eggs

almost every morning we have hardboiled eggs for breakfast... the ease of preparation of a hot meal does not escape me, and I lean like nobody's business on it... It used to be I just cooked four, for J and C and sometimes me...now we're up to six as the kids both eat real food, J grabs two to take with him and I even make it a point to feed myself.... when I remember...

This morning I was standing at the sink, peeling the eggs and I was on some sort of slowmotion reel and able to actually watch my fingers doing the work, the rythmn of the rolling smashing eggbreak, the skim of my finger between the shell and the skinfilm... the smoothness of the naked egg... the growing pile of blissbrown shell in the bowl below me..

mindfulness and morning task.

all good.

pathetic oh pathetic

i haven 't been able to think of a thing to write, all day. i've tried. it hasn't been a bad or a good day, just somewhat indifferent... i threw away all the makeup i own, because- with the exception of some marykay that I've gotten from my favorite marykay lady- the last time i bought makeup i was not even married. that would make it roughly 8 years old, 9 if you assume like i do that i didn't buy it right before i got married either. so we are cleaning house. I've packed up all the diaper creams and nipple creams and put them aside, we'll see about that, we'll see.

I wish i could tell you it felt lighter in here, but no. just a house without makeup and the eyes without strain... we're working on it... working.

well. hell's bells a jinglin'

well. we didn't get the grant that would help us pay off our gargantuan studentloan debt. poor us. it is incredible how easy it is to complain about not being given something that never existed for us, right? a gift? only in our imaginations did it exist... and it was a powerful source for hope. POWERFUL.

but, i hear, there are many other such powers. and i am not referring to monetary funds. . .

we'll have to stay here in our beautiful little house for another year or so at the very least. have you noticed the colors in the photos? my god, this place is lit from within. and without and within

andwithout and within...

photos by four year old C.

Shirley (today i woke at 5 am... on purpose)

a haircut. a very drastic haircut. still somewhat on the fence about it, but i suppose it is better than crying all the time on the inside. right? (i am giggling sarcastically at my own melodrama)... and...

surely you remember this fella i made for a craft swap. Well.

I got a package in the mail from little t Jane... and look, we're in slightly different ballparks, but look...

its a stamp, a stamp inspired by an olympically-friendly meomi character. and I put it on my pajamas this morning... how damn cool is that? how do I live with myself? it was just awesome to get a package in the mail, and it isn't the only missive I got in the mail this week so I feel very cool with myself and my mailman this week. i think he loves me. really, i do...

heh.

I'm going to get some st. john's wort today, in case you wonder, just to suss out if there is more here than situational depression.

Lazy Git

I've kept a red bottle of some sort of drinkmix, leftover from one of Russell's summer visits, forever. Its tiny, its color is fabulous and I've always wanted to see just what I see up there. . . a red glimmer sun spot. a cardinal. My husband pointed it out the other day and I ran to get the camera.

and it made me notice the wishbone, which has since been snapped ... the four year old won his wish... i imagine it had something to do with a batman cave...

my challenge today was to find a wonderful photo and write about it because I am downright weepy and melancholic and just overly frustrated with the familiarity of the mood. I feel like there is a bag of juju fish somewhere in my mansion calling me out.... think 'the haunting' or some other scary movie where something bad is lurking, and making strange noises.... oh brother.

the weather today is grey, but it has literally been glorious all week. GLORY-ous. and I've been in a non-hormonally induced depression/cave. I don't think I need medication, I think I need to figure out what it is that I want and how to get myself headed there. I need to go see Carol, chakra Carol... and get her to shake my energy up a bit, maybe that'll make it easier to see my way out of this fogfug. I would like a window of quietude, my kids are wonderful and frankly magical on a regular basis, but they also hit me and call me stupid, so its a hard balance to strike... today I am unimpressed with my lassitude.

Control, again.

thats a bowling pin, knocked.

I have really been thinking a lot about my own control issues lately... a lot. too much? too much.

But my four year old has started to sleep in his own bed - after 2 years. we've had four days of sleeping in peace, without a body between us for the bulk of the night... he still joins us around three and stays for a little nap and then goes back to his bed around 5 or 6. its just wild. the change made all on his own for the sake of a robot comforter and a chance at a batman item. or seven.

So maybe I'm crazed but it doesn't seem like the bribery has ever worked before... the pretty sheet idea has been tried as well... mattresses on the floor, lights on, lights off, lights in cool trucks, etc. .. all tried. all of it, over and over. but now, somehow and suddenly, the kid is ready. and off he goes, lies down in his bed, and puts himself to sleep after playing with his 'protectors' for a while.

I can't believe how little I have to do with all of this. with the exception of actually having grown him in my belly. hello? Why do I drive myself insane when all I really have to do is throw some cereal on the floor and walk away? these kids are almost entirely self-sufficient if you don't include inane things like laundry and clean dishware. is that all i am really doing here?! holy . . .

and then, i think to myself.. who the hell cares? what am I comparing myself to anyhow? I'm the only damn one they have today, so I am still the MOTHA of them all.... and so maybe I need to let them run around more and get more dirty and even sometimes, stay dirty all day without flinching everytime I look at them. I don't want to be the mom that I don't like. dig it?

Most of the time when my little bitchvoice takes charge and I cannot stand myself, it is because I am stressing over some 'rule' that I have made and that I am trying to 'stick' to. um, like this...

No climbing over the fence. ever, EVerrrr...

The path to the bathroom has to be clear before we go to bed.... for safety's sake.

(my god, how many times can a woman fall on a lego? roll on a matchbox, crash into boots?)

Don't bring home your work.

Don't answer the phone during a conversation.

There are definitely days when I hate the sound of my voice, the constancy with which i seem to be haranguing someone to do something and the inefficiency of it all.

why can't i just let it goddamned go?

aye?

Control

What is this? illusion that we've got to control all the elements of our lives, our kids' lives, our spouses? if i let my kid play with the kids across the street and don't peer out the window every four minutes, or is it three? that I will be personally responsible for the drama that occurs? whatever it may be...

what control do we have over our kids' happiness, in the end? are they going to break bones, get heartbroken, fight with us, have 'bad' friends?

yes, they are.

THEY ARE.

my god, what have we gotten ourselves into?

the stupid and yet brilliant newyorktimes articles on mommy blogging have set off a wild avalanche of stupid comments and an equally wild avalanche of smart mothers actually (in a wicked meta-meta way) commenting on the commenters.

truly wicked to look at, but somewhat dizzying - so i have looked away.

-in about 3 minutes, i can get a tremendous amount done, if i am focused. it is astounding .

and happens about once a month, and it was not today. no, it wasn't . but i played outside with my kids for hours, before i made dinner for my parents and my kids. again, meta meta.

and my god, again, all of this will change, again, in a minute. AGAIN! damnit.

and again, and then... again. . .

Sun is on my shadow

I'm a big walking shadow these days... full of grim looks and despairing eyebrows...

I tried to buy a dress --on this day of my in-laws kidsitting... it was just like bathing suit shopping and I think I am in the middle ages, too old for the juniors and too young for the womens... and so I have noticed the skin beneath my chin. . .

it is probably time to jump off a bridge. the once/twice yearly despair binge hit while rocking the two year old to sleep last night. that bleak moment wherein one says 'its actually going to be like this forever, isn't it? '...

grim.

despairing.

headaches. baths in the middle of the day when the kids are awake and presumably okay...

and yet, what i have been living has not been so.

J and I took the boys to a ballet of Pippi this weekend. how damn cool was that? I was so proud of it, it kept me from the sugar all day Sunday. demon sugar. like crack for the stay at homer.

am i homer?

shit.

and i've been in the sun all day, found an ACTUAL quilting shop and actually drooled. i had to hide in the back room and giggle and wipe my eyes dry before I spent my 12 dollars on fabric.
then i got wendy's on the way home, more skin for the neck, i guess...
I am not feeling healthy, am not feeling spring, am looking at the sun and the crocuses and resenting them for their intrusion.
so there. take that. bathing suit shopping. neckfat. thirtysix in june. thirtysix. neckfat?!

today i am full of loathing...or would be if I could muster the passion for it...

its been raining for about a week here and everything has become a struggle. all of it. I am tired of the struggle of relationships, tired of children trying to sleep on my ear or in my nose. literally. I am considering moving out of my bedroom to give them more room. I'll move into the living room and just sprawl to my heart's content on the sofa. what is my heart's content? where the hell is it?
I am going to miss winter, although it may not even be gone, it is certainly in its death throes here. I love the certainty that I feel in keeping my kids warm, I am so certain that turtlenecks prevent colds that I would lay down my dignity and go on oprah to say so. . .
The darkness for dinner is warm and comforting, the food is bulky and nourishing in so many ways. The snow is fun and watchable in all its stages. I am going to miss it, even while spinning in the spring.
once it stops raining.
evidently, i am not the cool girl who digs dancing in the rain anymore. she is still there but hiding in the closet with all those clothes I have yet to pack up and haul out.
blagh.

Bountiful, Utah

I signed up to do this craft swap over on UrbanCraft with some pressure from HereattheHive and ended up trying to make some sort of representation of the Olympic mascot Quatchi. (as in a cute japanified SASQUATCH... i know, unbelievable... hehe) well, they are clearly cousins. right? I realized after I sent it that I had forgotten to make any referral to the Olympics. Oh hell, well its the actually fashion forward wilderness sasquatch who forgot to watch the Olympics that I made, i guess. Some of my upper Maine cousins look just like this. I swear.

ANYWHO. it was actually good to have a task unrelated to the babyquilt that is now in its 9th month of labor... seriously, i could have grown an entire person in the time it has taken me to STILL not be done...

so- i used all things from my grammie's stash, an old bag she gave me formed the body of the quasi-quatchi, old fabric (faaaabbbbricccckkk) made the lining, old buttons for the eyes, old binder for the 'handle' and yes, those teal things ? were earmuffs for the quatchi-inspired purse.

I had to send it out today to a woman in a town called Bountiful. really.

Its something that we miss here in New England, I think... All of our towns are so much a copy of wherever the first settlers were from, namewise or geographywise: New Bedford, New York, WestPort, Newport, Portland, Yarmouth, Dartmouth, the best I like is Fairhaven, which seems so familiar and welcoming, although the reality is not quite so lovely... or else we've gone native and live in Pawtucket, Narragansett, Montauk, etc... although I live near Providence, which has the same beginnings...

A name like Bountiful. what a good start. illustrious, hopeful, some pioneer with a bible planted his feet on the soil and felt the hand of God. . .

and his wife fed the baby in the wagon, harvested the berries by the side of the road and made preserves for the winter. . .

all those dreams and aspirations for the future. ah. I still have them, I still have them.

bountiful. abundant. fertile.

(no, i'm not..:)

but I am. you see?

you are too.

what i have decided... today anyhow.

this here, this right here... this is what I have made in the past two years. This writing, these photos, have kept me feeling like I am making something. I have created something. something outside of a to-do list, outside of sustenance for children and husbands... And that is what I have come up with in this internal debate about why to do it at all. In this past week wherein I have stopped looking to see 'who is reading' and spent a bit more time doing everything else in life, its been pretty nice... I've been using the things I've written about as jumping off points- they don't seem to be entirely self-sufficient entities all on their own, like those 'angel cards' of my teens... you flip one over and make it your thought for the day... say things like 'perserverence' and 'charity' and 'integrity' and so on... I loved them and Chakra Carol actually has them in her dr. room...

SO- i've been thinking about how Mother has been integrated into my self-identity (or at least, the process has begun in earnest) , how I do make lots and lots of things, how Humor is my baseline and how easy it is to forget to laugh...

I love intelligent people . and I know how little that has to do with time spent in school.

I love onions. still and always.

I love my body and the people who love my body. :)

I love fabric. soft fabric. I even like to say it... fabric. sounds german or swedish... yah?

I love my house and the colors it contains.


I care for people whom I have never met, genuinely. It is strange but true.

I love sleeping without children on my head, or nearby, or with no pee smell on the sheets, I love sleeping without vomit towels on the bed with me... I like sleeping for 10 minutes with the kids and then dropping their comatose little bodies somewhere else. . . ANYWHERE else.

and sometimes I even love the imperfectness of my perfect life. sometimes.

here me roar.

yesterday I was the 'duty mom' at C's preschool co-op. So, I made the snack and helped kids wash hands and lay on the floor and played blocks and it was alltogether the same as what I do every day except that there were 15 of them, and only one was alltogether mine... so it was wonderful. really. At the end of the morning, S. got sick. not mine. not vomit either, but that weepy, inconsolable bundle of wanting to cry and go to sleep that little kids get? you know that? little bit hot, not fevered but just not comfortable and certainly, not happy. It was the very end of the morning so his mother had already left to come to school so all the other kids went to play outside and I stayed in the quiet classroom to rock him and hold him and brush his forehead with my palm.

He curled up in the space between my legs and fell asleep.

When his mom got there I was all choked up because I hadn't realized how little it mattered that it wasn't my kid.... the level of mother that I have turned into was astonishing. and awe-some.

here I am , kate, knowing what to do with someone sick, comforting them, caring for them and getting worried/involved with their wellbeing. . . all this wit aside, I am a Mother. beat that archetype, baby. pun intended.

what i've been doing since I cannot obsess about bangladeshis...

fifty bucks if you can tell me what those are and make me laugh...

wordless wednesday.

sort of. . .

decisions decisions

My last post was all full of whine and need. It was substantial, expressed something real and worrisome to me and it has caused me to do a little bit of re-thinking. When I first started the blog-thing, I was doing it just to get the hair off my chest about my current life situation with womanhood and motherhood and the fabulous hellions that I am in charge of 'raising'... I wasn't concerned so much about who was going to read it or if I was preserving some sort of private space for myself or blaghblah. BUT lately, I have felt a pressure to write so that I can stay connected, so that someone 'out there' will know who I am on the inside... and I do have those people, there IS a community of women who read this who like me, REALLY like me. heh. There are two men who read it also, as far as I know, one is my husband and he has to- although he likes me, sometimes... and the other is a friend from nursery school who clearly, forgives anything.
But these women, you, what are we doing here? What is this the expression OF?
Are we writing as an exercise in writing? practice at clarity, how to express emotion/voice through type? Are we writing as a explanation to family and friends of our current lives- what we are sometimes living through with our children? our bodies? our husbands? mates? What of extension of personality- spreading the 'kate' around... ?
thats my name, kate... don't wear it out... :) its even better when you know the whole thing. I completely lucked out on the marriage/name game.
Are we looking for the fame we thought we had finally given up on? Am I Trying to be popular? now?
So- in defense against my lesser proclivities... I took the statcounter bar off my blog... I'm not going to check and see who has read my blog, from where and how many pages of my writing they read when they visited... I am going to read the comments I get and try and respond if I don't have my head in the laundry machine... and thats all. I am simplifying, reading my friend's blogs and knowing that they'll read my ramblings and comment every once in a while...
I'm also giving away all the clothes I haven't worn since before the babies. I don't need professional clothing and I am sure it doesn't fit anymore. I still have my favorite yellow silk pants that I got for my first interview when I was in my twenties. We are making decisions here, no more baggage, no more packing it up and moving it along...
just empty hangers, space.

obsessions- I NEED YOU...

I've now told everyone that I'm sexy, have a heart like a walnut (not true), make a mean sweetpotato black bean burrito, ignore my children with hope that they will be fine and that i am really, very funny.

now you know.

I also lack some serious reality-based thought processeeees.. and some spelling skill when it comes to the odd pluralizing or some things which switch from s to z when they get 'ing'ed.

I also check obsessively to see if anyone has read this thing. and I mean, obsessively. It freaks me out a little (lot) that I need contact so much during my days. It feels like junior high and someone has scorned me for wearing the wrong sneakers. Would I need this so much if I had a job outside the house or more time per day in which I weren't the one and only friend to a two year old boy? or a four year old boy? And I am not being funny here, it freaks me out how little I can get done sometimes because I am waiting to get a 'ping' on my pages. 'get done' is an awful phrase at this point in my life, but i am trying to maintain the house as well as raise these two kids and so there is a constant list, as there is for everyone else, i know. My husband says that since this is an authentic expression of myself here, the friends I am making are also authentic, because what you like, is in fact, me. But its all wacky, isn't it... the friends o'the internet line, so much less romantic than a pen pal but essentially the same - only dispersed and less personal, more 'modern', as if that were a neccessarily good thing. Where are you? What does it look like where you live? What do you look like? is it even important to know? What are your struggles- how did you get here? what are the things you leave out?

I'm actually thinking about re-reading that Garner book I loved so much earlier, for its quietude and peace amidst a storm... Aside from the Chronicles of Narnia (aslan, aslan, rah rah rah), anything Bronte, and Goodnight Moon, I can't think of the last thing I re-read...

I want to write a letter. with a pen. for pages and pages, and have the romance of waiting for a response. . .

sexy is as sexy does...

I've never had a serious problem with my body image. I don't think too much about it, never weigh myself unless I'm pregnant and don't look in the mirror unless I am brushing my teeth. I HAVE fluctuated between a size 12 and a size 4 and I'm now sort of hovering in the 8 range.... but I am downright sexy.



right.


on my insides, on good days, I am a venerable pin-up, regardless of what color corduroy I am sporting- or how much turtleneck action there is...
I learned this past year how little I am a pinup on the outside, and it threw me all out of wack. I was shocked! I think I gave up so long ago on being the 'put together' pretty girl that I have just given it ALL up, now. All I need is for my husband to want to get me naked... and he obliges. . .

I am much more comfortable being naked, when it comes to sexiness... all that hemline, waistline damage is just too much. the body gets all chopped to pieces and curves get all cut in half and please, arcs are fine, but not when foreshortened.
even my baby belly is smooth and part of my curvatures when I'm not trying to manipulate it into something it is not. for chrissakes I have had TWO babies. enough!

My husband dreams of my wearing skintight jeans, a deep v-neck sweater (preferably red) and lots of gold dangling into the cleavage. really. well.


All my sexiness is on the inside, however... and not every day... and clearly, not tied to how much actual sex i currently have.
when i was younger, i had a tremendous amount of sex. enough to make you blush. really. with lots and lots of people, some of whom I have now completely forgotten. I apologize for your blush... I have no blush left in me.. whew...

Part of the problem with that pinup photo shoot that I did was that I felt so damn awkward and it was only afterward when I took off all that pinchy stuff and put my big oxford shirt back on that I felt so damn sexy.
So much of sexiness has to do with the internal, don't you think? at least, for women...
men, on the other hand, seem to go for t&a... as a male friend says, like an old car, you like what you like and you decide what problems you can live with...

yummy-ness

jah...
click on 'jah' and you get some serious goodness.

I don't like to cook, I really don't. The whole mixup is no good for me. I think, the truth is, that I am a perfectionist in the kitchen and that means it is unenjoyable. Who wants to fail all the time? Plus, the kids have hit the ages of no-eating, unless it is a hamburger, frenchfries, or a chicken nugget... preferably with a toy nearby... and so I am screwed. My husband does cook and loves to cook and makes incredibly ornate and complicated things with ease and excellent results. So- he does Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the nights he is home.

I only like to cook if I know that it is going to be fabulous... damnit.
so i don't try too many new things you see. Last night I did... I've been looking into batch cooking, so I make enough at one meal to freeze and then I get a night where all I have to do is thaw, and no cooking for me is a very good night...
So I made sweet potato black bean burritos.
holy hell.
SOO good.
try them.
I used black beans instead of kidney beans as i truly hate kidney beans. TRULY. You make up a bean mash with spices - I changed it up as the chili factor had to be altered for my kids...and then mix it up wiht the chunks of sweet potato and get it all cheesy-like. holy hell.
EVERYONE loved it. toddlers and fouryearold devilgoat boy alike...
SOO good.
try them.
now. for chrissakes, now.

funny, right?

my kid is LOVING the camera... LOVE...

I've been funny forever. FOREVER.

or so i've been told...

My husband has taken to writing down quotes on our calendar, from me. Here they are, as they appear today...

there's practicality, then ridiculousness...

I would have to have therapy every day if people started listening to what i said.

Its helpful to know where they are in case they croak.

yep, a riot. The last one was a referral to the ill cat hiding in the basement. I stand by them all. Its only now in my thirties that I feel more comfortable with my humor. I've always liked it but have never known when people were going to laugh, and so have always been slightly off kilter. I don't tell jokes except this one, all the time, to everyone who will listen...

'what do you call a deer with no eyes?' No idea... (no eye deah...)

heheha. IF I've already typed that somewhere in some past post, then bah.. bah... But now I'm in those thirties and I recognize that I am funny, people really think I am. really. I also recognize that it is mostly because I lack a filter that other people seem to have, and what comes out of my mouth may never, in fact, have even been in my brain. I am thoughtful about a lot of things, but my wit- it comes from somewhere else. I am just a channel. I'm not saying that God speaks through me, really, but I am suggesting it... :) in a lighthearted, but 'why not' sort of way... I AM saying that it is not planned or coerced or manipulated and yet, there it is... so where else could it come from?