meep facts

1. I can't watch scary movies because I get too scared and then have nightmares for weeks. Even "Shaun of the Dead" scared me, and it wasn't even supposed to be scary. When I worked in L.A. for a sound company, my scream was recorded and is in a scary movie, but I'll never hear it because I'm never, ever going to watch it.

2. Folky guitar songs from the 70s, like ones from America and Bread, are pretty much it for me in terms of music. I wasn't even alive in the 70s, but I feel a huge connection to that singer-songwriter style of music and it's pretty much what I look for now in new music, and what I lean towards when I write my own songs. This song by Bread. I loves it:


3. I say that The Beatles are my favorite band ever, but it was only a few months ago that I got the pun in their name. What! That's embarrassing to admit.

4. Healthy food is awesome and makes me happy and feel great, but I still think about cookies pretty much non-stop. I want to hold a cookie and get all Brokeback Mountain and go, "I can't quit you!!" and then make out with it.

5. It's been over four years now that I've been gluten-free. That's four years of not feeling like crap every day. Booyah!

6. Speaking of - Audrey has started saying "Booyah!" all the time, and it's the greatest thing ever. She flaps her arms up and down and runs around yelling it.

7. At age 30, I am finally starting to get into nail polish. I love it. But Audrey isn't even 2, and she's nuts about it:


8. Don't tell Julian, but I'm pretty sure that he's smarter than me already.

9. If Wade had not had the power of veto, our kids probably would have ended up with crazy-ass hippie names like Willow Juniper and Lavender Sage.

10. I have begun to limit myself to two cups of coffee per day, and it's a huge deal to me because I would like to be drinking two pots of coffee per day. It's not the caffeine I crave, but the taste of coffee is so freaking delicious that it's second in line after cookies in terms of things I think about.

11. Today I asked Wade if he was proud of me for only having two cups of coffee a day, and he thought that was ridiculous. Like, why would that be a big deal to anyone? But seriously. I want the coffees in my face hole now. I'm proud of myself.

12. I tell Audrey all the time that she's pretty, and tonight, she patted me on the shoulder and said, "Mama pretty?" And then I said, "Yes! Mama's pretty!" without even faking it. After spending so much time hating myself, I'm pretty proud of myself for that too.

13. Cussing is my favorite. I mean really, how versatile is "fuck"? It can be a noun, an adjective, a verb, and probably some other awesome parts of the English language that I'm too ignorant to know, like a freaking dangling participle, because I'm too busy calling people "fucknuts" when I'm driving and don't have time for knowledge of proper things.

14. Scoff if you want, but I love Bono forever and ever, amen. I want to have ten thousand of his babies.

15. Audrey and I have matching grey Tom's shoes that are both dirty and sitting in our downstairs shower stall, waiting to be cleaned. Hers are dirty from when she barfed all over herself in the car a few weeks back. Mine are dirty from when I pulled over quickly and ran through the mud to help her while she was barfing all over herself in the car. It has been weeks now, and neither pair has been cleaned. Because I'm squalor-ful like that. And BAM. There's a new word. Squalorful.

16. Seafood is straight up nasty. There, I said it. And I don't even have to feel like I'm being insulting to people anymore now, because last summer I finally got brave and ate shrimp, and it was kind of good. Not awesome, but kind of good. I didn't hate it. And then I woke up in the morning with rashes all over my face. One of them looked like a Hitler moustache, and another looked like a vicious hickey on my neck. And they didn't go away for weeks. So, seafood is nasty.

17. I'm not particularly good at fashion, and I hate going shopping for clothes. It's overwhelming. And I'm also pretty clueless when it comes to hair and makeup. Basically, I would make a great lumberjack.

18. If I were trapped on a desert island (does that even happen to people? I mean, you always hear of the hypothetical situation, but aside from Tom Hanks and those Gilligan's Island people, I don't think it really happens.) and could only have two foods for the rest of my sad, desert island life, I would pick broccoli and quinoa. But you know I'd be thinking about cookies. And coffee.

19. I love to sew and be crafty, but I don't know what I'm doing. Like, I don't know how to read sewing patterns, and I'd really like to learn someday.

20. Going to bed right now would make so much sense, but I always stay up later than I should because the very little bit of time that I am not touching a kid or having someone need me is extremely rare and precious and I don't want to spend it on sleeping.

merry and bright

Hoping your Christmas has been happy, and spent with the ones you love.

Here are my littles on Christmas Eve


Audrey's reaction when she opened the doll that Julian hand sewed for her


Even Santa cares about dental hygeine


She got a tube of lip balm, and I had to pry it from her tiny hands because she rubbed like a week's worth of it on her lips. She kept walking around with it, saying, "Leeps!"





Love and peace from the Wilsons!

hey girl

I don't write very much on here about gluten-free stuff anymore. I figure there are enough blogs that are dedicated entirely to GF living, and actually do a good job of it, so nobody gives a hoot about my GF stuff. You know?

However.

I made a tumblr page dedicated to the "Hey Girl" Ryan Gosling meme, but he's a GF Gosling in my version.

Because somebody needed to represent.

HOLLEEERRRRRRRRR.

Here it is, if you care to see it: Hey Girl, GF

(weak)end

I had big plans for our weekend. We were going to make really adorable gluten-free Christmas cookies and then see the Festival of Lights. But a virus happened. Look! I tweeted (twatted?) about it:



It started with Audrey barfing all over herself in the car Wednesday afternoon on the ride to pick up Julian from school. And then the barfing didn't stop until last night (Sunday). And of course, I got sick too, because I've got that baby ALL up in my grill (can I say "grill"? I'm very, very white. I don't know if I can pull that one off) all the time. So I was sick all weekend too. Which left poor Julian to be neglected and watch a crapton of television, and play an even bigger crapton of Wii games. And Wade had to do all the caring for sick people duties, on top of having to go into work. Eff, man. Eff.

So I've got no awesome pictures to show from my weekend, because who takes pictures of barf? Not me. Which must surprise you, I know, because I'm so gross. But really, I don't like to document the pukes.

However, here is an awesome picture of my kids cheesing it up in a redwood doghouse at Costco:



I don't know why they both wanted to climb in there, but it made me laugh really, really hard. And Julian swears that someone put barbeque sauce on one of the inside walls. I told him it was probably sap, but he says that it was more of a splatter not made by nature. So some other crazies probably let their kids hang out in there too, except that they let them take a bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's up in there, and go to town decorating the walls. Right on!

I hope you all had a beautiful weekend, free from the barfies, and did lots of fun holiday activities. Tell me all about them. Ready? GO!

tis the season for meme-ing

I did a meme! Because jeez, how Debbie Downer was that last long post? SO MUCH. I copied this from Noelle's blog, and it was fun. What I am bummed about is that I am unable to include so many of the awesome Christmas photos from years past, because all our photos were stolen in the robbery. (We still have the iPod that had the backup of all my pictures, but I still have no idea how to get them off and not have them be super teensy, even a year later. Halp?) So here it is in all its meme-y glory:

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate?
Real egg nog skeeves me the eff out. RIGHT OUT. But Silk nog is like a unicorn bestowed its magic upon the weirdness of soy milk and gave it the beautiful flavor qualities that regular egg nog has, but without the creepy raw egg thing going on. The unicorn probably stirred the vat of Silk nog with its horn too. Does that make it not vegan anymore though? But man. I think hot chocolate always wins for me, because HELLO, chocolate. That you can drink.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
I'm not sure what this question is asking. Do some people just wake up on Christmas morning and find cool stuff under their tree, completely unwrapped? That is some lazy parenting. I also am not a huge fan of seeing a ton of wrapped presents under a tree, because that takes away from the impact of seeing everything at once on Christmas morning.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
I prefer colored lights. White is so pretty and calm looking, but nothing says, "We've got some super excited kids in our house!" like colored lights. Remember about 10 years ago when every house you drove by had the white icicle lights from their houses? It was so pretty, but too homogenized.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
My parents sometimes did. It was never a tradition that we cared much about, but more of an afterthought. "Hey, there's a pile of mistletoe for sale at the store. Let's get one." So we haven't really done it. But I'd like to copy this sweet-ass felt one that Emily made.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
After Thanksgiving, but not rabidly so. I have known people who do it Thanksgiving night, and that's just a little too soon for me. Usually by the first week of December is what we aim for. You guys should see my gleaming Festivus pole!!!

6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
I really, really love holiday food. Specifically, stuffing and gravy. DAY-UM. I could eat that every single day. When I was 20 and lived with my friend Careena, we used to buy boxes of Stove Top stuffing and make it for dinner. Because when you're 20, you can get away with eating disgusting shit like that and thinking that it counts as a meal.

And this year, I'm going to make a yule log that I saw in an issue of Saveur magazine, right before Audrey dumped my entire cup of coffee on it. But I got the general idea. Also, try saying "yule log" without using a Beavis and Butthead voice, and going "heh heh" a couple of times. IMPOSSIBLE.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
They all kind of blend together to form a big happy, glowy memory. I loved decorating the tree with my family while we listened to Christmas music, making cookies together, going to visit all the grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, the way the suffocating Florida humidity and heat let up enough to sometimes allow for a frost, jumping on our trampoline and seeing the tiniest hint of snow flurries come down and exclaim, "IT'S SNOWING YOU GUYS!!", the excitement of Christmas morning and how my mom would never let us just run in and open presents because we had to have a sensible-ish breakfast first, the tradition of all 4 of the kids each getting a jar of pickles in our stockings because our parents knew we were so nuts for pickles. Heh.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I remember it so clearly. It was on the bus ride home from Kindergarten, and an older kid told me with such satisfaction. I was crushed for a few days and just couldn't believe it. Julian learned this year, by the way. He asked me flat out if Santa was real, or if parents gave presents. So I told him the truth. And he was sad. And then within the span of about five minutes, he put together the pieces: "The Easter Bunny? The Tooth Fairy? Leprechauns?" All made up. I think he was most bummed about leprechauns.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
We always did when I was young, and it was the same thing every year: pajamas. Even though we knew what it was, it was always super fun to open it. Why am I not doing that for my kids? I think a trip to Target is in order.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
In the nude. Oh, wait....a different answer, perhaps? We go for simple. I think really fancy trees that look like they were done by professionals are very pretty, but just not for me. I like our tree to have a lot of keepsake ornaments and handmade ones. A tree that looks like the people who decorated it actually live there.

11. Snow! Love it or dread it?
Love it! For like the first week it's on the ground. Then I'm just tired of it, and tired of being cold. It doesn't even snow that much in our part of North Carolina. But I'm from Florida, and then lived in California after that. So snow and I aren't BFF or anything.

12. Can you ice skate?
Yeah, dood. And I love it. But you know who can ice skate like he's motherfreaking Wayne Gretzky? Julian.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
Yes, a guitar. Because it shaped me the most and gave me the most years of happiness.

14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Being with the people I love.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Um, can I use "all of them" as my answer? Because that's what it is.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Greasing a piglet with canola oil and letting it run wild through the house. The first person to catch it wins! No, really, we started a tradition when we moved here to go to see the Festival of Lights every year and bring homemade cookies with us for the ride. We always let Julian sit in Wade's lap and steer the car since it's going about 2 mph. That's probably my most favorite recent tradition.

17. What tops your tree?
Nothing! For shame!! I'm going to make a sweet little star our of yellow felt if I can ever get around to it.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
By far, I prefer giving. A complete flip-flop of how I felt when I was a lot younger. Opening presents was the shniznit!! But now, I love seeing people get excited over something thoughtful that I've given them. Like a greased piglet. Boy, do they get excited!

19. Candy Canes: yuck or yum?
Yum to the max. And go ahead and judge me for this, but I even love them once they've gotten really old and turned soft. I might even love them more than the fresh crunchy ones.

20. Favorite Christmas show?
It's a Wonderful Life is probably my all time favorite. Damned if I don't get all kinds of weepy every single time I watch it. And any movie that inspired the names of two Sesame Street characters has to be alright by me.

21. Saddest Christmas song?
It has to be this song that Patton Oswalt hilariously mocks. Such a sad song, but such a giant wtf.


22. What is your favorite Christmas song?
I really, really love Christmas songs. Even with my cynical bastard heart, I still love Christmas songs. And you may be surprised to learn that O Holy Night is my favorite one. It's just so beautiful.

motherhumper

Damn it. I just installed Disqus on here so I could actually reply to each comment individually, but it deleted ALL old comments. Douchery and balls. Anyway, I just wrote some super long responses to the awesome and thoughtful comments that you guys wrote on my last post, so I'm going to dig them out of my email's trash and re-post them. But otherwise, all comments got deleted by Disqus. I will try very hard not to make any jokes about how that name sounds.