So, I have the day off tomorrow and consequently, will spend the day cooking an entire Thanksgiving feast.  I will have some help from teenagers and my mom is bringing over pie and Cranberry Fluff (which involves whipping cream, real cranberries, sugar, marshmallows, and, uh, maybe pineapple?).

My husband will be watching football and perhaps watching me work but that is okay with me.  He deserves to relax and watch football.  Plus, then he’ll owe me and when I want to go and see a movie sometime in the next few days, I will go without feeling guilty!  All part of my master-plan to dominate the world.  Or manipulate the world.  Or something like that.  Really, it’s just part of my master-plan to see many movies.

Last Thanksgiving, my two youngest kids raved about the rolls.  “Oh, Mom, these are the BEST ROLLS EVER.”

They were Pillsbury Crescent Rolls in a can.  I have made real yeast rolls before, let them rise and baked them at just the right time . . . but my kids are all about rolls in a can.  So, rolls in a can it is and forevermore shall be.

Usually I do some preparation the day before . . . you know, chop onions and celery and consider what time the turkey should go into the over.  This year I am utterly unprepared, though I do have a thawed turkey in the fridge.  I had to work tonight from 8 p.m. until midnight . . . before that, I cleaned up the kitchen and served dinner (Taco Soup, thanks for asking) and read The Road in preparation for seeing the movie this weekend.  (I love that book.)

Before that, I worked from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. . . . and before that, I cleaned . . . before that, I did the second day of Couch to 5K and (this is important) . . . I DID NOT DIE.

In fact, I am less sore than I was yesterday, so that’s good.

Before that, I took my daughter to school. That takes us back to 9 a.m.

So, there you go.  A backwards glance at my day and the reason that I have done not one single thing to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.  We’re not eating until 3 p.m., so there is plenty of time to chop and sweat and figure out exactly what order to do things.

Perhaps I’ll even make a list so I don’t leave the cranberry sauce in a can sitting in the cupboard.  (My husband is the only one who eats that stuff.)

Oh, and because you want to know . . . my stuffing is created from bread cubes, butter, sauteed onions and celery, chicken broth and raisins and green olives.  It’s quite delicious.

Really, the key to Thanksgiving is lots and lots and lots of butter.

Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S.  While proof-reading this, I REALIZED I DON”T HAVE A SINGLE RAISIN IN MY HOUSE.  What am I to do?  (I might substitute Craisins.  Sigh.  It’s always something.)

If I had hired myself to write this blog, I would totally fire myself.  Because what is this?  Posting once a week?  How do you expect to keep your traffic up if the posts are all moldy oldies?  Seriously.  Get it together, Self, or you’ll be looking for new (unpaid, thankless, pointless) work.

* * *

So this morning, I went to a baby shower.  I had asked my daughter if she wanted to go–she’s 7, you know, and in love with babies–but at the last minute, she decided against it.  I was shocked!  That’s just a residual headache speaking.  I don’t think she’s feeling entirely better yet.

So I drove thirty or forty minutes to the gathering at someone’s house.  I love driving with a GPS barking out step-by-step directions, though I do find myself not paying any attention at all to where I am and where I’m turning.  I’m becoming absolutely dependent on that bit of technology.  If all the satellites in the sky ever crash, I will be immobilized or driving in circles like I”m stuck in a  roundabout.

I pulled into the driveway, only one minute late and congratulated myself.  I retrieved my iPhone and sat in the driveway for a few minutes taking care of something with a deadline.  As I sat there, the front door opened and two women emerged.  They kind of stared at my car in the driveway–there were four or five other cars–and I wondered if maybe I had blocked them in.  I opened my door, stood and said, “Did I block you?”

They looked at me like I was a foreigner from a distasteful country.

“I’m here for the baby shower.  Is this the right place?”

They shook their heads at me and pointed down the gravel road.

I was so grateful I hadn’t bounded up the stairs to that house.  How awkward.

The baby shower was lovely.  The pregnant woman is one of those remarkably pregnant-pregnant tiny women with a beach-ball shaped belly and absolutely no double-chin.  I wish I had been that type of pregnant woman, but alas, I was not.  I had a double-chin.  And back fat.  (Okay, let’s not destroy all the mystique I have left on this blog.)

After two hours, I headed to the library where I very studiously worked on my long-neglected novel.  I have no idea if it’s holding together.  I wish it were a snowman, plain to see if the thing is packing together and taking shape.  It feels more like digging a moat around  sandcastle, just piling up the sand, patting it into place and hoping it will hold against the tide.  As if.

I had tentative plans to meet Mrs. Darling (of Dishpan Dribble), but it didn’t work out.  Instead, I went to see “Precious,” a movie about a 350-pound illiterate 16-year old mom of two babies who is abused by her mother.  Not exactly an easy movie to watch.  I only went because I’ve heard the buzz about it and I think maybe it will get some Oscar nominations–and I like to see all the Oscar-nominated movies before the award show.  I did enjoy the camaraderie of watching that particular movie in a full theater where many of the viewers talked out loud to the screen.  Some people hate that, but I think it’s like watching a movie while hearing someone else’s thoughts, too.  It’s almost like a conversation, a shared moment.

Also worth noting was the absolute bedlam in the parking lot, box-office lines and inside the theater because of “New Moon.”  I have never seen so many people lining up for tickets nor lining up to enter the movie.  I haven’t read Twilight or its sequels yet, and so haven’t seen the movies, either, but the fanfare is really quite remarkable.

Then I came home, cleaned up the kitchen, Twittered (for my job) and here I am, shocked at the neglect of this blog!

Okay, well, not really.

I had thought I would do better but I did not.

However, tomorrow is a new day.  And today is an old day so I’m going to go read.  (Elizabeth Berg’s Never Change which I adore.  When I grow up, I’m going to be Elizabeth Berg.)

I just heard a teenager cough.  I hope that doesn’t mean another family member is getting sick.

Last Thursday Grace complained of body aches and a headache.  She missed three days of school, including today.  I thought she’d go back to school but she woke up crying, complaining of a headache and coughing.  I gave her some pain medication and she fell asleep again.  No school for her.  But tomorrow, she’ll probably go back.  She wants to go back to school.

My husband was felled by the same virus but seems like he’s recovering faster than Grace did.  He’s going back to work tomorrow.

I’ve been spending a lot of time napping or reading.  I read Jodi Picoult’s Picture Perfect in recent days.  (It was published in 1995.)  But now the weekend’s over and I’m plunged right back into the rushing river that is my life.

Last Saturday I went to a writing workshop.  I’d intended to join a state-wide writer’s group, but had put it off until I heard there would be a workshop about writing dialogue.  I got up early Saturday and left the house by 8 a.m.  I didn’t know anybody at the workshop, so took my seat at a back table.  I’m a back-row kind of student.  I never purposely sit in the front row, unless it’s a concert and then I can’t afford the front row tickets.  Look for me in the back row.  Always.

So, I’m at the back table, alone, tired and reading email on my iPhone while I waited for the workshop to start.  I was in the middle of reading Amy Letinsky’s blog.  I subscribe to it and it comes to my email box.  I’ve been reading her blog for quite a few months, ever since she live-Twittered an event at our church (Mars Hill in Seattle).  My husband attended the event, but I could not, so I followed the Twitter stream.

Anyway, so there I was, reading her blog on my iPhone, when this woman approached my empty table, and introduced herself, while pushing aside her hair to reveal her name-tag:  Amy Letinsky.

That was a seriously weird moment.

The workshop was interesting and it was nice to sit next to Amy and Anngaylia (isn’t that a pretty name?) who looked ordinary but ended up being anything but.

So, while I’m sitting at the conference, a text popped up on my (silenced) iPhone.  I look and read a text from my husband.  He’s at the soccer field with Grace for her last game but can’t find her team.  I run from the room, panicked that I’ve told him the wrong time or the wrong field.  This is her last game.  I feel guilty enough for missing it and now this?

I call another soccer mom and confirm that he’s at the right field at the right time.  I find out exactly where he ought to be.  I call him and let him know.  (He was in the wrong parking lot.)  Okay, all is well.  But I have just locked myself out of the church building where this workshop is taking place.  I circle around outside and enter the front door, traipse through the building and back upstairs to the workshop.

Some minutes pass by and I see on my (silenced) cell phone that my husband is now calling.  CALLING, not texting.  What could be wrong? I text him and ask:  “Did you just call?”

He does not respond.

I text again, “Did you call me?”

He texts:  “Accident.”

I grab the phone and race from the room.  I call him, absolutely panicked, picturing my daughter with her femur protruding from her thigh or her nose bashed into her face with blood gushing or a skull cracked open with her brain exposed or a thumb dangling from a broken hand.  I see blood, lots of blood and an ambulance and I hear screams.

I dial his number.  “What’s up?” I say.

“Nothing.  I didn’t mean to call.  That’s why I said, ‘accident.'”

The phone call was an accident.  My daughter did not have an accident.

Just so you know?  When texted, “accident” can mean several things and doesn’t necessary portend tragedy. But the obvious meaning is CALL THE AMBULANCE.  WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY.

Next time, how about we just text “sorry, butt-dial” when our wives say, “Did you call me?” after we accidentally dial them while they are minding their own business trying to learn to write good dialogue?

Thank you and have a nice day, free of every variety of accidents.

My 7-year old is sick.  She’s been sniffly all week, but last night she complained that her arms, legs, head and pinkie finger hurt.  I am deeply in denial that the flu can affect my family, but this sounded suspiciously fluish.  Especially once I felt her forehead and realized she felt warm. I gave her ibuprofen and hoped for the best.

At 1 a.m. as I was getting ready for bed, she woke up and complained again of pain.  I gave her more medicine and put her back to bed.

At 3:30 a.m., she appeared bedside telling me that she hadn’t been able to fall asleep because her room had too much space.  She said she kept turning on the light to look because it was just too big.  Either she had just taken LSD or she was feverish and ill.  She cried when she told me this, clearly upset by the wrongness of the space in her room.  She wanted to watch a show because the fluctuating space in her room interrupted her sleep.

So I let her watch television, only the cable wouldn’t work in her room.  Instead, I rewound a Winnie-the-Pooh video.  I have no idea how long she watched t.v. or if she fell back asleep.  In the morning, I gave her more medicine (her head ached) and told her she had to stay home from school.  She cried about that, too.

And so the pattern went for the day.  The pain relief would wear off and she’d tell me how much her head and body ached.  I’d give her medicine and she’d perk right up.  At one point, she was busily typing on the computer, fingers clicking at high speed.  She was typing  a pretend essay on George Washington in multi-colored fonts.

Tonight, she looked terrible when I put her to bed at 10.  She was flushed, crying because her fingers felt so small.  The whites of her eyes were pink.

I considered the possibility that she might have the dreaded H1N1 flu, the Swine Flu which I mocked mercilessly last spring due to the media hysteria.  I imagined finding her unresponsive, worried about rushing her to the hospital, imagined a world without Grace.

My mind tends to travel the road to the Worst Case Scenario.  So many things can go so wrong, so fast, without warning.  I’ve learned now to say, “Why me?” because the question really is, “Why not me?”

A little while ago I heard the floor creaking above.  I went upstairs to investigate and found her standing in the darkness of my room talking to my side of the bed.  “Grace,” I said, “Come here.”  I felt her bare shoulder with relief.  She no longer felt feverish.

“Did you use the potty?”

“No, I don’t have to.”

“Okay, let’s go back to bed.”

She climbed up the ladder to the top bunk, telling me, “Tomorrow when I . . . I want to . . . and then can we . . . will you . . . um . . . I can’t remember what I was saying.”

“Okay.  Time to sleep.  Nighty-night.”

“Nighty-night.  I love you.”

“I love you.”

So I guess tonight I will not have to call 9-1-1 and rush her to the hospital and wonder why I didn’t get her vaccinated against the Swine Flu and why I allowed her out in the world where she could touch undisinfected surfaces and catch deadly germs.

Thank God.

It’s 1:28 a.m. and I’m trying to think of something worth writing about.

I just erased a whole paragraph about how many I women I know who are pregnant.  (Five.) (FIVE!)

Tomorrow there is no school due to Veteran’s Day.  I am thrilled about the no school thing because it means I can sleep in.

Then I think how glib that sounds because, dude!   Veterans!  Partly because we live near military bases, I know veterans.  I used to think of veterans as elderly hard-of-hearing guys with hair sprouting from their ears, but now I think of Rob and Jenn.  I think of Keith and Bob.  I think of the guy down the street who is deployed right now.

I know more than one soldier who is deployed.  I know moms who are handling everything here without their husbands.  I attended a military funeral only a few months ago.

Veterans have faces and names, families, dreams and lives.

And I am grateful in a way I cannot even express for their service to our country.

I’m also pretty happy about sleeping in.

I cannot remember what I wrote here last.  Something about a spilled Super Big Gulp?  If so, that means the last time I wrote something was Monday night.

On Tuesday, I was an unofficial chaperone for a first-grade field trip to a Children’s Museum.  The beauty of being an unofficial chaperone is that you aren’t allowed to ride on the bus and that you aren’t officially in charge of anyone but yourself.  And if you are 44 years old, you are pretty easy to be in charge of.  You also get to ride in your husband’s red Cadillac, the one with seat warmers.

String together the Children’s Museum trip with work and suddenly, Tuesday has turned into Wednesday.

Oh!  Today was Wednesday, wasn’t it?  I took my daughter to school, came home, told myself that a thirty minute nap would be just the thing and an hour and  a half later, dragged myself out of bed and into the shower.  I rushed to the grocery store for a few essential items and returned home behind a string of cars which all seemed determined to drive under the speed limit.  What is wrong with people who drive under the speed limit?  Do they conspire to make me late?

I work split shifts and while a split shift has many benefits–okay, some benefits–it does make me feel as if I work all afternoon and all night, too.  In between shifts, I have enough time to clean up the kitchen, make a mess in the kitchen and sometimes, read a little.  At least soccer/football practice has ended for the year, so I no longer have to shuttle children to various fields.  Tonight, I barely had time to read my current novel, a Jodi Picoult book which makes me feel like I’m watching a magician work–how does she do it?  It looks impossible and impossibly easy at the same time.

My sister stopped by tonight, so we chatted for awhile.  Then I dragged her to the primary school so I could pick up the boxes and boxes of cookie dough I ordered from the school fundraiser.  I will either have enough cookie dough to last me for a year or I will become very very very fat from eating too many cookies.

Before I knew it, it was time to work again.

Now it’s so late that it’s early.

And I’m going to bed.

Today is my sort-of day off.  I’ve arranged my schedule so I work six nights a week, but I have off Saturdays, all day Sunday (until 9 p.m.) and except for an hour on Monday mornings, the rest of Mondays off (until 9  p.m.).  All told, I work forty hours a week, except when I work a little more.

After a very busy weekend (soccer game, Halloween preparations–including carving three pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns and costume-creating–and trick-or-treating . . . followed by church on Sunday, followed by a nap and a trip to the movies with the two youngest kids) I climbed into my husband’s red Cadillac to lollygag and gallivant.

First stop?  7-11 for a refill of my Super Big Gulp.  It only costs a dollar and eight cents for about as much Diet Coke as you can drink in one afternoon.  The sun was shining, the red and yellow leaves fluttering in a light breeze.  Blue sky, open road, and three hours to myself.  I was like Thelma and Louise without the killing and the thievery and the scary scene in the parking lot.  And the scarves and the convertible.  Other than that, exactly like them.

And then, as I drove on a quiet road, my Super Big Gulp took a look around and decided to leap to certain death.  I gasped and tried to grasp the enormous cup, but it had jumped head first and emptied itself on the driver’s side floorboard, narrowly missing my Chuck Taylors, but splashing on my socks.

I drove straight to a Dollar Store with only my toes touching the accelerator . . . my left foot was propped above the swamp of Diet Coke and I held the heel of my right foot out of the icy liquid.

I purchased two rolls of paper towels and spent a good thirty-minutes sopping up the spill.  As I did so, I realized that the only good that could come of such a catastrophe would be a recounting of the event in 140 characters on Twitter.  And so, as soon as my feet stopped squishing on the mat, I grabbed my iPhone and typed a message with one finger.

My Twitter message also posts on Facebook and within minutes, Facebook commenters shared their own catastrophes until I was quite full of mirth which turns out to be even better than being full of Diet Coke.  Almost.

I headed to Taco Time for my favorite soft taco.  I realized that I had very little time before I needed to pick up my daughter.  I headed toward Goodwill to browse the bookshelves, but as I drove, I saw that I would not have enough time.  Instead, I pulled into the local German convenience store to pick up the hard-to-find dark chocolate I like to keep in my purse.  Then I hurried to the school.  I knew I’d be about ten minutes early, but I carry a novel around in my purse and planned to read. (Jodi Picoult, if you must know.)

I pulled my car into the back parking lot of the school and noticed the children were at recess.  I could see my daughter’s blond curls across the playground.  I watched the kids for a few minutes, pondered the strangeness of the late recess.   After all, it was 3:15 p.m., only ten minutes from dismissal.

And then it hit me.

I grabbed my iPhone and checked the time:  2:15 p.m.  No one had told the red Cadillac that Daylight Savings Time had come to an end.  Alas.  It was 3:15 p.m. in the Cadillac, but 2:15 p.m. everywhere else (in this time zone, anyway).)

So I drove home and started a project (searching desperately for my 2007 photographs–which were mixed up with the 2008 photographs and you really do not want to know what a complicated mess I’ve made of my photographs).

Forty minutes later, back to the school to pick up my daughter.

Perhaps it’s a good thing I don’t get out into the world very often.  I clearly cannot handle it.

At least I did not shoot a man dead and have to run from the law and drive off a cliff.

That’s me, always looking on the bright side.

I’ve scarcely left my house since last weekend.  My job responsibilities (for an online company) have increased recently and I keep accidentally working an extra hour or two each day.  I honestly don’t mean to, but then I look up and instead of seeing midnight on the clock, I see the small hand approaching two.

So I shut off the computer at 1:30 a.m. or 2: 00 a.m. and fall into bed, only to be awakened before 8 a.m. by my daughter.  My 11-year old son gets himself into the shower and off to school and sometimes (I am ashamed to even acknowledge this), I don’t even hear a thing.  (My husband leaves the house at 6 a.m.  I rarely wake up when he gets up and goes.  I know.  You had pictured me frying bacon and eggs while wearing an apron over my frilly bathrobe each morning, huh?  Well guess what?  I don’t have a frilly bathrobe.  And I’m a terrible wife, definitely not Southern-bred, because I have rarely cooked my husband breakfast before work.  Okay, not rarely.  Never.)

I’m not a morning person.

My daughter is a lot like me.  The other morning, she crawled into bed with me. She asked me to set the alarm for 18 minutes.  I said okay, set my phone for 18 minutes.  When the alarm rang, I said, “You need to get into the shower.”  She looked at the clock and said, “One more minute.  I’ll get up at 8:20.”

I have never told her that I prefer to get up on the multiples of five.  I don’t like to get up at 7:58.  I’ll wait until 8 on the dot.  If I sleep until 8:01, I’ll have to wait until 8:05.  If I miss 8:05, I’ll have to wait until 8:10.  I have some rules that must be followed.  This is not at all weird.

This can, however, cause some problems, like being late.

And so it did that morning with my daughter.  I had to sign her in and get a tardy slip that morning.  All because of the multiples of five thing that she doesn’t even know about.

So I take her to school.  Before school began I had these lofty plans about walking her to school and then continuing on for a long walk so I could get in my exercise.  The reality has turned out to be more like this:  Throw on sweatshirt and yoga pants.  Drive daughter to school.  Drive home, crawl into bed, check out email and Facebook on iPhone.  Doze off while listening to Regis and Kelly (after first marveling at Kelly’s perfectly toned, muscular arms).  Wake up reluctantly in time to shower and fire up the computer.  Begin work at noon.

This is bad for several reasons.

1)  I’m not getting any exercise.

2)  I’m not getting much of anything done.

3)  My life is slipping away while I’m dreaming strange dreams instead of . . . doing something worthwhile and valuable and creative.  Like cleaning out the storage room or sorting through my top dresser drawer (you do NOT want to know) or writing something stunning.

The problem is that I have to have sleep.  And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to supplement a measly six hours a night with a morning nap before work.  In fact, in some ways it’s essential because I don’t think I’d be able to work until midnight the next night without getting enough rest.

It’s a conundrum, really.  I have a little bit of spare time (in the mornings) but I squander it.

I’ve also been cooking dinner each night and believe you me, that is cutting into my time between the cooking and the serving and the cleaning up afterward.  That consumes my evening allotment of spare time.  Buh-bye.  Please take your belongings with you as you depart the plane.

How am I to write The Pretty Good American Novel if I don’t have ten minutes to rub against each other?

Well, now it’s past 1:00 a.m.  So I’m going to sleep.  But I wanted you all (all five of you) to know why I haven’t been writing anything pithy and amusing and thought-provoking here.  Because that part of my brain is broken.  And also I just don’t have the time.

*yawn*

Continuing my trend of forgetting things, I completely failed to purchase and prepare snacks for my daughter’s soccer game tomorrow.  I have to provide sliced oranges for half-time and a post-game snack for the six girls on the team.  Hence, I will lose an hour of coveted Saturday morning sleep so I can rush to the grocery store first thing in the morning.  How lovely.

We have to be at the soccer field at 11:00 a.m.  Last Saturday, the girls played in fierce slanting rain–the knees of my jeans were totally soaked because how can you ward off slanting rain?  But the girls had a great time and, as usual, crushed the other team.  I feel sorry for every team we play because this little team of girls has a great coach and some natural ability.   Tomorrow they say there will be no rain.  I hope they are right.

My son has a football game which will dominate my husband’s day.  They’ll leave at 9 a.m. and return around 3 p.m.  Our son loves to play and my husband loves football.  He does love it more when he’s watching a college game from the comfort of his chair, but will come later in the day.

I am looking forward to the end of the soccer/football seasons.  Only three more weeks after this.

In other news, my twin teenagers invited two friends to sleep over, only very little sleep will be done.  I don’t understand why it’s so much more fun to play Guitar Hero in the middle of the night, but apparently it is.

A little while ago I went into the kitchen to get a drink of water.  I heard a keyboard begin to play, then a guitar begin to strum.  I rolled my eyes.  Surely the boys didn’t think that midnight would be a great time to play their instruments?  I headed toward their room to scold them and then realized that the music wafted from my computer.

A pox on websites that have automatic music playing!

(Yes, this is three blog posts in three days.  Be impressed.  Be very impressed.)

A day or two ago, my 11-year old son let me know that he needed a gray cape for school tomorrow. Why? Because he’s going to be “SuperZach” for Superhero Day at school. (Who makes these things up? Spirit Week? Why, why?)

That’s why I forgot to pick him and his friend up from school today. I completely lost my mind and drove to the fabric store under the foggy impression that today was Wednesday. My day to drive carpool is Thursday. So when my phone rang while I perused the sticker aisle at Joann Fabrics, I wondered why my neighbor might be calling me.

Her: “Hi, I couldn’t remember if we talked about pick-up today . . . my son has piano lessons and his teacher will be picking him up today . . . ”

Me: “Yes, but I thought that was on Thursday?”

Her: ” . . . ”

Me: “Oh.”

Her: “Today is Thursday.”

Me: “Oh no. I’m in the fabric store.”

So she had to drive out to the school to pick up my kid. Because I am befuddled and bewildered and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. I ought to lose my Mom license. I’ve already lost my mind.

In other news, my first-grader has started reading fluently and her teacher told me during our conference today that all she really lacks is confidence in her abilities. Her only issue is her tendency to chat. A lot.

She’s my hula-hooping, boy-chasing, jump-roping, picture-drawing entertainment. Today, she got a fortune in her fortune cookie that read: “Soon you will receive something you’ve wanted for a long time.” And she started hopping around the kitchen singing, “I’m getting a baby sister! I’m getting a baby sister!”

What a hoot, that one.

p.s. The only way she’s getting a baby sister is if I die and my husband marries the Octomom.