::fat pants::

Today is one of those delightfully cool-ish days when it juuuust starts to feel like Fall. Which made me oddly excited to put on some pants for the first time in many months. See, all summer long, every single day, I wear skirts or dresses. Loose, comfy and cool. And so I went to the dresser and pulled out my favorite skinny-legged orange cords, which I planned to wear with some cute sandals and flowy top.

But.

I could not zip up said orange cords. Not. Even. Close. So I put them back and pulled out some lightweight chinos. Couldn't zip them either. So then I pulled out my "baggy" Levis. Yeah, guess what? I couldn't get those suckers buttoned if my life depended on it. See, at this time last year (when I bought all the above mentioned pants) I was training for a marathon, running 25-35 miles a week. Even then I didn't weigh that much less than I do right now, but apparently I was considerably leaner. And having NOT run since, oh, February or so, the muscle has been replaced by flab. Specifically flab around the middle. I've really noticed it lately, catching a glimpse of my reflection when I am not holding my stomach in. I might look a little bit pregnant.

I will admit that I secretly hoped that I might have one of those perfectly harmless but gigantic cysts on my uterus that you read about while standing in line at the grocery store: "Woman who thought she was 6 months pregnant actually had a cyst the size of a Rhode Island!!" And then the doctor would cut it out, hand it to me, and I'd get my picture in the paper, smiling and holding a Butterball turkey-sized cyst while wearing my cute size 8 orange cords.

But, well, I went to the doctor this morning to follow up on my pneumonia and go over my blood work and he failed to mention any unusual 40 pound growth. Which means that I really am just fat.

Which leaves me with a decision to make before it really is pants-wearing-season. As I see it, my options are:

1) Purchase an entire new wardrobe of big-girl pants. Spandex must be really, really comfy; that's why you see so many really big women wearing it while shopping at Walmart, buying their cookies and Diet Pepsi in bulk.

2) Sew elastic panels into all the pants I have, like maternity pants. What?? I have some really cute pants, damnit, and I want to wear them.

3) Move to Southern California or Arizona so that I can wear dresses and skirts year around. Ppphhfffttt. Who needs pants? Of course, I will have to convince my husband, my daughter and my ex-husband to move with me.

Oh! I just thought of one more option:
4) I could join one of those religions where the women aren't allowed to wear pants. So they wear, you know, calico dresses all winter, with their snow boots on underneath. Do Mennonites have to believe in God? I might be screwed.

Seriously....what am I going to do???

PS. If you suggest anything with the word "diet" in it, I will hunt you down and EAT you.

summer time

World's worst blogger.

I suck. Luckily no one reads this blog but my mother and sisters, unless I've lost them too. But hey, here are some pretty pictures I just downloaded!

One thing you may not know about me (or you do, if you know me at all) is that keeping plants alive? Not my specialty. The joke in our house is that the only reason my child is alive is because she can tell me when she's hungry. How she survived the early years before language, I do not know.

Anyway, last year I started a rock garden in the back yard, because rock garden plants are very low maintenance, which is definitely the main criteria if you want to survive under my care. My thing with plants (and children) is that I forget to water them for months at a time, and then I drown them with several gallons of water at once, figuring I'm making up for my incompetence. My friend Christina literally weeps for the plants in my care: "They're talking to you! They are begging for water! Can't you hear them??"

Luckily, I love succulents. And the beauty of succulents is that they hardly ever need water! Woohoo!!

Last night while lovingly WATERING my rock garden and gloating over my success, I noticed this plant that I don't recall putting in the ground. Is it a weed? Meh. It's green and it's alive. Good enough for me.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
This was just some little succulent, minding its own business, and then one day it sprouted this weird, leggy growth, about a foot tall, with these sweet teeny flowers on the ends. I like it.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Hen and chicks: gotta love 'em. Totally my kind of plants: you plant one, water it once every six months or so, and it is so grateful that it rewards you by propagating all over the place. If only children were this easy. Oh. Wait...

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

My favorites: Moss Roses. They add so much lovely color.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Snap dragons remind me of when I was little. In fact, sometimes when no one is looking, I can't resist the urge to snap one off and make it talk: "Aaarrggh!! Ahoy matey! That sun sure feels great today, doesn't it?!" Why do snap dragons talk like pirates? Or is that just me? Has anyone else noticed that the neighbors won't make eye-contact anymore?

***********

Last Friday was meeting some friends/co-workers for lunch in the little town of Tekoa. To get there, I drove through the Palouse on roads I'd never driven. I really, really love the Palouse. The scenery is just gorgeous and the little farming communities are so charming. People sitting on their porches, old guys driving their tractors down the road, kids riding horses in the fields....There's something really appealing about that simple way of life, isn't there?

I was afraid of being late for our lunch date, so I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted. But I couldn't resist capturing this beautiful little scene, near the tiny town of Waverly.

***********

I've also been doing some sewing. This is a custom-order Hooter Hider (also known as a nursing cover), made for someone who knows she is having a boy.

And i couldn't resist whipping up a matching onsie.

And last but certainly not least: Beatrice, aka: Bea, BB and, most often, Beast. She loves nothing more than laying on the back deck, watching the world go by.

She's got a terribly rough life. I think she's plotting her escape.

Hope you're enjoying your summer. I can not believe how quickly it's gone by; school starts three weeks from today. Which reminds me, does anyone know how often I have to water a 4th grader?

::do NOT let my daughter see this::

Borrowed from Cute Overload.

Jod, you MUST get a miniature pig for the new Elmer and Ellie Mae ranch!!!

sister hood of motherhood

Uuggh. I just got back from the grocery store where I witnessed a 3-4 year old girl having one of those EPIC melt-downs that only a child of that age can have. She was crying, screaming, face bright red, banging her little fists on the ice-cream freezer door; she'd spied those adorable little Ben & Jerry's single-serving containers and she was NOT LEAVING until she got one.

The poor woman apologized to ME, because her daughter was blocking my Ben & Jerry's. I looked at her with complete sympathy and said "No need to apologize; I've been there myself. I am so sorry you're going through this right now. It will get better." I thought she was going to burst into tears right then. I left the ice-cream isle and as I gathered the last couple of items, paid for them, and walked out of the store, I could STILL hear the little girl screaming and saw the mother trying to physically force her into the cart and out of the ice-cream isle. I could tell by the mother's face that she was at her absolute breaking point.

We've all been there, when the urge to say and do things you'll regret later is so huge, so overpowering, that the ONLY thing stopping you is that you are in public and you don't want others to witness the child-abuse you are momentarily flirting with. I remember the first time I actually thought "Now I can kind of understand how it happens, how a parent who is overly exhausted with not enough support could just snap" and lash out at a child who has pushed you way, way beyond your limit.

At that point what you need is someone to step in: a spouse, your mother, a friend or neighbor...someone, anyone who can put some physical and emotional space between you and your child so that you can take a few deep breaths. So that you can find your center, so that you can think and gather your wits about you and walk back into the line of fire with a calm mind and a plan. You need someone who understands to step in and help you, just for a minute or two.

I saw all of that on that mother's face and I wished there was something I could do. I thought about trying to distract the child, I thought about asking the mother for her list and her cart so that I could finish the shopping that needed to be done. But being a complete stranger I couldn't really do either of those things. I walked out to my car feeling sick with helplessness.

Should I have done something? Was I minding my own business or did I take the easy way out, heading home with my own Ben & Jerry's? What would you have done, if anything?

I've met my match

(actual instant-message conversation I just had with my much, much older husband) (ok, it's only 4 and a half years, but I love to give him sh*t about it.)

david: Holy crap it's hot here.

kate: Is it? What's the temp?

david: Feels pretty good. 87 degrees.


kate: Don't you have AC in your new office? Old people are supposed to be extra careful in the heat, you know.

Aren't you happy that I'm not sick anymore and back to my old self??

(no response)

kate: ….hello?

…Bueller?


david: I'd bite you if I had any teeth left. Who's Bueller?

kate: Oh dear. Of course.
You never saw “Ferris Beuller's Day Off”, did you?
You were probably busy translating some obscure Russian opera. Or on top of a mountain in Chile eating the most amazing posole made by a 104 year old native woman.

Oh man, I am ON today, baby!!!

DON'T EVEN TELL ME YOU NEVER SAW FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH or I'm going to have to leave you for a younger (less intelligent) man.


kate: You're speechless, aren't you. I know...I don't blame you... it's hard to keep up with me.

david: I figured it was a reference to that stupid matthew borderick movie. And of course I saw fast times. I love Phoebe Cates.

kate: Hhmmpphh.

david: Please get sick again ;-)

::Anna-isms::

Yesterday afternoon Anna was watching one of her favorite shows, Pit Boss. It's a "reality show" of sorts on Animal Planet, about a group of little people in LA who rescue pit bulls. There is the main guy, "Shorty", a couple of male helpers and a female secretary, none of them over 3 and a half feet tall. So yesterday Anna calls me in to the TV room: "Mom! Mom! I just found out that that girl on this show is a lesbian"....then:

"What's not to love about a tiny lesbian?!?"

Oh god, I love that kid.

That reminds me of once when she was probably 3 or 4, you know the age where they will blurt out anything no matter how inappropriate? We were in the grocery store when we practically ran right into a little person pushing a shopping cart with 2 of his own children inside. I watched, paralyzed with dread, as Anna sized him up (har har); she had never seen a little person before in her life. I couldn't run the risk of telling her not to say anything, because then of course she'd loudly ask why. I held my breath as she silently watched him pass us, terrified she'd blurt out something mortifying.

Then, to my complete delight, she said "Well that's a cute little daddy!!"

She has such a beautiful, open and loving heart. If I do nothing else of consequence in this world, I will always be proud of the daughter I have the great fortune to raise.

::camouflage::

I have been a wee bit obsessed watching this killdeer nest, which is located about ten feet from the front door of our office. Today all three eggs hatched!

Can you believe how well they blend in?? I wonder if tomorrow they will already be up and running.

**Edited to add: when I left work, one of the babies (I assume the "big" one on the right in the photo) was indeed up and running, right across the road!

Which reminds me that when I was in Boise for the Hillbilly party a month ago, my sister Linda and I saw two of these teeny little fluff-balls running in the road. There was traffic going by in both directions and by some miracle, they didn't get hit. But they were too small to get up on the curb! We stopped the car and we each chased one around until we could give them a hand up onto the sidewalk and to the safety of the tall grass. They are so small (and not real bright); it's a miracle that the killdeer population continues to grow! Will try to get a picture of the baby tomorrow; he wouldn't let me close enough tonight...