SilverSpiral.net

On Friday, my husband drove himself to the ER and was admitted to the hospital for acute pancreatitis. That night, he was moved to Critical Care due to tachycardia. His gallbladder was removed Monday morning, and he finally came home yesterday, where he is firmly parked on the couch. The last few days have been very stressful, needless to say, and I’ve been coping by cooking.

So far, I’ve made:
-homemade chicken nuggets
-spaghetti
-meatballs
-hamburger patties for the freezer
-browned ground beef for the freezer
-muffins
-potato soup
-avocado bread

And because I don’t feel like talking about the pancreatitis/gallbladder/stress level thing anymore, I am here to share with you how to make avocado bread.

Now, this is one of those recipes that’s so ridiculously simple I feel almost embarrassed sharing it, but the truth is, it’s food that never occurred to me until someone shared it with me and it’s SO GOOD and SO SIMPLE that you need to know how to do it. Also, I made this after I had already gotten the potato soup started but didn’t want leftover spaghetti for lunch.

Ingredients:
Yummy crusty bread
Avocado
Lemon juice
Sea salt
Parmesan cheese
Olive oil (not pictured because I forgot)

Directions:

Slice bread into inch thick slices and drizzle with olive oil.

Curse your avocado slicing skills.

Place slightly mangled avocado slices on top on bread.

Sprinkle parmesan cheese, lemon juice, and sea salt on top of avocado.

Now, you have a choice. Either a) stick bread into toaster oven and toast on “light,” or b) stick bread into oven on 350 degrees for about 6 minutes. Regardless, put bread into some sort of toasting appliance and do not remove it until bread is crunchy to your taste on the edges.

Place tasty toasted bread on plate and OM NOM NOM.

Now, let’s see, I might go make some peanut rice krispy treats. Or maybe homemade pizza…

Alaska boy, I can’t believe you’re six.

Your first day on Earth, I was terrified. I was in charge of something ALIVE that couldn’t take care of itself at all.

You got bigger, a little at a time.

And one day, all of a sudden, you were a little person – not a lump.

And from the start, you danced.

And danced

And danced

and danced some more

You’ve ridden dogsleds

made it through a car wreck with a tractor trailer without a scratch – and without even dropping your cookie

lived by the beach

picked pumpkins

got stitches, and a “Han Solo” scar

slept on TOP of your dresser

lived with your parents’ terrible influence

wobbled through your first ski lesson

met a mermaid

and blown out candles SIX TIMES

I don’t know what’s next – maybe you’ll fly a plane, or build a rocket, or simply watch all the episodes in existence of Phineas and Ferb, but know that we’ll be here to cheer you on.

You big doofus.

After several applications, 1 observation, and 3 interviews, I am successfully employed for next year! Doing exactly what I do now, in a school that has NORMAL SCHOOL HOURS THANK YOU OBI WAN KENOBI, and i won’t be extending my commute as it’s about the same distance away in a different part of the city. So, that’s helpful.

In other news, my father has had to rather abruptly retire, which is going to lead to some interesting adjustment pains, I’m sure. He’s been “on leave” from doctoring for a month (more, possibly, they didn’t tell us what was going on right away), due to having some odd spells of confusion – which isn’t a good thing when you are in charge of other people’s lives. After a host of random tests that included fun things like a lumbar puncture, they have determined that he’s got an early form of dementia. Which sucks, honestly.

They’re getting here this week to celebrate the Dark Lord’s sixth (SIX OMG) birthday. I’m tempted to buy Daddy a whole pile of crossword puzzles and Sudoku.

-I’ve never seen The Notebook.

-If given a choice between reading classic literature or reading ridiculous young adult novels, the young adult novel wins every time.

-I once called a 4 year old student an evil little troll child. This was after he kicked me for the millionth time and I’d spent the past 4 hours wrestling with another child who wanted to scratch my face off. I don’t feel guilty for this at all.

-Wall-E depresses me, and I cried the first time I saw it when I saw all the babies in their lonely little float cribs.

-I have a list of sensory issues a mile long. This list includes Food I Will Not Eat, Clothes I Will Not Wear, and Ways I Will Hurt People Who Tickle Me.

-I continue to teach, even though it continues to try and destroy my soul.

It’s the last one, really, that keeps getting me. Last year, I was not asked back, because I “wasn’t a good fit,” for the school. Which I can buy, because I pretty much hated the school and was bored bored BORED by my class.

I got the job I have now at the last minute, cancelled travel plans that had been made for months, and then promptly got called on the carpet and had my job threatened, so I wasn’t expecting much out of this year.

But, it turned out ok. While the principal never spoke to me and I never got even a tour of the school – so there are still whole areas of the school I’ve never been – nobody told me how to do my job, came in to criticize how I was following the curriculum (by which I mean, no one came into count how many kinds of manipulatives or types of books I had out). And I really like my kids, and the support staff are awesome.

So, to find out, a week after the required date of notification, by which I had already missed the school district’s hiring fair, that, while I wasn’t being not invited back, there would be no position for me to return to as my classroom was being closed, was a shock.

I was initially upset, but I came back the next day laughing.

I don’t know why or how, but I’m not crying and panicking over it.

It happened, it sucks, I just bought a bunch of new classroom stuff out of pocket, which REALLY sucks. But I’m ok.

And I’m applying, again, to more teaching jobs. Where principals will hate me or ignore me, where paras might or might not understand my directions, where parents will jump to conclusions, and we’ll run out of paper, and the kids will glue their fingers together, or cut their friend’s hair with scissors that are supposed to only be able to cut paper.

Better hold on tight – there’s no telling what will happen next.

Over the weekend, we went to the playground. It was a good thing we did, as we got to run around and climb the slide and generally be silly, and the very next day we got 7 inches of snow. Which is hard to push Voldemort’s scooter through.

But while we were there, and right before we were leaving, a strange thing happened.

Now, we’re no strangers to walking up to random people and making odd requests, but this one left Brandus and I both feeling…weird.

Voldemort was running in circles, and I was heading for the path home, when a man came up to me – older, smiley, average looking – and asked to borrow the kid.

Which isn’t the weirdest thing we’ve ever heard, so I just waited, and he explained – he had locked his keys in his truck, but the back window (the one over the bed) was open, and would we mind if he borrowed Voldemort to see if the kid could fit in the window and crawl in and get the keys. And in return, he would let Voldemort get something out of his “grab box” in the back of the truck.

Brandus and I looked at each other.

With both of us there, there wasn’t really any reason to say no, and it wasn’t like we wouldn’t be RIGHT THERE.

So, we shoved kiddo through the back window, and he grabbed the keys, handed them to the guy, and the guy popped open the door.

And kid got a matchbox car and some kind of Power Rangers toy from McDonalds, and later, a focused discussion as to why he would never ever do something like that without me or Brandus RIGHT THERE to say it was ok.

With the Dark Lordling finally have taken a turn for the better (long story involving 3 doctor visits in less than a month and way too much missed school for all three of us), I find myself longing for Spring.

…Partially because he’s bouncing off the walls now that he’s better and outside doesn’t have walls, but it’s still currently too cold and there is too much snow for me to want to challenge his just recovered immune system with spending too much time outside.

But I want it. I want Spring and outside and green.

I want to plant daffodils and I want to poke around in my little raised garden and I want it to be WARM.

And I want grass.

No, not weed – grass. A lawn.

We’ve lived in our house for just over a year, and we still have nothing that is lawn-like. The grass was all dead when we moved in, and even though we’ve received strongly worded scolding letters from our HOA*, we have yet to do a darn thing to fix it. Partially because when we moved in, it was winter, and then in spring when we called and talked to places that help raise the dead, they said it was too late for seed and we’d have to buy sod and omg do you know how expensive that shit is?

So, our lawn remains as little more than dirt and some scraggly looking dandelions.

But at this point, I’ll even take the dandelions. At least they’re green and alive.

*Other strongly worded letters from the HOA have included our inability to put our trash cans inside the garage instead of the neatly garbage-can-shaped indent BESIDE the garage where it makes sense to put it, the fact we have a nearly dead plant in our yard, and the fact we should be shoveling the walkway no one walks on.

I recently saw a list of crafts to make “For Men,” which included things like BBQ rub, beef jerky, and a canvas log carrier.

Clearly, all men like meat and build fires.

Which is ridiculous, because in my house, I’m the carnivore and the fire addict.

My problems with pinterest and stupid gender crap are getting more extreme, where I can no longer hold myself back and find myself leaving brightly phrased comments that I try to make sound non-sarcastic. Which is more difficult than you could possibly believe.

I have a particular problem with any pin that says anything stupid like: All girls need to read this! Every woman should pin this! Best books for boys!

I find myself having to step away and take deep breaths so I don’t lay out an entire feminist diatribe against the stupidity of this shit. But I can’t always resist. Which is why I have a board entitled Feminist, and another entitled Fuck Off, and sometimes THEY OVERLAP.

So stop talking crap about what “all girls” should do, or what “all boys” are like, and for fuck’s sake, STOP PISSING ME OFF WITH IT.

One night last week, I decided it was a wonderful night for a bath.

I grabbed one of my Lush bath bombs with no more than a cursory sniff to make sure it wasn’t objectionable.

I honestly thought I had grabbed a Honey Bee bath bomb. I keep each one individually wrapped, to try and protect the scent somewhat, so I didn’t even take it out before hand.

I ran the bath, turned on the battery operated candles (I know, but I can never find the freaking matches when I want them), and dumped the bath bomb in.

Which promptly went WHOOOSH and I thought, “Huh. That’s not Honey Bee.”

But I was tired and didn’t want to turn the lights back on and who cares, a bath is a bath.

I didn’t even turn on the lights when I was done – I had already brushed my teeth, so I just drained the bath and went to bed.

The next morning, when I went to get ready for the day, I realized the full extent of the carnage.

The entire bathtub was full of purple glitter. It looked like I had battled and won a fight against a Twilight-esque vampire.

Definitely not a Honey Bee.

On Wednesday, I woke up at my usual hour of oh-god-no, looked at the husband and said, “I’m not going to work today.”

“And why not?” he asked, which was a totally fair question.

“Don’t wanna.” And I flounced downstairs to call in for a mental health day. I spent the next few minutes eagerly thinking of the napping I could do and the tv I could watch that I never get a chance to.

And then the child came downstairs, fell apart over absolutely nothing, and when I hugged him to soothe his fragile five year old soul, I felt his forehead.

Oh. THAT was why I wasn’t going to go to school. BECAUSE I’M PSYCHIC.

Needless to say, I never got that nap and the tv was tuned to ridiculous things like Sophia the First and Gravity Falls.

One day out, no big deal, but when his fever hadn’t gone down by 4 and he had spent the entire day laying on the couch, not even jumping around or whining, I decided to keep him home on Thursday, too.

Two days out, ok, sure, it happens. His fever was lower and he was more entergetic, but was still hanging out at 99 degrees and just didn’t look right to me. I figured he’d been good to go on Friday, and I shared that feeling with the husband. Although I also said I wasn’t entirely comfortable sending him Friday. I just..wasn’t.

Brandus rolled his eyes and said, “He’ll be FINE,” and I figured he was right, so I put my unease to the side and went to bed.

Friday, I got up, got dressed, got a cranky sounding good morning grunt from the husband, and then took Voldemort’s temperature. Which was 100.4.

Brandus scoffed. Brandus rolled his eyes. Brandus told me I was being ridiculous and Voldemort would be FINE and he barely had a fever and GEEZUS SERIOUSLY YOU’RE STAYING HOME WITH HIM AGAIN GOD.

I find it a sign of my own personal maturity that at no point did I videotape myself doing the TOLD YOU SO song and dance and emailing it to him after the doctor told me that Voldemort had an upper respiratory infection topped with a double dose of conjunctivitis.

I spent the entire last day of 2012 curled up under a ridiculous number of blankets feeling like death would be preferable to sitting upright. The first day of 2013, I was feeling so much better that I took my blanket burrito downstairs and lay on the floor, occasionally moaning or making feeble motions towards eating soup.

It was quite the party.

Brandus is a total rock star, and I’m fairly certain I told him I’d give him my first born, which made him snort and Voldemort yell “NOOO” and try and burrow into my blanket fort with me to attach himself like a barnacle to my side. That lasted all of five seconds before he was trying to steal all of my covers to make himself a ghost.

So, 2013. Here we are.

2012, when I think about it, didn’t fit well into the “awesome” category. Honestly, it pretty much sucked. I got fired, which was a first. I started a new job – again. I thought I was doing great – again. And then I get called on the carpet during the first week and am bawled out about something that came completely out of left field – AGAIN! I started having actual panic attacks, which is FABULOUS, let me tell you. Both Brandus and Voldemort made a trip to the E.R. And the topping on the cake was the death of my mother in law.

Fuck you, 2012.

But you, 2013, I feel good things from you. I’m getting a new niece or nephew. I’m going back to get my Masters (unwillingly, but that’s irrelevant). I’m starting to write again.

You and me, 2013. We’re going to get along just fine. I’m going to ignore the fact that Voldemort needs significant dental work (HE’S NOT EVEN FIVE. HE BRUSHES TWICE A DAY. WHAT THE HELL.) and I spent the second night of 2013 dealing with significant insomnia because I kept running over and over and over what my mother would say about his teeth – all of which end up with her laying the blame neatly at my feet, much as she did when he was just born and wasn’t gaining weight and she decided it was because I wasn’t dressing him warmly enough and he was using up all of his energy keeping warm NOT THAT I STILL THINK ABOUT THAT OR ANYTHING – and generally feeling like a terrible mother. So I went downstairs and stuffed my head so full of words and words and words of stories that I drowned out my own Anxiety Disorder influenced words of blame and hate and horribleness and I ended up getting two hours of sleep but NONE OF THAT IS IMPORTANT.

What is important is that 2013 and I are going to get along just fine. I won’t get fired. I will handle the panic attacks by remembering that my xanax is in my purse for a reason. I will support the Brandus as much as I can. I’ll try and remember awesome days like today with my kid, where he’s happy and helpful and interested in everything. I’ll drink more water, sing more songs, dance with my students, clean the kitchen, bake a cake.

Welcome to my world, 2013. Let’s rock this year.

It started a few months ago, I think, although the memory is a little hazy.

A general email from Family Fun, a magazine I get, sent out to a billion people or some other ridiculous amount, asking for ideas for what we do with our kids for science.

I didn’t think anything of it, except that they were giving away a $100 gift card to a random survey respond-er, and at the time, $100 would have been AWESOME.

So I threw out the first idea I had – which is something we actually do – and promptly forgot all about it.

Until last month, when I got an email I thought was going to be the same thing – a general email from the magazine to a bunch of people, looking for responses. Instead, it started with DEAR ALIANORA, and expressed interest in possibly printing the idea – barring any other better ideas.

Um. Wow. Ok, sure. So, we exchanged a few emails, with them asking questions and me clarifying a few things.

And while I kind of thought, “Wow, this is kinda cool,” again, I didn’t think much about it, because what are the chances, right?

Yesterday, I got an email from a fact checker, and today, I got a contract in the mail.

Family Fun will be printing my idea and PAYING ME FOR IT.

The March issue should feature it, and I might pass out and die.

No, it’s not like I’m writing for the magazine, but it’s still pretty damn cool.

I’ve been hovering on the edge of an anxiety attack all day, and I just want to know WHY my anxiety is so heavily tied to my job and dealing with administrators? I got an email this morning from another sped teacher asking if I would be willing to have a meeting with my vice principal AND my immediate director of sped involving a situation with another teacher and a student of mine.

I’m not in trouble. I KNOW i’m not in trouble, and yet, here I am, right on the edge.

Of course, everything that’s going on at home is not making anything any better, as Brandus is on edge and so sad and so stressed, and I’m sad and stressed that HE’S sad and stressed, and so we’re just…yeah.

Write wills, people. And don’t try to run away from creditors. There is no reason on this entire freaking EARTH that I should be having to cancel magazine subscriptions and who knows what else that are in the name of a DOG that died seven years ago. A DOG. Because they didn’t want to put their own name on things.

I am currently in a joyful, “I HATE EVERYONE” mood, so much so that I actually hissed at my husband like a cat last night before swooping upstairs with my computer to hide under the covers and read fanfiction.

The death in the family thing I dont feel up to explaining again, because I’ve told the story so many times by now that it’s completely nonsensical to me and the really short version is: My mother in law died at her home after being in the hospital, released without telling anyone, and we got to clean her blood up off the floor. The last two weeks have been AWESOME!

I am currently depending heavily on xanax in order to sleep at night because between the husband’s current lack of relaxation and my own anxiety issues, I am basically pretending to sleep by some strange sort of glorified dozing which means I sit up and glare at the clock every half an hour.

The kid has gone crazy, which seems par for the course with all the other crazy. He’s handled all the traveling pretty well, although we’ve somehow lost two winter jackets and a sweatshirt, but he must be hitting a growth spurt because he cannot stop eating.

We’ve been staying in hotels with free breakfast whenever we’re trying to deal with the mess that is the MIL’s estate/house/royally-fucked-by-lack-of-will-stuff, and Voldemort eats 2 bowls of cereal, a piece of toast, sausage, orange juice, an apple, and a yogurt, and then an hour later when we are trying to meet with the estate planner or close out bank accounts, he pipes up with, “I’m STARVING.” We had to make an emergency pit stop to buy him more shoes, too, because he suddenly couldn’t walk in his old ones and we realized it’s because his toes were crunched up at the end, so now my five year old child is wearing Big Kid Twos and eating us out of house and home and we’re going to have to take out a second mortgage feeding him when he’s a teenager and wearing shoe size 72 and standing 18 feet tall. Otherwise, he’s handling the death of his grandmother fairly well, especially because we’ve let him keep all of the change we’re finding out the house, and he cackles as he feeds into into his little bank that counts it and I’m going to have to steal it because $50 in change would be very helpful right now.

Brandus is alternately dealing and shutting down – angry and then depressed – hopeful and anxious. So he’s either yelling at us or sleeping or having low level anxiety attacks about everything that could and can and will go wrong.

I wish there was a font specifically for sarcasm so I could design a cheery tshirt that says, “IT’S AWESOME!!” in giant glittery sarcasm font, because I really don’t think I can express myself in any other way.

There are way too few commas or sentences or something in this post, so I’m going to go glare at the broken caffeine machine and tell it how much I hate it for it’s denial of my Dr Pepper.

The Spiral will be dark for a bit – we had an unexpected death in the family and will be dealing with all that comes with that.

Will update sometime next week, I hope.

This summer, seeing as my husband is either planning a trip to Antartica (no, REALLY) or to somewhere in Asia, I decided I’m going to go on a trip, too.

I’m treating myself to the BlogHer conference in Chicago this July. And I’m really excited. I’m nowhere near a big name blogger – hell, I’m doing well to have 5 readers per post, but I really don’t care about that. I’m going to hang out with other bloggers – other women, especially, and hopefully make some new friends and have an awesome time for a few days.

Is anyone else planning on going?

My little boy – my lover of pink and Dora and fairies, has entered Kindergarten, where he is exposed to little boys who don’t play with Dora or fairies and think that pink is “for girls.”

My little boy looked at me this morning, where I was holding a pair of jeans and his favorite pink shirt, and said, “I don’t want to wear that to school.”

He wouldn’t tell me why, but I can guess. I can guess the same way I can guess why he told the teacher his favorite color is blue. I can guess the same way I can guess why he’s running around pretending to be a ninjago when he’s never shown any interest before.

Peer pressure is a weird thing, isn’t it? It only takes one comment from someone else before you never want to wear an outfit you were so proud of. It only takes one, “EW, PINK IS FOR GIRLS,” comment to make a little boy who loves pink stop admitting to it.

For now, I’m holding to the fact that my little boy still wears his pink shirt on the weekends, that he’s so excited to have a playdate with a little girl where they plan to watch the new Tinkerbelle movie, that while he looked a little sad about not wearing his pink shirt to school – he still smiled and told me that pink is still his favorite color. Just not in school.

I am sitting here, slightly grumpily, with a cup of tea. The cup of tea, which is not nearly sweet enough.

I am trying to adjust to using less sugar in my tea – in Georgia, tea is not properly sweet until NO MORE SUGAR WILL DISSOLVE IN IT – but someone told me that’s bad for me. My teeth rotting, or sugar makes me hyper, or something equally stupid.

Nonetheless, I persist in attempting to curtail the sugar.

And when it’s iced tea, that’s ok. I can handle less sugar. There is ice to distract me, and fun cups, and Voldemort usually ends up drinking half of it. Which is why it’s mint and caffeine free.

But when I’m feeling yucky. When I’m starting to come down with something. When I just don’t feel good. I want hot, sweet, tea.

And my tea is getting to be lukewarm, because it’s not sweet enough for me to drink as quickly as I normally do, and I am pouting.

1. Rainbow Fish

A dreamy young fish becomes lonely and is convinced by the wise octopus that the only way to make friends is to give up everything that makes him different.

Moral of the story: Buy your friends. Be just like everyone else.

How it should end: Rainbow fish takes his scales back and tells them he’d rather make friends who like him for him.

2. Wemberly Worried

A young mouse with a severe anxiety disorder is repeatedly told by her family to “Stop worrying!” She makes a friend, and everyone thinks she cured.

Moral of the story: You’re being an idiot.

How it should end: Wemberly has a total panic attack on the playground, the ambulance is called, and the doctor proceeds to put her on medication, therapy, and berate her parents for medical neglect.

3. Love You Forever

An elderly woman drives across town to break into a house and emotionally molest her middle aged son.

Moral of the story: Parents have the right to touch you inappropriately without your permission, because THEY LOVE YOU.

How it should end: Middle aged son cuts off Mommy Dearest and moves so she can never find him again.

Voldemort started Kindergarten. (He’s also figured out how to hack the ipad password so he can buy his own games. He is a dangerous, dangerous child.) In KINDERGARTEN, which I am not yet over. Holy crap, my baby is in KINDERGARTEN. He’s in real school! Where he has real homework! Where they don’t take naps! Where he’s forgotten 2 lunch boxes and a jacket already!

He comes home and casually tells us about the stories and the playground and how he knows his letters and somebody puked in the trash can, and it’s all so WEIRD.

Kindergarten. Gah.

I’ve started the new job, and great news! I’ve only had ONE panicked stress cry! Admittedly, it involved an actual anxiety attack and took two hours and some xanax to calm down, but HEY! And the fact I’ve be proactively taking the xanax everyday has NOTHING to do with it, I’m sure.

Instead of doing anything useful at home, like dishes or laundry, I hang out with the kid while he watches his way through the entire Power Rangers collection on Netflix, and I read Teen Wolf fanfic.

Yes, the MTV show. Yes, about werewolves. Who are very frequently shirtless.

Now, this probably would make MORE sense if I had actually seen a single episode of Teen Wolf, but I haven’t. I just needed something (ANYTHING) as a distraction, and this seemed to work. Regardless of logic.

Also going on is Brandus insistence that I start taking any kind of classes in anything that interests me, probably going with the vain hope that one day I will no longer have to teach and can support us by doing something else. Underwater Basketweaving, it is! Unless they teach classes in living in yurts and raising llamas, I mean.

Fuck teaching, man. Seriously.