Whenever I go into a model home, I always imagine that I could live in a clean, pristine and perfectly accessorized house if I just tried hard enough, if I could just get these other people who live in my house to buy into my dream.   But the fact of the matter is, no one lives in a model home.  And that’s why the cabinets aren’t beat up.

The cabinets in our house are beat up.  There are stains on the carpet.  The wallpaper in the bathroom is starting to peel in one place.  The baseboards look like we host a roller derby in our home. There is place along the stairs where the paint is chipped.  A tile in the bathroom is cracked. The list is endless.

When we had this house built ten years ago, we had some very specific things in mind that we wanted.  AD wanted a place for our exercise equipment and I wanted a place to do my art and we both wanted a workspace in the garage.   So we built a house to suit our desires and moved in. For a year or so, we lived in a constant state of intoxication fueled by new carpet vapors and nick-free cabinetry.

So the other day as I was cleaning and lamenting the toll that life that has taken on our cabinets and baseboards, I started thinking about how our life in this house has changed; how my art studio is now an exercise room and the exercise room is now a nursery little boy’s room.  The workspace in the garage is now an overflow toy/sports equipment storage space.  And my den is now a playroom and my breakfast room is now a perpetual school room.

I used to live in house with an art studio, pristine carpets and perfect cabinets.  And now I don’t.

I used to have a big empty spot in my heart. And now I don’t.

This morning I am making Maple Walnut Mexican Wedding Cookies to bring to my sister-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving.  They never allow me to bring anything — either because they are the kind of people who like to do all the cooking themselves (which I understand) or they don’t like my cooking.  Either way, as a naturalized southerner, it is not possible for me to show up at someone’s home empty-handed, so I am making cookies.

Mexican wedding cookies are easy to make, not overly sweet, bite-sized and scrumptious. And great to bring to a gathering because they don’t require refrigeration, heating or a fork and plate – all of which are prime real estate at any get-together.  Just be sure to bring them on a pretty plate, ready for the hostess to unwrap and set out.

Here’s the recipe:

Maple Walnut Mexican Wedding Cookies

1 cup (two sticks) of butter, softened

½ cup of powdered sugar

2 cups of flour

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 teaspoon of Mapeline (or maple extract)

1 cup of chopped walnuts

Sift the flour and powdered sugar together.  (This makes for a lighter flakier cookie, but if you don’t want to go to the trouble, add the powdered sugar to the butter, cream it and then add the flour a bit at a time.)  Add the sifted ingredients to the softened butter and cream together with an electric mixer.  Add the vanilla and Mapeline.  Fold in the chopped nuts.  You can use a bit more or less of the extracts, depending on how much you like maple flavor.

Drop by scant teaspoons onto an ungreased baking sheet.  You can also roll them into teeny tiny balls if you are so inclined.   Resist the temptation to make them too big – if you do it will take more than 40 minutes to bake.  Bake at 275 for 40-45 minutes. They should be firm to the touch when they are done but not necessarily brown.

After the cookies cool just a bit (but are still slightly warm) toss lightly in powdered sugar.

Since Sean is allergic to nuts, I divide my batter in half before adding the nuts and maple flavoring.  Both versions are yummy!  And if you don’t add the nuts, you can pipe the dough onto the cookie sheet for a more uniform cookie.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

I will share this story with you now so that I might dispel any notion you may have that I am perfect, so that you might feel better about your own short comings. Or maybe I just need to confess.

If there is a single struggle that defines my life (and oh if only it were just ONE) it is the constant inner-battle between wanting and not wanting stuff.  Within the space of two seconds I can swing between feeling sickened and burdened by the sheer volume of my stuff to wanting more of it.

So then, the other day I was at Wal-Mart and I was not in a fine mood.  I was just sort of feeling mad at everything for no particular reason.  My cart was all wobbly and really annoying and that was making me mad.  I didn’t like the way my jacket fit and that made me mad.  People were in my way and that was making me mad.  They didn’t have the two things I specifically went to the store to get and that made me mad.  Like Little Critter, I was just so mad. I probably had those two little squiggly vertical lines above my head that you see in cartoons.

But mostly what was making me mad was that everything just seemed really expensive and that was energizing the Want Team.  The Want Team are a bunch of bullies really. They taunt me and poke their bony fingers into my tender self-esteem.  And they are a pack of liars too.  Meanwhile the Not Want Team was off snoozing somewhere.  Like some sort of bulimic shopper, I put stuff in my cart only to talk myself out of it and take it out two aisles later.   Which then made me feel resentful and sorry for myself, and you guessed it, mad.  (Sorry Wal-Mart employees for the Rubber Maid containers, lemon zester and Christmas placemats you found in with the women’s socks.)

Weary of the battle, I gave up and decided to head towards the checkout with my coffee and few other things and head home. As I headed down the big center aisle toward the front, I looked up from my dark cloud to see a young woman pushing a cart towards me.  In the seat of the cart was a little girl.  An older woman walked alongside her, perhaps her mother.  The woman pushing the cart was radiantly happy.  She was enjoying her little girl and chatting happily with her mother.  She was not taking stuff in and out of her cart like a crazy lady, stuff that would ultimately rot away or be eaten by moths.  She was not mad.  She was not mad at all.  She was a picture of  joy.

As I passed her I tried not to stare at her Prednisone-puffed face or the tell-tale dew rag she wore on her bald head.

I wanted to cry.  Not so much for her, but for me, for my sorry state of being.

I offered up a prayer for her as she passed, a prayer of thanksgiving for the blessing that she was to me, for being the slap in the face that I needed in just that moment.  I prayed that God would look upon her with favor and restore her completely.

I went to the store for groceries, but left with what I really needed — a cleansed perspective.

Chalk one up for the Not Want Team who rallied from behind — thanks to the lady in the dew rag.

I am by nature a morning person.  By 5:30 am, I am itching to get out of bed and get going.  But by 8:30 pm, I’m spent; ready for bath, bed, and beyond.  AD, on the other hand, is a night owl.  Consequently I have always assumed the morning parenting duties while he takes the bedtime shift.  And it has worked well for our family.

The other morning Sean got up earlier than usual and stumbled into the kitchen where I was sitting at my desk.  He wrapped his arms around my neck and then lodged himself into my lap.  He squirmed and shifted as he tried to find a comfortable place to stash his long legs.  He twisted his head this way and that as he tried to nestle into my neck.  He doesn’t quite fit me the way he used to.

As we sat there quietly and uncomfortably like two mismatched puzzle pieces, I reflected on how our morning routine has changed over the past seven years.

When he was a brand new preemie newborn, we were instructed to feed him every two hours.  So I would wake him from his sleep at 4am to feed him.  After his bottle I would lay with him on the floor under the glow of the lights of the Christmas tree and stare at this weird little four-pound alien creature who had rocked my world.   While the dog snuggled into the curve of my back and Sean snuggled into the pillowy softness that was my post-postpartum front,  I would study his face and count his eyelashes as I watched him drift back to sleep.

The next year, I would tip toe into his room early in the morning hoping to find him sleeping so I could check my email or enjoy a cup of coffee in peace before the day started.  But being a morning person like me, I would most often find him standing in his crib waiting for me. He would bounce with excitement when he saw me and squeal with joy.  Then he would stretch out his arms for me clenching his chubby little hands in and out in the universal and dual-purpose sign for Get me! and Milk!

I would lift him out of his crib and inhale the morning essence wafting off his neck.  Then I’d wrap him up in a blanket and carry him away to the den where we would sit on the couch in silence save the slurping symphony that is the sweet sound of a congested baby sucking on a bottle.

The next few years, I would often wake up to the sound of someone breathing in my face.  I would force open one eye to see him standing next to my bed, two hopeful little eyeballs staring back at me, willing me into consciousness.  I would pull on my robe as a footsie-pajama clad policeman led me away by the hand to the den.  We would get our respective beverages, snuggle in an afghan on the couch and then build with Legos until the sun came up.

The days of snuggling together in a blanket with a bottle and playing all morning are no more.  Now we have to get up and get going; we’ve got to meet the world.

But before we get to lunch packing, paper signing, breakfast making, backpack packing and world meeting he sits on my lap for a minute or two and tries to figure out where to put his legs while I inhale his morning essence.

He still rocks my world.  And he still fits.

Congratulations to our winner, Kathy, commenter #60 selected by the good folks at Random.org.  Thanks to everyone for playing along!

If you missed the contest, be sure to check out Novica for unique hand-crafted jewelry, gifts and more from artists all around the world.

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I’m taking a break from venetian blind cleaning to bring you news of a give-away from Novica!

Aside:  Know the best way to clean blinds? Get someone else to do it.  Also, who knew that the Venetian’s invented blinds? Certainly not I.  I visited Venice once and it never came up; it’s not on any of the chamber of commerce brochures.

At any rate, I recently got an email from Novica saying they’d like to give me and you each a $50 Novica gift certificate!  I know.  I love $50 gift certificates, always have.

As you may or may not recall from my previous Novica give-away is that they work in association with National Geographic to showcase and sell art, jewelry, clothing, handbags, home décor, corporate gifts and more from artisans from all over the world.  They ensure the artists receive a fair market value for their work so that they might keep body and soul together, which as an artist and a human being, I really appreciate.

Their site is overwhelming with awesomeness.  They have a zillion items in all price ranges and all of them unique, handcrafted, eco-friendly and fabulous.  The jewelry comes in its own little handcrafted box and includes a bio of the artist. And in a world of identical big-box stores, it’s just kind of nice to know something of the person who made what I’m buying.

Last time I got these earrings and this necklace which I love and wear just about every day.

If you are interested in a chance to win the other gift certificate, visit Novica (and you may be gone for three or four hours because there is a LOT of cool stuff there) and then pop back in and leave me a comment telling me what you saw that you might like to have for yourself or someone special.  I’m thinking I might like to have this.

I’ll choose a winner at some point on Monday.

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Other ways to keep up with Novica:

Novica on Twitter

Novica on Facebook

Hands down, my favorite thing about first grade is walking to school.

Although I love our car time, it’s really nice to not have to get in the car of a morning as we have for the past several years.  Seeing the world through the car window is one thing, but being able to stop and examine a spider web or a willy worm or the perfect yellow leaf is a deeper richer experience that engages all of the senses and not just the eyes.  And what I especially admire about Sean is that he always seems to be tapped into the sensory data.  He has an acute awareness of that which is invisible to most.  The other day as we walked under the trees that line the sidewalk, he turned to me and said, “Mom, I just love the sound of leaves crunching underfoot, don’t you?”  Indeed, I do now.

Most days, AD will join Sean and me on our half-mile walk to school.  There are a few other families in the neighborhood who walk to school occasionally, but for the most part we have the sidewalk to ourselves.

When I was growing up, I never had the sidewalk to myself.  Everyone walked to school and there were plenty of us.  No one’s mom drove them to school.  No one’s mom or (gasp!) dad walked them to school.  Mom kicked us out the door, sometimes before the sun was even up, rain or shine, sleet or snow, and we joined up with the passing human train of children heading south towards school.  The older boys, who were too cool to walk, rode their bikes.  They would blaze up behind us hollering something like, “Watch out! No breaks!”  All the girls would scream and scramble off the sidewalk just before they slammed on their brakes leaving behind a screeching black skid mark three-feet long.  Then they would ride off laughing and popping wheelies with smug satisfaction.

After the long, long, very long walk to the end of the street, about 200 yards, we would have to cross a busy two-lane road. Sometimes there was a crossing guard, but usually not.  We were street-savvy Catholic school kids though, so if there wasn’t a car within 20-feet either direction, or if we didn’t think they were coming too fast, we’d bolt across.

Beyond the busy road lies a set of train tracks.  About 85% of the time, a train would be sitting on the tracks.  Just sitting.  So then a decision had to be made: Would it be better to risk death by crawling under the train or risk the wrath of Sister Mary Somebody for being late.  Always, we crawled under the train.  If you got your shoe caught on the track and got your leg cut off, as legend had it had happened to some girl whose name no one ever knew, then at least you’d have a good excuse and you could be certain that even Sister probably wouldn’t whack the hands of an amputee.

Once you made it past the train tracks, then came real danger.  Then you had to walk past a rat hole of a doughnut shop.  And my oh my, the smell of fresh baked doughnuts on a cold Midwest morning could lead a girl into temptation.  I never had the 20 cents it took to buy a doughnut and therefore never had any hope of getting a doughnut, but my saliva glands never gave up hope.  To make matters more unjust, my brother Jim who always seemed to have money, would get one.  I’d see his bike leaned up against the building and when I looked in the windows, sure enough there he’d be sitting at the counter eating a doughnut.

On the walk home from school, we’d go the reverse route; past the doughnut shop, across the busy road and under the train, but on the way back we’d traverse a fairly steep ditch just on the other side of the tracks.  The ditch was home to unsavory creatures like chiggers and cockle burs that would stick to your socks and shoe laces.  On the other side of the ditch was an old-timey garage that had a Dr. Pepper machine inside and one of those 10-2-4 signs.  Sometimes four or five of us would manage to scrape up 15 cents among us and we’d go in and buy an Orange Nehi or a Dr. Pepper out of the soda machine.  And when the cap was popped, oh the sound!  ChhSsshAAAaaah! — the sound of impending pleasure.  The bottle would come out of the machine so cold that it had frost on the outside and the soda was actually icy.  We’d each take a swig and I have to tell you, to this day, it remains the coldest most refreshing thing I could ever hope to put to my lips.

So yes, at the root of my love of walking to school is my own nostalgia.  I walked to school for eight years and have mostly fond memories.  And I want that for Sean. Of course his memories will be quite different, safer and more sanitary hopefully, but they will be his own.

My hope is that the memory of the three of us walking to school will burrow somewhere deep into his brain and return to warm his heart long after my bones have returned to the earth.  And maybe when he thinks back on these days of walking to school he will be reminded not just of the how the leaves crunched underfoot or of some silly or dangerous thing he did, but how much his mommy and daddy delighted in him.

* * * * *

Another walking home story, this one involving a pumpkin.

The other day, I had had enough of my hair. I have a lot of it and none of it good.

Now I know that I won’t get much sympathy from many of you for having more than my fair share of hair, but with every blessing comes a burden. And the burden of having so much hair, besides that it is hot,  is that blow drying it requires time and skill that I do not possess.  If I could take back all the hours I’ve spent blow drying my hair, I could learn another language, even one of those hard ones that don’t have any vowels.

And let me tell you, aging does not make hair more lovely.  Gray hair, even colored gray hair, has a texture all its own, a texture that says “estrogen on the decline, downhill from here”.

There are a few older women who can wear long hair, but not many.  In my opinion, a woman of a certain age sporting long hair (or a mini-skirt or a midriff top) looks like she’s trying too hard to hang on to her long-gone youth and there’s nothing pretty about that.  Beauty should look effortless — even if it’s not.

So the other day, I had had enough of the hair and the ponytail holders and the barrettes.  Being the impulsive person that I am, I called the salon and asked if there was anyone there who could cut my hair in the next 15 minutes.  There was, so I went and they did.  And when I left the salon, I was very happy to be rid of the hair.  I liked my haircut.  I liked it a lot.  I felt 10 years younger and 10 pounds lighter.  I whistled as I skipped to my car.  (My mom just emailed to say that she went and got her hair cut and felt ten years younger so she went back and got another haircut the next day.)

When I got home, I ran upstairs to show my new haircut to AD, and being a learned man in the fine art of marriage, he diplomatically said, “Oh! Look at you! You got your hair cut!”  I gleefully shook my head from side to side so he could see how I could make my hair twirl out like skirt.  One side fell across one eye in a sexy Veronica Lake sort of way.  Clearly he was mesmerized by my new haircut.  He said he had never seen such beauty in all of his life. No not really. What he actually said was, “I gotta get back to work now.”

Undaunted, I bounced downstairs and took a picture of me and my sassy new haircut and I emailed it to my mother who loves short hair and has never missed one single opportunity since 1973 to tell me how me how much better she thinks I look in short hair.  So I asked her, “What do you think of my new haircut?!”  She quickly replied, and I quote, “I don’t know.”

Okay then.

Later that afternoon, as I walked up to the school to pick up Sean, I enjoyed the sensation of the cool breeze on my neck and my bouncin’ and behavin’ hair.  As I started to cross the street, my friend Jennifer pulled up in her car.  She rolled down the window and exclaimed, and I quote, “What happened to you?”

Hmmm.  I’m starting to get the idea that no one likes my haircut.  Luckily for me I don’t care because I am unofficially 10 years younger and 10 pounds lighter.  And besides, I can twirl my hair out like a skirt if I want to.

When I dropped Sean off at school that morning I had long hair, but now I had short hair and I wondered how he would react.  Much like his father, he does not dig change.  As he ran out of the school doors, he spotted me and his face lit up. He ran to me, buried his face in my tummy and wrapped his arms around me.  “I like your new haircut Mom!” he exclaimed.  “You look really cute!”  God I love that boy.  Kids are so honest.

The next morning, after breakfast, Sean and AD sat at the table working on vocabulary words.  One of the words on the list was adorable.  Using the word in a sentence, Sean said, “I love Mommy. She looks adorable.”  God I love that boy.

So off we went to school; AD, Sean and his vocabulary words, and me and my new haircut.  Sean’s teacher said she liked my haircut and the crossing guard said she thought my hair was cute.  If you can’t trust the opinion of the 1^st grade teacher and the crossing guard, who can you trust?

On the way back home, I mentioned this to AD.  And in a dangerous move, I asked him point blank:  Do you like my new haircut?  He said, and I quote, “It’s growing on me.”

“I have to tell you something,” he said hesitantly, “but you have to promise it won’t hurt your feelings.”

So I braced myself to have my feelings hurt.

“This morning, after Sean used the word adorable in a sentence? He whispered in my ear that he didn’t really like your haircut but he didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

God I love that boy.

And I love my new haircut.

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More on Antique Mommy’s hair here: The Bob is the New Helmet Hair

Monarch sounds much prettier, don’t you think?

Sometimes when I catch Sean being good, I reward him by letting him pick out something at the grocery store.  The only limitation I put on him is that it must be something that can fit in the palm of his hand.  And it is for this reason that I haven’t told him where Wal-Mart keeps the iPods.

And so it was one day early in the summer.  When we got to the store, we headed straight back to the toy department in search of a reward. We went up the aisles and down the aisles and down the aisles and up the aisles trying to make a decision, trying to choose the exact right perfect reward that would fit in the palm of his grubby little hand.

Finally he stopped dead in his tracks in front of a display of little boy heaven.  He pulled from the shelf a box that was about the size of a small television.  Wearing a hopeful expression, he held out his hands to show me.  Behind the cellophane window on the front of the box was a lightning blue remote control speedboat. The sticker on the front of the box read $25.

“Sean,” I asked, “Does this fit in the palm of your hand?”

“No. But I really want it.”

“Well I can see why.  It is very cool.  But this is a big thing.  This is more the kind of thing you would get for a birthday present.”

“Oh. I thought that was what you’d say,” he said with dramatic dejection.  Dramatic flair does not work on me.  I’ve had my little-boy-manipulation shot. I am immune.

He hung his head, heaved an exaggerated sigh, and as though wearing lead boots, he walked the box back to its place on the shelf.  He patted it and then stood there looking longingly at it.  If I were a member of the Academy, I would have given him an Oscar right there in Wal-Mart.

As we continued on, I took a second look at the boat and made a mental note in case of the unlikely event that it was something that he still wanted when he had a birthday later this fall.

About a week later we went to a birthday party.

And sure enough the birthday boy got the lightning blue remote control speed boat.

I watched Sean watching the boy open the box, watching the boy’s face light up.

I watched him try to pretend to be happy for the birthday boy as he has been instructed to do.  I noticed his bottom lip start to tremble.

He popped his head above the crowd of kids sitting criss-cross-applesauce in front of the birthday boy.  He searched for my face.  He gestured towards the boat with open palms.  He shrugged his shoulders in a statement of disbelief.  I noticed that his ears were red.

He got up, stepped over a few kids and schlumped over to me with the lead boots, head hung low, both arms swinging from side to side like an ape.

He put his head in my lap and whispered through tears, “That was the very thing I wanted and HE got it.”

Part of me wanted to give him a stern lecture about how silly he looked, about how grateful he should be for all that he has, about how he should focus outward and not on himself, about how it wasn’t about him today, about how he will have his own birthday this fall, about how he was embarrassing me, about a million other things.

Yet, my heart broke for him because it was exactly how I felt for years at baby showers.  I would pretend to be delighted for the mother-to-be when really I wanted to lay my head in my mother’s lap and cry bitter tears about the unfairness that some other gal was getting the very thing I wanted.

In that moment, I didn’t really know what to do. I wanted to comfort and scold him all at the same time.  And no course of action seemed right.

So I told him it’s not his party and he can’t cry if he wants to — and I sent him back to the party.  We would have to talk about it later but in the mean time the civilized thing to do was to play the part of a good party guest.

The birthday party might have provided a wonderful life lesson about waiting and wanting and not getting everything you want.  But shortly after the birthday party, Sean came home from Memaw’s with a lightning blue remote control speed boat.

Memaw had three little boys of her own at one time but apparently she needs a little-boy-manipulation booster shot.

For the last six years, the only question in terms of Sean’s education has been which private school he would attend.

Homeschooling has always been an option we’ve entertained; it’s always on the table.  Public school was never an option.  And now for some reason, at this point, I sort of feel like I should apologize for that sentiment or at least insert a feeble “not that there’s anything wrong with it.”  But I’m not going to because that sort of thing makes me weary of late.

So, for the past two years we have done all due diligence in finding the right private school for our one and only son.  We did all the research that any prudent person would do when making an important decision, not to mention a substantial investment.  We researched, we made spreadsheets, we talked to other parents.  We visited, we visited and we visited some more until we narrowed the list down to three schools.

But ultimately none of those three schools seemed right.  All are excellent, highly rated, well-established schools staffed by professional educators.  Their stats are great and the kids we chatted with on campus were impressive. Nary a red flag to be seen.  People who send their kids to those schools LOVE those schools and can’t say enough good things about them.  Those are all good things, things that make for good marketing materials.  But I tend to operate on intuition.  And after all the visits, I never got that vibe – that undeniable voice that whispers in your ear, “You are in the right place. This is it.”

In our area, private school tuition runs about $10,000 a year, give or take, and for ten grand, I need to have that vibe.  The ten grand isn’t for the education — it’s for the vibe.

Well, the summer kind of slipped past and before we knew it, it was the middle of August.  It was two weeks before school started and we still didn’t have our child enrolled in school anywhere.  And so because we couldn’t make a decision, the decision was made for us. We enrolled Sean in public school.  The one school we had not considered, not researched, not visited — was the right school.  God likes to rip up my plans into itty bitty pieces and throw them in the air like confetti.

We are six weeks into the school year and we could not be happier. We love walking to school, we love our teacher, we love the routine.

I’ve definitely got the vibe that at least for now, for this school year, this is the right place.