Black Hole

I am going on a long weekend vacation starting Friday. I keep trying to write but there is a big BLACK HOLE of nothing right in the middle of my brain that continues to grab all of my ideas before they form. I can see them, feel them little wisps of thought that just get slammed into nothingness. Since I will be gone on Friday I thought posting early would be a great idea but … blank. Things are changing for me at work and although it seems like a new, exciting, and great opportunity for me (disclaimer: Of course I have to say that! I’m quaking in my boots at the looming change that has jumped on me as I rounded a corner I didn’t even know was there.) I know that it is consuming most of my brain functions and the rest is being taken up by the intense excitement for “The Day Before” and I think a quick picturepalooza is in order for this post.

Homemade Lemonade – Babykins helped me make it by pulling out all of the utensils from the “spoon” drawer and then tasting the final product letting me know if I needed more water or sugar or just a big mug. Edgar gave us a bucket full of yummy yellow lemons.

Girls Night Out!  - My friends and I had a fabulous time getting a few pitchers of yummy cold Coors Lite, the Silver Bullet baby! We are all just kids in adult bodies and it is always a good time when we get together and act a fool!

Hanging with Grandma and Grandpa – We went to get fish tacos and walk along the Alamitos bay. Allie had a great time running up and down the ramp to the Water Taxi with the salty wind whipping across her face.

Quick Afternoon Disneyland Trip – We met Uncle Tim after work and strolled around the parks: grabbing popcorn, getting free samples at Gadiva and riding Ariel’s Sea Adventure … again! Allie just loves that ride and we go on it every time.

So I hope that rest of the week flies by and the weekend is full of all the magic and fun I just can’t help but anticipate. Talk to you soon!



My baby Allie and her cousin Emi are just the cutest when they get together! They just make me so excited for tomorrow.



Right Now - Random

Random thoughts that I have been thinking about all rolled up into one weird blog, here goes.

Right now … I am 35 years old!!! Dun da duuuuuhhhh! That is a very strange age for me because when I was little I told everyone that my Mom was 36 until she was around 42. I just thought that was a good number and I was going to stick to it. Now that I am only one small year away from that magical number it makes me a bit reflective. I know I’m getting nostalgic about a future birthday, I never said my thoughts made much sense. I was nine years old when my Mom was 36, my daughter will be two. I was in third grade wearing my teacher’s shoes because she thought it was so funny that we wore the same size seven. I would strut in wearing penny loafers and she would clomp in with hot pink LA Gear high tops with multicolored double laces. It was probably a great thing that I told everyone for the next five years that my Mom was 36. She was a teacher at a private school and because of that my sister and I were enrolled. We got to grow up in the strange world of an Orange County CA private school. I called my Mom “Mrs. McAlister” instead of Mom and my friends called her Mom. What? I know things just got all mixed up for me. Since I went to “work” with my Mom every day I knew her co-workers and even though I was “never to speak of anything I heard while I was in their company” (this was actually said to me on a weekly basis by more than one faculty member) they in turn did not have the same restrictions for anything that I might say in their company. I learned to keep my mouth shut and my ears open. My Mother stayed a perky 36 and everyone pretended to be happy. When my own daughter is nine I will be … add 12 carry the 2 borrow from the 15 … 43 years old. Hopefully, she finds the number 36 as inviting as I did and carry on the tradition of my Eternal Youth. A few, well more than a few, years ago I actually tried doing the same thing to myself. It really wasn’t on purpose I just kept forgetting how old I was and when the question came up, and it came up a lot too, I would say, “24.” Then I would roll right along with the rest of the conversation with all of my friends staring at me with amused looks on their faces. Well really who goes around asking a 20 something woman what their age is anyway? What does it matter? I showed the bartender my ID and was handed a beer. That pretty much answers any questions that a man might have when starting a conversation with me … IN A BAR. So after one of these incidences my friend, whose birthday is one month before mine, looked at me stopped the conversation dead in its tracks and said loudly, “We are 29 years old, where have you been for the last five years?” I laughed my butt off because I really had forgotten how old I was and I did feel like a time traveler.

This is my friend April who wanted to know where I had been for the last five years.

Right now … I want to tell you about my love affair with “The Day Before”.  I find that I enjoy the anticipation of things sometime more than the actual thing. I love beautifully wrapped packages, Fridays and the night before a road trip. I will actually make myself sick sometimes with the excitement, getting so deep into the pressure cooker of anticipation, that I actually give myself stomach cramps. Good grief! But I just love, love, love the moment before big things, there is so much potential and opportunity. My mind wanders through all of the wonderful scenarios of a good weekend trip or a heartfelt gift. I used to work for my Aunt in the summers at her daycare and the anticipation of what I would spend my money on was much better than what I actually bought and I bought some good outfits from Contempo Casuals, remember the floral denim shorts and jacket combos? (Get pick of outfit from somewhere.)  This month we are taking a mini vacation to Parker AZ where we will celebrate the five year anniversaries of my good friends who had the best double wedding in the desert. We are all going back the “scene of the crime” the Desert Bar and celebrating with cold Coors Lite and grilled hamburgers … No Cheese EVER! The anticipation meter has been gaining momentum the last few days and I love every minute of it. I am amassing a piles of clothes, saving them for the trip and imagining the fun we will have in them. This will be Allie’s first time seeing the bar, last time I was about four months pregnant she didn’t get to see much because she was rocking the aisle seat on Mommy Airlines. I can’t wait to let her explore the rocky desert landscape, finding all kinds of treasures and trying to eat them. The bright sun will turn our skin brown as we enjoy games of horseshoes and tag. I can’t wait for Allie to learn about this place with Saige, Zoe and Zannah the first of our girls (I have taken ownership of all of my friends’ children) that found adventure in the craggy wilderness. All the wonder and joy these girls felt when five years ago they were discovering the place will come out and shape the memories of my girl. I simply cannot wait! This Day Before is so yummy and delicious I just love swimming in this feeling.

This is not me but you get the idea, Contempo Casuals forever!

These are my friends whose children I have taken as my own and will be spending some fun time with in the Desert.

Right now … I have started a project using needles that once belonged to Terry’s Grandma Jane. I am making baby booties, hopefully, and I am feeling a small little spiritual link right now. The tip of these blue aluminum needles is now silver because the paint has worn off from much use. It makes me feel closer to her and grateful that I get to use her needles to continue the tradition of handmade items that will bring joy to the people around me just as she brought joy to the people around her handmade gifts.

I just love knitting and it makes me so happy to give them away. 

Right now… my baby girl has the biggest blue eyes. I look into her eyes and I see my Grandpa Joe and his big blues eyes twinkling at me. I miss him. I wish he could have met my daughter. Wishing doesn’t change anything. All I can do is whisper stories about him in her ear and hope that she “remembers” him the way that I remember my Great Grandma Nora Bell East through the stories my own Mother told me. I never met this Great Grandma but my Mom brought her to life with stories of sunny afternoons spent at Grandma’s house. My Mom says I sort of look like her, we have the same legs and hips! I will tell my baby that she has her Great Grandpa’s eyes.

Just a small note about The Boston Marathon 2013, I don’t know anyone that was hurt or even participated in the event. What I do know is that I am an American and violence of any kind towards Americans and even worse on American soil is horrible. It makes my heart hurt, a tight squeeze that continues until I can’t breathe. This feeling makes me angry and irrational I want to scream, blame someone and punch something but none of these actions will do anyone any good. No one. So in these times of sadness I like to go back to a quote from Fred Rogers, for those of you that grew up in the 80’s Mr. Rogers our favorite neighbor, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, My Mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my Mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in the world.” In that same spirit I say, “Hold your loved ones a little tighter, smile to a stranger a little wider and let your light shine a little brighter.” Giving into anger and fear well “that is the way of the Dark Side” and we all know what happened to the Emperor in the end, he died a sad wrinkled screaming mess. Allowing ourselves to fall into sadness and anger will only let the terrorists behind this tragedy win, we can’t let that happen. God has listened to my prayers and in return he helped me to figure out a way to help my heart hurt just a little bit less.

Right Now … The winds have kicked up around here and I sound like Snuffaluffagus. My lips are under about an inch of Chap Stick and I think they just might need another layer, so chapped! Not attractive. I am reluctant to move my body because if I do my skin might just crack into a million pieces and fly away. Although I might be uncomfortable wind does amazing things to a regular suburban landscape turning an ordinary walk into a magical afternoon. The bright sun, swirling leaves and dancing trees are just what I need to bring my spirits up. I forget my chappy lips for about 2 minutes.

Family

So I want my daughter, hopefully in the future my children, to know what it is to have roots and connections. I want them to feel the surrounding love of people that are connected to them. A connection that in my mind is a big fluffy afghan that has been pieced together from a group of crazy knitters, red here and blue there and oh my goodness what color is that! I simultaneously come from a big family and a small family. I only have one sibling, a sister, and my Mother has one sibling, a brother, but my Dad has five siblings, four brothers and a sister. I come from a big/small family. I get the best of both worlds the big loud raucous family holidays and the cozy intimate summer nights at the pool. My husband has brought his own goofy group of individuals he calls family and this week that group got a little bigger. We met his brother Jake and girlfriend Lauren. They were simply delightful. Yes, simply delightful. A brother that Terry did not have the privilege of growing up with but is a really interesting man to get to know. I was able to introduce another Uncle to my daughter and she has an added layer of fluffy afghan to snuggle in.

Family can come from anywhere at any time. Last Saturday we had no less than three parties to go to! That is a lot of celebrating and we did it in the true Miller fashion, running from place to place and eating. I just love that all of my family realize that parties are fun with balloons and streamers but as my nephew Gabriel once famously said, “It’s not a birthday without cake!” And to that I say, “Quite right!” Even if it was my birthday he was talking about because we had no cake. The next day I went to the Swap Meet with my friend April and as we were strolling through the aisles eyeballing wrap dresses and board books I started babbling about all of my family obligations that I had to do the day before and how nice it was today to just relax, I then realized that I had lumped her daughter’s birthday party into the “family obligations” that I was now relaxing from. I opened my big mouth to apologize; I felt like I had just insulted her party, she cut me off with a smile and a wave. “Don’t you dare apologize, I know what you mean it is nice to relax but it is also really great that you think of us as family.” And I do. That sort of caught me by surprise. I value my friends and their children, they have always been there for me when I needed them and I got to play with their babies any time I wanted a fix. I love being Aunt Jen to all of their kiddos. I have just always had “my family” those people related to me by blood or marriage and then “my friends” those people that have stuck to me throughout the years as if we all had sticky hands on each other’s butts. I was smacked in the head with the realization that these people are no longer my friends but my family. I know this is not an earth shattering revelation, many people have had this thought before me but I have not had this thought before.  Um  … what? You know what I mean. It was a new idea for me. No matter how many times I am told something if I don’t get it, and sometime I REALLY don’t get it, then I just won’t believe it. Something changed in my heart this weekend because although my head may have known that my friends were close to me and I valued them very much my heart had not yet felt that deep down snuggle of the afghan of family. I looked around and realized that my fluffy warm inviting afghan was folded up in places hiding more colors: fuchsia, turquoise and navy blue. My friends had been warming my butt! So I just want to say, “I love you and thanks for keeping me warm.”

Distance cannot “unmake” a family. For Easter I decided that I wanted to visit my Aunt Rhonda in Los Banos. My Uncle John is the pastor of a church there and I thought it would be just wonderful to go to his church on Easter Sunday; Allie would get to wear an Easter dress, sit in a pew and listen to her cousin lead the praise team in song. She would get to color eggs with Aunt Rhonda just like I did when I was a little girl. She would get to play with cousins, my cousins that are 10 years younger than me. These are the cousins that I got to play with like baby dolls. Sorry Barbie, Sally and Katie I got to practice changing diapers on you and learning just the right spot on my hip for carrying babies. You seem to have turned out alright so I must have learned pretty quickly how to do things right. Allie would get to play with Uncle John and have him fix her hair, he raised three girls and knows how to tame a few locks. So I scheduled time off and reserved a hotel room and blissfully anticipated the weekend to come. And you know what? It was AWESOME; the weekend was everything I imagined and more. Laid back, casual and cozy. My baby warmed up to everyone and reveled in all of the attention. She walked and stopped crawling showing off her new found skill to adoring clapping fans. I was snuggled in family fun as my Aunt and I made a Butterfinger pie then passed out mixer blades and spoons for licking. I just love walking into a living room with a mixing blade and ask, “You wanna lick this?” It is irresistible everyone says yes. Grandma sang “Yankee Doodle” to my little girl coaxing a grin then went in and stole some tickles. It was magical. Los Banos is not near my house it is about a 6 hour drive but the distance does not stop the love from coming out and dancing around us at these events.

I am so happy to have family and I am so happy to share that feeling with my own little family.  

Have a happy weekend everyone!

Jenn