Eggs

Have I mentioned I have the attention span of a fruit fly?

Well, that's not completely true.  What would be a good way to put it?  I mean, I can focus on something for a good while, but there are just so many somethings to focus on.  There is so much I want to try to do, that I have a hard time getting to do anything, because it never actually works out to actually finish something or master it.  Because if I spend all my time on this one thing, how will I fit in everything else?

(Boy, this blog is such a voyage of self discovery.  Of course, that doesn't help you much, reader, since you are not my self.  So I won't feel bad if you stop here.

I'll wait until you've had time to move onto a more productive website.


Go ahead.


Hum, hum, hum.)


So anyway, this explains, of course, why I can start a conversation in Spanish and French, say hello, please, count to 10 in German, and greet people, say excuse me, and I love you in Russian, Chinese, and Romanian.  But please don't go any further, because to me, it will be embarrassingly incoherent.  It's also why I've been an environmental science major, a photography major, a studio art major, an art history major -- sidetrack to get an A.A.S. in computer animation -- an international studies major, and back to a B.A. in art history.

It's also why I know the basics of so many arts and crafts type things but am nowhere near the skill level of some of my favorite people and inspirers (I love making up words; I'm going to write a dictionary someday.  You'll be able to find it in your local bookstore in the fiction section.) who have been able to really hone in on something they love and work at it.  I have a lot of family that falls into this category.

It explains why in an actual family and a global family of so many perfectly fried eggs, I feel like the one that went in funny during the cooking process, and so you simply decide, "Well, I guess this one's gonna be scrambled eggs instead."

I am scrambled eggs.

But optimistic scrambled eggs.  And as an scrambled optimist egg, I'm hoping my interest in pretty much everything will help me be a great encourager (another entry for my dictionary) to four kids who will probably have extremely different interests -- or at least drive them into therapy trying to incorporate them into all of mine.

In the meantime, I'm going to have to embrace who I am and stop trying to find that one thing.  I just have to try to find ways to work in everything I can't stop thinking about trying or doing -- (not in any particular order) -- design, crochet, sewing, Bible studying, cooking, baking, developing bookworm kids, encouraging Christ-loving kids, blogging, vintage finding, learning new arts (hand lettering, art journaling, craft designing), photographing, reading, friend visiting, family history tracing, etc.  But I think I should do it in a way that's a bit organized, planning ahead, and deciding which things are most important.

I think most people knew to do that already.  I'm catching up.

It's a work in progress.  Probably will be till I move onto glory.

So I'd like to know:  Any other lovely scrambled eggs there?  

Battery Acid Has No Caffeine And Other Funny Lines

Martha:  Why don't you just poor battery acid down your throat?
Henry:  No caffeine.


On particularly tough mornings should I, for example, sleep in, forget my glasses, have a remarkably defiant 3-year-old son, a 4-year-old daughter with the sour attitude of a teenager, twin almost-2-year-olds who don't understand that having one's sibling briefly touch one's possession does not mean losing that possession for all eternity, when the day looms ahead with everything hanging on from yesterday, yesterweek, yesteryear that hasn't gotten accomplished and the coffee just can't brew fast enough, I mentally turn to Keaton.

Yeah, that's right.  Michael Keaton.

Anyone familiar with Keaton's work might just assume Mr. Mom.  Sure, that would be an easy assumption and an apt comparison, i.e. dealing with an overwhelming life with kids.

But they'd be wrong.

Uh-uh.  I'm talking about the opening scenes of The Paper, one of the best movies ever.  EVER.  And really just the whole thing.  If you haven't seen it, go get it.  No, I don't care if you're at work or making dinner or performing a neurosurgery at the moment.  GO GET IT.  (And by the way, I think it's extremely bad form to be reading this blog whilst performing neurosurgery.  I know it's truly gripping, but for shame.)

Between the hectic, flawed personal/professional lives of the characters played by some seriously talented actors -- the aforementioned Keaton as well as Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, Randy Quaid, Marisa Tomei, and seriously Jason Alexander is pretty great in there, too -- it's a spot-on portrayal of getting the stuff kicked out of you by the things you pour yourself into and really care about.  Plus it's just a really funny film (despite the very harsh language).

And since it seems to be one of those days, I believe that once the kids are in bed, I will be doing my darndest to hunt it down on cable, pour a glass of wine, and commiserate with Henry, Martha, Bernie, Alicia, and McDougal over stumbling and pushing through the tough stuff and remembering to focus on what's really important at the end of the day.

Feel free to join me this time or any other as this day will most certainly be coming around again and again.

And as always, thank you, God, for giving me people in life who are and a life itself that is so amazingly worthwhile.  Amen.

Best Intentions

I'll admit it.  My evenings get away from me sometimes.

I watched this Jamie Oliver give the most amazing talk on my computer at work.  I was waiting for an assignment and my daughter happened to be with me (snow day) eating her breakfast of eggs from the cafeteria.  I watched it and was inspired.   In my mind's eye, I see fresh veggies, protein, homemade healthy food.

"Rose," I said, "You guys need to eat healthier food."  I was ready.  "And you're going to help me make veggies and get your brother and sisters to eat them, right?"  Because where she goes, they follow.  At least where it comes to suspicious greens.

"Yeah!" she says.

So we find this recipe by one of my favorite bloggers, and we have a plan to go home and dig out the acorn squash that's been sitting in my pantry for six months.

Don't worry.  Squash last forever it seems.  Can't even throw it out.

It haunts me.

So we get home eight hours later and all the kids are up and refreshed from their naps... and I'm tired.

 "Anybody want to watch Shawn the Sheep?" I ask.

"Mommy, I don't think I want to help with the vegetable then."

That's okay.  We don't have anything to have the darned squash with anyway.  What we do have is a mountain of (leftover) oven fries.  Oven fries it is, with eggs, (leftover) bacon, toast -- breakfast for dinner. How many eggs can a four-year-old eat in one day and not keel over?

And it took Rose two hours to eat three tiny wedges of oven fries.  They are, after all, practically a vegetable.  A lot of help she's gonna be.

Oh, well.  We'll try again tomorrow.

When reading doesn't happen...

Okay, yes.  I admit it.  Sometimes this bibliophile does not read. 

You may be thinking, "I only just met you via the blogosphere.  Is this news?"  Or you may be someone who know me thinking, "What???  How can this be?"

Well, it's true.  It is a little odd, but it happens.  I usually read anywhere I can fit in a sentence or two -- at the metro stop, between assignments at work, at lunch, before passing out from complete single-mom exhaustion, and so forth.  But sometimes, sometimes I'm just too FRIED.  My brain feels like the egg on that commericial in the '80s (anybody in their 30's or older know what I'm talking about?) only there are no drugs involved.

I promise.

Wait.  Is caffeine a drug?

Anyway, I was just about to reintroduce my feeble brain putty to a easy candy book of some kind, but all I had on me at the metro today was the slightly long (not really) fantastical tome Red Earth and Pouring Rain.

I read a page and a half before my train got there.  It was great.  So I'm back. 

Slowly. 

Wake up, brain.