New Year, New Things

2010. It’s so hard to believe. Michael and I have been musing about the last decade and how much has changed since Y2K. There have been a few new degrees. New jobs. A house. A couple of kids. A blog.

Sigh. This blog.

You may have noticed the yawping silence over the past few months. I don’t know how to explain it except by saying that I have been feeling massively uninspired. And when I’m uninspired, I rarely say to myself, “Self! I know what will get rid of this ennui: Writing a long, clever essay!” No, it’s more likely that I’ll zone out in front of Facebook with a diet coke and some BISON ON A STICK.



OH YES THIS IS REAL. Minnesota State Fair meets the Wild West?

Sadly, any future clever essay writing will require everyone in my family to stay healthy. The last couple of months have been filled with the Swine Flu, the Hog Flu, the Pork Rind Flu, and the Guinea Pig Flu. Just today, I was taking a shower, thinking to myself about how I was going to sit down and finally write a new blog entry, and the phone rang. I had a bad feeling, so I jumped out of the shower and answered it. Unsurprisingly, it was the school nurse, who told me that Green had just thrown up into a trash can.

Of course he did.

And, you know, my kids are not the kinds of kids that suffer quietly. They scream and wail and make sure that everyone in the house knows the extent of their pain. And when they are not screaming or wailing, they are tormenting each other.

Last month, under the influence of piggy virus #2, I decided that we needed to get a bit more festive, even if no one felt well. So I pulled out a CD that has Christmas music from all the traditional children’s TV programs (“You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch…”), and it turns out that Blue has an intense dislike of the song, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” As if the swine flu wasn’t enough, I had the kid sitting in the middle of the room with his hands over his ears screeching, “Turn it off! I can’t take it! Please! This is killing me!”

That was all it took for feverish Green to seize the day. Every time Blue got busy doing something else, Green turned on “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” And then Blue screamed bloody murder. If Blue went into the bathroom, he would hear the song. If he went into his room to read, he would hear the song. After days and days of the music and the screaming, followed by more music and more screaming, I lost my mind. At one point, when the first notes of “Hark!“ came on, I marched out to the living room and shrieked, “Green! There will be no more Christmas music in this house! None! From now on we will only listen to Mommy’s mix tapes from the 80s!”

Oh yeah, baby. Next time you have a problem, threaten your kid with a little bit of Yaz. It totally works.

When we’re all healed, I think I need to reinvent this site a bit. I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to do that, or what shape those changes will take. You will have to stay tuned. Please stay tuned.

Anniversary

Well, bloggers, we did it. We've been together for a whole year. On this very date in 2007, I was patting myself on the back for figuring out how to get this thing up and running without having to access my computer support team. Today, I am still patting myself on the back. Way to go, me!

Along the way, I have learned quite a bit about you guys. You're pretty feisty about politics, and you became REALLY alarmed when I wrote about my political indecision. You have enjoyed my adventures as a kindergarten volunteer, and you dig the occasional story about lecherous penguins. You have strong feelings about high school reunions, and you like chain letters and spaghetti. You really like food on a stick and have some misgivings about letting small children ride pissed-off sheep. You have also reacted well to any story involving underpants. On the other hand, you could care less about my literary interests or how much I drink on my birthday.

I say all this to let you know that you matter. I pay attention to your comments and your emails (i.e. I spend a lot of time checking for your comments and emails). You may have noticed that it has become easier to leave a comment (see sidebar for instructions), but if the system still makes you nervous, just send me a regular email sometime. I'd love to hear from you.

With the goal of being more responsive to you, I have set up a poll to the right of this entry. Please let me know what you'd like to read about. Be sure to vote! You can pretend like it's American Idol.