Rush-struction Party

Trent is a great man and a wonderful husband, but no one could ever accuse him of leaving work at work.  He’s the master of bringing work home.  Every six months or so I’ll hear a really interesting work story, like a co-worker opening the door to his motel room and finding a dead body and a police investigation (true), but the other 363 days of the year our dinner conversation steers onto which subcontractors are falling behind and who hasn’t approved the most recent batch of change orders and what other companies are bidding the newest hospital.  I know more about construction than I ever wanted to know.  Rush loves construction too, so it was only natural to throw a construction party for his 3rd birthday.

There are some really cute ideas online for construction themed birthday parties. A lot of mothers do really adorable things with dump trucks and chocolate covered raisin rocks. I had to stop looking at other people’s beautifully blogged construction parties because I was feeling too smug.  Finally, a chance to use my construction knowledge, and there’s nothing cute about it.  It’s not cute to be forced into a discussion how many RFI’s the steel subcontractor submitted while we’re driving to the beach.  Now, finally, finally!, I had a way for construction to be fun! (Oh, and the paycheck and health insurance that the construction industry has provided our family for years has been nice as well.)

This was the easiest party ever, first of all because we have such helpful extended family who happily made guacamole and beans and queso and a birthday cake and helped with the kids and shopped for party supplies, and on and on with helpfulness.  And everything else was easy too.  We needed sand to fill in some swampy parts in our yard anyway.  Trent borrowed some cones from work, we bought a roll of caution tape (which I’m sure will come in handy in the future), and dug through our garage. Hmm, cute container filled with lemonade or Igloo jug filled with water? Igloo jug, let’s keep it real. We could put cokes in the cooler, or wait, here’s our wheelbarrow.  Let’s fill it with ice and stick the drinks there.

I’ve never seen such a serious bunch of 3 year olds. Some of them showed up with their own dump trucks, went straight to the sand pile, and didn’t take a break for the entire party. I think a lot of them even skipped the cake. Dirt work is important business for some kids.

The party was not without its cuteness though.  Trent’s sister Kim volunteered to make the cake and made the very coolest cake ever to grace a 3rd birthday party.  It’s the cake that keeps on giving too, with all that new equipment to play with.

I tried to use the equipment from the cake to teach my sister the difference between a bulldozer, a front-end loader, a backhoe, etc…I didn’t want her to teach her daughter that everything is a tractor (wrong) like my friend and  mother of two girls - you know who you are Elizabeth!

I’ve seen offices filled with blueprints when I’ve visited Trent at work and I know from his excessive work stories that blueprints are constantly being revised and recycled.  So I asked him to please bring a few home to use as tablecloths. 

Blueprints, where have you been all my life?!  As soon as I saw that big stack of paper enter our front door, my head started spinning.  Oh, the endless possibilities!  We rolled some up with crayons for party favors.  But how did I never think about getting blueprints from Trent before?  I have a giant to-do list in the kitchen right now on the back of a blueprint.  We have giant coloring sheet.  I know I’m going to be wrapping presents in the outdated plans for Carnegie High School. The “Welcome Home from Your First Semester of College Rush!” banner will probably be painted on the back of blueprints.

We still have a big pile of dirt in the yard covered in dump trucks.  We were outside this morning and we’ll be outside again this afternoon.  The construction party is never really over at our house.

Just Saw Heat

I watched my new favorite movie last night:  Bridesmaids.  I put off watching it because everything I heard about it praised it for being the first movie full of women, written by a woman, also full of raunchy male humor.  That to me isn’t a step forward, because any alert person knows the world is full of hilarious women who can make you laugh out loud without just making fart jokes.  Women making the equivalent of The Hangover sounded like a step back to me. 

But then I watched the movie last night, and I wish all the reviews hadn’t said exactly the same thing because if I had seen it earlier it would have been at the top of my Christmas list.  It was hilarious, and while it did have a few off-beat scenes, there weren’t as many as I expected.  Or maybe I’m just too desensitized by watching shows on FX.  But it wasn’t the girl version of The Hangover or Old School, thankfully.  It was just a great movie. 

And for some reason, about halfway through, I crossed that point where you realize that it’s just a thin veil between laughing really hard and sobbing.  Something about that movie, either the complicated nature of female friendships or that cute policeman, made me start crying.  Not tearing up, like in the scene in Ratatouille when Ego flashes back to his childhood, but The Notebook crying.  I really tried to hold it in and not freak out Trent, because it was a comedy.  But I really loved that movie.  It’s made it’s way onto my short list of movies that I’ll watch at any time:  About a Boy, Mean Girls, Joe Vs. the Volcano, Newsies, and The Goodbye Girl.

(Please note – Don’t assume I’m secretly pregnant because I cried during Bridesmaids.  I’m not a big crier when I’m pregnant.  My hormones are too busy making sure I hit at least double the doctor recommended weight gain.)

Bridesmaids was just another recent example of why I’m getting increasingly irritated at movie reviews.  With all the critics, why is there always one dominating opinion about a movie?  People have different opinions of things, that’s life.  Take The Muppets, great reviews across the board, yet in my opinion, and I LOVE the Muppets, TERRIBLE movie.  Trent actually fell asleep in the theater.  If that movie were loyal to the actual Muppets, it would be impossible for anyone to fall asleep in the theater, including babies. 

And what about Cars 2?  How dare the Academy snub Cars 2 for an Oscar nomination?  The reviews consistently blasted Pixar for actually making a kids movie.  But have you seen Cars 2?  It’s a James Bond movie, and excellent.  I think everyone was just disappointed that they left a Pixar film without crying.  In my opinion, it was way better than Toy Story 3, which, let’s all admit it, at it’s emotional core was just another Toy Story 2.

My other recent movie going experience was seeing John Carter last week.  Again, it was a good movie with crappy reviews.  I never would have seen it had my mom not praised the movie so highly and offered to baby-sit so Trent and I could go see it big screen.  She’s a huge fan of the Edward Rice Burroughs books that the movie is based on, so we took her word over the reviews and went.  It’s a really enjoyable sci-fi action movie.  I’ll be honest:  if given the choice today of re-watching one of the new Star Wars movies, Avatar, or John Carter, I’m picking John Carter.  But is it bombing in theaters because all it’s reviews gave it only two stars?  Yes.  I’m glad I ignored those reviews.

I recently read an article about the new Newsies musical that referred to the 1992 movie as –this close to the quote, if not exactly it- a terrible flop with a cult following.  I guarantee that the cult following consists entirely of women who were between third and eight grade in 1992.  Have you seen Newsies?  Young Christian Bale?  It could be –and is- one of the greatest movies ever, but there’s not a grown man in the world who would write a good review of Newsies.  It’s a musical full of teenage boys. 

Not everything has to be a timeless masterpiece that appeals to all ages and all generations.  It’s okay that I only read the first Twilight book and then no further, not only because everyone is entitled to make their own opinions about things, but also because I’m not a 15 year-old.  I loved the Babysitter’s Club series with a passion when I was in elementary school, but I wouldn’t read one today and that’s okay too.  Not everything has to stand the test of time.  Have you watched Empire Records since the 90’s?  It’s so awkward, I can’t even watch more than a few minutes.  But in high school, I loved that movie.  The fact that I can’t watch it now doesn’t make it a bad movie.  For KHS Class of ‘99, that was a five star film.

Even for highly praised films, people in the same demographic can make their own opinions.  Why, when we love so many of the same things, did I enjoy The Social Network but fall asleep during Winter’s Bone, while my friend had the opposite reaction to those movies?  We’re different people.  While there may be elements that truly make one movie excellent and another horrible, it’s not always the black and white of awards shows and Rotten Tomatoes. 

I’m not going to stop reading movie reviews, that’s half the fun of the Thursday paper.  And some movies are across the board terrible and get the reviews that they deserve.   But, just like reading a book or a magazine, I’m going to read critically. 

Or I’m just going to stop reading the paper and spend my time on the couch, alternating between laughing and weeping to Bridesmaids.

Clara Belle

Last weekend the Clara Belle had her first taste of the gulf.

Trent had the winning name, after our beloved Clara Street – and for no particular reason, because it has that Mississippi riverboat sound.

I expected a little more pomp and circumstance.  When I imagined christening the boat with champagne (a small bottle of champagne, for a small boat) I didn’t picture myself in the clothes I slept in.  Trent however, was beyond antsy and excited about getting the boat in the water and set sail during what started as an early morning walk on the beach.

Trent’s lifelong dream was finally realized and he spent the day exhilarated and slightly tired. 

I should probably add that I didn’t even get on the boat last weekend.  Spring Break is traditionally a tease, because the reality is always a constant cold breeze and I didn’t want to be soaking wet (the boat capsized on every run) and cold.  Plus, it was a great time to indulge in my beach drug of choice, finding sharks’ teeth.  Trent should be writing this post so everyone could get a taste of his excitement.

And thus begins the newest adventure of the Williams family. 

The Rush-Man

Rush is the magic number:  three!

He’s a joy.  He’s smart and kind and hilarious.  He talks and has conversations and tells us about things, but also still uses funny words like “crackie” for cracker and “ra-struction” for construction.  And sometimes, for his own entertainment, he says “milky” following it up with a laugh and saying, “I call milk milky.” 

He loves trains and trucks and construction equipment and riding bikes and playing outside.  He likes to go to sleep with the light on so he can read in bed before he falls asleep.

He’s the Rush-Man.  I’m thankful for every day I get to spend with him

He’s also into parties.  Not only did we have a family dinner on his actual birthday, but we celebrated with cupcakes and cousins on Saturday evening at the beach.

As Rush would say, “I’m having two birthday parties.  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, fourteen, ten.”

True Mongooses

Today is one of those days.  I just need to find a way to get to the pharmacy and to Target and back to the doctor’s office.  It shouldn’t be that difficult, but somehow, somehow…There should be people you can call to come help you when your kids have ear infections and rashes and are teething and cranky and you just need to run into three places as fast as you can.  I think those people are called HAVING FAMILY IN TOWN.  Agh! 

I think it’s official now that I’m back on caffeine.  I gave it up for a few years and it felt so good and I slept so well and was so energized, but I’ve had so many days recently when I just needed a Diet Coke to fix things.  I guess the real deciding factor in terms of on or off the caffeine wagon is whether or not I have another Diet Coke this afternoon.

A picture to summarize the past two weeks, including but not limited to today:

That’s only a small selection of the empty boxes in our recycling bin.

My mantra for today:  I’m doing the best that I can I’m doing the best that I can I’m doing the best that I can…

And now we’ll move on to more positive things, cheering myself up and pulling myself up by my bootstraps.

Our new family motto:

It’s from The Jungle Book, the real Rudyard Kipling book, not the Disney movie.  From the story ‘Rikki-Tikki-Tavi’:

“It’s the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity.  The motto of all the mongoose family is, ‘Run and find out’; and Rikki-tikki was a true mongoose.”

When I made that sign, I kind of had in my head that I wanted it to look like a mongoose made it, or like it was hanging in a mongoose home.  That may sound weird, but the best thing about making something yourself is you can just say ARTISTIC LICENSE! and no one can argue with you.

The children are waking, so back to doing the best that I can, with or without another Diet Coke.

Spring Gardening Update: Evolution

When we bought our house, the backyard looked like this:

Well, almost like that.  There was a storage shed, which we gave away, but besides that the yard was empty, zero landscaping.  We do have a fabulous assortment of trees:  one crepe myrtle, one pecan tree, and two giant palm trees.  But excluding the trees, in the beginning, it was just grass and fence.

The first spring, right before Rush was born, we added dirt and filled in one little corner.  Our plan was to add a little more each year, gradually making our yard lush and beautiful.  Looking at this old picture from March 2009, I had forgotten how scrawny our lime tree (in the corner) once was.  And I had definitely forgotten that the vine (on the left) once had flowers.  The vine has stayed alive, but is currently classified as a failure to thrive.

We recently reached a new milestone – our beds stretch the length of the back fence.  It has been an on-going process, four springs later here we are.  We’re finally starting to pay attention to things like whether a plant needs shade or sun before we plant it, and finally focusing on getting some evergreen plants mixed in with all the plants that die away during the winter, a category which includes almost everything we have.

The biggest trick is the dirt.  My Austin friends appear to be able to rip out grass, till a nice patch of dirt, and plant vegetables.  We rip out grass, then spend 75% of our plant money on dirt every year.  The ground here is all clay, not the “hmm, let’s just till a little deeper” clay, but the “hey Trent, do you mind building a screen so I can clean this out and make pottery out of it” clay.  I found directions online for cleaning the clay, and thanks to the Dewey Decimal System, I’ll be heading to the 738’s to check out the ceramic arts section on our next library trip.  I’ll also need access to a pottery wheel, a kiln, and a body that doesn’t crash land asleep on the couch every night as soon as I get the boys in bed.

I could talk about composting here, but I’ll spare everyone the details.  Trent and I are borderline obsessed with our compost pile and once we start talking about compost we can’t stop.  We used to have season tickets to the theater.  Now look at what we’ve become.

So far this year we’ve planted tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos, cilantro, parsley, basil, and mint.  We have seeds for green beans and onions, but we’re short on good soil at the moment.  The extent of my gardening knowledge comes from my dad:  you must have good soil.  My grandfather had an incredible garden, then of course my parents and all their fellow baby boomers enjoyed the fact that they didn’t have to worry about a garden.  Now that my generation is panicked over the unsustainability of Spaghetti-o’s, we’re back to gardening, but without the benefit of actually knowing anything about it.  When I was in high school and Pop was old enough that he had let his garden go, I had the grand idea of starting my own garden.  My dad decided I could plant in Gran and Pop’s yard, and I remember talking with him as he tilled their old garden to get it ready for planting.  Specifically I remember my dad killing a snake with the tiller and me telling him that Dead Snake Fertilizer would be a good name for a band if he ever started one.  That’s actually a horrible name for a band, even in the 90’s.  Looking back, I’m always amazed at that memory and how he worked with me on the garden idea, probably knowing I wouldn’t follow through and actually produce any vegetables.  I doubt that I actually ever planted seeds.  But I do feel very loved knowing my dad tilled all that ground for me.

And to thank him, I’m going to interrogate him next time I see him and get every ounce of gardening information I can from him.  That’s the parent/child relationship isn’t it?  The kids just take and take and take.  So Dad, if you read this, how about a deal- I will trade you a box of Klondike bars for your gardening knowledge.

We did find a box in the garage that Trent made a few years ago (I think for lettuce) and raised it above ground for mint.  We’re hoping the mint will just go crazy in there and we can enjoy a gallon after gallon of Kentucky Farm Tea this summer. 

The next challenge, and really a Rubicon moment, is our front yard.  It’s very bland with very square hedges.  Trent has been itching to rip out the hedges for years, but I’ve consistently pointed out the houses in the neighborhood who did that and ended up with a landscaping wasteland.  Our front yard may be boring, but at least it looks decent.  We finally committed ourselves to taking on the front yard by giving all our landscaping blocks to our across-the-street neighbor with possibly the most beautiful yard on the street.  After he takes the blocks this weekend, there’s no turning back.  Goodbye to the safe suburban landscape and hello to whatever we decide to add.

Great plan, right?  Whatever we decide to add sums up our plan pretty well.  We’re not ripping out all the hedges yet, but we’re branching out in some ways and we need to add, add, add.   Our front yard is all shade and brief afternoon sun.  Let’s hope we can make it work.  If nothing else, it will have character.

That’s optimistic, but not actually true.  If nothing else, the front our house will be a vast expanse of dirt and dead plants.  Let’s hope we hit closer to character.

Blackbird

My friend Kellaura’s mom is pretty much famous in the modern quilting world.  A pattern for one of her mini-quilts appeared in the book Whip Up Mini Quilts a few years ago, and I finally got around to my goal of making the quilt. 

I actually followed most of the pattern, excluding appliqueing leaves across the top, mainly because I forgot to cut them out and at that point I was too far past the cutting to feel like going back.  Hand quilting a leaf pattern was so satisfying and relaxing that I’m using the same design on another quilt I’m working on.

When I look at that quilt, it reminds me about the beauty of nature and how much I love to watch birds outside our window. 

Although I do love watching birds out a window, that was a blatant lie.  All I can think about when I look at that quilt is Panther High Football and Tim Riggins and The Smash.  97% of that quilt was made while watching Friday Night Lights Season 1.

Retreating

Last week we got to take a bonus trip with my sister’s family, spending a few days in the always beautiful piney woods of Camp Allen.  Because we went just for a visit, not a retreat or camp session, it was the guilt free version of the weekends we made for ourselves during high school retreats, skipping programs to hang out in our cabin eating Sun Chips.  All we were missing was our friend Kate and a stack of magazines.  At one point we drove pass a field and Casey said, “That’s where Chris (her husband) and I met, at Midwinter.”  Apparently there was an organized game of ultimate frisbee, but when I told Casey I had absolutely no memory of that, she goes, “We weren’t playing, we just walked down with a can of Pringles to see who was out there.”  That sounds about right.

The woods are so much quieter than our usual retreat, the beach.  Even on a calm day at the beach, there’s the constant sound of the waves.

We made some of our own noise, playing pirates on the playground and throwing sticks at trees to make the pollen puff out in a (hilarious) toxic green cloud.  Could that possibly have contributed to the intense allergies I’m feeling?

While I love being outdoors, I also love civilization, which is why our trip was made perfect by a daily trip to the conference center for a nice afternoon cup of coffee.

And no afternoon coffee break would be complete for Rush and Tate without a nice run up and down a hill.

My brother-in-law Chris was the chaplain for the week, so we did manage to make it to a few Evening Prayers.  Tate and I tried to make it to Morning Prayer once, but Tate was more interested in communing –loudly- with nature, so we enjoyed God’s creation outside the chapel.

In the book I’m reading, the author says that in addition to our recognized sacraments, there are limitless opportunities for sacraments, times when ordinary things are filled with God’s grace and love.  There is something wonderful, perhaps sacramental, in watching my children run around at Camp Allen.

I’m feeling less sacramental today though, as I look at the bags to be unpacked, clothes to be washed, and kitchen to be dealt with…oh well, back from the retreat to the daily.  I’m going to get Tate from his nap and find the joy.