Tonight, we had panini’s for dinner.  On homemade dilled wheat bread that I am here to tell you is da ‘bomb.

Last weekend Jeff installed a new sink and faucet in our kitchen.  The old one was builder-stock-ugly-as-sin-stainless-steel and ohmygoodness it took everything I had to put up with it for 5 + years.  The new one is black granite.  The faucet is longneck black antiqued so that the {fake} copper shows through.  The combination of the two make my heart sing.

I was bathing Jayce the other day and he told me that if it had a fin here and here his, ahem, dangling participle of a boy part, would look just like a dolphin.  On the tail of raising three girls I don’t exactly know what to say to those comments.

I’ve officially crossed the 2/3 milestone of my second novel.  Can I get an amen?

We started using cloth diapers.  Which may seem strange considering our youngest child is 4.5.  Aforementioned youngest child has nighttime wetting issues, though, and the cost of Pull-Ups was quickly eating through our Disney budget.

The garden has sprouted.  And no fewer than thirty-seven limes are budding on our dwarf lime tree (hello margaritas!).

I gave up my nightly glass of wine for this week.  It seemed like a good idea at the time but I’m doubting myself now.  It’s only Wednesday mind you.

I’m sharing a picture of the note cards that have overtaken our formal dining table.  Each one represents a chapter in my book.  The one that is missing is the one I wrote today.  Slightly under one month to go.

Bear with me.

Today marks the last day of Spring break around these parts.  And yes, I’m totally in mourning.

Here is why: tomorrow the alarm will go off at 5:30.  While I would love to lie in bed, lingering in the last few moments of laziness it won’t be an option because I have to hit the ground running if I am to get Cass out the door and onto the bus when it arrives at 6:17 sharp.  We’re not a cereal-eating kind of household so the very first thing I will do is fry a couple of eggs and toast some bread, or maybe cook oatmeal (the real stuff, on the stove).  From there I have to hurry up and get two lunches made, taking extra care to make sure that Kennedy ends up with the whole grain goldfish and Cassidy gets the cherry tomatoes.  Vice versa could be disastrous.  If I am not leaving the kitchen by 6:05 to start on Cassidy’s teeth and hair brushing ritual then we will be late.  If I have not washed the weekend’s worth of film from the lenses of her glasses by 6:15 then I might as well kiss the whole day goodbye because, already, I’ve blown it.

I hate 5:30 am.  For the record.

For two blessed weeks I’ve been busy relaxing.  As is witnessed by the lack of postings on this here blog.  The only thing that could have made our spring break better was if the girls hadn’t been gone to dad camp the whole time.  We had an amazing break in spite of it, though.

Here is why: cooking for three as opposed to six is blissfully simplistic; on more than one occasion we went to Baskin Robbins where I indulged in Jamocha Almond Fudge single scoop sundaes with marshmallow topping and all the fixins; we drove to Yuma and spent a weekend with Grams and Gramps; spring has arrived to Tucson in full force and I’m basking in the warmth; 5:30 AM was dead to me.

In other news, I’m a third of the way through my second novel.  I hope {plan} to have a first draft finished around the first of June.  Which, together with the fact that I’m going back to active status on www.disneyworldmoms.com means that the blogging (both the reading and writing) will suffer.  Which kinda sucks.  Oh, who am I kidding?  It sucks a lot, actually.  But I’m loving my new characters in the book and of course the spreading of virtual pixie dust is always fun.  So I guess there’s that.

I really hope to not disappear for weeks at a time again.  But I can’t make any promises. ;)

Tell me what’s up with you.  Have you had spring break yet?  Or do you live in one of those dreadful cooler climates still covered in snow?  Wanna come for a visit?

January 6th already?  Wowsers.  I feel like I kinda missed the holidays.

This was the first time that we’ve ever gone away for Christmas.  And boy did we go.

We met my grandparents at the airport in the wee hours of the morning on December 15th and flew through Las Vegas en route to Orlando.  After a much anticipated dinner at Steak ‘n’ Shake we checked into the hotel and welcomed my step-daughter, Meghan, {my ex-husband’s daughter} and her husband, Mat.  I haven’t seen Meghan since she was ten years old so, needless to say, looking up to her was a new one for me.  She’s taller than me now!  By three full inches.  Oy.  Not to mention she’s all grown up–a married woman, even.  Sigh.  I’d looked so forward to seeing Miss Meghan after all these years.  She’s a beautiful, faithful, sweet as can be girl young lady and we’re blessed to have her in our lives.  And what’s even better is that she married well; Mat was instantly loved by all.

The whole bunch of us stayed in Orlando and played at Walt Disney World for a couple of days before we had to say a tearful goodbye to Mat and Meghan; they went home to spend Christmas with their family while the rest of us set sail on an 11 night Southern Caribbean cruise that would include Christmas Day.  Our days at sea were peaceful and balmy (on deck, at least – the staterooms were downright freezing!), and served up a hefty dose of the rest and relaxation we were seeking.  The Disney Magic pulled back into port in Cape Canaveral on December 29th.  By then, we’d sufficiently exhausted Grams and Gramps so they flew home to Tucson while the six of us rang in the new year at Walt Disney World.

Phew.  It was a whirlwind.

A lovely one, though.

One that requires far more than just a brief overview like this.

So–fair warning–I’m going to spend the next week or so posting about our trip.  Hope you don’t mind.

Here are a few teaser photos.  :)

In the meantime, though, Happy New Year.

Lately, I’ve been forgetting to blog.

I’ve been writing and writing and writing.  Writing so much that it seems preposterous to think I haven’t checked in on the ol’ blog.  But then I do check in and you and I both know that there is no denying the date on that last post down there.  And then I have to admit that I’ve been neglectful.  Which is never a good thing.

So let me fill you in, speed-blog style.

As of right this very moment, I’m 56 pages in to my second novel.

After having received my first ever advance in the mail last month (for my first novel), I feel like an honest-to-goodness writer and so I take every opportunity to use the words my and second and novel in everyday conversation.

Because now that my first novel is officially being published I am not hesitant to call myself a writer.  Even though that’s what I’ve always been.

My book will be published in Italy.  Please don’t ask me when because I cannot tell you.  Not because I don’t want to but because I don’t know.

Here are the answers to the other questions you may or may not ask:

- I did not write it in Italian.
- I do not speak (or read) Italian.
- As of right this very moment there are not plans to publish my book in English.
- Yes that could (and hopefully will) change.
- Yes I will get copies of the book once it has been published.
- You can bet your sweet patootie that I will indeed take a picture of it and post it here.

As you might have noticed from this post my writing is consuming every nook and cranny of my life at the moment.  Except, of course, for the space I leave for my husband and children, which, sadly, is not enough.

I’m working under self-imposed deadlines.

I hate self-imposed deadlines.

I love the accomplished feeling of surpassing those deadlines.

My resident techie is working on updating the look of Such The Spot.

I’m hoping that once he finishes that I will be unable to resist the temptation to post post post!

I have heard that my grandfather’s day hangs in the balance when I fail to post.

I can’t have that on my conscience.

My brain hurts.

Tell me about you.

Please.

We’re home.

We were at Disney, in case you wondered.  In case you hadn’t put the two and the two together.

I have pictures.  Not sure if I’ll post them or not.  You get the gist, right?

We got home really late on Thursday and then the girls came home from dad camp immediately thereafter and then there were vacation details to discuss and {lots of} clothes to wash and gardens to prune.

{I’m sparing you the picture of the 3-foot zucchini.  I would not even have taken the picture in the first place if Jeff would have just shut up about the dang thing in the first place.  He didn’t though.  Shut up, that is.  He was proud of the 3-foot zucchini.  I, on the other hand, realize that a 3-foot zucchini proves only that one is a lazy gardener}.

He threatened Kennedy with it immediately upon her return from dad camp.  He walked into her room as I was tucking her into bed–the 3-pound zucchini hidden behind his back.  He said, “I almost forgot to tell you the new rule, Kennedy.  The new rule is that you have to eat one vegetable every day in order to get dessert.  Tomorrow, this (insert dramatic unveiling of his 3-pound zucchini here) is your vegetable.”

He laughed.

Kennedy chuckled.

I rolled my eyes.

It is not uncommon for me to roll my eyes.  My husband is under the impression that his sense of humor is shared by most.

Unfortunately for him, it is not.

Dang.

I have totally devoted nearly an entire post to the stupid 3-pound zucchini.

He gets me every time.

Are you a reader who appreciates me “being real”?

I only ask because I’m about to be really real.  And if you’re not a reader who appreciates that side of me you best avert your eyes.  Fair warning.

My topic of choice?  Cassidy.  My third child.  The wild one.  Also known as the burping, farting girl.

She came home sick from school yesterday.  I wasn’t the least bit surprised by this, considering the number of railings she licked while we were visiting Disneyland last weekend.

Licked?  You ask.  Yes, lick.  She licks things.  It’s the phase she grew into once she grew out of the spitting.  Licking.  One step forward, two steps back.

She licks things when she’s frustrated–when I get on to her for one of her other behaviors.  She gets back at me by licking.  Things.  Handrails.  Her hands.  The bottom of her shoe (that’s a classic one).

This weekend, though?  This weekend she licked handrails.

I’m not a bad mom.  Really, I’m not.  It’s not that I failed to forbid her from the licking of the handrails.  I most certainly did–forbade her that is.  Only, she’s not so much into listening.  It’s not her gig.

Licking?  Totally her gig.

And when she’s not licking, she’s smearing her hands along anything and everything within her vicinity.  Trash cans, elevator buttons, random surfaces, eh, whatever.  It’s all the same to her.  After the smearing of the hands she proceeds to rub her eyes, her nose, her mouth–any orifice through which germs can enter her body.  She’s not choose-ey.  It’s almost as though she seeks out the portal through which germs can enter most efficiently and bends over backwards so as to allow–encourage, even–the germs to penetrate her immune system.

So she came home vomiting.

None of the rest of us came home vomiting.  Despite being in contact with the very same germs.  Sans the licking–granted.

Yesterday, she started vomiting and my hands were elbow-deep in dish water and allsoapywet so I told her to run to the toilet.

But she didn’t run.

She walked.  Very, very slowly.

She made it all the way through the living room (which has concrete, easily-cleaned floors, I might add), down the hall (also with the concrete floors), past one perfectly good bathroom with one perfectly good toilet (and concrete floors).  She made it all the way to her bedroom doorway.  A bedroom that has had perfectly good carpeting, mind you.  It was there that she let loose the wrath of the whole wheat white shells and cheese lunch I’d previously nourished her with.

I spent an hour picking pasta remnants from the carpet fibers before lugging out the Hoover steam cleaner and shampooing the carpet so as to spare us all the more-than-slightly-rank smell.

Why she chose to surpass that first perfectly good bathroom?  Your guess is as good as mine.  Her reasoning for doing so is probably the same as her reasoning for licking hand rails at the Happiest Place on Earth.  Germfest be damned.

The sun came out this morning, though.

There was no vomit.  And no hand rails for the licking.

The moral of my long-winded story?  In this season of back-to-school, just thank your lucky stars for Purell, my friends.  And use it liberally.

I got a ticket today.

Ticket, as in moving traffic violation.

This, my friends, is a first for me.  The first blemish on my spotless 16-year driving record.  And I’m none too happy.

Technically, I was cited for “wasting finite resources.”  Which, in my case, meant that the officer who cited me was under the impression that I was speeding.  Either that, or she was just shy of making her ticketing quota for the month of August and I was a wrongplacewrongtime casualty.

She claimed that her radar “strongly” lit me up speeding.

I’m far from convinced.  But that, apparently, is beside the point.  Or at least it is for now.  We’ll see what the judge has to say though.

The kicker?

The kicker was that this highway patrolwoman had the nerve to approach my car and explain to me that I was being cited for “wasting finite resources” while her patrol car idled behind us.

Um?  Finite resources.  Ahem.

She proceeded to take my license and registration.

Her car idled.

She walked back to her car and radioed in to check for warrants (because, you know in my spare time I have this pesky habit of knocking off banks and stuff).

Her car idled.

She came back and argued with me about the validity of her claim.

Her car idled.

The gas it was a guzzlin’ friends.  I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if her AC was blaring all the while.  And yet still, she ticketed me for “wasting finite resources.”  As I sat in my parked minivan with the engine turned off, our reusable shopping bags laying on the seat next to me.

Finite resources.  Uh-huh.

It took everything I had to zip my lip.  Because I had plenty to say about finite resources.  Like the fossil fuels that were burning their way through her gas tank.  Or the triplicate paper she used to write me a bogus ticket.  And that’s saying nothing of the tax dollars wasted on ticketing a homemaker in a minivan, on her way home from a visit to the park with her four-year-old gangsta preschooler.

Finite resources.

I’d love to tell you more but yo, some homey in the hood just blew powder and now I gotz to blow ‘for the PoPo come light us up and send us ovah.  Yo.

Or something like that. :)

What. a. week.  Yep.  One of those.

The kids went back to school on the 19th and I don’t feel like I’ve taken a breather since.  No time to breathe when you’ve got orthodontist appointments sandwiched by swim classes times two.

We’ve got homework coming out the wazoo.  Lunch making and meal-planning.  Sports sign-ups and the accompanying physicals.  Endocrinologists, EENT’s, dermatologists and ophthalmologists to visit (chalk those up to bad long-term timing on my part).

My intent of this post, however was not so much to play the pity-me-because-I’m-so-busy card.

I’d rather forget all about the go-go-go’ness for a second.  And focus, instead, on that which I’ve been savoring:

Like just a minute ago when my soon-to-be 4 year-old sought me out–fresh from his bath–to play the tushie game.

Or how instead of waking up to an empty side of the bed, I’ve been stumbling out of bed while it’s still dark so as to join my lovie on his early morning run.

I’m enjoying these last weeks of 15.  Because she’s counting down the days until sweet sixteen, and the dating threshold she’ll cross into.

My absent-too-long monsoon friend has arrived.  The pitter patter makes my soul smile.

These are the moments–sprinkled sparingly throughout my days–that remind me.  Comfort me.  Create space for breathing.

And, believe you me, I’m taking notice.

According to dictionary.com, the word ‘debacle’ is defined as: a complete collapse or failure.

Based on that definition I can confirm that the recent painting of our master bedroom was, in fact, a debacle.

Ah.  Where to begin?

I could go back nearly five years, to the day we closed on this house we built.  The day in which our salesman delivered the keys to us and I rushed right over–three gallons of paint in tow–and painted until the daylight disappeared.  Terra Cotta.  Or, at least that’s what I intended.  It’s tough to say whether it was a gradual paint fade or just a run-of-the-mill change of heart that led to me eventually despising that “p’orange” (pink-orange) color that covered every square inch–ceiling included–of our bedroom.  For five long years.

No matter the reason, really.  The end result was the same: a return to the color the builder originally delivered.  And it wasn’t the first time.

So, too, did I paint every square inch of the second largest bedroom in the house back when we moved in.  It was to be Kennedy and Cassidy’s room and I deemed “silver fawn” (think minty green) as the perfect hue for their space.  It lasted only four years.  These days, it, too, has returned to its original color, with the exception of one accent wall.

Our master bedroom went the same way: we returned it to its original glory, with the exception of one accent wall.

I’m thinking that–for future reference–one accent wall is definitely the way to go.  So as to avoid another Great Paint Debacle.

It started when I visited the Home Depot paint counter and had two gallons of interior satin paint matched to the original color.

Easy peasie lemon squeezie.

Or not.

All was well.  Jeff and I painted our little hearts out and happily finished over half the job (having dipped into that second gallon of paint) by lunch break on that first day.  It looked fabulous.

Until.  Until we returned to our painting posts after lunch.

It didn’t take that keen of an eye to notice that two distinctly different hues of beige covered our walls.  The differentiation, of course, due to a mistaken smidgen of red paint having been added to that second gallon of color matched paint.

Not such a big deal.  Or, at least, it wouldn’t have been if were closer to town.

But we’re not.  We’re in BDE (butt-dessert-Egypt).

Fast forward two hours.  Second gallon of paint mixed, shaken and freshly rolled onto the walls.

SCREEEEEEEECH.

Oops.  It seems as though we’ve got a third beige hue festooned upon our walls.

Trip number three to the paint counter finds us being not-so-friendly with the paint guys.

There is a sleep.  A fresh set of morning eyes.  And yet another coat of paint applied to the walls.

SCREEEEEEECH.

You guessed it.

I’m rambling, and I hate to ramble.  Suffice it to say that when all was said and done, it took us THREE days, five different gallons of paint, three trips to the Home Depot and countless rollers to paint our bedroom.  Not counting tantrums.  Ahem.

The best part, though?  The best part is that, in certain slants of light, those with a keen eye for detail will notice a slight color differentiation on the walls of our bedroom.  Yes, still.  I’m not telling where, though.  You can’t make me.

I promised pictures of this grand master bedroom makeover of ours and I will deliver.  I’m waiting on the funds to purchase the pièce de résistance.

Once I acquire that piece you can bet your sweet patootie that I’ll be proudly posting pictures.

Moral of the story: when purchasing two gallons of paint to apply side-by-side, pre-mix them.  You’ll be glad you did. *And thank you, Heather, for that handy dandy (day-late-and-a-dollar-short) tip.

Friday night:

• Jeff’s bbq.  Complete with mesquite wood chips.
• Grilled turkey burgers with bbq sauce, swiss, and avocado.
• Smores.  With peanut butter cups instead of boring old Hershey bars.
• Sitting under the stars, gabbing with two of my favorite girls.  Evah.

It was the perfect spring night.  Reminiscent of our Memorial Day camping trips to Grand Canyon.  We’d have pizza sandwiches from the sandwich irons.  We’d learn about California condors and fossilized dinosaur footprints during the ranger talks.  We played rock tag.  And Uno–in the camper–while the rain poured down, down,down.

Now I’m jonesing to go back.

Not so much for the camping, but more for the unadulterated family time.  No cell phones.  No tv.  No blog.  Just my peeps.

The wheels are turning in my head.

Hoping for a Memorial Day camping trip.

Something to hold me over until our next big family vacay: the southern Caribbean cruise/Disney World trip.

I have high hopes.

For starry skies.  Long walks.  Bedtime stories read by flashlight.  And donuts{gasp} for breakfast.

Camping with my peeps.

Dirty feet and all.

How about you?  What does spring leave you jonesing for?