Winds-Day

It has definitely been a very blustery day today. While Northern Virginia has been getting pounded with snow, we here on the Peninsula have seen our usual counterpart to winter weather: drippy, droppy, dreary rain. Sideways rain, sleety rain, spitting rain, every variety of rain you can think of. Except the nice, soft, gentle rain of spring. Don’t think of that rain, because it for sure isn’t happening on the Virginia Peninsula right now, friends.

The heat just kicked on full blast in my house. Side note- we have a gas heater. Not gas heat. A gas HEATER. One heater, in the form of a grate in the wall in the far right side of our boxy living room. This heater is meant to warm our whole house in the throes of winter. From the bone chilling cold of January to the blustery days of March. I shouldn’t sound so cynical. I actually love that heater. When it kicks on and you stand in front of it, it’s like a full body hair dryer. And, if we leave the bedroom doors wide open and turn the ceiling fans on to circulate air, we get a decent warmish cross breeze that is equal parts comforting and frustrating. There are some joys to living in an old house. The different quirks you learn, placing your feet just so in the hallway to diminish the creak in the floors; putting just this much weight behind your arm to slide the pocket door closed... all these little things that become a part of you without you realizing it, and before you know it, the old house has put down roots in your soul and your steps and your door sliding are as natural as breathing.

A few weeks ago, a violent windstorm blew the handle right off of our storm door. I don’t know how it happened. It was surreal. We woke up the following morning, and ‘lo and behold, the handle was gone. It took us a little while to figure out how to get in and out of the house. At first we just yanked on the frame of the glass, but that mostly resulted in red fingers and muttered cursing. Then, one day, we actually got locked IN. We couldn’t get out the front door at all. We finally found a screwdriver to jimmy in the hole where the handle was, to use as a sort of poor man’s handle (Hey... this is how we do it around here!). The wind tonight has yanked the door from any pitiful latch it may have retained, and is slamming it open and shut repeatedly. Creak. Open. Bang! Shut. I can’t invent a single contraption to keep it pulled to. I need the person who invented handles to come and fix mine. Or, you know. I bet my husband could fix it.

Speaking of husbands, mine is obsessed with Netflix. Our schedules are fine tuned down to a science. He takes the kids to school on Mondays and Tuesdays: my days off. I take them Wednesdays through Fridays: my work days. This makes our bedtime schedules flip flop. On the nights before I work, I go to bed super early. As I kiss him goodnight, I see his eyes stray to the Playstation controller. I know his thoughts are already gone. Lately he’s been getting frustrated with Netflix’s selection. Everything looks “boring” or “lame”. I’ve told him over and over, “You should start watching a series. There are plenty on there! We could pick one and watch it together!” “I don’t want to get all involved in a series!”, he’d reply. Well, the other night I came home from my women’s bible study, to find him lying in bed in the dark, headphones plugged into his phone, avidly staring at the screen.

“What are you doing?”, I asked.

“Shh!”, he responds, his eyes darting back and forth between me and his phone. I watch the blue lights flicker on his face. “I finally took your advice. I started a show.”

“Oh!” I say, interested now. “What show??”

“Sons of Anarchy.”

What.

Um. No. That is not what I meant.

“Babe! When I said you should pick a show, I meant something like How I Met Your Mother. I even SAID, ‘Babe, we should watch How I Met Your Mother’!”

“Shhhh!”

And that was that. I have lost my husband to the Sons of Anarchy. But if he tries to sell my car to buy himself a Harley, I’m putting my foot down.


I’m happy tonight. I’m writing about it to savor the feeling, so that the next time I’m feeling ungrateful and unhappy, I can come back and read this. And remember that I’m happy. Whether I feel it or not, I am happy.

I just finished packing the kids’ lunches for tomorrow. Now. I’ll be honest. I detest packing lunches. I don’t know why. There’s no reason for it. It doesn’t take even 10 minutes. It just seems like such a chore to me. On Sunday we made a ham for dinner, a good sized ham that would never have gotten eaten in one sitting by our family. I’m not really what you would call a Ham Fan. I wouldn’t wear it on a t-shirt or anything. Jeremy and Ashton are Ham Fans. Every day this week, I have sent in Ashton’s lunch huge, man-sized, thick slices of ham in a Ziploc baggie, along with a hot dog roll, for him to make huge, man-sized ham sandwiches. He is in heaven. Manly, Ham Fan shirt wearing heaven. Maybe it gives him bragging rights among his peanut butter sandwich friends. Maybe it makes him the Alpha male. Maybe he beats his chest and hollers in his protein high. I don’t know. I only know, I have ended every evening smelling like ham, and he has gone to school every morning glorying in the riches of his ham filled lunch box.

Chloe is the opposite. I love that girl. I really do. She is so winsome, and sweet, and full of life and love. She often reminds me of my very own little Anne Shirley, living in her own world, skipping to her own tune. I just love her. But. She is the world’s pickiest eater. Well, maybe not the world’s. But definitely our family’s. Chloe eats very little meat. She’s been known to eat Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets. I’ve watched her eat an occasional slice of bacon under extreme duress. But she doesn’t enjoy it. She doesn’t like fruits or vegetables. She likes carbs. She loves spaghetti. Bread. Macaroni and cheese. Mashed potatoes. And she’ll eat eggs, yogurt, and drink milk. That’s it. We’ve tried everything. Bribery. Threats. Trickery. Nothing works. So, in the end, we feed her. She would eat cinnamon toast for every meal if I let her. Here is what Chloe will accept in her lunchbox: Spaghettios. Chef Boyardee Beefaroni (as long as she can eat around the “meatballs”, which we all know aren’t even real meat, so she needn’t worry), and her favorite: “Chocolate Sandwiches”. This consists of none other than two slices of bread smeared with Nutella. I know. I’m so ashamed. I know that it’s basically like letting her eat a cake sandwich everyday for lunch. “Here you are, my child, have these two thin slices of cake slathered in chocolate icing, and let’s call it lunch.” But, the fact is, she eats it. And at this point, that’s all I’m going for. I finished packing lunches tonight reeking of ham and Nutella. Meat and chocolate. That is so gross. It’s like... Willy Wonka meets Sweeney Todd. Which, I guess, they kind of did, if you count Johnny Depp as the true Willy Wonka.

In closing, here is a list of the music I listened to today (and yes, some of them are listed in my previous blog. You can check out my Spotify playlists under my username, mbsmoot--- I think. If that doesn’t work, let me know) :

The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 and Beyond (which has lately left me with a burning question: With the impending approach of Catching Fire, is there any way possible that the second soundtrack can live up to the first? Opinions, please.)
Sleeping At Last: Atlas
James Vincent McMorrow: Early In The Morning
Wicked: Original Broadway Cast
Death Cab For Cutie: Codes and Keys

If you happen to see on my profile that I’ve been listening to the Sons of Anarchy season one soundtrack, IT WAS NOT ME.

Happy Winds-Day, friends.

M