It's that time of year again.

I did it last year and here it is again. The first line of the first post of each month from 2007.

January: ...Picked up his stool, carried it to the cabinet near the sink, climbed up, opened the cabinet that holds the drinking glasses, got one of his plastic tumblers, closed the cabinet door, climbed down, carried his tumbler to the fridge, opened the fridge, got out the jug of filtered water (only 1/3 full), handed his tumbler to me, said, "Would you please hold this while I pour?", poured the water, put the jug away in the fridge, returned his stool to its home, retrieved his glass of water from me, drank it, and put the tumbler in the sink. (he's my big boy)
February: Was at The Little Gym. (paaaaarteeeee!)
March: Chores done by my 5-year-old: (yes, yes, I know. It's a sentence fragment. Sue me)
April: Monday: Computer shuts itself down without warning while I'm in the middle of writing a paper due yesterday. (my flesh still creeps thinking about it.)
May: I find there are three things that keep me posting regularly(ish): (yes, yes, I know. Another sentence fragment. Sue me)
June: God, I love my cable modem. (don't we all?)
July: Mostly, I've been working on unbloggable stuff and have nothing to say. (so very, very glad I figured out a way to blog about that!)
August: I got three A+'s and a B+ for the semester. (but man can not live on grades alone)
September: "Find your hook and hang up your backpack." (or, RTFM)
October: I can't believe the amount of gunk my sinuses can hold at one time. (or, TMI)
November: I walked. (oh, how I walked)
December: I made them. (latkes, that is)

230,500

Three years have passed.

I didn't make it to The Nutcracker this year...

So I thought I'd post this:

Santa has come...

MM has been read to (Mouse Tales, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and A Visit From St. Nicholas) and told to stay in bed or Santa won't come. He's sleeping soundly now.

So Santa came. He ate the cookies (chocolate-chip with pecans and almonds), the reindeer ate the oats. The presents are wrapped and ready under the tree.

Happy Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!

Sometimes it's good to swear in front of your kids

MS swore today in front of MM. And I was proud of him.

C, C+, B

Meh. I'm okay with it. I still have a 3.54 GPA. I wish I could have done better but, MS points out that the World's Best Camp pain Man ager (who's getting his master's at Nearby U) got an A+ for his work on the Camp pain. And that if I could have gotten scholastic credit for it, I'd have gotten an A+ too.

Ah well. Time to start applying to Grad schools.

Work was boring but good. No e-mail. No internet. I got work done and twiddled my thumbs. Taking the bus was good too. I'm bringing my knitting tomorrow. I hope I can get it through security.

I got a job

I'm covering a maternity leave during winter break. I start tomorrow!

My temp agency says it's the fastest turn-around time they've ever had. I called yesterday, they got an interview lined up for me...hired today.

Posting will be light but, perhaps, more interesting!

More about the blasted pink crap

I sent an email to Hasbro through their customer support link on their website (not an easy site in which to find the "contact us" button). I hope they get the message.

I'm also wondering...I boycott W@lm@rt of course and I'm thinking I'm going to start boycotting the pink plastic crap. I'm not buying it for my son. I'm not buying it for his friends. I'm not buying it for my neighbors.

If it's pink, I'm not buying it.

If it's shelved only in the pink ghetto, I'm not buying it.

I'll buy it in blue. I'll buy it in purple. I'll buy it in De1g@udi0 orange, for crying out loud. But I'm not buying anything, ANYTHING in pink.

What did we do this weekend?

Oh Boy! Chocolate chip (MM mixing and spooning) and delicious buttery sugar (thanks to DeepVoicedKindergartener's Mom)! Yumyumyumyumyum.

Gender, gender, gender

What the hell is up with Littlest Pet Shop and their Electronic Paws Off diary? Is there any reason why it only comes in pink?

What, Hasbro thinks that boys don't like dogs guarding their stuff? MM begs to differ.

However, that led me to find out that most reviewers thought it was crap. So...we're not buying it for a couple of reasons now.

And for the record, if it had gotten GREAT reviews I might have bought it but I'm just so flipping sick of manufacturers vomiting pepto-bismol all over toys so that they can market them to girls.

It's insulting.

It's insulting to girls, because --- what? They need to only buy pink stuff? Oh! No! if it's not pink then it's a boy thing!!!

It's insulting to boys, because ---what? They need to be told there are certain things they can't use because oh! no! IT'S PINK!!!! Ewwww! You're using a girl thing!

And I'm not against MM using pink stuff. I get him pink stuff quite often. But he does get pressure about it and I don't want him thinking that only girls can be diarists or cooks or parents for crying out loud.

I'm angry and shocked that almost 40 years after this album came out, things are actually worse.

I mean...have you been to Target lately? In the toy section there is a pink ghetto. Three aisles where not only are all the toys packaged in pink, but the section signs are also in pink.

That is the section in which you will find all The Littlest Pet Shop toys.

TLPS toys are plastic crap. I am not denying this. I have guilt over the amount of plastic crap in my house, but that is not what I'm ranting about today.

MM loves TLPS. LOVES it. What's not to love about cute little animals? And most of it is not pink.

MM also loves to write. LOVES it. So why did Hasbro decide that THIS toy needs a pepto paint job? Hasbro is going to get a nasty letter from me tomorrow.

But I think there's going to be a disappointed boy on Christmas Day. Because we're not buying that pink plastic piece of crap.

Think, Hasbro. If it had also come in yellow or green or purple I would have bought it before reading any reviews!

Holy cow

Cecily wrote this post inspired by this post. And they both just hit me WHAM right between the eyes.

You remember this post? And how, afterwards, I got down to my marriage weight? And I wanted to get down to my bookstore weight? Well, it didn't happen. What happened instead is I went right back up to my just-had-a-baby weight.

And then I went walkingwalkingwalking for that thing back in November and I lost 10 pounds. And I felt really good about it. But then I stopped walkingwalkingwalking and the weight is creeping back on.

And it's not because I'm eating hugely. And it's not because I'm scarfing down Mallomars (though I'm not denying myself them either). It's because I'm not walking at least 2 hours a day at least four days a week. Which is an insane amount of exercise and I don't have the time for it anyway.

So here I am.

I am never going to be 108 pounds again.
I am never going to be 112 pounds again.

I am just not.

I need to exercise a decent amount to stay healthy, but I'll be damned if I'm going to do it to lose weight.

I will never be a D cup again. I will always have trouble finding clothes to fit. And I'll be damned if I will let that make me feel bad about myself. I had trouble finding clothes when I was thin, because I'm FLIPPING SHORT!

Heart disease runs in my family. That is a fact. I will exercise to stay fit so that I can live to see my grandkids. But I am not going to focus on weight or clothing sizes anymore. I am an apple and I am going to be proud of it.

Latke recipe

Ingredients:
2-3 lbs of potatoes (I used butter potatoes, but any kind will do)
1 small onion (or medium-sized if you're like me and think there's never enough)
1/3 cup flour
2 eggs, whisked
Salt and pepper
Enough olive oil (or canola oil) to make it 1/2 inch deep in your cast iron skillet

Peel your potatoes and put them in a bowl of water to keep them from getting yucky. Put your grating attachment in your food processor and grate those suckers, along with the onion.
Put the grated potato/onion mixture into a large bowl and add the flour, whisked eggs, salt, and pepper. Spoon mixture into the hot oil and flatten each spoonful with a spatula. Cook 3 minutes a side. Remove them to a paper-towel-covered platter. Put paper-towel between layers of latkes on the platter as the pile gets higher.

Serve with sour cream and apple sauce. And a roast chicken makes a tasty side dish (in which case, if you're kosher, skip the sour cream)!

Keep the oil in the pan to reheat leftovers. Only discard the oil when all the latkes are eaten (usually after breakfast the next morning).

MS thinks that I should use our english muffin rings to make them next time...I'll try it next year and let y'all know how it worked.

Weekend Update

Taking a two-minute break from cramming for Cell Bio to bring you random bullets of What's Up:

• Public areas of house are neat and clean (stairs still need to be vacuumed).
• MakesBooksForGrandkids and SingsLullabyes were here and great fun was had including:
• Putting up the tree
• Opening some Christmas gifts with MBFG & SL
• MM putting on a show!
• I banged my elbow so hard last night, I thought I'd chipped a bone. Kept ice packs and frozen blueberries on it all evening. It's much better now, but that whole side of my body is fireplacing sore.
• Pin Art can keep a 5-year-old boy occupied for hours.
• These toys can keep a 49-year-old boy occupied for hours.

See you folks later this week!

Adequate/Inadequate

Lindsay over at Suburban Turmoil has a post up about ways moms feel judged and judging of other moms. I don't necessarily feel judged or judgmental of other moms in the real world, but I do measure myself by fictional moms' standards and it's by that yardstick that I often feel inadequate.

Inadequate:
Mama in All-of-a-kind Family has 6 kids and has to do the laundry by hand, yet she still has time to do charity work, take care of a sick friend and spend quality time with her brother. I have a washing machine and dryer and only one child and I haven't put away the clean kitchen linens from last week's wash. My house is a sty.

Adequate:
On the other hand, she relies a lot on Ella to babysit for all 5 younger siblings and she allows her toddling son to go to the store downstairs by himself. I've never left MM alone with a 12 year old for God's sake! And no, he is NOT allowed out of my house without supervision. Plus, I can pretty much trust him NOT to put hot coals in his lap.

Inadequate:
Ma from the Little House books cooks at an open hearth, cleans, draws water from the fireplacing WELL and homeschools! I live in the modern world and...well...see Inadequate above. Also, MM doesn't know how to tie his shoes. I should have taught him that already, right?

Adequate:
I don't rely on my deathly ill child to crawl on the floor and get water for the rest of the family. Nor do I expect MM to put a sibling through school by sewing 10 hours a day.

On par: MM gets a bath at least once a week, more often if it seems necessary. He can read. He's happy playing by himself while I get dinner ready. He loves to vacuum. And, while his Christmas list is rather long, he understands the concept of "enough" and is not expecting to get more than one or two things off that long list. And he'd be really really happy with some silly slippers as a present.

But I feel horrible about how often I feed him crap, or spend time on my computer instead of playing with him, and how messy our house is, and how much tv I let him watch, and and and...

But he's loving, and a good friend, and loves nothing more than to have me and his daddy read to him or listen to him read, he spends a huge amount of time coloring and writing stories, he's a good kid.

On balance, I guess I'm doing a good job. I guess my feelings of inadequacy come from knowing I could be doing much better. But sometimes good enough is good enough.

Now, I'm going to work out some guilt feelings in the kitchen with a mop.

That's all folks!

The World's Best C@mp@!gn M@n@ger played this for me today and after I went and changed my pants, I came to share it with you.

Latkes of love

I made them. Fried. Oil. Oh, the sweet sizzling of it.

We ate them. Fried. Potatoes. Onions. Ohhhh, why oh why does heart disease have to run in my family? I want to eat the fried potato-y goodness forever.

And then, could it get any better? Mallomars for dessert.

Heaven is hanukkah.