Lynn's blog

Meeting someone you've known for 13 years for the first time is an odd thing. Will we like one another? Are we each the person the other thought she was?

For thirteen years now, I've been a member of an online support group of mothers. We formed as a group early in our pregnancies on what was then the only dedicated listserv for pregnant women. We were supposed to be together only for the duration of our pregnancies, all due in October of 1997. (Josie came in September, earlier than expected, but they let me stick around. ) At one point early in the babies' lives, someone said, wouldn't it be funny if we were still together when the kids were in kindergarten? We all scoffed.

We have been in this fershlugginer kitchen remodel/recovery since AUGUST, and before then our old floor was a disaster. Well, feast your eyes on this (commentary by JJ):

Marmoleum in Barbados (off-white), Raven (black) and Bleecker Street (red--yeah, I don't get the name either). As you can see, the baseboards aren't in yet, nor is the painting done. But oh, man, it's an improvement from this:

End of February it should be 100% done, the railings on the new deck in, the painting done, everything fresh and tidy and re-organized. It's like having a new house. I keep going in there as it is, with the new floor and the stainless steel appliances and countertops, and think I've walked into the wrong house...

The "Aughts" were a hard decade for this family. We started out healthy, happy, and rich--yeah, we were multimillionaires there for a brief, shining moment. Then we were plunged into poverty and sickness.

We've spent most of the decade climbing painfully out of both conditions, and while we're not entering the "Teens" in as good as shape as the previous decade, we're sure ending it better than we've been through most of the "Aughts." The main things we're grateful for about the decade are that we have Louisa (2001), and that I'm still alive after the medical cock-ups that started in 2002. I still fantasize about suing everyone involved, but I can't take the stress.

But here I am in 2010. I'm still alive. I'm finally feeling as if I can stop looking backward, as if I've finally processed what happened to us, and what happened to me. Financially, we're about as precarious as most middle-class families these days, but nothing like we were post-2001. Our kids are well. John's well--better than ever. And I'm ready to look ahead, not back.

It's only October and I'm already waiting happily for 2010, not because this year's been so horrible, but because it's been so up-in-the-air. I've decided 2009 is the Year of Breaking Things.

My brain broke in February (well, it'd been broken for years, we just figured it out then). It's repairing itself fairly well. I still have ups and downs but they're not nearly as ^UP and _DOWN as they used to be.

My uterus broke in April, and I discover I didn't write about it here! I've been so distracted. I nearly bled to death in April, from a regular old period. I ended up in the hospital for two days for a near-emergency ablation and two units of blood. Who knew you could bleed to death THAT way!

Our kitchen ceiling broke in August. The upstairs toilet plugged and ran at the same time, and there was nowhere for the water to go but out. The upstairs bath flooded for about 30-45 minutes. We discovered it when water came pouring out of the walls in the pantry hallway and basement staircase--it had come through the bathroom's pocket door into, rather than down, the walls. And we saw a little bit of water coming out of a light fixture. Long story short, the next morning we woke to a crash and discovered the kitchen ceiling on the kitchen floor.

One of our relatives asked us for family photos for a class project. Ben, Ben, Ben. You should know never to ask for stuff like that:

If you can believe it, my youngest girl is eight. Some of you have been following this site since before she was born, and now she's eight.

I'm going to be upgrading TNH's software--it's really, really out of date!

I'm on a YouTube kick!

Looking for a good Halloween read? Novelist MJ Rose--a longtime TNH sponsor--is releasing her romantic thriller The Reincarnationist as a free ebook between now and the 31st of October!

Photojournalist Josh Ryder survives a terrorist's bomb, only to be haunted by near hallucinatory memories of a past life in Rome as a pagan priest whose dangerous congress with Sabina, one of the Vestal Virgins, poses a transgression so serious the lovers will face a certain death if exposed. Scents of jasmine and sandalwood and images of furtive liaisons and violence descend on Josh at will, pulling him to an ancient yet strangely familiar Roman burial chamber harboring the remains of a woman clutching a wooden box.

A trail of present-day murders takes us deeper into a labyrinth at whose heart lies the enigma of a collection of ancient gems or memory stones whose origins trace back to both ancient Egypt and India. The stones' promise to "assist the wearer in reaching his next incarnation" sets the ancient and modern worlds on a collision course.

MJ is releasing the second book in this series soon, so you'll want to read this one quick!

I point to this every Halloween because it's just too damn funny. There are some naughty words, so if that bothers you, don't click.

John and I have been doing this thing in the past few months we call "Not That Guy." "Not That Guy" is the guy you wanted to be when you bought all that stuff for, say, scrapbooking. You wanted to be That Scrapbooking Guy, but you're not scrapbooking; it's all sitting there in the closet gathering dust and taking up space. You're Not That Scrapbooking Guy. So it's time to get rid of That Guy's stuff.

So far John has admitted he's Not That Woodworking Guy, and we sold the bandsaw and Shopsmith that have been taking up space in the garage, unused for five years. I have admitted I'm Not That Drumming Guy, and sold my beautiful quinto drum that has sat in a corner of Josie's room, unplayed, for more than 15 years.

(Quick side note: We discovered in this process that we are Those Biking Guys, however, and we took the money from the sales of Those Other Guys' things and bought some new bikes. I am now the extremely happy owner of an Electra Townie 21 speed, the Purple Poem one. Go get on a Townie, they will renew the joy of biking that you lost somewhere in middle school. And John converted his mountain bike to an Xtracycle sport utility bike, which is the coolest thing EVAR. He can haul a week's worth of groceries AND LouLou on that thing. And we have a tandem. I highly recommend tandem riding for couples, it is hella fun.)

The greatest thing we have had to acknowledge, though, is that we are Not Those Gardening Guys. I was That Gardening Guy, but that was before my illness. Now, I'm Not That Guy any more, and I never will be again.

After a lot of thought, we have decided to sell our extra lot, the yard next to our home. We had considered moving--we even looked at condo living--but in the end, selling the lot is our best choice. It severely reduces the amount of maintenance and/or guilt we face, it allows us to pay off our mortgage, and it puts us in a much better position to improve the house we have. It needs insulation, new, more efficient windows, a new kitchen (our kitchen is falling apart and we have no dishwasher--aagh!), and the laundry needs moved upstairs from the basement. If we did those things, we could stay in this house happily for at least another ten years if not longer. We love our neighborhood, and we want to stay.

So, Not That Guy. We wanted to be That Guy, but we're Not That Guy.

This is Henry:

She won! she won! she won! squeal! If you heard screaming, it was the girls and me.

Louisa Mei is seven years old today!