Not Enough Hours In the Day

This week = insanity.

That is all.

Book List

I'm currently reading:

The boys are enjoying:

What are you reading?

A New 'Do

Phoebe loves having her hair brushed and washed. But she hates having anything else done to it. Hair clips are immediately pulled out, headbands pulled off, and sweatshirt hoods yanked from their perch.

I've recently made several attempts at a ponytail. She is a wiggly girl and gets quite angry if you try to restrict her mobility. But today, I was successful. She was distracted by her coloring book, so I swooped in. She even left the ponytail in for an hour.

I think she would make a darling Cindy Lou Who, don't you?

Pumpkin Patch

Double Dipping

All day yesterday I thought about my writing assignment. Topic ideas would float through my brain as I went about my business. But I never made time to sit at the computer and write. Since the day was full of other activities, I decided I would write after bedtime.

As we were brushing teeth and putting pajamas on the kids, I mentioned to Bryan that I was missing an MBASA activity that night. He asked what it was. Oh, I told him, something about emotional health for women. He stopped what he was doing and looked at me. "I think you should go to that. It could be really helpful."

Bryan knows me well enough to understand that I have my own kind of crazy that comes out sometimes. I think everyone does. That's why I took his prompt to go to the activity as a helpful suggestion, not as a dig. I threw myself together and made the trek down to BYU. The evening was helpful; I'm glad I went.

But all that time I had set aside for writing? Gone. I got home close to eleven at night, both body and brain tired from the day. My internal battle was this: do I submit something I've already written so that I make the deadline, or do I write something new and miss the deadline completely?

I did a little bit of both.

I took this post about choosing Phoebe's name and cleaned it up. Editing past work is a funny thing. When I look at something I've written previously my brain catches all these mistakes that it missed before. Or I realize, as I did last night, that I use filler words. Many, many filler words. Most of what I did was getting rid of superfluous words and changing descriptions so I showed more than I told.

I emailed it off at one-thirty this morning, thus missing the deadline by an hour-and a-half. But, at least it was waiting for everyone when they woke-up this morning.

We're meeting next week to give feedback to each other. I'll wait to post my revised version until after I hear their thoughts. They may have insights I had missed. Or maybe I'll end up keeping it just as it is.

Writer's Block

I went to my first meeting of the MBASA writers group a few weeks ago. I got lost looking for the address and walked in a few minutes late. Introductions had already begun. Among other things, we were to say why we wanted to be in the group.

A few people were poets and songwriters. One loved journaling and family history. Another wanted to write a children's book. Two had written novels.

I was feeling slightly flustered from walking in late. When my turn came I said that I loved to write and that I'd been writing this blog almost every weekday for more than two-and-a-half years. I don't remember what else I said, but it was enough that when I got in my car after the meeting was over I was hit with an awful thought, "I've oversold myself. There was too much hype. They're going to expect something fantastic."

Cue stress.

Last week at the MBASA book club someone told me they were really looking forward to reading my writing. I'm sure she was trying to be sweet, but it did not ease my nerves.

My first assignment is due today (well tomorrow since I'm writing this on Tuesday night). I'm supposed to turn in something written in the style of a memoir. I was the one that suggested that for our first task. We're all used to writing in journals, I said, it should be easy.

And now I sit, computer on my lap, not an idea in my head, seriously considering submitting a past post from the blog. Except I'm pretty sure that would be cheating, so I won't really do it.

Should I write something light and funny? Something from deep in my soul? A huge, life-altering event? A mundane moment?

It has to be sent to the members of the group sometime on October 5. That means I have until midnight, right?

Letting Off Some Steam

I did it! I conquered my fears!

I used my pressure cooker!

Bryan and I have decided that during graduate school beans and rice will be an integral part of our diet. I cooked my first MBA pot of beans two weeks ago. They tasted great, but even after twelve hours of soaking and three hours of cooking, they were kind of hard. Bryan asked a friend of his from Brazil how to get the beans to the right level of mushiness. His answer? The pressure cooker.

So this week I read a bunch of bean recipes online and decided I just had to jump in and do it. My pressure cooker had been in the cupboard for so long that it was covered in dust. After washing it and rereading the directions twice, I started throwing in the ingredients. I made sure I stayed nearby as the beans cooked (which was made possible by the boys creating Halloween decorations quietly at the table) and listened to the gentle rocking of the pressure gauge. It was tricky getting the fire at just the right height so that the gauge rocked, but didn't threaten lift-off.

Bryan made a huge deal out of the fact that I made beans in the pressure cooker. It was sweet. I think it's both funny and a little sad that it's taken me ten years to finally cook Brazilian food. My Portuguese-speaking husband is quite pleased.

And the best part? I didn't blow-up my kitchen! I didn't even get beans on the ceiling.

Homebody

Each night after the kids go to sleep I have a list of things I need to accomplish. I thought I was ahead of the game tonight. The most time consuming thing, making bread, was practically done. All I had to do was punch down the dough, put it in bread pans, and bake it. Other than that I needed to do my post for the day and fold three loads of laundry.

I decided to fold first. I was afraid that if I sat down at the computer to write that I wouldn't get up again.

And so I began to fold.

About halfway through the pile in front of me I noticed I was moving slowly. Really slowly. And my jaw hurt. And my shoulders. And my head. And my back. Instead of taking an hour, my job for the night took two.

I finally ambled in and scrounged some acetaminophen off of Bryan (the big bottle was in our bathroom, which connects to our bedroom, and I didn't want to wake up Phoebe) and tried to put away the finally-folded clothes.

What I couldn't figure out was why I hurt so much. I had a good night sleep last night, so it wasn't from being tired. Other than a walk to Peter's school and a few times up and down our stairs I hadn't done anything particularly strenuous.

And then it hit me: we went to the library today.

Cooper loves to run away from me, especially at the library. Peter often does it too. That means that in order to leave with some shred of sanity intact (not to mention with books and all of my children) I have to be able to grab both boys at a moment's notice. Carrying Phoebe in the Baby Bjorn has been my trick to making this happen. But my sweet girl is getting bigger. I've known that our time with the Bjorn was limited, but I'm afraid she may have outgrown it. At least that's what the majority of my muscles are screaming at me right now.

And that means I'll never be able to go anywhere with all three children ever again.

Jammin'

This week I took some of these

and made a batch of this

and it's delicious.

Peaches and Cream