State of Obvious

Straight from the land of mañana , a late 4fer submission. You might be from New Mexico if: 1. Red or Green is a way of life. 2. Your luminarias aren't plastic . 3. Sopapillas are the part of the meal you most look forward to. 4. You couldn't wait to leave, now you can't wait to get back. (I didn't take this picture, I borrowed it here . The Sandia mountains looked exactly like this today, though.)

Or How life is like a game of afternoon football --- Sometimes you feel like you are going to wipe out . But you don't . There are days when you try to let things go , but they don't go the direction you planned. Quite often you aren't paying attention at the right time . Other times it feels like you're ready , but you're not . Of course there are those times when you just don't care about the game . And then you finally make the connection and it all feels right .

In all of time there has never been another day like today. The minutes and hours pressed on, never slowing, never ceasing, urgently ushering in the new tomorrow. The sun rose, the clouds zoomed by, the birds flew, mice scurried, fires burned, trees slumbered. Footballs soared through the warm air, children laughed and screamed and ran. Bears were hunted, rocky hills ascended, tamales eaten, a frenzied paper snowstorm visited Grandma's house. Apples were peeled, crust rolled out, the smell of baking pie soaked into every nook and cranny of free space. A frozen turkey made it's final journey to the pan for defrosting. Floors were mopped, shelves dusted, dishes washed, floors vacuumed , all things set in order for special visitors. Family laughed, and ate, and cried, and hoped together. Sadness and joy intermingled, crisscrossing like fine spiderwebs - strong and sure but delicate too. All to make ready for a day of thanks. "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we...

At home ...I would be grateful for this almost-sleeping-in time, I would have managed to keep Carly in bed until almost 10 a.m. But here it is not even the crack of 8. ...I would be pouring cereal from a box and adding milk instead of feeding Carly the chocolate bar that was on the nightstand to try and contain her for the other still sleeping people. ...I would be peeking in to see the top of Josh's head beneath his burrito-shell of blankets instead of wondering if he is awake over at Grandma's house. ...I would be ignoring the cleaning that needs done in favor of blogging. Here I am looking at the unmade bed and thinking I should make it as soon as I'm done blogging. ...I would be longing for a blue sky (it must exist behind the perpetual gray of MI winter) but here I can look out the window and see the sun behind some fluffy silver clouds and just a taste of blue-to-come peeking through. ...I would be lounging in my pj's til after nap time, but I don't think my f...

aka Why You Shouldn't Listen to Everyone Else and Other Observations A List If it just doesn't feel right, it isn't Every child is different, including yours Babies cry , sometimes a lot and sometimes a little, deal with it your way A "normal" child is one that does all the same unexpected things Getting upset is one way we teach our kids it is ok not to be perfect right now Yelling sometimes happens to nice people too Wearing nylons to church looks nice, but it won't get you into Heaven Nobody wakes up looking like that Everybody gets mad at their kids, they just don't tell you That voice that came out of your mouth was your mom's voice. That's ok You are cool, even if you don't watch the Office Slamming on your brakes won't make you feel better Neither will cutting someone off My list is different than your list Even the best kids don't listen sometimes Your daughter doesn't hate you, she just is upset she had to stop pl...

Coming into Albuquerque I can almost taste the dryness in the air. It dries out my nose, it chaps my lips, it fills my lungs. It feels like home. It feels like family. I've been thinking about just what family is. There are people who I am not related to by blood or marriage or adoption that I consider family. There are people just outside the bonds of paperwork that fit snugly into my life like brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles - family by choice. There is also family that is not by choice. Brothers and a sister that I share DNA and memories with, that I share structure and inside jokes with, that I share life with (although I am typically poor at the whole life sharing part, blame it on distance and laziness) . Between my siblings and I stretches this cord of relation, sometimes stretching until it almost breaks but always holding no matter how far it bends. I'll admit that when I arrive 'home' at the wellspring of my DNA, there is an initial period of awkwardnes...

I didn't order any school pictures this year. I feel really guilty . I mean, what kind of mom doesn't order the overpriced pictures of her kid that come in the crinkly envelope? Fudge. I thought I ordered pictures, but apparently we didn't send in the form or something. Josh brought home an empty crinkly envelope with a teeny tiny picture of him grimacing (he was even sporting an underbite which is clearly not natural and appears kind of painful). By the time the empty envelope showed up at our house, it was too late to dress him up for retake day too. I am half wondering if I should just order a few of the really bad 5th grade pictures just so I can say I have school pictures for this year. Because this would be the first year he doesn't have school pictures to look back at, you see. I suppose, in the long run, this makes me consistent. Right? I mean, I consistently get him up late and have to rush, I consistently don't make him any breakfast (he doesn'...

Josh: Mom can I be Santa this year? Me: What do you mean? Josh: Can I be the one who gets the milk and cookies?

Four ways to spend your down time, assuming you have some. (If you don't have some, you should make some. Seriously, stuff can wait .) 1. Save the bunny! 2. Shopping for the person that has everything. 3. Shopping for handcrafted items, if you're willing to wade. 4. Go take a nap. That's what I'm going to do, because apparently it's time. At least that is what I take Carly's tantrum to mean. p.s. for Tricia - making a strikethrough is pretty easy. Using where I have { }, insert {s} before the text you want to strike and {/s} at the end of the text you are crossing out.

Maybe the question Is not Why does the Lord require so much ? but rather Why do I want to give so little ?

Dear Blogger.com, You are a lovely service, I particularly like the free part. Free usually means I won't complain, but today I can't help myself. I have looked at the mis-sized photos one too many times. Why, oh why, must you force that ridiculous border around the blog title? It really hampers my style. That's why I download templates, Blogger, because your templates - well I don't want to hurt your feelings - but they suck. I would really love to add a super cute photo to the top of my blog. I've been diligently trying to get pictures of my family wherein Josh's eyes are open but not too open, Eric actually shaved, I don't look like the very definition of chubby cheeks and Carly is - actually Carly always takes great pictures. It's the rest of us that fail. I'm getting side-tracked. If I could somehow capture the elusive "my family looks not only normal but impossibly perfect and now people will want to be us" picture, I would not be abl...

or just plain bad? We've had this picture sitting in our folder for a while. I've considered deleting this picture of Carly, I have no idea what the fluffy stuff around her head is. But...I can't make up my mind.

The cold slamming of a heart's door. I miss the smiling. I miss the laughing. I miss the over-the-top antics That marked our hours together. I'm sure it was my folly. My too-big mouth My know-it-all style My hands-off approach To friendship. If it helps, I am sorry. If it helps, I still love you. If it helps.

Our house has some new additions this weekend. Did you look closely ? Yep, that's Pepper aka Dr Pepper, Pep, Pepper Fepper, or (if you're Carly and can't remember what P name it is) Pokey. She's our new Puggle and was an early Christmas present for the parents kids. She already did her business three times in the house. She's a perfect dog. Everything in my life is perfect , remember? Carly is, by turns, scared to death of her and smoothering her with love. Josh tends to swing her around by the neck. We're working on it. My dad says it's sacrilege to put up decorations before Thanksgiving . I'm ok with that. Here is our fireplace mantle complete with my Grandma's Christmas village . Joy to the World!

4 reasons I am excited to go home to New Mexico next Sunday even though it means lots of laundry to catch up on, single parenting for a week {shudder} , and 8 hours of traveling with a child in her terrible 3s {double shudder} : 1. New Mexican food. Not old Mexican food. Not Texican food. Not 'Mexican' food. New Mexican , red or green, food . 2. Mountains. 3. No school. I. hate. school. 4. My family. Duh! {Edit: Oops! We're leaving on Sunday! Sorry if you read it before Cha-Cha brought it to my attention!}

I'm pretty sure I didn't really have 224 other things to say. Looking back, I whined a lot. I talked pointlessly fairly often. I posted lots of pictures of my kids. I'm not really sure why I do this blogging thing. In the beginning it was just an easy way to keep lines of communication open with my family. They can see photos of my kids without waiting for me to (never) send them pictures via mail. They can read about how things are going without waiting for TeleTom to broadcast the news. Along the way it somehow changed into an outlet. I think it was around the time that Eric's mother died. I could talk about my frustrations and joys, my grief and loneliness . I'm an extremely shy person away from the keyboard, I feel awkward and tongue tied in social situations not to mention I almost hyper-ventilate just thinking about making eye contact with strangers. I'm insecure and critical of myself. With blogging I get to filter some of those things out and ...

Your daughter randomly yells "BEES!" And then you look up from your computer to see her little three year old bum crouched over a pile of crumbs? And then when she yells "little tiny bees!" you realize that she is not, in fact, talking about bees. She's talking about ants. Little tiny ants. And you get up to inspect the 'bees' and find that they are swarming all over a crumb (of unknown origin, I might add, I really have no idea just what kind of food it was) and their little trail is leading to the heating vent. And you wonder just how these small, puny 'bees' can survive in a heating vent that at this very moment is blowing hot air because it's freezing cold outside. It seems like the little 'bees' would be toasted 'bees' by now, but they aren't. Resilient little suckers. Then, when you vacuum them up with your handy dandy dust buster - the one you didn't use to clean up the crumbs in the first place because you...

So, I don't know about you but I've been following this Prop 8 thing in California and it's really getting ugly. I've read about members of the LDS church that feel they were forced into voting for Prop 8. I've read about members of the LDS church who didn't vote for Prop 8, and why. I've read about people not in the church that voted for it, and why. I've read about misleading ads and leaders of the church who misled their congregations. I've read about protests in front of the Temple. I've read about people leaving the LDS church because of their support of Prop 8. I am amazed and saddened and confused by all of it. Apparently marriage is a 'fundamental right'. I am not sure how that happened. I kind of wonder if attaching the word 'right' to marriage was just a way to make it so that the courts would have to let everyone do it. Abortion is a right. Marriage is a right. Health care is a right. Gun ownership is a right. Free ...

Four songs that mean something to me: 1. Into the Ocean - Blue October. This comes off one of my favorite CDs, ever, and has been listened to so much I am surprised the disk isn't worn out. (Josh complained about listening to it when we traveled across the country , but I paid for my turn with the Campfire Song Song .) I know the video is a little weird, but listen to the words. To me this song is all about trying and trying and trying and sometimes getting swept under anyhow. It speaks very much to this time in my life when I feel sometimes like I'll never make it back to shore. "I want to swim away but don't know how, sometimes it feels just like I'm falling in the ocean. Let the waves up and take me down, let the hurricane set in motion, yeah, let the rain of what I feel right now come down, let the rain come down." While a few of Blue October's songs get a little weird, I have found that generally speaking they are amazing at painting a pict...

Carly: The pop tart is in my skirt. Me: Well get it out. Carly: I can't, its inside. Carly: When I get bigger I'm going to go to school. And I'll have big boobs. Right now they're just little. Carly (very insistent): And then! And Dad! He's at work and (SIGH) and school and (head in hands) guhhh! Me: Do you know what you're talking about? Carly: No!! (SIGH)

I didn't vote for Barack Obama. And I didn't vote for John McCain. It's now 11 pm (east coast time) and they are declaring Obama the winner of the Presidential election. While our house was filled with election day excitement - Josh, euphoric as he colored states red and blue; Carly telling us all to settle down and stop yelling; Eric and his dad (and me) debating taxes and democrats and early poll results - the thought I have now is: let's see what you do. We're placing a great trust with this young, somewhat untested Senator. I hope he does not violate it. He has a gift for mobilizing passion, we've seen that. He has a gift for inspiring confidence, we've seen that. Now, hopefully, he parlays those gifts into an upturn for our great country. I will admit that a secret, small part of me was rooting for Obama even if he didn't get my vote. I can not help but look at my daughter, the little DIVA that chants "Rockobama" when he's menti...

Super Cool Tricia tagged me. 4th folder, 4th picture: Here you can see what's important to Carly - castles and babies. She took this picture and it made it past the delete phase of downloading. I let my kids play with the camera all the time, the expensive and brand new camera. What can I say, I like to see what they're looking at. I tag Cute Pam, Gnarly Nate, Previously Long-Lost Aleah, and Luscious Llegue. And don't pretend you didn't laugh at that Jenn!

I've debated with myself all day about whether or not I should delete the last post, about whether it was too personal. Last night after I had typed it and proofed it, I faltered on the publish button. I want everyone to believe that my kids are the most amazing, talented, smart, perfect, well behaved children ever to walk the face of the earth. Even though they can be the most sassy, disobedient, wound up little monsters, they are still my monsters. They are amazing, talented, perfect, well behaved little monsters. They are amazing little shining stars that twinkle as bright as noon day sun. But it's just not easy all the time. Sometimes it is so wonderfully easy to be the mommy. Perfect little moments string together and form into days and weeks and months. I don't have to think so hard, to work so hard, to be so much, to never give enough. Sometimes Joshua will hug me and I feel so swelled up with love and adoration that I might burst. Sometimes Carl...

I was so mad at Joshua tonight. I could actually feel the anger bubbling under my skin, threatening to break out, leaking out through my voice. I have this thing. When I'm interested in something, or passionate about something, or amazed by something, or when I'm angry, I raise my eyebrows. This isn't a flirtatious cocking of the brow, oh no. My whole forehead wrinkles and puckers - rather unattractively - and my (already thin) eyebrows rise up of their own accord. Once when Joshua was about 3, he attempted to smooth my wrinkled brow. "Don't do that" he said, soft fingers touching the angry part of my face, chocolate eyes wide with alarm. I think that my eyebrows were almost touching my hair line tonight, bunched up and wound as tight as my nerves. I was angry about homework. All weekend Joshua has been claiming that he has no homework, free as a bird. But, when I went to check on Sunday night there was oodles of homework to do including a book report. A book ...

Emotions at election headquarters were running high tonight. But as the end drew near and it became clear that Joshua would eek out a victory by just 3 votes, it turned ugly. Well as ugly as someone this cute can get, which is more like amusing. Tempers flared and soon the candidates were brawling! There is a slight, outside chance that the excessive amounts of Halloween candy coursing through their bodies might have had something to do with it. Joshua proved he'll be able to reach across the aisle to work with former opponents. The losing candidates shed some tears. But in the end there can only be one President of Our House.