Mama in Wonderland

Merry Christmas

2016-12-23T07:40:00.001-06:00

This MiW has been MIA, but I'm still here, mothering and working and generally just trying to get through each day with the children fed and at the right places at the right times. It's been a crazy, crazy fall/early winter, with a job I still adore but which has been seriously overwhelming this year (enrollment changes, overworked staff) and two kids in travel basketball. (That's two different teams, practices at least twice a week at two different times and two different locations, and away tournaments most weekends.)

A few glimpses into our days:

Genevieve (age 10) was asked to be the elementary-student speaker at the annual all-school-district employee appreciation breakfast for my work on the day before Thanksgiving. She gave a speech about the highlights of her elementary-school years to a packed auditorium of adults (teachers and school-district administration and staff) and wowed everyone to such a degree that people are still stopping me at work now and then to tell me how amazed by her they were. I can't tell you how many times I have heard, "She is really something!" or "I can tell she's got a big personality!" or "She is a force of nature!" (or, my favorite, "I bet it's a daily adventure, being that one's mom!") Um, yes. I could not have been more proud. Afterward, I took the girls out for milkshakes at Caribou to celebrate.

We ran the Turkey Trot again this year!

Only Julia had time to train at ALL, so it was all the more exciting (to us only, no one else cared ;) ) that all three of us ran the entire thing with no walk breaks. We had so much fun, as always.

Oh, "Hamilton." I'm obsessed. Just as obsessed as every other obsessed fan you've ever heard of or met. People discover this show, this star, and they are absolutely gone. It's inevitable. It's universal. Does anyone discover "Hamilton" and not go absolutely crazy for it? Lin-Manuel Miranda has my heart. I have been listening to the soundtrack nonstop since October. My family is sick of it. My children have learned allllllll the swear words because of it. (Oops! But they're funny, and context-appropriate.) I'm embarrassed to admit how many times my neighbors have probably seen me out for evening walks with earbuds in, wiping away tears because "It's Quiet Uptown" just played and only a statue or a robot could hear that song and know the context behind it and not cry. Neighbors: I'm OK. I'm just listening to "Hamilton."

What happened was, I was at home alone redoing my daughters' bedrooms and PBS aired a brilliant, beautifully-produced documentary about the musical. By chance, I had it on in the background while I was putting together furniture. I went nutso for it. Game over. Unfortunately for you, the documentary is no longer available for online viewing without a PBS membership. I watched it three times before it went away and, because it's likely the closest I'll ever get to procuring tickets to the actual musical (so many good clips from the show!), I have seriously considered becoming a PBS member solely to gain access to this documentary again. I would probably watch it daily, though, and I don't have time for that, so....maybe not.

In support of my obsession, my friend Rob gave me a copy of the amazing, best-selling biography of Alexander Hamilton that started it all. It's 800 pages long. I'm working my way through it a few pages at a time, routinely shaking my head in disbelief at this man's life. Who knew? The guy on the ten-dollar bill! WHO KNEW. His life story is insane. I have cried reading this, and I'm only 200 pages in. It has helped me cope with the results of the presidential election. No joke.

And with all that, I will leave you with thoughts of holiday sweets, full Christmas stockings, and happy hearts. There is a lot of tragedy in the world--impoverished orphans left to their own devices at age 12 and Trump being the new U.S. President, to name a couple--but sometimes those tragedies turn into something else, years later. See Hamilton, if you want an example.

Keep the faith! Carry on! Merry Christmas.

Football, Rain, and Other Diversions

2016-10-10T06:15:00.000-05:00

So the day after the Labor Day holiday weekend, the girls and I went back to school and work. I didn't get any good first-day-of-school photos because it was raining like we needed an Ark and everything looked gloomy and full of shadow. We tried not to worry that the weather was an omen about the upcoming school year. Of course it wasn't!

I do have a few other good autumn photos, however....

Just before school began, Genevieve played in a fun 3-on-3 charity basketball tournament. Doesn't she look cute? OK, I'm biased. Obviously.

We've been going to college and high school football games when our schedules allow. Which isn't often enough, in my opinion. I love going to football games.

We watched our river and downtown flood after torrential rains in September. Yikes.

We went to the annual Alpaca Farm Days Open House that we've been attending since the girls were preschoolers. Love.

And that's all I have time to say right now. Seventh and fifth grades this year. Year three of working full-time with autistic children at Genevieve's school for me. Ups and downs, ins and outs, leaves changing and falling.

More when I have a chance. No telling when that might be. :)

Getting Ready

2016-09-01T11:11:00.000-05:00

birthday breakfast

birthday cake

So sometime in the month since I last wrote here, my baby turned ten. That seems fairly crazy. I'm barely keeping up here! But time marches on and all that. We had a huge kid party the weekend after her actual birthday, with ten girls squeezed into our small house, and it was chaotic but fun. This child has the sweetest, brainiest, sportiest friends. A girl gang for the modern world, all obsessed with science and athletics and books and math. Love them.

I went to a bunch of work trainings in preparation for back-at-it next Tuesday. I have mixed feelings this year. Being back at school made me feel all warm and fuzzy about seeing my fave work friends, my fantastic supervisor, and the anticipation of seeing the kiddos in our special ed program soon, after 12 weeks apart. I truly love and miss them. And September is always--and is already!--warm, sunny, golden, and glorious in these parts. It's impossible to think of past Septembers without remembering the good feelings that come with these gorgeous, perfect days.

But. As is always the case, THIS. The sadness is overwhelming at times. Last night before I fell asleep, I had the sudden panicked realization that summer is over and we never went to the popcorn cart on our town square. A summer tradition, and yet this year, with older kiddos who do more stuff on their own, with friends, and often parent-less, etc., WE NEVER WENT. I almost sat bolt upright in bed. I experienced a very real, physical pang somewhere in my chest. We are going to the popcorn cart tomorrow. But I could cry.

What else, you all? What else is going on? I'm restarting the sprint-interval running program, from week one. I'm redoing bedrooms on a budget of zero (sigh). I'm still binge-reading Elin Hilderbrand. All in all, it has been, of course, a good summer. The Black Hills trip, summer basketball, breaking boards in Tae Kwon Do, several day trips of pure fun (the zoo & Rainforest Cafe for the girls with a dear, dear girlfriend I rarely see because she lives across the country from me; fun city neighborhood jaunts for our girls' field trips; the movies)... There is no such thing as a bad summer.

And, once again, we warrior on into autumn and another school year, my last with a child in elementary school. Life takes fortitude, for sure, and especially if you have one of these fragile hearts that not everyone seems to have.

I will be thinking of all of you, my fellow mamas, next Tuesday on our first day of school. I know some of you have already sent your kiddos back to school, but it's next Tuesday for us, so I'll still think of us all then, as if we're in it together. Because honestly, we are!

xo
S

Unsucessful Denial

2016-07-31T08:24:00.000-05:00

It's the last day of July?! WHAT HAPPENED. ??!!??!!!?????

Gah. Can't deal with that trauma. Won't even think about it another second. Onward. Denial, you know? It works. For awhile.

Actually, I have done (most of) the girls' school supply shopping. (Why do we always forget at least one item on the school list, why?????? Maybe because the list is so long and the font is so small?????) Oh God, remember the Flair pen??? Thank God there are no Flair pens on the list this year.

I know. It's CRAZY. I bought the school supplies in July. (Recall that in MN, school does not start until the day after Labor Day. Hence, school shopping in July is crazy early.) This would seem to contradict the notion that I am in denial regarding the fact that summer is 2/3 over. However, I have learned to do it early so as to then put it out of one's mind for longer. Of course, there is still the backpack shopping, and the shoe shopping, and the clothes shopping, so..... never mind.

In another contradiction of the theory that I (successfully) practice denial when it comes to summer's fleetingness, lately I have become beset with paralyzing attacks of grief regarding my past autumns as a full-time stay-at-home mom. More specifically, I recently realized that I only had 1-1/2 years of sending my daughters to all-day school while remaining a full-time SAHM. (I started working part-time at my girls' school halfway through Genevieve's 2nd-grade year, then moved to full-time the following fall.) I only experienced two Septembers (those glorious, sun-drenched, still-warm days of early fall!) of sending the kids back to school and then reaping the blissful productivity of full autumn days at home---time to preserve the farm produce, time to clean the closets, time to run during the day and grocery shop and manage the children's and the household's myriad needs, time to bake homemade breads and cookies and pies and full dinners!

Just two times this happened. This makes me so, so sad. I miss those days terribly. I miss having time to get so much done, I miss not feeling like a frantic hamster running on a wheel but never getting anywhere. I miss the more relaxed pace of my life back then--coupled with, at the same time, a better handle on family projects and my kiddos' needs. In my mind, I think I felt like I was home forever, maybe because there was pressure to get out there and contribute financially to the family. But honestly, there was only a year and a half that I was home with both children in full-day school. That's not very long in the grand scheme of family life and parenthood.

And honestly, as I've said many times, I do love my job at the school. If it paid even half a living wage, it would be the PERFECT JOB for me, as far as jobs go. My first full-time year, I literally never once missed being home full-time, never once regretted working. However, by midway through last year--when, I guess, the novelty was wearing off and the sense of being constantly behind on everything at home was increasing with each passing month--my work-BFF and I had begun sniffling together on our afternoon breaks about our past SAHM lives and how much we felt that role was our true calling and what our families truly needed.

So, it's hard. I love that school, those kids, my co-workers, my supervisor, the schedule, the work. But I still pine for those two lost Septembers, and I try really hard not to notice how fast the summer weeks go.

In other, less depressing news, my Elin Hilderbrand obsession continues. I'm on book six now. (The Rumor, Barefoot, The Matchmaker, The Island, Summerland, Silver Girl.) Thank God she's so prolific. I can feed my addiction for months to come! Hurrah. At least I can live in permanent summer via E.H. novels.

And as for now? I've planning Genevieve's 10th birthday (already! gah! August!), I'm taking the girls on day trips here and there and to all their activities (including Tae Kwon Do, where they both earned their brown belts and BROKE THEIR FIRST BOARDS this month, omg), I'm scheduling my pre-school-year work trainings (no comment; or rather, see above for numerous comments) and the girls' pediatrician well-checks, I'm running when it's not 92 degrees, I'm hosting playdates and eating ice cream cones and listening to the birds sing outside my patio door.

August is lush. The corn is high. The flowers are electric pink and red and yellow. Focus on that.

July, in All its Glory

2016-07-10T11:58:00.000-05:00

Ah, summer. Is there anything better? Doubtful.

It's a different sort of summer for me. My girls are old enough to be dropped off at the pool; no more do I spend every afternoon on a lounge chair with a book, dipping in when I get too hot. That said, I am still at the pool plenty of afternoons.

Elin Hilderbrand for the win

It is the summer of Elin Hilderbrand novels. Oh, my. One of my favorite friends, a work bestie, introduced me to her recently, and I'm now officially addicted to her books. Her women characters--they are mostly women protagonists--are charming but flawed; thus, they are so relatable. Note: these books are sometimes referred to as romances, or as beach reads, and while I would agree with the latter (in the best sense only: absorbing, summer-set, beachy, warm), the former really isn't quite right. Yes, there is often romance of some sort. But Elin Hilderbrand's themes--as far as I've read so far, anyway, which is just three: The Rumor, Barefoot, and The Matchmaker--are more complex than simple romance. Because life is complex! Motherhood, infidelity/divorce, cancer: These are Hilderbrand themes (beyond the largest and most obvious theme of Nantucket/summer/beach). I could read one after the other nonstop, like eating popcorn or those unwrapped miniature Reese's peanut butter cups that come in the stand-up bag.

It is the summer of girl projects and greater self-sufficiency. Children grow, after all.

A summer of fewer trail runs, more interval runs--because they give me smokin' legs, of course! (I can't sprint in the woods--too paranoid of tripping on a rock or a root and wiping out.) I miss the trails but love the results. I also highly recommend this 30 Day Squat Challenge, which I did last summer and again this past April, and have kept up since then (not every day, but I do about 350-400 squats [in sets of 50 with a short break between sets] a few days a week, and nothing has benefited my rear view, or my weak running hips, more, ever, so there's that).

Speaking of legs, here are the shorts I picked up on a Target run the other day, that my youngest said were "pretty good, but kind of look like pajama shorts."

I wore them anyway.

My girl! Who is she to talk? She'd wear pajamas all day if I let her!

So, we took a family trip to the Black Hills/Badlands. The South Dakota Wild West, you all! It was fantastic.

That was just a tiny fraction of what we saw of course. You'd hate me if I uploaded every photo.

We are home now, and back to basketball, Tae Kwon Do, mountain biking class (them); and interval runs, many squats, and Elin Hilderbrand novels (me). We are back to wishing every perfect summer day would never end.

So, This Happened

2016-06-10T07:29:00.000-05:00

So. Here we go. A semi-random, rushed (sorry! I have 7 girls coming to my house later today for a birthday sleepover & a milllllion things to do before that!), incomplete rundown of What We Did, Spring 2016 Edition, Possibly Accidentally Including Some Things From Winter?, the working-mom version (which means, essentially, the photos are too few & unedited).

We went to a Timberwolves game!

We (meaning they) earned their blue belts in Tae Kwon Do!

We made Easter cookies, and...

We tried to look springy on Easter on the prairie!

Julia joined the 6th-grade girls' track team!

We put our 21-year-old kitty to sleep :( .....

Julia turned 12. TWELVE.

Genevieve set a school historical record & got special recognition at a medal ceremony for running a total of 198 miles during recess throughout the course of the school year in the 4th-grade running club (the club's highest challenge was to get to 100 miles)!

....And, on Wednesday, the last day of school (& for me, work) came:

If you need me, I'll just be over here huddled in a corner preemptively crying over the fact that I only have one year left with a child in elementary school.

Happy Summer, you all! It's the very best time of the year, and I plan to soak up every drop. I'm starting with hosting this crazy girl sleepover. Ha! ;) When that's over, I plan to resume hot lush trail runs and sunny afternoons at the pool. I wish you the very best summer ever.

Are You Sure?

2016-06-06T05:48:00.000-05:00

Have you been wondering why I have not had time to post here since late April, during these last six weeks of the school year--not even a token birthday post when my oldest turned 12 on Friday, nor anything about being rehired at my current full-time job for next year, nor notes about my youngest setting a school (or all of history?) record for running a total of NEARLY TWO HUNDRED miles during recess over the course of the school year, when the goal for the running club program is 100 miles (and most kids don't even make that), nor a word about completing this eight-week, kick-ass interval running program app that almost killed me at first but left me with the most awesome leg muscles and a typical (non-sprinting) mile pace nearly a minute faster than my previous usual (runners: try it!), nor a thing about Julia's first-ever middle-school track season, nor a word about the upcoming nine-girl sleepover birthday party at our house this coming weekend?

Well, this. This is why.

For those of you on my schedule, enjoy this last (half-)week of school, if you can, amidst the 50 picnic lunches (permission slip required) that are somehow still scheduled (sack lunches needed! drinks in non-glass bottles! disposable/recyclable everything!).

Cheers! You can do it, mamas.

Random Spring Notes

2016-04-24T07:32:00.001-05:00

OMGGGGGG.

It is ridiculous that I have not written here since mid-February. FEBRUARY. What the ever-loving?

I'm terrible.

I'll spare you a paragraph about how CRAZY BUSY I have been and all the usual excuses about having NO TIME TO WRITE. Just consider it already said.

It's hard to sum up nearly 2-1/2 months of mothering life in a few paragraphs. Truth be told, I can't even remember mid-February. Were we done with Genevieve's travel basketball tournaments at that point? Not even sure. What was going on with work? No idea. The good news is that back then, it was winter, and now IT IS SPRING. Does anything else even matter?

So, spring. Easter up north at the grandparents', Julia joining the 6th-grade girls' track team and thus initiating us into the world of daily after-school sports practice (and four-hour WEEKNIGHT meets), interval runs via this new-to-me app (no, I have not lost weight with it, by the way; turns out you actually have to, I don't know, adjust your diet? for that to happen), the annual elementary school arts festival (squeezed in before Tae Kwon Do class, yikes, the fam schedule is tight at times), playdates, birthday parties, and other social busy-ness.

And now here we are at almost May. The girls are taking this session off from Tae Kwon Do due to Julia's track schedule, but will start again in June. Genevieve's well past her school running club's record for most miles run at recess during the course of the year, with 6-1/2 weeks of school still to go. Within the past few months our front door deadlock, dining room overhead light fixture/switch, garage door opener, and girls' bedroom blinds have all broken/malfunctioned. (Have any of the above been fixed yet? Ha ha no.) Our 21-year-old kitty has shrunk to five pounds or less and we are facing an imminent goodbye. Life goes on, each day a speeding train just like the one before it.

I'll come back, before 2-1/2 more months go by, I swear. I'll post some photos. Happy Spring!

A Few Recommendations

2016-02-11T19:52:00.001-06:00

Random, I know, but in the dark depths of winter I find that it's helpful to find a few things you love and then latch onto them obsessively. All the better to distract yourself from the fact that you can't go outside without 42 layers of clothing and snow gear, and spring is a good six weeks away.

Here are some recent discoveries that have been floating my old creaky boat lately:

Books:

* The Children's Crusade, by Ann Packer. This book had been on my to-read list for several months (it was published last year and in every book-review magazine column I encountered for awhile there), but I'd forgotten all about it until it appeared before my eyes during a browse at the public library a few weeks ago. It's a big, fat, emotional novel--the literary equivalent of a long, rich dinner with many courses--about a family of grown siblings returning to and reuniting with one another, remembering and reliving and flashing back to their childhood together and the complicated, often unhappy marriage of their polar-opposite parents. I couldn't put it down.

* Wish You Were Here, by Stewart O'Nan. Another expansive-family-life novel, a decade-plus old (published 2003) but still spot-on in its depiction of everyday dynamics and exchanges between grown children and their aged parents, fortysomething parents and their school-ager kiddos, middle-aged husbands and wives with each other. So real it felt like listening in on actual conversations and true-life family moments--that are a lot like mine and everyone else's I know.

* What Comes Next and How to Like It, by Abigail Thomas. An beautiful essay-ish memoir of both the dramatic and mundane experiences of this acclaimed writer's life. Not to mention, the best title I've heard since I Was Told There'd Be Cake.

Songs:

* "Fire and the Flood," Vance Joy. I fell in love with this Australian singer-songwriter's 2014-2015ish hit, "Riptide," first because it was catchy as hell on the pop-music radio station while driving my kiddos to the pool and back all summer, and then I fell even harder later when I heard the song described as "a ballad [not at all, actually] of unrequited love" and I finally really got it. (Plus: the ukelele! So good.) Then "Fire and the Flood" came out and the fact that it was so cheery-and-in-love after all that "Riptide" heartache just made me--as corny as it sounds--so happy for him. Like, the song actually makes me smile. I imagine this sweet dude is finally happy, and writing about it. ("Late at night, when you can't fall asleep / I'll be lying right beside you, counting sheep.") Good on you, Vance! Plus it's got all sorts of great hooks and Vance Joy's interesting voice.

* "Out of the Woods," Taylor Swift. Hold up now. Listen. I hated Taylor Swift. I mean, the radio had overplayed her annoying top-40 hits so egregiously in the past year or few that I'd developed a probably unhealthy level of hatred toward T.S. Not just her music; it had become about HER. Gah! All her humble-brag lyrics about how cool and sexy and stylish and irresistible she is to boys. Ugh! Hate her! It was a little irrational, I admit. But anyway. This song was released and it was....different. And I love it. It's got that driving, desperate chorus and those relentless drums. It's an awesome running-playlist song.

* "Shake it Out," Florence and the Machine. Yeah, this is about ten million x better than that OTHER song with a similar title--you know, the TAYLOR SWIFT (see hatred, above) one? I was never a big Florence and the Machine fan. But this song popped up on the radio not long ago and the lyrics grabbed me by the throat and slayed me. Wow. Another good run-as-fast-as-you-can song.

Happy reading and running, you all.

xo
S.

Snow to the Rescuuuuuuuuue!!!

2016-02-10T06:31:00.000-06:00

So IMMEDIATELY after I wrote that last post about having no time at all, ever, we had a teacher-workshop day off from school, and then a giant blizzard brought a foot of snow and howling, white-out winds to my little town, which resulted in....TWO SNOW DAYS. After a three-day weekend. Yessssssssss.

It was if God heard my exhausted pleas for extra time to get something--anything!--done, and said, I'll help you out here. How about two unexpected days off from work, the children's school schedules and homework, and sports activities? The kiddos will play for hours in the snow with their friends, and no one will bother you because everyone's snowed in, and you can roast your giant squash and finally catch up on the laundry and mop that slush-covered floor. Would that help? And I was all like, I WILL TAKE THAT, THANK YOU.

Perfection.

Three Million Steps Counts for Something, Right?

2016-01-31T07:53:00.003-06:00

The other day I got an email from FitBit detailing my "stats" for 2015. FitBit says I took 3,408,590 steps last year, covering 1,399 miles. (And that of course does not count the days I forgot to wear my FitBit or the week or two when it malfunctioned and I was waiting for the company to ship me a replacement.) Thank God for that email, because it allows me to feel like I accomplished something tangible at some point.

Not that I think I failed at 2015. I just mean that the majority of the time, as a working mom, I feel behind on EVERYTHING. I'm sure all the other working moms out there know how I feel. I may generally get meals made and the house semi-cleaned, but there are still all the other things I do not seem to have time for: figuring out the middle school online communication system that I suppose I should learn now that it is halfway through the school year; printing out photos for my daughters' photo albums (which I have not done since last June); roasting the damn 15-lb. Blue Hubbard squash my daughter won in November when she correctly guessed its weight at our CSA farm's fall storage-share pick-up and which has been languishing in our unheated laundry room ever since (next year: no one in my household is allowed to guess, got that?); replacing the ripped window shades in two bedrooms; hanging the towel hooks in the girls' bathroom (which I bought about six months ago. maybe more. but they require a drill. and no one is offering to help me with that.); organizing my nightmare of a recipe "collection"; making some freezer meals for busy weeknights (aren't they all, though? my freezer is not big enough for that); running more; I could go on and on and on..... And sure, some of it is perhaps nonessential; but lots of it (trust me) is just the stuff of life, of running a household and raising a family--and needs to get done.

Most of the time I don't even feel like I have time to be a very good parent. I mean, basic needs are being met, yes. And I do things with my girls, of course--all the time. But I have this sense that the down-and-dirty details of parenting daughters through emotional (read: all) development takes slow time. I can't articulate this quickly and I don't have time to write more, but maybe you fellow mamas out there already know what I mean. How do you talk about puberty or social ups and downs or self-esteem or disappointments or commitment or an overall approach to the difficulties of life, on the fly?--as you're rushing out the door to school or helping with math homework before sports practices or getting groceries with two helpers in tow who are mainly interested in the free cookie samples in the bakery section? Sigh. I don't know, and I feel like I'm failing a little (or a lot), every day. And it never gets better, it just keeps getting worse.

And with that, I'm off, because I'm an hour late for a workout and my to-do list for today is a mile long. You?

xo
S

Hooray! Winter Photos!

2016-01-18T15:23:00.000-06:00

I finally got iPhoto to upload the many photos on my phone onto the computer. Hooray! Now maybe I can order prints for the girls' (hard copy) photo albums. I'm only about, ummmm.....seven or eight months behind. OMG.

You guys! I got six inches cut off (the back of) my hair last week, without telling anyone or even thinking about it much beforehand. It was a spur of the moment thing. What the what?!

I had had a horrible day at work, the weather was nightmarishly cold (still is! only colder! ha!), and I needed something fresh to focus on. Mission accomplished.

Oh and hey! There is a movie being filmed in my town right now. Yes! Seriously. It's the craziest thing. I know that when you live in NYC or Toronto or Los Angeles (or even Chicago; I remember a time or two when neighborhood streets on the north side were blocked off for a movie crew), movies being filmed where you live is a fairly commonplace occurrence, but I live in a small, rural, southern-Minnesota river town. Sure, it's home to two elite colleges and is famous for its picturesque charm, but...movies aren't filmed here every day. It's kind of a big deal. I wonder what the movie crew thinks of our 15-below-zero temperature and 25-below-zero windchill.

Genevieve's 4th-grade traveling basketball team got 2nd place in their first-ever tournament...

Julia made it into the district middle-school spelling bee (coming up this week), and today we're off school and work for MLK, Jr. Day. (Hallelujah! Needed a day off, big-time.) We went ice skating with friends (not outside! we'd be icicles!):

That's what it's all about when you live up here in the frozen north--finding friends to hang out with and make the most of winter. Staying active, making homemade soup, watching kiddos play basketball. Monitoring the movie-making progress. Sometimes chopping off all your hair just to get your mind off the fact that it's January.

Stay warm.
xo
S.

New Year, With or Without Sweets

2016-01-06T06:52:00.000-06:00

A new year, friends! I haven't even accidentally written 2015 on anything so far, how about you? Small successes.

My girls and I went back to school/work on Monday, feeling not ready and ready (well, them 100% not ready, ha) at the same time. Our break sped by, since we were out of town for much of it. This made it seem short because we didn't have lots of luxuriously empty at-home days to decide what we felt like doing: sledding? skating? movies? playdates? We did get some of those days near the end, but not as many as we would have liked. Ah well. There is also comfort in routine and a schedule, after all. I am always amazed at how quickly everyone adjusts and gets back to "normal." Within two days it all feels familiar and fine.

We are back to EARLY morning wake-ups, homework, and having no time to keep up with the household stuff (me). The girls are also back to Tae Kwon Do after taking autumn off for other things. That feels reassuring and right, also. Their instructor is a gem who deftly and gently inserts life lessons and values into every class in a way that draws the kiddos in; he starts out talking about, say, determination or respect in relation to Tae Kwon Do practice, then generalizes that to how one (should) behave at home with one's parents, or how they apply themselves at school. Gotta love it.

What else? It turned cold and snowy just before Christmas, so we are finally doing things like skating on the corner pond, building snow forts, and running gingerly on icy streets. Since we did get an extra bonus month of non-winter weather in December, I can't really complain. I just hope this doesn't mean winter is going to tack an extra month onto its end and stay cold until June. It hasn't been bad so far, but this weekend the high temp is supposed to be minus two, so there you go. January.

After the hedonistic holidays, I'm back on the wagon of eliminating (= minimizing) sugar and flour (really, most grain-based carbs, which act like sugar in the body) from my diet in a successful attempt to treat my longstanding joint pain. It has worked like a true miracle; I have been absolutely amazed. My hip joints were bothering me so much in the fall that I felt like an old lady and was fairly desperate. (You have to be desperate to voluntarily give up sugar.) After a week or so off sugar, they felt about 75-80% improved. Another week and the pain was gone COMPLETELY and did not return until I'd been chowing down on treats during all of Christmas break. How clearer could that message be from my body, right?? Hello, sugar is a KNOWN inflammatory. It only makes sense that avoiding it would effectively treat joint pain. I'm not perfect, and it's not easy, but it's going pretty well so far and being able to get up in the morning without having achy, creaky hips (not to mention being able to sleep fine at night without tossing and turning because my hips hurt)---and having the arthritis in my toes not even bother me at all---is so, so, so worth it. It's a quality of life issue, for sure.

I think that's about it in terms of life updates. Thrilling, I know.

Truth be told, one of the reasons I haven't posted here much lately, other than having zero time, ha, is that for some mysterious reason I can't get photos to upload off my phone into iPhoto, and it seems boring and off-putting to publish a post that's just a long string of text with no photographs. I'm sorry. I'm sure this is as boring as it gets. I think my mom is still reading, though.

I hope your new year is off to a good start! Give thanks every day for what you have, find joy in some part of every day, and be optimistic about the coming year. It's a clean slate and an open book! Onward.

xo
S

Over the River and Through the Woods

2015-12-24T05:59:00.001-06:00

We've been busy making merry, baking goodies, growing bigger every day (well, the littles, that is), and enjoying everything the holiday season has to offer--even if this year, in our town, that did not include snow until yesterday.

Over the river and through the woods we go, and to you, I wish the merriest of Christmases. I know I haven't been around much this past year; life is moving too fast and I can hardly keep up half the time. But I think about you--all of you out there!--so often. We are all in this mothering job, on this journey, together. Every year that passes is another year of growth and memories. Every Christmas is precious and a reminder of another mother and another baby long ago, on a miraculous journey of their own.

Love to you and yours, and have yourself a merry little (or big) Christmas. xoxo

Happy Thanksgiving!

2015-11-26T06:52:00.002-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. I wanted to post a photo here of Julia with the giant 15-lb. Blue Hubbard squash she won from our CSA farm by correctly guessing its weight at storage-share pickup last week, but iPhoto is refusing to import new photos from my phone right now (siiiiiigh........), so I will instead give you this pic I snapped a month ago on a trail run near my house: the prairie vegetation, the field, the sky. Nowadays there is more gold and brown and less green, but we have had an incredible long, warm, lucky autumn. Snow is supposed to come today for the first time--just a lovely sprinkling inch or so--even though yesterday it was 50 degrees where I live (the temp dropped 20 degrees overnight).

My daughters and I are off to run our town's Turkey Trot (5K) this morning before all the Thanksgiving dinner cooking begins. (Actually, that began last night, of course, with the pie and the assembling of the stuffing. Much more to come.) It has been a completely insane fall--working-mom life is crazier and busier than EVER and I have often wondered how to do it all and where the time is going--but that is all the more reason to thoroughly enjoy this day.

I wish you a day full of food, love, and thanksgiving!

Growing Up

2015-11-22T06:38:00.000-06:00

One of the best things about having an 11-year-old: Every time the Macklemore song "Growing Up" (a letter of advice to the artist's then-unborn daughter Sloane) comes on the radio, when he gets to the line "And every day, give your mama a compliment," Julia calls out from the other room or the backseat of the car something like, "You're a good runner!" or "You're a great cook!"

Fall Back

2015-10-04T12:14:00.001-05:00

Yes! I am still alive. Busy, but alive.

Long overdue: my daughters on the first day of school (a month ago now! sheesh).

Sixth grade (that's middle school, yo!) and fourth grade, if you can believe that ridiculousness. I mean. I was just taking pictures of them on their first days of PRESCHOOL, after all.

The first month of school and work has been as expected: crazy-busy, full of ups and downs, warm and sunny, challenging, tiring, and mostly good. The transition to middle school is no joke, people. I could say a lot more if I had the energy (ha!).

Work is awesome and exhausting, as always. The most interesting part, to me, about returning to full-time work this fall is the comparison to my first transition to full-time work a year ago. Even though I'm just as busy (more so, actually, because my kiddos have more activities this year and now one of them is at a different school, which doubles the schedules/requirements/procedures/policies/obligations I have to think about), I've clearly acclimated to some degree because I no longer find myself comatose by 6 p.m. like I did last autumn. I mean, don't get me wrong: I'm going to sleep at 8:30 each night, have missed more workouts in the past month than the entire summer combined, and am deeply indebted to whomever invented convenience dinner foods like frozen chicken tenders, but I'm not quite as completely knocked flat like I was when I first began this whole full-time-working-mom gig in September 2014.

And, although Julia and I have already caught the first cold virus of the school year, we have also managed to squeeze in some fall fun:

(Not pictured: high school football games, a parade, numerous playdates, the zoo...)

I love my job, I really do. This is a big relief because I wondered, would I feel the same way about it this year? Would it be just as satisfying? So far I do, and it is. But I do still miss being a stay-at-home mom sometimes, too. Especially after being home full-time over the summer, it seems impossible now to do all the home-family-mom stuff while never being home during the day. I find myself missing the days when I could run, grocery-shop, clean, cook, bake, and run errands at times other than evenings and weekends. Now that I can't, my weekends are a marathon of doing all that, and I never feel like I get to rest or recover from the workweek.

For some reason I feel like I was more efficient and productive last year than I am this fall. Maybe the panic of such a big change caused me to overcompensate last fall, or maybe it's just that this year is harder and more complicated, with a child starting middle school. Whatever the reason, I'm struggling more this fall with fitting in runs, staying in shape, cooking real dinners, and generally getting everything done. Gah. It's an ongoing struggle, isn't it, mamas?

A co-worker with teenage children told me the other week that the only jobs that are feasible once you have kiddos in middle and high school are ones that mimic your children's school schedule (i.e., our jobs as educational assistants at the elementary school, ones for which we are vastly overqualified and underpaid but which include no demands on our time once school is out each day and from which we are off on all days our kids are off from school), or being a stay-at-home mom. Another work friend, with kids ranging in age from 10 to 17, mentioned not long ago that her husband is lobbying for her to return to stay-at-home motherhood because life is just too difficult without a parent at home and available to manage all the household tasks and kids' activity schedules. I get it, I really do.

On a completely different note, but speaking of stay-at-home motherhood....you guys, every single month I am stunned and inexpressibly grateful when I continue to receive a book royalty check. I am utterly AMAZED by this. My book on the stay-at-home-mom-life was published almost four years ago, and it continues to actually earn me royalties. You cannot imagine how unexpected this has been to me. I can only reiterate my extreme thanks to all of you, any of you, who have supported and continue to support my writing in this way. Love you guys!!

And so, here we go into a new week, in a new month, with all its complexities and challenges and moments of sweetness and exhaustion. The leaves are turning, the kiddos are busy and growing, the days are speeding by and getting shorter.

As for me, I'm just trying to hang on, make a good decision every now and then, feed my babes, get some sleep, and soak up any available sun. The evenings are short, there is no doubt now. Life isn't easy in the fall; everyone knows what's ahead. It's time to prepare, take stock, shore up, gather your strength. Runs will be cold. Nights will be long. All we can do is keep on keeping on!

Let's do this.

Day Three

2015-09-10T06:36:00.001-05:00

Just dropping in quickly to say we're doing OK so far, three days into the school/work year. Some bumps in the road, but hanging in, just trying to get to Friday afternoon when we are all looking forward to a trip to the bakery after school on our way to farm share pick-up and then crashing at home with popcorn and a much-deserved movie. Last fall I always said Thursday was the hardest day of the week in terms of adjustment and exhaustion. So, we're gonna power through it! Thank goodness for sunny September days, good friends and neighbors, home-baked treats, kind teachers, and lots of coffee (adults only). I even got in a solid run on Tuesday night and a short one last night (just couldn't do more than three miles yesterday; sooooo tired.) :)

Power on, peeps! Hope your school year is going well.

xo
S

Home Stretch

2015-09-04T09:21:00.000-05:00

August flowers from the farm

Sigh......home stretch of summer.

So this week has been the hottest and most humidly oppressive of the season....and the pool has been closed since Monday. GAH! It has always been open all the way through Labor Day, right up until the first day of school, but this year Labor Day is a week late, and the lifeguards all had to go back to college, so..... Yep. Closed.

It's been all 90+ degrees with dew points of 75 (FYI: that's like jungle humidity), and we've been all, Um.....what is there to do, exactly?

Luckily (?), what there's been to do this week is all the back-to-school (& work) activities. I had a training day on Monday, all nine hours of it; then it was elementary-school Open House and Middle School Parent Night and the new 6th graders' half-day orientation/welcome event. And now we're up to Labor Day weekend, and we're still sleeping late and staying in our pj's far too late and ignoring the fact that in just four short days, we'll be getting up at five (me) and six (them). Oh myyyyy.....

I've been psyching myself up to return to work/school by musing on the things I love about doing so (rather than on the five a.m. wake-up and the never-home insanity). For instance, Fridays take on a whole new meaning when you're NOT a stay-at-home mom. All day Friday--even when you love your job--you can relish the fact that at the end of the day you get to grab your kid(s) and come home to crash and RELAX. (Oh right, you never really relax when you have kiddos, but COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING.) Gotta love Friday afternoons.

And: the paychecks! The paychecks I get at this particular job are miniscule--however, they are money.

I'm sure there are other things that will come to me. ;)

Happy holiday weekend, friends! Soak it up. Next week life gets crazy. :)

xo
S.

Ready, Set, Go

2015-08-24T18:22:00.002-05:00

Well, my friends, it's a tough time of year for this mama, as you well know. I'm not even going to bother hyperlinking to all the past examples of my late-August melancholia; you all know how this goes down. You know I'm not like Jen Hatmaker, self-proclaimed worst end of summer mom ever, counting the minutes until I can send my kiddos back to school; I'm like dear Catherine Newman, shaking my fist at the universe that anything but summer even exists (why? seriously, WHY?), mourning every single summer flown like I'm mourning every increment by which my girls grow farther up and out. Which, of course, is exactly what the passing of one more summer means.

Well, that and the end of glorious, warm, comfortable, blissful, lovely weather. Gahhhhhhhhh........

This is partly why I have avoided writing here this month. Who wants to write about preparing for the first day of school, about shopping for school supplies, about MIDDLE SCHOOL ORIENTATION?? Not this mama.

And yet we are the lucky ones (in my world, anyway). School has not started yet where I live; it's still two weeks away! We live in the glorious state of Minnesota where there is an actual law forbidding school to begin prior to Labor Day, the better to preserve the vibrant tourism economy of lake country. (Full disclosure: some districts apply for a waiver; mine does not, woot!) Middle school orientation isn't until next week; same with middle school parent night, elementary school open house, etc. etc. etc. And yet. The wheels are in motion.

The upside: just like last year, the fact that I am going back to work as the girls go back to school is an immense comfort. It is distracting; it leaves one far too busy for sentimentality; Genevieve will be with me. The downside: only Genevieve will be with me. The fact that Julia will be going on to middle school this year and no longer under the sweet, small elementary school roof with Genevieve and me every day makes my throat seize with tears.

My bestie reminds me--so wisely, so right--that within a week--probably within a few days!--it will all be routine again. The school year rush. The alarm clock. The early mornings. the frenzied after-school afternoons with the homework, the mail, the feeding of the cat, the snacks, the chores, the cooking of dinner, the sports classes, the music lessons, the nonstop schedule of working-mom life during the go-go school year. What seems sad and terrifying right now will be nothing more than normal by three days in. I believe her! It's happened so many times before.

And I must admit that despite the world-rocking culture shock of suddenly working full-time outside the home while also juggling everything else I always had, and the almost humorous exhaustion that colored September 2014 as a result, there are snatches of lovely memory from last autumn that jump out at me, too, when I envision life in two weeks: the somehow soothing predictability of routine, even when that routine was insanely busy; the weeks I squeezed chilly evening runs into the hour of my girls' Tae Kwon Do classes, dropping them off and then taking off down Maple to get to the trails as fast as I could, turning around just in time, coming back for the last ten minutes of class, chilled and strong; those wild afternoons after school with NPR on and candles lit and the smell of leaves coming in the windows on the breeze all the while a mad dash was going on to get everything done in time and I was fueling myself with one last iced coffee to get me through until bedtime; the comfort of going to work every day and being able to immerse myself in something else all day--and with grown-ups to talk to, to boot!

These days I am a messy mix of both those things: the aching sadness of summer's end, of sending one child to a new school, of another year of my babes growing up, and the invigorating anticipation of the journey we are about to begin, again.

In the middle of all this, our fam took a vacation up north, the girls tested for and earned their purple belts in Tae Kwon Do, I took them on our annual summer day trip to Linden Hills in Minneapolis, Genevieve turned 9, and all the rest. For her birthday, I found a real gem: a girls' t-shirt with the Shakespeare quote, "Though she be but little, she is fierce" on it, from an etsy shop I discovered in one of those weird, tangential, Internet ways, as you do.

Truer words were never spoken (written).

With every t-shirt order, the shop owner/shirt designer sends a handwritten thank-you note, on which she writes her shop's motto--the Bible verse Hebrews 12:1, which reads: "Run with perseverance the race that is set before us."

So that is my guiding mantra for the upcoming weeks and months, as summer ends and a new race begins.

This is the job of us all: to run with perseverance the race that is set before us. That's how it goes. That's how it will go.

Summer Wonderland

2015-07-21T15:00:00.003-05:00

Ahhhh....summer. So perfect.

The girls and I have been hanging out at the pool:

and picking produce at the farm...

We went to St. Paul on a sunny Friday and saw the sights along Summit and Grand (my college stomping grounds):

We've been hiking in the Arboretum:

and exploring new playgrounds...

and shooting lots of baskets.

Oh, and by the way, shout-out to the 30-Day Squat Challenge (250 squats per day, anyone?) for the legs and glutes...

I do so appreciate it. Zillions and zillions of squats for the win!

And that's all for now.

Blissful Summer Adventures

2015-07-12T07:52:00.003-05:00

Heyyyyyy, everyone.

I am the worst. I keep meaning to update the blog but iPhoto has changed into something unrecognizable and therefore I keep neglecting to upload all the summer photos on my phone (errrrrr.....actually all spring long.....I used to be so good at keeping up on the full-time (ha!) job of maintaining and updating the girls' and family (physical, not digital) photo albums, and now I have not printed out photos since.....Valentine's! GAH! Um, in the meantime, we've had spring break, Easter, zillions of school activities, the last day of school and my 5th grader's graduation from elementary school, one child's birthday, the 4th of July, and all our summer adventures! Um, yeah).

I got a new iPhone a few weeks back and am still doing things like accidentally activating features I didn't even know it had. Uh, I'll figure it out eventually.

The girlies have been busy with summer basketball, tae kwon do, and off-road biking classes; math practice; shooting hoops in the driveway like little maniacs; frequent playdates and pool dates; and the like. Summer. Heaven. Nothing better.

Last week Daddy was out of town the whole week, so we had lots of girl adventures, and on Friday I took the girls to St. Paul for the day to see my old college campus and the sights along Summit and Grand. I pointed out the basement-level apartment I lived in and the preschool I worked at right after graduation; the bakeries, coffeehouses, ice cream shops, gift stores, running routes, and restaurants I used to frequent back in the day; the governor's mansion and all the rest of the historic mansions along Summit Avenue; and the church childcare center where I worked part-time my first fall at Mac. We had so much fun and it was the absolute perfect day, topped off with movie night and a popcorn dinner at home in our pj's when we were all tired from the day and clean from bubble baths.

I promise I'll post some photos soon (eventually). :)

Around Here...

2015-06-21T07:16:00.000-05:00

Well, the end of the school year has come and gone and I was too busy dealing with the logistical (teacher gifts, end-of-year parties/field trips/performances/ETC.; Julia's 11th birthday/party; visit from grandparents) and emotional (Julia's graduation from 5th grade/elementary school, with its heartstring-yanking ceremony in the gymnasium complete with big-screen photo slideshow set to Echosmith's "Bright" ("Days are good/And that's the way it should be...") (GAH the 5th-grade teachers were trying to kill us; all the moms cried); end of first year at amazing job I love like no other/saying goodbye to beloved kids/co-workers/boss for the next three months; sweet last-day-of school pics that make a person stand stock-still in dreaded realization that another grade is over and the kidlets are another year older now... intricacies to even THINK about writing any of it down.

Are you still with me? Did you successfully navigate that play-by-my-own-rules collection of parenthetical statements? Thanks.

And, even, two weeks of summer vacation have passed, and they have been as glorious--gloriouser!--as they ever are. I have experienced a new mental phenomenon, even as I run all over with my kiddos doing things like riding bikes, going to the pool, getting books from the library, working on jigsaw puzzles on rainy days, going to the movies, hiking in the Arboretum, shopping at Target, picking strawberries at the farm, having friends over to play, eating frozen-custard cones on a sunny Saturday, going to basketball, inventing arts and crafts, and the like: after nine months of working outside the home 38 hours a week and still doing all the home stuff, JUST doing the home stuff feels like...doing almost nothing.

It's CRAZY. Summer as a SAHM used to feel like the busiest time of all--the kids out of school and with me full-time, no solo grocery-shopping or exercising time, partners in crime along with me for every single chore and errand. But this year? I HAVE NEVER FELT SO NON-BUSY.

Of course the irony is that I'm as busy as I have ever been in the summer. It's just that my frame of reference has changed in the past nine months.

Summer life in Minnesota is blissful in a way that can be hard to put into words. When you live with roughly six months of cold/unpleasant weather each year, the three that constitute summer become over-the-top precious. The sun and the technicolor-green lushness of the woods and the perfect sky that looks like fake painted scenery, the impossibly cheery and melodic birds that remind you of an old-school Disney film, the sunrises and sunsets, the pool and the warmth and the smell of the air.... there's nothing better. Most boring paragraph ever, but sorry.

Life is good. ("And that's the way it should be...") Summer on.

Reflections on the Past Year as a Working Mom

2015-05-30T06:49:00.000-05:00

Well, my friends, the school year is almost done. It is so hard to believe. I remember last September so clearly and how nervous I was on the first day of school, my first day of being a full-time working mom--wondering if I'd like it, wondering how I'd do it all, wondering if I'd regret taking it on.

I'm here to say I don't regret a moment. It was Crazy with a capital C, and the moments of harried insanity were many, but I loved it.

A few reflections on my first year as a full-time working mom...

My intuition was right, as usual. When I made the decision to take the full-time offer, I was scared to death but I also had this gut sense that it was the right thing to do. Moms are famous for their intuition, and in my experience, those gut feelings exist for a reason.

It was tiring. So very tiring. At the beginning of the school year, when I was just starting to shoulder a second full-time job in addition to my existing full-time job of mom and housewife, I was frequently too exhausted to even chat with my mom friends at my daughters' evening Tae Kwon Do classes. By 6 p.m., I was sort of in a zombie-like state. Fortunately I have wonderful friends who completely understood when I did things like stare at them blankly when they asked me a question or forgot entire conversations we'd previously had. However, interestingly enough, one does acclimate. It's funny to me now to look back on last autumn and recall how utterly fried I was at the end of each day, because, even though of course these days I'm still tired, I'm no longer unable to read, move, or speak in complete sentences after 6 p.m.

The structure and routine of an outside job is a wonderful thing. This was sort of an abstract, amorphous feeling, so forgive me for not being able to clearly articulate what it was all about. But it was very important, and something I could never have predicted.

The notion of 50/50 household-responsibility sharing is pretty much bull#!*#. A work friend of mine and I used to call this the "Spouse too Used to the Luxury of Having a Full-Time SAHM Wife for the Past [insert appropriate number] Years Syndrome." (Errrr...yeah, just roll with it.) In other words, we were both still doing our entire previous jobs of stay-at-home moms, roughly 95% of all household/family tasks, even though we were now also working full-time outside the home. Sometime around April, my husband began doing some vacuuming. Other than that, if there were things that needed doing around the house, there seemed to be an unspoken assumption that it was my work to do. Plenty of us have nice, upstanding, good-father husbands--and this still goes on in some of our houses. Welcome to 2015, you all.

I'm very glad I waited to return to work until my kidlets were older--old enough to be independent in many areas, such as getting themselves ready for school, preparing their own breakfast, and getting into their outside gear to leave the house. I can't imagine trying to get ready for work each morning, or organized at home at the end of each day, if my girls hadn't been capable school-agers who could easily do things like pack/empty their backpacks, put on/take off snowpants, get the mail, set the table, and do their homework without my participation.

There is nothing better than working under the same roof, on the same schedule, as my kiddos. This made up for the fact that I'm working at job for which I am a million times overqualified, for an hourly wage that wouldn't even pay for housing on its own. I got to see my daughters multiple times during each work day, which was worth more than any amount of money in the world. We were always together during all off-school hours. It was a perfect equation after ten years of full-time stay-at-home motherhood, because it allowed me to still be a stay-at-home mom before school, after school, and on all school-vacation days.

That whole prediction about not having time to talk to my friends was pretty much spot on. For the past nine months, I've barely socialized at all, and I've found that this is true for my other mom friends who likewise returned to work this year. When you're working full-time outside the home, shouldering the majority of the tasks at home, raising children, and attempting to occasionally exercise, you simply run out of time. Maybe this gets easier, but since there are only 24 hours in a day and I need eight of those to sleep, I simply did not have enough time to see or talk to friends (much, anyway). My co-workers--whom I adore--became my daily confidantes, because they were the only ones I ever saw or had time to talk to.

Having said all that, every single challenge of my first year as a full-time working mom was worth it, a hundred times over. It was an awesome, fantastic, exhausting, interesting year. I will enjoy my summer off with my daughters wholeheartedly, for sure--just one more week of school and work! But yesterday I found out that I have the job again next school year, so I'll be back in the fall.

Maybe year two will be easier. Maybe not. But it will be good either way.

Happy Mother's Day. Keep on Keeping On!

2015-05-08T19:54:00.002-05:00

In honor of Mother's Day weekend, I feel compelled to trot out two little re-shares. They're both so good they deserve many repeat views. Happy Mother's Day, you all! For all we do, here's (1.) a big laugh, and (2.) a heartfelt wish.

First, the by-now-famous post by blogger Jen Hatmaker about the hell that is mothering at the tail end of the school year. Get ready to laugh until you cry.

Seriously, when this post was initially published two years ago and I read it for the first time, all I had to do for a long time afterward was glance at the photo of Jen's son in that ad-hoc Ben Franklin costume--that game expression on his face!--and I would literally laugh out loud, over and over again. It was especially fitting at the time because I had a third grader in the middle OF THE EXACT SAME PROJECT (although she was Abigail Adams, not Ben Franklin).

Now, I have another third grader in the middle of this same project (Albert Einstein), so once again that part of the post is particularly true-to-life for me. But honestly it's the whole thing. This is parenting elementary-school-age children in May. The chaos is unrelenting. The end-of-year field trips, programs, projects, special events, concerts, and ceremonies are endless. It feels like years of school special events and activities are compressed into the last five weeks of school. Why? Whyyyyyyyy.

Second, once again, Kelly Corrigan's Mother's Day wish for all you mamas out there. You'll love it, and we all deserve it. Enjoy. (If you can't watch it here, click over to the youtube link and watch it there.)