THIS IS LOVE

This past week as we shopped for a Navajo bracelet, my husband explained to me that turquoise is usually filled with stabilizer.  Of course my first thought was that I wanted an original, unadulterated stone.  Cracks and flaws and all.
But I have to accept the true nature of turquoise; that it's beautiful but prone to cracking.  Without stabilizer, maybe it would crumble and be lost.  My mom had some like that.  It disintegrated into beautiful dust, so fine and blue.

Family, if you are lucky enough to have it (and if you're not, then friends are a good substitute), is the spackle that holds the crack-and-crumble prone institution of marriage together.  The filler, the binder. The stone itself is beautiful.  Precious.  But fragile.  And where the cracks form, the binder fills and smooths over and makes whole again.  Maybe not perfect.  Not original.  But sturdier.
It's important not to mistake the binder for the stone, though.  Glue is no substitute for precious stone.

This is what I was thinking as, one day this week, members of both our families converged in Virginia City.  In the blistering, funky Western streets of a ghost town in the mining hills of Nevada we all merged into a giant, amoebic, wild family.  You bought the ice cream of whoever was in line with you. Shepherded with two arms a gaggle of strollers and boys, accidentally pulling in peripheral children who seemed disappointed when plucked out of our happy mob by their lone parent.  Nephews of one family and second cousins of another were just cousins. joined by being of the same height and a strange and strong, instantly recognizable thread of family belonging. A bloodless cord.

Like cells, pieces broke off, joined members across the street, and then rejoined having grown in size; having gained an ice cream cone or a bow and arrow play set.
I set the toddler of my cousin on the back of my tree-like oldest son and he accepted the burden naturally, gracefully. Maybe even thankfully.

Later she ran ahead to walk with me and take my hand, saying, "I just want to be with you." At first I wasn't sure I had heard right.

When my oldest graduated from middle school, this enthusiastic mob showed up.  The older girl-cousins had glittery hand-made signs.  Great grandmas whispered conspiratorially.  The little cousins were held up on shoulders to see.  And when his name was called, our cheers were deafening and prolonged.

My son said later that his friends had asked, wasn't that embarrassing?
What did you say, I wanted to know.
I said that's not embarrassing, that's my family, he told me.

I went to see the foreign film I Am Love a while back.  As we left, a woman who was writing a book approached theatre-goers and asked them, what is love?

When she asked me, I answered immediately, "Showing up."

Showing up, and maybe screaming with all your heart.

Feet Leave the Ground

Sorry the Haus has been so quiet!  
There's the usual intense internal dialogue going about some major things...I've been a real Thinker Thinkerton over here, but have felt much more private lately.  Weird, huh?


At the end of the day yesterday, after Pizza Port-ing and butterfly sightings at the beach, we pulled over at a quiet spot so the boys could surf.  There wasn't much surf to speak of, but their skinny, flu-weakened arms couldn't have handled much anyhow.

Every time I look at Sage now, I think of the word akimbo.  He's all lines and angles and I think to myself, "Arms akimbo!"

I watched him running towards the water yesterday, and for a brief moment as he jumped over a pile of seaweed, he was airborne.
I thought, that's how you know you're happy; when your feet leave the ground.

I used to love to open a book when they surfed, but I don't do that anymore (and yes, I do plan to join them!)

I watch, and I soak it up.  Remember in the beginning when you would watch them breathe?  You do it at the end, too.



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Gettin' Some-Why I Hate the Gym and Crave Adventure

Something funny has begun to happen to me.

I've never been the most physical of people.  I don't enjoy being out of breath and in pain, and I hate the gym with a passion.  When I go inside, I feel a part of me dying.  It's socially acceptable, institutionalized self-torture!  Like the terrible Greek myth of Sisyphus who is doomed to push a boulder up a hill over and over only to have it roll back down, people run and run and arrive at precisely nowhere, climb stairs that will never, ever end in a rooftop view, and endlessly push their arms and legs against a contraption that is not pumping a well or moving a stack of wood or doing anything at all.

And let's not even talk about the music.  Gym music makes me suicidal.  I know...listening to Nick Drake croon, "pink, pink, pink, pink moon" doesn't make you want to jump around.

I understand that people do it for their body, their health, and that it inexplicably makes them feel good after.  But you know me-I need meaning in everything.  If you want to move your arms, lift roofing materials onto your old neighbor's roof.  If you want to do squats, go help harvest lettuce at the local organic coop.  This is how I feel about exercise; it's great if it's a by-product of actually doing something.  

Super unpopular I know, as my views tend to be.

Well, I don't really know where this is coming from, but lately my desire to push myself mentally and physically has grown.  Quite a bit, actually.

Maybe it's rebellion against the idea of what a mom "should" be like.  Maybe I feel defiant about my age and the complacency that has crept in and made itself comfortable in my life.  I'm tired.  I don't want to be wet or dirty or uncomfortable.  I'm becoming less flexible, less tolerant, and I hate that.

I don't want to grow soft.  I don't want to "go gently into that good night".  I want to rage, rage, and maybe surf or skate into the dying of the light.

So I've been thinking; why don't I bomb hills with my kids?  Aside from a lot of skin surface and my front teeth, what do I have to lose?  Who said I can't?  And if not now, then when?

Suddenly I want to dangle from cliff faces, hike the entire Camino de Santiago de Compostela, jump out of moving things, and plow through heavy surf.  I want to feel the very edges of my physical and mental boundaries...I want to know their contours and textures intimately.

At dinner with friends the other night, I articulated this out loud for the first time and my best friend asked, "Why do you think you feel like that?"

"I don't know," I said,  "I just want to live.  Until there is no life left in me, I want to feel and I want to live."

Anyone else up for some adventure?





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The weekend is coming! The weekend is coming! Plus Room With a View recaps!

I'm so excited. I scored tickets to the stage version of E.M. Forster's A Room With a View tonight!

I'm going with my best cousin Jess, with whom I watched the movie version every weekend for about six straight years, at midnight, so we could swoon in private. And. I know it by heart. Which could be a problem if the actors don't.

Opening scene:

Lucy Honeychurch throws open the windows in her Italian pensione and pouts, "But I thought we were to have a view of the Arno!"

But she says it "AHHH-no" and is impossibly adorable. I want to be impossibly adorable. I am not British, so this is impossible.



Enter George, who is a crazy hunk.




And he plays with his food! But he's kind of crazy. The food question mark means he's really deep, which plays to my 13-year old presumption that handsome British guys dressed in all white who run amok on the lawns of great estates are deep (later proved wrong by experience).





Lucy plays Beethoven and gets all melodramatic on her piano, but mother doesn't like it when she plays that modern Beethoven, because it makes her "peevish".


Which is pretty funny to me at the time, because I PLAYED BEETHOVEN REAL LOUD AND GOT ALL MELODRAMATIC ON MY PIANO!! And my mom was like, could you please play something a little more....restful??!! Beethoven was the original rebel music!





Anyhow, Italy happens! And we know what that means: sexy time in lavender fields!





I don't know what makes you think this is my favorite part.





Later there's a fat, naked Mr. Beebe, which makes my mom think the movie is pornographic. Thus the watching at my cousin's house (where things are so lax they have sugar cereal, Barbie dolls, and cable!)





There's a skinny, gruesome Cecil, who is Lucy's "intended". He's gross and farts dust!





George tells Lucy that Cecil is "the sort who can't love anyone, least of all a woman".


And she's like, oh dude you just blew my mind!


So she conducts a little experiment and asks Cecil to kiss her. He obliges by banging his spectacles against her face and rubbing his waxed mustache on her, and thus Lucy knows George is right about him. Bad kisser, doesn't play with his food, never ran naked with Mr. Beebe. Sayonara sucka!





Lucy dumps Cecil. Cecil goes all cross-eyed, has a tuberculosis attack, and goes off to pin butterflies in the library.

No, I don't know where he goes because all I care about is Lucy is GOING TO GET WITH GEORGE!





The story has a pretty satisfactory resolution. No one dies, they end up in Italy, and their passionate necking is sanctioned by church and state, and thus my mom, for they are now man and wife.

I am free to observe their passionate wedded bliss. If only I could get Mr. Beebe out of my mind.

Awkward Family Vacation Photos

Super dorky, I know. But at least give me some credit for not writing it in the sand and taking a picture.



Maybe it's a little tacky to post a bunch of family vacation photos in a public forum. It's like the 21st century version of serving your guests cocktail weenies and making them watch Super 8's of your trip to the Great Lakes, I guess. Actually, that sounds kind of fun. Cocktail weenies are totally underappreciated, I think.

The thing is, this is all I've got. It's what I've been doing and besides, when's the last time I had my digital photos printed? Never. At least this way, one day when I'm old (and that's super far away, just so you know) I can excavate this blog and show my grandchildren old family photos.

Waimea Canyon is at the southern end of Kauai, and called the Grand Canyon of Hawaii for obvious reasons. Like the real thing, you just can't imagine how awe-inspiring and vast it is unless you're there in person. The contrast of Kauai's famous red dirt and all the deep greens was stunning.





Do we look like the kind of family that just drives to the look-out point?? Why do I look like a body-builder??





Everywhere. The pigeons of Kauai.





We did a pretty strenuous hike up into the canyon, to a set of falls and pools.

Just FYI, 12-year olds do a lot of deep, pensive thinking. Pretty much all the time. At least when they're not busy eating, crying that "it's not fair" or being awkward.

This is the pool at the smallest upper falls.








At the ends of the Earth. See how hazy the background looks? It was actually a perfectly clear day, but they're so far away the mountains appear to be hazy.








I'm perfectly O.K. with you teetering on the edges of cliffs. I'm not even hyperventilating. I'm just out of breath. From the altitude.








This looks like some Mayan ruin, right? It's a natural formation, though. Some book I was reading said it looked like something vulgar, but I just didn't see it. Believe me, I tried.





So, another round of cocktail weenies? What have you been up to?



...........................................................

Evelyn

I spent the morning with my grandma.

7,000 boys went down with the Arizona, she said. Your grandfather wanted me to see it. To see my reaction, she said. That was the first time I went to Hawaii. I didn't want to go, she said.

Darjeeling, India. That was the best trip of my life. We spent five weeks crossing India, she said. Your grandfather was very good to me, knew I loved the mountains, knew I wanted to be near the Himalayas. We had no itinerary. At every stop, we asked at the hotel where we should go next, and we went there. The people were so nice, so beautiful.

The train in Darjeeling Limited comes to mind. The image of my nearly Gothic Victorian grandmother in a hat and pearls, her white-white hands clutching the railing as their 1st class car rocks back and forth. Tea. There would have been tea.

The best I've ever had, she said.

Was he deployed during the war, I said. What war? My dear, there have been so many wars since I was a little girl, she said.

Korean, she said then. For two years he went back and forth to Hawaii. I didn't see him shed any tears when he had to leave, she said. I had a baby each time he left.

You can't shake my faith, she said. I've known what was true all my life, it just took time to find others who did too.

I hope someday I'll see more of you, she said. You know you can always stop working. You chose to start and you can choose to stop, she said.

I can't, grandma. I have to work. I would just have to do something else, and I would be even busier.

Not even if you were very careful? she said.

Not even then, grandma. Not unless I very carefully turned back the clock, married a big sailor, had a mess of kids, and hopped trains across India. Had daughters with issues and granddaughters with questions. Not unless I was you.

But I will take you to the Himalayan restaurant. And I won't cringe when you tell the polite waiter about Darjeeling, how good the tea was, how much your husband loved it there. I won't cringe at all. I'll let you be you since you love me.

Meet the Goodwin Project

I tripped and fell hard over these folks while researching farmer's markets on the North Shore.



To be honest I have mixed feelings about rejecting society and choosing a nomadic existence (where children are concerned), but I have enormous respect for the intention...the desire for a mindful and spiritual existence. Do I think "society" offers that? Definitely not.



I did my own version of dropping out in my late teens; following the Grateful Dead, hanging out on a commune, living in an Airstream on a bluff overlooking the Lost Coast (on a Native American burial ground no less), making pita in a wood burning stove, and studying midwifery. In my experience many get lost living like this; few find themselves.

Regardless, I felt some major soul-ache looking at these graceful and lovely people. It was a little bit like looking at what could have been and almost was.



Especially if you've never had the chance to shake free of the heavy responsibilities and demands of this system, I know that this kind of life can hold enormous appeal. Just read their compelling bios and tell me you don't want to know more:

"Aamion was bare handing prawns from a clear creek in Namuamua Village, Fiji, before he could talk. His vagabond dad made home not in one place, but amid a seasonal passage to outposts in New Zealand, Kauai, and Fiji. He is as much a son of nowhere as he is comfortable everywhere. Work and play are blurred for him, and done hard especially now that he and wife Daize have added a second child, True, to the brood.

Daize attracts people wherever she goes, for something more than her sunny magnetism. Whether noseriding over piercing reef or navigating a varied upbringing she got through unscathed. As a teen she was the face of Roxy, an icon in the rise of women’s surfing, and longboarding world champion twice. Through her resourceful creativity Daize has manifested a blessed life. Trolling the Hanalei farmer’s market for tasty mangoes so her kids don't crave candy, she’s a happy, purposeful mother who knows the earth provides.

Aamion is proof that the ocean does too, whether riding big barrels to the podium in the Volcom Pipeline Pro on Oahu’s North Shore, or landing a monster dog tooth tuna with spear while no one is watching. He intuits the less you say, the more people listen, and their son Given, 3, learns this first hand. The unassuming words from Given’s gravelly throat offer clues to his atypical worldview. The Goodwins drop into the bigger waves in life with clear eyes, setting up for the high line."



Do you have a secret (or not so secret) drop-out dream? What does it look like? Farm? Yurt? Costa Rica jungle?

Would you ever go "off the grid" with children?

UPDATE:

Their movie teaser is just shimmering with life...the millisecond-long birth scene had me crying, and I am so looking forward to the full-length movie. Try not to be so jaded, all you naysayers!





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WINTER INTROSPECTIVE...an epic post about muffins, bizness, and being a lady

photo by Dave Beckerman

While there's a bit of a deep winter lull in sales, I've been turning my attention to other things. One is cooking dinners that involve more than three ingredients (two of which are usually from Trader Joe's, the third is wine...dang, also from Trader Joe's).

Some super nice friends of ours belong to a local organic CSA and their house is the pick up location, so when other members don't show up for their produce (or our friends lock their front gate and won't let them in) they can keep or distribute the leftovers to friends! Last week we were the lucky recipients of a huge box of lots of gangly green things that we've been faithfully plowing through as best we can. I've had spinach in my teeth ALL WEEK! And I kid you not, there was a head of lettuce in that box whose texture and flavor were transcendent, I tell you! Almost like steak, but better because it won't kill you. Seriously, it was so different from grocery store lettuce. Say what you want about organic but I'm a huge believer that the flavor and nutrient levels are superior to conventional vegetables. And I know I'm right.

Do you belong to a CSA? I would definitely consider doing it, or sharing a weekly box with a friend or neighbor if you think you can't use it all. Not only have we eaten WAY more greens and veggies this week than usual, but I feel like it's influenced our other food choices, too. You're just not going to follow a giant helping of kale with an In 'n Out hamburger! Unlesss you are, and then, at least using the spotty logic of my 14-year old, the kale cancels out the burger.

I've also been developing recipes for muffins. Not all technical and stuff, with test tubes and scales and calculators, but mostly by throwing flour all over the kitchen and putting everything healthy I can find plus some sugar into a muffin pan and baking it.

Our usual snacks are pretty healthy; edamame, hummus and pita, nuts, etc.. You know, the regular snacks of the privileged white minority. But these boys of mine are starving ALL THE FREAKING TIME and will mow through more processed stuff like cereal bars (gasp!) and Pirate Booty like no one's business. I know, because I find the bags and wrappers stuffed behind every cushion and pillow in our house! The act of sitting down over here is always accompanied by the sound of crinkling cellophane. I'm not a huge baker because I hate being tied to recipes, but muffins are quick and can survive my...experimentation.

I developed this recipe using ripe bananas to replace a lot of the fat and sugar, and stuffed them full of zucchini, whole wheat, and flax. They're ridiculously tasty, and I (almost never) find them stuffed behind cushions!

Whole Wheat Zucchini/Banana/Flax Muffins (plus chocolate chips if you're smart)

mix together:

3 cups grated zucchini
1/4 c. oil
2 very ripe, large bananas mashed well
3 eggs
1/2 c. white sugar
1/3 c. brown sugar packed
2 1/2 tsp vanilla

in separate bowl mix:

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 C whole wheat flour
1 1/2 C white flour
1/4 C ground flax (or more!)

Add dry ingredients to wet, mix gently until just combined, throw in a handful of chocolate chips (we did...so good)

Put in greased muffins tins
Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes until wooden pick comes out clean
Makes about 30 medium muffins with zero calories and .0002 megahertz of fat


And now the biz stuff:

Speaking of sales lulls, I've been thinking a lot about business lately. I always believed that my business would grow organically...that more and more sales would lead to hiring employees, opening a bricks-and-mortar location, and that I would eventually be running the business instead of doing most of the work. Although I can't really claim to have had a real plan, as I started this business completely by accident and have been trying to catch up with it ever since!

The economic implosion certainly didn't help the natural business progression I had hoped for. I feel incredibly thankful that I was able to simply keep my business running and profitable during the worst of the worst. While people around us were losing their homes and jobs, I was nervously paying off every bill and saving money in anticipation of the slowdowns that did indeed come for both my, and the hub's, business. Even though business dropped off steeply at certain points, we were totally o.k., and even spent the past few years traveling around the world with our kids (albeit super cheaply!) So I can't claim to be a total failure at this.


The economy is only half the story, and I am the other half. I've lately come to realize that I'm not as motivated as I'd like to be, the creative juices don't flow as fast, because design and furniture don't seem like important, meaningful work. Fun, yes. But let's be honest; I'm not changing any lives here.

On the other hand, my creative juices are a gosh darn Niagara Falls when it comes to helping people and fixing things. This is when I'm at my best and most motivated, which shouldn't be surprising...those aptitude and personality tests we all take in high school and college consistently said I should be a missionary or social worker! I really need to grapple with the fact that sometimes business can just be business (a living, a means to an end) and doesn't have to change the world, but my idealism says everything you do should matter!

Another part of this equation is that I still have a hankering for a professional life. I really intended to be an English professor/academic writer, and I fritter away a lot of my energy being "torn" about what I do instead of really investing myself fully into it. Sometimes I have an "I'll do it, but I'm not going to care about it because it's not brainy" attitude.

And finally, working from home tricks everyone, including me, into thinking I'm a stay-at-home mom. Sure I'll volunteer for your field trip, sure I'll give you a ride, yes I can babysit, bake muffins, do the laundry, and pick up the drycleaning! The joy of self-employment is making your own schedule! Right? Wrong!

Again, because I place little importance on business and money, I tend to prioritize everything else over it and end up not investing the time necessary to make it truly successful. I put everyone else's stuff first and allow that to dictate my schedule, instead of the other way around. Sure, the flexibility is a godsend sometimes when it's truly needed (sick child, family emergency, a well-earned personal day), but really, the structure of a fixed schedule helps keep everything in its place!

It's been interesting this week to see a mom working through issues that are very opposite to mine (a rigid work schedule, necessary business travel, missing out on kids' things, the pressure to have a remarkable career), and all the time I'm thinking, "I'd like to have those problems right now!"

It reminds me that we all have doubts about what we do, and there is no single way to get this family/money/meaningful work thing just right.

Yet I think it's in the nature of femininity to constantly question the path we're on, analyze how meaningful our work is, and fret about the impact of everything we do on our family. I don't think we will ever stop. Nor should we. This self-analysis is not driven simply by perfectionism, as I may have erroneously suggested to this mother. It's also driven by idealism, which is the less-neurotic sister of perfectionism. Women are born improvers, and while we can and should learn to enjoy things as they are, we will always see the ways in which they can improve. That's not a flaw.

Our husbands can usually do the status quo/contentment/living in the moment thing quite well, while we constantly have our eye on the bigger picture, the end goal. And I think we should give ourselves some credit for that. We see the possibilities and we move our families, our communities, our world, forward towards them. Yes, it drives everyone crazy sometimes, but ours is the idealism behind progress and change. It's the reason things get done and are made better.

So, ladies, I want to ask you this question: Heaven only knows you'll take all the blame, but when's the last time you took some of the credit?

37

So my 37th year of life is coming to a close in a few months. Wow, that sounds so much sadder than it really is! I've always heard women say that they liked their 30s but really came into their own in their 40s. While I'm not (at all) wanting to rush the last 2+ years of my 30s, I think I have some sense of why women say this.

In my 37th year so many things seemed to finally fall into place for me. I understand things clearly that I didn't before and have a sense of calm and peace that grounds me despite my angst-y, searching nature. Some people might call this "having perspective."


PARENTHOOD:

I'm not, and am never going to be, "angry mom".
Sometimes I am tired mom. Sometimes I am cranky mom. But I'm not angry. I think my kids are hilarious and sweet, and it's never, ever their fault if I'm feeling badly. They not only have my love, but my unconditional approval of who they are and everything that entails (including emptying the refrigerator, leaving skateboards everywhere, wrestling all over the house and knocking down furniture). I'm not saying everything they do is o.k.. I'm just saying I recognize it's "part of the package" and I accept that. It doesn't make me angry.

To some of you this comment won't make sense. But if you know angry mom, and especially if you were raised by one, you'll understand why this is important.

ENTERTAINING:

It's ok to serve pizza if it means everyone can come.

Pour half a bottle of Trader Joe's Citrus Vodka and a bottle of Pomegranate Limeade into a glass pitcher, squeeze in a few limes. There. It's a cocktail party. Life is too short to make fun things hard.

RELATIONSHIPS:

Pay the compliment; pay it immediately.

Sometimes I'm struck with respect or gratitude or appreciation for someone and think of just the right way to express it. It's usually in that moment just the right words come to you. Write them down. Make the call. Send the card. Before you forget. Before you have time to overthink it or become embarrassed by your sentimentality. When's the last time you rolled your eyes at an authentic and heartfelt compliment? No one will. I wrote a poem for my best friend and read it aloud at a dinner party. I still can't believe I did that.

FASHION:

Good shoes and bags make cheap shirts and jeans cute. Spend money on these things. Also, a scarf or big necklace turns "clothes" into "outfits".

BODY IMAGE:

You don't have to lose 25 pounds. Losing 3 will make you walk taller.

LOYALTY:

Don't gossip. But especially don't talk about your friends with other friends.
It makes you look small. It makes you seem childish. It suggests you have nothing better to talk about.

THE INNER PERSON:

In your secret heart, don't let the ultimate question be "But was I pretty?" or "Was I thin?"
Other people are thinner and prettier than you. Get a new ultimate question.


Some big ideas for Monday, I know! What age seemed particularly life-changing for you? I would love to hear...

In the thick of it, and I'm not talking about Greek yogurt

Turning twelve in Spain...the beginning of the end (there was A LOT of sullen gelato-eating)

I had started this lovely, esoteric post about what we learn from our mothers about music; how this teaches us larger lessons about life, beauty, identity, joy. [Triggered by a sudden memory of my mother, butt-long red hair swaying, belting out Linda Ronstadt in our living room full of ferns and antiques.]

But today is not the day for these musings. Today I'm in the thick of it and all attempts at abstraction and philosophy are crumbling in the face of cold, hard reality. Caving in like Kirstie Alley at a dessert buffet.

I was up with a child who had appendicitis-type stomach pains (or a brilliantly-acted impersonation of them) all night, and so, even when I was finally able to soothe him to sleep, I spent the early morning hours half awake and uneasy. I was ready to run to the ER with my Gene Simmons-smeared makeup. Is it bad that I worried about what I would wear for a 3am ER run? Something warm and comfortable that didn't say, "I am a homeless crack addict"?

Today a sick day gave us time to review school grades and I discovered whole swaths of missing assignments. Apparently when you're a twelve-year old boy your brain can go MIA for days at a time and parents have to send search parties to get it back. There were tears and threats and fist-banging and that was before I even called the kid into my office.

Someone said that a mother can never be happier than her least happy child. I would add to this that mothers cannot have an "A" day if her kid is getting a "D". I don't feel good unless all is well with my children. Fathers are so annoyingly exempt from this torture.

Beyond this, our house feels chaotic. There are balls being dropped. Roles being reversed and then reversed back without warning. Who is responsible for what keeps changing. All I'm sure of today is that my job is to do everything that no one else gets done. I feel like a tractor trawling the sand on the beach for forgotten responsibilities, missed appointments, and unpaid bills.

I feel like the lone fireman in a family of arsonists.

Happy, happy Monday to me.

Click here to read about the last time I faced the infamous 12-year old male species!

RECAP (and obsession confession)

A reader/friend said I was starting to sound like an extreme couponer with all this travel hacking talk of late. Oh heck no. Finding stellar deals or strategizing to travel for free is one thing. Carrying an accordion binder of 30 cents off coupons in my purse is a whole different ball of crazy wax.

But....I do have a slightly extreme confession to make.

Don't hate. I didn't share this offer here because I didn't know if it was any good. Also because I don't want you guys to think I'm an extreme couponer.

American Express ran a "Gift Chain" promotion recently. You registered your AMEX cards, spent $25+ at any of several online stores, and each purchase won a "gift" ranging from a $5 statement credit to $50 American Express gift cards, to 50,000 AMEX points (transferrable to airlines and hotel programs).

I have never, ever participated in these kinds of things, assuming as per my mom's cynical life-training that they're all just "the man trying to screw you." But I've been a lot more points-conscious lately. So I enrolled my cards and promptly forgot all about it. Purely by coincidence I made two purchases that qualified, and within a couple minutes I got "you received a gift from the Gift Chain" emails. One was a $5 credit at Zappos (lame) and one was a $25 credit at Zappos (less lame).

I wasn't falling all over myself to get more of these "buy something, get something gifts" since they basically work to make you spend more money (man=screwing you). But, due to my diligently obsessive research, I found out there was a no-purchase way to enter (write your name, address, email on an index card and mail it in). I had a bad cold, so while I sat around in bed one night I filled out ten entries each for all six of our American Express cards and mailed them in. What? I don't do relaxing.

I was a little shocked as the results started pouring in via email.

Total gifts:

$530 in American Express gift cards

$122 in American Express statement credits

$128 in credits at Zappos

(plus some other stuff I won't really use, like small credits at Pottery Barn, etc)

A little bit better than 30 cents off a jar of Ragu, I think.

Also, did I just beat the man at his own game?

Next time, I promise to share. Unless you're not interested?

S0 last week we took our getaway to Newport Beach (to earn our 100,000 Club Carlson points).

Has anyone else done their "stay"?

At first I was a little irritated with myself. Had I gotten carried away? Had I just paid real dollars to get in on some points action that I might not really need? Were we going to have to suffer a cheesy, run-down hotel stay just to get our points?

Nah. It was a perfect weekend.

The hotel was SO MUCH better than I expected. Sort of retro on the outside and "swanky corporate" on the inside. We were upgraded to the executive floor/executive room without asking, and the wi-fi, parking, and coffee was free. No "forced" incidental costs.

We slept (way) in and had peach cornmeal pancakes and Mexican eggs benedict here.

POOCHES!

PRETTY POOCHES AND POOCHES IN BAD 80s CLOTHING!

Then we caught an insanely good exhibit of experimental California art from the 60s and 70s at one of my favorite little museums, the OCMA.

[INSERT VISUAL OF WEIRD HIPPIES DOING PERFORMANCE ART HERE]

We wandered around for a few hours, completely alone, until we were done with thinking (and being frightened by the 60s). Then we headed across the street to Fashion Island...probably the least offensive mall I've ever been to. It's pretty, has ocean views, and some interesting indie-type shops that I actually want to shop at.

BAD CELL PHONE SHOTS

We watched the new Sherlock Holmes movie in a theater that served alcohol and had massive leather recliner seats.

We hung out and talked over margaritas the size of my face.

And the next day we woke up early and drove out to meet our family at some desert hot springs.

[HIS NEW THING IS "HUMANS WEREN'T MADE TO WEAR SHOES AND I WANT TO CLIMB EVEREST"]

[HIS NEW THING IS GROWING A CUTE LITTLE MUSTACHE AND SLEEPING]

CAMPAIGN DESK

Once upon a time I bought a beautiful house and claimed a room in it as my office. This room was not large, and the dumb old antique glass doorknobs always fell off when I slammed the door shut and yelled, "Be quiet! I'M WORKING!!!" Sometimes they fell off on the outside, which meant eventually someone had to come and let me out. This still happens in the master bath, and so, if you haven't seen me in a while, please check there first.





But it was my room. OK, so I shared it with the ironing board (taunting me always) , a guest sofa, several friendly guitars, and enough amplifiers to recreate the Who's WALL OF SOUND. Yet, when I said the words, "I'll be in the office," I wasn't referring to a blanket fort under the dining room table. You didn't have to follow the extension cord until it ended at me, sitting on the floor in the stair landing, typing furiously. It was a room with a door, and it was mine. Occasionally my family was even kind enough to leave a pen or half-chewed pencil there for me to use.





Fast forward a few phases of child development, and it became necessary to give our sons their own rooms. Among other things, the top bunk was being used to investigate certain laws of physics. Growing up in a house full of girls, it had never occurred to me to see if I could pee on ANYONE'S head from the top bunk. There is simply no way to prepare for certain things about parenting.





There followed a whole year where my "office" was an old desk three feet from the blissful marriage bed, from which my husband would lovingly glare at me, turn over, sigh loudly, and bury his head in three pillows. I felt great about it. I was also able to conserve nearly all my calories, since my commute for the day was: roll out of bed onto rolling chair, push self off wall over to desk. Never had gaining weight been so easy, so automatic!





I decided to rejoin the living by sharing the family computer upstairs. Commence six months of wondering, was it just me or did everyone in my family chew food/breathe so loud that I could not focus on what I was doing? (It was me)


This is my long, I'm-sick-in-bed-so-I'm-going-to-tell-you-my-life-story, way of saying we are turning the garage into an office and I painted an old campaign desk Kelly green. Behr's "Mint Sprig" green to be exact. The rug and the chair look a little awful with it, but nothing says "These would be perfect for mom" like random things dug out of the basement. I know...my selfish materialism knows no bounds.





SO, come visit me in the new office. We can hold important meetings and try and ignore that the garage door was just sprayed by a skunk. I hope you like centipedes and mice as much as I do! Of course, if you don't find me there, it's possible that another family need has forced a relocation of my office. Look for an extension cord. Follow it. There are a few spots we haven't yet tried as my office. There's a crotch in the tree out back I may be able to use...