a hefty dose of retro mushy

Paul: You are the bee's knees.

Andrea: You are the cat's pajamas.

We're so retro when we get mushy.

the shameless exploitation of gilly

Before I took this picture Gilly was all like "Meow meow meee-ow" which roughly translates to "I resent your exploiting of my cat-ishness for your own amusement" and I was all like "I don't care, because you look really funny right now".

I kind of love how Gilly looks in this picture. I imagine her saying things like "Gimme another sasparilla, human".

Sorry for exploiting you, Gilly.

Not really, though. I actually really enjoyed exploiting you and I fully intend on exploiting you in the future.

virtue has triumphed

You might not believe this.

I'm going to tell you anyway.

I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies a few days ago. (That's not the part you won't believe. Here it comes.) Guess how many I've had?

One.

I KNOW!!

I wouldn't believe it either, except for I'm the one who's been gazing longingly at the remaining goodies whilst I suck on limey popsicles.

It's a small victory. I feel like celebrating.

Maybe with a cookie.

**** Five minutes later ****

Addendum: I have now had only two cookies.

the sound of my broken brain

Today, at approximately two-thirty p.m., my brain stopped working.

It just plain stopped. Just like that. Like the wheels were turning, synapses were firing, thoughts were translated into words - you know, the whole working-brain deal. I had one. A working brain, I mean.

And then I sat down to blog, and my brain stopped.

I'm pretty sure there was a clanking sound, and then a squeak and a thud and then there was nothing.

Come on, I thought. Pull yourself together. You have thoughts.

But I didn't. No thoughts.

I tried the whole if-you-build-it-he-will-come thing where I sat down at the computer and started typing, but I could barely manage to squeeze out a couple of sentences before my brain would do that squeaking thud thing and my fingers stopped working and I had to have a couple pieces of chocolate to recover.

Really, Andrea, I thought. REALLY. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO DO TODAY. WRITE SOMETHING.

Squeak, my brain replied. SQUEAK SQUEAK THUD.

I rose up in defiance. I returned to my computer, shoulders squared, fingers prepared to ping out something brilliant, like a haiku for bacon, or a really detailed description of the hairball Sissy coughed up.

But before I could make it to my computer the mailman delivered a postcard from my brain that said WILL BE OUT OF SERVICE INDEFINITELY, PLEASE EXCUSE THE INCONVENIENCE.

Oh, well. At least my non-functioning brain is polite.

dear jack bauer

Hi! I'm your number one fan! But not in a creepy Kathy Bates kind of way! Now that 24 is over I'm not sure what to do with the gaping void in my Monday nights! Maybe I will try knitting! Or take a self defense class! Or apply for a job at CTU! So, the series finale was pretty great! Especially when you bit that guy's ear off! If I ever met you I don't know if I could be held responsible for my actions! Like I might yell really loud JACK BAUER!!!! SNAP MY NECK WITH YOUR LEGS!!! SNAP MY NECK WITH YOUR LEGS!!! Remember when you shot that guy in the leg in season two? That was awesome! Also remember when you bit that guy in the neck in season five? That was really gross and also maybe kind of awesome! My excessive use of exclamation marks is the only way I can adequately express my extreme devotion! Also I have a T-shirt with your face on it!

Sincerely,

Andrea Boerem

sunday looks like this

Sometimes when you're in nursery you get really excited and you start to flip chairs over and then your teacher tells you not to and you read a book instead. But really what you want is to flip chairs over.

piper is the one we love

Today is Piper's birthday.

Who is Piper, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. Piper is my friend Reagan's daughter. And she's kind of awesome. If you don't know Reagan already, you should. Everyone needs a bright shiny lovely person like Reagan to know. You can read her delightfully Reagan-ish musings at http://www.reagansblob.com/. You won't be sorry.

Happy birthday, Piper!! You are the one we love!!

a desperate plea

Paul: (gesturing to a nearly empty bottle of Dr. Pepper) If you love me, make this better. IF YOU LOVE ME MAKE THIS BETTER!!!"

the artist formerly known as buttercup

Notice anything about this picture? Like maybe a pair of wide kitty eyes staring at you?

This is our cat, Gilly. She was originally named Buttercup, but we re-christened her Gilly when we realized that Buttercup didn't sound nearly mischievous enough.

Gilly is one of those multifaceted cats. She demands more from life than napping and birdwatching; I mean, she's as subject to biological impulses as any feline, but she wants to REALLY LIVE, you know? And for Gilly, REALLY LIVING means a fondness for Q-tips, an insatiable drive to sit on anything that should not ever ever be sat on, and, because she is a girl, makeup.

Gilly loves makeup.

Every morning when I go through my daily ritual of making myself not look like a swamp monster, Gilly accompanies me. She perches on the edge of the bathtub, and keeps careful watch over my makeup brushes.

She's conflicted, I think; she can't decide if she'd like me to teach her how to pluck her eyebrows or apply liquid eyeliner, or if she just wants to KNOCK ALL THE BRUSHES OVER AND CHASE THEM.

I get a touch annoyed when Gilly's little paw swats my mascara brush out of my hand making my face look like an abstract painting, but she's just a cat, man. And while I may not know what it's like to want to KNOCK ALL THE BRUSHES OVER AND CHASE THEM, I am certainly no stranger to the complex interplay between driving impulse and higher level cognition.

Which is what I'm guessing is going on in Gilly's kitty brain. And right now, as I stare at the economy sized bag of candy Paul hid from me and which I have found, attempting to quell an overwhelming urge to EAT EAT EAT, I feel this bond between us.

A bond made of suppressed urges, of nature fighting against lofty dreams.

Or something like that.

grilled cheese fail

Sometimes when you're Paul, you go to make yourself a grilled cheese sandwich and you forget about it because you're watching Glee and then it turns into this blackened hockey puck and your wife is all "did you forget about something?" and then you have to throw it away.

sunday looks like this

There are blocks and a rocking horse and you play ring-around-the-rosie and then you read a book and when you are holding Julia in your lap she gestures toward your chest and asks "boobies?" and when you nod in the affirmative she asks "do they have milk in them?" and you figure fair is fair and you say "no, do yours?" and then you play blocks some more.

Love.LOVE.LOOOOOOOVE.

sometimes i am good

Sometimes what you really want is a pint of Ben and Jerry's new flavor Boston Cream Pie but you don't want to walk to Frank's and also you don't want to be bad and eat like a gazillion calories of ice cream so you have a lemony popsicle instead.

And it's good.

It's just not Ben and Jerry's.

the bastardization of pineapple

Paul: Have some pineapple, Andrea.

Andrea: No, thanks.

Paul: You should have some. It's nature's candy.

Andrea: Candy is nature's candy.

Paul: No, candy is a man-made bastardization of nature's true candy.

Andrea: You can't bastardize something that had to be created separately.

Paul: Fine. Candy is bastardizing the flavor of fruit.

Andrea: Fine. Enjoy your non-bastardized pineapple.

i find love with a deodorant

I just broke up with my old deodorant.

It was a long time coming. I mean, don't get me wrong, I smelled good and all, and I was relatively sweat-free to boot, but I just wanted...a change, or something.

You might know that I have issues with lady deodorant scents. I think they're ridiculous. This might be out of character for me, since I am kind of unabashedly girly in other areas of my life, but the fact that just because I have lady parts I am forced to choose between scents like "mango-passion-feeling-flower" and "blooming-rose-teardrop-sparkle" really makes me want to punch something.

So, for the last forever, I have been sticking with Dove Cool Essentials Green Tea and Cucumber. It smelled nice, and the scent name didn't make me want to smash anything. But sometimes you want more from a deodorant than a mere failure to produce violent tendencies, right?

I mean, the old fire was gone. When I stepped out the shower and swiped my underarms, it had become so routine, you know? There was no magic, no gleeful sniffing, no shouting for Paul to COME SMELL ME BECAUSE I SMELL AWESOME.

We were trying to work through things when, one fateful afternoon shopping at Target, I spotted it. Dove had released a brand new scent: Refreshing.

How.....REFRESHING!!!

I removed the cap, wafted the bar under my nose, I sniffed, and.....

Heaven. Sheer, delightful, REFRESHING heaven.

"PAUL!!!" I shouted, not realizing he had long since moved several aisles over, "COME SMELL THIS!!!"

I smiled apologetically at the family inching nervously past me, clutched my new-found love to my chest, and dashed over to Paul, waving the bar of deodorant over my head like a trophy.

And I haven't looked back. My parting with Old Deodorant was amicable. I think we both would like to remain friends. And we're not ruling out a future reconciliation. The nice thing about breaking up with a deodorant is that since it's an inanimate object, there aren't any feelings to hurt.

Now I keep waiting for Paul to notice how amazing I smell. He hasn't said anything. Probably playing hard to get. I think tonight I might try doing the classic arm-over-the-shoulder move combined with a standing stretch, something to get the nose-to-armpit ratio just right, you know?

Oh, deodorant. I love you.

We're in the honeymoon phase. If I could make out with my deodorant without getting icky tasting stuff in my mouth, I totally would.

i think i'm going to have a lot of time on my hands

Hey. Guess what?

Guess who took her last (okay, only) final today? And guess who got an A on her paper?

And guess who gets to read something besides a textbook now?

No, not her! Why would you guess her?

It's me.

It's me for reals.

let's all hold hands and sing

So it's Mothers Day, see, and I'm just going to level with you right now and tell you exactly what kind of post this is going to be:

Mushy.

This is going to be a hold hands and sing, raise your goblet of motherhood, hug the person sitting next to you kind of post.

Just thought I should warn you. It might feel like you're sitting in the middle of a giant hot fudge sundae. And not everyone likes that. Now I'm hungry.

So. Mothers Day.

I'm not a mother.

Not in the traditional, push a human being out of your body kind of way, anyway. But maybe in some other ways, I am. Maybe Heavenly Father has given me an opportunity to rejoice in motherhood as a concept, as an institution, as a quality.

I don't think I can say that I've ever felt like a mother. I know what it is to be loved by a mother, and by a mother-in-law. And I've watched as my friends and family have become mothers.

It seems like there is this change, immediate and all-consuming, filled with fierce tenderness and overwhelming love and fear and joy and that is what I see in the face of my own mother, what I hear in the voices of my friends. A recognizing that there is a void, perhaps previously unknown, that is now filled.

And while I haven't experienced that yet, that feeling of responsibility for new life, I have experienced love. And I have been given newness, in the form of opportunities, both unexpected and sought out. And I've had to learn how to love those opportunities, how to develop and grow and become who I need to be right now. I think there's some mothering in that, in nurturing my present life.

I'm grateful for that, for learning to love my life, but I still want kids. It's kind of a biological thing, you know? I want to be sleep-deprived and to buy a stroller and to say things like "DON'T EAT THAT MARKER" and "YOU COULD POKE YOUR EYE OUT".

And I think Heavenly Father knew that about me, that I needed to be around kids,because I got asked to help out in nursery every Sunday and the other week as I heard myself say "PLEASE DON'T THROW THAT CHAIR" I smiled to myself and thought, maybe this is what it feels like to be a mother.

I think this is the part where I get mushy. It's just that I'm thinking of all you mothers who lend me your kids, who let me get hugs and read stories and say things like "PLEASE DON'T THROW THAT CHAIR". And I love you for that. There is this void in me, and it apparently can only be filled by tiny people. I need you.

And maybe you need me, too. Are you sleep deprived? Are you sick and tired of wiping and feeding and changing and bathing? Well, let me help. Being puked on is a novelty for me. Like a badge of honor. Don't feel bad for wishing for time away, for clean floors or extra sleep. I come to you, and you give me the mess, the chaos and sticky hands I need. And you, hopefully, can get some sleep.

Maybe you're not a mom, though. Maybe you're like me, waiting. Well, know what? If you ask me? You've got mothering qualities. Right now, you do. You have the ability to love, to bless, to serve and to nurture. I know those qualities or abilities might not erase the pain of wanting. Wanting hurts. But what I want you to know is that right now, at this moment, you are enough.

So, right now, I am not thinking about my future motherhood. I am thinking about the mother I am now. And it occurs to me that there must be something, something with the power to unite all current mothers and all potential mothers.

I think I know what it is.

Nutella.

See? Mushy. Now let's all hold hands and sing.

this is where we live

I would like to dedicate this post to my mom, who wants to make sure her daughter isn't living in some crack house with rats and cockroaches and a thug named Fist.

She got to see our last apartment, but she hasn't been out here for a few years, and since we just moved, I figured I should post some pictures so she can see just how rat and thug-free our current digs are.

See, mom? Not a rat in sight.

(I hope....)

**** Addendum****

My mom read this post and was most concerned that everyone would give her the Bad Mom Award for not visiting more often. So, I would like everyone to know the following: 1)my mom is AMAZING, and 2)she LOVES me. Sorry, mom.

from the f.h. secret files

Remember when I said that I knew I would love being married?

Well, that's probably because I spent the better part of my teenage years thinking, dreaming, planning and praying for marriage.

I know. I was an old soul.

Well, when I was approximately twelve and three-quarters years old and at a slumber party, I took it upon myself to compile a list of all the desirable traits I would be seeking out in a potential mate.

The list is hand-written, on lined paper, and encased in a red paper folder. I have entitled the list "F.H. Secret Files" (F.H. standing, naturally, for future husband), and at the top of the list I have included the essentials: my name, the date, and my age. For posterity.

Right about now, as you fight between feelings of embarrassment, pity, and delight, you're probably wondering how many items are on my list.

I'll tell you:

One hundred and twenty-two.

I have, of course, marked with a star those I considered to be of particular importance.

Now, some of you may have heard about this list. I'm pretty sure, though, that none of you have actually seen it. And I KNOW that Paul hasn't seen it.

But today, since it is our anniversary, and because I love that an unabashed geek like me got to marry the dreamy football player, I am posting five items from my list.

1. GREAT kisser- very important (I hadn't yet been kissed, but I figured on liking it once I had.)

2. Can sing to me when I wake up in the morning (please keep in mind that my movie diet consisted almost entirely of musicals. I just figured that was normal.)

3. He has to sing in the shower (what was I going to do if he didn't? sheesh, again with the musicals. It took me a few more years to figure out that musical-reality and actual reality weren't the same. Yes, it was devastating.)

4. He must never buy me a blender (I wish I could go back in time and tell teenage me just how sexy a nice blender actually is. I think she'd change her mind.

5. He must be strong enough to crush me, but gentle enough not to. (you probably want to throw up right now. That's okay. Go ahead.)

I'm not sure Paul knew what he was getting himself into.

I'm going to go lock up the list now.

a good nine years

Nine years ago, I woke up and it was my wedding day.

I had ramen noodles for breakfast and it was really beautiful outside which I told myself was because the universe was celebrating my impending nuptials and I took a nap and when I drove to my hair appointment I listened to Beck's Midnight Vultures.

And I walked down the aisle and Paul was crying and I was laughing and later, after rings and the cake that wasn't mine and dancing we crammed me and my enormous dress into the cab of Paul's truck and we drove home and it was our home, which was weird in a nice way.

Nine years later, the home is still ours, and ours in a nice way and it no longer is weird, even though this home is about three thousand miles away from the first one.

And while I am in no way where I thought I would be nine years after that day (kids? house? what else is grown-up-ish that I don't have?), I am entirely certain that I am exactly where I should be, and I am with exactly who I should be with.

Did I say that I am in no way where I thought I would be in nine years? I guess that's true, with one important exception:

I knew, knew beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I would love being married.

And I was right.

i am in no way qualified for this

This is how done I am with studying:

I am currently taking an online survey about disposable diapers.

I KNOW.

funny is funny

Sometimes when you're three, you want to dip your goldfishy crackers in water.

And when I say sometimes, I mean today.

Joseph started it. He put one of his crackers in his little Dixie cup of water and, beaming, looked at his mom and said "swimming!!"

Well, apparently, anybody who is ANYBODY does that with goldfishy crackers, because a few minutes later, Paul and I were saddled with about seven three-year-olds all dumping goldfish crackers in their water cups and laughing up a storm.

While it was really, really funny, (and we LOVE funny) we also don't want to get a bunch of phone calls from parents who are like "why did you break my kid? How come he/she won't eat anything unless it has been dumped in water?"

So, Paul decided to introduce a little discipline. He turned to Jonah, who had just carefully placed about thirty raisins in his cup, and said "no, no, Jonah. We don't put snacks in our water..."

And Jonah looked up and grinned and said...

"But it's funny."

He was right. Funny is funny.