First Post

I've got to start somewhere, right? So I'm a blogger now, I guess. I've dabbled with blogging for the past few months on MySpace, but that just didn't quite have the, I don't know, anonymity that I need to make a go of it.

Here are the facts: I have a husband, two kids, two dogs, one cat, two paying jobs, and several volunteer gigs as well. Yep, I'm busy. If you're still reading, I can share a little more. I have a Bachelor's degree from a well-respected liberal arts college, the better part of a Master's degree from a medium-sized local university, and a keen fascination with things culinary and domestic. Am I a domestic goddess? Oh no. But I dabble in sewing and other crafty pursuits WHEN I HAVE TIME. And I really love to cook.

This is looking to be a boring blog entry thus far. Perhaps the key is to focus on anything except myself.

My kids are cool. My daughter (let's call her Susie) is remarkable in every way. She's drop-dead gorgeous (for a tween, anyway). Much better looking that her father or mother. And I can say that because I'm the mother and I'm married to the father (and I love him a lot). She's crazy cute. Scary cute. Makes me want to put the place in lockdown to pre-empt what's going to happen when she hits the teen years. But the cool part is that she doesn't act like one of those girls who is pretty and nothing else. Nothing like that. She's very smart and sensible and low-maintenance and quite content to put her hair in pigtails. A quirky fashion sense as well. I'm a fan.

The boy (really, that's what we call him when we talk about him) is just as interesting. Cute as heck as well (except he's in that somewhat awkward "all teeth" phase that kids go through when they start losing baby teeth and getting permanent teeth - the permanent teeth just seem too big at first). He's incredibly smart and not a bit sensible. Oh, and he's color blind. Vivid imagination and an amazing willingness to taste any food offered to him. He surprises me with how many things he tastes and likes. Most recently French Onion Soup. Much to my delight, because my husband doesn't like it. The boy is very funny. Very very funny. The other day, out of the blue, he told me, "That color-blindness test was hard. And I didn't get a chance to study at all."

The husband and I worked out long ago a way to pretty much never need child care for the kids. He and I worked different shifts when the kids were really little so they always had someone home with them (with rare exceptions), and he still schedules his work so that he's working either when the kids are at school or after I'm home from work or on weekends when I'm not working. Not sure if it saved us any money (might have cost us in lost wages back then), but the kids seem well-adjusted and we'll save the money we would have spent on therapy, right?

Not sure if it's kosher to put much out there about the husband. He's a pretty private guy. I should probably respect that and leave him out of it. For now anyway.