I AM NOT A HOARDER! :)

it's rummage sale time again at my church. it's really my favorite time of year. i volunteer during the set-up week, since i can never work or go to the sale since i work. i've fallen into a routine with the ladies -- everyone has their section that they sort. my section contains sweaters, pants & skirts. it's really an awful section for me to work, cuz my weakness is sweaters & cardigans. i love them. and every rummage sale, i come home with an enormous pile of *new* sweaters. but every rummage sale, i go through my stuff & the kids' stuff and get rid of stuff. i really don't understand how i can get rid of so much twice a year, and still have so much stuff!

but this year is a little different. we're planning a move, and so christopher is all about getting our house ready to put on the market. since we're planning to live in the house while we're trying to sell it, it needs to be ready to show at any moment. and that means that we need to downsize the amount of junk we've got. that means *I* need to reduce the amount of junk i have. but as i'm going through my stuff, yeah, i've got a lot, but no where near as much as i thought i did.

there was a trunk in our under-porch storage area that i've had since i graduated from high school. i had it shipped over to the states from germany when i started college. it went into storage every summer in ithaca & has gone everywhere with me since. i really had no idea what was inside. but what i found really surprised me -- there was really nothing inside! lots and lots of moldy junk (since we had a water problem under the porch), but nothing of any real importance. i mean, i found a lot of sentimental crap, and i did find my passport (which expired in 1993), and pictures of my brother & sister from high school, and a fabulous letter to charlie peltz, orchestra conductor & sex maniac extraordinaire. :)

i'm a sucker for pictures. i found a photo album of pictures of me taken in a random park. really odd. i also found 2 composites from my fraternity in college. totally awesome, but i really don't remember some of the older girls in the fraternity. and the hair! my word! :) we thought everything was so important back then. and some of my fraternity sisters are still really good friends, even 20 years later :)

but most of the stuff that was in the trunk that i thought i absolutely had to keep got thrown out. letters from high school friends in texas about people that i don't remember. posters from shows i don't remember doing. really random stuff that i don't remember why i decided to keep it. it actually feels good to let go and stop allowing myself to be defined by the things i own. now, if only i could feel that way about my shoes.

i have an entire collection of heels on a special shoe rack in my bedroom that christopher built for me. they're all arranged by color. i have an entire row of red shoes and one of purple shoes. i'm searching for the green shoes i see in my head. i only have 1 pair of orange shoes, but they're flats, and i'd love to find a pair of pumpkin pumps. :) but i only wear them on sundays to church. i don't go anywhere any other day that wearing clickety-clickety heels would be appropriate. i definitely couldn't stand up in them all day at the salon. and i'd look weird wearing them to drop alexander off at pre-school. so why do i need so many pairs? it always seems that i wear the same ones all the time anyway. but i love to look at them. christopher tried to get me to keep them in the basement, but i need to be able to see them. on sunday mornings, sometimes i'll lie in bed and look at them while i try to decide what i'm wearing. OOH! i just bought a new pink silk cardigan at the rummage sale that i think would go with my pink slingbacks for church on sunday with a white shell & a black pencil skirt :) nice! i love it when inspiration just hits me :)

who's that girl?

i've spend a significant portion of today in the kitchen. so much so that i have my practice disc of lucia di lammermore set up in the kitchen cd player & my music stand with my opera score set up right next to it. i never imagined a life where i'd bake my own bread and granola on a regular basis. and i've actually even graduated from using my bread machine to making the bread with my kitchenaid stand mixer & kneading it by hand. hunh?

any of my roommates from undergrad could tell you that the kitchen was never my domain. i was always the last to take care of the dishes or cleaning up of any sort. and i think joanna had just about given up on me ever actually washing the silverware. she once commented that i was the only person she knew that could wash dishes without getting my hands wet :). and here i am now with 2 kids, baking artisan bread on a weekly basis and making gourmet granola on request -- special with nuts just for my husband to take to school for breakfast.

even though i never actually had clear picture of what the future held for me, i know it wasn't this, and it's taken me a while to be comfortable with it. my husband and i are still in the process of redefining our roles. i don't think i will ever be a typical housewife/stay at home mom. i was raised by a mother who routinely tells people to "bite me." it really does make you feel better, even if you don't say it out loud. my husband, on the other hand, was raised as one of 8 by a good catholic mother who took in sewing. so we have very different images of what a mother should be doing during the day. my vision includes surfing the web and tending to my online business. his vision includes pearls & and apron, meeting him at the front door with his nightly scotch. :) needless to say, we've still got some work to do to find the middle ground. but we're getting there.

luckily, he's progressive enough to realize that he's got to adapt as well. his mother once mentioned to me that his father never changed a diaper for any of the 8 kids, while christopher will often be the one to offer to take care of that duty. and he's awesome with vomit. my therapist thinks that i have an actual phobia about vomit. thank goodness i didn't have morning sickness with either of my pregnancies. but last night when alexander threw up at the top of the stairs, christopher didn't even think to tell me to clean it up myself. before we had kids i told him that i would do poop forever if he'd take care of the vomit. and there were many instances with isabelle especially where i was called upon to get poop out of all of the nooks and crannies. gotta love that runny breast-fed baby poop! it tends to get everywhere. not so much of a problem with a boy, but a completely different situation with a girl. ick! :)

but i'm excited, cuz i start rehearsal for my next show on monday. it's always nice to slip into a different personna every once in a while. i get to dress like an opera singer and go somewhere with other adults and sing in a foreign language. and i've heard they're the same costumes from the last production of lucia, which involved fabulous corsets. the kind of corsets that go from right under the boobs to your hips & require you to perch on the front of your seat with perfect posture. and last time we had an awesome dresser who really tied us tight into our corsets. we looked fabulous! i can't wait! yay me! :) i just hope our lucia this time is as fabulous as the last one. without an awesome lucia, both vocally and acting, the mad scene really sucks.

working out

ok, so i've been going to the gym & working out like a fiend. not becuz i really care, cuz my clothes fit for the most part, but mostly becuz my dr. told me that if i can commit to working out 5 days a week for at least 45 minutes of cardio i can get off my meds. awesome! but for the past 2 weeks, i've taken alexander to school & gone directly to the gym 4 days out of 5, and i've actually GAINED A POUND!!! really? what's up with that!?

now, i've been going to the gym and doing at least 35 minutes on the elliptical machine (cuz 45 minutes is too blasted long!) and then either walking on the track if kellie's with me, or doing some weights or something. and i'm trying to make better food choices cuz if i'm doing the physical part, i might as well get skinny, right? but i still feel fat and sluggish, and this morning i actually had to cut my workout short cuz i thought i was gonna pass out. thank goodness i'd packed some apples for isabelle & i for afterward, cuz otherwise i would have gone straight to the drive-thru at mcdonalds :) i would have gotten a smoothie, but they're SO good with a small fry. and the calories cancel each other out, right? :)

so i'm starting to think there's something else going on. i need to see my dr. anyway to talk about this mysterious non-carpel tunnel pain in my hand, so i'll mention this to her as well. i know my dad's pre-diabetic & my brother's hypo-glycemic & i'm a hypochondriac, so... :) either i'll be fat & medicated or skinny and neurotic, so we'll see what happens...