Today's dose of cuteness

Do I have a treat for you this morning!

Watch these baby sloth videos and tell me it's not pretty much the cutest thing you've ever seen.

Once you've seen the adorable baby sloths, you can watch Kristen Bell completely lose it on the Ellen Degeneres Show and understand why she was excited, if perhaps not why she was so very excited.

A few of life's mysteries

Here are a few questions on my mind today.  Feel free to respond if you have any theories.

Why do people use tanning beds?  Seriously.  Why?  Tanning causes cancer and makes your skin wrinkled and leathery.  If you overdo it, you end up looking pretty scary.  I just don't get it.

You know those silly web surveys like the ones they have on msn.com every day?  Today it is asking for reader's opinions on some teen's rather tasteless faked suicide.  Your choices are that a) you think her video raises awareness of bullying, b) her project was "unsettling," or c) you have no opinion.  My question: is it really necessary to have an option for people who have no opinion?  Couldn't they simply not participate in the survey?  Where they need a "no opinion" option is on voter's ballots.  I've been known to occasionally do some eenie-meenie-miney-moe.

Aren't they angelic?

Why do children spend so much time and effort driving their parents insane?  Do they enjoy being yelled at?  Get a kick out of punishment?  Like the idea of having crazy parents?  Are they simply addicted to drama?  How can the sweet child who cuddles you before bedtime be the same one who gets called to the principal's office?  A few minutes ago I came stomping out of my room because Mindy was playing the same note over and over and over and over on her ukulele.  She was also singing along (same note) with words something like "Isaac is a big jerk.  I hate Isaac.  Isaac is a stupid head."

Similarly, why do siblings fight so unceasingly?  I'll never forget a lovely game of Risk I played with my husband and two of his cousins back in college.  The cousins were pre-teen siblings, and not once did they attack anyone other than each other.  Jacob and I annihilated them.  It was so easy.  They didn't even notice because they were having such a blast attacking each other.

Why do I get the munchies?  I'm not talking about any side-effects from dope-smoking. I'm talking about when I suddenly am consumed with the insatiable need to eat absolutely everything.  I'm not actually hungry because it's not possible for my pathetic metabolism to require that kind of calorie load.  I'm not eating my feelings because emotionally I feel dandy.  The munchies often hit, oddly, at bedtime.  Usually I crave toast, specifically.  Even better if it is with a mug of hot cocoa.  I rarely get up and have the toast because it won't help.  The need for the toast is bottomless.

Any burning questions on your mind?

Rejection and self-doubt

The day of my surgery I received an email rejection for my novel Ravenswood.  It was a lovely email to come home to, let me tell you.  Good thing I was already thoroughly numbed with painkillers.  It's now been rejected six times, which means I only need three more and it'll be just like Harry Potter . . . or something.

I was thinking about Ravenswood last night as I lay awake unable to sleep.  (Note: when people lie awake in movies, they lie on their backs and gaze up at the ceiling, their faces projecting the pain and hopelessness of the scene.  Unfortunately, lying on my back is excruciating right now, even on the painkillers, so my expression of hopelessness was directed into my pillow.  I can't even fail as decorously as I would like.  Okay, sorry.  I'll stop whining now.)

Do you like the stock photos I snagged off the Internet?  Note the white bedding and white jammies?  See my post from last week if you missed the discussion on stock photos.

Anyway, I thought about my characters, especially the supporting roles, and decided that they are all flat as a pancake.  There's no depth, no edge, and I found even thinking about the characters too dull to attempt.  This is not a good sign.  I know at 2 am I am predisposed to feel pessimistic, but now it is nearly 2 pm, and I am still not in the mood to fix the human pinballs I created for my main character to bounce off of.  No wonder it keeps getting rejected.

I'll admit that I love my characters.  I can see them in my head and usually find them amusing as all get out.  However, I don't think I've written them as cool as they are in my head, and I'm afraid to read Ravenswood over again and find out.  I am such a wimp.

Similarly, I still have not started revisions on Blue, the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo last fall.  I know that one is a catastrophe.  I mean, I wrote it in 30 days, so its status as a work in progress is a given.  However, I also missed a week or two in the middle having surgery and had to polish off nearly half of it in the last few days (probably while taking painkillers and not eating).  This is the one for which I actually posted a request on Facebook for ideas on how to get the sucker moving.  Meagan, bless her heart, suggested ninja pirates, and I used them to get my character to stop wandering in a boring - although lovely - meadow.  Quite an accomplishment considering that this is a novel that includes space flight.  By the end of the book I had turned her into a superhero.  It's like one of those awful satires of desperate Hollywood movies, but Jacob says it's my best book yet.

And then there's the one about the accountant that is no longer an embryo, but is still just a fetus (the novel, not the character).  I'm determined to keep her from turning into a superhero or having any kind of special powers.  However, while the story is simmering on the back burner, one of her clients has been taking on an uncanny resemblance to Tony Stark.  He doesn't have a metal flying suit . . . yet.

It's probably a good thing that I'm planning to return to my day job in a few more weeks, although the tax returns moldering on my shelf in my office aren't that much more attractive than my paper-thin characters.

Another food blog

When I started this blog I didn't know precisely what I wanted to write about, but I knew what I didn't want to write about - food.  You may have noticed that the Internet is overflowing with food blogs.  Everyone and their cousin has a food blog, and they come in all shapes and sizes.  Some are all about chocolate.  Some are only gluten-free.  Some are vegan, fat-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, soy-free, and really make me wonder what on earth the blogger does eat.  I was determined that I would not add to this smorgasbord of culinary mayhem.

Taking the sting out of nettles for stinging nettle soup

However, there's a big problem with that decision.  I spend a good half of my waking hours planning, cooking, and consuming food.  I don't think that's an exaggeration.  I love to eat and for the past few years I've been cooking my tooshy off (quite literally).  For example, last night for dinner we had homemade pizza with crust I made from scratch and a sauce made from heirloom tomatoes I grew from seed last summer.  Admittedly, the goat cheese, mozzarella, and parmesan cheeses were store-bought, and I didn't grow the onions that I caramelized, but I did grow the basil that we scattered on top.  If I weren't having so much fun, I would be sickened by my own domesticity.

Last night was not an isolated incident, either.  I now bake my own crusty loaf several days a week (thanks to Mark Bittman's New York Times article on Jim Lahey's revolutionary no-knead method), and am considering experimenting with baking sandwich bread for the kids' lunches.  We took over a farm share from friends who moved away, and now have piles of greens that we have to figure out how to eat.  So we saute a lot of greens and eat a ton of salad (with fresh crusty bread).  This year we are growing our own tomatoes, peppers, onions, beans, peas, and arugula, and I'm looking forward to planting some Cinderella pumpkins from seed I saved last year.

I don't even use box mixes for brownies any more since Cooking Light has such a lovely recipe, and I have dispensed with margarine now that I can make my own spreadable butter.

In conclusion, this blog is not about food.  However, I am personally all about food.  So when you're wondering why I am not posting anything new on my blog, you'll know it's because I'm busy making cheese souffles to eat with the lovely fresh micro-greens that we are ready to harvest from our backyard garden.

The Hazards of Being Opinionated

My son is at a lovely stage in life where he parrots everything I say.  I'm not kidding.  When Jacob and I get into an argument - er, discussion - I know that I've got the advantage.  It'll always be two against one.  What about Mindy, you ask?  She can't be bothered to invest in conversation with her family.

Jacob complained to me about this the other night.  He's annoyed that Isaac always takes my side.  After pointing out the boy's obvious intelligence and discernment, I also suggested the main reason Isaac doesn't parrot Jacob's opinions: Jacob doesn't have any.

Jacob's lack of opinion is probably what drew me to him in the first place.  He is so darn relaxing to be around!  It's why everyone likes him best (especially my mother).  He's a good, non-judgmental listener, never trying to insert his own opinion, but patiently listening to yours.  It's lovely, let me tell you.

I think it's easier on him, as well.  The number one hazard of being opinionated is, of course, that you're often wrong, no matter how intelligent and thoughtful you are.  I have long wished I was capable of just shutting up, for pete's sake.  It would save me so much backtracking, keep my feet out of my mouth, and I wouldn't be stuck eating so much humble pie.

A new hazard has sprung up with Isaac's current stage in life.  Not only am I always in danger of saying something that will come back to haunt me, but I've got him repeating everything I say.  This is a huge responsibility.  I don't want him going around saying things like, "Well, that girl has a huge booty," and "So-and-so has the world's least-convincing comb-over."  So I find myself saying things like, "Doing well in school is the best fun ever!" and "Mowing the lawn is not only exciting, but a fun, healthy form of exercise."  It's a bit of a challenge squeezing these topics in while watching Dancing With the Stars, but I'm nothing if not a talented conversationalist.

By the way, I've been trying to ease off on the narcotic painkillers, which is no fun at all. (This is another thought I have to try not to voice in Isaac's presence so he doesn't go to school and tell his teachers that "narcotics are fun!")  Yesterday when I saw the doctor for my surgery follow-up, he said that my surgery is a very painful one, and I should go ahead and stay on the painkillers as long as I needed to, and he gave me a refill.  Music to my ears, let me tell you.  So I will continue to be somewhat narcotic-fueled in my blog posts for a bit longer.  Hopefully I won't have any more awful dreams like the one I posted about last week.

Here's a link to a very, very funny website about retro Weight Watcher's recipes.  This is not a website for kids or people who are offended by bad language, so please, don't even go there if you fit into these categories.  I would be sad if I messed up your day like that.  If you, like me, have been so ruined by modern society that you sometimes don't notice bad language, then this is a fun place to go, but make sure that Isaac isn't standing behind you reading over your shoulder because he will totally repeat anything he sees.

Narcotic-fueled brilliance!

I made several New Year's resolutions this year, and one of them was to blog weekly.  I'm doing a better job at keeping my weight loss resolution.  How crazy is that?

For a while, I had the excuse of working a lot, but the tax deadline was nearly a month ago.  I did have back surgery a week ago and have been mostly lying around watching television and reading ever since.  I keep thinking I should post something to my blog, but do people really want to read my narcotic-fueled insights?  Do I even have any narcotic-fueled insights?

The only thing my brain has spawned from the painkillers was a truly awful nightmare earlier this week.  I was chaperoning at a youth rally and ended up on a horrible journey that involved being vomited upon, trying to take care of a baby while being crippled by an unknown neurotoxin, and getting lost on the way back from the bathroom.  I tried to get back to the teens I was supposed to be chaperoning, but I was hopelessly lost, wandering through several sports facilities and children's arcades, a strange retro martini bar filled with men in suits, a sushi kitchen, a courtroom, and a porn palace.  It was the porn that freaked me out enough to make me think maybe this was a dream.  The only thing that would have made the dream more frightening is if I were being chased by clowns.

I don't have much of value to write about, so I've gathered a few links for your browsing pleasure.  I just realized that all the links are on the subject of women.  Interesting.

The first is a wonderful link to a random page that has women laughing alone with salad.  I feel it has something deep to say about how women are portrayed in modern society, and I really want to stage photos of my family laughing with salad now.  I'm not kidding.  When I finally do it I promise to post pictures here.

On essentially the same subject is The World According to Stock Photos of Women.  Apparently stock photos have captured the reality of my life.  I mean, I'm always laughing as I eat salad, and my bedroom is completely white, with completely white linen, and I sleep in a white cami and white yoga pants.  Isn't that what being a woman means?  

Finally, I present you the latest in the endless stream of non-news controversies brought up to pit women against women (which we fall for every time).  This time it's the Time Magazine cover shot of a woman breastfeeding her three-year-old son.  It's getting more news than it deserves, which is why they did it.  I love this column from the Huffington Post's Lisa Belkin.  It's long past time women stopped criticizing each other's parenting choices and started supporting each other.  Parenting is an endless challenge and anyone who thinks they have all the answers is either an idiot or not a parent.

I promise I will try to post again soon.  I'm starting to think my weekly resolution was a bit optimistic of me.

Unexpected in March

My daughter is throwing snowballs at my office window, and it's March 22nd.

The kids have a snow day today, which adds another day to their extremely lengthy spring break.  They already had their spring break extended by one day because the freeway is being shut down.  That was extending what had already become a two-week holiday due to budget reduction days.

My kids have twelve days of school off for spring break.  Twelve!  With weekends, that is eighteen days!

I weep for the future of our country.  Our kids barely go to school.

And climate change has turned out to be much colder than anticipated if we're getting several inches of snow for spring break.  Forecast for tomorrow: freezing fog.

Mindy posing with her lovely snowman. 

Am I rambling about the weather in a blog post?  Why, yes, I am.  I've been embarrassingly lax with my blog and haven't posted for a month.  Consequently, I have to post something, no matter how inane.  Let's see if I can make it more serious.

I told my son he had to build me a snowman, and he went outside and kicked snow around instead.

I weep for the future of our country.  Our kids don't want to build snowmen.

But fear not!  My daughter, in the footsteps of great women throughout history, braved the snow flying from her brother's boots and built a snowman on her own!  The nation will survive as long as plucky young women continue to fight against all odds to preserve our nation's greatness.

Did I manage to infuse this blog posting with real meaning and value to society?  Nope.  Still just me blogging because I said I would, regardless of whether I had something to say.

But isn't that really what blogging is all about?