awake again (alternate title: not without my mixer)

today was an exciting day- everyone's favorite resident tortoise, mr hamptonio tortuga (you can call him hampton) shook off the hibernation sleepies and dug his way out of the barrel of dirt in the cellar that he's called home for the past 4 months.

after a long warm bath he was patted dry and returned to his familiar hood- slowly he crawled over to where his 100watt 'sun' is shining and promptly went back to sleep. he'll probably stay there for a few days while he shakes the post-hibernation narcolepsy and his little body warms up... then the morning salads and mashed sweet potato floodgates will open :)

welcome back, hampy... (shhhhh! zzz... zzz... zzz...)



topping other news. i packed my first box tonight. j.mo has already done quite a few- with school and whatnot i was a little slow to join in, but damn it felt good. naturally one of the first things i packed was my 200lb kitchenaid mixer. sally field had no fucking idea what she was on about with the whole 'not without my daughter' crap. it's mixers first, then women and children (if there's room).

i feel a little guilty that i've been neglectful in my regular posting duties- things were chuggin' on along with work and school, wrapping up things with our new home and getting ready to move etc when we got some news that put everything in a familialtailspin and blogging (along with many other regular activities like sleeping soundly) went out the window. my mum has breast cancer. barely twelve months ago we found out my dad had bladder cancer- what are the chances of two lots of crap luck like this? well, actually- my family leans a little heavy on the 'are you fucking kidding me?' factor even when they're all in more or less fine form. but still- this is a bit much.

so the past two weekends j.mo and i have been down in ct spending time with my parents. there's really not a ton we can do for them, but just spending time together feels like the right thing to be doing now. all of the test results will be in by mid-week, so just a few more days of waiting and then we'll know the extent of situation and the dr's can come up with a treatment plan.

i love my parents to death and there's nothing more important to me than my family. it took a while for this all to sink in- i had immediately switched into caretaker mode and really didn't give myself a chance to react until friday night, at which point i became a blubbering mess while assembling lasagna. (i can cook/eat my way through just about anything ;) i guess i'm a little more scared about this whole thing than i thought i would be at first.

but i have all the faith in the world that she'll be ok in the end and we will all figure out how to deal with it together. there's no other potential outcome in my mind, so we're just all gonna have to run with that, ok?

so here's to my mum- and to getting through whatever it is that's around the corner. you've certainly got a fine crew of cheerleaders in the stands, if i may say so...



all our lovin'
g&j