Blue Ice Cream

When it's 110 degrees outside, most kids would ask for a cold treat such as ice cream. But my kid? My extraordinary little Bug? He asks to make ice cream. And not just any ice cream...he needs to make red ice cream "with red spikes".

This is him explaining the "spikes" to Daddy...

His request (or demand) was so incredibly cute that we couldn't say no. Google to the rescue! Apparently you can make ice cream in a bag. Who knew?? Well, maybe most people, but not me. Insert blonde jokes here. So yes. We made ice cream in bag. (Although it had to be blue because we emptied all of the red food coloring in December for *someone's* ridiculous red Handy Manny toolbox birthday cake.)

We stuffed a bag with ice and salt...

We poured the yummy stuff into the little bag, put that into the big bag, and then Daddy shook shook shook. The oven mitts are my favorite part.

And Presto! Blue ice cream for my little man.

Anyone can demand ice cream, but it takes a special one to demand to make it :) I love my baby.

Money and Purple Toenails.

I have not been blogging the past couple weeks. Truth be told, it is not at all that I have nothing to write about...it's actually been that I have so much to write about, so much to get out and vent, so much to explain, that it seems to be too much to even figure out where to start. The past two weeks have been...well, rough.

Let's start here: I have purple toenails. Translation: Something is clearly wrong with me.

Those of you who are not my very closest girl friends are probably wondering why the hell the color of my toenails says anything about...well, anything. So let me explain: I have had my toenails painted black since I was about 14. Yeah, that's 10 years of the same color. There have been pink and white flowers, jewels, sparkles and even one vampire bat over the years, but the base background color has always been black (the only exception I can remember was my junior prom). As crazy as it sounds, the black toenails became a sort of a comfort for me - a reminder of who I am, never changed by friends or men, love or loss, or anything else in my life - A statement that says "I am still me."

But as of two days ago, in the midst of yet another crappy day, my toenails became purple, and it was entirely my choice. Yup, something is definitely wrong with me.

The truth is that I'm a nervous wreck. I have become a ridiculous ball of stress thanks to school, motherhood and some very huge (and unforseen) financial problems that have consumed almost every moment of thought I have had over the past two weeks. My sleep schedule has been completely reversed - I lay awake all night long budgeting, researching, thinking, strategizing and worrying...and then I want to do nothing but sleep all day long. I am exhausted even when I can't sleep, and I feel like crap all. the. time. My migraines have been back in full force, I'm sick to my stomach all the time, and Pete is demanding that I see a doctor about my chronic nosebleeds. My skin is breaking out everywhere thanks to the stress, and considering I still haven't made my way to the damn gym, I have this "general plague" feeling about my appearance (Thanks, Eddie). BLECH.

I know I need to get a grip on my sanity here pretty soon, but unfortunately the outlook for the next couple months is looking very bleak right now (financially speaking). Hopefully by about October everything is going to start balancing out, and with any luck the wedding plans will continue to move forward...but unless I win the lottery or *finally* shack up with George Clooney, I don't see the headaches over our budget going away any time in the near future.

So what now? I've considered anxiety medication, yoga, and lots of pizza...but I'm not sure if any of that is going to do the trick of picking me up out of the gutter and calming me down before I end up Howard Hughes-ing it (see pic below) all the way to the wedding, or graduation, or beyond.

Leo makes crazy look good.

Maybe some things will turn around soon...and if not, please bear with me, and go easy on me until the black toenail polish returns.

The good and the bad.

It's 2:45 am. And I'm blogging. Waiting for my brain to shut off any minute now so I can sleep...

Today was one of those days that was both really good and not so great all at once. I got to spend most of the afternoon and evening with one of my very best friends (MOH B). We ate Taco Bell for old times sake, laughed at old choir videos, ate a yummy Pete-cooked dinner, drank some margaritas, went shopping and tried to do something constructive for the wedding (more on that in a minute). I don't spend much time with females, so this was a much needed girl day, and I'm so lucky that I have a man who understood that and let us have our space all day (Love you FI!).

But today I also had a sick little boy. We had quite a rough morning. Poor little thing. This morning was the first time he actually wanted Mommy in quite a while (Daddy is pretty much all that matters lately). But as nice as it was to remember what it feels like for him to want me, I felt bad that I couldn't actually make him feel any better. *Thank God for aceteminophen and ipuprophen though, because they did help. * It's never a good day for Mommies when babies are sick. :(

Today was also a hard day for wedding planning and school. I won't get into too much of the details because they are ridiculous, but lets just say that my summer school class makes me want to scream and dealing with our wedding budget makes me want to curse (okay maybe I have already done a lot of that...). And on top of that, B and I tried very hard to achieve the first round of this month's wedding project: Boutonierres, and the idea failed miserably. The problem here is that Pete really wants boutonierres made out of shamrocks...which we cannot get from our florist because they are basically grass and they die immediately. So I thought, no problem! I can just make faux-shamrock bouts and call it a day! I even found a Martha Stewart tutorial. Um...yeah, Martha, you suck. End of story. I never thought there was a wedding craft project I could not pull off. I'm the queen of crap like this. I pulled off complete wedding dresses as a pre-teen with nothing more than some tulle and safety pins! Okay that might not really count, but it's still a very funny memory. :) But I digress. I'm not sure my Bout attempt is over, but Pete may get stuck with shamrock lapel pins and green pocket squares and the world will keep on turning (and maybe my history paper will get written).

All in all, the good of today outweighed the bad, and thats really all that matters. It reminded me of how life really is, and what I think happiness truly is. People get sick, money gets tight, things get hard, and failures happen. But as long as the good outweighs the bad, and I've got the people who love me, I'll look forward to another day.

Motivation.

Or lack thereof, actually. I have had one of those weeks (okay, maybe two weeks) where I just do not have motivation to do anything that I should be doing. I have plenty of motivation to go swimming with my guys, move on to the next wedding DIY project that is scheduled for this month (yes, I have scheduled projects out over the next 12 months because I'm crazy), stay up all night talking to my honey, sleep half of the day, redecorate everything in my apartment and spend hours researching reception venues and doing the math to figure out how to pay for them. But I have NO motivation to do any homework, write any papers, participate in any discussion boards about Louis XVI, clean anything, do any laundry or work out. And I really need to be doing these things.

Pete and I were supposed to start working out regularly again on the one year countdown to the wedding day. Yeah...that day has come and gone, and neither one of us has hit the gym yet. We keep telling ourselves that there is no better motivation to get in shape than for our wedding weekend...but apparently there is something faulty with that thought. And my motivation for summer school should be to maintain my fabulous 4.00 that I scraped by with last semester. But I still don't really care.

I blame it on the heat. Oh did I not mention it was 112 degrees this weekend? I think the heat is melting my brain and causing all motivation that doesn't involve lounging in a pool to fry on the sidewalk.

If anyone has any suggestions for how to regain motivation for the things you really have to do, please, let me know. I'll be pretending to write my paper on Absolutism until then.

"I hope he doesn't die. I can't handle summer school."

I can always count on Ferris Bueller's Day Off for great quotes. :)

Sadly, Ferris can't get me out of summer school. June is now upon us which means that my fantastic break filled with sleep, The Shield and Save-the-Dates is now over and it's time to dive into the Old Regime in Europe, followed by Renaissance in Europe in July. I will be drowning in reading and writing essays for the next 10 weeks. My excitement is boiling over.

Yes, I love History (you would hope considering I will be teaching it very soon)...but my preferred area is US history, and all this European stuff is not really my cup of tea. But I must do it anyway, so I will make the best of it and get it over with. I think I will just keep quoting Eddie Izzard in my head and say "I'm from Europe. Where the history comes from." anytime I'm feeling a bit bored, and it will bring a smile to my face. :)

I realize this post is pretty pointless, but the truth is that I'm purposely avoiding anything wedding related right now due to money and budget issues that are giving me chronic migraines. So European History it is. Wahoo! Wish me luck.