Something Nice From Email

IF you don't have anything good to say...

Thomas's cellphone self-portrait

It's been a crazy week around here, between sick babies, sick nannies and whatnot. A hard week to walk away from feeling very psyched. Mostly I am just looking forward to the weekend and hoping for an opportunity for next week to be better.

We are heading up to Vermont tonight, and I am going to do my level best to just have a nice, relaxed weekend with the boys. No plans up there, but sometimes that's for the best.

I hope that you have a great weekend!

xoxo
A

I Don't Even Remember Where We Were

Happy for reasons even I don't completely understand.

I Don't Know What To Tell You

Except that I did not take any notes whatsoever in cooking class today. I ate very green soup and cleaned the bowl with seventeen pieces of bread and broke my red wine rule, and didn't leave a drop of the radish sauce from the fish dish either. Somewhere, cooking knowledge is soaking into my brain, and I'm sure one day I'll be brilliant at it. Or maybe not, maybe this is one of those things that I'll stop thinking I should be better at? Still making up my mind on that one.

Green soup never photographs well, but it sure did taste good.

And the radishes were so pretty.
And the company was good.

Reunion

Edison, WA - 4/19/2009

Back to Me

Remember how skinny I was? Look at those skinny jeans! Mwah!

It has been 18 months since I stepped foot in a gym.

Wait, that's not true, there was one Saturday afternoon in my gazillionth month of pregnancy when I went to the gym with Eugene and sat in the café filling out thank you cards for shower gifts while he worked out. But I don't think that really counts.

I had to give up going when I was 22 weeks pregnant. Couldn't even swim anymore. Not that I wanted to - the hardbodies at Chelsea Piers were daunting enough when I was in the best shape of my life. When I was feeling like a whale - albeit a grateful, happy whale - the last thing I felt like doing was wallowing around in their pool.

After the boys were born, I put off the gym membership so that I could breastfeed. I figured it was hard enough consuming enough calories and water to make enough milk for twins. There was no way I could add even more food, in order to hang out on an elliptical trainer.

Plus, when you spend an hour a day pumping at work, going to the gym at lunch seems kind of irresponsible.

Now I am done with the breast feeding, I am no longer tethered to the Pump n' Style (a misnomer if ever there was one) day and night. So I am going back to the gym.

I have a temporary guest pass at one of the swank places near my office. I plan to go tomorrow. Theoretically, I can go at lunch for 45 minutes. If I go three times a week, I won't feel like I am irresponsibly blowing cash!

I'm actually really excited about this. I have a giant box full of pants that I would like to work my way back into. Joseph pants should not be wasted. Should not go unworn. I'm sure that in the Fashion Bible, that is one of the commandments: 'Thou Shalt Not Not Wear Awesome Trousers'

I'm not far from my goals. I've lost all of the 'baby weight.' But I've also lost muscle tone. Hefting around 20+ lb babies has, sadly, not given me Madonna-like arms. Also, carrying twins to 39 weeks can work some pretty crazy wonders on your abs.

I love the boys and I love Eugene, but this is something that I get to do just for me and - besides the added benefits of the clothes I would like to wear again - that gives it value.

Maybe it's also emerging from the haze of the first year of the boys life. That I am able to look around and choose things for myself that don't feel like I am taking something from them.

If that makes any sense.

Or maybe it's just all the regular sleep I am getting, but I feel like I am finding more of a place to get back to myself and be Mommy at the same time.

And the gym is just the beginning.

Other Scenes

Scenes From Dinner

Why entrap your babies?

It's kinda crowded in here...

I will bite you!

What are you doing over here?

Oooh something to investigate!

Investigating is fun!

Okay, I'm bored

Bored.... bored...bored...

What's under here?

Wait! I think I can get out!

Sweet Freedom!

Babies on the run!

Babies in their new habitat.

Note the maximum-security gates.

Bourbon Flip

Cheap Joy

Good friends and pie. Good weekend.

Just what the family needs

This weekend I will be staying in the city, while Eugene goes to look a truck like this for the house in Vermont.

Manly man truck! Can't you imagine me driving it? Whoopie!

It's an M715 Jeep. The idea is that it is a practical second vehicle for us to leave in Vermont - the subaru having suffered mightily at the hands of our local dirt roads...

In the meantime, I will be hanging out in the city with the boys! We have a big project to work on this weekend. Turning the dining room into a playroom.

I had always thought that this was something we would. not. do.

Little did I know that I would give birth to the double reincarnation of Harry Houdini! I had been lulled into a sense of complacency by HK and Ada. Ada never needed gates!

My boys have been barricaded in the living room play area for a while now, and just recently they have realized that between the two of them they have the brains and the heft to storm the barricades.

What's wrong with this picture?

It is hysterical watching them 'escape' and crawl like prison escapees for the front door... laughing and giggling the whole way... but it does not make for a very secure environment. Thus, the dining room will be converted to a maximum security prison.

I mean playroom.

It's not like we were using it for much more than a stroller parking lot anyways.

So we ordered these gates. And this weekend I will find a rug for the room.

The babies are really taking over.

Good thing I still like them!

Technology is indeed melting my brain

I am not ashamed of my love.

So my ingenious husband has hooked up a system to stream Hulu to our TV.

Did you know that Hulu has the entire back catalog of Highlander?

Do you know how I spent my down time this weekend?

Just guess.

Can you guess who is sorry that he is so ingenious now?

Just guess.

We'll Get There

Plenty to report, but just this now.

What's Old Is New Again

"You're so fly you got wings!" Susan's text said, first thing in the morning. The week started well and the world supported me with more things like this every time I needed them.

At Sambar I told Kevin about the blog, how uncomfortable I get when I think about it being something for other people to read, with the way it seems a bit narcissistic in that light, same with the stories. The process of writing, I get. That makes sense to me every day, is always something I want to do. It's the getting to the end part that's hard, the idea that it's not just process but product, something to be looked at and valued, both in good ways and in bad. On what authority does it all stand? What right do I have to say something turns out this way or that, to resolve or conclude or end anything? I'm most comfortable in my stories that are almost all voice, not so much about what's happening, no decisions to make about how a character would decide this or that. How can I make up someone else's mind?

"I have to get over that" I told him, and he smiled and said "You do!"

Jane Hirshfield wrote a series of poems I love that she called "assays". The word pleased me when I first saw it in one of the titles, since I hear it nearly every day. It's used constantly in science. Here's what Merriam-Webster says assay means:

1archaic : trial , attempt2: examination and determination as to characteristics (as weight, measure, or quality)3: analysis (as of an ore or drug) to determine the presence, absence, or quantity of one or more components ; also : a test used in this analysis

Could that help? What if all the writing is just to assay? Test things out, examine, describe presence, or absence. I might be able to do that much.

Writing group on April 10th, time to turn something in and commit to working on it. Hard for me these days, but working on it.