Well! That was a very mean thing I did there, promising everyone all sorts of updates and mayhem, and then not writing a single blessed thing. That's some big Caroline Calloway energy, pre-order my blog post, get a free mason jar, etc. In reality, I hit the Publish button and then ran away in terror, worried that I’d get like, five whole comments, at least two of which would be bots telling me how much money their bot cousin’s bot sister makes selling pEn!s [email protected] pi11s 0n FaCeboOk dOT Coom. I was both surprised and deeply touched by the actual response, and maybe teared up a little, and y’all know how much I hate that sort of thing, and then Typepad was down, because who the fuck still uses Typepad, and then work got super busy and Putin started WWIII and a million people died of COVID and the Supreme Court did that thing, and also I’ve also been really into houseplants lately and it’s a surprisingly time-consuming hobby? Who knew? Anyway, I’m sorry, here’s a picture of my cat: And here's a picture of my other cat: Here's a photo of a void, a void who is not doing... Continue reading

Hello, my dear Internet void. I am feeling a rare burst of big run-on sentence energy this week, plus I finally got around to organizing a metric fuck-ton of photos and realized I would like to force other people to look at them. And since I've gone full Social Media Hermit and no longer use any of the FaceTokGramTubes, I might as well go full troglodyte and post them HERE, on my little prehistoric e-cave wall. But there are a lot! Where to even begin, at this point? So I figured I would ask you, the collective you, the entire maybe half-dozen of you who remember this site exists, what you would like to see and/or read about first: Spring break photos! Pet photos! That Time We All Got COVID! Christmas photos, because DAMN, how is this even still a blog, yo? Bathroom renovation photos, plus That Time the Kids Put a $1,000 Tub Fixture Out With the Recycling!!1! Is this perhaps just a shameless attempt to get some of those sweet, sweet serotonin hits of attention that I've been missing? Will I actually follow through on something I promise here, for once in my goddamned life? WHO KNOWS. TAKE... Continue reading

I really want to delete my Facebook account. And Instagram, while I'm at it, to a lesser degree. I wiped my Twitter account ages ago, but that was hardly a sacrifice -- I was only ever on Twitter because oh my God, you have a blog and/or write for another blog, you have to be On Twitter! You can't not be On Twitter! But I never loved Twitter. It gave me a weird, low-level anxiety -- way too much of everything, all of the time -- and I never particularly excelled at being funny or engaging in a format that did not allow for paragraph-length run-on sentences. And I think a huge chunk of my followers were just blue eggs who signed up circa 2008/2009 to see what the fuss was about, took Twitter's suggestion that I was someone to follow because they checked "Parenting" or "Humor" or "Deodorant" as topics of interest, then never logged in again. (And yet I could never get my account verified for some reason??) Eventually I only used it to cross-post blog or Instagram links before finally deciding: This is dumb, and I'm not going to do it anymore. Facebook is not dumb, just... Continue reading

Like many of us, in a valiant attempt to maintain my mental health, I've spent much of the past year past year-and-a-half-twenty-twenty-garbage in a place of quiet self-reflection and contemplation. When so many things you held to be true and constant are suddenly proven to be false or shifting -- the inerrant goodness of humanity, the forward curve of justice, the strength of the global toilet paper supply chain, etc. -- it's important to try to stay grounded and focused on what hasn't changed, on what you can depend on. For me, in particular, it's the enduring and absolute marketing battshittery of the deodorant label. I mean, look at this thing. This is no mere tube of armpit goo. This is Degree® MOTIONsense® ULTRACLEAR BLACK + WHITE PURE CLEAN INVISIBLE SOLID antiperspirant. Or more accurately: Degree® MOTIONsense® ULTRACLEAR BLACK + WHITE PURE CLEAN INVISIBLE SOLID antiperspirant This thing has not one, but TWO registered trademarks! It's got the balls to put the three most specifically descriptive words about the product at VERY BOTTOM, in VERY TEENY TINY TYPE! And it STILL needs to spill over to the lid space to assert that it is also ANTI YELLOW STAINS and ANTI... Continue reading

Back in early May, Ike scolded about not updating my website enough. I told him I didn't really have anything interesting to post about, so he ordered me to take a photo of him right there and then. "There. Now you have something interesting for your website." That was over a month ago, and yet I still didn't update my website as ordered. And then Ike's birthday (oh hi he's TEN now, all the Amalah babies are DOUBLE DIGITS now, don't you feel your bones disintegrating into ANCIENT DUST now) came and went and I still didn't update my website. I didn't want the site to officially devolve into something that only got updated on/around their birthdays, so...well. I guess I sure showed me! The site has officially devolved into a shining testament to both procrastination and my own very weird logic. Anyway, hello! It's a random Monday in June! LET'S BLOG THE HELL OUT OF IT. Tomorrow is everyone's last day of the Weirdest School Year Ever. Noah will spend it waving at people on his Chromebook screen. Ezra will attend in-person and distribute handmade letters and art projects to his favorite teachers, which are technically all of them,... Continue reading

Hello. I am here. I am fine. We are all fine. We are all also totally, absolutely, five billion percent not fine. You know how it is these days. I never understood bloggers who just one day, out of blue, stopped updating, you know? At least announce that you’re closing up shop or pivoting full-time to TikTok? Post some kind of goodbye entry, farewell, The End? Now I get it. You don’t always plan to stop. In fact, it can be the exact opposite – I just needed a break, I told myself. I needed to find my sense of humor about…oh, ANYTHING, EVER, AGAIN. I couldn’t bring myself to document the days—the endlessly-bleeding-into-each-other days, full of a million tiny parenting microfailures and cliched complaints and inconveniences. I just needed to shut up about myself and let others drive the conversation for a little while. Plus, for three full weeks, the most recent photo on my phone was one I took at the grocery store, on the day when Clorox Wipes finally came back into stock. I told myself I would write something when I had something to write about, something I WANTED to write about. And sure enough, eventually... Continue reading

The Last Four Years As Told By Amy's Laundry Pile* Remember when we thought this was enough? Remember when we thought Mueller would save us? Remember when we thought impeachment would stop the madness? Remember when we were all probably more excited about a candidate (or two! or three or four or five!) that we did not get? Remember what happened the last time that happened? Well. At least this one aged well. Like a fine, slightly wrinkled bottle of wine. *It's a tremendous laundry pile. The biggest, most beautiful pile. 68 stories tall, probably, people are saying. Many, many people are saying, and asking me about the pile. How did I get such a tremendous pile, such a vast amount unfolded laundry? And I tell them the truth: Because I am smart, because I can pick out sweatpants and a goddamn t-shirt just as easily off the floor as out of a drawer, and because the only thing that's even more tremendous than my laundry pile is my tremendously unbelievably massively big-league level of crippling election anxiety. Also I've been tremendously and entirely too busy doom-scrolling and screaming at my phone. Continue reading

I'm technically a day late with Ezra's birthday post -- oh, mourn the plight of the poor middle child -- but in my defense I spent half the day working, half the day homeschooling, half the day cleaning the house, half the day playing tech support for Chromebooks/Google Meet/Canvas/Lexia/DreamBox/MackinVIA/Wixie/GAAAAAAH, and at least half the day baking his birthday cake and re-making a rainbow friendship bracelet for him to replace the first rainbow friendship bracelet I made that one of the cats ran off with. I know that's too many halves. Everything about life right now has too many halves. But you can never have too many rainbows. Or cheesecakes topped with carrot cakes. Or toddler flashback videos, provided you completely ignore the timestamp, which says this is from NINE YEARS AGO, which is a lie, I filmed this last week. It was a tough choice between this one and the cupcake gorge-fest one. Yesterday we had a bit of a repeat performance, only it was an entire bowl of mashed sweet potatoes and some salmon, because Ezra is a Refined Young Gentleman now. And yes, that is the same Taggies ball he had in the video above, and the same... Continue reading

Jason randomly came across this video the other night, and after a good laugh at his six-year-old self, Noah asked us what in the world we were thinking, letting a six-year-old watch Wrath of Khan. It's so not age appropriate, Mom and Dad! Jesus Christ. v I asked him if he'd let me record an updated Wrath of Khan According to a 15 Year Old (Who Has the Entire Movie Memorized and Regularly Regales His Family With Dramatic Reenactments) version, but his only response was a withering look of Pure Teen Pity that I would even suggest something so unbelievably lame. Nobody blogs anymore, he reminds me on a fairly regular basis. I know, I know, I tell him. I don't even really blog anymore. You had a good run, he says. He doesn't mind if I blog about him -- he puts this blog in the same category as my minivan, or my affinity for Jeopardy! reruns and Taylor Swift. Just another Uncool Mom Thing That Moms Do. Moms! You gotta love 'em! So he's not the reason I haven't been writing. Nor is there any sort of family drama or offline intrigue or work kerfluffles or anything like... Continue reading

Ezra's always been particular about his shoes, at least compared to his brothers. For years his sneakers had to be red. Then they needed to be Under Armour and red. Then he went through a phase of preferring the "fancy" shoes we bought him for a school concert. (They were essentially just gray slip-on sneakers we found at Target on the way to school because shit! There's a dress code! Their closets are not stocked for dress codes!) Last summer he picked out a pair of Vans and has literally worn nothing else since. I knew they were getting small for him but he wouldn't even consider replacing them. Then, during his second or third re-watch of The Babysitters' Club on Netflix, Ezra fell madly in love with a pair of shoes. He wanted those shoes. He NEEDED those shoes. He rewound the episode to pause on a scene so I could get a look at the shoes. The shoes in question turned out to be a limited edition Converse Pride/Miley Cyrus Chuck Taylor high top from several years ago. He was a little disappointed, but asked if he could get a similar pair from this year's collection. I told... Continue reading

On the one hand, getting out of the house once in awhile to do something "normal" is Very Important from a mental health perspective, as is supporting local businesses, especially bars and restaurants that are doing their best to keep everyone safe. On the other hand... Everything remains weird and terrible and I hate it. Things I do NOT hate, however: Watching the new Babysitter's Club series on Netflix with Ezra. We binged the entire thing in a day, highly recommend. Then I made the mistake of looking for the original books on eBay for him and remembered that I gave away my massive, almost-the-complete-series of first-edition books (INCLUDING EVERY SINGLE SUPER SPECIAL!) to my niece before I left for college and holy shit, I should've saved them. Not just because I know Ezra would love them but because they're now worth enough to be like, a down payment on a goddamn car. (Good news is that the collection of 1980s Strawberry Shortcake figurines that I DID hold onto, and have lugged around in a trunk from my parents' attic for the past 22 years, would probably sell for about 20 whole dollars. So I've at least got that investment... Continue reading

Hi. Hello. What's up? Not much, what's up with you? Wait, are you talking to yourself or your blog readers? HA HA HA "blog readers." That's cute. Very circa 2009. ANYWAYYYYYYYYYYY. I haven't gone anywhere, I haven't done anything. (Besides watch Hamilton at least once every other day, because it's honestly the only nice thing we still have at this point.) I haven't been on Facebook in weeks and the latest photo on my phone is a blurry shot of my black cat lying on my black work laptop, so you absolutely 1,000% have no idea what you're even looking at and no Instagram filter can fix it. Jason still takes pictures of literally every plate of food we make, but even he'll admit that the early joy that came from the near-constant pandemic baking and ambitious cooking projects has worn off and it's kind of boring now. Everything is boring now. (And I know "boring" has never stopped me from blogging like...ever, but...I mean. Sometimes I leave the house and it feels really weird and dangerous? Most of the time I don't? Yesterday the most meaningful interaction I had with my teenager involved a lecture about eating seven sleeves... Continue reading

Why, hello there! If anybody is, indeed, still there. I am very tired. This week "school" officially "ended," officially making me the mother of a high schooler, middle schooler, and an elementary schooler. I did the math on when this split would happen a few years ago, and immediately decided that the Worst Part would the three hours of staggered school starting times and bus departures every morning. How silly of me! There will be no school starting times because school will likely still be here! At home! It won't so much "start" as "NEVER FUCKING END." We are trying to continue with our children's educational experience this summer, with each week getting its own summer-camp-like theme and activity list. This week's theme was I Haven't Seen My Kids In 8 Hours I Hope They're Okay. (Featured Activity: Self Sufficiency & the Art of Making Your Own Sandwich.) Next week is Advanced Streaming Channels, with lessons in self0service remote-control battery changing and how to flip and rotate the couch cushions to prevent perma-butt-grooves. Very STEM, obviously. And after that? It's Infrastructure Week!!! On the job front, I was a technical writer for all of a week and a half, tops,... Continue reading

Hello! It's been a minute. Or a week. Or eleventy million utterly exhausting news cycles. Or all three! My new job! Is great! As are all my new coworkers, at least as far as I tell by their smiling avatars and cheerful voices on our conference calls. Despite thinking this was going to be a huge transition back into the world of commutes and professional office attire, I am still working from home for the foreseeable future. So that whole "actual pants and having to wear them" thing has not yet come up. (I wasn't sure of the video call situation before my first day, so I finally colored my hair last weekend and woke up early on Monday to put on makeup and find some sort of respectable-looking top. But our meetings are mercifully webcam-free so day to day I can continue to look a Vitamin D-deficient hobbit.) (I had to leave the house one time this week for an employment drug screen, and was almost out the door when I realized wearing a Steel Magnolias/Ouiser Bordreaux tank top that asks, in all capital letters, ARE YOU HIGH CLAIREE? miiiiight not be the best wardrobe choice for the day.... Continue reading

I hope everyone is doing okay. It's been a lot. We had a long talk with the kids about what's happening right now and it resulted in everybody bursting into tears at the dinner table so I don't know if that means we did a good job or a terrible job. Either way, they know his name. George Floyd. *** /awkward transition back to the usual navel-gazing inanity Hey, speaking of jobs. Remember that job I accepted in March? And then finally got my badge for in May? Did you think I actually started that job, or something? Surely I must have started that job by now, after all this time, right? No? NO. I did not start that job. (Amy...does this job...exist? Does...anything...exist? OMG, Amy, is your whole online life nothing but an elaborate decade-plus fantasy built off photos you're stealing from someone's old defunct MySpace page? HOLY SHIT.) Anyway, the very last step involved getting a sooper secure and speshul government laptop. Due to...well, YOU KNOW, EVERYTHING...the laptop would be shipped to my house vs. issued in person. When would it be shipped, exactly? Eventually, perhaps. At some point, maybe. Who can say for sure, when one is... Continue reading

Happy 9th (!) birthday, to my beautiful, beloved Baby Ike. And his Hairz. Today isn't the sort of birthday I hoped for him. There will be no party at the roller rink, no cupcakes and goody bags for his friends at school. I'm making his favorite pumpkin cake, at least, and Jason managed to track down what seemed to be the very last number 9-shaped candle in our town. We'll be able to get ribs from an actual restaurant and eat them outside, which is more than seemed possible just a week or so ago. Noah had to draw him an IOU because his present didn't come on time, because ha! Remember when things came on time? Remember how annoyed you used to get when things didn't come on time? This isn't the sort of world I hoped for him either -- the sort of world that, in all my naive white liberal bubble privilege, I thought already existed. A world that wasn't a fragile, roiling tinderbox of chaos, hatred and ignorance about to fully erupt in flames. And justifiably so. I am so angry. I can't stop crying. I hate how many times I've mentioned myself already, like I... Continue reading

I left the house! For the first non-essential time! Jason and I ordered curbside pick-up in Old EC and ate it a socially-distanced picnic table by the river. Then we put on our masks and took a walk around the downtown, while occasionally sipping from our YETIs that were totally full of iced coffee and not premixed to-go margaritas, oh no, definitely not. I take that first part back, actually. It felt pretty goddamn essential. Weird and different and a touch depressing in a way (it's so...empty and somber out there), but still. I really needed that. *** In this week's edition of I Believe Children Are Our Future, here are some homeschooling highlights: This is what P.E. looks like during a pandemic, FYI. And here's a field trip to an art museum. This is a very serious STEM experiment. And this, apparently, is "take my picture while I break my creation so I can post a funny picture and caption to the class discussion board," so I guess they're teaching them how to Instagram now? *** More close encounters with baby wildlife! We haven't found any dead bodies so we're just assuming everyone is fine and okay!!!!!! *** Obligatory... Continue reading

Life These Days, summed up in a single photograph: Actually, that's not quite right. The lack of giant visible dust bunnies around the baseboard means this photo doesn't fully capture our current *~*~quarantine aesthetic~*~* (All I do is sweep! And vacuum! And then sweep and swiffer some more! Why is everyone in my household suddenly shedding hair and dirt and dust, including, apparently, the human beings? I'm tempted to dangle everyone out a window and shake them out like rugs.) I asked Jason if he took any interesting photos this week, since I...really didn't, since nobody is particularly cute/well-groomed/camera-ready in general these days. Surprise, everything he sent me involved food. BEHOLD THE COLLAGE OF CARBS Going a little overboard on the comfort foods there, aren't we? Top row is mushroom ravioli in pistachio cream sauce (and bread), pizza, and Oreo macarons. Middle row are two shots of the pork/sausage/meatball Sunday Gravy I made on a Wednesday (and bread), followed by the Thursday Meatball Grinders we made from the leftovers (and bread). Third row is linguini with ramp pesto (and bread), more pizza, corn cakes, and finally a mushroom and asparagus ancient grains risotto that we technically made ourselves, but we... Continue reading

We had kind of a Wild Animal weekend, both literally and figuratively. First, a fledgling baby bird appeared in the hedge outside our front window. And I, being both an idiot and absolutely desperate for outside entertainment and distractions, immediately called all the kids over. After about 75% of the words "HEY GUYS WHO WANTS TO SEE A BABY BIRD" came out of my mouth I realized what a potentially grave error I'd made. Yes, children! Come get invested in this small, pathetic creature's fight for survival! Come see firsthand how cruel nature can be! (Last night at the dinner table, Ike offhandedly said something about how 400 whole people have died of coronavirus. His brothers were like, yeah, but don't worry, children don't die from it! Children and babies are totally fine! Then everybody looked at us, the fully adult grown-ups in charge, because that's right, Mom? Dad? Isn't that right? Jason and I just sat there with mouths full of meatloaf staring at each other and mentally playing a game of NOT IT NOPE NOT IT.) Anyway, the bird did survive the night and by the next morning was hopping from branch to branch and taking short little... Continue reading

Hey, so on the bright side, thanks to homeschooling, "Friday" actually means something again! The concept of time is BACK, baby! Two whole days off from pretending my children are actually learning anything via a patchwork jungle of videos and apps and more videos! (And also from pretending that I can find Japan on an unlabeled map or do ANYTHING fraction related without cheating with my phone.) I sense that Ezra feels similarly. His teacher responded that yes, yes, it is indeed all-caps ANNOYING but alas, the only way through it is through, 15-20 ANNOYING minutes a day, until... until... Yeah, there's still not really an end for that sentence. Ike is currently completing his Health class assignment, which is an animated video about washing your hands featuring a robot. That seems unsafe! Especially considering that Ike accidentally microwaved a metal spoon just this morning! And two nights ago I had to remind Jason to unplug the toaster before using a fork to dig out a stuck piece of sourdough! And an alarming portion of the country has decided that masks and a lack of dine-in brunch options are violent assaults on MAH FREEDOMES! SCIENCE IS REAL, PEOPLE! DON'T PUT... Continue reading

The three worst words in the English language: "Mom, something happened!" The code for the Google Meet isn't working. The Zoom call froze. The video isn't loading. I can't hear anyone. No one can hear me. I can't find my headphones. I tried to unmute myself but accidentally hung up instead. I hit submit on my quiz too soon! I wasn't done! It says to search in MackinVIA for "marshes and wetlands" but nothing is coming up. How do I find PebbleGo? Or DreamBox? Or Lexia? Do I click on Modules? Or Assignments? Where's Discussions? It says "Access Denied." The computer says there's no printer connected? The computer says there's no internet? How do you attach a photo? What's an inbox? Sigh. Let me see. You probably copy/pasted it wrong. Open a new tab. Hit refresh. Enable audio. Click join with video. Check your volume. Check the basement. Click rejoin. Message your teacher. Let me see. You typed "morshes and wetbands," sweetie. Click this for the text-to-speech thing, wait, hang on, let me see. First go to this site and then click that and then scroll down. It depends on the teacher, which Canvas square is your math teacher again?... Continue reading

Obligatory Food Related: For Cinco de Mayo, Jason made us queso and homemade Crunch Wrap Supremes. I've never actually eaten the real deal -- no shade to Taco Bell; I'm just more of a late night drive-thru chicken nugget variety drunk person -- but I feel safe declaring his version superior. And dangerous, because I could eat this drunk OR sober. And like, for breakfast. The margaritas were passion fruit margaritas, made by me, from a kit we ordered from our favorite local wine shop. Last weekend our new neighbors held an impromptu happy hour on their driveway and made everybody a round using the same kit. And lo, they were delicious, and a fine trade for the loaf of sourdough, half-batch of blueberry muffins, AND chocolate chip cookies I left on their front porch in the dead of the night before running home while screeching NO BACKSIES! NO BACKSIES! *** Does anybody else go through this cycle where you feel pretty good and okay a few days and then suddenly there's a day where your mental health just kinda NOPES out on you? And you're just inexplicably exhausted and cranky and on edge and can't figure out if you... Continue reading

I was finally, at last, officially issued mah gubbermint ID badge yesterday. And despite the cheery encouragement from the woman who took my photo, the badge features what can only be described as THE WORST PHOTO OF ME EVER TAKEN. Actually, that's not the only way to describe it. After sending a celebratory selfie to a handful of friends, they responded with the following descriptions of the photo: hahahahahahaha oh noooooooo That does not look like you! Holy weird 70s hostage lighting You just look like a Karen I was gonna say a 1950s Appalachian grandma I see eye sockets but no eyeballs? Where are your teeth? WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE Oooof, girl. None of them are wrong. I, personally, cannot figure out how I manage to look sort of...melted? And also very swollen? While all my facial features kind of...shrunk? I'm like a puffy, well-fed hostage-ghoul of some kind. (Less creatively and more bluntly: I look old, and I look fat. Hooray! What a terrific confidence booster to have hanging around my neck every day.) Anyway, now that I've gone on and on about it, I guess I should just go ahead and post the damn photo, right? It's... Continue reading

What am I even doing here? I have nothing to say! There is nothing to write about! Everything is strange and stressful and disorienting and yet utterly, mind-fuckingly boring. Since I last updated here, I reorganized our pantry. I planted some flowers that should be growing by now, but aren't. I made cookies and ravioli and garlic ginger paste. Jason spent like three days making an insanely complicated, beautiful ramen. Afterwards the kids begged and begged for Domino's pizza until we caved and ordered them some frigging Domino's pizza. I learned that Oxi-Clean and boiling water will make the inside of a trashed-to-hell Le Creuset Dutch oven look practically brand new. (I also learned that I had zero concept of how much money I'd actually spent on said Le Creuset Dutch oven, sweet merciful jebus, what was my life even. Once I realized how much it would cost to replace that sucker I was going to restore it to some semblance of its former glory even if it took hours of scrubbing, an entire box of baking soda, and half a layer of my finger skin. But I forgot to take before-and-after photos so like, why? Why am I even... Continue reading