BloggingDangerously

Okay I Lied but Please Take a Poll

We still don't have power and I couldn't get my shit together in the dark to write Part II yet.  I'm sorry.  I'm also supposed to have a guest post up.  I'm sorry about that too.

In the meantime check out these cool links:

Bolt is giving away an iPad and a bunch of gift cards.  You should give it a shot:
http://peggotty.bo.lt/IPadContest

CheapSally is giving away a chance to win a $100k/year social media job.  You don't have to move or quit your "real" job.  Check it out:
http://peggotty.bo.lt/100kJob

Finally, I'm thinking of selling #wineparty goblets.  They would be WICKED CLASSY. Y'know ACRYLIC.

This is what the glass would look like (unless you hate it - then leave a comment.)

 
Seriously, if you don't like it - PLEASE leave a comment.  I can't get wineglasses on Zazzle so I'm going to have to order 100 of these.

I've also created a poll so that you can help decide what it would look like.  The artwork would be the same as on the t-shirts here. 

(Only the first 400 people get to vote because I'm too cheap to pay for this poll so don't give up the vote!) 

Crap - I just realized I forgot to ask you how much you would pay for this thing.  If you are seriously interested please let me know in the comments.  I'm targetting a cost of $15 including shipping. 

Wherein I Skip Rocks, Turn 40 and Buy Diet Coke With Oral Sex (Again) - PART 1

Bear with me.  I'm old now and my memory isn't what it used to me.  I'm also standing in a corner of my kitchen so I can use generator power and my ankles are giving out.  It happens when you get old.

So Saturday was my birthday.  I'll get to that in a moment but let me start by saying that all those people who say that they don't "get" twitter should have seen the amazing birthday wishes that I received from Friday into Saturday from all over the world.  Sure, some of them were just 2 second tweets that said, "Happy Birthday" and I may not have noticed if they hadn't been sent - but I SURE DID NOTICE that they had been sent and it meant the world to me.  So Thank You.

My virtual #Wineparty birthday party was amazingly fun even if I did end up being thrown in Twitter Jail and when I told my husband he said, "Don't get your hopes up."

On Saturday morning my husband got up with the kids and let me sleep in.  It was FABULOUS.  Even more fabulous was the fact that the kids waited to bring me breakfast in bed until they heard me walking around upstairs.  And then, when they DID bring me breakfast in bed? They put a Peanut Butter Granola bar and a Diet Coke on a tray because that's what I eat for breakfast every day.

Hurricane Irene was on her way up the coast but we didn't expect her to hit until after midnight so we were going to make a beach day out of it.  We had to secure the homestead first because we knew we wouldn't want to do it later.  We put the grill into the garage.  We took down the swings.  We took down the hummingbird feeder.  And then I noticed that the ceramic compost jar that we keep in the kitchen was on the deck.  I brought it inside.  It was empty but a little bit dirty.  I left it in the sink and figured I'd get it later.

We went to the beach.  It was gray but only intermittently rainy.  I went on the beach with the kids. (Note: "The kids" means my 4 + my brother's oldest 3 + my sister's 3 = 10)  My sister came out and said that one of our neighbors had told her that there was a sand shark carcass down the beach.  The kids were SO excited to go see it.  We walked down the beach.  It's about a quarter of a mile.  We couldn't find the shark.  We figured the tide must have carried it off.  We started to walk back but decided to have a rock skipping contest.  Mostly we tried to find flat rocks while keeping the kids from whipping the rocks at each other's heads.

We turned to walk back.  My sister challenged me to a rock skipping contest.  The waves were so choppy it was hard to skip anything more than once. 

We walked back toward the house.  I figured that since it was raining I should probably bring some of the chairs that we keep under the house inside since we would have to bring them up later to prepare for the hurricane.

I made 3 trips up and down the stairs.  The kids kept yelling, "Here she is! Here she is!"  I figured that when I finally went inside they would sing to me and have cake.  But no one called me in so I made one more trip with the chairs.  Finally I was standing there on the porch and the kids were yelling, "Shhh! Shhh! Shhh! and I figured it was time to go into the living room.  When I rounded the corner the kids yelled, "SURPRISE!"

To tell you the truth it wasn't a surprise - I figured they would get me a cake.  But then as my eyes adjusted to coming in from outside I realized that there were  a lot more people in the room than my family (even though my family is 18 people) and as my eyes adjusted further I saw some of my most favorite people in the world - most of whom had travelled 90+ minutes to come to my party with the threat of a hurricane escorting them home.

It Was AWESOME.

It was awesome because there were few enough people there that I really got to talk to everyone without feeling like I was rushing through the conversations.  And because there were enough people there that I realized that I had made some incredible relationships in my 40 years.

And it was amazing because those people rock and it was awesome to spend the afternoon with them.  Even if it was pouring at the beach and a hurricane was bearing down on us.

And it was amazing because my anti-social, anti-structure, anti-plan husband had gone out of his comfort zone to round up my friends and manage the logistics so completely that I was 100% surprised.  He congratulated the kids on keeping the secret. "To tell you the truth," my second son admitted, "I completely forgot about it until today!"

My friend Serena* brought her two children.  They were a bit reserved at first but when we mentioned that "The Kids" loved Harry Potter they went into the other room and started hurling killing curses at each other.  It was great.

My cake was a blazing inferno with 24 candles because that's all that they could find at the house.  Thank goodness because those 24 candles emitted so much heat I could hardly get close enough to blow them out.  The only thing that made me bold enough to lean in toward them was the knowledge that the house was made of 200 year old wood.

My friend A- (who has been mentioned in this blog before) made the cake.  It was a raspberry concoction that made me swoon.  I MAY have had two pieces. And a half.

The only downside to the day was that A- had to go home (instead of staying over with me) because of the impending hurricane.  I tried everything I could to get her to stay - even enlisting the kids with the batting of the eyelashes and the begging but she was steadfast.  She PROMISED to come again soon.  I will run before she comes in case she bakes something else.

After my guests left we hurricane-proofed the house - including bringing the kayaks and the grill into the livingroom.  We took down the outdoor shower, we took down all the screens.  We brought all the chairs and toys inside.

And we brought all of the perishable groceries home in case the house lost power.

And then we came home...

End of Part 1.

It's 11:21pm and my husband wants to turn off the generator and go to bed. More tomorrow.   

Happy Birthday to Me

Tomorrow is my 40th birthday.

I'm not much for birthday angst but it's hard not to feel it when you hit 40.

Rather than look at my whole life, I try to look at the past year and ask myself - "Am I better today than I was a year ago."

Sometimes it's hard to answer yes.  During most of my 30s for example - I felt like I was more out of shape, more stressed out, more financially strapped every year.  It was hard to answer yes.

But then, when I took a step back, I realized that I was pregnant or nursing for most of my 30s - for 66 months in fact or 5.5 years.  So while I wasn't getting in shape, or making tons of money or vacationing in Bali - am I better off for those years?  For the AMAZING 4 people who live in my house (and spend all of the money I used to spend on personal trainers and travel)?

The answer is a resounding YES.

But my baby turns 5 this November.  So it's back to the quantifiable things.

I'm getting in shape.  In fact, Runkeeper says that since March I've run over 586 miles and burned over 50,000 calories.  Whoo-hoo.  Not bad for an old woman.

I'm travelling.  Ok, it's not Bali but I was back in San Diego (where I used to live) for the first time in 12 years this month - and I'm going back again in 2 weeks!  And I am going to use all these frequent flyer miles to take the family someplace fun.  We'll even need passports.

I quit my old dead-end job.  Okay, that happened last year and so far it really hasn't paid off like I'd hoped.  But it's coming.  I think.  Or it's not.  And that's okay.  Because leaving a REALLY stable-but-sucky job after 12 years was REALLY brave.  And since I did it?  I could do it again - if I had to.

But if I don't have to because I'm making BAJILLION$ of dollars?  Well, that would be pretty cool too.

And watching these 4 people grow up - teaching that baby boy who taught me how to be a mama - teaching him to be a man?  He'll turn 19 the same month I'll turn 50.

So these next ten years?  I have to hold on to them.

Because I'm not getting any younger.

Paul

On a typical evening my husband and I tuck the kids into bed at 8 and then I head into my home office to finish up work, blog, Tweet and generally pass time in front of the computer.  My husband, on the other hand, heads downstairs to the living room to watch tv.

This arrangement works for us - partly because we have only 1 tv and can't agree on the same shows, and partly because I tend to get sucked into tv shows and hate the emotional adrenaline rush most shows provide.  (i.e. Grey's Anatomy leaves me feeling EXHAUSTED and emotionally DRAINED)

Anyway, this means that my husband and I don't spend a lot of time together after the kids are in bed.  I work from home so we get to chat during the day and generally I feel like we communicate fairly well and we spend enough quality time together.

However, the other night I had a dream that we had to go to couples counseling because we had "grown apart" and during our dreamt therapy session it came out that the fact that we did not spend our evenings together was a huge problem.

Obviously when I woke up, everything was fine again - but I was left feeling like I should make more of an effort to spend some time together.

(FYI, Saturday night is typically "date night" but Summer has kept us out so late on recent Saturday nights we really haven't had many.)

SoMonday night after we tucked the kids into bed I followed my husband downstairs (albeit with my iPad.)  I didn't realize it until I got downstairs but he had rented the movie Paul.  This is the video masterpiece brought to you by the same people who brought you "Shawn of the Dead."

So I had HIGH HOPES.

Not.

FYI, we OWN Shawn of the Dead because my husband enjoyed it so much.  I, on the other hand, wanted to purchase it purely so that I could legally burn it.

So I was really looking forward to Paul.

It turns out that Paul wasn't half as stupid as Shawn of the Dead.  It was just boring.

The storyline was actually sort of E.T.-ish but the random attempts at humor (like trying to come up with as many swear words as possible) just detracted from the movie.

In the end, neither of us enjoyed the movie.  But we did enjoy watching it together.  And we did spend some "quality time" upstairs later on.

 

Where Do You Put the Caramel Sauce When You're Out of Icecream?

I was sitting at my desk tonight after the kids went to bed kicking myself for not buying icecream when I went to the store on Saturday.  Actually, I was kicking myself for not buying Brigham's Coffee Icecream.  The other stuff isn't worthy of the name icecream.

I thought, briefly, about going to the store to get some but I'm exhausted and my legs are jello from a long run this afternoon.

And then I remembered what I keep around for cravings just like this.

My HUSBAND.

"Hmm." I thought.  "It's been a long summer with the kids and he's probably tired too.  I don't think he's going to be thrilled at the thought of going for icecream.  I'll have to make it worth his while."

So I took it to twitter.

"Do you think that if I offer DH a BJ he'll run to the store to get me coffee ice-cream? Related: how many calories does a BJ burn?"

The overwhelming response (mostly male) was, "I'll go!"

The answer to the calorie question (mostly female) was inconclusive.

So I approached my husband.

"I'll go." he said. "You don't have to give me a BJ."

"Oh, that's okay." I told him.  "You don't have to go."

We laughed.  We hugged.  I went back to my office.  He went downstairs.  AND HE DIDN'T LEAVE.

So after about 10 minutes I went downstairs and said, "Remember when I said I didn't really need coffee icecream?  I lied."

He laughed.  He left.

When he got back I scooped the icecream into a bowl and then remembered that I had bought caramel syrup last time I was at the store.

I poured it on.

It was good.  No, it was great.  No, it was heavenly. No, it was ORGASMIC.

Seriously. 

I don't eat a lot of refined sugar so when that stuff hit my bloodstream, the sugar high was as close to ecstasy as I've gotten with my clothes on.

I didn't have long to enjoy it.  I'd hardly licked the bowl clean when my husband appeared behind me.

"Remember when I said I'd go to the store and you didn't have to give me a BJ." he asked?

And then he laughed and said, "I LIED."

I laughed and licked the caramel syrup from my lips.

And I'll let you guess what happened next.