Where there is smoke, there is a liar.

So it finally happened.

We were wandering around an outdoor craft show the other day when Girlie asked me if I had ever smoked cigarettes. She's only seven, so up until this point I haven't been confronted with this kind of stuff.

I answered her honestly. Sort of.

I told her that yes, I tried them, but I thought they were yucky. I didn't explain that I had "tried" them for almost four years during college and that it was actually her father, my boyfriend at the time, who thought they were yucky and convinced me to quit. I did quit, and it was pretty easy for me to do so. I was lucky in that way, but she might not be.

This was the first of many of those "do as I say, not as I did" subjects we'll talk about and I know the questions and conversations will only get tougher. She seemed pretty satisfied with my answer and the conversation moved on to whether or not she could have a pink dog puppet.

But it rattled me. I really hope she doesn't ever smoke. I worry about that and all of the other things she'll stumble over. I want to protect her from them, the kind of mistakes that won't be able to be undone or fixed with a smooch over a band-aid. I wish I could prevent it from happening, the growing up.

But for now I got off easy. She's is still a seven year old girl and I only had to buy her the puppet.

Fourteen years

Hubs and I have been married fourteen years today and the truth is, I don't deserve the guy. He is everything I am not -- patient, focused, good natured and overall pretty low key, but in the best kind of way.

He is awesome with the kids, a good man in a crisis, and not too bad on the eyes. He really doesn't have any annoying vices, other than the ugly hiking socks and a slight obsession with exercise, but who can really complain about that? Um, yes honey, could you stop being so darn fit. Enough with the climbing mountains already and go lay on the couch!

He actually likes hanging around us, and will almost always choose being with me and the kids over anyone else. He isn't perfect, of course. But overall, it is pretty darn easy to be with him.

Just a few months ago, he stepped up, without hesitation, handled the Halloween thing, costumes and trick or treating, the whole deal by himself, cooked real meals for the kids, and sent me off on a plane so I could focus on my father. In little ways, he does that kind of thing all the time.

So when I think about all of the things that I may not have gotten quite right in my life, the complications with my family, the friendships that have come and gone, and my own personal quirks, I am so incredibly thankful that I got this one thing that is absolutely perfectly amazingly right.

Happy Anniversary honey!

My Day in Shreds

Since we turned our file cabinet into a storage container for Little Guy's trains, I've had this giant pile of old bills and paperwork to be shredded. We are mostly paperless now and the files I need to hang on to fit into a much smaller space. The problem is, I can't file them in that little bit of space until I get rid of the mounds of stuff I don't need, which is currently stacked waist high in the office closet.

Yesterday, I decided to pull out the shredder, set it up on the counter and shred away. I thought I'd feed papers in throughout the day in between keeping Little Guy entertained. It doesn't have to be done now, and probably isn't the smartest way to spend my time just a few weeks before Christmas, but I have this idea that I need to start the new year with a clean slate. And the paper shreds make the perfect packaging materials for presents.

I got about a third of the way through the pile when it happened. I jammed too much paper in at a time and the darn thing got stuck. I turned it off, pulled the paper out, poked a pair of needlenose pliers into the scary sharp part, removed all the the debris, and then, nothing. The motor had burnt out.

This is the third paper shredder I have destroyed. Every time, I swear I'll buy the super industrial one, but I can't get over the price tag. And every time, I get a little ahead of myself, shove in more than I can shred, and torch the nice cheap one that should have done nicely.

Which is, now that I think about it, exactly where I go wrong with most things.

Where there's smoke...

So last night I asked Hubs to start a fire on our fireplace after the kids went to bed.

We had one of those busy December weekends packed out with events, some of them fun, and still managed to knock a few things off the to do list. Hubs got the lights up outside which is no easy task considering that there are no outlets out front and he had to rig something from the garage and restring the lights a billion times to keep the fuses from blowing. I started sorting my stuff to ship and picked up a few gifts at a couple of the craft fairs that ran this weekend. I didn't do any baking, but we did decide which cookies we wanted. Hubs had race on Saturday and felt pretty good about the results. To celebrate, I made shrimp and grits and cornbread for dinner Sunday night and Girlie put on a puppet show afterwards. Crazy weekend, but a pretty good one overall. We also got a large load of firewood delivered, so I really wanted to relax after all of the hustle and bustle and chill by the fire with a glass of wine, and maybe get some writing done.

What I did instead was test all of the smoke detectors in the house (there are five ear piercing alarms, all in working order) and confirm that the extinguisher under the sink works. Yep, something went wrong and even with the flue completely open, smoke poured into the house, set off ALL of the alarms, and did I mention that the kids were in bed? So relaxing.

I ended the weekend huddled in my chair under a pile of blankets, windows open to air the smoke out, fan on high, watching the last episode of Mad Men, too cold to even reach for my glass, lamenting the fact that, in this case, where there's smoke, there WASN'T a fire.

Dating while parenting

So the Mr. and I had a date the other night. Dating while parenting is like driving while on a cell phone. You think it should be easy enough, talking and driving, but you don't realize that the entire time you are seriously impaired. Almost so much so, that you shouldn't even be trying to do both things. But you do.

It was one of those nights when it seemed like a herculean effort to get away. Little Guy is hitting the fantastic two year old thing where he likes to scream noooo in your face every five seconds and Girlie had spent the previous hour crying over spelling practice, which is usually a breeze, but Oh Lordy, the horror of spelling celebrate without an S and fudge with a D. I decided to make pancakes for the kids to eat so the sitter wouldn't have any trouble and ended up pouring almost half of the bag of blueberries into the batter by accident after which they would barely stick together. And I was out of batter and down to the last drop of milk, one egg, no bread in the house, no time for a shower... that kind of night.

But we managed to get away. Really, we peeled out the driveway, and then finally it was just the two of us alone. We ate spicy Indian food and laughed and talked and drank a few beers, and I'm thinking boy do I like this guy.

And I sure hope he asks me out again.