Hey, Y'all!

Solitary

My guys have been gone for 17 days. SEVENTEEN. DAYS.  If you've been reading this blog for a while, you may know that we take a long trip to visit our family in Virginia each summer, usually for 2-3 weeks.  This year, with my new job, I have no vacation time available for such a luxurious trip.  Since this is usually the only time of year we see that side of the family, it was very important that the guys still go on the trip.

So I've been alone for 17 days.

They'll be home tomorrow, THANK GOD, because 1. I am bored. 2.  I miss them. 3. I'm pretty sure the cat's plot to kill me is nearly complete.

I've kept myself busy and have actually had some very enjoyable times while they've been gone.  I've been out with my work friends and a few other friends I don't get to see very often, which has been nice. i've gotten to know several new places in and around Birmingham.   I certainly have not minded sleeping as late as I'd like on the weekends.  I've made foods the guys don't like for my dinners. 

My routine, however, is practically non-existent.  More than once, I've woken up with dark rings under my eyes because I forgot to take off my makeup the night before. That's something I always do while Marcus brushes his teeth, right before we go to bed.  I've done laundry exactly four times since they've been gone.  The loads are tiny when they're just for one person.  I miss matching Dean's tiny socks.

Today, my last day without them, will consist of cooking, soaking up a few more hours of horrible television (Totally 80's on VH1, anyone?), and sleeping all over the entire bed.

I can't wait for them to be home.

Spring Break Is All Around Me

I thought briefly of writing a song with that title, set to the tune of "Love Is All Around," but more reminiscent of "Christmas Is All Around" from Love Actually. I have spared you. You are welcome.

Marcus and Dean are on spring break this week.  We started the wild party that it will surely be on Friday with an impromptu trip to the Galleria Mall.  Marcus and Dean decided they wanted to buy the Skylanders video game for the XBox.  I beat them there and walked around a mall alone for the first time in over 5 years.  It was very surreal.  The last time I did that, I was about 8 months pregnant with Dean and in Queens.  When the guys got there, Dean wanted to show Marcus the mall because he thought he'd never been there.  You see, we don't go to the mall often.  Dean's first real memories of it are from his 4th birthday, and then we only went to Build A Bear. My mom and I took him on his birthday this year and he discovered the true joy of the mall.  After some shopping and without any luck finding Skylanders, we headed to Johnny Rockets for dinner.  Marcus always enjoys judging watching tables of pre-teen-aged girls talking loudly and wearing more makeup than anyone really should.  The gaggle behind us was cracking us up, particularly the perfect blend of their prissiness combined with an obvious love of triple-meat hamburgers. 

Dean has gotten to stay up late so far this weekend. I noticed him drifting off while we were reading a story last night, so I paused for a second.  He opened his eyes and prompted me, feeding me the next line of the book.  Thank you, stage manager's child.

We went to Lowe's yesterday, a favorite family activity for some unknown reason, and bought some new plants for the garden. We all chipped in when we got home and worked on clearning out the weeds, trimming back the rosemary (OMG the rosemary!), and getting the bed ready for the new plants.  We'll (hopefully) be growing rainbow chard, blueberries and blackberries soon.  And, naturally, rosemary.  Dean loved digging in the dirt and helping bring the weeds to the trash pile in the back yard.  I just hope I don't kill anything.

Other plans for the week have been discussed. They involve fishing, visiting me at work for a lunch date, a movie outing, a possible trip to the science museum, and painting a picture to be used in Marcus's show.  I wish I could be home with them during the day, but I look forward to hearing about their adventures at night.  I hope to use the nights with Marcus at home to finally run out and get a hair cut, eat dinner in a liesurely fashion, instead of the rushed insantiy that it is five nights a week when he's in rehearsal, and enjoy some extra evening time with Dean, since bed time can be a little later. 

I will be shocked if someone doesn't end up at the Bass Pro Shop. They'd better bring me some fudge.

 

Thank You. Thank You Very Much.

I met Elvis in Wendy's last weekend.

It was my first full weekend off since early July and we'd made plans to head to my parents' house to pick up some furniture of Mim's that I wanted to bring home.  We got a late start because Marcus teaches until 2:00 on Fridays this semester. Dean had a great day at school that day and was jazzed about going to Grammy and Papa's.  We hit the road and made pretty good time.  We decided to stop for something to eat in Aberdeen, Mississippi, the tiny town where my grandma and her sisters grew up, the place where I spent a lot of time during my childhood summers.  They have a really clean, nice Wendy's and Dean was excited about the Where's Waldo game he got in his kid's meal, complete with Waldo glasses.

After we'd eaten, we gathered our drinks and headed for the exit. Around that time, Elvis entered the building with people that we in the very deep, dark woods of the south would refer to as his "Mommer n' Deddy."  Elvis was fantastic. He was in his mid-40s with the perfectly dyed black hair, sideburns and "gold" jewelry.  He was wearing a black mesh tank top onto which he had written ELVIS with what looked to be a liquid paper pen. He also had what looked like a homemade ELVIS tattoo on his arm.  And he smelled like he hadn't bathed since the real Elvis was alive.  Obviously, I couldn't take my eyes off him. I also couldn't stop giggling.

Marcus and Dean went to the restroom, so I stood near the door holding onto our drinks.  Elvis's mom was sitting at the table closest to me, repeatedly screaming to Elvis and his dad, who were in line, that she wanted "the grill chicken salad with EYE-talian dressin'!"  Elvis's dad was about 6'7" and wearing overalls. He was awesome.  Right before it was their turn to order, Elvis walked over to his mom and asked, "What was it that you wanted?" I couldn't help but chuckle out loud a little.  As he wandered back to the cash register, Elvis passed dangerously close to me, tipped his head and said, "How you doin', ma'am?" It was...special.

Marcus came out of the men's room with Dean just in time to see this exchange go down and asked, "Did Elvis just try to pick you up?"  Why yes. Yes he did.   Guess I've still got it. (HA.)

We Signed Up For This

It's funny to me (strange, not haha) when people ask when I'm going to stop doing theatre. What else do they expect me to do?  I'm not a hobbyist. I make my living doing theatre. I get a paycheck every week, I manage a staff, I work the majority of the year (a big deal for theatre artists), I receive health benefits, retirement benefits, and most importantly, personal fulfillment from my job.

My life is exactly what I signed up for.

I knew what a life in theatre meant.  I wasn't willing to do anything else.  I found someone who felt the same.  We've made it work.

I knew I wanted to be a parent.  My husband did, too.  We're still figuring it out on a daily basis, but it's working.  Dean sees that we're both excited to go to work, not dragging our feet and dreading every work day.  He's excited to hear what we did each day because we're excited to tell him.

We're doing it. We're actively living our dream.

 We knew our reality would be different from other people's reality. Our hours are sometimes strange, our jobs are downright goofy sometimes (when's the last time YOU blew up a vampire at work?), but we're doing what we love and making ends meet.  We're surviving. 

We knew what we were signing up for, and we did it anyway. 

And it's working.

And we're so thankful.

Comfort Food Saturday: Antipasto

 
Marcus and I lived in Queens for several years, as many of you know, and we frequented an amazing little salumeria that cured their own meat and made their own cheese.  Everything I ever ate from there was incredible.  We used to go pick up some antipasto, ravioli salad and a nice, crusty loaf of bread, then sit and indulge in a nice Italian feast.  Since we've moved away, there have been days where we'd give ANYTHING for some of that food. In fact, I brought home 2 quarts of balsamic ravioli salad from NYC when I went for BlogHer last year.  We decided to splurge a little this week and buy some good-quality meats, some fresh cheese and a few other odds and ends to make our own antipasto.  It was worth every single penny we spent. 

We used Boar's Head meats, some from the deli's refrigerator, others that we had cut fresh.  Publix has a good fresh mozzarella, so we got some of that, along with some fresh veggies, then we picked some fresh herbs from my garden.  Assembling it was almost as much fun as eating it. (Almost.)

This antipasto, alongside some pasta salad and a nice loaf of crusty bread, makes for a perfect summer dinner.

ANTIPASTO

*Use as much or as little of each cold cut as you want.  We used a large Ziploc container and filled it to the top, eyeballing the ingredients.

• Mortadella (with pistachios)
• Sopressatta
• Prosciutto
• Hard Salami
• Pepperoni
• Fresh Mozzarella Cheese
• Red onion, sliced into rings, then cut in half
• Pepperoncini peppers, sliced into rings
• Green onion (2, diced)
• 1 small bottle Newman's Own Olive Oil and Vinegar salad dressing

Cut meats and cheese into cubes and place into a bowl.

 
Add peppers and onions and entire bottle of dressing. Stir well, then refrigerate, stirring every hour.  Serve well-chilled.

 
Enjoy!

Lofty Intentions and Chicken

WARNING: The following is random drivel. You've been warned.

I keep reminding myself at about 3pm each day that I want to start a week  in the life photo project. Yesterday, I went as far as setting the camera on my nightstand.  Of course, when you get a tiny visitor in your room at 5:30am who watns to snuggle up then falls back asleep and spreads out so much that he runs his dad out of the room at 6:15am, you kind of forget details like that.  Now it's almost 4th of July and my goal was to do the project during a very ordinary week (without holidays and road trips, you see), so we'll put it back on the shelf for now. But it WILL happen. Oh yes.

We've sort of been holed up in our own little world lately. It's SO hot. We've tried to take Dean to the park as much as possible, but even he's figured out it's too hot sometimes.  He now asks to visit Chick-Fil-A when he wants to go to the playground, which is fine with me. They have a big, clean play area and I can sit there and sip a sweet tea while he climbs.  Yesterday, Marcus dropped us off there then went to pick up a few groceries.  While we were there, Dean told me he was hungry.  I reminded him that this place ONLY serves chicken and he said he'd try it.  I bought a small kids' meal and a lemonade for myself, assuming I'd be the one who actually ended up eating the 4 nuggets and waffle fries.  Dean looked warily at the nugget, which I tore in half and dipped in a little ketchup. He licked it, then stuffed it into his mouth and declared it "Tasty."  We're calling this a huge parental victory people.  It took me nearly three and a half years, but my boy has now ingested chicken voluntarily. Amen.

Our life these days seems full of afternoon rainstorms that don't last nearly as long we we'd like, tiny boys' underpants (which really are the cutest things), fresh fruit and dinosaurs.  The rest of our summer is filling up with plans, as we head to my mom and dad's for the 4th of July, then to visit the Lanes in Virginia in late July.  We continue to work on using the potty and it's going really well. So well, in fact, that Dean scored a trip to the movie theatre to see Kung Fu Panda 2 this weekend.

 
Going to the movies is totally fun, especially when you sucker your parents into buying the Kung Fu Panda 2 snack pack, none of which you will eat, so your mom has to drink her Coke Zero out of a goofy Kung Fu Panda cup. Bwahaha.

 
Helping with the yard work.  Wisteria = the devil.  Also, why are you so huge, child?

Our week at a glance

 
Mooooooooooom, do these black ballet flats go with my new big boy undies?  I like them. Sorry I trashed the living room. (again)

 
Dean has started calling his father "Marcus," probably because he heard all of us calling him that a lot on vacation. When he says it, it sounds like "Mah-cus."  Here he can be seen explaining how to catch a bluegill.

"You trow the cricket in da water and da fishy bites it--CHOMP, Mahcus."

 
Look! A rare photo of me! I do exist!

Whatever, lady. It's hot. Let's get a juice box.

 

Deano Lane'll make ya JUMP JUMP! (on the couch!) (which is a no-no!) (but still cute!) (in big boy undies!)

 

Mooom, I appreciate that you and Mahcus are "show people," really, I do.  However, I do not care about these Tony Awards of which you speak.  Hook me up with some Princess and The Frog.

Don't call us show people, son.

The one thing I didn't get a picture of that OH, I wish I would have was Dean and me watching his lovey, Stu, in the washer last night. We had a bit of a traumatic evening--Dean was stung by a yellowjacket 3 times. He was such a trouper about it though. Between his screams of pain, he made sure to say "thank you" to me for putting ice on his stings and to his dad for applying hydrocortisone cream.  With all that excitement, we all lost track of how long it had been since our last potty break, so we had a little accident on the living room floor. Poor Stu got a little damp, so into the washer he went.  Dean was nervous for him, so I let him pour in the detergent and we sat right in front of the door and watched Stu roll around in the suds.  It was one of those perfectly simple moments. I got to steal lots of top-of-the-head kisses and we sang a lot of songs.  And once Stu was all clean, to bed they went.

Today, we head to Birmingham Children's Theatre to see one of our former students in The Little Red Hen. I'm so, so excited and I hope Dean loves it.  Something tells me he will, being the son of show people.

All Tied Up

I'm having my tubes tied on Friday.

DISCLAIMER! If reading about my ladybits makes you uncomfortable, look away! (DAD!) Go read Food Lush or something.

Ok, you  asked for it.

Ever since learning we wouldn't be able to have more children last year, Marcus and I have spent countless hours discussing our family-planning options.  The big V, IUDs and  many other things came up, but I ultimately decided, not that long ago, that I want to get my tubes tied.  Before  I (or anyone else) could talk myself out of it, I called my OBGYN and talked with the nurse. That was last Monday.  She offered me a surgery slot last Thursday. Seeing how we'd need to arrange childcare and the like, we put it off until this week.

This decision was both incredibly difficult and very easy to make.  Over the past few months, I have truly come to be at peace with the fact that I can't have another baby.  It still sucks, but I can live with it. What I can't live with is the slap-in-the-face of having to use various forms of birth control.  (I'm serious, Dad, go away.)  Hormonal methods are not an option for me, as they could interfere with my kidney function or my blood pressure, so it was to be IUD, snippity snip or party hats for us from here on out.

No, thanks.

I considered a copper IUD (Paragard), but learned that my uterus is retroverted and short-in-stature (like the rest of me), so I would  likely "expel" the device.  Haunted by visions of  an IUD flying across the room and smacking some poor actor  in the face during rehearsal was enough to take that option off the table. (Not to mention the extra cramps and bleeding often associated with those. NO WAY.)

I have a pre-op appointment on Wednesday,  followed by labwork, where they'll likely have to jab me in the hand to get the blood they need. (I have AWFUL veins.)  Assuming that all goes well, I go in bright and early Friday morning, have my surgery, then come home the very same day.  Our buddy Mia is moving in to help take care of Dean for as long as we need her to over the weekend and I intend to take it extremely easy until I feel like I can handle things on my own again.  The timing is great--I go back to work in mid-December, and by then I'll be all healed up and ready to climb the countless flights of stairs from my office in the basement to the rehearsal halls on the main floor.

I have to tell you, and I know I've said it before, I have the best blog friends.  I shared this news with a  couple of my close blogging girl friends last week and they graciously volunteered to take over the site on Friday to keep you updated. Christy will be my point-person, giving real-time updates as she's able.   Frema will be throwing support my way from Indiana while surfing the internet to research locations for a future blog friends getaway because MY MERCY do we need it.

Molly convinced me to  have two people on board for updates. Here's her take on things:

I would like to be your person in the event that you fly the coop prior to hospital check-in.  "Jen could have had her tubes tied," I will report to your readers, "but instead she is eating string cheese...with a tabby cat...named Santiago...in Mexico." 

So there you have it. Check back on Friday for updates. If you hear from Christy, it means all went  well and I'm recovering nicely. If you hear from Molly....who knows. Shannan will update the Twitter universe.

You should also know that Christy thinks I planned my surgery for November so I'd have good blog fodder for NaBloPoMo.  The truth? The world may never know.

Also, feel free to ask me questions.  The main reason I chose to share this with you all is because it will likely help someone at some point.  So ask  away! (And thanks for caring.)

** The only thing I do ask is that if you're a "real-life"  friend (especially if you live in Montevallo) that you  keep this info to yourself. I don't need all  my husband's students asking him how my tubal went. :)

Time Suck

Marcus and I are going through a breathtakingly mature phase that involves us sitting on our couch eating cookies and watching Autotune the News on Youtube for at least an hour each night after Dean goes to bed. (If you're going to hit that link, be sure you scroll down and watch their "Bed Intruder Song.")  We also spend countless hours Facebook stalking people and cruising the net for little useless nuggets of wisdom.  Tonight I spent close to 30 minutes searching for a good chicken pot pie recipe, even though neither Marcus nor I even LIKE chicken pot pie. (And you know Dean's views on poultry.)

I visited Cake Wrecks 3 separate times today because the most recent post featured "Dueling Banjos" as background music.  Marcus is sitting here playing some game where you build little towns.  When we first got married, we would sit on a trivia site, a site whose name escapes me right now, taking pop culture quizzes.  In fact, we got so into it that we started writing our own quizzes to submit to the site and they liked them so much that they gave us an award.  Could we please be a bit more geeky?

I say all this so that I can ask you to tell me your favorite time-sucking internet sites.  You know you have them.  You can look over at my blogroll and see where I spend a lot of my time, but you should also know that I've almost always got my Skype window open so I can chat with Shannan and my Tweetdeck is rarely closed.

What's your favorite guilty pleasure website? 

Profound Randomness (Now with more parentheses!)

For some reason, I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself to write something profound. Or profoundly funny. Or both.  I guess it could be because BlogHer is so close and I want my front page to be full of awesome! writing! when people I meet there visit.  Or it could be that it's Monday. Or that I'm between jobs and the most profound thing I've done all day was combining a manufacturer coupon with a store coupon, thus getting two, count 'em, two dollars off my baby wipes.  I should probably just go to the kitchen and bake something. 

I did manage to drag poor Marcus and Dean to Target, where I bought the most amazing control-top pantyhose I've ever owned and scored some beach toys for 48 cents. (It should be noted that I will probably ruin the pantyhose the first time I try to put them on and should, therefore, have bought two pairs.  Alas.) Then we came home and entertained ourselves by presenting Dean with a big bowl of spaghetti for lunch and watching him slurp noodles. (It's the little things, folks.)  I'd like to be able to report that we've been outside frolicking in the warm summer breeze, but A) there's no breeze in Alabama in July and B) it's hot, y'all.  Every Sunday, I wake up and wonder if there would be a good day that week to hit the zoo.  Then I go outside to get the paper and I have a heat stroke and decide that if it's this hot at 6:30am, there's no way any of us will survive a trip to the zoo unless we can go at midnight. (Unfortunately, they're not open then.)

We find different things to busy ourselves with indoors.  Sometimes it's family Play-Doh tournaments, other times it's me reading cookbooks and suggesting I make fun new desserts, only to have Marcus say, "I'd rather just have the chocolate thing." (the chocolate thing being this)  Sometimes we throw Dean into the bathtub to "swim" because he refuses to go into his blow-up pool on the deck. "Nope.  Hot," he whispers when we ask if he wants to go swimming outside.  Our library doesn't do story time in the summer, which seems very silly to me. I mean, wouldn't that be the ideal time to do story time?  When the little darlings aren't in school and need intellectual stimulation in the form of literacy-building activities???     ??  Dean and I did take a free Kindermusik class a couple of weeks ago. Aside from the fact that they spell music with a K (SUCH a pet-peeve of mine), it was ok.  Unfortunately, it was JUST ok.  We mistakenly got put into the 6 months to 2 years class when I think Dean would have liked the 2-4 year old class a lot better.  He had a pretty good time, but a lot of the exercises were just not active enough to hold his attention.  If they do another free demo day, we'll go and try again, but I definitely want us to TRY again before we commit to 6 class sessions at nearly $10 a pop.  I wish we had a Gymboree around here...

Dean will be going back to Mother's Day Out this year. We've got him signed up for Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He had such a great time last year and blossomed so much with the extra (and different) attention.  I think it's good for him to have a break from me and I think the structure this provides is excellent.  He's on a schedule that works well, he gets lots of social interaction and, probably most importantly, they are just better at arts and crafts than I am. He brought home some super-cute creations last year that I'd look at and go, "Man. I have a Master of Fine Arts degree and there's no way I could have thought to do that."  The Mother's Day "let's make a baby food jar into a lady bug" project was our favorite with the "Christmas wreath made entirely out of your child's handprints" coming in a close second.  Here at home, a craft project usually consists of Dean making monkeys with his rubber stamps until he gets bored and does a face-plant onto the ink pad. (You should see his nose-print art, though.)

This is going to be a weird week, I can already tell.  Next Wednesday is Marcus's 40th birthday, then Thursday I leave for BlogHer (ohmigaaaaaaaaaaaaah), Marcus's show opens and we get one week closer to back-to-school.  Maybe we'll try to squeeze in that trip to the zoo.  Or maybe we'll just be weenies and go to the movies. If I were a bettin' girl, I'd put money on the movies.