We took our very first family vacation last week, to visit Mike's parents in the Twin Cities for Christmas. The plan was to be gone six nights, stay with my in-laws, and have a nice, peaceful Christmas.

Oh, the best laid plans of mice and men...

For starters, the night before we left, the girls both decided that it was time for them to sleep through the night. We slept a full night before what was supposed to be an all day drive. The girls were perfect angels in the morning. We got everything into the car with a little space to spare. And then we hit the road a whole five minutes AHEAD of schedule.

The plan was to stop in Milwaukee en route to spend part of the morning with my friend Kendall and her family, as she was on leave from the Air Force. We got about halfway there, and started saying things like, "Things ar going so well, when's the other shoe going to drop?"

About fifteen minutes after that phrase was uttered, we hit a patch of ice, and spun out into the cement median at sixty miles an hour. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and the next things I knew were that I had hit my head HARD, and that we were stopped.

I was unconscious for about three seconds, probably. Mike jumped out of the car and checked on the girls. Sophie was on my side of the car, and most of the impact had been to her door. She was VERY up[set, but completely unharmed. Deborah, who had been asleep, woke up simply confused. As I realized that I was confused, seeing spots, and nauseous, I told Mike to call an ambulance.

Five hours later, the girls and I were given an essentially clean bill of health. We were told to watch out of any increase in my amount of pain or number of symptoms, and to look for any behavior changes in the girls.

We retrieved the car from the lot where it had been towed, and found it was NOT safe to drive as far as Minnesota. We found a hotel with an Avis in the lobby, and let the girls relax and play for a bit before putting the whole family to bed.

...which then slept for an alarming ten consecutive hours.

That was the most the girls slept for the rest of the trip. Which is fine- nice, normal behavior and all, but some more rest would have been awful nice.

Starting on the next day, the girls began breastfeeding perfectly. Through the rest of the trip they only had two bottles. So- everything's great, right?

Oh no. Why? Through the ENTIRE trip, Deborah only pooped twice. I kept calling her doctor, who kept assuring me that she was just fine, but... a poop-less baby? Not exactly normal. Add on op of that my recurring migraines and incredibly sore back? Not a restful week.

We saw a lot of friends, a lot of family, and EVERYONE loved the babies. They were very well behaved, very tolerant of the constant baby juggling, and appropriately adorable.

And the car? Totaled. The passenger side doors are both completely useless, the trunk was smashed (miraculously all our presents pretty much survived), the frame bent towards the driver's side, the real axle damaged, and the drivers seat knocked free of its moorings. We drove home in my father-in-law's Passat, which meant leaving some of our things behind.

Best present ever? Walking away from a high speed collision with your whole family safe and sound.

Next year I think we'll take the train.

Today was a good day because I got a super awesome package from grendelyn!
There were NOMS! Ginger fudge! Marzipan sushi! STROOPWAFELS.

Thank you, beautiful!

This was a pretty spiffy Xmess, despite the relatively lean times. I got a nice new robe (it's got a belt...you can dunk it in the toilet...like a toilet belt), some new boxers, some lounge pants, thermal underwear, two geeky new tshirts, Target gift card, mini moai heads, and books and DVDs...oh glory and trumpets, the books and DVDs...allow me to elucidate:

• "Tiki Modern" by Sven Kirsten
• "Bloom County: The Complete Library, Volume 1, 1980-1982" by Berke Breathed
• "Up" four disc Blu-Ray and standard DVD set
• "The Emperor's New Groove" DVD
• "A Wish for Wings that Work" DVD, a.k.a. the Opus and Bill Christmas special
• "The Dark Knight" DVD
• "The Three Caballeros & Saludos Amigos" DVD
• "Old Crow Medicine Show: Live at the Orange Peel and Tennessee Theatre" DVD

All in all, pretty damn cool, and all things I really could use and/or enjoy. And best of all, my family didn't drive me bonkers! Well, not completely, anyway.

As previously mentioned, mom got us an HDTV from Costco, considering it to be Grandpa's gift to us. We also picked up a cheap but decent Blu-ray player from Best Buy for $120. Tis the season for pretty images, I think, no? Next on my list, a receiver and some speakers, but those'll have to wait for a while, until I have money again.

Hope you got everything you wanted for Xmess, and got to spend time with people you actually care about, rather than those who are merely related to you (though if there's some overlap in those groups, more power to you).

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

1. What did you do this year that you had never done before?
A lot, I guess.  It seems like most of it in the last 48 hours or so.  I learned the names of a variety of tools and demolished a kitchen.  And got spermy.  That was a big one.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't have one, though I'm totally reconsidering needing to make one for next year.  Some direction would be nice.  Or maybe just "sell the fucking house" would suffice.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Amazingly no.  I seem to be in the pocket of very single 30-year-old friends with no plans for reproduction.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
I don't believe so.  These last two questions make me wonder if I need to get closer to people or something.

5. What countries did you visit?
None.  I've come to the conclusion that I'm not a big traveler.  All good with it, actually.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
A baby.  A better sense of work/benefit ratio.  A different house.  Or I'll settle for more contentment in the one we're in.  Whichever comes first.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
October 19.  Spoogey.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Built up a client base on solely the power of my own marketing skills and completed my licensure.  Stayed overly employed and still managed to do absolutely everything else that popped in my head to do.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not selling the house.  That's really it and so Ozdamn time consuming.  It's sad, really.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Fell down twice in February, two weeks apart.  Dogs and ice related injuries.  Ankle is still sore from the second one.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Kitchen table.  No question.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Carrie's, Tom's, my parents', Carrie's parents, most of my friends.  This is a strange question.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
My smarmy boss.  I have a feeling he's going to be a major thorn in 2010.


14. Where did most of your money go?
School payments, saving for a down payment, fixing up to need a down payment.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Oh goodness, I get so fracken excited about everything.  Honestly - I just bought a door hook for my office and I feel like I got some sort of secret to the world.  Way too easily excitable.  I'd say realizing that my wife and I are always on the same page, in the same paragraph, and usually in the same sentence.  That's worth getting excited.  Oh, and my reading chair.  I love my reading chair.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Show Me What I'm Looking For - Carolina Liar

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
Happier but that's not a steep climb.

ii. Thinner or fatter?
Pretty much the same.  Can definitely say I didn't work on this in any way.  I'm cool with that too.

iii. Richer or poorer?
Richer.  We save well when we want to.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Reading.  Definitely lacked in that department this year.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Working my telework job.  Hard to get away from it and I think I only fake called in sick twice all year.  That's not a good precedent.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
At home in a mess, Skyping with my family, trying to figure out if we can do everything ourselves.

21) How did you spend New Years?
I have no idea.  I don't know what I'm going to do this year either.


22. Did you fall in love in 2009?
As always.

23. How many one-night stands?
None.  As I informed my wife, she's stuck with me forever because I wasted seven prime fucking around years of my 20s married to her.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
We watched five seasons of Lost in four months.  We also enjoyed Castle, FlashForward, and are sort of into True Blood now.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I sorta always disliked smarmy boss.....

26. What was the best book you read?
Zeitoun was great.  Lost and Philosophy.  Again, reading was pretty narrowed into therapy books.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Ludo.

28. What did you want and get?
We're at that weird level of income where what we want, we can afford, and therefore get if it is within reason.  I have WAY too many Guitar Hero games but hot diggity, I love me some GH drumming.  Greatest stress relief ever.

29. What did you want and not get?
To sell the house.  Do we see a theme?  I think I may off myself next year if I have to fill out this survey with that again.

30. What was your favorite film of the year?
Oh let's see.  I actually really liked Star Trek.  Away We Go.  The Answer Man.  The Reader.


31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
29 - I worked.  Theme of the year.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Getting pregnant, selling the house.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Dykey therapist.

34. What kept you sane?
Carrie, the immersion and embracing of the philosophy that everyone does what they do because it benefits them in some way and that includes me.


35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Emily Blunt.  Kate Winslet.  This is not a hard question at all.


36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Got really sick of the idiotic arguments against health care.  I feel most stirred when I'm annoyed.


37. Who did you miss?
Leah.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Oh this is very very hard.  I meet a lot of new clients and they are all fantastic people.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
Burying a Catholic saint statue in the backyard only appeases your mother and does not sell your house.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future - Topeka, Ludo, originally by Oscar Wilde.

Due to Blizzard Part Deux, we opened gifts with my family over Skype. 

We opened each other's presents, "Look, Dad, you got Cubs flannel pants!"  Carrie thought it was hilarious when I said, "Congratulations!"  Well, what do you say to someone when you open their gifts for them?

Then we took a family picture.  Mom held the computer with our smiling faces on it. 

It was fantabulously spontaneous.  Who knew we had it in us?

Hope you all had a much more dry and eventful Christmas!  :-)

Next year I'm taking Xmas Eve off.  This tack I've been on for the past few years--being a trusty, stalwart and faithful foot soldier who will work whatever, whenever, yes sir no sir three bags full sir--is starting to get seriously old.  It's not like I feel I can be bothered to get anything done today anyway, and yet here I am waiting for the phone to ring.  At least it's not like last year, when I was here by myself, taking 60+ calls and getting bitched out for not answering emails.

Instead of being home with The Wife and ldynight  playing board games and generally enjoying myself, I'm here, wondering if I'll get an extra 15 minutes off at the end of the day.  I hate myself for complaining; I have a job and should be thankful.  It's just that this is the second year in a row I haven't really had any lead-in time to enjoy the day itself.  Xmas just sort of happens and I say "oh er um, cake?" and then it's over.

I'm not counting the last month and a half of xmas music and consumer frenzy as part of the holiday experience--these things are detrimental and distracting and I shun them as best I can.

Well.  Anyway.  Here's to the day, here's to the season, here's to all of you; especially those of you who have to work, or whose need for work makes the winter wind blow all the more bitterly cold.

This confection, my friend nanaslug 's recipe, actually contains enough sugar to kill an elf. Please don't make them if you're alone in the house, because you'll probably eat enough of them to injure yourself. She calls them Cubes of Crack for a reason.


HEY!! *wave* Well, COC is the absolute easiest and most addictive dessert ever. I think they are officially called Fudgey Scotch Squares, but I think Cubes of Crack is more accurate:

Cubes of Crack

1 sleeve graham crackers crumbs (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 cup walnuts, chopped finely
1 can sweetened condensed milk

Mix all the ingredients and spread into an 8x8 or 9x9. Over the years, I've found that silicone bake ware works best with this recipe because it is really, really sticky. Butter and Pam both leave a weird crust and parchment paper sticks. And there's nothing worse than fresh cooked crack that you can't get out of the pan!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Cool completely before cutting (if you can stand it!!)

Sup, y'all! Merry Christmas Eve! I'm in Florida! Flo-Rida! It's warm and nice but not as sunny as I would like. I mean, come on, Florida, I want to get my tan on! I want to rub my bronzed nose in the faces of my fellow Northerners when I get back to Chicago. Because I'm a jerk.

Here are a few pictures from my trip so far:










Anyway, I hope everyone has a very happy Christmas celebration and that you manage to get wherever you need to go, through sleet and snow or whatever wintry mix mother nature throws in your direction. And eat an extra helping or two of roast beast. After all, it is the holidays.



PS! Christmas is my NINE YEAR livejournal anniversary! I guess I'll go out and buy livejournal some pottery and willow. Neat.

Every year my dad buys us each a calendar.  This has been since I was 1 and did not know how to tell time or days but liked the pretty pictures.  He loves this job.  It feels like his calling to him.

Last year, he bought me a Peanuts calendar that was perfect for my counseling office.  Since I love Peanuts and love having a calendar in my office, I asked for the same thing again this year.

He called a couple of days ago.  "I'm having trouble finding you one like that.  I'm going to send you a link to the one I got instead."

Yeah. So funny, Dad.

Had the best and worst day of my counseling career yesterday.  This is a hard feat to pull off.  I'm not allowed to talk about the bad....not because of confidentiality but because my wife has banned it from my brain until January 5.  I'm good with this.  Just makes me want to throw things.

But man people are fracken fascinating.  Lessons learned yesterday:

1. If I am working with a 19-year-old who is struggling with the things 19-year-olds struggle with but don't understand it is common to wonder these things, and if that 19-year-old asks me questions and I simply answer them honestly (not too detailed), then said 19-year-old will open the hell up and pour out whole new levels of thought, insight, and understanding.  She just had to know I had once been 19 as well, I think. 

2. However, the question, "Have you ever had suicidal thoughts?" made me stop for a second.  It's amazing what a brain blitz feels like.

3. The quiet ones are the best journalers.

4. Actually, the gay ones are by far the best journalers, many of them just happen to be quiet.  I want to do a study.

5. Some people really do radiate that "good person" feeling.  Chances are high, however, that they do not consider themselves to be good people. I don't get why this is.

6. I pulled off a family therapy session.  This is amazing since the amount of knowledge I feel I have about family therapy comes from being able to spell "family" and "therapy."

7. I currently have a slew of 24-year-olds on my docket.  I don't remember 24 being a huge existential crisis year, but then again I was running around with my head cut off getting married and bucking the system at every chance.  It actually was the year I needed the least amount of therapy to deal with.  Just a funny realization.

8. It's a murky profession.  The ones I am prepared to be bored with blow me away and the ones I have excellent rapport with sometimes just don't flow well.  I'm trying to figure out if my level of caffeination has anything to do with it.

9. I get a whole week off due to blizzard take 2 and just Fing the next week.  Comes at a very good time. 

10. I did not knee my boss in the groin yesterday.  This is, without question, the biggest accomplishment of the year in behaviors I avoided.  A round of applause for me, please. 

Today is a very presenty day. I've gotten two special gifts: a co-worker in Mississippi sent me a pen and keychain set (just what my purse needed- really! Thank you, Betty!) and my local co-worker Jon got me a donation to Doctors Without Borders(MSF).


I'm especially touched by the MSF donation, because it makes me think of my departed pal roup42 .

What's the meaning of life? When did you figure it out?


For me, the meaning of life is to love as many people as possible.

There are people who love better than I do. In fact, I think there's a person or two on earth who loves everyone. Until I get to that level, I'm jus' gonna love everyone I can.

In addition, I want to show as many people as possible that I love them.

You know, it makes me very sad when I think I fail at this task.

Anyway, I figured out the meaning of life one day in college or shortly thereafter. I must have been a senior, or something. Or maybe it was during my year of teaching elementary school.

I was walking to my favorite restaurant, the Off Center Cafe, with my friend Heidi.

It's called the Off Center because it's set way back in a parking lot away from the street, which is Center Street in Salem, Oregon.

They have a sandwich there that's so good that it makes me cry. Also, they make astoundingly good griddle toasted anadama bread, which you can slather with an entire pot of raspberry jam, if you like. Day, they know about the throw-down at the Off Center! I hope it's still there and similarly delicious if I visit Salem again. Anyway. Where was I?

Oh, yes. It was during our walk to the restaurant that I was in my head about why I should continue living (it must have been while I was teaching, because I hated that job so much I wanted to die). I decided that all of us must share some meaning to life, we untheists and theists (Heidi's a theist) alike.

Amusingly, my answer is the same one that folks report that Jesus said when somebody wanted him to boil life down into a couple of rules: "Blah blah blah love with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind blah blah blah. Love... yourself."

I wish I were better at including myself in the meaning of life. I think I'll cultivate that this week.

What is the default memory of your time being a kid?

I think of two being-a-kid times in my life. The first was before I started school, and the other was after.

Before I started school, I spent my happiest free time in the house. I spent it figuring out how to read, though I don't remember the details of that. I remember a day on the living room floor when dad copied down the alphabet for me, but I already knew the letters and the sounds they made. I think I might have been three or four. It was before preschool, anyway.

I still had a bit of trouble with reading books at that time, but it might have been because the primers, the ones designed for beginning readers, don't make a hell of a lot of sense. They're choppily written, with huge gaps in the plot, and they're full of stilted sentences and old-fashioned "easy" words that people don't use a lot in front of toddlers.

The day I actually learned how to read, I was struggling through another primer that someone had left on the bus (at that time, Dad ran the school buses for our district, and if nobody claimed the stuff out of the lost and found... well... new book for little Piemancer). It was a book about an elementary classroom(ooh, is this what school will be like?) with a turtle named So-slow. That turtle really threw me, because a turtle should be named Melvin, or Tortuga, or something. As I recall, that was my first experience with a hyphen. Once I figured out that So-slow was a name and not a description, it all fell into place.

I remember wondering why I'd had so much trouble reading before.

After I started school, my family moved to a place that had a stand of woods behind the house. As my autonomy and independence grew, I would spend my time wandering around in the woods with my dog Persia. I think I spent time doing that every day after school and all summer.
That's why the call of the Swainson's thrush is so important to me. I heard it 'most every summer day.


It'd be cool if you answered this question. Answer in comments below, or in your own journal. I'm curious about other peoples' life experiences.

My brother had surgery this morning to take a cyst off his tailbone.  He's fine - they just said he should take it out so it stops flaring up and causing him immense pain.

They had to put him under, which Tom has never experienced, so I called to see how he was.

He was narcotic'd.

They were in the pharmacy when Mom handed him the phone.  "We're in the pharmacy because they said I needed stool softener," he said in regular volume.

I said, "Oh okay."

"I hit on the nurses," he said.  "They asked if my wife was taking care of me and I said I didn't have a wife, only a mother.  But I was looking for a wife.  One of them said she had a sister who would love to go out with me so I gave them my phone number and said, 'Is she female and employed?  That's my only criteria...female and employed.'  The nurse said, 'What if she has missing teeth?'  I said, "Dentistry is not a requirement."

"Good good," I said, laughing.

He told his throat hurt.  I said to try some tea with honey.

"HONEY!" he yelled.  "WE NEED HONEY!"

Then he got quiet, "They said my poop might get hard.  That's why we're here."

I laughed and Mom took the phone back.  "It's just like Grandpa, isn't it?"

She went with Grandpa to all of his appointments and found out the majority of his embarrassing childhood stories while he was doped up.  I think it's her favorite part of caretaking. 

Can't blame her, really.

You can't keep blaming yourself. Just blame yourself once, and move on.

Homer Simpson

So.

This week, I had the most Mad Science gigs I've had for several weeks...a whopping three (it's understandable...December is traditionally a rather slow month for MS, it seems...so many schools getting ready to hibernate for winter break). I had my last robots session at one school, a session for the Cudahy Parks & Rec department on Friday afternoon with a theme of "Holidaze," which was kinda fun, and a birthday party on Saturday afternoon that I kicked major butt at, if I do say so myself. The kids were laughing at all the bad puns and silly things I threw in, and the birthday boy's parents were laughing at all the jokes that flew over the heads of the kids. Half of them I didn't even realize I was making until after they were out of my mouth...they were all clean, don't worry. Just a little more esoteric than most 10 year olds would get. I really think the party went extremely well, and I'm very pleased with myself (even if I didn't get a tip...oh well). I even timed it perfectly: I had an add-on to introduce to the mix, and still had to keep the time at 60 minutes, so they could do the cake, ice cream and presents...I totally nailed it. Yay me!

Today I wrapped all but one of mom's Xmess prezzies, and that last one is en route from Amazon. Should arrive Wednesday. Other than that, not too much else is going on. We got our HDTV last Wednesday, but have not hooked it up yet, as we have to do some cleaning and organizing in the living room in order to get access to the entertainment center. We're also pricing Blu-Ray players. Found a decent sounding one for about $175, but we'll wait to see if the price goes down a bit after the new year. I also have to edit down my aunt's first craft instruction DVD, but that shouldn't be too problematic. Mostly it's trimming the head and foot of each clip, throwing it a small transition, and getting it prepped. Simple enough.

That's all I've got for now, gang. I'll keep you posted.

Sophie:



Deborah: