We went snow tubing today. It was fun - I liked being one of those active families. Carrying Gracie up the hill was grueling. I haven't owned a pair of snowboots since I was a minor. I think it's time to indulge. It's not like my feet will grow. Eleanor gets a new pair every year. This evening we're going to see the Princess and the Frog with our cousins and then have them over for tacos.

Yesterday I spent hours researching cultural activities, to enrich the girls' lives, while ignoring the girls for the afternoon. I would like to get them to the theatre, ballet, symphony, and opera once a year. We sang-talked, like the opera, in the car on the way home from Chris and Bob's, where I had my first guitar lesson and where a visit from a few cousins turned into a spontaneous family party of a couple dozen. I like how that happens.

I have liked creme colored guazy baby-doll dresses since Courtney Love wore one on the cover of Vanity Fair in I think 1995. I'm vaguely aware that she's a certified, child-beating lunatic, and that to admit her as a style inspiration would be embarrassing. I cut that picture of her out, I think she was pregnant and heroin-chic, and used it in a collage book that I made for the teenage boy I loved, who gave me no response to my heartfelt project. I very vividly recall crying on Gram and Pa's couch for days waiting for him to call back. He still occasionally makes an appearance in my dreams, but it's more like a nightmare. I made peace with all the other young men in my life and they don't haunt my dreams anymore. Just this one. So I found him on facebook, 13 years later, hoping to chat, see what he's like now so I can replace the idealized memory of him with the actuality of a thirty something stranger, but he blew me off again. Maybe he's just a dick. He was so sweet in high school. Skinny and nerdy and so empathetic. I went on to compare every boy and man to him. My husband wins the prize by a margin the length of a football field. (the Bears are on in the other room.)
So I still like these dresses, with jeans, or heavy tights and boots. I wonder sometimes if I'm stuck in grunge like I saw 30 something ladies stuck in hair metal in the 90s. It doesn't really matter because my lifestyle/budget dictates one pair of jeans I wear all week (kind of grunge) and T-shirts, usually my husband's, usually a band. And a hoodie. More muumuu than flattering. I occasionally fantasize about ethereal palettes of grey creme and turquoise, lots of silver bangles on much skinnier arms.
I found this blog tonight of a man who photographs fashionable/beautiful/interesting women around the world, just women on the street. Of course, I first wonder how he funds this jetting around photo-ing ladies, but also slipping into the old media-driven habit of desiring to look like them. Aren't I too old for this poor sense of self?
I decided my brain was atrophying and I needed to work it out, so I bought Swann's Way by Proust and began reading it to the girls to put them to sleep. It quickly becomes sexual, so I started dropping phrases, then sentences, jumped a paragraph, then just declared - good night.

We had a much better day today. I decided before I fell asleep last night that the first thing I would do when I woke up would be to put on tea and start a load of laundry. This helped with the paralyzing "what do I do first" problem. We did laundry and math. Charlotte was so proud of herself. She ran around in circles when she finished. Eleanor was punished for laying down on the job and whining in refusal.

My mom came over for an art lesson. I put her in the bathroom for an hour to do a preliminary self-portrait. I finally made the kitchen curtains, only because the paper blinds were ripped off and I felt exposed.

Do you know why I don't have business cards? I don't know what to put on them. What is it I'm trying to do now? You want to be a rock star now? Some kind of artist?

I don't know that I can homeschool well. I don't know that I can be everything to them. I do much better in a competitive environment where I can specialize and receive praise. I love the idea of homeschooling. I wholly agree with the philosophy. I have lots of great ideas for our day to day. I just don't follow through.

I feel like my days are in slow motion - walking through jello. I can't wake up in the morning. I don't know what to do first so I choose: stay in bed. I think I'm depressed. Nothing is actually wrong. I feel paralyzed to leave the house.

self identity crisis.

Is it the winter weather? Is it adjusting to home-ownership? I can't just take off anymore. I feel helpless that my family and I eat terribly and watch too much TV/computer and are amassing so much stuff. I can't control them and I fall in line with my environment over time.

weakness of character.

We had a very nice Christmas.

Today was the sort of day where everything feels like a failure. Maybe because its Monday. Maybe because Chris is sick and home improvements are taking up time. I made it to the post office, I rescheduled my traffic school, all the kids got dressed, I made soup from scratch, and I folded laundry. Later, the girls played very cleverly as fashion designers and I let them do whatever they wanted with certain fabric. I made some little doll clothes for them this weekend and they're still into it. This was all good, but I feel like I'm not doing enough. Eleanor could be taking in more than I'm giving her. I think. Its really hard to schedule extracurriculars for them or get into a flow of learning or painting or whatever when we have to stop and get ready to go to work/sitter. I don't know if I can succeed at homeschooling and working . I've gone over it again and again but the other options are worse. Its just hard.

I was reading through my recipe box tonight. My mom gave it to me eight years ago, when we weren't getting along. It's just the size for 3x5 recipe cards and covered in Beatrix Potter type characters. It has recipe cards with the same little squirrels and bunnies in aprons. She bought it at a gift shop and the tag said 13 dollars, which gave me a sick sort of guilt that she spent so much on something so trivial - but. I sift through it now, filled with recipes, and they remind me of the people who gave them to me, of the time when I only had one baby and everything was so bittersweet. It contains my grandmother's handwriting and I run my finger along her letters and remember her. I appreciate my mom now. We talk on the phone and I enjoy her company. So much has changed in the time I've been a mother. I think about how I'll look back on these days. I can't imagine I'll regret the time I spent with them homeschooling. I look at all the recipe cards I printed out that say allrecipes 2001. I tried so hard to cook healthy and interesting meals. It was so lonely then. I'm never lonely now. No matter how much I think that I need to stop this treadmill and catch my breath, it can't. And its OK. I would tell the new mom me to relax. I feel the 40 year old me rolling my eyes at me now. 'Relax. Be happy. You have three amazing little kids who still think you're cool.' That treadmill just makes me feel like I'm hyperventilating on the emotional roller coaster that I'm prone to. Up and down. That's where Chris comes in. I've had friends in the past who did not understand our relationship. Probably people I got big ideas with, friends I dream with. Chris is the ground. constant. real. He is the guy standing on the grass holding the string and I am the wildly colored kite that flies around in circles and smashes into the ground. I love him so much.

It is 1 degree Fahrenheit. The annual questioning - why do we live here - skipped across my mind. But I know. Family.

I am getting restless. I can't stand the home decor obsession anymore. My world is shrinking, narrowing. I always thought I'd live differently. More globally. More outside. In a surfing, hiking, climbing sort of way. The travel-as-a-means-of-expanding-perspective bug has bitten again.

This is just the sort of sofa I want. I saw a similar set on Craig's list. God help me I'm obsessed.
(both apartment therapy)

I've become interested in this spring green yellow. there's a grey and yellow pillow at Target that I'm really perseverating on right now that's got me thinking this yellow in the hall and a light warm grey on the common area walls would be nice.

Also thinking, to make them really my own, I could get pale turquoise drapes and make a painting on them. My kitchen fabric is still draped over the living room rod. I like it so much I sort of want it in there but it's too busy.

Gracie has her first double earache. I called in to work, which I never do, and got her into the doctor, which I also never do. I love staying home with them. I made Charlotte eat green beans. She gagged. It took her twenty minutes to eat one bite. She cried. Eleanor and I each ate about two cups of these delicious frozen french green beans with butter and sea salt. I also made meat loaf. For lunch we had pork tenderloin fajitas - without the tortillas. I'm feeling low-carb today. But tonight I made chocolate pudding from scratch. The big girls played in the snow for hours today. It was the first snowy ground of the season. They made elaborate fort play with garden frames and tires and rickety fence pieces. Mondays are for grocery shopping. And cooking. We knocked out at least a half hour each girl of math u see and even read about Egypt in the Story of the World. All of these good things were nestled in between doubts about homeschooling at all today. I thought about how hard this is and that maybe I'm not doing enough or am not consistent enough. This is so hard sometimes. We now live where they could walk to the elementary and the junior high and the high school. Why do I always have to do things the hard way. I looked up the school district online. Charlotte saw what I was doing and started crying. I told her I was just curious and I wasn't going to send her to school. Our school district is at the bottom of the barrel - not too tempting even in times of weakness.

The girls put up the tree. the bathroom is still gutted. We took our annual silly family photo for Christmas. I still have Anthropolgie - itis - a disease that has me obsessed with getting my house to look like an Anthropologie catalogue. I never had this problem before. Rentals never felt like a reflection of me. They were just a place to stay.

Happy Birthday Chrissy. We had three cakes for you and lots of cousins over. I love you. I miss you.

*yesterday - planetarium field trip.

*today - showers at Grandma's, attended much loved unschool group -even if only for a little while

*tomorrow - toddler story hour and new library books. According to new schedule by Grandma, aka - "mom, I need help squeezing everything into the too small suitcase that is the 7-day week," we may even do some yoga

*currently reading - The Fairy Caravan by Beatrix Potter, took a break tonight to read Flat Stanley

*Charlotte has decided to start learning cursive today

*in reality, we do Math-U-See once a week

*I got bored with the Story of the World - haven't read or done activities since old house

*Thursday - looking to spend afternoon in woods - considering starting a nature club

*Friday- world religions playdate with our close friends - must learn about Islam and find Eid-appropriate recipe (will choose ethnicity based on own taste preferences.) Will also eat challah, and whatever it is that Catholics eat. My favorite Catholic eats lots of chocolate chip cookies. Maybe cookies.

Bumblebee Elementary totally DOES shit.