I'd like to be, under the sea

Monday, 07/25/16, 2:22pm

The birthday party went off pretty smoothly; I definitely didn't do everything I wanted to, but things turned out well and the kids had a blast, which was the goal. I didn't get to sit much, my ankle is aggravated after feeling almost recovered, so that makes me angry. Did you know that I rolled my ankle in the half marathon I did about a month ago? I can't remember if I told you, although here is the post for anyone who would like to read it. It's long and it's about both the triathlon and the half marathon, complete with pictures. :)

Today I've been working on being more reflective and giving a lot of focus to the kids. I took many pictures through our morning since I really wanted to remember everything we've done.

But before we get into today, I need to quickly show off my cake. With just a little bit of bragging. Because apparently I show my love for my kids through cake decorating. Not really baking, because I use a mix.

Anyway, here it is:

Here are some prep pictures:

And more detail, because it's all about the detail:

I love decorating cakes like this. In a lot of ways it's more fun when the dinosaurs are edible (maybe fondant someday?) but these are also fun to take home and play with. Oh and may I point out the red Spinosaurus in the water, near the beach? This is where scientists (currently) think that this dinosaur would have been found, catching fish, similar to a crocodile. The Spinosaur is currently hunting the Maiasaura on the beach who seems to have lots its herd. The kids helped me place the dinosaurs, of course.

You must also see Nasser's carved watermelon:

This morning, we rode bikes, with their new air horns from Grandma, with TK on the next slightly bigger, but in many ways better, bike.

I pulled out my old high school bike, hah!

It went well although TK did walk his bike several times. He's getting there and new, bigger bikes are hard.

RG and I have talked about Amu Adam quite a bit in the last 2 days. About age differences between mine and Nasser's siblings, and the age difference between RG and TK. And how Amu Adam was a math genius. RG loves to hear about that.

The boys started building an airport out of cardboard boxes and legos and magformers. Right now it's somewhat destroyed so I'll have to get pictures later.

I felt like a good mom this yesterday and today so far. I like feeling that way and it seems easier for me to be when we're not traveling so much. I think this summer so far has been too much travel, which has been fun and exciting, and terrible when it was for Adam's wake and funeral, but it's been too much. I'm so so glad we're home for a little bit. Ahem, before our next camping trip. And fun stuff around where we live like museums and planetariums and hikes and maybe movies in the movie theater. It still feels like there's a lot left to do in the summer but very little time to do it. Sigh. I guess that's life in a nutshell, right?

I need to do some thinking and evaluating about my treatment. Nasser was quite concerned after my big depressive episode last Monday night in San Diego. Although I actually recovered (I thought most of the way at least) quite quickly, I scared Nasser quite a bit during it. At the time I was texting him that I was looking at flights home early for the kids and I. This was after only a few hours of him at work, after spending the whole weekend together along with Monday morning at Legoland. He felt like he could no longer travel for work. Which he really needs to be able to do for this job.

And it didn't make sense to me. Why, after his India trip, after a really good San Diego trip, could I not handle him traveling? But this time, we were along for the ride, doing lots and lots of activities, playing in San Diego, which was fun, but stressful for me. I'm way more relaxed in my own environment, honestly, our own house and neighborhood, at least our own state. Weekend camping or ski trips are easier than anything where we have to fly and are constricted to certain size/shape bags. And I don't like living out of a suitcase, doing laundry in the hotel laundry facilities. Cuz yeah, that was Monday afternoon last week. Hmmm, laundry in a hotel, I can see why I got depressed. Dinner at the hotel, delivery, was probably harder even though it ended up good.

Travel can be lots of fun but...

I think the point I'm trying to get at, is I'm way more comfortable when I can lay on my bed and blog, in my biking clothes from the morning, in my own home. Where I can help the boys draw a runway on the flattened cardboard and stretch and foam roll and work on ideas for improving our backyard and painting our boys' room and... I guess it's where everyone wants to be, at home. At home with themselves. At home with their friends and their families. We seek home, love, and comfort.

There are the days for adventures and searching and learning, and some of it can happen at home with imaginations and creativity. And sometimes there are days for rest.

everything in its right place

Saturday, 07/23/16, 4:10pm, 8:37pm; Sunday, 07/23/16, 12:32am

Typically when I write a blog post, I start with my "time stamp" and just write. Once I finish writing and start to edit (I try to edit the content as little as possible though, mostly it's for grammar and flow purposes), I think about the post title, I look through various songs to come up with the perfect lyrics. Oftentimes it's the song and the artist and the lyrics that all have a profound effect on my current mood, or a mood I wish to convey. Yeah, I'm nerdy; I put a lot of thought into each post title. If you follow along and try to figure out which song it's from, it can be a little puzzle to my readers as well. I'm so nerdy I started keeping a spreadsheet of my blog titles, which songs and artists they come from, etc.

But I digress. Today I was inspired by a facebook post from my brother-in-law. It's a little facebook game of posting a song, and assigning the people who like your post a letter. They then post a song or artist with that letter. Anyway, he assigned me "E" and I posted "Everything in its Right Place" by Radiohead. If you know Radiohead, and you're a longtime reader, you probably know I love them a lot. :) The song is worth a listen.

The song feels like an anxious mood to me, as probably a lot of their songs give. Perhaps that's why I connect with Radiohead music so much. A lot of the songs speak to my depression and anxiety and honestly help me release some of those feelings when I listen to their music.

I feel like I have a lot of things floating in my head right now, heading towards anxiety, so I decided to blog to help with that.

We are throwing a birthday party for our boys tomorrow (their birthdays are a week apart in July). At our house. With a fair number of people attending (including a lot of kids). And we just got back from San Diego late Thursday night (or should we call it early Friday morning??). And we've been traveling a ton this summer. And the house isn't quite cleaned yet. Actually there's still a lot to do. And I'm not even counting the whole cake making process. Because to be honest, I get a little nuts about the cake every year and I always want to make it exceptional. My sister, Audra, and I are both this way, although I do think she's more talented than me.

Here are a few of my cakes over just the past few years.

Friends party 2013. That is a blue whale rice krispies treat cake. 

Friends party 2014. TK's construction site cake. 

Friends party 2014 (it was a joint friends party to celebrate both kids 

and apparently I felt I had to make 2 cakes. Again, I'm ridiculous sometimes). 

RG's lego cake. This was one of the most simple cakes to make. 

Bread pan cakes, one cut in half, marshmallows for the pegs. Frost. I loved the simplicity of these.

Friends/family combined party 2015. Super themed Star Wars party complete with cake. Also gluten free. The garbage is GF cereals and GF pretzels with GF graham crackers for the walls. Non edible characters. 

Family party 2013. This was actually more Nasser's creation I think. 

He helps me sometimes on the cakes, but this one he handled almost entirely on this own. 

I was probably stressed, maybe even depressed, that day. Sounds like me.

Family party 2014. That's supposed to be Toothless from "How to Train Your Dragon".

This was definitely one of my more difficult attempts, 

and it was my first time using fondant. Homemade fondant. Gluten free.

Tomorrow's cake is going to be dinosaur. It's sorta a Jurassic Park/ Jurassic World themed party. But the cake it going to be more generic dinosaur. I've done a dinosaur cake before and it was actually one of my most fun ones to decorate. So I'm rather excited to do it again, with some differences. Here was 4 years ago:

Family party 2012. It was TK's first birthday, so we called the 

little volcano his "smash cake". The big volcano was RG's piece and the rest were cupcakes.

And because Adam was present for this cake, I have to share one more:

Family party 2011. RG's 3rd birthday and our first attempt at a "fancy" cake. 

This is actually Adam's picture. I can't seem to find any with him in it from this visit. 

But he got a picture of the cake.

I've been thinking about Adam more this evening and feeling sad about everything. We've been so go go go this summer, that it's been difficult to take the time to be more reflective. And I think I need to do that, as part of my grieving process. I'm glad we're done traveling for awhile, because although we've been doing a lot of things, maybe seeming "ok", we're not there. We're not really healed, and we're not at acceptance yet with the grief. 

I was feeling guilty about all the busyness we've had this summer, like we're doing a disservice to Adam by not grieving more or something. Nasser pointed out that we couldn't very well deprive our kids of their summer or expect them to feel sad all the time. Life does move on, I suppose, in many ways, and yet it's almost more required for us to do that quickly when kids are involved. Time doesn't stop for them. 

It's not been easy. To be "ok" for our kids. Or to explain to them sometimes that we're not doing as well because we're sad about Adam dying. (If you are new to the blog by the way, the story with Adam is best found here). 

Right now though, as much as I'd like to continue writing since there's a lot in my brain right now, I need to get some sleep. There's a lot of things I know I need to keep my depression at bay. Regular exercise which I haven't been getting, although I did get in a 2mi run finally this evening. In the dark. Sleep is another big one. We've slept in until 9am the last 2 days, really needing it. I wouldn't be surprised if it happens again tomorrow, but I still have so much to do. 

Good night, dear blog.

I'm on a roll this time, I feel my luck could change

Wednesday, 07/20/16, 8:16am

I'm doing better.

I was doing better yesterday but I didn't take the time to blog.

We did not go home early, and today I'm trying my hardest to make it a special day for RG's birthday. We're thinking a beach nearby and Legoland in the afternoon/evening, especially if Nasser can get a ride to Legoland to meet us. We'll see.

Yesterday, we ended up canceling our original plans for the zoo and mostly took it easy at the hotel, going to the pool two separate times. We needed it.

Really the trip has gone quite well, despite some hiccups in my mood at a few different times. Last night was another tough time for a bit, starting off with an older lady coming over to our table at dinner to tell our kids to stop "screaming". In actuality they were laughing hysterically with Nasser's coworker, but it still threw me off and made me feel awful.

Sigh.

Let's try to focus on the good though.

We've seen a number of wonderful friends so far, we've gone to Legoland, we went sailing, we've played at the pool a bunch. I've gotta include some of those pictures. TK often tries to hide in the group photos.

Let's hope that today continues to go well and we finish the trip on a high note. Let's not just hope. Let's work at it.