Sometimes, I have thoughts I want to share on my blog. Deep thoughts about important things.

Today, that's not the case. Today, I thought you might like to just get a little peek at what each member of the family has been up to lately. We'll pretend that my life is interesting and call it "Real Housewife (and children) of Albany."

So here's Beth. She lost another tooth. Pretty soon she won't be able to eat at all.


I'm also using her to test the "if you can read, you can cook" theory. She can read now. So I'm "teaching" her to cook by giving her a recipe and letting her follow it. She absolutely LOVES being considered grown-up enough to cook by herself. And I make sure to wander into the kitchen frequently and casually give her helpful hints, like "Hey, did you notice that recipe says, 'Three *and* 1/3 cups of flour?' That means you need three cups, plus the 1/3 cup. Not just the 1/3 cup." That was today's helpful hint.



Today's recipe: pumpkin muffins. I think she did everything right--I guess we'll find out in 15 minutes when they come out of the oven. Update: Deeelicious! She used this recipe. If a 6-year-old can make them and they come out great, I would say it fits in the "it's a keeper" recipe category.

Here's Lucy. Today was "career day" at school. She's being a doctor. She's been fascinated with medicine ever since my brother-in-law broke his leg badly and had to be in the hospital last year. Beth? Couldn't hardly stand to look at the IV in her uncle's arm. Lucy just stared at everything, then came home and declared her intentions to grow up and fix broken legs and arms and heads. She has also considered veterinarian, like my friend Meg, but for career day she said she wanted to do doctor. Today she told me it's because she likes to help. "Doctors help people, mama," she said. "And I want to help people." I don't know if she'll stick to this intention as she gets older (and realizes how much schooling doctors have to go through) but I think it's incredibly sweet that this is the criteria she's using to choose her career at age 4.



She's wearing Eric's white shirt as a doctor coat. It almost touches the floor, it's so big. And you could fit two Lucys side-by-side into the shoulders of the thing, I think. I tried to convince her to wear my white shirt instead (it still came down to her knees) but only Daddy's would do.

This is Evie. Lately her favorite word is "hate." She says she hates everything, even things we know she loves, constantly. I've heard that she hates shoes, baths, stories, milk, and apples, all in the last few days.



There are some moms who would probably be very upset about the use of a word like "hate." I know a neighbor girl over here was shocked when one of my kids used the word "stupid;" that's a bad word, at her house. And maybe a few years ago I myself would have been one of those moms. But for whatever reason, I just can't bring myself to care about it right now. It's a word. She wants to use it. I know it will pass.

We have a few limitations--we don't let her say that she hates any particular person. Too mean. And she's not allowed to say that she hates anything I've cooked for dinner. My kids don't have to eat what I make, but they do at least have to show respect, gratitude, and refrain from insulting the cook.

Other than that, we've been letting her express her hatred for whatever she pleases.  After all, if she says she hates chocolate, that just means more for me, right?

This is me.


Lucy bonked me in the head while we were playing at Wacky Bounce with our MOPS group yesterday. Now I have a lovely bruise on my eye.

It's actually not too noticable when my eyes are open and I'm looking straight ahead. The bruise is right on my brow bone--it kind of looks like I just applied too much purple eye shadow to my right eye. I considered just putting a lot of purple eye shadow on the other side, and then at least I'd match. But instead I just  let it be.

Motherhood. It's a dangerous job. But somebody's got to do it.

Post number two from my list of lost-and-found blog posts. This one's actually pretty recent--first begun on April 7, 2011.

I don't know about any of the rest of you, but listening to good music while I'm running makes a huge difference to me. The right words or the right tempo at the right time inspires me to get up and go, to keep on moving, to pick up my pace; left to my own devices I'd probably just plod along slowly. Sometimes I play little games with myself--if a fast song comes on, I have to run fast for the entire song, no slowing down till the last note fades. If a song I really like comes on, I can listen to it twice, but only if I keep to a quick pace for both repeats of it--no slowing down, or I have to skip to something else.

I do sometimes get stuck in a music rut, though, listening to the same songs over and over again. So a couple weeks ago, right before the Corvallis Half-Marathon, I posted a cry for help on my Facebook page: I had a race to run, and I needed music to help me do it.

I got a few suggestions from my friends, and couple with old favorites from my iTunes list, I put together a nice mix of music that I think helped me finish the race with my fastest half-marathon time yet.




Now, since that was nearly two hours' worth of music, I'm not going to bore you with a rundown of every song on my list. But I will list here ten of my favorite running songs, new and old, and tell you why they work for me.

1. "All These Things that I've Done," the Killers. This song starts off slow for about the first 30 seconds, but then kicks into a nice beat, and really becomes an awesome running song when it hits the chorus. "I got soul, but I'm not a soldier...I got soul, but I'm not a soldier..." When I was training for my first half-marathon two years ago, this is the one that always made me want to hit repeat and kick it up a notch.

2. "My Body," Young the Giant. This one was new to my playlist for this race, a suggestion from my friend Kristin, and I greatly appreciated its fun, up-tempo beat, especially the chorus: "My body tells me no, but I won't quit, 'cause I want more." This is the perfect running anthem! I enjoyed it during the race--the only thing that would have made it better is if I had listened to it later. It came up at about mile 3--and my body wasn't really telling me no yet. I could have really used it at about mile 11.

3. "The World is New," Save Ferris. This was another new suggestion, from my friend Devon. I love the peppy horn section in the background, I love lead singer Monique Powell's voice. It definitely makes me want to move--actually, it almost makes me want to dance. And that's something, considering how poor my dancing skills are. This came on at about Mile 7 of the race, when I was heading down kind of a boring straight stretch of Walnut Boulevard, and it was a wonderfully cheerful distraction.

4. "It's All True," Bryan Free. You have probably never heard of Bryan Free. This is because he's a Portland-based indie musician who has been around for quite some time but really hasn't made it big. But Eric and I have heard him in concert several times, and he's great. He is a pianist, which of course means his music is going to remind you of Ben Folds to an extent, but I like him better than Ben Folds. This song in particular has this amazing, galloping rhythm on the chorus, and he has a beautiful tenor voice soaring over the galloping background beat--it's a great one to run to.

5. "Kick Drum Heart," the Avett Brothers. "I and Love and You" is the only Avett Brothers album I've listened to, but I just love the entire thing. However, the entire thing is not great to run to. The Avett Brothers are kind of a folk/indie/rock band, and some of their stuff is a little to mellow to be good running music. Kick Drum Heart, however, has a fabulous rhythm, especially at the end, when the drummer is just banging his heart out. It will make you want to run your heart out too. ("It Goes On and On" is another one on that album that I enjoy for running.)

6. "Gone Daddy Gone," Gnarls Barkley. I am not knowledgeable about music at all, so I can't tell you *how* fast this song is, but I can tell you that it's got a super-fast tempo right from the first note that always makes me pick up my pace.

7. "The Hives are Law, You are Crime," the Hives. This song has no words. It is rare for me to enjoy music without words. But for running, this song is great. It's got this thumping, driving beat to it that's very easy to fall into step with.

8. "Another One Bites the Dust," Queen. This was kind of a toss-up. I like a lot of Queen songs to run to--"Fat-Bottomed Girls," another Kristin suggestion, has a good tempo *and* lyrics that remind you that you're awesome even if you do have a large posterior--that's always a plus. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" has a great swinging rhythm to it. But "Another One Bites the Dust" has a good beat *plus* I'm-a-winner kind of lyrics. It makes you feel like beating people. Which is good for a race.

9. "Never Miss A Beat," the Kaiser Chiefs. The Kaiser Chiefs are another group with a lot of great up-tempo songs to run to. My favorite part of this song comes near the end, when the music is pounding the and the singer is repeating "Never miss a beat, never miss a beat, never miss a beat!" It makes me match my strides to the rhythm, and I *can't* slow down...or I'd miss the beat.

10. "No You Girls" by Franz Ferdinand. The whole album that this song is from, "Tonight," is full of song after song that's fast, fun to listen to, and good to run to. I usually have the whole thing on my playlist, but this is one I seem to fall into groove with especially well when I'm running.

11. "Defying Gravity," "Wicked" soundtrack. This one is not really about tempo. In fact, the beginning part of it is two characters talking. You have to run through that, just get past it, to the chorus. This inspiration in this one comes from the characters' glorious voices and the lyrics. "I think I'll try defying gravity/and you can't pull me down!" Sometimes I wish I could fly away to the western sky. Running hard, even when I'm tired and want to stop, makes me feel like I'm defying my limitations.

12. "Dog Days are Over," Florence and the Machine. This song also starts a little slow, but goes into a great chorus for running. "Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father/run for your children, for your sisters and your brothers." It actually says "Run fast" right there in the lyrics. So of course, you have to run fast. (Can you tell that I rely on really simplistic mental tricks, like forced obedience to song lyrics, when I'm running?) This was the absolute best song for my most recent race. It came on just when I needed it, right at the end of the race. I was tired. I was sweaty. I felt like the end was never coming. And then this song came on and it gave me just the push I needed to sprint across the finish line--I think the first time I've ever found the energy for an actual sprint at the end of a race! It was a great way to finish.

So, okay, that was 12, not ten. But I had a hard time choosing. What am I missing? What are your favorite running tunes?

All right, you asked for it. Here's the first in my series of lost-and-found blog posts. My sister was the first one to give me an answer, so this post, titled "Why" and originally begun on June 7, 2010, is the first I'm writing. I no longer know what I was wondering about on June 7, 2010, so I give you instead a series of questions that are on my mind today.


...do my kids swear they're not tired, not tired, not tired, play throughout half of naptime, and then fall asleep 10 minutes before naptime is over, so that I have to forcibly drag them out of bed, groggy and grumpy, when it's time to pick up Beth?

...does my cat ignore me all day, and then at random times--say, 11 p.m. or 4 a.m.--decide that he MUST HAVE ATTENTION and stand at our bedroom door and meow and scratch at it like the world will come to an end if someone does not pet him immediately? (Note: I do NOT pet him when he does this)

...does the guy who lives across the street from me never make eye contact and wave? Am I really that scary?

...can't I ever just say no to chocolate?

...did I spend money on cloth shopping bags so I could be "green," when I forget to take them to the grocery store 99 percent of the time?

...do I still hate bananas, even though I have learned to like everything else I despised in my picky-eating childhood?

...do shows that are popular with little boys tend to focus on personified inanimate objects (toys, cars, Thomas the Train), while shows aimed at girls are about people (if you count princesses and fairies as people)?

...do I never return from the grocery store without forgetting at least one thing I really wanted to buy?

...can't I ever find myself really engaged with a non-fiction book?

...do I still post comments when the Pioneer Woman does give-aways? There's no way I'll ever win. (There are more than 25,000 comments on her Anthropologie giveaway today. It would be like winning the lottery. But hey--I like Anthropologie and I can never afford their stuff!)

...do my three girls, whom I swear I make an effort to treat very similarly, respond to the same things in such very, very, different ways?

...do I remember theme songs to cartoon shows and jingles from commercials that I heard 20 years ago, and forget the names of people I met last week?

If anyone has the answers to these questions, go ahead and tell me. I'd love to have these mind-bending dilemmas solved.

1. 10/2/06: Sports and shared experiences
2. 10/13/06: Who am I?
3. 10/20/06: Here’s the thing about being a stay-at-home mom
4. 12/8/06: I got skillz
5. 9/13/07: Ashland
6. 2/25/08: Oldest known possessions
7. 4/18/08: twins? Matching
8. 7/7/08: “I want to live here”
9. 9/28/08: banned books
10. 11/12/08: 10 years 100 characters
11. 12/4/08: my dream kitchen
12. 1/2/09: faith
13. 1/13/09: barbies
14. 4/14/09: The deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things
15. 9/10/09: worst babysitting experience ever
16. 11/13/09: Bacall/Bogart
17. 1/10/10: living with purpose
18. 2/16/10: vintage eclectic
19. 3/15/10: a graphic conversation
20. 3/30/10: things I want to remember
21. 4/16/10: things to know about girls
22. 4/28/10: It’s an interesting thing, this sisterly love
23. 6//7/10: why
24. 6/17/10: things that my girls have pretended to be today
25. 7/12/10: a more equitable solution
26. 7/19/10: lemon chicken and coleslaw
27. 8/12/10: squash three times a day
28. 10/7/10: no-yelling pact
29. 10/21/10: just be awesome
30. 11/23/10: a psychological insight
31. 2/24/11: control
32. 3/7/11: on the fleeting nature of time
33. 3/27/11: I miss singing
34. 4/7/11: music to move me

OK, people. I'm about to make a big decision, and I need feedback.

Smart phone, or no smart phone? (Just in case there's anyone in the world who doesn't know, when I say smart phone I mean an Internet-enabled phone that lets you check your email and browse the web in addition to talking and texting)

The iPhone. Sometimes I feel like the last Luddite in the world without one.

I've been anti-smart phone for a long time now. Not in general--I have no problem with the concept of smart phones, or with other people having them. But I've been anti-smart phone for me. I have refused to get one, even while watching my husband adore his iPhone, for several reasons:

1. The cost. It costs an extra $30 a month for a data plan. $30 a month is a lot. That's a couple of bags of groceries. That's 10 lattes. That's a haircut. That's three hours' worth of babysitting money. In case you couldn't tell, I can think of a lot of other things I could be doing with $30 a month.

2. The non-necessity. A smart phone would be a splurge. I don't NEED to have it. My current cell phone allows me to be in contact with people all the time via voice or text. It even takes pictures. I could just keep things the way they are, and my life would continue just fine. Plus, I spend a lot of hours each day at home, where I already have high-speed Internet via my computer. Why would I need a second, hand-held computer with me all the time?

3. The addiction. I hate seeing people all the time with their attention directed to the little tiny screen in front of them instead of the world around them. I am theoretically "home" with my girls all day, but I spend a lot of my time sitting in front of my computer screen as it is. I feel like a hypocrite when I tell my girls they can't play computer games or watch TV too much, because too much time staring at a screen is bad for you--even while spending a great deal of my own time on the computer. I'm afraid that a smart phone would just make my Internet addiction worse.

But, despite all those good reasons, I have to admit it: there are times when I want one.

I keep my main calendar online, where both my husband and I can see it and where it's always updated and current. The family calendar is my lifeline--I can't keep track of anything by relying on my own brain power, that's for sure! I've tried, repeatedly, to use a small pen-and-paper planner in my purse to keep track of things, but then I always just have to transfer my paper entries to my computer calendar when I get home, and I end up doing twice as much work. Or, I write it down on paper but forget it because it's not on the computer calendar. Having constant access to my calendar when I'm out and about and people ask me to make plans would be very helpful.

There are so many times when I wish I could just check on something quickly--a piece of information that was in an e-mail, or a phone number that isn't saved in my phone memory (or in my brain, which is where people USED to keep phone numbers, and now no one does anymore), or directions to somewhere that I forgot to look up before I left. There are many times when I can see where having all the power of the Internet in my pocket would be really handy.

My husband even tells me that having a smart phone would reduce the amount of time I spend sitting at the computer--that instead of sitting down intending to just check one quick thing and then getting sucked in to doing something completely different, I would pull it out of my pocket, check that e-mail, then put it back and continue on with my day.

I wish that cell phone places would let you rent a phone for a trial period, so I could determine whether I really would get my $30 worth of use out of that Internet phone before I committed to paying for it month after month after month. Will it really make me more productive and reduce my screen time? Or will it just suck me in with its shininess and trap me in a swirl of constant e-mails, stupid YouTube videos, and incessant updates?

Readers, do any of you have smart phones? Love 'em or hate 'em?

Proof, once again, that this motherhood thing really is destroying my last few remaining brain cells:

The other day I was making one of Beth's favorite dinners, cheese-and-spinach manicotti. It's really easy. After I stuff a cheese and spinach mixture inside the pasta shells, I just dump canned spaghetti sauce over the top.

On this occasion, I remembered using part of a can of spaghetti sauce a few days earlier, for homemade pizzas. I was sure I still had the sauce in the fridge. I looked on the top shelf. I looked on the bottom shelf. I looked behind the milk. I looked in the door shelves. I could not find it. So I concluded I must have been wrong, opened up a new can of sauce, used half of it, and stuck it in the fridge to save that one for a later use.

A few minutes later, I opened up the door and saw this:




Not only was the half-used can of spaghetti sauce that I had been looking for clearly visible RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, apparently when I put my new can of spaghetti sauce in the fridge, I set it right next to the identical can without even noticing. How is that even possible?

Sometimes I wonder about myself. Is it really safe to leave the children alone with a person as absent-minded as this? Maybe I ought to hire a babysitter for myself.

Evie, at age almost-three-years-old, is the most supremely self-confident and unselfconscious person I have ever met. All 2-year-olds are like that to an extent, but Evie has more innate charisma than I saw in either of my older girls at this age. She's not pushy about it: she simply knows that she, herself, is the most amazing person in whatever room she's in.

If I could somehow extract minute portions of her confidence and sell it in pill form, I'd be a millionaire overnight--fear and anxiety would be things of the past. Like Powdermilk Biscuits, Evie's Amazing Confidence Cure would give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done.

Evie. She's kind of a big deal. Just ask her. (Photo by Anne Nunn)

One of these days, I fear, the world will knock her down a peg or two. But until then, I revel in her earnest assessments of her own greatness. Here are a few things she's said lately:

1. "I'm going to be a princess when I grow up."

2. "Evie power to the rescue!"

3. "I am pretty, pretty, pretty today."

4. "I drew this picture for you. I know you will love it."

5. "I am a super-duper singing girl."

6. And, pretty much the best one ever...
Evie: "I hate boys."
Me: "Why do you hate boys?"
Evie: "Because they are jealous of me."

Who knows, sweetie? They probably are jealous of you. I know I am.

Last fall I decided I would try over-wintering some vegetables. You can do that, in Oregon, so I've heard. We have a mild enough climate here in the Willamette Valley that cool-weather crops can survive, so you have something growing all year round.

So, at some point last fall, I planted some stuff in one of my beds. Onions, leeks, lettuce, and possibly something else. Garlic? I'm not sure.

The reason I'm not sure is that none of it really seemed to be doing anything so I completely ignored it all last winter. And yes, I did put down the little markers that came with my baby plants so that I would have some idea of what grew (or failed to grow) in which spot. But either I mis-labeled things, or little hands moved things around, or the plants migrated on their own, because I have some stuff growing now that does not match the little signposts.



Take these guys. I think they're onions. Or possibly garlic. Or chives? But I'm 99 percent certain I didn't plant chives there (because I already have chives in another spot in a different bed, so why would I have planted them there)? They seem to have done the best of all my winter veggies, whatever they are. They had some green shoots showing all winter long, and now that the weather has warmed up a tiny bit, they've perked right up, and they look lush and green and healthy.

So healthy that I'm afraid to pull one up and find out what it is under there. And how do I know when it's mature, anyway?

Vegetables that grow underground are a big mystery.

The marker in the midst of these two rows of pretty green-topped vegetables claims that this area is leeks.

But I'm sorry. I know leeks. And these guys do not look like leeks to me.

You know what IS a leek?

Look! A leek!

This guy. Growing all the way at the back of the bed. So far back, in fact, that he's not even technically in my garden. He's squished himself into this little dirt-filled nook inbetween the edge of the bed and my neighbor's fence.

I KNOW I did not plant him there. Why would I put a baby plant way back there outside the edge of the garden? And it's not like I grew these from seeds, that could have somehow fallen out of a seed packet and been carried anywhere on the breeze. I grew these guys from starts, not seeds. So how did he get back there, and why was he the ONLY surviving leek?

Maybe I should start planting all my veggies in random non-approved locations.

He was so tightly wedged in there, I couldn't even harvest him appropriately. I tried to dig the whole thing up, but failed. The stalk broke off at the roots, and I had to abandon the bottom of the plant in the ground. Not that you eat the very bottom part anyway, but it just seemed sad to manhandle my lovely leek that way. (I don't know why I'm so delighted that I grew a leek. It just makes me happy whenever I manage to grow anything at all, I guess, especially something new).



Of course, he's currently resting in my kitchen sink, all green and white and faintly onion-scented, waiting to be chopped up and sauteed for dinner. So I guess it doesn't matter too much if he was not perfectly picked to begin with.

But let's get back to the problem of not having a clue what I'm growing. Those lush healthy things look like onions. But the "onion" marker is over to the left of them, where there are a few other similar-looking (but not identical) things that are much more scraggly and sad. But the only markers I have in the garden are for lettuce (I know they aren't lettuce); leeks (we've established they're not leeks); and onions (except these guys are not in the onion spot).

So, pretty soon here, I'm going to have to get up the courage to pull up one of those pretty things, and stare at whatever's underneath, and try to discern what my mystery vegetables are.

And you know what I'm going to get before I start planting my spring veggies this year?


A garden journal!

Or something similar, anyway. Even if it's just a $1 spiral notebook, I have clearly proven that I am too scatterbrained to keep track of what I'm growing. And I love the idea of being able to take notes on what I did when, so I can see how things grow from year to year.

Or, maybe I won't get around to it, and we'll just eat what we grow whether we know what it's called or not.

One sunny afternoon last week I suggested to Beth that we practice riding her bike without training wheels. It was the first sunny day we'd had in months, and it looked like the perfect day for learning to ride. But she didn't really want to.

"It's really hard for me," she said, looking down at her shoes. "And a lot of other kids in my class...they already can do it."

I understood what she meant. Oh boy, did I understand.

It took me forever to learn to ride a bike. I think I was 8 years old, and still pedaling around on my sister's tiny training-wheel model. There were a lot of reasons, I'm sure: I hate trying new things. I'm naturally uncoordinated. I took a bad fall one day while I was learning. And most of all, it scared me.

All those things mixed together and made me paranoid, so paranoid that I didn't want to try, even though I was embarrassed about being the only kid in the world (or so it seemed) who still couldn't ride a two-wheeler. It was a circular thing: wanting to ride/being scared to ride/being embarrassed that I couldn't ride = stubborn resistance to riding.

I could see all those same fears and conflicting emotions in my daughter's eyes. And I did not want her to follow in my footsteps. So often, I find, I don't want my kids to be like me. I want them to be *better* than me.

The thing is, though, Beth was so close to doing it. We first started working on riding last fall. She wanted to learn. A lot of other 6-year-olds had the balancing skills for it. And we could tell she was outgrowing the training wheel model anyway.

But fall days came and went, and Eric practiced with her, and I practiced with her. And she wobbled here and she wobbled there. She would ride a few feet without a parent holding on, and she seemed so close to ready...but she never quite mastered it. And then winter came and the bikes were tossed in the garage and the practicing stopped. And in the meantime, kid after kid would go whizzing down our street, balancing straight and tall.

I knew she wanted to be one of those kids. I could see it. And so on this sunny day I told her that I remembered how hard learning was. I told her I would help her practice. I swore I wouldn't let go of her bike, not at all, not once, until she was ready.

And so, bent nearly double to hold onto the seat and handle bars of her tiny purple bike, I balanced with her over to the school yard, where the big expanse of nice, smooth pavement seemed more auspicious for riding than the narrow, bumpy sidewalk in front of our house.

I held on. She pedaled. I held more lightly. She pedaled more, begging me not to let go. And then Evie called from the top of the jungle gym--up way higher than she ought to be, and with no way to get down. I had to go help Evie. I had to let go.

At first Beth put her feet down on the ground immediately to support herself. But then, ever-so-slowly, she started pedaling on her own, throwing her feet down for balance with every little wobble, but doing it. When I wandered back over and casually offered to hold onto the bike again, she said, "No, it's okay. I can do it by myself."

And little by little, she did. By the end of the second day, I was just standing back and watching, helping Evie climb up the slide and pushing Lucy on the swings while Beth rocketed around the playground furiously, not needing me at all.




Sometimes she's still wobbly.



Sometimes she needs to concentrate.

But she's doing it all on her own. Just like that.





I guess when you're finally ready for something, you're ready. And my girl was ready to ride.