Her Royalness

Today is a very special day.  You may have seen in the news.

It's The Queen's birthday.

 Sadie Maria

We were introduced to her majesty when she was one so have been amongst royalty for ten years.

 2003:  We all look like babies!

 (Taken days after she was entrusted to us.  We had just moved back into my childhood home.)

The Queen turns eleven today.

And now, if you'll excuse me.  I have a gourmet lemon cake to bake. The Queen prefers lemons at her party.

It's going to be a surprise party.

My friend Julie asked if Andy was going to stroll her around the neighborhood while we set up the red carpet.

Yes, I believe that might be the only way to pull this off because me thinks her highness suspects something...

..and isn't happy about all the fuss.

Stay tuned for paparazzi (puparazzi?  boo, hiss, find a real job, blogger girl).

New Look for OSMA

Since I am changing the format of One-Sided Momma, I thought I'd make it official with a new look.

What do you think?

I know, I don't really love it either. 

I'll spend some time on it in the coming months to make it seem more like home.

In the meantime, I wanted to welcome you to One-Sided Momma's "new" place and thank you all for rolling with the unfamiliar for a little while.

Don't worry, it won't take me long to muck up all this new white space with some dirt.

xoxo
 

No Room at the Inn

Abby needed a new bed yesterday so we went, after school, to shop for one.

Shopping for a new bed is a lot more fun than I remember in the past.

I'm also pining for sleep a lot more now than I once was so those two are probably related.

After rolling around on twenty-one naked mattress tops, Abby chose one with teddy bear faces quilted all over it.  Good  marketing, Mattress People. 

Good mattress, too.  It is a memory foam delicious specimen of sweet pillowy goodness.

 I happen to know first-hand:

So do Sadie, Sparrow, and seventeen of Abby's closest stuffed allies.

Should've bought a locking doorknob instead.

Does anyone else wonder how I slept 8 cm away from dog foot?

Cozeee.

I Never

Did you ever play that drinking game where you and seventeen of your closest hormones friends sit in a circle and take turns saying something that you "never did?"  The train wreck friend who takes a drink (of their Bartles & James) is the friend who has, in fact, done whatever is the "never" act mentioned.  It can get very funny very fast.

Once, when I was playing with a group of professionals who shall remain nameless, I took a swig when someone said they "Never Dated Their Professor."

All eyeballs on me.

Nobody made a move toward their drink.  Nobody made a move, period.

Uh. Oh.  Sh*t just got real.

Then the giggles started.  An entire year's worth of giggles started in my throat, then around the room until someone hollered, "It's always the quiet ones!"

(Which is so true.  It is always the quiet ones.)

So, in honor of my dwindling youth and playful spirit....shall we?

I will start, you can add on in comments or just in your head for fun.  FYI:  I so love your comments and fully appreciate the hoops of keyboard hell you must jump through to leave them.  I love to learn more about people stopping in here so thank you for your diligence.

Some of these "Nevers" might surprise you.  Some might make you wonder if we went to high school together, and some may leave you feeling that perhaps we really don't know each other so well after all....or maybe we do.

I NEVER:

• left AOL
• quit a promising teaching career to work as a veterinarian's assistant for $13.50 an hour, no benefits
• spent the night in a park, underneath the monkey bars
• was told my doppleganger was Roseanne Barr while sitting in a sauna
• made out with a perfect stranger in a strange land (Not guy in sauna.)
• snuck out my window just to drive a car around the neighborhood (A car my then boyfriend stole from his mom. She caught on very quickly.)
• fell in love at first sight
• was infatuated with Richard Marx
• was a doormat
• dated an alcoholic
• hung up my clothes before college
• dropped out of veterinary medicine and lived to regret it
• performed with a band in rat-hole DC bars in my 20s
• had a long distance love affair, then married him
• got caught in Riptide and almost didn't make it out
• ate cow tongue on accident but liked it
• slept with a butcher knife under my pillow when my husband was deployed
• can remember if it's "viligence" or "vigilence"
• taught my kids how to throw a solid punch thinking I was a cool mom.  Then realized I was a dumb mom when they clocked me in the nose years later.
• slept in a mansion right across the street from Quincy Jones in Beverly Hills, CA for three nights, one of which occurred a 7.5 earthquake
• ran the USMC marathon really really s-l-o-w-l-y
• flew to England alone when I was 12
• drove a diesel truck (with entrance only through passenger side) door to work for 6 months
• get lost in my own town on a regular basis
• want to redo my wedding ceremony, sans monsoon
• get jealous of other people's pictures in their blogs (KelleHampton, KelleHampton, KelleHampton)
• thought being a mom was for me
• Google: How to Nap While Parenting
• had a serious crush on Duck Dynasty's cast, namely Mr. Phil
• knew life would slow down if I did

What are some of yours?

I promise to take a swig of my tea right along with you if we share skeletons in our Neverland closets

P.S. Anyone really interested in more Disney pics?  I will be happy to post more but I'm kind of thinking just my mom is interested.  No hard feelings.  How many jpgs of unfettered Disney gluttony should one blog harbor?  I'm willing to move on if you are.

Cheers.

Update

The calendar says January 2013.

Two thousand and thirteen??

It always takes a bit to settle in to the new numbers. Those calendar proclamations of fresh months, wide open days that keep spilling into the next. How does one begin again? 

There is always so much promise that I close my eyes, consider the possibilities and move forward without resolutions to do better, be better, or change.  So much pressure can make a head like mine (like yours too?) go boom.

Let's not go boom.  We have lots more to be about.

So, here we are, back to a regular schedule but my mind is still swimming in memories that are barely five days old.

 

Since last post, we drove to Disney World for a week.

 (Right out of Disney Gate:  Salty and tired.  Everyone cheers up later.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent Christmas in South Carolina with my dad, MiMi and my brother, Alex.

Sparrow got pretty good at the doggy door. If not a little indecisive at times.

 Grayson got introduced to Wii and promptly burned 16,000 boxing, bowling, and playing tennis.

We drove back home to our first snow, and had a quick love affair with our hotel's morning "Bacon Bar" in between.

Good Lord, I have so much to tell you. I have so much to tell you, in fact, that I will start at the end. I want to let you know I plan to talk less in detail about my family on this blog.  If you come here for updates on the children or my husband then you might be disappointed in future posts.  They will still be here, but not in so much detail.  I will leave their stories up to them to tell one day.  Once we move, I will keep our lives anonymous online. 

So as of next post, we will begin to go underground. Which is to say I don't want this blog to follow/haunt my dear children or loving husband who have been pranced in front of an audience of hundreds twenties for four years now. They deserve privacy, modesty, and all the things I've robbed them of since starting this blog.

All of them are of an age where the stories I write or the pictures I publish could be embarrassing to them, no matter how discrete or tasteful I try to be. At the very least, it is starting to feel wrong publishing public material about the people I want to protect the most.

Before we go underground, however, a final update:

 Grayson is doing well. We are getting answers for his migraines and resolving other concerns with the help of doctors and his teachers. His last bad headache happened at Disney. 

I began to worry when Andy reminded me that it was going on 11:30pm (Electrical Parade late start), we had run the kids around like crazy for three days so the boy was most likely just exhausted.

 (He was.  He and his little sister fell asleep in our laps on the monorail ride home.)

 

 

  A kid favorite:  A Bug's Life Playground.  They spent almost two hours here climbing, sliding, and sweating their patooties off.

Abby is still our sparkly little sprite: spinning, twirling and demanding much of the world around her but with more pleases, thank yous, and an earnest desire to put her own laundry away for a sticker on her chore chart.

Both kids have completely lost all semblance of civility at this point.  Grayson wanted to strip himself of clothing in the middle of a light show and Abby wanted to DANCE!

(There was a lot of dancing, actually.)

 

 

After waiting in line for an hour (yes, an hour, I couldn't believe I was doing that either.) to see Tinkerbell, look who just about passed out when she got to meet Perriwinkle?

If the trip stopped here, Abby would've been just fine.  Actually, me too.  This made my world, to see my little go so excited to meet a "real life" fairy!

 

 

Queen Sadie still (and forever) rules the roost of our hearts and our home. She went to Nam&Pop camp while we were gone which was amazing for her. She loves going to camp. For us though, I must say Christmas was less Christmas-sy without her. 

Sparrow is a delicious piece of black licorice dog that talks to us with her dog voice that is becoming more human by the day.   She says, "I know," when you tell her she's a good girl. 

 

 Reunited after Disney.  Not sure who missed who more.

Andy has been an absolute dreamy specimen while away from C&S school, work, stress, USMC life in general. He and Grayson experienced the "Disney High" together while Abby and I zombied around like two wet blankets looking for a place to dry out in the sun. The long, long lines and "scary" Ursulas ensured we stopped to snack often and plenty.

 

Slowing things down on the beautiful carousel.

The days were long, the nights were short.

 (Even for the adults.)

I have tons more Disney pics to post so will have to do another slideshow tomorrow. 

To wrap things up for this post, however, we do not know where we are moving to this summer but Andy was selected for promotion which will make him a Lt. Colonel and the rest of us a military family for at least another 6 or 7 years.

 After that, it's all about finding a place to make roots. Hopefully farm roots. With lots and lots of big blue sky to sleep under at night.

Thanks for coming back to One-Sided Momma.  I will continue to write here but definitely keep my family's privacy in mind from today forward.  It's what I should've been doing all along.

Happy January 2013, as ridiculous as it might feel now.

May we all begin to settle in soon.

Formula of Wrong

When I was in high school, algebra did not make sense to me.  

Class started out great.  I showed up with sharp pencils, crisp lined paper and a mind naive with confidence.

I listened, watched, and copied from the board.  I dutifully used the given formulas, worked through exponents, checked work and still, STILL came up with the wrong answer more often than not.  

In college, philosophy, psychology, literature, and any other shade of gray fueled my brain.  I prospered in those lawless lands;  infatuated with imprecision and subjectivity.  Eclectic variants of written voice and human experience became a comfort zone.  My world became defined by indefinables.

How can you ever get a wrong answer if there is no formula?

Now, after living almost 40 years as a lover of outliers, unpredictables, and randomness, I am no longer comfortable.

It is not OK that this world does not make sense, that when you follow the given formula, do the hard math, check your work and find that X still does not equal A.  

Those parents sent their children off to school exactly like we did Friday morning.  Those children were viciously attacked in their safe place while ours were not.  Those teachers protected and shielded their students like the warriors we wish to be and still STILL so many suffered and fell at the hands of unpredictable terror.

I no longer appreciate the beauty of a world that is very much as horrifying as it is inspiring.  And because I'm a mom, I can no longer care with one heart.  My desire for order and fairness has separated into countless irrational hearts that splinter off to reach illogical and wrongful suffering.  

There MUST be as many splintered hearts that help heal as there are wounds that writhe and suffer.

But No.  

There aren't.

As of Friday, I am sure there are not.  Some people must tragically and grievously suffocate with deeper pain than they should.  For no damn good reason.

Sometimes, in our earthly world, X just does not #%& equal A.

And now, for me and the rest of America that keeps learning the devastating details of Friday's massacre, we will not be fine existing in any more shades of gray.  

Ever again.

Christmas Tea

Sunday afternoon my friend and neighbor invited me to a Christmas tea at her church.

This in and of itself shouldn't cause one stress.  There isn't much scary about Christmas, churches, or tea.

The stress didn't happen until I visited my closet.  An important side note is that this friend of mine is THE best dressed lady in town.  She is a Georgia peach and a southern belle in all senses of the word.

This lady is always coiffed, accessorized, and adorned with classic threads and tasteful fits even to go to the mailbox.

She is also 70 years old.

My hope had been to shop around for a nice looking tea length dress to wear.  With a cardigan if need be.  I hoped need didn't be but felt, in my mind, prepared to cover up the girls if they were feeling reckless.

Needless to say, in my recent crazy spin cycle of hormone-free, organic, natural ingredients on the label grocery shopping spree, I did not make time to fun clothes shop for myself.  I must've banking on a pretty little dress to materialize between the old, dusty, and pointy-shouldered options already there.  And if that didn't happen, I figured I could throw some old things together with some new, add a dangly necklace and voila, a garden variety of embarrassing company I would not make.

Then my friend calls five minutes prior to us leaving to say, "Wear something glitzy!"

Glitzy.

Glitzy?

What does that even mean?

Sparkles?  Shiny heels?  Metallic fringe?  Leopard print with some tinsel?  What exactly are we talking here?  How do I do 70 year old Georgia peach glitz?

So I panicked...

...until I found this:

An old scarf I bought to wear to my brother's wedding, years ago.  Never wore it, still had the tag, and seemed the perfect amount of glitz for a church tea.

Once again, my hoarding tendencies come in handy.

  Such a proud hoar...der.

The night went on without a hitch.  A choral group of girls dressed in long Olde English gowns met us at the door, already singing and filling the halls with that twinkle you feel in your stomach when Christmas sinks in.

Tables upon tables were set with green, silver and a dash of red.

At least a hundred ladies of all ages circled about wearing their own tea cups on the ends of their painted nails, brought from home like a piece of beloved jewelry.

I was so excited to be a part of this glitzy event that not once did I ever even notice my scarf....


...was totally meant to be a shawl.  

Hmm. 

Resourceful glitz.

Outweighs a cardigan every time.