Have you seen I ♥ Huckabees? I liked it a lot. The old ABC + XYZ = Hollywood Blockbuster Hit equation bores me. This is nowhere near that equation; it’s quirky to say the least. It also gets six million points for not being utterly predictable.

May is going to veddy veddy busy; I think we have something scheduled to consume every weekend of the month. The calendar is looking a little scary– so much ink.

Lately, everything warrants mustard. I eat it on spelt pretzels, corn chips, meat, raw vegetables, whatever is in my hand. In the past, I didn’t even *like* mustard. What’s up with the mustard? Enlighten me, please and thank you. It’s scary, and compelling, and it can’t be good for me to consume this much of the Yellow Stuff. Khai likes mustard, too. (eep)

3hive has music that makes me happy. Josh is getting me an iPod for our Otherversary* (my ESP /slash/ guessing powers are fierce. impeccable. insatiable. unstoppable.) and I’m so excited! In fact, I just ripped Jason Falkner’s Author Unknown so it can be first on my playlist. Yeah, yeah, the Otherversary isn’t until May 7… I’m planning ahead.

*Otherversary: our other anniversary– the day we met. It holds as much significance as our wedding date. :) May 7, 1999, just in case you’re curious.

I wonder if mustard has any iron in it? All indications are that I’m far too anemic for my own good, resulting in frequent dizziness, tunnel vision, and shortness of breath. Maybe mustard is the key to curing anemia and my body knows this, somehow. Hmm.

For months now I have been pondering manifestation and have been stuck on the issue of what it is I truly want. The answer? I don’t know. Maybe this is why I’ve felt aimless as I flail about, wondering why I’m wandering. In the end I just want love and happiness for my family and friends. So I’m still pondering, trying to figure out a direction in which to point myself. I’ll get it eventually. I have everything I want right now, when it comes right down to it. Sure, there are lots of shallow little things that I’d like to have– but underlying all of it is this knowledge that all is exactly as it needs to be, just as it is.

Ms. Katie took a business trip to Germany and Switzerland recently, and she brought me a bag full of chocolate and other assorted goodies. She loves me. =) There really is no comparing — Swiss chocolate is REAL chocolate.

As of this month, I have had the tingly-weird numbness for three years. Time flies. For some reason I still don’t consider myself as one who ’suffers from MS’ — maybe that’s sheer denial, I’m not sure. I think it’s moreso that I don’t feel I’m suffering from anything. I have this ‘thing’ that is part of my life: I have to watch what I eat, be careful not to be in the sun for too long, and be extra-aware of what my body is doing day-to-day. It’s just there, just the way things are. I’m definitely doing better than I was three years ago and aside from a few flare-ups, my symptoms seem to stay within a very manageable range. I still consider myself lucky.

Every night is a late night these days. I’ve been working to customize Zen Cart for a website I’m building. Initially, I didn’t think a shopping cart would be necessary, but after building several pages, I realized that something was needed to create ‘detail’ pages dynamically that could be easily updated. I’ve not built a webstore before, and after some research, Zen Cart seemed to fit the bill nicely (not to mention that it’s opensource, which all good things should be). The original page design was a tableless CSS layout– clean and simple, easy to maintain. Enter Zen Cart: PHP, templates, CSS… and OUCH. I really wanted to avoid using tables in this site, just on principle, but it looks like that’s going to be unavoidable for now. Since I don’t know PHP, there’s a lot of trial-and-error style learning going on– but that tends to be my preferred method.

Josh tells me that this is what fuels the “Geek Ego”: the determination to make this $*#&@@(*#ing software bend to my will, to prove that the #(@#*@)ing code is not smarter than I am.

While I’ve felt a bit over my head at times with this, I also know that this is how I learn best. This is how I have learned everything since college– which is pretty much everything web-related. I had the basic design classes and graphics programs in school, but HTML, CSS, optimization, layout, Flash, etc. has been on my own.

Finally, I’m seeing some progress and not feeling quite so frustrated– with this particular project, the hardest part is figuring out WHERE in the world some of the elements are so I can modify them. There are folders within folders within folders, many of which contain similar, if not identical, file names.

Anyway, it’s good to know that my brain has not turned to complete mush since entering the land of motherhood; I can still learn! I can still figure things out! I can still beat code to a bloody pulp!

Once the site is finished and the store goes live I’ll post a link– I’ll be proud to have this in my portfolio. I have a lot to do still, but I do see light at the end of the tunnel.

OH, YEAH! Yesterday was my fourth wedding anniversary! Josh had yesterday off work, and is home with us through Sunday. Tonight we’re going out with friends to celebrate. What a whirlwind the last four years have been… they’ve left us happy, if not a little short-winded. ;)

Happy anniversary, sweet silly man. I love you. Thank you for sharing this life, these beautiful boys, this happiness with me. Thank you for rescuing me from snakes, for making me laugh, for being strong when I can’t be, for being a good daddy, for enduring your job so I can stay home, for concocting odd recipes with leftovers at 2am, for knowing when I need a hug, for being YOU.

Dear Internet,

I love you. Let’s grow old together and eat gummy worms on the front porch while rocking in wicker chairs and watching the sunset. Don’t worry, I have a wireless-enabled laptop and we’ll be together always.

Love,
Erica

I’ve been writing things that I like. I haven’t done that in a while.
I won’t share it with you, maybe because I’m shy, but in the end even that comes down to fear of rejection.
I shouldn’t care, but the honest truth is that I do.

My normally eclectic music tastes have been off the charts lately; a new addition to the playlist is Bacon Ray. Any group that pays homage to Diane Court automatically gets a gold star in my book. She’s gone. She gave me a pen. I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen.

More fun with power tools awaits: we’re going to build the boys a fort, complete with big, yellow slide!

I lead a charmed life. Really. Any flicker of discontent is fleeting, and usually not what it appears to be.

For my birthday, I received two gift cards for NY&CO. I don’t shop for myself. Ever. Shopping with children in tow is an entirely different experience than shopping alone, and not in a good way. Anyway, earlier this week Khai and I hit the mall while Max was at school, and I SHOPPED! I love NY&CO because they have loooooong pants and they are one of probably five places in the world where I wear a size four. Yes, I know the numbers aren’t real, but it still makes me happy.

I walked away with four new shirts, a skirt and two pair of pants… and still have a balance on my gift card. WOOO! Khai only had one major meltdown, so I declared the afternoon victorious.

This week I’ve been MOODY. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but I’m ready to feel normal again. I think a lot of it comes from just feeling overwhelmed in general. I need to try to finish up a few projects this weekend so I can cross them off the list and get started on other things.

Project Headboard update: the fabric has been purchased! I’d intended to drag Josh with me to select fabric because he tends to get picky about random things. However, it was going to be sixty-seven years before there was an opportune afternoon to make that happen, so I just bought it on my own. Fortunately, he really likes it (whew!). I did end up going with the richer, more intense jewel-tone colors– kind of a purplish-burgundy with brocades, batiks, and gold trim. Wow, that makes it sound incredibly gaudy… but we like it anyway. Maybe this weekend we’ll find time to play with power tools… I need to sand my cedar and Josh might dress up the edges with the router.

I’m happy to say that I’m still on track with the yoga; I’ve already regained noticeable flexibility… I don’t know why I stopped doing it in the first place.

In those muddled moments before waking completely, my mind had two words in it: recalcitrant and sycophant. Merriam-Webster Online defines recalcitrant as an adjective meaning 1: obstinately defiant of authority or restraint; 2 a: difficult to manage or operate, b: not responsive to treatment, c: resistant. Sycophant is a noun that means a servile self-seeking flatterer. I’m not quite sure what I was dreaming about, but it must have been interesting.

Max checked out a Schoolhouse Rock video from the library last week and it’s amazing how many of the songs and cartoons I remember from my childhood. Conjunction Junction in particular stands out; it’s one of Max’s favorites, too. There are sound clips here!

My surreptitious workout plan has proven to be very effective. I find that even when I really don’t want to do it, I can convince myself that doing the sun salutation will be quick and easy. I have yet to stop there; once I get going then I actually want to do more. I suppose this proves that I am both lazy and easily swayed. Either way… as long as I keep up with the yoga then I’m happy.

There’s a loaf of onion-basil-oregano spelt bread baking… it smells SO GOOD. If you had a scratch-n-sniff monitor I’d upload an olfactory file.

Khai and I just feasted upon a pretend soup of plastic corn and plastic eggplant. He has declared it to be “MmMM, TASTY.” We are now watching Dora the Explorer and he is singing ‘bate bate bate’ [bate, bate, chocolate!] while dancing wildly.

FLyLady says I should be scrubbing my kitchen, but I’m going to put it off until later. I’ll regret that when ‘later’ becomes ‘now’ — but hey, my sink is shiny and the dishes are done. Things are clean enough for the time being. As for the toys all over the living room, I’m doing my best to avoid looking at them. If you don’t see it, it’s NOT THERE.

This is pure genius (and so forehead-slappingly simple): When the sheets and pillowcases come out of the dryer, fold them and tuck them into one of the newly-clean pillowcases before placing the package back in the linen closet. That makes it easy to grab exactly the items you need when a bed needs clean sheets. [copied and pasted directly from the 43Folders unsorted life hacks page]

The above reminds me that I was going to link Wiki Science: How to Start a Wiki because wikis are cool. I will be looking for this link later when I forget where I’ve left it.

I started out my morning by putting the coffee beans into the french press instead of the grinder. Fortunately, I caught my mistake before pouring the hot water on top. I’d like to think that the rest of the day can only go uphill from here.

Some of the best stuff on the planet: Burt’s Bees Herbal Blemish Stick. I love it! Between this and making sure I drink lots of water, my skin is looking better than it has since I was pregnant. I don’t know what it was about pregnancy but my skin was the happiest it’s ever been.

Places I’ve been lately: