Drive-by

I keep meaning to blog because I feel like I have all sorts of things to share, but this week has been crazy busy. I'll try to cram it all into one post. :-P

Photo Off!

So my partner in photographic crime answered my challenge on Wednesday! (I meant to post about it then, but the life of a public school mom during Halloween week is INSANE. Who knew?) I didn't think the phrase Zen Moment would be particularly difficult, but Mary says it gave her some trouble. I really like what she came up with, though! I love that she's not afraid to shoot head on into the sun; the way the light gives contour and shape to the shadows, and the color of the light at sunset, contribute nicely to the mood. Very well done, seester.

She issued her challenge to me -- apparently in the spirit of revenge, lol. My topic? Renaissance. Ack! I could interpret that word more loosely if it were spring, but oh well. As it stands, I'm looking at Renaissance-era portraiture and figuring out how I can translate that vibe to modern photography. Without post processing. (D'oh! Why did I set that stipulation for myself, again?) I'll post my best effort next Wednesday. Wish me luck!

Not Right In The Head

I had a really weird experience a week ago yesterday. While driving the girls home from karate, and only about a block and a half from home, my left ear began ringing. And then my brain popped (which I realize makes no sense, but bear with me). Suddenly and out of nowhere, I felt wildly dizzy, though it felt less like the world was spinning and more like everything was lurching side to side like a drunk at closing time. Very strange. I quickly pulled over and waited for the sensation to pass (probably not more than a minute or two), and then I waited some more just to make sure before driving the rest of the way home. The dizziness never returned, but I felt fuzzy-headed and ... off ... for hours. For the rest of the day.

I texted DH about it right away because it freaked me out. Could it be simple ear congestion putting me off balance? Low blood sugar? Could I be pregnant? (I have one sister whose dizziness / fainting spells are her most reliable symptoms of early pregnancy.) He called me back to suggest it might be a migraine. "But I don't have a headache," I told him. Some migraines are like that, he said.

The more I thought about it, though, the more that diagnosis seemed to fit. I didn't have a head cold or sinus trouble at the time; I had eaten recently enough that blood sugar shouldn't be the issue; despite my monthly paranoia, there was no real reason to suspect pregnancy (now confirmed). And then there was the pop.

Remember the time I was accosted by moral crusaders? The women who, when I didn't take their side in a confrontation with a bookstore manager, gave me (an innocent bystander!) a talking to? One thing I left out in the original telling of that story was that, on the way home in the privacy and solitude of my car, I thought it might be fun to release the tension with a good primal scream. And so I did. I screamed loud and long. And then my brain popped. 30 minutes later, and for the rest of the day, I was throwing up.

I didn't mention that part of the story to anyone because (a) it was silly of me to have screamed, (b) I worried that I had broken something in my head, and (c) I knew that telling people "my brain popped" made absolutely no sense and maybe it didn't even happen; maybe I imagined it.

It's kind of like when your ears pop from altitude change, only it's definitely not your ears. And now that I've experienced it twice -- followed both times by odd neurological symptoms -- I think I didn't imagine it. I think I had silent migraines, or in other words, all the fun of a migraine without an accompanying headache.

I've talked to other people who have migraines, including the silent kind, and it sounds like mine are pretty mild. I haven't had any visual disturbances, no sensitivity to light, I'm not incapacitated for days at a time.... One girl said that she once had a silent migraine that left her unable to read or talk for several hours; she thought she was having a stroke. If all I have is a few hours of nausea or a couple minutes of dizziness followed by an evening of feeling disoriented and out of it, well, I'll take it.

I just wonder why they're happening now -- two in seven months' time -- when I've never been prone to them before. Weird.

Halloween Angst

I love this time of year. Halloween is my favorite holiday because who (besides my party pooper DH) doesn't like to try on a different persona every now and then? I have fond memories of traipsing through the neighborhood with my siblings and dad, pillowcases at the ready, and after a block or two feeling torn between the desperate need for more candy and the strong desire that my hands not fall off from frostbite.

Ah! Those were the days!

Of course, back in those days I had beautiful homemade costumes. One year Becca and I were matching princesses with cone hats, one of us in pink and the other blue. I went as a geisha in the 2nd grade. My mom says she thinks my little brother wore it first, but I have vague (possibly false) memories of a ~3yo RCH wearing the Cowardly Lion costume sewn from gold chenille fabric with yellow loopy yarn around the headpiece for the mane. And -- though Anna Jo models it best (anyone have that photo online?) -- I was the original blue crayon. I don't know how she found the energy or the time to do it, but my mom made us some amazing things.

Sadly, even if I had the energy or time, I couldn't do the same for my girls. I can mangle a hem (it won't look pretty, but it'll hold) and reattach a button, but I can't sew -- which means that, for the most part, my daughters are destined to wear crappy store-bought costumes. And not the fancy kind, either (because I'm cheap), but the kind from Walmart (sorry Uno; I know it's your favorite place).

*Sigh.* I have mostly come to terms with my lack of traditional domestic skills -- and truth be told, for 11 months of the year I don't even want to know how to sew. Sewing irritates me. They don't write patterns in English. But at Halloween...? I feel inadequate! I feel like a failure! I feel like I'm deliberately depriving my children of the true meaning of the holiday! Waaaaaah! LOL.

Lucky for me, I have a very talented BFF who occasionally offers to make things for me (you'll see Tres wearing the famous mouse costume in an upcoming post, I bet). And even when they don't have Beckle originals, the girls don't seem to mind their thin and poorly constructed Walmart costumes. See as evidence Dos in her unicorn costume, frolicking off to her preschool party:



So I guess I should take a cue from them and just relax. ;-)

Halloween Yay!

Hooray for global warming! As I said earlier, the Halloweens of my youth were marked by the struggle of competing desires: Rot Your Teeth vs. Keep Your Extremities. (You wouldn't think it would be such a hard decision, when put like that, but believe me, it was!) Although our Halloweens in West Texas were mild, this year will be the first I can remember in this region when the weather will actually be nice! I'm excited.

Crazy Busy

I wonder if Christmas will be this bad, or if they try to get all the fundraisers and parties out of the way now to make the winter holidays easier? It's been nuts this week:

We began with a school rodeo (stick horses for the barrel races, but they brought in real goats for the other events!). I feel like such a city slicker around here. Everybody else already had their rodeo attire (aka cowboy girl clothes), I'm sure; as soon as kids learn how to toddle and walk they stick them in the mutton busting events at the county fair. (Don't ask me to explain what that is. I don't actually know.) Last year, when one of our teenage babysitters discovered that I had never in my life been to a rodeo, she looked at me with a mixture of horror and disgust as if I'd just admitted to never having bathed. "Really? Never?" Nope. Never. ::Shrug::

Anyway, yeah, so we began the week with Uno's rodeo. Then Dos had a preschool party. Then Uno had to paint a pumpkin for a school contest (which she won, yay!). Yesterday Uno had her kindergarten class party and last night the whole family (except for DH, who was stuck at the hospital stitching up someone's head trauma) went to the elementary school Halloween carnival. They had a raffle at the end; Uno was very bitter that we didn't win anything. She's such a sore loser. (Dos, on the other hand, has gotten the garbled message of gracious losing: "But Uno," she says, "You're not supposed to win. Losing teaches you things!" Right! Sort of, lol.) Today the girls will be making Halloween bracelets with a friend from church before heading out to the community Trunk or Treat and, when that's over, trolling the neighborhood for even more candy.

And then -- I think -- my life will calm down for a while. *Phew!*

I'm Tired

Tres has not been sleeping well lately. She demands that I hold her all night (which means that I get to sleep on the too-short loveseat in the basement), and even then she tosses and turns. *YAWN!* I think it's because she's on the verge of a new skill. She stood up without holding on to anything for ~5 or 10 seconds yesterday. She's later at standing / walking than either of her sisters (Uno walked at 2 weeks before her 1st birthday; Dos walked about 2 weeks after hers), but I think she knows it's coming and she feels unconsciously anxious. Either that or she's teething, but I haven't seen any evidence that she's adding on to her set of four. Go figure.

In any case, I'll be glad when she works this out and remembers how to sleep through the night again.

Applesauce

Uno woke me up early this morning (well, it was after 8am, but given the nights I've had recently...) to tell me some important information. She gingerly approached the couch where I was sleeping and poked me in the arm. "Mom," she whispered, careful not to wake up Tres who still slept soundly in my arms. "I know how to make applesauce: You get some red apples in a bowl, but you cut the red part off, and then you put in water and cinnamon -- do we have cinnamon? Mom? Do we have cinnamon? We do? -- and then you mash it all up together until it's sauce. And there you have it," she said before tiptoeing away.

Yes. There I have it.

My children are delightfully random.


~RCH~

Easy Halloween craft

The girls and I made a fun and easy craft this week: Cheesecloth ghosties. This project may be old hat to some of you, but it was new to us and the girls loved it.

Supplies

• balloons


• cheesecloth


• white school glue


• water


• paint brushes (optional, if you don't mind a mess)


• drinking cups


• string

Directions

1. Inflate the balloons you will be using (but not too much, we discovered, or your ghosts will have weirdly bulbous heads). Place each balloon on top of a drinking cup and drape with a layer of cheesecloth.


2. Prepare a mixture of white glue and water in a 1:1 ratio. Coat the cheesecloth that covers the balloon (don't worry about the part that falls down around the cup) in paste using a paint brush -- or your bare fingers if you like to get messy.


3. Add more layers of cheesecloth and paste until you're satisfied with your ghostie's thickness (we did just two layers). Allow to dry overnight.


4. When completely dry, pop and discard the balloon. Draw a face on your ghost if you want to, then thread some string through the holes on top to hang your lovely creation. Voila!

We have three of these spooks hanging in our living room, and one hanging next to Dos's carseat in the minivan. They're pretty cool if I do say so myself.

Happy crafting!


~RCH~

A Photo-Off

Mary and I have decided to challenge each other to a series of weekly Photo-Offs (you know, like the models' Walk-Offs in Zoolander, lol). I'll give her a concept or word or phrase and a week to interpret it photographically, then she'll post her results and issue a challenge for me. And back and forth and back and forth. I will also limit myself to no post processing; the point, for me at least, is to improve at getting the shot in the camera, not making the shot in Photoshop.

So, the first challenge: Zen moment.

Have at it, seester! I look forward to seeing your photo on this theme next Wednesday.


~RCH~

Four!

I have been tagged with the four things meme by my adorable blog buddy Nicole. I'm a little slow in finishing (I started this four days ago -- whoah, trippy), but I do enjoy being an It Girl. So here you go. :-)

Four Random Things I Like About My Husband/Best Friend:

1. He's a rock star. Seriously, he was the lead singer of the band Peyote Posse during grad school. All this was before my time, but I've seen pictures. I eagerly await the the reunion tour and the Behind the Music special on VH1.

2. DH is all kinds of smart. He has room in his head for all that doctor stuff, plus enough about Pharmacology to earn a PhD, and he could accurately give you sports statistics from teams he doesn't even care about from years before he was born up to the present, and he knows the complete lyrics to all sorts of random songs (including, I discovered yesterday, the Strawberry Shortcake theme song, which I didn't even know despite having been a little girl in the '80s). *Phew.* Where does he put it all?

3. Despite #2, I am still able to beat him semi-regularly at Trivial Pursuit. And no, he doesn't "let" me win. He's way too competitive for that. (His motto: "Nobody ever remembers who finished second!" Except that I do when it's him.) We'd make a great team if we ever played anybody else. And yes, you may consider that a challenge.

4. Something I like but simultaneously feel defensive about (because it highlights my own ineptness in this area): He loves to clean. And he's very efficient at it!

Four Jobs I've Had:

1. Grocery store check out girl at Winegar's. Wooo!

2. Web master / marketing assistant at a simulation software company (I got business cards and everything for that job -- still have 'em, in fact).

3. Assistant to the corporate budgets director at Trans World Airlines for about a year before they went under (but I don't think it was my fault, lol).

4. Assistant at an intellectual property law firm. (You might have noticed a trend by now: I like to assist. In politically incorrect analogies, I'm totally an Indian with no ambitions to ever be chief.)

Four Movies I've Seen More Than Once:

1. Dead Poet's Society -- Poetry! Cute boys! Preppy single-sex boarding school with gorgeous scenery! Yeah, seeing that movie 18+ times as an adolescent had no affect on me whatsoever, lol.

2. Waiting for Guffman, because I'll always have a place at the Dairy Queen.

3. The Princess Bride -- who hasn't?

4. The Usual Suspects -- "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he doesn't exist."

Four TV Shows I Watch:

1. How I Met Your Mother -- it's like Friends, but far less annoying!

2. House -- how could I resist such a cranky genius?

3. America's Next Top Model -- I'm rooting for Marjorie this time. (And is it just me, or has ANTM gotten exponentially cheesier this cycle? Is that even possible?)

4. CSI -- the original. DH doesn't know what I see in Grissom; he has a man-crush on Horatio from the Miami edition, himself. But all the women I know think Grissom's quiet intensity is way sexier than Horatio's unrealistic Superhero Leprechaun With Torticollis schtick.

Four Places I've Been:

1. Carhenge in Alliance, NE

2. The Chapel of the Bones in Evora, Portugal

3. The Prime Meridian at Greenwich, England

4. Eutaw, AL (There's nothing there but a prison and an antebellum house -- well, and a Piggly Wiggly -- but as a native Utahn I thought it would be cool to visit Eutaw, and it was)

Four People Who E-Mail Me Regularly:

1. Coldwater Creek

2. Land's End

3. 1-800-Contacts (despite refusing to fill my recent order because my Rx is too old -- whatever!)

4. Amazon.com

(Though that list might suggest otherwise, I don't spend all my time shopping -- but order something just ONCE from any of those places and you've got a new friend for life)

Four of My Favorite Foods:

1. Lately: Avocado quesadillas, with peach mango salsa on the side. Mmmmmmmm!

2. Always: Pizza

3. Too often: Ice cream

4. If a beverage counts as food: Dr. Pepper

Four Places I'd Like to Visit:

1. I want to take my family back to all the cool places I visited in my youth: Portugal, France, Germany, Austria, England, Brazil.... Plus dozens of fabulous road trips here in the US. Though I'd have to drug DH to get him in a car long enough for a road trip.

2. India!

3. Scotland! (Beckle, you & BigScottishJerk.com can be my tour guides)

4. Honestly, anywhere. I'm always up for a new adventure!

Four Things I'm Looking Forward to This Year:

1. The arrival of my newest nephew (happy!), even if I don't know when I'll get to meet him (sad!)

2. A weekend trip to Phoenix in December

3. Halloween, my favorite holiday

4. Christmas, my next favorite holiday

Four People I Tag:

1. Beckle the Freckle

2. K2

3. Anna Jo

4. Susan

And anyone else who wants to play!


~RCH~

Super star

Not last weekend, but the weekend before, my littlest sister and her DH came up to visit. Mary helped me take some more group shots of my uncooperative children (Dos refused to wear long pants or normal shoes, and all of them were much more interested in playing in the fields around the cemetery than in posing like supermodels, lol). We did get some cute ones; below is one of my favorites:



We let the girls run off and do their own thing after a few minutes, and then I got down to business with Mary. As a budding (and award-winning!) photographer, herself, she doesn't often get to be the subject of a glamorous photo shoot. But she should be, because she's sexy like that. Case in point:









Yep. That sister of mine, she's a babe. And I don't just say that because she's the baby of the family. :-)


~RCH~

Wonk!

Sorry to keep blogging today, but it's cold and snowy out and the girls are napping and DH is down at the hospital. I could spend this time scaling Mt. Laundry, but wasting time online is so much more fun.

A few weeks ago I gave certain of my family members an incredibly incoherent recommendation of a PBS documentary I had seen last summer:

"It's about health care in other first world countries," I told them. "Five or six.... I don't remember which ones. The UK for sure, and maybe Germany. And one other -- maybe Austria? Switzerland? No, Sweden. Maybe? I don't know. Plus some in Asia. I don't really remember any of the details. Some weren't socialist at all. Probably some were. One of them had lots of naysayers because they'd been so capitalist about medicine for so long, but now everybody loves it. I don't know which country that was, though, or exactly how they do it now. It's been a long time. But it was super interesting, so there you go. You should watch it. I think I still have it DVRed at my house. Maybe it's been deleted by now. Hmmmm."

Yes, I'm helpful. I know.

Anyway, if anybody is interested in watching it after my rousing review (apparently I should watch it again, and pay attention this time!), the program is Frontline: Sick Around the World. If you don't want to spend an hour watching the documentary, the website has a basic overview of how each country operates and the pros and cons of each system. None is perfect, but there are certainly some ideas the US could take in the reform of our own system.

Obviously I'm not educated enough about this topic to spout off any proposals, but I do have some very generalized thoughts:

Back in the day, the idea that the government might control any aspect of health care scared me to death; I didn't want the same people who ran the DMV (no offense, DMV employees) making decisions about which doctor I could see or what medicine I should take. That's not a realistic or fair characterization, obviously, but it was that gut-level distaste for government bureaucracy that colored my position.

Apparently I've grown more liberal in my old age.

These days -- and perhaps my being married to a doctor has led me here, or perhaps I would have come to these conclusions either way -- I think it's disgusting that a country so rich in resources and trained medical personnel, a country founded on such beautiful ideals, leaves so many of its citizens un / under cared for. What good does it do to declare that all human beings have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness if the life part means nothing more than breathing in and out?

I believe that in 100 years or so, when universal health coverage is a long concluded fact, we'll look back and wonder why we didn't do it sooner. Universal health care will seem as obvious a civic obligation as, say, the universal right to public education. And, as with public education, though it probably won't be administered perfectly in every city or every region, it will certainly be better than the nothing that so many people have right now.

I am not a policy wonk (though I really like the word!); I have no idea what would be the best way to implement a new system of health care in our country. But I do believe that serious reform -- including some level of government oversight, if only to ensure that everyone has insurance coverage and access to care -- is necessary.

I guess we'll see what happens.


~RCH~

Where I Live

It's snowing today (waaaah) -- the first snow of the season. It seemed an appropriate time to share this poem I wrote years ago. I can't find an original draft or anything with a date on it, but I remember writing it while at school in North Carolina, so it must have been either the fall of 1993 or 1994. (I'm old.) Enjoy.

Where I Live

The first snow hits by mid-October.
Bright orange days of fire and warm wind
blot out slowly in a blur of white.

I walk outside
        a few wet leaves still cling to apple branches
I stretch my arms
        houses line the streets, hushed sentinels
I raise my face to the slate grey sky
to the shavings of ice trembling down
        the air is still warm
and the flakes melt to tears on my cheeks.

It won't last;
Autumn must die by degrees.
The snow that swoops with gentle determination
folds into itself as it falls,
dissolves as it brushes the ground.

Where I live nothing succumbs
to the first blast.


~RCH~

Stupid question

Let me preface this by saying that I know what I'm about to ask is incredibly dumb and/or naive. And yet, I'm just dumb and naive enough not to know why, lol, so I'm asking it anyway!

If a healthy economy is fueled by the confidence of its consumers, and a weak economy is made worse by fear ... why don't we all just hold hands, close our eyes, and pretend it's still good? If perception is so all important, why not give ourselves daily financial affirmations, Stuart Smalley style, until we're back to the boom times?

::Scratching my head about this, and also wondering once more how I got elected treasurer of this family, lol::


~RCH~

Therapy

After all the angst and hand wringing and histrionics I've subjected my readers to in the last month, I figure I owe you an update:

I am feeling much better.

Writing things out was, as it always has been for me, extremely cathartic; while my sadsack posts may have been annoying to read, they helped me begin to process my emotions. So, step one? Binge and purge the negativity!

Step two: Instead of moping around the house, hiding from the world (as is my tendency anyway, but particularly when I feel down), I've spent the last several weekends in the company of my family and my best friend. Who woulda' thunk -- especially as introverted as I am -- that being with people would perk me up rather than leave me feeling more drained? Not me. I'm lucky to have such a wide circle of people who make me laugh, who want to hang out with me, and who love me, warts and all, come hell or high gas prices. (Cue the Barbara Streisand!)

Step three in my therapeutic process: Spiritual edification! I loved the messages from church leaders in the recent LDS General Conference -- particularly those from Elder Wirthlin and President Uchtdorf. A natural optimism is not among my spiritual gifts; most of the time I'm easy going, but I'm definitely (genetically?) prone to bouts of melancholy. (That tendency doesn't reflect a lack of faith on my part or even a deficiency in my personality, I don't think; I simply am what I am.) In any case, the entire Conference and those messages specifically felt like very personalized hugs, simultaneously comforting and nudging me in another direction. It's nice to feel so personally known and looked after by Someone Who Probably Has Better Things To Do. ;-)

So there you have it. I'm still riding out the ups and downs of life along with everybody else, but I'm hanging on. And I'm enjoying myself again. Hooray for (free) therapy!


~RCH~

It's autumn time, it's autumn time!

The girls and I did a photo shoot yesterday. I had wanted to get a good group shot, but for some reason it's tricky to get three children 5yo and under to pose correctly and smile (or even look at the camera) consistently without an assistant to wrangle them. I'd step in front of the camera, prop up a slouching kid, tuck some hair behind an ear, tell a joke or play peek-a-boo, then run back to verify the composition and press the shutter ... by which time everyone had moved. Plus, I felt so frenetic trying to get everyone's cooperation that I failed to notice the tree growing out of the back of Dos's head. How's that for amateur? Oh well. Group shots should get easier once Tres learns to stand alone / walk; then we can do action shots rather than sitting poses.

I did get some pretty good individual photos, though! Here are some of my favorites:


Uno, laughing at her own joke (the punchline of which was probably "POOP!"). This shot is totally and completely her.


Ahh! Love that evening light!


For whatever reason, Dos was the most difficult to photograph this time around. Good thing she's so pretty! Look at those eyes!


Dos peeks through the autumn leaves.


The famous Tres schlumped in the famous gold chair.


Again with the eyes! And take a look at those smooshy cheeks -- I could kiss into them for miles!

I may try some more group shots (and Uno's super hero photos, which I've still never got right) this weekend if anybody wanted to come up and help me wrangle (*cough, Mary are you busy? cough, cough!*). There may even be some birthday cake involved, as Tres will be turning one on Saturday! :-)

(Also, speaking of birthdays and speaking of Mary.... Happy Birthday today, seester! I hope your day / year will be everything you dream of and more!)


~RCH~