Bah, humbug.

I'm not usually a grump, but I really don't like the New Year holiday. Actually, I like the holiday, I love the idea of new beginnings. But I hate the media's repetitious Year In Review articles - you can't turn a page without seeing that creepy mug shot of Michael Jackson - and the endless, rehashed blathering about New Year's resolutions. Not that I don't make resolutions, I do. But the media turn a very personal decision into a Hallmark holiday, going as far as telling us, ad nauseum exactly which resolutions to make: diet, exercise, give up smoking, be less stressed. Then they bombard us with ads for fast food, soft drinks, television programs, cigarettes and cell phones.

My personal year in review shows 2003 to have been a quiet one, to be expected with a newish baby. My son was Baptized early in the year, and we were blessed to have relatives from across the state, and my dear cousin from across the country, celebrate with us. My daughter started preschool; my son completed his first year. We took a week's vacation to San Francisco. Mostly, the year was marked by events not on the calendar, the mortar of our daily lives: playdates and shopping trips, laundry and meals, sleep and school and work and play.

Of the two resolutions made last year, I kept one, returning to my pre-pregnancy weight. Alas, the first Great American Novel written entirely during naptimes did not get written. I got a few paragraphs into this or that and got nothing completed, in fact I got so little accomplished it is more honest to say I got nothing started. This year, I am lowering the bar - not to take the easy way out, necessarily, but to set a more realistic goal - and resolve to submit at least one freelance article to a major magazine. I have begun sending for writers' guidelines. There, I've said it, it is in print, being Googled at any moment into indelible history.

Goin' South

Remember that South ... something or other diet I used to prattle on about? Nah, we haven't abandoned it completely. But some bad habits have crept in over the holidays and we are planning on going back to Phase 1 - the hardcore, no-fruit, no-bread, no-wine, no-fun phase - for a week or two. I suppose tomorrow would be a good time to start, being the time of new beginnings and all. Besides, all the Christmas chocolate is gone.

The worst part of South Beach Diet's Phase 1 for me is the V-8 juice. I learned that you are wise to eat everything South Beach entitles you to eat, to avoid being hungry (and therefore being tempted to cheat) and also to keep up your electrolyte balance, which can quickly go South (pun intended) when eating severely low-carb. So, I drink the recommended glass of V-8 juice every morning, even though I have to gag it down. I have found that the spicy variety, cut with some lemon juice and then heated is the most palatable for me.

I found a South Beach Diet blog archive that I liked; it looks like the blogger has recently quit blogging, or at least quit the informational format, but the archives are worth reading if you are a Beachie or a wannabe.

The Christmas Tamales

In the days Before Children, I worked as a lawyer; my husband did too, and still does. Eleven-hour days both members of a working couple meant we had little time for much else, including cleaning the house. We had a housecleaner once a week, a woman originally from Mexico, about my age, with young children of her own. When I left my career, I bid a reluctant farewell to the luxuries of the double-income no-kids life, including a sad adios to Maricela and her valued services as our housecleaner. But we stayed in touch - I gladly referred her to friends, and would run into her from time to time in our small town, sometimes as both our families combed yard sales for the best bargains.

Last week, Christmas Eve, there was a knock on our door. Maricela was there with a Tupperware bin with our name on it. She hurriedly dropped it in my husband's hands, wished us a Merry Christmas, and rushed back to her idling car, no doubt to make more deliveries. We peered inside, and found a tidy row of sepia corn husks and a delicious, unfamiliar aroma. Home made tamales. We heated them for dinner a few days later, we of European descent having no idea even how to reheat them. Twenty minutes in a 350 oven, and walking into our kitchen, you would have thought you walked into Mexico itself. They emerged steaming, releasing the mingling aromas of chiles, corn, and melt-in your mouth shredded chicken. We fought over the last one; even the baby asked for more.

I called Maricela tonight to thank her, and asked if she thought I would be able to make them if she gave me the recipe. She knows I am all thumbs in the kitchen, and the microwave is my friend. Housecleaners know everything. Not meaning to be impolite, she hesitated. "Um ... Jen? They are, you know, kind of hard?" I laughed. "You need to buy the masa, do you know where to buy that? Then you steam the corn ..." She paused, searching for the word "husks". I provided it, and she continued. "Then you steam the husks, and you need to make the chile, and the chicken, and roll it, you know?" "Then they need to go in a steam pot for about 2 hours... when you make tamales, you want to make a lot." She paused again. I realized, in her mind, she thought she had just given me the recipe.

I told her I would probably wait until next Christmas.

Surrounded by gift cards, shiny-papered presents with department-store bows and gift receipts carefully taped to the lids, the best gift of the year is behind me now, in a scrubbed Tupperware container waiting to be returned to its owner, perhaps to be refilled in another year.

Merry Christmess

Yeah, I'm still here. Trying to wade through the piles of crumpled wrapping paper, ribbon, boxes, toys, clothes, books and other assorted gifts. My children are in here somewhere.

And they were Googled here

OK, who's the wise guy who got Googled here searching for "do the babysitter"? This ain't that kind of site. As for the person searching for a plush Gila monster, I dunno, but I think you need one of these.

Decided to join along with Friday Five

1. List your five favorite beverages: Water, Propel, milk, coffee, red wine

2. List your five favorite websites: www.ebay.com, www.thisoldtoy.com, and my fave blogs over there on the right

List your five favorite snack foods: Candy bars (almost any), cheese and crackers, Doritos (though haven't had them in years), Lays Sour Cream & Onion, peanut butter anything.

4. List your five favorite board and/or card games: Yahtzee, Dominoes, Scrabble, Candy Land, Gin

5. List your five favorite computer and/or game system games: The Sims, Sim City, Centipede, does anyone remember Tempest?, Sim Tower

Gee, this is original

Somebody always does this. Poor guy, people for rent usually get bids.

Gee, didn't even blog yesterday and can't come up with anything today except an administrative announcement that I'll be away from my blog for probably a week. I'm having surgery Tuesday, nothing major, but enough to keep me out of it for a while and on some fun loopy drugs. I look forward to catching up with everybody's blogs when I'm back in action. See you soon.

Mommy, why is Santa looking at his boy parts?

I love animals, and was vegetarian for nearly a third of my life. But my friend PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) caught me between my animal-rights-self and my mother-self by posting this one on a billboard.

I wouldn't want to explain this to my daughter.
More here.

More Darndest Things

Coming from from a daytime Christmas party at a friend's house, and although it's before lunch, I sneak a piece of fudge from the goodie bag meant for my daughter.
Daughter: Hey, what are you eating?
Me: :::mouth full::: You caught me.
Daughter: Can I have some caughtme?

Mas de Dora

OK, you have to know Dora the Explorer to get this one. Overheard my 3-year old talking to her sitter as I was getting ready to leave:
Daughter: I know Spanish, want to hear some?
Sitter: Sure.
Daughter: ABRE!
Sitter: Very good, do you know any more?
Daughter: Yes. SWIPER, NO SWIPING!

Who's been naughty and nice

I've done a lot of my Christmas shopping online this year. Anyone who has tried to shop in brick-and-mortars pushing a stroller with an antsy 1 year old and a 3 year old racing here and there like a Chinese dragon would understand this. So far, the retailer on the top of my list is englishteastore.com. My mother's side of the family is so big, we draw a name in a gift exchange so we don't have to buy presents for umpteen aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins. I drew my uncle, who married his way into this crazy family after moving here from England. He is a big candy freak, and so I got the idea to buy him $35 (the designated gift exchange limit) in British sweets. englishteastore.com had a huge variety at amazingly reasonable costs, I got a huge box for my money that I know my uncle will love. I received an immediate email acknowledgement of my order, and a second email when my order had shipped just a day later. A class act all around.

Getting a lump of coal from Santa Jen this year (and no clickable link) is Fossil.com. I ordered a sun hat and credit-card wallet a week ago from that site and got no confirming email. I was unable to check my order status on their site. Having a funny feeling, I picked up the phone this morning (a horror for an internet addict like me, having to talk to a real person!) and found that the hat order had been cancelled as out of stock. Though, as of this moment, it STILL shows as available on their website. So they shipped only the credit card holder, without notifying me. To make it worse, they "accidentally" shipped to me at the billing address despite their acknowledgment that I had indicated a separate ship-to address in Florida. After a good 20 minutes on the phone with 3 different customer service reps, they are refunding my shipping cost of $2.95. I won't spend it all in one place.

Do you know the way to San Jose?

La la la la, la la ... Ok, that has very little to do with this post, but such a nifty tune. I recently added Nedstat counters to my page in place of the quirky and not-so-helpful Sitemeter. (Thanks to no milk for the link.) So now I get to see all the wonderful ways people lost in cyberspace stumble upon my little virtual abode. Someone wanted to know "Where can I buy Cat in the Hat sleepers for toddlers" and got my rant about all the overmerchandising connected with that flop of a film. Another soul was Googled here by my post marvelling at the availability of Auburn Tigers-emblazoned kitchen trash bags on eBay. He or she was looking for Auburn Tigers wrapping paper, but gifts wrapped in trash bags sound kind of cutting edge. Yesterday someone was looking for details on "Pats camping trip". Eh? I didn't go, but hope it was a good time.

In case you were wondering...

A little rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball removes permanent marker from a baby's head. Don't ask me how I know.

Updated info on AuctionStealer

I see that AuctionStealer has updated its terms of service since I posted last. FREE users now get 3 Snipe Points per week that are added every week on Sunday morning at 12:00:00 AM and do not transfer over to the next week. Priority Service customers get an unlimited number of Snipe Points per month while FREE customers get up to 15 snipes per month. This is good news; more snipes per month for free users. However, the lead time has increased and is now "10 to 20 seconds" before auction end. That does leave time for other bids to be placed, but hey, for free - it's still a cool service.

Merry freakin' Christmas already

We spent the morning trying to get some pictures of the kids to use for Christmas cards, first convincing my daughter she needed to wear the outfit I picked out even though the pants were "poofy" and "falling down", the shirt was "scratchy" and Lord only knows what was wrong with the jacket, but it was something. Once we got her in the outfit, I had wrapped the kids' toy box to look like a gift and thought we would get some cute pictures of them gleefully leaping out of it with bows on their heads. Thirty-eight photos later, we had approximately 28 of my son screaming and trying to get out, 10 of my daughter biting her nails, 7 of the children looking in all directions but at the camera, 5 that included my husband's arm or behind, and 3 where the flash did not go off.


Maybe we'll send regular cards this year.

Fur Real Spooky Friend

My daughter has been asking for a "talking cat" for Christmas. She's also been asking for a pony, a castle, a princess, a baby, and a lot of other things, but the "talking cat" keeps coming up over and over. I'm not sure where she got the idea, but I did a little looking around and found last year's "it" toy, the FurReal Friends Cat. I'm sorry, I LOVE cats, but this thing creeps me out, it looks a half-step away from roadkill, and my daughter is a lot more easily spooked than I am (reference the brand new, tags-on rocking horse that remains in the garage, banned there by her for two years now).

A pony isn't sounding so bad after all.

He Ain't Heavy ... or maybe he is

"No burden is he to bear, we'll get there. For I know he will not encumber
me, because he ain't heavy--he's my brother"

My brother and I have never really gotten along, sweet story about the box of quarters notwithstanding. Our household growing up was more like four people sharing a living space than a family bonded by blood and love. Fend for Yourself was the unspoken family motto. Now, don't get out your tiny violins, this isn't a story about why I'm in psychotherapy, it was not a bad childhood, just not a very loving one. It took a lot of growing up on my part, and a very special man I am lucky enough to call my husband, to show me what loving someone else is really about.

But back to my brother. We seldom have shouting matches, and there is probably nothing really detestable about either one of us. But we just don't click. Over the years, and due in part to his moving to another state, our relationship dwindled into a smattering of awkward phone conversations mandated by birthdays, Christmas, and the like. In June of this year, our mother turned 60. Her sisters, who live all across the country, decided to have a surprise party for her, including all of her out of state relatives. In order to keep my brother's visit secret until the party, he stayed with me and my family overnight. In a series of petty events too long to detail, he ended up being critical of his stay in our home. He continued to harp on it, into the next day at the party. I raised my voice at him and told him to "lay off". He didn't, and my husband came to my defense with the passion of a thousand firey hot suns. Due to the years of built-up steam over my strained relationship with my brother, my husband blew up. Said some things he shouldn't have said. Used some words he shouldn't have used. He apologized, but it apparently wasn't enough. And that was the last I talked to my brother.

I found out from my sister-in-law today that my brother told her not to get Christmas gifts for my family, or to "keep his name off them" if she decided to get them for us on her own. It hurts.

Funny, holiday time reminds me that when I was 5, my brother gift-wrapped me a jar of mud for Christmas. Should I forgive him, and we can call it even?

Do-do-do-do-Dora

My 14-month-old son has two loves in his life: me, and Dora The Explorer. Not necessarily in that order. This bundle of energy, the boy with 42 hands all reaching for things at the same time, will stop in his tracks and gaze at his sister's Dora The Explorer book, cooing "Do-dah ..." and pointing at her with his stubby thumb. Foolish is the parent who tries to turn the page. Today I was wrapping Christmas gifts (heh heh, hate me yet?) while his 3-year old sister napped. One of her gifts is a Dora towel with a Swiper the Fox washcloth (Target, about $12). He was delighted to see me pull it out of the bag with the red bullseyes and oohed and aahed over it. Then came the wrapping paper. Mommy was going to cover Dora! Do-Dah! Do-Dah! His howls of protest gave way to angry tears, and the commotion woke his sleepy sibling. Note to self: Wrap gifts when BOTH children are sleeping.