There's Nothing Wrong With Your Face

(Lyrics and video from the fantastic Ani DiFranco's super album Red Letter Year.)

lately i've been glaring into mirrors
picking myself apart
you'd think at my age i'd of thought
of something better to do
than making insecurity into a full-time job
making insecurity into art
and i fear my life will be over
and i will have never lived unfettered
always glaring into mirrors
mad i don't look better

but now here is this tiny baby
and they say she looks just like me
and she is smiling at me
with that present infant glee
and yes i will defend
to the ends of the earth
her perfect right to be

so i'm beginning to see some problems
with the ongoing work of my mind
and i've got myself a new mantra
it says: "don't forget to have a good time"
don't let the sellers of stuff power enough
to rob you of your grace

love is all over the place

there's nothing wrong with your face
love is all over the place
there's nothing wrong with your face

lately i've been glaring into mirrors
picking myself apart







Lyrics and video from the fantastic Ani DiFranco's super album Red Letter Year.

Holiday Thoughts

I have really been enjoying reading how all of my bloggy friends will be approaching the holidays. It's fun to see how different people view the season. My favorite so far has to be "let's get Christmas Crazy for the kids" by jayesel. Her holiday gifting plan is the polar opposite of mine but I love seeing how her traditions began... from receiving amazing gifts from Santa back when she knew her parents couldn't have afforded it.  I can get behind that!

When I read Christmas blogs like some of these  - I am in awe of their super detailed Christmas plans. I mean, these were all up before Thanksgiving! Whoa.

Things have been pretty hectic up in here lately and originally my Christmas plan was this:

Don't Lose My Mind

But, I realize that I can probably do a little better than that. So, for all you out there that have been wondering just WHAT Erica over at Polka Dot Hippo has been visualizing for the holidays, let me tell you:

1. Decorate a Christmas Tree. Uri and I always argue about whether we should get a cut tree or a fake, prelit tree. I am in the fake tree camp. This year we (kinda) compromised and are renting a live, potted tree from livingchristmas.com. It costs a little more than the other options but it comes with delivery and pick-up and I'm all for that. Hopefully the tree will also smell delightful and not drop too many needles. Also, I can be self-righteous about how green we are (except for the fuel taken for that delivery and pick-up).
2. Host Christmas Day for family at our house. This entails renting tables & chairs, rearranging furniture and setting the tables. Uri is in charge of the food and I don't think about it or really care what happens on that front. (He is an awesome chef so it will be fine.)
3. At said Christmas Day, we will be having a Green Elephant Exchange. I am always trying to cut down on gift giving so this year we're all just going to make or recycle something and have a gift exchange. Should be interesting. I think I'm going to make some ornaments.
4. Christmas Cards? I usually do these. Something about this year is making me ignore this task right now. I am sick to death of it. Maybe we'll just do online cards from Paperless Post. I don't know. Bah Humbug.

And that, my friends, is it. Simple, but manageable and yes, no gifts. I really need some time to relax and get back to center. I start official part-time on Thursday of this week but I'm tapering my hours Monday - Wednesday. I really hope it helps because lord I am hot mess of a person lately. (We just uploaded all our pictures from November so expect some photos of what contributed to the mess this week.)

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

Stumptown

This weekend we had took a little trip to Portland, OR.  Such a great town for food and also wonderful scenery. Uri had business meetings there on Friday and Monday so Anna and I met him up there... free hotel, woo hoo. There are parts of me that are glad we went. They have a neat childrens museum and a very cool great northwestern forest exhibit at their zoo - just like walking through the redwood forest. I enjoyed their easily accessible public transportation and just the ambiance of the city in general. Of course, very delicious food. I think one major problem Portland has is all the strung out junky type peops. And that is saying a lot coming from Venice, CA. There are just a lot of sketchy characters there. Maybe they are all vampires because the weather is funky.

There are other parts of me that wish I would have stayed home. Coming off two weeks of lone wolf status and Uri's birthday extraordinaire, I was stretched thinner than I would have liked to be before undertaking solo airplane travel with a rambunctious two year old. And boy, I wish I would have noticed that our flight there was NOT DIRECT. Holy lord. Two delayed flights does not a happy baby make. There were a few times on the way there and back that I was that person that other people with kids are just glad they are not. Well and everyone else. The full flailing tantrum. One was kind of hilarious because I tried to put one of those stuffed animal backpack leashes on her and man, she was NOT HAVING THAT. Like pulling as far as she could to the end of the leash and then rolling around on the ground wailing and stuff. One of those times where even when I was going through it I had to laugh (on the inside). I can now declare Anna liberated from any additional leashing attempts. It was worth a try. I want to add in my defense that she thinks it's funny to take off running away at random times. Which is hard when you are alone in an airport. So this is why I gave the leash animal a go.  Quit your judging.

The high point of the trip was breakfast on Saturday. Our family are morning people and we were all on our best behavior eating delicious food. Score. Then we took the train to the zoo. The low point was dinner on Saturday. Uri and I decided to hit up a restaurant that we had been to before - as people w/o kids. We kind of forgot that it was a really fancy restaurant. When we got there, I was skeptical. There was a lot of ambiance and I could tell most people there were on big nights out. Even though we got there at 5:00 when it opened and that's usually okay. I spent most of the meal worrying about Anna being too loud or doing anything that comes naturally to a 2 year old - you know, like dumping the salt all over the floor. We were set up to fail. Part way through my entree I knew that it was a failed attempt and I walked home with her. It was horrible. I might have cried. I am proud that I knew better than to try and discuss it with Uri that night. I waited until the morning and we hashed it out a bit.

Our trip lessons:

1. Next time we travel, it will be when other things in our life are relatively calm.
2. No more fancy restaurants. Ugh.
3. NO MORE CONNECTING FLIGHTS holy cow I thought we'd already been over that shit!!!
4. Oh, no more traveling for pleasure the freaking weekend before Thanksgiving. I'm not even going into what LAX was like when Anna and I got home.

So now we're safe at home. Anna was so glad to get here. She yelled out "I'm so happy to see my cats!" and then ran around the house for a good half hour. We've been shaking off the travel day by watching Olivia (who is Anna's secret twin) and we're going to take a bath soon. I am pretty sore from carrying Anna and our stuff around for four days, but we're done. And it's a short week at work. And I already have her lunch made for tomorrow and the coffee set on the timer. And oh, I'm gonna be part-time soon.  It's all good.

Occupy My Life

Things have been nuts around here but it feels great to check in on the blog. I had a crazy busy week/weekend and it just hasn't stopped. Uri came home from Sweden to experience the birthday weekend to top all birthday weekends. I had a small celebration at home for him on his actual birthday (I actually baked a cake peops). On Saturday night, we partied rock star style with friends and then on Sunday we had family over for a brunch. Even though I had help (thank you Lisa, Theo, Alicia, Imo), it was exhausting. I had to call in a personal day at work on Monday just to get through the clean-up. I also found out that Uri was leaving Monday morning on another trip so it's two lone wolf weeks back to back.

I felt pretty down and out on Monday. The stress had settled right into my shoulders and was actually making me feel kind of nauseous. There is always some event let down after something big. When I used to be an event planner, I would try and take the day after a big event off. At that time I didn't have a family to worry about so it pretty much worked. But as any mother knows, there are no day off for us. I knew I had to do something because the wheels were coming off.

Well, I have enacted a new plan. It's a bit scary and a little bold but I hope it's going to work. I got the idea from my wonderful friend Tiffiny who has this work schedule for herself - also, her personality is similar to mine and she said it's done wonders. I'm going part-time. Real part-time. Like 20 hours per week and probably losing my benefits in the shuffle. I'm still hammering out the details with HR but the basic deal is: I'm going to work Monday - Friday from 8:30 - 12:30. I'm cutting my pay in half. This is a bargain for my employer because I will be doing my  best to get my whole job done in half the time. I think I can do it.

Of course, we're going to have to cut back on some of our spending - like buh-by botox. Did I already say goodbye to botox when I cut down to 80%? I can't remember. Also, the excessive vacations are going to have to be reined in. But I think it's really going to be worth it. You don't need restalyn if you're well rested, right? I'm going to be able to WORK OUT ON A SCHEDULE people. (I forgot to tell you guys that freaking daylight savings time killed my bike commuting thing. I don't worry about myself biking in the dark but I can't expose Anna to that.)

My sister has been really big on all the Occupy protests and she calls my new life plan "Occupy my life". So I'm trying. I'm trying to be flexible and have more balance. Giving up lucre for balance.

You know who I think is an awesome feminist? Ani Difranco. Her songs have really been inspiring me lately. Enjoy two of my favorites:



some chick says thank you for saying all the things I never do
I say the thanks I get is to take all the shit for you
it's nice that you listen
it'd be nicer if you joined in
as long as you play their game girl you're never going to win



when i'm approached in a dark alley I don't lift my skirt ..
I have to act
just as strong as I can
just to preserve a place
where I can be who I am

Terrarium Fail/Win

For months I have been industriously pinning away and favoriting crafty ideas. I feel like somewhere inside me is a crafty person that's slowly crawling back out as Anna gains more independence. A larger scale project I recently accomplished is creating terrarium centerpieces for Uri's 40th birthday party this weekend. I made them a few weeks ago when I had time.

I really did it up - making living terrariums with all sorts of pebbles, soil, moss, plants, I even bought some activated charcoal at the reptile store to make sure the recycling water in the environment was clean or something like that.



It was quite a production (yes that is a huge box of fresh moss shipped from Oregon).













In all, I made around 30 living terrariums. Sadly, the little buggers started dying off in strange ways. Mold, poofs of black death, too dry, too wet. I have a bit of a green thumb (no comments from the peanut gallery Princess Nebraska) but these things were not my friends. I think it might be the crazy weather we've been having - cold snap followed by really hot weather for a few days then rain for a few days.

The party is this weekend and I couldn't drag a bunch of dead/dying centerpieces to the hotel. Luckily, I tend to overbuy and I had a bunch of decorative dried moss as well as the living moss and plants that failed me so miserably. So on Sunday, I spruced everything up with the dried stuff.

I didn't document the newly spruced up terrariums but here is one of the original ones where I used the dried moss:




This is actually in one of my  mom's salad bowls and I love how it turned out. I gave it to her to take home instead of using it for the party. There is a living plant in there but the dark green stuff is the dried moss. Lesson learned? Go with the dried moss. It looks better, is a million times easier to do, and takes zero maintenance.

Steps for a dried moss terrarium:

1. Obtain cool glass container (found the best ones at our community garage sale but also got some decent ones at the 99 cent store)
2. Pour river pebbles in the bottom
3. Place dried moss on top of pebbles (I used a combination of  forest green mood moss and spring green reindeer moss)
4. Put some whimsical characters in the moss
5. Done

You don't even want to know the steps for the live terrariums. It's kind of similar but more dirty and lengthy. If you really care, I thought this website by Terrarium Man was helpful. I even got this terrarium book which was more inspiring than step by step helpful to me. Not all my terrariums died a painful death.

I'll take some pictures once I set them up for the party so you guys can see how my whimsical centerpieces turn out. Have a great weekend!

The Best Man

What does it mean to become a man? When does that moment happen? Is it when you go to the prom?



Graduate?



Get married?





Become a father?







Perhaps it occurs gradually, over time. Little bits and pieces of boyhood fall away and then there you have it, 100% man. Today my husband turns 40. Age is just a number but from what I gather, 40 just feels a little different.You can no longer ignore the fact that adulthood is upon you.

Uri is a man who squeezes the nectar out of life. He has become an amazing cook, a respected chip architect, a loving husband, and a devoted father. He is generous, honest and kind. He knows how to laugh at himself and how to get back up when life knocks him down. He provides a beautiful life for our family, one where we want for nothing.

Sometimes the every day grind of life ensnares me and I am not as loving and respectful as I should be to this husband of mine. But on this day, I am taking the time to thank him and celebrate him. I am saying to him and to the world...

Uri, I love you so much. I am proud of you every single day and am so thankful that you are in my life. You bring me so much joy and are an integral part of our little family. I look forward to spending this and every day with you for the rest of our lives. May you have the happiest of birthdays and may your life unfold to be as perfect as these past years together have been.

She says "wake up, it's no use pretending"
I'll keep stealing, breathing her.
Birds are leaving over autumn's ending
One of us will die inside these arms
Eyes wide open, naked as we came
One will spread our ashes 'round the yard

She says "If I leave before you, darling
Don't you waste me in the ground"
I lay smiling like our sleeping children
One of us will die inside these arms
Eyes wide open, naked as we came
One will spread our ashes round the yard

~Iron & Wine

Same Same

I love me some mommy / daughter matching. Also, Uri is out of town and Anna and I have been making him little videos.

Here we are in matching pajamas:



And in our matching sequin dresses:

Zen it and Forget it

Last week Uri and I had a conversation with a funky little zen master. He's actually an MFT but to me he's Yoda. We went in for a little marriage tune-up and it was so worth the time.

It was a little awkward when he asked each of us to hold a conversation with ourselves between our inner Obi-Wan and our inner child - but in the end, the approach worked. He said we could refer to our inner child as "feelings" and that works better for me. If we go again, I'm going to ask him if it's really necessary to have a conversation with myself or if I can skip that part. Because it really does feel silly.

However, I had one of those watershed moments during the meeting. The whole thing was basically about how to engage with your partner when one of you is upset. OK, honestly the whole thing was about how to engage with each other when I am upset and coming at Uri looking for a fight. Even though I really don't want to fight! It's just my feelings/inner child running away with me. Anyway, the moment was when it just came to me - you don't have to worry about the past. I said it out loud and Yoda was like "yes! exactly!". And that's it. Everything just fell away. I felt physically lighter, like this huge chain just fell off my neck. And you know what? Three days later and I STILL feel lighter. I can't believe how hard I was working to carry all that dumb shit around with me. So now I'm trying to unravel it all - all my silly little inner checklists like who scooped the cat litter, how many pairs of socks I pick up, who takes Anna to and from school. I'm trying to find more joy in each moment, taking ever more steps towards learning how to just be.

Since Uri travels so much, I tend to take care of most of Anna's daily needs. Usually, this is no big deal. But when so many of you were writing your "day in the life" posts and I saw how active so many of your husbands were in the daily chores, I kind of went off the deep end. See, I was fine with my life until my monkey ego started comparing with others and feeling like I was getting the short stick. But you know what, I'm fine. I'm capable and I'm enjoying myself and I have a good husband. I can do this and I just have to remember to center myself and keep Obi-Wan in charge and not my feelings. Feelings are great to have but they can't run the show - especially for an intense person like me. 

Yoda explained that it's just our egos that add things up, like past "injustices" or who did what chore last. The ego LOVES to get uppity and go looking for a fight. To be happy is to live in THIS moment right now, to make the most out of each day. I realized that my ego tends to busy itself a lot with stupid stuff and ridiculous comparisons. Constantly measuring everyone up to my difficult standards. Sitting in that office and seeing my ego for what it is showed me how far I have to go to become a better person. Not that I'm a bad person - but you know, just realizing that things aren't happening to make me feel a certain way - things are just happening. I'm the one who gets to decide how I'm going to react.

I know this probably all sounds a little California hippie to some of you and yeah, I guess it is. But honestly think about it - does it really matter who unloads the dishwasher more? When I am on my deathbed, am I going to think about the love I have felt or how Uri left his pajamas lying around? Life is messy and it's definitely not fair. I can choose to spend my time making an eternity of marks on my little chore scoreboard or I can just let that shit go. I choose freedom.

The one about china - no, not the country

(This will probably only be interesting to a few people so if you don't care about china, you might want to click away. It's cool, I didn't even like china myself until recently.)

So remember about a month ago when I had that obsession with vintage china? Well, I am happy to say that I pulled the trigger on some of it. After looking at patterns and prices, I settled on a really large set of the Franciscan Laguna pattern for sale on Ebay. I love the Franciscan brand because all the china was made here in southern California - well, until 1984 anyway. Super cool. Laguna was made from 1941 - 1951. It's a creamish white colored plate with a maroon stripe and gold rim:

I was thrilled because the set on Ebay had enough settings for our whole family on Christmas. The set was huge with roughly 16 settings:

Unfortunately, the seller packed it like a complete dope. Seriously. Who wraps china from the 1940's in one sheet of newspaper per item (sometimes TWO plates in ONE sheet of paper)? It's a testament to the strength of the china that about about 3/4 of it arrived unbroken. However, a lot of pieces were shattered and I realized I didn't have enough for Christmas. Crappy. So right now the seller and I are going through this annoying process with the Post Office to get the money back because we insured it. I've yet to get my money back but I'm pretty sure it will all work out. Tomorrow I probably have to drag all the boxes and broken pieces to the P.O. for verification. Pisses me off because I don't think it was the P.O.'s fault but the seller is making me go through this before refunding me.

I realized it would be difficult to complete the set for the pattern I bought. Unfortunately Laguna wasn't hugely popular so pieces are scattered here and there. I thought it would be cool to get a complimentary pattern and mix and match. The CEO of Replacements actually wrote a whole book on Franciscan China:

So of course I ordered it to learn more about the china I purchased and see about finding a pattern that would compliment it. It's really fun to have a whole book with the history of the company and everything that they made, with nuggets like "At the pinnacle of its fame, Franciscan pieces were purchased by some of America’s most famous families. Noteworthy are the 1961 order by Jacqueline Kennedy for Masterpieces China to be used on Air Force One and the 1969 selection by the Richard Nixons of Franciscan Masterpieces China for service aboard the Presidential yacht. Other orders for special services for royalty from around the world were also filled. "

So basically, Presidential yacht = my house - or, as Anna likes to say, "same same".

Anyhoo - I found a pattern that debuted at the same time as Laguna but was a bit more popular (so there is more available): Fremont. Fremont has leaves and berries on a branch with a gold rim in the center - and goes well with Laguna IMHO. (And no, that doesn't mean 'I'm a ho', it means 'in my humble opinion') - I've been asked.

Just look at the beautiful coffee pot:

Love it. Love, love, love.

I ordered a 45 piece starter set (8 settings and some serving pieces) from my new favorite pals at Replacements and was excited because right now they have free shipping if you spend over $150. Yeah! (Shipping the other set cost me $100 so it's a substantial cost). And since almost all they do is china, they don't pack it like a bunch of morons (I hope). It should be here any day and I'm praying there are no broken pieces.

I paid more to Replacements for less settings than I bought on Ebay but it also comes with some cool serving pieces and more customer guarantees. So I'm cool with it. Plus did I mention their CEO literally wrote the book on my china? Yes, I'm a big fan. 3 cheers for china!

Urban Bicyclist

Well, I got another nutty idea. This past weekend, I bought a bike. At first I just wanted it to cruise around the beach with Anna. But then I thought hey, the whole commute to Anna's school and then my work is 5 miles one way. Why not just bike it? Why not start this week?

I got a sweet "urban/commuter" bike (which my bike enthusiast bro-in-law calls a "townie" bike):

Pretty stylin', no? Allow me to elaborate from the website:

Potholes, taxis, trucks, busy paths; nothing stands in the way of Trek's Allant WSD. It's ready to roll any time with its lightweight aluminum frame and fast 700c wheels.. The upright riding position and stable ride mean top comfort and excellent handling that makes it easy to navigate around cracked pavement and errant vehicles. Plus, the Shimano 21-speed drivetrain offers easy pedaling, while the powerful linear-pull brakes offer excellent stopping power. You even get fenders so you can ride in comfort in all weather conditions.

You should have seen me navigating around errant vehicles guys. Anna rides in a luxury coach attached to the back:

Sometimes she's cool with it, sometimes not. Yesterday on the way home from school she whined intermittently the whole time but it's okay because I was EXERCISING.

I'm lucky to pretty much live in urban biker heaven (all the pretty colors are bike lanes):

So there were bike lanes everywhere as well as other bikers. I said "hi" to every single one. It was very fist pumpy and just a little bit hipster. It was quite a bit more difficult than I thought it would be, there were some tough hills and one where I had to get out and walk the bike - embarrassing. At first I thought I would bike all week but after my painful inaugural trip, I'm going to start with two days a week and build from there. Tuesdays and Thursdays if you are curious.

It's been a LONG time since I've ridden a bike and I was worried about how I would do. But this weekend when I tried out the bike it all came back - just like um, riding a bicycle I guess. Cliches are there for a reason. I was very proud of my ability to cruise in traffic on real streets, I even used hand signals. I made a LEFT TURN the right way on the bike not using the crosswalk. I buffed up on bike rules on this helpful website. I will say it helps having a baby trailer behind me with a big orange flag. Some people hate on bikers but who is going to drive dangerously near a wee babe?

I told Uri I want some photos and footage of the bike experience so we'll work on getting some of those. I hope I have finally found a way to work exercise into my life. We'll see.

Trick or Treat