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December 16, 2008 | Category: Rants & Raves

I HATE CSS!
I HATE CODE!

Dammit, I'm a hardware chick. This stuff is hard....

P.S. Dear Martha, I know it looks like crap. It keeps looking fabulous and sparkly in my preview app. But not so much on the actual internet. Doesn't this sound a lot like my baking, too? I'm fixing it. As fast as Christmas/ Homeschooling/ Laundry/ Snow/ Dog allows. But don't stop with the lovely voicemails. I don't hear your voice nearly enough, and that's the truth. Love, me.

P.P.S. Just don't tell me you're still on Internet Explorer, OK? That stuff will rot your brains and let hackers into your system. Firefox, dearest. It rocks out and even knows a little nightmusic.

Look Out, Below!

December 11, 2008 | Category: Well, That Was Random

Chipping away at the stylesheets and the templates has gotten me close to my current idea for the New Layout - but not quite. And now the code is so cluttered that each tweak sets off a Butterfly Effect.

Ick.

For the next 3 days I will be blowing it all away and starting with clean code. The problem? My Apple-Indigenous coding software previews nothing like what it ends up looking on my screen. So this may be one giant leap for Elizabeth - and one bad, long, strange trip for her blog.

Stay tuned. Prayer is appreciated. Also? Chocolate.

The Fight

December 10, 2008 | Category: Thy Wedded Life

I haven't wanted to say it out loud. To admit it. Because it feels like some kind of personal failure.

About a month ago, CD and I had a fight.

The worst knock-down drag-out say things you can never take back fight since I quit my job. A fight so harsh and biting that I began to realize how precarious my position is as a homemaker - as an unemployed former corporate semi-muckety-muck.

What if I have to walk out the door? I wondered. What if I have to pack up that little boy and myself and then...then... where would we go? How would we live? Oh Dear Lord, I am at his mercy!

As the argument raged on, storming over days like waves on waves, my panic climbing up the back of my throat with the icy fury. I don't think I've felt so utterly alone in years.

Maybe ever.

It's all been too much. Everything we've been going through these past months. For both of us. And we faltered and then fell. And CD did and said some stupid things that I am struggling hard to forgive. And a friend of mine stuck their nose in, and made it so much worse that my face should have exploded. And of course, I was a total witch about it all. I cried and I shouted and made a mess of any sense of grace I might have chosen.

We've slowly turned the corner, now. Like an 18-wheeler pulling a U-ey in the Target parking lot. Inching forward - carefully. I still have this faint headache and heartache. Things will take a while to heal up from this one.

Maybe Bear and I will take a small trip somewhere, shake loose a little of these aches that cling to me like lint on a sweater. I don't know.

You just never get "there". Wherever "there" is. I thought that our happiness inoculated us from this kind of a fight. I thought our survival of that long, painful trip to the edge of reason gave us some extra kind of flexibility and understanding. I thought, after all this time, that we'd finally found a gentle place in our relationship that precluded this kind of anger and odds.

I was so very, very wrong. And that? Just sucks more than I can say.

Hush, Hush

December 09, 2008 | Category: In My Life

Sense of joy fills the air, And I daydream and I stare, Up at the tree and I see... Your star up there. And this is how I see you, In the snow on Christmas morning, Love and happiness surround you... As you throw your arms up to the sky. I keep this moment...by and by.
- "Wintersong", Sarah McLachlan

I've been caught up in myself lately. I mean, in terms of Bear. He's an only child, and a homeschool kid at that. So if I'm not giving him my attention, well, then it's just him and the dog. And while she's cute - she's not much of a conversationalist.

Between Edward Scissorhands-ing my blog, finding a whole slew of CD's relatives on Facebook (hello, Iceland!), being all courageous with the bills, planning and executing a food budget that means everything is being made from scratch, writing/addressing Christmas cards, making lists - checking them twice, and generally tripping over the Christmas boxes to get anywhere... well, I'm sucking big eggs as a mom.

This morning, Bear crawled into bed with me (as you will) to catch some early(ish) morning one-on-one time. But one look at my expression and he had to ask me what's going on.

"The governor was arrested," I broke the news to my politico pre-teen.

"The bribing thing?" he asked, sounding disappointed but not surprised.

I nodded.

"Oh," he sighed, shaking his head. "That's not cool. It's Christmas. Who's going to sign the things he's supposed to sign so everything works all right? Is there a Vice Governor, I think?"

I nodded. "Lt. Governor Pat Quinn," I confirmed.

"So, that's good. But I guess it's not a good Christmas so far," he mused.

"For the governor, you mean? Or Illinois in general?"

"For the whole... everyone. Hardly anybody has their lights up. We don't even have a tree yet. It's like people are sad."

"Are you sad?" I asked.

"I guess," he sighed, reaching for my hand.

"But you were happy before. When Daddy got the new job, and I got better, and the new president was elected."

Bear gave me a long look and slowly nodded. "Mommy? Is bad mood contagious?"

"I think it is," I agreed.

"Is good mood contagious?"

"What do you think?"

"I think it is," he decided. "So maybe we could start it."

"How?"

"Put up some lights, maybe? And send cards to people. I don't know."

"All right," I agreed, feeling a little sparked by his enthusiasm. "Of course, we still have to start your new vocabulary list, and drop off the dry cleaning, and..."

"Hush," Bear laughed, finding the remote control. "How about you do some things, and I watch a cartoon, and then we do some good mood stuff?"

"I can get behind that," I agreed, slipping out of bed to make myself some coffee.

"Hey, Mommy?" he called, just as I was walking away.

"Yeah, hun?"

"Everything's gonna be all right, right?"

I thought a minute. Years slipping before my eyes. His faith in my answer weighing the words. "Yes, it is," I vowed. "It's going to be all right, soon enough."

"OK," he smiled.

And for a moment, we believed.

Soup

December 07, 2008 | Category: Recipes

Through the years, the one thing that I've learned to cook well is soup. I started about 15 years ago, when I had a taste of home-made squash soup (albeit made in the home of a chef). It was a revelation.

A year later, a woman named Brenda invited me over to her house for Borscht. I hated beets. Or so I thought.

By now, I can make about a dozen different soups well. My tomato-basil was my favorite last summer. I made ham-baked potato for CD earlier this week. And last night, feeling kinda blue, I simmered up some french onion with the last of that nice tawny port I had.

If pressed, I can served it with the bread and broiled cheese on top but I tend to eat it naked in a mug, steaming, with a roll for dipping and some cheese and apple wedges on the side.

I'm just my family's cook and too often I get dinner wrong. Clearly? I'm not a chef. I've never trained. Not even in my own childhood. No one made soup a part of their repertoire. My dad worked at Campbells for some years, so our soups came from a can with a red and white label.

But making soup is more than a sort of hidden, and probably somewhat useless, talent. It never fails to lift me from ennui, or sadness. And it makes me feel connected to the millions of pots of soups that have nourished and do sustain so many homes, hearths, and bellies for millenni. The different flavors, the different cultures, the different recipes handed down on index cards that grow grubby from use.

I guess there's something about making soup - the chopping, and stirring, the steam and scents - that heals my soul.

Don't Look!

December 01, 2008 | Category: In My Life

If you hadn't noticed, I'm STILL re-coding the site.

First of all, it needed an overhaul. The CSS was so full of abandoned style choices that every time I tried to update something, I would trip over it all and it would become a mess. Just total freaking chaos.

Second of all, it needed to be organized. My archives are a mess. My categories less than helpful. And nothing was easy to navigate.

Third of all, I want rounded corners. I can't explain it, I just do. And that has meant figuring out CSS and Movable Type once and for all. Which? Ain't easy. Especially for a woman who sometimes wears her bras inside out.

And finally?

Well, we're getting to that.

Just, please, I beg you. Don't give up on me yet.

While You Were Sleeping

| Category: In My Life

I'm not whining.

Just reeling.

The fallout from last summer continues to pile up.

While everyone (mostly) was supportive of me while I was "out of it", I continue to burn in real time from the after-effects.

From renegotiating debts (because I don't have the freelance money anymore) to making amends to people who feel betrayed that I missed out on some months of their lives.

I don't know what to do. I don't know how to make it better. Some days I wake up and it's like reporting to an ongoing siege - looking at bills that got ignored and are now rimmed in red; leaving messages for people who don't call back; trying not to hyperventilate about making the COBRA payment (almost $1500/month).

If anyone has any advice, I'm listening. Because there is a part of me that is growing bitter and I hate it. I hate that there's snow on the ground and holiday cards to address and all I feel like doing is throwing my head back and screaming.