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A Long Strange Trip (but we stayed home)

whiskeyThe past 24 hours or so have been… bizarre. See, Sunday, we had a ton of snow in the Denver area. Nothing like the blizzard of ’03 or the Blizzmageddon of ’07, but there was a good foot on the ground by us and almost 30 inches in some parts of the front range. And, as you might imagine, it messed around a bit with things like air travel.

Matt’s mom, who was scheduled to fly out on Monday had her travel plans go off without a hitch. She had a good time to fly out, a late-morning flight on the nicest day so far this week. Matt’s cousin’s wife on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. She and her brother had been in town for a Masonic ceremony celebrating her father’s achievements and their evening flight on Sunday was cancelled. After much back and forth, they finally were able to book tickets back to Nashville on Tuesday morning. But they were rapidly accruing rental car and hotel bills they hadn’t anticipated, so they reached out to us and we were more than happy to get to see our cousin-in-law and meet her brother.

So Monday we worked a relatively normal day and went home and did the mad-dash to swim lessons. As soon as they were over we went back to our ‘hood and met up with CIL and CBIL for dinner and then headed back to our house. They met the hedgies, we put the kids to bed and we settled in to visit. Much whiskey may or may not have been consumed by the gentlemen folk. We had a wonderful time – they are awesome, funny, interesting people – and I was up WAY past my bedtime.

Shortly after I fell exhausted into bed, a little girl came into our room complaining of earache. She was crying it hurt so bad. So we gave her Motrin and sent her back to bed. She was still in pain though and kept coming back to our room. We finally just let her sleep with us and so I was sandwiched and hot and uncomfortable and whatever. I didn’t really sleep past 3 AM and around 4 AM, I reached over, grabbed my phone and scheduled an appointment on our HMO’s website for Tabby at 10AM and sent emails to work letting them know my plans for the day. I got up with my first alarm (the one I hit snooze on about 3 times) at 4:20. I got dressed, did a little housework and headed to bootcamp. After bootcamp, I came home, screamed “WAKE UP BUTTERCUP!” in my hung-over hubby’s ear (that may not have happened – I’m actually a pretty nice person), and we got the kids fed and Ben off to school.

Since our house cleaners had arrived to scrape 2 weeks worth of foot gunk off our floors, we ran a couple of errands and then it was off to our doc’s for me and Tabby. Her sweet pediatrician determined she was borderline on the ear infection. She could clearly see why it hurt, but it didn’t look bad enough for antibiotics. Since we’re heading out of town this weekend, we took a “just in case” script that we can have filled if things go awry and set off for work. Tabby played nicely in my office while I conducted a meeting and then we grabbed lunch, headed home and NAPPED FOR THREE HOURS. YES!

Normal is just a setting on the washing machine.

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The Weekend Thing

weekend2

Matt’s mom was in town this weekend from Nashville. She’s pretty low key so when she’s here we typically do basically what we do on a normal weekend … work around the house, have an outing or two, see my family and get ready for the week.

Saturday was very pretty, particularly early in the day, so we went to the zoo! We are members and so we never feel compelled to see it all which is nice. After the zoo, we grabbed lunch at a new-to-us restaurant, Park & Co. It’s sort of a hipster bar with really tasty food. Ben had chicken fingers (surprise, surprise), Tabby had french toast and the rest of us had some of their burgers and fries. All excellent.

In the evening my folks came over and we had some Mexican Stuffed Shells and Sopapilla Cheesecake.

weekend1Today was super snowy. The Denver area has had a lot of snow – 20 inches in some areas and probably a foot where we are. We had a nice morning at home and made blueberry muffins (above) and then went out for just a short while to the used book store. The kids have found a set of old encyclopedias on animals and they are slowly buying them up one at a time. We had long naps, did lots of cooking and laundry and prepared for our busy week.

Matt’s mom leaves tomorrow, assuming no flight delays. In a funny twist, a cousin of Matt’s is also visiting from Nashville and is stuck in our area until Tuesday and will likely be staying with us tomorrow night. Gotta love Denver weather.

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Things I Love

matt+kids reading

Valentines is almost here and it makes me think about what I love. Love is so much more than sappy cards and candlelight dinners. Love is the little things that go on 24/7. Just a few of the many things I love:

  • waking up with Matt snuggled around me
  • taking care of myself by working out
  • a hot shower
  • an excellent cup of tea
  • the satisfaction of a job well done
  • a good book
  • picking up my babies from school
  • hanging around the kitchen with my family
  • doing homework with the kids
  • watching the kids succeed and excel at new skills
  • a tidy kitchen (really a tidy anything, but I’m most meticulous about the kitchen)
  • a quiet house
  • peeking in on my sleeping kids
  • settling down with Matt to catch up on TV or plan a project or talk
  • a warm bed on a cold night

Happy Valentine’s Day to you and the ones you heart!

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A Hot Mess

Almost 8 years ago when we first adopted Loki, the world’s crackiest Lab-mix, I had one hell of a week. Matt was traveling, Loki was chewing everything in sight, and I couldn’t sleep. During the course of that week, I gave myself second degree burns on my hand when I took a plate that had just been in the oven from one counter to another without a potholder. I also lost two credit cards in two entirely separate events – both related to my manic levels of distraction. There were also a handful of more minor events that have now been lost to the annals of time.

The past couple of weeks, I’ve had a reprise. All credit cards (so far as I know) are safely in my wallet and my hands look as well as they ever do, but I have been one hot mess. I have been constantly misplacing everything, particularly my phone and other mobile devices. I have left at least one crucial item out of my gym bag every morning this week, except Tuesday when I forgot to set my alarms and had to skip my workout altogether.

It all comes from being so busy that I can’t think straight. When I am not manically running around, I do things consciously. When I am it’s a completely free-for-all. Who know where my keys ended up? I probably handed them to Ben so I could pick up the swim bag or pour some goldfish into a baggie and that couldn’t have ended well.

To make matters worse, Tantrum Week (it’s a bit like shark week but with slightly less blood) continues at Casa Nichols. My sweet little guy went manic and hit someone with a block at preschool. The other kid bled. He was punished. We are told it’s “really not a big deal” since it’s his first infraction in almost 6 months there. But it sure feels like a big deal and I’m sure Ben’s “friend” would disagree. There was a 20 minute time out when he refused to put his wetsuit on for swim class and another one with Matt this morning. Everyone says I’ll appreciate this iron-clad will when he’s 16, but it’s hard to remember at this moment.

So if you see me this week, forgive the sunken-in-eyes and disheveled clothes. I’m just trying to keep all these plates spinning … and find my car keys.

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Vail Break

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My apologies for the extended break, but our wifi while away was absolutely terrible and I had a heck of a time getting a connection to WordPress for some reason. It was actually a kind of breaky trip in general. TV broke, my car’s battery died (light left on, below 0 temps), elevator went out. But at least all the people are in one piece!

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Anyway, as we have done for a long time now, we spent the first week of the new year in Vail. We ski. We cook. We watch movies. We hang out. We read. We lick our Christmas-season-induced wounds. We have a great time. We are very very lucky to be able to do this and we cherish our moments together. We were joined by my parents, sister and our friends from Nashville. Our friends’ son is 2 and quite a talker and singer and all around charmer. It was great to see them, and everyone for such an extended period and really get to spend some quality time together.

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Goals for 2013

newyears2013Well I didn’t do so well with my 2012 goals. But I still want to set some for 2013. 2012 was a big transition year for a lot of things and getting through it in one piece ended up being all the challenge we needed … so I’m hoping for 2013 we can do more than survive.

Family Focus our family time less on the have-tos and more of the want-tos. They are only so little for long and I want them to remember fun rather than constant trips to Costco and Target. But as an offset to that, we want to implement some allowances and chores for both kids.

Running/Fitness I have been doing well with getting to the gym and some running. Next year I want to keep going to the gym, run more (600 miles to be specific) and do a sprint triathlon, in fact I have my sights set on one for my 33rd bday (3 sports, 33 yrs old, cool, no?).

Cooking I want to keep up with the great job we’ve been doing cooking at home, but I want to keep a better eye on my caloric intake since it’s been pretty slip shot lately. I also need to sort out some new lunch items for Tabby and some new breakfast items for both kids.

Reading I’ve done great with reading the past few years and I want to keep that up, including increasing the number of non fiction books I read.

Finances Continue to track our finances.

Marriage Date nights and time together without electronics.

Other I’m trying to do an Instagram everyday.

Of course the hard part is getting them done….

 

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Christmas Unwrapped

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We had a really really nice Christmas. We did what we have done for years and spent Christmas Eve at my parents’ house. We let the kinds unwrap a couple of gifts, left cookies for Santa and headed to bed. In the morning, Santa had paid us a visit and so had the snow fairy!! Nothing like a White Christmas.

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The Petting Game

The Nichols household is currently in the throes of pet selection. It all started with our trip to Nashville. Tabby saw a mouse trapped in a sticky trap. It was all she told her classmates about her trip to Nashville. It is all she has wanted to talk about lately. And it culminated in some bizarre justice scales thing where she MUST HAVE A PET MOUSE. So she and Matt setup some system where she does her “chores” – which basically consist of keeping her room neat, putting away her backpack and lunch dishes, performing the small tasks we assign to her (put away silverware, set the table, etc.) – for 25 days, she could earn her pet mouse.

It’s all been a bit fuzzy because my Project Manager husband (engineer of this whole scheme) didn’t implement a chart or anything to track progress (hmmmmm). But it has been a constant with her – working on her chores and asking about the mouse. As M-day has drawn nearer, we’ve been hedging on the whole thing. Not that we won’t let her get a pet, we will, but to me, mice are something you … well find in a sticky trap or feed to a snake (sorry). They don’t really seem like pets. Add into that the fact that they smell a bit and don’t live terribly long and I’m just not convinced. So I have made some alternative suggestions to mouse ownership, namely gerbil or hedgehog ownership. So let’s meet our bachelors:

1. Bachelor #1 The Fancy Mouse –

Despite (in my mind at least) being more of the classification of “pest” or “food” these guys are really pretty cute. They are constantly active and everyone insists they can be tamed and make good companions. Their cost of ownership is LOW since they and their supplies are cheap and they require no veterinarian examinations. On the downside, they tend to be smellier than some other small animals and they do not live terribly long.

2. Bachelor #2: The Gerbil –

My sister and I had gerbils growing up. Matt and I had some gerbils when we were in college. We know and like gerbils. They, like the mice, are a low cost of ownership and they can also (we know first hand) can be very docile and friendly. Being desert creatures, they require little food and water and they have no discernible odor. They live slightly longer than mice.

3. Bachelor #3: The Hedgehog –

Hedgehogs are cute as hell. They are a sort of higher-level mammal and they seem to be very docile (we just visited some at a pet store yesterday) and nice to play with. They don’t have quite the same inherently jumpy twitchy personality of mice or gerbils (though as I said before, that can be somewhat calmed out of the mice & gerbils) and as an added “fun” thing, they can SWIM! On the down side, they are hugely expensive, especially if you want to get a pair. And there’s also the spikes. They can’t throw them like a porcupine, but they can become quite prickly when they’re scared or agitated. But they do live upwards of 8 years … which kind of goes both ways.

For her money, our Bachelorette, Miss Tabby, is not entirely certain what she wants, just that she wants a little snuggly pet. She seems to be most fascinated with the animal she last held, so I want to give it some time – we will not be getting a new pet in any case until we’re back from our post-Christmas ski trip – and really give her some time to make up her mind.

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Deckin’ the Halls

The kids are at such a great age for this. Good understanding, amazing enthusiasm, off-the-charts cuteness.

Love them. They’re having so much fun. They make all of this so cool.