Manderley

It's been raining for 3 days straight









After my kids go to bed, I listen to the rain in the dark.








I'm reading Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. It is the quintessential read on a rainy day book. The only downside, is that I don't really want to do anything else.






I've been picking lavender from the garden a few houses down from Elliot's preschool. I have a little bundle drying in my car. (You know, it kind of masks the odor of having three rather smelly, albeit adorable, kids in the car)




It's time to pull my sewing machine out again. I want to make some little pouches for my lavender so I can have a sweet-smelling underwear drawer (which would be more effective if the underwear actually made it TO the drawer. More like sweet-smelling underwear laundry basket.) Also, Astoria is going to be Alice for Halloween. I'd better get on that post-haste.



The soundtrack to all this rainy-ness has been the newest Jimmy Eat World album, Invented, and Something to Write Home About by the Get Up Kids (it is soooooooo good, but also makes me feel kind of old. I don't think anyone listens to the Get Up Kids anymore, which is really really sad.) Also this amazing cover of Radiohead's Creep (look out kids, it's got an f-swear)

I Like October.

A Metaphor?

It started raining while Elliot and I were walking to school today. Crazy, torrential, violent, mixed-with-hail, kind of rain.

via Slow Muse

We stopped near a building with a large awning for a minute to see if it would let up. Elliot just wanted to keep going, in the rain.

I said okay, and not 5 seconds later a man with an umbrella walks up and offers it to us.

Last night a different man threatened to call the police on me for leaving my three (one of whom was sleeping) kids in the car while I ran into the gas station to buy a single chocolate milk. I'm sorry, but there is a difference between parking your kids in the hot sun for 20 minutes while you shop and refraining to wake up, unbuckle, and drag two toddlers and a baby into a gas station while you buy an effing chocolate milk for them. So, rationally, I threw the chocolate milk at him, yelled something not nice, and went back to my car where my kids started to cry because I didn't have their chocolate milk. We spent the next 20 minutes driving around to find someplace that had chocolate milk in a drive-thru window.

I drove the next 3 hours angry, miserable, and feeling like the worst parent in the world.

This morning Elliot and I saw a rainbow. Someone let us borrow their umbrella. The lavender in the rain smelled heavenly.

Love for Team Cowan

Just in case you didn't already know, Team Cowan is the absolute best ever.

We were friends before we even met.

It's story time now, so feel free to sit on the carpet criss-cross- applesauce (because apparently they can't say Indian-style anymore)

As Blair's once and future wife, I was embarking upon the rite of passage of meeting Blair's friends.

First there was Rico. We "met" over the phone, which if you're going to meet Rico, is really the best possible way to start things off. He's a great guy (we love our Uncle Rico) but over the phone, he's the most interesting man in the world.

Then I met Mark. Blair's best man at our wedding, and the primary force behind Blair's sushi conversion. As soon as Blair and I got engaged, we went straight to Mark's house to share with him the news. He likes to claim that he was the first person we told, but in all honesty, I called my BFF Katie Hulett on the way to his apartment. (And on a side note, everyone should have at least one dearest friend named Katie. I'm just awesome because I have TWO! )

Jaron (or The Duke) was SO much fun. We don't see him much anymore, but like Blair, he's a basketball coach. We went to the Nike Basketball Coaching Clinic in Vegas with him one year and had a blast trying to take sneaky pictures of crazies.

Brock, Blair's roommate at the time, is... well he's Brock, or you may know him as Goodbye Nova. :)

Last of all there was Zach. Blair had told me about Zach and his wife Katie. Zach was the only one of Blair's friends who had a wife at that time so I was excited anyway to meet her.

Instant Love.

She is lovely, and creative, and silly, and so very smart, crafty, artistic, and absolutely hilarious. When Blair and I were married, Katie helped out with some very amazing things, and I will forever be grateful to her for that. She taught me how to sew awesome t-shirts, AND has two strapping young lads comparable in age to my lovely daughters. Is arranged marriage still frowned upon in our culture? :)

In summation, I love Team Cowan. And not just because of this.

Listen to Me!

Push some buttons, and be happy.

As an added bonus, listen to Big Casino to see where the title of my blog originated.

Extra Lame

Because I love teamBoo more than any other blog I creepily stalk, what kind of crazed obsessed fan girl would I be if I didn't play Project Boo: Defenseless Babies Edition. Or in my case, defenseless 4-year old who goes through withdrawals if she can't play Lego Harry Potter 20 hours a day. (this is an exaggeration. i promise i'm not that terrible of a mom.)




except... uh....

what is THAT?!

I'm trying to decide if the super ghetto vibe of this picture makes my extra awesome, or just really super lame.





So lame in fact, that i'm starting descend into a existential-blog crisis. Is it possible to have a blog, and not be some kind of semi-professional or super-advanced-amateur photographer?

Seriously, i kind of feel like the kid in middle school with the gross homemade lunch, while all the other cool kids eat their cool lunchables and snack packs.

But having nothing but a weak-a camera phone does capture moments like these:



Behold! Rou crawling into the refrigerator!





And check out these super girls. Best part of our super hero night, was when Elliot came up with a magic spoon that would take us wherever we wanted to go when she whispered into it. I think a tiny conductor may have been living in the spoon as well.






We went to a boat, Africa, the Zoo, and America (sure. okay Elliot.) And we rescued some baby lions. It was an eventful evening, even if the only proof I have of it is something very blurry.

So until the time that Elliot can conjure up a real-life camera out of her tree branch magic wand, i'll keep stalking teamBoo. Maybe i'll send her a cup of my blood. (ok... it's funny if you've seen Blades of Glory, I promise. )

White Pants

With the exception of skirts on Sundays, and my stretchy workout pants on Zumba days, all I wear are jeans. Currently, every last pair I have either a) don't fit -or- b) fit and have holes in the knees from excessive wear.

Yet somehow here I am, a solid week after Labor day, wearing white pants.




weird.

I received them from a friend who was getting rid of some old clothes. Anything from this friend, being super hot and ten bazillion times more fashionable than myself, had to, at the very least, be tried on. I didn't think the white pants would even come close to fitting. Especially since earlier that day...

someone asked me when my baby was due.

guuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Even though i'm 80% robot and don't cry ever, even when we're watching Toy Story 3 or Up and Blair is sobbing next to me, this got to me hardcore. I cried in my car like an emotionally disturbed four year old. (something with which I have loads of experience)

So when I tried on the impossibly small white pants with no hope whatsoever, only to find them pleasantly closed, I decided I would wear them today just on principle.

No I am not pregnant. Thanks for asking.

So, dear lady who just happens to work at my FAVORITE bookstore, please try to have a little more tact next time I come in to buy charmingly used copies of Rebecca, or to order some more Steven Milhauser.

Thanks.

Recent quotes of awesomeness from my kids:

Elliot:

• "Mommy, don't call daddy a terrorist."
• "Please? just a few more minutes?" (in response to my efforts to wake her for school. I thought it'd be a few more years before I started hearing this. guess not.)
• (eavesdropping while she wishes on a star) "I wish that I can be big so I can be smart like daddy and exercise like mommy, and I wish that I can be big so I can drive a car"
  

---

Astoria:

• "I have Snow White poop. Because I'm a princess."
• (after giving her a kiss on the cheek outside on a breezy day) "Mommy! the wind blew my kiss away!"
• "You're the biggest Mommy in the WHOLE WORLD!"

---

Rou:

• "bababababababababadadadadadadaaaaaaaaa...." (you get the idea)

Thanks to Chelsey for the photos. You always save my bacon. Or something...

New Friends Come to Play

I'm still collecting.

These lovely ladies not only enjoy a good book, but are fortunate enough to share family ties with Team Cowan. Double win.


And now... Off to the theater!!