Jen on the Edge

For about 18 hours last night and this morning, Elegant was an only child. While Graceful was off at a sleepover, Elegant was here in Jenworld, getting her parents’ undivided attention. Whereas Graceful gets bored and lonely without her sister, Elegant does not. Don’t be mistaken, El loves Graceful and is happy when she returns, but Miss E is a wise child and knows to take advantage of being the only child on the premises.

Last night was no different. I suggested that we pick up Elegant’s favorite dinner — an idea that she thought was most excellent. She had an early shower, then chose the DVD she wanted to watch. There was no negotiating back and forth with anyone; Elegant just pulled the DVD out and that was that. She also got TWO treats last night after dinner instead of one. Really, does life get any better than this?

This morning, Elegant and I decided to go to the farmer’s market. We put on sunblock and hats and left for our adventure.

This time of year, the fresh produce is less abundant. Asparagus is done and strawberries are on the wane. Tomatoes, berries, peppers, and so many other summer foods are not yet in season. Flowers, however, are readily available:

We ended up getting marigolds to companion plant with our tomatoes and basil.

And, even though Elegant cannot eat fresh strawberries, she helped me choose some for the rest of us:

Besides produce and plants, there are so many other things to buy at the market. We picked up a fresh apple pie, sampled some goat cheese, and even admired some purses:

The main draw for Elegant was visiting the donut booth, which we did:

BOTH of those donuts are for her, not me.

We also discovered a booth with the most adorable jewelry. Charms and jewelry sculpted out of clay to look like real food. Elegant was entranced, as you can imagine. (They have an Etsy shop, BTW.) I bought El these for now and also quietly picked up this for her birthday. I can’t even tell you how cute everything was.

By this time, we were getting hot and my basket was getting heavy:

You can’t see it, but there’s a pie box underneath everything.

Elegant needed some lemonade to revive her flagging energy:

And then we got in the car and left. All in all, it was a lovely hour and I enjoyed having that time with my girl.

Can you believe it’s the weekend again? THIS is why every weekend should be three days long; it makes the work week all that much easier to bear.

Thanks to everyone who posted questions for Pete. He has read them and is thinking about how to respond. I’ll nag his ass keep him on schedule and hopefully his response will be soon. Someone asked Pete to list some reasons why he loves me and, when I asked for a preview of that list, he just looked at me and didn’t say anything. I have to assume because he just couldn’t sort through all those possibilities on such short notice. Or possibly because he was so overcome with love and devotion that his voice suddenly stopped working. Yeah, that’s it.

Thanks also to everyone who commented on my journal idea for the summer. Y’all came up with some ab fab ideas. Seriously, you are a creative group of people and I knew you’d come through.  Muchas gracias!

That said, I’m thinking you all — every single one of you — needs to get your eyes examined. Go ahead and schedule the appointment with your eye doctor now. Why? Because you all said such complimentary things about my hair and me in general that I can only conclude that:

1. You need glasses (or to have your existing prescriptions adjusted)
2. You’re losing your marbles
3. You’re all liars.

Now, I’m pretty sure most of you aren’t certifiably crazy. And I can’t think of why you’d lie to me. So it has to be the vision thing.

Seriously though, thank you for your nice comments. As part of losing weight, I’m also forcing myself to actually, you know, LIKE myself, which means being in front of the camera some of the time and then not destroying the evidence afterward.  Oh, and remember that whole crossed-out thing I said about Pete never commenting on my hair? He read that post and he STILL didn’t say a word. He’s a good guy, but clearly he needs more training before he’ll be the perfect man. Mrs. G., are you going to have any sort of seminars on this topic at your Women’s Colony?

So what’s on tap in Jenworld this weekend? Not a whole hell of a lot, that’s for sure. There’s loads of stuff we could do, but instead we’re going to just get caught up on a few chores and then do a whole lot of relaxing. We only have 2.5 days of school next week and then summer vacation will officially start.  I can’t wait!

Have a great weekend!

Do you realize that Pete has never once commented here at Jen on the Edge? Instead, he tells me his thoughts directly, which deprives all of you of his intelligence and humor.

(Hey, it’s not just the females who are smart and funny in Jenworld.)

I think it’s time for the silence to end, don’t you?

I’ve been asking Pete to guest post, but he hasn’t gotten around to it yet (obviously). Then, I was going to interview him and turn it into a post, but then I realized that I have no idea what would interest y’all.

So, if there’s something you’d like to ask my husband, now’s your chance.

Have fun.

By the way, if you’re looking for more things to read today, go over to Eco Women and see what Recycla and Enviro Girl have been up to this week. And over at Fight the Fluffy, I posted an update yesterday and my sister-in-law has put up her first post.

Once upon a time there was a man with magical powers. His name was Richard the Hair God. Richard the Hair God was a talented hairdresser with enchanted scissors; he could make any person’s head of hair look uh-may-zing.

One of Richard the Hair God’s groupies was a woman named Jennifer. For years, she had had a basic short haircut. Nothing fabulous, nothing sexy, nothing that made people stop and say, “My god your hair looks incredible.” Her hair was boring and that was all that could be said about it.

Once Jennifer started visiting Richard the Hair God and having him use his enchanted scissors on her hair, all that boring-ness disappeared. Everyone except her very own husband who never once has said a word about her hair other than to comment on the cost started complimenting Jennifer on her great haircuts. In one month alone, Jennifer got more nice comments than she had in the previous decade — and that was during a month that Jennifer wasn’t 100% certain she even liked her haircut.

All those compliments could have given Jennifer a big fat swollen head to go with all that fluffy brown hair, but luckily, Jennifer’s body image issues keep everything in balance, so her ego is not in danger of inflating any further. You see, Jennifer hates her double chin and her boobs and her poochy belly and her jiggly thighs and her drooping butt. She doesn’t like her dry skin combined with her post-teenage acne. Oh, and of course she’s not wild about her nose either. And then there’s … well, the list could go on for a while, so now is a good stopping point.

But when Jennifer leaves Richard the Hair God’s magical cave, she feels happy with her appearance. She doesn’t think about the 60 pounds she’s trying to lose; instead she reminds herself to be proud of the 23 (and counting) that she’s lost already. She doesn’t dwell on the zit on her chin. She temporarily forgets about the various and assorted things she dislikes about her body. For a little while, Jennifer feels attractive.

And that, my friends, is the true magic of Richard the Hair God. He doesn’t just cut hair; he also releases inner beauty so that it is visible even to its owner, even if only for an hour or so.

The end.

21. That’s how many photos I took to get this one shot and I can still point out at least six things I don’t like about it. All the same, I’m pleased that my double chin is now down to only 1.5 chins.

Spoken/whined/yelled within the past five minutes:

“I have the earliest bedtime in this house. THAT is NOT fair, I tell you!”

“I have the smallest allowance in this house just because I’m the youngest. It’s not fair.”

“Why do I have to go to bed earlier than everyone else?

“It’s not fair!”

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve met with both Graceful’s and Elegant’s teachers for year-end conferences. While some people won’t necessarily see the point of such meetings, I find them to be helpful, as we can review the school year and then look ahead to the coming one. We also talked about areas in which each girl needs some work over the summer.

Interestingly enough, both have handwriting issues, but at opposite ends of the spectrum. In Elegant’s case, we need to continue with the techniques she learned in occupational therapy and also work on getting her handwriting consistently legible, which means she’ll need to slow down and focus. In Graceful’s case, however, she is such a perfectionist that she tends to obsess over her handwriting and therefore writing can take a l-o-n-g time. So she needs to practice writing quickly and without stopping to erase minute imperfections.

In both cases, the teachers and I thought that journals might be the answer. So I went out to the Tar-zhay and purchased really great notebooks for the girls to record their summer activities in. Oh yeah, and a rainbow assortment of gel pens. Mustn’t forget those.

The trick with this project is going to be making it fun and not a chore, especially for Elegant, who loathes writing.

I’m compiling lists of ideas now, trying to think of things the girls can document, list, write about, draw, or whatever. This should be fun, not agony, and I hope that in 10 or 20 years, each girl will enjoy revisiting the summer of 2008.

For the first day of summer vacation, each girl will list/write five things she wants to do this summer. Other ideas:

• Movie reviews — We’ll be seeing at least two movies at the theater, which is always an exciting event for us.
• Favorite ice cream flavors/cookies/other treats
• Acrostic poems
• Haikus
• Lists of books each girl reads over the summer, as well as favorite authors
• Birthday party plans and/or gift wish lists
• Ten great things about me (as in, the girl writes it about herself)
• Five great things about my sister (as in, each girl tries to find the good in her sister)
• Plan an imaginary trip to another country, research it online, and then come up with a basic itinerary.

That’s just a preliminary list.

I’d like to open this up for discussion and get some feedback from y’all. You’re an intelligent and creative group of people; what do you think of this project? Do you think my girls will love it or loathe it? If you like it, do you have any journal ideas?

Thank you for your comments.

How To Piss Your Relatives Off — in four easy steps.

Step 1: Invite your extended family to your house for the annual family reunion over a long holiday weekend.

This will involve two of your adult children and their families flying across the country. Your other two adult children and their families will need to drive from points to the north and south– four hours for one family and seven for the other family. The son who has the seven hour drive will let you know in advance that he and his family will arrive on Friday evening (achieved by taking the day off from work and school) and will be leaving on Sunday of the long weekend, as they wish to avoid the inevitable traffic on Monday — leaving on Monday could easily add an hour or two to their drive.

When the son suggests that perhaps the weekend could be rescheduled for a week or two later, because by then the four older grandchildren would be finished with school and then two of the four siblings could stay longer (the other two siblings don’t have children in school yet), you should quickly shoot down that idea, as other distant relatives have already made their travel plans. You should definitely stick to your original plan; after all, it’s more important to accommodate the distant relatives and not your own children and grandchildren.

Step 2: Nag, nag, nag.

Even though this son and his famly ALWAYS leave on Sunday, and even though it would suck for the son, his wife, and their daughters to be stuck in traffic on Monday, this is not convenient for you, so you/your spouse should nag them a bit and see if they’ll change their plans. You/your spouse should definitely send a couple more emails to the son and wife, seeing if there is any way they’ll change their plans.

If your requests don’t work, you/your spouse should sic one of the son’s siblings on him. When this tactic doesn’t work, you should definitely send more nagging emails in order to get your way. Because it is all about you and what you want.

Step 3: Cast a pall on the son’s visit with your constant nagging.

The younger son and his family arrive on Friday afternoon as planned — only to discover that one sibling and his family are not arriving until very late that night and another sibling and her family are not even arriving until late Saturday afternoon. Even though the youngest son and his family did make the effort to arrive earlier, so as to have more time with family at the beginning of the weekend, you should definitely continue to nag them in the hopes that they’ll change their plans. Because, even though the son and his wife have never wavered in the past, perhaps this is the year you will get your way. Get other people in on the act. Even better, mention to the son’s children how sad you are that they’re leaving early, because laying guilt trips on children can sometimes be effective.

Continue the nagging all weekend and up until the very moment that the son, his wife, and their children are walking to their car to leave. The nagging shouldn’t cease, even though it is clear that the son and his wife are irritated with you. It is also clear that your youngest granddaughter is exhausted and close to having a major meltdown and just needs to get in the car and have some quiet time on the drive home, but that shouldn’t sway you from your course of action. What is important is that you get your way!

Step 4: Try last-minute diversionary tactics.

Bringing out paperwork to show the son at the last minute might just get him to delay his departure. Or, try asking the son’s wife to wait a bit until another son’s baby emerges from his nap (even though everyone present knows THAT son’s wife is simply hiding in the upstairs bedroom with the baby in order to avoid spending time with the extended clan). If that doesn’t work, surely someone will remember that no one has taken group photos yet and maybe that will delay things a bit. Too bad the son’s wife is so strong willed that she refused to stay for photos and instead walked off with her children (including the one who was crying from exhaustion) and got into the car. Really, it’s just so inconsiderate of her to stick with her original plan — the very same plan that she and her husband communicated to you and everyone else weeks in advance and several times throughout the weekend.

The end result:

The son and his family will still leave at the designated time and not even one minute late — because the son and his wife aren’t stupid and they know your tactics quite well and how to thwart them. After all, they’ve dealt with them for years now.

Even though you didn’t get your way, at least the son and his wife will leave the family gathering irritated and unhappy with you, so really no one actually wins. Yay!

Oh, wait. That’s not true. The son and his wife did what they said they were going to do and they held firm, in spite of frequent and unending nagging. So really, they win and you lose.

Again.

Driving to New York state on Friday:

“What state are we in?”

“Virginia. We left home 30 minutes ago.”

[Later.]

“What state are we in now?”

“Maryland.”

[Later.]

“What state are we in now?”

“Pennsylvania.”

[Multiply that last one by about 11.  Pennsylvania is a big state and I-81 is a l-o-n-g road.]

Eventually, we made it to New York, where we spent the rest of Friday, all of Saturday, and part of Sunday hanging out with various relatives.

Then, we got back in the car.

“What state are we in?”

“New Jersey. We just left 45 minutes ago.”

[Later.]

“What state are we in now?”

“Pennsylvania.”

[Multiply that by seven.]

Then, we got smart and turned on the DVD player.

[Hours later.]

“What state are we in?”

“Virginia. We’re 30 minutes from home.”

It’s good to be home.

“Mommy! Where’s my bike helmet?”

“Where is it supposed to be?”

“It’s not there.”

“You mean in your wardrobe?

“I said it’s not there!”

“Well, that’s where you were supposed to put it after you wore it the last time.”

“It’s not there!”

“Yes, you’ve mentioned that. Did you check in the hall?”

“It’s not there either. Where is it?”

“Well, where did you put it?”

“I can’t find it!”

“Yes, that’s obvious. Have you looked in your room?”

“It’s not there either.”

“Or, perhaps it is and your room is such a [really bad word I wish I could have said] mess that you can’t find anything.”

“Well, where IS it?!”

“I really don’t know.”

Younger sister coming to the rescue, “Here it is!”

“Oh. [pause] Thanks.”