SilverSpiral.net

Gender is a funny concept. Boys do these things, and girls do these things, right?

NO. NOT RIGHT. FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

Sure, boys and girls are different, but it makes me INSANE when toys and activities and dress is brought into boys and girls stuff.

A Facebook friend posted a picture of her little boy, who is in PreK, wearing a dress, high heels, and a tiara. Multiple comments remarked, jokingly, that she need to call and make him an appointment with a psych.

But maybe I’m being over sensitive. After all, as a preK teacher, I’ve been educated to know that all kids play dress up, in all kinds of clothes, and that a boy playing dress up in a dress and jewelry is perfectly normal behavior developmentally.

But then I keep seeing stuff on Pinterest, with pictures of pink cookies with the Eiffel tower on them tagged as “perfect for a girl!,” or a construction birthday cake tagged as “what a great party for a boy!” And I’m fighting the urge to comment “or for a boy who loves Paris!” and “Girls love trucks, too!” with several smiley faces and exclamation points to hide the fact I want to smash my face into my keyboard with every gendered thing I see.

Maybe it’s from raising a kid. A boy. Who marches happily around the house “doing karate” in his pink Dora pajamas.

Maybe from seeing how gendered the world is, where it’s ok for a girl to like trucks or wear pants or wear a shirt that brags, “Daddy’s girl,” but it’s side-eyed and talked about if a boy likes High School Musical or wears skirts or you can’t even find a shirt that says, “Mama’s boy,” because that’s emasculating and insulting.

Maybe it’s from realizing that little boys and girls are shaped the exact same way, and there should be no such thing as a “boy’s shirt” or “girl’s shoes.”

Maybe it’s just from feeling like I’m fighting a losing fight, trying to provide my little boy with stuff he likes, in a variety of colors, regardless of what gender it’s marketed to. Maybe it’s because some days I think it’s useless, with Lego coming out with new sets “for girls,” and shirts being made “for girls” that say, “I’m too pretty to do homework.”

Maybe I think I should start commenting on all of those pins on pinterest, just to see if it makes anybody THINK. Maybe I should comment on that Facebook post, saying how cute he is, and how refreshing it is to see a parent who understands that little boys can wear dresses.

As a kid, I remember getting a new Scholastic book order form every month and spending hours pouring over it. First, I’d make a list of every single thing in it that I might possibly like, with the cost in its own column, laboriously adding up every single penny to see how much it came to. Then I had to cross out books I didn’t HAVE to have and subtract and refine, until I was under the budget the parents had given me for books that month – and I had to have a budget, as I swallowed books whole.

My point is, even as a kid, I was a planner. I was frugal and careful with money, but more importantly, I PLANNED.

Then I grew up and met a guy who wouldn’t know what a calender was if it bit him on the ass. A man who didn’t plan, who thought the highlight of fun was randomly taking off to places unknown at a moment’s notice.

I married him. And my planning went down the drain. We moved to Alaska because he thought it sounded fun and North Carolina because we threw a dart at a map and back to Colorado for no readily apparent reason, all in a ten year time span.

And now I’m buying a house with him. And while waiting and waiting for our final approval and our closing date, we distracted ourselves and ignored the deadlines and made no plans.

With the final result that we are closing on our new house tomorrow and haven’t put a single thing in a box. We haven’t thrown away the Happy Meal toys that have accumulated, donated the weird decorations my mother insists on sending, or even packed up the summer clothes that are thrown in the top of Voldemort’s closet that might or might not fit when it gets warmer.

We haven’t planned or prepared at all, and strangely, I’m ok with that.

For now.

I’m sure my mind will change when I’m unpacking our dishes and find hamster food in the same box, Brandus can’t find more than one pair of pants for work, and our newly bought laundry detergent goes missing until next fall, when we’ll find it in the bottom of a box of books and sewing supplies.

But for now, I’m content to sit in my pajamas on a day off, and make a list of things that need to get done. And maybe tomorrow I’ll call on them. Or maybe I’ll take a nap, and ignore for a little bit more.

I have a hot $2 in amazon mp3 credit burning in my pocket, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out what to get.

Lately, all I’ve been listening to is Glee songs, Moves Like Jagger, and assorted Kpop boy bands, but I need something new.

I’ve listened to this about four thousand times over the past two weeks, and I LOVE IT OMG.

Help. Anybody grooving on anything awesome?

Brandus requested those peanut butter cookies with hershey’s kisses in them for Thanksgiving, and seeing as a) I am a giving, loving wife, and b) COOOKIIIIIES, I agreed.

I look on the back of the package of Hershey’s kisses after we get them home from the store, and it has a recipe on it! …that calls for a package of peanut butter cookie mix. Which we don’t have, and those mixes never taste right anyway.

So, I begin the search. There is always the easy ones, the ones that dont need anything but peanut butter, sugar, and an egg, but frankly, I think they taste nasty.

So I went to Paula Deen, because COME ON, Paula Deen! Only she left me with this recipe. A peanut butter recipe from PAULA DEEN that calls for FAKE SUGAR.

I am mortally offended.

And then I got all distracted by a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe from Smitten Kitten, and now I may never get the actual recipe baked that I wanted to, because OMG I NEED THESE.

And then I realized we’re out of butter, and I can’t bake anything anyway. Dammit. Maybe I have some Crisco. Are there peanut butter cookie recipes that call for shortening?

The other day at Michael’s Arts and Crafts, I snagged a gingerbread scary house kit for 2 bucks. Nifty, right?

Today, Voldemort and I tackled it.

It did not go well.

For starters, it was a long thin tall house design. For seconds, the icing tip didn’t fit correctly on the icing tube. For thirds, we don’t have much patience.

I got the walls together and the roof on, and then I walked out of the room to check on the muffins in the oven, sternly reminding the child to let the icing dry and not to touch it.

Five seconds later, he pokes his head in the kitchen and tells me, “Can I eat the icing off the tube? Oh, and the roof fell off.”

Five seconds after that, my spidey sense tingled and I walked back in to see the entire house strewn across the table and a child covered in a suspicious amount of icing.

So I did what any normal lazy person would do. I slapped a piece of house down flat on the table, covered the whole damn thing in icing, handed my kid a whole heck of a lot of candy and told him to decorate it.

The first time I heard “Feliz Navidad” this year: 11/20/11 at 2:03pm.

The first time this year “Feliz Navidad” made me shove a pen in my ear to drive it out of my head: 11/20/11 at 2:03 and 7 seconds.

I keep putting off updating because I’d have to explain what i’ve been doing instead. And while that really is an easy answer (ATTEMPTING TO BUY A HOUSE), I don’t feel like giving the details. So, I’m going to stop explaining why I disappear for periodic long stretches of time, and I’m just going to switch to updating whatever whenever.

Have some bullet points.

-I’ve been sucked into pinterest. You can follow me if you want. I started with fairly normal boards and have now de-evolved into brilliantly named boards like “Fuck Off” which is lovingly dedicated to thinspiration crap and stupid sayings that make me want to light things on fire. Follow me or leave me a comment with your link if you want me to check your boards out if I’m not following you already. It has my real name on it, but ignore that please.

I’d like to point out that with the addition of pinterest, i now have a truly obscene number of blog-type places. My heart belongs here, of course, because I’ve had it for a million years.
-Silverspiral.net
-livejournal
-tumblr
-facebook (i barely check this. it frustrates the crap out of my husband that he has to tell me he’s posted something)
-pinterest
-and a money blog floating around somewhere that hasn’t been updated since North Carolina. When we moved TO North Carolina, that is.

The link to the lj is in the sidebar, if you REALLY want to check it out, but it’s all fandom stuff. The tumblr I don’t really give out, as it’s Glee, Glee, Glee, Harry Potter, and periodic gay porn. And that weirds some people out for some reason.

-I thought briefly of letting SilverSpiral.net die when hostmonster and godaddy both wanted money from me at the same time. Money we shouldn’t have been spending then, as we’re still trying to balance to past costs of moving and being able to afford food and toilet paper in the future, but ultimately, I just couldn’t let it go. I’m very attached. Silverspiral has existed in some form or another for over 12 years, and I just…it’s my baby. Even when I’m not updating at all like I should.

-The woman who cut my hair yesterday mistook my directions on my dry hair (“I want it at my chin”) to be the directions for where to cut it on my wet hair (“I want it at my chin”), so my hair is a good inch and a half shorter than what I wanted and am used to. It probably wouldn’t be that huge of a deal, but my hair is wavy, and the ends kick up, so I currently have the shortest layer that keeps falling in my face. And before you tell me to use a clip, i need you to know that MY HAIR SCOFFS AT CLIPS. It’s back in a headband, and I’m wondering if I should bother to go complain, because it’s not like it looks bad, it’s just in my face more than I like.

And by more than I like, I mean I shrieked in irritation at least twice yesterday when I was trying to do something and my hair fell forward.

Then again, what would they do? They can’t make it LONGER.

-I’m hungry, and I’m bored of most breakfast foods. I made Star Wars pancakes the other day, and that was fun, but I want something to bake. This is a problem, because I don’t want to clean the kitchen and admit defeat to Brandus’ current “forgetting” to empty and refill the dishwasher. Regardless, food suggestions welcome.

There is something so lovely about having your house all to yourself, with no husband or small, loud child around to distract you from wandering about in your pajamas, or demanding you share your food with them, or insisting that if you’re going to lie down, they’re going to come with you.

I called in today due to the less than 3 hours I got of sleep last night, which happens sometimes. The hamster in my brain won’t stop running on her little wheel and I end up tossing and turning for entirely too long before i give up and go downstairs and read Supernatural and Glee fanfiction until I can finally fall over.

I like it here.

Sorry, no transition there, but. I like it here. And that’s new. To like where I am and what I’m doing. To not feel like going to sleep makes the next day come earlier. To not feel like I have a target painted on my back for who-knows-what-stupid-reason.

So in some ways, I hate that I called in today – that I took a day from something I’m actually enjoying.

In other ways, I don’t have to share my ice cream or my blankets. And that’s just fine with me.

My cast is OFFFFF, and omg, it is so amazing to be able to type and feed myself and button my pants and wash my hair with BOTH HANDS without having to contend with a garbage bag rubber banded around my entire arm. It’s been off a week and a half, and you know, it’s kinda like childbirth. if you’ve never had a kid or broken a bone, you think that once the baby is out, your body will go back to normal. HA. your stomach lays there beside you, and you STILL look 7 months pregnant, and somehow this became about my body issues instead of my arm. Sorry.

I mean, I’d never had a broken bone before, so before i went in to get the cast off, i dreamed of all the amazing things i would be able to do again. like feed myself and type and wash my hair, etc. and of course, i would be able to do that instantly.

ha. hahahahaha. no.

the doctor sawed the cast off, pried it apart, and THEN told me, “Spend two more weeks pretending it’s still casted. THEN you can start doing light activities.”

So, yes. My cast is off. Yesterday, I washed my hair with both hands. BABY STEPS.

We moved. Cross country. We went through eight states over a period of several weeks, and then when we were finally moving in to our new place, I knocked myself over with a table, fell down some stairs and broke my right elbow and wrist.

Updates will be sporadic until later, because typing one handed with my non dominant hand is really freaking hard.

It took an obscene number of days and a bizarre amount of states, but we got ourselves moved.

Sort of.

See, we’re employed! You would think this would make it EASIER to locate housing, but you would, in fact, be HORRIBLY WRONG.

See, we moved to a part of Colorado that has income restrictions on a large amount of their housing. Now, you would THINK this would mean that you have to make over a certain amount to qualify for their housing, but yet again, you would be HORRIBLY WRONG.

No, you have to make UNDER a certain amount. Which, hey, I am ALL for low income housing, but the amount you have to make under and the amount you would pay in rent per month MAKE NO FREAKING SENSE.

So, we have 3 people in our family. Our income restriction would be 43500 per year. Now, please explain to me how someone making 43000 and under per year would be able to pay 1100 per month for an apartment? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

I’m planning on how to decorate our new cardboard box, as that might be all we can find.

Awesomely enough, this was one of BlogHer’s “featured” reviews of the book. How cool is that?

Dear Deborah,

You totally left me hanging. How did the house know they made it? What the heck are they doing where they are now? Can I be more vague in an effort to keep from spoiling anyone?

Read the rest of my review: Vampires, Witches, and Daemons! Oh My! HERE.

ALSO! BlogHer is totally giving away five copies of A Jane Austin Education, the book I reviewed a while back. Comment on this linked post to enter!

I havent been posting because my brain has been missing. Coming down to the end of the school year with a very difficult class, a more difficult principal, a husband dealing with some major job-related depression, and the general insanity of a four year old; we decided to decrease our stress by planning another cross country move.

It will be so peaceful to pack up all of our stuff over the next few weeks, locate jobs while living in a hotel with a weirdo kid who wakes up at 6am for the sheer joy of being obnoxious and three cats who want to whine at us or sleep on our heads, and to do all this back in Colorado – a bare hour from where we lived 5 years ago – well, i know i’m just overwhelmed with joy and relaxation.

oh no, wait. not that. the other thing.

SHEER STRESS.

Seriously, though, this will be a good move for us. Brandus is miserable here and I hate my boss, and frankly, I can be put down pretty much anywhere and i’ll adapt without too much bitching about it. my issues with colorado mainly consist of hating to drive in active snow and a deep loathing of having to scrape my windshield. I can deal. Or i’ll whine and make brandus scrape my windshield and drive me places. it will all work.

plus, half of our stuff, believe it or not, is still in storage in co. we put it there when we moved to alaska, and then have never wanted to spend the money/time to go back and pack it up and bring it here. Especially after we’d been here six months and brandus declared himself violently opposed to this place and all it stood for.

so. come hell or high water, here we go again.

I suffered through AP English in high school, which taught me some semi-useful things about books:

1. If you have to study it, it somehow becomes boring.
2. If the person you’re talking to is telling you what the author intended, they’re probably wrong.

Read the rest of Rusty Bicycle Pumps and A Jane Austin Education at BlogHer.com.

I am very excited to say that something I’ve been working on for a while is finally up today.

Skye of Flooded Lizard Kingdom also runs Heroine Content, a blog dedicated to “feminist and anti-racist thoughts on women kicking ass.” It’s an awesome blog, and I was very thrilled to get asked co-write a review of one of my favorite action movies, Ninja Assassin, with Skye.

The review is HERE, and I think it’s a pretty even look at the movie.

And we might discuss Rain’s abs a few times. Maybe. But we definitely profess our undying love for the character of Mika.

Check it out, and please comment! I’d love to know what you think!

One of my least favorite quotes has been doing the rounds again. It always always ALWAYS pops up around Mother’s Day, and I have to remember that biting people is bad manners, questionably hygienic and could get me arrested.

“A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.” ~Tenneva Jordan

I hate this quote. I hate that mothers are both expected to sacrifice everything for their families, and that many mothers who like this quote happily turn themselves into martyrs. And the fact that it’s never mention if all 4 of the other people are her kids, or just..people. So mothers are expected to put themselves last for everyone?

What is wrong with a mother having pie? What’s wrong with teaching your family to share? Saying this once is going to mean you’re forever banned from pie around those people. They’ll eat it all, because you don’t care for it.

Dammit, people, SHARE THE FUCKING PIE.

In meetings at school, I constantly have people looking over my shoulder or coming up to me afterward asking, “what are you making?”

I get strange looks and laughs when I shrug and say, “I don’t know,” and unravel whatever I have created.

I began crocheting almost a year ago. I taught myself after I taught myself to finger knit, using online tutorials and the occasional advice from a friend.

I don’t crochet to make things. I’ve tried, and I’ve got a half completed scarf that will never be finished, and a handful of patterns for potholders to show for it. But the product isn’t the point for me. It’s the process.

I need something to focus on besides the meeting, and I need something to do with my hands. In the past, I’ve created grocery lists, epic boxes upon boxes of doodles, and have sewn and repaired several cloth diapers, felt toys, and wee folk art gnomes. When I found crochet, it gives me something to do – something that is quiet, doesn’t bother anyone, and as long as I stick to one stitch, something effectively mindless to do that nonetheless takes concentration. Weirdly enough, this helps me focus on the meeting instead of finding myself asleep in a puddle of my own drool.

And then I unravel all of it, and start over.

Because what I’m making doesn’t matter, so much as the process of making it.

I try to remember this, both working with my students, and while playing with Voldemort. If we plant flowers and plant too many seeds per hole, does it matter? If I let Voldemort help me bake cookies, and he adds too much sugar, does it matter?

It’s the process. And the learning that takes place with it. Too many seeds means too many flowers, and some might die. Too much sugar means we might not be able to eat the cookies.

So we unravel the problem, and start again.

YUMMY. I started with THIS recipe, which I don’t remember how I found originally, and then I fucked with it til it was awesome.

Couscous and Feta Cakes

Ingredients
* 1 cup uncooked couscous
* 4 teaspoons olive oil, divided (for the cooking)
* 1/2 can artichoke hearts, chopped
* 1 cup minced red bell pepper
* 1/2 cup minced green bell pepper
* 2 garlic cloves, minced
* 1 cup (4 ounces) crumbled feta cheese
* 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
* 2 eggs
* salt
* pepper

1. Cook couscous. Don’t know how? Boil water, toss in couscous, turn it off and cover while you’re chopping stuff. When you’re done, it is too.
2. Throw garlic, peppers, and artichokes in a pan and saute for a few minutes.
3. Dump everything in a bowl and mix all together.
4. Heat pan and oil to medium heat.
5. Grab a handful and mush into something resembling small thick pancakes. Good luck, they’re kinda fragile.
6. Cook about 3 minutes, flip and cook the other side. You want them to have some browning going on.
7. Dump on plate and stuff face.

OM NOM NOM.

It all started at 6 o’clock that night, when I innocently decided that cookies sure would be swell later, and hey, why not put out that butter to soften?

The butter, which was then completely abandoned and ignored until 9 pm that same night, when the urge came over me.

You know the urge I’m talking about. I know you do.

Cookie dough, it whispers into your ear, and you can practically taste the creamy, possibly salmonella containing deliciousness.

The urge lead me into the kitchen, where I got out my mixer, Bertha, dumped in the butter, pulled out the sugar, and got the first nasty surprise of the night.

We were out of white sugar.

Ok. This wasn’t a crisis. I merely googled “brown sugar chocolate chip cookies” and came across a recipe that sounded promising.

Don’t ask me which one. As you will soon see, there is very little of the original recipe (may it rest in crumbly pieces) left.

I added the carefully measured 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar (using a 1/3 cup measuring cup, because I fail at so many many kitchen tasks including both measurement and dishes), turned on the mixer, and turned to the fridge.

To discover a distinct lack of eggs.

Um.

Ok, no problem! I have…I have..soy flour! And soy flour can be used as an egg substitute! Excellent! …Unfortunately, soy flour makes the dough taste really nasty, but I am GOING to make these cookies, dangit. I mentally rename the recipe “Come Hell or High Water Cookies.”

I successfully add vanilla and flour without anything more than a couple of floury handprints on Brandus’ backside, so the discovery that I’m almost completely out of chocolate chips gets nothing but a snarl.

And guess what?

My soy flour substituted, brown sugar mis-measured, low chocolate chip cookies are AWESOME.