Brownies and OJ: Breakfast of Champions

And potato chips, apparently.  I totally forgot how good potato chips were.  Good thing I've had a LOT OF TIME to remember!  I've also had a lot of time to contemplate how having appendicitis and subsequent appendectomy is kind of like being a bride.  It's so... entitling!  The effects are the same; the causes are, um, pretty different.

1. It's a lot of attention.  A LOT.  Which is good because
2. You just want to see and hang out with all the people in your life.  You really appreciate company.
3. You get to ask people to do things for you.  Like, no holds barred.  No request too small.  "I'd like you to make my veil 0.025" shorter!"  "I'd like you to take my socks off!"  And they have to do it.  They have to do it gladly, even.  After all, you are getting married/are in great pain.
4. You get to say no to anything you want.  And people have to respect that.   
5. Everywhere you go, you leave a mess because you are stressed out and crafting/unable to pick things up from the floor.
6. You view your insane job from afar, like an outsider looking in.  You take it a lot less seriously.  For, um, the moment.
7. You develop questionable eating habits even though it's one of the most important times to eat exactly right.
8. Your fiancé/husband turns into a superhero who does, in fact, take your socks off and reach that light switch that's right next to you but at an awkward angle that you can't manage.  He does not, however, make your veil 0.025" shorter.  He would if he could, though.

Meanwhile, I'm obsessed with the following:

1. Visiting Iceland.
2. Working my way up the corporate ladder from volunteering to owning this place.
3. Wishing we had all our forms to do taxes already.
4. Reading these.  I also found these MTV clips where he reads some of the original ones and giggles like a schoolgirl.  I basically died.
5. My reunion with long-lost organs!  Thanks Mom!

File under: Important Questions

So there was a week where I was too lonely to write anything, then there was a week where I was too happy to write anything, and here we are.

While I think of something interesting to say, I leave you with a small story from today:

Kids at school get stickers from their teachers or the principal ("Pride of the Principal"!) and they proudly wear them when they've done well on a test, returned lost money, etc.  Today I was wearing this chintzy little pin, basically a bottle-cap looking thing with a heart and LOVE written inside, with three little heart charms dangling down from it.  I think I got it for fifty cents at a garage sale.  Mitchell, grade four, who finds some reason to raise his hand and ask me a question almost every lunch period, did so today also and asked, pausingly -- "Mrs. Race, where did you -- earn -- your.. love?"

Where did I earn my love, indeed.

This is basically my dream come true.

Guys.  For the first time in my life, I have a car registered to my name.  In my state.  And a husband who is giving me free reign at the DMV.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS MEANS.

I can have vanity plates.  I am literally dying over here.  I am also paralyzed with indecision as I spend hours on the MD vanity plate availability website.  What. should. I. get.  :O

Here are some top contenders, all currently available:

ILVPL8S
RACES
SUZE (also THESUZE)
FREEHGS

Votes and/or other ideas are IMMENSELY WELCOME

Two ornaments

Total ornaments: 42
Trips out to get tree lights: 2
Minutes spent analyzing tree lights in stores: 47
Number of products of tree lights bought: 3
Attempts to light tree: 5
Outlets tried: 4
Figuring out it was your extension cord that was faulty the whole time: priceless

Bellow.

These three basically represent a day in the life.

Thanksgiving Lessons

Learned the Easy Way

1. Read your recipes a million times over.  
2. Work backwards and plan out the time everything is going to happen.
3. Start earlier anyway.

  Learned the Hard Way

1.  Have backup plans for potentially significant amounts of leftover herbs and/or celery. 
1. a. Buy the right amount of thyme in the first place.
2. Line the bottom of EVERYTHING that goes into a heat source in foil.
3. Make sure ALL your tupperware is clean on Wednesday.
4. One gravy packet with four servings does not, in fact, make enough gravy for four people.
5. Line the bottom of EVERYTHING that goes into a heat source in foil.

Numbered list, for heaven's sakes.

Gosh.  Guys.  I fell in this ridiculous loop of half-baked thoughts that went nowhere and then I worked myself into a frenzy of having nothing to say.  Well.  Here's what I've been thinking about.

1. For a few weeks now I've watched this ^ a whole bunch.  They both seem like the coolest.  And then I sit and marvel at the fact that we as humans can distinguish "sounds like."  "Looks like."  The craziest of all, "seems like."  Isn't it crazy that we can take something we've never heard before, or seen before, and pinpoint its similarities to something we know?  Her inflections are perfect.  They obviously never sang this, but you KNOW it's that exact artist.  You've never heard this song before, and maybe no one started singing it yet, but you KNOW it's the new one by Muse.  You've never seen this painting, but look at the colors and style and subject, it has to be Toulouse-Lautrec.  Or those Jerry's impersonation commercials.  They're exactly what that person would say, and how he would say it, even though he has never talked about Jerry's Subs and Pizza!  My goodness!  Isn't that so crazy!
2. We watched the videos we made when we first moved in.  Holy smokes.  Every door and window was always open just to air out the stench!  I never thought it would go away!  But I think it has!  I can't believe how much we scrubbed, how all our stuff filled the living room for weeks on end, how we didn't have Bellow.  Sigh!  Also, I seem to take videotaping and narration way more seriously than Justin.
3. Every student who receives special education services does so through a 30-page legal document called an IEP, Individualized Education Plan.  Being in this business sometimes reminds you that everyone needs an IEP somehow, a relationship IEP, for example.  When you start framing out-of-context situations around an IEP, you kind of start to think about the other person's (or your!) present levels, where he or she is right now.  And as much as I hate that rhetoric, you do have to start where that person is and move from there.  Accommodations and modifications.  You adapt to what works best for that person.  You provide things you may not think need providing, but you do because the other one benefits greatly.  You go on to the service page, to explain the overall details of being together: it can be more!, but at least an hour three times a week, across content areas of home, outside, playing with dog, etc.  Goals, to remind everyone that you're part of this too, you're working on yourself as well, with your partner's help.  And then, you know, whether you're going to summer school or not.  But really.  The potential for understanding and compassion when you picture a relationship IEP is, well, above grade level.