365 Days, 365 Blogs...

...or something along those lines.

A friend of mine recently started what promises to be a really good blog (go visit her at http://becauseangiesaysso.blogspot.com), and that reminded me that it had been a while since I'd blogged.  I see that "a while" means about seven months.

What started out as my attempt at being the perfect crafty housewife devolved into some venting, and then died the usual death that half-assed blogs often die.

But for some reason, I've been feeling the tickle to write again. Of course, the problem is that I never know what to write about.  But the interwebs being what they are, of course there exists a 365 day blog challenge.  It appears to have been written by a 14 year old girl, but it's a start.

Day 1: hopes, dreams, and plans for the next 365 days with a picture of yourself.

I don't have a picture of myself. I mean, I do somewhere, or it would be easy to just use photobooth and snap one. But that's really been the issue, the picture thing.  We had family pictures taken a couple of weeks ago. That sounds like the usual suburban yuppie awesomeness, and yes, we did them in a park and there are probably some backlit crazy ones with leaves and stuff.  But it was a little more significant than that for me. I've lost fifty pounds. I'm halfway to my goal, but I've lost fifty pounds. And that was enough to 1) get me a sweater in the regular girls' section and 2) give me the confidence to pay someone to take my picture.  So when we get the pictures, I'll post one. 

Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days.  Well, let's see.  I'd like to be done losing weight, and I'd like to be done because I hit my goal and not because I gave up and ripped the band out or something. I'll have my masters degree by then.  Caroline will have started kindergarten (holy shit?). I will be closer to 40 than I am to 30...I guess technically I already am, so cross that off the list.  I wish we could take a vacation to the beach. I wish we could refinish the floors in our house. 

And I'd really love it if this were in my driveway.

That's gonna take some work.

CALL ME A SLUT.

Yeah, so Rush Limbaugh called a graduate student a slut because she takes birth control.  And today he finally issued a bullshit apology that you can find on his website.  I'm not gonna link to it, because I don't really want anyone to ever look at his website ever.  I'm sure it'll be quoted on CNN or somewhere else so that you don't have to have that in your web history.

Is your wife on the pill, Rush?  I mean your fourth wife, the one you have now.  You've been married FOUR TIMES and never had a child?  I'm going with three options here:
  1) You're shooting blanks.
  2) You're the luckiest son-of-a-bitch on the planet.
    2a) Rhythm method really works!
  3) YOUR WIVES USED THE PILL.  ZOMG AMAZEBALLS

But then I guess that would be okay, because presumably, they didn't have sex until they were married to you, right?  And certainly, you wouldn't marry someone who had fibroid tumors of the uterus, endometriosis, or had amenorrhea (that's NO PERIOD, Rush) because their reproductive system was damaged by chemotherapy.  Because, you see, Rush, the birth control pill isn't just prescribed so that I can go fuck anything with a dick.  The birth control pill can actually HELP some people get pregnant by giving them a period--that's part of how we make babies, Rush.

And really, your issue isn't with the idea that sluts--er, I mean, women, use the pill.  It's that you don't want to have to pay for it...or if you do, you want to see a video of me having sex if you do.  Excellent.  I'd be glad to oblige.  But since we're all about fair, I'd like to see a video of every man in America who's using Viagra having sex.  Oh wait--NO I FUCKING WOULDN'T.


I've seen people say in the last couple of days that giving him this much attention only fuels the fire, etc.  You know what?  That's bullshit.  This guy is a misogynist asshole who is perpetuating negative stereotypes of women in order to bolster the self-esteem of his ignorant fanbase and line his own pockets with advertising dollars from companies that seek to exploit that fanbase.  ENOUGH.

Come call me a slut, Limbaugh--call me one to my face, you coward.  You're no better than a wife-beater:  you only attack people who are weaker than you, because it makes you feel better about yourself and because you think you deserve to.

Call me a slut to my face, Rush.  Come right to Duluth--hell, I'll come to you--and call me a slut.  Call me a slut because I think that I deserve (and my daughter deserves, and my mother, and my friends, and your wife deserve) to have free access to a significant medication--no, Rush, not oxycontin.  Call me a slut because I refuse to be labelled by a middle-aged white Republican who I can GUARANTEE has had sex with more people that I have in my life (I'm at two, Rush--you've got to be at at least 4 if you slept with all your wives...got any others?  Are they sluts too?).

Call me a slut because I have a vagina and I'm not afraid to protect it in the way I believe is right.  Call me a slut because there have been times that I couldn't afford groceries without a credit card and by God, I decided that I needed my pills and borrowed $25 from my parents so I could get them (oh, and by the way, I worked full time and had my own house.  Put away your welfare card.).

Call me a slut because I don't buy your bullshit apology for one hot second, and because I'm quite certain that had you not started to lose advertisers, you'd have been on air on Monday spouting the same hate and bullshit that you've spouted since day one of your sad excuse for a program.

Call me a slut because now that you've opened your ignorant, hateful mouth, I have been forced to become one of the "feminazis" that you so love to degrade.

Call me a slut, Rush.  Right here, to this face.  And that one, and that one, and that one.  And all the rich ones and poor ones and ugly ones and beautiful ones and healthy ones and sick ones.  Check the census, Rush.  There are more of us than there are of you.  Perhaps instead of labelling those of us who choose to control our own bodies "sluts", you might want to thank the sluts in your life for everything they contribute to your life every fucking day.

And then, after you've done that, after you've called all of us sluts and made yourself and your listener base that you so love to exploit feel better about yourselves, please disregard everything I've said.  Because really, I didn't mean it as a personal attack.

I AM A SLUT.  Many of my friends are sluts.  And I hope that more women become sluts in the near future because they will be able to afford to.  SLUTS, UNITE!

Tick, tock.

My alarm clock broke yesterday.

I bought that alarm clock when I moved to Minneapolis in 2001.  It was the height of style at the time—Target’s first foray into bringing famous designers in-house—and I thought it was the coolest thing on Earth.  I had the matching Michael Graves phone and answering machine, too.  Logged a lot of hours on that phone, as it turned out, homesick as hell.  The phone and the answering machine (remember those?  Lord) are gone, but the alarm clock was—wait for it—still ticking.  Until yesterday.

It got me thinking about what’s happened in my life since 2001.  I’ve moved five times since then.  I’ve owned two houses, one by myself and one with my husband, who I also acquired in the last ten years.  I’ve lived alone, alone with a dog, with my parents, with roommates, with my husband, with my husband and two dogs, and finally now with my very own family. 

I’ve had four jobs.  One broke my bank account; one broke my spirit; one broke my brain; the one I have now rebuilt two out of the three.  (We’re still poor.)  I’ve started graduate school twice and continued it once.  I’ve had five cars, I think, though the only one that I truly mourn is the Volkswagen…oh, convertible of mine, I will have you again someday…

I have 452 Facebook friends.  Just eyeballing it, it appears that half of those are people I met in the last ten years.  That other half is full of people that I haven’t seen in the last ten years, and in some cases more.  That’s a long time.

Ten years ago, I just had me.  Now, I have me, and my husband and a daughter, for God’s sake.  (In fact, I suspect the demise of my alarm clock may have had something to do with said daughter, but I digress.)  I have other kids, too, from the newspaper and the marching band and alumni-kids truly all over the world.  And now they’re getting married and having kids, too. 

So what have I learned in ten years?  Sometimes I think not much.  Sometimes I think a lot.  I learned how to use a circular saw.  I learned how to knit.  I learned to take life just a little less seriously.  I learned how to love so much that it hurts, and I learned how to love just a little bit more until it feels good again.  I learned about joy, when I introduced myself to my dearest baby girl, and I learned about grief, when I lost my dearest grandmother.  I learned about falling down and getting back up and falling down and getting back up and telling the world to go to hell and then asking it not to.  I learned, I learned, I learned. 

It has been a long and short ten years.  I don’t know if the next alarm clock will last ten more, but I hope that it does.  I hope I do, too, and ten years beyond that and beyond that and beyond that more and more.  Life is too short.  I want to have much, much more of it than I will.

My dirty little secret

I'm just going to come out with it, right here, right now.

I am PROFOUNDLY HORRIBLE at housework.

I know everyone says their house is messy.  Blah, blah, blah.  We don't live in a Hoarders house with rampant rodents or holes in the wall or anything, but I absolutely do not vacuum enough--and by enough I mean "more than once a month".  You know what's completely objectionable about this?
1) We have two dogs.
2)  I have these.  Both of them.

Roomba 560 and Dyson DC07.  Both designed for pet hair.  Meaning that it's not like I'm cleaning the carpet with my grandma's Electrolux.  So one would think that at least the floors would be clean, right?  No.  Nope. Not at all.  Hello, balls of hair floating by.  Hello, touch no surfaces in the house if you're wearing black.  

The kitchen and the bathroom.  The kitchen and the bathroom both have vinyl flooring.  So in combination with the two machines above, I have this steam cleaner.  Add water, plug in, mop, throw cleaning pad in washer.  Beautiful!  Easy!  Never happens!

Dishes get done.  The toilet gets cleaned--though I will say that the discovery of those bleach toilet tablet things you put in the tank probably was a significant one.  The bathtub?  Weeelllll...yeah, I clean it.  But not as often as you clean yours.

Laundry?  BAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  I like to think of my laundry schedule as a zero equation:  when I have zero clean underwear, it's time to do laundry.  I'm also responsible for Caroline's laundry.  Let's just say it's a good thing her grandmother likes to shop.  And Dan?  He does his own.  (But that's because he's all weird about how his t-shirts are folded--and he used to be equally weird about folding his boxers.  Who the hell folds their boxers?  He got over that, but he's still weird about the t-shirts, so he just does his own.)  

Dusting?  Um.  Well, sure, when Dan's parents visit for Caroline's birthday.  Oh, and if I host Thanksgiving.  Or if someone new is coming to visit...which brings me to another point.  I have always wanted to have people come over for dinner and drinks.  I love to cook, I love to entertain.  But I would be completely embarrassed to have someone over to this mess on most days.  I'm sure it's not as bad as it seems.  Our housesitter characterized our house as "cute and crafty--and in need of vacuuming".  Heh.  That seems not so bad.  But it feels...dirty to me.

And this is all just not acceptable.  I have always known this about myself.  When I lived alone (or with a paying roommate), I kept the house pretty clean.  But for some reason, I don't get it done anymore.  I really think I'm lazy.  I mean that sincerely.  I work fulltime, but so what?  So does everyone else.  I'm taking courses, but so what?  That means I don't have 15 minutes to clean every day?  Really?  There's just no excuse.

Lest you think "Where is your husband in all this?", let me assure you that he's doing his fair share.  I'm pretty sure he vacuums more often than I do.  The bathroom and dishes are usually mine, but he definitely helps out.  And like I said, he does his own laundry. This is about doing what I should be doing, not doing more than I should.

So starting this week, the week that I sort-of go back to work for the school year, I am trying to make myself, and the dog hair tumbleweeds under the TV stand,  a promise:  I will clean 15 minutes a day, every day.  I will make sure the dishes are in the dishwasher and off the counter every night before bed.  That Fly Lady stuff is probably a good idea--I will set the timer (which is in reality Caroline's time-out timer, which I think is TOTALLY appropriate) and clean until it tells me to stop.  

Oh.  And I'm going to see if Caroline's tall enough to push the Dyson.  She might as well form good habits early, right?  

Shut it down. Shut. It. Down.

I have crafty stuff that I could take pictures of, but I'm feeling philosophical.

We aren't looking for a new house.  In fact, we both agree that we're just now getting this one to where we want it.  We bought this house 5 years ago in January, and we've slowly but steadily fixed it up and tried to make it exactly what we need without going into debtors' prison.  And though I still think that I might want to start a class action lawsuit against HGTV for fraud--they make remodeling look so...fun--we've been able to accomplish a lot.

Our house isn't big.  It certainly isn't new.  And it certainly doesn't have bells and whistles and a fancy driveway. I haven't had overhead lights in my kitchen for coming up on 3 years now.   A breaker blew, we replaced it, we replaced switches and outlets, and nope.  I cook using a floor lamp, because we're both afraid an electrician is going to come in and tell us we're hosed.  This house is 115 years old--that's 115 years of idiots like us cobbling together what we could.

But I enjoy real estate.  And of course I dream.  Witness my post about the Dream Farm.  We've always said we wanted a house in the country, something with some acreage.  And you know, 18 bedrooms and 20 bathrooms.  Your basic McMansion.  The New American Dream.  Nothing to fix, everyone with their own little wing.  PERFECT.  Then my life would be perfect.  PERFECT.  So we drove around, looked at some lots, dug into blueprints...it was going to be PERFECT.

And then I saw this.

Doesn't look like much, does it?  Broken siding, junked up rocky landscaping, brown roof...it screams "money pit", right?  But hey.  The price is right and it has lots of acreage.  Why not drive by?

I cried on the front porch.

No McMansion. Less square feet than the house we live in now.   No perfectly manicured yard.  In fact, I googled the address and found that one of the former owners was citing for public nuisance, because of all the junk left in the yard.  That's all gone now, because the house was foreclosed on and so I'm sure the bank moved it all.  But I cried, on the front porch.  Because I could see it.  This was a place that could be our home.  Not just this house, which we love dearly and will always have the front door we brought Caroline home through.  It will always be the first house we owned.  

This little house, in the middle of nowhere with its four sad outbuildings and broken glass in the driveway.  This little house with its eviction notice on the door.  This little house, where I cried on the front porch.

So, maybe we are looking for a house.  Or maybe we're looking for a home.  The PERFECT one.  

A more than reasonable facsimile

Occasionally, for the public good, I find that it's important to share significant information that I have come across.  And in this case, I think you will agree that this information is nearly essential to living a happier, more fulfilled life.

When we go to New York, one of the places we have to hit is Brownie's drive in in Wilson.  They serve Perry's ice cream, which is one of those regional brands that ought to be worldwide but then again oughtn't, so that it's sort of a secret.  Every year they have a new flavor that makes me want to wallow in a tub filled with their ice-creamy goodness, and this year they most definitely did not disappoint.

Behold:  Perry's Red Velvet ice cream.  Red velvet flavored ice cream, with cream cheese flavored swirl.  

Now, I know what you're thinking.  "Okay, okay, enough with the trendy red velvet crap, yeah, it's probably good, but it's 10 times better in your head because you think you're being hip."  

I say to you:  Shut it.

I've been to Florence, okay?  I've had freaking gelato that made me want to provide Mario behind the counter with whatever services he might have needed at the time.  I've had Blizzards and Flurries and Gotta Have Its and A&W root beer floats.  I've had Haagen Dazs and Ben & Jerry's and the flavor of the year at the UW dairy school.  I'm from WISCONSIN.  I don't just like ice cream--I UNDERSTAND ice cream.

And that was the BEST ICE CREAM I HAVE EVER HAD.  Period.  End of story.

But carrying ice cream home from New York is just not practical.  Though I did explore the option of dry ice, I decided it was just best left in Wilson, at Brownies and all the other great drive-ins, and in my sweet memory of my short-lived but passionate affair with Perry's Red Velvet and a plastic spoon.

So imagine my joy when I saw this.

Enough joy, as it turned out, for me to drive 30 minutes to the nearest store that I knew would have it in stock.  (Please ignore Duff on the container.  We'll discuss bad cooking/reality shows later, and how I hate all these cakebaking series that are all over.)  

Since then, I've been made aware that Ben & Jerry also make a red velvet ice cream.  I'm sure it's lovely.  But I can't offer any comment on it, and really, I think my red velvet ice cream search is going to be over before it begins.  It's like when you really, really, really want a diet Coke and all you can get is diet Pepsi.  Sure, if I'm dying of thirst, it'll work, and I won't die from it, but would I rather have actual soda instead of flat brown water?  Yes yes I would.

And you know, for $3.89 and the price of gas, it wasn't bad.  It's not Perry's.  Sweet Jesus and the patron saint of ice cream, that's for sure.  But it's pretty darn good.  And so I give it the Reasonable Facsimile Stamp of Approval for coming close enough to do in a pinch. 

Home is the sailor...

...home from the sea, or at least Lake Ontario.  We had a beautiful vacation and a great visit with family.  I also found my dream farm:

but that's a story for another day.

The one big goal I had on our trip was to visit a big flea market.  Major fail.  The only one we found--the one that's supposed to be the biggest one in WNY, ZOMGAMAZEBALLS--was only one building, just an antique mall.  To be fair, the flea market was supposed to be on Sunday, but it was a Saturday!  Who doesn't have a flea market open on Fourth of July Saturday?!  Oh well.  Maybe next time.

So instead I had to content myself with some Goodwill shopping.

Found these little beauties for $2 each at Goodwill in Lockport.  I didn't know I was looking for sconces, but as soon as I saw them I knew that they needed to live in my dining room. 

I gave them the ol' weathered white treatment, but this time with a twist.  After giving them a little sanding, I mixed metallic silver acrylic paint with the regular white acrylic.  The ratio here was about 5:1 in favor of white.  I didn't want silver sconces, but I thought adding just that little bit of greyish silver sparkle would set off the grey in the dining room.  I put one sloppy coat on, intending to put on a second, but the first coat worked out perfectly.  The sparkle gives them a soft sheen that catches the light in the dining room beautifully, and no sanding required to weather at the end.  Win!

Next, to do something with these little candlestick holders.  I found two purplish beeswax candles at Goodwill for $0.50 that I intended to use, but after Shiny Paint Job I decided that they still looked pretty blah.  Of course, we're familiar with my Mason jar fetish, so obviously, these demanded some jar action as well, right?  Time for a trip to Michaels...

And (as Caroline would say), "Preeeeee-senting...JARS!"  Votive size canning jars.  Perfect.  (Sorry about the flash glare.  I need a new camera.) 

I did get another sweet deal at Goodwill that will be the subject of some future attention.  But for now, I gotta get back to real life and start studying for my classes this quarter.  Ack.  Furthering my education had better not interfere with my blog reading and/or craft creating and/or my recent addiction to Angry Birds (dude, I got a Nook Color and all I can say is, so worth the money and not just for the stupid game). 

Happy July.  Where does the time go?