Magnolias in bloom

You can buy this image here.

It's drizzly and gray again here.  We desperately need the rain, and yet, sigh, it's not exactly a mood elevator.  Except, of course, when you happen upon a Magnolia tree all bursting and blooming and gettin' crazy with huge pink blossoms.  My Magnolia calls them "Maggie trees" and whenever I point one out to her she nods and says, "Now open your eyes and look for an Olive tree for Ollie."  Isn't that magnanimous of little Magnolia? 

Speaking of twins.  If I lived in this Brazilian town, I would STAY AWAY from the water.

A thing I like

Photo originally published in Domino Magazine

I'm sort of addicted to decorating and home blogs (not the nerdy ones, just the room-porn ones).   I didn't used to be like this.  I used to take my ma's old castoffs (Hello, chipped lavender nightstand. Hello, dresser I've had since birth.) and call it a day.  Now?  Well now our little 1941 house in the Sunset is under constant scrutiny and in the throes of a hundred DIY projects.  It's all due to my job as a home editor at Sunset magazine, where pouring over beautiful homes is part of my job description. 

Anyway, right now I am, like everyone else, loving Design Sponge.  I especially like this little tidbit on how to go about remaking a room.  Personally I start by manically perusing Craigslist for used stuff, but some people, as I understand it, start with a grand vision. 

It's a good thing they're cute

Because they sure are putting me through the ringer.  Everything, and I mean everything, is a fight these days.  Maggie is ripping up books, hitting me and the Mister, putting her fingers in the stamp pad milliseconds after I tell her that the only rule I have for playing stamping is not putting your fingers in the stamp pad.  Oliver is throwing himself to the floor and wailing, throwing his couscous on the ground and then stomping on it. It's like living with two door-slamming, eye-rolling teenagers.  It's rough.  I am not handling it as well as I should be.  I raise my voice.  I yell.  I jut out my lower jaw in a threatening manner.  Tonight, in an effort to speed up time, thus reaching bedtime more quickly, I let them watch an entire hour of TV (Stellaluna on DVD, actually).  This is something we simply do not do.  But, ugh, I needed backup.

There are still traces of my two little darlings.  They are affectionate and cute and sweet often enough to keep me from leaving them at the nearest Target and hitting the road.  But, man, why can't we all just get along?

Here's a little sample of the cuteness that still glimmers through:

OLIVER (switching off my bedside lamp): You have to turn off the the light when you leave the room so you don't waste tickly. 

A thing I like

In the last two-and-three-quarter years we, as a family, have gone through more than 10,000 diapers.  I can't even contemplate the number of wipes.  A bazillion? That's a lot of landfill, people (hallelujah for potties!).  Nearly every single diaper change was facilitated by Diapers.com.  It's cheap.  It's fast.  It's reliable.  It's a company I might even miss doing business with, and I can't say that about very many businesses.  So, if someone you love still wets themselves, you should shop there.  You won't be sorry.

39 things to do before my next birthday

It's my birthday. Thirty-nine.  Doesn't that sound old?  It does, doesn't it?  But it doesn't feel old.  It feels just fine, in fact.  When I stop to think about how we all seem to be so terrified of getting older, it seems rather silly.  I suppose it's the sense of shrinking possibility that does it.  Less time to do the stuff that feels worthwhile.   And the looks thing, of course.  But what are you gonna do?  I had my chance to be 23.  And I can say with certainty that it was no better than being 38.  In fact, it sort of sucked.

Here are 39 things I like to do in the final year of my 30s:

1. start some meaningful and ongoing volunteer work

2. re-read some Shakespeare plays

3. learn to sew, even a little

4. make a headboard for our bed

5. throw a party

6. visit a state I've never been to

7. reunite with some friends I don't see very often: Tara, Vida, Kate, Hilary

8. publish at least one piece in a national publication

9. go sailing

10. take my kids to the circus

11. eat hot dogs on the pier at Chrissy Field with my family

12. swim in the Yuba River

13. take my kids to play in the snow

14. take my kids to see a dance performance

15. go to Vermont

16. host a brunch/clothing swap at my house

17. follow the sun more when it gets foggy

18. eat oysters at Tomales Bay Oyster Company

19. spend a weekend by myself

20. make ice cream and then sundaes with Magnolia and Oliver

21. finish landscaping my front yard

22. find some more good, cheap restaurants to love in San Francisco

23. go the Alameda flea market

24. take a dance class

25. do some more encaustic painting

26. go hiking with the kids in backpacks before they really get too heavy

27. take the kids on a ferry ride to Angel Island

28. clean out the garage

29. eat pupusas

30. plant a few veggies (pickling cucumbers!)

31. spend a weekend away with The Mister

32. write a letter to my representative

33. have a movie marathon day at a multiplex

34. write a rough draft of the novel I'm working on

35. bake bread

36. get a massage

37. organize the closets

38. make a new friend

39. have a San Francisco day with my family: cable car, Swensen's, chowder in a sourdough bowl, Fisherman's Wharf

P.S.  If you want to give me a b-day gift, go over there to the right and become one of my followers.

A few interesting things I saw this weekend

Mostly it rained and I hung out with my lovely family (we made muffins and went to the Discovery Museum). I also saw a few noteworthy things:

Like this little trio walking down Union Street.

And this truck parked in front of our neighborhood Catholic church.

And the way the sun broke through the clouds 

at sunset and lit up the houses of my neighborhood.

Oh, and also, The Mister got me the Thing I like seen here for Valentine's Day.  That guy!  Always thinking.

The Toddler Workout

Today as the kids were lying horizontally on the stairs kicking the wall rythmically with their bare feet, I overheard this conversation:

OLIVER: This is not a movie.  This is not a game.

MAGGIE:  This is exercise!

Which sounded to me exactly like a wonderful snippet of dialogue from an '80s movie about a renegade personal trainer played by Patrick Swayze.  

Seriously though.  If you do want to get in shape. I suggest you follow this regimen. Or you could just do "eggups."

In the form of. . .June Cleaver!

It's possible that I am well on my way to becoming a bitter old lady.  My cup has always been more empty than full. (I wish, I wish, I wish I were an eternal optimist.  Alas.) But lately a certain Scroogyness is becoming more apparent. I swear under my breath at people who don't use their blinkers, I pick fights with the Mister over how tightly he screws on the lids to our condiments, and I nearly had to restrain myself after reading this post by Girl's Gone Child on Babble.  Why someone else's maternal bliss should incite such ugly and unchecked anger in me, I'm not exactly sure.  

I think it's because I have struggled since the birth of my wonderful children to find the joy in motherhood that seems to come so naturally to others.  Oh, I love to sniff their hair and nibble their toes.  I am entranced by their cleverness and agog at their beauty.  But I am just as often trying my darnedest to get away from them, the little hellions. I often feel worn to a nub, disappointed in my mother-instinct, bored, exhausted, and snappish.  I wish I didn't.  I wish I found being a mother one long and constant journey down Bliss Boulevard.  I wish I had more patience and generosity and gentle mom-wisdom to impart. I wish I sometimes made macaroni and cheese from scratch.

And this doesn't help:

In the grocery story, 11 am.

OLIVER (within easy earshot of all the nice people in the produce section): Mommy, you need to buy some wine.

ME: Not today, sweetie.

OLIVER:  But Mommy, you really love wine.  You really like it a lot.

ME (voice pitched high): Oh, I do, do I?  Ha, ha. Well, we don't need any today.

OLIVER: But, mommy you love to drink wine.  You need to buy wine.

A thing I like

Hey!  Blogging is all in the family now.  The Mister just launched the new blog for Green Apple Books & Music called The Green Apple Core.  Check out his first post in which he artfully combines a poem (read by him) and some video (taken with his favorite new toy, the Flip).  Also, buy lots of books so we can send our kids to college.

Valentine making party

Our mess

When we were kids, my best friends, Sarah and Leah, and I used to get together with our mothers and their aunt Martha to make elaborate, Victorian, over-wrought Valentine's Day cards.  Someone—I think it was Sarah and Leah's late mom, Hannah—invented a technique for creating these big, stuffed fabric hearts that protruded like sentimental little pot bellies from the front of our construction paper and doily creations. 

The originals: Leah, Sarah, and Martha

We made dozens (collectively, hundreds) of them over the course of many years for many different people: boyfriends long gone, parents deceased, friends whose names we've since forgotten.  And here we still are, surrounded by rubber stamps and old magazines and bits of ribbon and scraps of fabric, making valentines.  This time with our own kids.  We don't do it every year, but yesterday we did it big.   Its kind of like our modern-suburban version of a sewing circle.  Or at least it's as close as I come to that sort of thing.

Maggie, grandma, and Georgia making valentines

A snippet from the party:

OLIVER (holding up yet another stale conversation heart): Mommy, can I eat this?

ME: No, honey, you've already had enough and that one has glue all over it.

OLIVER: No, I already licked it all off. 

Some of our handiwork.  Cute, huh?

A thing I like

This photo by Christian Chaize of a beach in Portugal.  I love the colors.  I love the composition.  I love the vibe.  You can buy a print at Jen Bekmans' 20x200 gallery here.  I would, but I'm still not buying anything.  So do it for me.  I can live vicariously.