365 | sapphires, allodynia, elves, and dragons

055/365 | Sunday 29 December 2019 - I am grateful for the little strawberry pastries my co-worker, Kirk, buys us that taste like Spring. I am grateful to all my neighbors who recognize and compliment Atalanta's beauty as I walk her. I am grateful for my dainty antique sapphire ring and the pleasant ghost of the tiny woman who wore it before me.

056/365 | Monday 30 December 2019 - Me and my little man had a rough morning together, butting heads. I was out of sorts, my feelings hurt, and then I watched him squeal and yell with delight as his kite picked up air and sailed over our heads, in the yard but especially on our walk with the dog, Mads running ahead of me (precariously, in crocs). Life is like this.

057/365 | Tuesday 31 December 2019 - Journal prompt: Who is the person you are when you're with your person? How does being in your (romantic) relationship make you feel? Who does being in your relationship make you feel you are?

058/365 | Wednesday 1 January 2020 - New year, new look.

059/365 | Thursday 2 January 2020 - I like to dip into Middle Earth at the Yuletide. We got a late start this year and powered through these, which is how this tradition began as newlyweds--all three LOTR movies on Christmas day.

060/365 | Friday 3 January 2020 - Nothing like being knocked-on-your-butt sick at the beginning of the new year.

061/365 | Saturday 4 January 2020, work - Wall! Of! Fortunes!

062/365 | Sunday 5 January 2020 - We buried Granny today. Afterwards, we picked Mads up from Grandma's house, and he was very impressed with his dad's suit. I told him, "Baby, your daddy only wears suits to funerals," which is no exaggeration (he did not even marry me in a suit). Unlike his dad, Mads appreciates the lines of a good suit and dressed in his own approximation of one when we got home. He ate a dinner of star fruit and deviled eggs and watched a Scooby Doo in a jacket and tie.

063/365 | Monday 6 January 2020 - Ludo follows us on our walks. Between the cat trailing us on our walks and the life-size skeleton on our porch, we've established ourselves as the neighborhood eccentrics in record time.

064/365 | Tuesday 7 January 2020 - Tonight Mads had me sing every single bedtime song I've ever sung him--we sang through our entire six-year catalog before the bedtime kiss.

065/365 | Wednesday 8 January 2020 - A gift from my beau, who knows me so well.

066/365 | Thursday 9 January 2020 - Atalanta Strawberry Vaughn

067/365 | Friday 10 January 2020 - Mads has been forbidden to sing Christmas songs by his exasperated father, but it doesn't stop him. I've polished off the last of the mulled wine, we've finished watching the Lord of the Rings, our Christmas decorations are tucked away in the attic, and it is a relief.

068/365 | Saturday 11 January 2020 - I try to strike a balance with the kids between firmly setting my boundaries and expectations and meeting their needs with active listening, respect, and compassion. Ella is easy. Mads is a rebel.

365 | you can say there's no such thing as Santa, but as for me and Grandpa, we believe

041/365 | Sunday 15 December 2019, Tutu School's Bravo Bash at NCMA, Raleigh - After the recital, we took the kids to Gypsy's Shiny Diner with Grandma, Grandmommy, and Aunt Theresa. Grandma handed me a bunch of quarters, and the kids and I picked out Christmas songs to play from the jukebox. When Mads chose "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" (one of my favorites), I teased him, "How dare you! There are three grandmothers present, sir!" 

042/365 | Monday 16 December 2019, Grandma's House - Grandma & Grandpa's master bathroom exploded early in the month (the opposite of a Christmas miracle) and now the slow re-construction and salvage has begun. Grandpa tells me his mother would've lost her mind over a toilet sitting on her front porch. She would've packed her bags and left in shame.

043/365 | Tuesday 17 December 2019, downtown Cary - Mads being rude to me consistently all morning. I take a knee and tell him he's hurt my feelings. He starts to whine and protest. I tell him, "You're not in trouble. I'm not yelling at you. I'm just telling you how I feel," which he accepts without comment.

044/365 | Wednesday 18 December 2019 - I wrote my yule cards this year sipping St Remy brandy and listening to Timi Yuro.

045/365 | Thursday 19 December 2019 - Martigan's ensemble for riding his bike to the post office with me: flight suit, motorcycle jacket, wizard cape (and dinosaur helmet because safety first).

046/365 | Friday 20 December 2019 - Today is Grandpa's 80th birthday, the 11th anniversary of my first kiss with my husband, and our first day in our new (old, rented) house.

047/365 | Saturday 21 December 2019 - Wolfman is the creator and bestower of nicknames in our house. He's the one who started calling Atalanta "Abadamba," who first called Ludo "Dude-o," and now these are practically their names. (The animals answer to these affectionate play names, recognizing the affection if not the name itself.) Lately, with Ludo's transformation to meaty outdoor bruiser, Wolfman has taken to calling him "Steve French," the name Bubbles gives to the mountain lion the Trailer Park Boys find in their weed fields.

048/365 | Sunday 22 December 2019, Apex - I ventured reluctantly to Walmart after work to do last minute shopping. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but I don't want this to happen again next year.

049/365 | Monday 23 December 2019, Work - Pepper onion relish and Laryssa's beautiful girl, Lexy, at work today. Not bad. (Better for me than Lexy, at least.)

050/365 | Tuesday 24 December 2019, Christmas Eve - Started the day with a walk, accompanied by my friendly neighborhood Batman. Then work, where we keep the Santa Trackers up on the computers, and I wear my Metalocalypse tee and eat too many sweets. Then, to my father-in-law's house where we drink rum barrel coffee and listen to Django Rhineheart. Then home, to watch Gremlins and drink mead and eat kielbasa with brussels sprouts and sauerkraut. Good Eve.

051/365 | Wednesday 25 December 2019, Christmas at Grandma's house - While my brother, Jordan, taught Mads & Wolfman to Bakugan battle, I helped Ella apply glittery temporary tattoos to her wrists like bracelets.

052/365 | Thursday 26 December 2019, Prowlandia - Still packing and cleaning up at Prowlandia. We are so scattered; this moving feels like it will never end. I'm sad standing on this property, sad it didn't work out, but relieved too, and I let all that feeling wash over me, and then I get to work.

053/365 | Friday 27 December 2019, Currently Reading - "Recognizing the structure of your pyschology doesn't mean that you can easily rebuild it. The Chamber of Unreasonable Guilt is part of my mental architecture, and I doubt that I will ever be able to renovate that particular room in this strange castle that is me."

054/365 | Saturday 28 December 2019 - There is a faded note on the dryer door, left by a previous tenant, cleaned away but the imprint remains: "I love you more today, yesterday, and tomorrow." We decided to take a note from this unknown Lothario and write each other dry erase love missives of our own. Also, a grocery list.

365 | I wish I had a river I could skate away on

027/365 | Sunday 1 December 2019, Work - I work with Christmas people. I don't know how to feel about Christmas. This time of year I waffle between being Sandra Bullock slumped over a counter, separated from humanity by a plexiglass window, wearing a stocking cap and fingerless gloves, counting change apathetically and Meg Ryan decorating her tree alone, listening to sad Joni Mitchell songs and thinking of her dead mother and failing business.

028/365 | Monday 2 December 2019, Cary - This pizza gave me a bellyache so I left the last slice as an offering to the Kids Together Playground squirrels (who have lion heads only figuratively).

029/365 | Tuesday 3 December 2019, Work - Communicating with ease, directness, humor, and aplomb today. It is Day 28 of my cycle. I often feel that the days leading up to my bleed I am at my sharpest, moving through my own life like a blade.

030/365 | Wednesday 4 December 2019, Grandma's House - I believe Entenmann's "rich frosted" chocolate donuts are the greatest donuts in existence. Mads almost agrees with me but says the Duck Donuts maple bacon "kill the chocolate ones dead."

031/365 | Thursday 5 December 2019, Bond Park - A hike with some of the homeschool group today. We started out at the back of the group but somehow ended up at the front with most of the older kids (over 10s). As Mads and the other kids stood off the trail at the water's edge, tossing rocks and examining mussels, Wolfman stood above them, dad-ing (reminding them not to throw rocks bigger than their fists and to aim carefully, guiding them, complimenting them). He can't help himself. He's been dad-ing since he was just a kid, himself.

032/365 | Friday 6 December 2019 - Photo by Mads

033/365 - Saturday 7 December 2019, Work - Santa Paws Day is like our Rex Manning Day.

034/365 | Sunday 8 December 2019, Work - Special delivery of assless chaps for Shamble Pill. I did my training for this company in early spring (2017), and one of the employees referred to the upcoming Easter holiday as "Zombie Jesus Day." I knew I'd fit in just fine.

035/365 | Monday 9 December 2019, Grandma's house - My new morning routine living at Grandma's house includes turning on the kitchen faucet for this running-water-obsessed cat, Billie Holliday. She may die of thirst when Mads and I leave for our new house in January.

036/365 | Tuesday 10 December 2019, Grandma's house - The dolls are not what they seem.

037/365 | Wednesday 11 December 2019, Cary - A teenage girl at the downtown fountain offered to take a picture of us. I wasn't sure she'd ever used an old point-and-shoot camera like mine, but she managed one perfect picture which I'll send out with my Christmas cards this year. It took until December 11th, but I'm finally feeling kind of festive, or at least less outright ba-humbuggy.

038/365 | Thursday 12 December 2019, Grandma's house - Ludo tried to leave with Wolfman, Mads, and me this afternoon. He has a bad habit of trying to hop into cars and go for rides if we let the doors linger open too long in the drive way. Wolfman carried him away, into the yard, and whispered a secret in his ear. I think I know what the secret is, but I won't say it out loud.

039/365 | Friday 13 December 2019, Apex - These two are a planet until themselves, and I am a satellite, circling them, admiring them.

040/365 | Saturday 14 December 2019 - This Fittonia has been with me since April of this year (my only pink plant). It survived two moves and then nearly perished from neglect when I forgot about it in the window of an upstairs bedroom at Grandma's house. I thought it was surely dead but soaked it in the bathroom sink, with many apologies and laments and curses against myself. And here it is, a couple days after its long drink, very much alive and very forgiving.