Sweet Sam and Finals

Sammie in the hosptial

Poor Sammie. On Easter evening she had a terrible accident and sliced her knee open. She slid into a measly plastic sprinkler head with jeans on. The damage was amazing. It was a huge, awful gash that required surgery and a three-day hospital stay. She is still in a brace and can't bend her knee. The cut was 12-inches across. Some of the skin below the cut isn't getting blood and is in danger of dying, in which case she would have to have plastic surgery. It's kind of a sad way to end her senior year. But she is a trooper--resilient, positive and so good-natured. I love her so much. In the meantime she has three AP tests to study for, and so being less active suits her lifestyle in a way.

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks. Finals are over. I survived. I really did. And a lot of good came from it. This past semester was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I read and wrote, read and wrote for three and a half months. That's about all I did. My brain feels like it's made ample room for all this extra information, that it's being absorbed and filed away. Retrieval of this knowledge at a later date is a distinct possibility. I'm banking on it, anyway.


Just when I have some time to smell the roses my tulips are dying--already. And my lilacs are in full bloom, several weeks early. They usually don't come out until Mother's Day. Time is marching on. Sammie graduates the end of May and school is almost out for everyone else.

Tonight we ate dinner on the patio. It was sort of an idyllic Sunday afternoon. Darren barbecued, Theo chewed on his bones and chased birds, wagging his tail as fast as a hummingbird's wings. We played "Say Anything" and had homemade peanut butter cookies for dessert.

Two days without a microwave

 A few days ago, in the middle of defrosting some turkey, our microwave gave up the ghost. It didn't screech, or whine or peter out slowly or make any other distress sounds. It just stopped. It had died. It was only four years old.

Such a young microwave. Was it defective or is that just how long microwaves last "these days?" The guy at RC Willey said, "I don't care how nice or expensive a microwave it, they are all just garbage and won't last for more than four years." He had obviously been selling microwaves forever, and wasn't in commission mode at all. He could say whatever he wanted. It was sort of refreshing to know the truth about something, but irritating to think that we would just have to buy another one in four more years. Of course we bought one. How can you NOT have one?

We didn't get it until yesterday. So there were two days of maddening chaos in the kitchen. The kids kept asking how they were supposed to eat without a microwave. Put a pan on the stove, pour the stuff in and turn on the stove, I told them. They were perplexed. They are the microwave generation. The stove is for cooking dinner stuff, not for warming up stuff, they said. When they tried this they scored the bottom of the pan, leaving them to "soak."  Putting something to "soak" means you will not ever clean it. Your mother will because she is SICK of looking at it and she needs it because the microwave is broken!

"How am I supposed to put a corn dog in a pan on the stove?" Nathan asked. He had a point. Maybe we really shouldn't be eating corn dogs, I thought, but instead told him that he should find something else to eat. I started my usual bulleted list of all the things to eat when kids say there's nothing to eat. Like always, I started out with the most nutritious, but then gradually moved into foods that will definitely keep me a member in good standing at the Slacker Mom club.

• cereal
• bananas
• apples
• pretzels
• yogurt
• cheese sticks
• leftovers from last night (no, that would require a pan to warm it up)
• grapes
• cheez nips
• oreos
• vanilla ice cream
• double chocolate fudge ice cream (it's the end of the semester, OK?)

So last night having my microwave popcorn again was a real treat after not having it for a couple of days. And the new microwave is cool. It has a nob to turn instead of buttons to push.

But who cares really? It's gonna be dead in 2016.

Hot Mess

This is THE week of the semester. It is the week when everything comes together or falls apart. For 13 weeks, things have been falling into place, but I still worry that they could fall out of place so easily.

Hanging by a thread. It is amazing that I think of my school work in so tenuous of terms. My confidence is something that has to be hefted up from its hiding spot every day and put in plain view. And even then it likes to slink down to the place it is most comfortable. Kind of like when you walk out into the light after having been in a dark room and it feels better just to turn back.

Oh, that *%$#^ research paper that has been tormenting me for two months! Adrie spent three hours with me last night getting it into the right format. She laughed, "I seriously hope you never have to do something like this again." That was after she told me my paper was "a hot mess."

I agree, that paper was the "hot mess" of the semester. If it receives any sort of a decent grade, it will be because of Darren and his red pen and my professor's patience when I couldn't get the question right, then got the question right and then changed the question altogether. Poor guys.

Adrie's so sweet. She's the one who brought me the application to this program last spring and said, "Mom, you can do this."

Every day I remember that when I'm busy dredging up the confidence that has lain idle for way too long.

What a Bathrobe Means

A bathrobe means lots of things and has lots of purposes.

• You use it when you want to cover up ratty pajamas.
• You use it when you want to cover up other things.
• You use it when it's Christmas morning and pictures must be taken.
• It is a symbol of sickness. For example, when you have it on in the middle of the day, people think you must be sick, and then they may not ask you to do something.
• You wear it when you are busy in the mornings and you just don't have time to get properly dressed and then it is suddenly noon and the bathrobe becomes a symbol of laziness not busyness.
• A new one means you are serious about not looking too ratty or dumpy, but that bathrobes are just a necessary part of a wardrobe like pants or shoes.
• It is a Saturday or Sunday thing. You can wear it more on these days than in the middle of the week.
• It can be fuzzy for the winter, and "breezy" for the summer.
• If you wear it in the car to drive the kids to school, you are a slacker mom and can't get it together.

I have used my bathrobe in every one of these ways at some point in my life. Today, my bathrobe means that I have lots of school work to do and that I want to be comfortable doing it. But it is now nearly 1:30 and my bathrobe must give way to real life and real clothes.

Reading and Writing on the Couch, Pork Rinds and Such

I often worry that this school thing will all come crashing down around me. It just sort of nags at me all the time. My permanent spot seems to be the couch where I am reading and writing in odd positions that make my shoulder hurt. For those of you who know my sad, sad tale of woe about my shoulder, this is not a good thing.

This reminds me of a book called,  "She Got Up Off the Couch" by Haven Kimmel. It's about a mom who sat on the couch for 20 years eating pork rinds, watching TV and reading sci-fi novels, until one day she "got up off the couch," lost 100 pounds and went back to school.

OK, I just can't think about that too deeply.

 I haven't eaten pork rinds since my Dad would buy them at Seven-Eleven on the way home from Vernal, UT. Pork rinds are what you eat on the way home from Vernal. And sunflower seeds that you hack out the window. The ones that you don't hack out the window spill all over the seat and stay there for a long time. He would also buy orange circus peanuts that sit in your stomach like sicky-sweet Play-Doh.  No wonder I don't have much desire to go to Vernal. If I could be with Dad then I'd like it.

Wow, such randomness on a Wednesday night on the couch. Now I have the hiccups. And no, I have not been eating pork rinds or circus peanuts.

Winter's Back

Winter's back, hopefully just for a few days. I had almost packed away my bulky sweaters, but I guess I'm glad I didn't. Aww, I'm gonna pack them away anyway. I can't bear to actually wear them.

I put a bunch of white flowers with lots of greenery around the house for St. Patrick's Day. I usually cook corned beef and cabbage to get into the Irish spirit, but my husband is the only one who likes it. Everyone else gags, so I decided against it. I found an Irish stew recipe that I wanted to make, but I couldn't find leeks and rosemary or a "pint of Guiness beer" at my local Smith's. I wasn't about to go to the state liquor store just to make something traditional. So Darren and I went out and the kids ate a frozen pizza. Slacker mom! But those white flowers with greenery sure are pretty!

I tried to pinch Nathan yesterday for not wearing green and he said, "Hey, it's on my underwear!" Typical 8th grade response. The horror of it was, I could actually SEE his underwear because his pants were so slouchy, and that was troublesome. I told him to go put on a belt, that I never wanted to to see his plaid boxer shorts again! At least when they're on his body. Heaven knows I'll be seeing them in the laundry for the rest of my mortal existence . .

Speaking of the "L" word, there are about four clean piles down there that are screaming at me. At the bottom of the pile are Sammie's PIONEER TREK CLOTHES THAT SHE WORE IN JULY AND IS NOW JUST WASHING! I am so upset at this that I can hardly speak about it, let alone write about it. They have been fermenting in her room while her tarantula--Obamaniqua- feasts on live crickets and the beta swims in a fuzzy green bowl.

Speaking of Sammie, she just came  to me said, "Worst thing ever, Mom." I sat down to read Tale of Two Cities, and I woke up three hours later!" Maybe you should read something shorter and easier, I said. Too late now, she said. "I'm sorry, honey," I said.

I'm off to make strawberry shortcake with whipped cream for dessert. Darren is barbecuing hamburgers in the snow!

Life is so weird.

Fickle Pickle

I have always been fickle.

Luckily I have become less so as I grow older. But Fickle has showed up again--uninvited and definitely unwanted--and is seriously toying with me. It keeps telling me to change my mind about school-related projects. Two weeks ago it convinced me to change the topic of a major paper that was due in 10 days, and now it's telling me change the topic of a short story that's due tomorrow. The story was nearly written, but I didn't like it anymore. Fickle will do that to you. (Well, it also had no plot movement, said my writing teacher. She was right.)

I wish Fickle would go bother someone else, at least until the semester is over. Then I might be willing to entertain it when the topic isn't school. If the topic were flowers or desserts, or what movie to see . . . then Fickle and I could joyfully hang out together. And I know we'd have fun.