the american dream for weirdos.

my friend melissa and i were exchanging emails awhile back about how we are kindred spirits when it comes to our ultimate 'good life.'  when asked about what their best life would look like, some people think about traveling the world, some people dream about winning an oscar, some people dream about super expensive furniture or tiny dogs or a maid.  some people say stuff about joel osteen and then i want to punch something.

but anyway.  we dream about farming.

actually, i would say 'homesteading' would be a better term for it.  you know, living off the land.  growing and 'putting up' your own food.  owning (and milking) your very own cow.  chickens. tell me that wouldn't be awesome.  (don't tell me that - you'd be lying.)

now, before you get all judgmental and like, 'that would be a lot of work.  chickens stink.  land prices are high right now. do you know how expensive it is to feed a cow?'  just remember that i'm talking about a dream. no one ever said dreams have to be practical.

wanna be a doctor? it's expensive and takes work, but everyone's like, holy crap you're the best human being i've ever met in my life and can i have your autograph and will you bless my baby with long life and good health?  wanna marry colin firth? regardless of the fact that he lives thousands of miles away, is famous, and is obviously too good for any of us anywhere near this blog, people are all like, he's single and you're hott.  go for it.  but you want a cow and a stupid orchard and maybe ma ingalls living next door (actually, down the path) and people are like weeeeeeeeeeiiirdo.

so right now, just pretend i'm saying something else so that you can, in good conscience, tell me i'm an awesome human being and a hottie.  thanks.  moving on.

yes, i fully understand it's highly improbable that i will never own that acreage, nor am i fully committed to the idea of roughing it (toilet paper is non-negotiable, as are mary kay medium coverage foundation, tampons, and the option of pants and haircuts for girls.)  camping is for chumps.  but homesteading?  here's a little taste of what i'm currently missing out on:

a humongous garden.
a pantry full of stuff i grew and canned.
a freezer full of stuff i grew and froze.
a root cellar full of stuff i grew and...root cellar'd.
(see where this is going?)
a cow in the backyard.
some chickens doing their chicken thing.
a compost bin.
this guy:

yes, those are cloth diapers.  organized nicely on a clothesline.  in the country.  anyone else ready to pee their pants right now? no? just me then.

problems with the dream:

1. we bought a house in the city (er, in town. the town we're moving to has like 3k people, so maybe i'll just start thinking of it as a commune in the country that has its own hardware store.  in fact, i'm definitely going to start thinking of it like that.)

2. some of that stuff is expensive.  like land.  and cow feed.  and, you know, land.  but i feel like i can grow my own organic veggies, raise my own pets meat and dairy.  (don't throw red paint on me.  i love animals as much as the next guy.  sort of.  they do taste good.) gather my own eggs.  so, with the money i'm saving on groceries and gas to get to the grocery store, buying a huge acreage with a dream house on it that has all the animals and plants growing on it already that come for free with the property, is probably a wash.  or at least almost a wash.

3. once when i was little and we lived in the country, it took the fire department 45 minutes to get to our house.  that's a little unnerving.

4. i have never gardened anything in my life, nor have i canned anything.  so...there's that.

5. a lot of homesteads feel the need for their own beehives.  don't get me wrong, i think it would be really cool to have tons of honey bees at my beck and call (and maybe i could teach my bees to do other stuff, too, like mow the lawn or babysit the kids while i get my hair did).  also, i've started buying honey by the gallon so it's not like i wouldn't benefit from having tons of free honey.  but the pay-off is the potential for thousands of tiny little warriors getting t.o.'d that i'm stealing their goods... and carrying around an epi-pen just to walk through the yard doesn't feel very 'pioneer'.  plus, has anyone ever read the little house book where her cousin accidentally steps on a yellow jacket hive and swells all up and has to be wrapped up in mud and old sheets like a mummy? probably the scariest story i've ever read, barring none.  so...not going to take my chances.  i'll just pay someone else to wear the ridiculous outfit and do the dirty work.  but does that make me less qualified?


so here's the point of it all:  in six weeks, i will have my own little .4-acre slice of heaven.  and i will be working on getting it as close to the ideal as possible.  awesome.

if i promise to continue wearing pants, cutting my hair, and using modern technologies like the toilet, will you still be my friend? i pinky-swear not to get all pioneer-chump on you.

atticus' debut.

atticus cut a demo recently.  a guitar solo.  here is the music video.






yes, his guitar is made of a flourescent lightbulb package.  the best musicians come from the humblest of roots.

happy new year.

to me.

as of saturday, i am officially a 25 year old.  do i feel different?  hecks yeah i do.

actually, i don't really.  i even woke up saturday and forgot it was my birthday until todd said something.

i've never really been a birthday person; we never really 'did' birthdays growing up other than a couple presents. and now that i'm an adult, every passing year just reminds me that i probably shouldn't be wearing skinny jeans anymore (even though i was kind of late to jump on that bandwagon anyway).  or at least wearing my polo collars popped like i do sometimes, but i think that should be a rule for everyone, regardless of age.  also, each passing year just reminds me that i've been wearing my eyeliner like this for...about eleven years now... and even though i have a timeless face (hilarious), maybe i should do something about that.

and you know what else i keep thinking? i keep thinking about this lady i met in aldi who had eight kids by the time she was thirty.  and she was still so young at that point that she and her husband were all like, why stop, and now at the age of thirty-eight she has fourteen children. (after the eight kids she had THREE SETS OF TWINS.  in a row.  that means two babies at a time, three times in a row. on top of the eight she already had.  just to be clear.) and she homeschools them all. 

and i'm all like, whoa.  let's slow this gravy train down a bit before i turn into aldi lady.  minus her twelve extra kids and her great skin.

i mean, i got married at 21, had two babies by the age of 24, and also, i shop at aldi.  sounds a bit like aldi lady. 

and then i worry if this is what it's like to get old in the new millenium: demential rants on my blog about being afraid of how my two kids might be some gateway drug into fourteen - because after all, i'm right on track, schedule-wise?  and also, is it an indicator that i'm getting older because i actually met and had an interesting conversation with a homeschool mom while carrying my grocery-list-on-a-clipboard around aldi?  and also because she said that the clipboard put me on track to being the next aldi lady?  (on an unrelated note, i no longer carry a clipboard with me when i shop.)

so...all that to say, i'm halfway to halfway dead, which is a bit sobering.  and actually, knowing how little i exercise, i'm probably being too generous with myself when i say that.  cheery.

so here's to me.  happy birthday and a happy new year.

(note: ignore this blog.  i'm actually quite apathetic about getting older, other than the fact that it's becoming difficult to diregard that i'm as old as the cast of friends when they started shooting the show.  and come on, they were really old even then.  and also, lebron james is younger than me but looks like a forty year old, which must say something about me.  but i swear i'm not depressed or anything.)

'member that time?

hey, 'member that time i was rollerskating outside and thought i had to fart...but things didn't turn out so well for me?  and 'member how maaaaad my mom was?



don't worry, your story doesn't have to be this disgusting to participate.

thwr: how paige could've been a successful one-hit wonder.

todd: day-o. oh, daaaaayyy-o.

paige: i never told you this, but i used to be one of the day-o guys.  but then i chose to step down from the band because i felt it was taking me away from my family too much.

todd: crickets chirping because he has no sense of humor.

paige: so every time you come home and you see my smiling face, you better be grateful that i have my priorities in line and didn't value fame over you.

todd: how thoughtful.  i am definitely grateful.

paige: here's my reasoning: i am only one day-o guy, but if i stay home and raise up lots of little day-o guys... well, then there will be even more day-o guys than just one.  that's all i'm saying.

todd: still no sense of humor.  also just wants to go to bed.  also thinks paige is sleep drunk.  and is correct, but still humorless.


and that's how we roll.

when does 2 x 5 = 50?

when you're playing yahtzee with me, cracker.

when i tell you that the 'v' in van voorst stands for 'victory' (and the other 'v' stands for venom, but that's a story for another day), i'm not joking.  if you find yourself in the v.v. (victorious venom) household on game night, be afraid.  be very afraid.

you are witnessing firsthand (via my camera a week later) my VERY FIRST yahtzee.  ever.  in the history of my life.

i think you can tell that the shock of winning a yahtzee dropped my IQ for a second.

shortly after i got a yahtzee, todd also got a yahtzee.

not to be outdone, i got yet another yahtzee.  this time, it was snake eyes.  times two and a half.

but before it could be documented, i may have been all like, if we're going to keep playing yahtzee, i should probably put on some makeup. so at 10:00 at night, i did my makeup and took down my hair.  all for the sake of this blog and you people.  you're welcome.

also, i put a lot of effort into not laughing during this picture and effectively knocking over my whole stacka snake eyes.  because snake eyes have no tolerance for humor.

anyone feel like courting lady luck and playing yahtzee at our house? because i can't guarantee i won't kick your loser tooter.  (although i can't guarantee i will either, considering it has taken me almost 25 years to get my first yahtzee.)

was this my early birthday present, god? because it was AWESOME.  thanks.

you have to give him kudos for his persistence.

i'm still battling the sick bug.  i haven't been able to kick it so far, but this video motivates me to at least harrass it into submission.

(there is some bad language around 1:45 and after, so i'd recommend stopping it before then.)

quick update.

stuff is cah-razy around here right now, so i'll make it short and sweet.

last week, we took the week off of most of our activities and focused on...POTTY TRAINING! atticus seemed like he might be ready to try, so as kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing, we gave it a go.  and he has done AWESOME.  after he figured out what was going on, and we went and got some new undies for him, he didn't have a wet accident for two days.  after that, we had a few spotty days, but we're back on track - we have very few accidents now and he even poops in the potty!

i'm so proud of him, and so glad he was ready.  i was prepared to wait until he was close to three to even try it, since i'd heard boys take longer to train, and i did NOT want to push him before he was ready. but he was showing signs of at least being prepared to try (waking up dry, not pooping anywhere but at home).  and he apparently was ready, because he's doing great.

[my favorite part of potty training has been a) how much he loves to watch the 'elmo's potty time' video we borrowed from the willises, and b) the fact that he insists on watching the whole movie while sitting barebutt on his potty.]

on top of all that excitement, i got the flu and have been under the weather for the last few days.

on top of that, our close date is coming quickly (may 2) and i've been working on packing.  we're showing our apartment tonight, so our fingers are crossed that they like it and want to move in before the regular august turnover date so that we can get out of our lease early.

so that's what's up over here. 

'member that time?

hey, 'member that time, in my 'calligraphy phase,' i had to survive 6th grade sex ed, and at the end they asked everyone to anonymously write questions they had about their bodies so they could be answered?  and 'member how i was the only one who wrote my anonymous question in calligraphy?

i bet mrs. rogers was not only baffled as to who could have written it, but also impressed by the impeccable handwriting.


whoops -- forgot to put the linky thing earlier.  hop to it!

'post from the past' friday.

today, i walked into the bathroom and noted that it smelled weird, so i made a mental note that someday (read: when we move out) i'll have to clean behind the changing table since i haven't mopped back there for awhile.  granted, i could do it when i get around to cleaning the bathroom, but since the cleaning supplies had been sitting on the counter since sunday and i still hadn't cleaned, i wasn't sure when exactly that would be.


(turns out, the weird smell came from one of atticus' giant turds that must've clogged that toilet...either i didn't realize it at the time or i did but forgot about it. needless to say, there was a mess percolating under the closed toilet lid. not to fear, the issue has been resolved.)

anyway, atticus had another poopy diaper this afternoon. he's quite regular when it comes to that. so after dumping the mess into the (freshly cleaned) toilet, i turned around to put the diaper in the diaper pail. as i was doing so i thought i saw a rogue turd rolling away....ahh, if only i had been so lucky.

turns out, it was actually a turd-sized spider.

needless to say, i freaked out and screamed "eww, yucky!" about a million times while atticus laid on the changing table waiting for a new diaper, totally confused. i grabbed one of atticus' shoes and went to squash it and marveled at the fact that the spider wasn't even trying to run away from me.

after a couple of screaming, girly squash attempts i realized why the spider wasn't moving...she was protecting her nest of baby spiders, which were now running in all directions. seriously, like 20 baby spiders.

so i did what any self-respecting naturalist would do: i killed them all dead with my nearby toilet-cleaning solution of water and vinegar.

as a fellow mother, i feel a little bad for destroying that spider's whole...litter. however, as a mother that doesn't want to find 20 full-grown spiders in my son's bed next week, i feel justified.
 
also, there are spider carcasses still stewing in toilet solution on my floor. i haven't figured out how to get rid of the bodies. maybe i should call jack bauer, he'd know what to do at a time like this.
 
 
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original post here.