For the Men

So, everybody's been going over (and over and over) the whole Rosen/Romney dust-up. And I'm not going to, other than to say that being a stay home Mom is a whole lotta work. Other people, men and women, have said that a lot more eloquently and forcefully than I can. That's not what this post is for. This post is for the men that make stay home mommism possible.

 This is one of my favorite pictures of James. This is more or less what he'd like to be doing every day, along with composing music, writing children's video games, improving his already considerable cooking skills, learning more about carpentry, and just enjoying his family. But those aren't the things he does every day.

 He gets up early (for a night owl, anyway)and goes to work at Amazon. There, he writes software that's awesome, but not as much fun as children's video games would be. He eats a lunch that's good, but not as good as it would have been if he could have made it. He listens to music that's not his while he's wracking his brains trying to figure out why "X" piece of code isn't working. He sits at a desk that is literally a door on blocks, instead of at the beautiful table we made together. And he earns enough money to make sure that I can stay home. He comes home exhausted from sheer mental effort. He comes home just in time to make sure he can eat with the boys and enjoy their company for a while (which, in case your experience with five-and-two-year-old boys is out of date, is also a form of work) before they have to go to bed, because he misses them. And then, with the little time he has left, he tries to decompress enough to sleep. So he can get up and do it all the next morning. Oh, and somewhere in there, he squeezes in a workout.

 It's not fair. Yes, I do a lot of work around here, and he does a lot of work in Seattle, but... I'm not shot at the end of the day-- but he is, because he does this for us. I had time to do something that I wanted to today, just for me-- because he does this for us. I have time to work out in the middle of the day, because we pay for a membership at the Y-- because he does this for us. I have a beautiful home-- because he does this for us. I have an incredible life, because he does this for us.

 It's so easy to run down men. You can hear everything from "Oppressive patriarchy!" to "Lazy" to "If he'd just do dishes" in an afternoon. Sometimes from the same person! But men aren't what they're painted as. Generally speaking, they're not monsters, or jerks, or eternal teenage boys. They're wonderful people who get up and take care of their families as best they can. They're people who sacrifice their free time and hobbies and money and dreams because they've found something worth that sacrifice and are brave enough to see it through. Men are incredible.

Especially you, James. Love you:)

We just taught 70 teenagers to Viennese Waltz

MAN that was fun :)

What Denise is doing this week

So, "What Denise is reading" kinda went out the window when we moved. Not that I haven't been reading... you guys get it, don't you? Anyway, I'm not reading anything new this week, but I am working on a couple projects, so I thought I'd put those here instead. 1. This. I am SOOOO sick of not being able to find dresses that fit someone who's 5'10" and in reasonably good shape. So I'm gonna learn to make 'em, dang it. 2. House re-org. I love our house, but it doesn't work quite the way I want it to yet. 3. We tore out all the old landscaping-- it was old and overgrown and a lot of it was mostly dead. So new things are going in. Blueberries go in tomorrow, I'll start hardening off the heuchera, hostas go in as soon as it stops dumping rain at every opportunity. The rest will wait for Uncle Kevin's birthday so I can beg advice :) 4. Calorie counting. I HATE calorie counting. But if I don't... well, I don't want to go back there. And I want to be strong. SO-- no more two packs of pop-tarts for me:)

Ugh

I have a sinus infection and two ear infections. That is all. OH, except that James is on his way to get me Golden Noodles from the Thai place down the street. AND orange soda. How awesome is he? Really really awesome:)

A combination of "Huh. Who knew?" and procrastinaton

So, I'm doing a cake-baking booth for a Relief Society activity on Saturday (that's tomorrow). I had all these grand plans about how I would prepare gradually over the week, so I didn't have to crunch it all on Friday. Well, all of you who know me can probably predict about how well that turned out (although I did get all the buttercreams made ahead). Today I've made Vanilla Bean Financiers, Golden Financiers, and Lemon Poppy Seed Cake, PLUS I've taken the kids for a good walk, kept up on the dishes, and dinner is in the oven. Who knew I could pull off that much in a day? (Hint: Not me.) On the other hand-- I'm never procrastinating this much baking down to one day ahead again. Not ever. I've been standing in front of my stand mixer and scale all day! It does smell GOOD though...

What's for dinner?

Djej Emshmel. With apricots, extra garlic, and chickpeas. And rainbow couscous. Oh yeah!

As an after-thought, why is it, Google, that if I search for an image of Djej Emshmel, this is one of the top results?

P.S. Take that, SOPA!

If there's anything I'm NOT going to do tonight...

it's going to be obsessing over the South Carolina Primary. No sirree Bob.