Business travel.

photo by mmackinven

I’m leaving tomorrow for a business trip. Before you go feeling all sorry for me, it’s a really, really nice business trip.

See you on the flip side!

Newark.

It’s not that it was hard to decide whether to catch a flight (actually 2) home a day early when the meetings ended early, it’s just that being this tired, rushing from concourse to concourse and the undercurrent at Newark Airport in the 2-hour layover is depressing.

I just want to be home.

Instead, I’m half asleep with the sound of screaching children in my head with a Spanish tv station or radio station in bass tones coming from behind me or inside my stomach.

i hear newpapers’ pages being turned, a woman crying, and a young girl slurping on her frozen Starbucks mocaccino.

A cough. Another cough. More screaching, but happy this time.

I’m going home.

Brisk.

Snowy Road, Vermont, USA by pbwilder

It’s brisk out in the D.C. area. I’d say it was cold, but I’m saving that word for tomorrow at 9:29 am.

That’s when I land in Burlington, Vermont.

Luckily the temperature is due to rise to ZERO by 8:00 am.

I bet it’s a balmy 4 or 5 by the time I get there.

We’ll be headed to Liberty Hill Farms for a two-day meeting. It’s so beautiful there. And you know what? It’s no colder there than Burlington. WOOT!

I’m sad to leave my boys (including Andrew) but I love a good adventure.

And I love this client.

And I bet I get to eat some awesome cheese. (hint, hint.)

Au revoir!

The tens.

image by caffe

So here we are. In the tens.

When we woke up this morning, Andrew casually mentioned that this is the decade when our boys would grow up and move out.

To say that I found that disturbing would be an understatement.

But it made me think.

What will this decade be?

Well, on the first day of the first year of the new decade, I may as well look ahead.

First some things I know.

• We will move into the house of our dreams in 2010.
• Reed and Max will become bar mitzvahs in June 2011.
• Davis will graduate high school in 2013. Reed in 2015. Max in 2016.
• I will be 50 in 2011.
• Andrew and I will have our 25th anniversary in 2018.

And some things I predict.

• Social Studies Group will grow and prosper.
• Andrew’s new creative outlet will be wildly successful. (still kind of hush hush… but more on this another day)
• I will find that balance I’ve been searching for.
• I’ll finally lose that extra 10 (15?) pounds.
• My best girlfriends will still be my best girlfriends.
• We’ll travel more.
• Ginger will continue to be friendlier and will officially be my cat.
• Joe will continue to be Andrew’s cat. (oh well, can’t win them all.)
• We will consider getting a dog. (Melissa, don’t hold me to this.)
• The boys will find their passions. (A mom can dream.)
• I will bake a lot more bread.
• I will be cooking a lot more. (Yes, I’ve stepped beyond assembly and moved into cooking. Seriously.)
• The boys will each find their first love. And their first heartbreak.
• I will become more and more immune to eyerolling.
• We will accumulate more books.
• We will listen to more loud music. And dance more.
• I will start playing the piano again.
• Andrew and I will take long walks – and hold hands more.
• I will love my life. (Okay, I already do. Can I love it more? Hard to say. But can’t hurt to try!)

I hope you have an amazing decade. I sure plan to.

Hugs.

Parts of speech.

Do not even ask me why, but I was reading some very old blog posts of mine this week.

Redux from December 23, 2005 at 10:41 pm

Judging others is a dangerous hobby. Without all the facts (and you never have all the facts) it is impossible to understand someone’s decisions, motives, choices on all fronts. Now that doesn’t mean that we can’t relate to others’ issues, challenges, etc. Two things I’ve learned over the years come to mind:

1) You don’t know what happens in someone else’s house.
2) Never say “I never would…” in reference to someone else’s choices. You might one day when faced with the same situation.

I’ve been stewing about something that happened the other day. In order to let it go, I’ve decided to write about it. I drove some kids (including some of my own) to an after-school class. One of the kids was unable to carry his stuff in, so I dropped them all off, parked the car, and, sans coat, trekked across the parking lot to bring the kid his stuff. I was cold. I had a sick kid at home I wanted to get back to. My father had a procedure that day and I couldn’t go sit with my mom while she waited because of my kid at home who needed me. My work was behind schedule due to the same sick kid and the construction noise at the house was really getting to me and to that same sick kid, who cried about his head hurting for hours. You get the picture – the day was not a cake walk. (I always wanted to say cake walk – I hope I used it correctly!)

Walking into the school, I ran into a friend. Not a “hang out all the time” friend, but someone I like and socialize with occasionally. After saying hello, she took a hard look at me and said:

Balance is a verb.

It felt like a punch in the stomach. She has balance so never looks harried? I am unbalanced? I am incapable of managing my life? What exactly was this wisdom she was (unsolicited, I might add) presenting to me? She had no idea what I had done for the past month, let alone for the day. I was really irritated. How superior.

After a day I asked a close friend, who I respect tremendously, what she thought. She said:

Bitch is a verb too.

Happy Erev Chanukah. Merry Christmas Eve. I’m planning on a judgment-free holiday.

The 5 simple secrets to a perfect relationship.

Redux from December 20, 2005 at 5:10 pm

I just got this email from my sister. I was sure it was one of those motivational blah blah blah emails. But read on:

1. It’s important to have a partner who helps at home, who cooks from time to time, cleans up and has a job.

2. It’s important to have a partner who can make you laugh.

3. It’s important to have a partner who you can trust and who doesn’t lie to you.

4. It’s important to have a partner who is good in bed and who likes to be with you.

5. It’s very, very, very, important that these four persons don’t know each other.

It’s a jungle out there.

Until a few weeks ago, I had 2 houseplants – an aloe plant that my sister gave me to replace the aloe plant that died an unfortunate drowning death and a Christmas cactus that my sister-in-law gave me. The cactus flowered a bit the first year and since then, after years of my loving care, hasn’t grown, bloomed, or even perked up.

Yes. It’s true. I have the magic touch.

What some of you many know is that we are selling our house.

Well, trying to sell our house.

The home of my dreams came on the market and we’ve put a contingent contract on it.

(So if you know anyone looking for a nice home in Howard County, MD with amazing schools – Clarksville Elem & Middle, River Hill HS – and a lovely neighborhood with super-de-duper neighbors, let me know!)

Anyway, I’m off track again.

The stager came into my home to help me get it ready to sell. She was impressed by how clean, how organized, how market-ready the house was.

Of course, she had some suggestions.

Nothing big. Easy as pie. Except….

She wanted me to get houseplants for just about every room in the house.

I am not kidding.

So, she’s the expert, right? I’d like to think that if I told her how to do social media research, she wouldn’t push back and say, “but I really don’t like numbers so I’m just going to do it without that part, okay?”

So, I went to Home Depot. And I bought plants.

As it turns out, that was the easy part.

Because you know what?

Now I have to go from room to room every couple days and water those $%&*! plants.

I’m not kidding.

Did you know that about plants? Evidently, I didn’t. Or else I would not have killed hundreds of perfectly innocent plants over the years.

But I’m watering.

And watering.

And trimming.

And while I am not enjoying this one teeny little bit, I have to admit….

They look pretty good.

Cayenne Spiced Chocolate Cupcakes

Honestly can’t remember where I found this but it’s not original. These are amazingly good!

~Wendy

Cayenne Spiced Chocolate Cupcakes

Makes 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups flour
1-1/4 cups cocoa powder
2 cups granulated sugar
3-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper or to taste
2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
1-3/4 cups lowfat milk
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1-1/4 cups warm water

Frosting:
1 pound semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
6 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper or to taste
6 tablespoons boiling water
1-1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
Pinch of salt

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 muffin tins with paper liners.

2. Combine flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cayenne in a bowl. Beat eggs, yolk, milk, oil, vanilla and water into flour mixture until fully combined.

3. Pour batter into prepared muffin tins and bake 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cupcakes cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

4. To make frosting, heat chocolate over a double boiler until fully melted. Set aside to let cool slightly. Meanwhile, stir together cocoa powder, baking soda, cayenne, and boiling water.

5. In a separate bowl, beat butter with sugar and salt until fluffy. Beat in melted chocolate and cocoa mixture until fully combined. Spread frosting onto cooled cupcakes.

Midwest Clinic.

Just had to post this photo of Reed at the exhibition at the Midwest Clinic.

More later! ~W

I’m really sorry.

When I was in 7th grade, I did something awful.

Really awful.

So bad, in fact, that I still think about it today. And every once in a while, I think about finding the object of my bad behavior and apologizing. I’ve tried, you know. But no luck. It wouldn’t matter anyway. I can’t undo 7th grade angst.

Can’t be done.

Let me step back a second and say that I was not a mean girl.

I was not in the most ‘popular’ crowd.

But clearly, I was pliable.

Because when the mean girls wanted me to do this deed, I did.

Did I know it was wrong? Was I extremely uncomfortable? Did I almost throw up?

Yes to all. But I did it just the same.

And I’m ashamed.

I wrote a love letter to a really not popular (but extremely smart) guy, perfumed it, and put it in his locker – through the slots.

Signed….Anonymous.

Nice, huh?

It still haunts me.

How could I have been so stupid? So insensitive?

So…. twelve!?

And yet, I was.

I bet this guy is a rocket scientist or an NIH researcher on the verge of a major discovery or a professor at Stanford.

And I bet his braces are off and his haircut is better and his clothes? Well, I hope he’s dressing better. That’s all I’m going to say.

But I never got to know him. He was probably a really nice guy. I’d imagine he worried about the same things I did.

Grades. Friends. Not embarrassing myself.

We probably had a ton in common.

But I did that thing.

That awful thing.

And I’m sorry.

The saving grace? I learned from that. It made me so sick afterward that I never was mean like that again. NEVER. (And if you know me IRL, you believe me I’m sure.) I never want to feel that regret. That guilt. That…self-disgust…. that I felt after I saw his face after he found the letter.

He was elated. Someone cared about him.

But I knew it was false.

Crap. I feel nauseous all over again.