What Went On

I’m physically back from my social media break. I gotta say: life without facebook is decidedly happier. I’m going to set some much-needed boundaries with how I use it and WHEN I use it.

The last few weeks have been filled with yoga, vitamins, meditating, eating and crafting. Toward the end of my break, Grandpa Max passed away unexpectedly. My yoga wavered, but I carried on. At his funeral, I gave my Granddad a big hug. A few days later, Dad called at 6 am (are those calls ever good calls?) to let me know that Granddad had also passed away unexpectedly. At that point, something snapped inside of me. I haven’t been able to get my brain back. I haven’t done yoga in 8 days. And I’m eating whatever is close and easy. Hardly a recipe for health -my stomach issues aren’t loving me for it.

So I’m back. In a way. I’m sure as time goes on, my mind will slowly kick back into gear. It would help if people would quit asking hard questions like, “What’s for dinner?”

While I was away, I did a lot of reading about health. My health has been so shaky and weird… I want to get it sorted out and I want to do it wisely. I made good progress, incorporating vitamins, chia seeds, protein, and meditation to minimize stress. I also dialed down my sugar intake, though I didn’t take it away completely. I made meatless enchiladas with black beans, corn and butternut squash. I juiced a lot of green veggies. I found myself drawn more and more into the kitchen -it’s my favorite room in the house. It’s my artist’s studio, my chemist lab. It’s where I put things together and watch to see what happens.
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We feasted on Eggplant Parm -my Grandma’s most-requested dish. It’s vegetarian and delicious. Though I learned that hard way that if you’re going to eat at Grandma’s do NOT let Grandpa babysit the dolly. He will fall asleep. Boy howdy, if there was a Babydoll Protective Service…
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I tried sauerkraut for the first time and absolutely loved it -my Granny made it herself, and I’ve got to figure out how she does it!
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We stuffed our traditional pumpkin! Lacy set the table for the pumpkin meal.
“What should I do?” She asked. This is a new thing she does where she doesn’t trust her cute little gut like she used to.
“I trust you to do whatever,” I said.
“Mom!” She lit up, “THANK YOU!”
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She’s losing confidence these days because she’s been burned. I mean literally. She once pulled some cookies out of the oven and slightly burned herself and since REFUSED to get anything out of the oven. A few weeks ago, she asked to make brownies and I said, “Sure, but you have to go through the WHOLE process. You have to get them out.”
I’m happy to report that she DID. After crying for over 15 minutes (we left the oven door open during this time to prevent burning). She wasn’t the only one crying. Trent soon lost his cool and burst into tears, shouting, “DO NOT LET MY BROWNIES BURN, LACE. DON’T YOU DARE.” And then Alice joined in because she was thoroughly and completely freaked out.
I left the room to escape the bargaining going on.
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What a brave girl! She doubled up on hot pads. And you know what? She’s pulled a few more things out of the oven since then. It turns out, she CAN do scary things!
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Last night, I gave her a little gift I’d had lying around. I said, “I just want you to know that I notice how much you help and what a good big sister you are. I see you, and I appreciate how hard you work to help and everything you do.”
She hugged me tight and looked up at me with her big, hazel eyes, “Mom, I always thought it would just be me, you and Dad. But then those other two party-poopers came around.”
Devastation Station, people.
She SAYS that, but she also made a bow for her brother (probably because she felt bad about deliberately breaking the one Uncle Mike made for him?) and spent hours outside playing with him:
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And this happened last week:
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Just last night, she dressed Alice up in heels and lipstick and they danced all over the house. So she says “party poopers” but she doesn’t walk the walk.
Lacy isn’t the only one putting make-up on Alice. Alice has been putting make-up on Alice.
“I’m just a kitty now!”
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For Halloween, I bought some face make-up and that was IT. We made several costumes with whatever else we had on hand. Everyone was happy. We made our traditional “carnival apples” with caramel and white chocolate. We watched movies and ate too much sugar.
And scared people.
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We simplified our pumpkin carving. Last year we bought one of those fancy kits the rich people buy, so our entitled children were confused this year.
“What about pirates and Batman and princesses?”
We told them we had a new, free kind of pumpkin carving kit and handed them a spoon. Dad helped with the knife. The results were retro, am I right?
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Alice doesn’t actually need a reason to dress up. Dressing up is what she does daily. Also fit throwing.
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I call that one, “Diva in Distress.”

Although she dresses up, we have this very ironic problem: we can’t actually KEEP HER DRESSED. We will NEVER forget the time she undressed and crawled into the sink to bathe herself and it FLOODED the kitchen. I was down the hall, people. I was just DOWN THE HALL. But our kitchen slopes, and it only took a few minutes.
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Our pantry is now clean. Very clean. My piano is also very clean now because I went to the bathroom once and Alice did her Alice-est to NEVER LET ME FORGET THAT GOING TO THE BATHROOM IS A PUNISHABLE OFFENCE.
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Good thing I’m flexible. I’m only bringing that up so I can tell you how flexible I am now. After doing a few weeks of consistent yoga (minus the last 8 days where I counted “getting up” as a pretty big stretch) I found victory in this:
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I can grab my foot without bending my long leg for the first time since 4th grade. Miracles.

Also? It snowed.
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That -minus the beautiful funerals -brings us up to date. So I’ll see you after Thanksgiving, okay?