Where I've Been (And Where I'm Going)

Whoa.  It's April already!  Which means May is just around the corner.  Which means that my girls are, holy bazongas, nearly a freakin' year old!  Really?  Really??  This cannot be happening.

So much has been going on and I have no excuse whatsoever for not having blogged about any of it but I must admit that I feel less bad about being absent from Blogger than I do about not having kept up with the girls' baby books.  Bad mommy.  Add those to the list of things I visualized myself peacefully doing while my angelic daughters napped peacefully and without incident.  Those idyllic visions of stay-at-home mommyhood that we all have during our first pregnancy?  Yeah.  Let's just say that I was uninformed that those were complete and utter chimera.

There has been an unforseen and completely random high fever with June, an equally unforseen (and unwelcome) bout of gastroenteritis in everyone except me, the addition of worms to our kitchen (in a controlled and intended environment, of course), the birth of my niece Reagan, and countless cups of coffee.

In addition to events, there has been a realization on my part that I need to reevaluate my thinking and an unexpected new interest in the concept of mindfulness and presence - a sort of parenting Zen - for me.  I'm far from religious and would consider myself Agnostic, but the idea of being present in each moment is one that I would consider philosophical more than spiritual.  It is also one that I am starting to consider essential in my life.

The days I've been able to spend time watching my niece have shown me how blessed mothers of singletons are to be able to focus on and bond with their babies in a way that is so complete.  It's something that I never had the opportunity to do with Harper or June in the early days, even with all the help I had, and it's something that I've certainly felt the lack of.

But beyond parenting I have to say that mindfulness and presence is something that I've struggled with all my life, in general.  Part of the nature of ADD is that it prevents me from focusing on any one thing for any significant amount of time.  My house reflects this in the seemingly aimless piles of projects that lay strewn about each room.  Not to mention my lengthy and spotty undergraduate career.  And in my own personal development.

We started having an EI specialist come to our home weekly to work with June, who has been just slightly delayed in terms of language.  As much as I believe that it's nothing to worry about, I know that language is a major area to have a delay in and I made the decision that I'd rather be safe than sorry.  So far, it's been more fun for me than them, I think, just to know that someone is coming once a week and that I'll get to have an adult conversation in the middle of each week.  What's even better about it is that our worker has twins herself (granted, hers are twelve years old, but as twin mamas will understand, sometimes you just need another twin mama to talk to), so she's been a fabulous resource for me if only just to check my own sanity and gauge my own experience.

She made the comment last week that the days seem long but the years go so, so fast.  It couldn't be more true, and it was something that I hadn't been able to put words to until she said it.  It reminded me how important presence is for Harper and June, especially now.  So what I've been doing in my extended blogging absence has been trying to learn how to refocus through the idea of Zen practice.

But I'm not doing Yoga or anything.  I haven't gone that Enya.  =)  I'm also taking a Coursera course on the idea of knowing oneself which has been a really fabulous complement to this whole notion of being mindful.

In the year to come, I'd like to improve on that part of myself.  And I am sure that the improvement will show, perhaps most importantly, in the girls, who I need to remind myself should always be my first focus.  Not the dishes.  Not the garage sale.  Not even my writing.  Just them.  Just sitting on the floor, saying "in, in in," while they drop plastic lids into big plastic containers.  Just repeating their babbles and imitating their facial expressions.  Just dancing to John Prine and singing Counting Crows.  Just that.  Just this moment.

~ * ~

In other news, my article on sleep training comes out in the spring issue of Multiplicity tomorrow.  I'll post the link when it goes live.

And I'm going to try to get better about checking in with you all.  Thanks for all the page views!  I hope I'll post things you'll like.

Breakfast...Under the Chair

The girls did really well with their independent play yesterday, so I was excited when today seemed to be going as well.  Halfway through mixing up a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough, however, I realized that the silence was too complete.  Too perfect.  When I wandered into the dining room, I discovered that someone has learned how to climb under the chairs at the table.  I discovered, as well, that a container of puffs had been forgotten, left in easy reach for little fingers.  The result was adorable.  Thought I'd share.

Eff You, Blogger

Every program used to type words has an autosave function.  So why not you, Blogger?  Why not you?  I just spent about two hours on a post about my new worms and where is it now?  Who knows?  The internet ate it.  It's in the internet's bowels right this very moment.

So...yeah.  I'm done for tonight.

Reagan McKenzie

Our niece was born today!  Mike's brother and sister-in-law, Vanina, had a beautiful baby girl at 10:36 this morning.  She was six and a half pounds and nineteen inches long.  She's a cutie patootie!

*Grr*Argh*Grumble*

So, it's no secret that I smoked/currently smoke on and off.  I've quit several times, once for over a year.  I need to quit again.  For real this time.  But here's the thing:

I feel like I transformed, when the girls were born, into a bottle maker, a poop removal system, a vomit vacuum and a housewife during any other free moment I may have.  This is to be expected.  And I don't hate that.  But then I spend time with people I spent time with before I became the Babymatic 3000 and...I smoke.  It tastes good.  It makes me feel normal.  As cool as Jordan Catalano.  And then I come home and smoke and it tastes like that fermented liquid shit at the bottom of a garbage can left out in the sun in the middle of July for...let's say...three days.  And it makes me feel like shit.  And everyone looks at me sideways like I'm smoking crack.  And I might as well be for all the good it's doing me.

I've never been so ambivalent about anything in my whole life.  I want to quit.  And I want to press on, like all the other smokers who have come before me.  Even though I know what's waiting at the end of that road.

It's so stupid.  I feel really stupid.  And Mike just showed me his check without overtime, which is his regular check now that overtime has gone away until next fall, probably.  And I feel extra stupid.

Anyway, I want to make a decal for my car that says "What Would Atticus Do?"  Because, in life, that's really all that matters I think.  My moral compass points Atticus.  Or I try to keep it trained on him, anyhow.  It's been a while since I've read Mockingbird and we're working through it, one chapter a night at the girls' bedtime, but so far he hasn't really given an official position on cigarettes.  Hmmm...does the Ouija board work on fictional characters?

Working on Videos

I'm working on getting my videos of the Venango Brigade up on YouTube.  One is finished and embedded in the post I previously posted about their performance.  Check it out.  And check back later in the week for more.

Vermicomposting...It's Coming

I'm not sure that Mike really, truly understands what I've kinda, sorta told him.

I'm getting worms.  Two pounds of worms.  In the mail.  And they're going to live in our kitchen.  And they're going to eat our garbage.  And then we're going to plant vegetables.  In their poop.

He wasn't sufficiently shocked.

Perhaps when he comes home and sees this little beauty by the end of the week (which I'm making myself, by the way...no expensive worm bins for us).  So long as the little composting rock stars haven't died on their way here.  And I'm thinking to myself that I probably should have gone the logical route and bought night crawlers from the bait shop rather than ordering them online. But then logic is not my thing, I guess.

In any case, I've decided that I am not going to go all Williams Sonoma on this project.  Not that I do on any project.  Because I can't afford to.  But also because of that Bitch article I shared a week or so ago.  About how chicken coops are so in right now.  I'm not getting worms because all the cool kids are doing it.  I'm getting worms because I don't want our food waste to be waste and I can't afford to buy as much fresh produce as I could grow.  And can.

Here's the thing:  I really want my girls to grow up knowing that they are capable of producing much more for themselves than any store owner would like them to believe.  Of course I want them to appreciate supporting local business.  But that's where you go to buy supplies for your compost bin.  And, you know, don't buy worms online.  That too.  I'm slapping my own wrists right now.  I'm a newb and, as such, am entitled to my rightful share of newb mistakes.  But imma be a diamond someday, Lord.

I had this roommate in college and she was a total hippie.  And she and I didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things.  But I wanted to be like her.  I wanted to eat organic food.  Hell, I'd have settled for knowing what made a food organic, really.  I wanted to shop at the co-op and have a garden and be all...that.  It was as if she and her mother had this understanding.  This knowledge and a contentment with the Earth and what came from it that set them apart from everyone else.  Not above the rest of us.  They were humble and really kind.  Not the types of hippies that look at you all stanky because you're eating a Little Debbie.  But patient. Like, when you were ready to learn they'd be there to teach you.

Well, they're not here.  But the memory of them and their lifestyle has haunted me and made me, at the risk of sounding more like Jack Nicholson than I'd intended at the outset of this post, want to be a better wo(man).  I'm slowly evolving into a much more conscious and intentional person.  Sort of like a hippie hybrid.  I don't know that there's really a classification for me.  Mentally ill, perhaps.

In any case, after much internet research, I've come to realize that vermicomposting, like everything else in this new boom of eco-coolness, has the potential to be big business.  There are worm bins going for hundreds of dollars online.  Like, these worm suites are nicer than some of the dorm rooms I've inhabited in the dusky days of my sordid past.  True story.  So I've got some rules established for my garden/composting adventure of 2013.

1)  No buying expensive shit.  I will recycle, I will upcycle, and I will make use of things that I either have, can get for free, or can get for next to nothing.  I already bought the worms.  But I will repent.  I will make that right.

2)  I will stick with it.  Because my brain likes to get me really excited about something and then move on to the next thing without me realizing what's happening.  But I'm having none of it this time.  No sir.

3)  I will buy the supplies I can't find./make on my own locally.  Because Walmart is convenient, but it is going to eat all of our souls one day.

4)  I will blog about it.  Like it or not.  Well, not really.  If you really don't like it I'll stop.  But I hope you'll like it.  If for nothing other than laughing at me as I try to make gold out of worm poop.  It's a funny sort of alchemy.

5)  I will not treat my worms like worms.  My hope is that one day I might be good enough at making compost (and worms) that I can sell them at the Farmer's Market here in town.  Then I can't be responsible for what happens to the little boogers.  And that's an ethical dilemma I'm going to need to puzzle out before I start that leg of the journey.  Yes.  Seriously.  I'm having a problem with the idea of selling worms to the slaughter.  It's part of the illness.  I'm sorry.  But not really.  In any case, that's far, far away in an uncertain future.  But I'm just making this rule now to remind myself that they're not worms.  They're lives.  And they're helping me out by eating my old newspapers and pooping them out into a box for me to spread on my garden.  So I need to do them right.

I'm such a freakalatrobe.

Wakey Wakey...

Eggs and bakey.  And potatoes.

The Bridge Performance & Open Mic

Pretty sweet little Friday night!  The Bridge Literary Arts Center in Franklin, Pa held its monthly performance and open mic night on February 22nd.  I can't believe it's the end of February.  The girls are going to be a whole year old in a month three months (it's like the Bermuda Triangle up in here)!  Sick!

Featured performers for this month's gathering were The Venango Brigadhttp://venangobrigade.com/Home.phpe, a Civil War and Irish band featuring Steve Johnston on the Tin Whistle and John Tenney on the Minstrel Bones.  Really cool stuff.  Check out the videos below.



Reading were Pete Greene, columnist for the Oil City Derrick, and Matt Beith, co-director of The Bridge (and a student of Pete Greene's I understand).




Open mics were performed by Alix Holcomb, reading a selection of her poetry, John Cooke reading original poetry, and Barrett Holcomb with two songs on acoustic guitar.

Social Networking

Photo courtesy of the fabulous Sherrie Flick.

This is what it used to look like.  Also, that man?  On the far left?  With the swanky jacket?  Yeah.  He's going to murder me for putting him on the internet.

I was in Clarion this past Tuesday to see faculty/friends and Sherrie Flick.  It was a really great afternoon and evening, but so bitter cold and a long drive home.  What usually takes about an hour and fifteen minutes took me a little over two hours.  It was some crapola.

I am so thankful to my stepmother for watching the girls until Mike got home from work, and to his mama for helping him with bathtime and bedtime.  With twins, I savor any time away from the house, particularly that which involves conversation with adults who enjoy words as much as, and in the same way that, I do.  I think one of the healthiest things twin parents can do for themselves and for their entire family is to develop a network of people who are willing to step in and take care of the chitlins so that they can go and do something unnecessary, and entirely selfish.  Grocery shopping does not count.  In fact, if it qualifies as an errand it is not allowed.  If necessary, bribe these people with food.  Cookies seem to work best.  But meet them.  Woo them.  And take advantage of them.  They are irreplaceable 

I cannot imagine what I would do without family who support me (or, perhaps, just pity my husband).  I can't explain why I need to be around these people.  But I think it's that we're all crazy in the same way, and we need to be around our own kind.  Probably not such a big deal for them, because they get to be around each other all the time.  Like it or not.  But I'm stranded far away and am just beginning to discover the mad writing people here where I am.  Not that the discovery of a local writing community could keep me from descending on Clarion intermittently throughout the year.  I don't know.  So much changed for the better in my life around the time I wandered over to the English Department.  I suppose I just associate the two.

Oh, and the gal in the blue jacket?  Her son is exactly ten days older than my ladies!  Neato!

Out My Window

For whatever reason, my kitchen window seems to be a black hole of photography for me.  Not in the bad way, in that it's a void were nothing at all, let alone anything good, happens.  It's like a black hole in that every time I go there I wind up either thinking about taking a photo of something that strikes me as interesting or pretty, or I gather my motivation, go back to the living room, collect my camera, and actually take the picture.  I hesitate, I think, because I'm worried that I'll take the shot, leave it on the camera, never upload or edit it, and then six weeks from now I'll go to do it and forget what it was about the shot that compelled me to take it in the first place.

And then, some days, I just quit messing around and do all that.  Like this morning.

Now, if I could just muster that concentration on all of the false starts and halfhearted attempts collected on my writing cloud, we'd be getting somewhere.

Then again, maybe they're false starts for a reason.  At least they're there, I suppose.  If I ever need them.  And I probably will, some day.

What It Is...

...what I meant it to be, this blog, I mean, was a blog about raising twins.  So far, there is very little of that here.  But I noticed that I've posted more to it (and enjoyed posting to it) when I just posted the shit I was thinking about than when I was trying to fill that niche...

...so, I guess what I'm saying is...is that this blog is really just a random collection of shit by someone who has twins.  So, occasionally, as that fact about me is relevant, I'll be throwing it in there.

Not that the twins are irrelevant, now or ever.  Just that lately I've noticed that they just aren't what's been on my mind in terms of blogging.  We're rocking it out.  Getting through our days together.  And I've been handling it well enough that at night I've been able to write some (I even did one of those Post It note stories tonight) and read more than I've been able to read since they were born.  So that's what I've been doing.  Right now I'm reading Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott.  Somehow, as a writer, I've never gotten 'round to reading that one.

I'm ashamed of myself.  I'm going to go read some more.  To make up for it.

Love, Peace, and Chicken Grease y'all!

I Wanna Do Cool Stuff In Mah House...

I'mages (except my kitchen) courtesy of 

Lifescapes aka Andrea Boyer of Scrap Art Studio.com

I want to take this space, which exists, but not in the glory it deserves:

Images (except my bedroom) courtesy of
Lifescapes aka Andrea Boyer of Scrap Art Studio.com

Into something like this, which is glorious enough for the space above:

Source: startupchamp.com via Susan Bert on Pinterest

First, though, I need to get two of those little magnet cupboard closing thingies for my husband's closet.  That ain't nothing but a bad deal right there.  It's the one with the open doors, on the right, in case you were wondering.  Notice how my closet door is closed, concealing my barely contained chaos.  That's how I roll.  Messes in secret.  Order out in public.  At least, I think.  I hope.  God, I hope.  Shit, now I'm not sure...

The Hipness of Chicken Coops (and Poop)

So, I subscribe to this magazine called "Bitch."  It's a magazine about feminist issues and pop culture.

And let me just get a little tangential here.  Once, when I was working as an order representative for a clothing company that catered to old women, I had an old woman on the phone (occupational hazard) who flipped her shit because I called her Ms. instead of Mrs.  I mean, it didn't say "Mrs." on her account, so I assumed that calling her that would be inappropriate.  I was trying to avoid the whole I'm not married so don't assume that I am and blah blah don't need a man to complete my life blah biddy blah blah bull crapola that I figured a faux pas such as that would earn me.  Instead, I got the opposite.  Turns out that she was married but, even if she weren't, she informed me that the appropriate title for an unmarried woman was "Miss."  This "Ms." garbage, she ranted, was for these feminist nut jobs who had no respect for the social and gender roles that made us who we are.  Yeah.  It was bizarre.  Like, I got a fifteen minute lecture on how feminism has ruined this country and destroyed our youth and, essentially, resurrected Hitler and reinstated the world order of Satan.

Umm...I'm not sure where this woman learned about feminism, and I'm not sure why she hates her vagina so incredibly much, but that's not feminism.  That's the establishment's response to feminism.  Because feminism, to me, means a celebration of women and their accomplishments and the things that they've achieved through struggle and hard work.  It means a celebration of all the things that women are, have been, and will become.  It means a celebration of women as equal in importance and value to men.  Not the devaluation of men in favor of women.  Not the dismissal of institutions like marriage and home in favor of lesbian orgies involving honey and cannabis and abortions (although I have to say that I am opposed to none of those things in certain contexts, honey in particular).

So anyway, don't just click away assuming that I'm one of those people who actually wants to send all the men in the world to an island and keep them alive for the sole purpose of sperm harvesting.  I'm not in favor of that.  No ma'am.  We need the dudes around too.  They do things like kill the fast, scary spiders that I can't tolerate.  And if they're good dudes, they are just as important in the day to day maintenance of the household as I am.  So...yeah.  Keep the dudes.  Give them the same value as the ladies.  Read Bitch.

Because when you read Bitch, you read fabulous articles.  Like this here little number, which is all about how this whole Pinterest revival of things like canning and embroidery and gardening and what not is sort of creating an even bigger gap for people for whom there is already a gap - namely, the poor, or anyone who cans not because it is hip but because it is the only affordable means to support their family that they have.

Now, I' guilty of being a Pinterest addict.  And I'm guilty of wanting to learn to can things and wanting to have a garden even though I am not in the poorest strata of economic classes in this country.  We're down there.  We could definitely use the savings provided by a healthy garden and a few homesteading skills.  But they will not make or break us when it comes to actually eating.  Eating well, yes.  A garden will provide us with produce (while canning will provide us with that produce in the months when it is not affordable by any stretch of the imagination) that we may not be able to purchase in the swanky wooden bins that say "organic" at Wegmans.  Now, we could use that money to buy a lot of the processed food that's on the shelves, but I want my family to eat as much real food as possible and the only way that we're going to be able to do that is if I become just a little bit more of a pioneer woman.

But there's this feeling in the arts and crafts community that it's just for fun.  Like, "oh, isn't it cute how I grew these tomatoes and then canned them so I could make my own sauce in January."  Right?  I mean, it's a hobby.  It's not a way of life.  And there's this sort of Pinterest Pissing Contest that's simmering just below the surface where all of these artisans are constantly trying to have the craftiest crafts of all the crafts.  But in their attempts to "rustify" things that are not naturally rustic, they are forgetting that there are people who use milk crates for storage because they can't just run out and buy new cupboards.  Right here.  Yeah.  If this whole rustic revival weren't going on my house would not be as hip and artsy as people consider it.  Our finances have forced me to get crafty, to repurpose, and to make things work that we might normally throw away.

If we lived in a place where it were legal (out of town, where I desperately long to move someday), I would own chickens not because it's hip to own chickens, but because owning chickens means being able to sell eggs to hipsters who don't live in places where they can raise their own chickens.  See what I mean?

Anyway, the article says it better than I can, but I wanted to spread the word:  Homesteading is a survival skill and will remain a survival skill long after it passes out of this "cool" phase in which it's found itself.  When the Pinterest canner gets tired of canning and sells all her canning supplies for a vintage guitar, because the new thing will be a Bob Dylan revival, I'll be buying her cans and carrying on.  Just keep that in mind when you're thinking about how you want to be more like the DIY blogger who does crafty things for more page views.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  It's fine.  Just don't forget about us po' folks down here who were doing all this shit before it was cool.

Love ya!

Post Its & Sherrie & Writing & Shit

Once, when I was an undergraduate, our final assignment (or one of the ones at the tail end, anyhow) for Craft of Fiction was to write a piece of flash.  A whole story in something like 800 words or so.  Give or take.  But around 800.  If memory serves.

I wrote a piece in the second person about hitting a deer on a motorcycle.  My professor at the time said something about it after class.  Either he was going to share it with Sherrie Flick or it was like Sherrie Flick or something.  About Sherrie Flick.  But the point to me was (1) Sherrie Flick was a big f*****g deal and (2) this dude either thought I wrote something that she would like or something that was like her.  Either way that was a score.  

This was a big f*****g deal.  To me, anyway, since the only people who'd ever read anything I'd written up to that pint had been contractually obligated to do so as either my professors or my classmates.  So, yeah.  It was a whole thing.

Then, when I was a graduate student for a minute, I worked with Sherrie Flick at Chatham University.  I really do mean "a minute."  I finished the first residency and, I think, maybe, three weeks of the first semester?  Before I became a statistic?  That girl that never really belonged in the cohort to begin with who had to drop out to go "visit her aunt in the country," if you will.  And it was only the residency that was with Sherrie Flick anyway.  But she gave a reading the one evening that I was there and shit.  Just, shit.  It was this one piece that probably wouldn't have meant much to me had I read it myself but her voice - the voice she read it in - has haunted me to this day.

Sherrie Flick is a big f*****g deal.  And I get to go see her give a sort of lessony, chat type thing on Tuesday, followed by another reading.  And I am so thankful for whoever winds up watching my kids in order to enable this blessed event of freedom and writing to happen.  I love my family - my husband person and my child people.  But I love Clarion maybe just the smallest amount less that makes it socially acceptable.  I miss Clarion.  I like being in Clarion with my Clarion people.

You should all read some of Sherrie Flick's stuff.  Because it's good.  And read this.  This is some other shit she's said that's cool.  And I think I'm going to buy a pack of Post Its tomorrow.  I need diet Canada Dry anyway.  I'm out.  So I'm already going to the store.

Hear that, girls?  We's goin' out tomorrow!  Yessuh!

Addition:  I somehow jumped from something ridiculous like 12 page views to 28 page views.  So thank you, to whoever shared or randomly found me!  Hopefully some of my lurkers will become repeat offenders.  Recidivism.  It's what I live for.  =)

Oh My Goodness

It's been so long!  I promise, I do not mean to be flaky.  Things happen.  Life gets in the way and I have to play Red Rover with the things I want to do.  But I had a few minutes tonight, since I got huffy with my husband (my fault, full disclosure) and came downstairs for bedtime.  It's my version of time out, but with television and a later curfew. And blogging.  Hurrah!

So...couple of things.  House sitting for out of town family who live in the boonies has revealed a particularly shameful personal characteristic:  My addiction to scary movies - in this instance, The Strangers in particular - has directly caused my inability to stay overnight alone in a house with less than six other houses and a major road within view.  Intellectually, I know that I'm less safe in town, where there are more people which, statistically indicates a much higher likelihood of being murdered by an unstable person with a burlap sack on his head and wearing an outdated suit that I'd dare say Dwight Schrute would love for its color and texture..  Pity, too, because when I finally sell out and write a bestselling genre romance serial and get obscenely rich I plan to move to the country.  I sense that in addition to a house I'll be purchasing a large dog and setting strict rules that my husband is not permitted to leave me alone between the hours of sundown to sunup.  Ever.  Lest I go insane.  Charlotte Perkins Gilman style.

Also...I pitched an article about sleep training twins to Multiplicity Magazine and it was picked up for the spring issue.  So I guess I can say that I finally had something accepted.  I'm proud.  Forgive me my moment of basking.

Okay.  Basking done.  To finish, here are some photos of the girls playing with their dad and snugglin' with the grand 'rents before they left.  =(  I want my mommy to come home.  And so do my children.  Hear that, mom?  There is nothing for you in Florida.  Retreat!  Retreat!  Come back to the north, where we are all freezing bollocks, where I feel a bit like Jack Torrance at The Overlook, and where your grandchildren are giving me puzzled looks as if to say, "why does grandma suddenly only exist inside the R2D2 box that you constantly have pressed against your head?"

 I am actually amassing an impressive collection of photos of dad with things on his head.  I need to put together an album of just these one day.

Grandpa Jay rockin' the double baby hold.  Lookin' all like a pro and what not.  Shee-it.

Grandpa Jay and Bubba June.  Nawr.

I think we may have exceeded the carrying capacity for cuteness on this blog, though.  Just an observation.

I can't really decide who misses whom more.

And here they are.  The defectors with the children they're leaving behind.  Stone Cold, my parents.  I'm telling you what.

How I Am Lucky

Today has been...hang on...let me think...yep.  It's been the worst morning I can remember since the twins were born.  There have been some bad ones.  I've said this often and I'm sure that in the not-too-distant future something even worse will happen and that will be the worst morning I can remember, but today has been a trip.

I started blocking off a bigger and bigger area for the girls, testing them out to see how they handle the increased freedom and taking their cues in order to baby proof.  I'm never sure what exactly I need to do and I figure I may as well let them be my guide, as baby proofing without an idea of what exactly needs baby proofed is...let's say...overwhelming.  So they've graduated to most of the downstairs, with the kitchen blocked off unless I'm in it.  They've been chillin' in the dining room for days now, so after bottles and our first diaper change this morning, I came to the computer to check email and - I'm not ashamed to admit it - play a little Farmville, since they were happily occupied and (I thought) everything was in order.

Turns out, no.  Everything was not in order.  Far from it.  Because June managed to maneuver her way around what I thought were some cleverly placed obstacles and knock over a floor lamp.  That in and of itself would have been okay.  But the Rube Goldberg Death Machine that, apparently, is my dining room was activated by the falling of said lamp. Within seconds the lamp had landed its upper half on my kitchen table.  Again, not disasterous in and of itself, but for the fact that I had put a giant glass fishbowl (about a five gallon glass container) full of matchbooks collected from around the world on top of the table, so that the girls wouldn't, you know, think it was a matchbook buffet.  Because apparently their favorite food right now is anything that (a) is not food and (b) could potentially kill them.

So, to recap, lamp to matchbook bowl, matchbook bowl to floor in a million little pieces.  Not the fake million little pieces, like on Oprah, but really.  One.  Million.  Pieces.  Of glass. Sprinkled all around the frozen bodies of my daughters.  Who looked at me as I flew around the corner as if the world had just stopped.  Glass breaking was a new sound for them.  They did not like it.

Know what other sound they hate?  Well, Harper hates?  The vacuum.  Which, obviously, I could not wait for backup to run this time.  She screamed as I demoted them both to Stage 1 gate access (only the front portion of the living room).  She screamed louder as I got on my hands and knees among the shards of glass on the carpet and picked up all of the matchbooks that had landed on the floor and chairs.  She screamed louder still as I unwound the plug for the vacuum and I could hear her positively shrieking over the vacuum as it ground up chunk after chunk of broken glass.  I would have left it but I literally could not have gone to the kitchen or the bathroom (or let the cats eat out of their dishes, for that matter) without cleaning up the glass.

It took her a good thirty minutes to stop screaming even after I shut the vacuum off and scooped her up (which I did the moment I was finished, scout's honor).  Then it took a good hour of cuddling and another fifteen minutes of screaming after lights out to get them down for a nap.  Of course, ten minutes into the nap June threw herself against the side of her crib, missing the bumper entirely and smacking her forehead against the rails.  So that added another hour or so onto the getting-to-sleep routine.

All in all it's been a terrible morning and I have not been at my best.  But as I sat here a few moments ago Googling things like "mother of twins in crisis" and "how to stay sane with twins" I realized that I am still - broken glass, cranky babies and all - a super lucky mom.

First of all, when you Google any combination of "twins" and "crisis," you're going to come up with some disturbing news results about mothers who have killed their (usually infant) twins.  It's just headlines and you don't even get enough story to really know what happened, but it's hard to just skim over them and it's even harder to forget what you've read and what your imagination has come up with to fill in the blanks.  While I can say with absolute certainty that I have never actually wanted to harm the girls, I can say with as much certainty that I understand entirely where that level of frustration comes from.  My husband leaves the house at 6 in the morning and does not get back until 5.  That's if he's on time.  Many, many days of the week no one visits at all.  If they do, it's usually my mother-in-law, but that's never before 4:30 or so in the afternoon.  The sound of a crying baby may annoy you.  It may drive you up the wall and make you think you are going crazy, but you don't even know the half of it unless you've spent a full week alone for 10 hours plus with two cranky pantsed infants.  Anytime anyone wants to tell me how they know what I'm going through or remind me of my good fortune, although I usually smile and nod and thank them for their insight, I want to offer to let them live my life for a week and then tell me how lucky I am.  Because I know that with 9 out of 10 well-intentioned people, I'm going to be scraping a quivering, blubbering mass of pulp out of the corner where it curled into the fetal position to die by day 3.

But the truth is that, despite all of the frustration, the isolation and loneliness, and the frequent urge to just get in the car and drive away, not returning for days at a time, I am so incredibly lucky.

My girls were 39 weeks (well, 39 weeks and 5 days) old before they were born.  And the only reason that they didn't go the full 40 weeks was because I evicted them due to the fact that I physically could not endure them any longer.  They got the best possible start in life, and for the fact that I was able to carry them for so long (edema and all) I am thankful.

They were healthy and not conjoined when they were born.  Not only did we avoid the extended NICU stay that so many twins and their parents are stuck with, but we avoided any birth defects of any kind.  The biggest abnormality with them was Harper's birthmark, which everyone tells me will disappear by the age of five anyway.  I cannot tell you how many times I stop to thank whatever version of fate exists that my husband and I did not have to deal with these problems.  We are strong, but I don't know that we could have been that strong.

My girls are healthy enough to scream, knock over lamps, and generally raise Hell on a daily basis.  It drives me absolutely insane.  I can't write often or deeply, and I'm not in an MFA program because of them.  I can't go to work and I don't have any close friends that I see often enough.  I spend most days without another human being capable of having a conversation not carried out in the language of raspberries and babbling.  It's almost impossible at this time of year to even go to the grocery store without everyone being thoroughly disgusted with one another by the time we get home.  Forget about clothes shopping, having a (relaxed) lunch out, or having a cup of coffee without the constant threat of being called back to work looming over me like Eeyore's black cloud.

But after a nap, when I go up to get them, they're sitting up in their cribs or standing up, chewing on the rails, smiling and squealing with delight to see me.  They're still too young to be disappointed in me, to know enough to resent me.  To pay a therapist one hundred dollars an hour to listen to stories about how awful I was.  They can't babble, "I hate you mom," or slam a bedroom door (at least on purpose) when they aren't allowed to wear the clothes that Cosmo says they should.  There are no boyfriends to meet.  No calls in the middle of the night to worry about.

If my biggest worry right now is what to put my matchbooks in and where I'm going to store all my breakables for the next two years...yeah.  I'll take that deal.

Please Don't Eat the Daisies

I've had this book suggested to me as I think about memoir and creative nonfiction, which is my current area of interest when it comes to writing in the popular understanding of the act.

Some of you may know that I have an interest in the circumstances of the 1950's American housewife.  It will make perfect sense, then, that I'd be interested in reading this little number by Jean Kerr with a copyright date of 1957.  While searching for a digital copy of the book I came across this website offering to let me read it for free.  I'm pretty sure this isn't illegal.  I hope.  Just find your preferred format (the .mobi version seems a bit poorly formatted, but the pdf appears to be in good shape and can be read on a Kindle as well, which is all I wanted) and read along with me.

I'm really excited to get started on this one, as I'm also currently reading An Unquiet Mind and, while it's fascinating and well written and entirely relevant to my goals in memoir, it's also very heavy and rich and I need something to cut it with.  Like a slice of double chocolate chip cheesecake with some black coffee.  You know what I mean.

Anyone else read Daisies or going to read it with me?  Let me know in the comments!

Hello From the Trenches

Hi.  Just reaching out to tell the world I'm here.  I put the girls down for their first nap a half hour ago and, as it's the first day of a new week, of course we're trying yet another response to nap time.  This week it appears we'll be fighting it again.  Half hour so far.  The talking has become whining and is about to become big tears.

Nap time is when I recharge.  If they don't take naps, I drain quickly.  There are very few people I can call for help, and those I can call already know how I feel about visits during the day - that I welcome them.  If no one stops I can only assume that they're too busy or not interested.  Calling to ask for a visit seems a bit too much.  If they wanted to be here they'd be here and all that.

And there it is.  Big tears are starting.  If you've never stayed home all day with a baby you have no idea how the first squeal can send you into a full-on panic attack.  Now double the squeals and realize that you're going to be absolutely alone with these two cranky pants' for the next ten hours.

I really don't want to be that whiny "oh, my life is so hard" mom.  But if there are any other stay at home moms, moms of twins, or anyone in general who can give me some solid tips on how to maintain my composure (not to mention my sanity) when I feel my resolve crumbling this early in a very, very long week, I'd appreciate it so much.

The Bridge & DIY

So one of the things that I do that turns me into a crazy person because I try a new idea, lose interest/get bored, start something else, lose interest/get bored, repeat repeat repeat, and then realize that I'm going to come home one afternoon to find the cast and crew of Hoarders on my lawn getting ready for the new season, is upcycling.  Or repurposing.  Or DIY.  Or stealing ideas from Pinterest.  Or, if you're my mom, "hoarding."  Whatever you want to call it.  So one of the things that I'd like to share here is how to do some of the cool things that I've done, and some of the cool things that I want to do.  And some of the cool things that I'll never be talented or plucky enough to pull off no matter how badly I'd like to.  But believe me, if I can do something with the amount of chaos in my life head, it ought to be smooth sailin' for you.  So whenever you see this picture at the beginning of a post:

Lifescapes aka Andrea Boyer of Scrap Art Studio.com)

That will signal that I'm about to tell you how to do some cool stuff.  In yo house.  Clearly.

But I'm not going to tell you how to do anything tonight.  Because we've been at Grandma's all day.  Because we haven't left the house the rest of the week.  Because getting two little monkeys fed, changed, dressed, bundled, in the car, and on an errand before it's time for another nap is just not in my realm of ability.  Not right now.  When it's snowing like Silent Hill (as in nonstop...as long as we're talking about the original game...otherwise, it's ashing outside like a m**********r).  

Also, I'm getting ready for a big day out tomorrow.  A new "semester" is starting at The Bridge at Bossa Nova Cafe in Franklin.  And I'm going!  Dr. Terman (who told me I can call him Phil from now on because I'm no longer a student but I can't because it's weird) from the Clarion University English Department and his trusty sidekick Matt (or is it the other way around...and who will be more offended by that characterization, I wonder) host a lovely little writing workshop every other Saturday for the next few months.  I really miss being in school writing (and Psychology and Philosophy) classes, so being able to see old friends from Clarion and read and workshop some really fantastic work is a super treat for me.  So I'm just takin' it easy tonight, reading some memoir, sippin' some Green Mountain French Toast coffee from my crunk mug, and wanted to check in with my blog.  And anyone who may be reading it.  Anyone there?  Can you hear me?  

Memoir..And What Not

I spent all of yesterday working on a set of scenes for a nonfiction project I'm working on.  I always disliked the idea of writing a memoir.  It seemed to me rather self-absorbed and indulgent.  But my writing, after Harper and June came, just sort of tailored itself from fiction to nonfiction and I've come to the realization that there is value in memoir and writing about oneself, insomuch as it can be related to, and learned from, by others.

Adair Lara has a nice little book on the craft of creative nonfiction.  Where there are lots of things in it that I've had to skip over (your very basic "how to write well" sections)  There is a lot of great information as well.  Coming primarily from a background of writing fiction, there are a lot of things that I've missed out on, having concentrated most of my advanced class work in fiction.  But what grabbed me from the beginning was in the introduction.  Adair talks about Carl Jung and his idea of the collective versus the personal unconscious.  This resonated with me, as my first few years in an undergraduate program were as a Psychology major.  I liked the philosophy and the theoretical parts of the field, although I knew straight away that practice would not be for me.  But I gained a lot of interesting knowledge in areas like Personality and Abnormal theory.

In any case, what Adair says is that creative nonfiction - memoir - is justified when what one contributes to the world (Jung's collective unconscious) through one's own writing (one's personal unconscious) is relatable and instructive.  When we can write our stories and at the same time interpret them, teach what we've learned through our own mistakes, memoir can be a powerful tool not only for personal growth and healing, but for that of others as well.

I like that!  And it makes me feel far less like a navel-gazer when I write from my own life.  It can be difficult, not relying on the safety that fiction provides, but it has been liberating as well.

Anyone have a favorite memoir?  One that has influenced them in a personal way?  Leave a comment!

Slummin' it for Supper: The Idea

So one of the things that I like to try to do is to eat as many whole foods as possible.  I make my own baby food, so that I know that the girls aren't being exposed to a lot of chemicals (although they're now starting to eat off of our plates, so they are getting more processed foods these days), and I try to use whole food grown or raised in as organic a way as possible.

It's not easy on a budget.  When I was 16 I took a trip to Great Britain and Paris, France, with my aunt.  While at a garden cafe behind the Louvre I realized that a carafe of wine was around two dollars (probably more now - this was over 10 years ago), while a bottle of Coke about 2/3 of the size was being sold for around four dollars.  Highly processed, unhealthy, sugary or generally bad-for-you foods are often taxed heavily in other countries.  Here, you can buy a bag of processed frozen chicken breast often for less than the cost of a whole, unprocessed chicken.

There are ways to get around this, of course.  I like to substitute beans and legumes for as many meats as I can, meaning that we may have bean burritos instead of beef burritos.  But, every now and then, I'll pick up a pack of meat and use it.  We tend to eat mostly chicken in our house, both because of the good-for-you factor and because my husband likes chicken.  A lot.  And he could take or leave pretty much any other meat.  Except bacon.  But that's another story.

So, beans or other proteins in place of meat can cut down on costs, especially when buying them in bulk and soaking them overnight as opposed to buying canned.  For fruits and vegetables I often buy frozen simply because I can get more for the money, and there again is an example of paying less for a processed food than one would for a whole food from the produce section.  Most of the time you can find frozen fruits and veggies, though, with little to no preservatives or added ingredients - and I am FOREVER checking the ingredients list.

This isn't to say that we never eat hamburger, boxed macaroni and cheese, canned soup, or other processed foods.  The fact is that they are quick, easy, and easy to keep on hand.  I'm a realist when it comes to my "whole foods" lifestyle.  When I can make it work I would prefer to.  But I'm not going to drive myself crazy over having to eat some ramen one or two nights a month.  As I try to do with everything, I try to keep my cooking as simple as possible.  That being said, I have two infants.  Getting to the store can be a huge chore when we're only going for one or two things.  There are many nights our dinners are less whole than I'd like.  But it's not a perfect world, and it actually doesn't bother me all that much.

On nights that I'm making a full on processed meal with little to no whole foods, I call it "slumming it."  I don't mean anything offensive by it.  We live behind a bar near an oil refinery.  I often joke with my husband and the girls that we're going "back to the slums" when we come home from one of our wonderful grandma's houses, two of the three being out in the country (where my heart belongs and where I hope to return one day).  So I thought, to start off my regular posts, why not do a weekly recipe that can be made quickly, cheaply, and, with some improvisation (which I highly encourage in the kitchen), possibly with things you've already got on hand?

Last night, I improvised some Hamburg Gravy with Whole Wheat Rotini and Cheddar Biscuits (made from pancake mix).  You can find the post here.  

What's your favorite quick-to-whip up weeknight meal?  Leave a comment letting me know!

Slummin' it for Supper: Hamburg Gravy & Cheddar Biscuits

Digital Scrapbook Images created by Andrea Boyer:  www.scrapartstudio.com

So as I said in the introductory post for the Slummin' it for Supper series, I will sometimes pick up a pack of meat for a particular dinner that I'm planning.  Either that, or I'll have a hankering for something (usually, for me, it's hamburger) and get some when I see a good sale price.  I would prefer to buy my meat locally, from a "hippie" farm, but we use so little meat that I'm really just waiting until we can work out our budget for the year before I decide whether to do that or just go with my sporadic supermarket purchases.

In any case, I found a 2 1/2 pound pack of hamburger on sale for an alarmingly good price at my supermarket the other day and couldn't resist - I'd been craving it for a couple of days.  So yesterday afternoon I brought the girls into the kitchen with me, set them up with some plastic bowls and wooden spoons, and browned it down with an onion I'd had for about a week that was needing to be used up.  I had no idea what I planned to do with it.  I originally had thought about tacos, but I didn't have all the spices I needed for taco seasoning, my husband would have had to stop for shells on the way home, and when I discovered I was out of black beans I decided to sit on it for a while.

Eventually, I came up with the idea of hamburg gravy.  You can't get much more good old fashioned hillbilly eatin' than this without adding some sort of woodland creature to the pot (and there's nothing wrong with that  - no judgement here).  Anyone who grew up in a rural area may remember it from the lunch room of their school, or it may have been a staple comfort food at home, served over mashed potatoes or rice.  

I'm a huge fan of comfort foods.  As bad as they can be for our bodies, they do my soul and state of mind a world of good, particularly on these long, dark, cold winter days.  So once the idea for hamburg gravy popped into my head that was it.  There was no other option.  

I don't have a recipe for hamburg gravy, really.  I mean, I have one written down in case of an emergency, but as with many of the things I cook, I just winged it.  My "recipe" called for two packets of french onion soup mix, which of course I didn't have.  A quick scan of my "savory" cupboard, however, revealed an unopened can of French's fried onions leftover from a green been casserole who knows how long ago.  But hey, if it's not expired and it doesn't smell, it's fair game in my kitchen.  So instead of the soup mix I poured the fried onions into a bowl, crushed them up with the bottom of a juice cup, and poured the crumbs into my ground beef mixture.  I added four cups of water, stirred it all together, brought it to a boil, and let it simmer for about two hours, stirring fairly often. 

I'm comfortable admitting that, at first, it looked a little like cat sick.  But as it reduced it developed a nice, thick, smooth consistency (as I knew it would).  If you don't have onion soup mix or fried onions, you could make a roux ahead of time.  Then add it to your ground beef and water.  It will act as a thickening agent during the simmer.  Same idea.  Just a different way of getting there. 

 Now, I'm not afraid to admit that I love any sort of bread, pasta, or anything of the sort.  Last night's dinner was an indulgence for me.  The hamburg gravy was mixed with whole wheat rotini, to make a sort of homemade hamburger helper, and on the side I made cheddar biscuits.

I ran across this tutorial a while ago while searching for a knockoff of the Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits.  It was so, so amazing, and it was the garlic parsley butter that really made them.  This is the easiest side dish to make in the world, it always comes out just right, and it goes with anything.  Seriously.  If you have pancake mix you can whip these up in ten minutes and I can't imagine anyone not liking them.  

So there you have it.  My slummed out, improvised meal hamburg gravy and biscuits.

Do you have a favorite winter comfort meal, or a super easy to throw together dinner?  Leave a comment.  Also, how does Tuesday sound for a regular Slummin' it for Supper post?  Let me know in the comments section!

Scheduling Our Lives

It's not something I've done as of yet.  It's difficult, when your brain isn't set up to naturally create and maintain order, to have a schedule for your day.  I'll admit, most days that I'm home with the girls are spent in my pajamas and more than likely without even the undergarment most people would consider mandatory for answering the door for anyone other than one's mother.

When I was working, I was certain that stay-at-home moms had it made.  Seriously?  Stay home all day, watch whatever you want on television, go shopping if you feel like it.  If you don't feel like it, hey, that's cool too.  Throw something together for dinner a few nights a week.  The housework would get done so much easier, I believed, if I were home all day.

Right.  What I failed to consider were two very important factors:

1)  The girls demanding attention, even if only to be entertained, most of the time.  Even when they're not crying for me to crawl into the cage with them, I worry that they're developing an attachment disorder.  "The fact that she is upset with it," a Psychology professor turned Facebook friend once advised me, "is better than her being complacent, regardless of what it is that's bothering her."  Whether she was crying because she wanted me or because she wanted out of her cage was irrelevant.  The fact that she hadn't resigned herself to being left alone indefinitely was, apparently, healthy.  While that eased my mind in one way, it got me started freaking out in the opposite direction.  How on earth was I supposed to get anything done if these two little monkeys were going to scream the second I stepped away from them, or if I were feeling too guilty to step away from them?

2)  Yes, I can stay in my pajamas all day if I like.  No, there is no need to do my hair, put on makeup (which I didn't do before either), dress nice, or even take care of myself.  But the physical ease of my days at home, it quickly became apparent, was a trade off for the mental exhaustion I felt by 5:00.  Or, if we want to time our day by a mommy unit of measure, by the fourth bottle, by the one millionth strand of hair ripped from my scalp, by the hundredth time I've had to push my glasses back onto my face or pry them from someone's tiny hand, by the third installment of Cat in the Hat, or - my personal favorite - by the time daddy walks in the door.  Being alone all day with only two infants to keep you company will drain your batteries faster than you'll even realize it.  Before you know it you'll be crash landing in bed 10 minutes after they go down if you're not careful.  Being a loner and having a pretty intense case of social anxiety, I never thought I really needed a lot of interaction with other adults.  I always disliked it so much I just assumed that I'd at least be able to maintain my buoyancy without it.  Hell, I thought I might even get a bit more chipper if I didn't have to deal with people and all of their stupid crap throughout the day.  All I can say is that I was either embarrassingly naive, or I was deluding myself.  Because it's like the Twilight Zone up in here between the hours of 6 am to 5 pm.  And you don't just walk out of 11 hours of the Twilight Zone without it leaving some impact on your mental state.

What has struck me about being a stay-at-home mom with no real schedule is that the times they are a-changing.  Or, more accurately, they have changed already.  Drastically, and not entirely for the better.

Now, my inner bra burner is seething as I begin to explain my theory here, but hear me out.  My grandmother was a mom in the 60s and 70's.  Just about the time that things were starting to change and women were spending more and more time outside the home by default.  Not that they weren't working outside the home before then.  Certainly not.  We all know how women supported the war effort by filling the empty positions the men left behind.  Of course.  But it was still customary, when not being Rosie the Riveters, for women to stay at home with the children.  My grandmother, who raised the majority of her brothers and sisters as a girl and young woman, must have had such a support network.  In those days there must have been at least a neighbor or two who was home with a child.  Even on days when nothing was planned there was probably always someone to go visit.  Someone to interact with.  Someone to prop her up with a little conversation and a cup of coffee.

For stay-at-home moms today, at least I would imagine, there are probably far fewer outlets for good, solid interaction with other stay-at-home moms.  I know that in my neighborhood there is no one at home with babies in our age range wishing someone would come over for a cup of coffee.  Or wishing that she could go to someone else's house for a little moral support.

So what's a mom to do?  Really all we're left with is to go shopping, run an errand, go to Grandma's (if she's home and feeling like company).  But, to be quite frank, packing up both girls to go on an errand in the winter can take upwards of 40 minutes if they both need changed, fed, and put in their snowsuits.  It can involve crying if they don't feel like being bundled up.  Then we get where we're going, have to find a cart, get one strapped into the seat, the other strapped into the carrier on my chest, get inside before frostbite sets in, get all of our shopping done and hurry home before they're overtired and refusing to take their next nap.  It's an inordinate amount of work to go to the store for 1 or 2 things, or just for something to do.  And we can't go to Grandma's every day.

While thinking about a blogging schedule this afteroon I came to the realization that I have no schedule for my life, which was why putting together a blogging schedule was blowing my mind.  I realized that not having a plan for a day or two was okay, but the reason my days feel so long and tedious is because I don't have a plan for any day, ever.  Whether we're going somewhere or doing something or not, it seems only logical that a day with at least a loose plan will go faster and feel much smoother than one without.  And so, as I work on putting together a blogging schedule, I'm going to be thinking about a life schedule as well.

Wish me luck!

Let's Begin

The girls are starting to wake up from their morning nap.  I need to wash bottles and make formula.  Get ready for them.  Prepare myself mentally.  We're going to the store, you see.  It's a lot of work.  But first I wanted to have a post so that I could work more with formatting later on, but also so I can get the first post out of the way and move on.  The first post is always the hardest.

So, some things I want to promise as this blog owner.  It's not a lot - I just can't promise much right now.  But I can promise you some things, at least.  So here we go with my Shifting Geers Manifesto:

1)  I will write one quality post at least once a week.  I can't guarantee more.  But I will at least do that.  

2)  I will work on some sort of schedule for special posts.  I'd like to cover lots of topics, from crafts to cooking to sleep training, to the simple physics of handling two babies at once.  Maybe Mondays could be food days?  Thursdays could be a physics lesson?  I don't know yet.  But I'll figure it out.  Say, by Sunday?  Sound good?  Now the caveat here is that I work best when I feel that not completing my task would be shameful.  I'd be ashamed, for example, if I didn't finish a post that I thought someone was looking forward to.  So I need my readers to keep me accountable by posting comments and/or otherwise interacting with me.  Could you do that for me please?  Particularly if you have a topic that you think would make a great recurring topic.  I would love to hear about that in the comments.  

3)  I will read your comments.  Not only that but I will respond to them and, where suggestions are left, I will do my best to incorporate those suggestions, or at least address them in a post.  I would really love to have input from readers as to what they'd like to see me write about.  Then I don't feel so much like I'm navel gazing.

One quick thing that I want to address:

I registered the domain name shiftingeers.com under Wordpress.com.  Being new to the whole blogging thing, I wanted the most professional look I could get without investing too much money until I was sure it would be something that would be well received, as well as something that I would stick with.  Unfortunately, much as I love Wordpress, I simply did not have as much control over my blog's appearance as I would like.  I am a creative person and I really need to be able to customize and tweak things extensively.  I couldn't do that on WP.com for free as I could here on Blogger.  So that's why I'm here.  As soon as the domain becomes available for transfer (another 54 days, I'm led to believe), I will do my best to transfer it to this blog so that it has a more professional address and looks a little less like the free hosted I-made-this-in-ten-minutes type of deal.  Eventually I would like to put it on my own domain but, quite frankly, I'm just not techie enough to pull that off.  I think just getting the domain transferred when that option becomes available will test my to my techie limits.  So...as far as the whole "professional" thing, just know that I'm working on it as time, knowledge, and money allows.  =)  

Okie doke.  I hear the cues being given from upstairs and it's time to go get them up, wash bottles, make breakfast, and hit the store!  Wish me luck!