2014: Mono, Minnesota, Ali

2014, In Review!

What did you do in 2014 that you'd never done before?
- Got mono, at the age of 33, which is unheard of. 
- Wrangled four kids at once, on the reg.
- Read books on a kindle, on the reg.
- Drove across the country for three days with my best friend, which is a thing I will recommend anyone do. 
- Abandoned the car in the snow and walked with three kids to safety, which is a thing I do not recommend. 

Did you keep last year's resolutions, and will you make more for this year?
     I am fairly certain I never made them last year. This year, I would like to get a real job again, I think.

How did you spend New Year's Eve? 
     I juuuust blogged about NYE so I am changing the question. I just asked Anneliese what she would ask someone about their year and she said What's your favorite thing you ate? 
     (She would like you to know hers was "that spaghetti Daddy makes for me, and also when I had that piece of gum that one time.") I... don't know what mine is. I did have some amaaaahzing, like, close-your-eyes-and-moan-good roasted brussels sprouts with chestnuts and pork belly and apples and a mustard vinaigrette on New Year's Eve, so maybe that? (And, we're back to NYE after all. So.) 

What did you get really really excited about? 
     Our cruise! After a horrible mono-sick spring, and job stresses, and a million details nailed down for childcare and such, we got a grownups-only trip to the Bahamas. Cruises are easy and cheesy and delightful, for real.

What do you wish you'd done more of in 2014? 
     Sleeping. I remain a terrible sleeper. A sleep failure. Full stop.

What do you wish you'd done less of? 
     Losing my glasses. It made me cry more times per week than I should admit. Eeeiiii.

What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014? 
     A sun lamp for my desk. Also, more time to sit at my desk. And blog, and read blogs, and send emails, and have general me time. It's everyone's dream right? 

What was great this year when you weren't expecting it? 
     Our Great American BFF Road Trip, to move Nathan to Minnesota and say good-bye. It could have been stressy and bickery and exhausting; on some level I was ready for it to be that, yet glad to go and help anyway. But instead it was wonderful and delightful and fun and bonding. Like one of the best things we have ever done, not just this year but ever.

Who is the best new person you met? 
     Ali! Sweet baby Ali! Of course!

What song will always remind you of 2014? 
     Shake it Off and also Let it Go. Also, Anneliese's horribly (delightfully) misinterpreted lyrics to both of those. (Prayers gonna pray y'all.)

Where did most of your money go? 
     Like always - mortgage, taxes, school tuition, and this year more travel than in recent years.

What was the best thing you bought? 
     A new wedding ring. Slash engagement ring. Slash anniversary band. I left mine on our cruise ship and after a small fortune in ship-to-shore calls, and a police report, a report with the cruise line, phone calls to pawn shops in Port Canaveral and Nassau, and six months of crying, it never turned up. I felt (feel) awful even thinking about it. I know it's just a Thing but it's a special thing, from a hugely special moment in my life, and no other thing will ever be that ring, that re-set stone that was my great grandmother's, bonded to that band that Mark put on my hand on our wedding day. But. I sadly took the insurance money, and Mark and I found one that he loved and I loved. It feels a bit like a solitaire and a bit like an anniversary band and it's set in rose gold, and... I do love it. After months with no ring, I am glad to have this one. Especially with the kind words and wonderful promises from Mark that came attached to it, even now, eleven years after our wedding. It is special too. 

Whose behavior merited celebration? 
     My dad, who retired from teaching this year. He has worked in the corporate world, and the military, and has been an entrepreneur with his own small business, but I think of his many careers, teaching is what he loved best. His students loved him, and he was damn good at it. We are proud of him. And! He remains a stand-up Grandpa. 

     (Also, Anneliese deserves celebrating. She was my answer last year too, but she is just really in a delightful stage. Five forever!) (Ages three and seven are getting the side-eye from me today.)

Whose behavior appalled you? 
     Baby Ali on dairy. My word, child. So much screaming. (Ali without dairy = best niece evaaaar. But on dairy? Appalling. I can say that now because it's over, but. Yeah. Picture my wide eyes.)
     Also, people who use leaf blowers, for any reason, ever. Just no.

Who did you miss? 
     Another Nathan, so freaking much. Especially Tuesday nights.

What was your favorite show? 
     I finally got on board and watched both seasons of Orange is the New Black this year. Also, Mark and I loved Parenthood and watched it religiously until the end (*moment of silence for perfect Braverman series finale*). But besides that and The Mindy Project, I... don't watch very much tv anymore? I still love tv, in theory, I just, I think I like the quiet more. (Mark watches all kinds of things, increasingly with headphones plugged into the roku remote, because see again: quiet.) 

What was your favorite book? 
     I apparently only gave 5-star ratings to six books last year. Of those, I think my favorites were The One & Only Ivan (read that one with your kids! it's a good first chapter book!) and The Fault in Our Stars, because I am very mainstream and predictable, and also it was really dang good. 

What was your favorite new movie? 
     Frozen. (It wasn't new in 2014 but we didn't see it til the new year so it was new to us. And yes I unabashedly love it.)

How old were you on your birthday, and what did you do? 
     I was (am) 34, I went for a really fun and delicious Asian seafood dinner with Mark in Chapel Hill, and we shopped for that new wedding band. It was a lovely wonderful night after a hard season of heavy feelings, and I felt really special and close to him. It was a good birthday.

What was your biggest achievement in 2014? 
     Being the best moving boss ever? (WHAT. I WAS.) Also successfully turning Anneliese into Rainbow Brite, twenty years late. 

Your biggest failure? 
     I majorly let down the kids last summer, and myself, and our dreams for the school break. I just had no bandwidth for the fun bucket list items we had planned. I was sad as it happened, sad when it was over, and still sad now. This year will be better. Anneliese is starting kindergarten and I will start back to work at some point, and this summer is a summer for us. I feel fired-up protective of having some family fun.
     Also, that snow adventure thing. We should probably put that in the Fail for The Ages column too.

What countries/states did you visit? 
     The Bahamas, on our cruise. (Also Georgia and Florida, driving to the port.) Also we went to Virginia/Maryland/DC with the kids in October, and I hit several new-to-me states on our great American road trip: Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota (and West Virginia, Ohio and Illinois which were not new).

How would you describe your personal fashion concept this year? Have you showered today? Good for you! 
     Yes! And learned how to make my hair wavy! (It was apparently already wavy, I just didn't know.) Does that count as a fashion concept? If so, I could undo that strikethrough. 

What dates from 2013 will remain etched in your memory? 
- February 12, the snow adventure.
- March 7, when Mark accepted his new job.
- March 13, when Ali was born. 
- April 6, when we sang a beautiful Bach cantata that we worked super hard on, and then Charlotte fell down the stairs and I had to take her to get her face stitched up (when I was horribly fever sick with mono, and Mark was on the last shift of his old job, and Another Nathan was at an interview for a new job himself, and whoa that evening was a perfect storm, a microcosm of all of the angst of that season, April 6 you can GDIAF, except for the Bach thing). 
- April 28, when our cruise departed. 
- July 27, Another Nathan's last Sunday at our church. 
- August 4, the date of my one-way plane ticket back to Raleigh after a horribly sad goodbye.

What kept you sane? 
     Hmmm... iMessage? I don't know. Am I sane? I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer this question.

What valuable lesson did you learn this year? 
     And I am definitely not qualified to answer this one. I don't think I have have any good takeaways. Last year was mostly (not all! but a fair amount) sucky for me. Spring and summer were a haze of sickness and angst and newborn crying and a long goodbye. Fall was colored by a rough marriage season, and struggling to communicate with Charlotte and her sudden stuttering. There were so many hard things, and so many of them were things that I couldn't heal or fix, exactly, besides just riding them out. 
     Maybe if I learned a lesson, it's that *feeling better isn't linear, and sometimes you just have to let hard things be hard, until they pass. Which they usually do. And then it can be okay again.

Anyway. Onward and upward! Etc etc.

*Thanks Sarah. #kissyface

I'm on a Boat! (Don't Call the Ship a Boat.)

Look! I am all bloggity caught up! And it is (yet another) emotional week here, so let's talk about our cruise! We went on a cruise!

The most important thing to know is that my spleen did not explode. (Someday I will stop talking about the frikking mono. Apparently that day isn't today.) The second most important thing to know is that this was a kid! free! cruise!

(Well, there were kids on the boat.* Just not my kids.) (*Apparently if you call it a boat, you get scolded. It is a ship. A boat is a thing you get on when the ship sinks. We have been on many cruises and had never heard it explained... quite like that.) (Somewhere, my maritime-oriented brother is reading this and hanging his head in shame. Don't call it a boat, Erin!)

So, pictures, for no other purpose than preserving my own memories and hoping that for once I don't have to be the one feeling jealous that someone else got to go somewhere tropical:

on the top decks of Enchantment

I love him. That is all.

Our ship, from Coco Cay

In light of Mark's promotion, Another Nathan made him take this pic
and I am *so glad* because nothing about it doesn't make me laugh.

Cruise ships are so tacky-fabulous they are hard to describe.
Just... whoa.

But some of the cheesiness is totally fun. I will never not love towel animals.

Make sure your travel group includes dapper friends in suits.
You will not hate it. #ProTip

We took a sunset sailing trip around Paradise Island (now home to Atlantis)

my bestest fraaand
(not even seasick this time)

Enchantment of the Seas, at twilight (docked in Nassau)

He's on a boat! (Actually a boat.)

Coco Cay with my very own Marky

On a cruise ship! With champagne!
(Even mono cannot get me down!)

We spent our days in the sun -- by the pool, and one day at the beach, and one day wandering through Nassau where it was hot as the blazes but we found respite at a random rum distillery. We shared bottles of wine every night at dinner and spent our evenings at cheesy shows and floating in the indoor pool and sitting in the breeze of the top deck in the dark. (And one night in a hot tub, drinking tropical bevvies and gawking at beautiful people dancing by the edge of the pool.) We went late to our muster drill (not late! everyone else was early!) and collected hate-stares from the hundreds of people we had to walk by on the way to our lifeboat. We had a sting-y encounter (minor, but still sting-y) with the remnants of a jellyfish. We bought Christmas ornaments shaped like the ship. We spent the second half of the week avoiding a super awkward family from our first night at dinner (we saw them everywhere). We got to snuggle late into the night and late into the morning and keep no kind of schedule at all. We played car games and we all read long books, and most of us got sunburned, but only in odd patches, because of course. We made the same dumb jokes all week, in terrible caribbean accents. It was everything I could have wanted in a week away from real life, is what I'm saying.

Fever Week

Last week I felt down, then had a my second bout of random fever recently, then canceled weekend camping plans for weather, then made alternative plans to visit Ashley, which we also canceled because Charlotte (and then Mark) fell sick, because (this just in! brand new information!) families share sickness. Hi I'm new here.

In the middle of a LONG SAD week, I did do the following, though:

1.) Booked a cruise for next month!

2.) Went to a family dinner at the mexican restaurant where a lady gave Charlotte a princess balloon (from her own birthday balloon bouquet? with Disney princesses? mmmkay) just for being cute, which I thought the big kids would hate and complain about, but they were excited for her. She fairly loved it.

3.) Read two books in two days. I should get sick more.

4.) Finally succumbed and took a facebook quiz. At least it wasn't from Buzzfeed though! And yes I am pleased with my internet quiz result:

All my kids love Elsa best, but I am far more charmed by Anna. Also this SAYS I AM FREE-SPIRITED. SO THERE. (Also, Mark is reading that and rolling his eyes about talking my way out of sticky situations, not that I ever dragged him onto trains we didn't have tickets for and then try to hide from the ticket-takers between cars or anything. Nope.)

5.) Complained on twitter about this crap showing up at our church, a month early. Still! Lent! #occupyLent

6.) Filmed Nathan telling his new favorite joke. (If you can't see the embedded video, click this link.)


(And then apparently never got around to posting this because I am so slow and behind but whatever. Posted now.)

2010: Year in Review

I'm supposed to be in Awendaw right now, ready to ring in the new year like I did so many times in my Furman years -- on the intracoastal waterway, with fireworks and bitch beer wine (we're classy now) and friends. 

Happy New Year 2002! Awendaw, SC - Sarah, me, Katie, Emily and Betsy

And this year we had an added bonus: in-house volunteer childcare (in the form of my friend Sarah's awesome parents, like they don't do enough for all of us and our new year hootenanny tradition) so we could have a fancy adults-only dinner in downtown Charleston.

But.

Some sort of g/i bug that hit both of my children in the last 24 hours stopped those plans.  Seriously, Nathan and Anneliese are so rarely sick.  Why this week?  Why? Really? Really?!

(In other news, kiddie imodium is my new bff.  Just sayin'.)

Yep, Mark and David were there that year too! (Wow we all look not hott.)

So now instead of relaxing in Awendaw, I am sitting at home, one kid in bed and one in my arms (heck yes I can type while soothing a sick baby* in my lap, I'm supermom, how did you multitask today?) and pondering the past year.  That's one of the bonuses of writing a blog, you know: it provides a written account of my year and what (I thought) was worth writing about, which leads to retrospection and pondering.  Which is good when you're home with no plans on new year's eve and have time for such things.

But here's the thing about my retrospection and pondering: I kind of don't know how to neatly sum up this year. 

The last three months have been so consumed with house stuff -- flooding, burglar-defending, repairing, selling, trying to buy -- that it's hard for me to even remember what I used my brain cells on for the first three quarters of the year. So part of me says this has been the year of the house.

Oh, I remember now.  The potty.  I thought about the potty.  Namely, getting Nathan to sit on it, stand by it, defecate** into it, aim towards it, etc.  Aside from the fact that he can't go all night without a diaper, is on a pooping strike, and still won't pee in front of anyone but Mark or me (meaning we still have potty obstacles ahead in 2011 too), I'd be tempted to call this the year of the potty.

Lots of people in my family jumped into the next generation of cell phones this year -- a Blackberry for my mom, an iPhone for Brad, and Droids for Nick, Barbara, Emily, Trey, Mark and me.  Lots more pictures and messages going back and forth between all of us than there used to be, and I now feel so much better connected to my out-of-town family.  That feeling is totally worth being a textaholic.  And it might just lead me to call this the year of the smartphone.

And considering the number of hours I spent shopping for, trying out, lusting after, and writing about Anneliese's awesome fluffy bum, I could probably call it the year of the cloth diaper.

Still, the week Simon died is what really stands out for me in my memories of this year.  I think a part of me will always remember 2010 as the year we lost Simon.

But we did good stuff this year, too.  Mark and I took a lovely cruise, we married off my sister and one of my best friends, we took lots of road trips to see new and old friends, AND get this: everything both things I resolved to do last January, I totally did: I cooked with Nathan (way more than once a week actually) and I definitely did not make any promises or hints or goals about being a better wife (ahem).  Done and done.  So.  I think that means 2010 is officially the year I kept all my resolutions.  It has been spoken.

(But it's also kind of the year of all those other things too. And the year of the not-awendawesome ending.)

Happy 2010!

*I am also an expert at nak-ing.  Nursing at keyboard.  You have no idea how many blog posts have been brought to you by a good latch. You needed to know that.

**I'm very sure mine is the only Year in Review post you will read this weekend that uses the word defecate.  You're welcome.  And I win.

Vacation Outtakes

As awesome as our trip was, we had a few fail moments.  (But a few funny wins too.)  Heck, let's just call them outtakes.

This is the view that greeted us as we drove into Florida, "The Sunshine State."  One mile on the Georgia side?  Nary a cloud in the sky.  Fail.

This picture is exactly what it looks like.  Mark pouring booze into a water bottle so we could bootleg it onto the cruise ship.  Yes, we're that cheap.  And it totally worked.  Win.

Why do I have to take a picture of myself in the rocket garden at the space center while Mark could have taken it, but instead is lurking around unhelpfully behind me?  Fail.

Apparently Nasa (Nasa!!!) can't spell collectible.  I was horrified until good ol' wikipedia told me that the Oxford English Dictionary {{moment of reverent silence for OED}} actually prefers their spelling.  It's the British way to spell it.  However, Nasa is an American entity (how many people have the Brits sent to the moon?  Um that would be zero), so I think they should spell it the American way.  All OED praise and glory aside, I'm calling this one a fail.

Look!  Mark!  Nathan P!  I'm tall!  (Tall enough for the rocket launch simulator, and isn't that what sets the bar for tallness?  Nasa seems to think so.)  Win.

I'm very sure these two actors are not who you want to have gracing the covers of the magazines awaiting you in your stateroom when you first board a cruise ship.  Really, Royal Caribbean?  Really?  Fail.

Don't let your lame wheelchair keep you from enjoying a tropical Bahamian beach!  Accessibility for all!  Win.

Condom PSA in Caribbean vernacular = unquestionably a win.

Our towel elephant, who lived a short but exciting life with Mark and me for a few post-dinner hours on August 4, 2010, before we had to silence his witness by means of decapitation.  May he rest in peace.  Fail?  No, win.  ;-)

For more cruise vacation pictures (of the legitimate and outtake variety), click on the smooch below.

by mgoetts

Cruise Top Ten Countdown

I promise I didn't go on a cruise last week just so I could come back and write a list about all the awesome things from our trip.  But.  I'm totally going to do it anyway.  Hey, it's different this time.  It's a backwards list.  A countdown, if you will.  (What? That's different.  It is.)

Here we go.

10.) The turquoise waters of the Caribbean.  Every time I'm in the area, I'm amazed that the ocean really looks like this.  I can't count the number of times I see water like that on tv or movies or in magazines (or during wii swordfighting... yeah I said it) and think to myself how awesome it would feel to be in it.  I was almost giddy about swimming every time I got to jump in.

9.) Cape Canaveral.  Before we left for our cruise, we spent two nights in the Cocoa Beach/Canaveral area.  We hit the pool.  We hit the beach.  When that got rained out, we hit the space center.  We had a dinner date and saw a movie.  What makes an awesome date day even better?  A space shuttle.  True story. 

8.) My new flip flops, purchased in Florida before we left, from a surf shop containing a downright orgy of flip flops.  Yep, they're ridiculously cute.  (And yep, I shaved my legs.  For the first time in ten months.  Hey, vacations make us all do crazy things, right?)

7.) Lounging on the ship's deck.  The wind, a book, some tunes, a beachy cocktail, being surrounded by water on all sides.  Perfect, perfect way to enjoy summer.  In the sun or the shade.  :)

6.) Awesome food.  Seriously, this is why people go on cruises, right?  Great food.  In copious unhealthy unlimited amounts.  Steaks, seafood, amazing soups and sauces and desserts.  A server who would only let us choose the entrees he knew were stellar (no, seriously).  Also, this trip we had the best dinner company we've ever had on a cruise.  Four other couples, all close to our age, all easy to talk to.  Our dinnertimes were great.

5.) Inflatable water toys.  There was an awesome little aquapark in the ocean at Coco Cay (our first port of call).  We climbed on rafts and slides and trampolines.  No, we are not too old for that, thankyouverymuch.  (Also some stingrays swam right up to us while we were playing... so cool!!) 

4.) Nassau.  Hands down, the best cruise port of call we've been to (and that's a lot, since our honeymoon cruise stopped in like eight places or something completely insane).  The markets were neat, and there was so much more to see than just the typical kitschy port shops.  A whole legitimate city.  With a fort!  And a round library! And a governer's house atop a hill with a lax enough security guard to let us talk our way onto the grounds! Pretty churches!  Interesting colonial-style houses! And a beautiful gorge and staircase (former escape route from pirates) carved into a hillside.  Nassau FTW.

3.) Goombay Punch.  I was in the Bahamas with my family as a child, and I have spent the last twenty however many years remembering this tropical pinappley drink with a smiley face on the can.  It tasted so good.  I was crazy excited when we went into a grocery store in Nassau (yes, I always go to grocery stores in foreign countries, it's an odd point of interest for me in new places) and they had this can! With this smiley! And it tasted exactly as good as I remembered!

2.) Cocktails housed in fruit.  There is something about being served a beachy cocktail with an umbrella, in a pineapple, that makes it at least three times as awesome as a regular old drink by the pool.  A frozen cocktail served in fruit is a very big part of going on a cruise.  For me anyway.

1.) Mark.  By far the best part of our trip was getting to hang around with Mark for a week.  We swam, we played, we kissed, we danced, we talked, we slept late... we just really had fun together.  Our trip was exactly as tropical and relaxing and romantic (and cheesy) as we thought it would be. What's not to love?

Man, is my husband awesome.  And man, do I love vacation.  :)

Cruise Planning Top Five

Two weeks from today, Mark and I will be in the Bahamas.  I might or might not be the tiniest bit excited.

Yes, this is really the ship we're sailing on -- for the second time!  :)

Now that our first weekend without Anneliese is behind us, now that we know she (and I!) did so well with the separation... now I am unhesitatingly and uncomplicatedly looking forward to our cruise.  Although, I'm sure when the time comes to actually hug the kids good-bye and sail away from the continent, it will be bittersweet... for a few minutes.

But for now, I'm completely caught up in the throes of trip planning.  I love trip planning.  Reading over all the details, deciding where to stay, getting excited about what to wear and what to see and what to do... for me, this kind of preparation is a totally necessary part of the vacation.  I think I need the buildup as much as the trip itself.  :) 

Anyway, my brain has been in cruisecruisecruisecruise mode for the last week or so.  It's my own personal glorious logistics heaven:

1.) We have plans for the kids, and we know they'll be in good hands.  We actually had more options for people willing to love on our children that week, than we had children to hand out.  A blessing, truly.  A big part of this vacation for me will be that I can relax and not worry about how Nathan and Anneliese are doing.  I feel very sure they'll do great, and even if they don't, they're with people who will love them forever and ever anyway.  That's a big deal.

2.) We finagled an extra two nights in Cocoa Beach, Florida, before our cruise leaves.  (See #1 about awesome friends and family taking care of our children.)  Which means in ten days I will be swimming in this pool.  Yes, you can be jealous now.

3.) I bought a new swimsuit.  I have one suit that the gals are always spilling out of, and a tankini that fit me when I was nine months pregnant (now it's almost a dress... not hott). So I wanted something that could contain the gals... without being frumpy.  Mission: impossible has now become mission: accomplished.  I cannot remember a time when I loved a swimsuit this much.   The color, the swirly pattern, the ruching in the fabric on the tummy.  If I look terrible in it, don't tell me.  I don't want to know, because I really really like it.

4.) I got some new outfits. Including two dresses. (Me? I know right.) But part of the fun of a cruise is fun date-night outfits.  (Somewhere out there, that last sentence just elicited cheers from both Merritt and Renee.)

5.) I bought new sunglasses.  The facebook consensus is that they do indeed make me look like a celebrity. Just sayin'.

Oh!  And I just remembered I need to get a couple of underwater cameras.  And a few bottles of two-buck chuck to sneak on board (oh yeah we're high class).  And find something cheesy to read by the pools on deck. 

Ahhh, the lists!  Ahhh, the trip planning!  (See?  Excited!)