Hey, Y'all!

A new year

2010 was a great year.  I watched my son grow and change in ways that have blown my mind. I went back to work outside the walls of academia and settled into myself, proving I COULD be both a mom and a stage manager.  I've watched my husband work and  fish and smile and enjoy being a dad and it's made our marriage stronger.  Together, we made the sensible yet difficult decision not to expand our family and took care of things in a permanent way.  I almost lost my mom, and now I thank God every day for the "almost" part.  I cooked and baked and listened and laughed. I found a great new home online, an amazingly fun creative outlet, where I'm surrounded by some great, like-minded foodies.  I traveled "home" to NYC. I met so many friends who had previously just lived in images online. I finally lost the baby weight.

Most importantly, after three years of craziness, including a pregnancy, a child, some health issues, a major relocation and professional redefinition, I found myself again  in 2010.  I'm so ready to take 2011 by the horns. I can't wait to see what's in store for my little family.

Here's my top To Do's for 2011:

• Learn  to make killer guacamole
• Bake a Buzz and Woody cake for Dean's third birthday
• Come to grips with the fact that OMG my baby is THREE (but not til next Wednesday)
• Visit friends and/or host them in my home
• Go on more dates with my husband
• Meet more blog friends
• Nurture all my friendships
• Take a trip with my parents
• Spend one week eating nothing but fresh foods
• Quit drinking Coke Zero I totally changed my mind about that one. Already.
• Teach someone how to do something. (I'm not picky)
• Get my engagement ring repaired so I can wear it again
• Have a completely clean house, even if it's only for a day. Ok, an hour. (Baby steps, you know.)

What are  your goals for the new year?

Happy 2011, friends!

 

 

 

Very Merry Indeed

 
This Christmas kicked last Christmas's butt.  Aside from the cold Marcus sprouted yesterday, we all stayed relatively healthy. I had rehearsal until  2pm on Christmas Eve, so I drove home that afternoon and baked cookies with Dean. Then  we read Christmas books, enjoyed our tree and played with a couple of early gifts until time to read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and go to bed. Santa did a drive-by on the fire truck around dinner time and Dean was mesmerized.  I cannot even tell you how  many times I uttered the words, "Santa's watching, so you'd better be good!" that day, but they finally seemed to sink in. Just as Dean went to crush Play Doh into his hair, he caught himself and told me, "Nope, Santa's watching!" I wonder if that will work all year...

Christmas morning came and we went downstairs to see what the man in the red suit had left. We put Dean's Santa gifts in his new toy box with a note instructing him to look inside. At first, he was so fascinated by the fact that Santa had eaten the cookies we'd left that he barely noticed the gifts. He wanted to open his gifts from his Nana, Pop Pop and cousins first and he was SOOOOO excited to find these Woody and Jessie dolls inside!

 
Once we'd wrecked our own living room sufficiently finished with Santa gifts and had breakfast, we hit the road for my parents' house.  Dean watched Toy Story (big surprise) and napped on the way, so when we arrived, he was ready for round 2.  Mom had a wonderful feast of turkey and all the fixings ready for us. We chowed down on the traditional fare while Dean enjoyed a big plate of lasagna (I've told you of his aversion to poultry,  yes?). Once our bellies were full to the point of near-explosion, we  opened more gifts. Dean received every Buzz and Woody product manufactured, but his favorite was these guys:

Last night, he slept with little Buzz and Woody, big Jessie and Woody and Stu the monkey. The bed, it was full.

We all had a wonderful time watching Dean enjoy his new toys and ooh-ing and aah-ing  over my mom's new Kindle. On the 26th, Marcus and I set out for our first movie date in TWO YEARS. We had lunch at a cute place called Irie, where we enjoyed BBQ shrimp poboys, did some shopping and saw How Do You Know, which was pretty  cute.

Overall, it was a wonderful holiday. I even got a bonus day off today, due to the fact that my director  and half my cast are snowed into the east coast. Hope your holidays were merry and bright, too!

I have about  40 more Christmas pictures on my Facebook page, should you  need to see more!

 

Merry Christmas To All

Here's wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas. 

 

Tangible

In case you couldn't tell by  my absence, I'm back at work, which doesn't leave much free time for blogging. I'm commuting each day an hour each way, so by the time I get home, I want to eat everything in sight, snuggle with Dean and watch Criminal Minds with Marcus until time to pass out. I have the morning off today, so we're curled up with a big pot of coffee watching "Horton Hears A Who," which Dean refers to as "Horton Hears A Poot." Yeah.

ANYWAY. I love Christmas and one of the things I love most is recieving Christmas cards. I used to take great pride in signing each card  and addressing the  envelopes. These days, companies  make  it easy on us--we upload a picture, type in some text and they make a beautiful holiday greeting just for us.  We got some cute photo  cards this  year (which took 9 forevers to arrive, by the way) and I must admit--I took the easy way  out and just shoved them into envelopes and sent them. I'd have liked to include a little note to a lot of folks, but time was just not on my side.

I've enjoyed receiving cards a lot this  year, though. In this day of instant gratification-type communitcation (thank you, email and Facebook), it was great to get something not electronic from my friends and family, something tangible. I always get excited when I see an old friend's handwriting on the envelope, noticing it hasn't changed that much since we were 12 years old. It's fun knowing my friends spent time stuffing envelopes and sticking stamps just like I did.

I was most happy to get a card in the mail yesterday from Christy, addressed to "The Lanes,  Masters of the Universe." The front was a printed photo card with great pictures of her family, and on the back, they had all signed it. I know I go on and 0n about how much I love my blog friends, and I  have to  tell you--it's cool and a little surreal when they become tangible. At BlogHer, I got to hug  some folks I've been friends with for years, but hadn't  had the pleasure of meeting in real life until the conference.  It was surreal to see them walking toward me, not just living in the still images I see on my laptop day after day. On the back of Christy's card, her daughter signed her name and her son drew X's and O's. I immediately sent her and email  telling her, "It's like you're real people or something!" She knows what I mean. A lot of you do.

This Christmas, touch things. Smell things. Really look at your family and friends.  Run  your fingers over the ornaments your great-grandma made. Inhale the sweet smells of cinnamon and tangerines. Breathe in the fresh,  cold air.  Hug your kids a little tighter. Savor the tangible treasures of the season.

Good Intentions

I had hoped to give you a virtual tour of our Christmas tree today. (Is that even interesting to anyone but me? Looking at other  people's Christmas ornaments?) Then yesterday happened, which threw today off-kilter and, well, it ain't happenin'.  I had intended to drop Dean off at school Wednesday morning, drive to work, get the last bit of my prep work done (I start rehearsals on Friday), then drive back in time to get Dean at 2pm.  As we were preparing to leave, I logged onto Facebook and saw tales of icy roads, freezing rain and school cancellations.  I opened the curtains to reveal the fact that YES! There was indeed freezing rain, and right outside my own house even!  My car was completely frozen and the tv was flashing news of road closures, accidents and schools on alert.  Valuing my life as I do, I called and told them I wasn't coming to work.  They told me that was a pretty good idea.

Since I didn't go in yesterday, this meant I HAD to go today to finish prepping my rehearsal studio. Dean has come with me once before when I was doing the very task I had to do today, so I brought him along. Halfway through our drive down, he started wheezing a bit. He said he was ok, but he was coughing. I tried to encourage him to take it easy and watch his DVD or play with his trains while I worked, but OMG TAPE MEASURES, PAPER CUPS AND DIFFERENT COLORS OF TAPE!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, he broke our 100 foot tape measure, wrapped himself with red spike tape and made a tower out of paper cups. When we were done, we headed to our car, which was parked waaaaaaaaaaay out in front of the theatre. PETER PAN is playing right now and the cast and crew is huge, so there was no parking to be found in the staff lot when  I arrived. Halfway back to the car, Dean sat down on the (WET) sidewalk and said, "Sugar, I tired!" So I shifted the backpack, giant purse, insulated lunchbox thingy and laptop I was carrying and scooped him up. He looked really tired, so I suggested he take a nap in the car. He replied, "Ok, Sugar. Niiiiiiight Night."

He napped for about 10 minutes before coughing so hard that he gagged and barfed a little. That woke him up. He said, "Uh oh, a mess!" We pulled over, cleaned up and got back on the road. He refused to  nap when we got home, so we spent the afternoon putting stickers on the important dates  in our Highlights 2011 calendar, reading High Five magazine, snuggling and watching Curious George. He perked up a bit when Marcus came home, so I ran to the grocery store and swung through Zaxby's for a quick dinner. We were settling in, watching a pre-bedtime episode of The Cat In The Hat and looking through a toy catalog when Dean started barfing buckets...all over my left arm.   Marcus, ever the smart one, caught most of it with a page from a sale paper. Let me tell you...I  never want to see another grape as long as I live.

So, friends, that is why you are not getting a virtual tour of my Christmas tree today. On Friday I will begin rehearsing my latest project. I'm excited about getting back to work, mildly apprehensive about being away from home more and really, really ready for my Christmas break next week.

Here's hoping this Christmas isn't barftastic like last year.

Another Christmas Miracle

Mid-December is a great time for our family. Three years ago (on Dec. 19), my mom received a kidney from her friend Bradley.  On Monday, her youngest brother Mark received a kidney from his wife Michelle. Both of  them are sore but doing well. Mark's polycystic kidney disease was very advanced. Each of his kidneys weighed over 20 pounds and was the size  of a football. He was in constant pain, unable to work or enjoy life at all. The surgery took over 9 hours, as Mark had both his native kidneys removed before receiving the donor organ from Michelle. But it's over now and everyone's on the mend. Just one more blessing for us to count this year.

 
Mark and Michelle the morning of the transplant.

Comfort Food Saturday: Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

This week one of my favorite blogs, Eat At Home, did a feature on bananas. Tiffany has started doing a featured ingredient post each week and putting up a linky so that folks can link-up their recipes from around the blogosphere.  I was so happy I squealed when I saw her recipe  for Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Years ago when I was in NYC, the conductor for a show I did would go home between performances on two-show days and make  a big batch of these cookies to share with the cast and crew.  I fell head-over-heels in love with them, but never managed to snag her recipe.  Tiffany's taste EXACTLY like them! They bake up like soft little pillows. The banana is not overpowering and the chocolate gives it just enough sweetness.

Bake up  a batch  of these this holiday season and watch people become instantly happier after just one bite. If you really want to get crazy, stir  in some coconut. And remember to pop over to Eat At Home's Bananas post to check out the awesome recipes shared by Tiffany and other bloggers!

BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 mashed bananas

1 egg

3 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (*Tiffany uses a whole bag, so feel free to add as much as you like!)

Cream the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl.  Add the egg and bananas.  In a separate bowl, stir together the dry ingredients.  Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet, mixing until combined.  Stir in the chocolate chips.  Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto a baking sheet or stone.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

 

 

Christmas is beautiful

So Dean didn't nap yesterday. I put him to bed around 12:45 (about half an hour later than usual) and he immediately got up. That didn't bother me because  he sometimes gets up to get a toy or a book. I went downstairs, put dinner in the crockpot, took a batch of cookies out of the oven, then went up to check on him. He had every block we own strewn across the floor, his pillow and comforter on the floor and was sitting among all of it reading a book  to a stuffed Elmo doll.  I said, "Dean! Go to sleep!" He said, "Hi, Sugar, I reading! Reading to Elmo!" He played for an hour before I just gave up and brought him downstairs. I told him, however, that if he wasn't going to nap, he'd  need to help out. We worked on the tree a bit, had several  snacks, cleaned  off  the mantle to  make room for Santa and the snowman and did some laundry. Then, when  he looked like  he was about to pass out, we watched SuperWhy. That wound him up because OMG ABCs, SUGAR,  I'M A SUPER READER!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!  By the  time  Marcus got home, I was ready to drop. A lovely, easy  dinner helped recharge my battery, then  we decorated the tree.

Dean loves the Christmas tree. He's been trying to hug it  all day. We pulled out the boxes of ornaments and started showing them to Dean.  He went "ooh"  and "aah" at each  new box...until I made my fatal error:  "OH! Let me go get your Buzz and Woody ornament!" And then it was over. He carried Buzz and Woody  around the living room yelling "To infinity and beyond!" while Marcus and I decorated the tree. We tried  to get him to hang it on the tree, but he'd go,"No, it's MINE!" Once we had all the ornaments on, we asked Dean what he thought. He said, "Christmas! It's beautiful!"

I  have always loved Christmas. Like, it's almost annoying how much I love Christmas. But there's nothing in the world that can compare to watching your child experience Christmas and really start to "get it" for the first time.

He also thinks Joseph in every Nativity scene he sees is his dad.

What I Did Today

Overslept. Marcus's phone blew up with some kind of freakishly loud ringtone at 7:00, then we went back to sleep until 7:35 when Dean began tossing things over the gate we keep in his doorway. Getting ready to get Dean to school, Marcus to a meeting and me to work was just peachy. Here's the thing:  I NEVER oversleep. I can count on one hand the number of times I've overslept. It messes up my rhythm for the entire day.

Returned to work where I felt a baby who's a week away from being born kick his mama, talked to Captain Hook for 20 minutes and finally figured out how to get into the email account I haven't used in 8 weeks. Captain Hook was obviously the most interesting part, but only after he removed his wig because that thing is  SCARY. (The theatre where I  work is doing PETER PAN...just in case you hadn't figured that one out on your own.)

Put socks on my child approximately 560 times.   It's really cold here and sort of drafty in our house, yet Dean refuses to keep socks or slippers on his feet. Every time I turned my back, which was a lot because he needed Nilk! and Appa Juice! and maybe a Nana! or a Bloo Sucka!, he'd  pull his socks off and hide them.  So a lot of our afternoon involved me  wrestling him to the ground to cover his frozen piggies.

Made a pizza bagel. We  had no real appetite for dinner tonight, so I made Dean something wholesome, then made bagels for Marcus and me.  Then we ate popcorn and Dum Dums while  playing on our computer.

Watched "Sing-Off."  Are y'all watching this show? We loved it last year, though I was for the 'Bubs to win. This year my favorite group is Committed, a group of 6 young men from Huntsville, Alabama who began singing together in church. They are incredible. The best part of the show, however, is Ben Folds as a judge. Tune in.

Played computer  games with Marcus.  We are hooked on a site called King.com where you can play free games. Our favorite is Bubble Witch and Marcus is much better at it than I am. I, however, am the Cookie Rookie champ. Oh,yes, I am.

What'd you do today?

Tis the season

Marcus had to go out of town for work over the weekend, so Dean and I headed to my parents' house. We had a great time playing at the park and in their yard, shopping, eating and visiting. Dean took an instant liking to my  mom's Nativity set. He took each piece out,  kissed it, then put it back. He put  baby Jesus to bed saying, "Night night, baby Jesus!" (it sounds like "Jeesoos" when he says it) On Friday, the baby  Jesus and Mary went missing, but I found them Saturday morning driving  Dean's toy tow truck. As my mom put on her facebook status that day, "Jesus took the wheel."

 On Saturday, we stopped at the store to see Santa! Dean was very, VERY excited. We'd been practicing saying, "Hi, Santa! I've been a good boy." We were next in line when Dean tried to make a beeline for the big guy in red. When he  got to him, he climbed right up into his  lap and smiled. Santa asked what he'd like for Christmas and Dean told him, "Buzz and  Woody toys." Santa said he liked Toy  Story, too.  Then while Dean picked out a  candy cane, Santa told me about his ex-wife, which was both funny and a little creepy.

Saturday night we drove around  looking at Christmas lights, then came home a little before 8pm. Dean, Grammy  and I were in the kitchen making faces at each other, Dean snacking on a hot dog bun, when we heard a knock at the door.   I assumed it was  my dad locking himself out or something, then we heard a giant "HO HO HO!" My parents' dear friend Allen is playing Santa this season and he dropped by to make a housecall for  Dean!

 
How cool to get a personal visit from Santa and to have time to play with him! (All while enjoying a hot dog bun!)

Dean showed off his new skills, giving Santa a high-five and knuckle-bump:

 
None of us will ever  forget this gesture from Allen or the look on Dean's face when Santa showed up at Grammy and Papa's house.