Why Bother Making Rules You Know She Will Not Follow?

As you may have noticed, I am taking a bit of a blog break. This is different, you understand, than me just not posting. This is me taking the pressure off and making a conscious decision to not post.

This blog became more than I intended it to be. Nearly everyone in my life knows about it, which was fine when it was just family pictures and cute stories about the kids.

But I am more than that.

And I have so much to say but it's stuff that isn't for everybody to hear. And so, while I decide what to do with Marmite Breath Slept Here, I am going on a little sabbatical. (It might only be for a few more weeks, but I think a regimented break will be good for my head. I want to have a few weeks where I am not using everything as potential blog fodder).

I am okay. I'm still a writer on the inside.

But I am not Marmite Breath for a while.

Fame is Not Just a Song by David Bowie (The Real David Bowie, Not the Flight of the Conchords Bowie, although that one was better than the original)

It's a New Year, and I am not going to tell you my resolutions, because being accountable to even one person is too much pressure, let alone the entire damn Internet. Did you know that the entire damn Internet reads Marmite Breath Slept Here? Well, they do. My site meter does not lie. I am ridiculously popular!

(insert segue, Nat, and shut up)

It's a Major Award, Y'all (shut up, English people can say y'all whenever they want). Well, TWO MAJOR AWARDS. Now, I don't want to brag or anything, because it's very unseemly. However, I will brag here for a minute before I tell you about my major awards.

(First though, I keep forgetting to mention this, but my blog is now two years old. WHOOPIE!)

Yeah, so, um, back to how popular I am.

Amalah (Queen of the Internet), has twice selected one of my blog posts for her Mom's Daily Dose. And, (clears throat) she called me hilarious. I didn't even pay her! If you are a blogger, I don't have to tell you that this is like, MAYJAH! I love her. [And she writes for MamaPop, which is one of the first sites I read every day.]

And back when I first started blogging, one day I got a comment from somebody that I didn't know and it was totally eye opening to think that strangers were reading what I was writing. The comment was from The Bloggess. (Vice Queen of the Internet)

(Hahahah. Jenny's a Vice Queen. She'll like that. Queen of Vice....heheheh )

And Beck? From Frog and Toad are Still Friends (also known as The Writer That I Want to Be) left me a comment last month that said (oh, and I'll leave out the context, just to throw you off), "We should try to have a picture taken of the two of us together, probably". And then she told me that a house across the street from her is for sale and she practically BEGGED me to move to Canada. Okay, that last part is not true, and I have to say, I LOOOOOVE how she added "probably" to the end of her sentence about having our pictures tooken. Like, probably, unless you turn out to be a freak, Nat, and then I am blocking you from my blog. And stop calling me.

So I am no stranger to fame. (BWAH!)

But now I have been AWARDED! by The Hotch Potchery (who I only recently discovered, but now I read all the time and LAUGH) and Carolyn (with whom I would love to go for coffee and laffs) because they think I am Super Awesome Badass and Lots of Other Adjectives! Follow the links to see the awards because I am having trouble getting pictures of them!

Thank you very, very much to both of you for giving me an award! I actually feel like a real blogger now, even though I've never been to Blogher (but want to go to it in Chicago this year).

In recognition of this, I have started my long awaited (by me) transfer of posts from my old blog to this one. I spent a little time earlier today transfering the files from my very first NaBloPoMo in 2006. I've only done nearly the first two weeks of November 2006, and the links are not all perfect, but soon this blog will be a complete representation of Marmite Breath. And I'll feel better because it's something I've been meaning to do for a long time.

[I wasn't expecting you to be excited]

And yes, in case you were wondering, blog more often is one of my resolutions.

(answer email is another. I have 466 emails that either need to be be deleted or responded to)

Upcoming blog topics..........

Why i hate buying underwear

Why I am a different sort of friend as an adult than I was when I was a teenager/young whippersnapper. (deep evaluation and soul searching going on)

Why my hair is obviously a karmic punishment for something horrible I did in a past life.

Blue Tooth Stories

So, last week I accidentally left my car unlocked at night and some bastard stole my mp3 player and my bluetooth.

I am not a nice person, so I wished all sorts of horrible things to happen to the thief. Aaron was all "What if they really needed it to give for a Christmas present to their kids in this horrible recession?" and I was all, "I hope their fucking legs fall off, the thieving wankers" (I am unladylike when my stuff gets stolen).

And really, Aaron, when you are perusing Craigslist the following day, it is not funny to be like, "Oh my God, Nat, your mp3 player is for sale on here!"

Not funny.

We are having a Boxing Day get-together and I've been trying to prepare so that I'm not spending all day Friday doing mad baking. So far I have made a yule log, a rum cake, a dozen mince pies (I had sworn that I wasn't making mince pies since they are not vegetarian and I don't even think that Americans like them, but tonight I broke down and made a dozen, because I can't survive a Christmas without them), three dozen cookies, two lentil bakes, four dozen sausage rolls.

And, I have made two lovely strings of bunting for decoration. And managed to run the house and cook meals and not go insane. So there's that. I totally rock. I am planning on drinking my weight in Irish Cream on Friday so that I don't have to deal with the pressure of making sure people have a good time.

(Self medication is so Christmassy! I feel at one with the world!)

I got the awesomest package in the mail today from my lovely friend, Elena. She sent me FOUR ENTIRE PACKAGES of espresso and a grande box of my favourite Italian chocolates in the world, Baci. Grazie, Ele! Buon Natale! Ti voglio bene!

Tonight I was reading The Witches to the kids. In it, Grandmamma explains how to spot a real witch. Among many other things, she will have blue spit.

Well, I thought it would be HILARIOUS to go into the kitchen, swish some blue food colouring around in my mouth and see how long it took the kids to notice.

Well, it took about five seconds after I sat back down with the book. And there was great hilarity.

"Mom, you've got blue spit!" shouted Tom. "EW!"

Hadleigh's eyes rolled back so far in her head that she could probably see her own butt crack.

"Very funny" she said. "Very funny, indeed"

And they both asked me to get rid of the blue teeth because it is just creepy as hell.

I still have blue teeth. They thought it was so funny when I kept swishing water around in my mouth and still coming up blue toothed.

I'm going to brush them now, I guess.

Did Van Gogh's Mum Have to Put Up With This Rubbish?

"It's an art term, Mom" Hadleigh says to me. "I'm having an inspiration sensation!"

She scribbles furiously in her new sketch pad, punctuating the design process with a jubilant throwing of an arm into the air. "Eureka!" she shouts. "Brilliant!"

Suddenly, tragedy. The picture is not shaping up as the artist desires.

"GRRR!!" she exclaims. "It's toxic! It cannot be in my sketch pad!"

She rips the offending page out of the pad. Scrunching up the paper, she moans tragically.

"I'm lost and left as a crumble of nothing........NOTHING!!!"

(I try not to laugh hysterically at this point, because, oh God, this is all my fault)

"What do you mean, Had? Left as a crumble of nothing? I don't get it. What do you mean?"

"Oh. I'm left as more of a nothing than you could ever understand" she says, in an Eeyore voice.

There is sadness in the land, and the artist lays down her pencil and lies down on the floor.

Twenty seconds pass. Gloom pervades the atmosphere. There is silence (except for the distant sound of a six year old boy in the next room singing, "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas".)

"Mom" says the Gothic one, solemnly climbing back onto the couch and taking up her pencil once more. "I must have silence. This is my moment of greatness"

A few more pencil strokes, and yes, probably a few more months off my life. The stress of mothering a total pain-in-the-ass temperamental and creative artist is making me INSANE!

Masquerading as a Normal Eleven Year Old

Due to Lack of Interest, Tomorrow is Cancelled.

Apologies to the Kaiser Chiefs for using one of their song lyrics for a post title!
I don't know where my kids get their silly face-pulling thing from.
Oh, wait, sorry, yes I do.
Also, I don't know how much wine I had consumed when this picture was taken. But I don't think I need to know. I think it's obvious the answer is "more than you should have had, Nat".
God, why do I pull that stupid face?

Empty Inside

Sometimes in Ivy there was an empty feeling, and the emptiness ached; it ached so much that she had to say something quickly in case she cried, and, 'I don't care at all,' said Ivy.

-The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden.

**********

We are doing an advent jar at our house. Twenty five pieces of paper folded up in a jar. We open one every day.

Paint every one's toenails in Christmas colours. Or tonight, we got Learn about The Nativity Story. (Loud groans from the atheist children, but interesting discussion after we read the book).
To show how cynical my children are, they asked if I had written chores on any of the papers. Um, am I in the habit of adding chores to every fun thing or something? What a killjoy I am!

*****

This morning was pretty emotionally draining. I love the kids at school, but as I rode my bike home, I felt as if I had an anvil on my chest. They need help. More help than I can give. Sometimes, (and yes, I know this is pointless) I just come home and cry my eyes out. We got a new student today. She is homeless. This makes two homeless students in our class, and I'm sure I don't need to point out, two homeless children too many.

So many problems with these babies.

T is in foster care and has been really acting out lately. Yesterday was full of fits, crying jags, tantrums. Today I approached him slowly and asked how he was feeling. He stormed away from me, left the classroom, kept running and wouldn't come back. The teacher went after him. He went to talk to the counselor for a while. He sat at his table, crying, and wouldn't talk to anyone. I went up to him again and asked if there was anything I could do. He started crying again and said no. I walked him to the lunch line.

I gave him a huge hug. When he was hugging me back, I didn't want to let go of him. He is breaking my heart. What's hurting him? What sort of world do we live in where six-year olds are depressed? Are suffering? Tonight I asked Tom about a patch of hair on T's head that is a different colour than the rest of his head.

"Oh, that's where he burned his head," Tom said, helpfully. "I think it was on a stove or an oven or something."

[!!!!?????!!!!!!!]

My buddy J still has the ear infection. But, he is slowly coming out of his shell and I can see real progress in his learning. This tempers the sting of feeling like I am not able to do much else about his life outside of school.

Tonight when I was reading to our kids, I started crying when I thought about the kids at school.

I dried up pretty quickly. I mean, they know that not everybody has a good life, but if I told them what was wrong, that I despair sometimes, it would be too much for them to handle. Aaron and I struggle to strike a balance between sheltering and informing. God, that's hard to do sometimes.



But, anyway, other than that, everything's fine! How are you? :)

*************

My Dad will probably call this a "moaning" post and ask me if I have been listening to the Spanish language CDs he sent me [Dad, seriously, I am in the process of sorting all my music files out to put them all on my laptop, and the CDs don't work in my car. I promise, I will be hablo-ing the espan-yoley with you soon!]

In Which I Try to Win a Wii Fit

I'm supposed to write a post about how badly I want to win a Wii Fit from my friend Magpie over at Magpie Musing. I'm really tired, so I thought about just copying and pasting "I want one, I want one, I want one" but that seemed lazy.

Still, it would get the point across.

But why do I want one? Do I live in some arctic tundra where it is too cold for me to go out and exercise in the winter?

No, I just moved from the tundra to quite a mild climate.

Do I not have access to a gym, or at least a reasonably priced one?

Hmm, we live not too far from a base that has a free gym. I think I am shooting myself in the foot here and just letting Magpie know that I am lazy.

But I want one!

Okay, I cannot go to the gym. I just shouldn't be around large machines. Last year when I was going to the gym in order to prepare for The Navy Ball, I got overheated whilst on the treadmill and I attempted to take off my sweater.

Yeah, without pausing the treadmill.

Have you ever seen a short, sweaty woman try to take her sweatshirt off while she 's walking on the treadmill? Have you ever seen the sweatshirt get stuck on her head while she scrambles wildly to get it off while being thrown backwards off the machine in front of an extremely hot sailor?

Can you imagine the pain of your children pretending not to know you after they come out of the play area at the gym and SEE the madness?

The gym's out, I'm afraid.

I don't do exercise videos because I have too much self loathing as it is and seeing fit, healthy people do the exercises without collapsing (like I do) is just too much.

Also, when I watch Walk Away the Pounds, the woman makes me wish I had some bamboo shoots and her fingernails.

But if I had a Wii Fit? Oh, I could exercise in the comfort of my own home! At any time! And the kids could actually see their Mother get fit and enjoy it, instead of hearing me moan about having to exercise. And we could exercise together, as a family, whether it's raining or snowing or windy or whatever. I would LOVE it!

Late at night exercise, early in the morning exercise, whenever exercise. I love that idea.

I want it! I might even NEED it! What can I do for exercise when Aaron is gone and the kids are out of school? How can I get through a deployment without some sort of exercise at home program? I can't! OMG, I should get the Navy to give out a Wii Fit to every Navy spouse.

I can't see the Wii Fit injuring me as badly as falling off a treadmill would. Unless I fall off the balance board and fall into the TV.

I am willing to take that risk.

Day Thirty

There are only 30 days in November, right?

For those who want to try Tiramisu ice cream (and don't care about such trivialities as fitting into your pants) here you go:

2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 C whipping cream
1 C milk (i used skim because I care DEEPLY about reducing the fat content. ahahahha)

Get your Kitchenaid mixer (thank you Mother in Law, I use this nearly every day and adore it beyond measure). Throw in the two eggs. Whip them up for a few minutes. Gradually add the sugar.

Wander around the kitchen aimlessly and wipe down some surfaces with disinfectant.
Add the milk and the cream. Purposefully leave a little cream in the carton and then walk away from the window, crouch down behind the kitchen island and drink the rest of the cream.

Then chuck in an 8oz container of Mascarpone cheese. Well, as you can probably guess, it was an 8oz container when I took it out of the fridge. But since I discovered how much it tastes like clotted cream, I had to have a few spoonfuls.

Anyway, chuck the rest of it in the Kitchenaid. Then brew a few Bialettis of espresso. When you have about half a cup of espresso, pour that into the mixer aswell. Let it all whip up for a couple of minutes. Pour in a couple glugs of whatever type liquor you have on hand.

I almost used the Glen Livet, but remembered that a certain coffin dodger (My Dad in Law) doesn't ask for much in life but he does like a drink of that when he visits. So I used SoCo. I am classy that way.

Transfer it to the ice cream maker. When it's done, eat the hell out of it. Then eat it the next day, all the while moaning, "This has to be gone! It is my downfalllllllllllllllllllllllllllll"

So, what have we learned from this valuable NaBloPoMo experience?

1) Nat needs therapy
2) Nat probably has an eating disorder
3) Nat has control issues regarding food that are definitely affecting her life and friendships in a not very positive way.
4) Nat's skin makes her crazy (but she got some good product advice from Sarah, thanks matey I will take your advice)
5) The advice does not involve bird poo. Jeez.
6) Nat's life does not always make for interesting blogging. Unless you are Nat's therapist.
7) Talking about oneself in the third person makes one seem very interesting and relevant.
8) Okay, not really. I loathe people who talk about themselves in the third person. It is obnoxious as hell.
9) I don't do well with self reflection. Because it hurts. Ouch. Psychic pain = Not gan doo it.
10) I am SO EXCITED about tomorrow. I am having a craft day with my friend Leila and we're going to make some Christmas presents for the kids. I love it! I made some presents already for my neice, Olivia, and I started on the teacher gifts. I really have to kick it up a notch now because I have to get it all mailed SHARPISH! And I think I just decided that I'm not doing Christmas cards this year because I am feeling all grinchy and shit. I adore cards, but I (to quote my Uncle Vance) "can't get me 'ead round it".

And now, to end up NaBloPoMo with a bang, I have a big announcement...................











You dopes just got schooled, Biden Style!
(did you think I was going to say I was pregnant? BWAHHAHAHAH)

Preview

Twenty Nine

Instead of leaping out of bed to start my "Countdown to Christmas Party Detox and Exercise Plan" I lay in the bed until the phone rang at 11:30 and Leila asked, "Are you still asleep??"

I was ashamed to admit that, yes, I was still asleep. Tom was playing Nintendo and Hadleigh was watching a Christmas movie in the living room. The dog was looking accusingly at me as nobody had bothered to feed him or let him out to pee yet. Aaron was on duty.

I got up, did a general tidy-up, sorted out a few arguments between the kids, strung up some Christmas lights in the kids rooms and in the sun room, and then, I ate a cup a soup and made some tiramisu ice cream in the ice cream maker.

The kids and I ate a bowl each and now we're all hopped up on espresso and Southern Comfort.

Nothing says detox like giving your kids ice cream with coffee and liquor.*

*Don't tell me I need to put a disclaimer here. You know there wasn't much SoCo involved.

Twenty Eight

Today I woke up a bit hungover after a visit to Steve and Leila's for dessert ended up with me eating my weight in desserts and drinking my weight in white wine. Perhaps not my weight, but about three glasses and for some reason this made me very warm and tipsy. What a lightweight I was.

Today I ate some tiramisu for breakfast and a slice of pumpkin roll. Then at about 11:15, I ate a huge plate of Thanksgiving leftovers and the last bit of tiramisu. Then we all went to meet Rebecca and the boys at Mount Trashmore. Then I came home and ate two pieces of pumpkin pie with cool whip. Yeah, the food issues are pretty rampant this week. And to think I thought I would lose five pounds before the Christmas party.

I am now going to Cafe Press to see if they have a shirt that says "Everything you see, I owe to tiramisu" [apologies to Sophia Loren]

Random Fact: Sophia Loren was born in Pozzuoli, just like my little Napoletano, Tom.

This evening we have started the Christmas decorating. I am trying not to panic about this Christmas. I want to keep things simple. I'd love to handmake a lot of presents, but I don't know if I have time. I have some cute ideas for all the kids in the family though, so perhaps I can start implementing them this week and next. Oh, why do I leave things until the last minute?

I am rereading Little Women. I found a vintage copy for my neice, Abby and I just cannot WAIT for her to read it and fall in love with it. I read some passages and just revel in them. They're the equivalent of a warm bath. Was that sentence cheesier than a crockpot full of Velveeta?

Hadleigh's birthday is coming up soon. She wants to have a sleepover with her two besties. They can order pizza, watch movies and I told her we could do spa things like manicures and face masks. She's happy with that. I can't believe she is going to be eleven. She has given me every grey hair on my head, but our hearts are completely connected.

I didn't eat dinner (unless you count the pie) and I am starving. A person with a burgeoning eating disorder would skip the dinner and feel both (a) ashamed of how little self control she had the past two days and (b) proud of herself for tolerating the hunger pangs all evening.

Not me though. I'm going to eat some more leftovers. It's a shame to waste.