Last night I did not win any parenting awards.

We were out of prescription cat food. Which can only be purchased at PetSmart. With the prescription.

When I picked the little angel up from the neighbor's house, it was already past six. By the time we got the cat food and hit the bank, it was 6:40. By the time I'd Skyped Grandma and Grandpa to tell them about the read-a-thon and cooked the mac & cheese, it was 7:20. The little angel was covered in mud. It was supposed to be Party for Girls because Beloved had a work thing. I told her we could play Zhu Zhu Vets before the bath.

But by the time dessert was ingested and homework was done, it was nearly 8.

There was foot stamping. There were mad eyes. Then, in the bathtub, she suddenly said something about my needing to check her backpack even when she didn't have homework and burst into gut-wrenching sobs. Apparently there was a permission slip we'd missed and the rest of the class got to go do something while she and two other kids had to watch two videos. She didn't even know what she'd missed.

I finally persuaded her to get out of the bathtub and dry off. I held her wrapped in a towel and tried to comfort her, but she was lost in that childhood place called Left Out.

We got into her bed and read until my voice started to give out. She asked if I would cuddle for a little bit. I turned out the light and heard her muttering.

"What is it?" I asked.

"This was the worst Party for Girls EVER."

She finally fell asleep, and I staggered downstairs. 9:30. I'd stopped working three hours before. I still had stuff do, personally and professionally, but I felt like I was walking through a nearly-fell-asleep wall of water. I was tired, emotionally drained. I'd missed calls from my sister and emails from my husband. Kind of just couldn't balance it all. Just ... cooked. And I felt like -- no matter how hard I tried -- I would never see every message or permission slip. Like -- I would always be letting somebody down by virtue of how much stuff I was trying to fit into every day. But everyone feels like that, right? RIGHT? I know -- I read the posts, the essays. I know I'm not the only person trying to balance a job and writing and family and friends.

Beloved reminded me that if forgetting a permission slip was the worst parenting move I ever pulled, everything was fine.

But it's not really that I felt guilty. I knew this morning was the book fair and a mommy-and-kid breakfast thing that I'd already planned to attend. And picture day. My husband wasn't upset about the missed email, my sister would forgive me. I knew it would all be fine.

I think I just felt bad for the little angel, in the empathetic way that understands the world of Left Out. Of Missed the Boat. Of It Won't Happen Again and I Wasn't There.

Or course it's fine today. But I do understand.

This week, I'm heading to Salt Lake City to moderate a panel on ad networks at Alt Summit. Alt Summit is a conference for design and lifestyle bloggers. That would be the people who understand how to tie a scarf and write beautiful blogs with stunning photography highlighting one-of-a-kind wooden rings hand carved by sage old men living on mountaintops.

While I feel pretty decent about my ability to discuss ad networks, I feel pretty intimidated about my personal style. I am not the type to obsess about what to wear, either. Years of working in corporate America has bestowed upon me plenty of pairs of black pants and acceptable cardigans. I've spoken on panels before and spent exactly two nanoseconds deciding what to wear. Usually it was something that would easily accommodate a clip-on microphone. And black pants. And a shirt that wouldn't show my nervous underarm perspiration. I live in fear of my nervous underarm perspiration. Kiss my ass, clinical-strength deodorant, you don't work.

But this conference. Oy. This one has thrown me for a loop. Do I wear what I always wear and at least look authentic, or do I try a little harder? (Trying a little harder for me usually means accessorizing as opposed to rosettes and purple tights, just to draw the line.) Yesterday I peeked into my closet and tried to figure out if I could work in my Kohl's deep discount knee-high gray slouchy boots that are so cute and totally remind me of 1982 but that I bought without having anything with which to wear them. And I sort of glanced through all the incredible bracelets I inherited from Gran, who loved labeling her jewelry with time and location of purchase. And then I looked at my hair and wondered if it is short-cute or mom-cute and all this thinking about my appearance started making me hyperventilate so I had to go videotape the little angel and her friend making the world's best Barbie movie, or at least arguing over set construction for fifteen minutes before giving up.

I can't believe I'm worrying about this. But I'm sort of worrying about this. WTF?

I'm working on my novel as often as possible now. Over the weekend, Beloved and I dropped the little angel with Ma and Pa and Blondie and checked into a hotel in Omaha for some much-needed alone time. Over dinner, I told Beloved about the progress of my novel, and specifically, the high school characters.

"I think they need nicknames," he said, with the brilliance with which he'd said I needed to point out the narrator lived close enough to town to see the water tower, but not close enough to read it. "Kids -- especially boys -- rarely call each other by their given names."

I chewed on that with my sea bass, thinking how I'd never in a million years have thought of it, but it was one element of authenticity -- among many --  the rough draft is currently lacking. He's right, of course. It's a young adult novel, and I've forgotten how to be a teenager. 

So here I sit, momentarily distracting myself with this post, trying to remember what it's like to be a teenager, to live with names given me by friends that were not my own as we tried on identities like Halloween costumes.

Every year I have goals. As a mother. As a wife. As a citizen of the world. But I also think for a long time about my goals as a writer.

I know you may sigh and roll your eyes when I trot out that bullshit about having to write down your goals to make them come true, but, um, it's for real. If you don't write them down (or at least think them out well enough to write them down), then you can't break them down into steps that get your butt propelled in the right direction.

I have three major writing goals for 2010. Last year I had two. I accomplished my two last year, but having written them down made me break a cold sweat when I got to July and realized I was in danger of not kicking one out. Writing down those goals puts on a little pressure, even if nobody on God's green earth besides you cares if you accomplish them.

And probably, when it comes to writing goals, nobody but you DOES care. That's what makes it so easy to ignore them.

There were many years when I didn't have writing goals, and in those years, I barely wrote anything. Without something to work toward, writing itself felt like work, a pointless chore that nobody but me cared if I did.

I think my three goals for 2010 are achievable, but they'll require a lot of work. The second and third goal are harder than the first, because I need people besides myself to make them happen. Editors, publishers. That makes it tough. Especially with the publishing industry going through what it's going through. But I have to try -- trying is what makes me a writer and not a hobbyist. Not someone who would like to be a writer, but really never writes. That's what I was when I wasn't working toward writing goals.

Now I'm a writer.

The scene: Iowa City, 1993

The reason I was baking: Boredom

Unfortunate baking selection: Sugar cookies

Background: When I was in high school and in the grips of my eating disorder, I used to read cookbooks like romance novels. I went through a phase one Christmas in which I made some two dozen different kinds of Christmas cookies and gave them all away as gifts. Ma got mad at me because I was spending so much money on rarely used baking supplies and not even eating any of the cookies. I think it was during that period that I started viewing baking as an academic exercise best used for entertainment value. I really don't have much of a sweet tooth.

One rainy afternoon during the summer after my freshman year in college, I was in the apartment I shared with Amanda, Jenny and Steph. I was hanging out with my boyfriend at the time (I *think* -- I'm having trouble figuring out who it was, because I can picture the parking lot of this apartment complex but am picturing a boyfriend from several years later, and I know I didn't fry THAT many brain cells in college) when I decided I was bored. And when I'm bored, I like to hearken back to my childhood for entertainment options. Cookies! I decided. We should bake cookies.

Only we were in college. Without the Internet. (Imagine it!) We obviously didn't own any cookbooks, and we were too lazy to go somewhere to try to find a recipe. One of my roommates had some baking supplies. I tried to remember what goes in sugar cookies. Flour. Sugar. Baking ... something. I pulled out our popcorn bowl and started mixing stuff together. Some milk. Eggbeaters. (It was me -- we had no real eggs.) Nothing for flavoring? No problem! We have Crystal Light lemonade! We'll just use that. They'll be LEMON COOKIES!

We made the dough into cookie shapes. They were a little lumpy. Crystal Light doesn't mix very well. We couldn't remember how long to bake cookies, so we put them in for about 15 minutes and went outside for a smoke.

I was sort of excited. I mean really, how cool was I, remembering how to make cookies like that? How surprised my roommates were going to be!

When the cookies came out of the oven, they looked a little ... flat. I poked one, and it held the depression of my finger. Permanently. My boyfriend took one bite and spat it out, harking. Apparently we'd used baking powder instead of baking soda or vice versa, or maybe we even needed both. I have no idea. What I do know is that these cookies -- these cookies! -- could FLY. We took them outside to throw them off the balcony for the birds. They lofted like Frisbees, sailing across the parking lot. One even cleared the bushes forty feet away. Seriously. At the time, I expected a call from Boeing at any moment. My boyfriend deemed them a new breed of cookie: Lemonus Discuses.

We left them sitting outside in the rain, figuring they would dissolve. When we went outside a few hours later to get dinner, they were still there, impervious to the rain. Not even soft.

I had created indigestible, flying cookies. AWESOME.

The scene: Chicago, 1997, my friend's apartment

The reason I was baking: I'm not positive, but I think I offered to bring dessert to a dinner party.

Unfortunate baking selection: Baked Alaska

I have a tendency to want to make something unusual if I'm going to actually bake. Something eye-catching. Something risky. I have a fantasy that people will say, "My goodness! That Rita, she has an angel's touch in the kitchen!" And I like food with unusual names.

I'd never made meringue before. I called my aunt back home to ask her how to properly whip the eggs, as I assumed she would know. I balanced the phone against my shoulder as I held the hand mixer, attempting to bring it way up and down the way I'd seen on TV.

I may have splattered a bit of egg around my friend's rather pristine kitchen.

Now, I believe you're supposed to bake the white cake, then put the ice cream on TOP of the white cake, put the merengue on top of all that, freeze the whole thing for like two hours, then bake it for ten minutes.

I envisioned the ice cream INSIDE the cake. In a sweet, little bed, all protected from that nasty oven. So I cut the cake apart and tried to put the ice cream inside.

Then I forgot to freeze it again.

I put this whole concoction in the oven, waiting for my perfect meringue to brown. The entire thing collapsed in. I put it in the freezer anyway.

I believe in the end it was referred to as "Baked Connecticut," because it was a million miles away from Baked Alaska.

The weather finally turned cold last week in Kansas City. (Cold in Kansas City not being what cold in Iowa is.) It made me crave cooking smells.

Beloved usually does most of the cooking in our house. My cooking is best if you are drunk.

This week while at the grocery store I spied a package of apple crisp mix. (Did you think this was going to be from scratch? Are you KIDDING ME?)

The box said I needed 6-8 cooking apples and some butter. I spent maybe a full two minutes trying to decide what a cooking apple is. I went with Granny Smith.

Then I went to the butter aisle and spent maybe two more minutes trying to decide if low-fat or low-salt butter would taste worse than regular butter. I gambled on the low-salt.

(Note: See this guesswork? This is how most of my recipes go off the rails.)

I brought all the stuff home and started peeling the apples. Of course, I started peeling them vertically instead of horizontally. Just as I figured out how really stupid that is, Beloved noticed what I was doing. I could see his face straining not to make a suggestion, because I always bite his head off when he makes a suggestion.

Beloved: "Can I make a suggestion?"

But at that moment, I figured it out and turned the apple sideways. When it came to coring, though, I just handed the apples to him. I didn't need to lose a thumb to prove a point. He is way better with knives than I am.

I put the apples in a round bowl. They towered over the top. Clearly too tall. I knew there would be a suggestion. We went to a 9 x 13 rectangular glass pan.

When the apples were all in, I mixed the butter with the apple crisp mix and sprinkled it over the top. It ended up needing to cook about fifteen minutes longer than the box said because of all those apples. Mounds of apples. Probably too damn many apples.

But it smelled really good. If they're not snowed in, Ma, Pa and Blondie are coming down on Friday to watch the little angel in The Nutcracker. And I want there to be apple crisp.

Just don't ask me about the time I tried to make Baked Alaska for a party.

The little angel has decided she wants a Barbie pool for Christmas. She hasn't asked for anything in particular up until recently, saying she just wants everything. Then -- out of nowhere -- Barbie pool.

Actually, I think it was "I want a dream house with a pool." And I said, "Dude! Me, too!" Then she showed me this:

 

This pool is $80?

I kept looking.

Hmm. $75.

Finally I figured it out: All the good pools are vintage, and there aren't many around in good condition. A HA.

So I'm sitting here, waiting out my bid on Ebay on a good-condition, used Barbie pool. Modern-day Barbie apparently only has hot tubs.

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Check out my review of SnapGifts gift cards at Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews!

On Friday night, I was sick. Sick like a dog. I've had a cold for about ten days now, but it kind of peaked on Friday night. I woke up coughing at four and couldn't get back to sleep. I finally stopped tossing and turning and went downstairs to make warm water with honey, then fell asleep drinking it on the couch.

All day yesterday I felt like hell. Groggy, sort of underwater. I kept almost falling asleep in the car. Beloved took the little angel to the Nutcracker practice, then we had the neighbor's birthday party, then we took stuff to Goodwill, then I grumped at Beloved because we'd lost a receipt I needed for my new office chair for taxes, then I went to OfficeMax to get a copy of the receipt, but that, my friends, was NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE, then I came back and we went to see Christmas in the Park lights.

All day long I was grouchy, crabby, a bear. I felt gross. I didn't want to do anything. But there was a lot to be done. By the time we went to the lights, I was feeling a little guilty.

"I'm sorry I've been grouchy, guys."

A voice piped up from the back seat over the Christmas carols on the radio. "That's okay. We know how we're supposed to act when you're crazy. We're supposed to be really nice until you start acting normal again."

I looked back at her, which was hard because it was totally dark.

 "What did you say?"

She nodded, huge blue eyes solemn. "It's okay, Mom. We understand."

I turned back around in my seat, not sure whether to be offended or happy. I chose happy. I AM crazy sometimes. At least they still love me.

This morning, I found the little angel sitting on the kitchen floor before her white board. She'd drawn two happy faces and a scrunchy face.

"This is yesterday's report card," she said, not turning to face me. "You got a scrunchy face because you were grouchy yesterday."

Huh.