Talk about drama...

When I created this blog and named it, I had no idea how aptly named it would be. I drop the "breast lump" bomb last week and put my family, friends and readers on a pincushion of suspense waiting to know, "What happened with the mammogram, etc.?" I did not mean to leave anyone hanging, and let me just say that I am utterly overwhelmed by the messages I've received from people letting me know that you are thinking of and praying for little old me. Thank you for the love.

The reason for the suspense is this: yesterday was a big old flop. My blood test results were still not back when I went to the radiologist. I sat, filling out the questionnaire, and responded honestly to Question #1: Are you, or is there a chance that you may be, pregnant? I responded that I was awaiting the results of an HCG Quantitative screening, but that home pregnancy tests were negative. So I get changed, put on my pretty paper gown that is designed to give flashes of bilateral side-boob, only to get the old heave-ho. They wouldn't do the mammogram without a negative blood test.

Later in the afternoon, I got the results. Not pregnant. No thyroid trouble. So now the other tests are re-scheduled for tomorrow morning.

The limbo and waiting are intense. Pete and I are starting to fold a little. Nothing terrible, just seeing the edges wearing a little thin and the small rays of helplessness and fear seeping into our daily routine. Hugging more frequently and holding on a little bit longer. Saying how fine everything is, but then acknowledging, aloud, that there's a chance that it's not. Taking a lot of time to talk to and hold our kids, separately and together. Because you just never know.

I guess these kinds of scares are gifts...they help you seize every moment and not take the little things for granted. That's where I am today. Calm. Grateful. Frightened. Ready.

Fear and loathing of the tatas

Ever since I was young I have loathed my boobs. And I do mean LOATHE. I was the token girl (along with a select few others) who developed early. (Translation: the girl who you felt bad for because she needed a bra in sixth grade.) Ever since then, the tatas have consistently been a source of physical and mental discomfort. No...make that anguish. I was given the nickname "Jugs" (or was it Jugz? The spelling escapes me now...) in high school and it followed me to college. I was mortified on a regular basis because of their presence. Boys would stare, girls would mock me, there was no escaping the fact that they were there, at the forefront...and then there was the rest of me. That's how I always felt. So I went in for a voluntary reduction at the ripe age of 21.

Then, because of this reduction, I wasn't able to nurse Erin or Meghan, which became a source of so much regret for me, that I had had the reduction without giving the appropriate forethought to the implications the surgery would have on my chances to breastfeed. There also were not a lot of resources available at the times of the girls' births for women who wanted to breastfeed after reduction. So when I found out I was pregnant with Elizabeth, I vowed that I would nurse her, no matter what. I bought a book written specifically for women like me, read it cover to cover, and committed to doing whatever it took to experience breastfeeding.

And then her digestive system didn't work. She was taken away. And I couldn't nurse her.

I pumped for six of the ten weeks that she was hospitalized, every two to three hours, in front of anyone who was unlucky enough to be around. At the hospital, at home, on I-95 travelling back and forth to New Jersey and Maryland with Pete driving. I pumped, and I stored, and I wrote down every time I pumped, how long on each side, how much yield I got, labeled it, froze it, transported it to the NICU freezers. The doctors let her latch on to me once, for five minutes, and never again. In the end, when she started to finally receive some of my milk, she got so sick from it (most likely because of what we know now to be her dairy allergy/intolerance) that the NICU pitched all of it.

I felt a piece of myself die.

And I felt failure.

All of these issues of self-loathing, regret, inferiority, inability...they have all come to me by way of my boobies. And last Thursday, the boobies turned the screws on me one more time. I went to a new ob-gyn because I have been feeling horrible lately. Absolutely horrible. Achy, crampy, feeling as if a truck ran over me a few hundred times...so I went for a check up and my annual. I figured that I'd be told either a) you're pregnant (because I usually am and that would be funny) or b) you've got an ovarian cyst (or something along those lines.) Instead, I had a blood test done to check my thyroid (which has been borderline a couple of times) and to see if I am pregnant because it is super early and a pee test wouldn't show it. And then the doctor found "something" in my left breast.

"It's probably nothing, but we'll need to get an ultrasound to make sure. And if it's something, you'll have to see a breast person."

Not what I was expecting.

So I get my blood drawn, and while that's being done, I look down at my check out sheet to see the words "left breast mass" written. And then I get my script for my ultrasound...which also has a bilateral mammogram tacked on.

The sight of the word "mass" was enough to make me spin. I became dizzy. My children and my husband flashed before my eyes. I felt really sick. "Mass?" What the hell? That word conjured up so many other horrible words in my brain...like illness and operations and reconstructive surgery and chemo and biopsy and death.

I realize that this is irrational fear, and that many many women have cystic tissue in their breasts and it all turns out to be fine. I've had cystic tissue in the past. No biggie, right?

So, so wrong.

I feel fairly certain that all will be well. Simply because it must be well. I am a mother to three daughters, for Christ's sake. I must be fine. Everything must be fine. I guess I'm just rocked by the irony of it all...I finally begin to realize and embrace the joy and perfection in my world, with all of its imperfections, and that's when the doctor will find a "left breast mass?" Isn't that just a little too Alanis Morrisette?

My blood test results will be back on Monday. My tests are Monday, too. So for tonight and tomorrow, I'm trying to relax against the backdrop of how ill and exhausted and frightened I feel, trying instead to focus on the excitement of taking our older two to the movies tomorrow, and the comfort of celebrating Meg's fifth birthday with my mom, grandparents and in-laws tomorrow. Wall-E cake and all. Everything else will have to wait. No matter what "everything else" is.

I have been trying to get Liz to sit still for reading a book before bed. Easier said than done because the kid has a non-stop-motor in her ass. Slowly but surely, though, she has taken interest in a page or two of one book with Elmo in it and she'll sit for the entire classic Goodnight Moon. (Good taste in literature at a young age.) So after she finished her milk the other night, I let her get down off my lap and told her to pick a book from her shelf. She started looking around, saying, "Mmmmm! Mmmmm!" This is usually her, "Ooooh, that looks good!" sound when she sees any and all food, so I found it misplaced as she was looking for a book. I showed her a couple of books, each of which she'd look at and shake her head vehemently "no" and keep searching around saying, "Mmmmm!" I looked in her crib to see if there were books in there (because the other two insist on going in and throwing as much crap in there as will fit) and found Goodnight Moon. She became very excited, still saying, "Mmmmm!" and began to flip through the pages until she stopped at "...and a comb, and a brush, and a bowl full of mush..." She smiled, pointed at the bowl full of mush and said, "Mmmmm!" She was so pleased with herself...and with me that I finally was able to help her find the book she wanted.

I almost melted into the chair, then I hugged her and smooched her smart little noggin. It was a moment I'll never forget. I find that I am still taken aback by the fact that she is not only developing normally, but is exceeding normal benchmark standards, standards which I realize mean nothing in the scheme of things. But to watch her recognize books and remember particular toys she loves, see her figure out how to open the laundry room door, then sit down on the floor, and scoot her little tush to the end so she can step down safely, and in the next moment run across a room with her arms open to give a hug and lips puckered to lay a smacker on her sisters who are almost always crying about something, just because she knows it makes them feel better...well, every little accomplishment amazes me.

So this is a bragging post...about my Busy Lizzy, the motor in her ass, the brain in her noggin, and the smoochiness of her spirit. She is an amazing little bean.

*This pic is of the mohawk (or, as Erin and Meg would say, "mohan") she gave herself after bathing in the dog water bowl. Has to make you laugh.

Last night, to put it mildly, sucked.

And this is an awful picture, but it was a cute moment with my Meggie so I wanted to put it up. Meghan has contracted the upper respiratory, Ebola-type virus that Erin had last weekend and was up from midnight until at least 2 am with a spiking fever and horrible cough. Then Erin starts yelling in her sleep things like, "I'm STARVING!!!" and that lasted for an hour or so. All the while, Lizzy is up sporadically screaming and crying and having nothing in particular wrong with her, at least to the naked, exhausted eye. As luck would have it, the tomatoes and Italian sausage I fed her for dinner were causing some gastrointestinal distress. Go figure! I thought all 15 month olds with a history of intestinal issues would truly dig on such a feast. I honestly don't know how my kids have survived this long as my offspring. I am nothing more than a feeble-minded fool, blundering my way through most things. Anyway, she finally settled down by 3 am after eliminating a most unpleasant bowel movement. When I finally got in there and got her changed, she stopped crying and (I am not kidding) smiled and said, "Happy. Happy. Happy." Like, "Thank you for finally getting in here and getting this acidic paste off my ass since you fed me stuff I wasn't supposed to eat in a blatant effort to poison me." So to recap, Pete and I didn't go to bed until after 10 pm and then were up from 12-3 am and then up again for good at 6:30 am.

Good God...I am so tired.

The night before was no picnic either. And while the night before that was continuous, uninterrupted sleeping bliss, the night before that one was hell. This sleeping vs. not sleeping thing with my kids is what is keeping me from wanting to have another baby. I still revisit the issue every now and again, hearing my biological clock faintly ticking, ticking, ticking...but then I think of the agony of nighttime with all these kids and realize that I will never have it in me to voluntarily, purposefully go down this road again. Not to mention the fact that I have enough to keep up with, and up until this week, I haven't been doing the most bang up job as a mom.

But...my efforts toward diving head-first into my kids and their needs are reaping enormous rewards so far. Everyone has their needs not only met, but exceeded, and I have suddenly gotten back into anticipating what is going to happen before it actually happens. Like before anyone bitches that they're thirsty, here I come like a Fairy Godmother with drink in hand. I have telepathic abilities. And I like it. So the whining is down to a bare minimum, and while germs are flying all around, I have it under control. The house is pulled together. The bathrooms are clean. Clothes are put away. And the beds, all of them, have been made every day this week.

I think that this is a MAJOR accomplishment...considering the fact that I have allowed myself to live in a fog of under-achievement and have accepted this feeling of overwhelming burden as fact and not fiction up until last weekend. It is fiction. I can handle this. I am good at this. And all I had to do was stop looking for distractions, (i.e., the Internet, email, FB, IM, etc. on a constant basis) and pay attention to what was right in front of me.

The epiphany as of late is this: the reason I can't figure out what I want to be besides a "Mommy"/"Wifey" (as Pete calls me, in addition to "Babe") is that there is nothing else. I have everything that I want right within the walls of my home...and four lives human and one life dog needing me to be here, 110%, every single day. So once you figure out that you have everything you could've ever wanted, you want to take advantage of having recognized a dream come true...and then live in it as wholly as possible.

So that's where I am...right here. It became pretty clear to me that my priorities have been sadly misaligned when Erin and I had the following conversation the other day:
Erin: Mommy, your computer isn't on.
Mommy: I know. I don't need it on right now.
Erin: That's really good. Because you have a lot of people who need you here.

If that isn't a wake-up call, then I don't know what is.

I recently said I'd save my laptop in the event of a fire. I would now alter that position to say that if it were packed in a bag that happened to be sitting by the door through which I was exiting, I might grab it. Otherwise, I'm counting up family members and making a run for...because they are the ones who need me.

Turning Points

This weekend witnessed a major turning point in our household. I was, obviously, at my wit's end by Friday, so much so that I started calling therapists specializing in crazy kids because Erin was so out of control (or was it me who was out of control? hmmmmmm...) that I could actually see the fibers of our family pulling apart right in front of me...again.

Then Friday afternoon rolls around, after a horrible night before it with no one here but me, and I get a call from the nurse at Erin's school. She has a fever, belly ache, sore throat and cough. I went to pick her up, brought her home, and instantly felt the guilt piercing through my skin, realizing that my child needed me these past few days, and I was nowhere to be found. I was so busy being sucked inside my own brain, swirling around in a tornado of selfishness, thinking about what job I could get to get me out of here and what therapist I could hire to correct the problems for me. No wonder she was bonkers. And that's when the change began.

Pete and I spent the weekend talking, reevaluating, re-centering and realizing that we have really been shitty parents lately. If I had been paying attention to my kids instead of other meaningless diversions and sources of negativity, I would have seen the graffiti on the walls of my home telling me my child was getting sick and needed hugs. Maybe the fights wouldn't have been so brutal and numerous. Maybe she would've felt loved even in the face of coming down with a nasty virus so that the virus didn't feel quite so nasty. So we spent time together as a family this weekend and while Erin was definitely sicker Saturday than Friday, her attitude and disruptive behavior subsided because she had her parents' love and attention. No therapist required.

The big girls did go to my mom's to sleep on Saturday night, which was amazing timing because Liz went to bed at 6:30 pm and Pete and I had a ton of time to really talk and refocus our attention to our values and to that which has always been most important to us, as individuals, as a couple, and as a growing family: to come at all relationships from a place of love and compassion. For some reason, that basic principle which drew us to each other almost 15 years ago has gotten lost in the shuffle lately. His stress level, my stress level, both of us feeling as if we've been so put upon by life and resentful to everyone because of it...all of it compounding and creating a most unpleasant environment. We realized through our talking and listening to each other that we both have been given such gifts by this family we've created, and we are squandering precious time and opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of our children by acting as if we're pissed that they're here. We really connected on this issue, and once the kids came back the next day, we felt whole, complete, and happy to be together. He took the big girls roller skating, I stayed behind and continued my quest for organization and cleanliness, and we all came back together for a perfect evening.

Who knew it could be so simple? Stop acting like a grump...and life suddenly feels pretty good.

I just alluded to this...but I also admitted to him that I have been feeling like a complete failure in the homemaker department. The Fab 5 put it best on "Queer Eye"..."the presence of clutter is the number one sign that a person's life is out of control." I have felt overwhelmed by the utter lack of neatness and organization in my home and have had no idea where to start to get it under control. So we got up on Sunday morning and started in Erin and Meghan's bedroom. We purged two huge trash bags full of crapola, tidied and organized together...and when they came home from Mom-Mom's, they looked around as if they'd been transported into another world.

[Light bulb moment: Maybe another reason my kids have been bonkers is because they have been living in surroundings that are chaotic and insane??? (I came up with this without the help of the Fab 5, I'll have you know.)]

So I've made it a point for the past few days to get the computer turned off and really buckle down to get rid of the crap and get my job done around here. We're only a few days in, but I have to say, I see improvement in our surroundings and general attitudes already.

And an aside...there is NOTHING more attractive than a man who is a good dad to his kids, full of patience and kindness and love and no agenda. And that's what Pete got back to this weekend. Hot damn! It's so beautiful to see him relishing his daughters as they worship him right back. So much love.

So I learned this weekend that if you live life, really live it, and are willing to learn from it, it is the absolute best education available to humankind. The fact that I was able to realize it while they are still little and here and loving unconditionally instead of when they are thirty and it's too late is among my greatest gifts in life. And so, I now understand the idea behind a gratitude journal and I suppose that's just what my blog has become...only it's out there for public consumption. More to follow...so many thoughts, but it has to end somewhere...

OK, Here It Goes

I've been in the slump of my life. Well, not really of my life...there have been countless others. Slumps, that is. Not lives, at least none of which I am consciously aware. But this is a slump of gargantuan proportion and it has been seriously getting in the way of things. I am grumpy and cranky and short-tempered and generally dissatisfied with life. And, of course, riddled with guilt on about four hundred levels. Because I am a mom and that's what I do...exist and try but feel guilty for the levels on which I feel myself failing on a moment to moment basis.

The good news is that I realized today what is at the root of my slump so that I may begin to finally nip it. I am unhappy because I don't have enough juggling going on. I am totally bored here...I mean totally. And because of that boredom and the sense that I am locked in an all-to-real reenactment of Groundhog Day, I am beginning to go a little cuckoo.

A few years ago, I was working: part-time as a development editor, part-time teaching preschool, part-time selling Pampered Chef, and full-time as a mommy of two and wife of one. And then I became a mommy of three, and Lizzy's needs were so unbelievable that all of that "part-time job" time and energy went toward making sure that she was surviving, then maintaining, and finally thriving. I realized a couple of weeks ago that I have stopped obsessively worrying about Lizzy. I look at her and see her the way I saw my first two...a normal kid, who is driving me crazy getting into insane amounts of mischief, just like she is supposed to be doing at this age.

So now what do I do? What am I supposed to do now that her survival needs have taken a nosedive and we are just a normal family of five? I have time to think. I have time to breathe. I have time on my hands.

This is not a good place for me.

I have known for a long time that I am much better when I'm juggling and scheduling and keeping a lot of balls in the air. But this is the first time that I literally have nothing going on outside of the walls of this house. And when I'm here, I cannot take my eyes off of Liz for even a second, because if I do I have a scene like I had this morning: she manages to spring her go-go gadget arms from the shoulder sockets and grab a half-eaten container of blueberry yogurt off of the kitchen table from a place that was considered "out of reach" by normal human standards, knock it to the floor and finger paint with it. So I start to clean that mess up...and while I do, she goes and bathes herself with the dog bowl water. And if she isn't doing that, she's getting stuck between a wall and a piece of furniture, or eating the rocks out of the gas fireplace. My life has become a constant mind-bending siege to babyproof places that I never would've thought I'd have to babyproof. I moved all my furniture up against the walls today and rigged twist-ties into fireplace door locks.

Is this seriously my life?

And because she is "Busy Lizzy," I get nothing done around here. I mean nothing! The beds aren't made. The floors aren't clean. The laundry isn't put away. There's shit EVERYWHERE! And by the time I finally get all three of them to sleep, who the hell has any energy or want to do housework? Not me!

I know..."Stop your bitching! You're home with your kids, who are growing up so fast and this time will be over and you'll be kicking yourself for having wasted time wishing it were different." I can hear you! (And now she's hearing voices...cue the Twilight Zone theme...)

I know it. I really do. But it doesn't change the fact that right here, right now, I am not loving my job. Everyone has days like this, slumps like this, no matter what their job is, so I refuse to feel guilty for my honesty on this point. I just wish I were anywhere but here lately. I wish I had something to do, part-time, that would stimulate my brain and provide me with regular, dependable adult interaction...even if the adults were complete assholes, it would at least be other adults acting like assholes instead of just me and three other people under four-feet tall acting like assholes. They are so sick of me. I am so sick of them. Ugh. Anywhere but here.

But now I'm typing this, knowing that there are a handful of people who will read it, and I'm ashamed to be this honest about these feelings today. Ashamed that others will think me ungrateful and unworthy of what I have here. Maybe I am unworthy. Maybe I'm ungrateful. Maybe I should shut it and start to think about what it would be like if I had no choice in the matter. I am staying home by choice, because our situation is such that I do not have to work. For now. At this moment. For today. And that could end tomorrow for all we know. These economic times are not good, and Pete reminds me every day of just that fact. So instead of dwelling on the monotony (and my hatred for babyproofing) I should start to embrace the beauty and stop squandering my opportunities to leave a lasting positive impression on my daughters. I start every day thinking that I'll do just that. Maybe I should try harder to hold on to that affirmation past breakfast tomorrow and remember that tomorrow is fleeting, as is their childhood and this time that I have been given, for whatever reason, to be here, right now.

Thank heavens I have this blog. I'd really need some seriously expensive therapy without it and its ability to bring me full circle, right back to center.

Lemons

We have another dog, named Seamus, who has gotten no face time (up until now with his big blog debut, complete with pic) because he is simple, sweet, and but for having a reputation for being too big and a blatant crotch sniffer, is pretty much the sweetest pooch I know.

He has never been an only dog before. And I actually know now what a depressed dog looks like, as he has lost his other half and doesn't quite know what to do with himself.

I never realized how much of his days were spent caring for and keeping tabs on Carlos. He slept where Carlos did, wrapped around him. He knew he was sick, I'm sure of it. And now he knows that he's gone.

Seamus, the kids...everyone is having a much harder time with this than I anticipated. Especially the kids. I guess I thought that because Carlos has been sick for most of the kids' lives, they didn't have the same memories and attachment to him that we did. But they do. They've both cried and cried, and I'm sure it's because the finality of death is frightening whenever it effects your home, regardless of whether it's a person or a pet. It rocks us "grown-ups" to the bone. It is even harder on the kids. They are confused and scared and hate it that he's gone.

I hate it for them.

These are the life experiences through which I am learning to navigate as a parent that terrify me. I am so weak when it comes to coping with change, especially when death is involved. It is only in the past few years I've arrived at a point where I've begun to wrap my brain around the concept, that it is inevitable and will be everyone's fate. Now my kids are looking to me for answers, and I feel like a kid myself, not completely understanding it all, feeling afraid of it and certainly doubting the answers I'm giving to them. I don't like to lie to them...but I am faking my strength around them in order to insulate and isolate them from feeling the magnitude of it too young, too soon. I don't know if it's right or wrong to operate from that place where my kids are concerned. But that's what my instinct is telling me to do, at least through this period of grief over our dog. So I defer to my instinct whenever I'm unsure of what to do as a mommy.

I know from past losses that the grieving process is aided by the passage of time. But as a couple, as a family, we have not felt the passage of one of our "pieces" so poignantly. This is the closest it has come to us. And it hurts deeper because there is suddenly an emptiness here that we have never known. Now to watch even Seamus clearly experiencing a version of grief is painful, both as an observer and as a caretaker.

Sometimes life really does hand you lemons. And when it does, there are times when, rather than making lemonade, I'd like to hand the lemons back and tell life to take them and shove them. That's sort of where I am this week...because Carlos is gone, then friends of ours lost their mother/mother-in-law on the same day. And I am not supposed to go here because she reads this blog religiously and I do not want to make her feel bad...but my friend who I consider to be my sister (Jaclyn) and her family are relocating to Southwest Florida. This will be hard. And, much less importantly, but nonetheless aggravating as all hell, Lizzy hates the gym babysitting room and screams until snot is covering her face (used for deliberate and dramatic purposes) so that I leave with her and Meg without actually working out. Which is why I have to cancel my membership, because we can't afford for me to be paying for a membership that I'm not using. Even though I loved it while it lasted and was such a better mommy for having boosted my endorphins and taken some much needed "me" time. But I guess all good things come to an end. That is this week's title.

Knowing that much, I now must decide whether I'm making lemonade. Or if I'm just going to wave the white flag for a few days and pretend like I'm not here. The decision will most likely be based upon whether or not anymore stuff happens that I consider to be crapola.

That's a warning, Life. Cut the crapola.

A Sad Farewell

Yesterday we said goodbye to our Carlos. I have briefly explored our journey with him through my callous blogging in recent months, but sadly have not fully explained how our journey started...and now I have the sad duty of announcing that that journey ended yesterday afternoon.

Pete rescued Carlos as a puppy from a shelter in New Hampshire. When he was home on his Winter Break from college in 1996-'97, we drove from shelter to shelter here in South Jersey looking for that perfect pup for him. None was just right...until he found Carlos, abused and underfed having been left in a drainage ditch in the middle of winter with his litter mates.

One look and they both just knew.

Carlos and Pete became a matched set, and they did everything together, from living (or maybe I should say, l-i-v-i-n', as this is code in our house for taking each day and living like it's your last) out the harsh (but super-fun) winters in Vermont where Pete went to school, to traveling out to Summit County, Colorado where they lived together for two years. Recently, Pete recalled nights when he would be trudging down roads in his busboy shoes after working into the wee hours of the morning. No lights on the road, having just gotten off the bus, he'd have close to a mile walk home. And off in the distance, on the darkest horizon, he'd make out two beaming lights...and they were Carlos' eyes, coming to meet Pete, so they could make the rest of the walk home together.

That was them. Frick and frack. Mutt and Jeff. Peanut butter and jelly. If Pete told Carlos to do something, he would honest-to-goodness go and do it. The dog could understand English. When he got sick a few years back, it was sudden and swift. He went from A-OK to blind, thin and no longer having control over his faculties. We tried the best that we could to care for him, keep him comfortable and maintain his quality of life for as long as possible. Two shots a day, myriad blood tests and hospitalizations. We did what we could for him...and he kept hanging in there for us. For Pete, I should say.

So as Pete rescued him when he was a sick puppy, he too saved him yesterday as a sick old boy. He was clearly becoming sicker and sicker, and we simply did not have the heart, or the means, to continue to subject him to a life he was not living, but that his body was not ending on its own. He took him. He said good bye. And that was that.

The tears we've shed since yesterday afternoon are staggering in number and in genuine emotion. I know that Pete lost a piece of himself yesterday, a constant reminder of who he used to be, when it was just him and his dog. And I lost my first child...the dog who made us into an instant family. Who tethered us to a home and protected us from loneliness. He was the most loyal, trusting, constant companion, and he will be sorely missed.

I know I ranted. I know I lost patience. I am sorry that I did. I spout, often, and that is the Irish in me, or the fundamental character flaw of having a lack of sensitivity. But I, too, am empty without our boy here today. It isn't the same. It never will be.

There's No Place Like Home

It's 6:34 am and I've been awake since my alarm signaled me at 4:30. I arrived at the airport unscathed, and but for having the twenty-dollars worth of snowglobes I purchased as souvenirs for the girls tossed by TSA (because they contain liquid, idiot!), all has gone smooth as silk. We will be getting eight to fourteen inches of snow in Philly tonight, according to latest radar models, and I am pleased that I switched my ticket last night and am going to be home by 10 am today instead of risking being delayed or altogether stranded at Miami International Airport.

We were in bed again early last night, watching TLC and eating dessert in bed. My sunburn set in while I slept and I'm fairly certain that this would have been the morning I would have been able to sleep past 5:00 am had I not changed my plans.

I'm about to board my plane to head back to reality. And I can't wait!