Seven quick crazies

1. I busted my car in the most idiotic of ways today. Cake, beer and retail therapy have done nothing to assuage the feeling of Stoopid. I was backing into the garage, opened the door to line it up with the line we drew on the wall (so we know when to stop), but I wasn't going straight. And maybe a little too fast. And I drove my car door into the garage wall like a knife into butter. So, YEAH. It's not like I got in a wreck or anything, but I have to open the car door from THE INSIDE and the car door is BENT and UGLY there is the little issue of feeling like a TOTAL MORON. BAH.

2. The cake and beer happened at my third or fourth or fifth surprise 30th birthday party tonight. Everyone is copying Phillip Cheung! (Who actually copied it from ANOTHER friend of ours, but of course we don't mention that.) I had to talk my friend down a tiny bit from her Holy Crap, I'm Thirty ledge. "Thirty!" I said. "It's AWESOME!" Because it is. There is hotness and confidence and settledness and some of the best cake I've eaten in FOREVER. This cake smelled like those chocolate oranges you have to smash on something to break into slices? You know what I'm talking about? AND TASTED AS GOOD. I half-know the baker of this cake and I'm thinking I need to hurry up and full-know her. YUM.

3. My house is as clean as it was... BEFORE CHILDREN. My one-time housecleaner showed up this morning and by 1pm I was drifting off to sleep on my couch, surrounded by the soft, pleasant gleam of freshly scrubbed hardwoods and window sills. My bathroom? Sparkling. My kitchen? Spotless. Under the couches? Empty of toys. The carpet on the stairs that I thought was beyond all hope? NOT BAD! I'm not sure if this is really an okay thing to feel, but it was just such a RELIEF! It is totally utterly humiliating to me that cleaning one bathroom feels like such an overwhelming task (LET ALONE THREE BATHROOMS) (AND THEN THE REST OF THE HOUSE) and the fact that someone ELSE came over and cleaned EVERYTHING... I sort of thought I might die of happiness. Sure, Molly dropped rice all over the floor at dinner, but I am energized to maintain. I am also totally trying to figure out how to do this once a month. I feel guilty, but not THAT guilty.

4. I spent several hours last night trying to refine my NaNoWriMo ideas. I'm not sure that was a great plan, as I am now convinced this is an impossible task, that I will spend the entire month trying to figure out where and how to even start. I know that real writing is hard emotional work, but I'm now a little worried about the level of angst. I mean, I knew it would be high, but now I'm thinking it will be High. Like: HIGH. At times like these I like to remind myself of something my dad said when I was dealing with one of my first anxiety episodes: all creative people have something wrong with them. I'm paraphrasing there, but it's comforting somehow. Isn't it? It is to me.

5. My mother wrote me a check tonight. (Perhaps I am doing a bit of Etsy shopping for my mother.) She made it out to Maggie Maiden Name. I have been married for six-and-a-half years. I suppose she knew me longer as Maggie Maiden Name, but it's still kinda funny. Unless I can't cash it. That will just be annoying.

6. First the TiFaux was on the fritz, then we were missing some parts, then we were dealing with the cable company, then an Xbox showed up and Phillip has been mixing THAT into the set up. All that to say: I am missing my shows. Project Runway, Top Chef, Glee... we haven't seen ONE SINGLE EPISODE of The Office. I know. I KNOW! Thankfully Phillip knows how to (ahem) find my missing shows, and also we have Hulu and networks that agree to put their shows online. But to be honest (and I can't believe I'm saying this) I haven't really missed them. (You: SPEECHLESS!) I feel like my attention span is even SHORTER than usual right now, and I get up fifty times during a TV show to check my email or get something to eat or check on the kids or pick up the toys or go through that stack of Stuff To Do on my desk. Seriously. I'm afraid that one day I won't even want to WATCH TV and what a SAD and HORRIBLE day that will be. (I have, however, been plowing through every episode of Greek on Hulu. I LOVE THAT SHOW.)

7. Jack is going to be a dinosaur for Halloween. Molly is going to be a ballerina. And Monday's post might consist solely of Halloween costume pictures because that is Day One of the aforementioned High Levels of Angst and I WILL BE BUSY.

Comments

[lee]

do you guys netflix? because netflix watch it now on the xbox may be one of the best reasons to own one.

[Tara]

I am so incredibly jealous of the house cleaning. I never ever thought it would be something that I would be interested in, or "approve of" ... but I SO would love even just a one-time thing.

I *think* maintenance would be easier afterward? You'll have to let us know. Most days I feel like it takes all my "free" time to keep up (ha!) with the dishes and laundry.

[yoonie]

maggie, i'm going to hound you until you watch it! re: quick take no. 4 - watch the elizabeth gilbert piece. here's the url: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html.

[Jess]

Oh that sucks about the car door! I'd be pissed at myself about that too.

[Liz]

My mom wrote a check to my maiden name for Lu's b-day present in August. She also addressed the envelope to my maiden name. I had to call and make sure she wasn't going senile. But I was able to cash the check just fine.

[Christiana]

3. I am so jealous. I wish I could find enough in my budget to do that even occasionally. I only have 1 bathroom to clean and it feels like it takes all day.

4. I don't know how you write best, but my most successful attempt (it's still not done, but it came closer than anything else I did. And now I have a kid, so my writing time is of course, much diminished, as I know you understand) I just randomly wrote scenes that came into my head and worried about putting them together later. I got a lot more done that way and I think it really wasn't too bad.

5. My dad cannot seem to remember my married name. Thankfully, my legal name is First Maiden Last instead of my original middle name, so I have no issues. If you deposit it to your own account and don't try and cash it at a different bank, you shouldn't have any problem. If you take it somewhere that you have to present ID then you'll have more of a problem.

6. When I was pregnant 2 years ago (almost exactly, it was November) we decided to cut back on cable and invest in some rabbit ears and only watch TV that way. I gave up after watching my shows that way for a week (way too much static and snow) and we invited ourselves over to my moms house to watch our 1 favorite show every week. We gave up almost all TV and we really didn't miss it too much for the 2 months we didn't have cable at all. My husband keeps talking about that time as the good ol' days...

7. I can't wait to see the Halloween pictures. I really want Caro to be a ballerina, but I'm hoping she'll choose that on her own one year, so I haven't yet done it.

[Christina]

I could totally see me doing the car door thing. Totally.

And I'm with you on the writing angst. Only I'm more pathetic because I'm not even going to try to write an entire novel next month, just an OUTLINE and maybe a FEW PALTRY CHAPTERS. And yet? I have no clue where to start. Ack.

[Sarah in Ottawa]

Do not give in to the eleventh hour jitters. You can rock NaNoWriMo and you have a whole bunch of online cheerleaders ready to applaud your progress.

That car stuff happens to the best of us. Dave bottomed out the car driving over a curb in the snow a couple of winters ago. It's all good.

I cannot wait to see the Halloween photos; I will reciprocate on my blog. Teddy is going out as a polar bear (it's always cold up here for the big day, so it's appropriate).

[She Likes Purple]

God, my dad does the same maiden name thing because he, I swear, doesn't KNOW my married name. Sigh. They'll let you deposit it but they give you (or at least BofA gives you) a harder time about cashing it.

[Mountain Momma]

I have three dents in my car, and they all happened in my driveway. I guess what they say is true - most accidents happen within one mile of your home. But they don't say anything about not even leaving your property!

[MichelleRenee]

I backed into a nice lady at WEIGHT WATCHERS with my big MOM VAN.

Bonus points because I had my 2 youngest with me at the time.

Stoopid does not begin to describe the feeling.

[Kate P]

1. Sorry about the car door! Wanna hear a worse story? When I was a kid, my mom one time backed out of our garage with the hatch of the station wagon still OPEN. Yeah, that broke the hinges so badly the hatch had to be tied shut until it got repaired. She claims it was us kids' fault, because we were fighting at the time.

4. Don't plan--let the novel happen. WRITE FOR THE SAKE OF WRITING. Even if it is not the best work ever, you as an author will be all the better for having written. Period. /bossiness.

7. I for one find pictures to be a perfectly acceptable post. :)

[Brittany]

Oh, I'm trying Nano, too. Very nervous because I have no staying power. There's no time like now to fix that, I guess?