the happy homewrecker

This video from OK Go made me laugh: four grown men in ill-fitting suits doing a choreographed dance in their backyard, and they seem to be taking theirselves fairly seriously. Watch for the Matrix-inspired move near the end. Hee!

I cannot believe that Andy Roddick lost in the first round. He's one of my favorites to watch; it stinks to lose, period, but to lose on your 23rd birthday must really suck. Maybe Andy really did lose his mojo.

During the past two weeks, I made two cakes and took them to stitch n bitch to get feedback from the ladies there. The first week I made a white cake with white chocolate cream cheese frosting, with a thin layer of raspberry filling and fresh raspberries on top; the second week I made a from-scratch cake with chocolate frosting, pecans, and semisweet chocolate. The hands-down favorite was the white cake, a recipe from The Cake Doctor's book---basically a white cake gussied up with extra eggs and butter and vanilla, plus this incredibly rich frosting. It really was divine. The chocolate one was just so-so. Compared to the box mix white cake, the kinda white-kinda yellow from-scratch cake was flavorless.

So Saturday morning I made a second white cake and that afternoon we took it to Gary's company picnic. I was very nervous because while they'd said the cake competition would be between 5 and 5:30, they didn't actually do the judging until 6:30, and I was terrified that the frosting would be melted by then. Luckily it wasn't too too hot, the cake held up, and I came away with second place (out of 11 cakes). Strangers were coming up to me to ask about the recipe and where did I get those huge raspberries? I'd picked them up at the local grocery; they were kind of big, I guess one of the judges thought at first that they were strawberries. I won a $10 gift card to Wal-Mart, whoo hoo! Afterward, an older woman who'd been assisting the three (male) judges came over to ask me about my recipe, then leaned in and whispered, "Mr. So and So and I wanted you to know that we thought you should have won first place." Hee. And hey, I get my name in the company newsletter!

Somewhere, last year or the year before, I saw a link to a page that discussed why you should keep your kids rear-facing in their carseats for as long as possible. I can't for the life of me find the page. Anyone remember what I'm talking about?

We live near the high school and so I usually have a pretty good idea of what's going on there. As I was walking through the high school's northern parking lot about a month ago, I noticed a sign explaining that the marching band practiced there starting sometime in August and so please don't park there between such and such hours or your car may be damaged by a wayward tuba or skewered with a color guard flag.

Top party schools, from CNN.com. My alma mater is ranked at number two. I'm thinking that it's the annual Halloween bash that raised its standing. I went to, uh, maybe two parties during my 4.5 years there. Other than the Halloween thing, I didn't think the students at OU partied any harder than students anywhere else. Drinking, now that's another story. With a dozen bars Uptown and no need for driving either to them or from them, there was a lot of drinking. Not that I would know anything about that.

I'm about at my wits' end with Spencer. Over the past week he's been acting just awful, worse than his typical three-year old misbehavior. He doesn't listen to a single word we say, and during the last couple of days he's smacked Ginger in the face once and pushed her down at least once that I saw with my own eyes. We've always given him time-outs (on the stairs because it's far from the family room and there's no toys to play with there), but they don't seem to be doing any good. In instances where I can't give a time-out (like if we're out somewhere), I start taking away the books that he gets read---usually two before his nap and four before bed. He doesn't really seem to have a lot of privileges, so I'm not sure what else I could withhold. I feel like the time-outs and the taking away of stories aren't working, but I don't know what else to try. Any moms who've been there & done that have suggestions?

Last night I dreamed that I was on a very nice date with George Eads. I'm still feeling a bit glowy.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend today, about stay-at-home-moms and money and all that. We were talking about how, because we don't bring home a cash income, we tend to feel guilty spending any money on ourselves even for such basic things as clothes, even though we do work full-time. It reminded me of a study I read a couple of years ago (I can't even remember what university it was from) that calculated the average worth in dollars of the work that a stay-at-home-mom does. If I'm remembering correctly, it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $45,000 annually, but may have been higher, maybe $60,000? There was even some talk about trying to get those numbers figured into the gross national product for the U.S.

I try not to feel guilty. If we had to pay someone to do what I do---housecleaning, cooking, caring for the kids, grocery shopping, all that stuff---it would cost a fortune. But I still feel guilty. It's part of the reason why I do web design, to have my own money to spend on yarn or clothes or whatever, without having to dip into the general fund. I read a financial advice column a couple of months ago in which a man wrote in to say that his wife, who was a full-time SAHM, had started doing some part-time work and wanted to keep her earnings to spend as she liked. He wanted her to put her money into the general fund. The columnist told the guy that the part-time job the woman had picked up was in addition to the full-time job that she already had (as a SAHM), that she should be allowed to keep her own money, and that she should be commended for being able to fit a part-time job into the already hectic schedule of being a SAHM.

Do other SAHMs feel guilty, too?

WordPress: any thoughts? Opinions? I still have five months or so left on Typepad, but I'm thinking about maybe switching to something else. I like the Typepad interface, but the cheapest version doesn't give me the creative freedom I'd like.