Sparkles (or "Why I Am Not a Grown-Up")

Here are some phases that many girls go through while they are toddlers or in early elementary school:

1. An affinity for sparkly things
2. A love of playing dress-up
3. Believing that they are a princess

Most girls grow out of these things by middle school, when they start down that long, difficult road called "maturity."  Except I think I missed a sign somewhere for that road, because I took a wrong turn and missed it.  Like, whoa - totally missed it.  I've grown up in a lot of ways this year, but in some ways I think I just never will.  The aforementioned three are among those that I'm never going to give up.  Just the other day I said to Rex, "One of the things I love about you is that you recognize, acknowledge, and revere the fact that I am always wearing an invisible tiara."  And really, we can all blame Rex for that one because if he didn't treat me like such a princess, I probably wouldn't act like one.  He buys me flowers so often that sometimes the old ones aren't even dead before I have new ones.  Last year he asked me what kind of gemstone he hasn't already bought for me, and I couldn't think of one because he has bought me at least one of every gemstone.  A few weeks ago I casually mentioned that I had been feeling stressed out, and the next day - boom - spa gift card waiting for me on the dining room table when I got home.  The other day he left a note in our refrigerator on the milk - THE MILK - to tell me that he hoped I would have a great day.  This guy is nuts.  He acts like I'm a princess.  SO.  My princess complex I'm blaming on him.  The other ones are probably just my fault.

This weekend I got to go to Chicago with my mom, My Aunt Chris, and my cousin Erin.  We had a great time Black Friday shopping, but my favorite part was trying on all of the fun clothes that I couldn't afford (playing dress-ups, remember?).  Look at this gorgeous sparkly blue dress.  Erin's was awesome too.  And sparkly.  See why we're related?  But except ERIN - why didn't you take off your socks?  You look like a weirdo.  Do you see anyone on the red carpet wearing socks??  We're clearly going to have to prep you more thoroughly before the Oscars.  Or, as Nana would say, "I'm only telling you this so that you're ready when you have tea with the queen."  The queen wants you to take of your socks, Erin.  Don't make her think that is some kind of weird American fashion.

I found the most beautiful and so, so sparkly silver dress, but it was $289.  WHAAAAAAAT?  I have  no money to buy it and nowhere to wear said beautiful dress (the queen has not yet invited me for tea, despite all of my Nana's insistent preparations), so I sadly put it back.  BUT LOOK AT HOW SPARKLY IT IS!  I was a little bit in love.  My heart is a little bit broken to have left this dress in Chicago.  Someone pass me some chocolate.

There was a fab teal dress at New York and Company, but my Aunt Chris couldn't get it off of the mannequin.  I was laughing so hard at this that I almost peed my pants.  I wish you could have seen how awkward this looked in real life (but look at the way the mannequin's arms are positioned - there is no shot that she could get this off.  I don't know how they even got that on in the first place).  We all tried on dresses at that store, and it was fun to peek out of the dressing room and see some of my favorite people looking back at me.  I love these women.

Aunt Chris perfectly matched this rug at IKEA, so she had to sit on it.  She could have been an IKEA model (sadly, no sparkles involved at IKEA.  Let's just move on from that topic because, hello, it's boring without sparkles).

I rounded out the weekend setting up for Christmas with Rex.  We set up the Christmas lights, and I got to hang my favorite ornaments.  Can you guess which ones are my favorites?  The sparkly ones, of course.  The Christmas lights hit them just right and send showers of cheer throughout the whole room. We even put lights on Elsie's cat tree, hoping to inspire some Christmas cheer in her usually Grinchy self, but we're not too hopeful about that one.

Who cares if I never totally grow up?  Maybe being me is all I can do, and maybe that's okay.  Bring on the glitter.

Macaroni and Failure

I'm not a mom, but I wonder if moms ever look at something their kids do wrong and think, "Wow, I have failed you somewhere along the way."  That's how I felt about Rex last night.  He's my best friend and my hero, but I think I may have spoiled him a bit too much.  I do 95% of the cooking at our house, and clearly that has to change.  Exhibit A:

I came home from Calculus class, and I was dead tired.  It had been another looooong day in the semester-from-somewhere-not-very-nice.  I wanted nothing more than to go to bed.  Rex mentioned that he hadn't eaten dinner yet (which was a little ridiculous, as it was after 9 PM.  Go to Taco Bell or something, you nurkle).  He said, "You know what sounds really good right now?  Macaroni and cheese."  The old Christine would have said, "Okay, no problem.  Go put up your feet while I make some for you."  But...I was really tired, and the new edging-on-a-somewhat-feminist side of me said, "Okay, cool.  Then make some macaroni and cheese."  He looked surprised, but then looked at the blue box in his hand as if he were seeing it for the first time.  It's only macaroni and cheese.  He has a doctorate.  He can probably do this himself.  It's as if I watched this thought occur to him, which was kind of funny.  He finally said, "Yeah, okay.  I think I will make this."

This is the part where I've failed him: my brilliant, highly educated husband absolutely CANNOT cook macaroni and cheese.

First, he didn't look at how much water to put in the pan.  He"ballparked" it.  It was at this point that I decided to stay awake long enough to see how this ended.  I figured it could potentially get interesting.  I went upstairs to change out of my work clothes, though, and after a few minutes Rex followed me upstairs.  We spent about fifteen minutes talking about our days, what happened at work, what happened at class, etc.  Suddenly, Rex said, "Oh no!  My noodles!"  I said, "You already put them in?"  I had thought he was waiting for the water to boil.  He called back "yes" as he hurried down the stairs to rescue his completely overcooked macaroni.

I came down to find him rinsing the mushy macaroni in a strainer.  "Ummm...you're not supposed to rinse that," I told him. "The starch on the noodles is what makes the macaroni sticky."

"WHAT?" he looked a little panicked.  He picked up the box and read the side.  There it said in bold and italicized print, "DRAIN THE WATER BUT DO NOT RINSE."  He looked incredulous.  "It really does say that.  Why didn't you tell me?!"

Um, because I thought a twenty-seven year old might have done this before?  Silly me.  I only started making macaroni independently at age SIX.  I guess I'm a Kraft prodigy or something.

So he put his rinsed-clean noodle mush back into the pan, and he read the side of the box to see how much milk and butter to add.  I noticed that he did not add enough butter (which is fine...butter is bad for you anyway), and when he measured the milk he poured way too fast,  The milk splashed over the side of the tablespoon, adding at least twice as much milk as he was supposed to.  By this time I was laughing and thinking, "Ah ha.  Blog post."  When he finally finished his creation, the completed project was a sad looking pile of orange mush that may have dreamed of being macaroni somewhere in a past life.  He looked at it, sighed, and said, "Maybe I should start over..."  I told him that he was not wasting an entire box of macaroni.  That's irresponsible.  Then he sighed again and said, "Okay, fine.  Anything will taste good if I add enough pepper!"  There's that Rex optimism that I love.  So he put about two tablespoons of pepper on his orange gruel and proceeded to eat the whole bowl of it.  Eeeeeeew.

 I laughed while he ate it and asked how on earth he got through two years of college without a meal plan.  He said, "Well, I mostly ate a lot of hot dogs."  Poor guy - he can fix the delicate, complicated nerves of your spine, but he can't make his own dinner.  I'm going to fix this.  Team Webb cooking together starts next week.  He's up for it.  I am too.  No more macaroni mush.

Adulting

Kids talk about how they can't wait to grow up and how being an adult will be "so much fun" because they can "do whatever they want."  Then real life happens, and those kids grow up to be adults who have real responsibilities, bills to pay, and not nearly the free time for which they were hoping.

But then - every once in a while - being an adult turns out to be exactly how kids dreamed it would be.

After a really long day on Thursday night, I finally got home at around 9:30.  By about 10:00, Rex and I were upstairs in bed, getting ready to go to sleep.  I sighed and said, "I'm thirsty.  I would really love some juice right now."  Rex said, "I was just thinking how I wish we had some ice cream."  We were quiet for a minute, then he sat up and said, "Well, come on!  Let's go get ice cream and juice!"

I looked at him as if he were nuts.  "Um, Rex.  It's 10:00. On a school night. We're already ready for bed.  We don't need ice cream and juice that badly.  We should really just go to sleep."  He sighed dejectedly because he knew I was right, and he sank back into his pillow.  After another beat of silence, he got the boyish glint in his eye that I fell in love with when I was seventeen.  He said, "You know what?  I don't care about any of that.  WE'RE GOING."  Then he got out of bed, threw on sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and really didn't leave me any choice but to get up and follow.

We drove out to Walgreens looking like disheveled weirdos, and Rex whooped with joy when he found the ice cream he wanted.  They also had my favorite kind of juice (score!).  As we were getting ready to walk out, Rex stopped by one of the refrigerated displays and exclaimed, "Whoa...ROOT BEER?!  Do you realize what this MEANS?"  I looked confused, clearly not sharing his epiphany.  He held up his ice cream and said entirely too loudly, "ROOT BEER FLOATS!  YESSSS!!!"  The guy in the aisle with us looked at us like we were nuts.  You know what?  Maybe we are.  But I like it.

So obviously the root beer floats were a genius idea, we talked to the cashier lady about how awesome it would be if teachers could turn their eyes on "glitter mode" and look suddenly terrifying if kids were being bad, and then we got in the car to head home.

Basically, that's how I ended up eating ice cream at 10:30 on a school night, and I realized that my eight-year-old self would be very satisfied with how I turned out.