Day 11

It is possible I'm running out of things to say. How about a random list of fascinating Frances facts?

1. I like eating mayonnaise, but I do not like seeing mayonnaise. Blobs of mayonnaise on the kitchen counter are particularly troubling.

2. I felt vaguely ill as I wrote the above sentence.

3. Once, when I was six or seven, my cat birthed a litter of kittens on my lap. I had no idea what was happening at the time, and I have yet to recover.

4. The first love of my life was Bobby Mudd. I was seven. He didn't know I was alive.

5. If I didn't dye my hair, it would be almost entirely gray.

6. When I see women my age (late 40s) who have entirely gray heads of hair, I think they look really cool.

7. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop dying my hair.

8. I am helpless in front of a bag Doritos.

9. It's only been in the last year or so that I've stopped wondering if the people in the pews around me at church think I'm a good singer.

10. This is only because it finally occurred to me that I'm really not that good of a singer.

Okay, that's it for this Friday night! See you tomorrow with more fascinating tidbits!

Day 10

I spent two hours cleaning Will's room today. It looks beautiful. The only problem with cleaning Will's room is it allows him to find his stuff again--his coin collection, his baseball card collection, his key chain collection. Yes, that's right, his key chain collection. He'd forgotten all about it! But now he remembers it! Because I uncovered it under all that junk.

So he's been a busy little bee all afternoon, exploring all the wonderful things his room holds, now that he can actually see them. He likes to take them off the shelves I've so carefully placed them on and ponder them, mix and match them, draw pictures of them, cut out the pictures and tape them to the wall, leaving little teeny tiny scraps of leftover paper on the floor. And so the cycle begins again.

That's Day 10 in a nutshell: My life on the Sisyphean Merry-Go-Round. Or escalator. What's the correct metaphor here? Whatever it is, I'm dizzy and need a cup of tea. More soon!

Day 9: Soup

That handsome man on the steps is the one and only Colin Firth AKA Mr. Darcy, who is sitting next to his co-star Emily Blunt. They're making a movie in Raleigh and were filming across the street from the Man's office. Since he knows I'm awfully fond of CF, he played the paparazzi for me and got this shot. Fun!


I made broccoli soup today, and it was good. The recipe called for light cream and nutmeg and swiss cheese. The nutmeg was an especially nice touch. I find myself throwing nutmeg and cinnamon into all kinds of things for a little kick. It's especially nice in the fall.

I'm not from a soup family, are you? My mother took a Chinese cooking class in the 70's and a French cooking class as well, so we occasionally had won ton soup or French onion soup, but my guess is my dad discouraged it. He definitely wasn't a soup guy. When my brothers and I were home on snowy days, my mom made Campbell's Tomato Soup, and when we were sick, we were served Campbell's Chicken and Noodle, or my favorite, Campbell's Chicken and Stars. What's the difference? Who knows, but the stars made me happy.

It wasn't until my roommate in grad school made me homemade chicken soup from scratch that I realized soup was something you could get excited about. That it could be a whole meal by itself. That it didn't have to be super salty, which canned soups almost always are.

Recently the fall weather has made me want to eat more soup; also, the glut of junky food that comes with Halloween and Will's birthday. Last week our house filled up with candy and cake and other junk, and although I tried to stay away as much as possible, I'm only human. So this week I felt an overwhelming desire to eat light. Not fat-free or low cal, but light--food that doesn't take up too much space, food that fills you up but doesn't have any aftershocks, the way that heavy and sugary things do.

So soup it is, and soup it will be. Soup is good, and soup is enough. Do you like soup, too? What's your favorite kind? When do you like to eat it? What's the best month for soup? Could it be November, or is February better?

Day 8: Just Posting to Post

Hello! I'm not sure what I have to tell you today. It's a beautiful day outside. Travis and I took a long walk this morning, and then I sat down to write for several hours. After lunch, I went to the bookstore to get the new Christopher Paolini book for Jack and picked up a book of vegetarian soup recipes for myself.

Then I lifted weights, walked some more around my neighborhood, and went to pick up Will. Now I'm home, and in a few minutes I'll leave to get Jack. When I get home, I will probably put the borders on my pinwheel quilt and make dinner.

I'm reading The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Euginedes--so far so good. I loved Middlesex. Reports are that this novel is not as good as Middlesex, but that's okay, because Middlesex was brilliant, and we can't expect novelists to always write brilliant books. It's unfair.

The Marriage Plot is set in the early 1980s. In an early scene, a young woman and her parents are eating bagels at a cafe when the song "Tainted Love" comes on the radio. I remember that song. It was a very exciting and new kind of song in 1982. I was eighteen and lived for very exciting and new songs.

And that is all I have to tell you. Was it worth tuning in for? Don't answer that! But you could tell me what your favorite song in 1982 was. I'd be interested to know.

This weekend I went to a thrift store and picked up this pot for ten bucks. Then I came home and filled it with sticks. I love sticks. I may end up decorating my whole house with sticks.

It was, overall, a good weekend, though when I was on the treadmill at the gym on Saturday, I started panicking about the fact that our family doesn't do enough together. Lately, Jack lives in his room. Really, I think if we put a port-a-potty and a mini-fridge in there, he'd never come out. And there's no guarantee that family outings will go well, as one child is always miserably low on enthusiasm.

Here's the interesting thing: Whenever I start get worried about family life, or lack thereof, I can almost promise you the Man is also getting worried. We are usually in sync in this area (and many others). And Sunday afternoon, he was on it. He had Jack out in the yard messing around with the radio-operated helicopters, and Will working on a model car. And then Jack made two Key Lime pies to take to school today for his advisory group, which made me happy. Jack is very quiet and reserved, and I'm so glad he's found he can speak through pies. Everyone likes a boy who speaks through pies.

So it's not like we had a great family outing, but the boys were doing things that didn't involve screens, and Jack even spent time outside, which is always a miracle. So I felt better. I wish we were the sort of family that took happy camping trips together, but we don't. I wish my children were best of friends, but they're not. But they make pies and gingerbread (that was Will's baking project yesterday) and fly helicopters and build model cars, and that's good. I can live with that.

Day 6: Will My Attic Defeat Me?

I fear it will. It's like a wrestling match every time I go in there. There's one corner in particular that keeps me in a painful half-nelson, hissing at me in a menacing tone, "Do you give? Do you give?" This corner of my attic is populated by layer upon layer of toys that have broken or never worked in the first place (an expensive race track that lasted for two laps, for example) and boxes of school ephemera dating back to 2002. If only I had the wherewithal to chuck it all. None of it would be missed. No one even knows what's there.

I find it difficult to throw things away, not because I'm a hoarder, but because I'd rather recycle stuff than trash it. The problem is, I don't want to give away broken toys. Believing that one day a magic toymaker will come to my house and make everything good as new, I leave the broken- down things in my attic, where they breed with each other and make more broken-down things.

I need to throw the broken stuff away, don't I? Please make me. And convince me that a few math sheets and one spelling test saved from each year will suffice. I can take pictures of the art projects and then put the real deal in the recycling bin. Right? That's okay, isn't?

I'm taking a break from the attic for the day, but will get back to it tomorrow afternoon. A little bit at a time, one day at a time. No saying "Uncle." No rolling over and playing dead.

Day 5: Pinwheel Edition

Here is a picture of the quilt I'm working on right now. I just bought two beautiful pieces of fabric for the borders, which I hope to sew on this afternoon. Or tomorrow. Or in the next couple of weeks ...

This is one of three quilts I'm making for Christmas presents (it's for my editor). I've finished the blocks for the second one (finished them last summer, actually; they've been lounging about waiting for me to do something with them ever since), and just ordered fabric for the third. Can I do it? Can I actually have three admittedly smallish quilts done by December 15th, in time to mail them?

Yes. If I completely forgo all housekeeping between now and then, I most certain can--and will--finish them. I may have to quit cooking, too. All in the name of Christmas love. My family will understand.

Okay, I'm off to eat lunch and then get to work on the attic. And then go to the gym. And then work on quilts.

Notice how cleaning the bathrooms does not make an appearance on that list? The bathrooms are on their own this weekend. And every weekend, for that matter.

Really, if you ever come over to my house, stay out of the bathrooms. Really. I mean it.