5 Things that Have Made Me Smile This Week

1. I had a really great Monte Christo at the Red Stag during a Sunday brunch with my family, and the restaurant was offering free mimosas, which of course I took them up on. It was good to see my family, too, but food is very important to me. In fact, while we're on the subject, Eric made perfectly grilled sirloin the other night. (Yes, grilled, like outdoors, and I think it was about 40 degrees and dark at the time. The guy loves to grill.) Also, the wild rice, mushroom, and sausage soup I made last night was pretty awesome.
2. Two days ago, my dad called to make a suggestion and prefaced it with, "Don't get mad at me." That's grounds for a smile right there, but then the suggestion was that, since I hate apartment living so much, maybe I should find out if the people contributing to our wedding would be willing to help us with the down payment on a house instead. I declined, for several reasons, but it was a nice suggestion, and so very much like my dad.
3. President Elect Barack Obama. Still not quite over that one.
4. My three-year-old nephew, Owen, pronounces my name "Elmo," and was super excited to see me on Monday. Coincidence? Maybe not.
5. Piper, the devil cat, has started pooping in the bathtub. At first we thought it was because I'd let the litter box go for an extra day between cleanings, but now we're pretty sure she just prefers it. And yeah, I know, behavior problem and ewwww. But it's really a pretty clever litter box alternative, and I pride myself on usually being able to see the humor.

What made you smile this week?

Baby Break

This week I'm busy trying to get back into my regular writing schedule, since I'm done teaching until mid-January, but I have to take a short break to recount our weekend trip to Fargo. Actually, it was pretty unremarkable, except that Eric spent two whole days helping his brother shingle a garage, and we got to meet our newest nephew (number five, in case you're counting, and not a single niece). This is Conner Halden, who is two weeks old today:


Now you can feel free to go back to whatever you were doing.

Meet Luke

Luke Daniel, our nephew and godson, born on Friday:


This one's the killer:

Don't Drink the Water

Last night Eric's youngest brother called--jubilant and exhilarated--to tell us that he and his wife had just--ten minutes earlier--found out she's pregnant. And I'm so excited for them, because they've been wanting this for a while, but I'm also fascinated by the rate at which his family has been reproducing lately. In my family, someone has a baby once every eleven years. Exactly. So I can have a baby in 2013. Until then, I'll have to wear a bird flu-style face mask when we visit any of Eric's siblings, because in the twelve months between this past March and next March, they will have produced four--four!--new babies. And how certain are we, really, that pregnancy isn't contagious?

Still Alive. More or Less.

The two-week vanishing act was unintentional. In that time, I finished moving into our new apartment (there are just a few random things scattered on the floor that need to be shifted into permanent places) and cleaning the old one. I also attended two out-of-town graduation parties (both for cousins who will be attending my alma mater next year). And I've been working a few extra hours during the week. So I haven't had much time for writing, and when I have had time, I've been uninspired or afraid that anything I write will come off as relentless complaining. (For example, our new apartment, though it is in many important ways better than the last, comes with an upstairs neighbor who walks laps around her bedroom in heels at 7:30 in the morning, when I'm still trying to get another half hour of sleep, and who has sex noisily and often.)

This week will be busy, too, with an extra shift at work and a groom's dinner and a concert and a wedding. So I'll probably disappear again for a while. But I'll be back. I always come back.

My Sister the Rock Star

Tonight I got to see my little tiny baby sister sing in front of a small audience, and I wish you all could've been there. Because her voice is mature and smooth and smoky, like something I could really listen to, and because she wrote one of the songs she sang. She's so talented, I had to smile while she sang, just to let some of the air out of the pride pressing against the inside of my ribcage.

Teresa, I'm honored to be your sister. But--fair warning--when you're famous, I still get to call you "kiddo."

Like Standing in Place, Watching Everyone Run Around Like Lunatics

The year we were 24, Eric and I went to four weddings. And a couple more the year before that, and the year after. Now we're 27, and everyone's breeding. You saw the pictures of Eric's sister's new son. In a month or two, some good friends are having their first baby (a boy). Later in the summer, Eric's oldest brother and his wife are having their third boy. And tonight we found out that his other older brother's wife is pregnant. I have two things to say about this. First: Holy crap. Second: Will someone please make a girl?

Babies and Other Stuff.... But Mostly Babies

For Easter this year we drove up to my grandma's house. We had ham and it was delicious. Which was a good thing, since we had ham sandwiches for dinner last night and ham with our eggs this morning. And there were good people there to talk to, including my mom and sister, who are with me in the picture below. I like this picture partly because the other one, where we're all looking at the camera, is a little blurry, and also because it's typical of me that even when someone has just told a joke and it was clearly funny, I'm still very focused on what we're all supposed to be doing.


Since my grandma lives half an hour's drive from Eric's sister, who had her first baby about two weeks ago, we decided make a detour on our way home this morning to visit them. Meet Cole:


He's a pretty cute little monkey-looking fella.

Fine, Thank You

It was a good weekend. (Incidentally, "weekend," according to Amber and Eric's Post-Collegiate Dictionary, is defined as roughly Saturday evening through Monday.) The first half was spent with people: On Friday night Eric's youngest brother and his wife drove down from Fargo to sleep on our living room floor for a couple of nights, and Eric's oldest brother and our friend Nils joined most of the attendant festivities. I made simple but fantastic chicken on Friday (Thank you, Tyler Florence, for being both hot and genius.), and on Saturday we discovered a bar within walking distance of our apartment that has good food, good beer, good happy hour specials, a good jukebox, pool tables, and was not obnoxiously crowded or noisy. On a Saturday night. Impossible, but true. On Sunday we had the most amazing Chinese lunch ever, and then everyone left. And we proceeded to do nothing. Unless you count watching TV (Apocalypse Now, Gilmore Girls, and The Sopranos), reading, and napping as doing something. I actually don't.

So now I'm all peopled out and rested up for the hard work and diligence of the next two days, when I intend to do a lot of cleaning and writing and maybe even some writing about cleaning. And then I'll go to Barnes & Noble for a couple of days and do a little work in between social time with my coworkers and the customers.

I'm not sure this is really adulthood, but for the moment it's working for me.

Ladies' Day Out

Today I got to hang out with four awesome women in my family, and I had three desserts. Mother's Day rocks.