Death Takes a Holiday

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Six Years

Six years ago tonight, it was the night before my wedding and I was very close to passing out. A few days earlier I’d broken out in hives and taken allergy medicine for it, which had exacerbated the hives and resulted in three solid days AWAKE. So the night before my wedding I got a shot in my ass to counteract the allergy medicine, and unlike every other bride in the history of the world I slept a solid twelve hours the night before my wedding day….

Less than two years later a beautiful monster appeared in our lives and made everything even better…

We’re all monsters. We’re wild things. We’re pirates.

Six years after my Night of Big Sleep, on the eve of my Wedding Anniversary, I’m sitting on the couch in my little house in the country with my husband and son, two horses and a baby mule outside, two big dogs, an evil cat, while the newest addition (a guinea pig named Pete) cautiously watches the goings on in this monkeyhouse. My son is gluing chopped up pieces of construction paper together to make an Autumn tree.

 

Life is good. Insanity is good. Happy is good.

Love is good.

 

 

Happy Anniversary, Eric.

And There’s Also Life….

Branch of the Storytelling Tree…

Birthday Month (plus photos)

there have been almost 70 posts on the kid’s Birthday Wall, including videos and photos, and he is now pretty sure he’s the most beloved person on the face of the planet.

February is pretty much his month. We went to the aquarium on the actual day of his birthday, and though he’s been on the verge of succumbing to a full-on winter cold (we’ve all been teetering for weeks, it seems) there was still fun and starfish-petting and even a little bike-riding. More pictures of his subsequent grandparent parties later. For now: Aquarium!!

And thank you to everyone who has posted on the Birthday Wall. Especially to Boden (we’ve watched Octopadi FOUR HUNDRED TIMES), Sean (the cry “Bacon! Bacon! Bacon!” was a novel idea to this chld and he repeated it streaking like a demon through the house many, many times) and eddy (came through with the Gaga!).

This cold, COLD sunday morning we have snow, four pairs of cardinals just outside the window, the most horrible movie in the world (the Care Bears Movie), a sleeping devil cat and a floor full of matchbox cars….

 

Birthday Wishes NEW PLAN!!

all right, surprise surpirise, i gave up on the Gaga thing as it takes TIME to be ont twitter and you can’t will something to go viral.

NEW PLAN: i created a FB page Public Event for the kiddo’s birthday, the PAGE being the event, where anyone and everyone can hit ‘attend’ and then wish him happy birthday or post a cute or funny photo – he’ll be incredibly thrilled by this! the plan is to start showing him the page tomorrow, and let him click Like on each and every birthday wish from today through the 20th. he’s an awesome kid and thinks that computers are magic (as they are) and will get a HUGE kick out of this, i promise. so click on over to this link if you are so inclined:

https://www.facebook.com/events/262859440452388/#!/events/262859440452388/

can you say no this face???

 

Adam Loves Gaga and It’s Almost His Birthday

i know this is going to sound stupid and I DON’T CARE. my kid has asked for lady gaga to come to his birthday party the last two years, convinced that somehow MAYBE she’ll get some free time and intuit his very real love for her and come. there’s no reason for me to NOT get all over twitter and post links of him and photos of him expressing Gaga love and trend #adamlovesgaga in an attempt to get her to somehow see any of these tweets and send him a birthday message.

so, for the happiness of a kid that is AT THIS MOMENT listening to Gaga (his girlfriend that lives on the moon, he calls her), for his birthday, if any of you can find it in your very large hearts to retweet these links and this message and help me trend this and tag it to @ladygaga also, i would very much appreciate it. my twitter is “@mandajoon”

this was a very weird/difficult post to make. “help me get lady gaga to tell my son happy 4th birthday.” it’s a strange request. so have mercy on me and HELP. his 4th birthday is February 6th, so we have 3 weeks!!!

<3 amanda

Munchkin Visits Santa

typical pre-holiday meltdown blah blah intestinally graphic

i feel right on the edge of running loops around the house while barefoot through the mud, rain, grass, dogshit while SCREAMING SCREAMING SCREAMING.

good, good, the cat just took down a stack of dvds. that helps. i’ll get that in a second. for now i’m just going to type and twitch while i have this free moment, kiddo cramming his face full of bagel.

where to begin? kitten is a woman, now, all of a sudden. the christmas tree is her mate of choice – oh, the things we’ve seen. the tree is a sad state of drooping lights and bent branches and cat hair. she yowls all through the night the last two nights, and climbs the walls. no one sleeps. she yowls through the day. she’s yowling now. i just locked her in her carrier for a half hour break. also, i dropped all my winter weight – BOOM – all my hard-earned T&A disappeared. suspected intestinal parasites, for that reason and others i will not detail. i was correct. now my body is ridding itslef of all infection and parasites, and the medicine has made my stomach ulcer start to bleed again. IT’S HORRIFYING. and like most any medication that pushes infection out of your system, it’s caused my entire face to break out. also today is the day of the Serpent Mound solstice event, and i was pretty sure i had plans to go to that – but now i’m pretty sure i’ve been ditched. i say ‘pretty sure’ because i’ve yet to be addressed directly about it, but i saw a facebook post about shit luck that i wasn’t sure had anything to do with me until pretty much TODAY. didn’t ask for a call, or even a text. shit, a facebook comment of  ’sorry, can’t make it’ would’ve sufficed. i’m really not sure when communication dissolved into this level of passive-aggressive indirectness, that a random post on facebook that did not address me was supposed to be magically translated by me into a calling-off of plans. even now, i’m not sure it applied to me, i’m just looking for some sign that i wasn’t outright forgotten about, but just avoided for fear of facing my disappointment. i’m trying to give credit for.. shit, i don’t know. i would’ve loved some snow today. i can’t sleep, no matter how much i move things around and clean, there are still things everywhere and my one modest ‘i will keep the living room tidy for the holidays’ promise to myself seems impossible – there are dvds all over the floor, even now, that i should be picking up. i forgot to get candy for the stockings. i might vomit at any second.

the thing is, i KNOW in my left brain how good things are: my husband and son are healthy and love me and each other, the house is warm and cozy, and on christmas morning we’ll all be together.

it’s just hard to remember with the sounds of my guts rolling while they BURN, layered with the yowling cat, my son wanting kitty OUT of her carrier…

it’s my blog and i’ll cry if i want to. that’s all i have to say about this post. shaky hands. i need 4 xanax and ten minutes to myslef in the woods to just SCREAM AND SCREAM.

wish it would snow…..

The Tree (photos)

Happy Birthday, My Love!!!

 

Happy November! (Halloween Flashback)

 

 

The Better To Gag You With Cuteness, My Dear (AKA Soccer 2011)

september highlights (photos)