our new street

that's our new address come March 2007. our new house will be on the corner of ellington and early morning; we were hoping (praying) our address would be ellington because our front door faces it, but no luck. it's better than our current street name (liquid laughter lane. really, it is.) but we still think early morning sounds goofy. especially since the other streets are liberty and harrison and midtown and chesapeake and normal sounding names like that.

in any case, the paperwork is signed and we are the proud owners of a big pit of mud. we found out that we don't get to pick the colors of the outside of our house; we didn't even think to ask that when we were looking at the neighborhood. but apparently the homeowner's association decides what colors houses go where. i guess it's a good thing so you don't have three yellow houses in a row, but it was still a bit of a surprise. i was planning on a white house with black shutters but it turns out we're getting a yellow house with green shutters and white trim. it's very pretty but i just never pictured myself as a yellow house kind of girl.

here's a picture of what our house will look like: (the white one on the left)
















but it will be in these colors:















we're super excited about the house. we have so many things we have to decide - cabinets and countertops and carpet and wood floors and trims and hardware, but it's thrilling. we remodeled our current kitchen last spring and although it pains me to have put that much work into it just to sell it a year later, i also get to apply lessons learned to the new kitchen. i feel so lucky and giddy and happy and i just want to jump up and down and yell '[our new address!], [our new address!]'

*edited on 8-8-06. husband did not want our new address out in cyberspace.

more alike than we think

i got a cool email today from someone who read my blog for the first time today (hi TL!). she and another woman have girls kate's age and we're trying to coordinate a party for the three of them since their birthdays are within a few days of each other.

anyway, this woman said she read my entire blog and mentioned a lot of the ways that we're alike. and it occured to me that we're all probably a lot more alike than we realize. but because no one talks about being insecure or not wanting to entertain their kids all the time or about buying new clothes instead of doing laundry, we assume no one else feels that way. and we feel isolated and lonely.

it doesn't need to be that way. i wish we weren't all so afraid to admit what we think are weaknesses but are, in truth, really just human nature.

lot 214

on friday, this sign will say 'sold'

:)

ewwwwwwww

me: kate, what would you like for a snack?

kate: ummmmmmm

me: would you like some matzo?

kate: yes!

me: would you like peanut butter on it?

kate: yes. peanut butter and cream cheese.


where did she come up with that? thankfully we didn't have any cream cheese so she's eating peanut butter and butter on matzo. still ick, but not quite as bad.

enough is enough?

if you've read my blog for any amount of time, you know i struggle with wanting more and wanting to need less. as we're getting started on building the new house (we're talking to our mortgage broker today to get the wheels in motion. it's really happening. we're building a new house.), it's getting more acute.

i love the new house. it is a fantastic floor plan for our family and has lots of features we wish we had in our current house. this is a house we can live in until the kids go to college (and beyond, really). but we don't NEED the house. our current house is perfectly fine. sure, it's not our dream house, but what right do we have to make all our dreams come true when so many other people in our country (and the world!) have so little?

is it selfish to buy something you don't need just because you can? is there a difference between buying a shirt you don't need and say, a car? a house? a luxury vacation? buying this house won't stop us from giving to charities and donating our time and efforts to causes we believe in, so is it ok? (i'm asking that rhetorically. i know i'm the only one who can figure out the answer.) if we didn't buy this house, we could give more. but is that what we need to do?

i'm a fairly black and white person: things are right or wrong. good or bad. easy or hard. it's hard for me to live in the grey areas in between; i struggle with it. and not just when it comes to money issues. i was very religous in college and i struggled with my faith - was i enough of a believer? was i doing the things i should do? was i going to church enough? was i donating enough money and time?

it's always a question of enough. i don't know if i'll ever find the balance. have you? how? (ok, that totally sounds like something mike meyers would say on SNL: "discuss amongst yourselves")

yikes

our realtor is calling to put a hold on a lot in a new neighborhood going up not too far from us. this might really be happening. we might really be moving.

yikes.

scary but exhilarating.

thanks!

for all the ideas about what to name my photo galleries on my new website. i decided to chuck the idea of different galleries and just have one big gallery. much easier.

for a sneak peak of my new site, check out my comps on the designer's website.

gratitude

i borrowed a friend's 'oprah's 20th anniversary' DVD collection over the weekend and have been watching it. last night while i was skimming through it, i hit a segment where oprah talks about her gratitude journal. she writes down at least 5 things every days that she is grateful for - and they have to be things that happened that day.

i thought it sounded like a nice idea and something i could certainly use right now as i throw daily temper tantrums about building our dream house and seem to be having a hard time focusing on the things i *do* have instead of all the things i don't. i decided last night to start it today and to post it on my blog so i had more incentive to do it.

it was not to be.

this morning after dropping kate off at preschool, i backed into a parked car in the parking lot. hello?? my car has a back-up camera in it. when i put my car in reverse, there is a camera on my dashboard to show me what's behind me and i STILL managed to nail the other minivan. the woman was very gracious and kind and it turns out it's just paint damage (so i guess there's something to be grateful for afterall!).

then i met my friend at the mall. she needed to return some bras to nordstrom and decided to get fitted for the correct size so she could buy the right bra. i decided to get fitted, too, since it has been a year since i was last measured and my bras had become a little, ahem, snug lately.

turns out i've gone up two cup sizes in a year. TWO. CUP. SIZES. i now wear a size 34-ginormous. it just reinforced the fact that i've put on weight lately, despite the fact that i am eating better and working out more. how is this possible? (i'm blaming it on a thryroid condition. my dad has one and he has been after me for years to get mine tested. my obgyn gave me some paperwork to get some annual bloodwork done and she included checking my thyroid on it. i don't know if i'm hoping i DO have a thyroid condition or not.)

so tomorrow, then. tomorrow i'll start my online gratitude journal. hold me to it.

help me out

the designer who is doing my new photography website emailed me the comps today and i adore the site. but i need to come up with gallery names. currently we have 'babies', 'children' and 'families'. i don't necessarily want the galleries that limiting, so i'm trying to think of other names (like 'little ones', 'bigger ones', 'everyone' - or something like that).

any creative folks reading this who want to give me a hand? anyone sitting at work, bored out their minds (EM!), and want to take a stab at it?

dream house = dream

i'm going out with our friend/realtor on friday to look around town. she cautioned us about the difficulties of buying property in howard county - not just the price tag, but the fact that alot of the good lots (even single lots) are already owned by builders and they are tied in to building your house.

so our dream house isn't out of range just yet but it's slipping further and further away. i have to keep reminding myself that we HAVE a house and we are lucky to live where we live and if we don't get to build our dream house, we'll be fine. we're in our early 30's for chrissakes. we have time. jeff and i are so damn impatient :)

casidy chandler

one of my best friends, meredith, had her first child last night - a little girl named casidy. meredith had to have an emergency c-section because the cord was wrapped around casidy's neck but everyone is doing fine.

welcome baby casidy!

cold turkey

we're going cold turkey with jack and his pacifiers. we hadn't planned on it, but jeff was moaning about having to go on the nightly paci search (we have about 18 pacifiers and we can never find them at 2am in the morning). i decided that tonight was the night. period. no more pacifiers. kate was 2 years old when we took her pacifiers away so i guess the timing is right.

he's upstairs screaming and sweaty and frustrated. all he's screaming is 'paci! my paci! paci! my paci!' i feel awful but i also feel like it's time.

bad mom. no donut.

pee wee's playhouse

it's back for the summer on cartoon network. i'm tivo'ing all the episodes and the kids are watching it as i type this. i forgot how much i love this show.

the summer between my freshman and sophomore year in high school, i was a nanny for two little boys down the street. they loved it and we watched it over and over (and over) again that summer. i used to be able to sing the theme song by heart and i knew all the characters. watching it again, almost 20 years later (yikes) is like watching it for the first time again. i forgot about cowboy curtis and conky and randy. i love this show.

the word of the day is little.

sadness

today i found out that a friend of mine lost a very, very close friend of hers. actually, i found out about it a few days ago in a round about way but mistakenly thought it was someone else who died (a distant relative of mine and a friend of the family of hers.)

anyway, i didn't call her or worry about her because the person who (i thought) had died was old and it was a natural end to a long life. but still, i sent her a card to tell her i was thinking of her.

she called me today to thank me for the card and when i mentioned the name of the person i thought she was upset about, it turns out it wasn't that person at all. she lost a very close friend - so close that he was really more like family. i actually met him and his wife a few months ago at my friend's house and i liked both of them very, very much. and when my friend told me it was *him* who had died, i gasped. i was stunned and i was sad for my friend. and i was sad that i hadn't picked up the phone a few days ago to see how she was doing.

i'm sad for my friend. i know she's hurting and i wish i could help in some way.

baring it all

(no, not that way. get your mind out of the gutter.)

when i was in north carolina visiting my friends last week, one of them asked me why i keep a blog. she said she'd read it a few times (she's not really *into* computers and email. it boggles my mind. but i digress) and she didn't understand why i'd want to write about personal things. she was referring, specifically, to this post. she said she always thought of me as a private person and it was strange to her that i would write about things i wouldn't talk about in person.

i had to think. it was a good question and i wasn't sure i had the answer. but i told her that writing on a blog is fairly anonymous, even if people you know are reading it because you can't see them. i don't see your (whoever you are reading this right now) face when you read one of my posts and think it's biased or dumb or pointless. you can choose to comment or not. if you choose not to comment, then i don't know you even read it. and if you really hate my point of view, you just don't have to read it. so i figure that anyone reading this is either interested in what i have to say or thinks it's so god-awful that they have to read it to see what i come up with next (sort of like a bad car accident. you don't want to look, but you do).

but why do i blog? i dunno. it's complicated. partly it's because i'm a stay-at-home mom with two young kids and it's nice to have something to do. it makes me feel like my journalism degree isn't completely wasted :) but i think that mostly it's because for my entire life, i've always felt like everyone else has everything figured out. i've always felt like the odd duck who worried about *everything* and felt insecure and unsure. it's only as i've gotten older that i've realized that LOTS of people feel that way but don't or won't admit it. and that's fine. but i'm getting comfortable with being unsure and of not knowing the rules. and writing about it helps me to feel more comfortable with it because i hear from other people who feel the same way.

i suppose blogging, for all its anonymity is a way to feel connected to people. a way to know that i'm not alone in my insecurity. a way to know that it's ok to be the way i am.

playdate etiquette

kate has a playdate this morning with a little girl from her class. i don't know her mom really well - just in that chatting-in-the-halls-when-we-drop-off-and-pick-up sort of way. but she's a very nice woman and kate adores her little girl. so the mom invited kate over for a playdate this morning and kate is so excited. but me? i'm a little confused. i'm not sure if i'm supposed to drop kate off and come back to pick her up or if jack and i are supposed to hang out at her house while the girls play.

yes, i know i could just ask. but i feel stupid for not knowing. i feel like either way is an imposition: either i'm asking to dump my kid off at her house while i run errands or i'm asking to hang out at her house when she could be doing things she needs to do.

i'm totally clueless. there are few things i like less than feeling clueless and not knowing the rules.

**UPDATE: i talked to the mom and told her i felt dumb but i wasn't sure what i was supposed to do. she was so nice and said she had just planned on me dropping off kate. phew. over and done with. (but i still feel dumb) :)

we belong.

kate had her first day of summer camp today. she went to the same camp last summer (and it's held at the preschool she goes to during the school year). i remember the first day of camp last year - neither kate nor i knew any of the other kids or moms and we mostly stuck to ourselves.

what a difference a year makes. this morning kate saw all of her friends from her class and there were hugs and little girl screeching all around. i got to talk to some other moms (and met a new one). it was so different and so nice. we belonged.

my boys

flat pak house

have you seen this? jeff and i both gravitate towards modern, west coast style architecture (which makes living in the land of cookie cutter houses kind of hard). i found this site/product a while ago and tucked it away. jeff and i have been talking about moving but we weren't sure where or why. we don't need a bigger house, but we want a different house. we could update and continue to make changes to our current house but it will never be the house we dream about. jeff wants a home office and i want a house filled with natural light and open spaces. i want concrete floors, european cabinetry and industrial fixtures. and i don't want to have to worry about resale (we could never make these changes in our current house. it'd never sell again).

i hope we can do this someday.

and...

...this is why we call him chuckles:

then and now

this photo is of me and my three best friends, circa 1992 (the beginning of our sophomore year in college):

















and this is a photo taken yesterday:
















i never thought we'd be friends long enough to introduce our kids to each other. it's one of those things that makes getting older worth every wrinkle and extra fat roll.

northern virginia sucks ass

i used to think that hell would be having to go to the gym and do endless seated leg raises. i know now that hell will, in fact, be having to live in northern virginia and navigate the traffic tie ups.

i detest northern virginia. i loathe northern virginia. i wish we could just get a giant eraser and wipe it off the map.

photos of katie

i posted some photos of aylin's daughter on my other site.

old friends

i'm writing this from an embassy suites hotel in cary, nc. i drove down with the kids today to see my three best girlfriends. one of them, aylin, lives in japan, but flew home last week because her dad had a heart attack (he's doing well). since aylin only comes to the states once or twice per year, we all decided to meet up. meredith lives in cary and jenn lives in charlotte so we all met here in cary (which is where i grew up but has changed *so* much since i lived here. holy moly.).

anyway. jenn comes into town tomorrow so tonight the rest of us went out to dinner. me, jack, kate, aylin, her daughter katie, and mere and her husband, chris. aylin's daughter is coming up on 10 months old and mere is due with her first child on sunday (i know. crazy, right? we're all hoping she goes into labor and has the baby before we all head home.).

we all met our freshman year in college, almost 15 years ago (holy shit. 15 years??). we've all been friends ever since. we've all been in each other's weddings and now we're all having kids. jenn just had her first child (a little boy - tommy) in april, so as soon as mere pops out her little girl, we'll all be moms. and it's weird. it's chaos seeing each other now because it's loud and there are kids all over the place. but it's wonderful. i can't believe we've gone from giggling, boy crazy freshman on the 6th floor of coltrane dorm to wives and mothers.

i love it.

thank you

to the good samaritan on great star drive today. you saw my daughter and i standing in the scorching sun, on the side of the road, clearly lost or left behind or in some kind of distress. you lent me your cell phone so i could call my husband and tell him where to pick us up after the parade.

so many cars passed us in the 45 minutes we stood on the side of the road and you were the only one who stopped. something as simple as lending me your cell phone has me tearing up as i type this.

thank you whoever you are.

beach photos

the album is posted here.

i have the bug...

...to move. every two or three years i get antsy and need a change of scenery. that worked well when i was younger and single but as a married mom of two? not so much.

we have good friends who live in northampton, ma and we visit them every fall. every year, jeff and i wax poetic about the life we would lead if we lived in northampton. they have funky coffee shops, electic shops and not a gap or banana republic for miles around. it's a community of artists and aging hippies and wacked out college students from nearby smith college. being different is not just encouraged, it's expected. Art, with a capital A, is first and foremost and women who wear jeans and fleece jackets and don't wear makeup are the norm.

i feel like northampton is so much more me than columbia, md. columbia is a wonderful community with fantastic schools and a staggering number of activities for kids and families. but artistic? quirky? nope and nope. everyone drives the same three or four cars (including me) and all the houses are variations of the same floor plan (including mine). we all wear the same clothes, shop at the same stores and have our hair done at the same salons. it's not that i don't like columbia - there are so many things i love about my community (namely that jeff's family lives here and we get to see them all the time). but every now and then i long for more. more funk. more unusual. more earthy and natural.

and the thing is, i know that moving to northampton wouldn't cure my wanderlust. i would love it for two or three years and then i would start to miss access to good shopping and restaurants, new houses with up to date plumbing and electrical systems and people who are a little more normal.

sigh.

kate at the salty dog cafe

we had lunch at the salty dog cafe yesterday before we left (instead of coming home as planned today, we left late yesterday afternoon).

salty dog photos

kate's photo is in the second row, at the far right. she was so excited when she saw jake (the salty dog) walking around and wanted her photo taken with him but when he actually tried to hug her and talk to her, she clammed up and clung for dear life to jeff.

(jeff and i were talking about dressing up as jake must be THE worst job in the world. i mean, it was 98 degrees in the shade yesterday and we were all sweating in shorts and tank tops. this guy/gal was dressed in a heavy fur dog costume and was walking around the outside cafe. you couldn't pay me enough money to do that job. i'd take a job as a fry cook at mcdonalds; if you're going to have to wear a stupid outfit, at least you get air conditioning at mcdonalds.)

new favorites

i bought two of these tshirts on vacation. i bought 'carpool fuel' (which i'm wearing right now) and 'i'm too sexy for my minivan' (which i will probably only wear at home).

i also bought the cah-UTEST shoes for kate. the best thing about them is that they are slip-ons and they fit kate. kate's feet are so narrow that she has a problem with slip-on shoes (they always slip off).