Things That Worry Me

I have an interview today. And for all of my fashion expertise (hahahahahahahahahahaah. ahhhh. hahahahahahahhaha) I am really bad at dressing myself in anything other than jeans and hoodies. As my good old bff will attest, nothing grants as much mid-section grace as a hoodie. Sure, you might look pregnant, but those dang kangaroo pocket obscure things just enough that most people think twice about asking. Except that bimbo in the checkout line. Why is it ALWAYS my cashier that loves to stick her foot in her mouth?

"Ohmygosh! When are you due? Are you SO excited? Boy or Girl? Is it your first?" all comes out before I manage to snap : "Not pregnant. Just fat. Thanks" That shuts her up. Every time. It always seems to happen just after I drop three pounds and I start to feel like I Am Awesome. Pride goeth...

Anyway, back to dressing for an interview, and doing it badly. The worst part about today is that I am interviewing for a classy clothing/housewares store (I know, right? What is that, IKEA/Coldwater Creek? Close!) - the new Pendleton Wool Outlet that's opening here in bend. Josh says I should wear a dress because slacks scream lesbian. I am not sure what makes him say that, other than he is worried about someone of ANY gender hitting on me and I look so dang good in slacks. Especially the kind with pleats. My personal sense is that I should go looking like something that my grandmother would approve of, and I don't have any of those kinds of dresses. So slacks it is. Pendleton Wool always reminds me of my grandma, maybe because she kept a little Pendleton blanket in the back seat of her Volkswagon Rabbit that was really itchy and smelled like her cigarettes, which is somehow really comforting sounding right now. All I really know is that my interview is at noon and if I start dressing now I might have settled on something that I only hate a little by the time I absolutely have to leave. Moments like this I really wish I could have my fashion forward cousin body double for me, or my I-do-professional-every-day sister in law. I don't suppose Pendleton makes hoodies?

I have an interview tomorrow as well. Tomorrow's interview is much more my style. It's a warehouse job that sounds a little bit sucky except people bring their dogs to work, and they said if I dress up at all for the interview they would probably make fun of me behind my back. No really, he said that. Guess who's rocking a hoodie to an interview? The only thing I don't like about this job prospect is that the warehouse is unheated. And I hate being cold. Only slightly less than I hate being hungry or bored, but it still ranks near the top of my Least Favorite Things. Also, this job is potentially full time, and as I discussed with Josh last night, I am really not looking for full time work. I would really be best suited to an on call job - where I can work when I call them and tell them I want to. Which would probably be from like 10 am - 10 pm one day a week. Or like noon to midnight 4 days a week so I don't have to make dinner or help with homework. But only once a month. I am an excellent candidate.

Why exactly, you ask, with such lofty employment aspirations, am I even applying for jobs? Truth be told it's mostly to appease the guilt I have for my impulsive spending habits, and for the employee discount. Can you imagine a whole house of Pendleton awesomeness? I have one Pendleton Blanket. The limited edition Smokey Bear Throw. Of course. It's one of my favorite possessions, obviously, and nothing makes me mad like picking Truck hair off of this gem. That's the trouble with wool. By now my blanket has softened up nicely and it shakes out pretty well, but Truck is well enough trained that if the Smokey blanket is out on the couch he takes one sniff and steers a wide berth around it. Emmy needs some more training in this, apparently.


Anyway, I'll let you know how the interviews go, but if I were you, I'd be rooting for epic fails, because they're way funnier to talk about. Like that time I interviewed for the Buckle. That was awesome. There's nothing like a homely, too-skinny girl with Tammy Faye makeup, patronizing you for your million kids and "crazy busy" job history. Apparently they were looking for focused career types at the Buckle. Someone to really grab jean sales by the horns and look towards retirement. And also someone with more hairspray. Maybe I should have worn a hoodie to that one.

Things That Are Expensive

I have a fetish. Maybe fetish is too sexual. It's really more of a naughty addiction, and only naughty in the sense that it costs money and makes my darling husband mad at me. I LOVE Living Social. Not in the "oh man, I love Bon Jovi!" sense, or "don't you just love Flavor Blasted Goldfish crackers when you are hung over?" but more like "Scott Avett could easily be the LOVE of my life. If he weren't married. And I wasn't, too. Obviously." Kind of way. It's that kind of LOVE. It's the love that compelled me to sign up Right Away for Living Social Plus, where you pay $20 and you get $25 in deal bucks which have to be used within that month on a Living Social deal, or you just pay $20 for nothing. I figured, having this fetish, that I would be spending the $20 anyway, and might as well snag that extra $5 for free. The only trouble is, I have impulsively, or (fair argument) COMpulsivley, bought enough deals on Living Social that they are now stacked up in my Voucher In Box, dangling over my head with the threat of expiration. For instance: We talked all summer about trying that Stand Up Paddle Board thing that is so trendy here. Weeks of the early summer drifted lazily by like the shirtless guys with ripped abs and the bikini clad supermodels on their easily guided 8 ft paddle boards, tempting me into a weakened state when Living Social offered an all day rental for like $20. I jumped on it. And then I left for a fire. And another, and another, until the allure of my all day rental of a clunky 12 foot board in the 40 degree water of the Deschutes River with frost on the ground and my pasty, white hasn't-seen-the-light-of-day knee-to-shoulder body region has become less than enticing. In fact, no thank you. Luckily, I am spared the agony of wasted dollars, letting the expiration of this adventure-in-the-waiting slip by, because I am so GOOD at Living Socially, that apparently at least three of my friends bought the same deal and I got mine for free. No harm, no foul, right honey? (*innocent grin)

In addition to the never-to-be-used paddle board voucher, I also have two different pre-paid, come-and-get-it opportunities to gorge on pizza. I love pizza. My all-time-weight-high does not. But I love pizza. One of our vouchers is for the bowling alley and includes bowling for 6 people. At $25, that was a steal, provided we use it before it expires next week. Plus the bowling will be almost like working off the pizza, right? I refuse to input bowling into my calorie counter app to find out how many calories bowling actually doesn't burn. The other pizza voucher is much more fun, because it includes two beers and doesn't provide the cultural stipulation that you really should Do This with your children, like bowling does. It's actually at one of my favorite pizza places in town, Little Pizza Paradise, which is why I jumped on the offer - that and the two beers. I'd like to fantasize about Thursday night football with my Darling Husband there, except the fantasy is overrun by his protestations that pizza gives him heartburn and he doesn't like beer. Dangit. Thursday Night Girls Football Night? Desi? Anyone? I will NOT let this voucher go unused! Or unappreciated. Little Pizza Paradise has great pizza, but more importantly, they make this Grinder Sandwich that I literally have dreams about. I think that is because I ate it one day at work when I was counting calories and was Extremely Famished since my yogurt had worn off at about 8:15 AM - That Sandwich not only blew my calorie allotment for the day clear out of the water, it was heavenly.

Another Living Social offer that I am suffering a mild bout of guilt for is the second $40 gift certificate to Angelina's Organic Skin Care. The first $40 (which only cost $20!!!) was justifiable, since I was planning to try her Coconut Bliss Masque anyway, but a tinge of peer pressure moved me right over the edge to the second one and now I will have $80 worth of locally made, organic skin products which are totally awesome and equally as hard to explain to my Sweet Husband. This MIGHT be because I was also bewitched by my buddy to spend slightly more on a regime of facials and face products than we just blew on a registered daschund puppy. I, personally, could never have imagined spending two car payments on my face, but somehow, in the heat of the moment, it just seemed right. As if that justification has EVER worked for anything. Except marrying Josh. It was kind of the same rational. So maybe I shouldn't judge it too harshly. Let's just hope that 6 months from now, when my new puppy is potty trained and we've finally been able to have the power turned back on, I will have a whole new face.

I am pretty excited though, looking at my voucher collection on Living Social, to realize that I also got my year long subscription to Cosmo for free (see, I have other smutty friends!) AND a customized phone case that I was feeling pretty guilty about throwing down $20 for. I am gonna keep pushing this Living Social Junk. It works!! (If you love me, buy my Living Social deals.) Maybe If I get enough free crap,  Josh will forgive my newly perfect face. I mean, we only had to sell SOME of his golf clubs to pay the phone bill. And he's got lots.

I'm not gonna lie. Living Social Might be a bad habit for me. But I will also say I have discovered some great local businesses and met some cool people through it. It's so much cleaner and easier than Do Local Deals and I think I will stick exclusively with LS for now. Especially since I messed up my username at DLD and can't ever log in. And I have that $25 in deal bucks to spend! Ooh, that expires soon, huh?

https://www.livingsocial.com go here. Check it out. Or at least definitely click on the offers that I buy so I can get more free stuff!!!

Things That I Would Sell

My vote. Ok, technically, I wouldn't probably sell it - but it might be available to the person who pitches me the best and most believable idea that as a candidate, they are actually a human being and not some robot generated from two opposing sides of a political monster factory.

My Precious Husband is, at this very moment, leafing through the voters guide. He started putting big black EXES through all of the candidates and measures he doesn't support until I asked him, demurely and respectfully, as always (ahem), if he would not do that so I can read about them too. He then amended his marks to smaller notations in the corner. My question at this point is: Can I actually go through this marked up voters guide and not be influenced by the profanities and exclamation points he has laced throughout? And if not, how much of my vote will be determined by the VERY STRONG and VERY CLEAR (and very well marked) opinions that my guy has. We don't agree on several topics in the political arena. There are just as many topics that we do agree on, and then several that I straddle the fence on just because I love how much it gets him worked up; for example, the President.



For Josh, there is simply no question about whom to vote for. For me, I have simply no interest in either candidate. It really isn't even a matter of the lesser of two evils. I can't say that either candidate is as evil as we, as a society, honestly deserve. But thank God - if you so choose - that life is not fair and we don't get what we deserve. What we need, however, is a whole different candidate than we can hope to see in this political environment. We need a Jefferson Smith. We need someone who doesn't have the first clue who his allies should be when he blunders his way into Washington. We need someone with courage, with sincerity, and humility. While I can't ascribe to Obama the sinister intentions that my Dad and My Boy would project, I see him as the impotent mouthpiece of a soft, ineffective left wing. And maybe Romney isn't as idiotic as some of his republican predecessors, but I struggle to stomach the talking head of the right wing, fueled by a religious subscription that turns my stomach. Can I allow my own personal religious beliefs steer my vote? If not then what does? Can I, in good conscience, vote for anyone that is looking forward to an afterlife of chauvenist bliss?  Truth be told, I think that we are all basking in our mess and asking for a heap more of it instead of opening our eyes to make the necessary changes to support the kind of candidate that I could respect. I am the chiefest of sinners. I have coasted on the fatness of the land, refusing to consider the years of famine. I have chosen comfort over longevity, and pleasure over legacy. Maybe we can pick our way slowly and carefully back from the edge of the abyss we are staring into, but as we are now we blindly wallow our way closer to the precipice and expect some politician to build us a bridge before we fall. Not likely. Josh says I am pessimistic about the future of our country, that my outlook is bleak and hopeless. But coming from someone who knows, there is a beautiful, clean side to a fresh start, after all the struggle has stripped away the hardened exterior and newness gives us a chance to redefine who we are as a people. We've seen it from time to time - We've seen the heroes rise like the Phoenix from the Ashes to redeem us. We saw it after the depression when only the best and strongest men kept going, and during the World War when we fought for a cause that was real, was about humanity and something greater than human greed.

Wow. That was a ramble. Not sure where it came from.

Things That Are Worth Doing Well

In addition to my children, a series of failed relationships, my happy marriage and my dog's potty training, there are enough smallish things that I have done incorrectly to make me step back and evaluate how I operate. Thank god most of the mistakes that I make on a daily basis are, for the most part, fixable.

It dawned on me, a couple of days ago, as I was merrily painting my way through some furniture and frou-frou stuff that I have been putting off since we moved into this house (and possibly Much Longer) that I am a master short-cutter. I am a champion at taking the easy way to - well, pretty much everything. A poignant example of corner cutting stems back to when I was a 14 year old in a sewing 4-H club, where the leaders taught us to weight the sewing pattern on the fabric before cutting with a variety of household products (i.e. soup cans, irons, over sized brass jacks) rather than pinning the periphery before a cut. My grandmother, who was an expert seamstress, was livid that we were being taught such shortcuts. And rightly so. Yes, dealing with 15 thousand straightpins around the edge of a stretchy knit 4 tiered flounce skirt is unfathomably annoying. But so is that same stretchy fleece bouncing back under your scissors as it escapes the grip of someones collection of glass insulators. I should have heeded the irate warning of my grandmother then, and taken it to heart, but instead I went on to seek out new ways to avoid anything that annoyed me, including early phonetics with preschool children, anything involving a rolling pin, and yielding any arguable points in a conversation. I taught myself ways to manipulate situations until they were in a spot that I felt I could manage. As far as sewing goes, to this day that spot remains on my sister's sewing table, were I relegate all of my seamstress issues. I avoided uncomfortable child rearing situations by running away to make lattes and sell shoes - all more interesting than "SH two letter SH used at the beginning of a word, the end of a syllable, but not at the beginning of a syllable after the first one except for the ending SHIP". I am not even sure if that's how that one goes.

As far as relationships go, cutting corners is easy. With teenage kids, you just pull out the old "I am NOT even going to deal with this until you change your attitude." And then feign the belief they never change their attitude, thereby removing any obligation to deal with issues. Ever. With the Man In My Life, I have found the fast track to avoiding responsibility for my actions comes in the recurring argument that circles carefully around to a triggered response wherein he refers to my irrationality and I can just be mad that he thinks I am crazy. What more is there to deal with?

I guess what I am figuring out is that taking shortcuts isn't always as healthy as it is expedient. I know that my Loving Husband is getting pretty tired of arguing about whether or not he thinks I am insane. I know that I miss pie crust that isn't "pat in pan" and would like to make a pie with a top crust eventually, rolling pin at all. Some days I miss sewing, but the thought of unlearning my habits of hurrying through the "boring parts" is still overwhelming to me. I am trying harder when I paint or make random things to not settle for "oh it's fine. No one will notice that _____ (any variety of fairly obvious flaws)". I have even considered trying to redeem my perfect 5th grade handwriting that was eaten alive by a teenager focused more on Unique than Technique. I do believe that I don't have to be a Master Of Everything: That I can let my sister be the seamstress, my daughter be the baker and I can be the comic relief. One thing that I will always go the extra mile for is a laugh. At some point around the age of 26 I realized I had to up my personality ante when I could no longer skate by just on my Extreme Natural Cuteness. I aged out of forgivable, adorable imperfection and had to actually start working to be someone that people actually liked to be around. I think I go through seasons where I am more diligent about this than at other times - like perhaps last winter when my Darling Irish Boy called me the "Queen Of Frump". Somewhere in mid February I had forgotten that there were pants that were not sweats, and basically quit brushing my hair altogether. This is the dangerous tar pit of unemployment. I have noticed that I feel better when I try harder - when I actually clean my room periodically and wash the windows more than once a year. I like myself better when I make something that I can display from all sides, instead of hiding all my short-cut mistakes against a wall. I know my husband likes me better when I am not covering my flaws with the veil of false insult, but I am transparent about my shortcomings. But some times, well, let's just say it's easier said than done.

Life takes work. It takes attention to detail and it takes caring. Some days it's easier to care than other days. I know my challenge is choosing more carefully where a short cut won't really matter to our quality of life, and when I am short cutting not only myself but the people around me. So maybe tomorrow I will get up and be a little more thorough. And potty train my dog.

Things I Am Pushing

Just a quick note: Yesterday I went with my buddy Clare, a local esthetician, to use my super awesome Living Social coupon at Angelina Skin Care, a local skin care boutique with products that are all natural, organic and YUMMY! Clare has been working with me at Luna - her studio, to come up with a fix for my perpetually troubling skin problems. Stay tuned for more details about this, as well as a review of the recent Jessner Peel that she gave me. If you live in Bend - check out both Luna Studios and Angelina's stuff.

Also - my new bed is awesome. We went shopping and pretty much bought the first one we laid on - maybe because I feel asleep and felt guilty, or maybe because we're just suckers for anything more comfortable than the mattress we've been sleeping on upside-down because it has a giant wallow in the middle. And by sleeping on upside-down, I mean that both the mattress is pillow-top down on the boxspring, exposing the firmer un-pillow-top side, AND we have been sleeping with our heads at the foot of the bed because we realized the wallow gave us new back and hip pain that was a reprieve from the old back and hip pain, and thereby somehow better. Anyway, the new bed is the "cheap" version of Temperpedic - the "Simplicity Soft" and after one night, I am pretty excited. Excited enough that I might defer a trip to Olympia until I get bored with sleeping on it. I will let you know if my enthusiasm about this un-researched, un-recommended wears off. However it does have a bunch of warranties and stuff so hopefully...

Things That I Disagree With

Mornings. Especially gray/grey mornings (authors note: both spellings of gray/grey are proper - which paralyzes me when prevailed upon to choose. I have decided to always use both). Josh says I have morning confused with mourning and therefore believe I need to awaken in despair. He's probably right, because I can't remember very many mornings before 9 o'clock or so that I didn't feel the heavy hand of death on my soul. Or maybe I just use that as an excuse to sleep later. Either way, today was particularly gloomy, and I probably should have just stayed in bed.

Mournings(sic) like this get particularly difficult when I have to get dressed. Mostly I try to avoid it as long as possible, since the decision making process is so completely overwhelming. This morning I have no pressing reasons to get dressed in the near future, other than a possible impromtu trip up to Olympia where my sister is visiting my mom, so I can crash the visit and steal all of mom's attention for myself. I may as well go, since the kids are going to hang with the D-Bag (bio-dad) for a couple days and Josh has to work pretty much forever. Or at least tomorrow. But then I would have to get dressed.

The only thing that I have established unquestionably to wear on this dark day, is a new matching bra and undie set. This is almost enough to make me cast off my mourning, but then I think about which jeans to squeeze into and my discouragement is renewed. Every time I wear matching underwear Josh gets a little bit suspicious, as if on this day of Ultimate-Self-Image-Despair, I have a secret rendezvous with someone who would appreciate it more than he does. Really, I save the NEW matching undies for days when I feel so gross that having cute underwear is absolutely the only reason a paramedic (other than my husband) would touch me if I was dying in the street from a car wreck:  "Oh Lord - do we have to touch her?" "She's dying!" "Well, at least her underwear are clean. And they match" "Ok, CPR in progress."

Ever since I was little I have had this thing with matching underwear. I think it started with one of the college age girls that lived with us in Portland. I have never fully put together why we had a string of college age girls living with us, and whether they paid us or we paid them for putting up with 4.5 homeschooled kids, or if the arrangement was sans-financing, and they worked off their housing by driving us places like gymnastics classes in little green cars, and buying us snacks of dry roasted peanuts. I have several very brief but clear memories of these girls, and in addition to one of them boiling all the bristles off my dad's toothbrush after "borrowing" it, and a pet parakeet, I distinctly remember one of them INSISTING on the necessity for matching undergarments in case of a medical emergency, just as I described. It really makes sense. I mean, imagine cutting off someone's clothing and discovering the horror of fruit of the loom grannie panties paired with a Hanes Her Way Super Bra that clashed! GASP! I try to make certain, every day, that no such travesty will ever befall me or my potential rescuers. I will not deny that on my "off" days, when I am unmatched, I am an extra cautious driver and would obviously never risk something like a bike ride. Yes, I learned many valuable things from those young women, including how much you can fit into the rear seat of a vintage 70s hatchback, the immortal skill of perfectly feathered bangs, and how to short sheet a bed.

I guess now is that time of the day when I have to decide if I should actually take a shower and move on with my life, or continue my mourning in bed. For the rest of the day. Which doesn't sound half bad, especially with the Madeleine L'Engle books I just bought at a thrift store yesterday. I have a moderate list of productive things I would like to accomplish today, which makes jetting up north all the more tempting. And it's cloudy enough today in Bend that it isn't like I would be foregoing our normal sunshine for Olympia's perpetual gloom. Maybe these are decisions better made in the self confidence of matching underwear.

Things That I Am Terrible At

Riding Bicycles. There is something idyllic about pedaling your carefree way across town, in a pretty sundress with a basket full of daisies and a bottle of wine on the front of your turquoise beach cruiser, right? Yesterday, I needed to go pick up my car across town from Sargent's Stereo where they had installed an iPod port for me, the only thing missing from my blingmobile. I thought, no big deal. 3-4 miles - I did that often this summer, riding to the store, or more frequently, to Cuppa Yo, where the reward was much more worth it. Josh assured me I could make it 20 minutes "tops" since it was an easy 10-15 for him. Show off. Anyway, I waited for the outside temperature to break 45, since I am a wimp, bagged up my yoga mat with the noble intention of going to class after my two wheeled adventure. Look how athletic I am being!! I set out down the street and within 1/4 mile began to regret my optimistic decision. I will admit that part of my downfall on this fateful ride was not taking my husbands well-meaning advice and riding the longer, safer way down a less busy, less hilly, but out of the way street. I decided I was a full grown adult and could manage the traffic. And the hills, which, incidentally where NEVER there before, when I was driving my car. My fingers were numb at about 1/2 mile, which I think was also the 17 minute mark, and about the time I really started cursing my bike loving husband. As I pedalled in place up a hill that was at least 7000 feet, all I could do was mutter to myself about idiots on bicycles acting like this was fun and what a bunch of freakshows they were. I was all but obliterated by a Kia Rio that came screaming through a roundabout and into the crosswalk where I was innocently fumbling with my pedals before she locked up the brakes and skidded to a stop about 6 inches from me. I am sure she heard me cussing out Josh, because clearly ANY misfortunes on bikes are All His Fault. About 3/4 of a mile in I had come to the conclusion that I really really hate my bike. WHO in the world would choose a freaking mint green, 3,000 lb contraption with 4 lane handlebars and a 50 gallon basket hanging of the front. I looked like a behemoth 5 year old who just got off her training wheels. Lets just say balance and coordination on a bicycle aren't my strong points at this stage. I would like to take a moment to credit my mother for this un-skill, and from what I hear it's a knack she shares with my Aunt Janet as well. Mom, like me, struggles to keep a bicycle herded on a narrow path, such as a sidewalk, or a two lane highway, and any obstacle that springs up pretty much demands an all out panic and probably a crash of some sort. Imagine my dismay when my sidewalk turned into two, narrower, multi-level sidewalks that ended abruptly at a big, red fire hydrant. What choice did I have but jump both curbs and land in the busy arterial pretty much on the fender of a police car, and then fall over. Ok, I didn't fall ALL the way over, but I may as well have for the injury to my pride. I couldn't help but get really angry at the smirking motorists who witnessed my identity crisis between pedestrian and cyclist at every intersection. Crosswalk, no crosswalk? Green light with traffic or who is turning and does anybody see me on this monstrous bike? Half of me hoped they did because while I was certainly in a homicidal rage, I wasn't completely ready to die, but the other half of me was mortally embarrassed by my happy-and-carefree looking bike that was so obviously NOT any of those things. I have a chronic internal confliction about the dichotomy of bicycle laws vs. bicycle safety. Is it better to ride on the sidewalk and live or ride with traffic and certainly die?

Josh recommended I take back street A to back street B, which put me on the thoroughfare very briefly. I decided to take main street A to main street B, which changed after two near death experiences and a series of giant elevation gains to back street A, which seemed to be more or less hill-free. After pedaling/coasting for several blocks, crossing the railroad tracks twice, I realized I was going the wrong way, but since it was downhill, I didn't really care. At some point I knew I needed to get back over toward the main drag, and because I was too tired to find another legit railroad crossing, I picked up my bike (one end at a time because the thing weighs more than ghengis khan) and dragged it across the tracks in the dirt. I had half a mind to leave the stupid bicycle right there in the tracks to be destroyed by the next freight train that roared through, but decided against it since I was still formulating more gratifying demolition approaches. Most of the second half of my ride was filled with fantasies of twisted metal and snapping spokes. I wound up in  neighborhood that I recognized as one Josh had recently done some remodeling in, and lost several tools to neighborhood thugs masquerading as schoolchildren. Somehow I had ended up about 5 blocks too far south, but I decided the downhill was worth it. I finally made it to my destination, sweaty, frozen, angry as heck that my husband would consider this harrowing experience "fun". No comment.

the nemesis. Don't be fooled. it isn't as innocent as it looks.

Anyway, I survived, somehow, all 3.4 miles and 15,000 ft climb. My RunKeeper app told me I only burned 143 calories. 143! That's like not even a cookie!! How is that possible. Sometimes I believe RunKeeper exists only to make me feel inadequate. Kind of like kids. And crappy vacuum cleaners.

I even went to yoga, mostly because I wasn't about to let the foolishness of carrying a retarded yoga mat on my back across town be for naught, and I had only burned 143 calories. I still had a scrap of pride left after all, until the yoga instructor spent 70 minutes demonstrating all of the things that my hips Will Not Do. I blame the hills. After all of my minimal-calorie-burning activities, all I could think about was a McChicken. But I was good. I drove home, I unloaded my $200 worth of Costco groceries and even the bike that I swore I would never touch again after jamming it into the back of the Yukon, and ate a little teeny cup of greek yogurt. And 16 candy corns.

We bought a new bed last weekend, and after a series of delivery faux pas, which resulted in 2 free latex pillows, it was just delivered. I am so excited to try it out. Can I just go to bed now?

Things That Are YUMMY

I would have taken a better picture but I was too busy eating. 

Butternut Squash Casserole

I credit Lillian Cross for this recipe, got it at a Forest Service Potluck!

1 Butternut Squash at least medium size

(or pre-cubed from Costco)

3/4 C White Sugar

1 ½ C Milk

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 pinch of Salt

2 tbsp All-Purpose Flour

3 Eggs

¼ C Butter, melted

TOPPING

½ (160z) pkg. Vanilla Wafers, crushed, about 2 cups

 (I used graham crackers -it works!)

½ C Butter, melted

1/2 C Brown Sugar

1.     Preheat oven to 425 degrees approximately 

2.     Put butternut squash into the microwave and cook approximately 2-3 minutes or until soft, making it easier to peel the skin off.  Cut in half, scoop out seeds and cube. (or buy the pre-cubed stuff from Costco - awesome!!)  Cook in boiling water, approximately 15 minutes, until squash is tender and easy to mash. Drain then mash.

3.     Combine 3 cups mashed squash, sugar, milk, vanilla, salt, flour, eggs and the ¼ cup melted butter. Blend with mixer until smooth.  Pour into a 2 quart casserole dish.

4.     Bake in casserole approximately 45 minutes or until the center comes out clean when a knife is inserted. combine wafers, butter, & brown sugar.  Crumble over casserole in the last 15 to 20 minutes of baking.

TIPS

If making for a larger crowd, double everything, including squash.   To make the casserole creamier, use evaporated milk.  Of course, to make a healthier casserole, use the healthier versions of all the ingredients. (Maple Syrup? I'm going to try that next time)

Things That Are Decided By Weather

Today, it is cold and blustery, and when I walked Aspen to the bus stop, I felt a raindrop. I immediately patted myself on the back for the astute decision to not make the 1.27 mile trek to walk her to school. Obviously I would have had pneumonia from that single raindrop had I undertaken such a feat. Already my immune system was compromised by the sweaty frenzy of searching first for Aspen's "missing since Wednesday" school bag, then her "also missing since Wednesday" "self-manager" bracelet, and then once again for her "missing since 5 minutes ago" school bag, which, incidentally, held her "self-manager" bracelet. I am not sure that enlisting your mother to help you tear apart your knee-deep-in-calico-critters-and-squinkies bedroom, looking for a red rubber bracelet, really leaves one eligible for the "self-manager" accolade, but since she clambered onto the bus sporting her bag, homework folder, AND the bracelet, I guess what her teacher never witnesses won't hurt her. Somewhere about 3/5's of the way through the whole house hunt, I realized that the fact that she had been missing both items since Wednesday obviously made sense since she had not been back to school since early release that day. While I was wondering what she used for the second half of the week to carry her homework folder and hide her self-manager bracelet in, it dawned on me that a half week of school conferences, trips to the swimming pool, pumpkin patch and dance classes had made any sort of mundanity like a school bag nothing but a vaguely obscure memory in the ping-pongish mind of my 9 year old. Thank god I decided against getting out of my sweatpants until some minor emergency later in the day forces me to, because I worked up quite a sweat, especially after the school bag was re-lost on the couch under the sleeping hound dog who seemed bizarrely unconcerned with the stigma of a missing self-manager bracelet. I might have been less moved to helping Aspen in her quest, except for the exasperated, arm flopping, acquiescent "I guess I am just not a self-manager", followed by a fake tear or two. She's good.

Another good reason for staying in my sweats all day is that it really removes the question of whether or not I should shower. Obviously if I decided to shower I would have to take off the sweat pants, thereby removing the whole reason for keeping them on : i.e. utter laziness. At this point I can almost justify never getting dressed by the amount of dog hair that my sweatpants have cleaned off of the couch. Not only am I saving laundry by not hairing another pair of pants, I am doubling as an upholstery-hair-removal-machine. Changing into real clothes would be some sort of indicator that I have an agenda today, or something to accomplish. That is really kind of silly since we all know that I am jobless, schoolless, and all of my online shopping needs can be met in my sweats. It's really a win win situation, until Josh sees the bank statement and the Amazon.com boxes piling up by the front door. In which case I hastily don jeans, make a pot roast and get out the vacuum, so he thinks that I got the hair off of the couch through some movement other than simply rolling from side to side.

I have decided that I am not much good at winter. Or fall. Or most of spring.  I like the IDEA of these seasons, the new smells and colors - and especially layering options. But somehow my attitude never keeps up with my lofty dreams of steaming pumpkin bread and children dressed in plaid and cable knit. I would really like to not get crabby when the temperature drops below 68, but it's kind of difficult. I blame my mother for this, not because I ever saw the ramifications of Seasonal Affective Disorder in her (mom's emotional ranges were very seasonally consistent), but because she hates the cold. Maybe she taught me that cold was something to really get depressed about, entailing suffering and misery and no more flip flops. Maybe I am bitter from the autumns when I had to pack my cookie monster shorts into the summer trunk, knowing that the next time I saw them, they would be Emily's. Oh, the tragedy. Maybe I associate the change of season with claustrophobic turtlenecks and tights that ALWAYS managed to get twisted at the top of my legs so that the crotch seam ran in a nice spiral around my hips, choking off circulation to my thighs and pulling the tights down so that I felt like a penguin when I walked. Yes, fall marks a certain sadness for me, in spite of the resurgent fashion trend of flannel that takes me back to 1993 and my doc martens. It brings back the chronic disappointment I feel that a pea coat always makes me look fat and scarves choke me. Alas. I look forward to the depths of winter when staying on the couch in sweatpants is mandated by snow days and flu season. Bring on the Five Mile Creeks (this is quintessential virus induced television in the Stecker Clan) and Lipton Chicken Noodle Soup. Give me the temperature related justification to only wear UGG boots that my husband hates. All I need now is a wiener dog puppy to lick my nose.

Actually, I love fall. I have this tremendous recipe for Butternut Squash Casserole (see next blog) that is ever so much more dessert than squash. I also found an awesome Baked Potato Soup recipe on Pinterest that is so easy and so yummy it is probably illegal. Cheap too. Really fall is all about the food. And the Flannel. And the memories. Like going to Central Oregon Pumpkin Company with good friends, spending over $100 to get lost in a Maize Maze that specifies you can only use DESIGNATED bathrooms in the maze, but fails to place any locatable designated bathrooms in said labyrinth. Granted, since I am pretty sure I was just going in giant circles until I cheated my way out of the maze (note: if you discreetly hint to the youngest kids that cutting through the corn might be the fastest way out, then you as a parent have no choice but to follow), I guess I probably never crossed paths with the designated toilet. I won't deny that the thought of sneaking into some tall corn rows to relieve myself crossed my mind, but every time I saw a safe spot, three little kids would come bursting out of the corn, followed by adults muttering about darn kids and cheating... Somehow we all made it out alive without having to eat one of us, although I think the general consensus was that we would sacrifice the youngest since they would be most tender for eating and none of us was really hungry enough to need more meat than Aspen and Ryder could have supplied. Fall is also all about football, and finding friends with cable TV and beer for mooching. We have done so pretty successfully, and saved a pretty penny on beer AND cable. Highly recommend.

Anyway, I have to get back to my lounging, I have been way too productive this morning. I think I need to spend the rest of the day watching Bones so that I resist the temptation to cheat on Josh with the new season of The Office on Netflix.

Things That We Fight About

I'm a little crazy. There's just no getting around it. If you've known me very long you would definitely agree with me. Every now and then, or pretty much always, if you ask my Precious Husband, I get super crazy. Like full on. As the seasons fade gracefully from a busy summer to an I-have-absolutely-nothing-to-do-with-myself fall, I have had a couple episodes that were, well, doozies. The first happened a couple weeks ago when I caught Josh red handed in the crime of possessing store bought bran muffins. I know. The audacity. For some reason, the idea that my anti-carb husband went out of his way to buy muffins at the store communicated to me my abject, dismal failure as a housewife. Suddenly, every batch of muffins or other baked goods that I have produced and he has turned his nose up at went flashing before my eyes. I saw the muffins, and managed to control my rage until I drove away, at which point I fire off a text that reads:

"Am I just a terrible cook? You can just be honest with me and I will quit trying."

Yes. I said that. Obviously, the poor, blindsided oaf could do nothing but respond defensively, which only supported my theory that he was having a full blown affair with the Safeway bakery. I was pretty sure at that point that I could never stay in a relationship like this. Somehow my Saint of a Husband talked me out of packing my oven mitts and starting over where my culinary skills would be appreciated. The totally awesome thing about all of this insanity is that a) I was working on a fire when he purchased the incriminating muffins - making it impossible for me to bake for him anyway... and b) I wasn't even premenstrual. Men of the world, I challenge you to utter a single complaint before you have faced crazy Liv. The second lapse into Total Insanity came when Josh, giggling, showed me a silly Facebook meme that made a reference to women belonging in the kitchen. An interesting joke, I thought, considering MY cooking wasn't good enough for him. Now while I'll grant that my adorable guy isn't the best at doling out praise or reminding me continuously that I am the Most Brilliant Woman in the Universe, he hasn't ever exactly demonstrated a sexist side. On this particular day, however, you couldn't have convinced me that I hadn't married the Biggest Chauvinist That Ever Lived. Holy cow. Of course he's fine with me quitting my job. Barefoot in the kitchen is where I belong! Oh, you should have heard the tirade. And then, to really make the situation Most Awesome, Josh circulated the aforementioned picture to friends of various genders asking if THEY found it über-offensive, like his irrational wife did. Josh is a brilliant guy, but lets just say this wasn't one of his brightest moves ever. It was all I could do, in my fragile mental state, to not launch an all out Facebook-text-twitter campaign against the Worst Man Ever. It was a day, for sure. Luckily the only thing that hit social media was a snide comment on his over dramatic status update about choosing what we do with our time because life is short. I think he knew he was about to die.

I mean, Josh is actually a medal worthy guy for all the crap he puts up with, but I don't want you to think he's without his flaws too. For instance, we have this constantly repeating conversation about the style-less-ness
Of wearing a wrinkly button down shirt with no t-shirt layer underneath. It seems like invariably there is either a missing button or wrinkled placket that exposes just enough pastiness (sorry hunny - Hawaii in January!!) to scream White Trash!!! loudly enough to make me cringe. Today I talked him out of his favorite (wrinkled) button down and into a t-shirt because, after all, it IS the weekend, and then the poor boy throws on a hoody. Great! I bit my tongue at the temptation to remind him that mixing certain shades of blue really is a fashion faux-pas, and let him go. At least he's wearing a Broncos Shirt. For me. Because he loves me. Sigh. I guess I'll chalk that little loss up to choosing my battles, and remain ever vigilant in my watch for wanton baked goods.

Authors note: for worried readers, I HAVE restarted my Prozac. :)

Things That Used to Be

This is a two year old ramble that I came across. Maybe you already read it. I am sure I did, since I actually wrote it, but I didn't even remember. So maybe you forgot too...

Seven year old rockstar: Aspen. The pantsless wonder. No matter how many pairs of jeans I buy her, without fail, every morning it is the same pitiful cry that she has no pants. Finally, after what seems like hours of endless back and forth trans-story hollering, she emerges downstairs with what appear to be more holes than clothing on her bottom half. How can such a small child make such large holes? Or sometimes it’s a whisp of tulle vaguely masked in the guise of a tutu, over the remnants of what must have been once a pair of tights, but have obviously lived through one too many easter egg hunts before they crawled out of Grandma Donna’s basement and into Aspen’s undie drawer. The odd swirls of grass stains and mud and what is questionably some sort of melted candy can almost pass for tie dye. But not quite. Every few days I go upstairs to the wreck that is a bedroom and see if I can find something for her to wear before I am overtaken by the chaos. I can usually retrieve two or three pairs of at least semi clean pants off of the floor from underneath Kizzie’s pee-chee collection or a contraband stack of cups that have been missing from the kitchen for three months. I stuff as many salvageable articles of clothing as I can in her drawers and reemerge for air. This is the child that I swore would never walk out my door: The one who goes to school with a rat’s nest on the back of her head exactly where her pillow was stuck when she woke up that morning. The one with last night’s chocolate ice cream high on her cheekbone, obviously from the rim when one licks the bottom of the bowl, still worn proudly on the bus the next day. The child that I wake up in the middle of the night in a panicked sweat about, realizing that it has been at least two weeks since I last asked her if she has showered lately. It breaks my heart at times, because she’s such a pretty little thing, even with her missing teeth and raggedy clothes, to know that people look at her and shed a little tear for her sad parentlessness. This poor child. I remember in my early days of parenting, when everything would be sunlight and roses and my children would always have combed hair and color coordinated outfits. Now my youngest is conveniently coordinated with all of the furniture, draperies and the 8 foot braided rag rug on my living room floor. And she did it herself. I couldn’t be prouder. All the ideals of the fairy tale life that I was to have… The shining princesses and dreamy castle like home that is now a silly jerry rigged little hovel that Halle delights in because of it’s similarity to the Weasley’s Bourough, if you will excuse the HP reference. I have relinquished all visions of sparkling windows and fluffy pillows and bury my head in the cleanest bedding I can find to catch enough sleep so I can face another day of missing the mark. Days like this when I have a head cold and feel like I can’t pull my brain out of the fire safe that it’s locked in are extra hard. Just getting out of bed at 6 20 something to get the girls on the bus is confusing. Getting clothes on myself and remembering where I am supposed to be is extra tricky. Yesterday I was standing in a store staring blankly at an aisle of something, when slowly I turned my head to see a clock on the wall come rushing up at my face and crowing loudly at me that it was 20 minutes after I was supposed to be at work. In the five minutes it took me to process this reality, I think I must have stumbled out of the store (hopefully with no unpurchased items, but I don’t remember) and called one of my supervisors. I must have made up a semi-passable excuse because nobody yelled at me later. These are days when my kids are lucky that they get to eat, if I remember dinner. In this case it was apples and peanut butter and popcorn, which they gallantly made themselves when they realized I was a total basketcase and probably not gonna get around to feeding them until the next morning sometime. They are troopers, these girls. They don’t have the worst life ever, but it isn’t cake. I watch the younger ones eat up any one on one attention they can find and feel bad that the hours I have to give to them are poor quality and unfocused. But they’re doing alright. They have their little niches and they keep plugging away. And so do I. and we keep on forging our little world of mayhem and color. And Aspen still has no pants. 

Things I Noticed

I'm a pretty lucky girl. I have TWO wedding rings. One is my "work" ring, which matches Josh's and I won by protesting that I did manly work too and needed a "tough" ring. The other is a FAT *SS diamond. I suppose that sounds crass, but I really want you to understand that I am sporting a diamond bigger than the spiders that live in my basement. Yes. That big. My "girl" ring is about 1.1 carats of vintage 1930s gorgeousness. I am in love with it. The idea is that I wear my "work " ring on fires and when I am doing my manly jobs. Like riding quads on dusty trails and cleaning toilets. And my "girl" ring is for my days off (???) when I'm home, shopping, making dinner, and cleaning toilets (why does that sound familiar)... But something that occurred to me, when I got home from this fire and went to change into my girl ring, that it was kind of representative of the whole persona transformation that I go through at least twice a year: leaving for my first fire, and coming, finally, home. Granted last year was the first fire season that I've had any kind of a ring to wear, and last year I was sans diamond, but I know the switch took place nonetheless. Truthfully it's just a really good parallel to the dichotomy that is my life every year, before and after any rings. My "work" ring is a simple band of titanium, accented by a channeled stripe of white gold. The metal is strong, and only the soft white gold in the middle shows the wear and abuse that my hands endure. It's identical to Josh's, only smaller, obviously, because if my fingers were as big as his we might have issues. I noticed when I put my "work" ring back on after a few months of girliness, that it is thicker and much more noticeable than the delicate white gold filigree of my "girl" ring. The titanium is unbending, thick, and would easily compromise the frail bones of my fingers if the appropriate pressure were applied. It's like the me that walks into fire camp every summer. I'm strong, I'm confident. I know why I'm there and EXACTLY what to do. This Me is the only one who has absolutely no issue with self-defense and establishing authority in most settings. (Granted, you introduce a "para-god" like my adorable husband into the scene and I'm basically reduced to a blood pressure machine and oxygen tank hooker-upper.) But the fire line is the one place I have come to KNOW securely, that I am where I should be and what I need to do. I get home, slip back into my fragile, if (maybe?) pretty role of the diamond and filigree mother/housewife. Begging forgiveness for the epic failures in child rearing, housekeeping, and all around dismal nurturing skills. It's not that both of the MEs don't have their place, their strengths and weaknesses, but I find it a puzzlement how strong I feel, in my non-flattering nomex and 17 pound boots, and how moveable I am when I am stripped of this uniform. I have no authority, I am a jellyfish of ignorance and misguided judgement when it comes to the role of mother. But I try to make it look good. Shiny like a 1.1 carat diamond. Polish it up and smother it in Scentsy and convince the world that you've GOT IT TOGETHER.

Another thing I noticed, which is TOTALLY unrelated, has to do with fire - specifically, fire fighters. The men in the ever stylish yellow and green, storming the forests to save the world from Certain Demise. On my last fire assignment, I worked with a handful of smokejumpers from the Redmond Air Center. For the layperson (i.e. not fire savvy), let me clarify a few things about wildland fire: as much as I love the dramatic lauds of glory ascribed to me for my bravery in being one of these stalwart soldiers, defending trees everywhere, I do not actually fight the fire. I have in the past. I am trained to do so, but somewhere along the line I wised up and realized I could make way more money do way less work as an EMT that follows the actual fire-FIGHTERS around, ready to swoop in and catch fallen heroes. Mostly I sit in my truck and read Cosmo or US Weekly. And to quell another commonly held misconception (for the generation basking in the glory of Howie Long's Firestorm), even the actual fighters of fire do not parachute out of helicopters. Or throw running chainsaws in the air from the back of a motorcycle. OK, maybe we do that sometimes. Just to be cool. Smokejumpers are an elite, or maybe the Most Elite (sorry hotshots) echelon of wildland firefighters. Most smokejumpers are older than the average hotshot, engine slug or type 2 firefighter, because it takes years of experience and maturity to be responsible enough to parachute out of AIRPLANES into burning conflagrations. They really do that, and it is pretty epic. In a not-kitschy-and-diluted-sense of the word. To clear up any confusion, Hotshot Crews consist of 20 firefighters with at least some experience who are trained, expected and required to hike crazy amounts of ridiculous terrain to attack a fire head on, carrying their own tools, gear and enough food and water to be self sufficient for at least a few days. They are, in a word, bad-*ss (sorry mom). Engine slugs are, well, slugs who work on engines. They work with water and pumps and usually stay closer to roads and the relative movable safety of their trucks. They work hard, or at least some do, don't get me wrong. Most hand crews are type 2, and the type 2 firefighter is the meat and potatoes of every wildland fire. They are the boots on the ground that scratch hundreds of miles of fire line in the dirt every summer, mop up acres of ash, and populate the crazy tent cities that spring up overnight on any large incident. But back to the smokejumper: there is an unspoken rule that in order to be a smokejumper, you must prove yourself as a master storyteller. What is most interesting about these stories is that the smokejumper delivers them in a manner that would have you believe that the very act of jumping out of an airplane at a couple thousand feet strapped to approximately 120lbs of gear, into a burning forest, isn't actually the most interesting part. Usually the story line kicker is something about criminals inside the fire that started it as they were running from the law, or saving someone from a bee attack on the edge of a cliff, or hiking out (because it turns out you CAN'T actually parachute OUT of a fire) to the road on two broken ankles, or something like that, while you (the listener) are still processing that 2000 ft drop into Trees That Are On Fire, the jumper is cracking up about How Funny it was that his buddy's chute got hung up in a tree and he had to cut himself free with a two inch pocket knife. If ever you get the chance to listen in when one of these guys is storytelling. Don't miss it. It's a stark contrast to the slightly less mature storytelling of hotshots which usually have to do with burnouts, R&R days and memorable bars, or type 2 guys who are still talking about the hot chick on Engine 62. I really have a ton of respect for all of these hardworking guys (and girls!!!), jumpers, shots and FFT2. I have met some of the best people I know working on these fires, and will never lack gratefulness for the experiences I get to have every summer, and get paid for it. Yep, I'm a lucky girl.