In Which We Reconvene...

It's been a bit over a year since the day my world came crumbling down around me.  I'm still struggling to wrap my head around it all. 

My water broke at 6:00 in the morning, May 13.  Squeak was born on May 14 at 2:23 am.  I went back to work on the 25th of June.  And then I put my notice in at my company in Chicago, worked until 9/20, spent the weekend moving to my parents' house and started at my new company on Monday, September 23.

I STILL haven't found a house here so my stuff is still in Chicago.  I think a big part of the problem there is that I do not want to be here.  I don't want to leave there.  I don't want to leave the place, my studio, my friends, etc.  I don't want to admit that her father doesn't care.  I don't want to leave.

Except, I've already left.  I've been with my new company for nearly 5 months.  I'm currently driving 60 miles each way, every day.  I love Petunia, but gas mileage is not her best thing.  Filling her tank every day or so is KILLING me.

One more thing: I spent last weekend in Chicago, staying with a friend, while we packed up my kitchen and dining room.  At some point between 1/19 when my friend was there last and 1/31 when my landlady found it, a pipe burst in my kitchen.  This has required my kitchen to be gutted out to the external brick.  A team of water/fire/mold experts came in and cleaned.   The floor in the dining room, and part of the wall, had to be torn out as well.  So that was awesome.

And walking into that house, and smelling the damp, and seeing the destruction, made me realize that I'll never stay in that house again.  And it hit me all over again how unhappy I am to be in Ohio.  Sigh.

I have to wonder about the CRAZY housing market here.  It's worse than Chicago, where, if it was on the market more than a day, something was wrong with it.  I have actually walked through at least 10 houses.  I've had easily twice that many cancel because they've already been rented.  And that doesn't count the houses (at least 15 or so) that will not allow pets.  So it's not like I'm not trying.

Of the ones I've seen, the house in Seville was beautiful but 50 miles away from EVERYTHING.  More of a problem was the pond.  The owner mentioned that they used to have 3 little donkeys but a month or so before, one of them fell into the pond (RIGHT OUTSIDE THE HOUSE) and drowned.  If a donkey can't get out of the pond, my daughter would be toast.

Then there was the huge, 6 bedroom house that clearly used to be amazing but was so run down that probably the only hope is a wrecking ball.

And the tiny, super expensive houses in Bay Village.  One didn't even have a basement.  And the tiny duplex in Bath.  Interesting that they can apparently count the square footage of a garage if it's attached, even without a door to the inside.

And the gorgeous historical home in Highland Square that had plaster walls that were bubbling off due to the water damage.  (Thanks, but I really hope to be done with water for a while.)  The historical home in the middle of nowhere that was going to have the crazy caretaker ("I don't need any drugs now that God is talking to me.") living in the basement.  The craftsman bungalow that reeked of pot and had no appliances... The super expense yet small ranch in West Akron with a vertical driveway and zero storage... The house in Medina that had no grass, and an oven from the early 50s - which I wouldn't have minded, had it worked.

And so on and so forth.  So that's been frustrating.  I just feel like I'm stuck in such a rut.  I need a house.  I need to get out of Chicago.  I need my own routine.  My parents would like their house and life back.

In the meantime, Squeak is 9 months old.  She's got four teeth, all on the bottom, and most resembles a tiny bulldog.  Her hair is a dandylion fluff of white gold that waves around her head like a fraggle.

I'm not yet at the point that I can't imagine life without her, because I totally can.  And it would be fabulous.  But, I can imagine life WITH her and I'm looking forward to Halloween costumes and Christmas mornings and seeing the world through her eyes.  So, that's progress, I guess.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.  I NEED A HOUSE.

The Unfairness of It All

Something's been bugging me for a while. I love my daughter, I do. 

 

But I spent 18 years arduously avoiding pregnancy and was relieved when I was told that I'd probably never them.  In spite of that, and the nuvering, and the condom, I found out at 28 weeks that I was pregnant. (And I'm lucky she didn't pop out wearing that damn thing as her first bracelet.) Right up until I had her, I was seriously considering adoption because I had a fabulous life that I loved a lot.

 

So, you know, it's been a fairly traumatic year for me and I do my best to make light of it and I'm determined to be the best mom I can be and I'm making the best decisions for her that I can... but some days are harder than others which kinda makes me feel like those whiners in 'first world problems' or whatever. (Oh, poor little me, with my fantastic supportive parents, awesome new job and perfect baby - I can't sleep in when I want to anymore.)

 So I was talking to a couple of people at dinner this week, and I told them the highlights of my year, and the lady started to cry because she tried for 5 years, lost twins at 4.5 months, tried for another 2 years, lost that one at 5 months, gave up and then had her daughter (who almost killed her) a year or so later.  And she was really having an issue with the comparison. and I can't really blame her, because it's something that I feel kind of guilty about.  

I' m struggling with still coming to terms with having a child at all, and then I am also struggling with the unfairness of it all - people who so desperately want children and would be such awesome parents put themselves through hell trying to have them, to no avail, while I tried so hard to NOT have them, and then have the easiest pregnancy ever and now I have this gorgeous child. (And don't get me started on the sperm donor buying a boat this year while I left Chicago to afford his child.)

I don't do regret - what's the point? - and I'm not a believer in plan of a higher power, but any words of wisdom about reconciling my brain right now would be welcome.

Bitter Tears

 I told my daughter's father tonight, via phone, that we were moving to Ohio, and he started cracking jokes about taking my dead plants and who had to move my tons of books, as tears slid silently down my face. 

My fault, for fucking someone I barely knew to get over someone else. 

My fault, for wishing that he cared enough to even try when he so clearly doesn't. 

My fault, for letting emotions get in the way, for the little thrill that went through me when he said my name.   We've been "together" or whatever you want to call it for over a year, and this is the first time he's said my name.  I wasn't even really sure he knew it.

My fault, for breaking apart a little every time he says "my daughter" and means the real daughter, with his ex-wife, the one he acknowledges. 

And so I sit here on my couch, and watch my daughter sleep, and I mourn for the daddy that she'll never have and the hole in her life that I can't fix and it's killing me and there's nothing I can do about it. Every time I think that I'm as hurt as I'm going to be and surely it'll start getting better, it gets worse. and I am just so tired and heart-sore. And maybe one day, I'll be able to look at a father and daughter or read about a happy family and not be engulfed by a wave of agony for what will never be that damn near brings me to my knees. At this point, I don't even know which I hurt for the most - that he can walk away from her so easily, or from me. But I wish, oh how I wish, that I wasn't so easy to leave. And gods, I hope this scabs over quickly because I don't know how much more I can take.

 

ME TOO!

I started to write a comment at Jenny's hilarious entry but it kept growing so I decided to just post it.  You're welcome.

Roy Orbison isn't blind?  Really?

I thought slugs were homeless snails too.

I was in my thirties before I realized that the short bus had an ELEVATOR, not a cage, in the back.  My parents told me that it was a cage for really bad kids.  My cousins were laughing hysterically at me when I confessed, and my brother looked confused and said, "Wait, it's not a cage?"

If you show me the word "Arkansas," I pronounce it ARK-ansas.

When we learned about maps in fifth grade, I decided that that meant that you were always heading North, and a righthand turn meant that you were turning toward the East.  A lefthand turn, of course, meant that you were turning West.

To this day, I don't like raisins in things mostly because my dad said they were beetles.  Also, he told me that tapioca pudding was made of fish eyes and I haven't eaten it since.

I also thought people were talking about the old TV show "Sanford and Son" when they went on about Mumford and sons.

To this day, I have to make my pointer fingers and thumbs into an "L" to figure out which is the left one.  And sometimes that doesn't help.

It was very recently that I discovered that "Duck Dynasty" was not, in fact, about ducks.  I thought it was like that meercat show where they followed around a family of ducks.

I'm not alone - friends from college visited last fall, and we went to Navy Pier (in Chicago).  As we were walking back to the train, my friend asked where the seals were.

In college, I worked for the library and one morning a week, I had to work the information desk from 7:00 to 12:00.  A woman used to come complain all the time that men were using the women's bathroom.  When I finally asked her what made her decide that, she told me it was because when she went in there, all of the lids were up.  (The cleaning people put them up when they cleaned the toilets.)

JUST What I Needed...

I've been trying to get my head wrapped around the whole "mom" thing, with varying degrees of success.

A few weeks ago, a dear friend evidently believed me about the dresser drawer thing (she can sleep in a dresser drawer.  When she cries, I'll shut the drawer.  Win win.) and drove here for the weekend from Nashville with a nursery in her truck.  She brought a crib, mattress, bedding, a dresser/changing table, a swing, assorted other things.  And then she worked her tail off emptying shelves, moving the shelving units to the basement, reassembling them and then hauling all of the craft stuff downstairs to the new location.  When she was done, I had a nursery.  Holy crap.

And then I went home for my birthday, and my friends there threw me a beautiful shower and I came home with Petunia LOADED with assorted baby stuff.  It occasionally freaks me out, how very very happy everyone else is about this but it has reinforced that I have really fantastic friends.

And then last Thursday happened.  It's been raining here a lot.  Wednesday night, a friend came over and we made the bunny magnets that will be the favors for my shower here and at 10 pm that night, the basement was dry.  Well, as dry as my basement ever gets when it's raining but I'm prepared for that - most everything's in plastic bins or up on pallets or something.

Tiny Little Bunny Magnets, In Process

I woke up Thursday morning to a slightly different scenerio.  I had knee high water in my driveway and 4.5 feet of water in my basement. 



My Porch, The Bottom Step Of Which Is Completely Submerged

  

My House, With Water Lapping On All Four Sides

 

To The East



To The West



To The South

My Neighbor, Serving as Water Taxi



The water rose and fell freakishly fast - by Thursday afternoon, it had receded outside completely and was nearly gone from my basement as well. That left the clean up.



By Thursday Afternoon

I've lost a lot.  And it's not over yet - all of my power tools were submerged, so we washed them and are letting them dry but they may be gone.  Same with my washer and dryer.  It remains to be seen how much of my (very expensive) cross stitch fabric can be washed and salvaged.  (I've been hanging it on the line to dry until I can wash it.)  Most of my Christmas decorations are gone.  I *think* we managed to save most of my grandmother's ceramics.  I have A LOT in the garage to go through, and a lot of it won't survive.  I have pictures drying on several flat surfaces, and more to spread out.  My neighbor put it very well when she said that it was "1000 little hurts."

It could be so much worse.  I could have fried myself when I went plunging into the water to retrieve the tea set that my grandmother made.  (Irony - it was on top of the heavy old metal file cabininet that didn't flinch and was probably the safest thing in the basement.)  It could be like the house across the street - with the sandstone foundation that washed away, leaving the house condemned and them with a day to remove all of their possessions. 



Clean-Up



So.  If disasters come in threes, whatever is next is probably going to send me to my knees 'cause I'm kind of wobbly right now.

"Gobsmacked" Doesn't Begin To Cover It.

In my personal history, 2012 will be remembered as "emotional shit storm david" because well, it was.  EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH. there was some new and exciting way that he managed, quite without trying, to shatter my world.

One of the highlights was June, when he was drinking too much and caught his ex - the one that he's been in love with since he was 13 - in a lie and it made him feel all bad and guilty so he called me and confessed his (many, many, many) sins from when we were together.  Thanks.  I needed to hear most of that... never.  This was good in that I decided it was way past time that I took a more... proactive... approach to getting over him.  So I joined an online dating site.  Except that I was broken and looking for a rebound so I thought it was kind of dishonest to go on one of those "happily ever after" website.  Wow.  I've learned a lot I didn't want to know about the male of our species.  And, in July, I met Chris.  Chris and I saw each other for several months, but his repeated no call, no shows drove me nuts so I ended it.  And then a couple of months later, he texted me and we ended up getting back together.  We haven't been in what I'd call a relationship because it's been pretty much completely physical. 

And for the last year, I've felt like crap.  But I really figured that most of it was depression left over from emotional shit storm david.  In August, I got a sinus infection, and the head goo never went away.  So, I haven't been able to breathe in months.

In the beginning of February this year, the head goo flared up again and I felt really awful, so I made a doctors appointment.  I was coughing so hard that I pulled something in my back, and it hurt to breathe for several days.  And right around the same time, these weird feelings started in my stomach.  So when I went to the doctor on Feb 15 for the head goo, I also peed in a cup.  And.  It's positive.

Thirty years of not wanting kids.  Eighteen years of completely neurotic birth control use.  Down the drain.  I went for an ultrasound that day, and it turns out that I was very nearly one of those women on TV - I was 28 weeks when I found out.  My OB told me last week that for women like me with screwy hormones and irregular cycles, the nuviring can actually make you "super fertile" in the one week that it is out every month.  It would have been really fucking good if THAT had been listed in their brochure or online or SOMEWHERE.  Or if my doctor had mentioned it when I started on the damn things in July.  (The math adds up - I got pregnant after the first one came out in early August.)  So, yeah, my birth control apparently leveled things out and helped me get knocked up.  Fan-fucking-tastic.  

Over that weekend, I googled all of the doctors that my primary care doctor sent me and chose an OB.  The next week was a whirl of talking to the OB clinic and getting my first appointment set up, a pregnancy class, the appointment (with a total bitch of a midwife, but that's another story), another ultrasound (28 weeks and 2 days!) and then traveling for work.  That Monday, I also told Chris.  We were both careful, and I'd been told before that I'd probably need help if I decided to try for kids, so shock doesn't begin to cover it.  It is, as of this moment, about 80% that he's going to walk away.  Or, if I don't hear from him this week, that I will send him away because I just need things settled and I'm SO very sick of waiting for the phone to ring.

So.  Here I am.  My daughter is due May 15.  And I really have no idea what to do now.  But every time I see something else about my "support person" or bringing my spouse or whatever, it makes me tear up because I am so sick of being alone, and I've never felt more alone in my life. 

Disturbing...

A friend of mine posted a link to this blog post on Facebook today.  In it, a woman details a train ride wherein she is accosted by strangers in ham-handed attempts (apparently) to pick her up that become very nightmarish.

And my friend posted a comment about her very similar experience last week in Portland.  A month ago, I had something similar happen to me here in Chicago.  In less than 3 hours, my friend's post had more than twenty comments, from women of all shapes and colors, from all over the country, talking experiencing nearly identical  (well, let's be blunt here) verbal attacks on or near public transit.  My friend's experience was at a bus stop - the timely arrival of the bus saved her.  Two older women moved from the back of the train car to sit next to me, and their glares backed the guy down when mine appeared to be making things worse.  Every one else managed to escape unharmed as well.  But reading those comments struck me like a board.

When I was talking about my experience later with friends, my female friends were sympathetic - they'd been there too.  My male friends generally made some comment about how I should expect guys to try to pick me up 'cause I'm pretty.  More than one male friend asked if my hair was down, because my hair is gorgeous (they said...) and they didn't blame random strangers for wanting to talk to me or touch me when I was displaying my locks.  Their comments made me FURIOUS but I was having a hard time articulating why I was so upset. 

I think she says it very well:

So when people (men) want to talk about “legitimate” forms of assault, tell girls they should be nice to strangers and give men the benefit of a doubt, tell them to consider it a compliment, tell them to ignore the bad behavior of men, I want them to be forced to feel, for even one minute, what it feels like to have so much verbal hatred and physical intimidation thrown at them for nothing more than being female and not wanting to share.


I just wanted to read my book.

It’s not my fault I’m pretty.

Because you know what?  I'm 38.  I don't dress particularly well - jeans and button downs - not provocatively at all.  "Fluffy" body type.  I don't make any attempt to attract.  But if I am alone on a train or a bus, odds are very good that some guy will come over, try to force eye contact and make a pest out of himself.

I am strong, intelligent, and I've been looking out for myself for a long time.  I HATE it when I'm made to feel small and weak.  I hate that I avoid eye contact with strangers.  I hate that I feel threatened every time a male comes too close.  I hate that, from the time I leave my door until the time I return, I am alert and braced and ready for attack.  I don't want to get all political here, but I really do believe there is a war on women happening in this country right now.  And it is being waged not just by the jerks on the train who are obnoxious and rude but also by every guy out there that downplays that behavior.  Everyone out there who tells me (and every other female) that it is our fault.  We shouldn't wear our hair down.  We shouldn't wear a dress.  Or pretty shoes.
You know what?  Bullshit.  I wish you could spend an hour in my shoes.  Women grow up knowing that we are smaller, and weaker.  Things can happen to us.  We need to be aware and alert and ready to run all the time.  That is what I wish men could experience.  Just for a little while.  It doesn't matter how smart I am or how much I work out or how alert I am - that swaggering asshole on the train makes me aware that I am prey.  And that is what I wish I could make men experience.  Live it for one train ride.  Then tell me I deserve it for being pretty.  I dare you.

WARNING: If You Belong to 24 Hour Fitness Gyms...

I am on facebook, and completely addicted to it, and I am connected with most of the people in my class from high school.  One of them lives in California, outside LA.  As near as I can tell, he's a total gym rat and he has a physique rarely seen in actual, real-life humans.  But, he's kind of an asshole.  And by "kind of an asshole," I mean "pretty much a total asshole."  One of his favorite pastimes, while hanging out at his gym ALL the time, is to take pictures with his cell phone of people - men and women - who do not share his dedication to the gym.  And then he posts those pictures on his facebook wall with nasty, mocking comments about how horrible these people look.  And then he and his smug, well-toned little friends have a ball continuing to leave hateful comments on these pictures.

I've been pretty much skipping his posts for a while, but it bugged me.  And the idea of having someone do that to me is one of the reasons I dread going to the gym.  (FYI - I belong to a different gym.)  So I called 24 Hour Fitness and ratted him out.  "Andre" transferred me to "Autumn," who demanded the 10 digit code to the gym in question as well as the guy's code.  And when I said that I didn't have that information, "Autumn" (who, by accent, resides somewhere in India) said that there was nothing she could do and that I should have a nice day.  And when I asked who else I could talk to, we strangely got disconnected.

So, if you belong to a 24 Hour Fitness, know that you may well be on candid camera.  Know too that it is apparently just fine with their customer service people.  Happy workout!

Happy Star Wars Day!

May the Fourth be with you!

You know, I giggle EVERY time I say that.  Every.  Time.  And I've been bothering my coworkers ALL week.  In retailiation, *someone* plastered Star Wars stuff all over my cube yesterday.

I was determined to not miss it this year so Wednesday, I spent some quality time researching recipes.  That was kind of a bust, except I stumbled across a blog post of cookies in these great Star Wars shapes.  (On a side note, this lady does AMAZING things with icing.  I lost a couple hours wandering around her blog.  And I got a new tip - roll out on parchment paper, and turn the paper every few rolls.  Presto!  No more cookies stuck to my counter!  Yay!)  So then I wandered further and found someone else raving about the cookie cutters available at Williams Sonoma.  Holy crap, y'all!  I had NO idea!  I called the store nearest me, and they put the two sets I wanted behind the counter for me.  Also, they were on sale online so Sam left a note to match the price for me.  I picked them up on my way home that night.  So happy!

Last night, I did my typical play-online-procrastinate-procrastinate-omg-it's-bedtime-and-I-haven't-started-baking-yet thing.  Good that some things stay the same, right?  *snort*  Happily, my mom's sugar cookie recipe is pretty much impervious to screw-ups.  I was a bit worried 'cause it was HOT in my house last night but it all worked out okay.

Crumbly is OK.



Darth First!





Darth & Storm Troopers



X-Wings & Yoda

Normally I go all kinds of bonkers on the decorating but I was just too tired last night.  I knew this because I could not get the glaze to the right consistency.  I struggled and struggled with it, and used most of a new bag of confectioners sugar.   Nothing turned out right with the decorating, so please excuse how pathetic the poor things look.  They taste delicious, that helps, right??

My first step was making the black for Darth.  Thanks to a quick trip online to the Wilton forums, I had an idea of what would work.  I added about 2 heaping tablespoons of unsweetened coco powder to probably a cup and a half of glaze and mixed well.  Then I used Wilton's paste color in violet to turn it black.  That paste is intense!  It didn't take nearly as much as I thought it would.  (It just took a couple globs of the paste on a toothpick.  Seriously way less than a pea.)

Yes, I trash my kitchen.  I bake like the Swedish Chef.

At some point, I decided to add sparkle.  I have no idea why.  So I went for the black sugar I have for Halloween.  Instead of sparkle, Darth looks like he has mange.  Sigh.  I'll know better next time.

I used the glaze as-is for the X-Wings and the Storm Troopers.  Again with the sparkly - I scattered blue sugar on the X-Wings and called it a day.  I attempted to add black details to the Storm Troopers but the glaze was too thick, then too thin so I washed it off and called it good enough.

 

Poor naked looking little things.  I'm sorry.

  

They sorta look like X-Wings.  If you squint.

 To get the green for Yoda, I used the Wilton paste color in Leaf Green.  Again, just a small amount - I dragged the toothpick thru the glaze twice in probably close to 2 cups of glaze.  Then I added small amounts of the black, stirring well each time, until the green was close enough.

At least his color is close.

I left my kitchen in the shambles and stumbled off to bed while they dried.  This morning, I loaded them up on a platter and brought them into the sugar vultures at work.




Next year, I'll decorate them properly...

Anyway, have a great Friday and May the Fourth be with you!

Update:  Heh.  A coworker just emailed this: "Good these cookies are! Awesome you are!"  Totally made the lack of sleep worthwhile!

Why, Airports? Why?

Whoa! I leave for a while and they change everything. We'll see how well this goes...

I'm probably the only one to wonder about things like this, but a while ago I was taking the train from the economy parking lot to O'Hare Airport and noticed that all of the driverless cars on the tram have windshield wipers. Why'd they do that?

From there, I flew on to Dallas, where it was also raining. And lo and behold, Dallas also puts windshield wipers on their driverless airport tram and they do it even more strangely - only the right side of the tri-windows has a wiper. Weird.

Just Once...

I'd like to be wrong about this sort of thing.

It's over.

I hurt.

Wordless Wednesday - California Patchwork

SUGAR!

What with the new jobs and moving and general chaos, it's been a while since I spent any time being creative in the kitchen.

Yup. New job. I started on January 9 at a new company, back in supplier quality. So far, so good! The only fly in my ointment right now is the 26 mile (each way) commute. As much as I love Petunia, gas mileage is NOT her strong suit.

The new job means, of course, new coworkers. And I like most of these people, which is a significant change over the last job and probably has a great deal to do with my willingness to spend hours slaving over hot icing.

I doubled this recipe, and it made 25 heart cookies. Each of them was approx. 3 inches across at their widest, and probably 1/4 inch thick. I LOVE this recipe... it's quick, you don't have to chill anything or fool around with it, it works fine with my kitchenaid mixer; it's forgiving, and since I'm usually baking at 1 am, this is a good thing; and the cookies taste fantastic.

My Mom's Cut-Out Cookie Recipe:
1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream together butter and sugar. When well mixed, add egg and vanilla. Sift together dry ingredients and add gradually. Note: once you start adding flour, you can toughen the cookie with handling. Use a low speed and be gentle - don't mess with the dough any more than you have to.

The dough will be kinda crumbly looking in the bowl. Lightly flour your work surface, grab enough dough to make a softball-sized ball, form the ball, then roll out. Thickness is up to you; I prefer these cookies a bit thicker so 1/4" is perfect. Use your favorite cookie cutters, then place cookies on a lightly greased cookie sheet. I just use my counter as my work space, and the dough will stick a bit. I have an offset spatula (from the Wilton Tent Sale, of course) that I use to remove the cookie from my counter. It is totally worth paying retail for one of these things, just in the sheer frustration saved.

I take my softball-sized ball, roll it out, fit as many cookies in as possible, and then put the bits off to one side. (I save one little bit to use as a thickness gauge for the new ball of dough.) Make another ball from the bowl (finish off what's left in there if doubling) and repeat. After I've used all of the "fresh" dough, I combine the scraps for the second run, and then the third.

Here they are on my wonderful HUGE cookie sheet (also from WTS)...


Bake at 400 degrees. I put them in for 6 minutes, then turn the cookie sheets and give them another 3 - 4 minutes. This will vary with your oven, size and thickness of cookies.

Scoop them off the cookie sheet onto a cooling rack and let them cool completely.



Icing:
3/4 cup sifted confectionars sugar
~ 3-4 T water
food coloring

For the double batch of cookies, I used 2 cups of confectionars sugar, started with 11 T of water, and then just dumped a bunch more water in until it was the right consistency. Then I put some in another bowl, and added red food coloring. You can just brush the icing on and call it a day. I broke out the syringes, paint brushes, toothpicks, and my sprinkles collection.

For the marbled ones, I used the brush to paint on a layer of icing in one color, then I had another color of icing in the syringe. Put a squiggle of the other color on, then pull a toothpick thru in straight lines like you are drawing a checkerboard. It works better if you "draw" each line in a different direction. (So vertical line up, vertical line down, vertical line up all the way across. Then horizontal line left, then right then left, etc all the way across.)




Once the cookies were iced, I stumbled off to bed and left them to dry.



Any time I use confectioners sugar, I have an explosion with it and have to clean EVERY surface. Seriously, it's like my super power, to make confectioners sugar cover every square inch of my kitchen. Happily, my cabinents are white so it's hard to tell. The visible aftermath was bad enough...



All packed up and ready to go for Valentine's Day:


I brought these in for Valentine's Day on Tuesday. They were joined by my coworker's chocolate cake (OMG, best chocolate cake I've ever eaten!!), and her chocolate covered strawberries.

Then came Thursday, and this coworker's birthday. I'd ended up agreeing to bake the birthday cake but after Tuesday, I decided that bringing this woman a chocolate birthday cake was like bringing inferior tea to the Chinese - maybe not the best idea ever. So I went with a favored standby: Texas Sheetcake.

CAKE:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup butter
1 cup water
4 tablespoons cocoa powder

FROSTING:
6 tablespoons milk
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 cup butter
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a jellyroll pan.
2. Combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in mixer bowl.
3. Add butter, water and cocoa to saucepan; bring mixture to a boil then remove from heat. Add cocoa mixture to the flour mixture, mixing until blended.
4. Beat in the buttermilk and eggs.
5. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

6. For the icing: In a large saucepan, combine the milk, cocoa and butter. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat. Stir in the confectioners' sugar and vanilla, mixing until blended. Spread frosting over cake. (Cake can be warm or cool when iced.) If desires, sprinkle nuts over top. (I usually put nuts on half the cake.)

So, yeah. I've pretty much spent the whole week in a sugar coma. I'm going to go have a salad for dinner tonight.

Broken

Pardon me while I freak out. I just need to get this out, and this is about the only place I have that is still unknown to my real-life life. Yay to parents on facebook, right?


Broken... Well, not yet but it's coming. I can feel it looming and when I think about it too closely, I can't breathe. I can feel the cracks in me, like fault lines. When I think about you, and us, and where we are going, I can feel the cracks and I know that one day, I'll shatter.

It's not like you've been anything less than honest with me. You were. I just didn't see you coming. How can I feel like this for someone who was just a voice over the phone? I have a little voice in my head, and she warns me when it's time to run. Always before you, I listened. I ran. Usually across the country. (No intimacy issues here!) And it worked, and I stayed whole. Untouched, really. She tried with you, and I didn't listen. I didn't believe her. Yeah, we talked for hours and hours, and no one has ever managed to keep up with me the way you did - intellectually, and with your sheer randomness and your goofy sense of humor - all so like mine. But you lived in my "friend" box, and there you were going to stay. I was safe.

And then your facebook status changed to "in a relationship" and unlike a friend, I was not happy for you. Not even a little. I wanted to scratch her eyes out - which is an entirely new feeling for me. And then she posted that picture of the two of you, and you were asleep, and she was smirking into the camera with this "he's mine" look on her face and it nearly killed me. And I thought, "oh, shit." I have very strong feelings about poaching, in that I don't, and feeling like this for someone I'd never met who lived across the country AND who now had a girlfriend wasn't something I had any intention of nurturing, so I pulled back. A lot. And it hurt. A lot. And you kept calling. Friend. *snort*

Sometimes, the phone would ring, and I'd see your face on the caller id, and I'd curl into a ball on the couch and just stare at the phone. Then you'd call my home phone, and I'd cave and answer and just say that my cell was charging. And then we were off on the random talks and deep philosophical debates and pointless bickering and next thing I knew, it's 4 hours later and I was going to hate myself in the morning. You told me that I was your favorite female. And like a lovesick teenager, I held that to me.

She lasted about a month. You gave me several perfectly valid reasons why it didn't work... she's too young, she's too vanilla, she's going to be moving out of state, she didn't "get" you. And you dropped a bomb: "She wasn't you." And our nightly two to three hour conversations resumed.

On October 29, you told me that you loved me, and I was your best friend. About an hour later, you told me that you were IN love with me.

November 3 was an awful, wonderful day. I had no idea what we were doing or where we were going but it hurt. It was the least productive day of my professional life to date because I spent the whole day on the phone to my brother, my dad, my mom, several friends... all spent freaking out over you. Yeah, I told my parents all about you. They haven't heard about a guy I was interested in since Jeff, and he's been gone a long time. And then you called. So I now find myself in an "open" relationship with someone that I really truly fell in love with.

We all have a history. Yours is not one I ever suspected I'd be telling my mother about. YOU are not anything I ever saw myself bringing home to meet the family. A lot of your past, while not something I'm happy about, is not something I will hold against you. Or at least, I'm trying hard not to. You were a dumb kid, you screwed up... and your brain and your very different perspective on things were what attracted me the most.

But some of the things that you like scare me. YOU scare me, sometimes. Safe, sane, and consentual are words that I live by and I'm not sure, entirely, that you do. That is probably part of your allure.

The thing that will probably be the deal-breaker, though, is that "club" that you took an oath to. I've lost friends to motorcycles, and I hate them. My family has a history with those "clubs" and we're not even remotely fond of them. The worst, though, is that pesky oath. You told me that if I made you chose, I'd lose. Fair enough. I've been warned.

You have already planned the tattoos that you think we should get to go under the wedding bands. And that, my love, is where you will lose me. I love you. I've never felt for anyone the way I feel for you. I'm looking for jobs in California to be near you, in spite of swearing to never live there again. In spite of my family being in Ohio. In spite of loving my life here in Chicago.

As you've said, I am not exactly the poster girl for monogamy. I am, with a like-minded partner. But that's not you. I think you think that marriage to me would be like open relationship with me, except with rings and matching tattoos. But it's not. I'm much more conservative on some things than you suspect. If I take an oath to you, you have to be free to take an oath to me. And you can't. I'll never be first for you. Also? Not into open marriage. And I highly doubt I'll ever be the only for you.

I'm going to enjoy this ride while it lasts. I may as well; I've never been here before and may never be again. But it's a very bittersweet ride. Because you are going to break me into a million pieces. I hope I can put them back together again.

October?!?

How the hell did that happen?? I blame Facebook. And google+. And at least one other site. That's where I've been spending my online time lately.

I'm doing well. Still at the same company. Still don't like it. Believe it or not, but I only have a couple of months to my one year.

The house is okay. It's NOT what I had in North Carolina, but it's okay. Gods know that it's got its quirks (terrifying electric, mice, no porch light, weird animal smells, balls of random wires, roof bubbling off, etc etc etc) but thankfully, it's a rental.

I'm having a ball, actually. I'm still doing pottery (Mondays & Saturday mornings), AND I'm back to doing Stamp Camp with the girls (one Tuesday a month), AND making my own wine (Thursdays), hanging out with friends, and so on.

In addition, I've starting dating again and really, I need to get some of this written down. Wow. Some people... No one serious, and that is absolutely fine.

My family is well. The cats are good. No real complaints here. Well, except that winter's coming and Accuweather claims that we're going to get hammered this year - yay. And I totally knew what I was getting into there, so I have no one to blame but me.

So. How's you?

A Quandary...

I started this job the Monday after Thanksgiving last fall. I knew it was a risk, moving from dealing with suppliers to dealing with customers, but I REALLY wanted out of North Carolina.

Now, I work in a very small office (<30 people). The manufacturing plant is in Mexico. I like the company, I like my boss, and I like most of the people that I work with here. But. Oh man, BUT... I really dislike my job.


I really dislike not having the plant close enough to get my hand on them. I REALLY dislike dealing with the customer. I flat out hate the total lack of ownership or responsibility from people in the plant.


And none of that is going to change. Nothing I do is going to fix this. My boss sends out red fonted, bold faced emails to people telling them to do their jobs and they don't. He's the director - if they aren't listening to him, they sure as hell aren't going to listen to me.


Some deadweight (the guy who I dealt with when this company was MY supplier, the same one that I banned from my site 'cause he was a moron) left the company a couple of months ago, so I've been doing his job too. And I hate it. I hate customer visits and trying to act like an electronics technician when I'm not and don't want to be one. I've been trying to just hold on 'till we got a new hire in, but a couple of weeks ago, my boss mentioned that they may not be replacing him. I've said that I hate customer visits, but I don't know if that's going to make any difference.

Even if they hire someone for that role, I still can't actually FIX anything - I can't get to the plant. My whole job is pounding on other people to do their stuff. There hasn't been a single thing - not one - in nearly 5 months that I've needed from the quality manager down there that I've gotten in a timely fashion, if I even get it at all. Huge presentation to the customer - a monthly one, so it's not like they didn't expect it - on Friday. I'm supposed to send the presentation to them on Monday before. I didn't get some of the critical data from the qm until 2:30 am the night before the presentation. So I was at work at 6 am, throwing this thing together, to send to them 10 freaking minutes before the meeting started.


So, I guess I'll polish the resume AGAIN and start poking around to see what's out there. I really don't want to move again this soon... at least not until I've finished the HUGE claim for this move. (Note: Wheaton Mover = evil. Evil, evil, evil. Stay away!) I don't want to leave my boss high and dry - he's been good to me. But there's no other place for me to go in the company here, and I really don't want to stay either. Gah.

BLIZZARD!

They said it would snow, and I kinda didn't believe them. They always say it's going to snow. They said six to ten foot drifts, and I said "whatevs, not gonna happen." I did wonder about my coworkers' somewhat hysterical reactions - BLIZZARD! OMG! BLIZZARD! - 'cause I'm NOT in North Carolina anymore, and frankly I expect a bit more, rational weather-wise, from people who live in Chicago. And then it started.


We all went home early, although I couldn't resist playing with the Xterra in the snow. Petunia is a tank. I also gave some guy a ride to his house from the train station, which gave me a golden opportunity to play in the snow some more.

Of course, the cable was the first to go, so I huddled in my little house while the wind howled and gusted and the lights flickered. When I got bored with that (which didn't take long, given my attention span), I covered the bedroom window with a quilt to help with the draft situation and went to bed.

The next morning, it turned out that weathermen do occasionally know what they're talking about.




Happily, my neighbor did my sidewalk while he had the snowblower out doing his.



It only took 45 minutes to unbury my porch. (That is after I had to remove the glass from the storm door and shovel through the door to clear enough of the porch to open the door to start shoveling.) I'd been out there a bit over an hour when my other neighbor's son came over to help me dig. And about thirty minutes after that, his dad brought their snowblower over. All told, we didn't do the whole driveway (I have a HUGE driveway!), and it still took nearly four hours to dig out. Thank the gods for my neighbors or I'd still be out there.



And I'll be damned if I didn't have six foot drifts in the driveway. There's just something fundamentally WRONG with having to reach UP to shovel.



I had 22" of snow in my yard, in the sheltered spots, with drifts several feet high. (I'm not sure how high exactly because I wasn't willing to wade out there to check. I actually measured the drifts in my driveway 'cause I'm a dork like that.) Also? For the first time EVER, my company was shut down for a day. (That was the best part.)

So, is it Spring yet?

Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes

Wow, life's been crazy for me lately.

There's really no part of my life I haven't changed in the last couple of months. I moved back to the Chicago area (and holy smokes was THAT a nightmare! OMG moving SUCKS!). I changed jobs. I got a new vehicle. I've started (may the gods be merciful) dating again. Changed, changed, changed.

Well, except for my hair. So this weekend, I'm getting that highlighted. My life already feels pretty surreal, why not scare the hell out of myself every time I pass a reflective surface?

Happy New Year

A recap of my week:

Monday: flew from Cleveland to Chicago (oh, the irony) to Raleigh, my friend picked me up and we drove to the middle of freakin' nowhere. We stopped at the house, I picked up the jeep and hauled in the mail, then off to the studio to visit and GLAZE. Got back to the house around 9:30, cleaned a bit and fell into bed. (It's funny - I had never had keyless entry before Petunia. Within two weeks, I was totally ruined. WTF do you mean, I have to use a key?? At first, I found myself pretty much incapable of figuring out how the jeep worked. How quickly I forget...)

Tuesday: Up at 8:00, the packers arrived shortly after that and then I spent the day trying (with marginal success) to get them to pack what needed to go while leaving what needed to stay. While they were busy downstairs, I stealthily managed to pack up all of the liquids and chemicals that they wouldn't pack that were upstairs. (This was 8 boxes of stuff from the bathroom closet and the laundry room.) I went out at lunch and picked up food for them. (It's best to keep these people happy, after all.) Packed: my hairbrush, towels (but I managed to grab a couple of clean "junk" towels so I could actually shower), the carrying case to my toothbrush, the 3 bags for goodwill [that I had signs (STAYS!) on, told 3 people they stayed and hid in a previously empty closet], a secretaries desk, all of my trash bags, and a bunch of other stuff I probably need. I kept stashing packing paper, boxes, and tape so I could keep packing after they left, they kept taking my stashes away from me and putting them back in the truck. I finally resorted to hiding paper and tape outside when they weren't looking, and just demanding that they leave boxes. Headed to my friends' for dinner (their homemade lasange - YUMMY!) then back to the house where I spent several more hours packing up all of the liquids that I wanted them to take. (The customer service guy at the movers basically said that if I packed it, they'd take it with no questions - wink, wink, nudge, nudge.)

Wednesday: I didn't hear the alarms on my phones (alarm clocks got packed), or the huge truck pulling up. The driver pounding on the door woke me up. The day was spent riding herd on the loaders. There was a lot that the packers didn't pack, and it turned out that the driver had already picked up two over-sized loads, so there was about half of the space for mine that there was supposed to be, so he loaded up the heavy stuff and called for a second truck. The second truck didn't arrive until 5:00, and that bunch was completely incompetant. I had to instruct them to put everything in boxes, even though they KNEW it was going into a warehouse and needed to be better packed than if it was a straight shot in one truck. Then I had to stand there and make sure they did it. They didn't leave until after 7:00. My friend had come over when I started squawking about the second truck. She and I grabbed burgers and headed to her house. We ate and watched "Nunsense" and then I crashed there.

Thursday: Up around 9:00, to PetSmart for Nature's Miracle cat treatment, then to the house, treated the carpet then off to deal with the Post Office, electric company, gas company, return the cable box and remote, so on and so on. Then to the studio to work on glazing. Then my friend and I went to dinner to use the "baseball bucks" from my previous company. I had $75 in baseball bucks, dinner (drinks, appetizer, 2 dinners, desserts and coffee) was $75.15. SO SO SO good! Then I went back to the house and cleaned and packed up misc stuff until 2 am. Then I sneaked quietly into my friend's house and fell into bed.

Friday: Up around 8:30, did the final walk-thru with my landlord, then finished cleaning the stove. Wrapped my plants up in stretch wrap, loaded everything into the jeep, went to the studio, finished glazing, loaded my pottery supplies into the jeep and hit the road around 6 pm for Ohio.

I arrived at my parents' house about 11 am this morning, and fell into bed for about 5 hours. I'll leave here later tonight to head for Chicago with the cats. I have an appointment tomorrow at 2:00 to meet my new landlord and pick up my keys.

The first truck is supposed to arrive with my stuff on the fourth. No clue when the second truck will arrive. Maybe someday, this hell will actually be over...

Tomorrow...

I will fly from Cleveland to Chicago to Raleigh and one of my friends will pick me up in Raleigh and drive me back to No Man's Land, where I will wander my house and (hopefully) play in the studio.

Tuesday morning, the movers will arrive to pack up my stuff. Wednesday, they will load up my stuff. And then sometime between the third and the fifth, the movers will deliver my stuff to my new house. (Or so the theory goes...)

Ironically, my new house is only about 2 blocks from my old apartment. It's a bit smaller than I was hoping to find, but it's a 2 bedroom, 1 bath bungalow with a full basement (with an outside door) and a two car garage. So, it'll be okay I think. And it's walking distance to the train station and the library, so it's where I want to be.

It's also only the second house of the millions that I looked at that was even habitable. I wish now that I'd thought to take pictures of the bright orange counters, falling down ceilings, small dead mammals, inoperable bathrooms, sinks with no water, a garage with a body marked on the floor... seriously, it's been quite an adventure.

I've spent three weeks in an extended stay hotel, which was perfectly adequate... but omg am I glad to be out. One room living, camping out with a toaster, a microwave and 2 sparking burners is just not cool.

So, all's well here although even more nuts than usual. If you think of it, please send good karma my way - I could really use it this week!