It Was Tuesday! It Was Super! It Was Super Tuesday!

I voted yesterday.

In my entire voting life, I have never lived in a swing state. I have yet to hear the advert of a presidential candidate, receive a mailer, have my dinner interrupted by a robo-call, or have traffic snarled by a rally.

But.

I. Love. Voting.

With all my heart.

I'm a voting geek. In the stretch of time since I became eligible to vote, I have never--not once--missed an election. (Including that one time when I wrote in my husband for Utah County Sheriff.) Suffice it to say, I liked my yesterday. It was a good yesterday. And here are some other things that made for my Super Tuesday:

1. Blake.

This boy has some very strong fashion opinions, and this was how he chose to spend his Super Tuesday. 

Two hats. 

All day. 

Very awesome. 

2. Ian.

This weekend was the Pinewood Derby, and has been tradition since he was three years old, Ian made a car for the "open class" with Joe. This year, though, Ian wanted to do a replica of our van.  (And that, they did. Complete with roof rack.) My favorite part of Pinewood Derby Weekend is the subsequent play that ensues at home. We have a nice collection of cars now, and both of my boys (well, all three of my boys) play and play and play. They're great, those boys.

3. The Weather.

Sixty-five degrees tomorrow? Yes, please. 

Bring on Spring. 

I'm ready.

Geeking out at the my local polling place, happy boys, and warming temperatures--not a bad day. 

Here's to hoping for a Super Wednesday. 

Wherein I Demonstrate the Rudeness of Bostonians

It's an oft-perpetuated stereotype that people from the Bay State are awful. Just awful.

Right?

We won't say hi...or shake your hand...or help you pick up your spilled papers on the street...or smile...or even make a half-hearted attempt to feign a sunny disposition. Because... you know...we're busier, classier, more important, certainly more self-absorbed, and DEFINITELY intellectually-superior to the rest of America. Especially when the rest of America is clogging up the sidewalks trying to reorient themselves to the Freedom Trail near the entrance to the Park Street T while the rest of us are trying to get to work. (And when we say "the rest of America," what we really mean to say is, "coattail-clinging Wild West America," because we all know that John and Abigail Adams never thought it prudent to have a winter place in Tucson.)

Am I hitting this stereotype on the head? You've heard it, right? Between that and the perpetuation of the myth that there isn't a place on earth more expensive, you can imagine why it might be that Massachusetts experiences a sluggish rate of population growth.

But I digress.

Blake and I went to the grocery store this morning. There's a storm a-comin' (first of the winter) and I needed milk--and if you want to see a beautiful specimen of Grocery Store Frenzy, you should be in a Massachusetts grocery store the night before a big storm. I find it so curious that people here are consistently surprised that it...well...snows. It's more frenzied than the Provo Macey's on a Saturday night. So there we were, Blake and me, hanging out at the Market Basket, getting some goodies for dinner (a friend is flying in today for a job interview, and it is our duty to woo him with winter storm warnings....and seafood)...and we finally found the hot pepper jelly.....in the glass jar. So, of COURSE I let Blake hold it! Mother of the year!

But just as I was taking inventory of the croutons, I heard both the shattering of glass and Blake's voice lamenting, "Uh-oh, Mama." 

Oops.

And what happened? Not one, but TWO other shoppers took the time to find some store-employee-people to call up a "clean-up in aisle 2!" Both women had toddlers in their cart. I could tell both were busy. Both took time to help me out. 

Totally rude, right?

Now, I should explain here that between the hours of 9am until about noon, the average age of a Market Basket shopper shoots up somewhere around 75. Today happened to have an average that I'd peg at about 85....but that was only due to the additional data point accrued when I saw a group of about 25 senior citizens load their groceries onto a bus. This is to say that once we hit the produce section, Blake got a LOT of love.

"What's his name?"

"What a big, handsome boy?"

"He must be so much fun!"

"I wish my great-grandson was so beefy!"

"When  is his birthday?"
"Let me guess: He's 15 months old!"

"What an angel face on that boy."

"It's okay to be shy--that means you're thinking about important things." 

"He looks like he's solving the world's problems!"

"Your birthday is soon? Here's a dollar!" (Absolutely true.)

See, Blake doesn't tend to indulge these interactions. He's rather reserved. He's straight-faced and quiet. But make no mistake--he's still cute (biased mother alert). Not once did one of our new friends touch his face or try to squeeze him. They didn't invade his personal space or speak too loudly. They were perfectly charming and delightful and we even shared several pleasant moments over the lemons. 

So this? This is MY Massachusetts reality. And I'm sure people like me would tell you about experiences like this every day in every part of our tiny little area. 

Happy Leap Day. 

Now go destroy a stereotype. 

(Though, truth be told, some of us ARE slightly skeptical of Arizona's to support human habitation.)

Commence to Start! Snowpile Contest 2012.

The time you have all been waiting for is here.  

No, we're not talking Groundhog Day... we're talking Snowpile Contest Day!

As I was walking with the neighbor to take our boys to school this morning, it occured to me that Punxatawney Phil isn't very clear about his prediction.  When he says, "Six more weeks of winter" does he mean "You're gonna get pounded  for six more weeks" or "Spring will be here in 6 weeks"?

Cause no matter how you roll the dice, we don't see leaves on the trees mid-March.  Try early May.  Late April if we're lucky.  

So here is an image to get your estimating juices flowing:

Haha!  You didn't think that was right now did you?  That was this time last year.  Turns out that my mom, Linda won the contest with an April 21 melt date.

Here's what we're looking like this morning.  Honestly.  Look at that.  We have a few snowflakes taped to the living room window, but that's it.  :(

We DO have a snowpile, but it's not much to speak of.  It's been hanging around for a couple of weeks, since we got that fluke 5 inches.  Even the Scouts had Klondike on the bare ground last weekend.  Sad, eh?

I mean really.  This pile doesn't look like it'll last through Valentines, does it?

Sure we've had a couple days below 10deg F, but for the most part, we've been looking at 40s during the day and 30s at night.  It's terrible, I tell you!

Given the strange warmth of the winter, and not wanting to abandon tradition this easily, we propose the following rules:

1. You may not duplicate dates.
2. The official date of melt will not be announced until April 1, to give New England a chance to get its act together and get a couple of feet of snow. (Now, this doesn't mean that your melt date has to be after April 1, it just means that we want to make sure the snow is done for the year.)
3. The winning date will be after the last snow pile of the winter melts. If the current snow-pile melts and we get a new pile from a mid-winter snow, we'll update the photo.  
4. If I don't get a chance to go snowshoeing this winter I'll be very sad. :(

So how do you like taking a gamble on snow from a winter that never really started?

Leave your entries in the comments section below!

Back into it Brain Dump

My Christmas-turned-New-Year-turned-plague-induced blog hiatus needs to end....and I'll ease back into things with a mild-mannered brain dump, I think.

Here's what's been on my mind:

1. This headline on msnbc definitely caught my attention:

In truth, it makes my little heart grow about three sizes.  And while I recognize that birthing in your living room/kitchen/bathtub/back yard isn't for everyone, it's nice to feel like it's starting to pull [ever-so-slightly] away from the margins-of-the-margins.

2. Um. I try my best to be as apolitical as possible when it comes to my online self. But since I hit the home birth button, I might as well hit the Republican Primary button too, right? Here goes:

Dear Republicans,

Really? Newt Gingrich? You know he's crazy, right? You know what happened to Michael Dukakis, right? You know they're going to start uncorking the champagne at the White House, right? You know that The Establishment is going to panic in a second and bring in another candidate, right?

Yours,
Jen

*sigh*

Sorry. Had to get that out of my system. I'll now go back to being a bit more benign in this regard. But really folks. If this doesn't make you fear for our species, I don't know what will.

Okay, okay, one more thing. This is a fascinating read about "red states" v "blue states" with regard to the taking of federal dollars compared to the revenue generated by said states. (Hint: "Red states" seem to take in more government funding than they generate, while "blue states" give more to Washington than they take. But read the analysis. It's great. And helpful.)

3. I currently have three completed quilt tops waiting for me to do something with them. The truth? There are a lot of steps to quilting, and piecing a quilt back is NOT in my top three. (It's down there with the cutting....) Hence, I have three perfectly wonderful quilt tops just waiting to become quilts...to no avail.

4. Blake pooped in the tub tonight. I'm going to break yet another one of my rules right now (it's a slippery slope, I guess....what's next? A bullet point about religion?) and compare my children. Ian pooped in the tub once. (Translation: ONE TIME). Blake has...um...made it more of a habit. And at nearly 2 years old, it's not as...great...of an experience to clean up. I guess I could chalk that up to yet another one of my First-world problems. "My life is so hard because my 2 year old pooped in the tub....in the clean, warm , affordable, cholera-free water...with our indoor plumbing...surrounded by as many toys as you can imagine."

5. Our annual Snow Pile Contest will commence on February 1st (with or without a snow pile). This might be the first year where there will be NOTHING on the ground when you make your guesses. Am I complaining about it, though? Nope. It seems that in 2011, we experienced that year's winter and the winter of 2012 at the same time. Mother Nature gave us a two-fer. Just to remind you, here is what my yard looked like at this time last year:

(mid-January 2011)

This year? Grass. Nothing but grass. (I'd take a picture, but it's dark. And ugly. But surprisingly mild. That's a net win in my book.)

So there you have it. My brain feels much lighter now. You?

Political Skullduggery

Sorry for my prolonged absence here on the internets.

Lots going on....putting lots of mileage on my sewing machine...taking care of sick/grumpy people (no names to protect the innocent, though)....and also still in that Christmas Recovery Mode. Maybe it's the carb-overload I experienced, but I'm havin' a hard time coming down from the holidays...

...so until my head clears and I have something substantive to say, let's learn a little bit about super PAC's, shall we? (Prepare yourselves, it's scary.)

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Projects

In my life, it's perpetually true that Christmas = Projects. I don't know why I do it to myself, but you know...whatever.  Choices = Consequences, so using that logic: Christmas = Choices and Projects = Consequences.

Right?

(Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnd, the Logic side of my brain now feels like when your left leg falls asleep because you've been sitting on it for too long. Oops. I should know better than to sit on the Logic side for extended periods of time. People will only get hurt.)

One of the projects I've been working on for a while was a quilt for Blake's toddler bed. He's not headed there for a while, but I didn't know how-the-heck long it would take me to get underway...but at some point I underwent and I finished the quilt top yesterday afternoon. (Many thanks go to my sister, Hannah---hi, hannah!--who's chillin' at our house for a few days and keeps my kids company while I sew/recover from Christmas.) I'm thinking I'm going to do the back along these lines....and I haven't decided, yet, how to quilt it. 

In other news, ohmygoodnessareyoukiddingme? HAVE YOU SEEN DOWNTON ABBEY YET!?!? Where in the world have I been??? (Though, admittedly, I'm perpetually late to the television party. See also: The West Wing.) I'm not willing to divulge how many day(s) it's taken me to watch the first season. Nope. Lips = Zipped. At the moment I'm wrapped in fleece, sipping nutella-spiked cocoa, and ifyou'llexcuseme....I have a season finale to watch.