(Photo by Steve Rawley.)

2012, coming up!

(Photo by Steve Rawley)

“That’s Not It” has been available on Kindle since October, and now you can purchase a genuine printed copy. Alternately, you can buy it on Amazon.

Please buy a copy, or multiple ones if you’re in a gift-giving mood, if it is in the budget. Send me an e-mail if you’d like a free bookmark to go with it. Include your address and I’ll mail it to you. Thanks for your support of this crazy-ass endeavor of mine. (PS I will be updating my author site soon, so bookmark it if you are so inclined.)

So. I don’t know if you’re like me, but I know I am. Aren’t some days just a little too frickin’ much? I was getting ready to start the holiday baking (casseroles, cookies, breads, and assorted everything). Thought I would start by cleaning the oven. Bad call. I broke the oven. (Let this be a lesson to you.) Now we’re in the middle of picking out a new one, and will be converting from electric to gas, only the ovens (ovens!!! finally getting the convection oven I’ve wanted my entire life) will be electric, and ps they don’t make the right kind of gas stove to fit into the drop-in slot the current stove is in and hello, carpenter, bye-bye, countertop and cabinet, we need more wiggle room.

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know how Steve and I are: Why clean the bathroom when you can grow mushrooms in there instead? We do it nice cuz we do it frickin’ complicated. (That particular remodel took the contractors four fun-filled months.)

Today I need to:

* make cooky dough and freeze it, in anticipation of someday having a stove again
* work on my new book (ideas/dialogue that need to be written down before they go away)
* finish Granny’s memoir… still inputting recipes and kinda not into it
* clean the house
* work out
* update calendar
* help the kids with homework
* fix dinner (waffles? soup in the microwave? again? bake bread in breadmaker?)
* work on publicity for “That’s Not It” — reading? book signing? order copies to sell, finish press release, update author site, and the list goes on…
* avoid Facebook/Twitter/politics/the mayor of Portland
* figure out what to get Steve, the kids, and the rest of our family for Christmas
* finish mailing out holiday cards
* oh, right. buy more holiday cards

Honestly, all I want to do is climb into a hot bath and stay there ’til January. Please advise, dear readers: What do you do to rein in the schedule?

xo,

WM

edited on Thursday to say: I baked cinnamon swirl bread in the breadmaker — delicious with butter, and not as sweet as a cinnamon roll. (I can’t find the recipe online — it was from the cookbook that came with the machine. But it baked in the breadmaker — no turn out, extra rising, etc.)

I’m baking whole wheat bread right now. I mixed up and froze dough for Mexican Wedding Cakes and chocolate chip cookies (semi-sweet and milk chocolate chips — my secret ingredients) and Spritz are next. Tonight? Burritos in the microwave (not to be confused with microwave burritos, although we have some of those in the freezer ;) and… salad. Last night was waffles. Good thing I mainly survive on protein shakes (blender! also not broken!) and soup. The kids seem to be fine with pre-made mac and cheese, cereal, toast, peanut butter sandwiches, granola bars and… more waffles? Damn. Missing the oven. We can always send out for pizza. It’s not like we don’t do that once a week, anyway.

yesterday, i was grateful cuz we all went to see the Muppets movie (soooo funny) and my sis and her husband, Red-Headed Guy from Texas, went, too. I was going to fix dinner for us, but she said, No, we have to go out for Indian food. So we did! giving me not 1 but 3 things to be grateful for: the Muppets, time w/ family, and Indian food. oh gosh it was good, i’m just saying…

Today? Today i am extra-grateful cuz Steve did the grocery shopping, and now he’s hanging up the Christmas lights. wow. what a dude, huh?

oh yeah also he sent the final (final?) (final!) (cuss plz let this be the final) draft of my book + the bio + the cover to the publishers for the hard copy y’all have been so impatiently waiting for.

so check the website and we will have links up within the next couple weeks.

i promise.

thank you for your support. ps my bookmarks for “That’s Not It” arrived this week, too. If you would like a personalized bookmark, plz leave a note in comments or send me an e and i will mail one to you!! They’re very pretty and shiny.

grateful for everything today: the rain, salmon leaping across the roads, my health being way better than it was two years ago at this time. grateful that my wildass tomcat is feeling better, grateful that Steve has a week off for vacation (? what???), grateful for the apple pie I just assembled and threw in the freezer, to bake on Thursday morning, and grateful that it’s almost December, cuz I like December. not cuz of Christmas, necessary, but because it just seems like such a cheerful month.

also grateful for brussels sprouts, which i hated so much as a child (ask my mother: “God, no, I’m not making brussels sprouts, calm down”), but which now i adore. especially roasted with a lot of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.

the end.

— wm

This is one of my favorite posts ever. My kids are getting too big for tricker treat now, but don’t you dare try to tell them so. They’ll cut ya.

More later…

wm

man. remember when i said, don’t blow anything up outside my bedroom window? what I meant to tell the neighbors was, PLEASE blow up a bunch of fancy fireworks make ’em go boom-boom-boom right outside my window.

i am not one for fireworks, but since Dear Wacky Dog has been gone for some time now, it’s not as bad. God, he had a miserable time with the fireworks. Here’s the story: the “good” fireworks are “illegal” in Oregon, but “legal!!!” in Washington. We lived in North Portland, which is, like, border town to Washington state. So everyone, but not their dogs, because their dogs frickin’ hate fireworks (and not us, because I’m too cheap. Plus I like to keep it legal, thank you) drives across the bridge, loads up on the “good,” fancy fireworks, then drives back and makes ’em go oh-oh-oh BOOM-SNAP-CRACKLE-POP.

When we moved to fancy westside suburbs, I thought, This is no border town. It’s a border town to the Wine Country, and the ocean breezes, that’s about all it’s a border town to.

“Surely people won’t bark at the moon and shoot off their guns out here, like they do in North Portland?”

Last year we were enjoying the ocean breezes, so this was our first Fourth in the new house. Man. People do it UP out here. We walked around the neighborhood and watched the little shows, then walked up the hill and could see four or five big fireworks shows from all over town. Then we figured out the best show around was right out in our backyard. The people in the cul-de-sac behind us partied all day, and once it got dark did a fireworks show that went on forever.

I finally fell asleep about midnight, hearing faint boom-boom-booms from all around. Crazy.

This morning they were out there with their leaf-blowers, cleaning up.

#suburbsareatrip.

Have a great week!

— wm

“I Try” — Ben Taylor

and Ben’s dad, with Carole King.

and… the Queen of YouTube, folks, Ben’s mom, Carly Simon. (She fractures me on YouTube, go find some of the clips and watch them. She’s hilarious.)

Happy Mother’s Day, y’all. Enjoy the weekend.

I took my daughter shopping yesterday. At the mall. At the huge, big mall where people cough right in your face and shove in front of you in line and where you suddenly think fifty-eight dollars doesn’t seem at all too expensive for a scrap of fabric made by a little child in a foreign country.

I love my girl. And we needed some clothes. She is growing tall, tall, tall like Mommy and nothing fits. Me, I just need to lose some weight, that would be a splendid idea. I have exactly one pair of jeans and they’re shredded. (Lots of dress slacks, but no damn jeans.) (No, I couldn’t find any jeans that fit, thanks for asking. But I found some other stuff and so did she, mission accomplished. Woo-hoo.)

Number of children I saw folded awkwardly in the compartments under the stroller, while younger siblings jumped around in the stroller above them: 2

Number of jumping kids I saw standing up in strollers, while their parents pushed them around (not same kids as first category, I guess that would add 2 to the total): 3 (or 5)

Number of toddlers I saw take headers down the escalator: 3

Number of them that screamed: 3

Number of parents that aided them: 0

Number of women that snapped “Watch it!” at me after they cut in front of me: 1

Number of Easter Bunnies I saw: 1

Number of grown men wearing bunny ears and taking photos of the Easter Bunny and screaming kids: 1

Number of photog assistants that weren’t forced to wear bunny ears and looked relieved about it: 1

Number of restaurants/kiosks we went to get get coffee, snacks, bottled water, lunch and more coffee: 5

Number of bottles of wine I purchased for home consumption: 2

Number of times my daughter and I told each other, “You’re stressing me out”: Um. 4? Or 6. Or 4.

Conversation I overheard between a grown daughter and her mother (re: 3-year-old granddaughter): “You can’t just leave, Mom! You can’t just take her and leave and then disappear and I don’t know where you are! You tell me, ‘Tina, I’m leaving!’ okay? Then I’ll know you’re gone. You just give me a heart attack when you do this, Mom!”

2nd conversation, this time between same mother and 3-year-old: “I know I said I’d take you to the Disney store, but we’re shopping for me first. Me. It’s my turn!” “No, my turn.” “No, my turn!” (wailing.) “OK, we’re going home now, are you happy?”

Conversation I overheard between a mother and her teenage daughter, who the mom had backed up against a wall: “You wanted the whole shopping experience, didn’t you? So you got it. This is it!” “Mom, everyone is staring at you.” (We were trying not to, I swear to you. I was doing eye-avoidance all day like crazy and so was Wacky Girl.)

We’re thinking online shopping is the way to go. Except when it comes to jeans.

Very interesting.

(Note that Officer Dauchy was also involved in the case of the twelve year old girl who was shot with a beanbag gun on a MAX platform.)

You know what this reminds me of? The time Malcolm X went to the police station to check on Johnson Hinton, that’s what it reminds me of.

Love you, Shei’Meka. Good job. And congrats on the new baby.

xo

Wacky Family

“I (heart) you bear-y much, Miss Librarian.”

awwwwwwwwwwwww…