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Today is Mother’s Day- woot!
I still can’t believe sometimes that I am a mom. I was putting Lil’ E’s sneakers by the door the other day while he was at the nanny’s so I could get some work in, and I had to do a double-take. Little miniature sneakers? Which belong to my son? Weird…

Yesterday I got to rent a Zipcar and bop around for some errands, which was really nice. It’s great to know the work of hauling bags of groceries on your sore shoulders, but sometimes the luxury of a vehicle is like getting a facial or something. Which I really wouldn’t know because I have never had a facial. I’ve never even had my eyebrows waxed. Amazing, I know. Just can’t justify the cost of stuff like that.

Ironically, what I CAN justify the cost of is truffles. Glorious little black mushrooms that rock my world. I finally got a 1/10th of an ounce sized truffle for $3 at the Farmer’s Market yesterday. Truffled sea salt on your popcorn- better than sex. (Okay, slight - only SLIGHT- exaggeration there.)

So what are my grand Mother’s Day plans? Well, you guessed it! Work! But first, I will point out that Hubby got up with the kiddo today, made me coffee and eggs with tandori naan (delicious bread!). He’s taking him out to the toy store today so I can work (so I might garden a little first, it is Mother’s Day after all!). Later tonight, Misty and I plan to have a light salad dinner with a bottle of Trout Trilogy 2004 Cab, a “splurge” on a $10 wine for Mother’s Day!

Hope all you other hard workin’ mamas (so if you are a female and have kids, that’s you) have a superb day!

Since I won’t be around much this weekend, just wanted to say Happy Easter to every one! We got a little basket today and some used children’s Easter books at Powell’s, along with some stickers. Lil’ E has been asking for things he wants in his easter basket. They include: a pear, a kiwi, an apple, a strawberry, and a yogurt.  LOL Happy to oblige!

But of course, Easter has very little to do with a big white bunny who wears a tie and drops off baskets full of toys and chocolate to good little American children. I’m trying to be a tad more aware of the Resurrection this year, and grateful for the miracle of it all. The grave is empty! It’s so beyond me, I tell ya. Where does one even begin to grasp something like that? If you’ve ever had the opportunity to go to some of the ruins where Jesus once walked, perhaps you felt some connection to this 2,000 year old narrative. I myself can recall the far more commercial and backwards “theme park” in Orlando, FL called “The Holy Land”! Yes sir, you can see the empty tomb and later eat some “Honey and Milk” ice cream. Kinda strange, if you ask me. However, being in the simulated Jerusalem, you could almost try to displace yourself to that time period and replay the good ol’ Sunday school stories in your head, this time not as a reader of a book, but maybe as a fisherman, a Samaritan, a woman at the well, a blind man, a bystander on Calvary hill, or a Pharisee at the temple. You know what I mean?

I can only imagine how it might have been, how I might have reacted, to news of that Hebrew carpenter-turned-prophet whose tomb is now empty. Knowing my cynicism, I think I might have flipped the page in the newspaper without so much as reading passed the headline of that story. “Hmmm, ‘Eyewitness accounts say Jesus, a man executed on the cross just three days ago, now has an emtpy tomb…. Reports of angel spotting just in….’ Yeeeeeeeah- I wonder how the Obama v. Clinton thing is going!? *flip, flip, flip*”

Well, there is probably no end to this rabbit trail in sight, (not uncommon, as those of you who have known me longer than 30 minutes have already noticed!). So I’ll just close by saying that this has been fun, let’s do this again sometime, and may you have a very happy Easter celebration!

Oh yes, and I thought this video was cute… it has chickens and bunnies in it, so it indirectly relates to Easter. This one has a farting rabbit and since small things amuse me, esp things that sound like farts, I’ve been laughing at it for days.

Any one else agree that Easter came entirely too early this year?!

I mean, once this weekend is over, we’ve got like one semi-decent holiday on July 4th and then that’s pretty much it for this year’s magic until next Halloween!

I didn’t even see it coming, to tell you the truth. The signs of Spring were all around, I even blogged about it right here at MamaNeedJava, but then every one had the flu for like two weeks and it sucked out all the lead time we had to anticipate Easter. Now its Sunday? Sunday?!

Hubby and I are really excited to go to our first Bat Mitzfah on Saturday, woo hoo! Then I’ll very likely spend Easter laying the groundwork for the chicken run, (oh the joys, the lovely day that will soon come when my kitchen does not have the distinctly musky smell of chicken sh*t. There’s a deeply reflective Easter thought for ya!) And while on the chicken subject, I so can never again bring myself to eat an animal I now call a pet. Just wrong. Their sweet little thighs… that soft warm breast… with SALT AND PEPPER?! Wrong, I tell you!

So yeah, I don’t quite know where this post is going anymore so I guess I’ll move along.

Happy New Year everybody! (As of midnight, that is!)

What a WEIRD YEAR.  That’s pretty much all I can say about that!

Like the little graphic on the right with the champagne bottle? I’m a little excited because that is pretty much the first graphic I’ve done completely from scratch. It’s a little rough around the edges but the fact that I got it done in a couple hours and no photoshop training let’s me be a little proud of it! Yay!

Here’s a toast- to you, my friends, family, and strangers/lurkers: To a fabulous year ahead!

Yesterday, fam and I did Christmas Eve service and then strolling Peacock Lane. Cookie making pics from the other day are also included in the slideshow, as is a picture of Christmas morning- Lil’ E with his amazing stocking full of apples, oranges, cranberries and a maple candy cane, lol! Oh, and his breakfast of “Christmas” yogurt.

I made beignets this morning, our traditional holiday breakfast. We all exchanged one gift this year, while Lil’ E also opened some gifts from his Nana Betsy and Papa Rene. It was actually quite nice to avoid all Christmas shopping this year and have a simple Christmas. Last night, our big Christmas Eve dinner was Thai food (which we will likely re-heat and serve alongside Pasteles for Christmas dinner- a real Puerto Rican abomination, no doubt!)

later addition: I’ve mustered up some cooking gusto and decided pasteles just won’t go with leftover Thai. So I’m making some potato wedges and a salad, along with a desert of apple/delicata squash/sweet potato casserole topped with brown sugar and granola over vanilla ice cream. WHY OH WHY doesn’t Portland have green pigeon peas, or gandules, so I can make a traditional puerto rican holiday meal, I have no idea. So a  “whatever’s around” Christmas dinner will have to do! (Hey, integration is groovy.)

After slideshow, enjoy Lil’ E first “How To” video- a natural born podcaster!

I’ve got a lot more videos from this week but can’t find the USB chord to hook up my digital camcorder, so that clip will have to be a little late for Christmas, but oh well!

later addition: AND OH MY GOSH!!!! My FIRST sighting of legitimate snow ya’ll!!! On Christmas Day! How perfecto! This is the most lovely snow, coupled with NON freezing temps (its only 37 degrees outside). Check it out! I’ll upload videos later…

Today Lil’ E and I walked to the library to return some books, and while weaving our way through the neighborhood, he said, “Look, mama, it’s baby Jesus!”

“Where?”, I challenged, sure he didn’t know what he meant.

My gaze followed his pointed finger, and sure enough, there was a nativity scene etched in a holiday flag on some one’s porch.

I don’t want to over-spiritualize the fact that my 2 1/2 year old pointed this out, yet I felt in some small way like he was reminding me. He has the heart of a child, one that picks up on special new concepts with incredible clarity. I could be cynical and roll my eyes that I’ve indoctrinated my toddler with the image of a curly haired, blond baby laying on hay as being JESUS, or that baby JESUS is now right there in line with all the other holiday idols he points out on our walks- Santa Claus, Snowman, so on. But I’d rather focus (believe?) that the true message of Christmas has penetrated his impressionable mind, and even that somewhere inside where he is eternal connected with the idea of this baby he hears about when we sing, “Away in a Manger” at bedtime lately.

“Nativity” Poem by Li-Young Lee

In the dark, a child might ask, What is the world?
just to hear his sister
promise, An unfinished wing of heaven,
just to hear his brother say,
A house inside a house,
but most of all to hear his mother answer,
One more song, then you go to sleep.

How could anyone in that bed guess
the question finds its beginning
in the answer long growing
inside the one who asked, that restless boy,
the night’s darling?

Later, a man lying awake,
he might ask it again,
just to hear the silence
charge him, This night
arching over your sleepless wondering,

this night, the near ground,
every reaching-out-to overreaches,

just to remind himself
out of what little earth and duration,
out of what immense good-bye,

each must make a safe place of his heart,
before so strange and wild a guest
as God approaches.

To continue your spiritual reflection, listen.

Okay, ya’ll. Life is just TOO much for me these days!

The latest, for those of you who don’t know:

Hubby called today to tell me that his job ends as of tomorrow- the business is going bankrupt, so two weeks to Christmas they can’t even afford to keep the staff hired. We did in many ways see the writing on the wall for this one, so he had several resumes out there and had spent some time focusing in on what kind of jobs he’s looking for in the past few weeks. We just didn’t expect it to be RIGHT NOW without much warning. Luckily, he will be able to file for unemployment and is planning to go into a staffing agency on Monday.

Not 4 hours later, I got a call from an interview I had yesterday that went really well, offering me the job! There’s lots of details, which to me are quite exciting, but I won’t go into them all. Suffice to say, I’m looking forward to what this new job entails and the opportunity for what it might lead to long term. I will be the part-time (mostly from home) web content manager and personal assistant for an “international speaker and national best-selling author” small business guru, who in person is just a hoot! It was a very encouraging process getting the job, and I’m hopeful not only about the supplemental income it will provide (in conjunction with Wiley) but also the experience I will no doubt gain.

All this nutso stuff, not just with our job situations but with my dad, friends who are going through some crazy circumstances right now, so on- it’s just been a strange couple of weeks!  I can only imagine what God is cookin up and all that hot pepper He’s throwing into the pot for FLAVA!

Though these opening and shutting of doors is enough to give any one a major headache, I feel more than anything a sense of gratitude and comfort. Today, anyway!

Office Max has this goofy little thing to do if you’re bored and have 5 minutes… and if you’ve always wondered upon looking in the mirror if you look kinda like an elf…

Check out ours, and make your own!

OH- and HAPPY 200th POST!

Tonight the fam tried out the Flexcar for the first time, reserving it for a 6 hour excursion out to Hood River city to climb aboard the Mt. Hood Railway train “Polar Express” themed ride. (Flexcar was fab, btw). Lil’ E started off the ride a bit bewildered- the Polar Express is one of his all time favorite movies to watch and he’s very familiar with tunes and music in movies, so when we boarded to the movie’s soundtrack he was trying to piece it all together for awhile. Eventually the Styrofoam cup of hot chocolate and the molasses cookie was enough of a sugar high to make him go a little bananas (he even tried to eat the table a bit at one point.) The ride was neat, you listen to music, have a little snack, and hear the cd version of the Polar Express book read aloud. At the end you get to the “north pole” where the train picks up Santa and he comes around to each table. EACH TABLE, each child, out of sooo many on 3 cars of this train. So, instead of the scheduled 6:30pm end time, the train went back and forth on the tracks (and every one knows how motion sensitive I am, right?) until Santa could make it to all the kids, which didn’t happen until 7:15pm. Suffice to say, the second half of the evening was dragged on more than necessary. They did have some caroler’s come sing to us while we waited for Santa, and they were even kind enough to honor Lil’ E’s unorthodox request of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (see video below).

As far as how Lil’ E liked St. Nick, I’ll just let you watch the video for yourself!

Enjoy!

Bewildered Lil’ E

Twinkle Twinkle, by request

Santa experience…

Once I sat down in Santa’s lap with him, it was all good

Unlike LAST YEAR, this year’s tree cutting experience was slightly more traditional. We had a blast out at Helvetia Farms, not 20 minutes away, cutting down our beautiful 6′ Noble Fir. So purty!