Life is a shake of cherries

Yesterday we took the kids for a hike in Payson, Arizona. We couldn't afford a weekend away since we're saving for a big trip to southern Utah in October, so we decided to take a day trip. It felt fantastic to get out of the heat in Phoenix for the day and the hike was pretty nice, despite Girlie's frequent protests that it was too hot, too long, and her legs were hurting. I might have felt a little sorrier for her, but the litany of complaints started about 100 feet into the hike.

Little Guy wasn't complaining since he spent most of the time in a pack on Hubs' back. We all managed to push through it and Girlie picked up the pace once we reminded her that the faster she went, the quicker the whole thing would be over. The hike was 2.7 miles, ranked as moderate, and had a few tricky places. I was pretty proud of Girlie for making it, though we played down the difficulty the entire time. At the end, she collapsed to the ground and declared that she couldn't make it the final five feet to our car.

Ah, the drama. I have no idea where she gets it.

On the way home, we stopped at a dive called the Beeline Cafe for burgers, fries, and cherry shakes. The food was delicious and the run down restaurant might just be the best kept secret in Payson. Over patty melts, Hubs asked me to rank the hike on a scale of 1 to 5. It was hard to separate the overall experience from the amount of "coaching" we did to complete it, but I told him I would give it a 3. Just as we were leaving the restaurant, Girlie told our waitress that the food was the best meal she had ever eaten. She grabbed my hand and said it was the best day ever.

And that is just how it goes with kids. You struggle to rank the experience by the mile or the hour. But, occasionally you order a cherry shake and the whole thing seems like a 5 out of 5.

Smugmommy

Yesterday was one of those days.

I had a girls outing planned in the evening and needed to make an appetizerish dish to take along, so I scrounged the contents of my cupboard and decided to make rosemary pinenut popcorn. I put Little Guy down for a nap, whipped up the dish, and congratulated myself for coming up with something so inexpensive and chic. As soon as Hubs got home, I threw on my go-to Michael Kors sandals and dashed out the door to meet my girlfriends.

I got stuck in traffic, but no worries, good music on the radio for once, so I settled in and started to feel a little smugmommy. You know, that feeling when you imagine that you actually have it all together. That despite the craziness of it all, the fledgling career and the two wacky kids, a gal like me might actually be able to pull off a stylish entrance, just like I would have back in the days before the bambinos.

That's when I looked over to the passenger seat and realized that I left the gorgeous bowl of gourmet popcorn and a bottle of wine sitting on the dining room table.

So I stopped at the gas station for beer and Cheetos.

Whatever.

Confession

You know those discount grocery cards? The ones you cannot shop without, because the price of a bottle of juice goes from like $3.00 to $9.00 without the special card?

I refuse to register for them.

I am not usually the conspiracy theory type, but it makes me crazy to think that some grocery store executive can pull me up in a database and run a report showing that I buy Fig Newmans and baby carrots every week. These days, Big Brother isn't a government hack, instead he works for Cascadian Farms, and he can probably tell if you are a little backed up, because you just bought that extra high fiber cereal again.

But of course, I am a bargainista and I still want the darn discount.

So I pull up to the checkout, ask for the card and the forms, inch Little Guy towards the magazine rack, and then while wrestling a copy of the Star Magazine out of his hands, I say ever so sweetly "He is a real handful today. Can just I bring this back in with me?"

And then I never fill out the form, but I whip out that card every week.

Not so sharp

I attended a Parent Teacher Group meeting at Girlie's school last night. The group is made up of a shockingly small, but dedicated set of mothers and teachers. When I pulled into the parking lot and noticed how few cars were there, I thought I might have gotten the date wrong or shown up too early. Or too late, like I did on curriculum night. But that's another story.

Hubs and I made the decision to put Girlie in public school when we moved to Phoenix. In Georgia, we had her in a fantastic private school, but we practically had to sell non essential organs to pay for it. Since the school system here has an open enrollment policy, we were able to hand pick her elementary school and I feel like we made the right choice. This year there have been so many budget cuts that the school has to be really creative with money. The PTG plays a big role in getting extras for the school, so I figured that I should volunteer.

The meeting went fairly well until it digressed into a 15 minute debate over an industrial pencil sharpener. Both sides had good points, (pun intended) but for some reason they felt the need to repeat themselves, as though saying the same thing multiple times would suddenly change things. After a few minutes of it, I stole a glance at my girlfriend who wasn't making eye contact because she was busy trying to check her watch. Finally, the group moved on and I managed to sign up to help with a few things.



Unfortunately, the sharpener discussion needs more research and will be brought up at the next meeting.

We'll take it year by year, but for now I still feel like we made the right choice to go with public school. Still, last night I really missed the pretentious privilege of private school, where someone would have whipped out a checkbook and scribbled out a personal check for ten industrial sharpeners, just to end the discussion.

Half Ironwoman

Hubs is signing up for a half Ironman in California this spring. The race is comprised of a 1.2 mile swim, followed by a 56 mile bike ride, finally ending in a 13.1 mile run. I don't know why they stick that last .1 mile on, but, whatever, it isn't even the full Ironman and it's still a bad-ass race. He'll have to step up his training a little, particularly on the bike since the course has a killer hill at around mile 30.

Me?

Well, I'll need to get in shape too. It just happens coincide with Girlie's spring break, so we'll probably spend the week on vacation in California after the race. There will be umpteen hours of planning and packing for the various warm, cold, cloudy, rainy, foggy, muggy days we are sure to experience during the end of March. There will be beach chairs and coolers to haul through the sand, all while sucking in my stomach until I can't breathe. There will be kids to wrangle into swimsuits or zip into sweatshirts. There will be half jammed corks to wrestle from bottles of wine once the kiddos are tucked in for the night.

Yep, if I am going to be ready. I'd better start now.

Think I'll work on that cork thing first.