Nathalie's Notes

Independence day message

What? No Meatless Monday post? No Friday Favorites? Whoops. Another week over already? This conversation will put this last week in perspective for you.

Me to Matt this morning: I feel kind of lame. I think we're the only people in the country with no plans to celebrate the 4th. Yet, I don't really care. You?

Matt: Not at all. I'm celebrating my independence by getting my house put back together.

Note: Many, many miles to go but we're gaining speed in the right direction.

For the rest of you in the United States celebrating Independence Day, here's a word of advice from a friend of mine who knows: If you truly want to celebrate your independence this weekend, don't drink and drive.

 

 

Piles of Files

Sunday kicked off another spurt of activity on our house project(s). Matt got the storage room that will become our master bedroom closet emptied and painted. The minor problem being that I'm the one who has to figure out where all the stuff goes during my Sam-free moments. Now that we know what the function of all our rooms is going to be, and we know how we live in our house, it's easier to decide what stays and what goes. Having no garage or storage space to speak of makes it even easier.

Still, though, I have such a hard time getting rid of things! I cringed when it became obvious that most of the boxes up there where full of my files, newspapers and, yes, magazines. Cringe.

Boxes full of: Pay stubs from every check of every job we've had since 1998; Files and files of notes from interviews for stories that ran ages ago; a user manual for every cell phone I've ever owned; drafts of stories I'd forgotten I'd started (that part was actually pretty fun to find).

I promised myself I'd do 15 minutes a day going through and purging those files until I had just the ones I want in my filing cabinets. Luckily, I got a huge head start today when Retta took Sam for the morning and I, for once, stayed focused on the task at hand. I did a lot of Google searches that started like this: "How long do I have to keep credit card statements? Phone and utility bills?" Because I had a copy of every bill I've paid since, you got it, 1998. Many, many of them where in one of several files labeled: "Things to file."

It was hard not to read every letter I came by and every story I'd started. But don't worry, I made a new pile for the stuff I want to read later.

Michael Jackson for Prez

 The worst part for me personally about Michael Jackson's recent passing is hearing his songs over and over again. It brings back awful memories. Sorry, A.

I know people who adored Michael Jackson and I can see why, he was as talented as he was tortured. I can't pretend to understand the man. All I can tell you is I got my butt kicked in Junior High because of him. Well, him and my mom.

I have no idea where my mom found them but my brother and I had matching bright red sweatshirts with "Michael Jackson for Prez" written across the front in "Thriller" font. They were exactly as hideous as they sound. I was already a pretty funny looking kid with short crooked hair, hairy arms and bizarre ideas about clothing. There was truly no shortage of nasty little nicknames for me before said sweatshirt appeared on the scene. But it was just too much for even the nicer mean kids to resist.

My most distinct memory, besides the basic spitting on my head, kicking me at the bus stop, etc., was when I was sitting by myself at one of those big, long cafeteria tables. Just me eating my lunch which most likely consisted of a mandarin and a salami and butter sandwich. You know the group of kids I'm talking about, the "cool" ones, decided to sit the same table. Before I knew it, they were laughing and all leaning to the left in order to push me off the table onto the floor.

I hated that sweatshirt. Reasonable or not, I blamed Michael.

Sam's Salad

If you have a minute, I thought this was a pretty funny video of Sam's solo salad experience. He kept asking for salad for dinner: "Salad! Salad! Salad." So here it is.

He liked it much better the night before when his dad was there eating it with him. And adding more dressing by the bite.

Actually, I can't seem to figure out how to embed the youtube video into this post. So here's the whole long link, I think it'll work if you click on the first underlined part.

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Friday Favorites

Me:

The fact that I seem to be feeling better some of the time!

Tazo's Ginger Green Tea, cold

Perfect summer weather, not too hot & not too cold

Public Parks

Sam:

MUD. He recently discovered the one mud puddle at the park and went to town. He had mud everywhere, including inside his ears.

Matching music mobiles with Ella. They turned it into a "gentle" game of bumper cars.

Salad. Seriously.

Writing from the edge

Matt, my faithful and most hardcore, editor looked over my column before I submitted it yesterday. He made very few changes.

"It's really good. I mean, I wouldn't publish it but it's good."

"How good can it be if you wouldn't publish it?"

"I mean, I wouldn't hang myself out there like that."

"Ahhh. Yes, we are different that way."

I suppose I'm different than a lot of people, what with my willingness/compulsion to put it all out there as I see it, as it happened, even if it doesn't paint me in the prettiest light. I guess I'm not as into being pretty as I am about being honest. Raw, even, if it helps others know they're not alone hanging out there at the edge of sanity.

I owe no small debt of gratitude to the author Anne Lamott whose book, Operating Instructions, I read long before having children was really on my radar. Reading her controversially truthful account of what her experience was like as a new mother made me feel like I was really going to be okay being a mom as I am, when the time came.

That was huge for me. If my writing publicly about the challenges of parenting puts me under the microscope for judgment, so be it. I'd rather take a little extra crap from people lucky enough to know it all and help a few other folks along the way than censor myself just in case it offends, or upsets, people who don't agree with, or understand, me.

 

Days haps

I actually made it to the gym this morning. Sam, armed with his trifecta of security: giraffe, minky (blanket) and water bottle, marched into the daycare, stopped long enough to asses the situation, dropped everything and ran for the balls. Later, we decided to check out a new park my friend Emily told us about. She was right, Sam loved it. He especially loved all the airplanes and stopped to identify each one that flew overhead.

When we pulled into the driveway, Sam said: "Home!" Which, for some reason, meant a lot to me. Later we were reading a book together and I was amazed at how many of the words he knows. He kept flipping back to the airplane page, though.

In the bathtub he surprised me with a new Slovak word: "Zaba!" He exclaimed, making his bathtub frog jump along the rim of the tub. What a rad little dude.

Somewhere in there I finished my article, figured out something for dinner and managed to go a whole day without hurling. Well, there are a couple hours till midnight, but still, an improvement worth noting.

Unpostworthy Soup

I tried making a potato cream cheese soup in the crockpot for my Meatless Monday recipe. It called for ham which I simply omitted instead of substituting. Bad call. Bad soup. By bad I mean edible but not post-worthy.

What are you guys having for dinner?

On deadline tonight so I'll be back with more tomorrow.

Friday Favorites

Me:

Being able to go to Farmer's Market and get: bacon, goat cheese and "buggies" (strawberries) and see friends

The fact that "Good Girl" lets Sam pull himself up on the couch by her ears. (She truly is a good, good girl).

Making a childhood favorite for dinner:

spiral noodles, cottage cheese, good bacon, sprinkle with crazy salt. Done.

Sam:

Clinking two glasses together and saying "chin chin"

As you can see in this picture Sam is an odd little duck and has gone through some strange phases. This photo features his "must have 2 sippy cups and little Lucy at all times phase." For a little over a week it's been insisting on at least one, usually two, "minkys" (blankets), Gaf, (giraffe), and his water bottle. All the time. In the car. On the slide. In the swings. Walking around the house. In his high chair. And, of course, for night night time.

Shoes. His, mine, Matt's, Loretta's, yours ...

Link of the week: It's another scrapbooking one, Stacy Julian, author of Photo Freedom & The Big Picture inspires me with her quotations and belief in truly simple scrapbooking.

Extra link of the week: I just read about this site in my newest Better Homes & Gardens issue but I am excited to check it out: www.mixingbowl.com. You can find me on there under NathaliesNotes, I'm the one who listed "Google" as my essential kitchen tool.

Goodbye Project 365 Sticky Notes

From a young age I thought that whole "quitters never win" thing was a bunch of b.s. made up by parents to force their kids to stick with piano, ballet and tennis lessons that they hated - ahem.

Instead, I think trying something for awhile to see if it works for you is way better than never starting anything at all. That, to me, is failing.

All that is to say I made a liberating decision this morning to quit participating in Project 182.5, which for me has turned more into Project 365 Sticky Notes anyway.

My intention is to catch up to early June and call it Project 180 or something. I figure it still shows a slice of our day-to-day life but really? How many pictures of strawberries and the bath routine do I really need to take for posterity? The one picture, however, of Sam's "buggy" stained shirt next to a bottle of Spray-N-Wash, that I'm glad I have.

I'm glad I've done the project to this point because it was nice to look at the ordinary as meaningful. I am also so relieved to let it go and move on to other things.

Pregnancy seems to suck the creative right out of me. I told Matt the other day I feel like I've done nothing creative in the last, oh, 13 weeks. He said: "Well, I don't know, making a whole person seems kinda creative."

Love him. Except when I'm ticked that he's suffering from none of my symptoms beyond cravings for Snickers Ice Cream.

Thanks to you who read my notes. :)