motherhood, politics, faith & whatnot

It’s Saturday night. What are we watching?

You guessed it. . .

The White House Correspondent’s Dinner!

But it is being hosted by Stephen Colbert.

And Ludacris is there. Other attendees: Karl Rove. Justice Scalia with a Cor*ona in hand. Lawrence Fishburne. George Clooney. Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. Rita Cosby! Madeline Albright. Lots of D.C. glitterati. Mayor Nagin.

P.S. please ignore any snarky snarkiness of. . . oh. . . yesterday. It was one of those days.

Don’t you hate it when you leave comments about people’s flickr pics and they don’t respond? Snobs. But then I have to remind myself that I don’t always respond to comments that people make about my pics. Must go do that.
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Part of learning to diet (especially when using the Weight*Watchers system) and also learning to cut spending is learning to make good decisions on the spot about whether to eat or not eat something or whether to buy or not buy something.

I dropped my kiddos off this morning so that I could have a couple of hours to get some things done. Almost acting on reflex, I turned the car towards Wal*mart. I do need underwear and bras, and I could just run and get those now, I thought.

But today was supposed to be a no-spending day, said the other side of my brain.

Yeah, but we did just get one of our tax refunds back and J’s paycheck will go in the account soon. I’ll be getting this stuff next week anyway. Why not just go ahead and get it now, I thought.

Usually, here is where I falter. Good logic, eh?

But this time another voice weighed in: “Well, why don’t you go to the library and return / check out books as planned, and then you can run home and get some laundry started. You need your black shirt for work tonight anyway.”

And I listened to this voice. And it felt so good not to waste my free time and money at the Wal*mart because we all know that I would have thought of a bazillion other little things that we needed that I should just go ahead and get since I’m here already.

I spent some time picking out books at the library for the boys and for myself. I love the library. It’s like shopping, except FREE! I went home and did some cleaning, vacuuming and got the laundry started. Plus, got to just chill out for a few minutes.

Perhaps the worst time of the day for me is the morning when I’m trying to get my gaggle out the door for a playdate or whatever. It’s the time when my two biggest deficiences collide — trying to get everybody dressed with clothes and shoes gathered from all corners of the house and garage, bags packed, snacks prepared. Trying to think about what I particular things we might need for that particular outing. Trying to get myself dressed and fed, all the while mediating fights and tending to all the bazillion little requests that arise. I’m just not an organized person and this attention to detail first thing in the morning (it’s not even that early really, heh) makes my brain hurt. It’s fairly common for me to forget what I’m in the middle of doing once I’ve gotten pulled away from it. All moms experience this to a certain degree, I think.

I feel like I’m drowning, flailing around in the water. I can’t even keep my own head above water and when I get a rhythm, the kids jump into the pool right on top of me and now I’ve got to keep us all afloat. And the other thing is the noise level. It’s challenging enough to try to get everybody together, but you throw the screeching and the whining and the yelling in and you’ve got a mom who loses her shizznit in a millisecond and yells until everyone is quiet so she can think. Not the best example for my kiddos, I think.

I know, I know. Everyone loses it at time, and I’m fine with it happening occasionally, but this is a pretty routine thing. There’s gotta be a better way, that’s easier on me and therefore easier on the kids.

This week. Not so good.

Haven’t worked (outside the home, i.e. for people who don’t screech as soon as I walk out of the room and who don’t hurl their food onto the floor if they don’t like it) since Saturday.

I do work tomorrow night. Thank God.

I’ve already called DH in tears twice today. I can’t deal with the constant screeching and whining. And the crying and screeching and the bellowing. And the screeching and whining. Andrew goes from 0 to 60 in 2 seconds. Sometimes, it’s just kind of funny, but sometimes it makes me want to just crawl out of my skin. Daniel is always trying to copy whatever Andrew does or else, he’s taking whatever Andrew is playing with away from him.

And boy, can that kid eat. Andrew, that is. He doesn’t eat a whole lot in the morning, but he wants food all afternoon long. He’s always begging for food. But he’s also picky, so if you’ve exhausted his favorites, then you are in the land of the unknown where he’ll sit screeching at you while you are making something only to have it thrown onto the ground if he doesn’t like it and the screeching begins again.

I think I’m dropping the kiddos off at drop-in childcare for a couple of hours tomorrow — I have a free pass from when the place opened a couple of months ago. The thing is, I don’t really want “free” time. I’d rather be at work. At work, I’m using my brain in a totally different way and earning some money, too.

Anyway . . .

But you guys all know how this goes. You’ve got your own kids who have their own repertoire of things that make you crazy.

Last night, I escaped for a couple of hours after the kids went to bed. I called a friend, but her husband wasn’t home, so she had to stay at home. I was daydreaming about a bar/coffeehouse where moms go to hang out during the day or in the evenings. It would be a room full of giant, colorful comfy couches, grouped around low, heavy wooden coffee tables. During the day, moms could escape there and hang out for a little while — grab a bite to eat, look over their shopping list, make a few phones calls, chit chat with other moms. At night, moms could go hang out — grab some dinner, have a drink, chat, do some knitting and whatnot. What do you think? Would you join me for a drink (or two)?

I heard a piece on NPR this morning about the Duke Lacrosse case, and even they have fallen into the trap of trying to pigeon-hole this case into a black v. white thing.

They had a quote from Mayor Bill Bell commenting on how Durham has been mischaracterized by the national media when it’s portrayed as a city divided by race. The NPR commentator dismissed this comment with a “Well, there is a divide between black and white in Durham.”

Yes, we have a higher than average percentage of people who are poor here, but they aren’t all black. We also have many high income people here, and you know what, they aren’t all white, either. And what isn’t seen by people who want to describe Durham in the black v. white terms is that there is a large middle class here, too, of all races. Our neighborhood for example is a mixture of people.

That’s not to say that there aren’t issues, as there are anywhere. But this case isn’t about some racial divide. The accused aren’t even from Durham. The lacrosse team largely hails from the Northeast. I don’t really want to start something, but I observed a lot more division and intolerance among groups while living in Boston for five years than I have here.

This case has more to do with college culture and maybe the culture among elite athletes and group psychology than it does about the state of things in Durham.

I could use a Weight*Watchers type set-up for managing money, maybe called something like Budget*Watchers. You’d try to shave points off of your daily/weekly budget. You’d check in each week with your tally of money spent and hear motivational speakers who give tips about sticking to a budget. Everybody would clap for you when you managed to curtail your spending by $5 or $10 or when you stuck to your budget for 15 weeks.

We are just not living within in means. I say “we”, but it’s me spending the money mostly. I’m not buying big ticket items or anything, just kind of nickeling and dimeing the income away. And yes, I’m making a little money now, so maybe that will help, but it hasn’t yet. It’s just meant that I’ve started spending bits here and there with the thinking that it doesn’t really matter because I’m working some now. So, I think about trying to track my spending again, but I can never stick to it. I can never remember every little thing and if you don’t remember every little thing you spend, then what’s the point — it’s the little stuff that adds up and gets you in trouble before you realize it.

Do you have spending issues? What has worked for you in keeping you on your budget?

Guilty pleasure of the evening: gofugyourself. I took this off my bloglines list because it felt kind of dirty obsessively checking it to see what the latest fugliness was. Tonight, I did some catching up on my reading there and laughed my ass off. If you haven’t already, check out the Jennifer*Aniston entry in April, the Britney Spears entry in April and the Courtney*Love one in April (or maybe March.)

Work is good. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working 10-15 hours a week, evenings and Saturdays. J and I have had a few kinks in working out scheduling, but I think we are getting it sorted out to everyone’s satisfaction. And I haven’t been so in love with my boys since I don’t remember when. It’s amazing what getting out, interacting with adults and making a little bit of money does for one’s state of mind.

Andrew, at almost 16 months, totally cracks us up. One of his latest things is to stand in the middle of the yard and point at trees, saying “eeeee” and sometimes, “teeeee.” He’s always wandering around the house chattering away. “Choo-choo!” is a big favorite. He’s cutting all four molars right now so he’s quite pissy about eating. He wants to eat all the time, but there’s not a lot he likes at the moment, and if he doesn’t like something you give him, he hurls it on to the floor. It’s kind of funny, but also very aggravating.

He loves books right now, especially touch-and-feel ones. He’ll bring us books and say something which might be “book” or “read.” Whatever it is, it’s the same thing every time. Heh. He’ll put the book in our lap and proceed to climb up for a quick story.

He’s getting bigger and stronger and has taken a few whacks at Daniel in the last week or so. Now, we don’t condone hitting of course, but Daniel is now a little more hesitant to shove Andrew or take something away from him. And this makes me happy because I don’t have to be quite as vigilant or do quite as much yelling at Daniel to leave his brother alone.

Daniel is in a pretty mellow stage right now. He’s obsessed with Wallace & Gromit’s Wrong Trousers, but must be reassured every night that “There’s nooooooo monsters and nooooooo machines and noooooooo robots.” We’re still working on the whole potty-training thing.

I just started a Photo*shop class today. It runs for 6 weeks and is for beginners. And my digital camera fund is growing! I’m looking at the Nikon*D50. I go back and forth about whether it really is too much camera for me. I could get a really decent camera for the half the price of the D50 . . . . don’t know. Feel free to weigh in.

Speaking of weighing in, I just started Weight*Watchers last week. I’m having a hard time counting points and getting all my water and veggies and milks in each day, but each day I’m getting a little better about tracking everything. And the Weight*Watchers flexpoints are nice, too, even though I probably used up my whole week’s worth with those two Krispy*Kreme donuts I had last night at work. That was my boss’ fault.

I guess I haven’t ever realized how easy mashed potatoes are to make. I wanted to make a quick potato dish to go with our pork roast tonight and did a search on allrecipes.com and ended up making this.

Garlic mashed potatoes

INGREDIENTS:

* 8 potatoes, peeled and quartered
* 1/2 cup milk
* 1/4 cup butter
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* salt to taste
* 1 pinch ground white pepper

DIRECTIONS:

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil; add potatoes, and boil until soft, about 20 to 25 minutes. Drain, and place in a large bowl.
2. Combine potatoes with milk, butter, garlic, salt, and pepper. Mix with an electric mixer or potato masher to your desired consistency.