2008: Year in Review

What, you didn't think you were gonna find WRITING here, did you? Actually writing about the year is SO last season. (Plus it takes effort.)

Therefore, I give you:

My Year In Review, link style

• I make a plan for things I hope will happen during the year
• Everything falls apart
• I try to come to terms with losing the house
• We move to Las Vegas, I whine a lot, and my commenters and I try to see who can tell the most hilarious/disgusting story. (THEY WIN, HANDS DOWN)
• I find a diagnosis.
  
• We work things out with the bank and move back to Utah, back into our house
• Just as things are settling down, my husband gets injured at work and has to find a new career. And he does.
  
• I resolve to lose weight. Again. Some more.
  
• I confess to stalking
  
• I feel like a fraud.
  
• I plan my funeral again, and a few bloggers rip off a few of my posts, causing me to SMITE them with mighty smitings.
  
• Um. Something about a fake blog. I don't know. I forget. Also, I confess to being a wee bit obsessive

January feels like a lifetime ago. When I think back on it, mixed in with the memories of losing the business and declaring bankruptcy and packing and moving (and packing and moving some more) are memories of chronicling it all on the blog, feeling better every time I wrote it down. Knowing people were out there rooting for us and caring about what was happening to us made a gigantic difference, and I'll always be thankful.

People who don't blog might not get it, but the people you meet through blogging aren't just imaginary friends. I've made new friends who've given me real support and friendship over the last year. I've formed tighter bonds with friends I already have, because now we know things about each other we might not have understood before. I've gotten to know family members better by reading their blogs, and connected with old friends I'd lost touch with a long time ago. All of these bonds, all of these words. It means something. At least to me.

So thanks. Thanks for reading along. I'm thankful for all of you.

You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Sneer

The other day a friend called to apologize for offending me. It was really nice of her to worry. I was kind of touched that she cared. The only problem was that I had NO IDEA what she was talking about. None.

She was sure I was just being polite, and reminded me about a minor comment she'd made the night before - a comment I'd thought was mildly amusing, and not offensive in the least.

Unfortunately, I guess the look on my face after she said it was something akin to: "You have offended me, and now we are mortal enemies, and if I find a knife, I will plunge it into your heart at the earliest possible opportunity."

I explained as best I could that I honestly wasn't offended - it was just my face, getting me in trouble again. My stupid freaking face.

See, I was cursed with a natural frown. (Actually my dentist calls it an Elvis pout, because my mouth actually turns down a little more in one corner than the other, so I really don't just have a natural frown, I have a natural sneer. (BONUS.))

When I'm relaxed, or when I'm listening to someone talk, or even just watching TV, my face settles into a frown. For as long as I can remember, people have been coming up to me and telling me to smile, or asking me what was wrong, or encouraging me to lighten up - even though I was just sitting there thinking about dandelion fuzz, feeling mellow and dreamy.

Unfortunately, when you go around lost in your thoughts a lot of the time, and your natural expression is a frown, it MIGHT sort of look like you are constantly glowering at people. You MIGHT start to get a rep for being a critical, negative person. EVEN IF YOU AREN'T. It doesn't matter if you are or aren't. You LOOK like you are, and therefore, you ARE.

I can be at a party, and I'll say, "This is a great party," and I'll mean it. But if I've forgotten about my stupid sneer when I say it, people think I'm being sarcastic and wenchy.

Some of you are probably thinking, "Then, um, why don't you just SMILE more, you moron?!" But I try! Whenever I think about it, I smile. But I can't go around thinking about my face all the time. Because who does that? ("Am I smiling now? Now? Now? How about now?" Then I'd be even more nuts.)

The other day after my friend called me, I went into the bathroom to see how bad it had gotten. I stood in front of the mirror, trying on facial expressions.

• I made my mellow, totally relaxed daydreaming face. I looked grim.
• I made my "that's pretty funny, not funny enough to laugh, but you know I think that's pretty hilarious anyway" face. I looked like I was smirking.
• I made my "I'm listening in a sincere way and trying to relate to what you are saying" face. I looked condescending and rude. The girls at book club must hate me, because that is my face. THAT IS MY FACE. CRAP.

But I CANNOT HELP IT. Just as my father before me could not help it. It's genetic. My friends and family know this about me. They know I'm not as serious as I look (I hope), and they (hopefully) look past it and like me anyway. But I wonder about all of the people who don't know it's a facial anomaly - who make assumptions about who I am based on what they see.

When I was about twenty, I went out on the lake with a bunch of my friends. I was happy and relaxed, but not particularly talkative. (There were new cute boys on board, and I was feeling bashful.) At the end of the day, two of my friends completely exploded on me, saying I'd been negative and hostile all day. Because I'd been quiet and frowny. The fundamental unfairness of the comment still eats at me sometimes. Because I was happy that day. I was so happy to be there - almost overflowing with quietly affectionate feelings for my friends. But they thought I looked stuck-up and rude, and they sat there all day resenting me for my imaginary attitude.

A while back I heard that if you get enough Botox, it'll freeze your face into an unnatural smile. An unnatural smile! What more could I ask for? I'm saving my pennies, and I figure by late 2011, I'll be able to afford the first round of shots. In the interim, I'm thinking I'll just staple a post-it to my head, one that says, "This is my mellow face. I realize it looks like I'm sneering, but I'm really not. It's just my STUPID. FACE."

And if you run into me on the street, or at the store, or in the library? Just remember - I might LOOK angry, but I'm not, I swear. I like you. I like almost everyone. I just LOOK like I want to kill you.

Two Sizes Too Small

Confession time: I haven't been in the Christmas frame of mind this year. I usually love it - I'm a total Christmas sap - but I haven't been in the mood for it this year - for Christmas carols, or shopping, or putting together neighbor gifts (even though I love my neighbors and friends to pieces and I'm excited as a little kid every time the doorbell rings). I've been feeling thoroughly grinchy.

I guess I've been too stressed out to enjoy anything. (Same old thing: balancing work and kids, and a part-time nanny who only shows up every now and then. Her reason for not showing up one day last week was, "My husband and I were up really late fighting and I'm tired." Oh. Well in THAT case, BY ALL MEANS take the day off and make me miss my meeting - AS LONG AS YOU'RE WELL RESTED.)

Anyway, the Christmas spirit, it's been kinda absent around here, even though we're going through the paces; so it was a good thing I had such a special experience last night. It totally changed my Christmas perspective.

I was at the store, and ran into this totally angelic looking, thin, pale little girl in the toy aisle, wearing only a very thin coat and stockings with holes, and a pair of wooden clogs, and I started following her around (in a non-creepy, pretending not to really follow her type way) and it turned out that this little girl wanted nothing more than to buy her almost dead father a nice pair of Christmas Shoes (JUST LIKE IN THE SONG, FREAKY!!!). But she didn't have enough money, and her grandmother didn't either, and she looked around crying, wondering aloud if anyone had a spare farthing they could give her. And when I saw that little girl crying, I remembered the TRUE meaning of Christmas (being poor sucks) and my heart grew two sizes in that very minute.

I didn't give her money for the shoes or anything, (because hey - times are tough) but it TOTALLY made me want to go shopping some more. I got my Christmas spirit back and got back in the zone and spent WADS of cash with a ginormous smile on my face.

Whew! That was a close one! Thanks little Christmas girl!
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O.K., FINE, so that didn't happen. Exactly. Although I'm pretty sure that's the ECONOMIC miracle a lot of people are hoping for.

What actually happened was that I ran my errands and stayed in an awful mood, turning the radio station with a shriek every time a Christmas song came on, like I was a vampire and it was my garlic.

HEARTWARMING, I know.

I was addressing some Christmas cards for the aforementioned neighbor gifts, and I had to resist the urge to write, "Merry Christmas, from my cold, dead heart to yours."

I thought that might be a little much.

But I'm happy to report (CHRISTMAS MIRACLE ALERT) that in the light of Christmas Eve morning, with a few days off from work, my husband home, the shopping all done, and excited kids running around repeating over and over again "tomorrow's Christmas!" - I'm kinda feeling it. Whew. Maybe my heart isn't a frozen lump of coal after all.

My husband took the kids to the store a few minutes ago to buy a few last minute things so I'm stealing a minute to blog, but after that we're off to do a bunch of Christmasy stuff together - and all of a sudden, I can't wait. Funny how that works.

Merry Christmas guys.

PS: Go visit Green Jello.

The List

The bloggers who made it into the blogger book to benefit NieNie are shown below. Congratulations guys! I really want to thank everyone for submitting. There were hundreds of entries, and it was impossible to respond individually, but I loved reading the posts. Please don't feel badly if your entry wasn't picked. There were a lot of really great, funny posts that we couldn't include for space or theme reasons. (The higher the page count, the higher the publishing cost.)

The title I chose was Something Cleverish. It just felt right. Probably because I'm the one who said it. (HA! HAHAHAHA! Kidding. Sort of.) It was Green Jello's idea to use it, so - Green Jello? Here's your first link of the week. Everyone go visit her!

Here are the bloggers who are in the book:

Abby, Delusions of Grandeur
Adhis B., A Little Bit Adhis, A Little Bit A-That
Alice Bradley, Finslippy
Amy Lawson, The Lawsons Do Dallas
Annie, Regarding Annie
B., I Gotta B
Barb Cooper, So The Thing Is
Bev, Firelight Academy
Dalene, Compulsive Writer
Carina, The Jet Set
Crash Test Dummy, Crash Test Dummy Diaries
Emily Foley, Something
Eric D. Snider, Eric D. Snider
Erica England, Paper Buttons
Heidi, Hadleyesque
Heidi Ashworth, Dunhaven Place
J., Formerly Phread
Jami, Superfluous Miscellany
Jennie W., Beehive And Birds’ Nest
Jill, Thou Shalt Not Whine
Kate Hood, The Big Piece Of Cake
Kathryn, Daring Young Mom
Kristy Steele, Rabbit in the Headlights
LisaJane, She Talks
Marci Heugly, Heugly News
Mary, Becoming Mary Poppins
ME, Navel Gazing At Its Finest
Melanie, Big Mama
Nemesis, Voice Of Reason
Pam McEwen, McEwens
Randi, Is It Just Me?
Shannon, Rocks In My Dryer
Shellie Kendrick, Seriously Shellie
Sheriece Morris, More Morris Madness
Stacey, Tree, Root and Twig
Stephanie Walker, Laughing At Life’s Little Wedgies
Stephanie, Diapers And Divinity
TAMN, Seriously So Blessed
Tamra, It All Started With A Kiss
Topher Clark, The Jolly Porter
Tracey Gaughran-Perez, Sweetney
Wendy, Nothing Clever Comes To Mind
Whitney Ingram, Rookie-Cookie

If you were selected, PLEASE don't tell your readers which post you submitted, if at all possible. We want them to have to BUY THE BOOK in order to find out - so that we can make as much money for the family as possible.

I want to thank my blogger friends for helping me to push through the last batch of posts, and for helping me make selections. I want to thank the non-contest folks too - the bloggers I emailed begging for a post, because I knew they were funny and their star power would help us to sell more books and raise more money for the family.

And thanks to my husband, who I've been neglecting for the last two weeks solid, typing up a storm every night after the kids were in bed, barely acknowledging his presence. Love ya hon. Thanks for putting up with all of this stuff - the blogger book, the MSHR manuscript, and all of my related stressing. You're a rock.

I'm waiting on book proofs, and need to coordinate with the family on a few things, and then this thing'll finally be a go. Stay tuned - and warm up your debit cards.

From the (Yes, I Know This Is Obnoxious But I'm Doing It Anyway) Archives: Yum, LARD

Sorry. I know this is kind of pretentious. Posting stuff from barely six months ago as though I have SO MANY NEW READERS who haven't had a chance to read it. (It's fun to be delusional.) But I promised myself I would try to post something tonight. And I've been staring at the screen for a good hour now. And it's almost 1 in the morning. And I really need to go to bed. So here it is. Something. JUST FOR YOU. (SO LUCKY) (I'm treading on thin blog ice right now, I can FEEL IT.)

IMing the other evening, my friend Azucar and I somehow got to talking about the horrible, no good, very bad culinary pranks our parents liked to play on us. AZ reminded me about powdered milk and wheat gum (VOMIT). I cannot talk about that particular bit of wretchedness without having horrifying flashbacks, but luckily AZ just posted about it here.

(Ooooh, also, my sister wrote about powdered milk a few months ago on her food blog, here. I love how in the comments my brother's wife says he is still traumatized, and my mom tries to disavow her role in it. NICE TRY, MOM.)

My mom had other cooking quirks. For a while there she had this thing about gluten, or as I like to call it, wheat dregs. Once she made us gluten and oatmeal cookies. Let me repeat that. GLUTEN AND OATMEAL COOKIES. And she told us they were treats. That is NOT. RIGHT.

We were not allowed to have chips or any kind of sugary cereal. No Fruit Loops or Fruity Pebbles for us. No sireee, we ate Wheaties. Except, and I've never been able to quite figure this out - they let us put brown sugar on TOP of the Wheaties. And they would just - hand us the bag. Here kids, eat this nasty brown tasting cereal because it's good for you, except, also, HERE'S a SHOVEL and a bag of sugar - knock yourselves out. TELL ME HOW THAT MAKES SENSE.

My mom used to lock the fridge. To be fair, she did not really have a choice. There were NINE of us. Defensive measures had to be taken. She had this bungee cord and she would hook one end to the fridge handle and one end to a hook on the wall, and if you tried to open it and actually managed to get it unhooked, it would basically snap you so hard you went unconscious.

Sometimes, if the fridge was unlocked and mom was in another room, we would just rush it and take anything we could find and run away to another room where we would eat it, crouched in corners, stuffing the food into our gullets while keeping a watchful eye on the doorway. I once ate seven raw hot dogs, just because I could. Because they were there. (This explains so much about my eating philosophy. Oh, look, there it is! Hurry, hurry, hurry EAT IT NOW! EAT IT NOW! BEFORE IT'S GONE!)

I remember very clearly that my mom came after us for that one. She said, "Who ate those hot dogs? WHICH ONE OF YOU ATE THOSE HOT DOGS?! They were raw. RAW! You ate RAW MEAT. What are you?! ANIMALS?!"

I pretended to know nothing. "It wasn't me," I said. And then I threw up on her. (So I think she figured it out.)

If we were very good, my mom liked to serve a little dish she called Chocolate Treat. Chocolate Treat consisted of four ingredients. Peanut butter, unsweetened cocoa powder, powdered sugar, and a dash of milk. She mixed the ingredients together until it was the consistency of thick frosting, and gave it to us to eat with a spoon. So basically her philosophy was, "Here my children, eat Wheaties for breakfast and then you may have a nice bowl of lard."

This is me and my older sister. (I'm on the right.) See the nice healthy sheen on our hair? TOTALLY FROM THE LARD.

Ah, memories. So, what foods did your parents inflict on you?

Grateful

My house is a wreck. As of this morning, I have 162 emails to answer. (If yours is one of them, I'm really sorry.) I worked 14 hours yesterday, trying to get caught up with work that piled up during our vacation. The NieNie project languishes on my laptop, making me feel like a huge jerk (although a few awesome blog friends are going to help me get it finished). I have a birthday party to plan, a skit to write for the church Christmas party, and oh, right, Christmas shopping. Not to mention that whole chick lit manuscript thingie. (Let's not mention it, shall we?)

It's all worth it though, because our vacation was really wonderful.

We spent Thanksgiving in Las Vegas visiting our families. We had Thanksgiving with his family on Thursday, and with my family on Friday - two days of pretty much non-stop eating and laughing. (Actually it was more like six days of non-stop eating. I think I gained ten pounds on the trip, no lie.)

On Saturday we packed up and headed to Los Angeles, and on Sunday we went to the beach and the Santa Monica pier. Even at the end of November it was warm enough to play in the waves.



On Monday, Marste (who works for Disney) met us at Disneyland. She spent an hour-and-a-half (at least) driving through a horrible CA traffic jam in order to meet us at the gate and let us in for free. I still can't believe she was willing to do that for us. I didn't know what to say, how to tell her how much I appreciated it and how touched I was, so I just kept compulsively hugging her, which I hope she didn't think was odd, since we were basically strangers. (But not anymore.)

We had the best time at Disneyland. The minute we got through the gates we hopped on the train and headed over to the Princess pavilion to let the kids dance with the Princesses (that's Sarah right there in front, practicing her curtsy for Cinderella).



We rode every ride imaginable. I highly recommend going on the Monday right after Thanksgiving. We've done it twice now, and both times there were almost no lines. We walked on to almost every ride.

In the early afternoon, we were all sitting near a candy shop on Main Street getting a sugar fix when Alice in Wonderland appeared, ready for a game of musical chairs.



A crowd gathered, and all of the kids who were playing were suddenly the stars of their very own show. Each time someone lost their chair, Alice made them get up on stage and tell a joke to the crowd. Luckily, Sarah and Abby have scores of knock knock jokes memorized, so they nailed it, the little hams.


I have to say - this gal wasn't just playing Alice, she WAS Alice. I think we are all a little bit convinced now that Alice does exist, and she lives at Disneyland. Which is just as it should be.



That night we watched the Christmas parade. I'm not big on parades - but parades you watch with your kids, that feature Santa, Mickey and the Princesses? Pretty awesome. We got to the parade route late, my fault - I kept insisting that we had time to go on one more ride, and my husband kept insisting we needed to find a spot or we'd end up watching the back of everyone's head instead of the parade. He was right. We ended up standing behind a bunch of extraordinarily tall senior citizens.

Luckily, one of the women noticed my daughters (my son was on his dad's shoulders), and asked if they wanted to stand in front of her, right on the curb. Thank goodness for grandparents. (Although honestly, I think she enjoyed watching my girls enjoy the parade as much as she enjoyed the actual parade. They were so excited.)



The whole day was magic, from the minute we stepped through the gate until the fireworks at the end. It's good to be home, but it was very good to go. I'm so glad we did.