365 | well I'll be damned

014/365 | Monday 18 November 2019, Grandma's 72nd Birthday - He Who Kept Me Up All Night, Yowling and Rattling Doors

015/365 | Tuesday 19 November 2019, Cary - This flight suit was packed away with clothes too big for Mads. Only, clearly, the jumpsuit isn't too big for Mads; it is, in fact, just a touch too small. The realization that my baby isn't a Small anymore but a Medium hit me hard.

016/365 | Wednesday 20 November 2019, Doc Holliday & the Furbies, Grandma's house - Even for my grandparents the impeachment hearings have lost their draw. Grandpa switches channels, flipping from Fox News to Midsommer Murders on PBS.

017/365 | Thursday 21 November 2019, Cary Towne Center - Currently Reading: Free to Learn by Peter Gray. "The things children learn through their own initiatives, in free play, cannot be taught in other ways."

018/365 | Friday 22 November 2019, Apex - Mads sings, "Mommies are the worst!" at the tail end of our walk because I will not carry him. "You don't know what it's like to be me," he says, philosophically, angrily.

019/365| Saturday 23 November 2019, Cary - I'm on the phone with Wolfman, my love. I remind him, we survived that first rocky year of marriage and that first tormented, sleepless year with a new born. I say, for my own benefit more than his, if we can survive our failed attempt at off-grid living and this subsequent two-month separation while we get our ducks in a row, we'll die old together. He doesn't want to die old, but I insist on it.

020/365 | Sunday 24 November 2019 - Kath writes of her grandmother-in-law, "She does that thing some older women (I guess, really, some of all women) do where they always seem to be apologizing for their presence and existence while also refusing to stop adamantly loving/worrying about you." This describes my own grandmother, too. I always have to remind myself when I'm feeling oppressed by her worry that this is a privelege, a blessing, to be loved and worried over.

021/365 | Monday 25 November 2019 - Kombucha is the closest thing to drinking a beer at work. I drink a lot of kombucha at work.

022/365 | Tuesday 26 November 2019 - Wolfman Was Here.

023/365 | Wednesday 27 November 2019 - I like watching movies about women with Type A personalities. I find the idea of a woman having her shit together--even if the point the movie tries to make is that her rigidity is a personality flaw and must be remedied by some roguish man with a big dick (probably)--aspirational. 

024/365 | Thursday 28 November 2019, Thanksgiving - My little brothers, Jordan and Josh, stopped by the house today. I can't get over how grown up they are. (Josh has a mustache.) They showed me a picture of our little sister, Savannah--now a teenager; the last time I saw her she was barely in elementary school. She looks so much like our mother now, I gasped. Grandpa looked at the photo and said, "Well I'll be damned."

025/365 | Friday 29 November 2019 - Here was our Thanksgiving menu: turkey (by Wolfman), stuffing (Grandma's recipe), collards (Wolfman's recipe), Michelle's cranberry sauce, canned cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes & gravy (by Grandma), broccoli casserole (for Grandpa), green bean casserole (for Wolfman), beer bread, deviled eggs, pumpkin pie (which I forgot to add the evaporated milk to, but it turned out just fine).

026/365 | Saturday 30 November 2019, Cary - New ballet slippers for Mads & Ella. They both wear a size 12, Mads a wide, Ella a narrow.

Thankful Thursday | when you press me to your heart, I'm in a world apart

I Am Grateful:

• I am grateful for the Duplo blocks that quiet Mads and capture his interest.
• I am grateful for every part of my body that jiggles because I'm made of flesh not paper.
• I am grateful when I hear sirens, for the people who make livings of helping others.
• I am grateful for my grandpa, steady and good and full of love.
• I am grateful to come home to a house full of good cooking smells after a long day at work.
• I am grateful for little gifts left in my cubby at work from co-workers.
• I am grateful to Grandma for picking us up and taking us to dinner at Martigan's favorite, Firehouse Subs, and I am grateful to her for her good humor when Mads eats only chips and does not touch his sandwich.
• I am grateful for citrus-scented dish soap.
• I am grateful for the jingling tinkle of my many charm bracelets (Christmas gifts from Grandma this year) against china coffee mugs as I put them away in the cabinet.
• I am grateful for the way salt patterns swirl on roads and look like some ancient magic runes, and like snow, impervious to sun and heat.
• I am grateful for the competing morning sounds of Uriah Heep on the turn table on one side of me (in the living room) and Wolfman tuning up his guitar on the other (in the bedroom).
• I am grateful for the tradition of wearing my husband's boots and coat (so much more practical than my own) to tromp around in the snow.

"La Vie En Rose," Louis Armstrong

Photo Journal | 365 | when you're skating in the park, if the snow clouds make it dark, then your rosy cheeks are gonna light my merry way

049/365 - Saturday 19 December 2015 | Every time I go to Grandma's house, I find some new little detail that just delights me.

050/365 - Sunday 20 December 2015, Grandpa's 76th Birthday | When I was a girl, Winter was my favorite season.

051/365 - Monday 21 December 2015 | I have a regular customer, Bonnie, who has me undress all the mannequins in her size and buys entire outfits I've put together. She's excited about me, about what she calls my talent, which is thrilling for me. But, there is still this small part of me that's uncomfortable with the attention, the compliments, the prospect of change and responsibility (because styling a person is a responsibility). I'd thought that small, timid part of myself was gone for the most part, but here she is, tossing doubt in my path. 

052/365 - Tuesday 22 December 2015 | We celebrated the solstice today, not exactly in the way I wanted. (Toddlers sure do muck things up with their insistence on routine.) We stayed home all day, and Wolfman cooked a big meal. I baked my holiday beer bread. Our newlywed friends Crist and Sheila joined us for dinner and the traditional after dinner hearth fire, sinking deeper and deeper into the couch. That's how we trap 'em!

053/365 - Wednesday 23 December 2015 | Grey and grey and grey and more grey. I don't wear it, but I love it as a shade of sky.

054/365 - Thursday 24 December 2015, Christmas Eve | Bacon maple cake donut and lots and lots of ideas. These days whenever I work with my boss April, I feel like I spend most of my time just spitting ideas out at her. 2016 is going to be a big year.

055/365 - Friday 25 December 2015, Christmas | Spent Christmas morning in Angier with Wolfman's mother's side of the family. I took a pretty immediate liking to Wolfman's Aunt Theresa because there's a gargoyle on her front step and fairies scattered throughout her house. Wolfman's absurd sense of humor comes from this side of his family. I thank them all for that.

056/365 - Saturday 26 December 2015 | Spent the latter half of my shift at work in the boutique, teaching myself how to process new Exchange clothes and, in general, trying to fill Christina's shoes while she's babymooning (her baby was born very late Christmas Eve night, unexpectedly). When I heard the wheezy printer shooting out tags in the exchange, I peeked my head around the corner at April and Serena and "What What!"ed with my hands in the air.

057/365 - Sunday 27 December 2015 | We celebrated Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's house today. Mads has had days upon days of Yule. I'm always a little sad when it all ends. Grandma was upset about the little cousins not spending Christmas day together, but our celebration at her house is always a few days after the fact (in fact, one year I think we did Christmas on New Year's Day). Not being much of a New Year's reveler, I always think of Christmas at Grandma's house as the final chapter on the holiday season.

"I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday," Wizzard

Photo Journal | fairies wear boots

Around the time that Spring gave way to Summer, an interesting infestation cropped up at my grandma's house.  First, one little home appeared nestled under the rosemary bush aside her drive way, then within a month there were a dozen. Fairies. Wee folk. We never see them, of course (we're not that swift or lucky), only the evidence of them, namely new little houses every week or so, and gifts left in the old chimney flue for Mads and Ella--a toy car, a miniature deck of cards, stickers. These don't seem to be the usual type of fairies, this tribe that's moved into my grandmother's yard (and, she tells me, she's finding evidence that they're inside the house as well). Or, at least, they don't seem to be what I think of as the usual fairies. These critters aren't making homes out of tree bark and mud; they're not even repurposing and recycling the junk we humans discard. No, they seem to be pilfering bird and doll houses and those castles people put in aquariums(?), from where I can't say. And are they carrying these shelters in groups over their heads, like nocturnal ants? Or is there some sneaky magic afoot? Today is the first of Autumn, and I don't know yet if the cooler weather will stanch their migration. Do fairies hibernate in winter like bears?

"Fairies Wear Boots," Black Sabbath