This Too Is Gonna Pass

"If you can keep it together, just keep it together, you're fine, 

because one way or another, for better or for worse, this too is gonna pass."

-Quiet Company "On Ex-Husbands & Wives"

I love holidays, all holidays. Despite how commercialized they've all become, they all give me a thrill, and I love celebrating them. All year long - Valentine's Day, Easter, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hogmanay (New Year's Eve) - I look forward to participating in whatever traditional, cheesy festivities accompany each upcoming holiday.

This year, however, has been a year full of really hard holidays, for it was the first year of celebrating each holiday without a husband. 

I haven't talked much about my divorce here. For nearly the entirety of this blog's existence, it was Scott-and-Lori. Scott and I started dating only months after I started blogging in 2003, and he's been a main character ever since. Moving it away from scottandlori.co.uk/.com was a weird transition, and I haven't really known where to go with it since. (Thus the "in flux" bit.) A lot has happened in our lives this year that didn't feel appropriate to share publicly, and especially not here, where our relationship has been hosted for its entire existence.

But it's been almost a year (in fact, it's been pretty much exactly a year since the break-up started, though it wasn't made public until a few months later) and at some point me and my blog have to move on.

Last year, Scott and I celebrated Christmas and New Year together, but by the end of January, Scott had moved out, and come February I was faced with my first annual holiday without him. 

This was my first Valentine's Day as a single woman in thirteen years. I tried to act grossed out by all the pink and red hearts and balloons and flowers splattered across every shopping center like a murdered cupid, but deep down it was a deeply painful season. Scott, knowing how much I love holidays, especially Valentine's, brought me flowers that afternoon, despite the rawness and ugliness of everything going on at the time. It was a gesture that foreshadowed the sensitivity and graciousness with which we would strive to handle this whole separation and divorce thing in the months (and presumably years) to come. 

We decided around Memorial Day that until further notice, we would just celebrate holidays together as a family, and that's how we've done it since. Fourth of July, Labor Day, Halloween, and most recently Thanksgiving have all been shared with the kids and with each other. It's been the single most important thing for us that the kids feel secure and safe, and while there's always the risk of the kids harboring hope that we'll get back together, we feel keeping a close co-parenting, family-of-a-different-kind relationship has got to be better for them than separating our entire lives and never crossing paths with each other. We're still a family and always will be one. Just a different kind of family.

But of all the holidays we've survived this year, Christmas is without a doubt going to be the hardest. It's a time of year oozing with memories, mostly wonderful but now bittersweet at best. As has always been the tradition, I put up our Christmas tree yesterday, the day after Thanksgiving, and not surprisingly, it produced a lot of emotions.

We don't have a "pretty" Christmas tree. We don't have matching baubles or sprigs of holly or fancy bows. We have a vast array of mismatched ornaments that each carry with them some kind of sentimental value. We have ornaments from our very first Christmas together, multiple "baby's first" ornaments, ornaments that were gifts from various loved ones, Lolly's birthday ornaments (with a birthday a week before Christmas, it became a tradition early on to give out ornaments as party favors every year) and the annual selections for each member of the family that we choose every year based on what the kids (and sometimes the grown-ups) are interested in. There are memories attached to just about every single thing we hang on the tree.

I knew decorating the tree this year was going to be difficult, so I braced myself for an onslaught of emotions when I opened the red plastic Christmas decorations tub. Even still, there was no way to be totally prepared for the intensity of feels that came with handling each ornament and recalling the associated memories. Perhaps the saddest one was the ornament labeled "McFarlanes 2016" - a gingerbread family with all of our names etched on them.

I remember receiving that gift last year (from my mother, I believe) and feeling a rush of regret - no one really knew what we were going through yet, and as I looked at this ornament, I recalled thinking how sad it was that quite possibly by next year we wouldn't be that family anymore. And sure enough, we aren't.

It's hard to explain the feelings that all of this year's holidays have brought, especially this season. How do I adequately explain all the mixed emotions that I've felt, especially when I barely understand them myself? 

It would be natural for one to assume that I wish my marriage hadn't fallen apart, but the truth is I don't feel our decision to end our marriage was wrong. I don't think Scott thinks so either. We don't long to be back together, but there is still this feeling of ... regret? failure? a dream lost? grief? 

We never intended our marriage to end this way. We thought we'd be together forever. We believed in marriage, we believed in everlasting love. To not achieve that goal feels like a massive failure. Furthermore, we have a family that we never intended to split up. Breaking up our family is the biggest failure I can conceive of committing. I look back on everything we did wrong and wonder if we could've done something sooner to salvage the relationship. But the reality is, people change. Neither of us are the same people we were when we said I Do. We did a good job of trying to grow together and change together, but in the end it wasn't enough. Calling it quits when we did meant we could go on as co-parents and friends, but it still feels like we failed. Honestly, it mostly feels like *I* failed. For the truth of the matter is, it was me that messed everything up and brought the marriage to its end. 

Yet for all the regrets and mistakes, I still believe we've made the right choice. I try not to speak for Scott anymore, but I think it's safe to say we're both happier now, even though there's still a lot of sadness too. Divorce causes a slough of emotions, both sad and happy. It would be an incomplete picture to only paint one part of that. So yes, this year has been a hard one for me. But the year has also been a good one. A really good one in many ways, while also being extremely painful in others. Blue skies and gray skies. How do you explain those mixed emotions and mixed experiences coherently? I'm still not sure I understand it myself.

Writing about it has been rather off-limits, even though the limits are mostly self-imposed. It's still raw sometimes, and I haven't felt comfortable publicly sharing things so deeply personal. Yet I love blogging, and while I've written many things for my own eyes only, not blogging about about the things that are most real in my life has felt like cutting off an appendage. So this coming year, while I will still probably keep many things to myself, I've decided it's time to allow myself to blog about my life again. It'll be difficult to sort through what is shareable and what is not, but at some point I've got to be able to move on and write again.

In the meantime, I've got one last holiday season to get through as a first time single woman and mother. With it will come tears and regrets just like with the other holidays, but this particular time of year will be harder than all the rest. What's comforting though is I'm not going through it alone. Scott and I may not be a couple anymore, but we are still a family, and we've committed to continue doing this life thing as friends. With the support of our families and friends, we will do just fine, even when life is at its hardest. 

It's Valentine's Day and I'd Rather be in Chicot County

So it's Valentine's Day.

Look, I try to act all cool and yeah-whatever about Valentine's Day, but dammit, the truth is, I've always loved it. Always. Even back in the day, back before marriage, on single years, I still loved it. I remember the Valentine's dinner we had in mine and Katie's townhouse, mostly just us single ladies. (David Motter was there, but it was all good.) But especially as a married chick, Valentine's Day was fun. We would do things like take cocktail making classes or painting classes or go out to our favorite Thai restaurant on Sauchiehall Street or even just stay in and cook a lovely dinner together. I loved the flowers and the special feeling of being coupled on the loviest day of the year.

And I'll be honest, while I felt a little bad for the single folks out there, I didn't care too much. And why should I? And why should you? Enjoy being in love. It's wonderful! Celebrate the fuck out of it.

This year, Valentine's Day (and for that matter, Christmas and even Thanksgiving) all came too soon, when things are too raw. I joked about how gross all the balloons and hearts and chocolate boxes were, but it didn't really annoy me. It's just a stupid holiday. I didn't really care.

What I forgot to anticipate though was all the expressions of sugar-sweet love I'd see everywhere today. And while some of it I could just scroll past (because all the love was only evident on Facebook), others, well, they were sore.

Add to the soreness the fact that I had to cancel my travel plans (just work, and just a day trip, and just to Chicot County, so not that bit a deal) to stay home mopping up projectile vomit all day from two sick children who ought to be old enough now to run to the toilet when they need to spew but instead hurled all over the carpet three times, making the whole house smell like... well, like vomit. Hurray, Valentine's Day. Vomit, literally.

(And you know what? I was kind of looking forward to my Chicot County trip. The Disaster Program Specialist in southeast Arkansas and I totes bonded yesterday on our trip to El Dorado.)

Anyway, it is what it is. But you know what the saddest, most heartbreaking thing about today was? Scott stopped by on his lunch break, knowing I was home with sick kids, and brought them little Valentine's gifts. And he brought me flowers, because he knows how much I love Valentine's Day and knew I'd be feeling down.

I cried so hard, because I suck and he doesn't.

Hell yeah that's gin in my bathroom.

The Day of Love

I see no reason to hide the truth: I love Valentine's Day. It may be my favorite holiday after Thanksgiving. It probably ties with Christmas. I just think it's fun. Red and pink and hearts and sweets and roses.. swoon.

I usually make a big deal out of it.

So on Wednesday, for Jaguar's little weekly toddler class, I started the week of love by making heart shaped red velvet cupcakes to share with all the kiddos and mommies.


A little foil rolled into a ball and placed inside the Pampered Chef Brownie Pan makes cute little heart shapes!


Off topic for a second: Jaguar loves his Busy Bees class, but it drives me crazy. I mean, it's not the class that drives me crazy; the class is great with great parents and a great instructor with great activities. But Baby Jaguar doesn't follow those great instructions. Instead, he spends the entire hour running around, not doing what the others are doing, destroying the obstacle courses and games the teacher has set up, and trying to escape out the back door into the parking lot. I spend the entire time trying to convince him to join in or at least try not destroy the equipment or run away from my sight. I expend more energy at this class than he does. But he loves it!

Okay, so back on topic. The kids all had fun at their party, trying to understand what the Valentine card exchange was all about (ten toddlers aimlessly wandering around trying to hand cards to equally uncertain toddlers) and getting red cupcake all over the place. I tried to get some photos of Jaguar at the party, but this is the best I could get. The rest were even blurrier. He's fast.


Fifi and Lolly had their Valentine parties at school. Lolly's class made their mailboxes in class, so we only had one to create at home. After last year, when Fi created her very own totally-hers mailbox that didn't win any prizes (and made her sad), I gave her permission to search Pinterest this year for ideas. She wanted to do something Harry Potter for her mailbox and we came across this little gem of an idea.


The Monster Book of Monsters. Easy to make and really cute. She won "Most Creative" in her class. Which feels kind of like a cheat since we found the idea on Pinterest so "creative" might be kind of a misnomer. But she was happy, and it was a pretty cool idea!




So then, Friday morning (our pre-Valentine's Day), the kids woke up to a special surprise.


A special visit from our Elf on the Shelf, Banoffee Pie! Lolly and Fifi gasped with surprise and Jaguar cried out, "Pie!!" when they woke up and found him. Banoffee brought the kids some new Valentine's plates, bowls and cups (that he cleverly purchased last year in the post-Valentine's sale at Kroger for 500% off) and a plate full of pink chocolate chip cookies. He was kind enough to leave the remaining cookie dough in the fridge for Scott and I.


(You know this spatula is about to be discontinued at the end of the month, so if you want one, go get it now... wink!)


This image pleases me.


I intended to make heart-shaped pink pancakes for breakfast like last year, but my pancakes turned out a bit of a disaster. Since Scott was crowned Pancake King in our home, Bisquick just doesn't satisfy anymore. Not even pink Bisquick that ended up not being heart-shaped but had heart-shaped strawberries. I, however, thoroughly enjoyed my pink pancakes with chocolate chips. (You will notice a Valentine's trend growing here that is decidedly not keto-friendly.)



Now, MY plan for Valentine's Day was to start out by going to my favorite gym class, Cardio Dance Party, and dancing my heart out (so many puns! Well, a couple.) in my new black tank top with red lips bought specifically for that class, my red heart socks, all my heart-shaped jewelry and a Valentinesy headband that I'd made the night before with the leftovers from the fabric bookmarks I'd made for the girls' teachers. But at 7:30am, work called and asked if I could come in to cover for someone. Sigh. So I missed my dance class, which makes that the third Cardio Dance Party holiday class I've missed in a row... Halloween... Christmas... now Valentine's. But hey, extra money!


Bookmarks to show my appreciation for wonderful teachers!

Oh and I was wearing my hair in what I hoped would look like hearts but ended up looking more like cinnamon rolls.


(Can you see the headband?)

Lolly's and Fi's hair looked much more convincing and a lot less like breakfast food.



I also planned to do the grocery shopping and errand running on Friday, but after we came home from work, wee Jaguar came down with a high-ish fever, relegating the rest of the day to the couch for cuddling and sleeping and trying to drink water (Jaguar, that is). Which means I didn't have time or energy to get dolled up for my date with Scott that night, but hey ho, I was wearing my lips tank! And I got to snuggle with my hot water bottle baby boy who never wants to snuggle anymore. The only silver lining to having a sick child.


I took the children to my mom's house for a sleepover after they came home from school. My mom and stepdad rock, by the way, for taking Baby Jaguar even with his fever, which, I should add so I don't look like a terrible mother, had no other symptoms at all. David set him up with popsicles, water, blankets and cuddles all night while Mom organized a Valentine's fun night for the girls, so Scott and I could go out and have a super sweet date night!


...at Painting With a Twist!!




Let me tell you, that was SO MUCH FUN. Scott is a self-proclaimed art dunce, but he's wrong, his painting came out looking great. They take you step by step through how to make your painting, making it very difficult to screw up. We had so much fun, and Scott even said he'd go back again. Success!

We then used our Olive Garden gift card from Christmas to gorge ourselves on salad and breadsticks and wine. We even shared a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake at the end. Then rolled ourselves into the car to go home. I could barely move. Carbs. It was a perfect date night.

A quick skip over the next several hours to this morning (wink) and after a leisurely lie-in with no kids rapping at our door (though we did have two cats who weren't happy about waiting for breakfast) Scott and I treated ourselves to a super romantic, child-free breakfast at Waffle House (that's where the magic happens, right?) before arriving for our super romantic appointment with our tax preparer. Nothing says Happy Valentine's Day like a double waffle and a 1040! Throw in some hashbrowns and a Schedule C, and things really start cookin'! Ya'll know what I'm saying.

But seriously. Happy days.

Sigh, Valentine's Day, you blessed day of commercialized, Hallmark-cheapened love, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Valentine's Day: Elf on the Shelf Returns

The kids woke up this morning to a huge surprise.

Banoffee Pie was back!

Santa gave Banoffee the day off to come back to Arkansas to visit his three favourite kiddos. He came bearing gifts and mischief.


He brought a heart-shaped box of chocolates for everyone (Scott, Granny and Grampa all included) and a chocolate rose for me (aww). He brought Jaguar a stuffed doggie, Fifi an owl and Lolly a unicorn.



He made us a batch of pink pancakes, and being the cheeky rascal he is, he dyed our gallon of milk pink.



(He made the pancakes on my Pampered Chef Executive Sauté Pan and left some of the pink batter in the fridge in my Pampered Chef Classic Batter Bowl. Lolly, the observant one, noticed this and said, "Banoffee is so clever! He uses Pampered Chef stuff!")

The kids were elated this morning, and utterly surprised. They hugged Banoffee and thanked him for all there presents.

The best part though?

After breakfast, Fifi came running over to me and whispered in my ear, "Thanks, Mum."

My baby girl. Growing up too fast.

Out-Mothering Each Other

I could totally be one of those mothers who hijacks her child's art projects in order to make it the best in the class. I've got that competitiveness in me, and I love arts and crafts. I have fun ideas and love a well-made, mess-free final product. So when a project is assigned from school, I have to make a huge effort to stay the heck out of it and let my child take the lead.

Kids are making their Valentine's Mailboxes for school parties tomorrow. Fifi's class is no exception. A letter went home with the students informing parents that the boxes need to be made at home and brought into school, and there would be a competition for Most Creative, Most Loving, Most Whatever-else-the-teacher-could-think-of. The letter mentioned 'Cute ideas can be found on Pinterest!' Bloody Pinterest.

I haven't made a Valentine's mailbox since elementary school, and that was long before Pinterest took over our imaginations. My mailboxes were shoeboxes covered in wrapping paper (or at least brown packaging paper) and covered with stickers and marker drawings. Glitter was considered high-brow.

I took the letter's advice (BAD) and looked on Pinterest for ideas. BOY, DID THEY HAVE SOME IDEAS. I showed Fifi photo after photo of cute, intricate, creative, stylish, award-winning mailboxes. She loved all of them but didn't want to do any. Fifinally I came to my senses and like a proper mother asked, "What do you have in mind for your box then?"

She thought for a moment and said, "I'd like the top to look like a Scottish flag. On the side, I could have a picture frame or something."

There was nothing on Pinterest that looked like a Scottish flag with a picture frame on the side. I was pleased and humbled by her individual creativity.

So I bought some blue spray paint (because we all know I love spray paint), and while she was at school, I prepped her shoebox by painting it blue for her. By the way, spray paint doesn't apply well to cardboard, I've discovered. I used an entire can on that baby, about six coats, to get the Nike swoosh to finally go away.

Yesterday we got out my trusty hot glue gun and glued down two white strips of paper, creating the Scottish saltire across the top of her mailbox. We cut out a picture frame from a scrap piece of cardboard, and Fifi helped me spray paint it orange. (By helped, I mean, she picked out a color from my collection of cans and stood back while I sprayed. Baby lungs, people.) She drew a picture for inside the frame.

I thought she was done, but no sir. She had other plans. Every side needed something. So today I pulled out my craft box, and we started brainstorming. At the library this morning, Lolly got to do a project using foam Love Hearts, and it had given me an idea. I had a bag of real Love Hearts which I allowed Fifi to hot glue all over the box. I imagined a nice little frame made of candy all around the flag, but she had different ideas. So I once again, stood back and let my kid direct the project. I love what she did with them.

You'd never think she was actually having fun based on this face!

She placed them along the white cross of her flag. It wasn't what I'd have done, but it's how she wanted it, and it turned out really great. We then found some wooden letters. I've been holding onto these wooden letters for years, not wanting to waste them, but today I decided it was time to USE the craft items. She spelled out her name on the box with them. Then she colored the letters in with markers and dotted the 'i' with a Love Heart.

Won't be using those letters again, I guess.

I also had some miniature clothes pegs in my craft box, so she got the idea to peg little pictures or words along the side. I suggested 'Be Mine' or 'Love' (not wanting to use all my pegs!) but she wanted 'Valentine'. So we glued on the pegs, and I showed her how to cut hearts out of folded paper. Most of her hearts looked like those pixelated Space Invaders, but oh well! She pegged the hearts to the box. It turned out super cute!


On the next side, she drew some hearts on pink cardstock and glued a Love Heart in the middle of each. I call this the Triple Hearts side.


And finally, I let her use my pink alphabet stickers (my poor craft box!) to write a message on the last side. "Happy Valentines Day!" (There was no apostrophe sticker, much to my perturbation.)


I think the whole box looks fantastic.

I know it's easy to get caught up in our kids having the "best", most impressive projects, but really, that's not what it's all about. The real point is letting the kids get creative themselves, letting them come up with their own ideas, and then helping them see it through. I'm not criticizing ANYONE for doing awesome Pinteresty projects; if Fifi had wanted to do one, we would have, and I would've LOVED it. I'm AMAZED by how cool some of my friends' kids' mailboxes are. (I'm thinking in particular of a Facebook picture of the most awesome shark mailbox I've ever seen. I am so not criticizing this stuff!) What I'm more pointing to is the temptation to take over their projects for them, and make them do what we, as the parents, think is the best way. This not only deprives them of the opportunity to be creative and think for themselves, but it also undermines their confidence. When we shoot down their ideas in preference to our own, we're only teaching them that they are not as creative as we are nor as capable. Their ideas may not win them the class competition, but who cares? It's often, I've found, the parents, with their parental pride, that cares more about winning those competitions than the kids do. Sure Fifi mentioned that she wanted to win, and of course she wants to win. I just reminded her that winning the competition is only part of the fun. Having a blast with glue and markers, coming up with fun ideas, and making her ideas come to life is the good stuff. Whoever gets picked, I reminded her, will have worked just as hard as she did, but hopefully she'll have had the most fun!

I've seen a refreshing number of friends on Facebook remark that their kids have just colored and glued and stuck stickers on their boxes. I've seen a refreshing number of people suggest we all stop competing with other parents via our children. Furthermore, my saying I let Fifi take the lead and do her own thing is also not meant to be another version of "competition" or "out-mothering you". We can compete with each other by our non-competitiveness too. ("I'm less competitive than you, na-nana-na boo boo!") All I'm really saying is, it's the child's project. Not ours. We had our turn, back in the day. Now if we feel the need to out-craft each other, that's what bloody Pinterest is for. But let's keep the parent competition out of our kids' classrooms. They have enough peer competition to deal with as it is.

Nine Valentines

Nine Valentine's Days.

That's coming up for a decade of being the same person's Valentine year in, year out.

It's a strange but wonderful thought.

My memories of unmarried Valentine's Days are few. I had lots of boyfriends in my day but never seemed to have one on Valentine's Day. Scott tells me this is intentional on boyfriends' parts, so they don't have to buy a gift. I believe it. I remember one year, a guy from school, Matt Yeager, brought a bucketful of red roses and gave a single rose to every girl he knew. He was always such a romantic; I don't know whatever happened to him, but I hope he's married to some girl who simply adores and appreciates his romantic side - and pays it back.

My first Valentine's with Scott consisted of him sending me a bouquet of roses from Scotland, in a turquoise vase, which I kept ever since, until about a year ago when my darling beloved child broke it. It had a green Irish teddy bear with it; InterFlora must have assumed Ireland/Scotland/same thing.

My second Valentine's was here with Scott in our first home, our first married Valentine's together, and he made me a fancy, romantic dinner. I'll never forget - steaks, mashed potatoes with the skins and asparagus drizzled in lemon butter.

My third Valentine's with Scott was a Bombay Sapphire cocktail-making class in Glasgow, where we learned to make fancy gin cocktails, and where we developed a cocktail snobbery. Cosmopolitan without the flaming orange? Not a Cosmopolitan.

And that... is where I begin to forget.

Kids came along that year. Fifi would have been less than a month old that year, and every year after that is just a blur. I know Scott has brought me home Oriental lilies just about every year, a major sacrifice for him with his allergies, but in general, I can't remember what we've done on this favourite of holidays for the past six years. We tried to do a back-and-forth thing, where we take turns planning our Valentine's dates, but each year, for the past several years, we can't remember who's turn it is.

I've been thinking today though. Valentine's has always been one of my favourite holidays. I love all the gushy mushy stuff, I love red roses and my Oriental lilies, I love chocolate-covered strawberries and jewellery and romance. But at this stage in our lives, with children and trying to make ends meet and housework and busy schedules, romance gets sort of the back seat... and not the good kind of back seat. I miss doing all that lovey-dovey Valentines stuff that couples - especially dating couples - put so much effort into.

It's true that Scott and I agreed to save our Valentine's date for next week when the children are away with grandparents, and we can have a nice, relaxing week away ourselves. I'm not suggesting that Scott and I have blown it this year. But I am thinking that next year, I'm going to kick the whole Valentine's thing back up a notch. I've seen so many sweet ideas on blogs, Pinterest and Facebook that I wish I had thought of doing, to show my man how much I still fancy him, how attractive he still is to me, how deeply I love him, and how much I enjoy spending time with him. I want him to know that, despite the season of life we are in, he still makes me giggly and happy, and I still love the socks off him... and the shirt, and well, everything else. *Wink.

I'm looking forward to next week, when we'll have the chance to get away for almost a whole week with just the baby - no other kids, no internet, no housework, just me and him (and hopefully a baby who just sleeps a lot), some books, some TV, some good conversation, some lovely walks, a cosy fire, a few leisurely outings, and a romantic dinner or two. Because I still love my Valentine, nine years later, more than I loved him on that very first, or even second, when the fire burned so brightly... but as we've learned, the brightest fire isn't always the hottest, and it isn't the fire that lasts the longest. I want our fire to burn brightly, but more importantly, steadily, forever.

Rare Quiet Moment

This is one of the moments that are few and far between: the only sound is the dishwasher running. Fifi is zonked out on the couch, and Lolly is zonked out in the swing. I need to get dinner started, but I'm touching base here first.

We are all better, finally. Sickness is over, for the most part. Fifi is finishing up her antibiotics, and my voice is nearly back to normal. (I'm convinced it took longer to come back after I lost it, because I had to run two baby signing classes while it was gone, and the singing seemed to destroy the old voicebox.)

Fifi has been wearing 'big girl pants' since Sunday. She's only had a few accidents, surprisingly. She has been in a nappy only for nap and bedtimes; saying that, however, she's in pants just now while she naps, so we'll see how she awakes. She's been out and about as usual in pants, and we've had no problems! She went to Toddlers on Tuesday, a creche on Wednesday, and Toddlers and the breastfeeding group today. I'm so, so proud of her.

We have also been making up for our lost Valentine's this week. Last night, Scott and I (with Lolly) went to Thai Siam for a delicious meal. Yesterday morning, I baked my heart-shaped cake (not the one I wanted to do), and I frosted it today. We'll have it tonight. Dinner is nothing special tonight, but I'm glad we got around to doing at least a small something for Valentine's. I'd have loved to do cookie bouquets or something for Fifi, but she'll just have to settle on a heart cake. I think she'll be fine with that.

And what else... There's not much else to share. I'm just really, really looking forward to travelling to Arkansas in a few weeks (seven, I think). And also thinking it's really weird that in about the same time, I'll be 27 years old. 27 sounds like that age right before you're too old. Right before 28. 28 just sounds too close to 30. I never pictured myself being 30. 27 is about as old as I think I'll allow myself to get. (Scott likes to point out that's when all the good rock stars die. Don't think I'm ready to die, though, so maybe I'll have to go older.)

Okay, off to make dinner, even though I'm so not hungry enough to eat it. Still not 100% back to normal yet, when it comes to appetite. The plus side is the weight loss from not wanting to eat!

My Favourite Day of the Year...

... began at the out-of-hours doctor's surgery with Fifi, where she was diagnosed with her first ear infection. Subsequent to that delightful excursion, I went grocery shopping and got Fifi's prescription filled. Scott and I ate hamburgers for lunch, which I couldn't taste, because, did I mention, Scott and I are sick too. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon in bed watching TV and napping with my sick children. Scott's now napping with Lolly, and I'm trying to humour Fifi by half-heartedly playing kitchen with her. So much for that cake I was going to make. Or for the delicious dinner I had planned. Or any other exciting Valentine's Day fun we may have had.

Substitute Valentine's

Well our substitute Valentine's Day was nice, though it still didn't go as planned. I suppose that kinda goes along with a) having a baby and b) living in the rain. Fifi kept me up all night wanting to nurse and continued her desperate need for Boobie throughout the entire morning. Our cute picnic plan had to be deserted due to the lovely Scottish weather, and we never made it out of the house to rent a romantic film. Scott made us dinner - steak and potatoes - and we drank Schloer. No wine for me and my mastitis antibiotics self. Then we watched The Game. Hardly your romantic comedy, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. Then we went to bed. I forgot to give him his card. He forgot to give me the flowers he was intending to get. It was still a really nice day though, spent with the two greatest people on the planet. I'd still call it a success.

On a different subject, let's play a game.
Family Fortunes

Top 5 Things That Would Suck Should They Stop Working When You Have A Newborn:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Any guesses?

The number one answer according to our studio audience (of myself alone) is -
The Washing Machine!

Yes, folks, our washing machine is on the fritz. We discovered this yesterday when I pulled a soggy load out of it. I threw the clothes through an extra spin cycle to no avail. Hoping it was just a fluke (because I'm way too optimistic), I went ahead and put in another load, after wringing the previous load out and hanging them on the clothes horse. That second load? Ended in a massive pool of dirty water. Scott spent quite a bit of time trying to pull the items out without flooding the kitchen.

Remember all that talk about cloth nappies and what not that I was so excited about? Yeah, we still haven't gotten a chance to use them yet. We decided to just use disposables in the hospital because they were free, then after a couple of days at home using cloth, we discovered it was really irritating Fifi's cord so we decided to use disposables until the cord fell off. The cord fell off right after we'd bought an entire bag of nappies so we decided to use them up and then start the cloth again. And then our washing machine broke down. Disposables again.

In a way, I'm not too bothered. I love the cloth nappies, but both of us kinda don't like them so much for newborns. They are just so bulky on a tiny baby. I've seen cloth on a slightly older baby (one month), and they aren't nearly so cumbersome once the baby has grown a bit. But right now? They are really just too big. Even the tie-ons are too big for her tiny bum. So it's kinda okay for now. But soon and very soon, her adorable baby bum will be swathed in terry cloth bliss. But not until we figure out what we're going to do about the washing machine.

And we gotta figure that out pronto, because among the three of us, we make some serious laundry.

Busy Un-Valentine's Day

Today has been really tiring. We've been out and about all day. At 10 o'clock this morning we went into the mortgage centre to show off Fifi to all of Scott's workmates. I have to admit, I had a hard time letting fifty thousand people I've never met before handle my daughter but I made it through. We were there for an hour. We were then supposed to meet Scott's mum and some of her mates for lunch at 12, so we went home, fed and changed Fifi and headed back in to eat lunch. Again, I had to pass her around but at least it was on a lesser scale. After lunch, we came home again, and Fifi and I napped. Then, after feeding and changing her again, we went back into town to buy groceries. Let me tell you, I'm exhausted.

Today is Valentine's Day. Valentine's is one of my absolute favourite holidays. I look forward to Valentine's every year. Scott and I take turns each year planning this day, but this year, of course, the plans were superceded by, you know, having a baby. Scott planned to make us a romantic dinner and watch a romantic film, but all day we've been grouchy. It just hasn't felt Valentinesy at all. I haven't even signed the card I bought him!

So we decided to put Valentine's off until tomorrow. This makes me very happy. We're going to have a boring casserole for dinner tonight and start over tomorrow. We're going to take Fifi to Cornalees where Scott and I first held hands and maybe have a picnic or something. Then Scott'll make our romantic dinner, and we'll rent a lovey-dovey film. And I'll sign his card.

I love my family. That's my Valentine's love message for today. :)

Fab Hair

Fab Hair
Originally uploaded by superlori.

This is a picture of my fabulous hair (slightly midday droopy). I don’t know what inspired me this morning to attempt a look I’ve never known how to achieve before, but something did, and I feel like I’m finally making use of those expensive layers I had cut into my hair six months ago.

I am posting this picture of my hair only so I can post while at work through Flickr, and because I had no other pictures that were worth posting, I had to take one of something, thus my hair, and in the bathroom so no one would see me being a narcissistic freak in the glass reception area of a very expensive independent high school.

(And yes, that is the same green turtleneck that seems to appear in every picture I post of myself. I love that turtleneck. I wear it at least once a week. I hope I’m not the only one who thinks it looks great on me.)


So, loophole blogging effort complete, let’s talk about my weekend!

In fact, let’s take this baby all the way back to Valentine’s Day and work our way forward, shall we?

As my darling Scott has already told you, we had a fantastic Valentine’s Day. I know a lot of people have serious issues with this holiday, but I stand right next to Kirsten Cohen from The O.C. in saying it is one of my favourite holidays of the year. Ever. And this isn’t because I was one of those hot, perky cheerleader-type girls who always had a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day to fill me with many blissful memories for years to come of the days when I was hot, perky and a cheerleader. No. I rarely had a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day, and I can honestly say that until Scott came along, each one disappointingly did not live up to my expectations of what a romantic Valentine’s Day should be. Still, I loved it.

*Let’s just stop for a moment to give a shout-out to Matt Yeager who one year in high school brought a whole bucketful of roses to school just to hand out to any girl who did not have a rose. It’s men like that who should be made President.*

Anyway, so I love the Valentine’s. And ours was good. I love gin, I love Scott and I love Valentine’s Day, so what could be better? Plus, I love The Lighthouse in all its architectural glory which is where the great event ('Cocktails By Design') is being held. So that was that, two gin and cranberries (with a slice of lime, which is very important), a cosmopolitan, a dry martini twist, a Tom Collins with elderflower and a Sapphire Rose later, and I slept soundly dreaming of all the ten botanicals that make Bombay Sapphire better than your traditional gin (which only uses four botanicals. Pssh.).

Wednesday came and went with no excitement that I can recall.

Thursday – this is something to mention. Since back in, something like September, I’ve been anxiously awaiting the UK release of RENT on the 17th of February. I had my new RENT shirt all clean and ready for the big night – JUST TO FIND OUT THEY’VE POSTPONED THE RELEASE TO APRIL. What a load of turd-rockets.

Friday, we all got off work an hour early, and since we were on the shorter holiday schedule as it was, I left at 3.00. Brilliant. We were all going out that night, though, for the photocopier’s last day, so I rode the train to Greenock, wandered about the shops for an hour and then rode back to Glasgow. I actually enjoyed this, despite all the train. I had half a pizza at an Italian restaurant for dinner and then got to utilise my new cocktail expertise at Frankensteins, a most horrendous booty club that plays Frankenstein on the many TV screens overdubbed with bootylicious R&B pop songs mixed with dancealiscious house beats. Their idea of a cocktail list was two cocktails, neither one anything classy, so I stuck with traditional gin and cranberry for the evening (incensed by their constant forgettage of the lime). It was a good time. Jamie danced. Ooh… I wonder if I can post a picture from my phone…

Saturday was da best. Scott and I journeyed down to Edinburgh for Sarah’s surprise baby shower. It was such a good time. She’s due in two weeks so prayers for her and Jonathan and the littlest Viper Quimby would be a great thing! Aside from getting to snack on fondue, cucumber sandwiches, cookies and brioche, all in the name of baby shower, I got to finally meet the beautiful Michaela who is now back in the 'Burgh. Hurray for internet friends. I like Michaela very much, and I especially like the fact that she spends a significant amount of time in Glasgow, meaning I’ll actually see her more than just once in a blue moon like the other 'Burghers. Anyway, well done to Ashley, Neyir and Judith for a really beautiful baby shower. Now let’s bring on the baby!

Finally, ya’ll. The round-up. Sunday was normal and uneventful, aside from the preteen Bible study I’ve been landed with (which went surprisingly okay – no knives to my throat, and while the kids didn’t answer any of my questions, at least they didn’t act up through the lesson) and our date to see Final Destination 3 which is as perfect(ly ridiculous) as we hoped it would be. Today ought to be fairly normal, aside from the Ladies’ Evening which I got roped into attending and, ahem, singing at and, ahem, reading a poem written by not me at. (Ugh, I just ended a sentence with a preposition! And I’m not going to fix it either.) And Tuesday ought to be normal, and then….

WEDNESDAY!!! RANGERS!!! IBROX!!!!!!! GOVAN FRONT SEATS WHERE THE PLAYERS MAY ACTUALLY HEAR ME SHOUT ABUSE AT THEM!!!!! NOT THAT I KNOW HOW TO SHOUT ABUSE, I JUST LOVE THE IDEA OF IT!!!!!! I LOVE FOOTBALL!!!!!!! I LOVE RANGERS!!!!!!

Play by play to be expected. (Not really.) (I hope not.) (But maybe.) (Good chance of it.)

I think I wrote this whole post just to get to Wednesday.

Mixology

Under command of the fairer partner in this marriage, I blog.

I blog about Tuesday night.

Guys, that was Valentine's day. Hope you didn't forget.

Well, I rushed home from work, got changed and rushed out again. We were heading up to Glasgow for the evening, Lori had a surprise for me. She'd been planning this for months/weeks, which suited me, since it relieved any pressure I had to organise a romantic dinner or *shock* cook again.

I was planning to wait until we had actually got to the place before finding out what it was, but the intrigue was too much, so I made Lori tell me on the train. We were going to a Mixology lesson.

The more musically minded of us may have thought I was learning to be a DJ, but nay! We were in training to become the bartenders of the future, courtesy of Bombay Sapphire gin.

It was a perfectly splendid little event, they showed us around their exhibit of out their glasswork, which was all very nice, then took us back and gave us some gin'n'juice.

Then commenced the real fun. After the obligatory sales pitch/history lesson from the chap taking the class, he started to show us how to mix cocktails the gin way. We learned gin martinis, cosmopolitans, Tom Collins' and something called a Sapphire Rose. Lori actually got to make one out in front of everyone, I think she did a cosmopolitan.

Predictably, it had too much gin in it. Not a surprise for me, I can tell you.

At the end, we were given a goodie bag each, so we now have 2 limes, 4 cartons of cranberry juice, 4 cool glasses, some recipe cards/coasters and a list of all the good cocktail bars in Britain.

We might go back, purely to get more of those glasses. They are that cool.

Then we shared a fish supper on the train home, after meeting Pete in the train station. Then back to his for a cup of tea, then I took Lori to bed. The cocktails had taken their toll, after all.


Sorry for the fragmented writing style, I've been up since 6 o'clock, been to uni all day, work all evening and then on to my parents house for an hour or so before getting home. I am rather tired, and I'm up at 6 again tomorrow, working at 7.

/cry.

Patriotic Parcel

Patriotic Parcel

Teehee! I think I discovered a way to blog from work!!! (Pictures anyway.) It will make a series of posts, I think, for which I apologise, and will likely change when I get home, but for now, hurrah!


EDIT: Psuedo-editing, i.e., merging to one post, accomplished at 17.57, i.e., as soon as bloody possible because it was annoying the crap out of me.

I received a note through the door requesting a pick up for a parcel at the post office Tuesday. Eager to find out what it was, Scott and I retrieved <-- this parcel on Wednesday. Our eyes were dazzled by the stars and stripes, and a patriotic hand rested abreast my heart. (Ok, the second part didn't happen.)

Boob Shot

I asked Scott to take a picture of me in my new shirt (my Christmas present from my sis-in-law-to-be). This is what he took.

New Shirt

So I had to take the picture myself. But I'm making the ugliest face ever, and my hair looks like it hadn't been washed in two days (it hadn't), so I spared you the trauma.

Thanks, sis-in-law-to-be! I love it, and it's a perfect fit. Thanks for the CD, too!




Now, for Cat Pictures!(Yes, I've become that person.)

Clementine

Demure and non-chalant, that's my Clementine.

Remedios!

Rem isn't very photogenic like Clem is. Rem is a fighter, not a lover, of the camera.

Clementine!

'I like being held by my armpits.' Translation: 'I'm a bit of a slow cat.'

Clementine

'I listen to obscure bands and put arty photos of myself on myspace. I so don't care, by the way.'

Remedios

'Gah, I really hate that camera.'

Remedios

'WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME?!'



**** And finally, The Highlight of My Day

Valentine Rose

Note reads:
'to Lori
from Christopher
as freinds'

A pupil brought both me and the other receptionist a Valentine rose today. He's our favourite kid, he's so sweet and charming, and he literally made my day!