Thanks and Tails from the Rescue Pets

You guys! Your comments on the last post were like a big warm hug. I have missed you! And I'd forgotten how much internet connections can still be true, genuine connections. I got a smile with every comment that popped up in my inbox and it made yesterday such a better day than so many similar ones before it, so thank you so much for the warm return.

I think I needed the break in posting- the kids are bigger and their lives belong largely to themselves, there aren't many stories to share from a life I largely live in my bedroom, the few I might have all involve line drawing on how you interact with the world in a pandemic and everyone has an opinion on that, plus mostly I've just been working so much and I'm in front of my monitors all day without the breaks that used to be built in, like commuting and getting lunch and driving home at certain times because of other commitments, and now there are none of those things and no commutes and no one has conflicts with anything so we email all day and keeping my evenings computer free became a necessity.

this inbox has eyes

But so is connection, and occasionally actually uploading the pictures on my phone (93% of which are of The Rescue Pets, my stalwart coworking companions), and sharing stories, and I'd like to do it more often again.

So, given that I have no other stories to share, let me take you through a few days in the life of the Rescue Pets.

Moose and Maggie remain best friends, partners in crime, and the best/worst coworkers a lonely lawyer working in her bedroom all day could possibly have.

We start our day early, at about 7:30 a.m. Moose always wants to know what calls we have for the morning and Maggie tries to remember if she was already fed her breakfast (yes).

Maggie takes her first morning nap about 7:40 and Moose pops in to let me know I made a typo in that email I just sent.

When Moose is ready to play, he'll walk over and gently bat at Maggie's tongue or face wrinkles to get her to wake up and come play with him.

Sometimes Maggie wakes up, sometimes she doesn't, but eventually, there is always playing.

I'm not sure Maggie really understands how to play- there's a lot of squishing her brother, but Moose is much faster and wilier and doesn't have to put up with anything he doesn't want to, so clearly he's having a good time. At some point, it's time for chase and Moose takes off. Maggie, totally pumped, gets a big bulldog smile and takes off too. She can be very fast over short distances.

Somehow she always gets lost midway through their bathroom-to-closet loop and Moose has to slow down to let her catch up. They do this a lot of times. Maggie has no brakes or ability to turn and crashes into all sorts of things along the way.

Sometimes Moose hides in my clothes hanging in the closet and Maggie crashes into those, sending hangers flying. She smiles the whole time.

At some point in the chasing, Maggie either gets tired and trots off or Moose cheats and jumps on the bed so Maggie has to give up. Moose finds my characterization of his winning move to be offensive.

There are naps. Lots and lots of them. Sometimes it makes me very jealous.

I always forget that Moose can hear me, so when I exclaim over how cute they are all cuddled up together, Moose always cracks an eye to let me know I've disturbed and annoyed him.

But Maggie, who only hears me in her heart, is smiling at me in her sleep I'm sure.

On one particularly chilly morning, when Maggie was wearing her fuzzy footie pj's and I decided to turn on the fire while I drank my first cup of tea, Maggie got to introduce Moose to the wondors of the fireplace.

"It's a magical place you see. Sometimes, if you're really lucky, a fire appears and it is made of warmth and love."

We had a week or two of finding the girls' stuffed animals all around the house. I was getting a little annoyed at them until I looked up from my computer one day and saw Moose trotting across my bedroom with a dead beanie baby in his mouth. When he saw me looking, he dropped his kill and attempted to look both nonchalant and defensive.

Now Maggie occasionally chews on the stuffed animals Moose has killed for her. It's clear she doesn't know why she's doing it, but she knows it's part of being in his pack.

Similarly, Moose has taken up squirrel watching. It's a huge part of his day and if I'm late in lifting the blinds in my bedroom office he lets me know immediately. Then he sit/stands for hours, ready to pounce on the squirrels in the world acquarium before him.

Today, Maggie joined him in his vigil. Again, she clearly didn't know what they were doing and never saw any of the squirrels who taunted our dynamic duo, but she was here for it. Standing by her alpha cat's side, ready to do whatever it was they were doing.

Later, job well done, they napped in the sun for a while.

I enjoy them so much. Truly, they are the only variance in my day and they have so much personality and so much genuine affection between them. One time I was on a video call and there was a loud crash in the bathroom- it was my bulldog sliding into my bathtub because she can't make sharp turns. Later, she snored so loud I had to mute my phone while I kicked her out of the room. She is the greatest and one of the only things I will truly miss when we get to reenter the real world.

And Maggie will likely need some intensive therapy when we are separated. We are never more than 12" apart these days and her anxiety when I close the bathroom door compels her to run into the door until it opens itself and we are reunited. Then she does her tippy taps of joy, demands pets, and then feels secure enough to trot off for a nap to recover from expending all that emotional energy.

But, I have at least a few more months until I need to worry about Maggie's separation anxiety and until then, I will soak up all the smiles these funny, furry little creatures bring my way.

And note, in this time of holiday giving, that I am forever thankful for the amazing people at Lonestar Bulldog Club Rescue, who took in a starved, infected, absolute mess of a puppy mill mama bulldog, paid for 6 weeks of surgeries and live-in vet bills, and then fostered her until she could join our family, and for Saving Hope, which rescued a tiny scraggly kitten in an overcrowded Laredo shelter and transported him here, where Claire and Cora's music teacher fostered him and now he lives in our house where he plays with a bulldog and sleeps under the covers with a teenage boy who sings him songs.

Life is good and my heart and in-home legal office are very full.

Sparkly In-Home Holidays

Hi! I ate 6 sugar cookies yesterday and 7 today and the semi-sick but also satisfied feeling in my stomach as I look at our sparkly redesigned living room made me miss you all and this space and the posts of the same traditions I write every year.

So much about this year is different, but we decorated the tree while listening to the Raffi Christmas Album and I made my quadruple batch of sugar cookies and nearly broke the kitchenaid and it was nice to have something that is exactly the same.

I rolled and cut and baked while James hung Christmas lights in the front yard and the kids raked leaves and the sheer normalcy of it was soothing to my soul.

The cookie decorating also went as expected. James made an anatomically correct gingerbread man and Landon found it so hilarious he almost could not recover.

Cora, my meticulous 7-year-old, decorated exactly 4 cookies over 90 minutes and ate 2 immediately. Claire decorated a solid dozen and managed to eat 5 before I realized how many she'd downed.

And I, I decorated all 100 of the rest. Which is only fair, since I seem to do most of the eating.

I continue to work from home. It's safe and I'm thankful for the care with which my agency has approached this pandemic, but as an extrovert I feel a bit like I am slowly dying inside. And the holidays- with their whirwild of parties are usually SUCH a battery charge for me, even in a normal year of going to work each day, teaching at two different yoga studios, attending two different school's PTA Board Meetings, and meeting up regularly with family and friends, and well, I've been a bit dreading the loss of my surge of happy sparkly extrovert endorphins.

But I decorated the house and the sparkle gives me a lift every time I walk through the living room, which is often, because I drink 650 cups of tea a day and live for the change of scenery that is walking to the kitchen to make it. AND I get to make it instantly with my instant hot water dispenser that James got me for Christmas last year and my dad installed and it makes me SO HAPPY.

Like little puffy emoji hearts burst from my eyes everytime I turn the handle and steaming hot water comes out. It's 200 degrees of joy on tap.

Other pieces of happiness: our advent calendars.

Since so much of our traditional holiday fun is canceled this year, I decided we should all have an advent calendar to brighten December. James got one with tiny Bonne Maman Jams and Preserves he eats with breakfast each day, the kids are taking turns opening a Lego calendar that is the highlight of each morning, and I got this one from Adagio Teas. We're on Day 7 and I'm still SO excited to wake up each morning and see my new tea. So far I've had five I never would have purchased (Blueberry White; Caramel Candy Apple; Cranberry Black) and they have been SO good.

Also, Moose wearing a holiday sweater with a MOOSE on it.

And the fact I got Maggie a matching one after she seemed jealous of his.

I can't imagine why I didn't just get Maggie one in the first place, but I think I had a moment of misplaced frugality when matching Christmas sweaters for the Rescue Pets were obviously never going to be the place for that.

Moose also got a Christmas stocking and now all seven are hung by the chimney with care.

It's his first Christmas and he is filled with holiday spirit.

In much bigger projects, I started working with a designer in the neighborhood to rework our living room. I never felt like we used the space well - it's so long and narrow and SO open on the sides I just couldn't figure out how to fit a second couch in and hated how the one we had chopped the room in half. So I just left it as it was and have spent the last 8.9 years wishing I could think of a better solution.

Enter Melodye. She looked at our space and current furniture, got my budget, and then sent me a drawing of the redesigned space largely repurpusing what we already had. Once agreed on the plan, she'd send me 3-5 ideas for the various things we'd decided to purchase, like the couch and rug, so I could pick a favorite. It was the first time I've ever worked with a designer and she helped me break through the wall that was my stalled living room plans.

And now our whole family can sit comfortably all together! It opens up the space so much- you can talk to someone in the kitchen, at the bar, or sitting at the table.

I adore the textured bean bag ottoman I never would have purchased that the kids now lie on all the time. The carpet is fluffy and soft and Moose's favorite place to stretch out and sleep. The new couch is beautiful and I never would have thought to pair it with our old one the way she did. She reused all our side tables, moved around art, and we've ordered a new piece full of color I can't wait to see.

We're still getting new bookcases and some gorgeous new tile around the fireplace but this little update has brought me more joy than I could have imagined. The budget is equal to what we spend going to Colorado to ski every December (canceled this year obviously) and I love that we're using it to shake up a space we now spend so much time in.

And even if these were Normal Times, after nearly 9 (9!!!!) years in this house, we're just in a different life phase than we were before. Our kids are teens and tweens and even the third baby is a big kid- we hang out in a way that is so different from the early playroom-in-the-dining-room days. We watch shows together and chat in the evenings and everyone reads their own books all sprawled out on the couches. Landon is often baking in the kitchen and no one goes to bed before 8. This space fills my heart and I'm thankful for the vision of another who made it possible.

I'm still working much of the time and I'm still struggling a bit with the at-home nature of my life right now, but I really mean it when I say there are also so many moments of bright joy and quiet happiness and I'm so thankful we've been able to be safe and well this whole year. I've been missing this space and I truly hope you all have something that gives you a little bit of the joy Cora felt when she opened her new rollerblades (and literally every other gift) on her birthday a few weeks ago.

(She turned 7. Our tiny amazing gift of a perfect third baby is SEVEN. What in the actual hell.)

Now that our pool has a heater, so James could keep offering swim lessons after our nights turned cold, she got to swim on her birthday and eat a "chocolate mermaid cake with all the chocolate in it" and she found it to be the most perfect of days.

I've heard from a few of you (thanks!!) and you've mentioned missing my meal lists (along with my witty ramblings, obviously). We continue to eat all meals at home, with a takeout treat 1-2x/month. Given that I now also eat all lunches at home, I have cooked more in the last few months than in so many years prior, but I haven't minded. It gives me a reason to leave my computer in the bedroom and the money we've saved by not eating out (and not paying for a nanny, restaurants, or anything fun that takes place outside the house) has allowed us to update the living room and even save despite the swim school being functionally closed. And so while I can't remember much of what I've cooked, I've recently made and loved these:

Turkey Pot Pie (perfect use of leftovers, I'll make this again with chicken)

Crock Pot Beef and Barley Stew 

Creamy Mushroom Chicken with Crispy Onions (with triple the crispy onions) 

Baked Honey Mustard Pork Chops (first time I liked a pork chop)

BBQ Chicken Pizza 

Sunday Chili (my new fave chili recipe)

Pizza Baked Ziti 

Cozy Autumn Wild Rice Soup (obsessed with this one) 

Garlic Herb Spaghetti with Chicken Meatballs 

Lemon Chicken Soup with Orzo (love! go slowly with the tempering of the egg)

Crockpot Chicken Wild Rice Soup 

Roasted Tomato Puttanesca 

Ang's Creamy Tortellini Soup (amazing) 

Coconut Lime Chicken and Broccoli 

Other regular favorites: homemade pizza (nearly every Saturday), Gyros (Trader Joe's, with naan, roasted potatoes, veggies, and tzatziki), Tacos or Tamales (most Tuesdays), my mom's spaghetti, and Big Salad Night.

May your days- and/or your nights- be at least a little bit merry and bright.

Happy December! Also- the comments should be fixed and back open, so let me know what's giving you joy this last month of 2020!

Update!: You guys I had finished the kids photobooks several weeks ago after WEEKS of late nights and a carpal-tunnel-inducing million mouse clicks and they've been sitting in my Shutterfly cart because I just CANNOT spend the full amount on them, even at the constantly available 50% off sales. I was worried the elusive "unlimited free pages" promotion that takes my cart of four giant books from $400 to $120 wouldn't arrive in time this year and then today IT DID just this morning. It did and it's done and my books are ordered and now I am completely done with Christmas shopping and I am so happy. Sometimes, joy is the right coupon code after weeks of work and waiting. Thank you Shutterfly and Happy Tuesday to you all,

Proof of Life

Hi all! I've gotten a few concerned emails, which prompted me to finally open up Blogger and upload some pictures from my phone. I'm here! (I actually tried to publish this last weekend, Oct 18, which is when it was written, but Blogger changed in my time away and I couldn't get my usual settings to work and I can't open comments even if I wanted to - and I did, so I'm still working on that, but didn't want my proof of life post to languish any longer. my email is at the top right if you want to "comment" in an old school kind of way!)

We are good!

Busy, really busy, happy, sometimes sad, isolated, savoring connections, making memories, cooking a lot, baking too, not working out nearly enough for the baking... laughing at the animals, soaking up the kids, reading, not getting enough sleep, and working too much.

We'll take it by pictures:

Cora lost her first tooth! 6.75 years old, she was very excited and delighted by the $2 bill the tooth fairy slipped under her pillow. The toothfairy is grateful that unlike her lightly sleeping sister, Cora sleeps like a damn ROCK.

Maggie remains perfect in every way and wore this season's first sweater a few weeks ago.

Moose the kitten has grown into a sleek stunning black teenager cat who is in NO MOOD for my seasonal attire.

But he is always in the mood for his bulldog big sister. You guys, Maggie and Moose are best friends.

Like BEST friends.

But also siblings who are sometimes annoyed when someone steals the best spot in the sun from someone else.

They like to cuddle, chase each other, and give me guilty looks whenever I catch them plotting something together.

I enjoy them so much.

On the human front, the kids started virtual school in September!

It went really well. Our teachers absolutely killed it and the kids were engaged and happy and learning and I emailed all of them my appreciation.

Look at that beaming little face

Cora was a little tech support 1st grader, doing her coloring and writing and dancing and songs and just BEING an interactive little first grader thanks to long stretches of synchronous learning that literally saved our working-parent lives.

Claire, now in 5th grade, got to take over my old desk and no one has ever been more delighted by tiny cubby holes and drawers. She didn't start her day until 9:30, but without fail, she'd be sitting in front of her desk, wearing her not-required-at-home uniform, logged in and searching for extra work, by 8 a.m.

Landon, in 7th (!!), was perhaps the least interactive thanks to the apparent lack of GoNoodle dancing breaks in the middle school curriculem. But he logged in to all of his classes and did all of his things and James and I never had anything to do with it, so it was a win as far as I could tell. One thing that was truly a win was how he'd come into my bedroom office during his breaks and share funny little stories about his day, and while there is PLENTY about this pandemic that is absolutely terrible, these little moments with my 13-year-old that I wouldn't have otherwise had are something I've held close to my heart this past month.

James continues to run the swim school and a new cross-training dryland camp out of our backyard and has added many new games and toys to his repetoire. Like this zipline that is NOT for the swim school. There isn't a liability waiver long enough, but our kids love it! And now that he has invested in a pool heater to keep running his lessons, they can swim year-round. With us still mostly staying to the boundaries of our property, this is QUITE a key upgrade.

I am also still working from home and will be forevermore, or so it seems. I miss people. I miss going to the office. I miss the separation between home and office, which used to be 5 miles and is now about 18 inches from my bed.

But I'm also amazed at what I can do from home now. I have been working a lot (a LOT lot) and have seamlessly handled taking depositions, settlement conferences, counsel presentations, huge multi-party conference calls, and even wrote an action memo and filed a case all from my bedroom. I worked over 80 hours in 6 days a couple weeks ago and they only reason I got to sleep or be with my family is because I did it all right here in this very house.

(One afternoon of nonstop conference calls I texted James to have a kid bring me water and of course Claire volunteered and then did it in the most Claire way possible.)

Today was James's birthday and we celebrated with all the homemade cards and some new t-shirts and a shiny new scooter so he can join the scooter gang without having to keep stealing the kids'.

We went on a long walk/scooter ride, ate a fantastic dinner that used all my sheet pans (flank steak, twice baked potatoes, risotto cakes, roasted carrots, salad with roasted beets, goat cheese, and candied pecans, and a funfetti cake), and enjoyed our favorite kind of lazy family day.

Much is hard.

I'm thankful for all that is easy. I hope there are days, moments, people, pets, hobbies, or habits that are giving you ease as well.

xoxo,
LL

P.S. Go vote.