September update

I've been trying to update Ye Olde Blogge here for the past couple of days, and every single time I lose my writing mojo and decide I have nothing to tell you. So I am just going to list off some random stuff that's been going on around here and hope for the best, alright? Yeah.

1. I started reading Deborah Harkness's A Discovery of Witches but got bored eight chapters in and stopped. My God, this is going to be the most fascinating blog update ever!
2. My dog recently started lifting his leg to pee. (I bring you only the very best in entertainment.) I don't know why he is doing this all of a sudden now. Is it a 2-year milestone, or something? We had him neutered when he was 6 months old and I always assumed that was why he peed like a girl dog, only now he doesn't. Hmm.
3. I spent an embarrassingly large amount of time this morning Googling "how to cook frozen mussels". I don't actually HAVE any frozen mussels, but I've seen them in the store and I've always wondered how that works. And now I know that in order to freeze mussels, you have to cook them first. So, frozen mussels are already cooked, and they probably won't kill you, and now YOU don't have to Google that. You're welcome.
4. Speaking of food, I've lately become a person who drinks vinegar. I know. That is a thing, apparently? A thing that I do now. But I'm telling you, a tablespoon of that coconut white balsamic vinegar I bought on my birthday mixed with sparkling water over ice is freaking DELICIOUS. It is! For real!
5. We recently started C on Lexapro, which is a SSRI which might kill him maybe. But if it doesn't kill him, it might save his life. I said once upon a time that I would never put my under-18 child on psychotropic drugs, AND YET it has become so incredibly obvious that his crippling anxiety is the key to virtually everything in his world that isn't working right now. He is 16 years old, he is the size of an adult, he has the body mass of an adult. These drugs help SO MANY people who end up NOT killing themselves. We are monitoring him super closely -- now that he's not going to school I am with him virtually all day, every day -- and he is seeing his doctor once every 2 - 3 weeks. P, C and I firmly believe the possible benefits outweigh the possible risks. But holy hell. This parenting shit is hard, you guys. 
6. I am in therapy too now. So that is a good thing, and probably long overdue.
7. In addition to my beloved Jillian Michaels exercise DVDs (OMG, I just started doing her new one, Killer Abs, and it is incredible) I am also walking the dog again, because it's cool enough in the mornings to do that now. Much like me, the dog is less of a hellbeast when he gets his exercise every day. So that too is a good thing.
8. Except the air is thick right now with horrible noxious pollen and mold spores and whatnot, so while the dog and I are slightly lower on the hellbeast scale these days, we both are snorting and snuffling and wheezing our way through life, which is JUST DELIGHTFUL. I am carrying about a gallon of Afrin nasal spray around in my sinuses right now, and I know this because I can feel it sloshing back and forth whenever I move my head. Bleargh.
9. On the plus side, if we can just get the temperature to scootch down by 10 - 15 degrees or so it will officially be Hot Toddy Season. And hot toddies cure everything. That is a medical fact.
10. Until then, I'll just keep huffing sriracha.

Sixteen

Here are 16 awesome things about today:

1. It's son C's 16th birthday! Holy crap, I'm the mother of a 16 year old!
2. (Also born on this day: Nikita Khrushchev, Senor Wences, Thornton Wilder, Harry Reasoner, Don Kirshner, Boomer Esiason, Liz Phair and Victoria Beckham! Awesome!)
3. C has his learner's permit but no interest in getting his actual driver's license. (Yes, this is an awesome thing. If you have a 16 year old, then you know. Oy.)
4. I genuinely surprised him this morning with a massively massive mylar birthday balloon and he is IMPOSSIBLE to genuinely surprise because of the teen ennui and whatnot, so YAY ME. 
5. When given the choice of elk burgers or spaghetti for dinner he chose spaghetti, which is awesome because we only have canned tomatoes and I require fresh tomatoes on my burgers and that means I don't have to go to the store and can instead hang around the house all day in ratty shorts and flip-flops. Which is what I'd much rather do.
6. No one in our house has any meetings or appointments tonight. Awesome, and rare.
7. It is a gorgeous day, sunny and summery. C would prefer it be raining, but this isn't his blog, dammit, it's mine, and I require sunshine, OKAY?
8. All four of my tomato plants have tiny green tomatoes on them. YES.
9. I'm almost done with Louise Penny's Still Life and it is FABULOUS and I can't wait to read the rest of the series, except...
10. The Bloggess's book is out today! So as soon as I've finished Still Life, I can start Let's Pretend This Never Happened (by Jenny Lawson, in case you don't know who The Bloggess is and don't feel like looking it up).
11. Or if I want to prolong the anticipation a bit, I can read one of the other hundreds of books I already have loaded up on my Kindle. (Have I mentioned lately that I love my Kindle? I LOVE IT SO MUCH.)
12. My awful dog and I took a walk on the greenbelt this morning and saw literally thousands of tiny butterflies (there's a lot of thistle on the greenbelt and apparently that's butterfly crack).
13. Speaking of my awful dog, I took an (awesome!) artistic photo of his butt.

14. Speaking of photos, one of mine showed up on The Pioneer Woman's website today (it's that first one, which may look familiar to you)(it's not another photo of my dog's butt, in case you're afraid to look).
15. I found a hidden, forgotten stash of Cadbury Cream Eggs in my closet today. THEY ARE ALL MINE.
16. But the very most awesomest thing about today: I do not have staples in my abdomen, nor am I vomiting constantly and clawing at my own skin in a fit of post-surgery morphine-induced psychosis like I was 16 years ago right now! So that's good.

Happy birthday, son C. You were well worth all the staples and vomiting and skin-clawing. And then some.

The fog

I was all set to whine at you this morning about how stressed out I've been all week, with the decorating and the baking and the shopping and the upcoming travel and the kids' end-of-semester school stuff and husband P deciding we need to do this home improvement project RIGHT NOW and how I am coming down with the crud in a big way and possibly C is also, but then!

We woke up to a pea soup fog.

As soon as the kids were deposited at school, I grabbed my camera and Herr Pudel and I hit the greenbelt.

I don't know about you, but I feel a whole lot calmer now.

Even though my camera batteries ran out at the end there and I had to switch to my phone. Heh.

Loving right now

 

Oh, October. You were crazy busy, but I kind of loved you with your apples and band competitions and dog walks and classic (free!) horror on the Kindle and theater performances and happy celebrations and little touches of autumn (weather-wise and otherwise)(FINALLY).

I will be doing NaBloPoMo in November, which means I'll be posting something here every day for the entire month. Maybe that will make up for neglecting you all summer and most of the fall. Or ... maybe it will irritate the crap out of you. Who knows?

We'll see!

Recent discoveries

I've discovered that I don't mind the days getting shorter, even though it means taking the kids to school in the morning while it's still dark.

I've discovered that daughter H has a stronger sense of self at 13 than I have at 45. And I am totally okay with that.

I've discovered that son C has developed a coffee habit. For 15.5 years I managed to keep him caffeine-free, and then the stupid high school went and installed a coffee shop in the new cafeteria annex. Thanks a whole hell of a lot, SCHOOL.

I've discovered that I do like oatmeal after all, as long as it's sweetened with brown sugar and has plenty of shredded unsweetened coconut stirred in. And isn't baked.

I've discovered that a bit of Dijon mustard and honey with apple cider vinegar and olive oil, shaken together in a little lidded jar, makes a quick and super yummy homemade salad dressing.

I've discovered, or rather remembered, that walnuts are delicious. Husband P is allergic to them and anyway pecan is the king nut here in Texas, but I bought some walnuts when I was on the paleo diet and have been sneaking them out of the freezer and devouring them by the handful.

I've discovered that a lot of pretty good music came out in the '90s when I was too busy getting married and having babies to notice. (I'm looking at you, Smashing Pumpkins.)

I've discovered that I actually enjoy walking the dog, as long as it's early in the morning and we're on the quiet back roads rather than the main roads (or the park or the greenbelt) of our neighborhood. Because I am JUST. THAT. ANTISOCIAL.

I've discovered that after months of walking instead, I don't really miss running all that much.

I've discovered that all it takes is a good soaking rain and a couple of weeks with no triple-digit temperatures to restore my will to live.