One of my favorite Downton Abbey episodes is the one where Maggie Smith asks, “What is a Week-End?”

It rolls off her tongue so unfamiliar. I love it.

My mother is wonderful. This we know. You would think that with ALL that wonderful gathered up in one peck of a person, she’d be bursting with advice for other -How To Be Wonderful, a book by Anna. But she’s not. In fact, she is the very opposite! If you want advice from my mother, you have to sneakily pry it out of her.
On Friday, I went up to Mom’s to pick some of her Crab Apples. Her Crab Apple tree has gone fairly mad with apples, and I thought the boy and I could snag a few.
Minutes before arriving at Mom’s, I’d had a little upset over the bus schedule. Because I’m pregnant, a little upset felt like a BIG upset and I huffed and puffed all the way to Mom’s house where I blew out my steam. She listened and smiled and didn’t offer advice, but sat down and visited with me for a bit. After I’d calmed down and Mom and I had shared a few laughs, Mom said something to me.
It sounded like advice, though it was given so gently that I didn’t even realize it WAS advice until I got home and repeated it to my husband who stopped what he was doing, looked up at me, and said, “Wow. That’s… profound. You should write it down.”
I should.
And so I am.
Mom asked me if I remembered telling her (or did I blog it?) that I felt like less of a mother because I didn’t do any big Back to School kind of things. I didn’t do a feast with coordinating place mats. I didn’t plan a party. I didn’t do anything, really. Except the girl and I sat for an hour or two and made hair bows together the day before.
“Things like that are good, but they’re only good once in a while and as a surprise. If you do it all of the time, you raise entitled children. Children aren’t entitled to things like that. Things like that don’t bring them happiness. If you want to be a good mother, teach them how to be productive. You’ve never seen a productive person that wasn’t happy. We’re put on this earth to be productive. I’m happiest when I’m producing something, anyway.”
And then the conversation went on, as conversations normally do when I’m involved.

But it really stuck with me, what she said. I thought about it while I picked apples. I thought about it when I got home, and I thought about it Saturday morning. I had just finished getting dressed for the day. I looked out my window and saw my Dad. He was working. It was Saturday morning, and he was working because he WANTED to (“What’s a Week End?”). He was out on his farm doing I don’t know what all, and between hearing my mom’s words in my head and watching my dad from the window, I was suddenly uprooted from where I sat.
“Okay, kids!” I said, pulling their eyes away from the TV screen with my loud voice, “Turn it off. Lace, you pick up the shoes. Trent, you pick up the toys…”
and then it was, “Trent you do the trash. Lace, you vacuum up the mess around the birds’ cage.”
(Did I mention that we have TWO birds now? Blu, the blue one and Green Lantern, the green one.)
And they did.
While they worked, I did the dishes. Once the kitchen was cleaned, I set up a juicer and we juiced apples.
There’s so many things I love about this picture. I made his shirt. She’s wearing her Dad’s socks under her awful, worn pants…

“This is how apple juice is made,” I told them. They took turn washing apples and juicing apples. The “stomper” was all too fascinating to them (think it will still be fascinating in 10 years?) and they got the biggest kick out of the apple poop (pulp) that came from the end of the juicer.

Don’t mind the bubbles in the apple water… we remedied that situation.

The kids had to push REALLY hard to get the apples through. Watching my son was the BEST.

They were so satisfied with their job well done. After the pulp was taken to compost, my daughter managed a costume change and then they sat together at the very dirty table to sample their juice.

They were beyond thrilled. I used the juice to make a batch of crab apple jelly, and then I straight up bottled the rest on account of how delicious it was. I heated up a bit, added a dash of cinnamon and 2 Tablespoons of maple syrup and WOW.
I want more of THAT later on this year.
I’ll be gathering up more apples from wherever I can scrounge them up around town and bottling more and more juice. My great grandmother used to freeze it, and I think I’ll go that route.
And I’d better make more jelly because it was delicious as well. Why is it when you make something from what you’ve grown, it always tastes SO. MUCH. BETTER?  I didn’t grow the apples, but Mom did.  And Mom grew me.  So it all works out somehow, right?
I just love Saturdays. And I love that my daughter finds time to break the school dress code and just be her fun self at home. Before school started, I used to let her wear whatever, whenever. My husband was a little perplexed by it all (“doesn’t she look like a rag child?”) but I knew what was coming… a childhood of dressing for the school code -no tutus, no fairy dresses, no fun.
That’s why I love Saturdays.

The only thing better than Saturdays is Sundays. Rest, rejuvenate, and rest.
And there’s nothing like waking up to your house on Monday morning to realize that YOU DO MATTER because without YOU (Alicia) the house would look like this every day.

So in a way, that mess is… comforting?
Cleaning day, here we come!

At the end of every day when our family gathers around the dinner table, I ask everyone what their favorite part of the day was.
“Morning school,” my daughter said.
“Doing da apples,” my son said.

(best apple picking partner EVER)
“Coming home,” my husband said.
We were all chowing down on the dinner my husband had made. I marinated the steak meat on Thursday, he grilled it on Friday. He picked the first batch of corn from our little garden (we planted late), and BOY was it amazing! We opened a few cans of green beans and BAM!
Best dinner ever!
“What was your favorite, mom?” my daughter asked. I didn’t know how to reply.
“Getting the mail,” I started, “I had my first REAL letters from Ju from Tanjay.”

“And I had a little package from Tia with a homemade necklace…”

“…and the most hilariously awful children’s book I’ve ever read.”

I’m so grateful for friends who send me things like awful children’s books. Parked in the Post Office parking lot, I read that little book and laughed so hard I cried. If that isn’t one of the greatest gifts you can give to someone else, I don’t know what is.
I don’t want to spoil the ending, but here it is.

And here’s something: the ending has nothing to do with the beginning of the book. or the middle of the book.
Also: my nails were painted by my son while we watched Rocky II. I should also mention that Baby Girl was kicking me so hard during that flick that I nearly cried. Strongest baby ever.
Anyway, going back…
“I also loved picking apples with Trenton.”

“And getting a late surprise birthday card from Lacy.”

“And I loved when Beki brought by 7-layer dip and chips, and I loved visiting with Steven this afternoon and enjoying the present he gave me.”

This morning, I ate THE MOST delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs, green apples, and toast topped with homemade crab apple jelly, given to me by a dear friend, and I’m just overcome.
I’m overcome at how giving everyone can be… my daughter who made a birthday card in a panic when she realized a week later that she’d forgotten to make me one on my birthday (I didn’t remind her at all… she just came bursting into the bathroom in the middle of the bath, horrified that she’d forgotten).
My husband who came home from a day of work to do half of the dishes, take out the trash, and crank out the best dinner ever.
My son who so willingly lended an apple-picking hand and who spends most of his day trying to make everyone around him laugh.
My friends, who, when I try to help them always turn the tables. And I find myself entering their houses fully determined to serve and leave having been served. Mind boggling.
My sister, who took time to write me a letter that came a full month after she wrote it, but AT JUST THE RIGHT TIME. It sent me into tears, reading what she had to say.
My brother, for being who he is and always seeming to know what the perfect gift is. “He’s always good for a laugh.”
My Tia, for being the best gall darn person on the face of the earth. I’m seriously afraid she’ll die soon. People like her just don’t last for long here on earth. God wants them back too badly. What a great example she is to me!
My baby, for being strong in every way… so strong I can feel her in every way… so strong even my husband can feel her in every way. She’s inspiring us and motivating us to REALLY step it up before her grand arrival. Bucket, Mop, Broom? Baby says, clean up the room!
(Gosh, how many Disney quotes can I fit into one post?)
My life, for being so ripe with blessings, for being lived. I am lucky. How many girls get a rad birthday and then a birthday aftershock a week later?
And now I’m off to clean up the house and make some applesauce. Canning always makes me feel super human.

Confessing things is good for me. Shoving things I try to hide from world out into the open is… embarrassing, but it helps. Tonight I have to confess something because I’m hoping in doing so, I’ll get the heck over it.
Now.
#1) I swig. From my milk jug. My husband doesn’t even know I do this, and I used to never, EVER. I can’t even tell you when it all started, but I have a notion it started somewhere between 9 pm and 5 am on any given day… when I was too tired to dirty another dish. I’m awful and gross, I know. And I don’t do it EVERY time I need a drink -I promise, mom.

#2) I eat cookies for breakfast. In very fact, if I’m having a hard time getting up and I remember that there’s cookies on the counter, I will spring right outta bed. It’s really sad, and I think it stems from my loving being a grown-up. No mom to tell me not to! But really… I AM the mom. I AM the mom. I need to chant this to myself before I eat the cookie dough in the fridge.

#3) I am terrified of Microsoft Word.
THERE!
That was my big confession. Here’s the deal: I’m writing the story of my mom’s accident. Only I’m not WRITING writing it. Not yet. I’m interviewing people and stuff. I have a title in my head. I even know how I’m going to start and finish, and I WANT to open a word document and start writing, but every time I sit down to start I just… don’t. I find ways to distract myself. I’m afraid of messing it all up -of making it into something it isn’t -of missing something -of adding too much. I’m afraid it won’t be great because it deserves, really, to be GREAT. In short, I am afraid of failing.
Despite every poster every made and tacked to the walls of my beloved high school… I’m still afraid of failing. It isn’t as if my mom’s story is being sent off to a publisher to be accepted or declined. It’s going into my mother’s hands and my grandmother’s hands and my siblings hands. And they all love me enough to let me mess up.
But do I love me enough?

Nope.
I deserve to though.

SEE?! I knew you would make it all better. I’m going to open that document now. And the minute I’m done, I’m going to pour myself a glass of milk and then go to bed, no added sugar involved.
You’re the best cheerleader/mentor/listener ever. Have I ever told you that?

I can’t tell whether I’ve just sung the opening to Haddaway’s “What Is Love” or if I’ve answered a question on Jeopardy.
“What is love?”
“Correct, for 500.”

I’m just… I’m disturbed a little. I love my pinterest account. It’s so great. I use it every day. There’s a lifetime of knowledge waiting to be clicked on, searched, conquered, and repinned!
And then there’s love pins.

Have you ever watched a scene in a movie that went ALL wrong and then yelled at the TV?
“NO! NO! She’s not supposed to walk away! GO BACK! GO BACK!”
When I see pins like this, I want to scream at my computer.
“NO! NO! THAT IS NOT LOVE!”
The reason I want to scream at the screen has nothing to do with my correcting nature; rather, it has to do with my concern for the rising generation.
There seems to be some sort of general confusion about love… about what love means and where we get it and what we get from it and how we get it from whom and when and where and what. and why.

False. FALSE!
The other night, I was lying in bed falling asleep next to my husband (nothing mad and passionate about that, and yet…) and I asked, “Do you think if we ever fell out of love, we could stay together?”
“No,” he said, “I couldn’t live like that.”
“I think we could,” I said, “I think we have enough respect for each other and we’re such close friends that if we were ever to lose that spark of love, we could live together very well and nurture it until it came back again.”
“Well when you put it like that…” he said, “I thought you meant if we hated each other.”
Silly boy. Love is for real people.

The world I see around me glamorizes FINDING what WE NEED in OTHERS.
Bella and Edward, your fake story makes me oodles of sad. There’s so many girls (and let’s be honest: married women) out there who harbor disdain for their husbands because they lack a certain Edwardiness.
I’m only going to say this a million times, so listen closely: In the fake story that is not real, Edward had lived for HUNDREDS of years and he didn’t sleep. OF COURSE he understood women! He lived hundreds of years, didn’t sleep, and studied life around him. Can you expect THAT of your beloved? No! No more than you can expect his skin to glisten with glitter.
And before I move on… girls, having a man watch you while you sleep is a crime punishable by jail time. It is NOT dreamy.

The best kind of love is found when you first give yourself what you need.
Whether in a relationship or not, ask yourself this: are you whole?
If you are not, whose job is it to make you that way?
It is yours. It is your job to find a way to be whole.
Now let me ask you this: do you love someone who isn’t whole?
If so, is it YOUR job to make them whole?
Of course not. You can not shoulder that responsibility… and you should not expect someone to shoulder that responsibility for you.

My husband is ridiculously good looking.
I knew that when I first saw him. He thought I was pretty. We made out a lot. Madly. Passionately.
BUT there was something more… there was something beyond the kisses and the flutters and the madlies and the passionatelies.
And honestly: thanks goodness. On several occasions, both of us took steps back and said, “This is nuts. We are all over each other. This can’t be real.”
And something from deep within us would well up -something that can only be described and spiritual -and we would come back together and try not kissing as much.
It never worked.
A few weeks ago, I looked at my husband and asked him in all cheesy seriousness, “I wonder where I met you.”
And he knew exactly what I meant… because I’ve KNOWN him longer than I’ve known him. I knew him when I met him. I didn’t know it the first moment I saw him… I knew it the first night we stayed up until 4 AM talking.
We had to stay up late talking because getting to know someone you’ve known before requires a great deal of talking.

I respect the person my husband is. I love him. I truly love him.
To truly love is to truly enjoy and not truly EXPECT my needs to be met by him. When he does meet them, it’s nice. It’s REALLY nice. It’s BLISS!
But is it his job to make me happy? No. It’s my job to make me happy.
Before you go and get all depressed: is it always your job to make your beloved happy all of the time?
Holy exhaustion, no! It isn’t! They can make themselves happy! If they don’t know how to do this, they are not ready for a relationship.

The best part about all of this? You’re free! You’re independent! You get to pry yourself up OFF the couch, away from Edward and The Notebook, and FIND YOURSELF! What makes YOU tick?
Hint: It isn’t NOT someone else.
You get to go on a journey of self-discovery and adventure!
A wise woman once asked, “When you walk into a library, which section do you go first to?”
For me, it’s classic literature. It combines my two passions: the past and words. The past makes me tick. Antique stores, the smell of mustiness, black and white photographs! I love it all! They make me happy for a reason. And words? Writing! I love to write! I love to write the stories of the past -both real and the ones that bounce around in my head all dang day.
My husband doesn’t fill these needs for me.
I can do my own puzzles, thankyouverymuch. I don’t need him to hunt around every nook and cranny for my missing pieces. That’s MY job, and I WANT to do it. It’s more fun to present the one I love with a finished puzzle rather than a woman sitting at a table, weeping, wondering WHERE her missing pieces could be… waiting, waiting, waiting for someone else to come and find them for her.

(False!)

I know all of this to be true because I’ve lived both sides. A few years ago, I was The Weeping Puzzle Woman. I was the victim. I was waiting for someone to fix me.

As nice as that sounds, the road to hell on earth is trying to fix someone other than yourself.
Fix yourself, love. Fix only yourself. And when you’re whole, you will be so much more! You will be ready to get out of yourself and GIVE to people who need what you have to offer!
Maybe you’ll discover that baking, cooking, and kitchening is what really makes you truly happy… and I guarantee there’s someone out there who would benefit from what you have to offer! It’s the woman with a new baby. It’s the lonely man in the home care center down the road who would love nothing more than a smile and a homemade cupcake. It’s the neighbors. It’s the kids in your neighborhood. It’s your sister. It’s your child.

Maybe you’ll discover that what makes you happy is making something clean, beautifying a space. So many people can benefit from that! There’s a bulletin board somewhere out there just waiting for you! There’s a woman who can not physically get up who would love your magic touch of cleanliness and beauty.

Maybe you’ll discover your green thumb. Use it! Use it at the park. Use it outside! Use it inside. Gift your products!

Maybe you’ll discover that you make people smile, and that’s what makes YOU smile. So DO it!
Maybe you’ll find that you have healing hands, and I happen to know of a back that needs you right now (mine).
Maybe you’ll discover your imagination again. Maybe you’ll find a love for numbers, for children, for puppies, for paint, for music (even if you can’t sing or play)…
No matter WHAT, if you will embark on this journey, you will find joy.
If you have been depending on someone else for your happiness, this journey will NOT be an easy one. It will get harder before it gets easier, but the liberation you will feel -the awakening of your soul -it is worth all of the energies you possess.
Is this what you want?

Or is your REAL fairy tale something more like this:

Do you REALLY want mad and passionate and all that jazz? Of course you do. But do you want it forever?
Or do you want to laugh? Do you want mornings where he kisses you even when your hair is all a mess and there’s a funky smell coming from the general direction of the fridge?
Do you want a kind of love that only lasts as long as perky boobs and firm thighs? Or do you want the kind of love that is so strong you can taste it in the air of your 50th anniversary celebration?
THAT kind of love involves respect, friendship, tolerance, a LOT of laughter, teasing, vacations, heartbreaks, bad news, good news, pet graves, late night movies, late night barf clean-up sessions, wall painting, porch swinging, hot chocolate drinking, tears on your pillow, tears on his shoulder, happy laughter, cookies, diets, failures, successes, reading, learning, and RICH FULL THICK LIFE!
Mad passion optional.
Or occasional. Whatever.

And I can tell you this: I would much rather have a man who respects me than a man who pines for me at all times, in all things and in all places.
I mean really. Who would want THAT guy? Puppy of a man.
I want my man to be a man -the kind that holds open doors, grows hair on his chest, and refuses to wear any kind of skinny jean.
If he watches me sleep, I’ll poor laxatives in his porridge. I just can’t take the pressure of having to look stunning while I’m snoring, ladies.
Most of all: I want to offer my WHOLE self to my baggy-jeaned hairy man.

Who wouldn’t respect that?

I was sick Monday night. Apparently, baby hates spaghetti.
I was sick Tuesday day. Apparently, baby feels she really needs to make a point about how much she hates spaghetti.

Today is Wednesday, and I have no food.
Today is Wednesday, and I’m going shopping.
Today is Wednesday, and I have no money.
Today is Wednesday, and I definitely will be spending what money I don’t have NOT buying spaghetti.

Did ya get that?

I’ll be back once I’ve got some food in me.
The world just isn’t right when there’s no cheese in the fridge.

I took pictures at a reception. That makes me a photographer (hair flip). I should probably name my business.
How about O Snap Point N Shoot Mommy Blog “Photography”?
Ha.
My cousin just had his reception in my grandma’s backyard. I like to call it The Eden of Joseph City.

Hmmm… Eden Photography?
Ha.

I wish I was much much better at photography, and after I came home from the reception I hunkered down on my bed and combed through the pictures. I should have liked to weep with shame. Once I lost the natural lighting, I could not get the pictures to turn out right. But I did figure out that if I cropped some of the pictures way down and cut all the people out except one… they didn’t look half bad.
Check this out… aren’t my cousins beautiful? Isn’t my Granny pretty? And isn’t my husband scary? Look at the bad influence he’s having on my cousin, Justin:

Sugar and Spice Meets Thug Life Photography?
Ha.
Here’s my girl and my niece, who I want to take a bite out of every time I see her:

My niece looks like my oldest brother when he was a little guy. He’s not a little guy anymore, but he HAS a little guy:

You can’t tell from this picture, but my brother is one good looking man. My aunt Lelia and I discussed it at length over pulled pork.

I took that picture of my cousin’s pulled pork. He was holding it with two hands, but I asked him to please put one down… his thumbs were getting in the way.
“Are my thumbs not good enough for you?” He joked.
“They’re just… fat.” I joked back.
Hey! Fat Thumb Photography!
I think we have a winner!

I wish I could have snapped more pictures of the Bride y Groom. Like I said: I’m ripping my hair out with shame, shame, shame.

I was just testing out a new setting on my camera when I captured that gem (Test Test Photography?)… see Aunt Lelia? She Aunt Lelia with the groom? See the bride pop up in the background and pull off a simultaneous nose pick on her new husband AND a silly face?
She will do great things, folks.
You can tell by her shoes.

True story: the only pictures we got of our Joseph City Reception were the ones my best friend Tia took, and they are SO precious to us! They aren’t professional, but they’re all we have and we love them.
My pictures are not professional. They’re not awesome and amazing and supa cool, but ANY pictures are better than no pictures -this I know for certain.
But I bet they still wish the person taking pictures wasn’t going around, pointing a camera in their face and asking them to say, “The first year is the haaaaardesstttt!” instead of “Cheese”:

Whoops Photography.

Arm Flab Photography?
Random Cousin in the Background Photography?
The possibilities are endless…

I was supposed to be a boy.
And I’m not saying I have gender confusion. “I enjoy being a girl.”
I’m saying my mother carried and birthed me under the careful and watchful eye of her own mother: a registered midwife. She took every legitimate test to predict the gender of her fourth pregnancy. Her three oldest were all boys -all beautiful, wonderful, cute, squirrely, stinky, BOYS.

My mom relied on Old Wives’ Tales gender prediction tests, and every single one of them pointed in one direction: boy.
I was a boy, my mother was sure. She resigned herself to the idea that she was destined to raise up a small platoon of boys and waited for August 11th to roll around.
August 11th was her husband’s birthday AND the baby’s due date.
It came and went, and my mother wasn’t the happiest pregnant woman in the world.
“Well, maybe the baby will come on the 17th,” my grandmother told my mother. The 17th was my oldest brother’s birthday.
Again, they were wrong. Everyone was wrong about everything about me all along, you know.
I wasn’t born on the 11th because I was either too considerate to ruin my dad’s day… or I wasn’t done saying “see you soon” to every single soul I knew in heaven.
I think it was the second one, and I think my husband would agree with his whole patient “when are we going to leave this party, Alicia?” heart.
I wasn’t born on the 17th because… well, I wanted my birthday first, obviously. The day after I was born, my brother turned 5 and so began a lifetime of me stealing his birthday thunder. He never got his own party after I plopped into the picture.
Except for the day I turned 16 and he asked my permission to announce his engagement to our family. Family? Psh. I wasn’t worried about FAMILY on my 16th birthday… I just wanted to go to school where all of my friends were waiting. Go ahead, man. Have a heyday. Announce away. Congrats, by the way.

I was born around 4:30 in the afternoon on a Friday. I wanted the weekend, what can I say?
And I picked the perfect time to come to earth. I have an obsession with the end of summer.
It’s the sunset of summer -it’s sunflowers, it’s everything golden, it’s school and long days and warmth. I get giddy when I see the first sunflowers pop up on the roadsides.
I even went so far as to get married on September 4th and everything was sunflowers, sunflowers, sunflowers.

Sunflowers!

Boy, was my mom shocked. The son she planned on naming James Delbert Hansen was…
NOT a son at all. And she wouldn’t make a very good James.
Brittany? Brittany! Should would make a great Brittany! And so my aunt phoned all the family.
“The baby is here! It’s a girl! She weighs blahblah and is blahblah long and her name… is Brittany.”
So many calls were made, so much background business was going on… and there I was, brand new, cradled in the arms of my mother.
She had me at home, because my mother is a supreme CHAMPION, and while the world around her swirled with commotion… she just looked at me.
A girl.
Brittany.
Brittany.
Brittany?
It just didn’t sit right… so she renamed me something a little like Alicia and THEN she renamed me -for one final time -Alicia, after my great-grandmother Alice.

And the phone calls went ’round again.
“The baby’s name has changed. It’s Alicia.”
“The baby’s name has changed. It’s Alicia.”
“The baby’s name has changed. It’s Alicia.”
We have a lot of family…

So the baby’s name changed, and my family’s life changed. I was a swirl of pink in a world of blue, and The Brothers became my temporary enemies and life long supporters.

Every little girl should have three older brothers in her corner.

Every year for my birthday, my mom would take me on her lap and tell me my birth story. As I got older, I pretended I was annoyed but I loved every second of it.
You know me and stories…

I can’t believe that day was 27 years ago. I can’t BELIEVE my brother just turned 32. I’m sure my mother is looking around her wondering what in the devil is going on… but the grand kids are always around to remind her that her own children growing up and leaving is a good and great thing.

Because my house was cleaned up on the 15th, I spent my birthday doing whatever made me happy. I woke up early, got ready for the day, was scared out of my mind by my daughter sneaking up behind me ridiculously early in the morning and saying, “Happy Birthday, Mom!”
I may have had my back to her.
And JUST have gotten out of the shower… you know…
I jumped outta my skin.
And then I got dressed and took her shopping with me. She talked me into buying Oreos, and we had a great time together buying the gear for a fat chocolate cake and fish tacos. I even pulled some cash out of the food budget to spend at the School Book Fair that night. I’ve a sort of obsession with Book Fairs since I learned how to read.
We came home, ate breakfast and started making a cake. My husband went to work and I kicked back with my lap top, writing to my heart’s content. Eventually, I got my daughter off to school.
I went and got my hair cut.
I came home and gave myself a pedicure while my son slept.

I answered the door and was handed THE MOST beautiful bouquet, ordered by my husband who knows how much I loved MIXED bouquets.

I taught piano lessons and took my daughter to her very first EVER school open house.

I came home to TWO plates of goodies on my porch and then I took the kids up to my Mom’s house (you know, to remind her why my moving out was a good thing -as if her getting her sewing room back wasn’t good enough). I came home to an empty house (my husband sent me a message that he would be late for the stay-in date night we had planned) and I cleaned up the messes of the day, frosted my own cake, and JUST in time… my husband walked through the door and we ate fish tacos, recipe compliments of my brother Mike.

And oh MY those were the BEST tacos ever. We had just enough time to share a slow dance together and then we took my frosted cake up to my parents house where my kids could finish frosting it properly.

Gotta love kids with frosting.

We came home after a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” and put the kids to bed. We thought we’d stay up and watch a movie, but after flipping through our options seventy or so times, we decided sleep would be much cooler than staying up to watch a movie.
As we crawled under the covers, my husband apologized for “missing” most of my birthday (on account of work). I took a deep breath, inhaling the orchid scent coming from the headboard above me.
Bollocks.
He hadn’t missed my birthday. HE SENT ME FLOWERS.
My birthday had been such a perfect, perfect day.
We could stay up late and watch a movie any dang day.

I woke up the next day and replied to birthday greetings sent via text and facebook and I was overcome with GUILT because so many people had remembered my birthday -had sent goody plates, dropped by gifts, given me CHOCOLATE… and I’m HORRIBLE at remembering birthdays. I’m bloody horrible at it. I remember my family because after living with someone for over ten years you start to get the hang of things…
I’m so grateful for my good and forgiving friends and family. I’m so grateful for my life, my twenty seven years, my babies, my husband,
my supreme champion of a mother, my stalwart father,

(awwwwww, Dad…)

my siblings, my good inlaws, my… everything.
This is gonna be a good life.
A good, good life.

“When you’re happy like a fool, let it take you over.”
(sorry about the swearings in the video.)

I really, truly mean that. For the past 18 months, I’ve been working hard on making myself happy. It’s a revolutionary concept that involves a lot (a TON) of introspection and self-evaluation and self-care. When I say “self-care” I’m not actually talking about the nice, posh, easy (ahem -expensive) stuff like pedicures and chocolate eating. I’m talking about the un-fun stuff… I’m talking about making sure your spiritual, physical, and emotional needs are met every day. It’s hard work! Sometimes I think it’s TOO hard and I don’t do it and then I find myself at the end of the day completely overwhelmed.

I just can’t handle LIFE! (Can you see the back of my hand pressed to my forehead? I’m about to faint, really.)

But when I wake up, pray, read something to feed my soul (scriptures, conference talks…) and then I eat a healthy breakfast (no Fruit Loops involved, sadly). I take time to WRITE something every day (usually it’s blogging), and I try to end the day with an evening walk. The walk generally doesn’t happen, and I’m learning that the road to flab is paved with good intentions.

Anyway, all I’m trying to say is that I think I’ve spent almost my entire marriage waiting for my husband to make my birthdays awesome. And guess what? He rocked it for a good 2 years. I think we were happy letting each other make each other happy (follow?) because we’re both so smitten with each other that it’s down right FUN to spoil each other.

But then.

Kid.

Job.

Kid.

Shift work.

Hormones.

…

…

…

And at the end of that story is a weepy wife, wondering why her husband doesn’t CARE anymore. Sorry. Not that the end. At the MIDDLE, because right after the wife mopped up her tears, she cranked some Loretta Lynn, put on her big girl pants, got a new hairhairstyle and BLAM-O! Made HERSELF happy. 

The whole thing makes me want to burn a bra, or something.
Anyway, last year on this day, I had just finished up mopping up my mess of tears and was trying -REALLY trying -to make sure I was happy on my birthday no. matter. what. But the kids weren’t concerned about whether mom was happy or not, really. Because if they were, they wouldn’t have fought. constantly.
By the time my husband came home and was ready to take me out, I was forcing a smile and saying as brightly as I could, “Let’s just not talk about today, let’s just have fun…” The problem is, if I don’t TALK… I essplode.
And I did.
I burst into tears on the way to the Redbox and my husband turned around to go home (per my orders) and then turned BACK around (things can get pretty hairy when you’re on a highway doing all this) and insisted that WE WOULD HAVE FUN. And we did.
He made me happy. Well, as much as I appreciate that this year is going to be different.
Yesterday I went a little crazy. I was taking my morning bath (showers are for weenies) and I got a sudden urge to completely revamp my bedroom. Now.
Imagine a small, cottage-like community…

RIGHT after it’s hit by a raging tsunami.
THAT’S what my bedroom looked like. And if you think I’m kidding, ask my Dad about the one time I spent a year as a senior in high school and nearly forgot the color of my bedroom carpet (just kidding, who could forget that awesome orange shag?).
I had already made a goal that I would spent August 15th cleaning my house so that August 16th could be spent without a heavy feeling of failure lurking all around. I wanted to rest. Enjoy. Inhale.
Naturally, I had decided I’d just… stay away from my bedroom. But there I sat in my terribly small tub, fairly ITCHING to put on a hazmat suit and dive in. And so. I did!
Guess how long it took… just GUESS. (No fair asking my Dad, either… his answer will probably be the closest.)

SIX BLOODY HOURS.
And I don’t know about you, but I don’t clean up after my husband. I guess maybe I SHOULD, but I hold firm to the belief that it would upset the delicate wife/husband balance in our relationship and turn it into more of a nagging mommy/irritated teenage son. When it came to cleaning up his stuff, I got a bag.
And (you guessed it) FILLED it, deposited it next to his night stand and wiped the sweat from my brow.
Whew.
But you really have NO IDEA what I went through to clean my room. And once I started, it was a huge tornado effect. I took pictures off the walls. I filled a 50 gallon trash bag to the brim. I hung a huge mirror… all by myself. And then I went outside and started grabbing wood. Then I started sawing, sanding, painting, drilling…
On a side note: if you spend an entire day cleaning and your husband comes home and sees how much you did while pregnant, he won’t be super mad that you broke a dill bit off in a piece of wood. Instead, he’ll gently take the drill away, point out that there’s such a thing as torque, and ask nicely if he might finish the project for you. And you’ll let him… AFTER you point out where the broken bit is and he says, “Oh that’s never coming outta that wood…”
After I finished the room at 5 pm, I did the dishes. Then dinner. Then I tackled the laundry on the couch (no small feat, I assure you). And then my son choked on a fake oreo and puked in the middle of the living room floor.
And at the end of the day, when I poured into my big bed… my husband rubbed my messed up lower back. It was all worth it.
TODAY.
TODAY I have a clean room.
TODAY I went shopping and bought stuff to make fish tacos for dinner. I even bought Jones soda, for crying out loud. TODAY I’m going to bake the fattest, thickest, richest chocolate cake this planet has evah seen, and then I’m going to give myself a pedicure (while I still can). I even SET UP AN APPOINTMENT TO GET MY HAIRS CUT. I couldn’t care less if my husband forgets all about my birthday! I’ve successfully MADE myself happy! Shouldn’t someone be playing the theme from Chariots of Fire, or something? My room isn’t exactly the kind of place and space that magazines drool over. But I’m going to share some pictures with you any way. I should have taken before pictures. Ahhhh, it’s like a half-finished painting. There’s more work that needs to be done for sure. I’m going to make some more of those hanging Mason jars, fill the bottoms with salt and add a tea light. I have a similar one in my bathroom, and it is lovely. Three cheers for my headboard, by the way. My Dad made it when he was in High School. Isn’t that awesome?! I didn’t even have to fight my siblings for it (probably because they don’t know I have it, mmmwahaha). I didn’t spent a lick of cash yesterday redoing everything. Everything I needed I found in my back yard and around my house. See the chalk board I made? I found that piece of wood by the side of my house, just sitting there. It used to be part of something. Of what? I don’t know. If whatever it was ever wants it back, they can have it. But I’ve upped it’s value significantly. The Willow Tree figurine was given to me from my husband. It was a Mother’s Day gift. I had JUST miscarried, and he handed it to me and said, “This is us before the miscarriage. This is us now. This is us forever.” Oh my heck, I’m making myself cry. Moving on.. I found an old fishbowl (because doesn’t everyone just have a fishbowl lying around?) and an old candle stick from Goodwill. I married them together to bring us: I put our date ideas in it. Spiffy. Our closet is pretty big. Buying curtains for it would have cost a fortune, but it didn’t have doors or anything and it needed SOMETHING. For Christmas, I bought myself a rod, some curtain rod clip thingies, and a huge canvas drop cloth (set me back a whole $20. I can live with that). I came home, measured and sewed. Then I wrote one of my favorite poems on my side of the canvas curtain cover. I’m still debating on what to put on my husband’s side… it’s a serious commitment, people. For someone who obsesses over words as much as I do -it is not to be taken lightly. Here’s a not-so-great shot of a hanging Mason Jar. The wood piece it’s hanging from is from my old piano. It just needs some salt and a little candle! I can’t wait to make a bunch more of those little guys and hang them all over the wall! I would have made more yesterday had the handle of the hack saw not been sun-rotted. Remind me to put “hack saw” on my shopping list… right next to “drill bits.” I made something similar to those last year and put dried flowers in it. The flowers were a gift from my husband after our daughter was born. He snagged them in the hospital gift shop. And I can’t talk about my bathroom without bringing this little lady out to play. Best vintage post card EVER: And finally… here is the project that has a drill bit buried in it. After I bought a canvas drop cloth with my Christmas money, I bought myself some awesome knobs. Because I loved them so much, I didn’t want to use them for just ANYTHING (again, commitment issues), so I kept them with my crafty things until yesterday. When I craft, it tends to be spontaneous and completely reckless. I grabbed a piece of my old piano (how would I ever decorate if I hadn’t thought to chop that thing up? I shudder to think) and then after many failed attempts to put put the knobs on them, I set them aside and let my husband do it. Once we get some printer ink (which HAS TO BE SOON or I’m going to essplode again), I’m going to print off one of our wedding pictures, one of my parents’ wedding pictures and one of my husband’s parents’ wedding pictures… mod podge them to a piece of painted wood, attach a ribbon to the back and hang them on the knobs! And one last shout out to Dad’s head board. And yes, that is my 9-foot pillow thankyouverymuch.

Yesterday about killed me, but it was worth it. There’s nothing a mother wants more on her birthday than to feel good about herself. I worked hard yesterday so I could feel good about myself.

I’m off to bake a cake. Later on I’ll be at the Book Fair, which still gets me as giddy now as it did when I was in grade school.
I may or may not have stolen $20 from the food budget to spend on books… but hey.
It’s my birthday ;)

He was practicing his aim while I was folding laundry and watching a French movie:

(image via imdb.com)

Do you know how much laundry doesn’t get folded when you’re reading subtitles? Still. I wouldn’t have traded it. The movie was well worth watching, mostly because the main characters look REAL. You love them because they’re flawed and natural and one is balding and the other isn’t plastered in professional make-up.

All I’m trying to say is that you have Netflix instant, you should watch it. Preferably while “folding” laundry.
This morning I’m not nearly as focused as my son. Watch:

Here’s some soup my daughter made me. The broccoli and fries was a surprisingly delightful combination:

My sister ate chicken intestines. I’m mostly just happy she wasn’t directly hit by the tropical storm they just had down there. But I’m still grossed out a little.
Okay, a lot.

Last night I had two dreams.
In one, we were living with my parents. It was Christmas morning, BUT there was NOTHING Christmasish going on… there was no tree! no gingerbread house! no decorations! no stockings! I was a having a tiny panic attack, and everyone around me was gloomy and bored with me.
“It’s no big deal. We’ll get all that out next year. It’s just a pain to go through getting it all out only to put it all away again.”
What a disaster!
The second dream, I was suddenly in the middle of an episode of “Prison Break” and I was escaping out of a house with the hot brothers that star in the show. We were breaking windows and jumping through them, sliding on roof tops… and then we STOLE a semi, trucked down the highway where a sports car in front of us was blown up by a team of feds behind us (who, incidentally, wanted nothing to do with us). We ended up at a Comic Show where there were outdoor showers and my friend, Jay. I was so excited to see Jay… and I couldn’t help but wonder: what was he doing in a comic show, comforting a crying baby someone had pitched over the fence to him?

After my husband buzzed his head (*insert “Taps” here*), my kids decided they would play barber shop.

A few days ago, my husband went for a quick jaunt into the city without telling me. He thought he did, but I just thought he went into work ridiculously early which is why I didn’t expect him to walk in the door at 11 am.
If I would have known he was coming, I would have been standing at the sink or something.
As it was, I was sitting at the table with a jar full of green olives (or “yuckies” as my kids fondly call them), teaching my kids how to suck the pimiento out of the middle.

I’m happy to report that they are both pros.

We have a gigantic pumpkin plant growing in our garden. We did not plant it. It just popped up on day on the side of our first row. We could tell it was some kind of squash or something, so we just let it grow. and grow. and grow. and grow.
And now we can see green pumpkins sprouting. But seriously. This plant is huge.

It reminds me of life’s trials… you know, the kind we can’t control… the kind that take our pregnancies, our loved ones, burn down our houses, or send diagnosis our way that we never wanted to hear.
Theses kinds of things just POP up on the side of a row without any warning. We didn’t put them there. But they grow. They grow and grow and grow, and what we never once gave the slightest thought to suddenly takes over 1/3 of our entire life, pushing out things we actually PUT there and WANTED there.
And in the end, when the plant has grown and festered and choked out things we thought we really wanted… we are given fruit -bigger and juicier than anything we ever expected.
What’s more: we find out we love it more than what we actually thought we really wanted in the first place. And we’re so glad that someone knew better than us. We’re so glad that someone PUT that plant in our garden.

If I’m not making any sense it’s because you’re the lucky one who hasn’t had a festering pumpkin plant plopped in the middle of your garden. If I am making sense, it’s because you’re feasting on pumpkin pie.

Lastly: today is my last hurrah as a 26 year old. As my daughter said as she raised her plastic princess cup filled with Kool-Aid this morning (and I’m not making this up), “to LIFE!”

My husband has amazing hair. It’s my favorite thing about him. When he asked me to borrow my mother’s hair clippers from her so he could buzz it all off I told him rather unkindly that if he wanted to get rid of his hair, I would take NO part. I told him I would not help borrow, and I hoped it would hold him off for a few months at least (because he REALLY hates asking to borrow things).
I underestimated him.

My kids stood by his side the entire time.
“Are you going to get the hair off your armpits?” My daughter asked.
“Why did you not get the hair off your nibbles?” My son asked (nibbles meaning, um, chest).
By the way, the day my husband gets rid of his chest hair is the day I’m moving permanently to the couch. Men OUGHT to have chest hair. Isn’t it in the Bible somewhere?
Anyway, at least hair grows back. But to get rid of what I love most about that man’s physicality just DAYS before my birthday?!?!
There’s only one word for it: cruelty.