Saturday, January 24, 2009

so much for that hour a day....


This A-town mama's blogging skills are in serious question. While I can't sit here and suggest I never get an hour of down time, I can safely say said down time occurs when my brain is officially fried. So very fried that I can gleefully enjoy the technological brilliance that is Netflix on Tivo.

Events that have been keeping me from typing include stomach viruses, sub-freezing temperatures, Margot starting her mornings at 530am, seasonal affect disorder (self-diagnosed), cabin fever, paint and feathers and sequins and glue to address said cabin fever, death and sorrow, a ridiculously messy house, a very part-time job, inspiration to return to school upon discovery of the perfect second career, elation related to this new plan, frustration by the red tape that inevitably pops up when all other stars are in alignment.

Oh yes, and an almost 2 year old that climbs into my lab to pound away at the keyboard if I ever dare to sit here during her waking hours. There is only a small bag of googly craft eyes between her and the destruction of this non-entry.

OK, googly eyes are now being consumed

Friday, January 2, 2009

2009

Whether or not this becomes a coherent blog remains to be seen. My original intent was to blog daily, to carve out an hour to myself and be able to write something substantive. Those free hours are rare, and I often have too many ideas or too few. I have felt a bit melancholic the past couple of days, a combination of food coma, mild new years hangover, and sleep deprivation due to sick kids. What I can come back to, however, with gratefulness and even joy, are our friends here. We are hopelessly nomadic, and when we bought our home almost 5 years ago never intended to be here this long. We thought it would be hard to meet people, having had a safety net of graduate school colleagues we instantly clicked with in our last two moves. How thrilling, then, to have this vast and diverse group of friends, unfortunately too many to fill our cluttered home on New Years Eve. We had 8 adults and 8 children to celebrate the occasion (mind you, not ring in the new year as kids had to depart for bedtime long before then). We met Jeff and Karen on the street, and Andy and Krissy at the farmers market, and Holly and Dave through Matt's work. Our first friends here, Jill and Chris, we met through Friendster (remember Friendster? that was before myspace and facebook). Our first cup of coffee with them occured 3 days before we had Amelia. We now have 3 kids between us and another on their way! On Jan 1 we babysit for Ken and Liz, Liz who I stalked through La leche league. Despite a mild eggnogg hangover I marveled at our 4 daughters on New Years morning, happy to have them in our home. Today I took the girls to the Allentown Art Museum with Karen and her 2, and ran into John and his daughter Lucia, who we met through preschool. How great to run into friends at the art museum, right!? Instead of Chuck e. Cheese or some such nonsense.

So talking with Karen at the art museum today, I mentioned my unrest with 2009. Every year we seem to have something big around the corner; a move, a new baby, a new job, something. This year there is nothing monumental, so I feel lost. Can we just settle down and create a routine? a life? So I come back to these friends, these new, unexpected, delightful friends, and realize if we ever left Allentown it would be just as achingly hard as any of our past moves. And conversations and picnics and BBQs are going to be big enough, and fulfilling enough.

The other thing, because this is a citymoms blog, was the realization, when these 16 bodies were packed into our narrow rowhome, with dusty corners and squeaky hardwood floors, that everyone here lived in a rowhome, or twin, with various levels of dust and delightfully small backyards. With squeaky floors and limited parking. Its ok to live urban!