Rejoice! Rejoice!

Sometimes a few days at home is just what the doctor ordered. And no, I don't mean my own grown-up life-in-suburbia two-kids-and-two-cats home. I mean home home. ET phone home. Big Money Texas. Beaumont, y'all. There's just something about driving down I-10 and seeing a huge alligator welcome you to Beaumont that just screams... well, I'm not sure what that screams actually... something.

Ah, yes, a few days at home with my family was wonderful. I slept in my own room. Well, for like five seconds. I slept in Hunter's room for two nights as I crashed while tucking in C and spent a few sleepless nights shushing N from Kelly's bed as well. Evidently we like to leave my mother with sheets to wash on every single bed. Sorry, Mom. Carolena came home talking about how the Piney Woods make you sneeze to which I like to respond in a weird creepy Cajun/country/made up accent, "Yyyeeeeppp, that's liiife behiiind the piiiine currrtain. I was born in that there briar patch."

I never claim(ed) to be normal.

We ate fabulous food (but awesomely not toooo much of it), danced the Charleston (because, duh), played games (nope, other people did that. I read BFrank's bio), and were just happy to all be together.

But, as all good things must come to an end, Saturday morning arrived and the piney woods had taken their toll. My sinuses have forgotten how to survive in such extreme circumstances. My children were exhausted. My mother was remembering her own Benjamin Franklin research ("fish and visitors" you know). So we loaded up the plethora of Coke glasses I'd reclaimed from the attic (I'm sure Chris is thrilled) and headed home.

We came home with a pile of dirty laundry (because I did not heed my mother's advice to wash it before leaving) and arrived to a completely empty refrigerator. So I started a load of laundry and hopped out to the grocery store.

Chris tossed our bags into our bedroom and we started hauling down the Christmas decorations. A tree was purchased and decorated. Lights were strung up outside. I pulled out white paper and started cutting out snowflakes galore. I have priorities after all. The laundry will eventually get done. The grocery buying can wait. But the joy and anticipation of Advent? The excitement and wonder of incarnation? The mystery of love and God among us in a hurting and war-torn world? Yeah, I'm ready to get into that. So we pulled out the things that we claim as "Christmas" and started pouring them all over our household. There is so much in this world that I can't control. There is so much anger and hate and hurt. But you know what I can control? Whether or not there is a 7ft tree taking up residence in the living room. Yeah, we're ready for Advent. We're ready for a season of hope. A season of reflecting on peace, on Emmanuel.

So this morning we awoke to a twinkling Christmas tree. A good-smelling-happiness-inducing slice of Advent. A reminder of hope. A reminder of peace. A reminder that God is with us. Nils stares at it in impish wonder and joy. His face glows in merriment that can't be contained nor described. "Tree! Tree!" he exclaims while dancing and pointing. Carolena sighs and stares dreamily at its twinkling lights. They know nothing of the hurt and pain of the world. They know only of love and comfort and joy. Children at Christmas time. I'm just ready for that.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

Thanksgiving

Last night Chris came home to two smiling children. They were bathed and in their pajamas and fresh-faced and sparkling. Those two sweet crumpets sat quietly together reading a book while I handed Chris a drink and politely told him that dinner was ready and that I just needed a minute more to finish my own book. It was bliss.

Oh wait. Nope.

Chris could hear the screaming when the garage door was still rising. Mine? Carolena's? Nils'? Who knows? All I know is that you don't speak to your viking mother like that if you don't want to see her fly into a fit of rage. I think my own mother's Brooklyn accent came out.

And yet, when Chris said something about our "rough day" I had to admit that, despite a few low-lows, it really wasn't bad. We got the house cleaned up and worked on a surprise for someone we love. We went on a first-ever-in-the-kids'-lifetime-trip through a big machine car wash which was a huge hit. We had a blast "hootin and hollarin" and as soon as we drove out Nils started chanting "again! again! bunny! bunny!" ("Bunny" is how he says "funny" which is insanely adorable, especially considering the number of things he finds "bunny!").

Last night once the children were in bed and the fireplace was lit and all was quiet and calm, I looked at Chris and marveled. This is the dream. Eleven years ago we were engaged and our families were gathering together for Thanksgiving. We were full of love and hope... hope that one day we would be right here. Right here with kids and a home full of love and laughter and yes, sometimes yelling and tears. A home full of real life. And it's wonderful. And I'm thankful.

Yes, it's messy and loud (mostly due to me and the minis). It's up and down and all around. But it's the dream we dreampt and keep dreaming. Someday we'll be really old (and tattooed) and wrinkled together. Chris will still be talking and talking and talking. Kids will be grown. I'll be... drinking coffee. And we'll continue to give thanks. We'll marvel at our old and shrunken hands and inspect one another's wrinkled brows and smile. We'll look around us then too and say, ""Look! This! It's the dream! Thank God thank God thank God!"

Dance Fever

Carolena never naps.
Never.
Hardly ever.
Okay, so when Carolena naps you know something is amiss.
"Something" to the tune of "get the thermometer."
Maybe no naps is a first Svendsen girl thing?
So yesterday when both children were sleeping at 3pm I should have known. I should have known that meant my Wednesday "study day" would be gone. I should have realized that both kids would be home from school today. I should have studied. I should have cleaned the kitchen. I should have studied! I should have ironed. I should have studied!! I should have thought to use that time wisely, very wisely.
I didn't.
Or did I?
I did THIS.
Luckily I could teach the Good Samaritan, Mary/Martha, and Prodigal Son in my sleep (famous last words) and hey, there's always Friday and Saturday to review! So studying is overrated.

Hmmm... I wonder how Sunday's crowd would feel about practicing the Charleston instead...

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

My stand mixer is broken. THE mixer from my viking grandfather's kitchen. THE mixer that made the julekake for our family every year, including the year I actually got to participate in the day-long kneading and rising and baking event! *sigh* Of course it broke right at the cusp of the busiest mixing season. Luckily, Chris is pretty handy and is (in theory, if he remembers, *cough*cough*) researching and ordering parts.

Nils is home from school with a virus running rampant through his class. He isn't contagious (remember last week's mystery fever?) but he is now home with a mom who was planning to use those school hours to study. Soooo... that's interesting.

I had a check up with my neurologist and came home with good news and bad. Which do you want first? The bad. I've been hesitant to post this news lest it be on the internet and thus become "real news" (ha!) as it turns out... drum roll for bad news please... as of now I am a tea total-er. It has been confirmed. Moment of silence for the death of casey's mint juleps please.

Okay, okay, so it isn't THAT bad. But kind of. For now, I'm completely off alcohol. Geeze, have two kids, finish with pregnancy, and have to stop drinking... how's that for some luck? We established that alcohol is indeed now a trigger for me and he said that it is up to me to determine which alcohols (if any) I can drink. If I choose I can go back to the whole "determining a trigger" diary-keeping and see what happens through trial and error. Given the drinks I've had in the last few months and their next day terrible ill-effects, drinking any alcohol sounds awful and for now I'm going to come to grips with the fact that it's a trigger and stick with S. Pellegrino. All that is to say, I've already been doing my "determine a trigger" work and so far all alcohol gets the axe. That's the bad news. Please don't do the whole thing where you grill me on this looking for a solution, "have you tried champagne? bourbon? white wine?" Yes. This isn't a sudden rash decision. This has been established with a doctor over a long time. Don't try to solve this. You'll just stress me out and stress is another big trigger for my migraines. Soooo... just feel bad for me (or don't) and pass me some gatorade, because...

The good news is that I asked him about how I keep getting dizzy when I work out (another thing I have probably conveniently "forgotten" to mention) which I assumed was a side affect of my drug. He said that there is a chance that my dizziness when exercising is due to my anti-migraine med, but that looking at my blood-pressure he thinks it is more likely I need to (in his words) "start drinking Gatorade." He thinks I have just gotten my blood pressure down so low that his guess is that I'm getting dizzy 45 minutes into my workouts because I need more electrolytes. So there you have it. No more juleps. More Riptide Rush. That's the good news. In theory Gatorade will fix that problem and I'll be back doing mountain climbers in bootcamp any day now. Plus, I have great blood pressure. So, hooray for that.

That's the good and the bad. Hmmm... the ugly? Well, it's "migraine season." Stupid weather. Pick a temperature!

Well, it's almost 9am and I'm in pajamas while Aunt Panasonic and Daniel Tiger are babysitting. THAT's also the ugly. Perhaps I should get dressed and go to the grocery store. I'm bad (or "good" I think) about letting the cupboard get pretty bare. So a trip to the store is a must today. At the very least apparently we need Gatorade.

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

no.
No.
NO.
NOO!
NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

VIP: Nora(h) Smith

So remember when Kelly assigned me the task of naming people who have been largely influential in making me who I am today (obvious choices not included)?

I've got another one for you: Nora Smith. Hm... or does she spell her name with an "h"? I could get up and go get a yearbook from allll the way over there on the bookshelf... but... nah.

Nora(h) Smith was my religion teacher my sophomore year of high school. Yes, I said religion teacher. No, you aren't losing your mind. I went to catholic school. Roman Catholic that is, not catholic as in church universal.

But I digress.

Let's talk about Nora(h). I don't think Nora(h) actually liked me all that much. My friend Theresa and I were constantly getting in trouble in her class for things neither of us were guilty of doing. We would stare at one another dumbfounded and protest claiming our innocence while Nora(h) shut it down and instructed us to talk to her after class. To this day Theresa and I maintain that at some point Mrs. Smith got it into her head that T and I were the Regina Georges of the class and was confused as to which females in the room were actually riling up the masses. It was weird.

Again, I digress.

Here is what was truly awesome (and totally weird) about Nora(h): she owned (and probably still owns) like four outfits. She would wear the same four dresses and one or two pairs of shoes on rotation every single day. All year long. Every. Single. Day. All. Year. Long. I'm pretty sure it was four because I remember it wasn't enough to get through the whole week.

And she was really open about it. Wearing the same few dresses isn't a private thing. "I don't need more than this" she would say. I really looked up to her in that. Man, I wish I could get to that point. I am clearly much harder on clothes or buy much crappier quality though.

Still, I really don't own a lot of clothes. Well, "a lot" is relative I suppose. Let's see... all of my shoes fit into a single-row closet hanging thing. So that's what? Like 10-15 pairs or so. And all of my hanging clothes fit on a single bar in the closet. All of my folded clothes fit into the dresser with room to spare. I'm not down to a rotation of four dresses, but man, that's gospel. Take two pieces of clothes, Christ told the apostles: a tunic and a coat (Mark 6:8-9). Don't store up treasures on earth and stuff your dresser full of clothes you don't need... (Matthew 6:19-21). I'm working on it. I'm working on it. My desire to constantly rid my life of possessions is part being raised Treasure House, part Nora(h) Smith, and largely Casey self-imposed strict Gospel interpretation on possessions.

Why? Hmm... why, indeed. Well, for me, because I think American consumerism is a sickness. I don't think we possess our possessions. They possess us. I don't want to own anything I wouldn't be able to walk away from. I believe in tithing and in order to give generously I need to not spend spend spend on myself. If all that I have belongs to God and it is a question of how much I keep for myself... then I want to keep very little. I don't want to own a lot of clothes and spend a lot of money (relative term again) on myself when that's money I can (should) give to the Church. And what about the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31)? Ugh, I don't want to be "that guy" who has a closet full of clothes and shoes and *shit* while Lazarus lies at my gates naked.

But... didn't I just say I want some new boots? crap.

Someday that will be me. Four dresses. That's the goal. Thank you, Nora(h) for proving it can be done.

Thursday Morning Ramblings

Nils slept in until 8. That was the first clue that something was amiss.

He awoke flushed and with a low grade fever and spent the morning curled up on his napmat watching cartoons. He then threw up all over his napmat (which we are now about to learn whether or not it's washing machine safe) and is napping.

I went to bed at 7 last night with a migraine (a dull gnat-like-annoying one) that has lasted for a few days. I woke up at 7something with it still lingering. This is terribly annoying to me as I've taken my meds, but at the same time I'm very thankful that I'm up and at em and just have a dull ache and not a full-blown-unable to talk thing going on. And actually... it is starting to abate. Thank God.

Oh my gosh, Nils is sick. Poor little Nils.

And also, as I am guilty as anyone of my life revolving around me, I cannot cannot CANNOT get sick. I'm teaching as a guest speaker at a church in Houston on Sunday. My poor hands are going to start bleeding soon from being washed so much. I smell like vomit. Perhaps I should go change.

Oh, motherhood.

Thankfully Carolena is in a great mood today.

In other news: Carolena's teacher conference took place yesterday. It was so fabulous that we surprised her with a pizza and a movie dinner last night as a celebration. That kid. Her teacher had a glowing report about a kid who is thriving. It made me so proud. She spoke so highly of C's kindness to all of the kids and said the phrase "self-starter" a few times. She talked about how much Carolena loves to learn and how she is just an awesome kid. I was one proud mama. Sometimes its hard to see those things when you're the mom and thus the one getting screamed at in the midst of tantrums and insanity and getting the brunt of all of the tiredness. It was nice to hear that the teacher sees a kid who loves to learn and who is kind to all of her classmates and helpful in the classroom. It was rewarding to hear her teacher say she sees Carolena as a kid who will "rise to the occasion and thrive wherever she is." Yes, pizza party night indeed.

Umm... back to Nils. When C was his age her favorite song was "smah-smah!" and we were commanded to listened to Disney's Small World on repeat.

Nils' favorite song that he wants to hear on repeat and be sung to sleep with? "Holly! Holly!" as in... Weezer's Buddy Holly. Yep. I just tucked in a feverish little sweetheart by rocking him in my arms and cooing "ooh eee ohh I look just like Buddy Holly... uh oh and you're Mary Tyler Moore..." and when I got to the end of the lyrics I know he smiled and said "again! again!" *sigh* What a guy.

"I don't care what they say about us anyway. I don't care bout that."

Egg-cellent

I eat egg salad sandwiches (or just plan egg salad) nearly everyday. Yesterday morning as I waited for the toast to burn pop up from the toaster, I cut up some egg and tossed mayo and a pickle into the bowl. What a weird combo. And I thought to myself, "who was the first person to think that these three ingredients would be delicious together?"

She must have been pregnant.

Surely at some point in the past some pregnant woman put eggs, a pickle, and a blob of mayo into a bowl and started chopping and mixing. Then, when a nosy neighbor popped by and asked "watcha eating?" Preggo genius popped the last bite into her mouth and replied, "umm... salad." She tossed the evidence in the sink and thus egg salad was born.

Thank you fictional woman I just invented. You are awesome.

Man-Man

It is currently 545 am. I have been awake with a little guy named Nils for about an hour now.

Some might blame the time change. To them I say, "malarkey." I don't get all of the time change whiners. Do you go to bed and wake up at the exact same time every single day? If the answer to that is "yes" then alright, you may complain. Everyone else, get over it. If you or your children ever go to bed late/early or wake up late/early, then your arguments about the one hour difference on one night of the year are nonsensical. All of us are now dumber for having listened to you.

See, mean blogging. I just can't help it.

Instead of bitching about time change nonsense I'll tell it like it is: Nils woke up early (as per the usual) and for some insane reason instead of leaving him in his crib to quietly play (as per the usual), I let him come out and sit by me. So now I'm drinking coffee and writing and listening to Barney music and a happy little guy yell, "Man-Man!" each time he finds Spiderman in a Look & Find book. Oh, and did I mention he's dancing to Barney?

He just looked at me, smiled, yelled "Mommy!" and I got a big hug and kiss on the face.

I wonder if I'm going to have a cold now. I hope not... Perhaps more coffee will stave off the cold.

I let Nils get up ridiculously early. I probably won't do it again anytime soon, but right now, for this morning, it's pretty great.

Thankful

I'm having a hard time blogging. Not because I don't have a million drafts that I could post, but because they are all pretty mean. Eh, Slytherin.

So, instead, I shall be thankful.

26 things I am thankful for today:

Aardvarks because... two a's in a row. Of course.

Bees. We eat a lot of honey. Although, do you ever feel sorry for the bees? Aren't they looking around all of the time like, "I know I left that honey somewhere."

Carolena. Duh. She's something isn't she? That girl. Tonight after dinner I was cleaning the kitchen and she came skipping in and announced she wanted to help. She then dried pots and put them away and wiped the table and all that jazz. It was heavenly.

Donuts. No, that's a lie. I don't like donuts. Plus, I'm pretty sure they are the worst off all junk food. So perhaps I'm thankful for the fact that I don't like donuts. Never have. Not even as a kid. Except when I was pregnant with Nils, and then I loved them.

Eggs. Damn, our family eats a ton of eggs. We could win a contest. Hm... we should look into that.

Family. All of em. Especially Chris because he is my favorite.

Geese. Specifically the origami ones in my kitchen. It's interesting to me that I have had origami geese (okay, technically cranes) hanging in my kitchen for almost a year - one of them has a picture of Nils with an elf hat taped to it riding on the crane. And no one, not one person has ever asked about it. Evidently people just take it in stride that a photo of our son in an elf hat riding a crane/goose in the middle of our kitchen is normal for us.

Hunter. Where is that guy? I miss him. My broski. I need to call him.

Imagination. No comment. Get your own.

Jogging backwards. Sometimes we run backwards in bootcamp and I find it disturbingly fun... like the part that's disturbing is how much fun I think it is to run backwards.

Kelly. Red rover red rover let Kelly come over. And we'll go to the mall and find some new boots for me. Preferably with a tag that says, "narrow calf" because evidently that's a problem.

Learning. I love to learn. And I love learning whatever I am interested in at that moment. Thanks to nonfiction writers and access to google I feel like the whole world is at my fingertips.

Megan. Have I mentioned her? She's one of my bestest. I miss her too. Turns out her taking a summer-long vacation across the country and then having a newborn cuts down on the amount of time I get to spend talking her face off.

Nils. Man, oh man, I love that little guy. He is talking more and more everyday. He's reached the point where he seems to pick up new words and phrases everyday. He loves to chase the cats (poor cats) and say "come on, come on" while gesturing to me. He loves trucks and Ninja Turtles and Batman. And trains. And trucks. Did I mention trains? Or trucks?

Oranges. And they smell like Christmas too.

Pickles. Ever since I was pregnant with Nils and started eating entire jars of pickles I've drank pickle juice. Still. Not frequently. But enough. Weird.

Quiet. Oh, need I say more?

Reese's cake. Carolena and I made this cake for Chris' birthday and it was awesome. And also kind of disgusting in its too-muchness. Ugh. It was awesome. And horrible. Make it. Love it. Throw away what's left. Don't keep leftovers of this bad boy.

Scented pinecones. While we're on the topic of Chris' birthday. Oh my gosh! The kids made him scented pinecones and it was a fabulous treat! They went on a nature walk to collect them and c had fun making them while Nils was napping. We're doing that again for sure. And now that we've done it once and they turned out great I think I'll let Nils participate in the scenting part as well. Mmmm gooooddd smeellllsss.

Tent camping. As in, when the hell are we going to get to go camping again?!

Umbrellas. How could you not be thankful for umbrellas?! And underwear. And unicorns.

Voles. Seriously. They're cute.

Weight lifting. I might have an addiction to BodyPump.

Xylophones. Obviously it was between xylophones and x-rays and I've thankfully had more experience with the former than the latter. I went to private school so that's what music looked like. Xylophones, ukuleles, and harpsichords (pardon me, Kelly has informed me it was not a "lap harpsichord" but an "autoharp" details details). Of course.

You. It's nice to have someone read my blog. Thanks Mom.

Zoo. Because, #1 the zoo. And #2 are there other words that start with z? Kidding. I'm just really ready for another zoo trip. We haven't been since the summer. Hm... what's on our to-do list for tomorrow? Maybe I could make it happen.

For all of these things and more, I give thanks.

Nailed It

The proofs for the kids' school pictures came home and they were really cute.
Adorable.
Fabulous.
And so I promptly whipped out the checkbook, filled out the forms, and forgot about it.

Except that I couldn't "fuhgeddaboudit."

Because it was a freaking lot of money. For pictures.

So we hemmed and hawed and decided that really we live in the digital age for Pete's sake. We probably don't need to spend a bunch of money on photos in a time when, as I so elequently put it, "I could grab our camera and just take some great pictures in the backyard." So we tore up the check and then I cut up the form using the proofs for a top secret project. The next morning the kids and I had breakfast on the deck. I grabbed the camera to start "saving money in the digital age."

I think it went pretty well...

Feel free to hire me for all of your photography needs. I am available for weddings, graduations, birthdays, and bar mitzvahs.

Wah!

I barely got to see Kelly last summer. Somehow between kids going to swim lessons and vbs and families going on vacation, we were never home at the same time. And then along came fall, and kids went back to school... on opposite days of the week! So, I've seen my sister like five times (or less) in the last six months. Five is stretching it.

Noooooooo!!!!! I'm having withdrawl.

Some of you are like, "uh. who cares? My sister lives half-way across the globe."
And to you I say, "Phooey. Getting to see my sister is one of the reasons I don't live half-way across the globe."

Keeellllllllyyyyyyyyy 
(Read that like I'm saying it in slow motion and reaching my whole arm out depressingly at the cold harsh computer screen. Also, for effect, imagine my computer is an Apple IIe. Oh, why isn't it?! From now on you can always imagine that it is).

My life is better when I see my sister regularly. I grew up practically sharing a room with her as we shared one wall and a door that was usually open or being slammed shut in slow-motion across carpet and then later creaked open for one of us to peep through and sheepishly apologize. In retrospect it would have been cool (and by cool I mean she would have driven me INSANE) if we'd had a prohibition door.

Oh Dear Lord, I take it back. She would have been sliding that little door open at all hours of the night, waking me up just to say, "hey, what are you doing?" Argh! It's making me insane just to think of it!

In college my mom would warn us against hanging out too much lest we not make any friends. To which we claimed, "who needs friends?" and quickly developed our own language and drove backwards through the Taco Bell drive-through. Who needs friends indeed? I need Kellllyyyy!

Where are you?! Pearland? The Land of Pears?
The Land of Pears and Loose Women more like it. That's what we call it in these here parts.
Okay, we don't call it that. But we do now. Official decree Katy suburbanites: the suburb of Pearland shall henceforth be known as "The Land of Pears and Loose Women" because that is hilarious and I have declared it so.

Dear Kelly, Call me every five minutes. Come over. No, I'll come there. We'll meet in the middle. First we'll make snow angels for two hours, then we'll go ice skating, then we'll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse cookie dough as fast as we can, and then we'll snuggle.

Somebody bring me my sister!

Classic Casey

"I attended a monster truck rally once," I announced at dinner tonight. "Yep, my little brother reallllly wanted to go, so my dad took me and Hunter. I thought it was cool for about five minutes and then ended up miserable and throwing up in a trashcan."
Classic.

"I'm having a Halloween party tomorrow," I said to Kelly on Friday. "I don't have a costume. The problem is this: I told everyone I would wear a costume, I refuse to buy anything, I have an insanely limited wardrobe, annndd it can't be too terribly weird because I invited a few people I don't know."
"Don't you have some diaper boxes?" she replied. "Robot?!"
Duh. She's a genius.
And then I spent the rest of the afternoon creating the most normal costume ever if you are having a party and invited people you don't know.

Classic.

I fell asleep in Carolena's bed tonight while mid-sentence telling a bedtime story about how my dad used to fall asleep in my bed tucking me in. I over-committed myself to bringing baked goods to school this semester and have already gotten my reminder email about the next thing. Halloween decor came down today because we're done with that and onto getting excited about thankfulness. Who has any more time to spend on "creepy" and "candy"? Boooorrring. But the bat tree is staying. I love that thing. It's 8pm and my 7-730pm nap just didn't do the trick so I'm ready to hit the hay.
Classic.

See ya in St. Looey, suckers.
Damn. I haven't finished our St. Louis vacation scrapbook yet. From May.
Classic.