How to survive the holidays when you can't remember anything

I've never been known for having an outstanding memory, though it mostly seems to be lacking around my mom. In other words, I *always* forget something when we go up to stay with my mom and dad. Yet, I personally think that I'm pretty darn good at remembering at school, a work environment that pulls my attention 100 different ways every minute. Maybe it's a learned behavior in both situations.

Either way, pregnancy brain has struck again--BIG time! This is especially problematic in December, which is non-stop between school and the holidays. I'm just used to needing to make a couple of trips to the store and forgetting things on my Christmas list, even with lists. To his credit, the boy doesn't get frustrated with me about my forgetfulness. He's a good sport and rarely complains, even if it means that he has to make a flying trip to Meijer in order to save the recipe that I'm half-way through. But the latest BIG flub is both totally my own doing and one that I'll remedy myself, though it's the last thing that I want to do right now.

I went gift card style for lots of family and friends this year, mostly because I'm at the stage in my life where those are up at the top of my Christmas list. I don't really need (or want) most stuff, but food is entirely another matter. I LOVE me some food gift cards! And I do also appreciate the freebies that places throw at you right now if you buy a gift card. I wholeheartedly admit that I can be a sucker for gimmicks and advertisements as long as it serves my purpose. I don't really care if I'm giving a gift card from steakhouse A or B as long as I have something that the person is going to like. So if it's 6 of one and half dozen of another, then why not go for the one where I get future date night money in return? A week ago, I went on my gift card shopping binge and plunked down something like $150 just for gift cards, but seriously, that took care of everyone with some freebies for me in return.

The time came this week, early in the morning during the pre-school-getting-out-of-the-house rush that I needed to stick the first 2 gift cards in gift bags to send to the sitters. I grabbed them and life was grand. Actually, life was great because I actually remembered to send them unlike the week before when I just completely forgot. I had a free pass on this one of sorts, so I was just glad to make amends for my earlier miscue. Except...

...a couple of days later, I realized that I gave the wrong gift cards to the wrong people. While the ones that I gave to our sitters were perfectly acceptable, those were actually intended for my siblings, who don't live in Kokomo. I did have a couple of gift cards ready to go for the sitters, who do live in Kokomo, for one of the few quality, non-chain restaurants in town...in Kokomo. What I have left at this point are 2 gift cards for a restaurant IN KOKOMO for 2 people who DON'T LIVE HERE. Which means...

...that I have to go out and buy 2 more gift cards at a time when I'd rather not spend more money on presents, thanks very much. Granted, the two gift cards that I have will be just fine sitting here and waiting until the end of the school year for another little thanks-so-much-you-guys-are-a-lifesaver moment for those 2 fantastic women who play with, teach and encourage my child every day. I guess that I just have to suck it up and pay now rather than later. And really, those 2 gift cards for the local restaurant are still going to have to survive the next semester, which could be an unprecedented time of confusion and upheaval for us.

I guess what I really need for Christmas is a personal assistant for the next 5 months. That. Would. Be. Amazing. Except in my case, the devil wears maternity clothes. :-)

A festival of lights

I never really enjoyed driving around to look at Christmas lights when I was younger, which I remember doing a couple of times as a pre-teen/teenager. It's not like we did it every year, but I distinctly remember doing this a couple of times with my parents and grandparents, who seemed to really like it. What I distinctly don't remember is either of my brothers coming along, so my guess is that this happened in that period of time when I was still forced to come places but when my brothers were old enough that they were off doing their own things. Truth be told, I didn't hate it, but it was frankly pretty boring in my opinion.

Imagine my surprise when I totally enjoyed it tonight with my little family! While driving home at night with my little munchkin the other night, it came to me that she'd really enjoy driving through the park where they have a pretty nice (per Kokomo standards, granted) holiday display set up. Ben was groovy with the idea, so following an early supper, we did the bath routine and jammied up (all of us!), loaded in the car, brought some Christmas cookies, and set off. We jammed to lots of great Christmas music and just generally chatted and looked around with the perspective of a 2-year old. On at least one occasion, this caused me to annoy the car behind me when I realized I was only driving 20-miles an hour. But worth it! We were out for about an hour and ended up going through several neighborhoods as well at a snail's pace. And, one house was even synched to the radio, so we stopped there for an entire song. Fun! Abby even convinced us to let her lick on a candy cane and later determined that her "skin was sticky." That was definitely true.

This has been a fun Christmas for all of us so far with Abby's growing interest in Christmas-y things without the burden of consumerist impulses manipulating her young mind. I think that she's still going to have much fun receiving the socks that we already stashed in her stocking. She wants to get Ben a teddy bear for Christmas. But she also wants to get me a teddy bear for Christmas, and undoubtedly that's on her wish list for herself as well (her little friend must be privy to these Christmas yearnings because that's exactly what he gave her, and it's now always with her). And Ben has decided that secrets will be ignored this year as he is utilizing Abby as his little Christmas elf and having her help with secrets for me...secrets no more! She's pretty good about telling what's in the presents without prompting.

Abby gave us a break and was happy by herself for a while, which allowed Ben and I to cook supper together in the kitchen (a rarity!), followed by our festival of lights excursion, which means that overall, I'm still in the happy little family glow. Times like these sometimes just pop up, and those warm fuzzies are the best!

Zogurt & such

Once upon a time, I went to a wedding by myself when I was 9 weeks pregnant, and it was down in Fishers/Indy, an hour from my house. I ate lunch before I left (wedding was at 2:00), but as soon as I got in the car, it became inherently obvious that I would need food before the cocktail hour began. That little granola bar wasn't going to cut it. I missed one Arby's. I missed another Arby's. Life was looking grim. I wasn't looking forward to a wedding of indeterminate length with nausea inducing hunger. And then, and THEN, a heaven sent Zogurt appeared before me at the last corner, on the last road, about a block from the church. My car must have had some GPS tracking device that guided it into a parking space in a fantastically quick fashion.

Zogurts, as the bored looking guy explained, is all about gluten-free, sugar-free, and other free frozen yogurt. And it's delicious. And, you can sample the flavor before you buy it. AND, you control everything! Portion size...toppings...everything! So I dug into some white chocolate macadamia nut frozen yogurt. With a few well placed brownie chunks, and Oreo pieces, and pecans, and hot fudge, and caramel, and coconut.

That Zogurt kept me so happy until cocktail hour began. What a wedding day miracle!

And in other news, I'm on the down slope with the nausea (oh please, OH PLEASE). This has been w-a-y worse than the last time. A boy this time?!?

I don't even recognize my life anymore!

Oct. 5th. My good friend's birthday. 3:30-4:30 p.m. Lots of life changing stuff happened in this hour.

(in no sequential order)

First, I received a call from a principal at another high school (Ben's, specifically) officially offering me a job teaching 12th grade English. This meant that I would have to give up my job where I had been working for 5+ years, where I knew everyone and everyone knew me, where I adored the people that I worked with. Ultimately, I made the change--tendered my resignation and broke the news to my kids. And then I spent the next couple of weeks biding my time before the transition happened, an uncomfortable and unsettling period when I knew and the kids knew that my teaching ability was somewhat restricted. That being said--those kids were great. Really. Not a single time did I have a student throw something that I assigned back at me claiming that it was useless since I was "just leaving" anyway. (There was one parent, however...) And now I walk into a different classroom with a different view out of the windows with different kind of desks and a different board and assign different homework. Goodness, I miss many of those people...even the hallway duty and the (idea of) the lounge coffee. Two weeks in and still so much work.

Second, yep, the clan is expanding. Where we're going to put this new one is anyone's guess!! This house--still on the market. 'Bout to come off of the market for a couple of months. So now we're into trying to control nausea just about non-stop and pulling out the boxes of maternity clothes. My super sniffer superpower has returned. My hunger knows no bounds. I can't remember basic info. I must be pregnant.

So the last 6 weeks have been nothing short of tumultuous and exhausting. Just...tired.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet & The Litigators

That's the longest title I've ever used.

I've gotten a couple of books read, and I'll use these as my blogged books for both October and November since I, again, didn't get anything down last month. (Excuses? It was a busy, weird, unsettling month!)

First, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jaime Ford: Howard County Reads book for 2011. Not super impressed. Despite a couple of reviews that I read online before I cracked the cover, this one was overall a let-down. The story itself was okay to above average, but the writing--mediocre at best. At best! I'm not inspired at all to read anything else by the same guy. I even spent some time reading in his blog (a first-time experience for me, reading an author's blog), and I'm even more disappointed after reading the book. I don't know. He seems like something of a braggart on his blog and then his book doesn't live up to that gradiose-ness and importance that he kind of implies. But, he's also apparently going to be in town in a few weeks for an appearance at the local college. That could be interesting to attend for no other reason than to compare yet another impression of him to the other two that I've established. I did like that the story is fairly unique, dealing with a lot of atypical racial tensions (Chinese-Japanese) in Seattle during WWII. Remember, we put all of those people of Japanese descent in concentrations camps then. If this book is to be taken as an honest representation of that, then it paints a uniquely different perception of what a concentration camp is in comparison to what we are most familiar with given that term--Nazi concentration camps. But, that interest factor beside, I read it because I kinda had to for school. Henry Lee, the protagonist, just didn't do anything for me. He's pretty static actually; not a good thing to have with a protagonist!!

Then, I whipped through The Litigators by John Grisham this week. It was absolutely a welcome respite from life at night and during breakfasts throughout the week. I've read every other Grisham book save one YA fiction book that he's done, so I'm obviously a fan. Frankly, his style is just really Grisham-y, and it works, hence his gross level of success. Seriously, who would think that someone could be so famous and successful writing about lawyers and lawyer stuff? Yet the stories are so addictive! It helps that they're easy to read, granted. But, really, the characters are his specialty. He always spends time with the details on the characters, not ad naseum, but in a freakishly insider kind of way. Detailed in the right way. He's pretty expert at creating a fairly developed character in a short amount of time. And, I always think of this when I read his work, he gets a lot (if not all) of his character's names from the obituaries. Fun, right? At any rate, The Litigators is supremely fun, especially the end, but I'm really not wholly buying the storyline. But, frankly, it doesn't matter! How delicious is that! It's a greatly enjoyable read with a fairly ludicrous plot. Sounds captivating, doesn't it?? But read it! Absolutely!!

Why do we...?

Why do we congratulate people so enthusiastically when news of a new baby comes out? It's A LOT of work, among other things!!

I remember reading a specific reference that a Russian woman made to this, noting that in Russia, news of a new arrival is met with a more realistic attitude--"Oh, that's good news, but there's a lot of work ahead for you." Whereas in America, how do we respond? "Yayyyyyyyyy!!!!! Congratulations!!!!!!" You'd think that having a baby was synonymous with having scads of money flung at you for you apparent reason: everyone is excited about it and kinda wants in on the action for the good parts but no one wants to really help out with the bad parts (like paying taxes on your lottery winnings).

I'm not about to pretend that I don't also share this energetic, over the moon, as-if-it-were-happening-to-me response. I can't help it. You get all hopped up on happy thoughts of warm snuggly, toothless little coo-ers who smack their lips and have those ever-so-adorable yawns and good morning stretches.

And, for that matter, why do we get so excited to share such good news? Do we revel in the adoration? Secretly desire the lavish attention showered on us when it's our turn? Ignore the rational knowledge that reminds us, Warning: massive amounts of work ahead with little free time for yourself for at least a couple of years!!!

Whatever the case may be, happy news and cuteness is always appreciated.

conundrum

In keeping with the constant state of flux and difficult problems this school year, here's another.

I have officially been offered a job teaching 12th grade English at Eastern High School.

Yep.