with that. 

We are different things to different people.  Sometimes you are the shoulder and sometimes you are the crier.  It’s that tricky balance of not getting sucked into a one-sided relationship that is toxic and harmful that you have to stay aware of.  But there are people that are needy.  They just are.  Maybe they weren’t hugged enough when they were little and have never shaken that cold alone feeling.  Maybe they suffer from guilt, from all their youthful misdeeds, and they are in a constant state of trying to make up for the lives they used to lead.  Maybe they are just selfish, when mommy raised you to be the princess, you might never figure out that you aren’t.  Whatever the reason a friend may tax you, if they are worth it, is it such a big deal?  Really?  So what if your role in the relationship is fixer.  If it doesn’t require your checkbook and you’ve got the time?  If it doesn’t prevent you from devoting the time that is required by your job or your family?  Is it so bad to be somebody’s rock?  Just be careful that you are not being somebody’s excuse. 

I read an article not too long ago that gave you a quiz to help you determine whether or not a relationship was toxic.  It asked questions like:  Is this relationship worth the amount of work required to maintain it? Is this a person I would choose to have in my life if we just met today? Or have I been holding onto this relationship out of habit? Does this person make me feel good about myself? Am I uncomfortable around them? Is this friend competitive with me in a negative way? Do I like who I am when I’m with them? Or do we seem to bring out the worst in each other? How deeply can I trust this person? Could I count on them if I needed to? Could I share my feelings freely? Do we have common interests and values? If not, do I benefit from the differences? Am I receiving as much as I give? If I gave this relationship the effort it deserves, would it benefit me and enrich my life?

A lot of those questions are really good.  But they are also pretty tough.  I hope that I have finally gotten to a place in my life where I can balance those things.  I’m happy to be the person that certain friends rely on.  It’s good to be needed.  And I hope that they will understand when I have to draw the line.  Put up the screen that says this ATM is currently down for maintenance.  Because that doesn’t mean that I won’t be back up and running tomorrow.  Just that some of the people I love most in the world are also some of the people most capable of driving me nuts.  Or most capable of hurting me the most.  And I hope it goes without saying that I absolutely think that they are worth it . . .  if I’m silent for a few days, I’m having to grit my teeth maybe.  Or I’m having to just float for a few days while I let my wounds heal.  If you can be patient with me, that makes it easier for me to be patient with you.  See? 

“You’re a pain in my ass, you have bad hair. But I like you a lot.”
     

Double points if you get the movie lines . . . 

October 05, 2009 @ 07:32

It’s rainy and cold.  And I love it!  It’s chili and hot chocolate weather and it seems to have arrived a little early.  I hope it stays.  This summer was unexpectedly beautiful.  No blistering heat waves or droughts, in fact, my Japanese Maple tree actually drowned.  I didn’t know a tree could drown . . .  very sad . . . 

This weekend I delivered a cake for a lovely woman who I had the privilege of meeting just a few weeks ago.  It was a pleasure and an honor to have gotten to participate in a small part of her special day.  And I got to learn that I have some of the most amazing friends that have ever been.  I had to work late Friday night and the plan was to drive to the event site that evening.  The kicker being that it was eight hours away.  When a particular pair of my friends learned that I was planning on driving those eight hours after getting off work between 8 and 10 pm, they said no way.  And they waited for me.  So we could drive down together.  They stayed up, drove all night with me, and have now earned a permanent place on my friend wall of fame.  That is just above and beyond.  I don’t even know how to say thank you adequately for that.  And on top of that, it was fun, too.  How do you stay awake on a two day stretch in the middle of nowhere Mississippi at 2am?  Well, there was a lot of singing and a lot of laughing and maybe even a couple of chocolate tarts sampled from the delivery . . .  quality control you know . . . 

Here’s the cake.  It suffered a bit from the eight hour drive, a little slack around the middle, but boy, isn’t that just a metaphor for life?  Below that, a little bonus cuteness of the boys helping knead out the fondant . . . 

October 01, 2009 @ 06:31

Tuesday night the ever enchanting Janet took Trixie and I and our friend Rocky to see Dave Matthews Band at Dickey Stevens Park.  It was phenomenal!!!  I’d never seen them live before and was absolutely blown away.  If you get the chance, go! 

Only one or two moments to marr the night, both provided by the troll of a woman standing in front of us.  The worst of which was when Dave threw a pick out into the crowd.  And lordy but it hit me right in the face.  No, wait, that’s not the bad part!  That woulda been awesome.  Wait for it . . .  So as I bend down and have my hand ON it, this heifer stomps on me and takes it!  And after we had even saved her spot for her when they went to pee.  What a troll.  Right?  But I will trust that karma is a bitch and not fret. 

Thanks for the night Janet, it was spectacular!!!