Apparently, I don’t do well with red wine– all day yesterday I had one of those sick-and-hungover headaches. I only had two glasses of wine on Friday night! I didn’t deserve that headache. Next time I’ll stick to white wine and see if that serves me better… or maybe I’ll just skip straight to the shots.

Hopefully I will get to play L33T Scrabble soon, thanks to mw, who ordered a set of L33T Tiles. I’d like to say that I will pwn joo! But no, uber g33k Mike is way more 1337 than I will EVAR be. Snaps to Crackmonkey for the link– he’s trying to get me addicted to something other than Tetris because he ph33rs me. Ahhh, no, it’s my Soul Calibur skillz that really scare him (and rightly so).

This Hexstatic video is kind of hypnotizing. Usually, I’m not big on rap– but Distorted Minds is subtle, somehow. [via]

T-minus two days til I can get my camera phone… then my months (years?) of moblog envy will be over. First post? The butter sculpture swans that are sitting in my grocery store dairy case. Only $3.49 each! There are so many useless and wonderful things out there… the possibilities are endless.

Other random happy things:

• It sounds like Josh will be home today, rather than tomorrow.
• I bought a dress on sale for $8, without trying it on, and it fits like it was tailor-made.
• The boys and I are getting ready to make spelt-cinnamon pancakes.
• Coffee awaits me!

There is no end to my love for Lifehacker.

These are the things that are relevant to my life: How To Diaper A Standing Two-Year-Old and the htaccess cheatsheet. Referenced on the same site! It makes me happy.

This evening, there was a 30th birthday celebration for Rachel at Mercy Wine Bar. It was fun. :) Two glasses of wine was plenty for me– I’m such a lightweight these days. It was soooo cold in there– Jess and I snuggled up under a spare tablecloth. I guess that’s the kind of luxury having a private party room can afford you. ;)

Must sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

The mustard cravings are back. I haven’t eaten much of it since…hmm, June… but all of a sudden it sounds like a good addition to nearly everything. I’m dipping my spelt pretzels in dijon mustard right now. MmMmM.

It’s been a wild afternoon. Since it was raining, the boys and I decided to paint– and oh, we did. There was paint on the floor, and the boys’ legs, arms, faces; some paper got painted, as well as a couple of plain yellow shirts. Afterwards, I spent half an hour on my hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor clean… then the boys got baths. Is 5pm too early for bedtime?

The house smells good because I made a loaf of onion-dill-basil spelt bread. This time I went heavy on the dill and onions, light on the basil– a little different than usual. Now if only I had a giant vat of tomato-basil soup to go with it. Though without cream in that soup, what’s the point? Somehow, a soy milk based tomato-basil soup just doesn’t have quite the same drool factor.

Madonna’s Lucky Star came on the 80’s satellite radio channel earlier, and Khai was dancing like a madman. It was kind of surreal, in a happy-good way. Max has been requesting, “rockin’ music” and is quick to change the channel if it’s not “rockin’ enough”. 80’s music seems to be appeasing the rock monster today. I haven’t yet introduced him to disco… I’m scared he might like it.

Over the last few days, I’ve been letting the weekend settle down around me. As I’m absorbing it all, I find that it was enough to jolt me back into my life. It was a beautiful weekend, and was just so needed– as cheesy as it sounds, it was life-affirming. For several weeks, I’ve not wanted to be an active participant in my own life; now I feel… reconnected.

It feels good.

There’s been some sort of shift, and ohmigod, it’s like I’m breathing clean, cool air after weeks of being held underwater. I’m thankful.

It feels like magic, though I know things just tend to play out and come full circle.

Several others I know have been under a similar dark cloud– I hope yours lift, too.

This morning there’s a lot to be done, but I find myself inventing excuses not to get started. I still haven’t caught up on sleep, though that might not ever *really* happen. In any case, I’m just very tired today.

For the last several months, I’ve had something to look forward to. As the date got closer, I got more excited… and then last weekend, it finally happened! Now I’m already wanting something else to anticipate. I should get to see my family at Christmas, but we don’t have any concrete plans in place yet. We’re working on plans for a NYE get-together with far-away friends, but that’s still in the early stages, too. Maybe I’ll feel different when something more solid has been put on the calendar. I guess having something exciting to focus on in the future helps to keep me from getting too bogged down by the little things every day. I’m not sure. Perhaps I’m just an anticipation junkie.

Laundry would be an easy start. Until the folding and putting away part comes, anyway. Maybe some coffee would wake me up. Oooh! Josh bought me dark chocolate-covered coffee beans… I almost forgot. There’s my breakfast.

Dark bruises keep popping up on my legs and arms, and I have no recollection of how they got there. I’ve got three big ones staring at me from my thighs, and truly, I don’t know how or when I got them. How does that happen?

Coffee beans. Laundry. Pick up Max. Library. Lunch. Toy pick-up. Vacuuming. Naptime? I hope so.

Everyone survived the weekend. Victory! I missed the boys tremendously, but knowing they were in good hands kept me from worrying. They were spoiled with attention, baked goods, and lots of playtime, so I’m not sure they actually noticed we were gone at all.

One of the many lessons I learned this weekend is that California gets cold. The temperature was in the sixties for most of the time we spent in Carmel, with the nights dipping down into the fifties. Having neglected to bring a sweater, I had to go buy one. Yes, shopping. Oh no, not that! And without the kids! Poor me.

Josh and I went to the beach for half an hour or so, where Josh waded in the very cold water a bit. I got lost in watching the waves break, and was reminded how much I love the sound of the ocean. Carmel is a neat little town; it’s very quaint. There were several shops I’d have loved to duck into, but considering that they were obviously very pricy places, I decided it would be better to not go in at all rather than fall in love with something I couldn’t have.

Meeting Matt & Jenny’s families was fun– and really, everyone just seemed so happy. The wedding went perfectly, and was absolutely beautiful. Eiwe could not have done a better job at officiating, and Matt & Jenny were just beaming. They fit so well together, and really, I can’t imagine either of them with anyone else.

Another thing I learned is that I am blessed beyond my own imaginings. How did I manage to get such amazing friends? I am nothing less than honored to share even small amounts of time with them. It is such a great feeling to get to sit down with people I haven’t seen in well over a year, and be able to pick up like we saw each other yesterday. Matt, Jenny, Anne, Eiwe– thank you. I love you all.

Since I’m on the topic of love, let me also say that I love my family soooooooo much. They drove all the way to Texas just to watch my kids! I’m still so blown away by that. I wish I could have been in two places at once… there just wasn’t much time to spend with them. Mom, Dad, Rachel, Matt– thank you. I love you all, too.

I’m so mushy! It’s the sleep deprivation. I’ve not had a full (or even a half) night’s sleep in almost a week, and it’s catching up to me. Something inside of me has superhero syndrome, and thinks I can survive on 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night. Wrong! I need to make myself go to bed earlier. It would help if the boys would sleep a little later, too– but that’s not going to happen.

One last note– I haven’t flown since early 2001, so this was the first time I’ve witnessed the new airport security measures since 9/11. Blah!!! What a mess. I’m not even going to waste time elaborating on that. If you’ve flown recently, then you know what I mean.

Happy. Tired. Thirsty. Love!

How awesome is my family? My sister, mom and dad are driving 12 hours just to babysit my kids for three days! That is love. My brother and his fiancee will be coming down for the weekend, as well– the only catch is that I will only get to spend a few hours with all of them.

Mom, Dad, and Rachel will get here tomorrow sometime, then Josh and I will head to the airport around 6am on Friday morning. California, here we come! We’ll be flying into Monterey for Matt & Jenny’s wedding. We haven’t seen them in almost a year now; Anne & Eiwe will be there, too, so it’s going to be a mini-reunion. I’m just a little bit excited.

This will also be the first time we’ve really been away from the boys. I think the longest we’ve been away from them is about 12 hours, and even then, we were just a short drive away. This will be all new territory. At least I know they’ll be in good hands. We may have to worry about the babysitters a bit… my boys can be pretty sneaky. ;)

Just so you know, I’m ready to pick up and move to Michigan so I can live in this house. [via] It’s so pretty! So Frank Lloyd Wright! So clean and organized… oh, wait… yeah, I guess if I moved in there my kids would take care of that in a hurry. I did have a moment of clarity today– it’s not that my house is dirty; it’s just hardly ever all clean at the same time. Yesterday, the living room was spotless. Today, the kitchen is spotless– but the boys destroyed the living room while I was focusing on the kitchen. It’s no wonder I feel like I never get anything done.

My family is coming tomorrow!!!!! Despite being excited for the wedding, it’s going to be very hard to leave them after only a few hours together. I really hate being this far away from them– wasn’t this supposed to get easier as I got older?

I spent a good two hours geeking out on this yesterday: Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music has soooo many little splinter genres and music samples. It makes me happy. A lot of the descriptions are deliciously snarky, too, which adds to my amusement.

Back in the old days, when I had a job in an office and children didn’t climb on me all day, I used to listen to Digitally Imported at work. I’d kind of forgotten about them, so I’m glad to see the site is still around. The Goa-Psy Trance is my favorite. :) It makes me wanna daaaaaaaaaance.

We spent much of the day going through closets looking for things to give away. I’d been saving all of the boys’ baby clothes for my nieces and nephews to wear (um, when I get some, that is…) but there are so many babies out there in need right now that I’m giving all but a couple of special outfits away.

The living room is full of boxes now– between all of the clothes and shoes Josh and I could spare, the baby clothes, blankets, and accessories, we have a lot of stuff. I hope it will help. It seems so little, in comparison to how much has been lost.

I’m hungry. I’m sleepy. I should be cleaning. I’m so boring. :)

Earlier, while cooking, my brain started reciting Chaucer. I don’t know where that came from. All of a sudden, I was back in my high school English class, trying to make my Okie accent sound like Old English.

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

Random brain misfirings? A bad batch of coffee? Not enough sleep, most likely…

In an effort to make a positive post, here are several good things from today:

• Josh surprised me with a flickr pro account– yay for more sets!
• Max spelled a LOT of words with his Word Whammer today. He’s reading words on bags, ads, signs, trucks, etc., and it’s exciting to see him figuring it all out.
• My ‘baby’ Khai said, “Can I come with you?” Plain as day– perfect pronounciation and everything. When did he grow up?
• I made homemade pizza for dinner. MMmMmMmmM.
• I’m stupid excited that we have all of the HBO channels as a free preview this weekend on our Dish service. The DVR is seeing some heavy action!
• I got all of the boys’ pictures from August put up in their gallery. Finally.

I think I’m ready to give in and sleep. 11:30pm, people! These early mornings are messing with me…